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This whole Hardball transcript is worth reading. Esp. the point made, that it all comes back to how we got into Iraq:
And go read the rest, where Wolff and Fineman weigh in on the recent absence of Cheney and Rove, and the distancing of the Cheney wing from the rest of the White House. Fascinating stuff. Posted by Laura at October 12, 2005 10:10 AM...MICHAEL WOLFF, “VANITY FAIR”: Well, I—I mean, I think the whole White House in is turmoil over this.
And I would slightly disagree with Howard, that I‘m not sure it‘s so much of a division as lots of people running around and trying to protect themselves, because—because this could—this could wash over everyone. I mean, one of the—one of the reasonable questions here is—is, what were the guys in the Oval Office thinking?
I mean, Karl Rove comes in, theoretically, at least, we are given to understand, and says, oh, no, no, no, no, not me, not me. And we‘re also given to understand—and this is apparently at least what “The National Journal” reported the president said in his grand jury testimony—that they accepted this on face value. Karl said he didn‘t do anything.
MATTHEWS: Right.
WOLFF: Now, as we know, this is—I mean, when Karl Rove says, I didn‘t do anything, what you do immediately is say, what did you do, Karl?
(LAUGHTER)
WOLFF: Come clean, Karl.
And I think that that‘s where—we‘re in this situation in which—in which everybody was either—either just way too passive about this or they went out of their way not to confront him.
MATTHEWS: You know, sometimes, I like to try to figure out what‘s really important by pulling back and say, suppose this were happening in some other country we are vaguely familiar with, like England maybe or, I don‘t know, Israel or something.
And I go, what would it mean to me? Is this—let me go back to—you are good at this, because you write these cover pieces. Is this about the Iraq war and the case made to the middle-of-the-roader? I don‘t mean the fanatical “Let‘s go to war” type or the dove, but person in the middle who said, yes, I guess we better go to war with Saddam Hussein, because, if he has got nuclear weapons, that‘s one thing can‘t let be in his hands.
That person was convinced on Sunday television, in the newspapers by basically the vice president, his chief of staff. Then, when—his chief of staff, Scooter Libby. When the word gets back that there is a guy out there writing news articles and briefing the press, like you, and saying, it ain‘t true. There never was any uranium deal. There never was a nuclear threat. This thing about a mushroom cloud being a smoking gun was all B.S. It was really never there.
Who acted quick? Was it Karl Rove? I‘m not talking breaking the law. I mean the defense team. Did Karl Rove and Scooter and the vice president go out there and say, we have got to squash this guy like a bug?
[...]
FINEMAN: No, of course. Of course. Nothing would ever happen—if it were illegal, nothing would ever go on around here.
(LAUGHTER)
FINEMAN: I—I—I don‘t know what Dick Cheney said, but I know, from the way Karl Rove operates and the way the Bush family, political family, operates, that Rove would have taken it upon himself, even if not directly asked, to go out and take care of that situation, the situation of course being Joe Wilson. OK?
MATTHEWS: Somebody mouth him off.
FINEMAN: Yes. And the way he would do it is, he would talk to his—the people he deals with in the media. He would talk to friends on the Hill. He would talk to people in the conservative community, as, indeed, he was doing over Harriet Miers, trying to sell Harriet Miers to James Dobson. It‘s all of a piece. Karl is Mr. Fix-it. Karl is the salesman, the political operative.