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Republicans seem to be viewing the nascent Obama administration with some dread, half expecting Democrats to do to them what they've been receiving for the past eight years and more. So unsurprisingly, Karl Rove seemed to be on Chris Wallace's mind Sunday when he interviewed David Axelrod of the Obama team on Fox:

Chris Wallace: Finally, you are going to be the new senior adviser to the president -- I don't know if you're going to like this comparison, but are you going to be the Karl Rove of the administration, in the sense of the intersection of policy and politics?

David Axelrod: I've never accepted that comparison. Look, my role with Barack Obama for the past six years has been to help the communications operation impart his message, his values and his vision to the American people, and I expect to continue to do that. My role is circumscribed to those responsibilities.

I'm not trying to build the Democratic Party or any of these other -- I think Mr. Rove had quite an expansive portfolio. I think mine is very focused.

Chris Matthews goes over his list of Decision '08 Biggest Losers with Johnathan Allen and Michael Crowley.

#5-Sarah Palin
#4-Joe Lieberman
#3-Elizabeth Dole
#2-The Bradley Effect
#1-Karl Rove

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The rats are jumping from the ship, and the biggest rat of them all, Karl "I should be in jail" Rove, sits down with Chris Wallace to admit that indicators are not good for the McCain campaign:

WALLACE: One thing that we are witnessing already is dissension within the ranks of the McCain campaign. There's a big article today in the New York Times Sunday Magazine about it. There have been a bunch of other reports. People pointing fingers at each other about what went wrong with the McCain campaign even before we get to the election. Why do you think that this has started so early and so publicly?

ROVE: Well, look, we've seen this a couple of times this year. We saw it in the Clinton campaign. Now we're seeing it in the McCain campaign, where before the election is totaled up, before the votes are all cast, before the decision is made, people start pointing fingers and blaming each other. It is a sign of undisciplined people who do not have the loyalty that they ought to have to the candidate whom they're serving and it's -- it's a sad sight to see. Nobody makes themselves look good by this process.

WALLACE: It is not generally a phenomenon we see in winning campaigns, however, is it?

ROVE: Occasionally you see it. You're right, it's in campaigns that are behind and people want to make certain they escape with the best reputation they can.

Frankly, considering how many of them came from Rove's coterie, I think that ship has sailed. Rove also acknowledges the fact that even Sarah Palin has gone "rogue" with a non-answer answer that points to the end of John McCain's presidential aspirations:

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In a classic case of IOKIYAR, Newshounds catches Karl Rove echoing the same meme on Hannity & Colmes for which Sean Hannity was only to happy to use to castigate Barack Obama last summer.

In his “just wondering” voice [..], Hannity asked, “I'm trying to understand, if John Murtha's referring to people in Pennsylvania as racists and as rednecks, and we know what Barack Obama said about bitter Americans clinging to their guns and religion with antipathy towards those that aren't like him. He was talking about the people in the state of Pennsylvania. I'm trying to understand, why would anybody in Pennsylvania vote for him when he said that in a, you know, in a real moment, that he didn't think he was being recorded?”[..]

“Well, he's got a problem,” Rove replied. “[..]James Carville once famously referred to Pennsylvania as Pittsburgh on the west, Philadelphia on the east and Alabama in between. I think that was his way of sort of mimicking what John Murtha said. But it's a conservative part of the state. And then if you take the far southwestern corner, over there near Pittsburgh and the suburbs, that's coal country and that's the kind of people who really do cling to their guns and their faith.”

Um, huh? Not that I disagree with the assessment, but wasn't this the most horrible thing that Obama could have said -- a campaign killer, if you will -- this past spring? Wasn't that the statement that you said was elitist and disrespectful to rural voters?

Of course, Hannity is too delusional to note the hypocrisy, so thank goodness for Alan Colmes for calling Rove on the double standard:

Colmes said with good-natured mocking, “Hey, Karl, you didn't just say people cling to their guns and faith? I don't believe you just said that. You didn't say what Obama said.”

Rove smiled but he began stammering. “No, no. I'm just... I'm quoting Obama. In quotes.” Rove made quotation marks in the air.

Colmes said, “I didn't see the hand quote thing.”

No one did, Alan. They weren't there. It was just that big, lying, ought-to-be-in-jail hack politico pulling his usual crap.

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Another brave citizen gets arrested while attempting a citizen's arrest of Karl Rove.

LA Times:

At the annual convention of the Mortgage Bankers' Assn., former White House guru Karl Rove debated the 2008 presidential election -- and the current economic meltdown -- with former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell.

Up on the stage walks a well-dressed woman, name as yet unknown. First she complained that there was no woman on the panel. Then she drew out handcuffs and tried to arrest Rove for treason.

She was quickly ushered off the stage.

The exchange between George Mitchell and Karl Rove on negative campaigning may very well be the best part of the clip. Be sure to watch til the end.

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Hmmm, I still can never trust this guy, but when facts outweigh talking points, even Rove points out the obvious.

Rove: McCain has gone in some of his ads similarly gone one step too far in sort of attributing to Obama things that are, you know...beyond, beyond, beyond the, the 100% truth test.

Rove has to stutter when he talks about honesty and the McCain camp...He made Elmer Fudd proud. What percentage of honesty does Rove base his truth-o-meter on?

This is one of the best TDS segments I've seen in a long time. These people just make it too easy. Whether it's Karl Rove decrying Tim Kaine's lack of experience (while praising the clearly less experienced Sarah Palin), or Dick Morris and Hannity bashing the "sexist" media attacks on Palin (despite peddling real sexist attacks on Hillary themselves), Jon shows that these people have no shame nor ethical consistency.

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"Karl Rove appears bitterly divided on the experience issue."

After BillO's Jamie Lynn Spears/Bristol Palin hypocrisy: "You see what happens with opinions on teen pregnancies is that they gestate over a period of months."

See this and more Daily Show / Colbert Report clips at Indecision 08.

On August 10, Karl Rove went on "Face The Nation" to argue that Senator Obama would make an "intensely political choice" for Vice President without regard for the "responsibilities of president." At the time, Rove believed Obama would choose Tim Kaine, and argued against him by saying this:

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With all due respect again to Governor Kaine, he's been a governor for three years, he's been able but undistinguished. I don't think people could really name a big, important thing that he's done. He was mayor of the 105th largest city in America. And again, with all due respect to Richmond, Virginia, it's smaller than Chula Vista, California; Aurora, Colorado; Mesa or Gilbert, Arizona; north Las Vegas or Henderson, Nevada. It's not a big town. So if he were to pick Governor Kaine, it would be an intensely political choice where he said, `You know what? I'm really not, first and foremost, concerned with, is this person capable of being president of the United States?

As we now know, Barack Obama chose Joe Biden as his VP, probably the least political choice he could have made, and probably the best governing choice he could have made. John McCain, on the other hand, is the one who made the "intensely political choice" by choosing Sara Palin -- a political newcomer and self-described "hockey mom" who has less than two years of governing experience and ZERO foreign policy experience -- all because the political winds dictated that "change" was going to trump "experience" this election.

Rove argues that Kaine's mayorship of Richmond (pop. 200,000+) is insignificant and that his 3 years as Governor of Virginia (pop. 7,712,091, GDP $383 million) has been "indistinguisahable." If Rove was intellectually consistent, wouldn't that mean Palin's mayorship of Wasilla (pop. 8,000+) and 20 months as Alaska governor (pop. 683,478, GDP $44.5 million) makes her even less qualified than Kaine?

Barack Obama chose Joe Biden because he knows his way around Washington and knows how to get stuff done. His selection mollifies virtually no voting block or constituency.

McCain, on the other hand, chose someone eminently unqualified for the job (seriously, can you see Sara Palin sitting down with Maliki or Karzai or any other world leader?) for the sole reason of appeasing the right-wing lunatic fringe and hoping to pick off a few die-hard Hillary holdouts, as well as assuaging voters' concerns about his septuagenarianism.

So, Karl, who made the "intensely political choice"?

What can we take away from this episode? When Karl Rove suggests something -- in this case, Obama would make an "intensely political decision" -- always assume the opposite will happen. Remember, Rove predicted, according to "the math," that the GOP would pick up seats in 2006.They of course were swept out of power in an historic landslide.

Remind me again why the punditocracy heralds this guys as some sort of political genius?

Full transcript below the fold:

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National Interest:

I have decided I can no longer be a registered Republican. For the first time in my life I announced my support for a Democratic candidate for the presidency, in February of this year. This was not an endorsement of the Democratic platform, nor was it a slap in the face to the Republican Party. It was an expression of support specifically for Senator Barack Obama. I had always intended to go back to party ranks after the election and work with my many dedicated friends and colleagues to help reshape the GOP, especially in the foreign-policy arena. But I now know I will be more effective focusing on our national and international problems than I will be in trying to reinvigorate a political organization that has already consumed nearly all of its moderate “seed corn.”  And now, as the party threatens to trivialize what promised to be a serious debate on our future direction, it will alienate many young people who might have come into party ranks.

My decision came at the end of last week when it was demonstrated to the nation that McCain and this Bush White House have learned little in the last five years. They mishandled what became a crisis in the Caucusus, and this has undermined U.S. national security. At the same time, the McCain camp appears to be comfortable with running an unworthy Karl Rove–style political campaign. Will the McCain operation, and its sponsors, do anything to win? Read on...

Eisenhower obliterates the media narrative that John McCain is strong on national security and foreign policy and shows the growing distaste within the GOP for the destructive Rove/Bush, scorched earth politics the McCain camp has unfortunately chosen to adopt. Susan believes the GOP has lost its way and has finally awakened to the destructive nature of the Bush regime - the one her grandfather warned us about all those years ago.

  Rove tries to defend McCain's lobbyist pals on H&C with his typical "Obama has them too," routine. Colmes does a good job of pointing out the fact that McCain used to be a maverick when it came to lobbyists, but not anymore. And he didn't forget about naming Rick Davis either.

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Colmes: You have John McCain come out hard against Russia, his chief foreign policy advisor got lobbyists money.  John McCain has talked about not taking lobbyist money and being a different kind of candidate back when he was a maverick. And then now he has all these lobbyists working for him.

 I wouldn't get in there and start throwing mud at McCain over lobbyists associations without then realizing what kind of lobbyist associations there are among Democrats, particularly among congressional Democrats.

I think McCain is running for president and not the congress. Rove tries to say that Obama has plenty of them working for his campaign like McCain, but of course that's false. We've posted many stories on C&L about McCain's Army of Lobbyists. Here are but a few:

The John McCain Institute of Lobbyists

McCain Campaign Manager’s Alleged Russian Mob Ties

McCain Caught Off-Guard About Campaign’s Lobbyist Problems

McCain makes a distinction between good lobbyists and bad

And of course this big one: McCain: The Anti-lobbyist just loves lobbyists

   Now the Washington Post follows that up with this:

In McCain’s case, the fact that lobbyists are essentially running his presidential campaign — most of them as volunteers — seems to some people to be at odds with his anti-lobbying rhetoric. “He has a closer relationship with lobbyists than he lets on,” said Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington. “The problem for McCain being so closely associated with lobbyists is that he’s the candidate most closely associated with attacking lobbyists.”

Public Citizen, a group that monitors campaign fundraising, has found that McCain had more bundlers — people who gather checks from networks of friends and associates — from the lobbying community than any other presidential candidate from either party. By the group’s current count, McCain had at least 59 federal lobbyists raising money for his campaign, compared with 33 working for Republican Rudolph W. Giuliani and 19 working for Democrat Clinton..read on

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Who is the last person on the planet that Barack Obama should take advice from?  Naturally, the person that Bob Schieffer asks on Face the Nation, Turd Blossom himself, Karl Rove.  Seriously, this guy is an advisor for the McCain campaign, he's the architect of one of the nastiest and most partisan campaigns in the history of the country and for some reason, Schieffer thinks it's legitimate to ask him his thoughts on Obama's VP pick.  Why?

Rove tries to spin this that if Obama selects a governor like Kaine from a red state, it's a political choice, rather than a presidential one, because all Obama is focused on is the electoral votes.  Okay.  Because Cheney was a real presidential choice...oh wait, Bush didn't make the choice.  Cheney chose himself. That's thinking big and broad.

What cracks me up the most is Karl Rove's attempt to diminish Kaine as a VP candidate:

I didn't say I thought he ought to, I said he probably would pick a Red State Democrat, because I think he's going to make an intensely political choice, not a governing choice. He's going to view this through a prism of a candidate, not through the prism of President. That is to say, he's going to pick somebody that he thinks on the margin will help him in a state like Indiana or Missouri or Virginia. He's not going to be thinking big and broad about the responsibilities as President. Well, with all due respect again to Gov. Kaine, he's been a governor for three years. He's been able but undistinguished; I don't think people could really name a big, important thing that he's done.

And this differs from GWB's tenure as Governor of Texas how?  Oh that's right, the Governor of Virginia actually works more than the constitutionally weak Governor of Texas.  And how did GWB distinguish himself, other than putting more people to death than all the rest of the states combined?  By failing at every other business he started. 

Talk about appealing to the low information voter.

Transcripts below the fold

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Back in April, in a WSJ column, Karl Rove urged John McCain to be less reserved about his personal life and background, and run more on his biography. “[I]t is clear,” Rove wrote, “that Mr. McCain is one of the most private individuals to run for president in history.”

Four months later, Rove recycled the exact same point in another WSJ column.

Mr. McCain is the most private person to run for president since Calvin Coolidge in the 1920s. He needs to share (or allow others to share) more about him, especially his faith. The McCain and Obama campaigns are mirror opposites. Mr. McCain offers little biography, while Mr. Obama is nothing but.

Rove has McCain’s strategy entirely backwards. McCain isn’t a private person at all — as the Weekly Standard’s Dean Barnett put it, “You know how you can tell really private people? They spend 26 years in public life as a politician. They also do things like host Saturday Night Live where they sing Streisand tunes before a national TV audience.”

“McCain offers little biography”? McCain has been offering little but biography.

As for the suggestion that McCain do more to share “his faith,” there's a good reason we haven't seen more religion talk from McCain: it's a very awkward subject for him.

  RawStory:

The House Judiciary Committee has voted 20-14 to approve a contempt of Congress resolution against former White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove for his failure to appear after a Congressional subpoena.

Voting along party lines Wednesday morning, the committee said Rove broke the law by failing to appear at a July 10 hearing on allegations of White House influence over the Justice Department, including whether Rove encouraged prosecutions against Democrats.

The committee decision is a recommendation. It remains unclear whether Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will allow a final vote.

UPDATE:  From the House Judiciary Committee: 

"Today's vote was an important statement by this Committee that no person - not even Karl Rove - is above the law." said Chairman John Conyers, Jr. "This week's Inspector General report on the pervasive politicization of the Department of Justice particularly underscores the urgent need for Mr. Rove to testify before Congress. Any suggestion that the matters for which Mr. Rove was subpoenaed are not important, or that no Administration misconduct has been revealed, is just inconsistent with the facts. Our investigation has revealed Mr. Rove to be a key figure in the firings of US Attorneys, and the questions about his role in the Siegelman case only continue to mount."

"Today's vote demonstrates that the House will not tolerate Mr. Rove's flawed excuses for avoiding his responsibility to obey a Congressional subpoena," said Rep. Linda Sánchez, Chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Commercial and Administrative Law. "We are serious about defending the legislative branch's constitutional oversight role, and it's time for Mr. Rove to get serious about following the law."

UPDATE II:  Brave New Films has more from the Send Karl Rove To Jail Campaign.

(sorry, I just love that picture)

Reuters:

DES MOINES, Iowa (Reuters) - Four peace activists were arrested on Friday as they attempted to make a "citizens arrest" of Karl Rove, who was one of President George W. Bush's top aides before leaving the administration last year.

"It should be Karl Rove in that van. War Criminal!" one of a dozen protestors shouted as the four were put into a police van outside a Des Moines country club where Rove spoke at a private state Republican party fundraiser.

Chet Guinn, a retired Methodist Minister, was among those led away.

"To be silent when major crimes are being committed against all humanity makes us accomplices," Gwinn told reporters just before his prearranged arrest, which took place when protestors stepped past a gate.

Such is the life of current and former Bush loyalists responsible for so much damage to our country and the world. Auckland police are warning a students group against their $5000 offer to anyone who can carry out a citizens arrest on Condoleeza Rice and who can forget Donald Rumsfeld's close call in France last October when he abruptly fled to Germany after learning he could be detained by French officials and forced to stand trial on charges he approved torture. 

After John Ashcroft's testimony last week in which he bobbed and weaved his way around answering every question about what he did during his time in the White House, Jon Stewart and John Oliver compare Bush and his merry band of obfuscators to other American Presidential liars in order to make a historical comparison. Needless to say, the Bush team is in a league of its own.

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Oliver: "I just hope everyone at home appreciates the magnitude of what they're witnessing here. For 7 straight years, this administration has been untouchable in hearings. These guys are the '27 Yankees of dodging questions. The '55 Dodgers of yanking Congress' chain. They're the right stuff of wrong stuff. John, this is once in a generation bullsh*t."

Steart: You really think this admininstration is that good at this?

John: Sure, look, we can quibble at the level of competetition. You can criticize the strength of their opponents -- lets face it, the Democrats have been pathetic. But you still can't help but be impressed at the level of skills on display. I won't be surprised if in years to come they describe these hearings as the 'Immaculate Deception.'"

I truly can't wait to see those jerseys hanging from the rafters.

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