Friday, October 14, 2005

Is the White House in Deep Shit?

In case you haven't been following, Plamegate is exploding with possible indictments for Karl 'the brain' Rove and Cheney's chief of staff Lewis Libby and potentially the entire conspiracy (not a bad word!) responsible for manipulating the public, the UN, allied nations and the media in the run up to war may be completely exposed. This is extremely significant! With scandals erupting in thecongress and the senate it looks as though the Republicans are in trouble come 2006. The weight of these scandals, Plamegate, the war in Iraq and the poor response to Katrina may ultimately lead to the premature ruin of this administration, something many of us have dreamt about since Bush took office in 2000. Bush's approval rating is at a solid 40%-38% depending on which poll you trust and a Washington Post NBC poll found that only 2% of African Americans supported the president, the lowest number ever reported since the question has been asked on polls. Uber-pundit Howard Fineman speculated on the October 10th Hardball w/ Chris Mathews that the white house was bifurcated(ing) into two camps: chief of staff Andy Card (the anti-Iraq camp) and Rove and the Hawks (Iraqi civilian killers).
FINEMAN: "Right now, my sense, in reporting this, Chris, is that the Bush family, political family, is at war with itself inside the White House. My sense is, it's Andy Card, the chief of staff, and his people against Karl Rove, the brain."
My sense from Fineman is that the Card camp is a fetal administration within the administration that will survive the indictments resignations and possible impeachment that the current admin might face in the next year or so and thereby become the new government.