General

This is not important

LILEKS (James) Screeeeeeedblog by Lileks:

The press always mistakes its own fascinations for important news, figuring that if the WaPo and the NYT and friendly radio outlets hammer the story like a sheet of tin on a blunt study anvil, and the stories appear on the front pages of the second-tier dailies, it will somehow move the needle. Sometimes, yes. But it doesn’t help that this is scandal #8732. The rightwing media spent eight years trying to convince people that Clinton had horns and a swishy forked tail, and it had little practical impact. Today Bill Clinton could run for president, and half the voters would give him a yea, even though they had reservations about his character. Which is what I mean by practical impact. It’s possible that vast swaths of moderate Bush voters will be recoiled by L’Affaire Rove, but that would mean they had to know who Rove is. In short: compared to the other recent Horrors, like the Ongoing Gulag of Gitmo, which now has added forced bra-wearing to its litany of atrocities, this smacks of the sort of inside-the-Beltway story that vulcanizes the faithful but has no impact on people who are otherwise occupied planning the summer car trip. They’re looking at gas prices. And even that isn’t a deal breaker. So they say we invaded for oil – when does that bennie kick in, then?

I was going to write something along these lines, but Lileks does it better. Read the whole thing to get the full effect.

Don’t miss CQ’s report on the Senate pissing contest on who get’s access to classified info. Democrats proposed an amendment yanking Rove’s secret clearance. Frist then proposed an amendment

“reference to a classified Federal Bureau of Investigation report on the floor of the United States Senate, or any federal officeholder that makes a statement based on a FBI agent’s comments which is used as propaganda by terrorist organizations thereby putting our servicemen and women at risk.”

In other words targeting Senators Reid and Durbin. Fun! Neither amendment got anywhere, as should be the case, but I think Frist got his point across.

Bottom line is that the Administration is not taking this scandal seriously. This photo is from yesterday as Bush walked from the Helicopter with Rove

Do they look worried about this? Keep in mind that Rove is the best political guy in the game right now. Either his political instincts are way off, or they know they have nothing to worry about and this is going to blow right over.

© 2005 NixGuy.com.