PRESIDENT Bush's poll numbers stand at an all-time low, with 55 percent in one recent CNN/Gallup poll having come to the harsh conclusion that his presidency has been a failure. It does not appear to be a coincidence that Bush's political debacles of the last few months -- Hurricane Katrina, the Harriet Miers nomination -- have come at a time when Bush's top advisor, Karl Rove, was inactive in White House affairs because he is under a legal cloud stemming from the Valerie Plame affair. Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has been indicted for lying during the course of the investigation into the Plame affair, while Rove may be indicted for a similar offense.
A recent report in The Washington Post indicated that Rove's departure is being seriously considered by the White House. Calls are growing louder from both conservatives and liberals for Bush to axe Rove. With Rove now an embattled figure, it is easy to forget the historically unique legitimating role Rove played in the White House, and points to the possibility that Rove's departure could have deleterious consequences for President Bush. But more importantly, it indicates the weakness of using indictments as a political weapon.
Karl Rove is nothing less than a political phenomenon. For the last five years, everyone has believed that Rove was nothing less than "Bush's Brain," as one book put it, the real power in the White House. At least two books and one film documentary have come out in recent years purporting to expose Rove's instrumental role in Bush's rise. In contrast to the purportedly ineffectual Bush, it was Rove who Democrats believed they were fighting against in their quest for political power.
In playing this role, Rove uniquely legitimized the Bush presidency. Every decision emanating from the Bush White House, from the tax cuts to the Iraq War, was seen in some way to reflect Rove's genius. Rove has been credited with almost all of the GOP success of the past few years, from the solidifying of the South in the GOP column to the triumph of the Republicans on the education issue. This media phenomenon provided an underlying logic to the Bush Administration: We were not being ruled by the incompetent and inarticulate Bush, but by the strong and ingenious Rove.
The nominal theme of much Rove commentary has been to deplore the politicization of the White House. But since everyone expects political actors to behave politically and ultimately be judged in political terms, the Rove storyline only succeeded in bolstering the White House's reputation for competence. The power of the president is ultimately, as the political scientist Richard Neustadt put it, the power of persuasion and of public perception; there is nothing immoral about a political White House. Rove increased the legitimacy of the executive branch of government, a positive good in utilitarian terms.
Rove's notoriety led to calls for his head as soon as he became implicated in the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to syndicated columnist Bob Novak. Like the investigation of Bill Clinton, another brilliant politico, these charges are a lot less serious than they first appeared, and now appear to be a waste of time. In fact, Plame was not an international operative but rather was working a desk job in Langley when her name was leaked; American interests were not put in jeopardy and no law appears to have been violated by the leak itself. And the leaking of Plame's name was designed to discredit claims made by Joseph Wilson, many of whose statements now appear unreliable. Like Clinton as well, the charges around Rove and Libby now focus on lying, as opposed to the substantive offense of leaking the CIA operative's name.
More than this, however, the tactic of politics by indictment is fatally flawed. Indictments can remove individuals from political power, but they cannot alter underlying political realities. The indictments surrounding the Nixon administration led to the downfall of Nixon, but not of conservatism or the Republican Party. The indictment of Rove may bring down Bush, but it will not bring down conservatism. The recent indictment of top Republican Tom DeLay may have warmed the heart of liberal Democrats, but it was patently ineffective in moving political opinion.
Perhaps recognizing this, Democrats have recently tried to recast the Rove-Libby affair as revolving around the substantive issue of whether the U.S. was misled into war in Iraq. But the Plame affair has had the unfortunate and ironic effect of stifling press freedom, by forcing reporters to reveal anonymous sources and thus potentially drying up sources of information to the public. This effect may be far more wide-ranging than any lies Rove or Libby may have told.
Like so many other uses of the judiciary as a political tool, then, the political use of the Plame affair is destined to fail as well. The end of the Rove era may have been achieved, but only at considerable cost.
Noah Peters' column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at npeters@cavalierdaily.com.
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