Karl Rove: Political Genius/Political Hack (Updated 8/13)

"Bush's Brain" strikes again.

It seems that in order to justify last weeks newest terror alert, the Bush administration, in Karl Rove's infinite wisdom, leaked the name of the Al Qaida terrorist seized in Pakistan just after the Democratic National Convention. Once the world knew that Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan had been captured, all the promising leads and the "increased chatter" seemed to end.

Why did Rove and the Bush administration feel it was necessary to further enhance their credibility by leaking the captured terrorist's name? Probably because despite the polls showing people support Bush's handling of the war on terror, people don't trust Bush or his administration. Gee, why? Don't even start with the whole weapons of mass destruction thing and the way they are trying to spin that. Let's look at some more subtle things that are seeping into the minds of America.

Back in July, some lefties predicted that during the Dem Convention there would be a major break in the war on terror. Lo and behold, just after the convention there was a major arrest of an unnamed Al Qaida operative in Pakistan. But wait, why did they arrest him before the convention and then release it right after? Then they increase the terror alert based on information gleaned from this guy. But wait, the information was old. No, the administration protested, it had been updated. And, by-the-way, this guy we arrested, Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, had a lot of useful information on his computer--we were told on background (reporter talk for a leak). So you see he is real and important.

oops.

Y'know, by leaking this guys name to prove our veracity, it seems we blew the cover off of several Pakistani intelligence stings that were leading to more Qaida operatives. So, in order to prove that the administration was not using the war on terror for political motives, they hurt the war on terror.

Karl Rove went to the well one too many times. His political tricks have gotten old on the national stage. We expect an October surprise from this group, because they have lost our trust. So real or not, any success against Al Qaida will be tainted by the thought that the administration probably could have nabbed these guys earlier, but waited for maximum political advantage. You know that there is a credibility problem when the Watergate guys come out of the shadows and start condemning your administration as more secretive and more corrupt than Nixon.

This fiasco comes on the heels of the leak about Sandy Berger. According to that leak he snuck Top Secret documents out of the National Archives in his socks. Turns out he didn't. Turns out everything the 9/11 commission wanted from the Clinton Administration and Berger was provided. Seems nothing is missing from the archives as he was only dealing with copies (he did take 3 copies out of the archives that he should not have and returned those, except one that is missing). Seems that the investigation started last October, and has been sitting with the US Attorney for many months as they mulled over whether or not anything actually criminal took place.

That was a much more successful leak--still a lie, but it did dominate the news cycle for quite a few days. I think it was still more exciting when Oliver North's secretary secreted away documents in her bra. I'll take that over Sandy Berger's socks any day. No matter what the documents.

So, Karl, it seems that you have fallen down on the job. Sandy's socks were amusing, but this Al Qaida thing was down right dangerous. Karl you have gone from Genius to Hack. Stop Being Stupid.

UPDATE: According to this USA Today story it seems that the attacks really weren't "imminent". Oops. Nothing like panicking the country's largest metropolitan area and center of business for political purposes.