Reply #19: I think it is Rove. Here is why.

[McCamy Taylor]

1. Rove repeats himself. If something works once, he will do it again. In 2004, he conspired with CBS to get rid of Dan Rather by having them allow 60 Minutes to do the Bush AWOL story. However, someone leaked the memo to the Republicans and an operative pretending to be a type writer expert immediately went online and claimed that he could prove that the Memo was a fake. Obviously, the WH knew that the source for the memo had lied about how he got it, and that when he changed his story this could be twisted to discredit Rather instead of the source if they were clever. So there was some planning before hand. The memo could have even been legitimate. That would make sure that CBS ran the story. All they had to do was get the source to admit that he had lied about the chain of custody and then have an expert or two question the authenticity of the document and then have CBS throw Rather under the bus---as they had prearranged in exchange for the FCC looking the other way over Viacom/CBS's violations of federal media ownership rules violations. Here is my journal on the subject.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x3539083

This document mentions MSNBC by name is if daring that news network to ignore it. It practically begs those people at the news network who are usually critical of McCain to pounce upon the memo and say "Look! McCain dirty tricks! We were not guilty of Hillary bashing! McCain made people think we were!"

2. The ham handedness/over the top nature of the document is also in keeping with Rove. The man has no subtlety. For one thing, he never went to college. There is only so far you can go with native intelligence. Since he styles himself as Rasputin and uses fear to keep his political enemies in line and flaunts the fact that he is above the law, he has never perfected the art of understatement which is so useful when doing dirty tricks. Recall that Pat Buchanan's number one injunction back in 1972 was that the guys and gals in CREEP make sure that none of the pranks that they pulled against one Democrat which appeared to come from other Democrats every be traced back to the Republicans. The Reagans, being actors, understood the need to keep the public in their court. The Bush's have never understood the importance of pr. They want people to fear them. Karl Rove in particular wants people to admire him for what he can get away with.

3. The date. May 15. Good point. On May 14, KO took his eyes off Clinton for a moment and put them back on the prize long enough to deliver a memorable Special Comment that probably had the WH and the NeoCons and Dick Cheney squirming. It ended with

And, sir, if you have any hopes that next January 20th will not be celebrated as a day of soul-wrenching, heart-felt Thanksgiving, because your faithless stewardship of this presidency will have finally come to a merciful end, this last piece of advice: when somebody asks you, sir, about Democrats who must now pull this country back from the abyss you have placed us at—when somebody asks you, sir, about the cooked books and faked threats you foisted on a sincere and frightened nation—when somebody asks you, sir, about your gallant, noble, self-abnegating sacrifice of your golf game so as to soothe the families of the war dead; this advice, Mr. Bush: shut the hell up!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/24647047/

(Maybe in a spirit of general election solidarity someone over at MSNBC should put this Special Comment back up at the webpage and take down the one they have up at the moment)

If this is what they had to look forward to in the months leading up the general election, then they would have a hard time using the so called war on terra to their political advantage. Maybe they figured it was time to call their conservative buddies at General Electric and arrange an exit for KO.

Just a thought, but KO had better watch his back. Dan Rather had the highest recognizability and the highest approval rating of any journalist in the US when CBS sold him down the river.