October 25, 2005
From the New York Daily News:
Behind the scenes, however, Team Bush was finalizing its campaign to discredit and undermine special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s conclusions, sources told the Daily News.
The White House strategy is counting on major help from GOP allies and neocon commentators who turned on Bush for naming Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court and are now looking for redemption with a miffed President.
An emerging theme in the Bush war room is arguing that his top political aide, Karl Rove, simply got tripped up on his recollections of whom he talked to and what he told them when questioned about the outing of CIA spy Valerie Plame. He shouldn’t be indicted simply because of contradictory grand jury testimony, a source said.
Bush allies have already begun casting perjury and obstruction charges as irrelevant in a probe created to find out who leaked classified information…
Bush critics are also gearing up, pulling together statements from Republicans, including Bush himself, who supported perjury and obstruction allegations against President Bill Clinton in the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
Asked in 1999 about Clinton’s impeachment by the House, Bush responded, “I would have voted for it. I thought the man lied.”
[deleted string of obscenities used to describe Bush, et al.]