The Case of a Co-President

White House political adviser Karl Rove addresses the Federalist Society Thursday night. Joshua Roberts / Reuters Karl Rove is the alter-ego of George W. Bush, and is said to be like a co-president. So if you understand Karl Rove, you will have a glimpse of George W. Bush’s thinking. Karl Rove made an interesting speech tonight (November 10) at the annual convention of the Federalist Society. The American founding fathers, James Madison and Alexander Hamilton are very much like the Chinese Nationalist founding fathers in that they were dynamic thinkers. In his book on “Alexander Hamilton”, Ron Chernow wrote that founding fathers Madison and Hamilton worked together in writing the Federalist Papers, which were published as installments in newspapers. Hamilton could write up to 5 articles per week. In his speech at the Federalist Society, Rove said, “In Federalist 78, Alexander Hamilton described the Judiciary as the branch of government least dangerous to the political rights because judiciary has no influence over the sword or purse. It is beyond comparison, the weakest of the three branches of power.” Hamilton thought that, “Liberty can’t have anything to fear from the judiciary alone.” Rove: “Hamilton’s optimism has not been borne out.” In Hamilton’s era, at the country’s founding stage, just like the Chinese Nationalists attesting the policies, no one knew what the outcome of the setting up the system would bring. Rove said that James Madison thought that “If men were angels, no government would be necessary.” The founders believed the role of the judiciary was vital but also modest. They envisioned judges as impartial umpires charged with guarding the sanctity of the Constitution, not as legislators dressed conveniently in robes. The Chinese Nationalists took back Chinese sovereignty after 268 years of occupation and rule by a non-Han government and race, and also concluded the dynastic practices and walked into the Republic. The founding of the Chinese nation was in three stages, as Dr. Sun envisioned in his “Outline of Building the Nation” and was carried out accordingly. The first stage was the military political phase (after the revolution 1911 and consolidating into one unified country in 1927), the second phase was the Training and Cultivation Phase (after the Northern expedition) and the third phase was the Constitution phase (after the conclusion of WWII in 1946). Very unfortunately the Nationalist never let the Republic blossom and evolve from the embryonic stage, and at a young age it was killed by the Communists in 1949 in China. As with the Tang and Han Dynasty’s governmental structures, the system must evolve and go with the democratic tide, built on the construction work of respecting basic human values. Senator Schumer interviewed Supreme Court nominee Justice Alito on November 10. Schumer “We talked about gun control. Somehow, Alito is coming out on the conservative side. He doesn’t believe in originalism. He says that principles should be applied differently at different times.” Bush’s persona is being assaulted. Rove is not just Rove, he personifies Bush. When Rove is stricken, this in effect is attacking Bush indirectly, and the Republicans are sadly out of breath. From the tarnished imagery, a loss in the elections to the Democrats in New Jersey and Virginia governors, the future success all depends whether Bush will continue to misstep and allow Republicans to decline and Democrats to advance. Bush doesn’t seem very concentrated lately, during the Latin America trip looking preoccupied and aimless as he was plagued by a week of losses, on Miers’s withdrawal, Libby’s indictment by Fitzgerald, and Rove’s continuing to be investigated in CIA leak case. One of the contentious issues will be the “Tax Reform” on the mortgage deduction. This may be Bush’s final downfall; if it passes he will lose his base of support by middle-class homeowners. If Rove lets the Presidential Tax Reform board to destroy the last faith of the American people toward the president, then his 37% approval rating can drop to 20%. The corruption of the White House correspondents still lingers on. Dana Bash’s first question to White House press secretary Scott McClellan after Miers’ withdrawal and the nomination of Samuel Alito to the Supreme Court was “Why didn’t the President nominate a woman as perhaps Laura Bush wants?” This is right after they just chased out Miers, a pioneering female attorney figure in Texas.. Bash also vowed and chastised Bush’s visit to Argentina by saying, “We are going to ask him about Karl Rove, no matter where he is.” She emphasized that she didn’t see anything, just went from the airport to the hotel. But they follow the president like robots everywhere around the world without any inkling about the geography and culture. She presumes that Bush came to Latin America was to escape the Washington bad blood and tension and negates any work ethic of the President. The team worker’s robotic line is that the president will continue his trip despite an incidence, be it a London bombing or Latin commotion. I will escape this junky reporting as I will be in China myself to be with the people firsthand, without any untrue accounts of China, if anything pitiful at all. With bird flu outbreak, it is very likely that she might say, “the President will continue with his trip to Asia despite the bird flu” The Senate is investigating on the leak to the Washington Post about the CIA operating secret prisons in Eastern Europe. The reporter’s credibility can also be questioned; the First Amendment right to a Free Press is not unconditional and does not provide a carte blanche for abuse. There should be an investigation into the source of the CIA prison story, because it makes the U.S. look bad. I doubt that a member of the administration or Congress would leak this story to the Washington Post, but the Post got the story from somewhere. Probably someone who wanted to hurt Bush leaked the story, but in doing so, it makes the entire U.S. look bad. The CIA should not be running secret prisons, but people shouldn't be leaking out CIA secrets either. I think what Harry Reid is saying is that there are already "committees with normal jurisdiction" over this type of thing, so a new bicameral 2 branch committee does not need to be formed. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and House Speaker Dennis Hastert are circulating a letter calling for a congressional leak investigation into the disclosure of secret U.S. interrogation centers abroad. "If Speaker Hastert and Majority Leader Frist are finally ready to join Democrats' demands for an investigation of possible abuses of classified information, they must direct the House and Senate Intelligence Committees to investigate all aspects of that issue," said Nancy Pelosi. Nancy Pelosi wants an investigation into manipulation of prewar intelligence, which is a totally separate issue. There should be an investigation into this also, but if this manipulation cannot be proven, the investigation would backfire on the Democrats, by disproving one of the Democrats' main criticisms of Bush. So there are at least 3 separate issues here, all should be investigated separately; I don't think they are really related: 1) Who leaked the CIA prison story to the Washington Post? 2) Is the CIA actually running secret prisons? If so, they should be shut down. 3) Did Bush manipulate intelligence to justify the Iraq war?