I couldn't help but be reminded of this in reading about Rove's outburst. They're in the bunker in and on so many different levels and meanings. The walls are collapsing, just not soon enough.

She's starting to sound like her boss: short, vacuous sentences that might be offered up by someone many, many years younger:

"We have a big tent. And discussions like this are OK. They're good to have. And that's why the president was very happy to have them at the White House."

"We have a big tent and the president likes to hear opposing views. In other words, we like different views because we have a big tent. Heh, heh."

All of this smells of red herring. I don't buy any of it - not W's reported disomfort or receptivity, not the intention of that cadre, not Rove's frustration. In the end no course of action was altered whatsoever, but more print columns were filled with this nonsense and Gonzo was up there prevaricating again.

All of this smells of red herring. I don't buy any of it - not W's reported disomfort or receptivity, not the intention of that cadre, not Rove's frustration.

I agree with SR Hampton on that. Given how secretive they've been to date, how disciplined their ranks are (where are the leaks? the whistleblowers?), and how endlessly on-message they are, I think they're working it for the rest of the country's sake.

What matters isn't who's supposedly being frank, who is supposedly frustrated, who's supposedly angry -- what matters is what they actually do. And from where I sit, the policy appears to be unchanged, the direction, the same. Impression Management 101, GOP edition.

of this administration has made me extremely untrusting of anything they say. This "Gang of 11" just seems to be buying Bush more time until September. Sounds like more Rovian spin to me.

that's all this is. The Republicans can now come across as concerned and attuned to the feelings of the American people while remaining resolved and stalwart. Just a tarted-up "stay the course."

If Rove was really furious, he'd be figuring out how to fire congressmen.

Remember in the Habeas Corpus debate, when McCain, Warner, and Graham made their journey to the White House? Many people (myself included) breathed a sigh of relief -- the President will finally get a message from outside his bubble!

Wrong then, and probably wrong now.

Moderate Republicans need to show these congressmen they support them. Perhaps the Republican trait of disregarding tradition (see Lathwick's excellent editorial on the Gonzalez hearings in Slate) can be put to good use here - disregard "tradition" by breaking away from shrub and standing up to turdblossom. Because -- what can the administration do to them now - roll their eyes at them?

I notice that the complaint was that the future of the Republican Party is in peril and not the men and women in the military or even the stability in the Middle East.

Certainly one of the more ludicrous statents made in that exchange was that the administration/Republicans "have a big tent". Sorry Dana, but simply asserting something doesn't make it so. Rejection of what ever doesn't agree with their agenda is one of the hallmarks of Bush Co.

make the "home towner's" think these lemmings are taking shrub to the "wood shed" to obtain praise from their "mad as hell constituents" back home. Just picture, if you will, Rove's arms waiving wildly, spit frothing from his clenched mouth, blood vessels bulging with a purplish reddened face. Close in on the back slap just after the camera pans out and the director says, cut. If this image seems a little too cynical to be true, just look at the history of the madman who is feigning his displeasure with these GOP "upstarts". How nauseating...

Rove has one hell of a nerve upbraiding Mark Kirk.

Kirk has actual military experience, and as I understand it had just left the Pentagon a very short time before the plane hit it on the morning of 9/11. Few people in the administration have a better understanding of what that day, and the ongoing operations in Iraq, really mean than Kirk. Rove would most certainly not be one of them.

I'm not the biggest Kirk fan in the world. But what Rove also has to understand is the north-shore suburban Chicago district Kirk represents. If Kirk does not do something to avoid being seen as a Bush/Cheney lap dog, he's done in 08.

They decided to throw Rove over (Rove probably thought it up). It solves many problems, not least of which giving Cheney the cover to stay until 2009. In a few weeks we'll hear Bush saying:

BUSH: This man was my friend. He was a good man. But sometimes your head gets so in the game that you forget why you were on the field. The way Karl worked, it's easy to see how that happened. While he's going home today, we need to remember what a debt of gratitude this nation owes Karl Rove.