Saving Karl Rove

Paul Waldman

July 14, 2005

Paul Waldman is a senior fellow with Media Matters for America and a senior contributor to The Gadflyer.

Every administration has its share of scandals to deal with, and every one handles them in a slightly different way (of course, it helps if your party controls both houses of Congress, so there will be no pesky Congressional investigations to deal with). But the Bush administration’s furious effort to save Karl Rove and justify the outing of a covert CIA operative is a remarkable case study in misdirection, a campaign whose scaffolding of spin is plain for all to see.