BUSH vs. THE PRESS….Wow. I leave the house for a few hours to take in a movie and what do I find when I get back? The press corps is finally seriously pissed off that Karl Rove has been implicated in Plamegate. Thorough coverage is pretty much everywhere (head over to Atrios, Josh, or Billmon depending on your taste in blogs), but I think Garance Franke-Ruta has the best take on why the press corps finally woke up:
If there is one thing that reporters hate, it’s being played for patsies. McClellan has publicly humiliated some of the most prominent reporters in the country by persistently feeding them information that has now been revealed to be false, and I’m pretty darn sure that they are not going to grant him any favors and extend him the benefit of the doubt in the future.
We can hope, can’t we? Sunday’s Newsweek story combined with the subsequent non-denial of Rove’s lawyer is the smoking gun that’s done it, and I suspect Bush and Rove are now going to get the treatment Bill Clinton got in 1998. The Washington press corps was never Clinton’s friend, but they really turned on him after they felt he had personally lied to them over Monica ? and with any luck the same thing is now going to happen to Rove. Expect him to discover an urgent need to spend more time with his family soon.
And after that? Perhaps my prediction from last September will come true. Let’s hope.
