By: Mary Lyon

Habits are hard to break. Passing up Harry Potter Night at our local book store (to be there by the stroke of midnight when the embargo on selling the new Harry Potter book turned into a pumpkin) was certainly one. Yep, we were there with bell-book-and-candle on. The media have been on it, too. “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince” got a LOT of attention – much, I’m sure, to the delight of the White House. Something… ANYTHING… to divert the attention of the mainstream media from Karl Rove. Karl remains caught in the crosshairs over the Valerie Plame Affair. Which means the White House Press Corpse has been forced to go there with him. They hemmed and hawed and ignored and neglected this story since shortly after it first broke, two years ago. Nothing there. Let’s move on. After all, there are too many Democrats still around to kick while they’re down. Unfortunately for the White House Steno Pool, this summer, the story is now too big and has bounced straight back in their faces.

Interestingly enough, Howard Fineman on MSNBC noted that the kind of politics with which Rove has specialized in plaguing opponents is now turned back around on him for a change. Turnabout is delightfully fair play for Mr. “Wilson’s wife is fair game.” What’s most entertaining is the wizardry and witchcraft with which the republi-CON spin machine has responded in its attempts to circle the wagons around its hero and headmaster. Protect Karl at all costs. He’s too valuable to lose. Just as the legions of “Death Eaters” battle to further the interests of their Dark Lord, here come the GOP point men and women. So, too, with Campbell Brown and other reporters were dutifully in place, questioning Wilson spokespeople with their freshly-delivered issue of ready-made, easy-to-read, and conveniently bulleted republi-CON talking points. Habits are hard to break. When you’re used to not so much covering the Bush crowd as covering FOR the Bush crowd – it’s awfully difficult to switch broomsticks in midstream. The motivation, either offensively or defensively, has been to fly in strict formation.

Now, however, David Gregory, John Roberts, and Terry Moran have been leading an aggressive charge to the West Wing feeding trough to eat Squirmin’ Scott McClellan for breakfast for several mornings in a row. And it’s refreshing as can be. Jon Stewart noted on “The Daily Show” last week that while we weren’t looking, somebody snuck in and replaced the White House Press Corpse with real reporters for a change. Surprisingly enough, this even extended to the docile pet puppy Tim Russert on Sunday’s “Meet the Press.” He actually asked GOP chief apologist Ken Mehlman the kind of questions I’d like to ask – especially the one that demands to know what kind of treatment the GOP would be giving the White House if this were happening to a Democratic president. Predictably, Mehlman fudged the answer, filling it with so many half-truths and piously-intoned little red-white-and-blue lies about how they would certainly never rush to judgment. Yeah… SURE.

I’m not surprised a bit when the Campbell Browns, Chris Matthewses, Andrea Mitchells, John Kings, and Wolf Blitzers of the world parrot the Officially-Sanctioned Script. Nor am I surprised any longer to see the now-cuckolded former twin wizards Woodward and Bernstein couch their words and pull their punches when talking about the latest scandal. They used to be almost like Fred and George Weasly in fighting demons in the Oval Office. Now, Bob Woodward might as well change his name to Wormtail in honor of the rodent-like Turncoat for the evil Lord Voldemort for all the objective reporting he’s provided anymore.

If Woodward and Bernstein had covered Watergate the way Woodward and friends cover this White House, Nixon would have served two full terms and we’d probably have President Agnew on the record books for at least one term just after him. There’d be no Watergate, at all. Mitchell, Ehrlichman and Haldeman plus all the Dark Side house elves like Charles Colson and Donald Segretti wouldn’t have had criminal records, and the whole cabal of bad guys would have gotten away with everything. The Bush White House is undoubtedly hoping it learned all the lessons from that blot on the Republicans’ collective record.

They have learned a lot. And they haven’t made too many of the same mistakes. But it’s left them with an arrogance that may be their undoing. When you’ve had it your way for so long, when you’ve dominated the picture and the national dialogue for this long, and you’ve been able to muzzle so many adversaries, maybe you start getting a little too fat and sassy. Or in Karl Rove’s case, by the time you reach the kind of pinnacle he has, with the methods he’s used to get that far, you’ve stepped on a LOT of toes AND a few necks. You’ve made more than a few thousand enemies – including some folks in the mainstream media who are tired of being bullied and intimidated. And they’re the type who’ll be watching closely for any sign of weakness that opens the way for them to return the favor. For some of them, I daresay they look at Rove and see a Pulitzer Prize with double chin and receding hairline.

For Scott McClellan, the Jeff Gannon trick has been played and played out. Now he no longer has planted softball pitcher to run to for relief when the other guys’ questions turn too hostile. In fact, as of this writing, there’s suspicion that along with Rove, and Cheney pal Scooter Libby, our friend and fellow wizard of the Dark Side, Jeff Gannon, may be one of the key leakers. For Rove, it’s not just the people he hurt. It’s the ones he can’t control – especially those with the “Veritaserum” in special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald’s office. Rove could engineer the proper counter-measures if he only knew what cards Fitzgerald’s holding, and he doesn’t. Meanwhile, the emails keep coming out. Time magazine decided to cough up Matt Cooper’s notes to the grand jury, and there’s some powerful protection against dark magic therein. Even the Wall Street Journal casts a counterspell: “A classified State Department memo that may be pivotal to the CIA leak case made clear that information identifying an agent and her role in her husband's intelligence-gathering mission was sensitive and shouldn't be shared, according to a person familiar with the document.”

http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB112170178721288385,0...

George W. Bush can continue to move the goal posts as this game plays out, but unfortunately for him, many of his formerly submissive dictation-takers are actually coming out and calling it that – moving the goal posts. They’ve seen through this Texas Trickery and are now actually saying so. His and McClellan’s and others’ words are already on the record – first, about dismissing anyone “involved” in the leak, and now “anyone who committed a crime.” Ultimately, as what appear to be inevitable indictments are handed down, it’ll be “anyone convicted on odd-numbered Tuesdays following a Monday holiday in any and all months containing 33-and-a-third days.”

The White House Press Corps can’t help itself. Too much juicy stuff is coming out for them to remain collectively half-baked. There will still be distractions, like the Supreme Court sideshow that Bush had reportedly wanted to stall to allow the Democrats the least amount of time to contest. That trick won’t work now because Bush and Rove, and Dick Cheney, now, too, need the diversion now rather than later, so they’ve gone back to their spell books to consult a new chapter. But as more dirt comes out that tells the truth about the Plame scandal, and public faith in White House truth-telling keeps declining in the polls, fewer White House reporters will be hanging around Professor Snape’s Potion class for free samples of the next mind-wiping cocktail or obedience brew. We Harry Potter fans will have to wait until the seventh book to find out whether Harry vanquishes Voldemort once and for all. But for those of us straining against the lies, treachery, tyranny and dark magic of this administration, a happy ending may apparate much sooner.

Visualize IMPEACHMENT.
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Mary Lyon spent the first 25 years of her adult life as a broadcast journalist, at Los Angeles radio stations KRTH-FM, KFWB-AM, KHJ-AM and KLOS-FM, the NBC, ABC, and RKO Radio Networks, plus KTLA-TV. She retired from day-to-day broadcasting in 1996, after covering Hollywood for nine years in radio, TV, and print, for the Associated Press. She wrote and illustrated "The Frazzled Working Woman's Practical Guide to Motherhood," and is presently at work on a new craft book for kids and friends. A lifelong Democrat who began her political involvement in the Student Coalition for Humphrey-Muskie, and Tom Bradley's first L.A. Mayoral campaign, Mary currently is a weekly columnist for www.democrats.us - from the Left.