From the "We'll Believe It When We See it" Department, Think Progress is quoting a story from the White House Bulletin in which a "top West Wing advisor" says that Karl Rove could be on his way out within "weeks, not months."
Reason for skepticism No. 1: The story says that Rove's "partisan style is a hurdle to President Bush's new push for bipartisanship." If we were still practicing law, we'd object on the grounds that the argument "assumes facts not in evidence." Until the president starts doing something more olive-branchy than pushing for the confirmation of John Bolton and renominating a slate of far-right judges, Rove will continue to fit just fine within the Bush administration's brand of bipartisanship.
Reason for skepticism No. 2: The story says that White House counsel Harriet Miers has it out for Rove, and that the Jack Abramoff-related ouster of Rove aide Susan Ralston was a sign from the would-have-been Supreme Court justice that it's time for Rove to go, too. But Ralston's ouster came in early October, back when Rove and everyone else in the White House were talking a good game about how the Republicans were going to hold on to both the House and the Senate. If they'd done that last week, would anybody even be thinking of throwing Rove overboard now?
Reason for skepticism No. 3: "Weeks, not months"? That's pretty much the same formulation Dick Cheney used three-and-a-half years ago when he was asked to predict how long the war in Iraq would last. At the Bush White House, time flies when you're having fun.
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