Excuses, excuses.

Scott Rosenberg: He shall not be moved.

But I'm willing to bet that, in fact, Rove is around for the long haul. He's President Bush's friend and closest adviser -- the man hailed in quasi-Biblical terms by his foremost beneficiary, after last November's elections, as "The Architect" of right-wing triumph.

If Democrats controlled Congress, they could perhaps make trouble for a public official caught so flat-footedly and foolishly in the machinery of a legally dubious political revenge play. But they don't. They have no leverage. And the record of the Bush White House is one of digging in heels in the face of moral culpability and ethical collapse.

My response:

Rove is impervious to resignation or prosecution. The Republicans running this country into the ground - which is all of them - believe in a nation of men, not laws.

I disagree - fervently - that Democrats "have no leverage" and would need a majority to obtain Rove's head on a plate. The leverage is there. It's called "truth" and Democrats could bring pretty much everything to a screeching halt by relentlessly flogging this issuebefore the American people. The problem isn't one of leverage. It isone of solidarity, principle and salesmanship.

I'm damn tired of Democrats using their minority status as a lameass excuse for not standing up to the brazen incompetence and malice of the unaccountable Bush White House.

Why is it that when Republicans were a minority in the Senate, theywere able to dictate the terms of the national dialogue on any number of issues, yet Democrats don't even try? Because they had and continue to have something Dems don't: Resolve.

Upon further reflection, it's not impossible Rove could be take a bullet for Bush by stepping down or face prosecution, but we all know how a conviction would ultimately shake out. As a subsequent commenter, Thomas J. Mertz, points out, "Remember Ollie North is now considered by many to be a national hero."