No One Fucks with Karl Rove, Not Even a Special Prosecutor

Look who's getting his balls handed to him, pickled and shrunken: Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor also investigating the Rove-Plame CIA leak case:

After the limp response House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) gave to the idea of keeping the corruption-busting Patrick Fitzgerald on as the U.S. attorney here, the immortal words of White Sox broadcaster Hawk Harrelson come to mind:

"He gone!"

As Fitzgerald's noose tightens around Mayor Richard M. Daley's City Hall and the trial of former Illinois Gov. George Ryan is coming into view, a historical political battle looms. Will Fitzgerald be allowed to continue his brilliant legal campaign to weed out the grafters of both parties, or will Chicago and Illinois continue to be most corrupt?

The smart money already is on the powerful dealmakers of both parties who want Fitzgerald vised. He's a hunter of big game, and the pursued on the top rungs of the power structure are fed up and fearful. Last week, rumors again surfaced that Fitzgerald would be gone when his term expires in October. So, it's understandable that Hastert--the second in line of succession to the presidency, one of Capitol Hill's most powerful lawmakers and Illinois' top Republican--would be asked Thursday, "how do you feel" about reappointing Fitzgerald.

His non-response betrayed no feeling one way or another: It's not my job; the president appoints the U.S. attorneys. No one has asked for Fitzgerald's resignation.

Question--"Do you think he should continue?"

Hastert--"Well, you know that's a decision that is going to have to be made by the president."

Hastert could have said that he'll try to use his supposedly meager influence at the White House to protect Fitzgerald from the circling buzzards. That he thinks Fitzgerald is doing a hell of a job, that he shouldn't be run out of town by the boodlers.

But he didn't, and in this game, failure to back Fitzgerald puts you on the dark side. Fitzgerald has devoted a lifetime to fighting such bad guys as John Gambino, of the Gambino mob family. And Sheik Omar Abdel-Rahman, who led the 1993 terrorist attack against the World Trade Center. And Osama bin Laden and the terrorists in the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania that killed 224 people.

In addition to his duties here, he's also serving as special prosecutor in the CIA-leak investigation.

One of the presumed targets of that investigation, top White House adviser Karl Rove, is a friend to Illinois' Robert Kjellander, a Republican national committeeman, who received an $800,000 consulting fee as part of a bond deal engineered from across the political aisle, by Democrats. Considering such interwoven interests, the public will be left to draw its own conclusions if the White House ousts Fitzgerald.

Illinois voters also would have cause to wonder about the integrity of the Republican Party here, if Fitzgerald is dispensed with. Illinois Republicans often speak about how they must come together in the fight against the common foe, Gov. Rod Blagojevich. So, here's something that can unite them: Fitzgerald must stay and Kjellander, symbol of what's wrong with the party, must go.

The corruption and shenanigans are so bad that they continue as if they were addictions, even with Fitzgerald's presence looming. Last week, for example, a secret list of witnesses gathered by Fitzgerald's people in a case against a patronage supervisor was faxed to City Hall, where it was put into public play, in violation of a court order. Oops, it was an accident, said the supervisor's attorney, a former prosecutor himself. Whatever. The effect still is the same on real and potential witnesses: An intimidating "We know who you are."

Sometimes it all seems like a fantasy.