Link them? Why, they're practically one and the same

If Karl Rove sets up the Karl Rove Legal Defense Fund, and Rep. Jon Porter contributes to it, will it be wrong to link Porter to Rove? After all, Porter contributed $5,000 to Tom DeLay's legal defense fund, and is, indisputably, Tom DeLay's man in Nevada, but Porter insists that it is wrong to link him to Tom DeLay.

Actually, judging from the remarks of White House press secretary Scott McClellan Friday, now it's wrong to link Bush to Karl Rove. Asked repeatedly at his press briefing whether Bush still had full confidence in "The Architect," McClellan resorted to a dazzling salvo of non-answers seemingly designed to cast doubt on whether the question did in fact exist or was merely the Platonic norm of a question, concluding with the assertion that while he was certainly not going to answer the question, there should be no doubt clouding anyone's mind on the point that he had, clearly and without equivocation, answered it. Twist, little Republicans. Twist in the wind.

Anyway, assuming Rove needs to establish a legal defense fund, Porter should rush to contribute to it, without even being asked. Rove, of course, is the undisputed heavyweight champion of destroying political opposition, not by engaging the opposition in a discussion of, oh, policy, but through methodical slime jobs designed to discredit the opposition's personal character. That is, at bottom, what the Valerie Plame scandal is all about - a Rove-run White House hell-bent on destroying the credibility of Plame's husband, even if it meant outing a CIA agent.

Porter, in his short but happy career as a congressional campaigner, thankfully hasn't yet had the opportunity to compromise national security by irresponsibly and underhandedly feeding secrets to Robert Novak (as far as we know, anyway). But Porter has shown a remarkable keenness for Rove-like televised, personal destruction of his opponent. (And while there are those who contend that it is not that nice young Porter boy but, rather, his campaign team at November Inc. behind the feces-laced fastballs thrown at Porter's opponents in campaign ads, remember, each one of those ads contained the line, "I'm John Porter and I support this message.")

All of which is to say that Rove and Porter share a bond much closer than the one Porter forged with Tom DeLay through the mutual exchange of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions, financial support for attorneys' fees and a lockstep voting record. Karl and Jon are kindred spirits. And that's much more important than mere money.

Well, there's money too - Rove has appeared at numerous Republican Party fundraising events in Nevada, most recently the party's Lincoln Day Dinner in May (hence, the photo). Oh you clever readers - you know that Lincoln's birthday is in February, not May. Well, the party had to reschedule, because Karl couldn't come in February.

He was probably speaking to a grand jury or something.