emptywheel’s Continuing Obsession with Ed Gillespie

Via CREW, I see Ed Gillespie making grand promises that the GOP will have a scandal-free election in 2008.

Ed Gillespie, President Bush’s counselor and a former chairman of theRepublican Party, acknowledged that ethical scandals have hurt the GOP.He predicted that by 2008, the party "will not have candidates who haveany kind of ethical considerations that will be a concern to thevoters."

Like CREW, I’m not holding my breath that the GOP will be willing to jettison Stevens, Domenici, Doolittle, Lewis, and a slew of others.

But I’m increasingly fascinated with the prominent role of Lobbyist-in-Chief, Ed Gillespie. We now know he was included in discussions, in spring of 2006 (at precisely the time Andy Card and Scottie McClellan were ousted), about whether or not to fire Rummy. He picked up the portfolios of both Dan Bartlett and Karl Rove, two of the last hold-outs from the Texas Mafia. And now here he is, promising to do what Karl Rove couldn’t do–excommunicate the corruption from the Corruption Party.

The Lobbyist-in-Chief is accruing an awful lot of power in fairly short order. Is Gillespie the guy corporate America imposed on BushCo to ensure the Republicans not lose power for all eternity? And is Gillespie the guy who told Rove and Gonzales to leave?