Rove's Threatdown

As reported on Countdown, Karl Rove has said that any Republican that talks against the NSA wiretap will get on a list in which the White House won't support for upcomming elections.
Lets face it, when Rove, in speaking for the Bush Administration, has to threaten (throwing another attack on dissent) on his own party, you know they're in trouble. It also is a terrible move, since people still remember the blacklisting that happened during the McCarthy era (see Wikipedia bio: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_McCarthy).
It also is troubling to find paralells between the controversy in 1978 that created FISA and the current one. The major one, as the New York Times pointed out last week, was the defense. The Nixon White House gave the same defense, national security, as the Bush White House has.
While I highly doubt Bush would be impeached for this (unless the Democrats get a large majority in the Senate), this won't bode well for his career.