Posted on 07/13/2005 8:43:24 PM PDT by Crackingham
How do you defend Karl Rove? The way he himself has so effectively defended President Bush over the years, of course. You attack. The White House yesterday officially stayed mum regarding Rove's role in the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, its only concession being a generic expression of confidence in all who serve the president.
And this morning , asked directly if he had spoken to Rove about the matter and whether he felt Rove's conduct was improper, Bush simply refused to say, citing the ongoing criminal investigation.
"I will be more than happy to comment on this matter once this investigation is complete," he said, joining in the White House stonewall that began on Monday.
But Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman yesterday began a pro-Rove media charge. His message, summed up by these talking points , is not as much a defense of Rove against the various charges leveled against him as it is an attack on the credibility of Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV -- Plame's husband, and the person who Rove was trying to discredit when he mentioned Plame in the first place. Mehlman won't say whether he talked to Rove about his approach, but either way, his methodology is tried and true Rovian genius.
As I wrote in my June 24 column , back when some Democrats were calling on Rove to apologize for describing the liberal approach to national security as being weak and possibly even treasonous: "Rove has a brilliant and so far unbeatable strategy when it comes to political warfare." He doesn't defend, he doesn't apologize, he attacks.
But there are some warning signs this time.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Everybody knows the best defense is a good offense. It's not rocket science.
Did anybody notice the "stonewall" reference?
Their self importance is laughable.
An interesting take, and Mr. Froomkin does seem to have some worthy insights on the nature of Karl Rove.
However, there's just way too much wishful thinking going on in this article, it shows plain as day.
Thus Mr. Froomkin recuses himself from being a credible commentator and exposes himself as an erstwhile participant in beltway politics.
No thanks. I prefer intellectual fare that is not so calculating and flagrantly predigested.
In the silence from the Republicans, it's possible to hear the Democrats spooling enough line to hang themselves with.
That doesn't sound "more than a little nervous" to me. Just a statement of reality.
Wow, what an attack the "talking points" memo are. Journalists and Democrats ask polite questions and comments, such as "you're being ridiculous," "Bush is a loser," "Republicans are evil."
They are really unhinged if this dumb story and an RNC talking points memo are their big smoking gun to bring down Bush and the Republicans. This will go away fast enough, I can't wait to hear more about cool scandalous stuff like Gitmo, firing Rumsfeld, Condi, tax cuts, Gonzalez, unsecured weapons caches, secret prisons, Bolton, Tom Delay's trips...
I am sure that evil devil Rove would share secrets with a media type, knowing that he could do so in absolute confidence. He can't be an evil genious on one hand and trust a media type on the other!
WSJ.com OpinionJournal
Karl Rove, Whistleblower
He told the truth about Joe Wilson.
Wednesday, July 13, 2005 12:01 a.m.
Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we'd say the White House political guru deserves a prize--perhaps the next iteration of the "Truth-Telling" award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.
For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.
Media chants aside, there's no evidence that Mr. Rove broke any laws in telling reporters that Ms. Plame may have played a role in her husband's selection for a 2002 mission to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium ore in Niger. To be prosecuted under the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Mr. Rove would had to have deliberately and maliciously exposed Ms. Plame knowing that she was an undercover agent and using information he'd obtained in an official capacity. But it appears Mr. Rove didn't even know Ms. Plame's name and had only heard about her work at Langley from other journalists.
On the "no underlying crime" point, moreover, no less than the New York Times and Washington Post now agree. So do the 36 major news organizations that filed a legal brief in March aimed at keeping Mr. Cooper and the New York Times's Judith Miller out of jail.
"While an investigation of the leak was justified, it is far from clear--at least on the public record--that a crime took place," the Post noted the other day. Granted the media have come a bit late to this understanding, and then only to protect their own, but the logic of their argument is that Mr. Rove did nothing wrong either.
The same can't be said for Mr. Wilson, who first "outed" himself as a CIA consultant in a melodramatic New York Times op-ed in July 2003. At the time he claimed to have thoroughly debunked the Iraq-Niger yellowcake uranium connection that President Bush had mentioned in his now famous "16 words" on the subject in that year's State of the Union address.
Mr. Wilson also vehemently denied it when columnist Robert Novak first reported that his wife had played a role in selecting him for the Niger mission. He promptly signed up as adviser to the Kerry campaign and was feted almost everywhere in the media, including repeat appearances on NBC's "Meet the Press" and a photo spread (with Valerie) in Vanity Fair.
But his day in the political sun was short-lived. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report last July cited the note that Ms. Plame had sent recommending her husband for the Niger mission. "Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip," said the report.
The same bipartisan report also pointed out that the forged documents Mr. Wilson claimed to have discredited hadn't even entered intelligence channels until eight months after his trip. And it said the CIA interpreted the information he provided in his debrief as mildly supportive of the suspicion that Iraq had been seeking uranium in Niger.
About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's Lord Butler delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: "We conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded."
In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission. The media and the Kerry campaign promptly abandoned him, though the former never did give as much prominence to his debunking as they did to his original accusations. But if anyone can remember another public figure so entirely and thoroughly discredited, let us know.
If there's any scandal at all here, it is that this entire episode has been allowed to waste so much government time and media attention, not to mention inspire a "special counsel" probe. The Bush Administration is also guilty on this count, since it went along with the appointment of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in an election year in order to punt the issue down the road. But now Mr. Fitzgerald has become an unguided missile, holding reporters in contempt for not disclosing their sources even as it becomes clearer all the time that no underlying crime was at issue.
As for the press corps, rather than calling for Mr. Rove to be fired, they ought to be grateful to him for telling the truth.
No, it means Fitzgerald has got bigger fish he wants to fry. He's been investigating terrorism since the 1993 WTC bombing, and he's not the kind of guy who'd particularly like the people protecting the terrorists!
He's the one that was investing a charity giving money to the PLO, and MILLER was thought to be the one who tipped them off and ruined the investigation.
Remember, Plame wasn't covert, either.
The Niger trip was democrat planned..... democrat organized..... democrat funded.... democrat investigating UN/France/Germany controlled yellow cake mines.... and a NYT(D) hit piece to discuss the results of his trip. EVERY player was democrat or anti-Bush! EVERY ONE!
SUPRISE, Wilson found no yellow cake sold to Saddam. (Gee, who'd a thunk?)
What's the prison time for conspiracy to interfere in U.S National Security?
Patrick J. Fitzgerald prior investigations --
Gambino mafia family
Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman
investigating Osama bin Ladin
1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa.
PLO U.S. based Charity
"How do you defend Karl Rove? The way he himself has so effectively defended President Bush over the years, of course. You attack. "
Exactly.
I just said this on another thread:
The Republicans still haven't learned, that the best defense is an offense. They should be demanding an investigation into the situation, that how come a CIA "operative" ( Valeri Plame) was using her official position, to have her husband, totally unqualified for the task, sent on such on important assignment, as to investigate whether Saddam was trying to buy nuclear material from Africa. Also it was well known, that Joe Wilson was politically motivated, so who allowed the CIA to be used to further political agendas?
The WSJ had this editorial along the same lines:
Karl Rove, Whistleblower
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1441869/posts
Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we'd say the White House political guru deserves a prize -- perhaps the next iteration of the "Truth-Telling" award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.
For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.
The person (crap, I forgot his name, and I'm too tired to look it up) who "sort of" validated the forged documents for Rather gate was the same guy who validated Vince Fosters suicide note.
Do you have a credible source for this assertion about Miller, or are you just repeating a rumor?
Name the country Ambassador Joe Wilson was ambassador to.
I mean, he's this big, important guy, a "non-partisan" who reached the top of the profession, right? So did he get to be ambassador to Britain? Russia? China? France?
Nope: Gabon
That's not a typo, btw.
So him being ambassador to Gabon is the cred he needs to get assigned to investigate nuclear fuel in Niger?
If Valerie Plame was not "outted" as the one who got him the assignment, and he said there WAS something to the British intel about Saddam SEEKING to buy yellowcake, would the liberal press be asking "How did THIS loser get this job?" and reveal that his wife got him the job for which he was not qualified?
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