Posted on 07/14/2005 5:41:16 AM PDT by OXENinFLA
WASHINGTON -- Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson called on President Bush Thursday to fire deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, saying Bush's top-level aide engaged in an "abuse of power" by discussing Wilson's wife's job with a reporter.
Wilson decried what he called a White House "stonewall" in the wake of revelations that Rove, a longtime Bush confidant, was involved in the leak to the news media that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA officer.
Bush said Wednesday that he would not comment on discussions that blew her cover because it is the subject of an ongoing investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. White House press secretary Scott McClellan said, however, the president still has confidence in Rove.
Wilson, in an interview broadcast Thursday on NBC's "Today" show, said he thinks the White House's posture in this controversy represents a continuing "cover-up of the web of lies that underpin the justification for going to war in Iraq."
Wilson was asked about statements by Rove's defenders noting that an e-mail describing Rove's conversation with Time reporter Matthew Cooper indicated that Rove did not specifically mention Valerie Plame by name.
"My wife's name is Mrs. Joseph Wilson," he replied. "It is Mrs. Valerie Wilson. He named her. He identified her," Wilson said. "So that argument doesn't stand the smell test ... What I do know is that Mr. Rove is talking to the press and he is saying things like my wife is fair game. That's an outrage. That's an abuse of power."
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Actually, when I consider what little Valerie did, an arguemnt could be made that she did in fact, do something "covert." She sent her husband on a trip not authorized by Vice President Cheney or Director Tenet. And, since the trip was not authorized, the Wilsons should be made to pay the money back.
Does anyone out there know any person named Plame? I checked out phonebook and there were none. I checked a large cities phone book and there were none. Is this a pseudonym or is this her surname?
Those would be good for starters. The NYT wanted a special prosecutor, they got it. They wanted people jailed, and I hope they get their wish. 'Cause it just might be the Wilsons.
But don't believe me. Believe the 36 "major news organizations and reporters' groups" that filed an amici curiae brief in the D.C. Circuit on the question of whether Matt Cooper and Judith Miller should be compelled to reveal the identities of confidential sources. (HT: Beldar).On page ii of the brief, the lawyers for the media groups assert: "In this case, there exists ample evidence in the public record to cast serious doubt as to whether a crime has even been committed under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (the "Act") in the investigation underlying the attempts to secure testimony from Miller and Cooper. If in fact no crime under the Act has been committed, then any need to compel Miller and Cooper to reveal their confidential sources should evaporate." Among the amici --ABC, employer of one Terry Moran, outraged member of the White House press corps, CNN, CBS, FoxNews, and NBC Universal --employer of David Gregory, another of the "hang Rove" crowd. The Washington Post and White House Correspondents are also signatories to the brief that notes "Plame was not given 'deep cover' required of a covert agent...She worked at a desk job at CIA headquarters, where she could be seen traveling to and from, and active at, Langley. She had been residing in Washington -- not stationed abroad-- for a number of years. As discussed below, the CIA failed to take even its usual steps to prevent publication of her name."
The brief also notes that "an article in the Washington Times indicated that Plame's identity was compromised twice prior to Novak's publication. If this information is accurate --another fact a court should explore-- there is an absolute defense to prosecution."
So the collective braying in the press room seems at best peculiar. Rove answered a Cooper call, and did not name Plame. The White House reporters are calling for Rove's head based on what, exactly? The president's statement on September 30, 2003? On a crime their own news organizations doubt has occurred in any event, much less a crime committed by Karl Rove?
David Gregory, NBC empty suit, snarled this at Scott McClellan today:
"To make a general observation here, in a previous Administration if a press secretary had given the sort of answers you have just given in referring to the fact that "everybody who works here enjoys the confidence of the president," Republicans would have hammered them as having a kind of legalistic and sleazy defense. I mean the reality is that you are parsing words, and you have been doing it for few days now. So did the president think that Karl Rove did something wrong or doesn't he?...Even if it wasn't a crime? You know, there are those who believe that even if Karl Rove was trying to debunk bogus information, as Ken Mehlman suggested yesterday, perhaps speaking on behalf of the White House, that when you are dealing with a covert operative, that a senior official of a government should be darn well sure that that person is not undercover, is not covert, before speaking about them in any way shape or form. Does the president agree with that or not?"
Gregory might want to read pages 9 through 12 of his network's lawyers' brief before asserting that Plame was a "covert operative": "There are sufficient facts on the public record that cast considerable doubt as to whether the CIA took the necessary 'affirmative measures' to conceal Plame's identity. Indeed, these facts establish such sloppy tradecraft that, at a minimum, the CIA was indifferent to the compromise of her identity...Did no one at Langley think that Plame's identity might be compromised if her spouse writes a nationally distributed Op-Ed piece discussing a foreign mission about a volatile political issue that focused on her subject matter expertise?...Moreover, given Novak's suggestion of CIA incompetence plus the resulting public uproar over Plame's identity being revealed , the CIA had every incentive to dissemble by claiming it was 'shocked, shocked' that leaking was going on, and thus made a routine request to the Justice Department to investigate."
How ironic that NBC's lawyers mock the "shocked shocked" pose of the CIA, but that Gregory assumes the same pose from his perch in the White House press room with cameras rolling.
One more note: Gregory argues that Republicans would have been outraged by McClellan-like "parsing" in a previous Administration. Note that he doesn't say "we" would have been outraged, or that "the White House press corps of that era" would have been outraged. He says "Republicans." So the press of today is as partisan as the Republicans of the Clinton era.
On that we can agree. http://www.bakerlaw.com/files/tbl_s10News/FileUpload44/10159/Amici%20Brief%20032305%20(Final).PDF
Mr. Wilson is a media hog and a left wing loonie intent on using his 14 (not even worth the usual 15) minutes of fame to harm Bush.
Somebody needs to send him my favorite decal for his car..."George W. Bush is saving your ass, whether you like it or not"....Actually, in his case, insert worthless before ass.
vaudine
If there is evidence that little Valerie was talking to little Judith, I hope the special prosecutor directs his attention to them both. Also, I think it is time for the CIA to conduct an internal affairs investigation and a lie detector test of Valerie Plame. They need to determine the scope of any contacts she may have had with Miller, and if she has violated company policies in the course of her duties.
"A buck will get you ten that Valerie Plame was the source of much of the NYTimes' Judith Miller's substantial reporting on Iraqi WMD."
That's very possible
Since the Dems are so very anxious to have Rove fired NOW, BEFORE the grand jury has finished its investigation, I can only conclude they believe the investigation will exonerate Rove of any criminal culpability.
When you find a rat, you can figure there are some other rats around.
LMAO!! *EXACTLY* !!!! :)
Good point. Plame lit a flame, and she and Joe are getting burned. Ther MSM and Democrat politicians are trying to save their bacon, but it might be too late.
Exactly! Since when is saying someone works for the CIA the same as outing an undercover operative? It's all part of Wilson's delusions of grandeur. It's not like everyone at the CIA is a Super Secret Spy. Just typical of Wilson and Plame's overinflated sense of importance.
Not to mention that nowhere in the article, so far as I can see, does it spell out how Wilson's statements were discredited. You'd think somewhere the reporter(s) might mention the fact that Karl Rove in fact was alerting the reporter that Joe Wilson is a liar. Isn't it odd how they forget that little fact? They dutifully report Joe Wilson's "assertions" that "challenge" the administration but leave out those details where he was show to be, shall we say, not credible.
Only recently has Cooper's notes been made public. My guess is that Wilson knew about Cooper's call to Rove, maybe even before it happened!
After all, since Cooper is the one that brought up to Rove, I think it's likely that he was part of a group that was trolling Rove for information on the Niger story, when BAM, Rove blurts out about Wilson's wife.
Sensing they had a nugget, they went to work at trying to get Rove in trouble.
I don't think they had this in mind when they made the call, but they recognized it as soon as it fell in their lap.
Of course, Wilson knew that his wife was never in any real danger, so he agreed to the more public outing.
Plame was one of a group of spies that the CIA suspected might have been compromised by Aldrich Ames. Because of that, she was brought back stateside for her own protection.
The non sequitor behind this whole "scandal" is the premise that Rove's mentioning that Wilson's wife played a role in getting him the Niger assignment somehow "smears," "threatens," or "punishes" Wilson. How does providing a relatively innocuous piece of true information constitute a "smear"?
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