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Media Admits Rove is Innocent
The QandO Blog ^ | Wednesday, July 13, 2002 | Dale Franks(E-mail Jon Henke;McQ;Dale Franks)

Posted on 07/18/2005 8:20:32 PM PDT by cricket

Pusued the following after hearing Rush today discuss the Amici Brief that had been filed by more than a few Media Outlets.

The treason may be 'Mr. And Mrs. Wilson; but the hoax is on us it seems.

The question is; will the responsibile parties for this slander/treason be held accountable. . .and how far will our MSM go; playing 'cat and mouse' with the truth so as to 'bring a story home' for ratings and . . .an agenda?

    Media Admits Rove is Innocent

Posted by: Dale Franks on Wednesday, July 13, 2005

  You probably won't hear this anywhere in the mainstream media, so I might as well do it. I hate to beat this Rove thing to death with a stick, but, I'm seeing all these reporters at White House Press Briefings, and in the papers, and on TV all hinting—without actually saying it, but strongly implying—that Karl Rove is guilty.

But what you may not know is that the legal position of the organizations they work for is that Karl Rove has committed no crime. In fact, their position is that no crime has been committed at all, in reference to the Valerie Plame case.

"Dale," you're undoubtedly asking, "how can you say such a thing? It's just wacky!"

Well, it would be, usually, except for one thing. An amicus brief has been filed in the US Court of appeals for the DC Circuit by the following media organizations:

Media Organizations

ABC Dow Jones & Co.

The New York Press Club

Advance Publications Scripps Company

The Newspaper Association of America

Albritton Communications FOXNews

The Newspaper Guild

The American Society of Magazine Editors Gannett Co. Newsweek

AP Harper's Magazine Foundation

NYP Holdings

Belo Corp.

Hearst Corp.

The Reporter's Committee for Freedom of the Press

Bloomberg

Knight-Ridder Newspapers

Reuters

CNN

LIN Television

The Society of Professional Journalists

CBS Magazine Publishers of America Tribune Company

Copley Press

McClatchey Co.

The Washington Post

Cox Newspapers

McGraw-Hill

White House Correspondents

Daily News

NBC  

So, have I left anybody out? No? Well, that's pretty much a who's who of the Old Media. And what, exactly, is their legal position?

There is ample evidence on the public record to cast considerable doubt that a crime has been committed... At this point, the brief repeats the elements of the crime I wrote about yesterday, and continues:

Congress intended only to criminalize only disclosures that "clearly represent a conscious and pernicious effort to identify and expose agents with the intent to impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States..." They then bring up another aspect that I mentioned, which is whether or not Ms. Plame was even a covert agent at all.

Public information casts considerable doubt that the government took the "affirmative measures" required by the Act to conceal Plame's identity.

At the threshold, an agent whose identity has been revealed must trule be "covert" for there to be a violation of the Act. To the average observer, much less to the professional intelligence operative, Plame was not given the "deep cover" required of a covert agent. See 50 USC § 426 ("covert agent" defined). She worked at a desk job at CIA headquarters, where she could be seen traveliong 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...

This goes to whether or not the element of the government taking "affirmative steps" to keep Ms. Plame's identity a secret applies. And, according to the brief filed in Federal Appeals Court by the Old Media, even that is doubtful.

Indeed, they hint the CIA might even have been complicit in publishing Ms. Plame's name.

Novak's column can be viewed as critical of CIA ineptitude: The Agency's response to a request by the State Department and the Vice president's office to verify whether a specific foreign intelligence report was accurate was to have "low-level" bureaucrats make the decision to send a non-CIA employee [Joseph Wilson] (neither an expert on Niger nor on weapons of mass destruction) on this crucial mission at his wife's suggestion...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?

The public record provides ample evidence that the CIA was at least cavalier about, if not complicit in, the publishing of Plame's name. 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 wash "shocked, shocked" that leaking was going on...

So, let's review. The official, legal position of the Mainstream media is that no crime was committed in the release of Valerie Plame's name.

The media asserts:

a) that even if Plame was a covert agent, the release of her name doesn't meet the required elements to charge anyone under § 421,

b) that Ms. Plame wasn't a covert agent anyway, as §426 defines it, so even if the CIA didn't want her name published, publishing it isn't a violation of the section, (and)

c) the CIA didn't try to keep her name from being published.

So, the media admits, White House Press Corps hound-baying aside, that Karl Rove is legally innocent of any wrongdoing.

And, while we're on the subject, what is the deal with the New York Times? One of the things about their mouth-breathing editorial this morning is that the editors of the Times know who Judith Miller's source was.

They already know the truth. Ms. Miller doesn't, after all, work in a vacuum. Presumably, her editors know who her source is. That's they way journalism works.

Think about it: They wasted a significant amount of newsprint this morning demanding that Karl Rove publicly tell the truth.

But, one wonders why—since the editors of the Times already know the truth, and since they, you know, publish a newspaper—they don't simply publish what they know?

After all, it might have been a more interesting use of space than the anti-Rove editorial they printed this morning. And karl rove has had a waiver of confidentiality on file for 18 months.

If the public has a right to know the truth, and the editors of the Times already know what the truth is, then why don't they print it? I merely ask for my own information.   TrackBacks


TOPICS: Extended News; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: amicibrief; blog; cary; cia; cialeak; hoax; media; plame; rove; treason; wilson
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To: qam1
"It may appear to be going 'nowhere'; but of course, it is 'somewhere' and your annoyance at this story - and most of us as well - gives testament to this story's presence. "

Supposed to read. . .'and your annoyance; and ours, at this story'.

Too late; and too late smart.

I do wish the media would 'give it up' and just give us the 'final' on this. But Bush will be announcing his SC Justice nomination soon. . .

101 posted on 07/18/2005 11:30:54 PM PDT by cricket (Just say NO U.N.)
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To: cricket
It's extremely easy to do - I just copy and paste the html source from the original document. I did no html hand work.

Right click on the original page, and select "View Source". Find the html source for the part you want to post, and copy and paste into your FreeRepublic posting. Preview to be sure it made it across in usable fashion.

If you use Firefox, instead of Internet Explorer, you can highlight a portion of the original document, and then the right click menu will have a "View Selection Source" which just shows the html for the portion you highlighted, instead of the entire page's html source. For complex web pages such as that blog, it is worth downloading Firefox just to get that feature, and save having to read through the html of a large web page to find the chunk you need.

About the only hand work I usually have to do is to ensure that any images <img src=...> have their src URL converted to a full path, instead of what is common - a URL relative to that of the html page embedding them. The above post had no images of importance, so that didn't apply here.

102 posted on 07/18/2005 11:33:53 PM PDT by ThePythonicCow (To err is human; to moo is bovine.)
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To: ThePythonicCow
"It's extremely easy to do - I just copy and paste the html source from the original document. I did no html hand work."

I will take your word on this ;^) . . .really thought I would have to re-format the whole thing; appreciate the steps and will practice - tomorrow.

Have been wanting to learn more html; and just started bookmarking some sites. (Needless to say. . .I am now more motivated) - just changed recently from Dell to I Mac; so have quite a bit of learning ahead. . .That said, I miss my 'Free Cell'. Microsoft has the best version; nothing else compares. . but I digress (!)

103 posted on 07/18/2005 11:59:47 PM PDT by cricket (Just say NO U.N.)
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To: SandRat

BTTT!!!!!!!


104 posted on 07/19/2005 3:04:25 AM PDT by E.G.C.
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To: ThePythonicCow

'I merely ask for my own information. '

Catch 22.


105 posted on 07/19/2005 4:47:58 AM PDT by bitt ('We will all soon reap what the ignorant are now sowing.' Victor Davis Hanson)
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To: cricket

Then they will be disappointed when they look like fools after the facts come out.


106 posted on 07/19/2005 5:28:46 AM PDT by G Larry (Honor the fallen and the heroes of 9/11 at the Memorial Site.)
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To: cricket

This is really interesting.

The media is not the final say on whether a crime was committed. Neither are political operatives and bloggers. The investigators are. The Bush white house is cooperating - no crazy privilege claims that I know of.

But again it takes a lot of chutzpah to report on Rove as the media is doing, and not mention this.

The first question to ask in this context for me is whether this fact would have been widely reported if the shoe were on the other foot - a Democrat president being covered by conservative media outlets. Of course it would.

And I sure would like to know who that reporter in jail is protecting. It ain't Rove.


107 posted on 07/19/2005 6:26:48 AM PDT by cvq3842
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To: PhilDragoo

LOL!


108 posted on 07/19/2005 6:27:29 AM PDT by cvq3842
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To: cvq3842

The Democrats placed their faces in poop again. Throw them the bait and they jump right in with the Mainstream News.
Are they misinformed or just stupid?


109 posted on 07/19/2005 6:31:05 AM PDT by Revererdrv
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To: Revererdrv

They really are in the wilderness. Let's just assume the worst, and say that someone in the white house had a big mouth and crossed the line. I doubt it, but let's just go with it. Bush said if that's the case, it will be dealt with.

But that's not enough for the Democrats. They want to spin Rove telling a reporter when asked that Wilson was a blowhard and that his wife, not Cheney, sent him into outing an agent to blow her carefully constructed cover and putting her life in danger. How much cover is she under if her husband is investigating these claims and she's working in Langley?

So even assuming the worst, the Democrats take that ans spin some crazy tale. They always overplay their hand.

And try to undermine the war effort while are troops are in harm's way, remember.

This is not "loyal opposition." This is a smear.


110 posted on 07/19/2005 6:37:49 AM PDT by cvq3842
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To: Trajan88

the boss was Snerdly don't remember the cartoon.


111 posted on 07/19/2005 6:40:01 AM PDT by SandRat (Duty, Honor, Country. What else needs to be said?)
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To: cricket
And, while we're on the subject, what is the deal with the New York Times? One of the things about their mouth-breathing editorial this morning is that the editors of the Times know who Judith Miller's source was.

They already know the truth. Ms. Miller doesn't, after all, work in a vacuum. Presumably, her editors know who her source is. That's they way journalism works.

What's the definition of libel? Rove despite being a public figure just might have a shot at a libel case if its true that the NYT editors know Miller's sources and continue to print crap.

112 posted on 07/19/2005 6:45:45 AM PDT by Rightwing Conspiratr1 (Lock-n-load!)
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To: cricket

As long as Rove has told the truth he has nothing to worry about. It would be interesting to know if Wilson testified before the grand jury because he has been incredible.


113 posted on 07/19/2005 6:50:22 AM PDT by KenmcG414
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To: cvq3842
"The media is not the final say on whether a crime was committed."

No; but this petition has been filed/ie Amici Brief, on behalf of twenty-eight media organizations/outlets, for determination by the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit.

They had already filed this when they began their assault on Rove; that he had broken the law. . .a straw dog here, from the beginning.

But whatever. . .it is amazing; more to the point, it is a collective scandal of the Media for participating in the deliberate smearing of Karl Rove while attempting to undermine President Bush. . ..

And yes. . .would love to know who Miller is protecting; for sure; her source is not a Republican.

Probably protecting a 'covert agent' named Valerie. . .

114 posted on 07/19/2005 7:09:24 AM PDT by cricket (Just say NO U.N.)
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To: Rightwing Conspiratr1
"Rove despite being a public figure just might have a shot at a libel case if its true that the NYT editors know Miller's sources and continue to print crap."

I would think Rove would have a case against, more than a few here. . .and I wish he would do just that; and I wish as well, that the Administration had enough 'stomach' to go after Wilson/Plame et al. . .for treason.

But, of course. . .in the interest of bi-partisanship, neither, unfortuntely, will happen.

115 posted on 07/19/2005 7:14:53 AM PDT by cricket (Just say NO U.N.)
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To: KenmcG414
"As long as Rove has told the truth he has nothing to worry about."

So far, he is the only one telling the truth here.

116 posted on 07/19/2005 7:17:19 AM PDT by cricket (Just say NO U.N.)
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To: cricket; backhoe; Ernest_at_the_Beach; piasa; Shermy; Cindy; kcvl; Howlin; Miss Marple

Great job!


Apparently, Judith Miller went to jail to protect one or more of the following choices: (take your choice)

Sources Judith Miller is protecting by going to jail:

1. Karl Rove
2. Dick Cheney
3. Colin Powell
4. Haliburton
5. Tom DeLay
6. GW
7. Laura Bush and her twin daughters
8. Bush's Doggie
9. _____________ (Fill in the blank with any Republican!)
10. All of the above
11. None of the above. Miller is protecting her real sources, Plame/Wilson and Plame's last CIA boss, Foley.



117 posted on 07/19/2005 7:17:30 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (The MSM is trying to make us believe, Judith Miller is in jail to protect Karl Rove!)
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To: martin_fierro

Thanks for the ping.


118 posted on 07/19/2005 7:22:10 AM PDT by Grampa Dave (The MSM is trying to make us believe, Judith Miller is in jail to protect Karl Rove!)
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To: cvq3842

"This is not "loyal opposition." This is a smear." <P< The truth of this story is more a 'treason'.


119 posted on 07/19/2005 7:22:20 AM PDT by cricket (Just say NO U.N.)
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To: cricket

bump


120 posted on 07/19/2005 7:27:50 AM PDT by GOPJ (A person who will lie for you, will lie against you.)
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