Posted on 07/19/2005 2:36:02 PM PDT by crazyhorse691
President Bush's top adviser, Karl Rove, is implicated in a real security breach and should be forced from his job
K arl Rove may sleep a little better now that President Bush says that lawbreaking in the Valerie Plame leak -- not just the leak itself -- will be the standard for firing anyone in the White House who disclosed Plame's role as a CIA agent. We're not sure anyone else should.
Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, leaked the Plame-CIA information, says Time magazine's Matthew Cooper. But, as pretty much everyone now knows, they would have had to leak it to Osama bin Laden, sign an al-Qaida pledge card and accept a personal check in order to actually break the law in question.
Maybe the safest bet is that Judith Miller, The New York Times reporter who was jailed for refusing to disclose her sources on this topic, will be the only person to see the inside of a jail cell because of it. And she didn't even write a story.
But even if what Rove and Libby did is not a crime, it is an exceptionally bad and cynical habit in George W. Bush's inner circle, and now would be a good time to break it.
If you'll recall, Plame the CIA agent also is the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, whom the CIA sent to Niger in 2002 to find out whether Saddam Hussein was buying enriched uranium to use for weapons of mass destruction. Wilson didn't find much and said so in his report to the CIA. It was a report that the White House obviously ignored when it built its case to go to war in Iraq.
But when Wilson wrote an essay for a New York Times opinion page in 2003, the White House took notice. Wilson accused the White House of orchestrating a campaign to discredit him.
After the op-ed piece appeared, it was disclosed that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA in an undercover job and that her connections led to Wilson getting the Niger assignment.
For his part, Rove said through an attorney that he didn't specifically disclose Plame's name. This is the thinnest of reeds, though, if Cooper's account is correct and Rove identified Wilson's wife as a CIA agent.
We don't know whether all of this was White House retaliation, a warning to others that disagreeing with the president has career implications or simply a matter of good ol' Karl helping out a couple of folks in the press room. But it's pretty clear that, from Ann Richards to Joe Wilson to John Kerry, hardball is too soft a term for the kind of politics the president's people like to play. And it's pretty clear that, whatever you call the game, Rove is the team captain.
Frank Rich, a liberal columnist for The New York Times, suggested in a piece reprinted on our Commentary page today that Rove is out anyway. It is just a matter of time before the politics run their course and the president's close political adviser departs.
That would be a fine outcome and a proper one considering the level of White House cynicism here. But it would be better if the president did the right thing and fired Rove now. Similarly, Cheney should fire Libby.
After all, there is a point where the game of politics ends and real life begins. We'd suggest that the point probably comes well before a real-life reporter gets thrown in jail and a real-life secret agent's identity gets revealed by the minions of her commander in chief.
Facts, obviously played no part in the writing of this tripe.
"After all, there is a point where the game of politics ends and real life begins."
At conception?
Do these journalists and editors need to take some sort of test before they are allowed to work for the press? Is there a minimum score?
What are all these reporters doing here lately? Cut and paste?
Seems like one reporter wrote an article and then all the others used cut and paste, changed a couple of words around and there you go! Another article that reads the same as all the rest. Attack Bush, attack Rove, forget the truth.
Read one, you've read them all LOL!!
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
"Is there a minimum score?"
None that I can tell.
The media won't give up playing the blame plame on Rove game. With Agent 99 no longer in CONTROL, CHAOS is sure to take over the world. We're doomed without her.
Max puker from one of the country's worst fish wrappers. Even an editorial should be of this earth!
Wanna bet that the scandal we'll be reading about six months from now is that WH aides don't return phone calls from the press? :-)
This is hilarious! Anyone who quotes Frank Rich as an authority about a supposed national security matter is so delusional and depraved that nothing could help. This clown should be embarrassed to breath air....
A'ight, chirruns, all togetha now: "Yeah, I heard that too" does not constitute a leak.
Can I get an "Amen"?
"Can I get an "Amen"?"
Mmmm hmmm, I know tha's right.
I guess "drugged editor" hasn't heard the news yet.
Karl Rove learned who Plame was from Robert Novak. The source who Judith Miller is going to jail to protect is still unknown.
Yes, but it's a maximum score that they cannot exceed. And there are trick questions designed to flush out those who might be trying to mask their true intelligence in order to get on the staff.
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