Posted on 07/28/2005 12:48:31 PM PDT by CHARLITE
The current game in Washington is to pretend that nobody knew who Joe Wilson's wife was.
I have to admit that I haven’t been very attentive to the news lately, mainly because I just got a job in Joe Wilson’s office. He takes care of the missus -- shhhh! -- while I plan his “investigations.” Next week he’s off to Disney World to “find Mickey.” Look for his upcoming op-ed in the New York Times, tentatively entitled, “What I Found in Orlando.”
My current favorite hobby is pretending that -- unlike everyone in Washington -- I actually didn’t know who Wilson’s wife was. That’s how the game works. I pretend to be shocked when anyone mentions ol’ what’s-her-name. Then I blame my incredulity on Karl Rove, whom I pretend to hate. I call this game “Being a Democrat” or, alternatively, “Chuck Schumer’s Day Off.”
When we first had the unpleasant duty of discussing Joe Wilson, we were concurrently discussing Bush’s assertion that a British report showed that Saddam had sought uranium from Africa. Liberals were yelping back then, too, assuring us that Bush had lied, that no such event had taken place.
The problem was that Bush didn’t say anything about the event, per se; he merely pointed out that intelligence from the U.K. seemed to mesh quite nicely with intelligence from the rest of the world. Liberals say the international community was against the war in Iraq, but they certainly weren’t against the theory that Saddam was a dirt bag. Everyone agreed on that. Bush’s only sin was showing that the people across the pond had done their homework, just like we had. As the president said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." There’s not a scintilla of fiction in that sentence.
But now it’s Karl Rove’s fault because he may have outed Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson’s wife and the aspiring spy, to columnist Bob Novak. Everybody in Washington already knew Ms. Plame, but it’s much more fun to ridicule “Bush’s Brain” than to tell the truth. Now we’re left with Rove’s “scandal.”
Scandal mongers tested the idea that Rove had violated 1982’s Intelligence Identities Protection Act, but of course he had not. Valerie Plame was not a “covert agent,” and thus Rove spoiled no secret by publicly using her name. He was as free to use “Valerie Plame” as “Ethel Mertz.” Funnily, however, only now is the Act -- from 1982! -- upsetting liberals. Frank Rich, for one, considers the “covert agent” aspect of the law an extremely “high threshold of criminality.”
Personally, I love Rich’s logic. He admits that Rove broke no law, but Rove’s still a brute. “Trashing is in [Rove’s] nature,” he writes. Yet Bill Clinton, who broke multiple laws according to the United States House of Representatives, is just as swell as a guy can be.
And speaking of Clinton, I don’t remember the outrage from Rich’s shrill pen when Sandy Berger put classified documents in a position remarkably similar to that in which Clinton placed Monica Lewinsky. Ponder for a moment the crisis that would unfold if Karl Rove had stuffed secret papers in his khakis.
What makes this story much more fun is that we’ve just learned that Valerie Plame gave money to the anti-Bush cause of Bruce Springsteen. (I’m told he plays music for money.) Ms. Plame bought tickets to a concert in her married name of Valerie E. Wilson and deemed the show “great.” Her husband, Ambassador Wilson, reportedly opened the show with his hit, Send in the Yellow Cake.
The Springsteen money went to the liberal PAC America Coming Together, which finances George Soros. He gave the group approximately $10 million.
Just as an indication of where this “scandal” has taken political discourse, this is what happened when Bob Novak visited CNN:
INTERVIEWER CANDY CROWLEY: Well outside whether you testify -- I assume you can't tell us whether you testified at the grand jury or still won't tell us. Outside of that, can you tell us whether you ever told Karl Rove about Valerie Plame's status?
NOVAK: I can't tell anything I ever talked to Karl Rove about, because I don't think I ever talked to him about any subject even the time of day, on the record.
CROWLEY: Stay tuned. Will you come back and tell us when you can tell us?
NOVAK: That would be my pleasure.
Obviously, this story is huge.
About the Writer:Isaiah Z. Sterrett, a resident of Aptos, California, is a Lifetime Member of the California Junior Scholarship Federation and a Sustaining Member of the Republican National Committee.
Email Isaiah Sterrett at: isterrett@hotmail.com
The democlowns just keep on trying to hang Mr. Rove because they can't get to President Bush or anyone else of importance in the White House. I personnally wish they would just shut it off and go back to sleep like they have for the past 20 years or so.
The old warhorse Candy Crowley, is on the case...
I found this link on Powerlineblog
http://www.nationalreview.com/issue/long200507270750.asp
July 27, 2005, 7:50 a.m.
Listening In
Secret conversations revealed!
By Rob Long
EDITOR'S NOTE: This piece appears in the August 8, 2005, issue of National Review.
NSA Document Extracts: Telephone Transcripts
First Extract
(Patriot Act roving wiretap authorized)
static
UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE: “Hello?”
UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE VOICE: “Joe? This is Judith Miller at the New York Times.”
UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE: “Hey! Judith! How are you? Why so formal?”
JUDITH MILLER: “Sorry, Joe, but I’m working on a story about the Niger trip and the yellowcake thing.”
#AD#JOSEPH WILSON: “Yeah. Crazy stuff, huh? Did you read my op-ed?”
JUDITH MILLER: “Uh huh. And we’re just following up here, trying to get something for the front page, and . . .”
JOSEPH WILSON: “Does the double-breasted make me look fat?”
JUDITH MILLER: “Excuse me?”
JOSEPH WILSON: “Sorry, Jude, I’m doing ‘Hardball’ tonight and you caught me getting a new suit. I’m talking to the guy here.”
UNIDENTIFIED FOREIGN-SOUNDING MALE VOICE: “No, no, Meester Vilson. De jacket, she convey authority an a kind ov secksul energy.”
JOSEPH WILSON: “Fantastic! But I’ll need a new shirt for Stephanopoulos.”
UNIDENTIFIED FOREIGN-SOUNDING MALE VOICE: “Come here to de shirtings area.”
JUDITH MILLER: “Joe?”
JOSEPH WILSON: “Sorry, Jude. I’m listening. What do you need? Not that kind of collar, it makes my face look all poochy. That one. Oh, nice. Does this come in other colors? I think I’m doing Russert on Sunday. Jude, you there?”
JUDITH MILLER: “Joe, should I call you back?”
JOSEPH WILSON: “No, no, this is a great time. I’m getting a facial later and I can’t talk with the goop on my face. Did I look too red last night on Koppel? I thought I looked red.”
UNIDENTIFIED FOREIGN-SOUNDING MALE VOICE: “No, no, Meester Vilson. You look like some kine ov got, some kine of deety.”
JOSEPH WILSON: “Great! Can we look at ties?”
JUDITH MILLER: “Joe, I’m sort of on deadline. Can I just get a couple of questions in?”
JOSEPH WILSON: “Go, go. Yeah. I’m here.”
JUDITH MILLER: “Well, I’m getting a lot of weird signals from some sources I have at Central Intelligence that your report from Niger may not have been so unequivocal . . .”
JOSEPH WILSON: “Solids. The little pattern things look too Hermes-y.”
UNIDENTIFIED FOREIGN-SOUNDING MALE VOICE: “But de contrass will light up your beautiful face.”
JOSEPH WILSON: “True.”
JUDITH MILLER: “Joe?”
JOSEPH WILSON: “Yeah, I heard. The CIA push back? Right. Too pink, I told you I look too red as it is. Right. Can we take the jacket in a little on the chest? I want to look like I’m bursting out of it.”
UNIDENTIFIED FOREIGN-SOUNDING MALE VOICE: “Like as eef you are de supermans?”
JUDITH MILLER: “Joe, c’mon! I need to file.”
JOSEPH WILSON: “What do you want me to say, Judith? Too tight. Push back from the agency is just CYA, okay? That’s how the game is played. I went over there, looked around, brought back some amazing basketwork, by the way, and wrote my report. The agency has egg on its face and it wants to blame me. You want a quote? I’ll give you a quote! My own freakin’ wife is a CIA operative, okay? She told me it was going to be a no-win situation and she’s the one who got me the gig in the first place! Oh, nice. Nice. I need it all by this afternoon, okay?”
UNIDENTIFIED FOREIGN-SOUNDING MALE VOICE: “Bud ov corz, Meester Vilson.”
JOSEPH WILSON: “Um, Jude, that last part was on background, okay? Like, seriously background. Okay?”
JOSEPH WILSON: “Judith?”
JOSEPH WILSON: “Judith, you there?”
JOSEPH WILSON: “Judith?”
UNIDENTIFIED FOREIGN-SOUNDING MALE VOICE: “I need to swipe your card.”..
End Extract . . .
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So, honest observers would step back and say that ths was a story that folks with less directly involved should cover but, then, we are talking about the NYT!
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