Posted on 07/11/2005 12:53:39 PM PDT by rface
There is no longer any question that top presidential adviser Karl Rove is a key player in the Valerie Plame case.
[ snip ]
But let's look at what we can conclude from all this:
· The latest news reports indicate that Rove is the source who Cooper was trying to protect until last week -- and that Rove tipped Cooper about Plame three days before Robert Novak published his now-famous column exposing Plame's identity.
[ snip ]
· Rove and his lawyer's denials that he was involved in telling reporters about Plame now appear to be at best based on Clintonian hairsplitting about whether he literally used her name and identified her as covert or he simply described her as the CIA-employed wife of Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, the administration critic that White House was eager to discredit at the time.
· President Bush and press secretary Scott McClellan's denials that Rove was involved in the Plame matter now appear to be at best based on the position that their responses to broad questions about Rove and Plame were met with narrowly constructed responses specifically about whether Rove leaked "classified information." Or is it possible Rove lied to them?
[ snip ]
If Karl Rove, Bush's top political strategist, longtime friend and deputy chief of staff is actually indicted by Fitzgerald -- which now appears to be a possibility -- it would be an enormous blow to Bush's second term. Until Fitzgerald wraps up his highly secretive investigation, however, that's all just speculation.
So let's ask ourselves some more practical questions instead:
· Does Rove's current position pass the smell test?
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
They know Rove will very likely mastermind the next GOP presidential campaign as well. They've got to find a way to stop/smear him....or at least wear him down so he'll go back to TX at the end of this presidents' term.
Rove is the kind of big fish the Rats have been dreaming about bringing down. You can bet they will fan the flames on this one for the rest of Bush's term. Still too early to say if Rove is indictable -- maybe more indictable than convictable, because of the vagueness of the law involved -- but much as it pains to say it, he really could have a problem, at least a bad PR problem. This may finally be the manufactured "scandal" that has some traction for the Rats. Hope I am wrong. On the other hand, it really is inside-the-beltway stuff that should not resonate much with the public, although the Rats will turn it into a never-ending circus of investigations. I just have an uneasy feeling on this one, unlike the other bogus stuff they have thrown at the administration.
She identified herself in Who's Who. So much for being covert...
I disagree. I don't think the length of time the media beats a dead horse brings it back to life. And I never have, nor do I now, think that anything Rove said compromised Valerie Plame. If there WAS anything real about this, the MSM would have it to talk about. They don't, and never did.
The real question is why is an 'Ambassodor' of the US being a critic of the President. An 'Ambassodor' job is to promote the interest of his country not stab it in the back.
She is less covert than Maxwell Smart.
I saw a picture of her in sunglasses. That's about it. :-)
"Does Rove's current position pass the smell test?"
Rove didn't give a name. That's the "identification" dispute.
And what about Cooper's other sources?
how much damage does it do to Wilson & Plame, now that they're exposed as LIARs and scumbags?
I hope they end up carting Wilson off to prison.
Next time any question about Rove's involvement in the Plume case comes to Scott McClellan via the MSM, he needs to fire this response back: Rove didn't out Valerie Plume, but yet you keep beating this dead horse while Sandy Berger stole TOP SECRET documents from the National Archives and you guys are totally M.I.A. as reporters!
In short Cooper and Miller and and Novac already knew it before they asked Rove anything
True, but unknown what Miller is about, and Novak's first source is unlikely Rove. He described the person as "not a partisan gunslinger." That's isn't Rove.
Storm in a teacup..the same folks that are so unbelievably outraged at this couldn't even muster a yawn when Sandy Berger stole secret documents and smuggled them out in his pants.
That's not Rove's problem, if he has one. The problem could be perjury. Hopefully not.
I don't think most people even have the faintest clue who Valery Plame is, or what it is that Rove is supposed to have done. The whole affair is convoluted, and it depends on propaganda that they ran a whole year ago. Her husband is dropped out of the spotlight, his book has gone from the remainder shelf to the pulp mills, and the only way they can revive this "scandal" is by reviving old lies that are now known to be lies.
But would it be in the news now if it had all come out then? I doubt it.
The author is one ugly Bush-hater.
Dennis knocked out our local AM station that carries Rush. I hear Rove leaked that Dennis was a hurricane on a double secret covert mission.
I have to agree here. If nothing else, it smacks of Clinton-era parsing of the truth.
Then again, once the investigation is over, we may find out that Rove had a very minor role in the whole thing. Only time will tell.
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