NY TIMES FIGHTS BACK; PLANS FRONT SPLASH ON ROVE AS REPORTER SITS IN JAIL

drudgereport.com ^ | 7/11/05 | Drudge

[WhistlingPastTheGraveyard]

Top editors of the NY TIMES made the decision Monday afternoon to turn up the heat on White House adviser Karl Rove.

The TIMES is planning to lead with calls for Rove's resignation, newsroom sources tell the DRUDGE REPORT. MORE...

[Pharmboy]

Oh...but I WANTED them to know why I cancelled. I knew he was not per se a Times employee.

[torchthemummy]

"So long as Rove did not reveal her job was any different that what her "cover" job was he did not reveal her status."

Thanks for answering a question I've been concentrated on: How could Rove know Wilson's wife essentially authorized her hubbies trip without Rove knowing her position in the CIA?

[RightthinkinAmerican]

And he didn't mention that she was covert. THAT would have been a crime. He may not have even KNOWN it himself.

[woofie]

I dont se how it can be Rove unless Rove released Cooper and not her..makes no sense

[kcvl]

Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction .

She has described herself as an energy analyst for the private company Brewster Jennings & Associates, which was subsequently acknowledged by the CIA as a front. It has been reported that this cover was not executed very convincingly.

Plame is the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson is her second husband. Plame met him at a Washington party in early 1997. She was able to reveal her CIA role to him while they were dating because he held a high-level security clearance. At the time Wilson was married to, but separated from, his second wife Jacqueline, a former French diplomat. Wilson and Plame are the parents of five-year old twins.

A July 11, 2003 e-mail from Cooper to his bureau chief indicated that Rove had told Cooper that it was Wilson's wife who authorized her husband's trip to Niger, mentioning that she "apparently" worked at the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues. Newsweek reported that nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggested that Rove used Plame's name or knew she was a covert operative. ([5])

In other interviews Novak confirmed that his sources warned him not to mention Plame. His motivation to disregard the warnings is suggested by this comment in "The CIA Leak:" "I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment." Just four days before he revealed Plame's name Novak wrote, "Bush's Enemy Within." Therein Novak excoriates the Bush Administration's appointment of Frances Fragos Townsend to an important national security post explaining she could later betray Bush because two of her former superiors were liberal democrats and she had served in the US Attorney's office in Manhattan. According to Novak this office was "notoriously liberal laden."

"'Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this,' Novak said on CNN, saying the information was disclosed to him while he was interviewing a senior Bush administration official.... Novak said the administration official told him in July that Wilson's trip was 'inspired by his wife,' and that the CIA confirmed her 'involvement in the mission for her husband.' ... 'They asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else,' he said, adding that a source at the CIA told him Plame was 'an analyst -- not a covert operator and not in charge of undercover operators.'"

[Freepdonia]

A shadowy conglomeration is out to kill us.

Who blabbed?

Muwuhahahahahahahahahahahahah!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

This is so ridiculous! Where have you been???

I've been reading some ridiculous assertions on this thread that identifying a person by the appellation Joe Wilson's wife is somehow different from identifying them as Valerie Plame. It is crystal clear to me that the identification of exactly who sent Joe Wilson on a mission to Africa was communicated by Mr. Rove assuming the reporter's email as published is correct. That's not a statement about whether a crime was committed. I don't particularly like Clintonian dissembling by anyone, liberal or conservative.

[Cboldt]

Oh...but I WANTED them to know why I cancelled. I knew he was not per se a Times employee.

I figure that since they aren't paper employees, the word never gets back. The only things accounded for are hours spent and subscriptions agreed.

OTOH, if it's a paper employee, I like to let 'em have it with both barrels.

[MinuteGal]

Remember, Confucius say it's not the evidence but the seriousness of the charge that counts.

Leni

[af_vet_1981]

Are you making an assumption about her source?

Rove was not her source.

He was her target.

Only the Special Prosecutor is on to her, and that is why she is sitting in jail.

[Cboldt]

And even IF Rove knew she was covert, mentioning her name and that she worked for theCIA only and not REVEALING that she was covert is nothing more than improper, NOT criminal.

I understand that too. In fact, discussing who advocated Wilson for the trip may not even be improper, depending on the public nature of Plame's cover function.

[Wristpin]

"This is so ridiculous! Where have you been??? There was NO CRIME committed even if Rove did mention her name, because she was NOT a covert agent and hadn't been for at least 4 or 5 years."

I read on another thread that she was pulled back form the field in 1994 due to the Aldrich Ames fallout. That would mean she hadn't been covert for eight years. The parameters for breaking the law is within a period of 5 years.

Additionally, a couple of weeks ago the buzz was that there had been no law broken and that the investigation should be killed.... The Dems also tried to sneak a measure into a bill killing funding for the investigation.

Seems to me the whole matter has taken a 90 degree turn toward the Dems and they are desperately trying to get the investigation killed. I hope the Whitehouse doesn't blink.

[MinuteGal]

Remember, Confucius say it's not the evidence but the seriousness of the charge that's important.

Leni

[kcvl]

According to the report of the Senate Intelligence Committee, was that Wilson returned from Niger and reported to the CIA that Niger's former Prime Minister had confirmed that in 1999, an emissary from Saddam Hussein made an overture that the Prime Minister interpreted as an attempt to buy uranium. (The claim that was made about Niger was that Iraq tried to buy uranium there, not that it succeeded.) Six months later, Wilson lied about his mission to Niger in an op-ed in the New York Times that attacked President Bush. Wilson misrepresented what he learned in Niger, and what he told the CIA.

None of this is hard to figure out; it was all widely reported when the Intelligence Committee's report was issued in July 2004. There is no excuse for an AP reporter not knowing these basic facts.

snip

The Intelligence Committee report confirmed that Valerie Plame did indeed--contrary to Joe Wilson's denials--recommend her husband for the Niger assignment. The report quotes Plame's memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations dated February 12, 2002, which said that her husband "has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." Why do prominent newspapers like the Boston Globe print op-eds by writers who don't know any facts?

Kuttner says "the administration" leaked Plame's name to Robert Novak as "part of a clumsy campaign to discredit and punish Wilson." This is dumb. First of all, Novak has already explained the context of the "leak." Many people wondered why the CIA sent such an unsuitable person as Joe Wilson on the Niger mission; someone in the administration explained to Novak that Wilson was selected because his wife worked for the Agency. Which, of course, turned out to be true.

But, in any event, why would that "discredit and punish Wilson"? The fact that his wife is a CIA employee doesn't discredit Wilson in the least. And her employment status is anything but a deep dark secret, as her subsequent Vanity Fair photo shoot demonstrated.

Kuttner now makes the real point of his column, titled "Politics Taints Probe of CIA Leak." His purpose is to libel U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald.

[savedbygrace]

Tell TBall, who seems to think it was Rove.

[tanknetter]

In watching this, what comes to mind is the scene in Star Wars where Obi Wan tells Darth Vader that "if you strike me down I'll become more powerful than you can imagine" (or something to that effect).

I just have visions of Rove as Obi Wan and the Left as Darth Vader in all this. I'm not sure how big a deal it would be if he resigns ... he just goes completely off the radar and collects nice fat consulting and speaking checks while continuing in his role as the President's chief political advisor ...

[savedbygrace]

Tell TBall, who seems to think Rove was her source.

[NeoCaveman]

Maybe we should start placing bets....Im betting McCain....

Nah, McCain may want Rove to work for him in '08.

[longtermmemmory]

actually it is not such a big nuance. You can discuss generally without identifying specifically by word or deed.

They would have to show that rove make a specific action of some kind. We don't know what was said and who said what.

ON TOP of all that uncertainty is the NYT history of intentionally LYING to justify its personal agendas. Have we forgotten Jason Blair? The recent NYT effort with the KNOWN fake Guard memos?

The NYT does not care about truth or facts. The NYT only cares about hatred.

[NeoCaveman]

Remember, Confucius say it's not the evidence but the seriousness of the charge that's important.

You mean Confucius was a Democrat?