SCANDAL IMPLOSION (Rove/Cooper/Wilson)

NY Post ^ | July 12, 2005 | John Podhoretz

[Howlin]

I WROTE a column on Oct. 10, 2003, about the strange case of Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame.

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...I offered my speculation of what an administration official might have said to a journalist to explain just how Wilson — a Clinton administration official — got the assignment in the first place: "Administration official: 'We didn't send him there. Cheney's office asked CIA to get more information. CIA picked Wilson . . . Look, I hear his wife's in the CIA. He's got nothing to do. She wanted to throw him a bone.' "

Hate to say I told you so, but . . .

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There's no mistaking the purpose of this conversation between Cooper and Rove. It wasn't intended to discredit, defame or injure Wilson's wife. It was intended to throw cold water on the import, seriousness and supposedly high level of Wilson's findings.

While some may differ on the fairness of discrediting Joseph Wilson, it sure isn't any kind of crime.

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So if the offense wasn't against Plame, what of the offense against Wilson? There was no offense. As many of Joe Wilson's own hottest defenders would no doubt argue in relation to President Bush, exposing a liar is not only not a crime, it's a public service.

And Wilson lied. Repeatedly.

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What isn't controversial is this: Karl Rove didn't "out" Valerie Plame as a CIA agent to intimidate Joe Wilson. He was dismissing Joe Wilson as a low-level has-been hack to whom nobody should pay attention. He was right then, and if he said it today, he'd still be right.

And if Valerie wants to live a quiet spy life, she should stop having her picture taken by society photographers and stop getting stories written about her on the front page of the Times.

[IncPen]

Interesting thread on the Plame/Wilson/Rove business... check out post 66 where it's revealed that Mrs Wilson used her CIA front to donate $1000 to the Gore campaign...

[Bob]

You know, if this thing wasn't being presented as the latest retro Bush-bash, folks would notice that the elephant in the room is federal government spouses not only working together, but sending each other on assignments. I thought this sort of incestuous behavior was frowned upon.

They didn't work together. She worked for the CIA; he didn't. He got a temporary assignment purportedly because of his previous diplomatic status.

[Miss Marple]

Here's an interesting question: did she donate HER money or did she donate CIA money from the business? I know for sure that if it was CIA money that it was an illegal donation!

[atlaw]

I agree that those are puzzling questions. There are a few more:

Why is there a special prosecutor at all if, as seems to be the consensus here, there was nothing to "out" about Plame (and hence no possibility of a crime);

Why is one jounalist in jail and another threatened with jail if the "outing" of Plame was so meaningless and utterly harmless;

Why did Rove deny that he had any involvement at all when he was asked by McClellan;

Why didn't Rove correct McClellan when McClellan publically announced that Rove had no involvement at all (thus putting the White House in its present hot seat trying to explain the contradiction between then and now);

What did Rove tell the grand jury;

Does it matter that the offical position of the White House was that it would fire anybody involved, and that the position seems to have softened considerably since the discovery that Rove was involved (even tangentially);

Why was McClellan so defensive during the press conference yesterday, and who told him to dodge all questions with the excuse that he couldn't talk during an ongoing investigation (when he was clearly free to talk previously about the case); and

If it's all so harmless and meaningless, why is McLellan under instructions not to talk until the ongoing investigation is completed?

[Bob]

Mr. Wilson is now saying (on C-SPAN this morning, for example) that he opposed military action in Iraq because he didn't believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and he foresaw the possibility of a difficult occupation. In fact, prior to the U.S. invasion, Mr. Wilson told ABC's Dave Marash that if American troops were sent into Iraq, Saddam might "use a biological weapon in a battle that we might have.

How can this clown have any credibility at all when he makes self-contradictory statements like these? Saddam doesn't have them but, if we invade Iraq, he may use them.

[justshutupandtakeit]

1 The SP is likely looking for a mole in the administration which is working against Bush. This is why the reporters are being jailed since Rove gave permission to all he spoke with to talk.

2 This has gone beyond any non-revelations about an ex-agents and is almost certainly the result the reporter trying to protect an anti-bush mole.

3 Because Rove had no involvement. He didn't even know the woman's name thus could not have disclosed it.

4 There is no contradiction between then and now.

5 That is a secret but the SP has said Rove is not a target.

6 It is a LIE that Bush said he would "fire" someone. Don't keep swallowing the RATmedia bilge. It has changed what was ACTUALLY said to what it WANTED to be said.

7 McClelland is ALWAYS defensive when the wolf pack is attacking. And he is a lousy spokesman.

8 You would have to ask the SP that since Mc is following his instructions.

You have a lot of questions but none too interesting.

[IncPen]

Here's an interesting question: did she donate HER money or did she donate CIA money from the business? I know for sure that if it was CIA money that it was an illegal donation!

It begs a few questions.

I'm inclined to suppose that she had to list an occupation on the donation form and "CIA Undercover Spooky Spook" might not sit well with her employer

[woofie]

Youre a working journalist and you wrote #11?

[1Old Pro]

Yes, there is NO SCANDAL to this story. BUT, that won't prevent the liberal media for "acting" like there is a scandal. Remember that the NY Times wrote something like 2,394,393,039 front page stories on Abu Grarab and the panty on the terrorist "scandal".

[eureka!]

FYI

[Hoboken]

Let me get this straight. Using a dummy corporation, Plame donated a grand to Gore? That can't be legal. What's Mark Levin's FReepname? We may have another buckhead moment here.

[altura]

Don't have time to read all posts now, but thanks so much for posting this.

I bet the domestic partner this morning that the Dallas Morning News would have a front page story about the (they hope - Rove scandal).

I won. He wouldn't bet though.

They never had a front page story about the admitted traitor and thief, Sandy Berger. I hate MSM.

[rwfromkansas]

Wow. Really great column.

[PogySailor]

Great post! Worth signing up at the NYPost site to read the entire OpEd.

[atlaw]

McClellan, Sept. 29, 2003: "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030929-7.html

Seems clear enough to me.

[FreedomCalls]

it's revealed that Mrs Wilson used her CIA front to donate $1000 to the Gore campaign...

It wasn't just to make a donation to Gore, but specifically to launder an illegal payment to Gore from Joe, her husband, when he exceeded the maximum allowed by law and needed to quickly cover up that illegal payment.

[Howlin]

I did!

[Howlin]

I did!

[rwa265]

It looks like it was her husband's money.

From post #76 by FreedomCalls:

"Something more interesting here:

Wilson was originally listed as having given $2,000 to Gore during the primary campaign in 1999, but the donation, over the legal limit of $1,000, was "reattributed" so that Wilson and Plame each gave $1,000 to Gore.

[ravingnutter]

Ummm...keep up will ya? He did not out a secret political operative. She had not been covert for nine years as she was outed by Aldrich Ames prior to 1994 and then again by the Cubans. She was assigned a desk job as an analyst at that time.

The identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame was compromised twice before her name appeared in a news column that triggered a federal illegal-disclosure investigation, U.S. officials say.

Mrs. Plame's identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a Moscow spy, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. In a second compromise, officials said a more recent inadvertent disclosure resulted in references to Mrs. Plame in confidential documents sent by the CIA to the U.S. Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Havana.

The documents were supposed to be sealed from the Cuban government, but intelligence officials said the Cubans read the classified material and learned the secrets contained in them, the officials said.

Washington Times

She would have had to have been covert in the last five years for Rove to have broken the law.