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.

[AFPhys]

Personally, I believe it is simply that she and fellow radical Demodog, Ol'"RestoreHonesty.com" Joe, were in cahoots to discredit the Bush administration prior to going into Iraq.

[pinz-n-needlez]

I've been listening to Brit's discussion of this matter the last couple of evenings on Special Report.

It seems to me that he is setting the stage for a revelation that the Grand Jury moved on from the Rove/Plame issue months ago. I think they're taking a close look at other, related issues.

I think Cooper and Miller are content to have the media screaming about Rove, while they're actually on the hot seat for other matters... lies about yellow cake, bad expense forms following tea-sipping trips to Niger, bogus campaign donations, who knows? But Rove is off the hot seat, is what I think I'm hearing, but something else is heating up - big time!

Brit and Charles were a tad too relaxed and smug tonight. This story is about to take a big '360 degree turn,' mark my words. ;-)

Pinz

[pinz-n-needlez]

Gee, I should have just kept reading. I agree with where your thinking is going, Eva.

Pinz

[pinz-n-needlez]

But the Special Prosecutor isn't saying they have to give up their sources in the Rove/Plame case. The Special Prosecutor isn't saying anything. That's what THEY say, and the SP has asked folks to stay quiet, so no one is refuting that.

Yes, I did buy new tinfoil just the other day. lol

Pinz

[Eva]

The whole issue is so complicated, with so many players, all with the same agenda, to bring down the president.

Here's a summary:

Politicized CIA agents are looking for a way to stop Bush from going to war with Iraq. Foley and Plame are WMD specialists and come up with the idea that if they could discredit the report that Saddam was trying to buy yellow cake, they could discredit Bush's premise for going to war to stop Saddam.

They get the idea to send Joe Wilson, Plame's husband because he's not doing anything at the moment and he might be able to take care of some business while he's over there.

Someone from the Bush administration goes to Foley and asks him about the yellow cake statement in the speech. Foley is vague, but says that he wouldn't use, but gives no real reason.

Wilson goes over there and drinks a lot of tea and meets with a few people, but doesn't really accomplish anything. He comes home a writes a phoney report. I think FreeRepublic posters were the only ones who even read it.

Robert Novak writes an article saying that Cheney didn't send Wilson and that wilson was sent to investigate the yellow cake story by the CIA and was recommended by his wife.

Cooper contacts Rove about welfare or something and then leads into a question about Cheney sending Wilson. Rove tells him that it didn't happen that way, that Cheney didn't send Wilson and never read his report.

Cooper writes an article accusing Rove of outing Plame as retaliation for the Wilson report. Still, no real reaction from the public, big yawn.

In May, Chris Lehane pays Wilson a visit and talks to him about becoming an advisor to the Kerry campaign, sets up the Vanity Fair interview and gets Wilson to write that article for the NYT about how someone at the Whitehouse had outed his wife in rataliation for the yellow cake report. The article comes out in June, and the Vanity Fair article in July. Wilson had never mentioned anything about his wife being outed before he met with Chris LeHane, the Democrat campaign dirty trickster.

[Eva]

Judith Miller is entirely different story, only tied to the Plame story by her sources, probably inside the CIA. The prosecutor has said that Rove is not a target, so who is? What could the crime be? There are two possibilities, perjury or leaking security information, maybe from inside the CIA.

[atlaw]

And you, of course, have a considered alternative opinion. Perhaps that "anything goes so long as its republican anything goes." Hang around, bucko. You'll find that most folks on FR have more integrity than that.