Strengthening Constitutional Self-Government

No Left Turns

Wilson, Plame, Rove

For more on this "Washington blood sport", which has descended into farce, go here, here, and here.

Note the headline on the NYT story ("Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer"), and compare it to those of the Washington Post ("Rove Confirmed Plame Indirectly, Lawyer Says") and Washington Times ("Rove Learned CIA Agent’s Name From Novak").

Discussions - 25 Comments

Well, looky here. MSNBC is reporting that even Wilson admits that his wife wasn’t a covert agent at the time of her "outing."

Wilson later told CNN that his wife was no longer in an undercover job at the time Novak’s column first identified her. “My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity,” he said.

Since the law requires 1) that the outed agency be undercover, and 2) that the person doing the "outing" knows this status, I’d save Rove is innocent of wrongdoing. It also appears that Rove himself learned of the Wilson-Plame CIA connection from a journalist. Folks, as we’ve known all along (accept for Leftist fanatics like some who post here), this is just another red herring brought to you courtesy of the Amerikan Demokrat party.

I am going to have to agree with Dain on this one but go one step further. This just further mounts more evidence of the sharp political bias of the MSM.

I agree with you, Mike. For instance, these credits at the bottom of the WT article:

" Lee A. Casey and David B. Rivkin Jr. served in the Justice Department under Presidents Reagan and George H.W. Bush. "

What a couple of liberals!

And if Karl Rove said that he heard of Plame (whose name he says he didn’t know) from a journalist, then I surely believe him. He wouldn’t lie, would he, to save his own skin?

And if, by some chance, the investigation into Rove is conducted with the same lack of bias as that exhibited by Casey and Rivkin, and Rove somehow walks, then he will have demonstrated, again, that the high moral ground of the Bush Administration is, in fact, a nit’s width away from illegal.

As I have said in other posts, if the only condition for acceptance into the Bush Administration is that someone was not found guilty, then we need to revise our definition of "moral."

Fung, I think you’ve misread Mr. Knippenberg’s post. It goes like this - the headlines of the three papers should be judged by the degree to which they dismiss any possibility of Rove’s possible guilt, therefore the Times headline is mildly treasonous for telling the public something which MIGHT lead to their thinking Rove could possibly be something less than a saint. The Post headline indicates Communist (hit minor chord on organ) leanings, and no one with any moral fiber or loyalty to American values should consider reading that article any further, and the paper should be warned by press secretary McClellan to watch what it publishes. The Washington Time article, on the other hand, is clearly telling us "just the facts," which of course should do nothing other than push the spotlight from Rove onto the loathsome media (of which the Times and the Wall Street Journal are not a part, of course). Admittedly, among Commies, America-haters, terrorists and their sympathizers, Novak has a conservative reputation, but if someone must go down, it should be someone from the media (to further clarify, WSJ, WashTimes, FoxNews and National Review are NOT part of the media - they are simply facts-only news sources that tell us the cold, hard truth, however difficult it may be for us in the humble public to accept). Indeed, Casey’s and Rivkin’s credentials from the Reagan and Bush administrations should put concerned readers at ease that we will only be given straight, unadulterated facts that any reasonable person who doesn’t hate America will have no choice but to accept!! Your mistake, Fung, came in not drawing the proper conclusions from Mr. Knippenberg’s incisive, non-partisan analysis.

The order in which I read the stories this morning was AP first (on the WT site), then WaPo, then NYT. All three articles lead one to conclude that it is very unlikely that Rove is anyone’s original source in the Plame game. The NYT buries any "exculpatory" information pretty far into the article and offers a headline which doesn’t overstate the evidence but lets people who aren’t going to read very far continue in their belief that Rove is guilty, guilty, guilty. The WaPo story builds on and adds to the NYT story, and the headline clarifies matters in a way that the NYT headline studiously avoids doing.

Bottom line: there’s a leaker out there whose name is not Karl Rove. There’s at least one reporter who mentioned Wilson’s wife to Rove and who didn’t write about this information (Judith Miller, perhaps?). Plame’s outing (whoever did it) is pretty likely not a crime, both because it was unknowing and because she hadn’t been a "covert operative" overseas in more than five years. The biggest legal risk, it seems to me, is that someone didn’t tell the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, to investigators, and we’ll presumably know about that soon enough.

Leslie- I stand corrected and humbled.

Joe, don’t waste your breath on these losers. You’ll notice that all they have is sarcasm...they haven’t addressed any of your points (or mine, or anyone’s). For them, Rove is a criminal regardless of whether or not he actually broke any law, whereas Joe Wilson, who is ON RECORD as lying and who is also CLEARLY a partisan...why, he’s OK. Forget that he had a special obligation to protect his wife’s identity. Forget that he was placed in this position by the malfeasance of his wife. And forget that he’s a lying SOB. Doesn’t matter to Fung and Co. They are passed rationality, so as I say, save your breath...you might as well be arguing to a herd of swine.

The articles do not lead one to beleive that Rove is innocent. The NYT story cites "a person who was briefed" said and the WaPo cites a lawyer that knows of conversations between Rove and prosecutors as the source. It’s a he said she said. There is no new evidence cited in the articles. For all we know it is Rove’s lawyer.

Also - Joe - How do you know Valerie Plame wasn’t undercover in the last 5 years?

Dain, you don’t really need to instruct your pals to "save their breath," since most people don’t have to talk outloud as they type! Just thought you should know that you can quit doing that as well.

I’ll go ahead and be sarcastic here, since, *sniff* that’s all I have. Yes Dain, you’re right, we liberals just make sarcastic remarks and never have any actual points. You, on the other hand, never stray from your firm-yet-polite debate style. No sarcasm from you, just the facts! No, Dain’s certainly not guilty of only responding to certain parts of a post and conveniently ignoring the rest. We should all take a lesson from Dain in civil discourse!

How do you know Valerie Plame wasn’t undercover in the last 5 years?

The law was written to specifically protect agents "overseas" (with a five year clause). Plame hasn’t been overseas as an agent since 1997, nor, as Mr. Wilson confessed yesterday, was she even undercover at the time of the nonleak.

I say nonleak because a lot of people already knew Plame was a CIA agent. Gee, what a waste of time and paper and ink, eh? You would think liberals would be against this sort of needless environmental waste.

Gee, Phil, you’re making my point. I don’t see fact one in that post. On the other hand, I provide a quotation at the beginning of this thread from the horse’s mouth...

Wilson later told CNN that his wife was no longer in an undercover job at the time Novak’s column first identified her. “My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity,” he said.

I’m generally defensively sarcastic. You folks, well...you’ve elevated it to a high art...indeed, it replaces argumentation with you.

Dain, things haven’t improved much with you since the last time I checked in!

In your first comment here, you confused accept with except. We went over that before! You also misspelled American and Democrat; was that intentional? I’m not sure why you’d write them like that. And it’s the DemocratIC party, Dain, not "Democrat."

In your second comment you confused passed with past. You also used the incorrect collective noun to describe a group of swine. They don’t form herds, they form drifts or sounders.

Finally, it seems as though you’ve reverted to a very impolite and snotty tone. I know you’re a good boy at heart, but this bratty behavior is no more appealing now than it was when you were running with your plague of friends. Shape up, Dain!

Yea, except and past...sure, sure.

Republicans like to use "the Democrat Party" to disassociate the party from the fact of being "democratic," which that party isn’t. Caught you, teach! Any good GOPer would know that!

As for the Demokrat Party of Amerika, that was meant of course. Haven’t you heard...Karl starts with K, just like "the Klan." Just a little bit of jujitsu for those "in the know."

Now, teach, buzz off. If I wanted some snotty liberal to 1) try to discredit me by pointing out errors, and 2) distracting readers from the substance of my posts, I could easily ask Fung or Phil to write snippy critiques of my grammar!

I shall call them the Democratics from now on. :)

Perhaps Republicans should be a little more reluctant to rush to Rove’s defense. This is the same Karl Rove who was fired from the Bush Senior campaign staff in ’92, on suspicion that he had leaked information to...Bob Novak.

Ha ha ha. Another masterful job of rope a dope by the zen master Karl the Great. He managed to let the lefties blogs get all slathered up and had the lefty press all snarling and snapping at Scott and then he yanks the rug out form under them, again. Even Charlie Brown eventually learned not to try to kick the football, when might the lefties get the message?

NOw what have they got? Liar Joe and his not even covert wife. Plus a few million more Americans have had the curtain pulled back on the MSM and have seen their true nature.

I must admit he is a master.

This is the same Karl Rove who was fired from the Bush Senior campaign staff in ’92, on suspicion that he had leaked information to...Bob Novak.

Might we have a reliable source on this little tidbit of history?

still waiting on that confirmation that Karl Rove[,] who was fired from the Bush Senior campaign staff in ’92, on suspicion that he had leaked information to...Bob Novak.

Hmmm...

"What a Waste" and "Dain" - Wilson said she was not undercover the day that Novak blew her identity. That doesn’t mean that she wasn’t in the last 5 years it also doesn’t mean that it could jeopardize intelligence gathered and relationships built when previously undercover by revealing her identity. Also - she wasn’t overseas since 1997? How do you know? Is that what Rush Limbaugh is saying or is it actual fact?

The fact that George Bush said that if there was a leaker in his administration and he wanted to know and that person would be dealt with, that the investigation is even going on seems to say that she was undercover and a law may have been broken. If she weren’t undercover - why investigate? Why would the WH press secretary mention that the leaker may be fired in ’03-’04? The arguement that no law was broken b/c she wasn’t undercover doesn’t make sense.

Heather...Rove already testified to the grand jury. In fact, we don’t know if HE is under investigation of if it’s someone else. Also, isn’t it funny that a reporter went to jail protecting a source that’s already been revealed? Don’t think so...someone else is being protected. Rove almost certainly got his information from a reporter, suggesting that Plame’s occupation was already known to the journalistic community.

Dain - good point. It may not be Rove. But the fact that anyone is under investigation for the leak leads one to beleive that she was undercover in the 5 years before the time of the leak or there would have been no potiential crime to investigate.

Heather...most of what I read suggests that Plame was desk-bound after 1997. She may have taken short trips overseas a couple of times, but then you’d be sending people to jail for bending the absolute letter of the law. I really don’t think there will be prosecutions on this.

RE: Comment 18, from "Interesting":

If you go here, and scroll down to the section "1992...a Foreshadowing?," several news article links are provided to the ’92 Rove leak issue.

for the link, Ms. Riley. The LA Times added some spice to the 1992 incident, saying:

At the time, Bush’s campaign was in trouble, and there was concern that the president might not even win his home state of Texas. The Novak column described a Dallas meeting in which the campaign’s state manager, Robert Mosbacher, was stripped of his authority because the Texas effort was viewed as a bust.


Mosbacher complained, expressing his suspicion that Rove was the leaker. Rove denied the charge, but was fired nevertheless.

A campaign manager gets fired and then blames somebody else for his woes? I’m shocked. Furthermore, since when is leaking something to the press a bad thing? From what I understand that’s the way it’s supposed to work.

Mark my words, that is the chilling effect that will result from this overblown Plamegate: folks in the White House will just shut up! Press leaks have been the staple of reporting since this country was founded. In fact, it wasn’t that long ago that I recall how the press was bemoaning the fact that the Bush WH was so clammed up. Well, this sordid affair will make seal the place off for the foreseeable future no matter who occupies it.

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