Redstate

And keep it in the media that Wilson lied more than anyone else.  No one lied the Bush administration.  Plame and the CIA leaked more than anyone else - and no one in the WH leaked (there is a comment in one of these that Plame's CIA status was about to be unclassified so Tenent could make his comment - perfectly legal).

I have compiled a list of truly classified material leaked by either Plame, Wilson, others at the CIA or a combination of these.  We know Plame and Wilson and three CIA people who were briefed by Wilson (and therefore probably were involved in getting his trip started) talked to reporters.

http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/331

And there are more and more people in the media calling for an investigation of Plame and Wilson.  Jack Kelly came out today.  We just need a little more momentum to build up to blow this one back into the MSM's face - where it all started.

they were also making up facts.

One of the people who wrote the "administration shopping the story around to get back at Wilson" store was Cooper.

He wrote that story knowing that Rove hadn't called him, nor did Rove leak Plame's name or her actual job as a covert operative to him (we can debate the whole ins and outs of whether she was covert later, but Rove said she worked for the CIA as an analyst-hardly the cloak and dagger stuff).

One problem with the whole issue of determining who done what, is that too many people are still buying the "shopped the story around to get revenge" angle as if that was the gospel truth.

I seriously doubt that this ever happened, I think the media did it, because it sounded sexier and made the story more exciting and ominous.  My guess is that in reality you had a bunch of reporters chasing the Wilson revelation story, and the Plame stuff was figured out (there obviously was a leak regarding Plame's envolvment in Wilson's trip, although how well known her employer was is still up for debate).

Leon, you've had pretty good coverage of this issue.  But I'm not buying your conclusions on this one.

The latest NYT article seems to indicate things contrary to your inferences above.

NYT link

Specifically:

The article, a description of Mr. Cooper's testimony last Wednesday to a federal grand jury trying to determine whether White House officials illegally disclosed the identity of a covert intelligence officer, offered the most detailed account yet of how a White House official purportedly did not merely confirm what a journalist knew but supplied that information.

and

Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'W.M.D.'? Yes.

and most interestingly

The notes, and my subsequent e-mails, go on to indicate that Rove told me material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission and his findings," Mr. Cooper wrote.

This implies that Rove KNEW the information about Plame was classified!  It could also mean that something else he told Cooper he thought was classified, but that would still be a crime (to give out classified information to an unclassified source).

In his article, Mr. Cooper also shared a memory that was not in his notes or e-mail messages: Mr. Rove's ending the phone call by saying, "I've already said too much."

This to me says Rove knew he could get in deep doo-doo for what he told Cooper.  Hopefully his worst fears for his own fate will be justified.

the NYT isn't paying attention.

Rove never claimed to get the information from Cooper - that's a ridiculous assertion that the media is now trying to paste onto Rove now that the rest of their case is falling apart.

How do I know this? Because Rove talked to Cooper three days after he talked to Novak, and he frankly admitted to already having the information during his phone conversation with Novak.

So, when the media bloviates that "Cooper asserts that he never told Rove, Rove told him," that's just idiocy. Rove claims he learned this information from the media, that doesn't necessarily mean "Matt Cooper," and in fact certainly doesn't, since Rove admitted to knowing it three days earlier in his conversation with Novak.

In his article, Mr. Cooper also shared a memory that was not in his notes or e-mail messages: Mr. Rove's ending the phone call by saying, "I've already said too much."

I bet it's seared, seared into Coopers memory.....

The notes, and my subsequent e-mails, go on to indicate that Rove told me material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission and his findings," Mr. Cooper wrote.

I think it was that night that Tenet made a statement regarding some of this material, and it was that material that was declassified, not anything to do with the Plame matter.

Notice in Rove's testimony how he said that he told Cooper to not get to far out on the Wilson thing, then he gave the comment that Wilson's wife not Tenet or the VP sent him, and then he made the statement that there was evidence coming out that would refute what Wilson said-it was that evidence that was declassified and Tenet discussed publically in a statement.  Rove was aware of that.

Also, Rove knew about Plame from Novak-he had already talked to Novak who told him that the story on Plame/Wilson would be published in a column that coming weekend.  

There's a lot we don't know, and this won't be cleared up until the Fitzgerald report is completed. Until then, we're just speculating.

I think it is true that this is much ado about nothing, but the final report is nowhere near complete and in the meantime the Democrats and their pals in the press can say what ever they like.

Hey, they stood up for a man who lied under oath. It's not like they have to save their credibility.

I'm wondering where the moral clarity is here.

Take away the partisanship, the great blog pasttime of "Gotcha", take away the endless and irrelevant attacks on second tier players and take a good hard look at what's left:

1. The White House has comprised the work of an CIA agent (operative, desk clerk, spy, ??)
   
2. The White House has misled the nation per it's role in this matter.

Who will answer for these misdeeds against our state?

--

For the record, I'm neither a liberal or a Democrat

Here are the important points I take away from this:

1.  Mr. Rove got the information he passed along to Mr. Cooper from a journalist.

2.  Mr. Cooper called Mr. Rove and Mr. Cooper brought up Mr. Wilson.  It was not Mr. Rove who was "shopping around a story."

3.  Certain journalists have consistently been reporting this story incorrectly.

Pretty interesting!

Your post is well written on spot on. Thanks.

We're left with Known Facts™.

The White House has comprised the work of an CIA agent (operative, desk clerk, spy, ??)

Uh... no. If, in fact, Rove learned of Plame's identity through the media, the media has compromised the work of a CIA agent. Now, of course this is a point that is not known with certainty, but neither is it a matter of certainty that Rove (or anyone else in the White House) was the original source of the leak.

You are asserting that something that is at best questionable is a cement fact. Poor form, really. My gut feeling is that Wilson himself was the one who tipped the press that his wife was CIA (working on WMD) when he was seeking to bolster his cred during the first week he was shopping his story around and trying to find takers.

But at least I have the decency not to say, "Let's strip all the partisanship away, and we're left with this: It's a fact that Joe Wilson outed his own wife. Who will answer for this?"

The White House has misled the nation per it's role in this matter.

Again, you are assuming what is yet to be proved. If Rove learned this from the media, I'm sure he was quite surprised to be fingered as the "leak" in all of this. Imagine that you're Rove, taking dozens (maybe hundreds) of phone calls from media personalities every day, asking you bazillions of questions on all kinds of issues. During one three day period, you start getting bombarded with questions about Joe Wilson's wife, who everybody is telling you is CIA. One guy, in particular, Robert Novak, says that he doesn't believe Wilson because he's heard from some people that the whole trip was set up as a boondoggle by Wilson's wife. You reply, "Yeah, I heard that, too." (Keeping in mind that Novak originally called you about something else entirely.) You hang up your phone and go about your business.

Later, Novak writes the column, the whole mess blows up, and Bush comes walking up to Rove and asks him, "Did you leak Valerie Plame's identity to Rove?" Rove responds, "Heck, no - he called me, he already knew it. I took about a dozen phone calls that week, and all the reporters were telling me the same thing, I just told him I was hearing the same thing he was. I'm not the source of this leak."

Given the information we have now, it appears that's pretty much what happened. At the very least, a contradictory set of evidence has not emerged.

So who will answer for Vivid's twisting of the facts?

That Cooper is married to a Hillary Clinton staffer, who prior to that worked for Bill Clinton in some capacity at the White House.

This is pretty significant, and merits disclosure. Did Cooper sit on material that was exculpatory merely to damage Karl Rove, George Bush, and thus help his wife at her employment? Could he have had personal financial gain if Kerry had won, through an appointment of his wife to the hypothetical Kerry White House?

This is why most organizations have conflict of interest rules. Cooper should have not written at all on politics, and barring that should have at least disclosed his wife's employment as a staffer for Hillary Clinton.

Carville is married to Mary Matalin, I enjoy the insight his comments give me into Democratic strategists, but don't consider him a journalist merely a partisan person giving me a peek into his thinking. Same would apply if Karl Rove was employed by ABC.

However, Cooper is not a partisan commentator but supposedly an objective journalist. Who I would submit has now not much credibility left given his concealment of his wife's employment. It would be the same issue btw if his wife worked for Santorum.

My gut feeling is that Wilson himself was the one who tipped the press that his wife was CIA (working on WMD) when he was seeking to bolster his cred during the first week he was shopping his story around and trying to find takers

This might be your gut-feeling, hell, it might even be true. Irrelevant, I say. Simply put, the White House should not be in the business of denying or confirming to journalists who does what for the CIA.*

I recall plainly when the Press Secretary said with no hesitation that the White House was in no way involved with this Plame matter. But a plain reading of the evidence me makes me conclude otherwise.

You ask who will answer for my twisting of the facts? I'm just a citizen with a laptop. I do not hold the office of the Presidency of the United States.

Where is the moral clarity?

--

*If it's proven that Wilson revealed the occupation of his wife to journalists than he should be prosecuted.

The sheer disgusting duplicitousness inherent in what you have written there would surely have made me vomit upon reading it if I had eaten anything in the last four hours.

That you could go anywhere and write such a thing is truly an astounding feat of mental depravity. Is this what our political struggles have come to?

Take away the willingness to grin while lying through one's teeth, and what do we have in this case?

1. Our media presents us with what they call a "whistleblower," who is in fact a partisan Democrat that is an advisor to the Kerry campaign, a fact which our media withholds from us.
2. This individual, assisted by our media, delivers unto us what a bipartisan Senate Committee would later dismiss as a pack of lies.
3. While performing this feat of lying partisan hatchetry, this individual discloses considerable amounts of classified information, including information to which he should have had no access whatsoever, raising the question of who is briefing him on such matters.
4. This individual, plus the person who is telling him classified information, and certain elements of our media, are conspiring to discredit the foreign policy of the United States, and doing so to aid the campaign of a Democratic Party politician.
5. And now they have the nerve to come before us and tell us it was those guys who have done what they so despicably did themselves.

And now you have joined them in this endeavor, by proselytizing on their behalf.

That's too bad.

I've been following the discussion about this with great interest. I'm not one to jump to any conclusions about who did what and when. I'm a patient person and will not get into making any judgements about possible outcomes.

Objectively, on September 26, 2003 U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft confirmed 'the Justice Department launches a criminal investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity'. He did not launch an investigation into the context of the leak or any reporter's articles. This investigation was about leaking Valerie Plame's identity.

To me, the objective of the investigation is not about some op-ed piece by Joe Wilson that was or was not an attempt to discredit President Bush and undermine his administration.

Part of my enjoyment is seeing the contrast between each side on this issue. The investigation has been going on for almost two years now. I agree with Scott McClellan that Mr. Fitzgerald should be allowed to bring this process to it's legal conclusion. Either there will or will not be charges against individual(s) pertaining to the leaking of the identity of Valerie Plame. If there is any charges then I am looking forward to the trial. Then and only then will the facts surrounding this case be revelled. Based upon these facts a jury will decide whether anyone is guilty. This is what makes the US and our form of democracy so great. This is why I'm thankful to have been born here. Everyone has the privilege to say what they want about such important matters but what it finally boils down to is the sixth article of the constitution, In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Mandy Grundwald. Long-time Clinton staffer and Hillary 'media guru'. A surprisingly unattractive woman, to say the least.

We know that Wilson/Plame was a hot topic before and after the Novak article, and there were numerous conversations back and forth between reporters and politicians.

We know that Joe Wilson lied repeatedly: on why he when to Niger, what he learned there, and what he subsequently reported about what he learned there.

We know that Joe Wilson has an extremely partisan, anti-Bush agenda, and expressed his animosity openly. The MSM, with a similar agenda, picked up on Wilson's statements and have run with this thread of the anti-Bush agenda for two years.

We have absolutely no hard information that anyone in the administration committed a crime; this information comes strictly from people with an agenda, i.e., Joe Wilson and MSM.

Soon the grand jury will reveal its findings and we will know what the grand jury says.  My horseback estimate is that no one in the administration will be indicted or censured. THAT WILL NOT STOP THE CONTROVERSY.

There are many Liberals who are still furious that they were unable to steal the 2000 election in Florida.  They need a new scandal for whatever it is that Liberals use manufactured fury for.  Expect more anger, more denunciations, more conspiracy theories, probably about four years worth.  

Enjoy.

Days after the outing, back on July 21, 2003, Novak had this to say to two Newsday reporters:

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

quit trying to cloak yourself in the middle and above it all.

"Agent" is a very broad term and it's one of the reasons the law was written as specifically as possible.

as for the White House, they are playing in a league far above your understanding of the grey middle.  

Bugs get squashed in the middle of the road.

3. The CIA engaged in political "dirty-tricks" to try to undermine a sitting administration.

Is that true or not? I don't know, and neither do you. I submit that it is at least as likely as your #1.

Ed Morrissey has another one out from the LATimes which would be 100% wrong except they got everyone's name right.

Did Tenent mention Wilson's wife at all?  They could have de-classified the fact she worked for the CIA.  Many people have had that happen to them.

for those who read English we might come to dramatically different conclusions.

The notes, and my subsequent e-mails, go on to indicate that Rove told me material was going to be declassified in the coming days  that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission and his findings," Mr. Cooper wrote.

The plain reading of this says nothing approaching your interpretation. It says what it says. In the context of waving Cooper off the Wilson story, Rove told him that material was going to be declassified that would cast doubt on the story. How you get "Plame was classified" of this, I'm at a loss to see. And stating the fact that there is classified information on a subject does not equate to giving out classified information.

n his article, Mr. Cooper also shared a memory that was not in his notes or e-mail messages: Mr. Rove's ending the phone call by saying, "I've already said too much."

Again, you have your own peculiar interpretation of this. Let's look at how Cooper interpreted it:

Of Rove's "said too much" comment, he wrote: "This could have meant he was worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else."

begins when you stop hyperventilating and exaggerating.  Begin by PROVING these statements with documented facts.  Not your interpretation of facts. Not your interpretation of laws or rules.  The courts and the agencies can determine for themselves and will record their decisions.

What I want is facts to back up your silly claims.

"The White House has comprised the work of an CIA agent (operative, desk clerk, spy, ??)"

Specifically how? What work was compromised?  What task was impacted?  What subject matter was impacted?

"The White House has misled the nation per it's role in this matter."

Prove it was misleading verses you misunderstood or misinterpreted.  Prove it beyond any doubt, as if it was as true as the earth orbiting the sun!

how does this pertain to anything as Novak has already said he knew Plame's name before calling Rove and that the CIA verified for him that she was a CIA employee?

Stalin was a big one on that. Fortunately we don't live there.

And where is this mea culpa being addressed?

Well, it is about to be addressed on my blog and hopefully many others

since the CIA has a press office someone thinks they have an obligation to talk about what they do with the American people. As the CIA confirmed Plame's employment status to Novak, it would seem that they disagree with you in this regard.

How does this contradict anything? Novak himself said he told Rove. So it means that none of his sources is Rove.

Read, comprehend, then post.

It seems that there is a core of under ten posters who keep defending Rove and Libby here. As I've said before you are missing the point.

It no longer matters who said what and when what matters is how the story plays with the marginally interested.

1. CIA agent outed.
   
   
2. Rove and Libby implicated.
   
   
3. Rove and Libby work for Bush and Cheney
   
   
4. Bush and Cheney condone (chose your own word) outing CIA agent.
   
   
5. Hence: Republicans can no longer be trusted to be strong on security.
   
   
6. House and Senate member up for re-election get tarred with same brush.

You still fail to realize that for politicians anyone is expendable if they get in the way of winning the next election.

Now lets look at Clinton "scandal".

1. Clinton has sex with intern
   
   
2. Clinton lies about it
   
   
3. Clinton becomes butt of late night talk show jokes.
   
   
4. Clinton goes on to career as "elder statesman"
   

you post this and call it a point?

It is rare indeed when something involving as little thought and insight as this is portrayed as a point.

Beyond the fact that you omitted small things (Clinton impeached, Clinton loses law license, etc) you ignore big things like "no felony indictment- not crime". And "no crime - no one cares". And "House not in play in 2006". And "Senate not in play in 2006".

So I hardly think you bring very much to this dicussion.

you would see in a elementary school.  Life and its issues are not that simple.  Mainly because the person who brought all this to the press was Wilson - long before Rove.

And it is clear Wilson and Plame talked to reporters - long before Rove....

So, stick those facts into your analogy and see what pops out.

Simply put, the White House should not be in the business of denying or confirming to journalists who does what for the CIA.

I am really beginning to get tired of this new Leftist meme: apparently, the instant you hear someone say "CIA", you should immediately clam up, because the guy/gal just may be America's answer to 007.

The fact that someone works in the CIA does automatically rise to the level of a state secret, especially desk bound analysts working at Langley who drive there to work every morning.

PS: The fact that a reporter is telling you that Plame works for the CIA is probably enough to tell you that she was not covert and neither was her identity something the CIA were in any way concealing.

if the CIA is doing it I am just not getting into the "there was a violation of law/ethics for the WH to even talk about it with reporters"

That talking point is just proof that liberals realize their "get Rove" game has once again failed.

The fact that someone works for the CIA does not automatically rise to the level of a state secret ...

the use of asterisks, etc., especially in headlines. Though I sympathize with your point of view 100%.

Well, just as a piece of information, of course this story was front and center on all the morning news programs today.  Barbara Walters was talking about Karl Rove.  Don Imus was talking about Karl Rover.  Tim Russert was talking about Karl Rove with Matt Lauer.  And the list goes on...

The Grand Jury is empaneled until October from what I heard today, and my guess is that you will see this story every morning and every night from every media outlet across the fruited plain until then, and then for several months beyond that.  We're going to see Joe Wilson retrospective vignettes and biographical sketches.  We're going to see rehashes of the article from Vanity Fair.  We're going to hear his wife speak to reporters in silhouette.  Barbara Walters will interview Joe Wilson and discuss his book.  An entire cavalcade of Democratic senators and reps. will hold press conferences on a rotating basis.  The major news orgs. will be organizing junkets to Niger.  The State of the Union speech will be rebroadcast 500 times...

It will go on, and on, and on.

For the Captain Ahab Democrats, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, and ultimately Dick Cheney and the President -- the entire Administration -- are their White Whale, but instead of the Pequod they have an entire flotilla of ships, from aircraft carriers to rowboats and kayaks, out on the water chasing this story.  They have nothing to lose at this point.  Their credibility is already in the toilet, and they're out for blood at this point.  I'm sorry to be so pessimistic fellas, but now cometh the comeuppance, and we're going to find out just how big the MSM really is.  My guess is that by the time Fitzgerald issues his report it will hardly matter what it contains -- the Demos. are going to make sure that this becomes a mom-and-pop, around the dinnertable issue all through the rest of the summer.  

That's the plan, from what I can tell, judging especially from the coverage this morning.

to make a story sound better.  He put his name on one of the stories about the "reporter shopping."

He knew for a fact that it wasn't Rove who contacted him, and based on the gist of the conversation (even the parts they confirm with each other) it is pretty clear that Karl wasn't "shopping the story around" and the words didn't seem that much an attempt to get revenge on Wilson through Plame as it was an attempt to get the media to back off the Wilson feeds to the media.

Cooper lied.  Why isn't anyone upset about this-Cooper changed the facts of the story, or at least he didn't describe accurately what happened with him in learning the information.

I will be honest-I am just as upset that a media that tries to paint itself as unbiased is purposefully lying about their part in this story in order to get at the WH.

somewhere around "Clinton lied about it" is "Clinton lied under oath"

It is yet to be seen if there is a perjury charge, but from the news reports it looks like Rove and Libbey provided information and testimony and have done so from the beginning.

Your points about Rove, Libby and involvement in this are pretty much speculation, other than that we know two reporters called Rove not the other way around.

... the Left and their friends in the Press have long since tried to make the issue not about leaking, since it is obvious that one cannot leak what is already known but the more generic "involvement ..."

If you read the New York Times (remember to shower afterwards), they are no longer shrieking that Rove leaked the information but that since he is, through no fault of his own (both journalists called him unsolicited, one, Cooper, even did so under false pretenses) "involved" the President should fire him immediately.

This is while they are on record saying that no crime had been committed and that Valerie Plame was not covert at the time Novak wrote about her. It is even more damning when you realize that the New York Times very likely knows who the initial leaker is; the person Judith Miller is in jail to protect.

This is the New York Times we are talking about. Whoever it is, it sure as heck is not a Republican or they would have burned him/her without hesitation. If it turns out that it was Wilson, Plame herself, Clarke or some other member of the Kerry campaign, there would be hell to pay ...

It has the whole Clinton Whitewater feel to it though...I'm so bored by it already.  I wonder how it will resonate with someone on Main Street.

Also, I think your post is a bit overdone.  There will be other news to compete with this over the next couple of months.

but I'll say it anyways. I hear, from great distance and with muffled words, that two, not one, indictments are strongly concidered by Fitz's commission. I also hear that neither names Rove, but someone "higher than Rove and a reporter". Yuke, I hate doing this because it's so vague, and I get burned alot trying to believe shadowy messages, but in this case I'll pass on what I have heard and then watch what happens in "real life".

add to the speculation.  And we just assume that your SO connected that your receiving whiffs of coded messages from someone close to the investigation...

A bit overdone...I have a reputation for being cranky in the morning.  But this story just strikes me as such a perfect storm:  it's ambiguous, it's controversial, whose side you take depends on your powers of perception and close reading, it involves power at the highest levels of government and the press' relationship to that power, it involves the Iraq war and thus by extension the GWOT and nonproliferation, it has no predictable endpoint as of yet, it is endlessly susceptible to spin, and it's a moneymaker and a guaranteed eye-grabber.  And most importantly of all, it directly involves the person who has been the subject of the greatest Democrat mythmaking and intrigue for the past five years - Karl Rove.  

The MSM is not going to let this one go.  I don't see it.

I know a handful of lobbyist, several dozens talented individuals working with Congressmen, two former President's, more judges than I can count, more attorney's than I want to admit I know and in my younger years a few of the local call girls.

Even when it comes directly from the horses mouth, in Washington, you'd be well advised to remember everyone is a horse.

for some "God-only-knows" reason that these clearly, far flung theories and conjectures layed out in my post come to pass, I don't suppose you will really remember this little passage ehh?

No.  I'm re-circulating your ideas via my BLOG and through email.  

mean?  What is the reporter being charged with?  They can't be convicted of the IIPA at all.

I have ZERO ideas right now. I'm trying to put this together in my head right now as it is. I heard this less than 45 minutes ago. I haven't put anything together yet, but I'll let you know what I come up with as an idea or anything else I hear.

But for now, I'll take it as pure conjecture until I can see something either in my head (hopefully viable) or something more public and solid (hopefully viable).

this is the same person that "whispered" to me that Rehnquist would not be retiring last weekend, but would be going to the hospital. Three days later he made a public announcement about not retiring and, hmmmm, ended up in the hospital, so I don't take it lightly exactly either when "this person" throws me a bone.

If the name was 'given' to Novak, someone had to give it to him.

Cooper has also implicated Libby in this.  This may take the heat off of Rove, but I don't see the press taking heat off of the Administration.

the ambiguity makes this a good story for the press to follow and twist somewhat to their viewpoint.

And considering the number of people who aren't going to follow the news closely and watch for the contradictions even in the press accounts, the twisting of the story may blow it in a direction to the point that nobody cares about the truth when it is all over.

The press has already lied once about their role in this, I find it hard to conceive they won't lie some more.

First, I am coming to believe Novak's original source was either Tenet or Fleischer.

However, I am becoming equally convinced that either Wilson or Plame leaked Plame's identity to give cred to Wilson's story to either Kristof, Pincus, Corn, or any of several other journalists Wilson shopped his story to.

...and at least the right-of-center BLOGS can police this.

whether or not an agent's identity is a 'state secret' or not?

A staffer in the White House?  A columnist for the NYT?

Shouldn't the CIA be able to determine this themselves?  

It seems to me, that in the interest of National Security, ALL agent's identities should be considered state secrets unless confirmed otherwise by the CIA.  I think that this step appears to have been missed here.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/30/wilson.cia/

Anyone venturing too far into this dense fog bank might find themselves part of a pile-up. The real problem is, how did this happen? How did Novak specifically know she was an informant and then print that? Where did that information come from is the form of questioning they are asking themselves at Fitz's offices.

There are so many ways this could have happened, that it might not be Rove at all. He might have confirmed, either accidentally or not, but as a source? Hmmmm. I can only do more speculating.

What else is new?

From a rabid anti-Bush site (this is quoting Novak):

Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives.

In other words, Novak called the CIA, and they approved him doing exactly what he did.

not a WH one.

Also Libby is also on record as saying he learned of Plame through reporters.

I think for the most part Rove and Libby can be accused of gossip, not as leakers shopping a story around to reporters in order to get revenge against Wilson.

Also, keep in mind that I think the whole "leaking of Plame to get back at Wilson" meme is a media creation anyway.

There did have to be a leaker at some point-somebody had to leak the involvement of Plame, even if every reporter in Washington knew she worked for the CIA that piece of info would not have been known.

I just think the people in the know for this one are more likely to be CIA or State, and Wilson's reports were dissing them as much as the WH, after all, Bush's speeches and words didn't come from Bush personally investigating this stuff, but from the CIA and State department who were gathering and interpreting the information.

I think that this step appears to have been missed here.

But you forget that Novak called the CIA Press Office and they confirmed that Plame was a CIA employee.

It seems to me, that in the interest of National Security, ALL agent's identities should be considered state secrets unless confirmed otherwise by the CIA.

Fair enough. But I hope you're not under the illusion that this is how things have been in Washington for the past few decades.

And she was not working abroad.

Rove's statement is equivalent to me saying, "You know, Mrs. Goss's husband (CIA Director Porter Goss) works for the CIA."

Michael Barone quotes Joe Wilson himself for this tidbit:

"Many Democrats have uncritically assumed that whoever leaked Plame's name violated the 1982 statute, although it requires that the person doing so must have known about the agent's covert status and have named the agent deliberately to endanger her, and that the person named must have served abroad in the previous five years.  Plame, according to Wilson's book, returned from serving abroad in 1997 and, since then, was a desk officer in CIA headquarters in Langley, entering and leaving the building every day in public view."

Barone also points out the hypocrisy of the left.  Not only have they shown no interest in removing the security clearances of Harry Reid and Pat Leahy, both of whom have leaked confidential information.  (Harry Reid leaked confidential info regarding Henry Saad just two months ago.)  But they've been totally silent about a NYT article that details confidential elements of a CIA mission.

"The Democrats who were so outraged by Plame's outing have not, to my knowledge, expressed outrage over The New York Times' May 31 story outing a CIA-run airline, a story that may have put agents in more danger than Plame faced as a result of hers."

link: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-7_18_05_MB.html

As noted in my earlier diary on the subject, the Democrats aren't interested in any objective form of justice here.

Even Howard Fineman of Newsweek was forced to admit that Rove broke no law.

All they're trying to do is to kick up a bunch of smoke because there is no fire.  The grand jury will not indict Mr. Rove because any reading of the law reveals that he didn't break the law.

And all this time, Vince Foster is still dead.  And the woman behind his killing walks free.

who was confirming Plame worked there.

Also, the dems were already demanding an investigation, I think this investigation had to happen for political purposes as much as legal ones.

Do you actually think the dems wouldn't have been shouting "cover-up" if somebody from the CIA or justice department said they didn't think a crime had been committed.

Also, I still am not convinced that they aren't investigating the leaking of classified material to the press in general, not just the release of Plame's name.  Wilson was out there leaking classified material all over the place, but nobody seemed to care about that fact, but I wonder if the CIA cared or if the WH cared, or if the justice department cared.

from NBC and that only on Mondays" probably aren't going to realize they are being fed reporter filtered baloney.

What I want is facts to back up your silly claims.

Fair enough. I'll do the best I can.

"The White House has comprised the work of an CIA agent (operative, desk clerk, spy, ??)"

Specifically how? What work was compromised?  What task was impacted?  What subject matter was impacted?

• The CIA has requested and the DOJ has begun a criminal investigation into this matter. Presumably this is because laws were violated.
• Matt Cooper has stated that he first learned the  identity of Plame through his conversations with Karl Rove
• "Cooper writes that his first knowledge of Wilson's wife came when Rove disclosed on "deep background" that she worked for the CIA, but that he did not learn her name until he read it in Novak's column several days later." (1)
• "In his article, Cooper also recalls that Rove ended their conversation with a cryptic caution: 'I've already said too much.'" (1)
• "Two days before Novak's column, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus was told by an 'administration official' that the White House was not putting much stock in the Wilson trip to Africa because it was 'set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction,'" (1)

As for your second query, I think the facts are quite clear.

- "Regardless of Rove's legal liability, the description of his role runs contrary to earlier White House statements that Rove and Libby were not involved in the unmasking of Wilson's wife, and it suggests they were part of a campaign to discredit Wilson."(1)

--

(1) LA Times

outrage over Plames outing putting other CIA agents at risk as being true outrage.

Until I see thread after thread at Kos and DU expressing outrage over that article, they aren't going to sell me their manufactured outrage over Plame.

People like that are already saturated with Democrat propaganda, and the Democrats still lose. So there either aren't that many of them, or they don't vote.

Out on a little bit of a limb here and talk about Karl Rove's persona and the way American society might construe it -- bear with me, because this is a bit of speculative psychobabble.  Orrin Hatch said something to the press this morning that I thought was very true, but he didn't take it far enough:  Karl is a target because he's effective.  But there is a lot more to it than that.

Barbara Walters ran some clips of the interview she conducted with Rove, and the clips she showed focused on his own self-description as a pathetic nerd.  An ubergeek interested in politics if you will.  The interview was replete with goofy photographs from his high-school yearbook and confessions from Rove about having written a 5th grade essay about Dialectical Materialism when everyone else, presumably, was writing about Schoolhouse Rock or the Pilgrims.  

The problem for Rove as far as his personality is concerned is that he is the kind of kid that gets hated because of his intelligence.  He's the slightly awkward, socially-inept kid who wore the goofy clothes and didn't care about who the most popular bands were.  The kid who didn't know the stats of the NFL teams, the batting averages of MLB, the kid who couldn't care less about pop culture.  The kid who couldn't get a date and was picked on by both the Alpha Males and most of the girls because he was a dorkwad.  The kid who gets wedgied and has his notebooks taken and flung across the hallway, then stuffed into a locker by the quarterback of the football team.

In America, if you're that kind of kid, a sensitive, introspective introvert with a very high IQ and a quirky sense of humor, you are doomed to be picked on and ridiculed, not to say abused.  You wind up doing things like bribing people for friendship by offering to do their homework, but you are always the last person to be called to the party and the first one to be left flat by your friends when they decide you're not cool enough for their scene.  The kind of kid who would stand a better chance of flapping his arms and flying than he would at getting a date on a friday night.  The President's playful nickname "Turd Blossom" doesn't help anything, either.  The Press deliberately goes out of its way to photograph Karl doing quirky, Aspberger-syndrome like stunts (like sitting in front of the tires of Air Force One, a photograph which has been widely disseminated.)  

The fact is that Karl Rove is the adult incarnation of the kid with the 150 IQ who always showed up to school with a stain on his wrinkled shirt, smarter than his teachers, who talked and talked about things none of his peers understood or cared about, and who furthermore didn't seem to care that he was so ostracised.  He basically admits that in Barbara Walters' interview.  Except that now, his close relationship to the President and his central role in the Administration has taken what would otherwise have been simple scorn and morphed it into dark and foreboding, quasi-mystical suspicion.  Karl Rove is the Dark Overlord.

I know a little about this, because I was one of those nerds for several years during high school, and it's unfair as hell, but that's the way the social pecking order goes.

There was a very telling study that was done a few years ago (I'll see if I can find the reference) that noted that if you took a few monkeys out of their group and trained them to perform specialized tasks that the group found beneficial, and then put them back in the group, the rest of the group would come to use them for those new skills, but their position in the dominance hierarchy would not change.  This is the way primates behave.  In other words, the nerds either get used, or they get ostracised, or in Karl Rove's exceptional case, they get hated and feared.  And that's the main reason this story is going to keep going and going and going, IMO.

The Democrats asked for an investigation and are now citing the existence of an investigation as proof that Rove is guilty, guilty guilty!!!

July 24, 2003

The Honorable Robert Mueller

Federal Bureau of Investigation

935 Pennsylvania Ave, NW

Washington, DC 20429

Dear Director Mueller:

I am writing to request that you launch an immediate criminal investigation into reports that two senior members of the Bush Administration made the identity of an undercover Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operative public.

According to several recent news accounts, two senior Administration officials last week distributed unsolicited information indicating that Valerie Plame, the spouse of long-time State Department veteran Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a CIA operative. This disclosure was part of an apparent attempt to discredit Ambassador Wilson's findings about potential uranium exports from Niger to Iraq and intimidate other officials from speaking their minds ...

According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives.

First- a 'confidential source' in the CIA is not necessarily an 'official source'.  It is possible that this source was incorrect when they made this assertion to Novak.  Without knowing who he talked with or what process was used to determine the sensitivity of this information, this statement is inconclusive.

Second- I suppose that the CIA could consider the identity of their analysts as confidential information.  If I were a foreign country looking to hide some shady WMD behavior and I knew who the analyst was who was looking at the collected data, I would sure as heck want to be sure I was doing everything I could to influence the analyst's outlook on the situation.

Regardless of what Novak's confidential source knew or didn't know, the fact that Novak was told that she was not a covert agent, de facto, means that no one's "cover was blown" at least in the context of the IIPA. Now if the CIA assigned a covert agent the cover as a CIA WMD analyst then we could question how many neurons are firing at Langley but it wouldn't be criminal.

So if you were Dr. Evil you'd be trying to influence the judgment of an analyst. Wouldn't it make more sense just to prevent the data from being collected. I don't pretend to know how evil dictators think so can you help me out here?

BTW, weren't you banned not very long ago?

isn't the same as an official source.

Although is there some reason nobody is screaming for this sources head-if anything this source is more culpable than Karl Rove given that this source confirmed that she indeed worked there, Rove told Cooper that she "apparantly" worked there, and Novak already had his CIA confirmation, his story was already scheduled to print, when he talked to Rove.

Looks to me like the whole scandal is unroveling.

"there doesn't appear to have been a crime, therefore we are not going any further with this investigation" statement probably wouldn't have worked.

I also still can't help but think that Fitzgerald is investigating more than just the release of Plame's name, but the Plame name is a good cover for the other stuff he is investigating (like the leaks of classified material in general to the press).

Miller may be the key to this aspect of the investigation, or she may know the primary source for the "Plame told the CIA to send her husband" leak.

for the CIA informant is because that CIA informant isn't Karl Rove.

But I am sure that the Fitzgerald investigation is looking into this.

Politics /= Justice.

And thank goodness for that.

official doesn't equal white house.

Administration official could be anyone whose employment isn't civil service from State or the CIA (and some reporters may play fast and loose with the civil service aspect, if they are high enough up in their respective departments).

You are assuming a fact that is not established.

If I call Joe Schmoe at the CIA, who happens to be, say, the security guard at the front door, and he tells me that agent 007.5 isn't really covert because, see, he shows Joe his ID every morning as he checks in---that means it's OK to blab his name in the NYT?

Why wouldn't Dr. Evil strike where the link was weakest.  If someone was trying to collect information on his WMD programs, that person would only be effective if their identity was unknown.  So it would be very hard for Dr. Evil to even know if he was being surveiled.

However, if he knew that Jane Doe in DC was analyzing the data that came in from field agents, he could just treat her to a few nice dinners, buy her a yacht, and take compromising photographs of her to make sure she turns a blind eye to the data coming in from the Starbucks at the top of the Space Needle.

probably with some truth, although I just have to ask:

The Press deliberately goes out of its way to photograph Karl doing quirky, Aspberger-syndrome like stunts (like sitting in front of the tires of Air Force One, a photograph which has been widely disseminated.)  

Are you saying that Rove is a known Aspie, you just think Rove is an Aspie or are you saying he just seems to have some of the characteristics of an Aspie?  (just a note my oldest son has Asperger's so I am not unfamiliar with the diagnosis).

But I do think Rove has served a purpose for the GOP and he has been effective and that in and of itself makes him a target of the left, just as Delay's effectiveness has turned him into a target.

Joe Schmoe at the CIA, who happens to be, say, the security guard at the front door ...

Leaving aside other issues, the entire thing changes if Joe Schmoe was an officer in the CIA Press Office (which is where Novak got his information), doesn't it?

do you know Novak got his information from the press office?

Is it from a quote in one of his pieces or an interview?

I know he says he contacted the CIA, but I can't recall if he said it was the press office or just a contact he had nurtured there to get information.

The Rove is a victim thing is a little over the top. Don't you think?

If he confirmed classified information, which it sounds like he did, that's an unauthorized disclosure which violates his non-disclosure agreement and worse is a national security breech.

I don't understand why you guys are defending Rove. He's, at best, a threat to the national security and at worst a traitor.

If I were the GOP I'd cut him loose, which is exactly what they are doing but you guys have missed. Look at Mehlman on meet the press, McClellan's fillibuster, Bush's dodges.

"no comment"

Just cut him loose, take the high road, don't try to shift the blame or change this into something it's not with Orwellian lines like Karl Rove is the victim...

I agree with Scott McClellan that Mr. Fitzgerald should be allowed to bring this process to it's legal conclusion

So you agree that it was wrong for Scott, and the White House, to exonerate Rove in october of 2003 while the investigation was going on?

Or is that different?

Especially if you got to know him, I think you'd find him to be a very funny, deeply observant and humorous person.  Karl's insights have been valuable to the President because he's actually exceptionally perceptive and very good at articulating his thoughts about the things he sees.  He's kind of an exceptional introvert, but he's definitely not an Asperger's, and he's not autistic, either.  In fact, his efficacy is so valuable because he is so attuned.  But the difference is that Rove is extraordinarily focused and disciplined on delivering the best insights he can to the President, not to the Press, and not necessarily to anyone else, either.  I would instead characterize his mind as working along the same lines of a Bill Gates or a Steve Jobs.  He's not biologically impaired - he's super-reflective, even devotional in his thinking.  I think he's a genius, personally, one who is very well aware of others' thoughts about him, but who chooses deliberately to channel his observations toward getting things accomplished for a reason.

I put the Asperger's reference in because I consider it to be a "fad disease" like ADHD.  Have problems with your social life?  Blame it on Asperger's.  The problem for Rove is not that he has a disease, he's just exceptionally smart, and doesn't play by other people's social rules, necessarily, even though he understands them and could choose to play by them if he wanted to.  

with asperger's as a fad desease (guess this is one where experience comes into play).

I do agree with this:

He's not biologically impaired - he's super-reflective, even devotional in his thinking.  I think he's a genius, personally, one who is very well aware of others' thoughts about him, but who chooses deliberately to channel his observations toward getting things accomplished for a reason.

I would say the reason the Asperger's issue probably isn't applicable to Rove is because while Rove may be geekish, he has an understanding of how people think and how people work and how politics works-I can say in general a person with an autism spectrum disorder isn't going to be tuned into how other people work-in general that is one of the things they have difficulty understanding.

seems the State Dept. had some memo making the rounds with State leadership only days before this all went down.  Not sure if the CIA had anything to do with it though.  

Rove for vagueling confirming classified information, while you haven't really said much about the fact that Wilson was spouting classified information all over Washington.

Plus let's get back to the other issue-the NYTimes revelation of a CIA business used as a cover in the wot.  When you get all outraged over that and other classified information leaks, then get back to me on Karl's revelations.

Also, you have yet to prove that Plame's job at the CIA was classified-not every employee of the CIA is classified.

Your reply is fair enough and I can accept it. Perhaps someone more knowledgable can decipher the lexicon of DC reporters. AFAIK, "Administration" means White House, especially coming from Pincus.

My other point stands though. In 2003 the White House exonnerated their own officials from any involment in this affair. We know now that White House officials were involved.

So either someone lied to the Press Sec. or the Press Sec. lied to us. No difference, I say. Surely someone must be held accountable for this, no?

Call me old school but I think with the rare exception of immediate national security matters, the White House should never ever lie to the public. This is one reason why, in principle, I approved of the impeachment of Bill Clinton.

Very good post, thank you.

Chances are almost certain that Cheney won't run for president in 2008, nor would he come close to winning anyway.   The best way to gain some exposure for a person to run for president in 2008 is to give them some publicity as VP.  

Cheney will take the fall for Rove and will resign in disgrace as the 'leaker'.

Bush will appoint Jeb if he's feeling brave, or Frist or Delay or someone to VP.  That person will be the favored GOP candidate in 2008.

I have suspected for a while that a scenario like this would happen, except that it would be Cheney resigning for medical reasons in 2006 or 2007.  But since this Plame hydra has raised its head, its just as convenient as a medical excuse to resign.

It may sound far-fetched, but how many people are 'higher' than Rove who would leak such information?

write the memo to state or gave the information that was in that memo, so there were people at the CIA who were the most in the know on how Wilson came to be sent to Niger.

One of those people may have given the information to the press.

I still think part of the problem with this story is that the media has created what I think is a myth-the "WH administration official was calling reporters and shopping the story to them in order to get revenge on Wilson by outing his wife" story.

I think the real facts are that whoever leaked the memo was likely just trying to discredit Wilson by attacking the veracity of Wilson's own words.  If we look at this as the real reason, then almost anyone could have been the leaker and without neccessarily the revenge motive involved.

Apparently, here is the scenario of who is good and who is bad:

Bad - Criminally Bad

Wilson

Mystery CIA informant

Bad - maybe not criminally so but ethically challenged

Cooper

Miller

Plame

Good

Novak

Good - probably medal of freedom good

Rove

and this text is white on a black background....

I understand your reason for not wanting to overdiagnose Aspergers.  And I don't want to either, because I do worry that it can become a kind of fad diagnosis, like ADHD seemed to become in some cases.  I've known several people who were convinced they "had" ADHD when in fact they were just malingerers who didn't want to concentrate, or couldn't concentrate, because they were doing too many drugs on their own.  In other words, they were screwing up their own ability to concentrate and then conveniently blaming it on a readily-available psychiatric diagnosis.

A roommate of one of my friends in college resembled that.  She spent quite a bit of time getting high on various substances and then blaming her poor performance ADHD.  Actually what she needed was a detox. clinic and to flunk out of the very prestigious university she had gotten into.  Which she almost did, catastrophically.

In any case, my point about Rove stands.  I would be very surprised if Karl has used many drugs at all over the course of his life.  I'll bet almost any amount of money that if you got to know him, you'd find that he's an abstainer.  And for that very reason, he may be "uncool."  

A U.S. Senator.

exhonorating?

Now granted this may get a bit into what the meaning of is is, but remember the story going around the press was that the leak was being "shopped around to reporters, in order to exact revenge on Wilson by outing his wife."

If Rove and Libby (and other WH staffers) were simply the recipients of the information, and passed it on to some reporters that contacted them and brought up the Wilson stuff, does that mean they were involved the way the media was reporting their involvement?

I think you can make the case at least for some of the responses that it was a rejection of the media's portrayal of the admin source shopping the story, not talking at all.

Although not entirely, to some extent either McClellen was lying or he was given/told to lie, and the fact that Rove and Libby both were apparantly cooperating early on leads me to believe that they likely were not the primary sources of this information, and as I have also said I sense from the WH at this point the same response they had to the TANG/Rather/memogate stuff, and their silence pretty much allowed the left and Rather to hang themselves with the rope they brought to the party.  I think the WH is aware that Rove and Libby are out of the fire on this one, and they are letting the media hang themselves.

I do consider Aspergers to be a kind of fad disease among geeks, a kind of crutch that some of them use to explain their lack of social graces.  In the olden days of geekdom, we used to refer to people who were devotional introverts as "big fat smelly dudes" but Asperger's has given them a new easy way to explain their lack of connection.  Rove isn't disconnected at all -- in fact, the problem that he presents to everyone else is that he is too connected.  Chuck Schumer is calling for the revocation of his security clearance based partially on that.

for the former one to be forced to resign.

You may be right, but I am not seeing this scenario playing out.

Although, it might work if the appointed VP came from outside the administration so they could claim clean hands on the whole deal.

I haven't been in DC in 10 years, and can only offer pure speculation, only informed by the MSM, RS, and a few dozen other public sources, but what Oh Sure relates makes perfect sense.

I'd ask a question which looks at the issue backwards, namely, starting w/ Ms. Plame, a number of people learned of her role at the CIA, whether classifed or not, and when it switched, and how. That number is now between two (Ms. Plame when she started her career, and her then boss) and unlimited except for those who don't care. What number is Karl Rove? I suspect he's in the low hundreds, and I suspect Oh Sure's sources would say that the reporter and high official are probably in the top 10 outside of CIA staff, and if the official is CIA staff, so much the worse.

'now that the rest of the case is falling apart'

Who says it's falling apart?  There are zero leaks from Fitzgerald's camp.  The only thing in the media right now are leaks from Rove's camp and democrats attacking him.  We've received almost nothing as to the actual investigation.  We don't even know who's going to be indicted.  It could be Rove with a stronger case than ever, or it could have been someone else all along.  Whatever's been leaked in the media so far is old news to Fitzgerald, and there's plenty more that he knows and we don't.

Hundreds, maybe thousands. Don't confuse fame with rank. While Karl is important and impressive, and many have an unusual fixation on him, in the hierarchy he is well behind almost all elected officials (2 executives, and 535 congresspersons) as well as many confirmed appointees (certainly all the cabinet, and probably most sub-cabinet) and many career civil servants.

Anyone know his pay grade or rank within the executive hierarchy? Is he equivalent to a deputy secretary, or assistant secretary?

It appears that even the last great hope for Liberal scalp seekers (a perjury or obstruction of justice charge), is slowly fading away. The email further bolsters the claim that Rove's intention in mentioning Plame was not political retribution:

    ''Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming,'' Rove wrote Hadley, who has since risen to the top job of national security adviser.

    ''When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this.''

But Cooper's article at Time says:

I recall calling Rove from my office at TIME magazine through the White House switchboard and being transferred to his office. I believe a woman answered the phone and said words to the effect that Rove wasn't there or was busy before going on vacation. But then, I recall, she said something like, "Hang on," and I was transferred to him. I recall saying something like, "I'm writing about Wilson," before he interjected. "Don't get too far out on Wilson," he told me. I started taking notes on my computer, and while an e-mail I sent moments after the call has been leaked, my notes have not been.

and he also directly contradicts the Rove email on

the subject of the call being welfare reform:

A surprising line of questioning had to do with, of all things, welfare reform. The prosecutor asked if I had ever called Mr. Rove about the topic of welfare reform. Just the day before my grand jury testimony Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, had told journalists that when I telephoned Rove that July, it was about welfare reform and that I suddenly switched topics to the Wilson matter. After my grand jury appearance, I did go back and review my e-mails from that week, and it seems as if I was, at the beginning of the week, hoping to publish an article in TIME on lessons of the 1996 welfare-reform law, but the article got put aside, as often happens when news overtakes story plans. My welfare-reform story ran as a short item two months later, and I was asked about it extensively. To me this suggested that Rove may have testified that we had talked about welfare reform, and indeed earlier in the week, I may have left a message with his office asking if I could talk to him about welfare reform. But I can't find any record of talking about it with him on July 11, and I don't recall doing so.

I think you guys are stretching.  Unless you can come up with some concrete reason for Cooper to be lying, Rove's email sounds like a standard CYA move from a guilty party to me.

I also think it's pretty clear from reading Cooper's article that this whole "Rove is in the clear" meme your side is pushing is just wishful thinking.  Sounds like the prosecutor was very interested in all the details on Rove as recently as last week.

About Rove:

If he confirmed classified information, which it sounds like he did, that's an unauthorized disclosure which violates his non-disclosure agreement

About Wilson:

the fact that Wilson was spouting classified information all over Washington

About the media:



the NYTimes revelation of a CIA business used as a cover in the wot

You break the law, you break the law.  Forget about motives, nobility, etc.  Paved with good intentions and all that.  Investigate them all, find out the truth, and throw 'em each in jail if they broke the law.  Period.  And it's the prosecutor and grand jury's jobs to determine whether a crime was committed.  Period.

Politically, if people here are upset that Rove might be first up on Fitzgerald's firing line, so be it -- but don't confuse the issue, intentionally or not.  If you have other crimes to add to the list of what Rove and Libby have allegedly done, let's start another investiagtion or get Fitzgerald to widen his investigation.  If Rove confirmed classified information, that's a crime as far as I can tell.  If there are other crimes in this whole sordid affair, let's get a grand jury to indict for them -- the NYT editorial staff and/or Joe Wilson.

... anyone falling on their sword like this simply to "take the fall."

If anyone, Cheney included, leaked and broke the law in doing so then he/she is indictable and must resign. If he/she leaked but no law was broken, as seems to be the case, then maybe he/she ought to resign. But it ought to be because he/she has disembled and obfuscated the issue for two years, not because he/she leaked some nonsense like Plame. If he/she did not leak then why should he/she "take the fall?"

Sepuku is appropriate if someone has done something wrong, not just because Chuckie Schumer and the New York Time doesn't like them.

based on adult geeks you know self diagnosing themselves with Asperger's in order to make excuses for anything they feel is lacking in themselves?

That may make sense, but my 7 year old hasnt done any drugs (he doesn't even take prescribed drugs-we deal solely with his issues through various therapies mostly OT), and he isn't a malingerer (as a matter of fact once he understands the instructions, he is a willing helper).  He has a difficult time proccessing language, but he is extremely bright and is very visual (he loves geography, and he probably knows better where countries are at age 7 than most adults who have college degrees).

I just admit I bristle a bit, when people start declaring something I see every day in my child as a fad.  I have two older daughters and younger son-I could tell early on that there was something different going on with my son-although it took a while to figure out what that was.

What if Rove turned over the tape of his call with Cooper, and which tape has 10 minutes of welfare reform discussion and 20 seconds of Wilsoniana. Has Cooper just perjured himself?

(Note - this is 100% speculation - they could all be guilty, or none of them)

that email was written after Rove's conversation with Cooper.  It was written before the "Wilson's wife was outed in revenge by the administration" meme and additionally was written before the "Plame was a covert agent and somebody leaked that, and we want in investigation" meme.

I am not going to believe Cooper (who already lied in a piece saying that an admin official was calling reporters and shopping the story around, when he knows he called Rove not the other way around) two years out.

You may call it far fetched, but the timeline does mean something here.

5-2 Leon warns you this is a Republican site.

4-1 Nick calls you evil.

9-2 Krempasky bans you.

10-1 Someone on dKos links to your post.

15-1 Clayton disables italic text for liberal posters.

30-1 Streiff posts pictures of Novak in a thong.

100-1 Rove adds your name to the list.

I didn't know a thing about your son before I wrote that post.  If I offended you, I apologize, because I'm not trying to minimize the actual diagnosis of someone with Asperger's.  I think you're taking this the wrong way.  My intent, actually, is to make sure that people who do have Aspergers are properly diagnosed and treated, and that resources aren't drained away from them.  You're really taking that the wrong way.  

Sorry to wreck brendanm98's odds.

you were saying about Rove as it related to the condition (there are people who speculate that Bill Gates has Asperger's) I am not keen on that kind of speculating, only because it takes a lot of presumptions to diagnose anyone with anything through the media.

Then came the "fad" comment.  I can actually understand the comment, if it is coming from the fact that people are self diagnosing.  But I live with a child who has Asperger's, and for me it isn't a fad and for him it isn't a fad, and as a parent I would be lying if I said I wasn't worried for his future.  That isn't the kind of fad I would want to choose for my child-orange hair and mullets would be a fad, Asperger's for us is a reality.

Seeing that Wilson was completely full of BS, I bet there was a scramble in the State Dept. and CIA to get the facts out.  In so doing they made it look like they were destroying Wilson and his family, but we all know she does have something to do with it.  

If the info did originate from the CIA, sent to the Sate Dept. and then hit the WH, I think the boys over at the CIA would know Plame's status and not have undermined it in that way.  Or maybe they were declassifying her status becuase she no longer worked in covert status, thus it took awhile for everyone to decide what to do.  And Rove and Libby being part of the top echelon of the WH knew this and just tried to slow down some reporters who were getting it wrong, but couldn't really give specifics yet.  Maybe they were relying on the Senate investigation to be reported as vigorously as the other stuff, as well.  Thus the delaying tactics.

And I bet the forged memo from Niger threw a monkey wrench in the whole thing because nobody knew where the Hell it came from and didn't know what to do about it.      

That's so uncoordinated it's probably the truth.  

I did not ask you to regurgitate headlines.  I asked you to back up your claim that CIA work was damaged.  What work?  What investigations/  What critical national security effort was impacted???

Nothing you posted supported your claims.  You want professionalism and high standards yet you throw out baseless claims of fact without any evidence?

Count me in the unimpressed group.

While there has been an incredible amount of discussion about he said, she said, they said, and whether what, if any, law, statutory, natural or moral, was broken and by whom, the true question of consequence at this point is "Why is Miller sitting in jail?" It is now obvious that it is not Rove, Libby or any other WH official. It's probably not Plame or Wilson in that they seem to have scattered enough leaks to make anything Miller might add, inconsequential. However, in that one of the principal figures, Matt Cooper, is married to a long time Clinton operative, it does offer an interesting track back to someone "higher than Rove" and someone that Miller would sit in jail to protect and for whom the NYT would be willing to let her. However, if anyone knows who Miller is protecting, I would like to hear it.  

I don't recall for sure, I don't think we talked about welfare reform, but we may have, I did publish a story on it a few weeks later as I recall.

Covers his but, but provides a good "Rove is evil, and should be fired, because he is a liar and a leaker and we hate him" story.

What's your post count on this scandal?  It's gotta be in the dozens at least.  Which makes you way not the average person (in the same way as me and most of us here).  Most people just see the blurb on the nighttime news once or twice a week so their conclusions are:

1.  CIA agent's name got leaked
   
   
2.  Rove was involved somehow
   
   
3.  What the hell kind of nickname is "scooter" anyways.

It's a simplistic argument yeah but that's the point.  Hey republicans have been hanging democrats for years by virtue of having the simpler argument.  See 2004.  

I know a psychotherapist who believes that Rove is kind of autistic savant, or someone who may have Asperger's.  This is the kind of speculation that goes around in "educated" circles.  I wouldn't have said it if I didn't have some basis for putting it here.  I've heard this speculation about Rove firsthand from people who should know better.  

Joshua Micah Marshall believes that Karl Rove is a "machine -- an animal; the most despicable man on the American political scene today" and one the most hate-worthy people in America because of it.  That meme was picked up among the members of the psychotheraputic "community" who I have talked to (the psychotherapists I know are all Democrats), but that diagnosis was too imprecise.  Their speculation instead, the one that I've heard and talked about, is that he could be an Asperger's, which they hurl out to me over the phone like an epithet of hatred.  

I'm sorry if I inadvertently minimized your son's condition with that post, but believe me, there are people with Ph.Ds who consider Karl Rove to be a highly pathological person, and they are combing the DSM for a diagnosis that fits.

to take a look at this, and keep these words close to heart:

Here's the thing: They're still pulling body parts from London's Tube tunnels. Too far away for you? No local angle? OK, how about this? Magdy el-Nashar. He's a 33-year old Egyptian arrested Friday morning in Cairo, and thought to be what they call a ''little emir'' -- i.e., the head honcho in the local terrorist cell, the one who fires up the suicide bombers. Until his timely disappearance, he was a biochemist studying at Leeds University and it's in his apartment the London bombs were made. Previously he was at North Carolina State University.

So this time round he blew up London rather than Washington. Next time, who knows? Who cares? Here's another fellow you don't read much about in America: Kamel Bourgass. He had a plan to unleash ricin in London. Fortunately, the cops got wind of that one and three months ago he was convicted and jailed. Just suppose, instead of the British police raiding Bourgass' apartment but missing el-Nashar's, it had been the other way around, and ricin had been released in aerosol form on the Tube.

Kamel Bourgass and Magdy el-Nashar are real people, not phantoms conjured by those lyin' sonsofbitches Bush and Cheney. And to those who say, "but that's why Iraq is a distraction from the war on terror," sorry, it doesn't work like that. It's not either/or; it's a string of connections: unlimited Saudi money, Westernized Islamist fanatics, supportive terrorist states, proliferating nuclear technology. One day it all comes together and there goes the neighborhood. Here's another story you may have missed this week:

''Iran will resume uranium enrichment if the European Union does not recognize its right to do so, two Iranian nuclear negotiators said in an interview published Tuesday.''

Got that? If you don't let us go nuclear, we'll go nuclear. Negotiate that, John Kerry. As with Bourgass and el-Nashar, Hossein Moussavian and Cyrus Nasseri are real Iranian negotiators, not merely the deranged war fantasies of Bush and Cheney.

The British suicide bombers and the Iranian nuke demands are genuine crises. The Valerie Plame game is a pseudo-crisis. If you want to talk about Niger or CIA reform, fine. But if you seriously think the only important aspect of a politically motivated narcissist kook's drive-thru intelligence mission to a critical part of the world is the precise sequence of events by which some White House guy came to mention the kook's wife to some reporter, then you've departed the real world and you're frolicking on the wilder shores of Planet Zongo.

What's this really about? It's not difficult. A big chunk of the American elites have decided there is no war; it's all a racket got up by Bush and Cheney. And, even if there is a war somewhere or other, wherever it is, it's not where Bush says it is. Iraq is a ''distraction'' from Afghanistan -- and, if there were no Iraq, Afghanistan would be a distraction from Niger, and Niger's a distraction from Valerie Plame's next photo shoot for Vanity Fair.

The police have found the suicide bomber's head in the rubble of the London bus, and Iran is enriching uranium. The only distraction here is the pitiful parochialism of our political culture.

-TS

Suppose you are in the press contact office at the CIA.  You get a call from a journalist asking whether a certain individual is an employee of the CIA.  Suppose that individual is not only an employee of the CIA, but is also a "covert operative."  Under the current laws of the land, there is no way you can prevent that journalist or any private citizen without a security clearance from publishing the information he has.  So what do you do?  Here is my guess.  It is just a guess, because I am not privy to CIA procedures except to know quite a bit about what the CIA can and cannot do legally in the United States (which is public information available to all citizens).

First you, the CIA press contact, find out where the journalist has gotten his information.  Is it a credible source?  If not, you might deny that the operative in question is an employee of the CIA.  You might suggest that the individual in question is one of the many private contractors who do work needed by the CIA, perhaps even at Langley -- which is not the same thing as being an employee of the CIA.  But suppose the journalist has some very specific information from a highly credible source, so credible that your denial of the information would itself make for an interesting news story.  At that point, you recognize that the operative's cover has been blown, at that point in time the operative has ceased to be "covert," but the operative requires and is entitled to your active and affirmative identity protection.  You also have an obligation to do what you can to protect the individuals and assets that have been placed in jeopardy by the security breach you have just learned about.

Do you tell the journalist that the individual in question is "covert operative" and that it would be very harmful for the journalist to publish a story suggesting that?  Actually, you are not allowed to do that.  You are not allowed to do that because there is no way, under the  current laws of the land, that you can prevent the journalist you are talking to from publishing any information you provide or from passing it along to other individuals.

You are in damage control mode.  What do you do?  Is it plasible that you would confirm that the operative in question works for the CIA, tell the journalist that the operative is no longer covert, but request that the journalist not publish the information because the operative has been covert in the past, and publication of the information might cause problems for the operative or persons "related" to the operative?  Is this at all plausible?  Is it plausible that you would try to be just casual enough to keep the journalist discreet without suggesting that there's a bis story here?  It it just possible that this is the way you would play it?

This is not an attack on Karl Rove.  This is not an attack on those who wish to defend Karl Rove.  This is intended to be a caution to those who are making claims about the CIA that are false and that, in good probability, will be become widely known to be false.

Why am I posting this?  Because I believe that when, in behalf of a cause, one loudly and persistently makes claims that will subsequently become widely known to be false, on undermines not only one's own credibility the also the cause one spoke in favor of.  If it becomes further known that you knew or should have known that the claims you were making were false, the damage is magnified.

He who has ears, let him hear.  There is nothing I can do for the blind, deaf, and dumb.

Your response is fair enough but you've set a standard I can never meet. You've also slightly misrepresented my initial assertion.

My inital post said this: The White House has comprised the work of an CIA agent (operative, desk clerk, spy, ??)

You write: I asked you to back up your claim that CIA work was damaged.  What work?  What investigations What critical national security effort was impacted?

Only a select few know the answers to these questions and that's the way it should be.

But the fact remains that the CIA did indeed ask for a investigation and the Justice department did initiate one.

I don't think I'm speculating out-of-bounds when I suppose that neither the CIA nor the DOJ would be involved to this extant if they did not believe that damage was done somewhere.

I'd like to expand on this point a little bit more, because I don't think some people here have gotten it yet.  There are a lot of people who are very strong, core-group democrats/liberals/leftists who no longer believe that this Administration is merely misguided, or incorrect in their policy formulations, or mistaken in their application of their theories -- they crossed that Rubicon a long time ago.  There are a substantial number of people that I have talked to who believe sincerely that several members of this Administration are insane, and should be removed from office because they are mentally ill.  The poll numbers that you see about "this country going in the wrong direction" are a diffuse, opaque reflection of that, but my guess is that one of the ways the Democrats are going to continue to argue about revoking Karl Rove's security clearance is not that he committed a crime, but that he is unfit to have it because he is mentally ill.  

Now, you might not believe this.  There aren't many statements in the MSM to support it, because those are the sanitized and measured, guarded statements that make the news and get broadcast or put into print.  But I have talked with enough people that I know who are liberals who sincerely believe that the country has been hijacked by madmen.  At least in Chicago, they don't kid about these things.  They think Bush is a borderline imbecile and Karl Rove is a criminally-insane Mephistopheles.

So much for healing the "great Divide."  

Investigations are called for all the time to determine whether or not something wrong took place.  You'd be surprised to learn the vast majority find nothing wrong since the bar for triggering investigations is low - deliberately.

That way they can say they honestly police themselves and have a high level of integrity since they explore even minor or weak evidence.

Your just way out on a limb fantasizing and have no proof for what you claimed.  Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

... innocent until proven guilty mean anything to you? Especially now that we know he was called by journalists as opposed to him shopping around the information?

Investigations are called for all the time to determine whether or not something wrong took place.  You'd be surprised to learn the vast majority find nothing wrong since the bar for triggering investigations is low - deliberately.

This is a surprise to me but I can take your word for it. You are underplaying this though a little, no? How often do we a see a special prosecuter in a case like this - A case where top level White House staff have testified before a grand jury alongside their defense lawyers?

Your just way out on a limb fantasizing and have no proof for what you claimed.  Whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?

I'm all for "innocent until proven guilty". If any aspect of this case ever gets to court I'll be demanding firm proof, beyond a "shadow of a doubt" proof before anyone is convicted.

But I take exception with your characterization of my "fantasizing". Assuming Cooper is telling the truth, he first learned of Plame's identity through Rove. In my book, thats enough to get him fired. And it bears repeating that the severity of this leak (whomever the leaker is) has triggered a federal investigation.

I haven't studied Rove to the point of being able to fit a DSM diagnosis to him, but having a child with Asperger's I have to say, understanding people and how they think is something he doesn't get-and Rove seems very capable of understand people and human nature to the point that I am not seeing the autism part of the diagnosis.

I do think he is extremely smart, understand politics and people in a way most of us do not, and therefore understands political strategy to a degree most people do not grasp.  Geek, and little eccentric I can see, but I am not seeing Asperger's or an autism spectrum disorder in him-he just has too good a grasp on how humans work.

their tinfoil hats just a bit.

That just seems a bit overly paranoid.

If I offended you.  I know what it's like to have a family member with a mental illness.  If you'd like, please email me and I'd be happy to talk about it with you.

...we know the CIA had to prepare a statement of the harm that was done as part of that initial referral.  It's very silly to claim that one has to assume no harm was done until we laypeople in the general public can provide specific details. We know that the CIA thinks harm was done and we know that at least one of the judges involved in the Cooper/Miller thing (I think it was Hogan, but that's from memory) thinks harm was done. We know that DoJ (an ashcroft DoJ) considered there to be enough evidence that harm was done to meet an initial threshold.

  And "innocent until proven guilty" has nothing to do with the question of whether harm was done. Surely you'll acknowledge the general principle that covers & agents can be blown by leaking classified information regardless of whether the leak was technically illegal?  

   I'd point you as an example to the Bush administration blowing the cover of an Al Qaeda informant last July and thus causing the early termination of a British operation against London Al Qaeda cells.  I've not heard anyone left or right claim a law was broken...but you can bet your sweet bippy there was "harm".

I just admit I bristle a bit, when people start declaring something I see every day in my child as a fad.  I have two older daughters and younger son-I could tell early on that there was something different going on with my son-although it took a while to figure out what that was.

Amen.

And the reason is a string of humiliating defeats.  We don't have to go through them all, but if you combine the electoral defeats with the policy changes and some of the things they imagine happening because of those policy changes (and they have very vivid imaginations!) and then add to that the uncertainty they feel because of the war and the constant drip...drip of casualties, etc., it's very easy to see why they get worked into a lather.

Then you add to that things like this and this, (and I won't even go into the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, which is now almost exclusively liberal/leftist)and their worries that people will get killed in the United States because of the war, etc., etc., and you begin to understand -- even if you don't agree with -- their position.  

For myself, I've stopped beating up on Liberals for the time being.  The fact is that they are terribly frightened, scared almost to the point of going bananas, but mostly gentle people who don't want to see the world come to an end in their lifetimes, but who have very overactive imaginations about how that might occur.  They're scared.  They're scared shirtless.  We need to reach out to them a little and tell them:  hey, it's not going to be that bad.

30-1 Streiff posts pictures of Novak in a thong.

I hope those don't exist.

..."concrete reason for Cooper to be lying".

Though I must add as one who came of age during Watergate - if Rove or anyone else in the White House is routinely taping their phone calls or conversations they should be fired for inability to learn from history...   ;)

By Robert Pape at American Conservative Magazine

Totally agree. And furthermore, it should make sense that Rove is media target #1, scandal sells, the white house is a big target.

The thing I don't get though is why people are rushing to his defense while the "jury is still out". Let's say he's guilty, a crime was committed and he goes to jail.

What then? you wouldn't want to have defended a man guilty of treason, right?

That is why the white house is stonewalling. They are smart not to comment during this "ongoing investigation."

And i think the "rove is a victim" defense is over the top and reckless.

the dems demanded that Bush appoint one.

I also think this is an investigation that may have had to be pushed through to this conclusion, even if no law is determined to have been broken, because if the justice department made the announcement that they had determined that no crime had been committed, the dems in congress and the wild eyed lefties would have been screaming "cover-up."

The politics of the situation demanded the special prosecutor not the severity of it.

And as I said, when I see multiple threads at Kos and DU outraged over the outing of a CIA cover business doing work in the WOT and naming names and giving specific information of missions in the NYTimes, I will believe the manufactured outrage over the outing of Plame as an employee of the CIA.

...but then the timeline is also consistent with it being a CYA email. Rove gets off the phone, realizes as Cooper says he said at the end "I've said too much already" and quickly tries to cover himself with an email before heading off on that vacation his secretary said he preparing for.  I'm not saying this is what happened - but it's plausible. It doesn't conflict with any known eveidence that I'm aware of.

Basically, I just don't think you can get much exoneratoion value out of anything Rove (or anyone else under suspicion of any criminal act) wrote or said after the events occurred - partuclarly when it conflicts with the account of someone you have no concrete reason to doubt.  It could be the truth. Or it could be the first step in a conspiracy to cover up.  Generally speaking.

I recall W'gate veyr well, and every place I've worked, the rule is assume your discussion is public unless you know otherwise. Using a phone isn't otherwise, and I'd hope the WH is openly and visibly stating this - the POTUS gets absolute confidentiality (executive privilege after all) and while most everyone else is under the umbrella, act as if it's publishable, particularly when talking with folks who publish.

That's why I don't suspect Rove of much, if anything, particularly since both Novak and Cooper's statements are so very minimal, secondary, and subsidiary to what was clearly a much larger story developed elsewhere.

Novak, in particular, had all the goods well before calling Rove, and Cooper sounds as if he was either very late to the story, or way behind everyone else.

As always, this is speculation, but grounded in a bit of inference based on what Novak and Cooper have publicly said.

We have a special prosecutor becausethe dems demanded that Bush appoint one.

I can't put my finger on the article at the moment but my recollection is that the first public pressure from Dem politicians was in late July (24th?). I also recall reading that the CIA first requested a DoJ investigation within days of Novak's column - which would be before the 24th - and that DoJ kicked it back for more information as to what harm was done and what led them to believe a crime had occurred.  Information the CIA provided for the second referral in October.  This is all from memory but I can look for sources if you care.  Can you back up your claim?

This is spurious at best.

Who cares if the Sri Lankan Tigers or whatever do a lot of suicide bombing? Last I checked, they aren't doing a lot of targeting of Western nations in an attempt to change our policies in the Middle East.  This has no relationship to the 9/11, Madrid, Iraq, or 7/7 bombings, and you know it, or should.

The individuals involved in all of these events are not secularists.  They are all dedicated to a branch of islamic fundamentalism that is devoted to the concept of establishing a sharia-based society ruled by the commandments they (badly) perceive in the koran.  Their goal is not the establishment of a secular nation, it is the establishment of a religious nation.

There is no historic 'homeland' of the muslim or islamic peoples, unless you are willing to allow them to reaquire the lands controlled by the Ottoman Empire, which of course even the people of Spain might find objectionable, depending on the era of the Empire you were willing to concede.

I'd also argue that it's a crock to imply that the suicide bombings are aimed only at the occupation in light of today's horrible events.  These people are targeting other muslims who just don't happen to practice the same branch of islam as they do.  These aren't geo-political attacks on coalition forces but an attempt to establish themselves as the sole guardian of what their god has established as law.

You don't doubt Cooper? There's no concrete reason to doubt what he said? Who is he married to? Could that be a reason to doubt what he says?

Just asking, not accusing anyone of anything.

Bartender - first amendment rights all around, on me!

You are right. & because of this I believe we need to keep the upper hand. We should be encouraging our Senators & Congressmen to put out these [spot fires] as they arise.

Otherwise the Dem Propaganda Mill will spout all sorts of ludicrous accusations. That may gain them too strong of a hold on public opinion. Regardless of the facts.

I am admit I am not in the mood to play the google game right now.

But there were several democrats that penned a letter to the justice department requesting an investigation.

AT some point they asked that a special prosecutor be appointed to investigate (they didn't trust Ashcroft apparantly).

Ashcroft recused himself, and some other guy whose name escapes me appointed Fitzgerald.

So yes the dems asked for an investigation and pressured for a special prosecutor.

One of the threads here I believe has the text of the letter copied and pasted.

Believe Schumer was one of the letter writers.  Now feel free to google.

calling Rove, he also had a scheduled publish date for the piece.

That makes me think he had his ducks in a row before he ever placed the call to Rove, and even if Rove was the "second source" it sounds like at that point that he wasn't needed to confirm or deny anything.

I do of Rove at this point.

Basically, I just don't think you can get much exoneratoion value out of anything Rove (or anyone else under suspicion of any criminal act) wrote or said after the events occurred - partuclarly when it conflicts with the account of someone you have no concrete reason to doubt.

I agree that you may not call it an exhonoration, but it also was written before there was an leak, or any reason to suspect that the whole "they outed Plame to get Wilson, let's have an investigation" meme.  I really doubt at that point Rove or the primary leaker expected there to be a call for an investigation for a violation of IIPA-if they had, they probably wouldn't have done it.

Which is why I don't much by the idea that he lied in the memo as a CYA.

As for Cooper he already lied once (he portrayed the leak as calling reporters to shop the Plame story in a report, when we know that he learned about it through a phone call he placed himself to Rove), and Cooper also has ties to the DNC-while that doesn't make you suspect him, it does me, especially given the outright hatred the left feels for Rove.

partuclarly when it conflicts with the account of someone you have no concrete reason to doubt

See, that's what makes this whole thing fun. This is less a debate about Rove or Wilson that it is about the media. You guys all think this stuff in the New York Times or the Washington Post represents some kind of "mainstream thought" on this subject, whereas we're looking at it as the latest in a long string of partisan hatchet-jobs done by the Democratic activists who pose as reporters in the media. We don't trust anything they say. If there's any way there could be a pro-Democrat angle to what they wrote... it's in there.

Here you bring us a guy whose wife is a big suck-up to Hillary Clinton. Oh yeah, he'll be equally tough on Democrats, that one. He prolly even votes Republican. Now you tell one.

Two of the three alphabet networks have former Democratic Party functionaries posing as journalists on their Sunday morning yakfests. How many more of them are in the newspapers?

you hit the nail on the head.

Dems and lefties see absolutely no reason to doubt the media talking/writing heads, unless of courst they are employed by NRO, Weekly Standard or Fox News.

This belief translates into the idea that the reporters can't be lying at all before the grand jury or to the public, but by Cooper's own words to the GJ and in his Time piece and on his MTP interview he showed himself a liar who plays loosly with the facts in order to put the administration in a bad light.

Hello JustMe, I have to respectfully ask why it matters that it was Democrats that asked for this investigation?

• Do you think the course of the investigation would be any different if Republicans had asked for it?
• Is the CIA required to request an investigation the moment Democrats ask for one?
• Is the DOJ required to start an investigation the moment Democrats ask for one?
• Has every request for a DOJ or CIA investigation by Democrats been honored by the DOJ or CIA?

AFAIK, the answer to all the questions above is "No". If you can document otherwise, I'd love to read it.

Given Cooper's partisan spin, in Time ("War on Wilson") vs. his Grand Jury testimony (he called Rove and Libby not the other way around) ...

No Republican official at any time, any where, with a lick of sense, will talk to Reporters. Better to have them referred to a Press Office giving out canned written statements.

Bush has already seem to have decided that the Press is so partisanly hostile (with now the revelation that Cooper's wife is a staffer on Hillary's Senate office, and presumably Senate/Presidential campaigns) that there is no sense in doing anything but absolute minimum of talk to the Press.

This will just kill the Press in access, but they seem willing to make up for it ... by making stuff up.

A big problem here is how to get out the word about the role the press itself played in this whole business.

the immediate answer is apparantly blogs.

Blogs have been very good at catching the media playing some pretty unethical games.  Of course not everyone reads blogs or follows blogs other than politics junkies, but every now and then the MSM will pick up the blog story, and get it out.

But sadly the media doesn't have an internal affairs department and it isn't all that good at self policing.

are referencing the same letter.  Which again, IIRC, came after the CIA itself had first requested a DoJ investigation.

You don't doubt Cooper? There's no concrete reason to doubt what he said? Who is he married to? Could that be a reason to doubt what he says?

Well I do recall the stony silence here last week when I asked the same question about Andrea Mitchell. And she wasn't under oath. And didn't have contempaneous notes to back her up.  

And no, I don't think political affiliation of a spouse should be a big factor in believing someone's sworn testimony.  Not without some other reason less ethereal and more concrete.

God help us if Carville & Matalin ever get into a hotly contested divorce, huh?  

is the whole "well there is an investigation going on so Rove must have done something wrong"

Well for starters the CIA regularly refers leaks to the justice department.

And I think the letter matters in that there was a political component to the appointment of the special counsel and even to the fact that there was a decision to investigate.  The dems wrote justice urging the investigation (yes there was a CIA referral, but do you think the dems would have been satisfied if DOJ had just said-"sorry folks, looks like there wasn't a crime we aren't investigating this any further).

So yes there is a political component to this whole thing that was there from the begining that isn't present in other referrals to the DOJ from the CIA.

I don't recall the dems in congress making a request that the DOJ investigate whoever leaked the NYTimes story about the CIA cover business that was flying operatives around who were fighting in the war on terror.  I don't recall a special prosecutor being appointed for that one, and I dare say that the people involved in that covert op were endangered far more than Valarie Plame was.

Also, for a little help on how politics gets involved with DOJ type investigations.  Think White Water.  Is there anyone here who doubts that a special prosecutor would have been appointed if GOP people weren't pressuring the DOJ to investigate and appoint one?

in a report after the Plame affair was broken?

Cooper implied that Rove was out there calling reporters and telling them all about Plame in an effort to get back at Wilson through his wife.

Turns out Rove wasn't calling anyone, he was taking the callse.  Cooper himself confirmed this part of Rove's testimony.

As a matter of fact the only area they differ on is the welfare discussion and the parting line by Rove.

Considering I know that Cooper is a liar for political purposes, I don't much trust his vague "I don't recall discussing welfare that day, but maybe we did, I did write an article on welfare a few weeks later" meme.

You can put all your trust into Cooper, but he has proven himself a liar for poltical purposes and that doesn't sit well with me.

Who is he married to? What does she do? Is Karl Rove married? If so, does that matter? Is it all Alan Greenspan's fault?

Seriously, there are distinctions between government employees/officials, journalists/press/bloggers, and related/interested parties to each of them.

The damage to governmental officials is usually either legal or political, while to the press almost never legal (civil contempt notwithstanding) not really political (discounting theories of press bias for this argument) but largely an issue of credibility.

If the government lies, it gets tossed out or jailed, depending on the circumstances. If the press lies, they get . . . . . . ummmmm, I guess discredited, sometimes, sorta?!?!???

Seems the press has few restraints (A very good thing - see 1st amendment comment in prior post), but the rest of us should continually question their motives, especially given much of their recent track record.  

And if needed, I'll go back and yell about the stony silence - sorry I missed that. And, Cooper wasn't under oath yesterday on MTP, nor ever when writing for Time. Just try to imagine a Sarbanes-Oxley act applicable to the press - talk about indecipherable goo!

Interestingly, there's a separate thread that speculates that Wilson has no legal troubles since all the contradictions in his various appearences can be overcome with a truthful appearence before the GJ, if he is ever compelled to testify.

See, that's what makes this whole thing fun. This is less a debate about Rove or Wilson that it is about the media. You guys all think this stuff in the New York Times or the Washington Post represents some kind of "mainstream thought" on this subject, whereas we're looking at it as the latest in a long string of partisan hatchet-jobs done by the Democratic activists who pose as reporters in the media. We don't trust anything they say. If there's any way there could be a pro-Democrat angle to what they wrote... it's in there.

So basically your take is that Matt Cooper has to have lied under oath because he's a journalist?

Well if that's the way you see the world that's your prerogative. But it puts you beyond reach of reason from where I sit.  I'm not gonna debate media orientation because no one ever changes anyone else's mind on that.  

But I will say this before dropping that topic, and feel free to have the last word yourself afterwards - if the Clinton administration had gotten even one lousy month of the fawning, hands-off treatment from the mainstrem press that Bush got for the first four years and two or three months then I'd be just a tad bit more willing to consider the view from your vantage point.  You know that if something like this had happened in the 90's it wouldn't have been two whole years - and after the re-election campaign - before it was on the front pages every single day. That's simply beyond any rational debate.

Your turn.  

I was reading his statement and it says:

When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else.

Did he mean his CIA source was a former Clinton admin official or that Wilson was?

Did Bill order his staff to cooperate with a special counsel or special prosecutor? Did they testify with minimal comment, without lawyers running visible interference, and quietly return to their posts without additional ongoing press appearences?

Did a major network spend two years, or more, simply making up facts, and using sources who fabricated (literally) stories to discredit him?

Did Bill not defy common sense by given us all the opportunity to write the word is twice in a row? What is is sounds even funnier than I had had.

Granted, many of the incidents (scandals, occurrences, travesties, crimes, whatever) from 1992-2000 are silly when compared to national security issues, but it's hard to deny that it was a target rich environment, so to speak.

I'm sure others will take on the media bias in gory detail.

he did lie in his article about the white house trying to get back at Wilson.

But he was careful in his testimony.

He said he didn't recall discussing welfare that day, but he also left it open that it was a possibility, since he did write a column on welfare a few weeks after the Plame stuff.

His vague memory on the issue is probably enough to protect him from perjury, and it is always possible he didn't remember discussing welfare.

But it is pretty clear that his testimony on who called who and what Rove said about Plame jived, and his story about a White House witch hunt for Wilson and his wife didn't jive with either Rove's story or his story about getting back at Wilson.

So as far as I am concerned Cooper is a liar.  Maybe not a perjurer but he is a liar.

So basically your take is that Matt Cooper has to have lied under oath because he's a journalist?

So basically you're going to put words in my mouth, and then call what you made up unreasonable? That's an interesting tactic.

These two quotes describe the memo and come from the Senate Report( PG 40). The INR is the State Department. There were members of INR at the Feburary 2002 meeting.  

The INR Analyst's meeting notes

An INR analysts notes indicate that the meeting was "apparently convened by [ the former Ambassador's wife ] wife who had the idea to dispatch [ him ]"

Howver, the INR memo is now known to be dated June 10, 2003.

The memorandum was dated June 10, 2003

The INR memo was rewritten or a new memo was written on July 7, 2003.

The memo, prepared by the State Department on July 7, 2003, informed top administration officials that the wife of ex-diplomat and Bush critic Joseph Wilson was a CIA agent...

The July 7 memo was largely a reproduction of an earlier State Department report prepared around June 12.

He also worked in State Deptment under George H. W. Bush.  

..if you feel that's what I did. It wasn't my intent. This whole sub-thread came from my comment that I didn't see a concrete reason to think Cooper was lying. You responded by going off on the media.  I connected the dots.  Apparently in the wrong order, I guess.  My apologies.

To those in this thread who do seem to be saying that Cooper can't be trusted because he's a journalist and/or his wife is a Democrat, I'd just gently remind you of two things:

   - he was willing to go to jail to keep

      his conversation with Rove secret

and

   - by most accounts this investigation was all

       but

       over last fall save for going through

       the long legal process of compelling Cooper &

       Miller's testimony.  If this were a

       dastardly Democratic plot and Cooper is

       a part of it.... why in the world would he

       postpone the bombshell until long after

       the election?

They figured Wilson was the bombshell.

should have made the same statement in October 2003 that he is making now. However, in October 2003 Scott McClellan and the WH took a different tactic then now. And that's what makes this so darn interesting and entertaining.

It's like a good novel (only reality based) and I will wait to find out how it all ends. I found the Watergate investigation also very interesting at the time it was all unfolding. We all know how that finally ended.

So?

Is this one of those "Wilson is non-partisan" posts?

Reagan voted for Truman. Did that make him non-partisan?

foreign service officer.

....before the first primary? 16 months before election day?  That's not where campaigns plant their bombshells. Marketing 101.

That's where this one did. Marketing 102. Besides, they had the Dan Rather fake memos for late in the game.

Wilson was attacking the "16 words" in the SOTU address.  Had he waited until '04 to drop his bombshell it would have flopped-I mean why wait until the next SOTU to complain about something in the previous one.

Also, it fed Kerry and the dems talking points to attack the administration with.  One thing I remember about that primary is that it was less about the candidates seperating themselves from each other and more about who could criticise the administration the loudest.

a question. Just Me asked about Novak's CIA source.

Did he mean his CIA source was a former Clinton admin official or that Wilson was

I added that Wilson also worked in the first Bush administration. Novak is being selective with Wilson's career in this quote. I didn't claim that Wilson is non-partisan.

with what you posted.

Who cares if the Sri Lankan Tigers or whatever do a lot of suicide bombing?

That's rather cold, I'm sure the people that die from their attacks in Sri Lanka care.

The article doesn't argue that they're secular.  The article argues that they aren't suicide bombing because they're religious.  For example, Iranians haven't been suicide bombing anyone, and the last I checked, they aren't occupied by a foreign nation either.   Iraq had just about ... well .... zero suicide bombers before our occupation too.  But Saddam was a native Iraqi, he wasn't a foreign occupier.

Its rather shallow to say that there's no historic 'homeland' for muslims.  Since according to biblical history the Abraham is equally the ancestor of all jews and arabs, and to a very large extent arabs are muslims, there's just as valid of a claim by arabs (muslims) for historical lands as there is by jews for historical lands.  I realize arab =! muslim and visa versa, but it would be disingenuous not to say the two have a strong correlation.

So you're completely unwilling to acknowledge that there's even the remotest possibility that our presence in Iraq is what has led to the increase in suicide bombing, and that if we were to leave the bomb attacks would greatly diminish?