Further evidence tying Rove to Plame-outing

Whether Rove broke the law or not is almost irrelevant. Much more important is that he crossed a moral line that neither the public nor the media will accept. He's now a weight around Bush's neck.

 

I hope you're right but I'm not sure anyone besides us lefty moonbats even cares.

 

Pull a Scott McClellan and plead ignorance or keep your mouth shut in general. I notice you didn't quote the part where I mention FOX NEWS. That paradox must have really thrown your head out of whack.

 

Only from a lefty moonbat, where the making of distinctions and the understanding of nuance -- depsite their insistence of course that THEY are the nuanced ones -- is an exercise in impossibility.

Whether he broke the law or not is almost irrelevant.

Whether the memo was actually fake or not is almost irrelevant.

Whether they lied about WMD or not is almost irrelevant.

Because, you know the 9/11 commission report/the Duelfer Report/ the Downing Street Memo,/Rove outing of Plame (pick one, any one) is gonna get rid of the last vestiges Bush power....

Ain't it... well aint' it?? Puhleeze??

 

And now I will quote all the relevant parts of Karl's response.

 

You need to check out the footage from yesterday's gaggle. The MSM cares, because McLellan lied to THEM. Like I wrote, they don't care that the Bushies lied to us. They admire their boldness. But you don't lie to the White House press corps and get away with it.

Frankly, McLellan has to go too. Not through any fault of his own, necessarily. But either he lied and lied and lied to the press, which means he can't do his job, or someone in the Bush administration set him up to spread lies, which leads to the same conclusion. Anything he says that's even vaguely controversial, the press corps ought not to, and won't, believe him, so he's useless as a spinner.

 

I don't know if this is what Gringo meant, but I took his post to mean, if Rove's innocence is based on a technicality, that's not really helpful to Bush. If his innocence is based on him not doing it, that's a different thing.

 

You've gotta be kidding me. The WH has been lying to the WH press corps since day one and it takes them four and a half years to start caring?

Don't get me wrong, better late than never. I just don't have any confidence that regular people are going to give a rat's ass about any of it.

I'm inclined to think that they lied to him. That's one reason I said yesterday that WH press secretary must be one of the suckiest jobs in the history of sucky jobs.

 

I want to make a distinction here. They haven't been lying to the press corps, they've been using the press corps as a vessel to lie to the American people. That's not quite the same thing as lying to the press corps itself. The press corps knows what's happening in the first example, but just don't give a sh**. In the 2nd case, they, too, are being deceived.

 

So let me get this straight...

Rove is going to try to weasel out of this jam by claiming that all he said was that "Wilson's wife...apparently works" at the CIA. He didn't actually use her name.

God, how could some of you people defend this prick? At long last, have you no sense of decency?

But see, he'll walk for this 'cause nothing sticks to these guys.

 

I don't see much chance of that, myself. If Plame's employment status meant that the leak couldn't be a crime, how would the investigation have gotten past square one? Without the strong likelihood that a crime was committed, the Justice Department never would have acceded to the CIA's initial request for an investigation back in 2003. I'm pretty sure that the people that requested the investigation are familiar with Plame's exact status, and that the people that approved it are familiar with the relevant laws.

Or, more recently, you have comments by the judges in the Miller and Cooper case indicating that this case involves suspicion of a serious crime. In fact, Judge Tatel's opinion (described here) stated that the case involves "the alleged exposure of a covert agent," and that, while he favors some sort of protection for reporters, the the gravity of the possible crime in this case overrules any such protection. Unlike media pundits, the judges know all the available facts about the case (including classified facts), so I'd say their opinion on this is probably pretty authoritative.

 

IMO everyone was completely terrified of the white house since 9/11, but now that Bush is a quacker and the party is splintering they are starting to get some kahonies. I would judge them as cowards but it had to be a tough spot to be in.

The Bush administration has lost it's clout, I'm going to enjoy watching this unravel over the next 3 years.

 

I wouldn't say it's almost irrelevant, politically speaking. Obviously, the sight of Rove getting hauled off to a federal prison would have a certain visceral impact that won't be present if he gets off.

Still, if the White House is forced to hang their defense on a claim that "no controlling legal authority" told Rove he couldn't blow the cover of secret agents while carrying out a partisan smear campaign - that would mean they're in big trouble.

 

At minimum, we know that the CIA believed that their interests had been significantly harmed. Otherwise, they wouldn't have asked for an investigation.
Fitzgerald's aggressiveness in pressuring Cooper and Miller also suggests that this story isn't just going to fade away. While there is no federal law protecting reporters, there apparently is a DOJ policy that only allows federal prosecutors to go after reporters in limited circumstances. The possible crime has to be significant and likely, and the information the reporter has must relate to the core issues in the case.

 

Jesus is coming!

White House in a Bind Over Rove E-Mail

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The White House is suddenly facing damaging evidence that it misled the public by insisting for two years that presidential adviser Karl Rove wasn't involved in leaking the identity of a female CIA officer.

Rove told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper that the woman "apparently works" for the CIA and that she had authorized her husband's trip to Africa to assess allegations that Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake uranium for nuclear weapons, according to a July 11, 2003, e-mail by Cooper obtained by Newsweek magazine.

The e-mail is now in the hands of federal prosecutors who are hunting down the leakers inside the Bush administration who revealed the name of Valerie Plame to the news media.

 

Why? Because he has to stand up and play verbal poker/**************** with reporters? It's all a game to the press secretary.

At this point, the press secretary knows a lot of embarassing things that so far he has not said. So his bosses can't chew him out or piss him off. He cares little about what the press thinks of him.

And whenever he decides to leave, he walks into a job/partnership with a 7 figure salary at some PR firm, ad agency, lobbyist company, marketing consulting firm, something like that - where once again, its his job to sway the american public, and the people he works with care nothing for truth or ideology, only image and presentation and $.

And that's before he decides to write a book.

 

Republican States The Obvious To Russert:

 

Dana Milbank chat on WashPo.com

Here's one for Barb - why McClellen is such a ********-head:

 

"Leak this!"

 

Where she worked was well known in DC circles

Seems she liked to flaunt it

Also, she wasn't in a covert position

 

McLellan like a pig on a spit at a press conference right now.

edit: Well, I went back and read the last few pages...looks like it's been the same as the last couple days. He's gotta be well done by now.

 

Luau!

 

I am trying to understand what this "moral line" supposedly is.

From what I understand it wasn't some super secret that Plame worked for the CIA, and it wasn't like she was running some undercover operations in Iraq. I think Rove should have said something like somone in the agency with an intimate relationship with Wilson, instead of coming right out and saying his wife, but I think it is relavent that he said she "apparently" works at the CIA, which makes it sound like he knew the reporter had that would be able to verify that information. Novak said that he had a source within the CIA who verified Plames status, and didn't strongly warn him about outing her. Miller is still not talking, even though she would have no need to protect Rove anymore, so it certainly seems like other people were talking about this.

The stories being floated around were that Cheney or Tennent had sent Wilson to Africa, and Rove was trying to get Cooper off of tht line, because it was not true. Hasn't it come out that indeed Plame did have a hand in the Niger trip? Wasn't Rove just trying to get out the truth?

 

80% vote for resignation!

 

Of course... its MSNBC which predicted above 80% would vote for Kerry!

Try citing an impartial survey source!