Rove And Plame 3: Spin On, Republicans; Spin On!

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by hilzoy

After being caught a bit off guard on Monday, Republicans spent yesterday and (so far) today mounting their response to Karl Rove’s outing of Valerie Plame. As I noted earlier, there are some situations that it’s really hard to spin, and this is plainly one of them. I mean: how exactly do you explain the fact that one of the President’s senior advisors outed an undercover CIA agent to discredit her husband, and that the President was so unconcerned about this that he has, to date, done nothing in response? (Though yesterday we learned, via poor Scott McClellan, that the President still has confidence in Rove. I guess outing CIA operatives just isn’t that big a deal to him. And today he said this: “”I also will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports.” Newsflash, Mr. President: unlike most of the rest of us, you don’t have to rely on the media. You could just say: Karl, would you step into my office for a moment?, and decide for yourself.)

Still, I give the GOP an A for effort. Here are some of their talking points:

* Ken Mehlman, Chairman of the RNC, has an entire press release devoted to criticisms of Joseph Wilson. The best you can say for any of them is that they’re open to dispute; but some of them are really laughable. My particular favorite is: “Wilson Tied To The 2004 Kerry Campaign For President. — Really? You think? And why might that be? There are, of course, all sorts of reasons; and Wilson is not the only person who decided to go with Kerry after seeing four years of a Bush administration. But he joined Kerry’s campaign after members of the Bush administration outed his wife and wrecked her career; and surely that might have had something to do with it. (For the record: here are Wilson’s political donations in 2000. He gave to both Bush and Gore.)

But the crucial point about Mehlman’s response is this: criticisms of Joe Wilson are completely irrelevant. It’s not as though it’s OK to out a CIA agent as long as you don’t like the person she’s married to. It’s wrong to out CIA agents under any circumstances, whatever their spouses are like. And nothing Ken Mehlman says changes that point.

* The Wall Street Journal and others note that “there’s no evidence that Mr. Rove broke any laws in telling reporters that Ms. Plame may have played a role in her husband’s selection for a 2002 mission to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium ore in Niger.” This is true. The law against disclosing the names of undercover agents is narrowly drafted, and there are various ways in which Rove could have eluded its provisions. (Although there are lots of other laws on the books, and it’s not the least clear to me that Fitzgerald is after a violation of this one.)

Again, though: so what? There are lots of things a person can do that are perfectly legal, but still both wrong and grounds for getting fired. This is especially true when your job is: Deputy Chief of Staff to the President of the United States. Personally, I think that disclosing the identity of an undercover agent in some way that is not captured by 50 USC 421 is one of them. Our President should have higher standards for his staff than just: managing not to break any laws.

* Rove’s lawyer tells Byron York that Rove wasn’t really trying to get Matt Cooper to publish anything on Plame; he was just “trying to warn Cooper off from going out on a limb on [Wilson’s] allegations”, a claim that has been repeated in the WSJ and elsewhere. First of all, this doesn’t pass the laugh test. Consider this quote from a Sept. 2003 Washington Post story:

“Yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak’s column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson’s wife. (…) “Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge,” the senior official said of the alleged leak.”

We know the names of at least five of those reporters: Novak, Miller, Cooper, Tim Russert, and Walter Pincus. Are we supposed to believe that administration officials called all those people and inadvertently let slip the fact that Wilson’s wife was an undercover agent? I don’t think so. Suppose they were motivated solely by a desire to warn reporters off a bad story: would that matter? No. Again: you do not get to disclose the identities of undercover CIA agents, period. There is no ‘I don’t like your spouse’ exception to this rule, and there is no ‘but I did it to steer a reporter off a bad story’ exception either. This is just irrelevant.

(The fact that at least five reporters were contacted also makes Rove’s lawyer’s claim that Cooper called Rove, not the other way around, irrelevant.)

John Podhoretz tries this tack: “Rove was telling Cooper the truth.” — Last time I checked, there are all sorts of ways to do something very wrong by telling the truth about something you just shouldn’t be talking about at all. You can tell the truth about your employer’s trade secrets to a rival, for instance, or tell the truth about military secrets to agents of a foreign power, or tell the truth about how to construct a thermonuclear device from readily available parts in a white supremacist magazine. Or you can tell the truth about an undercover agent’s identity to a reporter who goes on to broadcast it to the world.

* Lots of people are going with the claim that Valerie Plame was not, in fact, undercover. Some people note that Wilson listed his wife’s name on his website. About this I can only quote Atrios:

“Very slowly for the very stupid people among us:

Valerie Plame’s name was not secret. The fact that she was married to Wilson was not secret. The fact that she worked for the CIA was.”

And that’s what Rove et al disclosed.

More generally, there’s this:

“The CIA declined to discuss Plame’s intelligence work, but an agency official disputed suggestions that she was a mere analyst whose public exposure would have little consequence. “If she was not undercover, we would have no reason to file a criminal referral,” the CIA official said, insisting on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.”

And this:

“Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday yesterday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity – at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.”

And that’s just the first couple of articles I found by Googling. [UPDATE: In comments, Anderson points me to this post by Kevin Drum, which has a long list of people attesting to Plame’s undercover status.] Moreover, it wasn’t just Plame’s identity that was blown; it was her cover and her previous contacts:

“The leak of a CIA operative’s name has also exposed the identity of a CIA front company, potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure, Bush administration officials said yesterday. After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame’s employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA. Plame’s name was first published July 14 in a newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two senior administration officials. They were critical of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his handling of a CIA mission that undercut President Bush’s claim that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger for possible use in developing nuclear weapons. (…)

The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame’s identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame’s job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered. A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame’s name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities.”

I’ll give the last word to Larry Johnson:

“For starters, Valerie Plame was an undercover operations officer until outed in the press by Robert Novak. Novak’s column was not an isolated attack. It was in fact part of a coordinated, orchestrated smear that we now know includes at least Karl Rove.

Valerie Plame was a classmate of mine from the day she started with the CIA. I entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985. All of my classmates were undercover–in other words, we told our family and friends that we were working for other overt U.S. Government agencies. We had official cover. That means we had a black passport–i.e., a diplomatic passport. If we were caught overseas engaged in espionage activity the black passport was a get out of jail free card.

A few of my classmates, and Valerie was one of these, became a non-official cover officer. That meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport. If caught in that status she would have been executed.

The lies by people like Victoria Toensing, Representative Peter King, and P. J. O’Rourke insist that Valerie was nothing, just a desk jockey. Yet, until Robert Novak betrayed her she was still undercover and the company that was her front was still a secret to the world. When Novak outed Valerie he also compromised her company and every individual overseas who had been in contact with that company and with her.

The Republicans now want to hide behind the legalism that “no laws were broken”. I don’t know if a man made law was broken but an ethical and moral code was breached. For the first time a group of partisan political operatives publically identified a CIA NOC. They have set a precendent that the next group of political hacks may feel free to violate.”

That’s the thing about disclosing the identity of someone who might be a covert agent: the person who does the disclosing has no business even thinking about it unless he absolutely knows several things: first, that that person is not a covert agent; and second, that if she is not now but used to be, that none of her previous contacts, front organizations, or other intelligence assets will be jeopardized by the disclosure. Claiming that you didn’t know that she was a covert agent, or that other assets might be jeopardized by disclosing her identity, doesn’t cut it: if you are going to out her, it’s your responsibility to find out. And claiming that Andrea Mitchell says that Plame’s identity was common knowledge in the DC press corps does nothing to change this. (Side note: it is amusing to me to watch people who are ready to believe that the media lies about more or less everything suddenly assume that because Andrea Mitchell says something, it must be so.)

* But there’s one GOP talking point that I hope they’ll go on repeating, and that is that this is just a partisan attack. Lots of Republicans are saying this; as an example, here’s Ken Mehlman again:

“It’s disappointing that once again, so many Democrat leaders are taking their political cues from the far-left, Moveon wing of the party. The bottom line is Karl Rove was discouraging a reporter from writing a false story based on a false premise and the Democrats are engaging in blatant partisan political attacks.”

Republicans: please keep saying this. Keep telling the American people that it’s only Democrats who think it’s wrong to out an undercover CIA agent. Keep saying that the only reason anyone would think it’s any sort of a problem to put vindictiveness and a desire to discredit one’s political opponents above national security is partisanship; that what we’re seeing, as“the media and the Democratic Party come together as one to go after Karl Rove on what is essentially a non-story”, is “the Democrats’ behavior, the seething rage, the anger, the hatred”. Because most people know better. Most people know that you just do not out undercover agents at all, and you surely do not out them to score political points. And if the Republicans keep telling them that it’s only Democrats who care about this, maybe they’ll listen.

***

Another update: I completely forgot to note the response that gets the “I am a flaming idiot” award: John Gibson, on Fox, saying that Rove should get a medal for outing Plame. Video here.

287 thoughts on “Rove And Plame 3: Spin On, Republicans; Spin On!”

  1. “Republicans: please keep saying this. Keep telling the American people that it’s only Democrats who think it’s wrong to out an undercover CIA agent.”
    Could you please offer proof that an undercover agent was outed by Rove?
    Could you please offer proof that Plame was undercover at the time?
    Maybe, I missed it, but it seems to me that the answers to these questions are relevant.
    I can tell that you are all up in arms over this, but can’t you agree that there is not any proof “YET” that Rove actually did anything wrong. While it is commonly acknowledged that many reporters have long known that Plame worked at the CIA.

  2. Grrr …
    Boy, am I tired of this “was Plame even undercover” mess.
    Most recently, we have Larry Johnson, retired CIA & undoubted Bush critic, who says expressly that she was indeed covert at the time and that Novak burned her.
    until Robert Novak betrayed her she was still undercover and the company that was her front was still a secret to the world. When Novak outed Valerie he also compromised her company and every individual overseas who had been in contact with that company and with her.
    Whatever his politics, Johnson’s inside knowledge trumps any *@#!#^ talking point about “but how do we KNOW Plame was really an operative.”
    If people would either (1) cite their evidence that Plame WASN’T covert or (2) not bring up that canard, that would certainly contribute to focus on live issues, like whether or not Rove’s guilty of anything (still quite an open issue).

  3. Could you please offer proof that an undercover agent was outed by Rove?
    Sure.
    Could you please offer proof that Plame was undercover at the time?
    Sure.

  6. BlogMe: First, I offered evidence that she was undercover. Second, I also said that anyone who outs a CIA agent has the obligation to make sure not just that she’s not undercover just then, but that if she was no longer undercover, exposing her identity would not harm other intelligence assets. That said, I also offered evidence that Novak’s revelation blew a CIA front company. Obviously, I don’t know whether any of the agents she ran, or the people she associated with, were put at risk by the disclosure, and if I did I wouldn’t post it here, since I’m not Karl Rove or Bob Novak. But I think there’s absolutely enough evidence to warrant the conclusion that Rove did something badly wrong.

  7. Blogme, you wrote:

    Could you please offer proof that an undercover agent was outed by Rove?
    Could you please offer proof that Plame was undercover at the time?

    Both of your questions were answered in the post to which you responded, leading me to believe that you are, in fact, merely responding to the words “Plame” and “Rove” in the same post with a denial so instant as to be practically Pavlovian.
    Would someone care to test this by posting several hundred words (perhaps quoted from a Terry Pratchett novel) with the words “Plame” and “Rove” inserted? It would be an interesting experiment to see how Blogme responds.

  8. blogme,
    I think it’s safe to assume the CIA knows whether she was undercover. They requested the investigation into the the identification of an undercover agent. Do you think they just goofed? Do you think Fitzgerald has just gone blithely along for two years without making sure that she was undercover?

  9. What are all the Bush apologists going to do when Rove gets indicted? It would instantly render all this clintonian parsing of statutes and Plame’s status rather moot.
    All I can figure is they’ll go to the activist judges/overzealous prosecuter line they’ve used with Limbaugh’s and Tom Delay’s legal problems.

  12. Clicking through PM’s link makes his claim clearer:
    At the time, federal prosecutor Brian Netols told Manning, “I think that would be the appropriate sentence.”
    The three-judge panel on the case, Frank Easterbrook, Ilana Diamond Rovner and Diane Wood, issued its opinion, written by Easterbrook, stating that the sentence should have been 120 months.
    “By deciding not to (challenge the 97-month sentence), the United States has ensured that Rivera’s sentence cannot be increased,” the opinion states. * * *
    Sensenbrenner also wrote a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, demanding that the decision be appealed further and that he investigate why the U.S. attorney’s office in Chicago did not appeal Rivera’s sentence.
    (Italics/bold off.)

  13. So what everyone here is claiming is that Cooper had no idea that Plame worked at the CIA?
    And if Rove hadn’t told Cooper no one else could have given him that information.
    I suppose it is irrelevant to everyone here that the law the law says, “an “undercover agent” must have been working outside the country under a contrived identity or circumstance and on a permanent basis within the previous five years.”
    So please show me that this was in fact her situation.
    And feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Novak leak her identity not Cooper.
    Are you guys claiming that Novak talked to Cooper and then Novak outed Plame?
    Just trying to follow the logic.

  14. 2shoes,
    It sounds like you need to talk to Anderson. Anderson for some reason seems to think that Novak outed Plame.
    Who was it? Rove or Novak?
    I’m more than willing to accept the Plame may have been undercover at the time. I think that information will come out in more detail later. But as stated above I am not sure she meets the previously posted definition. I will accept Fitzgerald’s conclusion.
    Can all of you say the same if he finds no wrong doing by Rove?
    You guys are jumping on the band wagon to convict, but I think you might actually be jumping onto a sinking ship. I would rather wait and see what Fitzgerald says in the end.

  15. “So please show me that this was in fact her situation.”
    The evidence is that Fitzgerald is investigating this.
    The best-case scenario for the Bush administration would have been if she wasn’t covert. They could have ended this in 2003, before anyone was questioned.
    They could have produced CIA records a, b, and c, which prove that Valerie Plame was not covert for reasons x, y, and z. Thus, no law was broken. They could have gone on to claim that they knew she wasn’t covert, and that’s why she was named.
    This would have been optimal. The Bush administration would have come out looking clean as a whistle. Objective proof would have been available, to satisfy any doubters or dismiss claims of a whitewashing.
    Since nobody in the administration would have been questioned, no perjury would have been possible.
    Why do you think Ashcroft’s Department of Justice would miss this easy out?
    What makes you think Fitzgerald is working on a case which could have been ended two years ago with a look at the CIA’s travel records?

  17. “wherein a few details are released from Cooper’s e-mails to Time editors about his “double super secret background” interview with WH dep”
    Anybody know what this means?

  18. blogme: “Can all of you say the same if he finds no wrong doing by Rove?”
    Fitzgerald is investigating the question: were any laws broken by outing Plame? This is different from the question: did anyone do anything wrong in outing Plame? (I said this in my original post.) Whether anyone did anything wrong in outing Plame is not Fitzgerald’s call to make.
    Plame was a NOC undercover agent outside the country for the CIA until sometime in the late ’90s. She was still undercover, though not abroad, at the time she was outed. Outing her not only ended her career as an undercover agent, it burned her cover company, and we have no reason at all to assume it didn’t harm people she worked with. If Karl Rove convinces me that he had ironclad evidence that none of these people could have been harmed by this disclosure, OK; if not, I think he shouldn’t have disclosed her identity without knowing that for a fact.
    This is all more than enough to show that Rove (and anyone else who took part in the effort to make her identity known) engaged in “wrongdoing”, though it’s not enough to show that Rove violated 50 USC 421. If you’d like to argue that outing an agent is OK, go for it. If not, leave it alone.
    I’ll leave you to figure out the double super secret part for yourself.

  19. When someone responds to a deconstruction of loony talking points with a textbook demonstration of those talking points, you just have to wonder.
    Blogme, do you happen to know Moby, or do we need to break out the recipes?

  20. And feel free to correct me if I am wrong, but didn’t Novak leak her identity not Cooper.
    Neither. They were recipients of a leak, not leakers.
    You know, I’d be surprised if either Ms. Miller’s lawyer Bob Bennett or Mr. Cooper’s lawyer Miguel Estrada would have missed completely the fact that no laws had been broken, and would just watch their clients go to jail without raising the issue. Think maybe they know something you don’t?

  21. “Think maybe they know something you don’t?”
    Yep, sure do.
    Bush is still standing by Rove even after all the info that has come public. Think he knows something you don’t?

  23. Think he knows something you don’t?
    Tons. I just haven’t heard him say that he thinks Plame was not within the ambit of the statute. Or that he thinks no laws were broken. If he thought her job description answered the inquiry — or the state of Wilson’s knowledge, or whatever excuse is the current favorite — he could just say so.

  24. Hilzoy,
    “I’ll leave you to figure out the double super secret part for yourself.”
    Is this not at all relevant in Rove’s intentions and we shouldn’t take the time to discuss what it means?
    Is it something that we should just ignore?

  25. This is all more than enough to show that Rove (and anyone else who took part in the effort to make her identity known) engaged in “wrongdoing”

    I think you are getting a little ahead of yourself, hilzoy. First of all, Plame’s status as a NOC agent at the time of publication hasn’t been documented, as far as I’ve seen. Second, given that no one’s yet been charged with anything, the conclusion that it was Rove that did…whatever is unwarranted.
    If you want to speculate, though, join us over here.

  26. Slarti, I think you missed Blogme’s first comment on this thread (July 13, 2005 02:40 PM) which already asked the two questions you pose. I think you’ll find, if you re-read the thread, that your/Blogme’s two points have already been dealt with thoroughly.

  27. From the hyper-conservative Josh Marshall
    “Plame was one of a group of spies that the CIA suspected, but wasn’t sure, might have been compromised by Aldrich Ames. Because of that, she was brought back stateside for her own protection, though she continued to work as a NOC.”

  28. Jesurgislac,
    Maybe Josh and Larry can get together and see if they can agree with each other. The point is all the facts aren’t in. But, that really doesn’t seem to be a point that interests anyone here.
    “For starters, Valerie Plame was an undercover operations officer until outed in the press by Robert Novak. Novak’s column was not an isolated attack. It was in fact part of a coordinated, orchestrated smear that we now know includes at least Karl Rove”

  29. Slarti: I was explicitly discussing wrongdoing as opposed to criminal conduct. The relevant law is very narrowly drafted, and for all I know it may not cover what Rove did. That’s of course a big concern to Fitzgerald, but it’s not a big concern to me, except insofar as my meaner side would like to see Rove led off in handcuffs.
    To me, the question is: did Rove do something wrong? And the answer is: yes. Why? Well, he outed someone who was a NOC agent until (I think) ’98, at which point she was brought in a bit because they thought she might have been compromised by Ames. (As I understand it.) She used to run agents. Rove ended her career, including any future work on WMD she might have done. This led to the disclosure that the company she supposedly worked for was a front. It might have endangered not only the people she was actually working with when she was undercover, but innocent people she had contact with.
    And why did he do this? Maybe, if you gave me some time, I could come up with a hypothetical where this was the right thing to do. Maybe if Osama bin Laden had a nuclear bomb and was threatening to blow up the world unless I outed Valerie Plame, and God leaned down and told me that this would indeed be Osama’s last demand, after which he’d head off for a retirement community in Bahrain.
    But Karl Rove did it to discredit a political opponent. — How on earth is this not obviously wrong?

  30. We’ve got a retired CIA agent who says Plame was covert at the time of publication.
    Does anyone have any rebuttal *evidence* against that?

  32. Blogme,
    “From the hyper-conservative Josh Marshall
    “Plame was one of a group of spies that the CIA suspected, but wasn’t sure, might have been compromised by Aldrich Ames. Because of that, she was brought back stateside for her own protection, though she continued to work as a NOC.”
    Regardless of Plame’s status, the CIA was sufficiently angered by the leak to ask the Justice Department to investigate it.

  33. Anderson,
    Maybe you can help me understand what laws were broken by Larry Johnson?
    “Mr. Johnson left the CIA in 1989. He left the State Department in 1993. btw. ”
    How did someone who wasn’t working at the CIA know for sure that Plame was still working as an undercover agent? Obviously someone leaked the information to him? Was it Rove?
    So much to know, but no one here including myself knows the whole story yet.

  34. And finally, the boogey man has revealed itself:
    “my meaner side would like to see Rove led off in handcuffs.”
    But, hey I’m sure we all really only care about what’s in the best interest of our country. It’s not like our political bias could ever stop us from being rational.
    ; -)

  35. But, hey I’m sure we all really only care about what’s in the best interest of our country
    is it true that the only way harm can be done is if the law is broken ?

  36. “is it true that the only way harm can be done is if the law is broken ?”
    And this is relevant to my comment how?
    I don’t really wish anyone to be led of in handcuffs unless their are proven guilty of a crime. No matter what my meaner side my feel. Sue me for being an American.
    Harm is done all the time without breaking any laws. Sadly, I know quite a few Americans who have fallen into this category since the WOT started. I read their blogs all the time.

  37. So let me get this straight1
    We know so far that Rove told Cooper that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA.
    “Rather, “it was, KR said, wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.”
    Is this statement the one that condems Rove or is there more somewhere else that we know about?

  38. Mr. Johnson left the CIA in 1989. He left the State Department in 1993. btw. ”
    How did someone who wasn’t working at the CIA know for sure that Plame was still working as an undercover agent?
    Now, THAT is a good point, tho not definitive; fbow, CIA vets are going to gossip, law be damned.
    Anyone seen anything on Johnson’s position to know about Plame’s status?

  39. blogme writes: “Is this not at all relevant in Rove’s intentions and we shouldn’t take the time to discuss what it means?”
    There is no exception in the law such that it’s okay if the recipient promises not to tell.
    Just telling Cooper would be a violation of the law, even if he never mentioned it to anyone else. The relevant law doesn’t only cover publication.
    “background” just means you can’t tell who told you, not that you can’t pass on what you’ve been told.

  40. According to Vanity Fair’s profile of Plame, she moved back to the US in 1997, but does not give the month. If she moved back after July, that would put her within 5 years of the leak to Novak.
    The Vanity Fair story also says that in 2003 Plame was in the process of moving from NOC to State Department cover. Perhaps that’s how someone (Bolton?) at State found out about her, and passed that on to Rove.
    “In fact, in the spring, Plame was in the process of moving from noc status to State Department cover.”

  42. Blogme: “I’ll leave you to figure out the double super secret part for yourself.”
    Is this not at all relevant in Rove’s intentions and we shouldn’t take the time to discuss what it means?
    It is still disclosing the identity of a NOC operative. Even if you pinky-swear the other person to secrecy.

  43. I should note that, even though she moved back to the US in 1997, it’s entirely possible that she could have done a quick low-risk trip out of he country, undercover, after 1997.
    Technically, a 30 minute undercover meeting in Tijuana, right across the border, would count under the relevant statute, as long as it took place within 5 years.
    There’s no requirement that the undercover work have been of long duration.

  45. We’ve got a retired CIA agent who says Plame was covert at the time of publication.

    Cite? Is this the same guy who said that Plame had been undercover for three decades?

    But Karl Rove did it to discredit a political opponent. — How on earth is this not obviously wrong?

    Far too much supposition, hilzoy. I think I’d wait until testimony is extracted from Cooper and Miller. There’s much here that defies explanation using that which is known, beginning with Rove’s belated waiver that releases both Cooper and Miller to testify about their discussions with him. Who is it that appears to have something to hide, here? And if the case against Rove is clear, how come no one is taking advantage of this wide-open opportunity? Granted, the waiver’s only been out there for eighteen months or so, but the wheels of justice surely turn faster than that.

  46. blogme:
    Stop being a troll and actually address the facts:
    1. Plame as a NOC — everyone who should know the answer to this question has made it clear by their conduct that she was a NOC. Who are they? Well, the CIA, the White House (who could have instantly ended the controversy in 2003 by making the case on this), the special prosecutor, all of the lawyers involved including Rove’s lawyer, and the district and circuit court judges who upheld imprisonment of reporters for not talking (they reviewed the relevant evidence of the possible crime in order to uphold the orders).
    And what do you cite as support for the proposition that she wasn’t a NOC? Diddly squat. And RNC talking points, which are the same thing.
    2. Rove outed Plame — Rove’s own lawyer (Luskin) admits that Rove told Cooper that Plame was CIA before Novak’s article ran. Luskin’s defense is that Rove allegedly did not knowlingly burn her as a NOC, which is a legal defense but hardly a moral defense.
    This admission came only two years later when the Cooper disclosure forced Rove to admit something that, through McClellan, was officially denied; i.e., Rove had McClellan lie to the press about his involvement from 2003 through now, when the Cooper disclosures blew the lid off that lie.
    Someone also told Novak that led to the article that created the scandal. We don’t know yet who that was, but the most reasonable inference is that it was either Rove or someone acting under Rove’s direction. That’s just logic, and denying it is partisanship.
    3. Wait for the criminal investigation and trial to be over before taking any action against Rove, and if he evades a guilty verdict, he is clean?
    Uh, this might be the standard the mafia uses when assessing the propriety of their capo’s conduct. Nice to see that Bush has adopted it as the standard for keeping his most trusted advisors in the public service. Which also might explain why Bush lied in 2003 that he would fire whoever leaked, and now has decided not to after Rove admitted he leaked to Cooper. He must have sworn omerta with Rove.
    Also, the same standard means that Clinton was blameless. Ha ha.

  47. Slartibartfast:
    Granted, the waiver’s only been out there for eighteen months or so, but the wheels of justice surely turn faster than that.
    I wondered about this too, until I heard the lawyers for Cooper and Miller indicate that the policy is to presume that these waivers are coerced and should not be honored by the reporter in order to protect the source. After all, government reaction to whistleblowers could easily be to have everyone in the government sign the waivers “or else.” Refusing to sign would be viewed as an admission of guilt. The government then waves the waivers to force the press to divulge the leaker. That tactic would essentially eliminate the force of the promise to keep the leaker’s id confidential, hence the policy of ignoring the waiver.
    I thought the waivers should end the issue until I heard this analysis from the first amendment lawyers who do this work.
    That’s why Cooper wanted the high level of assurance that the source was really waiving the promise of confidentiality, which he apparently only got at the last minute.
    Which also leads to the analysis that Rove probably knew this, and would not provide the greater assurance until the last possible second. His initial waiver became a cynical ploy to pretend to cooperate? Never.

  49. “So, I’m wondering: if Johnson was retired, how does he know Plame’s undercover status?”
    Er, friends who aren’t retired yet?
    After she was outed, they might have talked about her with Johnson.

  50. I wondered about this too, until I heard the lawyers for Cooper and Miller indicate that the policy is to presume that these waivers are coerced and should not be honored by the reporter in order to protect the source.

    And you don’t think that reeks of bullshit? Rove’s lawyer and Rove both maintain that the waiver’s legitimate and uncoerced…why would they do that, if Rove had something to hide?
    No, who’s impeding the investigation is not Rove, but Miller and Cooper.

    which he apparently only got at the last minute.

    As in, the night before he refused to testify. Now, what’s that look like? Cooper’s lawyer contacts Luskin the night before he’s to be questioned, and Luskin assures him the waiver is as broad as can be. Cooper then puts up this nonsense about coercion.

  51. So, I’m wondering: if Johnson was retired, how does he know Plame’s undercover status?
    presumably he knows it the same way we do: (from Hilzoy’s link above):

      The CIA declined to discuss Plame’s intelligence work, but an agency official disputed suggestions that she was a mere analyst whose public exposure would have little consequence.
      “If she was not undercover, we would have no reason to file a criminal referral,” the CIA official said, insisting on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.

    next red herring.

  53. “Cite? Is this the same guy who said that Plame had been undercover for three decades?”
    Larry Johnson, at the TPM link. That Johnson,Wilson, and Plame, who served their country in extraordinary fashions, have their integrity questioned in defense of a man like Rove, who Bush sr fired for bad conduct and character…
    That this is done, not only by paid political officials and operatives, by ordinary run-of-the-mill salt-of-the- earth Republicans and “independents”…
    That this is at least the third time I have watched this national process…enough to convince me of a pattern…
    What…you expect a conclusion that would violate posting rules? Read my mind.

  54. slarti writes: “No, who’s impeding the investigation is not Rove, but Miller and Cooper”
    Cooper testified today for 2.5 hours, so he’s not impeding it anymore.

  55. If she was not undercover, we would have no reason to file a criminal referral

    You know, at this stage of the game I’d expect to see testimony from someone with a name and position to know.

  56. I don’t understand why Novak isn’t the target of investigation and why he hasn’t been given the choice of going to jail or naming his source. Can someone explain this to me?

  57. Slart:
    I worked in journalism, nothing that required high level confidentiality, but I thought that through independently the other day–beginning with, “why the hell won’t they talk if everyone’s signed waivers?–and came to the exact same conclusion. It would not be hard for the government agency in question to figure out what people had access to the information, and hand them a waiver saying: “sign this or you’re fired.” If 500 people had the information, they could make 500 people sign waivers. There are few leaks you couldn’t do that for.
    Go on believing what you want about Rove and it all being a miscommunication–I know it’s shocking, shocking to assert that Rove might know how the press operates, including their policies in dealing with confidential sources, and try to manipulate them. I mean, if you find that convincing, go with it. But there is no reason at all to believe Cooper is lying.

  58. Another point in favor of Plame’s covertness (covertitude? coverticity?):
    Porter Goss, CIA head.
    It beggars belief that, if Plame *weren’t* covert, he wouldn’t have trumpeted that fact by now.

  59. lily wrote: “I don’t understand why Novak isn’t the target of investigation and why he hasn’t been given the choice of going to jail or naming his source. Can someone explain this to me?”
    He most likely already did name his source. He hasn’t said either way.

  60. Cooper testified today for 2.5 hours, so he’s not impeding it anymore.

    Ah, good. In a reasonable world, then, things ought to be cleared up in short order. Wonder why he’s lobbying to get Miller released, though? I mean, since Rove waived privelege, Miller ought to be positively relieved to take the stand.

  61. “I mean, since Rove waived privelege, Miller ought to be positively relieved to take the stand.”
    Miller may have different sources. She’s in bed with the Pentagon, after all. Or maybe she’s protecting Bolton.

  62. But there is no reason at all to believe Cooper is lying.

    Interesting. Looking back, I can’t see where I may have said that. But let’s pursue the coercion thing some more…are you seriously suggesting that Rove was coerced by his own sockpuppet?

  63. You know, at this stage of the game I’d expect to see testimony from someone with a name and position to know.
    you mean you’d expect someone from the CIA to step forward and say “Yes, Plame was a covert operative until her cover was blown. Now she stays home knitting.” ?
    aren’t there laws against revealing that kind of information ?

  65. aren’t there laws against revealing that kind of information ?

    Well, if someone’s found guilty of spilling the beans, the existence of said beans is sort of a foregone conclusion.

  66. Katherine: But there is no reason at all to believe Cooper is lying.
    Slartibartfast (July 13, 2005 09:06 PM): Interesting. Looking back, I can’t see where I may have said that.
    Slartibartfast (July 13, 2005 08:49 PM): And you don’t think that reeks of bullshit?
    Sounds like you suggested the possibility.
    But let’s pursue the coercion thing some more…are you seriously suggesting that Rove was coerced by his own sockpuppet?
    Nobody is saying Rove was coerced. Cooper’s stated policy was simply a safeguard against coercion.

  67. Well, if someone’s found guilty of spilling the beans, the existence of said beans is sort of a foregone conclusion
    nobody has been found guilty yet, right?

  70. Kleiman is sanguine:

    How likely is it that Rove could be proven to have known that the United States was still taking “affirmative measures” to conceal Plame’s identity? Not very, I’d say.
    But Rove’s conduct certainly meets the far less demanding elements of the Espionage Act: (1) possession of (2) information (3) relating to the national defense (4) which the person possessing it has reason to know could be used to damage the United States or aid a foreign nation and (5) wilful communication of that information to (6) a person not entitled to receive it.
    Under the Espionage Act, the person doing the communicating need not actually know that revelation could be damaging; he needs only “reason to know.” Classification is generally reason to know, and a security-clearance holder is responsible for knowing what information is classified. * * *
    Judge Hogan told Judith Miller that the disclosure of information to her, and her potential use of it, were crimes. That couldn’t have been true under the IIPA, since IIPA applies only to officials, not journalists, except where the journalist has a pattern of exposing agents’ identities. It would be true under the Espionage Act. Ergo, the use of that statute must be in contemplation. * * *
    Moreover, if Rove told Bush, or even McClellan, “I didn’t discuss Valerie Plame with anyone,” he violated 18 U.S.C. 1001, the law against making false statements to officials. That would still be true even if he managed to skirt around the truth, using misleading language such as “I never revealed her name” as part of a “scheme” to “cover up” a “material fact.”
    I’d say it’s virtually certain that Rove committed one or more felonies, highly probable that he will be indicted, and more likely than not that he will be convicted. By pretending that only the IIPA is in play, the Bushites are setting the stage for denouncing Patrick Fitzgerald as a “runaway prosecutor” when he nails Rove for espionage and false statements.

    And there’s this remark:

    Note also that a certain George W. Bush said two years ago that the disclosure of Plame’s identity was “a criminal action.”

    Silly Bush, not to know that Plame wasn’t covert!

  71. dmbeater,
    Whine all you want about me ignoring the facts. Please offer proof that Rover was the one true source of Plame as an undercover agent.
    “Rove outed Plame”
    Hilzoy makes a point taking issue with Rove stating that Plame worked at the CIA. But that is the only questionable action I can see so far.
    But, as far as I am can tell right now it seems obviuos that Plame and her husband initiated a political attack against the Whitehouse. Her being outed was a result of her and her husband politicizing the Niger mission.

  72. I am suggesting that:
    –journalists have a good reason for not taking signed blanket waivers at face value, as Cooper’s lawyer explained.
    –I don’t think journalists should override these policies or these agreements because they believe that Rove was acting to smear a whistleblower rather than acting as a whistleblower, Rove is a bad person, Rove pulls the brings and could never be in danger, etc. There are ethical reasons not to do this, as far as honoring your word, and practical reasons, as it would cause other sources not to trust journalists’ promises of confidentiality in general and yours in particular.

  73. “But Rove’s conduct certainly meets the far less demanding elements of the Espionage Act: (1) possession of (2) information (3) relating to the national defense (4) which the person possessing it has reason to know could be used to damage the United States or aid a foreign nation and (5) wilful communication of that information to (6) a person not entitled to receive it.”
    Don’t this really apply more to Valerie Plame in her attempt to undermine the President?

  75. Give it a REST, blogme. Instead of posing a (purportedly rhetorical?) question, how about EXPLAINING what evidence exists to incriminate Plame? For somebody who cried “evidence?” you’re running a bit light.

  76. That’s going to need some explanation, blogme.
    Katherine, I’m unconvinced. Blanket waivers from arbitrary people might be looked at askance, but come on. This is, after all, the guy pulling the strings, is it not?

  78. again, if these policies are not applied consistently there will be a chilling effect. I have the “oh come on, he’s KARL ROVE” impulse too, but I can see good reasons for deciding not to let that impulse govern. And Cooper himself has now explained all this in detail, so if you’re saying you don’t believe him you are essentially accusing him of lying.

  79. Slartibartfast: Perhaps a slightly different interpretation is possible. Come on, I know you’ve got the imagination.
    I thought that sort of thing was discouraged here. Care to spell out what you meant by “And you don’t think that reeks of bullshit?” if not to suggest that it sounds like a lie?

  81. Slarti: I’ll try to drum up a cite if you want, but my understanding is that for basically the reasons Katherine gave, reporters generally do not honor blanket waivers. They think: if my source calls me up and says, I release you from your promise, that’s one thing; but if my source’s boss (for instance) comes to all his employees and says, here, sign a waiver, then that’s not the same, and should not be taken as a free uncoerced waiver. I think this is standard.
    The interesting question, to me, is why Rove gave the more explicit waiver the day Cooper was due to testify. He could have given it before, or he could have not given it at all; instead, he did this.
    I only just saw the statement from Cooper and his attorney about it, but: apparently his attorney initiated the call after seeing Rove’s lawyer quoted here (WSJ, subscription only):

    “But in an interview Monday, Mr. Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, said his client “didn’t disclose Valerie Plame’s identification to anyone.” Mr. Rove hasn’t asked any reporter to treat him as a confidential source in the matter, Mr. Luskin said, “so if Matt Cooper is going to jail to protect a source, it’s not Karl he’s protecting.” “

    It was at that point that Cooper’s lawyer called Luskin. S0: why did Rove agree? Maybe the damage was already done, since Time had turned over the notes. Maybe, despite the fact that Cooper’s lawyer said otherwise, Luskin and/or Rove worried that a refusal would end up being public, especially since Time had demonstrated its unwillingness to be bound by its reporters’ pledges of confidentiality. Who knows.
    I do know this, though: that not taking the blanket waivers of confidentiality seriously is common practice; that Rove could have let Cooper off the hook earlier; that he didn’t do so until after his lawyer decided to shoot his mouth off to the Journal, and say, essentially, that Rove was not the source Cooper was going to jail for and that of course the blanket waiver was perfectly serious, and Cooper’s lawyer essentially called Rove’s lawyer’s bluff.

  82. And Slarti: I’ll try to find a cite for this too, but I seem to recall that it was Fitzgerald, not (e.g.) bush, who handed out the blanket waivers. I could understand Rove not feeling too coerced by, oh, the Secretary of Transportation, but Fitzgerald is another ball of wax. (I almost wrote ‘baal of wax’, which would have been amusing.)

  83. Kleiman
    Mark Kleiman on why the fine points of the IIPA…revealing a covert agent…are probably not even at issue and that there is positive evidence that Fitzgerald is likely seeking indictments under different felony statutes. Rove will be charged under the espionage statutes.

  84. Her being outed was a result of her and her husband politicizing the Niger mission.
    Oh, well, that makes it OK, then. As long as it was for a good reason.

  85. Gromit, if it doesn’t smell funny to you, you need to get your olfactory sense organs checked out. Dig it: Rove signs a waiver authorizing any and all press who’ve discussed this issue with him to reveal their discussions. Now, given that Rove is driving pretty much the entire WH, who’s going to coerce such a waiver from him? I mean, this being a serious crime and all, Rove can just walk away. It’d be a career-ender, sure, but so would a few years in federal lockup.
    No, none of this makes sense yet. Guess we’ll have to wait for Cooper to write an article about it.

  87. The interesting question, to me, is why Rove gave the more explicit waiver the day Cooper was due to testify.

    Maybe because Cooper’s lawyer contacted Luskin the night before? Your whole last paragraph sort of falls apart when you consider this.

  88. OTOH if Cooper considered the blanket waiver coerced, than (supposing Rove is guilty of something-or-other) any other waiver would have to be considered coerced. The pressure, you know. If Fitzgerald could coerce Rove to sign any waiver at all, could he not similarly influence him to selectively release Cooper?

  89. Just to clarify, my position is this: if Plame was in fact NOC, and if Rove did in fact deliberately burn her, then (regardless of his motive or what anyone thinks about his justification) he has to do some time.
    There’s a lot of claims being made with extremely sloppy substantiation. Sometimes by me, even. I don’t consider Kevin Drum’s or Josh Marshall’s or Hugh Hewitt’s opinion (even the time-invariant ones) in the matter to equate to evidence. Sorry. I’m inconsistent, yet stubborn, and I doubt that it doesn’t wear on y’all.

  90. If Rove didn’t do anything wrong, why isn’t he proclaiming his innocence from the rooftops?
    “I did not out a CIA op.”
    Seems easy enough. People who are under investigation – hell, people who’re under indictment, and even actual defendants – have been known to claim they’re innocent.
    Why isn’t Rove?

  91. Umm, question for lawyers and the better-informed. Fitzgerald is not a special prosecutor appointed by Congress, but an appointee of the Justice Dept. Can Bush & Gonzalez simply fire Fitzgerald and shut the game down? There might a little heat and embarrassment, but nothing illegal? And Congress won’t start hearings.
    The explosion of talking-heads today might indicate that this WH ain’t gonna take no indictments. And Fitzgerald might have bigger game than Rove in his sights.
    And innocents like hilzoy aside, I believe, no matter the facts, no matter the cost, Rove will not be indicted. Having watched a more moral Whitehouse in ’73 fire Special Prosecutors and Atty’s General in droves.

  92. What happens tothe coercion issue when the source flaunts the waiver, essentially using it as a way of proclaiming innocence?
    Isn’t it reasonable then for the journalist to assume that the privilege really had been waived? After all, you can’t have it both ways. If you’re going to brag about signing the waiver then you can’t reasonably expect someone to act as if you signed under duress.

  93. Slarti: perhaps Fitzgerald could have coerced Rove into saying: I selectively release Cooper. Of course, not knowing that Rove was Cooper’s source back when he was handing out waivers might have been a problem, but I guess Fitzgerald might have handed out special personalized waivers covering each of the reporters he thought had gotten leaks to all of the people he thought might have done the leaking.
    But that’s actually sort of beside the point. What reporters do is: not take seriously any waiver they think is less than fully voluntary. And they do this precisely because they don’t want to make it possible for prosecutors, employers, etc., to destroy confidentiality at will. I doubt Cooper would have accepted a waiver, general or specific, that Fitzgerald had directed Rove to sign, precisely because he wouldn’t have had any reason to believe that Rove was voluntarily releasing him from his promise of confidentiality.
    Cooper’s lawyer didn’t just ask for a specific waiver; he asked Luskin to certify that he had cleared it with Rove, told Luskin that he and Cooper would not publicize any refusal, and did a bunch of other things designed to ensure that Rove was acting of his own free will.

  94. And you don’t think that reeks of bullshit? Rove’s lawyer and Rove both maintain that the waiver’s legitimate and uncoerced…why would they do that, if Rove had something to hide?
    It absolutely does not — the logic of reliance on general waivers that might be coerced vs. specific waivers is compelling.
    As Cooper made clear today in the press conference immediately following his testimony, he was willing to testify only after Rove gave him a specific waiver, which Rove was not willing to do until after Time turned over his written materials and leaked that Rove was Cooper’s source, followed by Rove’s lawyer then saying that he had no objection to Cooper testifying (which Cooper’s lawyer read in the WSJ), which then led to the specific waiver in favor of Cooper that allowed his testimony.
    Rove’s specialized knowledge is handling (manipulating?) the media, and you think he was not aware of the significance between giving the general waiver that made no mention of Cooper versus the specific waiver in favor of Cooper? Or that Rove sat their clueless while Cooper’s litigation wound through the courts, when Rove’s specific waiver would have ended it all? Or that Rove’s timing of giving the specific waiver only on the eve of Cooper going to jail was just coincidental? That is what reeks of bullshit.

  95. If Rove didn’t do anything wrong, why isn’t he proclaiming his innocence from the rooftops?

    Can Bush & Gonzalez simply fire Fitzgerald and shut the game down?

    I’m going to merge these two. Disclaimer: I am not serious.

    If Rove really is guilty, why hasn’t Bush pulled a Nixon?

  96. blogme writes: “But, as far as I am can tell right now it seems obviuos that Plame and her husband initiated a political attack against the Whitehouse.”
    Well, sometimes that’s what you have to do in order to be loyal to your country and serve it to the best of your ability.
    The President is not America.

  97. BY: “Isn’t it reasonable then for the journalist to assume that the privilege really had been waived?”
    When I first heard about Rove’s waiver, I was really surprised: it was the first thing I had ever heard about him that was good. Then, later coverage made me think that Bernard’s suggestion might have been exactly what happened: that Cooper’s lawyer saw the WSJ interview, told Cooper, and then (whether because Cooper really didn’t want to go to jail or because it’s a bit much to see Rove’s lawyer proclaiming his client’s innocence (when you know he’s your source) and relying on this waiver (which you and he know you won’t honor), Cooper and his lawyer called Luskin, asked: so does that blanket waiver apply to Cooper? at which point Luskin could hardly have said no.
    But Cooper’s statement indicates that they didn’t do that; that they did make efforts to ensure that it was a real waiver.

  98. “If Rove really is guilty, why hasn’t Bush pulled a Nixon?”
    Nixon didn’t pull a Nixon, IIRC, until the trucks literally pulled up to the WH ready for the tapes. Last possible moment.

  99. blogme:
    Well, I see you did not respond concerning the facts.
    As for this,
    Please offer proof that Rover was the one true source of Plame as an undercover agent.
    “Rove outed Plame”
    Hilzoy makes a point taking issue with Rove stating that Plame worked at the CIA.
    So you want proof that Rove outed Plame, but then acknowledge that Hilzoy made a good point about Rove outing Plame.
    Makes sense to me.
    Or is your point whether or not Rove was the “one true source”, (what ever that means)?
    Sorry the facts are causing you so much trouble.

  100. told Luskin that he and Cooper would not publicize any refusal

    Of what use is that? If Rove doesn’t waive, Cooper doesn’t testify, and the game is up. Are you saying there’s some leverage that vanishes if Fitzgerald’s not standing behind Rove’s shoulder?

    the logic of reliance on general waivers that might be coerced vs. specific waivers is compelling

    If it is, I haven’t seen a good case for it. By now, it’s obvious which journalists are being ferreted out, and the general waiver degenerates into two specific waivers without changing anything at all. If Rove’s on the hook for something, and a general waiver could be seen as coercive, Fitzgerald’s got a much more leverage to extract whatever waivers he wants. Or is there something I’m missing, here? What’s Rove got to lose by just saying that the original waiver’s going to have to do?

  101. Slartibartfast: …are you seriously suggesting that Rove was coerced by his own sockpuppet?
    …
    Now, given that Rove is driving pretty much the entire WH, who’s going to coerce such a waiver from him?
    Are you asserting that Karl Rove doesn’t serve at the pleasure of the President, Slarti?

  102. dmbeater,
    “Hilzoy makes a point taking issue with Rove stating that Plame worked at the CIA.
    So you want proof that Rove outed Plame, but then acknowledge that Hilzoy made a good point about Rove outing Plame.”
    You can’t see the diference between the two? Stating that you know someone works at the CIA doesn’t mean that you are outing them as an undercover agent.
    My only point above is that she seems to have shared confidential information with her husband which could have been illegal.

  103. Watergate Timeline
    Saturday Night Massacre:Oct 20,73
    SCOTUS rules that Nixon must deliver tapes:Jul 24 1974…so 9 months of legalism
    But: July 27,1974: House votes out 1st article of impeachment. (Without hearing the tapes)

  104. Are you asserting that Karl Rove doesn’t serve at the pleasure of the President, Slarti?

    In fun, perhaps, and only to prompt someone to admit that he does.
    Thanks, by the way.
    Oh, and…on the flipside of pretty much everything I’ve posted here, what evidence to we have other than the words of Luskin that this waiver was in fact signed about eighteen months ago, and given to someone who could do something about it? I mean, Fitzgerald would cry BS on something like that if it weren’t true, wouldn’t he?

  105. Of what use is that? If Rove doesn’t waive, Cooper doesn’t testify, and the game is up. Are you saying there’s some leverage that vanishes if Fitzgerald’s not standing behind Rove’s shoulder?
    What if Cooper’s testimony merely duplicates the e-mails already in evidence (which seems pretty likely)? What purpose is served by NOT waiving confidentiality in that case? And the potential downside to holding out is if Cooper goes to jail to protect information that has already been released by his publisher, and this information ends up becoming public down the road, the damage could be much, much worse. Miller might be a gamble worth taking, if her testimony could do more damage. But maybe shutting Cooper up was already a lost cause.

  106. blogme: “My only point above is that she seems to have shared confidential information with her husband which could have been illegal.”
    Er, what information would that be?
    (And I wouldn’t be surprised if he still has a security clearance.)

  107. Slartibartfast: In fun, perhaps, and only to prompt someone to admit that he does.
    All you had to do was ask. I’m sure the President could fire Karl Rove if he wanted to. I suspect it will be tough for him to bring himself to do it, but as important as Rove is, he’s still a subordinate.

  108. Slart, I realize that was a facetious question, but it’s an interesting one anyway.
    Considering how the Bush Admin has consistantly evaded, defied, and ignored the legal system so far, I imagine shutting down Fitzgerald is something they believe they could get away with.
    On a related note: Mark A R Kleiman notes that, although most everyone is focusing on whether Rove violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, another law at issue is the Espionage Act.
    It’s the IIPA that requires foreknowledge that the disclosed agent was covert, or had been covert within the last 5 years.
    The Espionage Act (quoting from Kleiman) is violated if Rove had: 1) possession of (2) information (3) relating to the national defense (4) which the person possessing it has reason to know could be used to damage the United States or aid a foreign nation and (5) wilful communication of that information to (6) a person not entitled to receive it.
    And LeftCoaster has a handy smackdown of the current GOP talking points:
    LeftCoaster

  109. Do I have to say “in fun” again? Or maybe bolded?

    And I wouldn’t be surprised if he still has a security clearance.

    As I’ve said many, many, MANY times, clearance is only a necessary condition. It’s not a sufficient condition. It could be that Wilson was authorized, but it was only the fifth date or so.

  110. Slarti: no need to worry that I’ll forget about Rove serving at the pleasure of the President. As I see it, it’s all fairly simple:
    (1) You don’t out CIA agents. Rove did.
    (2) If you’re President, and someone in your administration outs a CIA agent, you fire them. Bush hasn’t.
    We could spend ages speculating about all sorts of stuff, but these points alone pretty much tell me what I think I need to know.

  111. blogme: I don’t really wish anyone to be led of in handcuffs unless their are proven guilty of a crime. No matter what my meaner side my feel. Sue me for being an American.
    I think I’d like to use you as a witness in a lawsuit I’ve got going . . .

  112. I’m not sure the espionage act ought to apply. As I understand it, the IIPA was drawn up and passed because outing agents was not covered by another law such as the espionage act.
    I think there’s a definitions clause in the espionage act, which defines “relating to the national defense” in a way which covers troop movements, weapons, bases, etc, but does not include CIA agent identities.

  113. The more I think about this, the more umm… excited…I become. The people who got indicted during Watergate had their careers and reputations forever destroyed, at least as they would have imagined them. Yeah, Liddy, Colson, and Dean have second minor acts. But history will always remember Haldeman and Mitchell as scum. But Bork, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Haig, Kissinger were rehabilitated and even elevated. Not that I can prove criminality or conspiracy for those guys, but it would have been hard to avoid seeing something wrong in the Nixon Whitehouse.
    And Weinberger still has a decent reputation, though still stained by a pardon.
    Whatever good stuff Rove might have done for the Party, if he gets indicted that will be the first paragraph of his obituary, and his description in history books for centuries.
    Besides, these guys (like most successful people) are about power and the perception of control. They don’t like having even the most abstract of restraints.

  114. Imagine if Richard Clarke had, in late 2001, called a bunch of reporters and told them exactly where Cheney’s “undisclosed location” was.
    He’d have been out on his ass immediately.

  115. “Whatever good stuff Rove might have done for the Party, if he gets indicted that will be the first paragraph of his obituary, and his description in history books for centuries.”
    I suspect Rove will slither into a sinecure at Heritage or AEI, or else he’ll go back to the shadows, running another political direct-mail operation like he used to. Or both.
    But I also wouldn’t be surprised to see him remain politcally active and visible. Just look at how many Iran-Contra veterans Bush has appointed for positions. The GOP really has no shame.

  116. “Are you asserting that Karl Rove doesn’t serve at the pleasure of the President, Slarti?
    In fun, perhaps, and only to prompt someone to admit that he does.”
    Rove is not a mere flunky. There is a high enough level at which loyalty does flow both ways, believe it or not. Nixon really really didn’t want to fire Haldeman, because he knew he would be seriously and permanently weakened. Permanently, because having once abandoned a retainer, he could never command such loyalty again. And indeed Haig and Kissinger were not the same.
    You gotta have people who go to the wall for you, or you are nothing. The law is just the tool you use to exercise power, power is derived from the people who serve you and whom you serve in return. Bush can’t trust Frist or DeLay;Hughes and Rove and Gonzalez are necessary, essential, irreplacable.

  117. I don’t really wish anyone to be led of in handcuffs unless their are proven guilty of a crime
    If you know any police officers, try arguing that point with them.

  118. “Bush can’t trust Frist or DeLay;Hughes and Rove and Gonzalez are necessary, essential, irreplacable.”
    Hm. This flare up may put the kibosh on Gonzalez being named to the Supreme Court this summer.
    He’d probably be far more useful to Bush as Attorney General.

  119. Felix,
    That’s really good input. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with anything that’s been posted here.
    And for the record, I really wish police men never felt the need to handcuff anyone either.

  120. Doesn’t anyone here want to know who Judith Miller is protecting?
    The women is sitting in jail. Doesn’t this seem like a really important part of the equation? Or is this something that we should all ignore and just focus on Rove?

  121. Doesn’t anyone here want to know who Judith Miller is protecting?
    Some say Bolton, some say Cheney. I’d say Miller, which would embrace either of the other choices. (If forced to bet, though, I think I’d go with Tenet.) You have a theory, bm?

  122. That’s really good input. Unfortunately it has nothing to do with anything that’s been posted here.
    Well it has nothing to do with anything that’s been posted here except your comment. From which we can deduce what about your comment?

  123. I think there’s a definitions clause in the espionage act, which defines “relating to the national defense” in a way which covers troop movements, weapons, bases, etc, but does not include CIA agent identities.
    I couldn’t find such a clause in the act itself, or in the general provisions for title 18. There is a list in section a of the act, but only sections a-c seem to refer to that list. Section d, which would seem to be the relevant one, does not. IANAL obviously, and the term could be defined somewhere else in the code.

  124. Rove / Plame game: some adults are found

    “She was quite prepared to take the consequences and the judge had no choice, she understood that. I don’t see how it could have been avoided because the law is the law. She exhausted her appeals and had no place left to go.”

  125. Jon H,
    “But I also wouldn’t be surprised to see him remain politcally active and visible. Just look at how many Iran-Contra veterans Bush has appointed for positions. The GOP really has no shame.”
    Exactly. And for Iran-Contra alumni, being indicted, and even being convicted with the conviction thrown out on the type of technicalities R’s like to campaign against, wasn’t a handicap to later service (e.g., Poindexter, Abrams).

  126. And now, via Qando, I see that an amicus brief has been filed in this matter. Katherine, it’d be interesting to hear your interpretation of what this means. I have to say that if Rove has indeed exposed Plame as hilzoy has confidently asserted, this is just about the last thing I’d expect to see as a result.
    Toensing’s name was no surprise, but who she’s filing on behalf of is. Could be the conservative media bringing their guns to bear, I guess.

  127. It’s very interesting, Slart, but the question is: if Rove is innocent, why is this brief necessary? If the “Old Media” knows that the evidence will clear him, why do they need to weigh in with something that essentially says “yes, he leaked, but there’s nothing to see here, so move along”?
    IANAL, but what this tells me is that there /is/ a good chance that there’s a “there” there, and that that “there” will damage the interests of those filing this brief.

  128. Fitzgerald would cry BS on something like that if it weren’t true, wouldn’t he?
    Unlike Starr’s office, Fitzgerald seems very careful about not making any statements in the media.

  129. On that Rove / Plame game: Some adults are found

    Mark In Mexico has performed the impossible – he has actually found a few adults amidst the crowd of talking heads, pundits, opiners, and editorializing left and right wing moonbats offering nothing more than left-wing smear and right-wing knee-jerk de…

  130. Slart, attempting to link to that amicus brief seems to have messed with my computer. I’m most interested in the date of the thing. Was the amicus brief filed before the February decision in the case, the amicus brief filed before the April order denying rehearing en banc, or some other amicus brief?
    The fact that media corporations took a position that is manifestly in their interest shouldn’t, it seems to me, mean awfully much, at least as to what the law means. I know people like to complain about political biases and agendas of media corporations, but I think it’s clear enough that they act as businesses first.

  131. I certainly hope Karl gets the frogmarch he has coming, but I still don’t get why Republicans are trying to lawyer him out. If he were a Democrat you all would have been calling for a firing squad 2 years ago. And Democrats would have agreed! How is revealing the entire modern Republican party as totally lacking in integrity serving your cause?

  133. CharleyCarp: March 23, 2005. It’s an argument for rehearing the whole thing, since there is evidence on the public record that no crime has been committed under — well, that narrowly drafted act whose name eludes me. It doesn’t, as far as I can tell, so much as consider the possible relevance of any other laws. And by now it has been answered.

  135. OK, from the url of the brief — and I suppose I can’t get it because hordes of others are trying to get it — it’s clear enough that it’s the March 23 amicus. The one that didn’t sway the Circuit’s April 19 denial (pdf) of rehearing en banc.
    Judge Tatel, who wrote the only opinion, did not address the underlying legal claim from the amici, but showed, again, that the non-governmental parties do not have all the facts.

  136. The right-wing spin is moving far beyond parody. Today on the Diane Rehm show David Keene of the American Conservative Union made the point that Scott McClellan never said in 2003 that Rove wasn’t involved — McClellan said that it was ridiculous to suggest that Rover was involved. Seriously, that was Keene’s argument.

  137. Thanks, h. My cross this time.
    You know how when you start looking up one thing you always end up finding something else? I see that new DC Circuit Judge JR Brown is scheduled to hear some cases in September:

    Thursday, September 8, 2005 9:30 AM
    Judges Ginsburg, Tatel and Brown
    04-7181 Jones, Angela R. v. DC Dept Corr
    03-7173 Thomas, Gregory L. v. George WA Univ
    03-5077 Fund Animals v. Hogan, Matthew J.
    03-1403 Consum Engy Co v. FERC

    Anyone care to predict wild results?

  138. I’ll try again:
    Thursday, September 8, 2005 9:30 AM
    Judges Ginsburg, Tatel and Brown
    04-7181 Jones, Angela R. v. DC Dept Corr
    03-7173 Thomas, Gregory L. v. George WA Univ
    03-5077 Fund Animals v. Hogan, Matthew J.
    03-1403 Consum Engy Co v. FERC

  139. I think the spirit in which Qando offered this is that there’s a number of media outlets that feel that there was, in fact, no crime. I wasn’t presenting that as evidence, just wondering if anyone had any idea why on earth a brief like this would get filed on behalf of so many, varied parties. I mean…Reuters?
    Again, I’m not under the illusion that what these people believe to be true about the case is in fact supported by evidence.

  140. Slart, I understand the QandO point. I just think it completely misses the real issue here: All those parties have the same interest in encouraging government employees to talk to media outlets. And in journalists not having to go to jail as the only way to avoid testifying about who told them something.

  141. Good point. In fact, Dale Franks uses something like that as part of an argument justifying why Rove shouldn’t be prosecuted under the Espionage Act, two posts up the main page.
    I’m not sure I agree; nailing Rove to the wall has got to be tantalizing (not to mention, profitable) to just about any news outlet.

  142. “Feel”? The media outlets have no more access to information in this case than we do. Fitzgerald and the judges do. They seem to think there is a strong possibility that a crime has been committed; you simply can’t explain their actions otherwise. The fact that Fitzgerald is actually keeping grand jury testimony confidential like he’s required by law to do is not a strike against him.
    I’m sorry, but it feels more and more like you’re in excuse making mode, and I don’t have the patience. Hilzoy did not say Rove had committed a crime, in any case. To believe that the media is more interested in getting Bush than protecting their own prerogatives, shows an utter ignorance of the press. It’s a little better than the “is it all a Democratic plot to burn Bush” idiocy seen elsewhere, but, really. As far as whether there’s a crime, we’ll know when Fitzgerald releases his report. As far as whether Rove’s done something wrong, I think hilzoy’s right. She’s never claimed to know whether he’s guilty of a crime. And if McClellan carefully avoided saying Rove wasn’t involved, and just said it was “ridiculous” and whatever other assurances that would get him off the hook in a perjury trial–to me that actually makes it WORSE, because it suggests they have been aware of Rove’s involvement for a long time and actively were trying to deceive people about it.

  143. (the reference to perjury, to avoid confusion: this sort of technical “it wasn’t a lie” parsing is relevant in a perjury trial. However, in any other context, what makes a lie wrong is intent to deceive, and that there’s some legalistic way to parse the words to make them “technically true” does nothing to change the intent to deceive.
    I’m well aware that a press conference isn’t subject to perjury laws. Just to preempt any confusion about that)

  144. I’m not sure I agree; nailing Rove to the wall has got to be tantalizing (not to mention, profitable) to just about any news outlet.
    1. I don’t know whether the amici all knew it was Rove back in March, and I’m not convinced that Miller is in jail for protecting Rove.
    2. It might be tantalizing to nail Rove, but it would be very damaging to the news outlet to try to do so and fail. Thus far, very few have given in to the temptation, which I take as proof of my belief that the primary agenda is always the bottom line, no matter what whiners about media bias have to say.

  145. The media outlets have no more access to information in this case than we do.

    Please, Katherine, feel free to read the rest of that post you objected to so vehemently.

    I’m sorry, but it feels more and more like you’re in excuse making mode

    Heh. Ok, then.

  146. I don’t know whether the amici all knew it was Rove back in March, and I’m not convinced that Miller is in jail for protecting Rove.

    Oh, please. It’s been all about Rove the entire time.

    It might be tantalizing to nail Rove, but it would be very damaging to the news outlet to try to do so and fail.

    Which would be an excellent argument if it were the news outlets doing the nailing. As it is, all they have to do is stay mum and let Fitzgerald do the nailing. No downside, as far as I can see.

  147. Oh, please. It’s been all about Rove the entire time.
    I guess you’ve known something I didn’t all along. Maybe you can answer a couple more, then:
    Why is Miller still in jail? How did Rove know about Plame? What’s Cheney’s involvement, if any?
    As for who is nailing and who is tantalized — did I misunderstand yours of 10:57?
    Cooper and Time knew it was Rove all along, and actively resisted Fitzgerald all the way to the SC. They did so because they think the principles involved — (a) access to anon. sources in general and (b) access to this WH — are more important to their bottom line than getting Rove. All major media share the same interests.

  148. How does the confidentiality of grand jury testimony affect Cooper’s announced plan to write a story for Time on his own testimony? Is he risking contempt charges to do so? Or is he allowed to do it after Fitzgerald releases a report?

  150. Oh, please. It’s been all about Rove the entire time.
    That’s funny, I seem to remember far more people thinking it was about Scooter Libby and that it came out of Cheney’s office than about Rove. The enticing imagery of Wilson’s “frog march” comment nonwithstanding.

  151. I guess you’ve known something I didn’t all along.

    Do you read the newspapers, CC? Rove’s name has been out there as prime suspect (possibly briefly superceded by that of Lewis Libby) for well over a year.

    Maybe you can answer a couple more, then

    Maybe not. It’s precisely that these questions have so far gone unanswered that I’m less sure of what happened than others seem to be.
    Jeremy: the information belongs to Cooper. He can publish if he wants, because he’s the witness. At least, that’s what I gathered. But interesting, if Cooper does publish, what that implies for those overarching principles CharleyCarp’s mentioned.

  153. Regarding Slarti’s question way upthread:
    “So, I’m wondering: if Johnson was retired, how does he know Plame’s undercover status?”
    I quickly thought of one possible reason: If, before Johnson retired, he knew Plame was a NOC with a cover of ‘X’ and when Plame was outed she was still working under the same cover (i.e. she hadn’t stopped being the ‘Plame that works(ed) for the Not-A-CIA-Front company’), then Johnson would know her cover was blown.
    I know she had been back in the states for 5 or so years and it looks like she was in transition from CIA to the State Dept. but that doesn’t mean she was completely removed from that previous ‘cover’ identity that whole time.

  154. My prediction is that this is classic Bush/Rovian tactics, which the left has been unable to grasp.
    So many on the left have hung themselves out over the edge on this issue. I think in the end what we will see is this issue will all come crashing down on their heads putting another nail in the left coffin.

  155. blogme, sounds more like a wish than a prediction, are you typing on your knees? Have you put money under the pillow?

  156. Johnson left the CIA in 1989, according to his bio. So, unless he kept rather close tabs on Plame after he got out of the State Department in 1993, his knowledge is simply too old to matter. To clear up any misperception, I’m not claiming that Plame was NEVER NOC.
    Of course, it’s possible that BERG is a CIA cover, and that Johnson is still (unofficially) CIA and in a position to know. But more speculation isn’t going to help.

  157. I can understand why so many of you passionately hate Rove and wish bad things for him. I mean he’s been whipping the Dem’s butts for the last 5 years.
    But, why do you support Wilson so strongly when he is on public record saying one thing but the 2004 Senate Intelligence report says another.
    Why support someone who has obviously lied about the facts of his mission and how he received it?
    posit,
    I don’t really care about Rove one way or another. It’s not a wish. It’s an observation about past behavior and how events have turned out in the end.

  158. Blogme, liars are a dime a dozen. Blowing an agent’s cover is something else entirely.
    And I’m not accusing Rove of anything illegal. It’s not about Rove. It’s about burning an agent’s cover. Whoever did that, be it Rove, Joe Wilson, or John Kerry, should be sent to prison.

  159. Of course, it’s possible that BERG is a CIA cover, and that Johnson is still (unofficially) CIA and in a position to know. But more speculation isn’t going to help.
    Bothers me too, Slarti, & I’m embarrassed now that I trumpeted Johnson w/o checking dates.
    If he is/were still undercover, then professing to know in 2003 who was covert & who wasn’t would be very bad on his part.

  160. but the 2004 Senate Intelligence report says another
    Actually I think you are refering to the Addendum to the Senate report authoured and signed exclusively by Roberts Bond and Hatch, which tried to establish that Wilson had lied. The addendum was not signed by any but the 3 which makes it a clumsy partisan attempt to politicize the issue, no surprises there. As far as I can tell, steno Sue Schmidt (GOP correspondent for the Wapo) is the only person to have publicised the addendum in a hit piece she did back in 2004.

  161. I’m embarrassed now that I trumpeted Johnson w/o checking dates.

    As I said upthread (or on another thread, I forget), you’re not alone in getting one or more facts wrong; I’ve had to reexamine why I think I know something about this case, myself, and more than once. Hopefully the investigation is doing a much better job of documenting the facts than we spectators are.

    If he is/were still undercover, then professing to know in 2003 who was covert & who wasn’t would be very bad on his part.

    Yah. Even if he professed to know as of, say, 1997.

  162. but the 2004 Senate Intelligence report says another
    Actually I think you are refering to the Addendum to the Senate report authoured and signed exclusively by Roberts Bond and Hatch, which tried to establish that Wilson had lied. The addendum was not signed by any but the 3 which makes it a clumsy partisan attempt to politicize the issue, no surprises there. As far as I can tell, steno Sue Schmidt (GOP correspondent for the Wapo) is the only person to have publicised the addendum in a hit piece she did back in 2004.

  164. Should we really credit a “sorry for the double post” from someone named POSTIT? I think not!
    Come on, confess: you know you love it & you just can’t control yourself.

  166. Slarti writes: “So, unless he kept rather close tabs on Plame after he got out of the State Department in 1993, his knowledge is simply too old to matter.”
    It would not be unusual for certain members of a given training class to keep in touch with each other through their careers.
    It’d be like making friends during college orientation, or pledging at a frat, and keeping them through college and beyond. It doesn’t exactly stretch the limits of credibility.
    The odds of Johnson having continual contact with a mutual classmate of Plame’s who is still in the CIA are quite good.
    I mean, good lord, George Bush keeps plenty of Yale and Harvard pals around. Some get jobs, others are big donors. Why should it be unusual for Larry Johnson to be in touch with the people he entered the CIA with?

  167. Why should it be unusual for Larry Johnson to be in touch with the people he entered the CIA with?
    “Being in touch” and “knowing whether they’re covert” are 2 different things. Humanly speaking, you’re right; professionally speaking, once Johnson was out, Plame would’ve had no business letting him know a damn thing.

  169. “his knowledge is simply too old to matter”
    -Slarti
    I don’t know. I mean *if* Plame had been under the same cover from ’89 or ’93 up until the Novac article, then his knowledge isn’t too old.
    But that is further speculation and you are right, Slarti, speculation on how Johnson knew Plame was currently undercover isn’t going to help.
    I’m trying to think of what sort of public domain evidence there could be that would answer your question. The only ones I can think of would be, well, secret. So, to me, the question invited speculation.
    And now, thanks to preview:
    Anderson & Slarti,
    Woah, yeah, if Johnson is still an agent I don’t think he *really* should be commenting on this. For more than one reason.

  170. postit,
    I think you should go back and take a look at the original document. I think your assessment is inaccurate.

  171. The reason Novak isn’t going to jail for outing Plame is because the statute only applies to someone who reveals the agent’s identity AND found out about her identity while working for the government (I can’t recall the exact wording). That’s why Rove is the criminal and not Novak. Sorry, blogme

  172. that’s why Rove is the criminal and not Novak
    Didn’t Fitzgerald say at some point recently that Rove was not a target of the investigation? I’m having a hard time reconciling that with some of the other facts & assertions being made.

  173. Froomkin on Rove

    Anybody looking for a roundup of MSM-does-Rove articles will be thrilled with Dan Froomkin today. The Wall Street Journal and MSNBC report on their WSJ/NBC poll showing trust in Bush’s honesty is plummeting. I wonder if the American public has ever bee…

  174. How does the confidentiality of grand jury testimony affect Cooper’s announced plan to write a story for Time on his own testimony?
    The witness is free to say whatever he wants about what was said during his appearance before the grand jury. It is the Justice Department and court officials who are supposed to keep mum.

  175. Didn’t Fitzgerald say at some point recently that Rove was not a target of the investigation?
    Actually, Rove’s lawyer indicated that Fitzgerald has not formally declared Rove a “target.” This is a term of art — it is a formal notification required to insure fairness in certain circumstances. Fitzgerald can at any time issue a notice that Rove is a “target” whenever his investigation reaches the point that he has built that case.
    Rove’s lawyer is spinning the lack of a “target” notice as some sort of implied vindication. Its not, although the longer the investigation proceeds without a target notice, the stronger the inference.

  176. kenb: also, while (according to Rove’s lawyer) Rove is not a target, he is a “subject” of the investigation, which apparently means something like: you’re one of the people they’re looking at, but things haven’t advanced to the formal notification with a letter stage. (I’ll leave it to people who, unlike me, are lawyers to explain this better. But being a subject is better than being a target, but worse than not being anything at all, or being a mere witness. You have become interesting to the investigation, in a way you wouldn’t want to be.)

  177. Warren,
    “(I can’t recall the exact wording).”
    Obviously, which is why your post is irrelevant and your comment is just plain wrong.

  178. Thanks, dmbeaster & hilzoy. When I first read that, I assumed that if Rove wasn’t a target, that implied that someone else was, but it sounds like that’s not necessarily true.

  179. I have a question about this matter that I have not seen discussed anywhere.
    What is the reaction of friendly foreign intelligence services? No doubt our covert agents cooperate occasionally with other services. If I were “M” I would be very disconcerted at the idea that an American agent had been identified publicly by an advisor to the President. I wouldn’t care at all about the legal technicalities or what the agent’s spouse did or said or any of that.
    I would expect the American government to take the harshest possible action against the blabbermouth, no matter who it was, and if that didn’t happen I would cut back sharply on cooperative efforts,for fear that my operations and agents might be compromised by US political games.
    If that’s an accurate supposition on my part then this incident certainly hurts our anti-terror efforts.

  180. Bernard, the Bush Admin has been burning intel operations left and right.
    Plame is hardly the first or only agent they’ve blown.
    They screwed up Pakistan’s efforts to penetrate the A Q Khan network, and they screwed up Italy’s investigation of Hassan.
    The Bush Admin has also established itself as an uncooperative “partner” with other countries’ intelligence/law enforcement agencies, in that it doesn’t share intelligence with anyone else yet demands to know what they know.
    If I were running an intel op, or had a network, the last thing I’d want is for the Bush Admin to know about it, or be in on it.

  181. They screwed up Pakistan’s efforts to penetrate the A Q Khan network
    How sincere were Pakistan’s efforts there? Do you have a link?

  182. Bernard, that’s nuthin. What CaseyL said, plus consider for a moment the implications of this little revelation, courtesy of Americablog.
    At what point will some of the stalwarts start to wonder whether these people place their own political interests above national security and the interests of the nation?

  183. Radish answers my question, I think.
    So I’ll answer his:
    At what point will some of the stalwarts start to wonder whether these people place their own political interests above national security and the interests of the nation?
    Never. It will always be Somebody Else’s Fault, no matter how many Americans die. Rush, Coulter, Hinderaker, etc., will ALWAYS blame the Democrats, even if NYC were a smoking crater in the earth and there were video footage of Bush dropping off the nuke. “The liberal media drove him to it,” they’d say.
    Depressing, but true.

  184. Radish, the answer is “Never.”
    The stalwarts identify with “these people.” They’ve let too much go by unquestioned already, starting long before 9/11. 9/11 unhinged a lot of them altogether, and the Iraq war was the finishing touch.
    There is no way they can step outside themselves and take a clear look at the Bush Administration. If they were ever to do that, they’d have to admit not only that they’ve been played for fools, but that the Bush Admin has done real, serious, long-lasting damage to our country; and that they enabled it at every step along the way.
    They’re going to be like old people in the South who participated in lynchings, murders and burnings, and who to this day refuse to acknowledge what happened.

  186. “Presidential confidant Karl Rove testified to a grand jury that he learned the identity of a CIA operative originally from journalists, then informally discussed the information with a Time magazine reporter days before the story broke, according to a person briefed on the testimony.”
    Looks like the wind just got let out of the sails for all of you waiting for Rove’s head to be lopped off.
    It’s looking more like Wilson opened his big mouth, made some misleading statements and the reporters did some research on him and why he went to Niger.
    How much of an idiot can Wilson be? His big mouth outs his own wife and then today he calls for Rove’s resignation.
    This guys a joke! So many of you are going to be so unhappy when you wake up in the morning.

  187. A link or two substantiating the above claim: so, according to Rove, the investigation still needs to be searching for the unknown “senior administration official” who leaked to Robert Novak, because Rove wasn’t the guy: Novak told him what he had learned from this unknown.
    It’s really hard to see what else Rove could have said, short of declaring himself guilty immediately.

  188. The second link (I swear it was there and just vanished!)
    To sum up: “WiseOnes”, I think you’re mistaken if you feel that it is sufficient for Karl Rove to declare by his own testimony that he is innocent. If that were so, we wouldn’t need courts. 😉

  189. Aren’t you confusing two different men named Khan, CaseyL? A. Q. Khan is the Pakistani nuclear scientist who sold secrets on the black market, and Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan is the captured Al Qaeda leader, right?
    Or am I the one who is confused?

  190. Rove testified he told Miller that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA, but never used her name, the AP reported.
    I haven’t followed this all that closely. Has anyone figured out how he described this nameless wife? Maybe: “Judy, this guy’s wife, whose name I’m not at liberty to divulge, works for the CIA.”
    Or maybe “her name” refers to Miller: “Listen, lady, whatever your name is, this Plame dame is a spook.”

  191. Jes, wouldn’t that be two senior admin officials now, in addition to Rove? here’s what Novak wrote:

    Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. “I will not answer any question about my wife,” Wilson told me.

    If Rove didn’t know Plame worked for the CIA, how could he have known she was involved with the Niger trip? Assuming that Rove is telling the truth, and assuming Novak’s account is accurate, Rove is in all likelihood not one of the senior administration officials Novak is talking about.

  192. If Rove didn’t know Plame worked for the CIA, how could he have known she was involved with the Niger trip?
    Assuming Rove didn’t know. 😉

  194. Go Ahead Mehlman, Make Our Day

    Go Ahead Mehlman, Make Our Day:
    Seen At Obsidian Wings:
    But there’s one GOP talking point that I hope they’ll go on repeating, and that is that this is just a partisan attack.

  195. Jesurgislac,
    I suggest you tie a knot in the end of your rope and hang on till the point of absurdity.
    It looks like you and the other who are trying to keep this fire lit are probably going to really hang in there.
    “WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.”
    Hope this doesn’t burst your little bubble. Notice how nicely Wilson has inserted the word clandestine to confuse the issue.

  196. blogme,
    Umm, you might want to reread that quote from Wilson and think about it a little. Do you think he meant “My wife was not a clandestine officer ON the day that Bob Novak blew her identity,” or “My wife was not a clandestine officer AS OF the day that Bob Novak blew her identity”? In light of Wilson’s other statements, which interpretation do you think is most likely?

  198. Rope-a-dope dope
    It’s looking more and more like the evil genius Rove is pulling an Ali.
    “WASHINGTON (AP) – After mentioning a CIA operative to a reporter, Bush confidant Karl Rove alerted the president’s No. 2 security adviser about the interview and said he tried to steer the journalist away from allegations the operative’s husband was making about faulty Iraq intelligence.”
    Larv,
    I don’t really know what he means. I think that is really Wilson’s problem in general. Talking about slicing and dicing, he seems to be a master chef.

  199. blogme,
    Yeah, damn that Joe Wilson, spinmaster extraordinaire! It’s a shame he’s not as direct, honest, and forthright as Karl Rove.
    Seriously, what color is the sky in bizarro-world?

  200. Rope-a-dope, or simple stalling?
    Right-wingers are similarly arguing in some parts that this is all part of a master plan to snooker the Democrats. But there is a sizable hole in that theory: Scott McClellan’s impersonation of a deer in headlights when the press corps raked him over the coals on this issue. Rove and McClellan aren’t exactly strangers, and if this administration is competent at one thing, it’s message control. So how did McClellan, the voice of the White House, end up so pitifully out of the loop? Did the architects of this master plan somehow forget to include a public relations component?
    The more likely explanation is that the White House simply didn’t see any of this coming.
    Oh, and is the source for that Wilson quote online, blogme? Google is coming up empty.

  201. Gromit,
    I agree that it’s probably not truly a rope-a-dope. It just looks like it will end up being one anyway. Hence, my facetious comment about the evil genius Karl Rove.
    Here’s a link to that quote:
    http://apnews.myway.com
    I can’t believe no one at this site is interested in why Wilson’s wife said he was taking a trip Niger when she recommened him for the job. It’s in the SSIC report. Wouldn’t the answer to this question lend credence to the liberal position that Joe Wilson was really a good fit for this job and his wife was just doing her job to the best of her ability?

    The former ambassador’s wife told Committee staff that when CPD decided it would like to send the former ambassador to Niger, she approached her husband on behalf of the CIA and told him “there’s this crazy report” on a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. The former ambassador was selected for the 1999 trip after his wife mentioned to her supervisors that her husband was planning a business trip to Niger in the near future and might be willing to use his contacts in the region …

  202. Wouldn’t the answer to this question lend credence to the liberal position that Joe Wilson was really a good fit for this job and his wife was just doing her job to the best of her ability?

    Even if the apologists for Rove accepted that proposition, what difference would it make? Discussion of Wilson and Plame is merely a diversion. Rove’s conduct is the focus of attention for anyone who isn’t just messing about.

  203. Blogme, I was referring to the quote:
    “WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.”
    Do you have a link for that?
    And regarding whether Wilson’s trip was dual-purpose, I don’t really see how that affects the credibility of his report one way or the other, nor how any of this affects the seriousness of blowing the cover of intelligence operatives.

  205. Kevin,
    “Rove’s conduct is the focus of attention for anyone who isn’t just messing about.”
    Actually, I think it is more complex than that. There is the Bush administration leak side of it. Which is important. Leaking undercover agents is wrong and people should be punished for it without a doubt.
    But, there is also the political agenda that many agents at the CIA seemed to have. It looks alot like Plame was fixing the data, by having her hubby go and evaluate Niger. According to the reports it turns out the Joe proved Valeria wrong in her assumption about Hussein attempting to purchase yellowcake from Niger.

  206. . . . the liberal position that Joe Wilson was really a good fit for this job . . .
    Can you name the liberal who thinks Wilson’s “fit” matters at all at this point? Do you understand why so many people think that talking about Wilson at all, at this point, is just misdirection?

  207. blogme, thanks, that link is helpful.
    Hope this doesn’t burst your little bubble. Notice how nicely Wilson has inserted the word clandestine to confuse the issue.
    This is flat out wrong, blogme. As in, factually incorrect. Wilson did not insert the word at all. Wolf Blitzer introduced the word “clandestine”:

    BLITZER: But the other argument that’s been made against you is that you’ve sought to capitalize on this extravaganza, having that photo shoot with your wife, who was a clandestine officer of the CIA, and that you’ve tried to enrich yourself writing this book and all of that.
    What do you make of those accusations, which are serious accusations, as you know, that have been leveled against you?
    WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.
    BLITZER: But she hadn’t been a clandestine officer for some time before that?
    WILSON: That’s not anything that I can talk about. And, indeed, I’ll go back to what I said earlier, the CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and that’s why they referred it to the Justice Department.
    She was not a clandestine officer at the time that that article in “Vanity Fair” appeared. And I have every right to have the American public know who I am and not to have myself defined by those who would write the sorts of things that are coming out, being spewed out of the mouths of the RNC…

    blogme, Larv nailed it. This isn’t nit-picky parsing. Wilson is saying that his wife was not clandestine because her cover was blown by Novak’s column, and this is why appearing in Vanity fair was appropriate. The damage was done at that point.
    If anything is confusing the issue it’s pulling quotes out of context like this.

  208. If anything is confusing the issue it’s pulling quotes out of context like this.
    Isn’t that the point?

  209. blogme: But, there is also the political agenda that many agents at the CIA seemed to have. It looks alot like Plame was fixing the data, by having her hubby go and evaluate Niger.
    Please cite where you have found proof that Valerie Plame got Joseph Wilson to go and evaluate Niger. That is, show that she was the person at the CIA who had the responsibility to authorize investigative trips abroad by American former diplomats. Or just quit making stuff up, okay?
    According to the reports it turns out the Joe proved Valeria wrong in her assumption about Hussein attempting to purchase yellowcake from Niger.
    This is such a muddled sentence I cannot actually tell even who you’re talking about. I assume “Joe” is Ambassador Wilson (though I wasn’t aware you were on first name terms with him). But who is Valeria? And what assumptions was she making? And how did Wilson prove those assumptions wrong?

  210. blogme
    “WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.”
    There’s alot of parsing going on. Like everything else with this issue I think we have to wait and see what his words really mean.
    Why wait?

  211. Blogme,
    What puzzled me about your 12.48PM question was that you seemed to suggest Rove’s critics should focus on Plame’s integrity. Why should they care? It’s Rove they’re after. Suppose his excuse is that he outed Plame because he believed she was serving some (real or imaginary) CIA political agenda. As a motive that’s not very creditable. But it wouldn’t be any worse just because he turned out to be wrong. Rove’s critics will hardly settle for showing that he misjudged a hard-working woman. He has done worse things than that in his time. The important thing for the critics is what he did, not why he did it. His motive can only redeem him if it is a motive he would be happy to reveal. What you are suggesting wouldn’t help him at all, even if true.

  212. It looks alot like Plame was fixing the data, by having her hubby go and evaluate Niger.
    Perhaps she was involved in publishing the Downing Street Memo’s too?
    You seem to be taking a leaf out of Roves book as you present your ‘arguments’ here. But it won’t work.

  213. Jesurgislac,
    “That is, show that she was the person at the CIA who had the responsibility to authorize investigative trips abroad by American former diplomats. Or just quit making stuff up, okay?”
    I have no problem admitting that Plame didn’t authorize it. But are you suggesting that that maybe she didn’t lobby for her hubby to go? If so please back that assertion up.
    I’m sure in your perfection you have never made a few typos. Please feel free to play dumb.
    From what I have already posted she called the reports crazy. Joe came back and said the PM of Niger verified them.
    I suggest you read the SSIC report.
    Gromit,
    He may not have been parsing. I was judging him by past behavior.
    Postit,
    I’m waiting because Joe really isn’t that trustworthy of a guy. He has in the past stated one thing only to find out in the SSIC report he reported something different.
    Btw, does everyone here no that Wilson’s wife was listed on his CV before all this even started.

  214. Btw, does everyone here no that Wilson’s wife was listed on his CV before all this even started.
    Know, I didn’t no that. What was she listed as? Do you think the fact that he was married was supposed to be a secret?

  215. Actually, according to information reported so far it wasn’t a secret from her neighbors either. It only lends credence to the fact that a reporter could have put two and two together and come up with four.

  216. If you’re claiming that Joe Wilson’s CV had a line reading, “Spouse: Valerie Plame; Spouse’s Occupation: CIA Spook,” or anything even remotely close to that, I’m going to have to ask for a very, very reliable cite. Like a copy of it.

  217. Maybe I shouldn’t change the subject but I saw an interesting article about Rove .
    Remember Rove? Karl Rove. There was a thread here about Rove, before it became a thread about some married couple.
    It’s about laws he may or may not have broken:

    Karl Rove may be able to claim that he did not know he was leaking “classified information” about a “covert agent,” but there can be no question he understood that what he was leaking was “sensitive information.” The very fact that Matt Cooper called it “double super secret background” information suggests Rove knew of its sensitivity, if he did not know it was classified information (which by definition is sensitive).

    Of course he could have stayed within the law and still deserve to be sacked but I thought it was interesting.

  218. I suggest you read the SSIC report.
    I suggest you learn to be sceptical of reports produced by political committees dominated by partisans of the same stripe as the executive who’s work is being investigated. Particularly when said partisans feel it necessary to author addenda meant to discredit individuals which even their own majority refuse to sign on to. And especially in light of the fact that the chairman of said committee has 1st stalled and now backslid on a promise to undertake an investigation of the use of intelligence material by the executive which was to follow on from the investigation of the intelligence production.

  219. blogme: I have no problem admitting that Plame didn’t authorize it.
    Then don’t imply she did.
    But are you suggesting that that maybe she didn’t lobby for her hubby to go? If so please back that assertion up.
    Why? Joseph Wilson was plainly the perfect candidate for an official fact-finding trip to Niger with regard to the rumors that Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake: he had a 22-year history of public service as a career diplomat, experience including both Africa and Iraq.
    I don’t see any reason at all to assume that Wilson would not have been chosen for the trip to Niger regardless of who he was married to. I think it’s you who needs to prove that Wilson was, by his track record prior to 2002, obviously unfit to carry out the job successfully.
    You will find it difficult, since clearly he did carry out the job successfully: SH was not trying to obtain yellowcake from Niger, as we now know with 20/20 hindsight, and Wilson reported that there was no evidence for SH obtaining yellowcake from Niger. But if you’re so convinced he was the wrong person for the job, show that he was by his actions and writings prior to 2002. With cites.
    I’m sure in your perfection you have never made a few typos.
    Of course I have – as who has not? But the fact is, name-typos are the worst, and it avoids confusion if you include full names. It would have been clear whom you meant had you typed “Valeria Plame”.
    From what I have already posted she called the reports crazy. Joe came back and said the PM of Niger verified them.
    Um, no. You have posted a cite which claims at second-hand that Plame said the reports of SH trying to buy yellowcake from Niger were “crazy”. (Assuming that the report was accurate, she may well have been referring to the clumsy forgeries which the Bush administration bought into: or she may have thought it was crazy that anyone would believe SH was trying to buy yellowcake when he already had plenty but no known means of processing it. I’m unwilling to take such a distant report as gospel.)
    As we know, Wilson came back from Niger and reported that the claims of SH obtaining yellowcake from Niger were untrue.

  220. blogme: He may not have been parsing. I was judging him by past behavior.
    I know you have a lot of comments to respond to, but do you have a response to the context of that Wilson quote?

  221. Jesurgislac,
    “As we know, Wilson came back from Niger and reported that the claims of SH obtaining yellowcake from Niger were untrue.”
    Bush didn’t claim that SH obtained yellowcake. He claimed British intelligence said he tried to. Which they still claim and Wilson validated. I don’t see why it is so difficult to accept that.
    Also, I never implied that Plame authorized her husbands trip to Niger.
    “It looks alot like Plame was fixing the data, by having her hubby go and evaluate Niger. ”
    Reports so far indicate she made a concerted effort to have her husband be the point man on this trip. I never said she authorized. She seems to have “made” it happen.
    postit,
    Isn’t your post a two way street? Maybe, we should aslo be sceptical of a CIA operative who “arranges” for her husband to go to Niger. A husband that voted for Gore and who is comfortable appearing with a very partisan Democrat and so on and so forth. A husband that publishes misleading and false statements. I’m willing to be sceptical. Are you?
    Gromit,
    “I know you have a lot of comments to respond to, but do you have a response to the context of that Wilson quote?”
    The context seems to be what Larv suggested. But as postit has suggested we should remain sceptical.

    “WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.
    BLITZER: But she hadn’t been a clandestine officer for some time before that?
    WILSON: That’s not anything that I can talk about. And, indeed, I’ll go back to what I said earlier, the CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and that’s why they referred it to the Justice Department.

    There’s enough parsing here for everyone no matter what side of the issues you fall on. Mainly, because we don’t have all the facts yet.
    For example, I find it very difficult to believe she was covert say the week before the Novak article based on his statements.
    “”WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.”
    “BLITZER: But she hadn’t been a clandestine officer for some time before that?
    WILSON: That’s not anything that I can talk about.”
    He actually doesn’t answer the question. So we don’t know if she was in the previuos 5 years.
    Then he says:
    “CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed,”
    I “believe” world peace is “possible”, but that don’t make it so.
    Maybe there was a crime. I don’t know, I don’t think Joe Wilson knows, and I don’t think Fitzgerald even knows yet. I also think that we truly have no idea that Rove is guilty of anything at all other than repeating what a report told him. Which means this whole Rove things is really nothing.
    However, I do think we know for certain Joe Wilson was misleading in the articles he published whether intentional or not.

  222. blogme
    I gave you a cite here
    that specificaly addresses your contention regarding the Blitzer interview yet you continue to ignore the import and continue to insinuate a falsehood.
    In my book that’s called lying, which makes you a liar.
    Rove could clear this all up at any time by stepping in front of a microphone. But he won’t because that would expose him to jeopardy should he utter a falsehood which he could hardly avoid if he were to repeat the orchestrated talking points no doubt emanating right now from his office and parroted by people like you.

  223. postit,
    I guess you didn’t bother to read my post to Gromit.
    “The context seems to be what Larv suggested. But as postit has suggested we should remain sceptical.”
    “In my book that’s called lying, which makes you a liar.”
    Play nice now let’s don’t violate the posting rules.
    I hope you enjoy selectively applying your scepticism!
    “Rove could clear this all up at any time by stepping in front of a microphone.”
    I guess allowing anyone who had a conversation with him to talk to Fitzgerald isn’t relevant.
    ” parroted by people like you.”
    Speaking of parroting talking points.
    Rope-adope dope.
    How’s it feel?

  224. The context seems to be what Larv suggested. But as postit has suggested we should remain sceptical. WTF?
    He actually doesn’t answer the question. So we don’t know if she was in the previuos 5 years.
    He doesn’t answer because he isn’t supposed to answer questions regarding her CIA employment – even now when her identity has been blown, he’s playing by the rules this WH broke!
    I guess allowing anyone who had a conversation with him to talk to Fitzgerald isn’t relevant.
    No it isn’t when those waivers are blanket waivers Fitzgerald forced Rove and other individuals to sign. Journalists don’t regard such waivers as releasing them from their confidentiality agreements because they are coerced by the prosecuter. But Rove could issue specific waivers any time he want’s, why doesn’t he?
    Judith Miller is in jail either because her source won’t issue a specific waiver or Judy figure it’s better not to talk waiver or no. Cooper isn’t in jail because he called Karls bluff when his loudmouth lawyer proclaimed Cooper wasn’t withholding anything that could implicate Rove and Cooper took that as a specific waiver release.
    When will Karl Rove issue specific waivers to allow people to talk?

  225. Isn’t your post a two way street? Maybe, we should aslo be sceptical of a CIA operative who “arranges” for her husband to go to Niger. A husband that voted for Gore and who is comfortable appearing with a very partisan Democrat and so on and so forth. A husband that publishes misleading and false statements. I’m willing to be sceptical. Are you?

    What on Earth have we to be skeptical of? Assuming Joe Wilson to be the Devil and Valerie Plame to be Beelzebub, what relevance does this have on the matter at hand? Assuming we treat everything Joe Wilson says as a lie unless backed up by a written affadavit from Bush’s crooked claw, what difference does it make to the question of whether or not someone who is not Joe Wilson should have burned a CIA agent?
    What, exactly, are we being called upon to doubt? We’re here saying “they burned Plame because Wilson was partisan” and the response is, crazily, “no, they burned Plame because Wilson is partisan!” We know! That’s the point! That is insufficient justification for what happened.

  226. postit:
    You asked why wait? Looks like I should have. From your same article.
    “During the early afternoon of July 15, 2005, the Associated Press issued a corrected version of the article noting Wilson’s clarification that “his wife lost her ability to be a covert agent because of the leak, not that she had stopped working for the CIA beforehand.”
    Hmm… she lost her “ability” to be a covert agent. That isn’t really Wilson claiming that his wife “was” a covert agent preceeding the leak. Well, atleast it isn’t to me.
    Is this relevant?
    washingtontimes.com

    A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an “undercover agent,” saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency’s headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee.
    “She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat,” Fred Rustmann, a covert agent from 1966 to 1990, told The Washington Times. . . . In addition, Mrs. Plame hadn’t been out as an NOC since 1997, when she returned from her last assignment, married Mr. Wilson and had twins, USA Today reported yesterday.

  227. McDuff,
    “That is insufficient justification for what happened.”
    I guess it is insufficient justification. Down with all reporters who leak covert agents identities.
    See there really are multiple issues as I have stated above. I can easily acknowledge that and have already done so in this very thread. (Catsy, see it’s not my I have to repost the same info.) If Administration officials break any law they should face the appropriate punishment. From jaywalking to outing covert agents.
    But at the same time can you acknowledge that Rove may be completely innocent? If he learned about Plame from reporters which is looking more and more likely what’s he guilty of? Talking to reporters who know things he doesn’t?
    So why does Wilson’s credibility come up? He along with others have convicted Rove and the administation in general, but yet the facts as we currently know them, don’t support most of his conclusions. From Cheney reading his report to his wife not being involved with selecting him for the Niger mission.
    One has to wonder why Wilson keeps going on and on. It is reasonable to assume he has his own agenda. Which could have biased him and his wife long before he set foot in Niger. While it is accurate to say that is separate from outing a covert agent it does speak to the veracity of his claims. Does it not?
    Postit,
    Goodness don’t let the facts get in your way.
    “Cooper isn’t in jail because he called Karls bluff when his loudmouth lawyer proclaimed Cooper wasn’t withholding anything that could implicate Rove and Cooper took that as a specific waiver release.”
    I guess the fact the Cooper’s lawyer calling Rove’s lawyer and asking him and them saying of course, that’s why we signed the waiver for Fitzgerald isn’t relevant.

  228. Is this relevant?
    washingtontimes.com
    In a word, no.
    Will he be writing a book? ‘CIA vets for the truth’? will I find him being showcased by Limpdick on his radio show and Shaun Hackery on Fox ‘news’? will I be hearing shortly about his ties to reclusive Texas GOPers with money to burn?
    If the CIA didn’t think there was anything to the ‘outing’ of Valerie Plame and hadn’t substantiated her status they wouldn’t have referred the case for investigation, the GOP justice department wouldn’t have accepted it, Ashcroft wouldn’t have recused himself, a special prosecutor would never have been appointed, the several judges who have ruled on Fitzgeralds requests would have shut him down. Lastly this President would never have said ‘bring me the head of this traitor’, actualy on the last I’m sure he wished he hadn’t (since his statements pre-date the appointment of a special prosecutor) and given a mulligan he probably would be better advised not too. Point is they thought they could get away with it just like Nixon, and just like Nixon, though the original crime was bad enough it’s the cover-up that’s more likely to get them.
    Bring it on!

  229. postit
    While I am relatively certain that our experienced African Hand won’t pay much attention to any requests I make, I hope the same is not true for you. Please don’t try and match him for invective or use nicknames to make your point. Since Edward is on sabbatical and Hilzoy is on vacation, it is clear that there won’t be much action taken to clean up this mess, so letting it rest for a bit might be good. I’m sure there will be more news in the coming weeks and I can’t imagine any of it will be good for Rove supporters.

  230. blogme: One has to wonder why Wilson keeps going on and on. It is reasonable to assume he has his own agenda. Which could have biased him and his wife long before he set foot in Niger. While it is accurate to say that is separate from outing a covert agent it does speak to the veracity of his claims. Does it not?
    No. It does not. And no, one does not have to wonder why Wilson keeps going after the Bush administration. Unless Novak is a liar, two senior Bush Administration officials revealed Valerie Plame’s affiliation with the CIA. The right has been smearing Wilson since he questioned Bush’s SOTU claims. Karl Rove called Wilson’s wife “fair game”.
    I would not take such things lightly. Would you, were they done to you? To imply that this treatment had little effect on Wilson’s attitude toward the Bush White House is myopic at best and disingenuous at worst.

  232. lj,
    Uhmm… Joe is actually his name. It’s not a nickname.
    Gromit,
    “After his eight-day investigation, Wilson said it was “highly doubtful” that Niger had sold uranium to Iraq. Later, documents purporting to be connected to such a deal were proved to be bogus.”
    Yes, I too would be upset if someone was accusing me of things I never said. For example, if I was the President of the U.S. and some CIA agents husband accused me of saying something I didn’t when their own investigation agreed with what I actually did say I would be quite upset and wonder why they were being misleading on t.v. and in the magazines they were appearing in.
    “That British intelligence…”
    But, still if a crime was committed in outing Valerie Plame it’s a crime and people should be punished. If we find out that the reporters were responsible for outing her can you concede that Rove should be left alone and that it is not the administrations fault?
    “Wilson’s attitude toward the Bush White House is myopic at best and disingenuous at worst.”
    And to say that Joe Wilson didn’t start it by providing misleading informationn would be disingenous also.

  233. lj,
    Uhmm… Joe is actually his name. It’s not a nickname.
    blogme,
    Why do you think I am addressing you? I realize it can be taken as a personal insult to call someone’s reading comprehension into question, so I would simply encourage you to re-read what I wrote as it doesn’t mean what you think it does.

  234. blogme: If we find out that the reporters were responsible for outing her can you concede that Rove should be left alone and that it is not the administrations fault?
    Which reporters had security clearance? This is the dumbest talking point I’ve seen come out of the right-wing spin machine in a while. The media must be moving up in the hierarchy of the shadow government or something, now that they can leak classified information without the involvement of cleared government officials. Or maybe the New York Times has a crack team of ninjas that can break into some of the most highly-secured buildings in the world to procure classified documents. This one makes the folks who think it was Wilson, Plame, and/or “Democrats” who orchestrated this leak appear to be grounded in reality.

  235. Or maybe the New York Times has a crack team of ninjas that can break into some of the most highly-secured buildings in the world to procure classified documents.
    Or they could have sent Sandy Berger 🙂

  236. Or maybe the New York Times has a crack team of ninjas…
    Dude…. MONKEY ninjas! Simian Joe Lieberman strikes again!

  237. blogme: If we find out that the reporters were responsible for outing her can you concede that Rove should be left alone and that it is not the administrations fault?
    John Dean’s article, which I linked earlier, addresses that:

    While there are other potential violations of the law that may be involved with the Valerie Plame Wilson case, it would be speculation to consider them. But Karl Rove’s leak to Matt Cooper is now an established fact. First, there is Matt Cooper’s email record. And Cooper has now confirmed that he has told the grand jury he spoke with Rove. If Rove’s leak fails to fall under the statute that was used to prosecute Randel, I do not understand why.

    But even if Dean is wrong and Rove is in the clear legally, surely spreading the news about covert CIA activities is considered bad behaviour? Why should he be left alone?
    Not being American myself, I am open to the argument that, by damaging the CIA, Rove has done the wider world a favour. The CIA does a lot of harm, maybe more harm than good. But I don’t see how an administration official can use that defence.

  238. Even if Rove is legally in the clear, leaking a CIA agent’s identity to a reporter (Matt Cooper) should get him fired, regardless of how Rove came upon the information in the first place. Why is this so difficult to understand?

  240. lj,
    I don’t think you were talking to me. I think you were referring to me. It’s nice to know that Obsidian Wings is so welcoming to those with different opinions that many feel the need to bad mouth them and be rude. I think it speaks to an insecurity that they many may have and a frustration due to often being on the the losing side.
    “While I am relatively certain that our experienced African Hand won’t pay much attention to any requests I make, I hope the same is not true for you. Please don’t try and match him for invective or use nicknames to make your point.”
    Well in another thread you said:

    Just for reference, I am assuming that blogme is quoting this article, as I am assuming that he has not actually gone to Niger. Checking the link, the following points stand out…
    I have a sinking suspicion that blogme is categorically opposed to debt reduction for African countries,…

    Seems like you are really the one being invective. Putting words into anothers mouth that they never came close to speaking! This reminds me of how quickly an invective tone got set after Charles posted. Ignore the content. Attack the delivery man. The strategy didn’t work under Clinton or Bush.
    Gromit,
    “This is the dumbest talking point I’ve seen come out of the right-wing spin machine in a while.”
    It’s really not that hard to understand. The reporters could have easily figured out she worked at the CIA. It was fairly common knowledge in the beltway. Can you agree with that? From the research done so far David Corn is the first one to suggest she was an undercover operative. She could have easily been outed, but no one knew they were outing an undercover agent. It’s really not that difficult to follow.
    1 You are a reporter.
    2)Someone accuses the President of being dishonest
    3)You do some research on said person
    4)You find out his wife works at the CIA
    5)You call around and ask some adminstration officials about it
    6)They say yeah, I heard that too.
    7)You report it
    Kevin,
    ” Why should he be left alone?”
    Agreed, that maybe he shouldn’t. But, then if you take that path you have to acknowledge that it then becomes a credibility issue and Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame’s credibility should be taken into account to provide the proper context.
    This all really could have been so easily by Joe Wilson if he and his wife had not had a political agenda and he had not had that “other” business to take care of in Niger that led his wife to volunteer him.
    If he had not been misleading about his report there would be no issue. If he had said, “The President using intelligence from Great Britian has accused Hussein of attempting to buy yellowcake from Niger. While that statement is accurate as my report verifies Hussein did not actually make the purchase.”
    End of story if Wilson had been honest.

  241. …Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame’s credibility should be taken into account to provide the proper context.

    Suppose, for the hell of it, that they have zero credibility. Then that’s the context. How does that help Rove?

  242. blogme: You are a reporter.
    Okay, I’m a reporter.
    2)Someone accuses the President of being dishonest
    Plenty of people have pointed out examples of George W. Bush’s lies, but continue.
    3)You do some research on said person
    4)You find out his wife works at the CIA
    Yes. Now, stop right here. What Novak actually said was not “Valerie Plame works at the CIA”: he said “Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.” cite
    5)You call around and ask some adminstration officials about it
    6)They say yeah, I heard that too.
    Now, even if you want to assume that Novak found out Valerie Plame was a CIA operative via some other source that the “two senior administration officials” he admits talking with, there is still the issue of – who? And why didn’t those two senior administration officials, if they realised that they were being asked about the identity of a CIA agent, inform someone that a major leak had happened? Your argument is old: it was being claimed back two years ago that Novak’s phrasing could be parsed to say that the leak of Plame’s identity as a covert operative came from some other source than the two “senior administration officials” anonymously referred to.
    Of course, if those two senior administration officials merely confirmed the leak, while they won’t be in as much trouble as the actual leaker, they’re still in serious drek*. It was their responsibility to tell Novak either “I have no idea” or “I can’t confirm or deny that”.
    The issue is not “What did Joseph Wilson do in Niger” – we have another thread for that. The issue is – how on earth can Bush-supporters still manage to spin such a major breach in national security on their team as being so unimportant?
    *Or would be, if Bush took national security at all seriously.

  243. I think it speaks to an insecurity that they many may have…
    Like thinking that I was accusing you of using nicknames? That strikes me as insecurity writ large.
    Seems like you are really the one being invective.
    Just for your information, invective is a noun, not an adjective. This and other mistakes suggest that you don’t really understand what has been written.
    Putting words into anothers mouth that they never came close to speaking!
    To suggest that I’ve put any words in your mouth while you make quotes like this:
    “Wilson’s attitude toward the Bush White House is myopic at best and disingenuous at worst.”
    from statements like these:
    To imply that this treatment had little effect on Wilson’s attitude toward the Bush White House is myopic at best and disingenuous at worst.
    is pretty rich, unless you don’t understand that what you quote and what was written are two different sentences.
    It would really be nice if someone else other than Hilzoy could figure out how to use the Typepad control panel. I really don’t think one has to be a liberal to do so.

  244. Jesurgislac,
    I agree the thread isn’t really about Wilson, but it comes up when we get around to credibility issues.
    “Plenty of people have pointed out examples of George W. Bush’s lies, but continue.”
    Both you and Wilson have the same credibility issue. How can we evaluate the leak properly when you start your assumptions with Bush lied?
    “Yes. Now, stop right here. What Novak actually said was not “Valerie Plame works at the CIA”: he said “Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.”
    Yes, let’s stop right there. Novak did not claim that she was “covert”! Read your own quote. See the difference. He doesn’t state that she is/was covert. (Which we still don’t know either, but according to data released so far it seems she wasn’t at the time of the article.)
    Wilson himself raised the issue of her being covert not Novak. No one really knew until Wilson said she was covert.
    Also, you are taking liberties with Novak’s sentence that he says aren’t accurate:
    “A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in my column as an “operative,” a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years.”
    Wilson and Plame obviously are political hacks. So we could investigate to see if this statement made by him is truly accurate.
    “”two senior administration officials” he admits talking with, there is still the issue of – who?”
    No the is “what” was said. We know that the “who” is focused on the administration.
    “And why didn’t those two senior administration officials, if they realised that they were being asked about the identity of a CIA agent, inform someone that a major leak had happened? ”
    We atleast know that Rove did file a report, but you are taking some liberties with the phrase “major leak”. What we know prett well now is that there was no “major” leak. She probably was not covert within the last 5 years and we can almost all agree she wasn’t covert at the time the article was written.
    “It was their responsibility to tell Novak either “I have no idea” or “I can’t confirm or deny that”.
    Or if they weren’t really sure of what the deal was they might say something like, “…double super secret background.”
    Which Rove did.

  245. Blogme is accusing others of following the strategy of “Ignore the content. Attack the delivery man.”? I really think the administration needs to set up an a Federal Irony Meter Replacement Fund to compensate those of us who are exposed to its defenders and suffer unexpected explosive failures.

  246. lj,
    Maybe you should go to this link:
    http://www.dictionary.com
    in·vec·tive

    n.
    Denunciatory or abusive language; vituperation.
    Denunciatory or abusive expression or discourse.
    adj.
    Of, relating to, or characterized by denunciatory or abusive language.

    I made a reply to Gromit. I think it is safe that I did not make an attempt to change the intention of his original statement. I followed his statement with one of mine in the same context.
    “And to say that Joe Wilson didn’t start it by providing misleading informationn would be disingenous also.”
    You might have a point if I had tried to make Gromit say something he didn’t mean, but I didn’t.
    It seems you are letting your frustration get the better of you. You try to make a point about me being ignorant with respect to language. But, it turns out you are the one who was mistaken. Then you try to show me misquoting Gromit, but you had to take my sentence out of context to do it. I didn’t do that to Gromit.
    I don’t expect an apology, but that would be a good will gesture on your part.

  247. blogme, all “double super secret background” is meant to protect is the identity of the person handing sensitive information over to Matt Cooper. It is in no way comparable to saying “no comment”. It is more like saying “here’s the dish, but don’t dare tell anyone I said it.”
    And the use of quotes in the post LJ was referring to was a bit confusing. More clear attribution would be nice in the future, though I did ultimately get what you were trying to do (which had a whiff of “I’m rubber and you’re glue” to it).

  248. Gromit,
    “(which had a whiff of “I’m rubber and you’re glue” to it).”
    Maybe, but don’t you think your initial comment did too?
    X told the truth about Niger.
    Y accused X of not telling the truth.
    X bad mouthed Y.
    Y bad mouthed X.
    Insert whoever you want for X or Y. It works for either side.
    As far as the double super secret and its application and relevance I think will be up to the grand jury.

  249. Maybe you should go to this link:
    http://www.dictionary.com
    in·vec·tive
    n.
    Denunciatory or abusive language; vituperation.
    Denunciatory or abusive expression or discourse.
    adj.
    Of, relating to, or characterized by denunciatory or abusive language.
    Now this is interesting. Yes, dictionaries give invective as an adjective, because it comes from a latin verb. However, a quick search at the British National Corpus at BYU reveals that in 100 million words in the modern era, there is only one example of invective modifying a noun and that seems to be a transcription error:

    splendid fellow Had an obsession with perspective That aroused invective Mellon adds

    Also interesting that at the connected link, none of those usages would be considered an adjective.
    (btw, you have to register to use BYU’s front end for the BNC, but on the extremely unlikely possibility that you are interested in the correct usage of English, I would recommend it).
    So, I suppose you are reviving an old usage (as befits what I assume to be your conservative position). However, the notion that invective is an adjective is so old that you are virtually creating a new collocation. And the notion that I think you are ‘being invective’ really demonstrates a rather severe persecution complex.
    Unfortunately, this ‘new’ usage is a lot like the rest of your posts, in that you seem to scuttle about trying to dig up small fragments to refute others. (my favorite is the reading of Wilson’s “My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.”) On the rather méchant assumption that you are not actually typing all of the ‘new” information you are presenting, I have googled phrases and these often lead to a swamp of right wing sites (the Dallas newspaper travel article for the hotel in Niger being an humorous exception.) Given that the posts at these sites predate your use of many of the phrases, I have to assume that you realize that citing where you get things would be a bit problematic. Of course, now that many people have provided links for you to dig thru (demonstrating once and for all that ‘don’t feed the trolls is not just friendly advice, it is a categorical imperative) it’s really impossible, absent you being honest, to determine where you pull these things out.
    What is really sad is that the putative conservative side of this blog is like a baseball team that doesn’t have the requisite number of players and is driven to taking whatever help it can get.

  250. lj,
    Sorry, but it still sounds like you are the one creating an invective tone at this site.
    Maybe you could do some research on Colloquial. I didn’t know that blogs were being quite so formal these days.
    ” “My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.”
    That was really the AP’s mistake don’t you think?
    “AP falsely reported Wilson “acknowledged his wife was no longer in an undercover job” when her identity was first publicly leaked”
    Which by the way I more than willingly acknowledged to Gromit and Larv.
    Man, this whole Plame thing really has alot of you out of whack. Take a breather.

  251. Tell you what, blogme. Let’s see if we can both take a couple of days off from the Plame thing. You’ve got a timestamp of 17 July, 10:18 pm, let’s say 2 days, so 19 July, same time? Can you do it? Consider this a friendly challenge.

  252. lj: Can you do it? Consider this a friendly challenge.
    😉 I suppose it would be unfair to tempt blogme by responding to his various points, so I won’t.

  253. Man, this whole Plame thing really has alot of you out of whack. Take a breather.
    Speaking of not being able to breathe. Funniest thing in days.
    Talk about the crow calling the raven black.

  254. lj: What is really sad is that the putative conservative side of this blog is like a baseball team that doesn’t have the requisite number of players and is driven to taking whatever help it can get.
    Oh, be fair, lj: with regard to the Plame Affair, the sensible conservative bloggers are either condemning what happened (even if they prefer to avoid the issue of Bush’s inactivity) or else just doing the not-touching-that-with-a-bargepole thing. The only people willing to stand up and claim that the whole thing is one big fuss over nothing and anyway let’s go point at Joseph Wilson – are the bloggers like blogme.

  258. Which reporters had security clearance?

    None of them.

    Even if Rove is legally in the clear, leaking a CIA agent’s identity to a reporter (Matt Cooper) should get him fired, regardless of how Rove came upon the information in the first place. Why is this so difficult to understand?

    Because it’s not true. If Rove was told this and wasn’t advised about classification, then he’s in exactly the same position as anyone else who comes by classified information in this manner. The law places all consequences on the leaker and none on the leakee. I’m not saying this is the case, here, just that this is an incorrect conclusion to draw from this particular scenario.
    On thinking this over, the question of whether Rove was in fact cleared to know Plame’s identity is still open. So I don’t think we can assume that he had clearance. Level, maybe; need-to-know, though, I’d tend to not assume.

  259. If Rove was told this and wasn’t advised about classification, then he’s in exactly the same position as anyone else who comes by classified information in this manner. The law places all consequences on the leaker and none on the leakee.
    If that’s the case then John Dean is just wrong about the law (see my comment above July 16, 2005 06:17 PM). Are you sure he is wrong?
    But as Nixon said to that same Dean all those years ago: “Legal, schmegal.” If my local bookie is quoting even money, I will back Rove to wriggle out. That doesn’t alter the fact that he deserves to be sacked, of course.

  260. Yes, I’d suggest that Dean is wrong on this one. Reread his article, and search for “alleged theft”. If Rove didn’t know it was classified, and Rove was on the receiving end of an unauthorized disclosure of classified information, Rove stole nothing. Key phrase from the statute:

    Whoever receives, conceals, or retains the same with intent to
    convert it to his use or gain, knowing it to have been embezzled,
    stolen, purloined or converted –

    emphasis mine, of course. If Rove heard this by word-of-mouth, and he wasn’t in fact cleared to know about Plame, he’d have no reason to think this was information obtained illegally.
    Again, this supposes much, and I want to make it clear that I don’t think this is an exoneration of Rove. It’s simply an example of how Rove is not automatically a criminal, given what we do know.

  261. Slarti, I’m sure you recognize the difference between ‘deserves to be fired’ and ‘deserves to be jailed.’ Is not what we already know sufficient for the former? What more would you need?

  262. Slarti: If Rove was told this and wasn’t advised about classification, then he’s in exactly the same position as anyone else who comes by classified information in this manner.
    Legally he may be: ethically he is not.

  263. Given that the topic was legal culpability, my not addressing his suitability for ongoing employment is not an oversight, J.
    I suppose there are scenarios under which he could be legally innocent by morally chock full o’ guilt, and in those scenarios (I can only think of one, but it’s not that I’ve put much effort into it) he ought to be fired.

  265. Seems to me that whether Rove deserves to be fired depends on what he thought about Plame’s status. If he didn’t know she was covert, or if he thought the fact that she was CIA was an open secret, then his talking to reporters about her doesn’t seem particularly blameworthy to me.

  266. Gripping hand, though, if publicly identifying (or even confirming the identity of) CIA agents below the Director level (for instance) is explicitly a no-no regardless of circumstances, and Rove did in fact do that, then he probably needs to go. I’d think, though, that if it’s that sensitive, reporters would also be admonished (or even constrained) against so doing.

  267. Slartibartfast, M. Christmas’s comment, which you quoted in your response to it, was about firing, not jailing.
    I’m heartened by Bush’s embrace of strong job protection — much stronger than any union has ever demanded. Apparently he now believes people can’t be fired unless they’ve been convicted of illegal activity. Maybe we were all wrong about his views on worker rights.

  269. kenB: If he didn’t know she was covert, or if he thought the fact that she was CIA was an open secret, then his talking to reporters about her doesn’t seem particularly blameworthy to me.
    It would to me if Karl Rove were any man-in-the-street. But a senior administration official ought not to be so cavalier with the identities of CIA agents. Assuming utter innocence on the part of Karl Rove*, he still should have thought to ask the CIA about Plame’s status, and if he got the response Novak got (which was, as I understand it, a “cannot confirm or deny but please don’t talk about this”) then he ought to have realised that he shouldn’t talk publicly about Plame’s status.
    So, if we assume Rove to be innocent, he’s incompetent, and his incompetence led to a major security breach. If we assume any ill-will whatsoever (which isn’t difficult, given the amount of bile being vented at Joseph Wilson) then he may well not be innocent – as well as not being incompetent.
    *Tricky, but let’s do it.

  270. he still should have thought to ask the CIA about Plame’s status

    Presumes that he had a reason to think that Plame might not be in the open. Since we’re presuming innocence and all, let’s go all out.

  271. I understand you, kenB. Of course, he was telling journalists because he was sure they didn’t know. And the CIA thought it serious enough to refer to Justice.
    I think even an inadvertent mistake can be sufficient for termination, if the person making it should have known better, and the motives for making it are inconsequential at best, slimy being a reasonable adjective.
    But then I think Rovism* (I mean this is a procedural not substantive sense) is a cancer on American politics. Misdirection is a great electoral device, but leads to vague mandates, and poor accountability. I would rather live in a world where the response to the Wilson editorial was about what went on between Iraq and Niger — or at least what the government thought in January 2003 had gone on — and was not at all about the personalities of Wilson, Novak, Miller, and all the rest.
    * I used to call it Atwaterism, and if someone can give me the name of a Dem operative who plays the game at the skill level of a Rove or Atwater, I’ll use a still different name.

  272. Presumes that he had a reason to think that Plame might not be in the open.
    Isn’t that an assumption that he’s required to make upon learning that someone works at the CIA? And even assuming he’s not legally required to make that assumption (which, I believe, he is), isn’t his failure to consider that her occupation might be classified irresponsible to the point where he has no business having a security clearance?

  274. And even assuming he’s not legally required to make that assumption (which, I believe, he is), isn’t his failure to consider that her occupation might be classified irresponsible to the point where he has no business having a security clearance?
    Don’t be silly, Catsy. Rove works for Bush: being classified irresponsible is a job requirement.

  275. IANAL, Slart, nor have I ever held a government clearance of any sort. I understand that you have, so perhaps you can speak more authoritatively on this. On yesterday’s MTP, Russert said the following:
    MR. RUSSERT: When one is given classified clearance, they are asked to sign an oath, and they are given a briefing book with form–Standard Form 312<, it's called. And if you read this briefing book, it says this: "Before...confirming the accuracy of what appears in the public source, the signer of"--"SF 312 must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified. If it has not...confirmation of its accuracy is also an unauthorized disclosure."
    Seems pretty unambiguous to me, if accurate.

  276. Do we know what clearance Rove had at the time this happened?
    What was Rove’s title back then — he wasn’t deputy COS yet, correct? Was he a “senior administration official”?
    CharleyCarp, he was clearly trying to discredit Wilson’s story by saying that Plame got him sent to Niger. This seems like fairly unexceptional behavior for a political operative, if not for a decent human being. If he was legally culpable, or if he had good reason to think that talking about Wilson’s wife was ill-advised, then he should go. Otherwise, it’s run-of-the-mill politics.
    It just seems to me that there’s a lot of information we’re not privy to, and people are leaping to judgment a little prematurely.

  277. IAAL, I have a clearance, and have signed a SF 312. I wouldn’t say that it completely answers all questions, but I’m plenty comfortable with saying, based on what I understand to be the facts, that Rove’s conduct is sufficiently negligent to lead to dismissal.
    Rove after all knew that he had some classified information on the subject, as he told Cooper.

  278. kenB: CharleyCarp, he was clearly trying to discredit Wilson’s story by saying that Plame got him sent to Niger. This seems like fairly unexceptional behavior for a political operative, if not for a decent human being. If he was legally culpable, or if he had good reason to think that talking about Wilson’s wife was ill-advised, then he should go. Otherwise, it’s run-of-the-mill politics.
    KenB, I really can’t understand this point of view. Karl Rove knew that Joseph Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. So it’s okay for him to broadcast information about her in an attempt to discredit Joseph Wilson – providing he’s such an ignorant little scut that it has not occurred to him that she might be a covert operative? It’s an ideal excuse for breaches in national security, I guess; “I was stupid. I didn’t think. Therefore, I am not culpable, because you cannot force me to think.”
    In law, I believe that may be an adequate defense – you’re allowed to be thoroughly stupid. (IANAL.) In employment, if Karl Rove really is so thoroughly stupid it never occurred to him that Plame might be an operative and at least he should check, he should definitely be sacked.

  279. or if he had good reason to think that talking about Wilson’s wife was ill-advised, then he should go. Otherwise, it’s run-of-the-mill politics.
    KenB, I really can’t understand this point of view. Karl Rove knew that Joseph Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. So it’s okay for him to broadcast information about her in an attempt to discredit Joseph Wilson – providing he’s such an ignorant little scut that it has not occurred to him that she might be a covert operative? It’s an ideal excuse for breaches in national security, I guess; “I was stupid. I didn’t think. Therefore, I am not culpable, because you cannot force me to think.”
    In law, I believe that may be an adequate defense – you’re allowed to be thoroughly stupid. (IANAL.) In employment, if Karl Rove really is so thoroughly stupid it never occurred to him that Plame might be an operative and at least he should check, he should definitely be sacked.

  280. Unambiguous, but I’d like to point out must confirm through an authorized official that the information has, in fact, been declassified presupposes a knowledge that it was classified in the first place. Rove could conceivably [caveat: not saying this is what happened] have obtained this information without knowing or suspecting it was classified.

  281. he was clearly trying to discredit Wilson’s story by saying that Plame got him sent to Niger
    It’s a non sequitur. Jeb Bush went to Indonesia after the tsunami. The fact that his brother sent him — that he got the job only because he is the brother of the president — is utterly inconsequential wrt anything Gov. Bush says about what he observed.
    Yes, Rovism/Atwaterism is run-of-the-mill. It’s too bad. And it’s too bad that it works, because it is infantilizing. For example, I’m sure that GHWB (for whom I have a great deal of admiration) would have won without Willie Horton, Boston harbor, or the flag factories. He would have won being who he really is, not who the Atwater machine made him. This was a real problem when he went for re-election as himself, Atwater being unavailable, and all his accomplishments — his governance as an adult — was seen by the red meat eating Rep base as insufficient. The Atwater diet is too high in protein, and doesn’t have enough roughage.

  282. Jes:
    Karl Rove knew that Joseph Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. So it’s okay for him to broadcast information about her in an attempt to discredit Joseph Wilson – providing he’s such an ignorant little scut that it has not occurred to him that she might be a covert operative?
    Lots of people work for CIA who aren’t undercover. If (continuing our hypothetical) Rove heard this information from a reporter or some other unofficial channel, and it was presented in an offhand way, why would he think to check her official status? And if he didn’t have official access to this information, would anyone even have answered his question? I assume I can’t just call up the government and say “I heard that So-and-so is a NOC, can you confirm that for me?”
    Charley:

    he was clearly trying to discredit Wilson’s story by saying that Plame got him sent to Niger

    It’s a non sequitur.

    That it may be, but charges of nepotism are often effective in calling a person’s credentials into question. Having a reasonable, rational discussion about the merits of this or that argument is a fun pastime for the politically aware, but unfortunately it has nothing to do with politics in the real world.
    Anyway, I’m of course no fan of Rove, but I don’t think that we have enough evidence yet to say that his actions in this particular incident render him unfit for the office. And my concern is that the farther that people on the left get ahead of the story, the more foolish they’ll look if one of the more innocuous scenarios turns out to be the “truth”.

  284. Jesurgislac,
    “Don’t be silly, Catsy. Rove works for Bush: being classified irresponsible is a job requirement.”
    There really isn’t really any reason to discuss this issue any more. We don’t know all the facts, but even if we did most people at this site hate Bush. There isn’t any relevant discussion taking place.

  285. There really isn’t really any reason to discuss this issue any more. We don’t know all the facts
    I am glad to hear that you will be limiting your discussion here to those topics on which you know all the facts. For the rest of us, since the standard required before posting speculation on a blog on the internets is slightly lower than that of mathematical proof, we will continue such speculation about who knew what, and when they knew it, and which administration statements are operative or inoperative at the moment.

  286. Felix,
    So touchy.
    Do you really believe that being incompetent is a job requirement in the administration?
    If you think that adds to the dicussion fine. I for one don’t.

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