Bush Declines Comment on Rove During Probe

[maddezmom]

WASHINGTON - President Bush said Wednesday that he will not comment on Karl Rove's role in leaking the identity of a CIA operative while the investigation is ongoing. "This is a serious investigation," Bush said at the end of a meeting with his Cabinet, with Rove sitting just behind him. "I will be more than happy to comment on this matter once this investigation is complete.


"I also will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports," he said.

Bush's comments follow the disclosure that Rove talked about the officer in a July 11, 2003, conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper. Coper wrote an article in 2003 in which he identified the officer as Valerie Plame, although Rove did not discuss her by name.

Bush said last year he would fire anyone found to have leaked Plame's identity.

more: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050713/ap_on_go_pr_wh/bush_rove;_


Bush: No Comment on Rove; Cooper in Court
~snip~

Bush's comments follow the disclosure that Rove talked about the officer in a July 11, 2003, conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper. Coper wrote an article in 2003 in which he identified the officer as Valerie Plame, although Rove did not discuss her by name.

Bush said last year he would fire anyone found to have leaked Plame's identity.

Bush refused to directly answer questions about whether he had spoken to Rove about his discussion with Cooper.

"I have instructed every member of my staff to fully cooperate with this investigation," Bush said. Rove sat stoically behind Bush during the questions about his involvement.

more:http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050713/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_investigation_15

[Missy M]

1. Whose investigation is he basing it on.....

is it his own?

[Xipe Totec]

2. prejudge the investigation based on media reports?

Just ask the bastard, he's standing right there!

[renaissanceguy]

13. As Russert suggested,

if this were a Dem white house, we'd be having investigations and resignations all over the damn place.


http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.15676271
http://www.cafepress.com/liberalissues.16781662

[Maestro]

36. No effin' shit!

What an idiot! Ask Rove what he did then fire his ass! Oh wait, but the pretzlenut really isn't in control. :eyes:

[Xipe Totec]

40. He's waiting for a permission slip from Karl

Just like Cooper...

[The Night Owl]

3. So, why can't Bush comment on what Rove has told him?

It sounds like obstruction of justice to me.

[maddezmom]

4. yes, why doesn't he say...I've talked to him

I mean really...are we to believe that * hasn't asked him about it?

[Demeter]

9. I Believe It!

Why should see no evil, hear no evil (of his "friends") ask anybody anything? He knows it all already.

With "friends" like that, who needs enemies?

[ClintonTyree]

25. He's talked to him.....

ONLY if KKKarl SAYS he's talked to him. georgie couldn't make a judgment call like that all by himself. That's a "tough decision".

[JRob]

50. of course he's talked to Rove... They talk about, laugh about and

forget about it...

[JRob]

49. to me too

[mconvente]

54. Great sig pic (n/t)

[JRob]

57. thanks... and I truly mean it/live it too

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

58. 'cause Rove has his hand up Chimpy's ass

He's his puppet master

[MaineDem]

5. "with Rove sitting just behind him"

Isn't there a perception of cover up? A perception that someone who, admittedly just alledged, leaked vital information and may be a security risk is sitting right behind the President at Cabinet meetings IN TIME OF WAR (they use it)? Isn't this something we should be shouting to anyone who will listen?

In the real world, perception can sink a business. Our government is in deep trouble and Rove should absolve the President of any perception of a cover-up by stepping aside, at least until the full story is known.

[ClintonTyree]

26. In a "fair and balanced" world.....

Rove WOULD step aside until the investigation was complete. However, this is "BushWorld", and any comparison to the "real" world isn't valid.

[flordehinojos]

6. bush is full of stormy kaki.

[PDXWoman]

7. He's waiting.

They're working on blackmailing fitzgerald.

[lancdem]

11. Wouldn't surprise me

But I'm confident Fitzgerald has integrity.

[brigidshine]

19. agreed n/t

[brigidshine]

18. Fitzgerald

don't know how successful they'll be attempting to blackmail Fitz---he's a stand-up prosecutor, from what i see of his work here in Illinois. i've been heartened by that thus far.

[BooScout]

8. Bush talked about the investigation plenty...

....when he and his mouthpiece McClellan were saying Rove had nothing to do with it. Now that we find out Rove was lying...Bush suddenly can't discuss it? Bullshit.

[underpants]

10. W gets daytime probes?

Great headline

[sattahipdeep]

12. Bush enabling piss ant

JohnyCanuck
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4088600#4089745
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/July05/Amr0712.htm

[Roland99]

14. Someone looks a wee bit nervous!!

[savemefromdumbya]

41. He is thinking Cheney

He is thinking "Cheney I'll get you for this"

15. rove and bush

They work as a group, and it looks like bush will protect rove. He kept rumsfeld also. That is why they are so secretive and closed-mouth. They are tightly knit and all joined. If you don't join with them, then you are out. Rove does have Bush's confidence. Plus Bush can just play dumb, it works for him. He will probably just go to his ranch and have a nice long weekend, kick back. :smoke:

[thebigidea]

16. we should use his response to shut down right wing talking points

"Why are you going against our President? He said not to prejudge until the investigation is complete. Do you know more than our President?"

obvious answer, there. but THEY have to pretend he's smart or something.

[jmowreader]

17. This is really the right thing to do...for right now

Even a half-ass first-year law student knows to tell his client "don't say anything while the investigation is going on." Which is what's happening now.

The investigation needs to go to completion. I think Bush knows that the fate of his administration rests on the answers to a handful of questions: who are the second leakers, who gave the information about Plame to Rove and to these second leakers, who else is involved and how many cells in the Protective Custody unit at Terre Haute are we going to have to clear out to make room for all of these people?

The only way Bush can possibly remain president when all is said and done in this matter is to put Karl Rove, and everyone else responsible for Valerie Plame's demise as the covert in charge of WMD surveillance, in jail for good. He knows it as well as we do. Just firing him won't work; it's got to be life in prison. That still might not work, but it's better than what leaving him walking the streets would result in. (The MSM might start asking why every other nation on earth but this one reballots an election that shows more than three percent variance between the exit polling and the final tally, and this one--where the best pollsters on earth live--throws out the exit polls when we show twelve percent variance in all of the areas that use optiscan tabulation but 1/2-percent variance in areas that count ballots by hand.) Right now, if Bush has any sense whatsoever (he isn't completely stupid--completely stupid people don't get into Yale, don't get into Harvard Business School, and don't get to be on the boards of four oil companies no matter who their daddy is) he's got an investigation going on to dig up the people whose heads he has to put on lances.

He's not going to break silence; his lawyers have already told him that. Tortureboy definitely told him that.

Don't get me wrong. I would love to wake up tomorrow, brew up some coffee, feed the cats, crank up this computer, log into DU and see video of Karl Rove being frog-marched out of the White House. But I DON'T want to see it if the other nine people who share equal or greater culpability in this are still at large. And like it or not, the first frog-march will shut down any further investigation.

Let's get 'em all at once. It's the only way.

[tedzbear]

21. It all depends on the press...

I was disheartened by Scotty's press conference today. Either the reporters backed off or they were plants.

[TankLV]

22. He knows no such thing. Moreover, he doesn't care.

In fact, when this all "dies down" again as it surely will, rove will get a medal.

The arrogance of this criminal murdering misadministration is so astounding that he will even push it in our faces and DARE the dems to do something!

Did it with the subpoena for the Iraq memos, etc., Cheney's meetings, etc.

He's not about to have second thoughts on what is the "proper" thing to do.

And who can blame him? The dems (forget about the repukes) have given him a pass on EVERYTHING - EVERYTHING - so far.

And you just know that he could sodomize little boys (little girls would not even raise an eyebrow because it "heterosexual") on stage on TV in front of millions, and the repukes would STILL give him a pass or talk about how improper it was for the TV to broadcast it.

[jmowreader]

31. This is different. We finally got the attention of the press.

Remember the last press conference? The one where all the reporters asked questions about Memogate--and informed Scott McClellan that they were gonna keep asking?

The press finally grew themselves a pair.

Of course, it could just be that their comptroller told them scandals are good for the bottom line...either way, it doesn't matter.

George W. Bush cares about exactly one thing: George W. Bush. I think he'd literally cut Karl Rove's head off with a samurai sword if doing so would protect Bush from a like fate.

[JoFerret]

56. Not a good metaphor for the press acquiring spine.

(Think Helen Thomas)

[ClintonTyree]

27. I agree with all but one point....

completely stupid people DO get into Yale, Harvard Business School and sit on the Boards of Companies.
Do a little investigation into College entrance requirements. Bush was a legacy, as long as Daddy paid full price at Yale there was no way they were going to turn him down. Money talks very loudly in College acceptance programs. They do it so they can offer very intelligent low income kids scholarships to attend these highly ranked schools.
My daughters room-mate in her Freshman year was as dumb as a stone, but she was accepted because her Daddy went there and she was paying full price..over $42,000 a year. She had no business being there and flunked out after her first year.
As far as HBS, the same thing. Remember, bush wanted to go to the University of Texas Law School and they turned him down. He didn't have the "right stuff" and his family damned near owned half the State! HBS took him again, because of his name and the fact that he would pay, you guessed it, full price!
As far as the boards of those companies? The Bush name was all people were interested in. Bush didn't show up half the time (just like his TANG service), collected nice checks and when the companies went belly up, there was always someone to bail him out. Saudis, the Texas taxpayers....you name it. He wasn't allowed to fail no matter how hard he tried and how inept he was. He was a "good 'ol boy" with the Bush name, and that's all that mattered. As long as those companies could print his name on their letterhead, that's all they were looking for from him.

[dalaigh lllama]

20. So where's Bush's "Dick"

Usually Mr. "Ipse Dixit" Cheney is front and center when the propaganda needs catapulting. Why isn't he out there saying, "Frankly, I never met Novak or Cooper or Miller -- don't even know who they are (snarl, snarl)." Just like he said about never meeting John Edwards or Joe Wilson.

Could it be that the reports of his ticker ticking merrily on were perhaps... untrue?

[ClintonTyree]

28. He's keeping a low profile on this.............

I think diseased dick is up to his armpits in this treasonous act as well.

[Pacifist Patriot]

33. I have no doubt Cheney's involved, probably from the first step.

I would not be surprised if Cheney gave the info to Rove to leak. Cheney is one spiteful bastard and takes no political prisoners.

[damntexdem]

23. But it's not just a question of a criminal investigation. ...

It's also a question of the conditions of employment. Dubya had earlier claimed that being involved in the outing-Plame affair was a firing offense. Well, now we all know that Rove was involved. Whether or not Rove was guilty of a criminal offense is an entirely-separable question. If Dubya had any integrity, he would fire Rove now.

[ClintonTyree]

30. "If Dubya had any integrity"......

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: That's a good one!

[louis-t]

48. I have not seen a tape of * saying he would "fire"

anyone caught leaking. I did see one where he said they would be "taken care of" whatever that means.

[maddezmom]

24. *'s no comment suprises some WH advisor's...link updated

Bush's statement was a surprise for some White House advisers and senior Republicans who had expected the president to deliver a vote of confidence for Rove, his deputy chief of staff. Two Bush advisers, speaking on condition of anonymity because they did not want to pre-empt the president, said shortly before his remarks that the president intended to signal his support of Rove — without prejudging the merits of the case — during that picture-taking session. Indeed, they said, he was prepared to do so a day earlier but the question was not posed in the question-and-answer session Tuesday.

However, other senior aides to the president said he had been prepared to show his confidence in Rove but, they said, the question from reporters focused on the investigation. Yet, Bush has never appeared constrained to limit his answers strictly to questions asked. The aides said Bush does have full confidence in Rove.

Bush said last year he would fire anyone found to have leaked Plame's identity.

Bush refused to directly answer questions about whether he had spoken to Rove about his discussion with Cooper.


http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050713/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_investigation_21

[Jose Diablo]

29. Sounds like Bu$h is pleading the 5th..n/t

[ClintonTyree]

32. This is beginning to worry me a bit..............

either they are the most idiotic bunch of dorks on the planet or they have something up their sleeves. I don't trust these petty thugs as far as I can throw them and they will stop at nothing to get their way, as always. Justice, legality, treason, morals, none of these words mean anything to them. Power is the only thing they understand and money is the only thing they've ever loved. They'd bring the entire country down before they ever admitted to anything and they're either hoping this will "go away" by itself or are hatching some plan to make it "go away". And like a suicide bomber, they don't give a damn who's in their way or who gets hurt in their efforts to carry it out.

[Pacifist Patriot]

34. This is precisely what bothers me.

I too think they cannot see past the greedy noses at the ends of their faces. If the universe has to go through a Big Bang to cover their asses, they'll let it.

[gordianot]

35. Bush is clearly afraid of Rove, more so than the investigation.

He scares him sh*tless. Rove knows where the bodies are buried, he had a hand in it personally. Rove must have an interesting set of files stashed away in some attorney's office.

[I_Make_Mistakes]

38. Bush is feeling the heat

I didn't know that he had a double jointed jaw. C-SPAN cut away during a vote to the interview. W's jaw was dancing away with each question about Rove (2) and eased with the SC question. That must be his lying tick. It was weird to see.

[JoFerret]

55. Good point

Like GayEdgar Hoover he probably has the goods on the lot of them.

[gordianot]

60. Good analogy, Rove just may be a latter day Hoover.

How many Presidents wanted rid of Hoover and never managed the task?

[NVMojo]

37. the translation to this statement ...

"I also will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports," he said.


means the White House is "backlashing" the media for finally doing their job as public watchdogs and asking questions! HAHAHAAHAA!!! They've had their leash from Rove cut!!!

[chelsea0011]

39. Bush's response to Rove is like his policy in Iraq

I will not respond until every Iraqi is dead.

[SuperWonk]

42. Re:

This seems like quite a slippery slope...
I am going to reserve judgment until all the facts are out there. An uncommon position, I know.

[savemefromdumbya]

43. what about the leaking of CLASSIFIED information?

was classified info leaked?

44. discussion on row over rove on onpoint radio tonite 8 ET

www.onpointradio.org/ 8 pm ET

Tom Ashbrook the host, usually has some good commentators and discussion. YOu can listen over the web.

[Skittles]

45. they have had no problem commenting up until now

this investigation has been going on for quite some time

[maddezmom]

46. Sept 30, 2003 comments by * on CNN now

they are full of shit....

[raysr]

47. What can * do?

Rove is his brain, that's no joke. He's fucked w/o Rove. And what's great now is he's fucked WITH Rove too!!! LMAO

[Roland99]

51. Oh, he still has Racicot and Hughes to fallback to.

[JRob]

52. This country IS Terri Schiavo!!! In a seemingly vegetative state!

It's just unbelievable!!! How far will ALL of this go?

Every time these guys take it just a little further & I think "they'll never get away with this..." but they do and move on to the next thing.

If Bush held a gun to someone's head and pulled the trigger on national television, all the pundits would spin it and he'd probably get away with it!

What is the threshold?

When does it all go too far and break the spell?

How the hell do we stop this MADNESS!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can honestly say that I've never hated any person or group of people this much in 47 years of life!

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :nuke:

[Booster]

53. Why can't he judge on media reports - somebody on his staff

wrote the media reports.

[erpowers]

59. Do Not Take the Wrong Way

Democrats should not take this the wrong way. Rove is still Bush's man and I doubt Bush will actually fire Rove if it comes out that he actually outed Plame. Bush has gotten his second term now so he does not have to do anything. I contend he said he would fire whoever outed her in order to get reelected. I doubt Rove will be fired. He may end up going to jail, but he most likely will not be fired.

[symbolman]

61. You can't see from the angle of the picture

sure, you can see Rove right behind Bush, but what you can't see - maybe from another camera angle, would be the huge freaking gun that Rove was holding under his briefing papers :)

Wish he'd put it to his own head and do the world a favor.

Slimy Putz..