WP: Classic Rove - Now Karl Rove has become "fair game." (excellent)

[Pirate Smile]

Classic Rove

By Harold Meyerson

Wednesday, July 13, 2005; Page A21

Now Karl Rove has become "fair game."

That was the term that the president's consigliere applied to Valerie Plame, according to Newsweek, in a conversation with MSNBC's Chris Matthews immediately after the publication of Robert D. Novak's column that identified Plame as a CIA operative. And, of course, Plame was fair game: Her identity was a tool to discredit, however obliquely, the report from her husband, Joe Wilson, that the administration's claim that Saddam Hussein's Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from Niger was a bunch of hooey.


Rove's lawyer now admits that, in attempting to warn Time's Matt Cooper off the Wilson story, Rove mentioned Wilson's wife, though not by name. Attention is now focused on whether this violated the law that forbids revealing the identity of our undercover intelligence agents. But it's also worth pondering the quintessential Rovishness of his conversation with Cooper, as reported in Newsweek. Bringing up Plame, after all, did nothing to discredit Wilson's central findings. It was a distraction, an ad hominem attack. Wilson had undermined the administration's tenuous case for its war. To Rove, that made Plame fair game.

-snip-
That's been the hallmark of Rove's career -- and Bush's. After Bush lost the 2000 New Hampshire primary to John McCain, Rove directed a slanderous campaign in South Carolina that knocked McCain virtually out of the race with a barrage of fabrications about the personal lives of the senator and his family. Once Bush decided to invade Iraq, and particularly after the weapons of mass destruction failed to materialize, Rove orchestrated the campaign to depict the war's critics as terrorist sympathizers. Just a few weeks ago Rove told a right-wing audience that "liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." Get in Bush's way and Rove turns you or your loved ones into the scum of the earth.

-snip-
Or did he? There's no basis to conclude that if Rove was the guy who outed Plame, he told his boss about it. But Rove was, and has always been, Bush's one indispensable aide precisely, though not only, because he would do whatever it took to advance his boss's interests, no matter the consequences to his intended targets or innocent bystanders. Though we can't be certain it was Rove who disclosed Plame's identity, we can be damned sure that if he did, it was all in a day's work on behalf of George W. Bush.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/12/AR2005071201367.html

[acmavm]

1. Washington Post? This was in the Washington Post? Is there a

Washington Post on Mars? Because I swear, this doesn't sound like what I'm used to from the Washington Post that lost all its credibility with thinking people by supporting Chimpy McSmirkster for so long.

[Pirate Smile]

2. I don't recognize the author of this article but this is what I found:

"Harold Meyerson is editor at large of the American Prospect and political editor of L.A. Weekly. His column appears on Wednesdays, and he can be reached at [e-mail]. "

[ms liberty]

3. He just ripped them to shreds, didn't he?...

I've heard of him and recognize his name. I don't remember many details, but if I'm thinking of the same person, this guy's a real journalist, old-school, the real thing.

Great find

[msongs]

6. some info on the L.A. Weekly:

it is a freebie paper that comes out once a week and is distributed all over southern california. Has page after page of listings for arts, movies, music, a what's going on in So Cal kinda mag.

it is pretty much a flaming liberal paper, does a lot of investigative muckraking kind of stuff on politics and social issues.it is not a liberal toadie however, and criticizes across the spectrum politically.

I personally enjoy reading it as it is "more stimulating talk radio" in paper form and the paper can be used for many things like cage liner, painter's helper, mulch, etc. :-)

Msongs
www.msongs.com/liberaltshirts.htm

[musiclawyer]

7. Meyerson is s good guy

Wrote for the LA weekly many years (think village voice west coast) I think he has worked out of Washington DC the last few years. He still contributes to LA Weekly at times.

[baby_bear]

4. Editorials are not op-eds or columns

I can't think of a newspaper that doesn't run at least one or more column that doesn't comport with its own editorial policy/biases.

Maybe the Wall Street Journal; I don't know because I don't read it.

Too many people get editorials mixed up with columns. One has nothing to do with the other.

b_b

[Pirate Smile]

5. kick