Rove Isn't the Real Outrage

[jbfam4]

Rove Isn't the Real Outrage

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/13/AR2005071301989.html?nav=most_emailed
By Richard Cohen

Thursday, July 14, 2005; Page A25


So I am not predisposed to feel Rove's pain, assuming he has any feeling at all. But I do have to concede that he probably did not set out to expose a CIA operative, the by-now overexposed Valerie Wilson (nee Plame), a specialist in weapons of mass destruction. It was Plame, administration sources told columnist Robert D. Novak and others, who chose her husband to go to Africa to see if Saddam Hussein's Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Niger. He went and later said that he found nothing, but George W. Bush said otherwise in his 2003 State of the Union address. It was supposed to be additional evidence that Iraq had, in the memorable word uttered by Vice President Cheney, "reconstituted" its nuclear weapons program. That, of course, is the real smoking gun in this matter -- the crime, if there is one at all, in what should now be called Karlgate. (It encompasses so much -- the outing of Plame, the jailing of reporter Judith Miller, the moral collapse of the press, the preening of Wilson -- that it sorely needs a moniker.) The inspired exaggeration of the case against Iraq, the hype about weapons of mass destruction and al Qaeda's links to Hussein, makes everything else pale in comparison. It was to protect those lies, those exaggerations, that incredible train wreck of incompetence, ideologically induced optimism and, of course, contempt for the quaint working of the democratic process, that everything else stems from. Wilson was both armed and dangerous. He claimed the truth.


The truth about that truth was contained in a Post story about the leaks. It quoted "a senior administration official" who said that the outing of Plame was "meant purely and simply for revenge." It also said that two -- not one -- "top White House officials" had called "at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife." This response might be reprehensible, but it was routine for the town and, particularly, the vindictive Bush White House. What it was not, though, was a crime. The law prohibiting the outing of a CIA agent is so restrictive that it has been applied only once and does not seem to fit this case. I find it hard to believe that Rove or anyone at the White House specifically intended to blow the cover of a CIA agent. Rove is a political opportunist, not a traitor.

[electron_blue]

1. Yep

I agree - the real outrage here is what the payback/revenge was for in the first place: the Bush administration covering up exposure of their falsified reports and deliberate misleading of the public and legislators about WMD's and Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Will this bubble up to the top? Or will Karlgate just turn into a trampling of Rove and nothing more?

[sam sarrha]

2. this link cant be ignored in this story...link>

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?=view_all&address=103x66773

one cannot ignore the American Judas

the sooner we get rid of them we can return to being Civilized Nation

[stopbush]

3. Rove isn't a traitor? What would make one a traitor?

Perhaps knowingly lying a country into a war and getting her sons and daughters killed. Perhaps ruining a country's economy and sellingoff its debt to foreigners. Perhaps waging an all-out culture war against its people.

Fuck you, Cohen.

[shraby]

4. There is also the matter of the leak

to Chalabi that the US had cracked the Iranian communications code which Chalabi then passed to Iran. Was that a Rove leak also? If he will leak one secret why not two? One has to wonder how much of a spy Rove is.

[ClintonTyree]

5. I think this writer is wrong........

about the law not applying to Rove's case. It was a vindictive action meant to settle a grudge, but a long time CIA Operative and her mission were compromised. Whether Rove intended to do it or not is not the question. He (they) DID IT, and they must pay the consequences for their actions.
A person driving to work, talking on a cell phone while drinking a cup of coffee runs over a child. Certainly, that person never intended to run over that child, but the fact remains that the child was run over, is dead and someone must be held responsible.
Rove engaged in reckless behavior (he KNEW what he was doing was wrong)just as said driver, He MUST be held responsible, whether he intended to do this much harm or not.