NYT's Frank Rich - Eight Days in July (Wilson's Op-ed to Novak's column)

[Pirate Smile]

PRESIDENT BUSH'S new Supreme Court nominee was a historic first after all: the first to be announced on TV dead center in prime time, smack in the cross hairs of "I Want to Be a Hilton." It was also one of the hastiest court announcements in memory, abruptly sprung a week ahead of the White House's original timetable. The agenda of this rushed showmanship - to change the subject in Washington - could not have been more naked. But the president would have had to nominate Bill Clinton to change this subject.

When a conspiracy is unraveling, and it's every liar and his lawyer for themselves, the story takes on a momentum of its own. When the conspiracy is, at its heart, about the White House's twisting of the intelligence used to sell the American people a war - and its desperate efforts to cover up that flimflam once the W.M.D. cupboard proved bare and the war went south - the story will not end until the war really is in its "last throes."

-snip-
As White House counsel, he was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife. That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation. This 12-hour delay, he has said, was sanctioned by the Justice Department, but since the department was then run by John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist who refused to recuse himself from the Plame case, inquiring Senate Democrats would examine this 12-hour delay as closely as an 18½-minute tape gap. "Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence," said Senator Charles Schumer, correctly, back when the missing 12 hours was first revealed almost two years ago. A new Gonzales confirmation process now would have quickly devolved into a neo-Watergate hearing. Mr. Gonzales was in the thick of the Plame investigation, all told, for 16 months.

Thus is Mr. Gonzales's Supreme Court aspiration the first White House casualty of this affair. It won't be the last. When you look at the early timeline of this case, rather than the latest investigatory scraps, two damning story lines emerge and both have legs.

.... more at

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/opinion/24rich.html?hp

[Pirate Smile]

1. more Rich - I love this guy!

"That memo may have been the genesis of an orchestrated assault on the Wilsons. That the administration was then cocky enough and enraged enough to go after its presumed enemies so systematically can be found in a similar, now forgotten attack that was hatched on July 15, the day after the publication of Mr. Novak's column portraying Mr. Wilson as a girlie man dependent on his wife for employment.

On that evening's broadcast of ABC's "World News Tonight," American soldiers in Falluja spoke angrily of how their tour of duty had been extended yet again, only a week after Donald Rumsfeld told them they were going home. Soon the Drudge Report announced that ABC's correspondent, Jeffrey Kofman, was gay. Matt Drudge told Lloyd Grove of The Washington Post at the time that "someone from the White House communications shop" had given him that information.

Mr. McClellan denied White House involvement with any Kofman revelation, a denial now worth as much as his denials of White House involvement with the trashing of the Wilsons. Identifying someone as gay isn't a crime in any event, but the "outing" of Mr. Kofman (who turned out to be openly gay) almost simultaneously with the outing of Ms. Plame points to a pervasive culture of revenge in the White House and offers a clue as to who might be driving it. As Joshua Green reported in detail in The Atlantic Monthly last year, a recurring feature of Mr. Rove's political campaigns throughout his career has been the questioning of an "opponent's sexual orientation."

THE second narrative to be unearthed in the scandal's early timeline is the motive for this reckless vindictiveness against anyone questioning the war. On May 1, 2003, Mr. Bush celebrated "Mission Accomplished." On May 29, Mr. Bush announced that "we found the weapons of mass destruction." On July 2, as attacks increased on American troops, Mr. Bush dared the insurgents to "bring 'em on." But the mission was not accomplished, the weapons were not found and the enemy kept bringing 'em on. It was against this backdrop of mounting desperation on July 6 that Mr. Wilson went public with his incriminating claim that the most potent argument for the war in the first place, the administration's repeated intimations of nuclear Armageddon, involved twisted intelligence."

[existentialist]

14. Good Post.

I know I read this article somewhere in full--possibly on the Huffington Post. It is good enough that I don't blame you for stretching the rules in your posting of it here.

[NMDemDist2]

2. excellent reminder. I had forgotten the 12 hour delay we all howled

about back then...

[flordehinojos]

3. what an excellent article and the accompanying caricature by Barry Britt

[Pirate Smile]

4. He always includes so many references in his articles.

[susu369]

5. Mr. Rich has made my day

superb writing.

Rich really hits a bulls-eye with this:

As Joshua Green reported in detail in The Atlantic Monthly last year, a recurring feature of Mr. Rove's political campaigns throughout his career has been the questioning of an "opponent's sexual orientation."

Joshua Green Link (must subscribe):
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200411/green

[Nothing Without Hope]

6. This OLIPHANT CARTOON perfectly captures the attempt to distract with

the Roberts nomination:

http://www.allhatnocattle.net.nyud.net:8090/ol72005.jpg

More Rove cartoons in this thread;
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1940513
Thread title: Poor ol' misunderstood Rove! Jen Sorenson and Tom Tomorrow CARTOONS

[Why Syzygy]

13. It does the soul good

to see a viper being pursued by itself.

Live by the sword. Die by the sword. Their "savior" said that.
Didn't take notes, did they?

[applegrove]

7. Don't the people around Rove get it? They will all be diminished when

he covers them with slime. It is the opposite of being around someone inspiring. They only believe in this to make their own selves feel grand. Everyone is made small who cooperates or gets near such characters. Not just the intended victims.

[MasonJar]

8. Halleluyah! What a difference between Rich and Freakman.

[indepat]

9. How long, oh how long before we know all who conspired to obstruct justice?

[ixion]

10. fantastic piece! nominated

This provides a timeline with the FULL CONTEXT of what Traitorgate (love that 'gate' title) encompasses.

They're slime, they've ruined our republic, and I truly hope that one day they face justice.

[yardwork]

11. kicked and nominated - this is a brilliant piece

[stubtoe]

12. And both Brooks and Kristoff were running for cover!

Brooks' piece opposite was about flying with children. Very funny and well-written, but irrelevant fluff compared to Rich's explosively political op-ed.

And I noticed Kristoff was hiding in North Korea yet again.

Conservative pundits are speechless over this.

There are other articles in the front page section discussing Plamegate. It is high time we saw the Times report on this. Are we maybe getting our press back?

[Stephanie]

15. David Brooks has become the poor man's Dave Barry.

He is a hack.

[Demeter]

17. Dave Barry Is Funny, At Least

I subscribed to the Detroit Free Press just to read his humor pieces--then he was dropped, and I dropped the subscription!

Brooks is just pathetic. Not even entertaining.

[Demeter]

16. Read The Whole Column!

Frank Rich has been hit and miss lately, but this article is golden in every word. A better summation you'll not find anywhere.