Frank Rich: To find Karl Rove, follow the uranium

[steve2470]

http://www.iht.com/protected/articles/2005/07/17/opinion/edrich.php

By Frank Rich The New York Times

MONDAY, JULY 18, 2005




NEW YORK Well, of course, Karl Rove did it. He may not have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, with its high threshold of criminality for outing a covert agent, but there's no doubt he trashed the agent, Valerie Plame, and her husband, Joseph Wilson.

We know this not only because of the celebrated e-mail note of Time magazine's Matt Cooper, but also because of Rove's own history. Trashing is in his nature, and bad things happen, usually through under-the-radar whispers, to decent people (and their wives) who get in his way. In the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain's wife, Cindy, was rumored to be a drug addict (and McCain was rumored to be mentally unstable). In the 1994 Texas governor's race, Ann Richards found herself rumored to be a lesbian. The implication that Wilson was a John Kerry-ish girlie man beholden to his wife for his meal ticket is of a thematic piece with previous mud splattered on Rove political adversaries. The difference is that this time Rove got caught.

Even so, we shouldn't get hung up on him or the other minor figures. In the end, this scandal is about the president of the United States. It is about a plot that was hatched at the top of the administration and in which all others, Rove included, are at most secondary players.

To see the main plot, you must sweep away the subplots, starting with the Cooper e-mail. It has been brandished as a smoking gun by Bush bashers and as exculpatory evidence by Bush backers (Rove, you see, was just trying to ensure that Time had its facts straight). But no one knows what this e-mail message means unless it's set against the avalanche of other evidence, most of it secret, including what Rove said in three appearances before the grand jury investigating the case. Therein lies the rub, or at least whatever case might be made for perjury.




<snip>

[malaise]

1. Spot on

This is about lies that have led to thousands of deaths. They can run but they cannot hide. The dam is about to burst wide open.