Salon: Why Karl Rove must go

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/07/11/karlrove/index.html



Why Karl Rove must go

When Cooper called Rove on July 11, 2003, Wilson had just written an op-ed piece for the New York Times in which he said that his investigation into the allegation that Iraq had purchased uranium yellowcake from Niger had left him with "little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Cooper asked Rove about the Wilson report at the end of their telephone conversation. Rove's response? According to Cooper's email message to his editor, Rove warned Cooper "not to get too far out" on Wilson's allegations because the source wasn't credible. Rove said that neither Vice President Dick Cheney nor CIA Director George Tenet had assigned Wilson to the Niger investigation. Rather, he said, the job came from Wilson's own wife, who was, Rove told Cooper, a CIA analyst working on WMD issues. So you see, Luskin tells the New York Times, "A fair reading of the e-mail as well as the context in which the conversation took place makes it clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity." Rather, Luskin tells the Washington Post: "What was doing was discouraging Time from perpetuating some statements that had been made publicly and weren't true."

That defense may keep Karl Rove free from some sort of criminal conspiracy charge. And Rove's sometimes careful denials about his involvement -- "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name." -- may keep him out of prison on a perjury conviction. But none of that can change the fact that Karl Rove revealed the identity of a CIA agent in order to discredit criticism of the president's use of intelligence in the run-up to a war that has now claimed the lives of at least 1,755 Americans.

The press secretary isn't saying much today. At today's White House press briefing, he repeatedly refused to answer questions about the president's deputy chief of staff. "There will be a time to talk about this," Scott McClellan said at one point, "but now is not the time to talk about it."

He's right -- there will be plenty of time for talking later. Now is a time for action. Karl Rove traded away the identity of a CIA agent and, arguably, some portion of the nation's security in order to discredit one of the president's critics on the question of war. Thus, whatever comes of the criminal investigation that keeps McClellan from answering questions, we know at a minimum that Rove has breached the trust of his office and failed to live up to the standards that Bush has set for his own administration. It is time for Rove to go. And if he can't see that yet, it is time for the president to tell him.