What's Fair Game? New Rove revelations

[paineinthearse]

From the Conyers blog, http://www.conyersblog.us/

What's Fair Game? New Rove revelations

I just blogged over at Huffington Post about new revelations involving Karl Rove and the outing of an undercover CIA operative. Take a look.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/john-conyers/whats-fair-game_3938.html

What's Fair Game?

Cast in its best light, the Bush Administration’s Karl Rove defense boils down to this: Rove never revealed the NAME of an undercover CIA operative because he didn’t know her name. He might not have even known she was an undercover CIA operative, and you can't prove it anyway. Actually, he was merely spreading false information about the operative in an effort to smear her husband.

Remember during the 2000 Presidential campaign when the Republican mantra was that President Bush was going to “restore honesty and dignity to the White House?” How’s that going? When Vice-President Cheney accepted his party’s nomination for Vice-President in 2000, he boldly declared: “They will offer more lectures, and legalisms, and carefully worded denials. We offer another way -- a better way -- and a stiff dose of truth.” Is that what we are getting?

Today, on its online site, Newsweek magazine breaks some news. Before the publication of the infamous Novak column outing Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA operative appeared in newspapers around the country, Time magazine’s Matt Cooper talked to Karl Rove. The topic: Ambassador Joe Wilson’s now-proven contention that stories about Iraq acquiring uranium from Africa (later touted by the President in his State of the Union address) were pure fiction. According to Cooper’s emails, the following was said:

“Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a 'big warning' not to 'get too far out on Wilson.' Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA" -- CIA Director George Tenet -- or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, 'it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd issues who authorized the trip.' Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: 'not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an suspect but so is the report. he implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro Niger... '"
In light of this new information, it should be noted that -- viewing these facts in the light best for Rove -- as Friday’s Washington Post pointed out, there were many, many instances the White House Press Secretary and other Administration officials made, to use the parlance of the '90s, “accurate, but misleading” statements:

On Oct. 10, 2003, White House press secretary Scott McClellan was asked whether Rove; Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; or National Security Council official Elliott Abrams had told any reporter that Plame was a covert CIA agent.
‘I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this,’ McClellan said. ‘And that's where it stands.’ Reporters pressed McClellan to clarify that statement but he held to the words in his first answer until one reporter asked, ‘They were not involved in what?’ To which he replied, ‘The leaking of classified information.’
In the 90’s, there was a media uproar when literally accurate, but misleading, statements were made about a private sexual affair. Today, when such statements are made out a life and death matter -- the decision to go to war -- for a Nixonian purpose -- to smear truth-telling critics -- there is barely a peep from the press corps. In the days since Rove’s role became public, the White House press corps has yet to pose a question to the White House press secretary about it. Not a word about the disgusting hypocrisy of an Administration that came to office promising to “change the tone” in Washington now attacking a critic through his spouse.

According to an earlier Newsweek report, Karl Rove was telling reporters that Wilson’s wife was “fair game.” Many reporters accepted this repulsive notion. One has to wonder whether their complicity in this smear then has rendered asking the important questions about it today “off-limits.”



Blogged by JC on 07.10.05 @ 09:44 AM ET

[atommom]

1. Great post! I'm glad to see you're blogging over there,

so your good posts can get more exposure. :hi:

[paineinthearse]

3. I'm just the messenger

JC is the genius!

[mike_c]

2. kicking and nominating....

Excellent post!

[Miss Chybil]

4. Well, they asked the questions this morning...

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cia_leak_quotes

By The Associated Press
2 hours, 54 minutes ago

Some of the denials, other comments, at media briefings by White House spokesman Scott McClellan when asked by reporters whether President Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, was involved in the leak of a CIA officer's identity:

Sept. 29, 2003

Q: You said this morning, quote, "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved." How does he know that?

A: Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. ... I've said that it's not true. ... And I have spoken with Karl Rove.

Q: It doesn't take much for the president to ask a senior official working for him, to just lay the question out for a few people and end this controversy today.

A: Do you have specific information to bring to our attention? ... Are we supposed to chase down every anonymous report in the newspaper? We'd spend all our time doing that."

Q: When you talked to Mr. Rove, did you discuss, "Did you ever have this information?"

A: I've made it very clear, he was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was.

Contrast these statements with what he said today...
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cia_leak_quotes

There's blood in the water...

[paineinthearse]

5. There's blood in the water...

...And the farmer (Rove) can no longer guard the chicken house (press corps'handlers).

[Miss Chybil]

6. So, what are you saying? There are bloody chickens in the water and

Farmer Rove's about to drown?

[orleans]

8. maybe he's saying

rove is a bloody chicken (of course this would be said with a british accent)

and it's time to boil the water and put the chicken in the pot!

(isn't it grand to have rove on the hot seat?)

[Miss Chybil]

11. Ah, yes....

:)

[gardenista]

7. Great post.

[paineinthearse]

9. Frank Pallone, D-NJ

Appears he is the House point person. Live on CSPAN now, during morning business, going over this is quite some detail.

Transcrpt will be in Thomas in 24 hours, perhaps avail from his office later today (any of his NJ district members who can call?).

[seabeyond]

10. another part of the story, how the repugs actively create our news

and the media heads allow it. this was a story and there was rove manipulating the story to the public in lies. wilson all wrong, and further, still more info on nigra (not) to allow us to believe yellow cake story

during campaign so often we saw roves immediate hand in the manipulation on story, especially cnn. remember letterman. it was like wolfie was reading roves email while on air doing the story

[paineinthearse]

12. Today's media briefing

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=1923290&mesg_id=1923290

Scottie had a new one ripped today!