What's being missed by the press on the Rove story...

[dalloway]

"It's the fixing of the intelligence, stupid."

While I, like everyone else here at DU (minus the trolls) feel like it is an early Christmas with all the Rove stories hitting the wire, I want to point the part of the story that isn't being emphasized enough, IMHO:

It's all about the fixing of the intelligence.

Rove. Plame. DSM. WHIG. It all wraps up in a nice little bow.

The White House, with its White House Iraq Group was hell bent on going to war no matter what and planned a full-out propaganda assault on the American people, fixing the intelligence to justify their wet dream of a war.

While the Rove stories are all focusing on the LEAK itself, we need to force the media to widen the lens and see that it all ties in together--a conspiracy to fix the intelligence.

All scandals lead back to the same issue. That, my fellow DUers, is the treason and the most impeachable offense of them all.

[JohnnyBoots]

1. Use Plame to show a pattern, especially if

Rove is not fired, as bush said anyone involved would be, use that verifiable lie to set the pattern with the public to seem credible then go into the other issues

[jojo54]

2. I'm hopeful that the media doesn't forget anything else.

I've been hearing a lot of backlash by the media; most of it anyway - it almost seems like they know they were duped into hoisting this administration onto the high horse, but now they're feeling betrayed(?). I think they're fighting back to regain their dignity and professionalism because they know there have been, and still is, some very snaky things going on with B*shco. IMHO.

[dalloway]

I agree. Wasn't yesterday's press grilling just INSPIRING?

Nice to have the journalists acting like journalists. Safety in numbers, they must figure.

[Tesla]

22. Gregory might want to be careful

he may find himself and Judy playing checkers together....

[dalloway]

3. dupe deleted.

[Firenze777]

4. I absolutely agree

There were many media references that Rove was trying to keep Cooper from making a wrong conclusion, but they never elaborated on it. They created a blur between inferring that it was Plame who sent Wilson to Niger, or if Wilson's Niger findings were wrong. In fact, Plame didn't send Wilson, and Wilson's findings were true. The average viewer wouldn't have picked up on those points at all. We need the 100+ members of Congress who signed Conyer's letter to hit the airwaves and connect the dots, loud and clear.

[bejammin075]

43. Fixing the facts, punishing WMD whistleblowers

War was the first and only resort. WMD, Plame, DSMs, Bolton are all the same story.

This thread here should be the #1 talking point on the whole Plame matter.

[tabasco]

5. Another thing they are missing ...

Our Nation is at greater risk to be NUKED due to Rove's treason. :nuke:

Senator Kerry identified the spread of nuclear materials and technology as the #1 threat to our national security. This traitorous leak by Rove compromised one of our top agents working against this threat.

But nobody had sex so I guess it's no big deal. :mad:

[Laura PourMeADrink]

16. LOVE your last line !!! n/t

[HardWorkingDem]

23. What about Gannon/Guckert....n/t....

....

[dalloway]

45. I FORGOT TO ADD IN GANNON/GUCKERT!

Remember he was used to launder the info into the press. And wasn't he camped out at Camp WH on a Sunday when this story was breaking, despite the fact that there was no daily press briefing that day.

I remember reading that from the ePluribus Media stuff at kos.

[Zorbuddha]

28. If we could just get Bush to poke someone with a cigar...

Uh well, I can dream.

[Poiuyt]

41. Not just one agent, but a whole undercover operation

And I've heard that anywhere from 20 to 90 CIA operatives have been killed as a result of the operation being exposed. (I don't have a link to that)

[emulatorloo]

6. Yes, but more pressingly now, press is repeating "Wife Authorized Trip"

They are repeating Karl's lie that Plame authorized Wilson's trip and accepting it at face value.

Why is the AP, for example, taking Rove and Luskin's word on this?

The smear to discredit Wilson continues.

Example here,

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20050712/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_investigation_12

[flpoljunkie]

10. Surely they do not believe that Plame "authorized" Wilson's trip to Niger

Is it just laziness or perhaps something more insidious--like covering for The Emperor Dubya's naked behind! After all, the media, for the most part, cheerled the nation to war and are thus, complicit in this trumped up and catastrophic war in Iraq.

[Mist]

11. Plame's position in no way involved authorizing anything concerning

her husband. They had parallel, NOT overlapping, career tracks.

[emulatorloo]

12. So who knows PETE YOST AP reporter and can call him and

edumacate him? He gives Rove and Luskin free reign to accuse Wilson of corruption and nepotism.

[grasswire]

36. here's yost's email addy

[e-mail]

Go for it.

[peacetalksforall]

18. Just throw questions back at the press.

Who signed his money advance?
Whose signature, title, and what date is on the authorization that allowed him to go there?
How many levels of people had to authorize the trip.
To whom was Wilson's report addressed?
Who was copied?
Who was given the report for analysis?
Did it come out of the CIA budget?

Journalists are lazy and are liars.

Not even our government would allow bureaucratic holes that would allow Plame to send Wilson.

The GAO, Tenet, and Cheney have the answers to all these questions.

The journalists making this claim against Plame have to be lazy, lying, and propagandists because it is illogical that Plame could have acted in the isolated fashion they are claiming.

It is impossible to trust the right wing media and the talking mouth propagandists working for all the societies, foundations, think tanks, lobbying groups, pacs, and reverendends.

It would be educational to get an opinion from the acting director of the CIA who took over when Tenet quit (got fired by Bush?) and before the insider, Goss, took over.

[pgh_dem]

24. Rachel Maddow (sp?) addressed this admirably last night on Tucker's

show.

She insisted that Monica "Aleister" Crowley and Carlson were "carrying the * admin's water" by repeating exactly the smear that Rove hoped to propagate.

Carlson backpedaled and got all huffy about NEVER having carried water for * admin (riiiiiight), and Crowley just morphed into a fire-breathing denial-lizard thing.

[candy331]

44. "Wife Authorized Trip"" Doesn't that say that they had to know she

had authority and from this someone had to find out what her actual role was?

[OneBlueSky]

7. "the fixing of the intelligence" is just a polite way of saying . . .

THEY LIED! . . .

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. You're right.

I can't imagine why the media and the public are accepting the fact that this administration has routinely fixed reports and intelligence to fit their agenda. Anybody else would have faced serious consequences by now.

But, obviously, the main enabler in all this has been the media. And since Washington seems to have an inside circle that nobody else knows about, I have to ask myself, how much of their complicity has been voluntary?

There are interrelated issues here. For instance, If Valerie Plame's role as a spy was known in the inside circles of Washington, and the media in those inside circles have been withholding information from the public, then, can you really claim that it was publicly known that Valerie Plame was a spy? I'd have to say no.

[Just Me]

9. A conspiracy to defraud Congress and the American people.

A conspiracy to breach U.S. and international laws.

A conspiracy to obstruct justice.

A conspiracy to violate civil and human rights.

All to the serious detriment of national security and the public welfare.

These folks are guilty of violating their oathes of office and high crimes and misdemeanors.

[Peachhead22]

13. I disagree, sorta

Yes, the fixing of the intelligfence is very important. But I'm not sure the American people (or the MSM) would make the connections that you and most of us here make.

I think the bigger story could be "It's the coverup, stupid." For Bush not to have known it was Rove means, either Bush didn't ask (he said he would), or he asked and Rove lied to him (if so, why didn't Bush fire him last week?). Both very damaging, but IMO not very plausible.

So the question becomes, what did Bush know and when did he know it? I would think he knew everything about Rove/Plame almost immediately. That is unless Bush himself ordered the smear. Then Bush knew about it at the beginning. As we all know, Bush promoted Rove a few months ago. Was it with full knowledge that Rove was neck-deep in Plame-gate or was it a reward for following orders? Were the Bushies just hoping their secrecy and obfuscation would allow them to skate on Plame-gate?

Now, if the MSM do their jobs and start digging for answers to questions like these, instead of just taking the Bushies "no comment" answers as gospel this could get really, really interesting. :)

On lighter end (for the Bushies) we've got incompetance and depraved indifference by Bush on national security matters, treason and perjury by Rove and lying to the American public and/or obstruction of justice by Scottie McClellan. Or on the deeper end, it's an open and shut case for treason and impeachment for Bush and an open and shut case for malfeasance against a Republican congress if they don't start impeachment proceedings in all due haste.

[back2basics909]

15. ...

It's going to be hard to get Rove. Until then Bush will not fire him, the stakes are too high. It's an admission of guilt and as the poster said, it's an admission of guilt on a far wider scale. So they will stand and fight as a unit, and it's going to be very hard to get him IMHO. Mind you it is encoraging that the press appear to smell blood, they are either leading themselves down a very dangerous path or they beleive Rove is in trouble.

Both encoraging and worrying signs right now.

[calimary]

52. A fair assessment. Both encouraging AND worrying, indeed.

Welcome to DU, too, BTW.

I know you're correct about one thing - it will be hard to get rove. But it may not be impossible. And it may not be AS hard as some might think - at least not now. Unless the cabal decides it has to risk everything and dreams up another terrorist strike on our shores to artificially inflate bush's numbers again. If they feel their backs are against the wall, they just might do something that outrageous. After all, they've come too far to lose now.

At the same time, however, NOTHING lasts forever. NO ONE is invincible. NO ONE. NO ONE is invulnerable. Robert Downey Jr. once was asked his definition for "hot." His answer? "Destined to be cold." Eventually, ALL THINGS come to an end. And besides, Goliath looked pretty unbeatable, too, in his day. So did the Armada, and the Soviet Union and the Third Reich and Genghis Khan and Alexander the Great. And the sun never sets on the British Empire, either.

The only thing we know for sure is that the proverbial fat lady isn't even in her makeup chair yet.

[dalloway]

46. yes but fixing the intelligence may indeed be prosecutable

under the Espionage Act, yes?

Lawyers, please jump in.

[Lowell]

14. Something else they missed

is the reports of agents being eliminated in the Ukraine. The Ukraine intelligence simply saw who Plame was working for previously and went after the same front organization in their own country. Not only was Rove responsible for ending Agent Plame's career in the CIA he was also responsible for the deaths of a number of agents serving abroad.

[yodermon]

27. WHOAH.

First I've heard of this. Got a link?

I'd heard rumors of Plame's intelligence assets being "liquidated" as a result of her outing, I've never actually found a source for this.

[Lowell]

32. Read in a foreign source

a couple months ago about a purge of US Agents in the Ukraine. What they said was that foreign intelligence agencies were looking into the activities of Brewster-Jennings in their countries. Brewster-Jennings is the CIA front organization Plame worked for. The link below is interesting. Also Google Brewster-Jennings for tons of information on this organization and how they have been exposed to great danger by the outing of Valarie Plame.

http://www.apfn.org/LEAK-GATE/CIA_firm.htm

In one of the foreign papers I read that there had indeed been US agents liquidated. Unfortunately I can't seem to remember specifically where I read it. I will dig into it this evening when I have time and hopefully find the link.

[calimary]

53. Shit! Brewster-Jennings! Post of the Day! That IS the front company

Valerie Plame worked for. I couldn't remember, and people have been posting here all day, asking what the name of that front organization was. YAY, LOWELL!!!

:yourock:

And I had also heard a bit about that report - where this outing actually did cost some other agents' lives. Early on, when this story first broke, it was pointed out many times that blowing the cover of an undercover agent might not only ruin that agent's career, but possibly endanger the life of that agent, and others in that agent's network - one of many reasons why it's regarded as such a serious crime. Her network was no small potatoes, either. She'd been at it for more than TWENTY years.

[dooner]

30. Nobody breathes a word of this n/t

[beboplives]

17. Thank You Dalloway

I posted a thread to this effect early this morning. I agree, this is a great sign. We actually saw the media chomping at the bit, and asking for more red meat yesterday at the press conference.

However, don't let the DSM fade away. Don't lose sight of the whole forest, by focusing solely on a single tree. If both of these issues are tied together, the heat becomes that much hotter, and clarifying of this administrations disregard for our democracy and its citizens.

We must insist that the media see the big picture, by demanding, almost in a connect the dots fashion, which is shameful, that they tie Plame into a pattern of behavior by this administration that should cause more than just Rove to come tumbling down.

[rasputin1952]

21. Welcome to DU...

:D...:hi:

[dalloway]

47. thanks. Sorry I missed your thread this am. I agree completely. n/t

[calimary]

54. Welcome to DU! Yeah - the media has been chomping on this one

for two straight days of some pretty contentious stuff - at least what little snotty has had to face. Maybe we ought to nickname Scott McClellan "The Rolaids Kid." I'll bet he needed a whole fist full of 'em by the time that White House press briefing was finished.

[Julius Civitatus]

19. Recommended the post.

Indeed, all roads lead to the LIES to invade Iraq.

[GoBlue]

20. It's about fixing reality.

"In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with
a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he
told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend - but
which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.

The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued.
"We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality - judiciously, as you will - we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do." - Ron Suskind

http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/printer_101704A.shtml

[donkeyotay]

39. Thanks for retrieving this one

If this ain't hubris, what is? Well, Mr. Senior Adviser, I'm hoping we'll all have time to study the mess you've made of this country. I'm hoping you'll have plenty of time for reflection on the new reality we create for you - behind bars.

[bunny planet]

25. Great points Dalloway.

Now if we can just get our Democratic representatives to start connecting these dots and speaking out about the connections PUBLICLY and LOUDLY, we will be on our way.

[Sparkman]

26. Even if KKongriss refuses to play, the BIG LIE FLAG MUST BE FLOWN!

At some point the VIETNAM war lies, deceptions and dirty secret compaigns and rabid killing of civilians FORCED THE WAR MONGERS hand to the point of denying our military industrial complex continued nursing at the taxpayers' milk. SPEAK TRUTH TO POWER.

[dooner]

29. I strongly agree, and that's why

they are trying so very hard to steer the talking points away from "intelligence fixing".

Rove's lawyer said that Rove talked to Cooper because he was doing us a public service, trying to stop Cooper fromm repeating the Niger/Uranium story that was about to be exposed as untrue by CIA head, George Tenent.

They are trying desperately to position Rove's leak as unrelated to any manipulation of intelligence.

Just saw Bill Kristol (gag) on Fox News, he was discussing Plame issue and of course making some snide comments about how this is nothing compared to the trouble the Clinton White House was in. But I have to say, he did make some very nervous sounding comments about never being sure where investigations will lead, or what people will say when pressured, etc. Seemed to express worry that nervous people might say something incriminating. The premise of this Fox news piece, was that DEMOCRATS are using the Plame case to political advantage, nobody else cares.

Are there any decent republicans?

[BamaBecky]

31. Actually, my fondest hope is that Fitzgerald is headed toward

treason and Impeachment.........with this entire investigation........

Am I being to optimistic?
Bama

[NoSheep]

33. Manipulating reality. Creating history.

:eyes:

[Festivito]

34. Other leakers, deaths, DSM connection...

Aside from all the other stuff real people do not know.

When Rove is unindictable, this story could drop unless other legs are formed.+

And, where is Dick Cheney?

[warrens]

35. Cheney and the Giggling Murderer

But I think that is where this is headed. Nixon tossed Haldeman and Erlichmen overboard, but it didn't save him. You're responsible for what your hatchetmen do.

[skip fox]

37. Rove Goes Down in Plames

Rove Goes Down In Plames

All data suggest the positive: one or more indictments for Rove and at least one more for another "high administration official," resulting to a loss of Republican credibility of being the party or morals and personal responsibility.

We know there were 6 calls because 6 contacts were made (Miller, Cooper, Novak among them). We know 3 contacts confirmed their stories with another "high administration official."

Therefore

1.) 1 man (named Rove by Cooper) made all 6 calls (which reduces the contention of "unknowingly" providing Plame's identity laughable). But he would have had to make sure that there were a few other "high administration officials" ready and willing to confirm his story, which strongly suggests coordination. Did Rove mastermind this portion before "unknowingly" releasing Plame's identity 6 times? Was this coordination "unknowing" as well? What does "knowing" mean? Repeated deliberate acts and coordinating with others for future support suggest a strong and clear intentions. It has knowledgeable design written all over it.

or,

2.) more than 1 person (Rove and at least one other) made the 6 calls. (The fact that one source released Cooper from his agreement of confidentiality but one source did not release Miller suggest at least 2 sources.) Rove would have more to coordinate! To establish guidelines like: No source should call another's contact, Pitch the information off hand, not as the main subject, Make the contact think the source is trying to do him or her a favor ("Don't go too far out on this Wilson thing, I don't want you burnt."), etc. AND Rove would have had to field a group of officials to support the sources stories.

I say Rove coordinated because it is obvious he did so since anyone in the administration in possession of the Plame-Wilson-CIA link would have gone straight to the world master of deceitful politics, and now we know Rove was at least one of the leakers.


So, in the first case we have at least 2 indictments for Rove (exposing and conspiring to expose) and (perhaps) 1 or more indictments for others (confirming and condoning the exposure while furthering it).

But in the second case we have at least 2 for Rove (same as above, but more evidence of conspiracy) and 1 or more clearcut indictments for others (both leakers and confirmers for exposure).

And then we haven't even begun to ask the question of how Rove got the information. (Doesn't leaking the information to him also constitute a crime?)

[wiggs]

38. Good point. Bigger game should be goal.

The biggest story is how all the stories relate to each other...a pattern of deception, corruption, ends justifies the means, corporatocracy....and fixing of facts to fit policy IN GENERAL.

The Rove stuff may or may not go away ultimately (the case may come down to technicalities) but the more it is pointed out that the Rove issue is symbolic of administration deception and corruption, the more other issues will stick in the public perception.

"Fixing" facts and fake information....global warming, Edmonds, mercury poisoning, Medicare lies, Plame, fake WMD intelligence, Chalabi, Hussein capture posed, fake journalist, fake TV commercials, fake Turkey, fake Healthy Forests goals, fake Iraq rosey reports, Bush as strong 9/11 leader FAKE, America safer now = fake...on and on

You are right. The Rove deal is bigger than Rove. It is an important opportunity to make a bigger, more damaging point and an opportunity to revist issues that have gone down the memory hole.

[ihelpu2see]

40. These were my thoughts in another thread... Same idea as yours...

Mr. Wilson as the whistle blower, YES, but also then through in the context of the Downing St. Memo to add in to the debate that there is strong corroborative evidence that the Intel was being FIXED. Mr. Wilson had found this out and retribution was being handed out by the admin. Cheney, Libby, Rummy and Rove.... But some young staffer will do the time if anyone...

[NVMojo]

42. dalloway, you are right, we must grab the dog back cuz they are

still wagging its tail on the wrong point here! It is treason and what they did to Plame had more to do with them twisting intelligence to invade a sovereign nation for oil and profit then it did with just "leaking". They are masters at twisting the stupid media but maybe, just maybe, America is realizing that when the Bush regime twisted media, they twisted us!

[Miss Chybil]

48. FORGERIES! Where did the Niger documents come from? Who

forged them? Why was Rove so dead set on discrediting Wilson for exposing the FORGERIES?

[snot]

50. I agree--this is impt.

There's been another thread here discussing the fact that there were actuall TWO different sets of forged documents from two different sources.

[snot]

49. One link to a site that says 90 Plame contacts have been killed:

http://www.pej.org/html/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=2869&mode=thread&order=0&thold=0

Also, here's a link to a good timeline of Plame-related events as they unfolded:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/1/31/122222/689

[Hissyspit]

51. Hear, hear...

Connect DSM & Rove/Plame. Often.