International Hearld Tribune: Karl Rove's game

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/13/opinion/edrove.php

Far be it from us to denounce leaks. Newspapers have relied on countless government officials to divulge vital information that their bosses want to be kept secret. There is even value in the sanctioned leak, such as when the White House, say, lets out information that it wants known but does not want to announce. But it is something else entirely when officials peddle disinformation for propaganda purposes or to harm a political adversary. And Karl Rove seems to have been playing that unsavory game with the CIA officer Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson IV, a career diplomat who ran afoul of President George W. Bush's efforts to justify the invasion of Iraq. An e-mail note provided by Time magazine to the federal prosecutor investigating the case shows that Rove's aim in talking about Wilson to Matthew Cooper, a Time reporter, was to discredit Wilson, perhaps to punish him.

Cooper's e-mail note does not say that Rove mentioned the name of Wilson's wife, which later appeared in a column by Robert Novak. White House supporters are emphasizing that fact in an effort to argue that Rove did not illegally unmask a covert officer. We don't need to judge that here. But there remains the issue of whether the White House used Wilson's wife for political reasons, and it's obvious that Rove did.

The White House has painted itself into a corner. More than a year ago, Bush vowed to fire the leaker. Then Scott McClellan, the president's spokesman, repeatedly assured everyone that the leaker was not Rove, on whom the president is so dependent intellectually that he calls Rove "the architect."

Rove could clear all this up quickly. All he has to do is call a press conference and tell everyone what conversations he had and with whom. While we like government officials who are willing to whisper vital information, we like even more government officials who tell the truth in public.

[tsuki]

1. Insidious, I say, Insidious Traitor. GHWBush, April 26, 1999.