The main reason I don't post much here anymore is I'm not needed. The secondary reason is the level of debate from the other side. It's too bad for the Bush apologists HayesStreet is so reasonable. You could use him. You guys come up with a FranchiseBlade (or an mcmark or a Deckard and on and on) and this might get interesting again. As it is, it's like watching FB and the rest (respectfully) shooting fish in a barrel.
Treason is not a partisan matter. Treason is a matter that affects ALL Americans. If Rove - which history and current evidence indicate - is guilty and Bush either refuses to fire Rove or pardons him, then this will hurt the GOP for some time to come. Here in Ohio, scandel is greatly hurting the Republicans. Our governor, a man who is involved with a bunch of scandels, has the worst approval rating of all the 49 other governors. In '06, the Democrats will be helped by not being Republicans. Just remember that texxx, TJ, et cetera. Schiavo already hurt your reputation, do not let treason destroy it.
Actually even if Rove is fired, would that stop Bush from listening to his him? I bet all the conservative radios would line up to make him the next Rush.
who's shooting whom? looks like Rove got it from Novak: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cia_leak...CLIrpus0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ-- -- Rove Learned CIA Agent's Name From Novak By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer2 hours, 49 minutes ago Chief presidential adviser Karl Rove testified to a grand jury that he talked with two journalists before they divulged the identity of an undercover CIA officer but that he originally learned about the operative from the news media and not government sources, according to a person briefed on the testimony. The person, who works in the legal profession and spoke only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy, told The Associated Press that Rove testified last year that he remembers specifically being told by columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of a harsh Iraq war critic, worked for the CIA. Rove testified that Novak originally called him the Tuesday before Plame's identity was revealed in July 2003 to discuss another story. The conversation eventually turned to Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who was strongly criticizing the Bush administration's use of faulty intelligence to justify the war in Iraq, the person said. Rove testified that Novak told him he planned to report in a weekend column that Plame had worked for the CIA, and the circumstances on how her husband traveled to Africa to check bogus claims that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear materials in Niger, according to the source. Novak's column, citing two Bush administration officials, appeared six days later, touching off a political firestorm and leading to a federal criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's undercover identity. That probe has ensnared presidential aides and reporters in a two-year legal battle. Rove told the grand jury that by the time Novak had called him, he believes he had similar information about Wilson's wife from another member of the news media but he could not recall which reporter had told him about it first, the person said. When Novak inquired about Wilson's wife working for the CIA, Rove indicated he had heard something like that, according to the source's recounting of the grand jury testimony. Rove told the grand jury that three days later, he had a phone conversation with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper and — in an effort to discredit some of Wilson's allegations — informally told Cooper that he believed Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, though he never used her name, the source said. An e-mail Cooper recently provided the grand jury shows Cooper reported to his magazine bosses that Rove had described Wilson's wife in a confidential conversation as someone who "apparently works" at the CIA. Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, said Thursday his client truthfully testified to the grand jury and expected to be exonerated. "Karl provided all pertinent information to prosecutors a long time ago," Luskin said. "And prosecutors confirmed when he testified most recently in October 2004 that he is not a target of the investigation." In an interview on CNN earlier Thursday before the latest revelation, Wilson kept up his criticism of the White House, saying Rove's conduct was an "outrageous abuse of power ... certainly worthy of frog-marching out of the White House." But at the same time, Wilson acknowledged his wife was no longer in an undercover job at the time Novak's column first identified her. "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity," he said. Federal law prohibits government officials from divulging the identity of an undercover intelligence officer. But in order to bring charges, prosecutors must prove the official knew the officer was covert and nonetheless knowingly outed his or her identity. Rove's conversations with Novak and Cooper took place just days after Wilson suggested in a New York Times opinion piece that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. Democrats continued this week to sharpen their attacks, accusing Rove of compromising a CIA operative's identity just to discredit the political criticism of her husband. On Thursday, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada pressed for legislation to strip Rove of his clearance for classified information, which he said President Bush should have done already. Instead, Reid said, the Bush administration has attacked its critics: "This is what is known as a cover-up. This is an abuse of power." Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Democrats were resorting to "partisan war chants." Across the Capitol, Rep. Rush Holt (news, bio, voting record), D-N.J., introduced legislation for an investigation that would compel senior administration officials to turn over records relating to the Plame disclosure. Pressed to explain its statements of two years ago that Rove wasn't involved in the leak, the White House refused to do so this week. "If I were to get into discussing this, I would be getting into discussing an investigation that continues and could be prejudging the outcome of the investigation," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
From today's NYT And from the Post Interesting This morning we have both the Washington Post and the New York Times with the exact same article http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/15/p...&en=bac819afc84e3590&ei=5094&partner=homepage http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/15/AR2005071500036.html Now who could this lawyer be that is leaking grand jury testimony to the papers? Surely not Rove's lawyer Luskin. Right?
no, since the article also says the lawyer has been briefed in "an official capacity." that would not be luskin.
Well it seems clear to me that what we have now is a coordinated effort by Rove's partisans (and perhaps Rove himself) to get his "side" of the story out and to spin it in a way that "argues" that Rove was the hapless confirmation for the Plame story. (I'll bet Mehlman will be out with this spin in a matter of a few hours: it's not Rove's fault, the other source did it.)
Here is a good op-ed column that delves into your point in more detail... The Stalled Spin on Rove By E. J. Dionne Jr. Post Friday, July 15, 2005; A23 The issue now is whether the Karl Rove leak affair marks a tipping point in the way President Bush's administration is viewed by the public, treated by the press and regarded by Republicans in Congress. The furious counterattacks on Rove's behalf over the past few days suggest that Bush's supporters are worried that unless this wound is cleansed quickly, the president could confront an increasingly skeptical electorate and emboldened media. Both could take a toll on the president's support within his own party. The reports that Rove discussed an undercover CIA operative during a July 2003 interview with Time magazine were splashed across the nation's front pages at an awkward time for Bush. For most of his first term, the president rode out controversies by drawing on a substantial well of public respect and affection. But Bush's popularity ratings have been on the decline for much of the year. Public patience with the war in Iraq is waning, and support for the president's major domestic initiative on Social Security has dropped steadily. A president who in the past might have pulled his top political adviser out of trouble instead finds the controversy surrounding Rove deepening the difficulties he already had. And at a critical moment, the normally effective Bush spin operation finds itself handcuffed because the leak of the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame is the subject of a criminal investigation that seems close to fruition. The embers of the Rove controversy were stoked into flame on Monday because of a remarkable White House briefing in which spokesman Scott McClellan was forced to avoid 35 questions on Rove because of the "ongoing investigation." This powerlessness is an unprecedented situation for Bush. For most of his presidency, Bush had little reason to fear the actions of an independent branch of government. Republicans have controlled both houses of Congress since the 2002 elections, meaning that the president did not face embarrassing public hearings. For most of the 17 months in Bush's term when Democrats narrowly controlled the Senate, the president enjoyed near invulnerability because of his popularity after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. And in most controversial cases -- notably over whether Vice President Cheney could keep the consultations of his energy task force secret -- the courts sided with Bush. But special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the Plame leak, is outside the administration's control. Even the president, who values loyalty and must dearly want to defend his closest adviser, was forced to punt this week on questions about Rove. Bush said he did not want to "prejudge the investigation." It has thus fallen to surrogates, notably Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman, to launch a counteroffensive. Yet the strategy to defend Rove oddly reinforces the charges against the administration. Mehlman issued a statement devoted largely to citations of news reports attacking the credibility of Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson. Yesterday, as Wilson called for Rove's firing, Sen. Christopher Bond (R-Mo.) said Wilson's attacks on Bush policies were a "political sham." The irony is that Plame's name was leaked in the first place as a way of undercutting Wilson's criticisms of the administration's claims that Iraq was acquiring nuclear weapons. So a White House under investigation for allegedly leaking an attack on an opponent now has its supporters defending against the charge with -- more attacks. The conventional view is that Rove will be safe as long as he escapes indictment. Given how much Bush values his services, that may be true. But even if Rove survives, the events of this week will leave scars on the administration by dramatizing negative perceptions that, until now, have done little damage. As long ago as October 2002, when Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank wrote a memorable story under the headline "For Bush, Facts Are Malleable," the administration has been accused of distortions, exaggerations and falsehoods. The spectacle of McClellan's being unable to back up his previous denials -- he said in the fall of 2003 that Rove and two other administration officials "assured me they were not involved in this" -- brought this problem home as no catalogue of questionable administration statements ever could. And an administration frequently accused of winning by destroying its opponents and critics is now in court because one such attack touched an employee of the CIA. Rove is said to admire Napoleon's adage: "The whole art of war consists in a well-reasoned and extremely circumspect defensive, followed by rapid and audacious attack." Unless, of course, they manage to make it work one more time, an approach that has served Rove and Bush well is in grave jeopardy. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/14/AR2005071401696.html Keep D&D Civil!!
well if it wasn't rove, or libby, or novak, or cooper, who did first reveal Plame's identity? perhaps Joe Wilson himself. http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200507150827.asp -- Who Exposed Secret Agent Plame? How about the least likely suspect? This just in: Bob Novak did not reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent for the CIA. Read — or reread — his column from July 14, 2003. All Novak reports is that the wife of former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson is “an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.” Novak has said repeatedly that he was not told, and that he did not know, that Plame was — or had ever been — a NOC, an agent with Non-Official Cover. He has emphatically said that had he understood that she was any sort of secret agent, he would never have named her. As for Novak’s use of the word “operative,” he might as easily have called her an “official,” an “analyst, or an “employee.” But, as a longtime newsman, he instinctively chose the sexiest term (one he routinely applies to political figures, too, i.e. “a party operative”). Reread Novak’s article, and you’ll also see that Novak in no way denigrates Wilson. On the contrary, he talks of Wilson’s “heroism” in Iraq in 1991. And nowhere in his column does he say — or even imply — that Wilson was unqualified to conduct the Niger investigation or that Plame was responsible for getting him the assignment — merely that she “suggested sending him.” Even so, it is unclear whether Novak’s sources may have committed a crime by talking to Novak about Plame. That would depend on a number of variables involving what they knew about Plame and how they came to know it. A prosecutor would have the power to compel Novak to testify regarding what was said to him and by whom. Is this splitting hairs? Not at all. In Washington, plenty of people are acquainted with CIA operatives who are not working undercover. For example, when a CIA analyst wrote a book under the pseudonym “Anonymous,” it was widely known that Anonymous was the Agency’s Michael Scheuer. Before long, someone revealed that in print. No crime was committed or alleged — no classified information had been disclosed, no NOC had been exposed. So if Novak did not reveal that Valerie Plame was a secret agent, who did? The evidence strongly suggests it was none other than Joe Wilson himself. Let me walk you through the steps that lead to this conclusion. The first reference to Plame being a secret agent appears in The Nation, in an article by David Corn published July 16, 2003, just two days after Novak’s column appeared. It carried this lead: “Did Bush officials blow the cover of a U.S. intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security — and break the law — in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?” Since Novak did not report that Plame was “working covertly” how did Corn know that’s what she had been doing? Corn does not tell his readers and he has responded to a query from me only by pointing out that he was asking a question, not making a “statement of fact.” But in the article, he asserts that Novak “outed” Plame “as an undercover CIA officer.” Again, Novak did not do that. Rather, it is Corn who is, apparently for the first time, “outing” Plame’s “undercover” status. Corn follows that assertion with a quote from Wilson saying, “I will not answer questions about my wife.” Any reporter worth his salt would immediately wonder: Did Wilson indeed answer Corn’s questions about his wife — after Corn agreed not to quote his answers but to use them only on background? Read the rest of Corn’s piece and it’s difficult to believe anything else. Corn names no other sources for the information he provides — and he provides much more information than Novak revealed. Corn also claims that Wilson “will not confirm nor deny that his wife …works for the CIA.” Corn adds: “But let’s assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson …” On what basis could Corn “assume” that Plame was not only working covertly but was actually a “top-secret” operative? And where did Corn get the idea that Plame had been “outed” in order to punish Wilson? That is not suggested by anything in the Novak column which, as I noted, is sympathetic to Wilson and Plame. The likely answer: The allegation that someone in the administration leaked to Novak as a way to punish Wilson was made by Wilson — to Corn. But Corn, rather than quote Wilson, puts the idea forward as his own. Keep in mind that from early on there were two possible but contradictory scenarios: 1) Members of the Bush administration intentionally exposed a covert CIA agent as a way to take revenge against her husband who had written a critical op-ed. 2) Members of the Bush administration were attempting to set the record straight by telling reporters that it was not Vice President Cheney who sent Wilson on the Africa assignment as Wilson claimed; rather Wilson’s wife, a CIA employee, helped get him the assignment. (And that is indeed the conclusion of the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee.) Corn’s article then goes on to provide specific details about Plame’s undercover work, her “dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material.” But how does Corn know about that? From what source could he have learned it? Corn concludes that Plame’s career “has been destroyed by the Bush administration.” And here he does, finally, quote Wilson directly. Wilson says: “Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames.” Corn has assured us several times that Wilson refused to answer questions about his wife, refused to confirm or deny that she worked for the CIA, refused to “acknowledge whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee.” But he is willing to say on the record that “naming her this way” was an act of treachery? That’s not talking about his wife? That’s not providing confirmation? There is only one way to interpret this: Wilson did indeed talk about his wife, her work as a secret agent, and other matters to Corn (and perhaps others?) on a confidential basis. If Wilson did tell Corn that his wife was an undercover agent, did he commit a crime? I don’t claim to know. But the charge that someone committed a crime by naming Plame as a covert agent was also made by Corn, apparently for the first time, in this same article. No doubt, the independent prosecutor and the grand jury will sort it out. Criminality aside, if Wilson revealed to Corn that Plame worked as a CIA “deep-cover” operative “tracking parties trying to buy or sell” WMDs, surely that’s news. And it is consequential: On the basis of Novak’s story alone, it is highly unlikely that anyone would have had a clue that Plame — presumably under a different name and while living in a foreign country — had been a NOC. At most, her friends in Washington would have been surprised to learn that she didn’t work where she said she worked. But once Corn published the fact that Plame had been a “top-secret operative,” and once he quoted Wilson saying what exposing his wife would mean — and once Plame posed for Vanity Fair photographers — anyone who had ever known her in a different context and with a different identity would have been tipped off. But they would not have been tipped by Novak — nor, based on what we know so far, by Karl Rove. Rather, it appears they would have been tipped off by Joe Wilson who, the publicly available evidence strongly suggests, leaked like a sieve to The Nation’s David Corn. Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism.
BTW basso if Rove is saying he learned of Plame's name from Novak on July 8th (as the articles state) then he was lying when he said he didn't know her name when he talked to Cooper on the 11th.
depends on what's meant by "name." did he mean "i learned Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked at the CIA," or that "Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA."
could be dude, you seem inntent on proving Rove lied somewhere to somebody so have at it. the grand jury testimony's what's important, and i'm sure mr. fitzgerald will let us know when he has something to say.
basso For the third time in this thread. I have no doubt (no matter what Fitzgerald has to say) that Rove will skate in this whole affair. And the little cabal that you defend so much will go on treating the American public like fools.
and for at least as many times, if Rove or anyone else broke the law they should be punished appropriately. Until it's been proven that occurred however, i'll continue to defend the admin against politically motivated charges.
He doesn't have to name her to be guilty. All he has to do is identify her. Naming Wilson's wife as the operative certainly identifies her. Rove might get off on this statute because of the time out of the country loophole. He would still be guilty of the espionage act. But all that Wilson indicated was that she wasn't undercover at the time. That is nothing new. We already knew that she was working at Langley. This isn't new news. However, her status was known, and it is a matter of record.
