The new Rove/Plame article, mentioned in this post, is out. Here’s the nut:
In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson’s criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time’s editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine’s corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) 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 [weapons of mass destruction] 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[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there’s still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger … ”
Nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame’s name or knew she was a covert operative.
So, in essence, absolutely no indication that a crime has been committed by Rove. According to what we know so far Rove identified Wilson’s wife, who he indicated worked in some function at the CIA, as the person who authorized his trip to Nigeria. That doesn’t indicate that Rove knew anything about Plame’s status as an undercover agent. It merely indicates that he was trying to communicate to Cooper that Wilson’s trip to Nigeria was a fraud from start to finish. Something which we learned later.
The fact that Plame sent Wilson on the trip to Nigeria was an important part of debunking Wilson’s report. This was no political smear, it was the pointing out of nepotism which further supported the idea that Wilson’s trip was politically, not factually, motivated. If keeping Plame’s identity a secret was such a top priority then maybe she and her husband shouldn’t have gotten involved with the phony trip to Nigeria.
If anything, these revelations are far more damaging to Plame and her husband than they are to Rove.
Update:
Yeah, okay, maybe there’s no crime, but it strikes me that Rove’s going to be conclusively identified as the/a leaker within days. Once that happens, he’s toast. He probably won’t go to jail, and he probably won’t even be indicted (unless he perjured himself, which I have know way of knowing), but I think it’s likely that his days as a White House advisor are numbered — and that that number is less than 30.
That’s one way to look at it, but I think Spoons is missing the larger picture. At the time Rove was talking to Cooper it was coming out that Wilson’s trip to Nigeria was one big politically-motivated canard aimed at smearing the President of the “Saddam was looking for uranium” issue. Rove had no doubt learned at this time about the nepotism involved with the selection of Wilson to travel to Nigeria and the CIA approval of it, so why shouldn’t he give that information to a reporter especially if he wasn’t aware that Wilson’s was an undercover CIA agent and/or he didn’t provide the reporter with her name. Especially in light of the scorching op/ed Wilson had just written for the New York Times.
Did Rove leak Palme’s name? Maybe. But even if he did I think we have to look at the circumstances of the leak as well. If Rove named her not knowing that she was an undercover CIA agent and in reaction to Wilson’s rather blatant and factually-challenged smearing of President Bush I have a hard time holding it against him.
Rob Port is the owner and operator of Say Anything.
“The fact that Plame sent Wilson on the trip to Nigeria was an important part of debunking Wilson’s report.”
Debunking?
Wilson was right!
Debunking something means to show that it is false. Regardless of how he got the job, in order to debunk his performance, you have to show that he was wrong. This has not been accomplished.
Therefore, he was not “debunked”.
First to Toby – what you’ve offered up is no more than a he-said-she-said and doesn’t prove anything. Still, even if Plame recommended that Wilson go to Niger, that’s still a long way from what Sarah was saying, that Plame “sent” Wilson to Niger as it wasn’t her decision to make.
Gabriel – you are among so many I have seen that keep saying that Judith Miller is some kind of liberal. That’s completely false. She was one of the biggest cheerleaders for the Iraq war and is VERY pro-Bush. She is nothing more than a stenographer for Bush administration talking points and that’s why the liberals hate her.
Jon H, follow my link, read the report. While his report to the CIA was accurate as he saw it, that same report contradicted the op-ed he later wrote. That’s what was debunked.
Tob
Sarah writes: “It is not treason to point out that Wilson, who supposedly was representing the interests of the United States was sent on the Niger trip by his WIFE.”
He had the required skills and background, and his report was correct.
What’s the problem? Another qualifed person would have reported the same. Several other qualified people *did* report the same.
What difference does it make that his wife was involved in his selection, when he’s qualified for the job?
“It’s also not treason to point out that he wrote an editorial lying about his findings. He and his wife misused their positions and taxpayer funds for partisan anti-administration purposes.”
It only went partisan after Bush lied about the uranium. And his wife never misued her position.
“During a time of war, perhaps that’s a hell of a lot closer to treason than pointing out the FACTS behind the story.”
The investigation and the report were done before the war started. Then Bush decided to lie.
DinA, I don’t deny that it is in fact a she-said/they-said case (except for the email she sent, so perhaps it is a she-said/they-said,it-said case) What it refutes is your categorical statement to wit:
“Gosh Sarah, you assume so much. You assume that Rove wasn’t lying when he tried to argue that Wilson was sent to Niger at his wife’s suggestion, as assertion which it utterly baseless. You also assume that Wilson lied in his editorial, which is also utterly baseless.”
The report from the SENATE, both parties represented and in agreement, give plenty of basis for Sarah’s assertion.
Tob
Toby928,
Regarding Plame’s involvement in Wilson’s selection, from the excerpt above, it doesn’t seem that she had any control over the decision. The CIA could easily have chosen someone else, had Wilson lacked qualifications. It’s not like Wilson’s selection offered any advantages to the CIA other than his being readily available. (For example, it’s not like Wilson’s father is an influential congressman, who can influence the appropriations process.)
Her husband was well-qualified, and well-regarded, so it’s no surprise that the CIA chose him, rather than spending the time to find another person.
When I think of someone getting a job because of their family, I think of incompetent people like Neil Bush and Roger Clinton.
Jon H, I don’t dispute your last post, as far as it goes. I don’t know for a fact whether Plame had any power or whether she pushed her husband for the job. According to the Senate report she definitely reccommend him. Did the ‘leak’ suggest more? I don’t recall. What set me off with DinA and wasted lots of my time rereading the report was his baseless assertion of Sarah’s baselessness… or whatever you want to call it.
Tob
And the report is pretty damning as far as the op-ed goes. Do I need to quote it? I really would rather that people read it themselves.
-S- I see how this kind of thing could really bug you. The whole meme nonsense I mean. This report, prepared by the US Senate, available online in PDF, Zip, and HTML form, eagerly awaited at the time, has just been dropped down the memory hole by the MSM so that many posters here and elsewhere seem to be unaware of its existance even thouh it is totally on point regarding anything to do with the Plame/Wilson affair.
Tob
Hmmm.
“Her husband was well-qualified, and well-regarded, so it’s no surprise that the CIA chose him, rather than spending the time to find another person.”
Except of course he didn’t have ANY experience in intelligence, WMDs, yellowcake or anything else to do with this particular mission. Neither did he have any experience in doing this sort of work for the CIA.
All the evidence points to is that Wilson got the job because his wife suggested him, and that he’s never done anything similar prior to, or since. That’s not much of a resume, and I’d be frankly horrified if there wasn’t at least a dozen other people more qualified.
This has all the hallmarks of a gimme-contract. This is where a government employee gets a nice money-maker contract for a spouse or relative. What I’d like to know, and something that no MSM news source has provided, is the Wilson/Plame financials. Did they purchase any signficant property shortly after Wilson’s mission? I.e. after he got paid for this nonsense?
If so then what we’re looking at is Plame setting up a contract for her husband, so they could make the payment on a house or something. Which is frankly far more likely than any other possible scenario.
Are there any public databases that would list such purchases by name?
Ad, I thought it was reported that Wilson worked pro-bono. Of course, since it was CIA, who knows?
Tob
Ed, I mean, I should have recognized the hmmm. My eyes are going blurry.
Sorry
Tob
Hmmm.
“While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono)”
link
Which means nothing until/unless the actual numbers are published. And yes I’m implying that expense records can be inflated substantially. I frankly wouldn’t call padding the expense report “new”.
” I frankly wouldn’t call padding the expense report “new”.”
Good point, and this is a covert organization after all. There could have been straight cash under the table, maybe cash from Niger or someone else. How would we know? I just wouldn’t even ask the question unless I knew something since I routinely condemn the LL posters for just that type of unsupported assertion. Witness the existance of this very thread. 😉
Tob
Tob, glad you’re safe there in the storm. On the lighter side, your live-blogging from the storm gave this thing Shakespearean dimensions with thunder rolls in the background. It’s both a tragedy and a comedy.
No use debating the moonbats, their comments show how uninformed they are. The more frantically they scream Rove did it, the more it’s clear we’re now watching the unraveling of a coverup of a setup operation done against Bush, starting with the “French” forged Niger docs, instigating a WH order to the CIA to investigate the Niger connection, then sending Gore2000-contributor Wilson to Niger, then the rest of the saga – probably hatched by the usual suspects in the CIA/MSM and ex-NSC/State Dept types like Berger, Clarke and Beers. (Ha, wouldn’t it be funny if Berger’s theft and destruction of that 15-pg memo by Clarke has something to do with this setup and coverup!)
The GREAT thing in exposing the op this time, unlike CBSgate, is: we’ve already got a federal prosecutor and a grand jury on the case! And oh the irony, it was the left who were clamoring for an investigation. Hoist by their own petard. Go for it, Fitzgerald!
*****
Isikoff wrote in his above-linked article: “Wilson’s wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division.”
Which is it Isikoff? “Undercover agent” or “analyst”? Can’t be both at the same time.
[As in that great Caribbean-accented, Malibu drink commercial with the car-buying scenario:]
New or used, new or used,
Which is it going to be?
Daisy or Maisy, Daisy or Maisy,
Which is it?
The retreaded donkey that’s been around the island 20,000 times or the other donkey?
But back to Shakespeare, a Dem operative by any other name still smells like a donkey.
Toby,
OK, I see you want to play semantic games, and I obviously didn’t choose my words carefully enough for someone that wants to play semantic games.
My post was a response to Sarah’s post, in which she stated that Plame “sent” Wilson to Niger. I think we can all agree that that couldn’t have happened because that wasn’t her decision to make. That’s the point I meant to make, the suggestion that Plame “sent” Wilson to Niger is, obviously, utterly baseless.
What I actually said was that it was utterly baseless that Wilson was sent to Niger on Plame’s “suggestion,” and since this hasn’t been proven conclusively (he-said-she-said), my statement may or may not be technically correct. We don’t have enough information at this point to know whether or not it was technically correct so you haven’t actually “refuted” anything. The jury’s still out.
But let’s put all tha aside for a moment and assume that Plame did suggest that Wilson go to Niger. So what? Wilson was qualified, would it have been wrong for Plame to say as much? Unless of course you have a problem with people telling the truth…
Cancon, if you see this, can you give a link for one of your earlier comments in the 5 July 2005 wizbang thread where you reported on Wilson’s Niger Uranium claims in the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Iraqi Intelligence:
“… another little area Mr. Wilson got himself in trouble, he claimed to have seen the forged documents before he could have possibly seen them, they didn’t get into the hands of the CIA until a few months after he claimed to have seen them, unless—– well never mind—– oh details, pesky little details, oh but it made his story so much more compelling huh……”
(Is that also in the Report or did you find it elsewhere on the net?)
“But let’s put all tha aside for a moment and assume that Plame did suggest that Wilson go to Niger. So what? Wilson was qualified, would it have been wrong for Plame to say as much? Unless of course you have a problem with people telling the truth…”
Yikes, don’t be snide. Your problems not with me, its with the Senate. I haven’t ever said he was or wasn’t qualified. I haven’t thought about it. I just didn’t like that you use “utterly baseless” so much when very few people have NO basis for what they believe, and that certainly includes Sarah. I was just pointing out that while your assertion wasn’t necessarily baseless, it was bootless. 😉
And yet, you persist: “What I actually said was that it was utterly baseless that Wilson was sent to Niger on Plame’s “suggestion,” and since this hasn’t been proven conclusively (he-said-she-said), my statement may or may not be technically correct. We don’t have enough information at this point to know whether or not it was technically correct so you haven’t actually “refuted” anything. The jury’s still out.”
Hell, boy, what would it take to bring the jury in? Multiple witnesses against one, check, email evidence, check. I think you could get conviction on less evidence than that. If the Senate report is not enough to convince I guess you’ll just never be convinced. (And you condemn us for our biases, sheesh). This particular point, that Plame recommended her husband for the job, is as established as anything you’ll get in life. You would have to believe that the Senate select committee had some interest in lying about what their investigators found, and that the Democratic Senators and staff would go along with it.
And you said more: “You also assume that Wilson lied in his editorial, which is also utterly baseless.”
Again, that annoying baseless. But leaving that aside, did you read the report. (I guess I should ask if you read his op-ed also, but I am afraid that you didn’t) Compare the two. Res Ipsa Loquitur.
Rove may be the leaker, how would I know?, But you don’t know either and you don’t know when you’re whupped.
Tob
I’m tired and bored with this.
/ignore=on
Wow. You people are crazy.
“The more frantically they scream Rove did it, the more it’s clear we’re now watching the unraveling of a coverup of a setup operation done against Bush, starting with the “French” forged Niger docs, instigating a WH order to the CIA to investigate the Niger connection, then sending Gore2000-contributor Wilson to Niger, then the rest of the saga – probably hatched by the usual suspects in the CIA/MSM and ex-NSC/State Dept types like Berger, Clarke and Beers. (Ha, wouldn’t it be funny if Berger’s theft and destruction of that 15-pg memo by Clarke has something to do with this setup and coverup!)”
And BR has the temerity to call people “moonbats?”
hahahahahahahahahahaha!
“hahahahahahahahahahaha!”
Frighteningly good comeback there C
Tob
goodnight
So BR, what you seem to be saying is that if someone doesn’t march in lockstep with the White House, they’re conspiring against Bush? Is that about it?
Clarke, Beers, Wilson, these are all well respected statesmen that have served in Republican administrations. They have voiced concern with the Bush White House and instead of giving them the benefit of the doubt, you try to discredit them. Is it that hard to believe that there may be some merit to their concerns? Do you really believe that Bush – or anybody – can be right 100% of the time?
And I don’t know why you’re trying to discourage Toby from civil discourse, he and I may not agree but at least he’s debating rationally. I respect that. I only wish there were more people like him on both sides. We would all be a lot better off.
It’s real easy to write off people that don’t agree with you as “uninformed” and simply attack them but it’s a lot harder to have a rational exchange of ideas. If you can’t have a rational exchange of ideas, it betrays how weak your ideas really are.
And by the way, I’ve seen some of the posters on this board throwing around the term “moonbats.” I assume that’s a term of endearment for “liberals” but since I’m relatively new to right-wing message boards, I haven’t heard that one before. Can someone tell me what it means?
This is all so educational…
“Rove may be the leaker”
Ah, Toby, at long last we can agree. And you thought I was whupped! ;O)
RE: democracy_inaction’s post (July 10, 2005 10:24 PM)
And by the way, I’ve seen some of the posters on this board throwing around the term “moonbats.” I assume that’s a term of endearment for “liberals” but since I’m relatively new to right-wing message boards, I haven’t heard that one before. Can someone tell me what it means?
This is all so educational…
Kinda lazy democracy_inaction. Google had moonbat covered in the third link. Too much time chasing Rove’s tail? 😉
Via google search for “define:moonbat” we find
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moonbat
And I thought it was some derivative of “Governor Moonbeam.” Live and learn.
C
It is obvious to me that someone within the Bush administration leaked Plame’s identity to get back at Wilson.
Regardless of my thoughts on this, it is NOT clear that Plame sent Wilson to Niger. But it IS very clear to most who have been paying attention that Wilson’s report was accurate.
Finally, Rove had said that he did not discuss this issue to a reporter prior to Bob Novak’s report. We now know he was lying. If he was lying about something as basic as this, he is hiding something and his credibility should be forfeit.
How many of you think Rove will be held accountable if it is determined beyond a shadow of a doubt that he was the culprit?
Such is the sad state of affairs we are faced with today where a single group within a party is in complete control of the Government.
I don’t care if you’re a republican or a democrat. Not having a balance of power is never a good thing. The only ones who benefit are the ones in power, and the middle and lower class are decidedly not in that group.
Joseph Wilson puts his foot in it – again – see his very recent 7/6/05 interview at a rabidly anti-Bush site, linked via this comment at July 9, 2005 08:24 AM. Could he be giving out classified info on the inner workings of the CIA now, in July 2005 ?
Plame is evidence of what I’ve said for several years — the CIA is full of left-wing losers who couldn’t catch a cold much less a terrorist. Instead of hiring former military and law enforcement people, the CIA hired losers from America’s college campuses. The CIA is more of a think tank than it is an intelligence or counterterrorism agency.
The Left will go after Rove on this, but the Right should go after the CIA for allowing Plame to play politics using her idiot husband. If she’s such a “covert” operative what the hell is she doing revealing her occupation to her hubby? What’s she doing “assigning” her hubby to do anything for “The Company?”
PS: And I wonder just what Ms. Plame “Super Spy” did prior to 9-11 to thwart that terrorist attack? Seems she was too busy playing partisan politics.
RE: roberto’s post (July 10, 2005 11:17 PM)
But it IS very clear to most who have been paying attention that Wilson’s report was accurate.
Which parts of the report? The stuff before the tea breaks, during them, or afterwards? And did he ever record the kind of tea he sipped? Was it Long Island? Or was it Green? Or maybe even sweet? I forget. If not Long Island, did he record what the tea-leaves read into the dossier? And did he also ask the waiter for tips on misplaced orders for YellowCake? Who knows – maybe Uday Hussein-Freud slipped when ordering his dessert. So many questions… We must suckle every last drop of this witches’ brew until we reach the bottom of the barrel, er, pot.
…Not having a balance of power is never a good thing. The only ones who benefit are the ones in power, and the middle and lower class are decidedly not in that group.
Well, I agree with this theory in part; however, the power is a reflection of the constituency and it continues to sway the “Right” way because of the increased failings of the “Left” one. When the political milieu changes, so will our leadership. Further, there is a large middle and lower class that agrees with the leadership in power, or at least moreso than the leadership out of power. Don’t be misled by the idea that only rich, elected Republicans wield power or that all middle/lower class citizens are against them.
You know this Plame silliness has gone way too far when it starts affecting the judgement of once serious people like Eliot Cohen. Here’s a man who has just now started to drink the Rat KoolAid about “incompetence”, clearly a victim of the constant presence of the “latest leak” in the “treason story” and the daily escalation of “damning revelations”. Cohen doesn’t swallow everything, just enough to give succor to those saying we should cut and run. But the damage is done.
Pressure needs to be put on Fitzgerald to just get on with it, pull the trigger, go ahead and sweep up Libby or whichever peon is going to take the hit for this. Otherwise the drip-drip-drip is going to bleed away Rove’s reputation with the American people, until it inevitably bleeds the Vice President’s popularity and then the President’s.
We should remember where the whole Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame story started:
* * *
Valerie Plame should be ‘frog-marched’ out of Washington
… Joe Wilson’s wife is not a foreign spy – she’s a desk jockey at Langley (with a cushy place in Georgetown) who’s responsible for … wait for it … tracking down WMD for our country!
Why on earth did someone with that very important responsbility pre-judge the Niger-Iraq-yellowcake story as “this crazy story”? I mean, its only our national security and stuff – no biggie.
Someone let Val Plame know: the Niger-Iraq-yellowcake “crazy story” turned out to be true.
How many other WMD leads has Ms. Plame given short shrift? Do you know about any more “crazy” WMD leads, Val? Maybe you should go look at those files again. Does her high security clearance prevent her from getting fired for not giving a whit about national security risks for which she’s the responsbile agent?
Not only did Ms. Plame dismiss one of the key pieces of intelligence regarding Iraq potentially creating the Arab bomb – she successfuly recommended her gadfly husband to be the sole investigator to go check out the lead! How many millions of dollars go to the CIA for intelligence gathering each year? And yet the only person we have to send to Niger to see if Saddam is building a nuke is … the house husband of an agent at Langley?
What’s next? Will Valerie Plame send the family golden retriever to look for missle silos in North Korea?
This is the real story that the mainstream press won’t touch with a ten-foot-pole. What heads should roll at Langley for entrusting our national security to the whims of the Wilson-Plame family travelogue?
* * *
Unbelievable. Shameful. Putting nepotism above national security.
Fire Valerie Plame now. She’s a very real risk to our national security.
-nikita demosthenes
Hmmmm.
1. “And did he ever record the kind of tea he sipped?”
Amusingly enough he did include them in his NYT op-ed piece. He drank “mint tea”.
2. “It is obvious to me that someone within the Bush administration leaked Plame’s identity to get back at Wilson.”
That is not obvious at all. Wilson was a former Ambassador and a common figure in the local cocktail circuit. His wife attended those very same parties with Wilson.
Does anyone think *Wilson* is the quiet, shy or retiring type? Let’s face certain facts here. Wilson is quite obviously a media-hound, who loves the spotlight and would do anything to remain there.
There is no possible way that anybody meeting them wouldn’t know that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. The only possible point of contention is whether anyone knew she had once been on the NOC list as an undercover officer. But she had been removed from the NOC list, and undercover operations, BECAUSE she married Wilson.
3. “Finally, Rove had said that he did not discuss this issue to a reporter prior to Bob Novak’s report. We now know he was lying. If he was lying about something as basic as this, he is hiding something and his credibility should be forfeit.”
Jesus H. Christ!
Rove talked to Cooper the SAME F-ING DAY OF Novak’s ARTICLE. There is every possibility that Rove did NOT talk to Cooper until AFTER the article had been published at 11 am.
Christ will you lefties stop mucking up the facts? Repeating the same damn things over and over again is really getting old. Every single time some scandal blows up, you lefties just start repeating any old thing that enters your head, regardless of whether or not it’s correct.
And it’s really irritating.
Hi, Ed, you’re up late – or early 🙂
Yes, it’s amazing to see how uninformed, or wilfully ignorant, some can be.
Just got back from dinner and saw someone up there said I had temerity. So I looked it up just to make sure, because I couldn’t believe a moonbat would give me a compliment. Sure enough, “audacity, fearless daring.” Hee, reminds me of my darling husband who used to call me “the steel fist in a velvet glove.”
Anyway, things sure are sizzling and very entertaining to watch as it unfolds, above the noise factor. During CBSgate, I said if we dig deep enough, we may discover that Watergate was much more a DNC/CIA scandal than is generally known. Same modus operandi as now; even some of the same players.
I wish this (need a shorter name for it:) longterm, multi-faceted WMD-Iraq-Niger-“French” forged docs-CIA-Plame-Wilson-NSC-DNC-MSM op, as it is uncovered, exposes the whole damn lot going back to the 60s. My wishes usually come true.
Hee, this may be a riddle that few get:
Cherchez les femmes – and their hubbies
Both blondes, both company-connected
One married to a hippy lawyer in the WH who instigated the Watergate coverup and brought down Nixon.
The other married to a tea-sipping wannabe.
Déjà vu all over again.
” If Rove named her not knowing that she was an undercover CIA agent and in reaction to Wilson’s rather blatant and factually-challenged smearing of President Bush I have a hard time holding it against him.”
You forget, however: You are not the audience that matters. You’re generally sympathetic to the Republicans, and you’ve followed this story closely. Most people haven’t. The story will read: “After months of denials, Republicans were forced to admit that a senior advisor to the President leaked the name of Valerie Plame, a secret agent for the CIA, in order to embarass a critic of the administration’s war in Iraq. Plame’s husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, reported before the war that there was no evidence to support administration claims that Iraq was seeking Uranium in Africa,. Following the war, the administration has not found any evidence to support its claims.”
That’s the way it’ll play.
Interesting.
One responder said ” If Rove named her not knowing that she was an undercover CIA agent and in reaction to Wilson’s rather blatant and factually-challenged smearing of President Bush I have a hard time holding it against him.”
Factually challenged? Are you saying that Wilson DID find evidence Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger and that he failed to report his findings to top administration officials and instead went public to smear Bush, or is it that you know that Iraq in fact WAS trying to buy uranium from Niger?
Another responder said “Rove talked to Cooper the SAME F-ING DAY OF Novak’s ARTICLE. There is every possibility that Rove did NOT talk to Cooper until AFTER the article had been published at 11 am.”
If that’s true, then that renders my argument about Rove’s credibility forfeit. I thought it was at least 2 days before.
/ignore=off
‘”Rove may be the leaker”
Ah, Toby, at long last we can agree. And you thought I was whupped! ;O)’
So, I guess this must be interpreted to mean that DinA retracts his bootless slur of ‘utterly baseless’ that he leveled at Sarah, but simply won’t admit it. When debating and you go overboard on rhetoric and get called on it, the best thing is to admit it, rephrase in some way that comports more closely with reality, and move on to other points that may have validity. Never push a losing argument I say. It just makes you look foolish. I’m reminded of the Black Knight from Monty Python’s Holy Grail. 😉
And ignoring the noise from the LL,there could be something to the story: Rove ‘leaker’. We will know in a few days or weeks but be prepared for the spin.
Tob
“Are you saying that Wilson DID find evidence Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger”
Roberto, that is pretty much what the Senate found. Some evidence but no contracts or actual deliveries.
Pg 43 of section II:
Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999,,-businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between Niger and Iraq. The intelligencereport said that Mayaki interpreted “expanding commercial relations” to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales.
and also on pg 46:
He [the CIA debriefer who Wilson reported to ] said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerien officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerien Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting.
Tob
Plame’s contacts in other countries have been compromised and karl rove had a part in it. Republicans criticized Bill Clinton for his parsing of the word ‘is’ and extremely narrow definition of sex. Now you are too eager to say Rove is not really guilty because he did not say plames name or whole name or played charades or he was really mad or whatever. But I guess that is okay since this issue only involves destroying a cia operatives relationship with contacts all over the world and endangering their lives. Bush Sr. said that outing a cia operative is treason, not me. You know daddy Bush and Reagan made me mad and sad at times but the guy in there now just plain scares me. This country will take a long time to get over the damage he has done.
“Plame’s contacts in other countries have been compromised and karl rove had a part in it.”
Well, negonerv, we will see what we will see, I’m prepared to wait. You guys should learn to possess yourselves with patience, something the Right has learned through four decades of bitter toil. What will be will be, and each proclamation of the end of the ‘Cabal of war criminals’ just makes things harder for your side if it doesn’t work out.
Tob
So, Toby, do you realize how stupid your comments reveal you to be? Perhps illiterate due to no fault of your own (in which case, perhaps not stupid as just limited in cognitive abilities):
You wrote:
“-S- I see how this kind of thing could really bug you. The whole meme nonsense I mean. This report, prepared by the US Senate, available online in PDF, Zip, and HTML form, eagerly awaited at the time, has just been dropped down the memory hole by the MSM so that many posters here and elsewhere seem to be unaware of its existance even thouh it is totally on point regarding anything to do with the Plame/Wilson affair. Toby928 — Posted by: Toby928 at July 10, 2005 08:29 PM”
The “meme thing” is liberal trolls with nothing better to do writing on total strangers’ websites and forums otherwise, the two words in relationship to one another (and particularly on threads on those sites that mention the name, “Karl Rove” in another context than what the trolls would like to see cached without trollage): “Rove” and “treason” and/or “traitor.”
I don’t regard the information — now repeated ad nauseum on most credible sites as to what Karl Rove said and did not say, about what Joe Wilson said and said again and the reporters from TIME and Newsweek, nor any reports about any of that — as a meme.
I was probably writing over your head, however, given your ongoing attempts to lower the informational level here to sub-troll.
I’ve yet to read anything, ANYthing, that even remotely suggests, much less substantiates, anything approaching “treason” done by Karl Rove, and yet liberals and liberal trolls trolling liberally are insisting that the public record be modified to include their trolling. Just because they want it to be so.
Imagining ruining an ethical person’s reputation (Karl Rove’s, specifically, this ‘issue’) is the ACTUAL treason: treason to ethics, truth, the country itself. I’d love to read liberals tear into the character of Ted Kennedy, Joe Biden, Hillary, for Heaven’s sake (please try), and more, but so far, all you can do is imagine the worst you can imagine and then try to see it evidenced afterward depending upon how many times you can type random I.D.s with fake email addresses all over the internet.
And, to another faker here, writing under the pretense of respecting democracy, it isn’t that conservatives “hate democrats,” but that democrats repeatedly prove to the rest of the world that they are not reality based, and that whoever refuses to join in their big revolution of nonreality is to be destroyed.
I don’t hate the incapacitated. But I do challenge their inequities, even when those responsible can’t help themselves. Reading Hillary Clinton’s recent comments before her hand holders in Aspen/The Brookings Institute/The Aspen Institute, comes to mind here.
No, most conservatives don’t “hate democrats,” we just wonder how you can breathe and think at the same time.
Hey, -S-, I must not be very clear in my writing as I was attempting to support your position. I had not considered the possible implications of a deliberate attempt to skew search engines until I read your post yesterday. It seems plausible to me but in the end, fruitless. Thats what ‘nonsense’ meant when I used it, obviously, not very clearly. 😉 Not that your idea was nonsense, but that the attempt would fail to have any measurable effects.
Tob
What did you think about the second part, about this report, that plainly shows that most of the LL talking points are bogus, being dropped down the old memory hole?
All Miller had to do was go to jail. Meaning, she’s now out of the loop of questioning — for her secondary issue of opting to go to jail rather than “reveal…sources,” which effectively gets her a pass by way of free room and board paid at taxpayer expense and the certainty afterward of a job paid for by any number of liberals eager with big bucks to reward her martyrdom and such.
She’s also proving as pawn for the political espionage purposes of whomever, as yet unidentified but it’s reasonably easy to guess who that’d be, among eager liberals/Democrats involved….
And, no liberal is beating the press to get coverage for the issue as to who spoke with Miller and even Cooper BEFORE they made their brief foray via their “super duper top secret” secret-decorder-rings-Q&A process.
The back story to this issue is being surprisingly NOT MENTIONED by liberals. Not like Valerie Plume’s employment and where and in what area of government was a secret. But, oops, Rove didn’t even know her name when he spoke with Cooper! And yet liberals are determined that, as if from beyond time and space, Rove actually revealed her name and her CIA agent identity!
This is such preposterous smearing by liberals as to give Teddy Kennedy’s “my neck hurts, I lost time, I can’t remember…” “explanations” a run for the, well, money.
And Bill Clinton did.not.have.sex.with.that.woman and Ted Biden wrote his own paper and Ted Kennedy never had a suspended license in Massachusetts when he can’t remember abandoning a still living passenger submerged in the car he was driving and…and…Oliver Stone isn’t a communist…and, and…
I can barely contain my disappointment at how destructive so many among the Left are to and about a country that is still the best there is. And how their tawdry gossip takes on such huge proportions as to merge toward destruction of other human beings who dare to have values other than the bleakness of liberalism.
washingtonpost.com
ROVE TOLD REPORTER OF PLAME’S ROLE BUT DIDN’T NAME HER, ATTORNEY SAYS
By Josh White, Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, July 11, 2005; A01
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame’s role at the CIA before she was identified as a covert agent in a newspaper column two years ago, but Rove’s lawyer said yesterday that his client did not identify her by name.
Rove had a short conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper on July 11, 2003, three days before Robert D. Novak publicly exposed Plame in a column about her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson had come under attack from the White House for his assertions that he found no evidence Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger and that he reported those findings to top administration officials. Wilson publicly accused the administration of leaking his wife’s identity as a means of retaliation.
The leak of Plame’s name to the news media spawned a federal grand jury investigation that has been seeking to find the origin of the disclosure. Cooper avoided jail time last week by agreeing to testify before the grand jury about conversations with his sources, while New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for refusing to discuss her confidential sources.
To be considered a violation of the law, a disclosure by a government official must have been deliberate, the person doing it must have known that the CIA officer was a covert agent, and he or she must have known that the government was actively concealing the covert agent’s identity.
Cooper, according to an internal Time e-mail obtained by Newsweek magazine, spoke with Rove before Novak’s column was published. In the conversation, Rove gave Cooper a “big warning” that Wilson’s assertions might not be entirely accurate and that it was not the director of the CIA or the vice president who sent Wilson on his trip. Rove apparently told Cooper that it was “Wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip,” according to a story in Newsweek’s July 18 issue.
Rove’s conversation with Cooper could be significant because it indicates a White House official was discussing Plame prior to her being publicly named and could lead to evidence of how Novak learned her name.
Although the information is revelatory, it is still unknown whether Rove is a focus of the investigation. Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, has said that Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has told him that Rove is not a target of the probe. Luskin said yesterday that Rove did not know Plame’s name and was not actively trying to push the information into the public realm.
Instead, Luskin said, Rove discussed the matter — under the cloak of secrecy — with Cooper at the tail end of a conversation about a different issue. Cooper had called Rove to discuss other matters on a Friday before deadline, and the topic of Wilson came up briefly. Luskin said Cooper raised the question.
“Rove did not mention her name to Cooper,” Luskin said. “This was not an effort to encourage Time to disclose her identity. What he was doing was discouraging Time from perpetuating some statements that had been made publicly and weren’t true.”
In particular, Rove was urging caution because then-CIA Director George J. Tenet was about to issue a statement regarding Iraq’s alleged interest in African uranium and its inaccurate inclusion in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address. Tenet took the blame for allowing a misleading paragraph into the speech, but Tenet also said that the president, vice president and other senior officials were never briefed on Wilson’s report.
After the investigation into the leak began, Luskin said, Rove signed a waiver in December 2003 or January 2004 authorizing prosecutors to speak to any reporters Rove had previously engaged in discussion, which included Cooper.
“His written waiver included the world,” Luskin said. “It was intended to be a global waiver. . . . He wants to make sure that the special prosecutor has everyone’s evidence. That reflects someone who has nothing to hide.”
Cooper had indicated he would go to jail rather than expose a confidential source, but he agreed last week to cooperate with the grand jury after getting clearance from his source to testify. Luskin said Cooper had been clear to testify all along — because of the waiver signed 18 months ago — but that the waiver was “reaffirmed” on Wednesday, the day of a hearing to decide whether he and Miller would go to jail.
© 2005 The Washington Post Company
And this hurt 😉 “I was probably writing over your head, however, given your ongoing attempts to lower the informational level here to sub-troll.”
I’m the only one to post a link to the select committee report and to encourage any and all to go and read it for themselves and then return and defend their talking-points.
Tob
-S-
I assume you are rereading this entire thread to see how you’ve wronged me.
Where were you all day yesterday when I was left to defend the honor and sanity of this thread with just a few stalwarts. We had to play ‘whack a mole’ with JM, have civil disagreement with not-trolls Jon H and Roberto, and deal with the slipperiest of all Democrasy_inAction. And then, had to return again today to deal with the 2nd shift of LL wankers.
I await your ‘apology while proffering the cane’ 😉
Tob
“to return again today to deal with the 2nd shift of LL wankers.”
I should clarify by saying “Who have not yet arrived.” I’m not refering to you, negonerv. You are not a wanker. 😉
Tob
RE: Toby928’s post (July 11, 2005 11:54 AM)
Where were you all day yesterday when I was left to defend the honor and sanity of this thread with just a few stalwarts… And then, had to return again today to deal with the 2nd shift of LL wankers.
Yes, upon review, you were busy yesterday. Frankly, I just don’t have the patience to root around the weeds of this one. It appears to me to be a pipe dream of the moonbats to repeat high crimes and misdemeanors reminiscent of the Nixon administration. Dwelling on the distant past rather than presenting a plan for the future seems to be the best some people can muster. Others seek Bush’s political death by a thousand cuts since they have nothing substantive to present themselves. It’s a distraction and not worth the effort. Further still, to expect this to climb to a legally punishable event is probably wasted energy. I don’t mind the investigation since potential abuse of authority needs to be corralled. It’s just that this one, based on the reports so far and the actors making the accusations are just too untrustworthy and comical to be taken seriously. It seems more likely that this was a scheme to “get” the President that backfired more than it seems like an administration’s scheme to “get” an agent.
Nothing will come of this, ultimately, though O’Donnell and cohorts will continue to beat their drums. Newsweek will continue to dig because they have that discredited GITMO-Quran story to bury and it’s politically easier to attack than it is to defend. Also, they’d like to create another “DeepThroat” moment to compete with the WaPo though they are, technically, different media. I’m just kinda looking forward to the day that Judy Miller’s source is revealed and it turns out to be a liberal favorite son/daughter. Her’s is not a stand on principal… it’s more likely a stand on self-preservation. I can’t wait for the final verdict. To be sure, unless Rove gets “frogmarched”, the Left will not be satisfied with Fitzgerald’s conclusions.
Spot on analysis AnonymousD. Although I’m not totally confident that Rove will not be in political trouble over this if the leaked (how ironic) info is correct, I just doubt there will be any legal trouble.
Plus, I saw you in here yesterday doing yeoman’s labor shoveling up the detritus left by various trollish elements.
Thanks
Tob
I have grown weary awaiting the return of minus ess minus, either to apologise for his calumny or to reassert his slur with the ‘lie direct’. Perhaps, having cast his stinkbomb, he has moved on to more fruitful threads, whose happy inhabitants do not yet know his black heart. False friend, unfaithful ally. bane of the faithful, we will meet again!
Adieu
Tob
The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on; nor all your Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all your Tears wash out a Word of it.
— The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam
I’m a liberal who would like nothing better than to see Karl Rove get in as much trouble as possible. That said, I think the treason talk is a bit overheated. I am convinced, however, that he engaged in very underhanded dealing in order to discredit Wilson. I have seen many hilarious comments on the thread, but the winner has to be a reference to Rove as an ethical person. This about a man who revels in his reputation as the Dark Prince of politics. The really awful smears he pepetuated against McCain in South Carolina are just one example of his being willing to do whatever it takes to win elections.
That said, what I find truly hilarious is the recurring characterization of liberals as “moonbats” on this thread. It’s a little hard to take that seriously from a group that claims that Wilson outed his wife intentionally so he could blame Bush; that Watergate was was actually a Democratic party operation; that no one on the Washington party cicuit could possibly have known Plame and Wilson without knowing that she was with the CIA; that George Soros gives liberal posters our marching orders; that Wilson had no qualifications whatsoever for being sent to Africa, despite having served as an Ambassador to an African country and having extensive contacts there; that Rove didn’t even know Valerie Plame’s name, backed up by the irrefutable proof that his lawyer said so; that Plame had Wilson sent to Africa in order to get a payment for a house; that Plame outed herself by revealing to her husband that she worked for the CIA (besides the fact that it’s not particularly outrageous for a wife to tell her husband that, did it occur to anyone that having been an ambassador, he may well have the requisite security clearance to be let in on that little secret?); that anyone mentioning Rove and treason in the same post is part of a vast conspiracy to control the search engines (I thought you guys scoffed at vast conspiracies?); that Judith Miller is a darling of the left, when she is one well-known as a conservative who’s reporting on WMDs is considered by the left to have played a major role in Bush’s false information push in the run-up to the Iraq war; I could go on but I’m sure you’re getting tired of reading this.
I realize that not every rightie posting here believes all this stuff (Toby, in particular, seems quite reasonable) but there’s certainly enough of this nonsense to make it clear that neither side has cornered the market on nuttiness.
That said, one assertion made here has picqued my interest. I honestly had not heard that the Italian Niger report had now been tied to the French. Although I am prepared to find that this is a wild assertion, I don’t claim to know everything. Is there a link to a credible site where that was established? This isn’t a challenge, I just had had never heard that before.
Carry on.
I’m a liberal who would like nothing better than to see Karl Rove get in as much trouble as possible. That said, I think the treason talk is a bit overheated. I am convinced, however, that he engaged in very underhanded dealing in order to discredit Wilson. I have seen many hilarious comments on the thread, but the winner has to be a reference to Rove as an ethical person. This about a man who revels in his reputation as the Dark Prince of politics. The really awful smears he pepetuated against McCain in South Carolina are just one example of his being willing to do whatever it takes to win elections.
That said, what I find truly hilarious is the recurring characterization of liberals as “moonbats” on this thread. It’s a little hard to take that seriously from a group that claims that Wilson outed his wife intentionally so he could blame Bush; that Watergate was was actually a Democratic party operation; that no one on the Washington party cicuit could possibly have known Plame and Wilson without knowing that she was with the CIA; that George Soros gives liberal posters our marching orders; that Wilson had no qualifications whatsoever for being sent to Africa, despite having served as an Ambassador to an African country and having extensive contacts there; that Rove didn’t even know Valerie Plame’s name, backed up by the irrefutable proof that his lawyer said so; that Plame had Wilson sent to Africa in order to get a payment for a house; that Plame outed herself by revealing to her husband that she worked for the CIA (besides the fact that it’s not particularly outrageous for a wife to tell her husband that, did it occur to anyone that having been an ambassador, he may well have the requisite security clearance to be let in on that little secret?); that anyone mentioning Rove and treason in the same post is part of a vast conspiracy to control the search engines (I thought you guys scoffed at vast conspiracies?); that Judith Miller is a darling of the left, when she is one well-known as a conservative who’s reporting on WMDs is considered by the left to have played a major role in Bush’s false information push in the run-up to the Iraq war; I could go on but I’m sure you’re getting tired of reading this.
I realize that not every rightie posting here believes all this stuff (Toby, in particular, seems quite reasonable) but there’s certainly enough of this nonsense to make it clear that neither side has cornered the market on nuttiness.
That said, one assertion made here has picqued my interest. I honestly had not heard that the Italian Niger report had now been tied to the French. Although I am prepared to find that this is a wild assertion, I don’t claim to know everything. Is there a link to a credible site where that was established? This isn’t a challenge, I just had had never heard that before.
Carry on.