Posted on 07/08/2005 10:54:00 PM PDT by JohnHuang2
Friday, July 08, 2005 - WASHINGTON -- A prosecutor's hunt for Bush administration leakers of classified information has produced no indictments after almost two years, and legal experts say it's very possible the only person jailed will be a reporter who never wrote a story. In pursuit of the officials who revealed a CIA officer's identity to reporters, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has gone to the highest reaches Continues...
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The O'Donnell Factor
I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source for Lawrence O'Donnell was . . . Bill Burkett.
One press report asserts that 'Rove-Gate' "is fast becoming the Administration's worst scandal since taking office..."
Really? Then this would be bigger than Bush's last "worst scandal," Downing Street Memo-gate, and bigger than the last "worst scandal" before that, Gitmo-gate, and bigger than the last "worst scandal" before that, Jeff Gannon-gate, and bigger than the last "worst scandal" before that, Diebold-gate, etc. Strange. Seems like Bush has a "worst scandal since taking office" every few weeks. Thank goodness there's no liberal media!
Off his meds and out of the straightjacket for the first time in months, O'Donnell, "senior" MSNBC "analyst," told the McLaughlin Group Friday that TIME mag e-mails will prove once and for all that Karl Rove was The Source -- Matt Cooper's source -- the Mastermind behind the 'outing' of Valerie Plame, the CIA "operative" in the agency's department of incompetence and intel failures. As part of her cover, Plame for years worked as a desk jockey in some front company with a sign out front: "CIA Headquarters." (Located on the corner of Keystone and Kops.) And posed for cover photos in Vanity Fair. So meticulous was Plame about her covert status, only the entire D.C. social set knew. (The New York Times reports that, "after a year's unpaid leave," she's "returned to a new job" at CIA, examining possibilities like: What would things be like if the Soviet Union dissolved? What if Saddam ever invaded Kuwait? What if CIA analysts were competent?)
Plame, you'll recall, sent her husband Joe Wilson off to Niger so she could lay off the antidepressants for a while. After a thorough tea-sipping probe to see if there was anything to these silly rumors about Saddam shopping for nuke material, the tea-sipper filed his now discredited report with the New York Times, whining that Bush was ignoring the tea-sipper. And trying to frame an innocent dictator. Days later, Plame gets "outed" in "retaliation." The press, which knows who leaked the name, soon demands that DOJ name a Special Counsel to find out who leaked the name, vowing to resist telling the Special Counsel who leaked the name, even if it means doing hard time chained to the floor listening to Christina Aguilera in Bush's gulag.
According to liberals, Rove can secretly wire Bush up for debates, rig Diebold, mail anthrax, engineer tsunamis, bring down Wellstone's plane, melt polar ice caps, build pyramids at Abu Ghraib, dress up as Lucy Ramirez to frame Dan Rather's 'Unimpeachable Source' Bill Burkett, paste a beard on and play Ayman al-Zawahri in those fake al-Qaeda videos, then flush the Koran with no hands, never once getting busted -- except, of course, by posters at Democraticunderground. Remember the moon landing? Fake. Karl Rove again. Probably had a hand in Princess Diana's car crash. Rove can do all this, but forgets that you don't 'out' CIA 'operatives' by e-mailing TIME reporters directly from the White House, as O'Donnell alleges. You e-mail from the Grassy Knoll.
Bear in mind that, in Washington circles, O'Donnell is taken seriously. It's not like he writes episodes for some fantasyland political drama or two short-lived TV series.
Following up on his McLaughlin Group 'Rove revelation,' unveiled two years after Joe Wilson's 'Rove revelation' (a revelation Wilson later retracted), O'Donnell on Saturday blogged the following at the Huffing&Puffington Post: "I revealed in yesterday's taping of the McLaughlin Group that Time magazine's e-mails will reveal that Karl Rove was Matt Cooper's source. I have known this for months but didn't want to say it at a time that would risk me getting dragged into the grand jury."
I read this and my gut reaction was: That's a lie, O'Donnell! Keep lying, it's all you do! Lies! You lie about documents endlessly! You're just lying about it! You have no standards, O'Donnell! Point to his name in the report! You liar! Creepy liar! Just tell me the initials, you liar! You are a liar who makes things up! You want the lies! That's how you make your living, on lies!
Oh wait -- that wasn't me, that was O'Donnell! He was on Scarborough Country back in October, offering his sober and thoughtful opinions on Swift Boat Vet John O'Neill's book, while having a meltdown. Poor dear. This was just before he joined Michael Moore at the nuthouse. To get therapy.
Blogging further, O'Donnell Saturday made this startling prediction: "I know Newsweek is working on an 'IT'S ROVE!' story and will probably break it tomorrow." I knew then Rove would be absolved.
In a piece headlined, The Rove Factor?, Newsweek's retractable Michael Isikoff, crawling gingerly out of a Gitmo toilet bowl after searching fruitlessly for flushed Korans, dropped his 'IT'S ROVE!' bombshell this way: "It is unclear . . . what passed between Cooper and Rove." Breathtaking, I know. Not. But let's not get too picky. O'Donnell got the 'IT'S ROVE!' part right, like in 'It's unclear if IT'S ROVE!' Had he put it this way, O'Donnell would have had the whole McLaughlin Group McLaughing.
What is clear is that O'Donnell is an idiot. The TIME e-mails, rather than being largely between Cooper and Rove, are "largely between Cooper and his editors," with Cooper mentioning Rove as someone he talked to. No evidence Rove leaked the name. But in O'DonnellWorld:
- The fact that liberal reporters fought against having to testify proves how committed liberal reporters are to the principle of not betraying Karl Rove! They couldn't wait to go to jail for Karl Rove.
- In Campaign '04, the media pulls out all the stops to get horseface elected, even to the point of airing phony Nat'l Guard records, but the media sat on a bombshell like this out of loyalty to Karl Rove. Must protect The Architect!
- Karl Rove signed a waiver releasing reporters he's talked to, e-mailed, cellphoned, smoke-signaled, decoder-ringed, telepathed, etc. from any confidentiality agreements, which allows them to testify (no confidentiality agreement, no case to withhold info), but you know the New York Times -- that paper'd never give up Karl Rove!
- Matt Cooper called Karl Rove. Karl Rove did not call Matt Cooper. So Rove must've made some telepathic connection with Cooper. ('Cooooooooper, please call me, I want to illegally leak the name Valerie Plame. Have a notepad handy!')
Since Rove has testified before the grand jury and has released reporters to testify, Rove can't be The Source. Since Plame's CIA gig was widely known in D.C., there was no "leak." These reporters aren't protecting a leaker. They're protecting a comrade. Joe Wilson. The whole thing was the first botched attempt to create a mega-scandal to affect an election. The second was Rathergate. In both cases, political operatives schemed to 'get Bush' and used "reporters" as cutouts in their operation. Both operations soon backfired. The "reporters" end up going to jail or getting fired. Since libbies are delusional, they then suspect their 'get Bush' operation was really Rove's idea! Rove, roving secretly in O'Donnell's head, made O'Donnell think it was Rove who was the source of the "leak" in order to protect the real source of the "leak": Lucy Ramiriz!
I'm sorry, you'll have to excuse me -- got Rove on the phone to plan our next project. Bye now!
Anyway, that's...
My Two Cents...
"JohnHuang2"
Terrific, JH! This might be your very best essay ever. It should be circulated to leftie blogs for educational purposes.
Joe Wilson reminds me of the Hollywood version of a Graham Greene character - the "Colonial administrator, great bwana, sahib, etc.
"Our thoughts and prayers go out to our cousins across the pond. God bless the British people."
Dittos to that.
Big Leak ~ Bump!
Thank you so very much for the excellent wrap-up!!! Hugs!
Very enjoyable read. If you're not a professional columnist, you should be.
Rove can secretly wire Bush up for debates, rig Diebold, mail anthrax, engineer tsunamis, bring down Wellstone's plane, melt polar ice caps, build pyramids at Abu Ghraib, dress up as Lucy Ramirez to frame Dan Rather's 'Unimpeachable Source' Bill Burkett, paste a beard on and play Ayman al-Zawahri in those fake al-Qaeda videos, then flush the Koran with no hands, never once getting busted -- except, of course, by posters at Democraticunderground. Remember the moon landing? Fake. Karl Rove again.
You mean he can't?
"Really? Then this would be bigger than Bush's last "worst scandal," Downing Street Memo-gate, and bigger than the last "worst scandal" before that, Gitmo-gate, and bigger than the last "worst scandal" before that, Jeff Gannon-gate, and bigger than the last "worst scandal" before that, Diebold-gate, etc. Strange. Seems like Bush has a "worst scandal since taking office" every few weeks. Thank goodness there's no liberal media!"
LOL! Great post. Yes, right now there is lull, but the closer we get to the 2006 elections the MSM will start to discover more "scandals."
A great one-of-a-kind article as always! Thanks for the ping.
Amen.
Prediction: There will be a new entry to Webster's next year, "Rovian."
Have a great weekend my FRiend.
5.56mm
"Joe Wilson reminds me of the Hollywood version of a Graham Greene character - the "Colonial administrator, great bwana, sahib, etc."
I can't wait to see Joe Wilson frogmarched out of a hollywood gala event.
I would pay to see that! And I would wear a great big Karl Rove button!
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