Karl Rove was whistleblower - was the good guy in this

Real Clear Politics.com ^ | 13 July 2005 | edcoil

[edcoil]

Karl Rove, Whistleblower He told the truth about Joe Wilson.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we'd say the White House political guru deserves a prize--perhaps the next iteration of the "Truth-Telling" award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.

For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.

The same can't be said for Mr. Wilson, who first "outed" himself as a CIA consultant in a melodramatic New York Times op-ed in July 2003. (snip)

If there's any scandal at all here, it is that this entire episode has been allowed to waste so much government time and media attention, As for the press corps, rather than calling for Mr. Rove to be fired, they ought to be grateful to him for telling the truth.

[concerned about politics]

Absolutely. What the overall bill be for a trip to Niger????

Free? Sulzberger owns the NYT. There's also a Sulzberger that owns a German Travel Company. It offers personalized trips for individuals to AFRICA, America, Asia, South Seas, and Australia. Didn't Wilson claim he spent his time relaxing and sipping mint tea? How could Plame, an office worker, sponsor a trip like this without a little "help?"
Remember, Miller - who refuses to talk - works for the NYT, or Sulzberger!

[RedEyeJack]

There is surely a traceable record (unless already destroyed) of who actually authorized the expenditure of funds to pay for the trip (tickets, per diem). That record of authorization should also be present in Wilson's claim for reimbursement after the trip. Would be interesting to know who took responsibility... Valerie perhaps?

[concerned about politics]

There is surely a traceable record (unless already destroyed) of who actually authorized the expenditure of funds to pay for the trip

If there is, the Feds have it. It all could have been destroyed or is unavailable if the NYT financed it through Germany.

[lugsoul]

Here's a challenge for you and anyone else who pops in - find a quote where Joe Wilson says the Vice-President asked him to go on the Niger trip, as the WSJ claims he said.

Sounds like the WSJ got their talking points.

[FourtySeven]

After familiarizing myself with this latest "scandal" (I haven't been as news addicted as I usually am, and the details of this have escaped me until now), I think it's important to note that if it DOES come out that Rove NAMED Plame to Cooper, then we should be consistent and demand his resignation.

That's what's confused me all this time as I familiarized myself with this story. I've read a few articles that appeared to (as this one does to those not familiar with the intricacies) praise Rove for naming Plame. I was starting to get a bit concerned as I was thinking that we were putting spin above ethics. This is not the case though; apparently (from what I can now figure) the conversation between Rove and Cooper was such that (as this article says) Rove outed Wilson as a benefactor of nepotism. IOW, Rove did NOT "name Plame", but his conversation was about Wilson.

As long as this remains the case, then I agree with this article that Rove should be commended for outing a case of nepotism in the CIA. However if Rove does turn out to be (one of) the source(s) that led to the identification of Valerie Plame as a CIA agent, then he should resign, and I hope everyone here agrees with me.

It's irrelevant to me whether or not that was "known in social circles inside the beltway for years". It's still against the law to identify CIA agents, as far as I know, in this manner, and as conservatives, unlike liberals, WE should respect the law.

So I'm crossing my fingers and hoping at this point. Rove seems to have walked a fine line here; I hope he didn't cross it for some cheap political victory.

[Bush2000]

How did our press get so out of control?

They're constantly in search of a new Watergate. And there is no "there" there.

[concerned about politics]

Vice-President asked him to go on the Niger trip

Cheny just didn't stop him. They said they were gong. What could Cheney do, because the trip was personally financed? That would be like telling us we couldn't go anywhere unless he said so.

[lugsoul]

You apparently missed the point. Let me try again.

The WSJ said: "[Karl Rove is] the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves."

Now, my question is about that last part - "as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves." I believe, based upon my own reading, that statement is false. Wilson expressly stated in public that he had no idea whether the Vice-President even knew he was going. So the idea that Rove was 'disproving' a lie being repeated by Wilson is a chimera. If you can find a statement by Wilson like that attributed to him by the WSJ, I'll stand corrected. But I don't think you can.

[concerned about politics]

Ohhh. OK. (I'm working on another project, and this computer looses recourses after a while, so I can't try to help right now).
Sorry. "Never mind."

[Bush2000]

I believe, based upon my own reading, that statement is false. Wilson expressly stated in public that he had no idea whether the Vice-President even knew he was going.

Whether Cheney knew that Wilson, himself, was going is sort of beside the point. Cheney knew that the CIA would be following up on his request via the intelligence report -- so Cheney knew that SOMEBODY was going to Niger. Read Wilson's own words:

"In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office. "

Clearly, it was Wilson's perspective that he was acting on behalf of Cheney's office.

[falpro]

Does the following dialog support the WSJ's assertion that Wilson claimed Cheney asked him to go to Niger?

Per a talkingpointsmemo . com interview which took place Sept 16, 2003. What Wilson implies is that the office of the VP started the trip to Niger.

TPM: ....And that means that he (VP Cheney) basically started the chain of events that got the CIA to send you on this trip.

WILSON: That's right, that's correct.....

Do you know if the State Dept initiated his trip? Maybe Powell requested the trip via the INR (The State Dept's in-house intelligence operation)? Not sure.

[Bush2000]

Incidentally, if the CIA were truly interested in finding out the truth about Niger, they wouldn't have sent Wilson. He's a politically-charged ideologue with liberal ties. This situation was engineered by the CIA to be a political circus.

[lugsoul]

That's a stretch, putting it mildly. It was certainly his perspective that the Agency was acting in response to the VP's request. But he explicitly says that agency officials - not the VP - asked him to go.

He has said so, explicitly. He acknowledged that the VP didn't even know he was going to help the Agency respond to the VP's inquiry. How does that translate into the utterly false accusation advanced by the WSJ?

[Bush2000]

falpro provided a good excerpt in #32 from a Wilson interview that gives the impression re Cheney. It makes it appear that Cheney was involved in getting the CIA to send him. If nothing else, it's completely ambiguous.

[csmusaret]

President Bush said anyone caught leaking classified information would be dealt with.

[lugsoul]

First, what Wilson says there is entirely consistent with his other statements AND with the Senate Intel Committee report. Cheney asked the Agency to look into it, the Agency, on an operational level, asked Wilson to go. It is a ridiculous stretch to turn that into "Wilson said Cheney asked him to go." Especially in light of statements like this one:

"They asked essentially that we follow up on this report -- that the agency follow up on the report. So it was a question that went to the CIA briefer from the Office of the Vice President. The CIA, at the operational level, made a determination that the best way to answer this serious question was to send somebody out there who knew something about both the uranium business and those Niger officials that were in office at the time these reported documents were executed."

"It's absolutely true that neither the vice president nor Dr. Rice nor even George Tenet knew that I was traveling to Niger."

Joe Wilson, 8/8/03

So, Rove is a 'hero' for rebutting a 'lie' that no one was telling?

As I said - the more interesting question may be where Rove got the information that he was using to rebut the 'lie.'

Neither you nor I could have gotten it. Until Novak told us.

[Steve_Seattle]

"find a quote where Joe Wilson says the Vice-President asked him to go on the Niger trip, as the WSJ claims he said"

I don't know exactly what Wilson said, but I remember there were stories in the press that made it sound like Cheney had personally selected Wilson for the trip and then "disowned" him when he didn't like the results of Wilson's investigation. According to Cheney, he never met Wilson and never personally saw Wilson's report. So maybe there's been some blurring of what Wilson initially said and how it eventually came to be presented in the press.

[TASMANIANRED]

On the heels of Mark Felt as well.

Last week whistle blower was a hero, this week a whistle blower is a villan.

This was a Clintoon operative dirty trick that has blown back on them.

[lugsoul]

No one seems to know what he said when he 'lied.' But every single published quote I've found says the same thing - Cheney asked the CIA to look into the matter, operational level folks at the CIA asked Wilson to go. Same as the Senate Intel report.

Anyone open to the possibility that the 'Wilson falsely claimed Cheney sent him' spin is just that - spin?

Even the op-ed that the WH was responding to says this. When did he supposedly claim that Cheney sent him?