Posted on 07/14/2005 7:38:56 AM PDT by listenhillary
The “gotcha” game is in full swing in Washington as the vultures circle slowly over the White House, hoping for Karl Rove’s scalp.
The ritualized homicide/suicide is well-programmed. A White House insider is accused of doing something, the news media hype the story and, finally, without proof or presumption of innocence, the staffer resigns so as not to become a “distraction” from the president’s agenda.
But maybe this time the cycle can be stopped before it runs its bloody course.
Karl Rove did nothing wrong. The statute he allegedly violated has a number of very specific triggers. The person who reveals the identity of a covert CIA operative has to intend to uncover her identity, know she is a covert operative and know that he is blowing her cover.
The law is designed to stop the likes of Philip Agee, whose 1975 book Inside the Company revealed secret CIA information to sell books. Rove’s actions are a far stretch from those the statute was designed to cover.
Rove did not call Time magazine’s Matt Cooper. Cooper called him. He did not mention Valerie Plame’s name. He may not have even known it. He had no intent to reveal her identity. The context of the conversation was that Rove was trying to disabuse Cooper of the impression that CIA Director George Tenet had been the moving force in choosing former Ambassador Joe Wilson to investigate the nuclear dealings reported to be going on in Niger.
Rove said that it was not Tenet who pushed the appointment but that it likely stemmed from the fact that Wilson’s wife “apparently works” at the CIA.
To call that conversation a deliberate revelation of an agent’s identity designed to blow her cover is a far, far stretch of the statute’s wording and intent.
But just as Rove did not intend to blow Plame’s cover, so the Democrats demanding his head are not very interested in upholding the statute in question. Their motives are totally political. They want revenge against Rove for his successful role in piloting the Bush election and reelection campaigns, and they want to be sure that Bush does not have access to Karl’s advice in the remaining years of his second term.
Washington is a mean town where human sacrifice has been raised to an art form. But Karl Rove does not deserve this fate. He has served loyally and well, resisting enormous opportunities to leave midway and reap a bonanza of income in the private sector. He has shown himself to be a man of uncommon integrity and selflessness in serving this administration and this country. He should not be tossed to the partisan wolves.
Bush, having appointed a special prosecutor and pledged to fire anyone who was responsible for revealing Plame’s identity, cannot just sweep the matter under the rug. But he should allow Rove to clear his name through the normal process of investigation and testimony.
He should keep Karl onboard, stipulating only that he fully answer all questions from a grand jury — as he has done already? — should the prosecutor need him to appear again.
If Rove is indicted or even named as a target, Bush will have to let him go. But that’s not going to happen based on the current fact pattern, and Bush should not let himself be pushed ahead of the process by firing Rove.
Indeed, there is some question that the reporters who took Rove’s lead, looked up Plame’s name and published it may themselves be more likely to have violated the statute than is Rove himself. Whoever took the information Rove provided and outed Plame was, in fact, deliberately outing a CIA operative and may be a better fit for the statute’s intent than Karl Rove.
Bush should not fire Rove. He should stick by him until or unless the criminal investigation makes it evident that he may have violated the statute. Otherwise, he should stay on the job.
Morris is the author of Rewriting History, a rebuttal of Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) memoir, Living History.
Well, gee Dick. I mean, DUH!!!!!
Dick Morris, IMO, is two rungs above Debka, and no more.
How about - "There shouldn't even be a debate about firing somebody in the middle of an investigation when there is no public evidence that he did anything wrong."
Do the Democrats really want to establish that standard - we fire anybody in government who is accused in press with no public evidence while the official investigation is still ongoing? Would there be any Democrats left in congress?
Is anyone suggesting he should, other than the kooks?
A rhetorical question. Which side is better at respecting the intent of a law and not abusing that law?
A. The Right with respect to the Patriot Act?
B. The Left with respect to the CIA Covert operative law?
You can't turn on Fox or CNN with the democrats having a "name" suggesting Rove should resign or be fired.
The Democrats in Washington play this game all the time. Let's see what member of a Republican administration we can screw. After all, we've got the Democrats in the news media who will do our work for us. Worked with Newt Gingrich. He was later exonerated. The Democrats simply have no principles.
Plame was not a covert agent. She had not been covert for nine years as she was outed by Aldrich Ames prior to 1994 and then again by the Cubans. She was assigned a desk job as an analyst at that time for her own safety.
The identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame was compromised twice before her name appeared in a news column that triggered a federal illegal-disclosure investigation, U.S. officials say.She would have had to have been covert in the last five years for Rove to have broken the law, per former Assistant Deputy Attorney General Victoria Toensing, who helped draft the 1982 law in question.Mrs. Plame's identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a Moscow spy, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity. In a second compromise, officials said a more recent inadvertent disclosure resulted in references to Mrs. Plame in confidential documents sent by the CIA to the U.S. Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Havana.
The documents were supposed to be sealed from the Cuban government, but intelligence officials said the Cubans read the classified material and learned the secrets contained in them, the officials said.
For Plame's outing to have been illegal, the one-time deputy AG explained, "her status as undercover must be classified." Also, Plame "must have been assigned to duty outside the United States currently or in the past five years."And the answer to what we have all been wondering...a Freeper reported that Brit Hume mentioned that Rove learned where Joe Wilson's wife worked because a reporter told him...{drumroll, please}:
Something doesn't add up about why Judith Miller went to jail. The New York Times reporter didn't write a story about the Valerie Plame case and had a waiver from her source in order to talk about it to the grand jury. But she insisted on going to jail anyway. Speculation is mounting that Miller is protecting herself, that Miller was herself a source of information about Plame that made it to several Bush administration officials and was then recycled to columnist Robert Novak. He, then, disclosed Plame's employment by the CIA and her role in arranging for her husband Joe Wilson's mission to Africa to investigate the Iraq-uranium link.This would help explain why Miller didn't write a story about the case. It would be difficult for Miller to write a story when she was so deeply involved in how it developed. Disclosure of her role then or now would be extremely embarrassing.
The more likely explanation is that Miller is protecting private discussions with administration officials, and that during those discussions she provided or confirmed information about Plame's identity. This would make sense. Both Miller and Plame covered the subject of weapons of mass destruction and it was likely that they knew one another, or at least were aware of each other's work in this field.
Two things: One, President Bush isn't going to fire Karl Rove. Two, Dick Morris is a pinhead.
Yes, but anyone other than the kooks?
President Bush could clear up two pending matters by appointing Rove to the Supreme Court.
Just like a month ago it was Rumsfeld should resign. They will just keep moving on to the next person who should resign and so on and so on. I predict that Rove will not resign or be fired.
The reason the MSM is so enraged right now is that Rove's continued status in the White House flaunts the MSM's loss of power. The MSM still thinks that if it says someone should resign (regardless of the facts or evidence), then that person should have been gone yesterday. But it isn't happening. It didn't happen with Rumsfeld or DeLay or etc. Much like a petulant child who has been told "no" the MSM is tantruming. What they fail to realize is that the more they tantrum the more credibility (if the MSM has any left) they lose.
Bush said it all yesterday when he told the MSM he would wait for the prosecutor to conclude his investigation and not the MSM.
But if she is not covert op, why is there an investigation?
That was funny. :)
Very interesting post. Thanks. [Dick Morris, like a stopped clock, happens to be right in this thread. But Bush isn't going to fire Rove. He doesn't need Morris's input.]
Yea, Dick Morris has a firm grasp of the obvious
If it's true that Miller herself was a conduit for Plame's identity - and that one or more Bush officials first heard it from her - then the NYT would be in huge trouble if this could ever be proven. The hypocrisy and basic criminality of such a stance would be obvious far beyond the world of conservatives. For the Times to participate in the crucifixion of Rove, knowing that one of its own reporters was the source of Plame's identity, would be appalling even to other news organizations. Robert Novak has said that when he breaks his silence after the grand jury expires, "it will be surprising." I think it will.
Great post!
In a nutshell, the Dems and their allies: "journalists" in the mainstream media, are simply fishing for an issue--any issue--that they can use to hurt President Bush.
They're suggesting nothing: they're saying Rove should be fired.
This is the same arrogance we see in their 'suggestions' that a supreme court nominee should be picked who passes their litmus test. The last time Republicans chose 'moderate conservatives' the moderates turned into Democrats.
The liberals can't seem to grasp the fact that since `94, and certainly since 2000, they are a minority party. President Bush should disabuse them of this notion.
Why should he fire on of his most trusted political colleagues? Why should he appoint someone to the SCOTUS who will continue subversion of our Constitution? Because his political enemies say he should?
He should tell them for us, those that brung him to this dance: `Thanks for your input. Now, go p** up a rope.'
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