A summer storm at Scandal Central [Karl Rove]

The Times (UK) ^ | 7/16/05 | Gerard Baker

[saquin]

IT’S mid-July in Washington and the citizens of this steamy, mosquito-infested metropolis are enjoying the familiar sights of summer: children hopping in and out of impromptu showers at fire hydrants; overheated tourists slumped on street corners and park benches; and the nation’s leading reporters in hot pursuit of yet another full-blown White House scandal. It must be something to do with the climate, because almost every year, at about this time, the milk of great national events that is the daily diet of America’s national press curdles into a foul-smelling mélange of alleged wrongdoing, deceit and cover-ups at the highest level. Whipped up by the zealous energies of ambitious special prosecutors appointed to investigate public officials, the mix expands in the heat until it boils over, smothering all competing news.

Sometimes, these scandals — Nixon’s Watergate, Reagan’s Iran-Contra — reveal something genuinely awry with the American government; sometimes — Clinton’s Lewinsky — they reveal little more than the unedifying character defects of the most powerful people on the planet. Sometimes — and this may well be the case with the current one — they don’t really reveal very much at all.

But they all have a number of things in common. Whatever the specific allegations, they all purport to be about the highest principles of the American republic: national security; trust; freedom of the press. They are all spiced with the sort of irony that would make a decent playwright weep in envy. And they are all bafflingly complex. The one swirling with intensity this weekend around Karl Rove, President George W Bush’s chief political consigliere, meets all conditions.

A brief summary: two summers ago, as the debate about the failure to find Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction began to sweep the capital, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador, revealed in a newspaper article that he had been sent a year earlier to Niger to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein had been trying to buy uranium there to make nuclear weapons. In his article he noted that he had found no such effort by Saddam but that the Administration had ignored his report and had insisted instead that the Iraqis were indeed pursuing nuclear materials.

A few weeks later stories began to emerge in the press, sourced to Administration officials, that cast doubt on Mr Wilson’s credentials and story. In one article Robert Novak, a columnist, noted that Mr Wilson’s wife was a CIA officer, Valerie Plame. A similar reference appeared in Time.

It is against the law to expose the identity of a covert CIA agent and allegations were quickly aired that someone from the White House had been behind the stories, so a special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, was appointed to find out who leaked Ms Plame’s name.

This month the scandal has been rising to a boil.

Last week, one reporter, Judith Miller of the New York Times, who is also believed to have discovered the identity of Ms Plame (but never actually wrote an article) was sent to jail for refusing to reveal her source to the prosecutor. Another, Matt Cooper of Time, avoided such a fate when he apparently told prosecutors — with his source’s permission — that the person who told him was none other than Mr Rove.

But as more details emerge, the scandal appears to be rather less enticing for the media. Mr Rove, it seems, did not knowingly reveal Ms Plame’s name, only that she was someone who worked at the CIA. Worse for the scandal-followers, he may, according to yesterday’s newspapers, have discovered that she worked at the CIA from a reporter who called to ask him about the story.

None of this looks like coming close to an offence under the statute that forbids the outing of a CIA operative. But, in another classic feature of Washington scandals, what seems to matter more now is not whether Mr Rove or anyone else committed the offence but whether he or others may have perjured themselves when giving evidence about the case before the grand jury.

The ironies are rich. The only person so far to have been punished in the investigation of possible criminal wrongdoing by a member of the Administration is a reporter — Ms Miller — who never even wrote a story about it.

News organisations, notably the New York Times, who were so insistent that the “leaker” be exposed when the stories first emerged over a year ago, now find themselves adamantly defending the right of people who apparently know the identity of the leaker not to tell prosecutors who it was.

Perhaps the biggest irony of all is that Mr Wilson’s own version of events about his trip to Niger was thoroughly undermined by a bipartisan Senate committee report a year ago, which found he had misled Congress and the public about his task, and which also found that the uranium from Niger story was one of the few Iraq WMD claims that had not been proved false.

In other words, Mr Rove finds himself in Scandal Central because he appears not to have revealed something to a reporter, an act that probably wouldn’t have been a crime in any case, in an attempt to make a case that was essentially a correct one.

It is truly the perfect Washington summer storm.

[randog]

In other words, Mr Rove finds himself in Scandal Central because he appears not to have revealed something to a reporter, an act that probably wouldn’t have been a crime in any case, in an attempt to make a case that was essentially a correct one.

This columnist plays fast and loose with his facts, but somehow lands on his feet like a cat falling out of a tree!

[speekinout]

In other words, Mr Rove finds himself in Scandal Central because he appears not to have revealed something to a reporter, an act that probably wouldn’t have been a crime in any case, in an attempt to make a case that was essentially a correct one.

LOL. That's the best description of this flap I've seen yet!

[Congressman Billybob]

The writer accidentally describes his own newspaper, when he writes, that its "national press curdles into a foul-smelling mélange of alleged wrongdoing, deceit and cover-ups at the highest level." English newspapers are generally of the same ilk.

Congressman Billybob

Latest column: "The Fry Cook Rule for the Supreme Court"

[JOE6PAK]

Perhaps the biggest irony of all is that Mr Wilson’s own version of events about his trip to Niger was thoroughly undermined by a bipartisan Senate committee report a year ago, which found he had misled Congress and the public about his task, and which also found that the uranium from Niger story was one of the few Iraq WMD claims that had not been proved false.

'NUFF SAID!

[Darkwolf377]

Sometimes — and this may well be the case with the current one — they don’t really reveal very much at all.

To a careful watcher it reveals that the Democrats will do absolutely anything, including ignoring threats to border security and the war, to get George W. Bush.

[Milhous]

The writer accidentally describes his own newspaper, when he writes, that its "national press curdles into a foul-smelling mélange of alleged wrongdoing, deceit and cover-ups at the highest level." English newspapers are generally of the same ilk.

LOL at Baker's wit.

pro·jec·tion   (pr-jkshn)

Psychology.

1. The attribution of one's own attitudes, feelings, or suppositions to others.

Germans attribute such seasonal scandals to "sommerloch" (summer hole) when Zeitungsenten (newspaper lies) breed.

[processing please hold]

I realy like that story, thanks.

[Mamzelle]

You don't have to write a story to be required to testify. This columnist is rather silly--does he think Miller should go to jail if she HAD written a story? She's in jail because she's too embarrassed to finger the real source...and I'm thinking that source is probably Joe Wilson.

[FReethesheeples]

Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's cover?

It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press.

Here's an example of Joe's apparently routine and open bragging about Valerie being a "CIA agent," which became known directly to me over a year ago:

He certainly bragged about it per a famous and highly reliable source's (named below) account of his own face-to-face encounter with Amb. Joe Wilson prior to Valerie Plame's "outing" as a CIA agent/employee.

Based upon a personal conversation (we were in a small group eating; it was NOT an "off the record") I had with eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson (we were at a luncheon table together during a trip to Europe), it appeared entirely possible that Joe Wilson himself was the (or one source, if not the original one) possible source in revealing his own wife's status as a CIA agent or employee.

Victor Davis Hanson (Wilson presumably knew Victor Davis Hanson wrote regularly for NRO (National Review Online), had done OpEds for the Wall street Journal, and other publications, and had his own Website with a widespread following) said he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were both in the same "Green Room" before a televised debate-discussion on Iraq, etc. and Joe first warned the TV make-up person not to get powder on his $14,000 Rolex watch, then he bragged to Victor about several things (possessions and trips to Aspen, etc.), like his expensive car (I think it was a Mercedes), and then bragged about his beautiful wife who, Joe Wilson said (braggingly) was a CIA operative.

I asked Victor Davis Hanson Why he didn't write up this account.(?) He replied that Joe Wilson would probably simply deny it, since only he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were in the Green Room together before the broadcast.

However, it is now easy to surmise that Joe Wilson is a crass, materialistic, self-promoting, vain, egotistical, bragaddocio-opportunist, so this account is perfectly consistent with Valerie Plame's TWO photo shoots in Vanity Fair. (Or was it Vogue? No, probably too crass for Vogue, n'est pas?)

[FReethesheeples]

Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's "cover" (even if she had not been a covert CIA agent at the time of the alleged "leaks")?

It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press.

Here's an example of Joe's apparently routine and open bragging about Valerie being a "CIA agent," which became known directly to me over a year ago:

He certainly bragged about it per a famous and highly reliable source's (named below) account of his own face-to-face encounter with Amb. Joe Wilson prior to Valerie Plame's "outing" as a CIA agent/employee.

Based upon a personal conversation (we were in a small group eating; it was NOT an "off the record") I had with eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson (we were at a luncheon table together during a trip to Europe), it appeared entirely possible that Joe Wilson himself was the (or one source, if not the original one) possible source in revealing his own wife's status as a CIA agent or employee.

Victor Davis Hanson (Wilson presumably knew Victor Davis Hanson wrote regularly for NRO (National Review Online), had done OpEds for the Wall street Journal, and other publications, and had his own Website with a widespread following) said he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were both in the same "Green Room" before a televised debate-discussion on Iraq, etc. and Joe first warned the TV make-up person not to get powder on his $14,000 Rolex watch, then he bragged to Victor about several things (possessions and trips to Aspen, etc.), like his expensive car (I think it was a Mercedes), and then bragged about his beautiful ("hot") wife who, Joe Wilson said (braggingly) was a CIA operative.

I asked Victor Davis Hanson Why he didn't write up this account.(?) He replied that Joe Wilson would probably simply deny it, since only he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were in the Green Room together before the broadcast.

However, it is now easy to surmise that Joe Wilson is a crass, materialistic, self-promoting, vain, egotistical, bragaddocio-opportunist, so this account is perfectly consistent with Valerie Plame's TWO photo shoots in Vanity Fair.