Posted on 07/18/2005 8:52:40 AM PDT by CHARLITE
The virtual vigilantes circling Karl Rove have everything lined up for the brand of justice they see fit for “the Architect”: public humiliation, all-out character assassination, firing, near-fatal damage to the White House, and if they get the cherry on top, “frog-marching” the President’s closest advisor from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. to a federal prison.
There’s just one hitch: their entire political case rests on the quicksand known as Joe Wilson.
As part of the cynical campaign to destroy the man who guided Bush to four straight electoral victories, the Left has hailed Wilson as a hero. At first blush, the idiocy of exalting the man with a well-documented credibility problem would seem to rival the decision to roll the cameras as Dukakis gave the thumbs-up while riding in a tank.
But the Left’s entire rationale for the “Fire Rove” tidal wave is that revealing Valerie Plame’s status as a CIA employee was nothing more than a “shameful,” “despicable,” and “disturbing” act of “retaliation,” “retribution,” or “revenge.” If they admitted that Wilson layered lies upon lies, then logic dictates that Rove did no more than encourage a reporter not to be hoodwinked.
Which helps explain why New Republic editor Peter Beinart, who is neither a peacenik nor blinded by Bush hatred, appeared incredulous when I pointed out in our CNN debate last Wednesday that Joe Wilson was not exactly credible. “Joe Wilson is not the one with a credibility problem here,” he snapped.
Though—as left-wing blogger Josh Marshall has noted ad nauseum—Wilson didn’t directly say that he was sent by the Vice-President’s office, the implication couldn’t have been clearer. “The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer,” Wilson wrote in his now-infamous New York Times op-ed.
Thus, the defense of Wilson’s credibility boils down to skilled parsing: he didn’t say that Cheney’s office sent him, he only implied it. Sounds an awful lot like the semantic acrobatics of which Wilson’s defenders accuse Rove’s supporters being guilty.
Even if you give Wilson the benefit of the doubt on that count, though, the career diplomat still has not been on speaking terms with the truth.
Just over one year ago, the man married to the retired CIA operative formerly known as Valerie Plame was exposed as an opportunist who lied at almost every turn in an audacious bid to grab his 15 minutes—and a seven-figure book deal.
He was outed not by Rove, the White House, or some right-wing outfit, but by the bipartisan Senate Select Intelligence Committee.
According to the report, Plame “offered up” the services of her husband. She believed that intelligence surrounding Niger and yellowcake was bogus—she called it a “crazy report”—making it highly likely that her husband went there looking to confirm that conclusion. He did.
Or did he? The bipartisan conclusion of the committee was that Wilson's findings, if anything, served to support the belief that Saddam was actively seeking uranium for a nuclear program.
But Wilson revealed himself as the headline whore he is by grabbing the spotlight when the story first emerged about Niger and forged documents purporting to show illicit sales to Saddam. From the July 10, 2004 Washington Post:
He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because “the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.”
“Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the ‘dates were wrong and the names were wrong’ when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports,” the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have “misspoken” to reporters. The documents—purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq—were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.
Obviously, Wilson’s apologists don’t much like the bipartisan report.
Retired CIA officer Larry Johnson, who entered the agency in the same class as Plame, attacked the bipartisan report as “biased.” Marshall, despite being one the Left’s best bloggers, went one step further in writing that it was filled with “disinformtation.”
Wilson, for his part, pandered to the stupid and/or willingly blind—his base—by denying that his wife’s letter had anything to do with his trip to Niger. “I don’t see it as a recommendation to send me,” he said about his wife’s memo. Never mind that the day after she sent it came the cable to an officer overseas that set the whole thing in motion.
While Wilson’s penchant for prevarication does not put Rove in the clear legally if, as it does not yet appear, he actually knew that Plame was undercover before he talked to Bob Novak and Time’s Matt Cooper.
Each piece of evidence that trickles out, however, suggests just the opposite. Today’s New York Times reports that Novak testified that he called Rove—just as Cooper had—and that Rove did not give any indication that Plame was undercover. The Times further reports that Novak testified Bush’s right-hand man was merely his second source. If true, this explodes the Left’s theory that Rove was shopping the story for any willing taker. It also adds credence to the likelihood that he had no clue Plame’s status at the CIA.
Rove’s warning to Cooper, as Newsweek reported, not to “get too far out” on Wilson’s Niger claims was, with hindsight, absolutely correct. And it helped expose the shaky credibility of the man who was attempting to snooker the American public.
Which brings us back to the fundamental problem faced by the “get Rove” crowd: they need Wilson to be credible. He’s not. That’s all Rove was pointing out to Cooper—and only after the Time reporter asked him about it.
Who again is the one with the credibility problem?
Char :)
You've got Freepmail!
It's also a good question to raise with the MSM.
Just when you would think that the Stoned Age Press had learned it’s lesson from its Space Age monitors, they jump off the cliff once again. The caterwauling from the DNC talking heads about Karl Rove being a source for a story puts one more nail into their sealed coffin. With viewers rushing to Fox and talk radio, PravdABDNC pounds it’s collective chest like they still are the monopoly they had been at the turn of the century. Those days have long past as their consumers have become too sophisticated to buy what they are selling.
Karl Rove has been proven innocent beyond a shadow of a doubt to the objective viewer. Barring an unforseen error, he did nothing wrong with his handling of CIA information; even if Mrs Wilson had been something other than a corrupt mid level paper pusher. The more interesting dynamic to this entire fiasco is the role the press took as head of the lynch mob. They are so starved to defeat or injure President George W Bush that they will take the slightest question and grab the pitchforks and torches. Their obvious bias has gone from leaning left to being braindead hate-filled DNC activists.
The DC and NY press corpse has become such an old boys club and echo chamber that it is near impossible for an original idea to form let alone be vocalized. There is a general thought process that is floated at DNC headquarters which is then spread among the journalists covering the issues to become the approved train of thought. This process is expressed in the beliefs that homosexuality is normal, abortion til the first breath and higher taxes for the public good, WMD, quagmire, etc. Any reporter not regurgitating these thoughts is an outsider and will not be given front pages or awards which are reflected on their paychecks. Thus, all the reporters and commentators just paste their reports to the echo chamber walls and receive their Pulitzer.
News is really nothing more than a commodity and news organizations really only produce this plentiful resource. The commodity that they produce is truth and they must have the credibility to produce a quality product. The Old York Times and it’s partners have driven that credibility into the ground with falsified stories to the point of lying about readership. Like any commodity, when the quality goes down so does the price or in their case, passed over. This is why FOX is receiving excellent ratings since people can distinguish between a quality product and junk. FOX does not report only one side of the story but actually it is quite the opposite, they report both views. They question both sides and trust their customers to decide where the truth lies. Their ratings reflect that quality.
Echo Chambers work fine when you are a monopoly where you don’t have to compete. They are less than efficient when there is competition that is willing to question your results. Along came Rush, Fox and the internet where people who have differed opinions can express those opinions and question the status quo. The consumer is not the uneducated bumpkin they talk down to. Most have college degrees and expertise throughout the business and political worlds. Now when the press fakes news, they are exposed to the world.
Along comes a story like the Karl Rove story. An objective press would have questioned both sides and tried to find where the truth most likely lay. Rather we are bombarded by attack dogs attempting to bring down the President. Forget the truth, they abuse their fading power in a corrupt fashion to hurt the President they despise. There are no questions about what Wilson knew and why he was so wrapped around this story. There was no questions why this woman was in jail even though Rove gave her permission to use his name. These are the most basic, what, when and where questions imaginable yet there is no curiosity from these nattering nabobs. No, they have a job to do. Once again they are a complete disgrace to their so called profession and their ratings will reflect their disgusting behavior.
We sit here once the silent majority but no longer. We are interconnected now and information is power that has never been tapped. We have our own spokesmen and we are the majority for the first time. This majority is growing and no amount of a failing monopoly’s disrespect will change that. In the not so distant future we will have our people in these echo chambers who will have the courage to paste a different story to that wall. When that opinion is freely pasted we will have a truly Free Press where truth will be the ultimate goal.
Enough braying
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
Yep. Good positive post.
Pass it on Bump
I'm very serious. Letters to editors, statements on talk radio and also to members of congress.
I'm willing to do my part. I'll start with some e-mails today.....
BUMP
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.
A highly relevant corroborating account is David Corn's at the Nation, who wrote about Valerie Plame the day after he met with Joe Wilson.
Story: Cooper's wife (Grunwald)is on Hillary's staff and her best friend.
I'd like to write an article entitled "When Hillary Goes Quietly"...."She's Hiding Something". (This is a noticeable habit she has).
THANK YOU. I already started yesterday and will continue to do so today.
Everyone who can do research, or writing to editors and reporters, please keep after the whole Wilson-Corn-Plame-gate scandal because there is FAR FAR more to this than we have been told so far.... and the bloviating Wilson must be exposed for the charlatan he is. Far more importantly, if this is (as seems plausible) an attempt by Plame or others to manipulate the US election with false stories, that is HUGE! duh.....
We need to be all over the forged documents aspect, what did Wilson know and when/HOW did he know it? Did his wife leak classified info to him in their pillow talk (more likely with complete malice aforethought as a co-conspirator)? Is Valerie Plame a leaker to Judith Miller and/or other reporters, was Valerie manipulating this story, and even worse are there larger players such as the French, Saudis, etc. pulling the strings behind the curtain??
We already know much about Wilson's 'report' and subsequent op-ed column (not to mention his book) is a fraud - he never should have been sent on this 'mission' and his report was bogus and he never should have pretended to the public that his conversations over "sweet mint tea" could ever possibly disprove anything about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger.
Yet, most of the media has totally failed to investigate the grave problems with the original Wilson report and then his attendance at caucus of Democratic pols in May 2003 where he first met Nicholas Kristof and began his bloviating to the media. What are Wilson's ties and contacts with various reporters and Democratic Party figures, especially in May-June-July 2003 as the story unfolded?? Was his wife present when he met Nick Kristof and was she already helping to 'blow' any cover she may have had by cooperating with him in his madcap adventures with the media??
Every reporter who might have received info from Wilson BEFORE the David Corn column appeared identifying Valerie Plame as a secret CIA agent needs to be pressed to fess up - once Wilson is shown to be a liar and manipulator of the story, there is no ethical claim for various reporters to continue to protect him as a source, is there? I would think that journalistic ethics should require that reporters unmask and debunk a source who has been shown to be lying to and manipulating them.
In addition to the fact that Wilson had not the slightest competence or experience as an investigator, his original NY Times op-ed was deeply flawed by his assumption that anything he heard in his days in Niger could possibly disprove Iraqi interest in Niger uranium. No one in the media seems to be noticing that Wilson changed the standard from whether there was any Iraqi interest in uranium (all that was asserted in the reference to British intelligence in the infamous "16 words" of the Bush SOU address) to whether there had been actual SALE of uranium. Even the latter could not be disproved by Wilson's sessions over sweet mint tea, and he certainly could not disprove whether there had been any secretive Iraqi approaches about uranium - Wilson's account assumes that some official(s) in Niger, involved in any discussion of illegal uraniums sales (possibly smuggling for private gain??), would simply volunteer this information to a visting US former diplomat. It is preposterous on the face of it that Wilson's mission could possibly settle the policy and intelligence debate, yet he has gone on now for 2+ years pretending that he, Joe Wilson, established the facts and the WH ignored them.
Wilson's report only added some 2nd-hand support to the concerns about Iraq and Niger uranium, though he was too dense to realize it, because he did relay the information that "Baghdad Bob" himself had tried to initiate trade talks with Niger.... since Niger has exactly ONE export that could be of any potential interest to Saddam (besides uranium, the other options for Niger's potentially booming trade relations with Baghdad are "livestock, cowpeas, onions"). Just think, maybe they wanted the uranium, not the cowpeas!
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ng.html
Now we need someone to find out whether Valerie had any further role in this boondoggle - i.e., did she go on the trip (was it a taxpayer funded scam), did she have anything to do with producing his report, did she use him to further any sort of position she was taking within the CIA vis-a-vis WMDs???? Perhaps this was taking bureaucratic warfare among analysts within the CIA to a new level, especially if it was Valerie who termed the idea of Iraq seeking Niger uranium a "crazy report" when she first recommended her husband for the mission....
OR, perhaps Jack Kelly's suggestion is correct and this whole manipulated story was all about throwing the 2004 election to Kerry? It all fits - now we have to piece together all the details and raise hell, because the MSM certainly won't pursue the story without massive pressure.
Wow, after a busy weekend, I am certainly out of the loop. I didn't have a clue about the Grumwald/Clinton connection. Thank you for providing this lovely tidbit.
I sure hope the left never stops looking like the raving mad idiots they are.
After reading hundreds of articles which do not mention Cooper's "high ranking DEM wife"...you get suspicious.
both posts are exceptional, and should be submitted to mensweardaily, etc., IMHO.
gifted and thoughtful freepers here....
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