My Republican credentials are displayed shinily on my sleeve. I like George W. Bush, Rush Limbaugh and that pre-diet-Limbaugh-lookalike, Karl Rove.
But it seems clear right now that Rove was the source who tipped the Press to the identity of CIA Agent Valerie Plame as part of a political effort to discredit her husband, Mr. Ambassador Wilson.
Wagons are being circled by loyal Republican "Guards". They'll do just fine, I suspect, without my company.
Count me out, I say. I'm not in favor of this type of dishonest clandestine back-stabbing manipulation of political stories, and I'll throw Karl Rove under the bus just as fast as I would Sidney Blumenthal.
It's dirty; we don't need to do that to win, and even if we did need it, that would not be sufficient justification. Throw the bum out.
If Rove did this, it is a criminal act. Bush cannot hope to save him, short of a presidential pardon, nor should he in any case.
ReplyDeleteI'm in the group that doesn't see the big deal. If Rove simply told a reporter that Wilson's wife (who happened to be in the CIA) helped arrange for his assignment, where is the criminality, particularly if she was not an undercover operative or was past the undercover period of her career.
ReplyDeleteMy temptation would be to hunker down and let it pass. I don't think the public cares. If someone would like to spell out the seriousness of the ethical lapse here, I'm willing to come over to your side.
Isn't it against the law to identify a covert CIA agent in another country, and isn't that what Rove did? If that is not what happened, I can see the sense in Bush riding it out, as what Rove did may have been mean but not criminal.
ReplyDeleteOK, so, here goes: There is a law that says it is illegal to expose the identity of a CIA agent.
ReplyDeleteMs. Plame, before her "outing," ran a network of informants for the CIA. Her status as wife to an important U.S. official, Ambassador Joe Wilson, allowed her to travel and do so. That she was his wife was not a secret. Her name was not a secret. Who she worked for, however, was.
Now, in order to discredit Ambassador Wilson for daring to disagree with the President, someone in the Administration, whom we can now be reasonably certain was Mr. Rove, tried to shrug off Wilson's Niger trip as a "junket" arranged by his wife, who worked at the CIA. This effectively blows Plame's cover. All of a sudden, anyone reading a newspaper knows that Wilson's wife works at CIA.
Now, legally, as I understand the statute, Rove is covered. He never "knowingly" (as Luskin is saying) outed a CIA agent (after all, not everyone who works at CIA is an agent), and he did not have the clearance to know her real job.
Ethically, however, Rove is the bacteria that pond scum feeds upon. In a time where his President has declared a national security crisis, Rove's actions have harmed a national security asset. Namely, all of Plame's informants were placed at risk by her outing, as well as the fact that the network was thrown into turmoil by her abrupt departure.
Rove allowed politics to trump the needs of security. Never mind that the politics were "dirty pool" to begin with. Now, I am not one of those liberals who tosses around "treason" with regards to Rove, but at the very least, the President should stick to his publicly given word to fire the person who leaked Plame's name. Rove, being the good Republican soldier he is, should just resign. I'm sure he will arise, G. Gordon Liddy-like, from the ashes of his disgrace. His and Oliver North's felony convictions don't appear to have harmed their reputations one iota when it comes to the Right.
More importantly, however, is that there is another fish to fry. Rove's security clearance could not have allowed him to know that Plame worked for the CIA. Someone had to tell him, knowing what he was going to do with that information. That person did violate the statute, and needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. My understanding is that the two top contenders for this spot are Cheney and Tenet.
My guess is that Tenet will fall on his sword. After all, Bush can't fire him after he's resigned, and he'll just be pardoned if he's convicted.
I should point out that if it is revealed that Rove knew A) The details of Plame's job or B) That knowledge that she worked for CIA was not for public consumption, then the statute will apply.
ReplyDeleteI am with Mr. Elliott on this one. (Will I get thrown off the Republican "team", do you think, in a dark ceremony at the RNC?)
ReplyDeleteAs far as I'm concerned, it's merely an indication that there might be some hope for the Republican party yet.
ReplyDeleteIf Mr. Elliott's summary is correct, I'm still not sure where to stand. Rove could have been quite innocent in the leak. If he didn't know Plame was an agent and merely asserted that she worked for the CIA and had arranged Wilson's trip, then he's just working to undermine a political opponent, which is completely legit.
ReplyDeleteSo then you admit that the case to go to war in Iraq was entirely politicized?
ReplyDeleteFurthermore, are you saying that Rove is ethically covered from the responsibilities of his actions? Ignorance has never been a defence in law or ethics.
ReplyDeleteAre you also saying that President Bush should go back on his word to the public to fire whoever leaked Plame's name to the press?
As near as I can piece it together, it went down something like this. Wilson uses his inside info to try to discredit the administration. Rove gets on the phone with a few reporters and says essentially this:
ReplyDelete"This Wilson guy's a twat. We send him over to Niger on a matter of national security, and he sits around a five-star hotel's pool drinking mai-tais for a few days. Now he's back mouthing off in the papers like some sort of expert.
Look, we only hired him because his wife's in the government someplace and recommended him. But don't take my word for it, and don't use my name. Check around with some of your other sources, it's common knowledge."
Tlaloc baby, you don't want the paleocons. You'd like them much less than the neos, I suspect.
ReplyDeleteThis is all quite disturbing. What I mean is that some conservatives are ready to jump on the Karl Rove is a sniviling backstabing poltical hack who is guilty, guilty, guilty as charged bandwagon. When the media and Democrats form a lynch mob to go after a conservative I will susbend belief for a very, very long time. If you haven't read it, Byron York at NRO lays out a very convincing case that the initial post and this thread is most premature. The URL: http://www.nationalreview.com/york/
ReplyDeleteyork200507121626.asp
I side with York. Why are some conservatives so quick to side with the liberal/media/Democrat talking points that the administration is out to destroy anybody who disagrees with them. Let's get the facts straight before we grab the ropes.
The Cooper story is not the one which publicized Plame's identity. (I'm not going to say "blew her cover" because half of friggin' Georgetown knew where she worked before Novak wrote word one.) Therefore, we are not going to know anything for real until Novak talks about his grand jury testimony or Fitzgerald's findings become public. I also want to know who Judith Miller's protecting. It sure ain't Rove.
ReplyDeleteYeah, if Rove did what everyone's saying he did, he's slime. But I think everyone's saying a lot more that the known facts support right now.
Guess this two-year investigation was all for nothing then. Somebody ought to tell the investigators.
ReplyDelete