Karl Rove is a complete reprobate, and he isn't going anywhere.
Putting a face to the definition
From Dictionary.com:
rep·ro·bate
n.
- A morally unprincipled person.
- One who is predestined to damnation.
Let's look at the events of the last three days...
On Sunday, Newsweek published online an article printed in the July 18 issue. The article--by Michael Isikoff--disclosed that the secret source used by Time's Matt Cooper in the outing of Valerie Plame was none other than...Karl Rove. Now I know what some of you are thinking. This is the same Newsweek reporter whose article about flushing the Koran down the toilet was retracted by Newsweek in shame, so how in the world can this latest article have any credibility?
This time Isikoff obtained documentation establishing Rove's involvement, and it came not from an anonymous source, but from Time and Cooper in the form of an email. Here is Isikoff's description of the email:
A Monday article from the Washington Post had more comments from Rove's lawyer.
Over the last two days, the White House has basically refused to issue any comment about Rove's involvement in the Plame affair. Scotty McClellan has exceeded his own extreme level of bullshit, but a full explanation of that requires its own post. Until then, here are some highlights from Tuesday's Washington Post:
And let's not forget about The Man himself. As the AP reported today, "Bush did not respond to a reporter's question Tuesday about whether he would fire Rove, in keeping with a June 2004 pledge to dismiss any leakers of Valerie Plame's identity." And that's a good way to segue to the next section...
History is so historical.
Everything in the previous section is significant because of what the Bush administration has said in the past. Here's a chronological sampling:
Q: On the Robert Novak-Joseph Wilson situation, Novak reported earlier this year -- quoting -- "anonymous government sources" telling him that Wilson's wife was a CIA operative. Now, this is apparently a federal offense, to burn the cover a CIA operative. Wilson now believes that the person who did this was Karl Rove. He's quoted from a speech last month as saying, "At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." Did Karl Rove tell that --
MR. McCLELLAN: I haven't heard that. That's just totally ridiculous. But we've already addressed this issue. If I could find out who anonymous people were, I would. I just said, it's totally ridiculous.
Q; But did Karl Rove do it?
MR. McCLELLAN: I said, it's totally ridiculous.
Q: All right. Let me just follow up. You said this morning, "The President knows" that Karl Rove wasn't involved. How does he know that?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. I saw some comments this morning from the person who made that suggestion, backing away from that. And I said it is simply not true. So, I mean, it's public knowledge. I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove --
Q: But how does --
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not going to get into conversations that the President has with advisors or staff or anything of that nature; that's not my practice.
Q: But the President has a factual basis for knowing that Karl Rove --
MR. McCLELLAN: I said it publicly. I said that --
Q: But I'm not asking what you said, I'm asking if the President has a factual basis for saying -- for your statement that he knows Karl Rove --
MR. McCLELLAN: He's aware of what I've said, that there is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it.
Q: Do you think that the Justice Department can conduct an impartial investigation, considering the political ramifications of the CIA leak, and why wouldn't a special counsel be better?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Let me just say something about leaks in Washington. There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch; there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.
Q: You have said previously from the podium that these types of accusations against Karl are "ridiculous."
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes.
PRESIDENT BUSH: And, you know, there's a lot of leaking in Washington, D.C. It's a town famous for it. And if this helps stop leaks of -- this investigation in finding the truth, it will not only hold someone to account who should not have leaked -- and this is a serious charge, by the way. We're talking about a criminal action, but also hopefully will help set a clear signal we expect other leaks to stop, as well. And so I look forward to finding the truth.
Q: Scott, the President just expressed his desire to get to the bottom of this CIA leak issue. And he said he wanted to hold accountable whoever was responsible --
MR. McCLELLAN: Absolutely.
Q: -- responsible for this. But can you confirm that the President would fire anyone on his staff found to have leaked classified information?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think I made that very clear last week. The topic came up, and I said that if anyone in this administration was responsible for the leaking of classified information, they would no longer work in this administration.
What an asshole.
And what is Bush going to do about this?
Not a damn thing, that's what. As I have said repeatedly, Bush places the highest possible value on loyalty. Not only has Rove been loyal to Bush, Bush owes everything to Rove. Bush is not going to get rid of Rove.
Marshall Wittman of Bull Moose posted a further explanation of this reality:
This time Isikoff obtained documentation establishing Rove's involvement, and it came not from an anonymous source, but from Time and Cooper in the form of an email. Here is Isikoff's description of the email:
"Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation ..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]" and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.(emphasis added). Now I know what some of you are thinking. How do we know this email is in any way accurate? Well, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, told Newsweek that Rove had indeed spoken to Cooper about Joseph Wilson and his wife (Valerie Plame).
*******Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division.
A Monday article from the Washington Post had more comments from Rove's lawyer.
Luskin said yesterday that Rove did not know Plame's name and was not actively trying to push the information into the public realm.Let me see if I understand...Rove's position is that he did nothing wrong because he did not mention Plame's name but instead only said "Wilson's wife"? To quote John McEnroe, "You cannot be serious!" I bet Rove has a particularly creative definition of "is" as well.
*******"Rove did not mention her name to Cooper," Luskin said. "This was not an effort to encourage Time to disclose her identity. What he was doing was discouraging Time from perpetuating some statements that had been made publicly and weren't true."
Over the last two days, the White House has basically refused to issue any comment about Rove's involvement in the Plame affair. Scotty McClellan has exceeded his own extreme level of bullshit, but a full explanation of that requires its own post. Until then, here are some highlights from Tuesday's Washington Post:
It was journalists' first chance to grill McClellan on camera since coming to the conclusion that he had misled them 18 months ago when he said President Bush's top political aide, Karl Rove, had nothing to do with the unmasking of a CIA operative. The recipients of McClellan's bum steer were furious -- hectoring him more than questioning him.To be fair, Scotty never really says anything. What is surprising is that it took the Washington press corps this long to go after this putz.
"This is ridiculous!"
"You're in a bad spot here, Scott."
"Have you consulted a personal attorney?"
The 32-minute pummeling was perhaps the worst McClellan received since he got the job two years ago. His eyes were red and tired. He wiggled his foot nervously behind the lectern and robotically refused to answer no fewer than 35 questions about Rove and the outing of the CIA's Valerie Plame. Twenty-two times McClellan repeated that an "ongoing" investigation prevented him from explaining the gap between his past statements and the facts.
*******The Associated Press's Terry Hunt led off. "Does the president stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak of a name of a CIA operative?"
McClellan, wearing a gray suit and heavy makeup, delivered the first of many demurrals. "While that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment," he said.
Hunt, expecting this, pressed: "I wasn't actually talking about any investigation."
"Yes," McClellan allowed, "but this question is coming up in the context of this ongoing investigation."
McClellan delivered a nearly verbatim response to CBS's John Roberts, so NBC's David Gregory tried to provoke him, asking: "Did Karl Rove commit a crime?"
"This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation," a pained McClellan repeated. After dodging some follow-up questions, he tried to quiet Gregory by saying, "Let me finish."
Gregory almost shouted back: "No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything."
And let's not forget about The Man himself. As the AP reported today, "Bush did not respond to a reporter's question Tuesday about whether he would fire Rove, in keeping with a June 2004 pledge to dismiss any leakers of Valerie Plame's identity." And that's a good way to segue to the next section...
History is so historical.
Everything in the previous section is significant because of what the Bush administration has said in the past. Here's a chronological sampling:
Q: On the Robert Novak-Joseph Wilson situation, Novak reported earlier this year -- quoting -- "anonymous government sources" telling him that Wilson's wife was a CIA operative. Now, this is apparently a federal offense, to burn the cover a CIA operative. Wilson now believes that the person who did this was Karl Rove. He's quoted from a speech last month as saying, "At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." Did Karl Rove tell that --
MR. McCLELLAN: I haven't heard that. That's just totally ridiculous. But we've already addressed this issue. If I could find out who anonymous people were, I would. I just said, it's totally ridiculous.
Q; But did Karl Rove do it?
MR. McCLELLAN: I said, it's totally ridiculous.
Q: All right. Let me just follow up. You said this morning, "The President knows" that Karl Rove wasn't involved. How does he know that?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. I saw some comments this morning from the person who made that suggestion, backing away from that. And I said it is simply not true. So, I mean, it's public knowledge. I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove --
Q: But how does --
MR. McCLELLAN: I'm not going to get into conversations that the President has with advisors or staff or anything of that nature; that's not my practice.
Q: But the President has a factual basis for knowing that Karl Rove --
MR. McCLELLAN: I said it publicly. I said that --
Q: But I'm not asking what you said, I'm asking if the President has a factual basis for saying -- for your statement that he knows Karl Rove --
MR. McCLELLAN: He's aware of what I've said, that there is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it.
Q: Do you think that the Justice Department can conduct an impartial investigation, considering the political ramifications of the CIA leak, and why wouldn't a special counsel be better?
THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Let me just say something about leaks in Washington. There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch; there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.
Q: You have said previously from the podium that these types of accusations against Karl are "ridiculous."
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes.
*******
MR. McCLELLAN: Let me make it very clear. As I said previously, he was not involved, and that allegation is not true in terms of leaking classified information, nor would he condone it. So let me be very clear. But I'm not going to -- we're not going to go down every single allegation that someone makes. That's just -- we can do that all day long. Let's stay focused on what the issue is here.PRESIDENT BUSH: And, you know, there's a lot of leaking in Washington, D.C. It's a town famous for it. And if this helps stop leaks of -- this investigation in finding the truth, it will not only hold someone to account who should not have leaked -- and this is a serious charge, by the way. We're talking about a criminal action, but also hopefully will help set a clear signal we expect other leaks to stop, as well. And so I look forward to finding the truth.
Q: Scott, the President just expressed his desire to get to the bottom of this CIA leak issue. And he said he wanted to hold accountable whoever was responsible --
MR. McCLELLAN: Absolutely.
Q: -- responsible for this. But can you confirm that the President would fire anyone on his staff found to have leaked classified information?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think I made that very clear last week. The topic came up, and I said that if anyone in this administration was responsible for the leaking of classified information, they would no longer work in this administration.
- And lastly, a word from the Reprobate: August 31, 2004 (about half way in the transcript)
What an asshole.
And what is Bush going to do about this?
Not a damn thing, that's what. As I have said repeatedly, Bush places the highest possible value on loyalty. Not only has Rove been loyal to Bush, Bush owes everything to Rove. Bush is not going to get rid of Rove.
Marshall Wittman of Bull Moose posted a further explanation of this reality:
As I wrote in my blog this morning, for Bush to get rid of Rove would be like Charlie McCarthy firing Edgar Bergen.It does not matter what Rove does. Rove has for all intents and purposes lied about his involvement in outing Valerie Plame, and yet Bush has done nothing except say that he still has confidence in Rove. Bush is not going to get rid of Rove. The only way to get rid of Rove is for the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, to charge his sorry ass with something--and even that might not do it.
Rove is to this Bush what Lee Atwater was to the father, except more so. He actually created W as a candidate for Governor and then for President.
*******Rove is the nerve center of today's Republican Party. The White House is already lowering the bar for punishment in the Plame case. Unless, the prosecutor has the goods on Karl, he stays. The President and the GOP has no choice. Rove is the closest in Washington to the indispensable man.
posted by WCharles @ 7/12/2005 11:10:00 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home