Sad but true, from Kurt Nimmo:
Big deal. It appears Evil Karl, the demented genius of the Bush machine, is the leaker who outed Valerie Plame to Matt Cooper of Time Magazine, according to Greg Mitchell of Editor & Publisher. Karl, of course, wanted to burn Joe Wilson who came back from Niger saying Saddam wasn’t there picking up discounts of yellowcake uranium. So Karl outed Joe’s wife for payback. It is illegal under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act to reveal the identity of a CIA agent and a conviction can bring a maximum sentence of 10 years in the clink. Do you think Karl Rove will see the inside of a jail cell? Do you think he will actually be prosecuted? Judith Miller (the Mistress of Propaganda) may waste away in the jail because her employer refuses to spill the beans about her source to a grand jury, but chances are slim to none Evil Karl will ever have to watch the soap or wear an orange jumper. People like Karl Rove don’t go to jail, not unless they are caught red-handed killing six year olds and cannibalizing the remains.
Rove may be forced to resign from the Bush administration and even if he is prosecuted the next president will pardon him just like Dubya’s daddy pardoned all those Iran-Contra criminals. Meanwhile, if you’re a black male in the Queens neighborhoods of Cambria Heights and Laurelton, you get racially profiled, dragneted, arrested, and interrogated because a cop was shot (or stabbed) in the leg while attempting to arrest somebody for smoking marijuana…
Senator Harkin on the Senate floor [LEAK INVESTIGATION — (Senate – July 20, 2004) [Page: S8437] :
And my final question is this: Where is the same drive and determination by the President or the Vice President when it comes to finding those responsible for the breach of national security this leak caused?
The people who exposed Valerie Plame broke the law. Title 50 U.S.C., section 421. It is very clear on this: Any person who has access to classified information that identifies a covert agent shall be fined or imprisoned not more than 10 years or both.
He then had the section read into the record in it’s entirety. Interesting summer to be sure. I still want to know how much damage was done by the leak to the network of WMD agents.
Treason is treason, no matter who is the perpetrator.
I’ve read conflicting information on Plame.
At the time she was exposed she appeared to working out of headquarters. Yet, she also had been overseas working for a front company that was tracking down arms merchants who might be offering to sell WMD. Probably that means nuclear materials, switches, technology, chemical precursors, etc.
The front company’s cover was blown, along with all its employees, who probably had to be evacuated, and could need new identities.
Others probably couldn’t be evacuated.
There could have been loss of life, for sure.
I still wonder how it is R. Novak remains exempt and untouchable in this mess. Everyone knows it was he who was told by Rove, who hoped to disseminate names and factoids to the complaisant media in order to get even with Wilson.
Few seem to care that a crime has been committed deliberately and blatantly, in front of God and all the world. Although in the present scope of crimes against people perceived as unfriendly to Bush policy, this one is just a blip, it has consequences. When and how they manifest themselves will be interesting to see.
if George Bush and Dick Cheney were implicated in this case as well. I thought it strange that George Bush fired John Ashcroft. It could have been payback for allowing this case to go to a special prosecutor. He needed Ashcroft to stay in until the election was over so that he would get the “religious wrong” wingnut votes and then canned him right after the election. Alberto Gonzales is loyal to George Bush so he needs him in that position to cover Georgie’s ass. My question is, where will Gonzales be most helpful in this case, in the SCOTUS or as an attorney general? Bush doesn’t want ROE v WADE overturned anymore than we do. He knows it will be the death blow to the republican party. Gonzales will be more than the perfect choice and he needs him in there now when/if this case goes back to the supreme court. That is why he needs a speedy confirmation.
IMHO, What will the media do this time to help Bushco/Rove. If this goes unreported I think I will just about give up.
Trying to play both sides of the field, a front page article in today’s New York Times does a passable job of presenting Plame and Wilson as likeable people but does not mention Rove at all. Seems to be mostly a “human interest” story as far as the NY Times is concerned at this point.
There is some egregious spin included in the article too:
That’s just ugly and disappointing to see glibly parroted in what could and should have been a much more informative article.
“his minor involvement”? Checking out claims of yellowcake being used by Saddam Hussein is “minor”? The man is a flipping expert! Then why did they send him over there in the first place? And why did Bush mention the yellowcake in his SOTU speech? Because it was just a “minor” thing? If it was so damn minor, why didn’t they send some low level minion to Niger to investigate instead of a former ambassador? Geez, NYT, wake up.
> Geez, NYT, wake up.
it is inexcusably lame “reporting”.
Contrast for instance with the much different picture just a few details reported by Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker over a year and a half ago:
and
and to think I used to read the New York Times for news and look at The New Yorker for cartoons.
and of course nothing in the NY Times about Rove yet either …
Seymour Hersh is the man. He understands exactly what being a journalist means.
and of course nothing in the NY Times about Rove yet either …
Really? Not a peep? Wow.
in a more-or-less unrelated article that ran yesterday: Bush Compares Challenges in Iraq to First Independence Day
so, that’s a bit better. Nothing else I could find that came out in the NYT online edition today though.
I agree. Outing a covert CIA agent and getting away with it means that nothing will happen to these people. The stolen elections were ignored, Haliburton’s money grab in Iraq seemingly interests no one (in the press), the failure to find wmd is dismissed, the Downing Street minutes and other related documents not reported, and so on. Each of these issues, by themselves, should have shaken the administration to the core, but despite the continuing horrible news out of Iraq and Afghanistan, despite polling that shows that a majority of Americans are not happy with the current state of affairs and W’s mismanagement of this country, the main stream media focuses on missing white girls, shark attacks and the nasty things that liberals say. I gave up cable over a year and a half ago and gave away my television set last November in protest of the main stream media, but I am still at their mercy as long as they actively continue to keep the majority of Americans woefully uninformed. I’m not giving up, but I am beginning to reach a point where I don’t, or can’t, care as much as I did in 2000. That is, I have been so demoralized by the reporting done by what passes as “our” press, the assault on the constitution by religious right-wingers, the shameless raping of our treasury by corrupt politicians, the spineless politicians who can’t seem to understand their role as a member of the opposition party, etc., that I don’t know that I will be able to fully embrace a new and improved America when (and I do believe it is inevitable) reform finally comes. There are too many people who have given this administration a pass and allowed us to become the thing that everyone (outside of the U.S.) hates.
Ken Lay, Tom Delay, Abu Gonzo etc etc ad infinitum as criminals who will never see the inside of a courtroom let alone one of those oh so inviting penetentiaries they so love to see such heinous criminals such as shop lifters, dope smokers and flag burners sent to.
when you write
Ah, but George H W Bush was, like his predecessor, a Republican. If the next president is a Democrat (we can still hope). then s/he would definitely NOT be pardoning Rove.
Which is why Shrub would do so on his way out the door.
You know what? Even if he doesn’t receive jail time and is eventually pardoned, I’ll be happy to see the bastard frog-marched out of DC regardless.
He won’t be charged. He did not KNOWINGLY reveal the CIA agent’s identity. But that little BooMan frog in the left hand corner of the screen is starting to shiver and shake.
Getting a little nervous, are we, Froggie?
I’m happy with the media attention. Joe Wilson must be smiling, he has waited long enough for this to happen. I’m happy that Rove might be losing sleep over this. But I expect no charges because the story will be that Rove “innocently” mentioned Valerie Plame. For detailed excuses that Rove or his lawyers will give, look up Novak’s.
he lied to the Grand Jury, in which case he is fucked.
I doubt that this ‘master of self-preservation’ would ever lie to a Grand Jury. His testimony would be carefully crafted to avoid ever ever incriminating himself.
I never put Rove in the genius category, but he wins the prize for CUNNING. He will slip out of this noose, watch and see.
It sure looks that way.
THE BOOGER MAN
They seem to have an unnatural attachment to sticking their digits in their noses:
You know, a thought just occurred to me reading this last post. I know that so many of us have written numerous LTEs, emails, phone calls to all the RWCM to no avail. Isn’t it time for us to either do a petition with millions of signatures or start a fund to combat the propaganda? Instead of marching just on DC calling for impeachment, how about camping out in front of the media outlets? Maybe then they might start paying attention. Cancel those subscriptions, stop buying products from those that advertise on these outlet? Isn’t it time we got more organised and took action? I am just asking because I know I cannot do it alone but as ONE we could have the impact needed.
Josh Marshall nailed it in January 2004.
As it turned out, the Bush Admin successfully scuttled media attention on the Plame Scandal, “TreasonGate” as it is now being called. Marshall investigated for a 60 Minutes’ story on “TreasonGate” and the piece was later cancelled in favour of the unfortunate CBS TANG memo story. Only now 18 months later is this scandal getting the attention it deserved in the first place. The frog-marching is closer to a reality than ever.
Just in on CNN. It seems that regardless of the fact that Time magazine agreed to hand over its documents in the Plame leak case, the court may still compel Michael Cooper to testify.
Also, Rove’s defense tactic seems to be that he may have “inadvertently” leaked the name in conversations with reporters the week the news came out. If it’s inadvertent, he gets away with it.
This just gets more slimy every day.
Inadvertent, my ass.
just the bare facts – mentions Fitzgerald, Miller, and Cooper – no speculation about Rove. Hopefully we’ll start seeing more soon as the “reporter drama” makes this story (non-politically) newsworthy.
link to AP article in NY Times
Some interesting analysis today by the author of “Bush’s Brain”: