|
|
|
Become a
Paid Mullings Subscriber!
(To join the FREE mailing list or to unsubscribe Click Here
In Full Bellow
Rich Galen Wednesday July 13, 2005
There is no bigger deal in Washington, DC this week than the Karl Rove business.
To catch up, I recommend most strongly that you review previous Mullings:
"The Sweet Mint Teapot Dome Scandal"
"Joe Wilson Can't Find the Truth, Either"
What we know is this: Rove, according to an internal e-mail leaked to Newsweek's Michael Isakoff, was warning Time Magazine's Matt Cooper off the Joe Wilson story.
At the time the story was swirling around that the office of Vice President Cheney had authorized the trip and then buried Wilson's report.
SIDEBAR
If you don't think the popular press is giddy with anticipation about "getting" Rove, consider the odd circumstance of Time Magazine leaking this material to Newsweek Magazine. Macy's/Gimble's; Yankees/Red Sox; CNN/Fox.
Don't give up your August recess vacation waiting for the results of the internal investigation at Time.
END SIDEBAR
The aspect of the story which Cooper was working on wasn't, Is Joe Wilson's analysis Correct? but rather, Who authorized Wilson's mission to Niger in the first place?
Rove was, in effect, helping Cooper by telling him the Veep's office had not authorized the trip; that it was Wilson's wife who "apparently works at the agency on WMD issues."
It has not been alleged by anyone that Rove (a) mentioned (or even knew) Valerie Plame's name, or (b) knew or had any reason to know that she operated in a covert capacity.
It is not illegal to mention the name of someone who works at the CIA. Porter Goss, for instance, is the head of the CIA. In the US we don't, as in James Bond novels, have to refer to the current Director of the CIA as "G".
In fact, it is not clear here who first mentioned the fact that Valerie Plame - who's job in the WMD office of the CIA was that of an analyst - ever held a covert position nor whether she held such a position at the time her name surfaced.
Some national reporters believe the fact that Ms. Plame was actually a covert employee was first mentioned in public by none other than Joe Wilson, thereby outing his own wife.
Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post had a roundup of columns and blogs in which he quotes John Hinderaker of "Power Line" thus: "It is doubtful � the government was making an effort to keep [Plame's] affiliation with the Agency a secret."
Further, in the midst of Hinderaker's post, Kurtz makes the point that Rove's discussion with Cooper "isn't, by the way, the sort of communication that is ordinarily referred to as a 'leak'."
The notion that Karl Rove has been hiding or covering up is beyond ridiculous. Even Jack Quinn - Bill Clinton's Legal Counsel - said on Fox yesterday that "Karl Rove has testified before the grand jury three times," and made no suggestion that Rove didn't testify truthfully.
Even if he thought Rove lied, Quinn is in no position to make the claim that lying to a federal grand jury is a reason to fire a high White House official.
If you know what I mean, and I think you do.
The now-daily spectacle of the White House press corps in Full Bellow, pretending to a holy outrage worthy of an exorcist attempting to draw out the Devil, will soon wear thin.
White House spokesman Scott McClellan will stick to his "can't-comment-during-an-investigation" line until the A-List Press Corps throws up its collective hands and heads off to Martha's Vineyard for the August recess allowing the C-List wannabees to man the bars in Waco, Texas covering the President's vacation at Prairie Chapel Ranch.
In the end, the Democrats will suffer. The once-great party is being led by MoveOn-dot-org and its wholly-own subsidiary, How-Weird Dean, has no new ideas. Democrats have presented no new initiatives. They are totally trapped into a response mode.
No matter how much they want it, Karl Rove is not going to lead the Democrats into the future.
On the Secret Decoder Ring page today: A link to Howard Kurtz' on-line column, a Mullfoto and a Catchy Caption of the Day.
--END --
Copyright © 2005 Richard A. Galen
Current Issue |
Secret Decoder
Ring | Past
Issues | Email
Rich | Rich
Who?
Copyright �2002 Richard
A. Galen | Site design by Campaign
Solutions. | |
|
� 
