Sunday Discussion Group — Plame Game Edition

July 3, 2005

It figures. Just figures. Friday afternoon, in advance of the July 4th weekend, the same afternoon of the most important Supreme Court retirement in generations, and we learn that Karl Rove is up to his ears in a criminal scandal that could rock the White House.

Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to a federal judge, revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source or sources in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant. Lawrence O’Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, now claims that at least two authoritative sources have confirmed that one name is top White House mastermind Karl Rove.

A Newsweek piece, published online yesterday, doesn’t exactly clear things up. The article noted that Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove spoke with Time’s Matt Cooper for an article about Joseph Wilson. Luskin, however, despite the rumors circulating around the story, told Newsweek that Rove “never knowingly disclosed classified information” and that “he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.”

I usually come up with some broader/historical issue for the Sunday Discussion Group, but let’s use today’s post for reckless speculation about a story that’s about to break wide open.

Was Rove one of the “senior administration officials” who leaked Plame’s name? If Rove’s leak fell short of the legal threshold, does Fitzgerald perhaps have a pending perjury charge against Rove? Any chance we’ll still see Rove “frogmarched out of the White House“?

Will the media finally start treating this White House criminal investigation with Clinton-like attention? If Rove is one of the leakers, is Scooter Libby still considered the likely suspect as the other leaker? And what role might John Bolton have played in all this?

And there’s also the bigger picture. If Rove goes down, does he take others with him? Does Bush pardon him? What will this to do the White House’s ability to place Sandra Day O’Connor with a fire-breathing radical on the Supreme Court?

Scandals are purely matters of perception – will the media cover it, how will the media cover it, and how often will the media cover it? All of this will hinge on one simple issue: just how “undercover” was Plame, and what damage was done by her being outed? When the story first broke, there was detailed reporting on the nature of her “non-official cover”, including the CIA’s creation of a phony corporation where she could claim employment, and the fact that she had made overseas contacts under the guise of this identity. But such nuances have not reappeared in the current round of coverage, giving plenty of traction to baseless assertions by the likes of Toensig, Safire and Lowry that Plame wasn’t really undercover, and that all of this is therefore a non-issue. Americans will only care about this if they are confronted (again and again) with solid reporting on precisely how these “senior administration officials” jeopardized Plame, her contacts, and our national security.

  • Of course Rove was one of the “senior administration officials” who leaked Plame’s name and identity as a CIA spy. One of her CIA-spy contemporaries, who was already out (with CIA approval) — I think his name was Johnson — already voched for her status at the time Novak’s column appeared. She was, in fact, someone whose ideentity as status was known, and leaking it was in fact a federal crime — to claim otherwise is historical revision, spinning (i.e., lying), or just simply too naive and/or stupid to understand the plain import of the law involved.

    While Rove’s role is huge, as may be the White House’s cover-up — which would explain both the fact that Fitzgerald hasn’t wrapped up his investigation even though he apparently knows the names of the leakers AND that he needs Miller/Cooper corroboration to meet the case law conspiracy requirements — this is likely beyond even perjury and/or obstruction of justice. It may go all the way to treason … this is a violation of the nation’s most sensitive secrets, and compromised national security — and whether it did in fact cost lives is beside the point; years and years of our foreign espionage efforts have been permanently scuttled. THAT is the very definition of “treason” within the meaning of both the U.S. Constitution as well as federal statutory and case law.

    On a related note, the most telling aspect of O’Donnell’s recent disclosures is the apparent fact that the identiy of the “senior administration officials” was an OPEN SECRET amongst the beltway media gang. Not just that they agreed on “speculation” that it was Rove and (maybe) Libby of Bolton, but that it was a KNOWN FACT!! The bastards knew it, and refused to out the son-of-a-bitches who compromised both our national security and our democracy. I expect that from Novak and his ilk; hell, he proved his whore status long ago, and his outing of Plame just confirmed once again that he is thug tool of the right wing. What is such a serious indictment of the Compliant Complicit Corporate Press (the “CCCP”) is that they ALL knew this and chose to look the other way.

    Digby at Hullabaloo says it better, but it is indeed, finally, a confirmation of what we all knew: the media’s “ignorance” is, instead, intentional betrayal of their collective duty to act in the PUBLIC interest for the sake of personal and corporate profit. BETRAYAL is the fact. Sad indeed.

  • I agree with both posts above. So far this weekend, this story has barely scratched the surface on online news sites, or on the cable news channels. It should have generated huge headlines. The MSM has indeed abdicated its’ responsibility!!!

  • They (the MSM) are probably readying the same excuse they used for the Downing Street Memo non-reporting: it’s “old news” and a “non-story”.

    Once the blogs get out ahead of them on this (yet again) they will probably scramble to at least say something of import. What do you want to bet that we will see numerous references to “shark attacks” in the reporting on all this?

  • Phil’s point is important. After seeing this all over the blogs since Friday, I expected some mention of it on the morning shows today. What did we get? Nothing.

    O’Connor retired and it’s a holiday, but isn’t this pretty important too?

  • It seems like the various threads of Republican corruption are weaving themselves into an explosive tapestry that could be just about ready to go off. We’ve got Tom DeLay, Duke Cunningham, Jack Abramoff and now Karl Rove all up to their eyeballs in criminal shenanigans backed up with solid substantiated proof. ( Still publicly unconfirmed in Rove’s case but it’s looking very promising. ) Add to that a growing movement in the country to impeach Bush himself if it can be proved that he lied about the war in Iraq, including 25% of Republicans according to recent polls who are finally getting fed up with being treated like idiots when they can see the truth before their own eyes every single day on the television.

    And then there’s the new Supreme Court vacancy which has everyone holding their breath to see how Bush tries to fill it. If he screws that up, too, it may just be the straw that breaks the camel’s back and generates a critical mass of public outrage that hasn’t been seen since Viet Nam. I’m really looking forward to this!

  • Donald,

    You may be just a tad premature, but if the Dems take over at least one branch of Congress — and the pendulum [as I like to call it, but “critical mass” works for me too] is swinging back our (America’s) way — then I think the fat lady will be singing for Bu$hCo and all the evil minions. Rock on!

    How appropriate that, on the weekend we celebrate America’s founding as the best representative democracy on the face of the Earth, this story should come out on Rove and, apparently, the White House’s efforts to undermine it!!

  • This stuff needs to be driven home. It’s crazay that even the Washington Post is only printing Rove’s denial. Can’t find much more info anywhere else accept here and interestingly enough on Drudge.

    I’m saddened that we nearly impeached a good man over nothing and this jack ass does whatever he wants unabated.

  • Does anyone really imagine that there are any limits to what Bush will do to protect Rove?

  • “. . . in a criminal scandal that could rock the White House.”

    That’s the longest could I’ve ever seen. Nothing, but nothing, will ever touch this White House. We are all dreamers.

    Sometimes I think it’s because the crimes committed
    by this administration are beyond our comprehension,
    and so we have to bury them.

    Other times, I think everyone capable of exposing this obscene parody of government has been thoroughly bought off by the tax cuts. Why would
    you rock the boat loaded with gold?

  • Luskin, however, despite the rumors circulating around the story, told Newsweek that Rove “never knowingly disclosed classified information” and that “he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.”

    See here’s where the parsing of the right can be effective: A) Novak isn’t a reporter, he’s a columnist, that makes a big difference (to them) and/or B) Rove may not have done the contacting himself, but someone did on his say-so. Remember “The wife is fair game”?

  • This gang of draft dodgers sickens me. SICKENS. Look at the Bush Crime Family history, it is filled with one disgusting criminal endeavor after another. The worst thing to EVER happen to this country is the BUSH FAMILY, nothing anyone can say can dispute that. The absolute arrogance and greed of these people is beyond politics. What I am hoping is that all these news organizations are being careful about this story, until the facts come out. Lets pray for the opening we need, and this gang of lying scumbags that comprise this administration will be skewered for the next 3.5 years. I would use a large number of expletives to make myself feel better, but I will restrain myself for now. Here is what I am really hoping to find out, what Cheney and Bush said when they testified, remember that Bush had to have Cheney hold his hand, since he couldn’t have Daddy go with him. Hope they dug a big hole for themselves.

  • I’m hoping, perhaps unrealistically, that the relative quiet surrounding this story is a good sign, not a bad one. Consider:

    1) As our host noted in the introductory piece, this is the mother of all news graveyard weekends. Between the holiday, O’Connor, and Wimbledon (which just ended today), this just isn’t the time to try to wedge in a story of this magnitude and importance. Better to let it bubble for a few more days, then explode in mid-week.

    2) If there’s blood in the water, maybe the sharks are currently looking for its source. Between Felt’s recent outing as Deep Throat and the pervasive polling that’s illustrated the unpopularity of Bush and the Republicans, there has to be both inspiration and motive for some would-be Woodward to make himself or herself a legend. Let them get the goods, rather than rush into print or on the air with something that could be knocked away.

    3) The legal action will keep going anyway. Josh Marshall on Talking Points Memo thinks that Fitzgerald is looking at Rove for some crime committed after Plame was exposed–perjury, or something similar. The man seems to grind slow, but grind fine. There are shoes yet to drop.

    In the meantime, though, we all need to keep pushing our media–which deserve every word of the criticism fired at them in the comments here–to pursue this story. That’s our patriotic duty right now. Because this might be the last, best chance to stop this criminal gang before they do irreparable damage to our American system, in addition to all the human damage they’ve done already.

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