Making the transition from Wilson to Cooper

July 14, 2005

This week, we’ve learned the greatest enemy the Republicans can think of is Joseph Wilson. The GOP talking points issued earlier this week included six principal arguments, literally all of which sought to undermine Wilson’s credibility.

Now, however, it seems the right-wing machine is shifting gears towards a new enemy: Time’s Matt Cooper.

From a conservative perspective, this is at least coherent. Cooper’s email identifying Rove as someone who leaked classified information made this lingering, two-year-old controversy a front-page scandal. For that matter, Cooper’s two-hour grand-jury testimony yesterday was poised to make Rove look pretty bad. With this in mind, Cooper must be ruined, according to the GOP mindset, or people will believe him. They can’t have that.

The transition from Wilson to Cooper has been subtle but steady the past few days.

* On Tuesday, Rove lawyer Robert Luskin accused Cooper of spinning the truth “in a pretty ugly fashion.”

* On Wednesday, Luskin lashed out at Cooper again, claiming Cooper never got an “express person release” to testify before the grand jury.

* Last night, Sean Hannity apparently claimed on Fox News that Cooper set Rove up.

* And yesterday, responding to Cooper’s appearance before the grand jury, Luskin subtly sought to bring Cooper’s credibility into question.

“By facilitating Cooper’s testimony, Rove has helped ensure the special prosecutor has access to all relevant information from every source,” Luskin said. “Cooper’s truthful testimony today will not call into question the accuracy or completeness of anything Rove has previously said to the prosecutor or grand jury.”

Boy, they’re getting clever, aren’t they? This last one gets the award for “pre-emptive smear of the week.”

If Rove is indicted, watch for Cooper to become the right’s new public enemy #1. I’m sure Joseph Wilson will be thrilled.

This is a new take that is similar to the strategy of attorneys defending rapists – attack the victim, call her a whore, and say she asked for it.

  • If Rove is indicted, Fitzgerald becomes the target. Runaway prosecutor and all. Cooper will be slimed, but it’s clear that it won’t be Cooper’s testimony that makes the difference. Remember, once indictments issue, all this stuff will start playing out in public. There will certainly be witnesses aside from Cooper.

  • Judith Miller went to jail.

    Karl Rove should go to prison.

    If that doesn’t happen, there is no justice in America.

  • The current attack on Joseph Wilson is particularly ironic (in a Rovian sense) in light of this handwritten note from George H.W. Bush, written to Wilson on January 30, 1991 in the midst of “Desert Storm,” the first Persian Gulf War, and reprinted in Wilson’s book: “Dear Joe — Both Barbara and I appreciated your note of Jan. 25. Even more, we appreciate your service to your country and your courageous leadership when you were in Baghdad. Good Luck. Many Thanks. George Bush”

  • I get the feeling that hiring Luskin may have been a big mistake for this particular case. First, his idiotic bloviating gave the green light to Matt Cooper (it is not Karl Rove Matt Cooper is protecting). Now he is demonizing a reporter during the period that this will play out in the press (ultimately it is in Fitzgerald’s hands who seems awfully secretive, as he should at this point).
    That seems liike a very risky strategy. currently the press is completely cowed by the administraation and uncritically parrots the official line, but when they see theirwn kind getting demonized they may become further intimidated, but some, and it only take a few, might decide that official statements no longer have the assumption of being true, a very dangerous place for Luskin to be taking his client.
    Totally tangentially, shouldn’t someone ask Patrick Fitzgerald if he has asked McClellan to be silent, and when he asked him to stop talking about the case? It seems to me that Fitzgerald can only gain from McClellan being forced to speak to the issue, or at least increase the pressure.

  • Totally tangentially, shouldn’t someone ask Patrick Fitzgerald if he has asked McClellan to be silent, and when he asked him to stop talking about the case?

    He wouldn’t answer that, I’d bet. But he might say, “I have no comment. The rules on grand jury secrecy are well known.”

    Witnesses are under no compulsion to be silent under those rules.

  • Folks,

    We must focus on whether George Bush was involved in the outing of Valerie Plame. By focusing on Rove you are missing the point. In all likelihood, W was involved in treasonous activities. Fitzgerald should throw the book at him. My dream is to have Bush and Rove in Guantanomo so that they could relish some of the experiences they loved to inflict on others.

    In my eyes, the real enemy of the American people in George W. Bush. He has mad America extremely insecure and has created a haven for terrorists in Iraq. …………….All in addition to crimes like the Plame incident.

  • Question: Fitzgerald has very pointly been designated “Special Counsel” rather than “Special Prosecutor”. Does a Special Counsel have the power to bring criminal charges independant of the AG?

  • And here is what Secretary of State James Baker wrote to Joseph Wilson on a picture of the two of them sitting together in the Oval Office on January 14, 1991, 48 hours after Wilson had closed the American embassy in Baghdad (and 36 hours before American bombs started Desert Storm): “To Joe Wilson, with deep appreciation for yoru outstanding service to the nation — and with warmest personal regards. Jim Baker”
    President George H.W. Bush inscribed a picture of the two of them walking and talking on the White House grounds that day: “To Joe Wilson — with respect and best wishes. George Bush”

  • Except that Baker’s handwritten inscription didn’t include the typo in “your.” That was my own contribution.

  • hrosenkrantz@bloomberg.net, wroberts@bloomberg.net
    write in boomberg today:

    Second graf in: There has been no evidence made public that Rove identified the agent to reporters.
    Next-to-last graf: Rove . . . said it was “Wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD issues . . .”

    isn’t this i.d.ing?

    you can write and ask them yourself how this works.

  • This is all GOP parsing. The spinners of the GOP think that because Rove didn’t explicity say “V.P. is Wilson’s wife and she is a covert agent for the CIA” that she wasn’t outed by Rove.

    I must say I find this spnning and parsing by the GOP on a whole host of topics – the lastest is Plame/Rove – to be mildly amusing if a whold lot frustrating. While they were and are constantly all over Clinton & Co for this the obviously read from the manual and have mastered it in ways that make Clinton & Co look amaturish.

  • How about making the transition from just outing Plame to all the other damage done by Rove’s smug whispering. From and interview with Joe Wilson:

    Raw Story: Do we know the extent of the damage outside of your wife and her projects? Do we know the number of casualties including other assets, abroad or other domestic assets?

    Wilson: I think that is unverifiable. I don’t have any information on that and I don’t know nor would I know if the CIA has done an after action review. Just as general proposition, you have to assume that every project or program she was ever involved in has been rolled up. Whether there are casualties is something I don’t know.

    The other thing you can assume that even if 150 people read the Novak article when it appeared, 148 of them would have been the heads of intelligence sections at embassies here in Washington and by noon that day they would have faxing her name or telexing her name back to their home offices and running checks on her: whether she had ever been in the country, who she may have been in contact with, etc.

    … Nice going Karl. I feel safer already.

    • Comments are closed.