[tag]Karl Rove[/tag] sat down for an interview at the [tag]Aspen Ideas Fest[/tag] with moderator Walter [tag]Isaacson[/tag], president and CEO of the Aspen Institute, who had the good sense to ask some important questions. The exchange about the Plame scandal was particularly noteworthy (via TP).
As for the [tag]Plame[/tag] affair, Rove stumbled and then refused to answer.
Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent whose identity administration sources revealed to conservative columnist Robert Novak after her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, publicly challenged the administration’s claims about Iraq’s nuclear program. Her career with the CIA ended, and some of her sources may have been in jeopardy as a result of the leak.
Isaacson posed the question in the same way Clinton had Friday night. Issacson, parroting Clinton, pointed out that if a member of the Clinton administration had outed a CIA officer, “You’d be sending people to demand impeachment. You’d be playing it better than the Democrats can play it against you.”
Rove then said that after a “careful, thoughtful, aggressive [tag]investigation[/tag],” then the person responsible should be [tag]fired[/tag].
Issacson pushed a Rove a little further, trying to get him to acknowledge that the leak was, at a minimum, a “regrettable event,” but Rove wouldn’t bite, saying only, “I’m going to respect the fact that there’s an ongoing case.”
But regret aside, Rove’s admission that responsible parties should be fired was helpful. Given the fact that Patrick Fitzgerald has already conducted a “careful, thoughtful, aggressive investigation,” and we already know Rove played a key role in the [tag]leak[/tag], we should expect Rove to begin packing his things immediately, right?