McClellan acknowledges the obvious, says Rove should have been fired

June 1, 2008

It’s easy to forget, now that so much time has elapsed, that the president promised to the nation that he would fire anyone involved with the leak of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame’s identity. Karl Rove was found to have been integrally involved with the scandal, and the president kept “Turd Blossom” around — even refusing to pull Rove’s security clearance — in the process going back on his word.

Some pressed the point for a while, but the White House didn’t care. Eventually, folks just stopped asking when Rove would be fired for his role in this national security scandal, and in time, Rove left of his own volition.

It’s ridiculously late in the game, but I suppose it’s nice to have the former White House press secretary acknowledge the obvious.

President Bush broke his promise to the country by refusing to fire aide Karl Rove for leaking a CIA agent’s identity, said Scott McClellan, the president’s chief spokesman for almost three years.

“I think the president should have stood by his word and that meant Karl should have left,” McClellan said Sunday in a broadcast interview about his new tell-all book, a scathing rebuke of the White House under Bush’s leadership.

McClellan now acknowledges he felt burned by Rove, Bush’s top political adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff. He said Rove and Libby assured him they were not involved in leaking CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity, and he repeated those assurances to reporters.

In fact, Rove and Libby did help leak Plame’s identity, as confirmed in a later criminal investigation. Libby had resigned by then, but Rove remained in office and eventually stepped down on his terms in August 2007.

“I think the president should have stood by the word that we said, which was that if you were involved in this in any way, then you would no longer be in this administration. And Karl was involved in it,” McClellan said.

That Bush broke his word is consistent with everything we know about his character, but it’s worth keeping these details in mind as we get ready to close the book on this nightmare presidency.

The White House had said in 2003 that anyone who leaked classified information in the case would be dismissed. Bush reiterated that promise in June 2004.

By July 2005, Bush qualified his position, saying he would fire anyone for leaking classified information if that person had “committed a crime.”

Rove was never charged with a crime.

McClellan writes in his book that Bush backpedaled to protect Rove, a point McClellan repeated in the interview.

“We had higher standards at the White House,” McClellan said. “The president said he was going to restore honor and integrity. He said we were going to set the highest of standards. We didn’t live up to that. When it become known that his top adviser had been involved, then the bar was moved.”

Matt at TP has more, including this video:

McClellan’s remarks come three days after Rove told Fox News that he was not in any way associated with the Plame leak — a claim we already know to be false.

It’s mind-boggling to me how myopic and clueless Bushies are. McClellan finally realizes what has been obvious to many for years!? Better late than never. McClellan’s realizations must be difficult and painful for him to admit. But, seriously, didn’t Bush’s press secretary ever read the newspapers?

  • Scott also said bush okd the leak. was he going to fire himself? Bush never had any intention of bringing those responsible for the leak to any sort of justice. He just said those things because thats what he was supposed to say in the situation, he never actually believed them.

  • I know this thread is not about John McCain, but I think we have yet another similarity. Yes, McCain got rid of a couple campaign bundlers and a party organizer, but Gramm? Black? Davis? Are they guilty of lesser crimes, or just more important to the boss. If you think about it, Bush got rid of a whole lot of middle men along the way, from the Target store rip-off artist, to Alphonso Jackson and Lurita Doan. But they practically had to drag Alberto Gonzales, Karl Rove, and Donald Rumsfeld from his bleeding fingertips.

  • And now Rove is working for McBush, I mean McCain.

    I’m SHOCKED, just SHOCKED!

    Maybe if the MSM talking heads can make millions like McClellan – they can start telling the truth too – OK, make that billions and we’ve got a snowball’s chance in hell, maybe…

  • Gaucho @ #2:

    Excellent point. Bush already knew that he himself was responsible for the leak when he promised to fire the evildoers.

  • I must be missing something. I had not heard Bush approved the leak. What I heard was he gave Cheney permission to selectively declassify the NIE. Was Plame’s name in it? Would Bush have known that?

    In fact, I thought McClellan said he believed that Bush was unaware of Rove/Libby’s involvement until Fitzgerald’s investigation got under way. Am I wrong here?

  • Rove disputed McClellan’s description of their conversation, claiming that “Scott’s questions to me were: did I leak Valerie Plame’s name, and the answer is no.”

    Do you see the weasel-words in play here? Remember, when Rove and Libby did the leaking they used the phrase “Joe Wilson’s wife.” So it may be technically true that they didn’t leak “Valerie Plame’s name.”

    Does this kind of misleading testimony rise to the level of perjury?

  • Why ever would Scotty expect that the Whitehouse Don would fire the soldier that did his bidding? I think Scotty still has a little way to go in the cognative dissonance department.

  • Scottie really is a buffoon. Bush should have “stood by his word”? “When it become known that his top adviser had been involved”? What an idiot.

    Earth to Scottie, it became known to Bush that Rove was involved about .1 seconds after he agreed with Turdblossom to burn Valerie Plame.

  • OkieFromMuskogee – Thanks. Very thought-provoking article. I’m not sure it convinces me entirely that Bush actually approved the leaking of her name, though. To get there you have to believe Libby’s testimony that he only leaked to Miller what he had been given permission to leak. That said, Bush knew he had approved the NIE leak specifically as a response to the Wilson Op-ed piece. He was certainly aware of the Novak article, and didn’t see a problem with it, even though he most certainly knew the leak came from Cheney’s Iraq group. So at the very least, he knew where the leak came from before he said he would fire anyone associated with it.

    This, however, also suggests that McClellan is still in a state of denial, at least to some degree. And that surprises me, why?

  • Assuming that the folks, who write books like McClellan’s, are telling the truth that they really believed that Bush, Nixon Reagan, McNamara etc. etc. were really great leaders and seekers of admirable goals – which I don’t.

    But assuming that, –
    then by writing and saying that they didn’t know, even though they were eye and ear witnesses, what most Americans, Europeans, Iraqis etc. have known all along means that they are the world’s stupidest people.

    Put another way Scotty your are an airheaded whore, and a traitor, you knowingly worked for political pimps and criminals. You allowed them to sell you and screw you and you said thank you and were grateful and took their money.
    You knowingly lied about military and defense matters, encouraging tying up our troops in a perpetual war and weakening our National defenses.
    You and your Repocon buddies should be lined up along the Vietnam Memorial wall and shot as the traitors that you all are.

  • Marnie: Sorry, but you are a fool in three ways.
    First, I believe that wishing someone dead is not permitted here and can be a banning offense.
    Second, you throw the term ‘treason’ around in the way the LGFers, the Malkins, Schlussels, and Coulters do — and that McCarthy did. It has a specific meaning, and Bush did not commit treason. Certainly McClellan didn’t. (Interestingly enough, at Nuremberg, the only defendant who was acquitted was Hans Fritsch, the radio voice of the Reich — who was considered to be a stand-in for Goebbles.)

    But much more importantly, you seem to be too young to remember Watergate and John Dean. (Keith was brilliant to have Dean on as the final segment of the McClellan show.) People were saying the same things about Dean. “He was part of the whole thing. You can’t trust him. He should be in the dock too.” In fact, he was the person who brought down Nixon, at least as much as Butterfield and the forgotten Frank Wills — the minimum-wage security guard who cared enough about his job to break up the Watergate burglary.

    More importantly, while he still considers himself a ‘Goldwater Conservative’ he’s done a brilliant job of demonstrating how the Bush crowd is not conservative but authoritarian, and has been a voice of reason and honesty ever since.

    Let’s give McClellan a chance to show if he has ‘learned his lesson’ and to see what he does with his new realization. All of us make mistakes, sometimes serious ones. The question is if we can learn from them.

  • I willing to bet they made a point of not talking around a press secretary or allow him access to any critical information. In fact I’m willing to bet they manipulated his idealism at every turn, enough at least to keep him in doubt. One would have to get away from them to really understand just what was going on…at least enough to confirm your own suspicions.

    I hope this results in an impeachment inquiry due to Bush telling McCellan he approved the outing of Plame. Then Scott will have accomplished what millions have been trying to do for the past 7yrs.

    It’s time for more Scotts to come out eh. I think we should cheer them on not ridicule them for not talking sooner.

  • I used to put McCellan on the list of Bushies who deserved criminal prosecution for treason and war crimes for supporting this criminal enterprise. But, I do believe McCellan is now an American hero for coming forward and telling the ugly truth that he was involved in despite the grave risks. Sure, he may be able to sell a bunch of books and make money. I hope he makes a bunch of bucks. Like the mob, Bushies do not accept disloyalty from their members. This is the ultimate sin (worse than Colbert’s slam) and his life is surely at risk (as well as his family’s) for publishing this book. I hope he understands this and takes preventative action. It would be a shame for him to lose his life here, though some might argue it’s poetic justice for his blind (or knowing) complicity.

  • the emperor has no clothes
    the pretender has no robe
    the upsurper already knows

    this kid turned a corner
    unlike the one before him

    intellect in the service
    of hubris/avarice/deception
    is a most fowl use of the gift
    given to us all to discern the
    truth and/or project it

  • Fired? When Rove lay down in front of Bush’s aircraft, they should have just taken off and left him behind.

  • Bush’s statement that he would “fire whoever leaked Valerie Plame’s name to the press” is exactly the same as O.J. Simpson’s statement that he would “never stop looking for the real killers.”

    It’s also the same as when a thirty-year-old man, living with his parents, says, “I’m going to stop playing Nintendo today and go get a job managing a Gap store.” In each case, the statement buys one more day. But no one believes a word of it.

  • I think the president should have stood by the word that we said, which was that if you were involved in this in any way, then you would no longer be in this administration. And Karl was involved in it,” McClellan said.

    Then by Bush’s own words, as SM wrote, Bush knew about the leak and was complicit in it. Bush should have stepped down. Yet, as every petty tyrant and dictator does, ignores his own admission of guilt. I used to believe in the system-yet each day this administration flouts the founding principles for their own gain and power. This is exactly what we fought against for Democracy time and again. I only pray that in November we purge the rats from this off-course ship of state.
    I pray also that the electorate wakes up and makes the right choice, and sometimes betting on the long shot wins.

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