Once the national media re-discovered the Plame scandal, coincidentally right around the time Matt Cooper and Judith Miller ran out of appeals, I’ve been keeping an eye out for newspaper editorials on the subject, particularly from the major dailies. Once Karl Rove was implicated, I more or less expected to see a flood of editorials condemning Rove, calling for his ouster. It hasn’t really happened.
To be sure, there have been exceptions. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer’s editorial board urged the president to fire Rove “immediately,” adding, “[E]nough is known that the president must suspend Rove and cease all contacts with Rove until the investigation is complete. Rove, it appears, cannot be trusted with the United States’ secrets.” Likewise, the Philadelphia Daily News editorialized, “There is no easy way to explain this away. And the White House shouldn’t even try. Rove must go.”
But among the top-tier newspapers, there’s been an odd hesitance over this. Most of the editorials have been like this offensive item from the Washington Post, which for reasons that defy comprehension, parroted GOP talking points to attack Joseph Wilson.
It’s one reason I was pleasantly surprised to see the Los Angeles Times’ editorial on the scandal this morning. For one of the nation’s biggest dailies to accuse the White House of orchestrating a “cover-up” is no small matter — but that’s exactly what the LAT did.
However they came to learn about this juicy factoid, people in the Bush administration misused an intelligence secret to discredit a critic of its Iraq policy. And outing Plame, whether illegal or not, did harm to our national security. Plame may work in Langley, Va., but she worked with others who work in more dangerous locales. You only need to imagine how Republicans would have treated such a leak in the Clinton administration to dismiss their protestations that it’s all no big deal.
The LAT went on to say “it’s a good bet that there has already been some lying under oath,” and blamed Bush for not finding out early on who was responsible for the leak and taking corrective measures.
Why didn’t Bush two years ago just ask Karl Rove and a few others in the administration whether they had leaked Plame’s identity to Bob Novak and the others? Why doesn’t he ask Rove now? Is it because he knows the answer? Or because he doesn’t want to have to fire Rove?
As a precaution against such a catastrophe, Bush now says he will fire anyone found to have broken the law by outing an undercover intelligence operative. Previously he had said he would fire anyone who outs an intelligence officer, period.
The coverup, in short, is going well.
Nice to see it in print, isn’t it?