{"id":4671,"date":"2005-07-12T11:25:24","date_gmt":"2005-07-12T15:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/4671.html"},"modified":"2005-07-12T11:25:24","modified_gmt":"2005-07-12T15:25:24","slug":"yank-roves-security-clearance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/yank-roves-security-clearance\/","title":{"rendered":"Yank Rove’s security clearance"},"content":{"rendered":"

There have been a number of excellent responses<\/a> from Dems on the Hill to the Rove scandal, but one stands out for me.<\/p>\n

Harry Reid said, “The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration. I trust they will follow through on this pledge.” Charles Schumer wrote the White House asking Rove to “tell Americans what he knew, when he knew it, and who he may have told about Valerie Plame’s identity in order to clear the air once and for all.” <\/p>\n

But my personal favorite<\/a> was Sen. Frank Lautenberg of a New Jersey.<\/p>\n

“Karl Rove has accused liberals of not understanding the consequences of 9-11, but he’s the one who blew the cover of a covert CIA agent. The President should immediately suspend Karl Rove’s security clearances and shut him down by shutting him out of classified meetings or discussions.<\/p>\n

The excuses offered by Karl Rove’s lawyer don’t pass the laugh test. Naming someone’s spouse is the same as naming them. And as a 31-year veteran of politics, Karl Rove should know that if you want to keep a secret, you don’t tell a reporter.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This works so well because it gets to the heart of Rove’s defense. To hear Rove defenders tell it, he learned that Joseph Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent and then passed that information on to reporters. As part of this argument, we’re told that Rove didn’t know Plame worked as an undercover agent, so what he did shouldn’t be considered scandalous.<\/p>\n

But even if we accept this account at face value (we shouldn’t, of course, but just for the sake of conversation), this shows ridiculous judgment on Rove’s part.
\n
\nAs Kevin Drum put it<\/a>:<\/p>\n

But really, don’t you think Rove’s first instinct upon hearing that Joe Wilson’s wife “works for the CIA” would be to wonder what she does and whether it’s OK to pass this along to other people? After all, the guy’s a senior White House aide, not a ten year old.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

It’s exactly what makes Lautenberg’s argument all the more persuasive. If the defense for Rove is that he was careless in sharing classified information, then it’s not unreasonable for a senator to suggest that Rove lose his security clearance and isolate him from classified briefings. By the GOP’s own argument, Rove has proven himself unreliable and reckless with classified information.<\/p>\n

As the Philadelphia Daily News put it<\/a>, “It’s now clear that Rove, President Bush’s chief political street fighter, can’t be trusted with the nation’s secrets. Not when a cheap political attack can be made.”<\/p>\n

Post Script<\/em>: Speaking of Lautenberg, it sounds as if he’s going to be one of the leading critics<\/a> in this scandal.<\/p>\n

On Air America’s Morning Sedition, Mark Maron and Mark Riley were interviewing NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg regarding his call for Karl Rove to lose his security clearance as a result of the Plame leak.<\/p>\n

Maron said, “Karl Rove is guilty of treason, isn’t he?” Lautenberg responded, “Yes, I think so.”<\/p>\n

When Senators are accusing White House Deputy Chiefs of Staff of treason, things have reached a new level.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There have been a number of excellent responses from Dems on the Hill to the Rove scandal, but one stands out for me. Harry Reid said, “The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration. I trust they will follow through on this […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4671","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4671"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4671\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4671"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4671"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4671"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}