{"id":7681,"date":"2006-06-14T11:18:20","date_gmt":"2006-06-14T15:18:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/?p=7681"},"modified":"2006-06-14T11:18:20","modified_gmt":"2006-06-14T15:18:20","slug":"no-consequences-for-misleading-the-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/no-consequences-for-misleading-the-public\/","title":{"rendered":"‘No consequences for misleading the public’"},"content":{"rendered":"

Whether [tag]Karl Rove[\/tag]’s conduct in the [tag]Plame[\/tag] scandal was literally criminal is open to some debate — or, in Patrick Fitzgerald’s office, perhaps not — but the fact that Rove intentionally misled<\/a> the public and reporters is not.<\/p>\n

To his credit, the Associated Press’ [tag]Pete Yost[\/tag] is calling Rove on it<\/a> publicly.<\/p>\n

The decision not to charge Karl Rove shows there often are no consequences for [tag]misleading[\/tag] the [tag]public[\/tag].<\/p>\n

In 2003, while Rove allowed the White House to tell the news media that he had no role in leaking Valerie Plame’s [tag]CIA[\/tag] identity, the presidential aide was secretly telling the FBI the truth.<\/p>\n

It’s now known that Rove had discussed Plame’s CIA employment with conservative columnist Robert [tag]Novak[\/tag], who exposed her identity less than a week later, citing two unidentified senior administration officials.<\/p>\n

Rove’s truth-telling to the FBI saved him from indictment. And by [tag]misleading[\/tag] reporters, the White House saved itself from a political liability during the 2004 presidential campaign.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

If it sounds like Yost is a little annoyed at the president’s top political aide, a) he is; and b) he should be. Political reporters rely on influential insiders like Rove all the time, and it’s a symbiotic relationship — sources want to get a message out and reporters want insights they can’t get anywhere else. The connection, however, is based on trust. Reporters have to remain skeptical, and realize when they’re being spun, but Rove misled these journalists and deceived to others (like Scott McClellan) so they’d<\/i> mislead journalists.<\/p>\n

And now reporters like Yost are left to lament the fact that “there often are no consequences for misleading the public.” He’s not the only one.
\n
\nPost Script<\/i>: By the way, the AP headline<\/a> on Yost’s story read, “Analysis: Telling FBI the truth saved Rove.” That’s the opposite<\/i> of Yost’s point and suggests to the reader that Rove was honest in this ordeal. It’s not Yost’s fault — writers don’t pick their own headlines — but the AP really should fix this.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Whether [tag]Karl Rove[\/tag]’s conduct in the [tag]Plame[\/tag] scandal was literally criminal is open to some debate — or, in Patrick Fitzgerald’s office, perhaps not — but the fact that Rove intentionally misled the public and reporters is not. To his credit, the Associated Press’ [tag]Pete Yost[\/tag] is calling Rove on it publicly. The decision not […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7681","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7681","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=7681"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7681\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7681"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7681"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7681"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}