In any "moderately" sane Republic

Karl Rove would be toast.

For two years, a federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been investigating the leak of Plame's identity as an undercover CIA agent. The leak was first reported by columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. Novak apparently made some arrangement with the prosecutor, but Fitzgerald continued to press other reporters for their sources, possibly to show a pattern (to prove intent) or to make a perjury case. (It is illegal to knowingly identify an undercover CIA officer.) Rove's words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak. Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did—and that Rove was the secret source who, at the request of both Cooper's lawyer and the prosecutor, gave Cooper permission to testify...

...In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson's criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time's editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine's corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger... "

It is not clear whether the technical aspects of the law were broken, which requires a knowing exposure of a covert agent, but it is damn close, particularly if another item or two is out there. Rove may still be in major legal trouble.

BUT, in legal trouble or not, the picture is clear that the discussion about Wilson to Cooper used the position of his wife as a pawn to try to attack Joe Wilson.

On any moral ground identifiable to most non-moral cretins, its scummy to attack somebody based on what their spouse does. I may make some fun of Laura Bush and call her "Pickles", but when was the last time anybody attacked Bush because of his wife? Been a while, if ever.

But I guess years of going after Hillary Clinton sharpened the knives and now any working person of a Republican political opponent is fair game -- Rove himself said as much about "Joe Wilson's wife" to Chris Matthews.

That, in and of itself, is too creepy for words. From the innocent time in which Jon Sununu was driven out of the Bush I administration for flying off to get a haircut, this would have been enough for "Turd Blossom" to bake in exile.

But 9/11 changed everything I guess, and being an incredible fucking asshole is just an aspect of that "freedom" that "they" hate.

What Rove should be run out on a rail for is that even if the exposure wasn't illegal on its face, it was still "RECKLESS" and malicious. It ended up exposing and neutralizing an individual working as an operative in the very field upon which so much depends in the War on Terrorism, WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION. Intentional (which it clearly was to me) or not, it undoubtedly harmed the nation national security. It is something that cannot be tolerated from anyone Republican or Democrat or otherwise, if it is not treason, it is the functional equivalent. A common standard in most context for blatent, way over-the-line wrongdoing.

The "spin" that came in from the Bush Administration, and which was repeated by every goddamn one of their minions from Rush to Bobo was that Wilson's trip was some sort of wifely gift. I mean who on earth doesn't want a free trip to that "paradise on Earth" NIGER? It was ridiculous then, it is ridiculous now, but they still have trotted it out, from columns to partisan minority Senate reports.

What is more significant though, is that the email establishes, what we suspected then, learned to trust, and have now proven. It is what is also shown in the Downing Street Memos and every subsequent arguent about justifying the Iraq Invasion from Bush and his minions, that they were lies, and the desire to have themselves a war, trumped all other considerations, they lied and people have died.

Even the Newsweek article at the end mentions this in passing without comment, White House insiders are still blatently lying:

A source close to Rove, who declined to be identified because he did not wish to run afoul of the prosecutor or government investigators, added that there was "absolutely no inconsistency" between Cooper's e-mail and what Rove has testified to during his three grand-jury appearances in the case. "A fair reading of the e-mail makes clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity, but was an effort to discourage Time from publishing things that turned out to be false," the source said, referring to claims in circulation at the time that Cheney and high-level CIA officials arranged for Wilson's trip to Africa.

This is known as bullshit with a purpose. The actual purpose was to try to prevent Joe Wilson's charge about the falsity of the yellow cake claim from gaining enough traction to embarass the Bush Administration on a lie.

It should be remembered that at the time the White House was forced to admit that Wilson was absolutely right on the Yellow Cake claim the spin against Wilson and his wife began. As the White House was forced to admit shortly before Novak article appeared on July 8, 2003:

The White House acknowledged for the first time today that President Bush was relying on incomplete and perhaps inaccurate information from American intelligence agencies when he declared, in his State of the Union speech, that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium from Africa.

The White House statement appeared to undercut one of the key pieces of evidence that President Bush and his aides had cited to back their claims made prior to launching an attack against Iraq in March that Mr. Hussein was "reconstituting" his nuclear weapons program. Those claims added urgency to the White House case that military action to depose Mr. Hussein needed to be taken quickly, and could not await further inspections of the country or additional resolutions at the United Nations.

The acknowledgment came after a day of questions — and sometimes contradictory answers from White House officials — about an article published on the Op-Ed page of The New York Times on Sunday by Joseph C. Wilson 4th, a former ambassador who was sent to Niger, in West Africa, last year to investigate reports of the attempted purchase. He reported back that the intelligence was likely fraudulent, a warning that White House officials say never reached them.

"There is other reporting to suggest that Iraq tried to obtain uranium from Africa," the statement said. "However, the information is not detailed or specific enough for us to be certain that attempts were in fact made."

In other words, said one senior official, "we couldn't prove it, and it might in fact be wrong."

Separately tonight, The Washington Post quoted an unidentifed senior administration official as declaring that "knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech." Some administration officials have expressed similar sentiments in interviews in the past two weeks.

Bush stated at the time the investigation was in its early stages:

"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.

"I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job.

"I want to know the truth," the president continued. "Leaks of classified information are bad things."

If you look carefully enough at this, it is clear that Bush was parsing the information as to give him an out if Rove came through on a technicality. When this finally, officially blows up, I sure hope somebody asks Bush why he kept Karl Rove around for so long and talked in such technicalities. Maybe that would be one of those "mistakes" he could not come up with before?

But even with the "technical standard" somebody's lying about something, something big. And thanks to Holden we don't have to scrounge through the archives of Scotty McSpokesman, who on a few occasions was unbelievably concise:

October 7, 2003:

Q Scott, you have said that you, personally, went to Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Elliot Abrams to ask them if they were the leakers. Is that what happened? Why did you do that, and can you describe the conversations you had with them? What was the question you asked?

MR. McCLELLAN: Unfortunately, in Washington, D.C., at a time like this, there are a lot of rumors and innuendo. There are unsubstantiated accusations that are made. And that's exactly what happened in the case of these three individuals. They're good individuals, they're important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I had no doubt of that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.

Q So you're saying -- you're saying categorically those three individuals were not the leakers or did not authorize the leaks; is that what you're saying?

MR. McCLELLAN: That's correct. I've spoken with them.

October 10, 2003:


Q Scott, earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliot Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak. I wondered if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?

MR. McCLELLAN: Those individuals -- I talked -- I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that's where it stands.

Q So none of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?

MR. McCLELLAN: They assured me that they were not involved in this.

Gee, if this were the Clenis, we'd be seeing one of these from Drudge by now...




But they were not counting, as they should have been, but still were not, that Iraq was a complete and utter disaster in the making. A disaster it is getting harder and hardter to hide.

All I can say about this at this time is compare what we know about Rove now, to what the Downing Street Memos were stating about what the White House was doing in 2002 and put two and two together.