Question about the Time/NYT confidential sources issue

[Keverian FireCry]

Wow, you're still a brainwashed peice of shit? How interesting.

[Voronwë]

Wow, people still take Joseph Wilson seriously? That's pretty funny.

The administration sure took his criticisms pretty seriously didn't they? I'm sure he'd be crushed that you don't though.

2+ years ago Joe Wilson said it was either Karl Rove or Scooter Libbey. Good thing nobody took that seriously.

3+ years ago Joe Wilson said the claim that GW Bush made about uranium, Niger, and Iraq were fabricated. that is absolutely a fact. Good thing for the administration, most Americans don't take anything seriously.

[Brotha]

Did you read the Washington Post article I posted? Wilson has been completely and utterly discredited. The reason why Rove mentioned that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA was to counter Wilson's lie that he was picked by the Vice President's office. Not only has he lied abot his wife having nothing to do with getting him the job, but also about the contents of the report he made (the report infact BOLSTERED the idea that Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake from Niger). The forged documents Wilson claims to have discredited at the time of his trip weren't even seen in the intelligence channels for 8 more months. The guy is a partisan hack with no credibility, yet he's continuing to be made a self-righteous defender of his martyr wife. Such a fucking joke.

[Nick]

Partisan hack

I.e - anyone who disagrees with the party line and is UNAMERICANomgwtf

[Voronwë]

Wilson didnt say he was picked by the VP's office. he is on the record 3 different times (not the least of which was 2 minutes ago on CNN) saying that the CIA initiated the trip to Niger BECAUSE of questions the VP's office had about Yellowcake in Niger.

Joe wilson just also said on CNN that Chris Matthews of "MSNBC's Hardball" called him on the phone and said to the effect:

"I just got off the phone with Karl Rove, and he says your wife is "fair game"."

I dont think Joe Wilson is a paragon of virtue - but to believe this utter bizarro world where Karl Rove is just doing what is right, and Joe Wilson is the smear merchant is beyond crazy.

Ask yourself why Stephen Hadley resigned after "the sixteen words" were included in the State of the Union address?

Did Joe Wilson fire him?

[Dregor Thule]

What's this sixteen words? INFORM ME OH GURU OF NEWS!

Voro

[Voronwë]

The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

Part of the political fallout for that insertion of the alledged propaganda was Stephen Hadley, a hardline neocon being shown the door.

On July 11th of that year CIA director George Tenet said said "These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the President."

[Jice Virago]

And honestly I will take the word of a guy who was willing to put his life in peril to get american citizens out of Iraq (during Gulf War One, and Bush the 1st praised him publicly for this) over a draft dodger who pulled the whole "Mission Accomplished" stunt.

The GOP spin machine is working over time on this. That, to me, is very telling. Normally when the Fox Propaganda News Network gets talking points out, they at least are not such easily verifiable falsehoods. The smear job they are attempting now is so easily debunked that it presents the appearance of panic on their part. Granted the dems are overplaying their hand on this, but its a damn good hand at that. This is the kind of scandal that is easily accessable to the average american's comprehension level and its comming at a time when W's ratings are as low as they have ever been. The fact that the GOP shills are playing the "you can't prove he did it legally" game is going to kill them. The steps they took to deny this shit and the blatantly political gamesmanship behind the leak that have given this story legs. Remember in Washington its never the scandal that kills you, its the cover up.

[Jice Virago]

Did you read the Washington Post article I posted? Wilson has been completely and utterly discredited. The reason why Rove mentioned that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA was to counter Wilson's lie that he was picked by the Vice President's office. Not only has he lied abot his wife having nothing to do with getting him the job, but also about the contents of the report he made (the report infact BOLSTERED the idea that Iraq had attempted to purchase yellowcake from Niger). The forged documents Wilson claims to have discredited at the time of his trip weren't even seen in the intelligence channels for 8 more months. The guy is a partisan hack with no credibility, yet he's continuing to be made a self-righteous defender of his martyr wife. Such a fucking joke.

The Neonazis can't have it both ways. Either she was important enough to pull the strings to get him assigned to the Nigeria invenstigation -OR- she was insignificant enough that blowing her cover was irrelivant. So which is it?

Further more, those falsified documents were in circulation at that time as this was what he was specifically investigating. I could link multiple sources of this, but if you can't even be bothered to verify the talking points of your Sith Masters, I am not going to waste my time googling it for you. The Italian inteligence community did not see the documents until well after his trip, but they are hardly a part of the US security apparatis now are they?

Christ, Brotha, I had more respect for you than this. Your opinions might be fucked in the head but at least you never reposted Neocon talking points verbatum before and cited them as fact without checking.

[kyoukan]

Christ, Brotha, I had more respect for you than this. Your opinions might be fucked in the head but at least you never reposted Neocon talking points verbatum before and cited them as fact without checking.

what? all he ever does is regurgitate neocon talking points. I don't think he's ever linked to anything other than opinionjournal, some dick headed GOP funded think tank, or some retard's blog as evidence to support his vapid arguments.

[Voronwë]

I think it also bears repeating that this inquiry into the leak was at the request of the CIA to the Dept of Justice.

It was the CIA who wanted the outing of Ms. Plame investigated, so that suggests to me they at least think the principle is worth protecting if not her actual work was damaged.

[Jice Virago]

It might also be the CIA trying to fuck Bush in the ass for subverting and politicizing the agency. I find it amusing that this situation puts W at odds with former political allies of his old man, in the name of supporting someone his dad canned for leaking info in the past.

[Brotha]

what? all he ever does is regurgitate neocon talking points. I don't think he's ever linked to anything other than opinionjournal, some dick headed GOP funded think tank, or some retard's blog as evidence to support his vapid arguments.

I guess the Washington Post is "opinionjournal, some dick headed GOP funded think tank, or some retard's blog?"

I posted this article once already in this thread and mentioned it another time. This isn't GOP talking points, this isn't a blog or an editorial, this is a Washington Post article detailing what the Bipartisan Senate Select Commitee on Intelligence found:

I'll post it here I guess since some people refuse to click a link:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/ar ... 4Jul9.html

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

Wilson last year launched a public firestorm with his accusations that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for war. He has said that his trip to Niger should have laid to rest any notion that Iraq sought uranium there and has said his findings were ignored by the White House.

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.

Yesterday's report said that whether Iraq sought to buy lightly enriched "yellowcake" uranium from Niger is one of the few bits of prewar intelligence that remains an open question. Much of the rest of the intelligence suggesting a buildup of weapons of mass destruction was unfounded, the report said.

The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him.

Plame's role could be significant in an ongoing investigation into whether a crime was committed when her name and employment were disclosed to reporters last summer.

Administration officials told columnist Robert D. Novak then that Wilson, a partisan critic of Bush's foreign policy, was sent to Niger at the suggestion of Plame, who worked in the nonproliferation unit at CIA. The disclosure of Plame's identity, which was classified, led to an investigation into who leaked her name.

The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.

Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger.

"Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."

Wilson stood by his assertion in an interview yesterday, saying Plame was not the person who made the decision to send him. Of her memo, he said: "I don't see it as a recommendation to send me."

The report said Plame told committee staffers that she relayed the CIA's request to her husband, saying, "there's this crazy report" about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. The committee found Wilson had made an earlier trip to Niger in 1999 for the CIA, also at his wife's suggestion.

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

Wilson's reports to the CIA added to the evidence that Iraq may have tried to buy uranium in Niger, although officials at the State Department remained highly skeptical, the report said.

Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq -- which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq."

According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.

Still, it was the CIA that bore the brunt of the criticism of the Niger intelligence. The panel found that the CIA has not fully investigated possible efforts by Iraq to buy uranium in Niger to this day, citing reports from a foreign service and the U.S. Navy about uranium from Niger destined for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin.

The agency did not examine forged documents that have been widely cited as a reason to dismiss the purported effort by Iraq until months after it obtained them. The panel said it still has "not published an assessment to clarify or correct its position on whether or not Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa."

I'll refer to opinion pieces like blogs when I think they make good arguments, but of course I don't confuse those with facts.

[Fash]

Karl Rove, Whistleblower
July 13, 2005; Page A14

Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we'd say the White House political guru deserves a prize -- perhaps the next iteration of the "Truth-Telling" award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.

For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.

Media chants aside, there's no evidence that Mr. Rove broke any laws in telling reporters that Ms. Plame may have played a role in her husband's selection for a 2002 mission to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium ore in Niger. To be prosecuted under the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Mr. Rove would had to have deliberately and maliciously exposed Ms. Plame knowing that she was an undercover agent and using information he'd obtained in an official capacity. But it appears Mr. Rove didn't even know Ms. Plame's name and had only heard about her work at Langley from other journalists.
[Karl Rove]

On the "no underlying crime" point, moreover, no less than the New York Times and Washington Post now agree. So do the 36 major news organizations that filed a legal brief in March aimed at keeping Mr. Cooper and the New York Times's Judith Miller out of jail.

"While an investigation of the leak was justified, it is far from clear -- at least on the public record -- that a crime took place," the Post noted the other day. Granted the media have come a bit late to this understanding, and then only to protect their own, but the logic of their argument is that Mr. Rove did nothing wrong either.

The same can't be said for Mr. Wilson, who first "outed" himself as a CIA consultant in a melodramatic New York Times op-ed in July 2003. At the time he claimed to have thoroughly debunked the Iraq-Niger yellowcake uranium connection that President Bush had mentioned in his now famous "16 words" on the subject in that year's State of the Union address.

Mr. Wilson also vehemently denied it when columnist Robert Novak first reported that his wife had played a role in selecting him for the Niger mission. He promptly signed up as adviser to the Kerry campaign and was feted almost everywhere in the media, including repeat appearances on NBC's "Meet the Press" and a photo spread (with Valerie) in Vanity Fair.

But his day in the political sun was short-lived. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report last July cited the note that Ms. Plame had sent recommending her husband for the Niger mission. "Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip," said the report.

The same bipartisan report also pointed out that the forged documents Mr. Wilson claimed to have discredited hadn't even entered intelligence channels until eight months after his trip. And it said the CIA interpreted the information he provided in his debrief as mildly supportive of the suspicion that Iraq had been seeking uranium in Niger.

About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's Lord Butler delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: "We conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded."

In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission. The media and the Kerry campaign promptly abandoned him, though the former never did give as much prominence to his debunking as they did to his original accusations. But if anyone can remember another public figure so entirely and thoroughly discredited, let us know.

If there's any scandal at all here, it is that this entire episode has been allowed to waste so much government time and media attention, not to mention inspire a "special counsel" probe. The Bush administration is also guilty on this count, since it went along with the appointment of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in an election year in order to punt the issue down the road. But now Mr. Fitzgerald has become an unguided missile, holding reporters in contempt for not disclosing their sources even as it becomes clearer all the time that no underlying crime was at issue.

As for the press corps, rather than calling for Mr. Rove to be fired, they ought to be grateful to him for telling the truth.

[Voronwë]

Press reports today suggesting Bob Novak leaked the info to Karl Rove.

Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer

By DAVID JOHNSTON
and RICHARD W. STEVENSON
Published: July 15, 2005

WASHINGTON, July 14 - Karl Rove, the White House senior adviser, spoke with the columnist Robert D. Novak as he was preparing an article in July 2003 that identified a C.I.A. officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.

After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: "I heard that, too."

The previously undisclosed telephone conversation, which took place on July 8, 2003, was initiated by Mr. Novak, the person who has been briefed on the matter said.

Six days later, Mr. Novak's syndicated column reported that two senior administration officials had told him that Mr. Wilson's "wife had suggested sending him" to Africa. That column was the first instance in which Ms. Wilson was publicly identified as a C.I.A. operative.

Novak wants to respond, and is talking ot his lawyer this morning to see if he can talk. If he does, he'll be on CNN's "Inside Politics" today which is from 3:30-5pm

Intereting twist if Novak got the leak from "2 senior White House" staffers, then ran it by Rove, who then discussed it to Cooper, then Rove could be off the hook.

Michael Isakoff (sp.) was on "The Daily Show" last night discussing it, and it was interesting. He made a couple of very good points. If the special prosecutor does not think a crime was committed, it is a very chilling situation that the government would be frivalously jailing journalists for not divulging information about a case that had limited significance.

wow this from the article:

This is not the first time Mr. Rove has been linked to a leak reported by Mr. Novak. In 1992, Mr. Rove was fired from the Texas campaign to re-elect the first President Bush because of suspicions that he had leaked information to Mr. Novak about shortfalls in the Texas organization's fund-raising. Both Mr. Rove and Mr. Novak have denied that Mr. Rove had been the source.

Fool me once, Shame on You
Fool me twice...dont
Wont
we wont get fooled again!!

[Brotha]

Yeah the Washington Post had a good article today too.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... 00036.html

Found this interesting:

Sources who have reviewed some of the testimony before the grand jury say there is significant evidence that reporters were in some cases alerting officials about Plame's identity and relationship to Wilson -- not the other way around.

Rove claimed he learned that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA period from someone else, then Novak told him her name:

The lawyer, who has knowledge of the conversations between Rove and prosecutors, said President Bush's deputy chief of staff has told investigators that he first learned about the operative from a journalist and that he later learned her name from Novak.

Rove has said he does not recall who the journalist was who first told him that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, or when the conversation occurred, the lawyer said.

It would be pretty funny if ended up being that JOURNALISTS were the source of her identity being leaked. I've heard a lot of speculation that Judith Miller could have been the original source.

Obviously there's a lot more to this story, but what if that's the case? That Karl Rove and others didn't use their top secret clearance to leak her identity and they were just discussing what journalists told them? And what if they had no idea that she was covert, they just thought she was a CIA analyst on WMDs? Wouldn't that mean that a LOT of this has been blown really out of proportion? That there's no scandal here really?

[Forthe]

It would be pretty funny if ended up being that JOURNALISTS were the source of her identity being leaked.

How could a journalist be the source?

[Jice Virago]

Obviously they couldn't be the source, but they make a convenient scapegoat to get Rove off the hook.

MY impression from the information available is that the White House knew the Nigeria intel was bullshit (hell, they even included it in the State of the Union well after they knew it to be completely false) and the CIA smelled horseshit and sent Wilson on Plame's recommendation, with the decision ultimately falling on Cheney's office. Wilson has experience with all of the principle parties involved and they probably thought he would tow the party line, since he is registered GOP and has donated thousands to their campaigns in rescent years. Fast Forward, Wilson blows the whistle and Cheney lets loose with the information to some journalists to get back at Wilson, probably via Libby.

At this point, Rove knows nothing since he is just a political hack and not in the loop for policy meetings, but Novak and Miller fill him in so he can manage the public spin, which is his job. Now we are to the point where Rove is, at the very least, on record discussing the identity of what he (and Miller) know to be an NOC. Rove's ass is in the fire, so he turns it around and sells out Novak. Now this is going to get interesting, because whoever gave Novak the information is probably at the very least well connected to the office of the VP, so someone is going to have to do a Nixon era political fall on your sword.

Granted, the above is speculation, mostly, but I can't see a scenario where the White House would let Rove twist in the wind unless it was to insulate someone more important to them, and that is a pretty damn short list.

[Adex_Xeda]

Hehe,

The dems are looking like fools on this one.

[kyoukan]

oh swell. look who just crawled out of the sewer of intellectual deprivation. one of your neocon masters commits an act of treason and its the democrats that look bad.

it must be interesting to be so amazingly stupid that you aren't even partually aware of the reality that surrounds you. you must sleep like an absolute fucking baby at night.

[Ashur]

Man, I hope he doesn't sleep like a baby. It would suck to wake up crying every three hours and occassionally find you've pooped your pants.

[Brotha]

It would be pretty funny if ended up being that JOURNALISTS were the source of her identity being leaked.

How could a journalist be the source?

Maybe that came out wrong, what I meant was that a journalist could have been who told the WH (Rove) about Plame, rather than the WH knowing from classified sources, etc, and spilling the beans like some had assumed.

Example: Miller talks to someone in the CIA, they tell her Wilson's wife works for the CIA, then she tells Rove.

Pretty interesting theory Jice, there could really be a lot more to this that we don't know.

[Voronwë]

Maybe Judy Miller and Valerie Plame are feuding members of the same school's PTA!!

[Brotha]

This was pretty funny:

Democrats had been pressuring the White House to act all week, but yesterday decided to try to force the matter.

Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, along with Minority Whip Richard J. Durbin of Illinois and three other top Democrats, called for the end of security clearance for anyone "who discloses, or has disclosed, classified information, including the identity of a covert agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, to a person not authorized to receive such information."

"Even a child knows that if a person can't keep a secret, you stop telling him secrets," Mr. Schumer said.

Majority Leader Bill Frist, Tennessee Republican, called Democrats' amendment "purely a political amendment" and then submitted his own.

It would have stripped clearance from federal officeholders who make "reference to a classified Federal Bureau of Investigation report on the floor of the United States Senate, or any federal officeholder that makes a statement based on a FBI agent's comments which is used as propaganda by terrorist organizations thereby putting our servicemen and women at risk."

The former is a reference to Mr. Reid, who mentioned the FBI file of one of Mr. Bush's judicial nominees, and the latter is a reference to Mr. Durbin, whose comparison of U.S. interrogation techniques at Guantanamo Bay to Nazi and Soviet regimes was cited in Middle Eastern press, including Al Jazeera.

Mr. Frist's amendment failed 64-33, with 20 Republicans joining Democrats and one independent in voting against it, while Mr. Reid's amendment failed on a party-line vote, 53-44.

[Dregor Thule]

Yea, it's funny that Bill Frist is a child! Teehee!

[Metanis]

Dan Rather is the leaker.

He needs Depends.

[Fash]

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20050716/D8BC7F500.html

WASHINGTON (AP) - After mentioning a CIA operative to a reporter, Bush confidant Karl Rove alerted the president's No. 2 security adviser about the interview and said he tried to steer the journalist away from allegations the operative's husband was making about faulty Iraq intelligence.

The July 11, 2003, e-mail between Rove and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley is the first showing an intelligence official knew Rove had talked to Matthew Cooper just days before the Time magazine reporter wrote an article identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA officer.

"I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote in an e-mail obtained by The Associated Press, recounting how Cooper tried to question him about whether President Bush had been hurt by the new allegations.

The White House turned the e-mail over to prosecutors, and Rove testified to a grand jury about it last year.

Earlier in the week before the e-mail, Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had written a newspaper opinion piece accusing the Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence, including a "highly doubtful" report that Iraq bought nuclear materials from Niger.

"Matt Cooper called to give me a heads-up that he's got a welfare reform story coming," Rove wrote in the e-mail to Hadley.

"When he finished his brief heads-up he immediately launched into Niger. Isn't this damaging? Hasn't the president been hurt? I didn't take the bait, but I said if I were him I wouldn't get Time far out in front on this."

Frederick Jones, a spokesman for Hadley, now Bush's national security adviser, said he could not comment due to the continuing criminal investigation. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, said his client answered all the questions prosecutors asked during three grand jury appearances, never invoking his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination or the president's executive privilege guaranteeing confidential advice from aides.

Rove, Bush's closest adviser, turned over the e-mail as soon as prosecutors opened a criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's covert work for the CIA.

He later told a grand jury the e-mail was consistent with his recollection that his intention in talking with Cooper that Friday in July 2003 wasn't to divulge Plame's identity but to caution Cooper against certain allegations Plame's husband was making, according to legal professionals familiar with Rove's testimony.

They spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the grand jury investigation.

Rove sent the e-mail shortly before leaving the White House early for a family vacation that weekend, already aware that another journalist he had talked with, syndicated columnist Robert Novak, was planning an article about Plame and Wilson.

Rove also knew that then-CIA Director George Tenet planned later that same day to issue a dramatic statement that took responsibility for some bad Iraq intelligence but that also called into question some of Wilson's assertions, the legal sources said.

The AP reported Thursday that Rove acknowledged to the grand jury that he talked about Plame with both Cooper and Novak before they published their stories but that he originally learned about the operative's identity from the news media, not government sources.

karl rove is squeeky clean.... will those who have smeared him apologize? will they as forcefully seek out the real source of the leak?

[kyoukan]

wow Rove claims he is innocent. WHAT AN AMAZING FUCKING RELEVATION.

also: nixon is not a crook.

We'll see what the investigation says.

[Nick]

Regardless of this whole clusterfuck, anyone who calls Karl Rove squeeky clean needs their head examined.

He is going to be burning in the deepest pits of hell (alongside Hitler, Pol Pot, Reagan and Jack the Ripper) when he dies.

Fucking cretinous cunt that he is.

[Xzion]

Regardless of this whole clusterfuck, anyone who calls Karl Rove squeeky clean needs their head examined.

He is going to be burning in the deepest pits of hell (alongside Hitler, Pol Pot, Reagan and Jack the Ripper) when he dies.

Fucking cretinous cunt that he is.

while he is in every perspective a complete asshole you have to realize that he is one of the most fucking brilliant political figures of our time…a little more respectable in my opinion then a stumbling moron such as frist and bush

[Nick]

......respect and Karl Rove should never be in the same post, regardless of how "politically" amazing (read - good at being a lying conniving fucking backpatter) you apparantly think he is.

[kyoukan]

dirty campaign tactics and preying on people's hatred and ignorance isn't political brilliance.

[Niffoni]

Frankly, it's all either side has. If the liberals had the immoral, socipathic monsters on their team, I doubt they'd complain about it so much.

[Nick]

You actually think that?

[Brotha]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/16/opini ... ?th&emc=th

The endangered spies Ms. Wilson was compared to James Bond in the early days of the scandal, but it turns out she had been working for years at C.I.A. headquarters, not exactly a deep-cover position. Since being outed, she's hardly been acting like a spy who's worried that her former contacts are in danger.

At the time her name was printed, her face was still not that familiar even to most Washington veterans, but that soon changed. When her husband received a "truth-telling" award at a Nation magazine luncheon, he wept as he told of his sorrow at his wife's loss of anonymity. Then he introduced her to the crowd.

And then, for any enemy agents who missed seeing her face at the luncheon but had an Internet connection, she posed with her husband for a photograph in Vanity Fair.

The smeared whistle-blower Mr. Wilson accused the White House of willfully ignoring his report showing that Iraq had not been seeking nuclear material from Niger. But a bipartisan report from the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that his investigation had yielded little valuable information, hadn't reached the White House and hadn't disproved the Iraq-Niger link - in fact, in some ways it supported the link.

Mr. Wilson presented himself as a courageous truth-teller who was being attacked by lying partisans, but he himself became a Democratic partisan (working with the John Kerry presidential campaign) who had a problem with facts. He denied that his wife had anything to do with his assignment in Niger, but Senate investigators found a memo in which she recommended him.

Karl Rove's version of events now looks less like a smear and more like the truth: Mr. Wilson's investigation, far from being requested and then suppressed by a White House afraid of its contents, was a low-level report of not much interest to anyone outside the Wilson household.

So what exactly is this scandal about? Why are the villagers still screaming to burn the witch? Well, there's always the chance that the prosecutor will turn up evidence of perjury or obstruction of justice during the investigation, which would just prove once again that the easiest way to uncover corruption in Washington is to create it yourself by investigating nonexistent crimes.

For now, though, it looks as if this scandal is about a spy who was not endangered, a whistle-blower who did not blow the whistle and was not smeared, and a White House official who has not been fired for a felony that he did not commit. And so far the only victim is a reporter who did not write a story about it.

It would be logical to name it the Not-a-gate scandal, but I prefer a bilingual variation. It may someday make a good trivia question:

What do you call a scandal that's not scandalous?

Nadagate.

[kyoukan]

I always enjoy watching the righties spam forums with op-ed pieces at a rate of 9 billion a day every time one of their corrupt masters gets caught with his hands in the cookie jar.

the fact that you would defend someone who would betray your country like this, merely because he is on your "team" really shows how politically aware you are.

[Adex_Xeda]

oh swell. look who just crawled out of the sewer of intellectual deprivation. one of your neocon masters commits an act of treason and its the democrats that look bad.

it must be interesting to be so amazingly stupid that you aren't even partually aware of the reality that surrounds you. you must sleep like an absolute fucking baby at night.

Hey, it's good to see you're back Kyo.

How have have you been?

[Nick]

adex

[Xzion]

dirty campaign tactics and preying on people's hatred and ignorance isn't political brilliance.

yes it is

[Nick]

It's sad you think that. Really, so much for fucking freedom and democracy.

[Brotha]

http://www.cafepress.com/covertoperative

[Niffoni]

Who said politics had anything to do with democracy?

[Kelshara]

Who said politics had anything to do with democracy?

It does in some countries heh.

[Metanis]

I changed my mind. I want Rove to resign.

Then he can start working on the campaign for the next Republican running for President.

[Jice Virago]

All the legal cock fencing aside, Rove had information that he probably should not have had, given his post (which has happened in other admins than Ws) and was clearly discussing said NOC person with reporters. As I said before, its not the scandal that kills you its the cover up. Had he come out and said "Hey, I didn't realize she was NOC, I was discussing this with my shills because of X" I doubt this situation would have balooned to its current point. As it stands, people old enough to remember Watergate are seeing the whole (rather disorganized) public attack on Wilson and the Rove/Novak hiding behind lawyers in the worst possible light, which is why this story hasn't drifted off of the news cycles.

Its a well known major weakness of this administration that they absolutely will not ever admit to making a mistake, no matter how ridiculous it makes them appear. This stubborn refusal to aknowledge reality is why a lot of moderates (be they left or right leaning) view W as the antichrist. People are suprisingly forgiving in this country if you stop hiding behind lawyers and smear machines, and just come out and admit you fucked up and would like to get on with your business. Well, unless your christian and the fuckup involves your penis, but thats a horse of a different color. The fanatical support to make these absurd excuses (and come on, no one is perfect) further divides everyone down partisan lines, which is why there is such a fucking feeding frenzy for Rove right now by the left.

Edit-
This and this are pretty much what I am talking about with poorly coordinated attacks. If they knew this information might get out, they really should not have made some of the rescent statements they have.

[Fash]

the problem is, jice... that it's very likely now that they did nothing wrong, and there was no cover up.

Rove gave his testimony to the grand jury.. i don't think he's required to throw the democrats a lifejacket by going public when they're on the warpath accusing him of something he knows is false.

[Jice Virago]

Read my edit. The major grand jury source just came out and said their (Libby and Rove) claims that he gave them the information instead of the reverse were bullshit. No suprise on either side there, but it certainly doesn't help the Neocons out, timing wise. A lot is going to depend on how much Novak spilled to save his own ass, which if past history is any indication will be a lot.

[Metanis]

Read my edit. The major grand jury source just came out and said their (Libby and Rove) claims that he gave them the information instead of the reverse were bullshit. No suprise on either side there, but it certainly doesn't help the Neocons out, timing wise. A lot is going to depend on how much Novak spilled to save his own ass, which if past history is any indication will be a lot.

You are reading a lot into the supposed testimony of Cooper. He seems to have his own ax to grind based on how he "burnt" Rove in the first place. I'm not saying he's lying but you know he's presenting his own slant.

I'm still willing to wait for the conclusion of the official investigation.

I wish the Democrats would put forth this intensity in nailing Osama. It's obvious to me the left views Rove as a bigger bogeyman. Total disconnect from reality on display here.

[Dregor Thule]

I wish the Democrats would put forth this intensity in nailing Osama. It's obvious to me the left views Rove as a bigger bogeyman. Total disconnect from reality on display here.

I can't believe you just fucking typed those words.

[Wulfran]

I wish the Democrats would put forth this intensity in nailing Osama. It's obvious to me the left views Rove as a bigger bogeyman. Total disconnect from reality on display here.

I can't believe you just fucking typed those words.

Why? We all know (and Karl, Dick and George knew 3 years ago!) Osama is taking a slow and misleading route with Iraq as his final destination, thus the urgent need for a regime change...