I don’t know about the rest of you, but the Hotline’s Blogometer is now as useful to me as the Daou Report and Memeorandum.
Just Some Perspective
While it is fair to characterize the over-the-top hysteria from some quarters on the left regarding Rove as, well, over-the-top hysteria, some perspective should be offered. If it turns out that someone in this administration really did ‘out’ an agent, I want their head on a platter. That it might have been done for petty political revenge just makes it even more odious. However, I am willing to wait on the results of the Fitzgerald investigation (even thought I have stated repeatedly that I wish he would wrap it up and give us the damned results).
But, it is worth examining- What if this had happened during the Clinton administration? What if it was Paul Begala or someone like him who was accused of outing a CIA agent? What would the right be doing?
If your answer is anything other than what the left is doing, only louder, you are fooling yourselves. Rush Limbaugh would have talked about nothing else for 3 years, and unlike 2004, this WOULD have been the chief issue of the election. G. Gordon Liddy would be having fund-raisers to erect a hangman’s scaffold on the White House lawn. The legal ‘analysts’ at NRO would be claiming that the statutes currently being applied to the case are inadequate, and that we should be looking at charges of treason and the application of the Federal death penalty.
Tom DeLay would go to the floor of the House and claim that Democrats can’t be trusted with national security issues, and then he would try to change the House Rules so Democrats could not sit on security related committees. Rick Santorum would be claiming that this is the inevitable result from a liberal anti-war culture. Newt Gingrich would be calling for a revocation of the security clearance of not only every Democrat in public service, but the children of Democrats.
And the bloggers on the hard right would be with them every step of the way, and would stop printing ‘I Love Gitmo’ stickers long enough to print some ‘Shoot Leakers On Sight’ paraphernalia. If anything, they would be demanding that the above actions are not enough, and this would be used as definitive proof that the Democratic party is at its roots evil and should be made outlawed, just like Nazis are in Germany.
And you know I am right. So while I think some (many) on the left are going off the rails, I understand it. And I don’t think our side would be any better.
Just saying. Flame away.
Raising the Stakes
The NYT also has this write-up about “Just Us” Sunday II:
Stepping up efforts to rally churchgoers for a Supreme Court confirmation battle, Christian conservatives are organizing a telecast to churches and religious broadcasters denouncing the Supreme Court as hostile to religion and families.
The event, scheduled for Aug. 14 and called Justice Sunday II after a similar telecast in April, will focus on “the court’s hostility toward religion and Christianity in particular,” said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and the principal organizer of the event. Its subtitle is a prayer said each time the court meets: “God save the United States and this Honorable Court.”
The telecast was organized by some of the most influential conservative Christian supporters of the Bush administration after Justice Sandra Day O’Connor announced her retirement. But its organizers are evidently disregarding White House requests not to inject talk of a culture war into the debate over a Supreme Court nominee.
“People have to understand, this is not just about a process,” Mr. Perkins said. “This is about the future of the country, it is about our families, it is about the freedom of religion.”
Shorter Tony Perkins: ‘It’s for the children.’
Senatorial Hijinks
Captain Ed characterizes the silliness that took place in the Senate yesterday as a Senatorial Slapfight. It is hard to disagree:
The partisan fight over Karl Rove exploded onto the Senate floor yesterday, with Democrats trying to strip him of his security clearance and Republicans retaliating by trying to strip the chamber’s two top Democrats of theirs.
The moves, which came as amendments to a spending bill, both failed, but not before each side blamed the other for “juvenile” behavior and for poisoning a well of good feelings they said had existed in the past few weeks.
As Captain Ed notes, “At least 20 Republicans had the good sense to oppose the latter measure. The Democrats’ amendment failed on a strictly partisan vote. The competing measures not only make the entire chamber look like a gaggle of childish and petulant fools..” The rest of his analysis is more pointedly anti-Democrat, and you can read on your own.
Ed, however, does miss one thing about the Republican measure, if David Sirota is to be believed:
The amendment is clearly targeted at Senator Dick Durbin’s (D) controversial comments about Guantanamo Bay, in which he cited FBI files. But what’s funny is that, according to one top Democrat’s office, the amendment also strips Orin Hatch of his security clearance because he has in the past referenced judicial nominees’ FBI files.
In fact, every Senator who participated in an Armed Services Committee hearing on Gitmo yesterday might lose their clearance because the FBI agents comments were discussed. Those Republicans who participated in that hearing were Sens. John Warner (R-VA), John McCain (R-AZ), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Jeff Sessions (R-AL), Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Elizabeth Dole (R-NC), and John Cornyn (R-TX). Will they vote to strip themselves of their own security clearance.
Sirota then goes on to provide the same sort of pointed analysis that Ed provided, but in his version, it is the Republicans who are ‘juvenile.’
I can offer you a no more telling portrait of the current state of politics in DC than these two versions of the same event.
Wilson on CNN
I am sure just by posting this I will get slimed by my friends on the left as ‘buying the GOP Talking Points’ or ‘smearing Joseph Wilson,’ but this certainly seems like an important and relevant admission by Joseph Wilson on CNN yesterday:
BLITZER: But the other argument that’s been made against you is that you’ve sought to capitalize on this extravaganza, having that photo shoot with your wife, who was a clandestine officer of the CIA, and that you’ve tried to enrich yourself writing this book and all of that.
What do you make of those accusations, which are serious accusations, as you know, that have been leveled against you.
WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.
BLITZER: But she hadn’t been a clandestine officer for some time before that?
WILSON: That’s not anything that I can talk about. And, indeed, I’ll go back to what I said earlier, the CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and that’s why they referred it to the Justice Department.
Which, again, supports the Victoria Toensing spin that was in yesterday’s USA Today:
Though that key law may not have been broken in leaking the name, Fitzgerald must still be pursuing evidence of some type of wrongdoing, said Victoria Toensing, another of the attorneys who helped draft the 1982 act. Like Sanford, she doubts Valerie Wilson, as she now refers to herself, qualified as a “covert agent” under that law. She and Sanford also doubt Fitzgerald has enough evidence to prosecute anyone under the Espionage Act. That law makes it a crime to divulge “information relating to the national defense” that “the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury” of the nation.
But, Toensing said, “reading between the lines, I’d say he’s got a ‘Martha Stewart case’ ” involving perjury or obstruction of justice. In other words, though a crime may not have been committed at the start, one may have occurred during the investigation when someone lied to Fitzgerald or to a federal grand jury.
So, now the obvious question. Was Victoria Plame under deep cover? Her husband appears to say no. Where do we go from here?
Rove/Plame/Novak and the NY Times
Big three page piece in the NY Times about a previously undisclosed phone conversation between Rove and Novak:
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.
The column provoked angry demands for an investigation into who disclosed Ms. Wilson’s name to Mr. Novak. The Justice Department appointed Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a top federal prosecutor in Chicago, to lead the inquiry. Mr. Rove said in an interview with CNN last year that he did not know the C.I.A. officer’s name and did not leak it.
The person who provided the information about Mr. Rove’s conversation with Mr. Novak declined to be identified, citing requests by Mr. Fitzgerald that no one discuss the case. The person discussed the matter in the belief that Mr. Rove was truthful in saying that he had not disclosed Ms. Wilson’s identity.
On Oct. 1, 2003, Mr. Novak wrote another column in which he described calling two officials who were his sources for the earlier column. The first source, whose identity has not been revealed, provided the outlines of the story and was described by Mr. Novak as “no partisan gunslinger.” Mr. Novak wrote that when he called a second official for confirmation, the source said, “Oh, you know about it.”
That second source was Mr. Rove, the person briefed on the matter said. Mr. Rove’s account to investigators about what he told Mr. Novak was similar in its message although the White House adviser’s recollection of the exact words was slightly different. Asked by investigators how he knew enough to leave Mr. Novak with the impression that his information was accurate, Mr. Rove said he had heard parts of the story from other journalists but had not heard Ms. Wilson’s name.
Maybe it is just me, but I felt this was an extraordinarily confusing write-up, and it makes it difficult to understand how many people are involved here. By my reading, the following are involved:
1.) Rove
2.) Novak
3.) The ‘no partisan gunslinger’
4.) The person ‘briefed on the matter’
Now, some questions and observations:
– Is this just a case of Rove pointing to Novak and Novak pointing back? That could explain why Rove has been called three times to the Grand Jury, as Fitzgerald is probably getting pissed. This would also validate Victoria Toensing’s speculation yesterday that this was “a ‘Martha Stewart case’ ” involving perjury or obstruction of justice.”
– Who is the other unnamed source?
– This conversation was on 8 July, pushing the time line forward to only two days after the Wilson op-ed before the campaign to discredit him/refute him really began in earnest.
And finally, since cynical and skeptical neutrality is probably a decent way to go through life but no way to run a blog, let me make a guess about who the ‘no partisan gunslinger’ source might be- I nominate Colin Powell.
Why? Well, we know all the following- Colin Powell is no partisan gunslinger, at least as viewed by most in the media, and certainly Novak would characterize Powell as something less than fiercely partisan.
– We know that Colin Powell had access to the CIA reports that had Plame’s name involved (the same ones lefties are using to claim that Cheney told Rove and Cheney is the source of the leak).
– Powell, if anyone, would have motive to squelch what he believed were false or vastly overstated statements coming from Wilson regarding WMD, considering Powell’s access and presentation to the UN is what solidified the WMD argument.
– Powell would have access to Plame’s transition to the State department.
– Powell was/is a notoriously tough behind the scenes fighter.
– Powell has also been before the grand jury at the request of Fitzgerald.
– Powell and Novak have been operators for years, traveling in similar circles for a long time. Novak has profiled Powell several times.
So there you go- here is my tin-foil hat wingnuttery for the day. Powell, off the record, relays his disgust about Wilson to Novak in the immediate aftermath of the Wilson op-ed, and sketches the background of what really happened regarding Wilson’s trip to Niger. Powell has also been part of working groups within the White House, where Plame’s status may have been discussed, but not her name (Joseph Wilson’s wife works for the CIA, etc.) Rove would not view Powell as a source, as he would view him as one of the insiders planning strategy to refute/discredit Wilson. Novak does some digging, finds out Plame’s name and calls back to Rove and blurts out her name. Rove confirms. Rove then feels free to shop the information to other reporters, as the name is out there and it isn’t classified info, because ‘everyone knows Jo Wilson’s wife works for the CIA.’ Rove also feels free to respond to reporters such as Cooper, and ward them off the story because he believes it is nonsense and Plame’s name is already out there.
How is that for crazed, unfounded speculation? So much for skeptical neutrality. If anything, this should point out how baseless all this speculation is- we don’t know anything, and should just wait for the Fitzgerald investigation to end.
Rehnquist
Earlier this morning on IMUS (around 6:45 am), Mike Barnicle was on and during a discussion of Rehnquist, Barnicle mentioned, almost in passing, that Rehnquist HATES the current Bush and is going to do everything he can to outlive the Presidency.
Has anyone else heard this angle?
*** Update ***
The more I think about this, the less I buy it. I am betting Rehnquist thinks that it will be easier to confirm two conservative judges if it is done one at a time. If he were to retire right now, that would give the moderates an excuse to make a deal with Democrats, and only one conservative would get through.
Barnicle is probably just talking out his A$$. Or maybe he isn’t, and Rehnquist really does hate Bush. Who knows? Unfortunately, Rehnquist is in such poor health and generally does not strike me as the type to write a tell-all after he finally does retire.