The real Rove scandal

[BR_Parkway]

http://www.latimes.com/news/columnists/la-oe-rscheer12jul12,0,7142498.column?coll=la-home-headlines

If you can't shoot the messenger, take aim at his wife.

That clearly was the intent of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove in leaking to a reporter that former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent. To try to conceal the fact that the president had lied to the American public about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program, Rove attempted to destroy the credibility of two national security veterans and send an intimidating message to any other government officials preparing to publicly tell the truth.

<snip>

It's ironic that the expertise of this couple should be turned against them by a White House that has demonstrated nothing but incompetence in dealing with the WMD issue. But clearly truth and competence are virtues easily shed by the Bush administration in the pursuit of political advantage, even when this partisan game jeopardizes national security.

This is the most important issue raised by the Plame scandal. It has been unfortunately obscured by the secondary debate in the case: whether reporters should ever reveal their sources. Yet what the emerging Rove scandal demonstrates is the ease with which a wily top White House official can subvert the Bill of Rights' protection of the free press to serve the tawdriest of political ends.

[Peace Patriot]

1. Yeah, that seems to be the party line--that Rove did it for political

punishment and to chill dissent. Not hard to believe, given Rove. But I think it's more likely that that is a cover story, designed to keep Cheney out of it. He sends Wilson to Niger, knowing he won't find anything. Wilson comes back, reports he didn't find anything. "Somehow" it gets into Bush's speech anyway; Wilson gets ticked off, and goes public. Thus the excuse is created to out Plame and her entire covert WMD network.

I think the main goal was to out Plame and her WMD network--to protect something, maybe a plot to plant WMDs in Iraq (or later, Iran, Syria, No. Korea?), or Cheney's shady arms dealings. It makes a lot of things make more sense when you look at this way. (For instance, how DID that item get into Bush's speech? They knew it was bogus, and knew that it was provably bogus, with a witness to its bogusness. And it got in there accidentally? Right.)

Then the odd story gets around that Wilson having a wife who is a CIA WMD expert somehow...taints him, discredits him? Why would it? It would seem to enhance his ability to get good intel. Doesn't add up. --until you see where it's pointing--AWAY from Cheney (it wasn't Cheney who chose Wilson to go to Niger; it was Plame, because she's a CIA agent...etc., etc. Huh?). (Would a diplomat be running off the Niger, on behalf of the Bush regime, to do a WMD investigation, WITHOUT Cheney's approval--Cheney, who was cooking intel at the time? That is not at all likely.)

See
Plame...the tip of the iceberg... (Plame maybe investigating Cheney arms deals when they busted her CIA weapons op)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x2178477#2180220

And also (curious Judith Miller connection):
(Plame/Miller/David Kelly)
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/3/17138/30618

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The answer to the stink in Washington DC is restoring our right to vote, by throwing Bushite electronic voting machine companies--Diebold, ES&S and brethren--out of the election business NOW--or at the least achieving some measure of election transparency with paper ballot backups, no secret programming code and strict auditing. The only place where we can get that done is in state/local jurisdictions, where the authority over election systems still resides, and where ordinary people still have some say. See the DU Forum "2004 Election Results and Discussion" for information and action ideas:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topics&forum=203

[AlGore-08.com]

3. I think it's more likely that Satan Cheney sent Wilson to Africa

Expecting him to either discover actual evidence they could use to justify the war, or to "be a team player" and manufacture some. (Remember that bizarre document they waived around at that time and then blamed on the Brits when it turned out to be forged?)

Remember, at that point in time the media gave Team Smirk a pass on everything and the Congress was busy hiding under their desks. I don't think that Satan Cheney or anybody else in Team Smirk ever dreamed they would have to cover their *sses at that point.

[Desperadoe]

4. I 'm not buying that either

Somehow, this is just all too easy if you buy into the popular theory that Rove outed Plame as revenge for the Niger documents expose by Wilson.

That's just too stupid for Rove and he's not that dumb. Why should he put his ass on the block for something so petty? There's no way that Karl thinks that, somehow exposing Plame will discredit Wilson or his findings.

This thing goes much, much deeper than that and I'm surprised that the good investigative journalists even think that it doesn't.

My guess is that they wanted Plame exposed and that's why Wilson was sent. Plame is the key here and not Rove or Wilson or the Niger documents. I think that Plame and her team were about to bust this whole shit wide open and Cheney and co. knew they were meat if it happened and had to stop her. The relatively minor charge of outing a NOC is peanuts compared to what lies beneath this whole invasion and war. Rove will come out of this smelling like a rose and if there are any charges, they will go on some other poor sap, not him.

Judith Miller is the key to some of it and that's why she is more than willing to go to jail. I think that she may realize just how much shit she is in with these people, who I'm sure that she thought, were her bestest buddies in the whole world. She's "The Man/Woman Who Knows Too Much". She knows the real reason that Cheney and co. had to invade Iraq at all costs and it wasn't about the oil and she knows that if the world knew the real reason they all would either be shot or spend the rest of their lives behind bars.

[indepat]

2. Truth and competence are virtues easily shed and subverting Bill of Rights

protection sums it up quite nicely, thank you, which raises the larger question: is there nothing they won't do to gain political advantage/implement their agenda?

[Natural Well]

5. Nice to see someone cut through the BS to the straight truth

[MasonJar]

6. Cheney is definitely in on he; he's still saying Iraq has nuclear

weapons. The man is a big, fat, lying crook.