WaPo/Kurtz: "Frog-Marching Time for Rove?"

[TahitiNut]

Frog-Marching Time for Rove?

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, July 12, 2005; 7:57 AM

The liberal blogosphere is aflame with animosity toward Karl Rove, now that he's been sucked deeper into the Plame probe.

Some folks out there think he should just be thrown in the jail cell next to Judy Miller's, no indictment or trial necessary.

To some on the left, Rove is the epitome of all they despise about the administration. He is Bush's brain, pulling the strings from behind the scenes, injecting politics into every conceivable decision. Rove further infuriated his critics a couple of weeks ago when he seemed to use the 9/11 tragedy to score political points, saying Republicans wanted to wage war and liberals wanted to offer the terrorists therapy.

Add the fact that this controversy is about the runup to the Iraq war and an apparent White House effort to discredit a prominent Bush critic, Joe Wilson, and you have an incendiary mixture. (It was Wilson, Valerie Plame's husband, who once declared that "fun to see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs.") And this dovetails nicely with the conviction that the press did a lousy job on WMD before the war and has been too soft on Karl & Co. ever since.

<snip>

Worth posting if only because of the title, this column is (imho) a decent encapsulation of the state of the controversy regarding Rove. Howie, of course, can't help but ascribe any criticism of Rove to "liberals" and helps perpetuate some myths, despite hinting at the real story. One of the myths is that this administration targeted Valerie Plame solely because she's the "better half" of Joe Wilson. I believe that's a red-herring distraction - a demeaning one for women as well. It seems clear to me that Ms. Plame was targeted primarily because, as an undercover field agent for the CIA in WMD (NBC) trafficking, she uncovered repudiation of the DisIntel FRAUD sown by this criminal regime to create a facade for the War Crime of invading and occupying a sovereign nation that posed no substantial threat to the U.S.

As some DUers have tried to point out in the boiler factory of DU grunts and screeches, this is about the WMD Fraud - a facade of lies for the invasion of Iraq.

Let's keep our eyes on their balls, huh?

[fujiyama]

1. God

How I hate Kurtz's snide arrogant dismissive tone.

But it's nothing out of the ordinary. The rest of the media has been just as dismissive about it - poo pooing this as "nothing but politics".

Instead the media is voicing some self righteous indignation over Miller's arrest. Woodward and King were the worst last night on CNN - Woodward claiming that he'd go down and serve Miller's sentence.

[gratuitous]

2. I guess lying's okay now for Howard

Kurtz was certainly in high dudgeon when Bill Clinton lied to him and to his staff about an extramarital affair that was none of anybody's business. But a lie that wastes hundreds of billions of dollars, enriches a bunch of the president's political cronies, kills tens of thousands of civilians and military personnel, and enfeebles our ability to defend ourselves? That's just liberals aflame with animosity, that is.

Kurtz is such a toadying toad.

[Karmakaze]

3. They're still pushing the "he did not name her" lie...

That is their supposed defence, Rove didnt name her so "technically" it is not illegal.

There is one BIG problem with that defence - it is bullshit. Here is the operative section of the law:

"Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified
information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any
information identifying such covert agent to any individual not
authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the
information disclosed so identifies such covert agent"

http://foi.missouri.edu/bushinfopolicies/protection.html

Read the bolded section. It does not say "name" it says "any information identifying" - in other words "Wilson's wife" is more than adequate identifying information as ANYONE knows - and HE KNEW it identified her, because there would have been no point saying it otherwise.

Do not let ANY media including DU let you fall for this ploy - naming her is irrelevent - IDENTIFYING her is relevent, and he OBVIOUSLY identified her.

[TahitiNut]

4. This siege of lies won't end soon. (Possibly not in our lifetimes.)

These people (Rove & Co.) can create lies far faster than people can be educated. Their sycophantic followers will continue to spew forth a collected menu of lies far beyond their clear repudiation. (We STILL hear the Saddam=WMD lie.)