Media Matters: CNN forgets Rove falsehood on its own broadcasts

[swag]

http://mediamatters.org/items/200507150006

On the July 15 edition of CNN Live Today, host Daryn Kagan described recent news articles reporting that White House senior adviser Karl Rove had learned the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame before leaking her identity to a reporter, but left viewers in the dark that this revelation directly contradicts Rove's August 31, 2004, statement on her own cable news channel that "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name." On the same day's edition of CNN's Live From ..., White House correspondent Suzanne Malveaux reported that, according to a "lawyer familiar with the grand jury investigation," Rove learned Plame's name prior to his conversation with Time reporter Matthew Cooper and that Rove did not reveal her name "because he was trying to be discreet." Like Kagan, Malveaux failed to mention Rove's prior claim on CNN that he "didn't know her name."

Reporting on a July 15 New York Times article, which noted "Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer" during a July 8, 2003, phone conversation, Kagan stated:

KAGAN: There is a new twist to the Karl Rove-CIA leak controversy. Latest reports indicating that the president's top political adviser may have actually learned the identity of a former CIA operative, Valerie Plame, from a reporter. That reporter, Chicago Sun-Times columnist and CNN political analyst Robert Novak. Both The New York Times and the Associated Press cite an unnamed source as saying Novak mentioned Plame's name after calling Rove, and revealing she worked for the CIA.

Kagan did not make it clear in her report, but in fact, the most significant revelation in the Times article -- and a similar article in the Associated Press -- was that prior to Rove's July 11 conversation with Cooper, he already knew not only that Plame worked for the CIA, but also her actual name. This new disclosure contradicts Rove's statement nearly a year after the Novak conversation that he "didn't know her name."

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[tallahasseedem]

1. Is anyone actually surprised?

The woman probably has boyfriend Rush Addict in her ear feeding her the talking points.

[Sparkle]

2. Kagan is biased toward the repukes.

Marrying that fathead Rush is living proof!

[Canuckistanian]

3. Should we expect any different

From the soon-to-be ex-wife of Rush Limbaugh?

[swag]

6. Kagan aside, the value of the article for me is that it underscores how

delicate, fragile, and hopeless the web of deception Rove & Co are trying to build over this, at least in the public battle (the latest strand of the web being the Novak-fed-Rove line in the NYT and AP stories, with the internal contradiction of that line spelled out in four little words from Karl Rove: "I heard that too").

And Kagan may be favoring the lie because she has the bias all the other responders point out, though I think it highly likely that she and her cohosts and writers are just incompetent.

But some smarter people are keeping track of things just a bit better than CNN is. Some are actual news reporters, some are elected officials with integrity, and one of those people is a special prosecutor.

[dogday]

4. That Damn Liberal Media n/t

[wookie294]

5. News coverage of Rove resembles WMD coverage in 2002

Everything is spinned in favor of the Bush administration. Reporters are forced to "hurry up" and meet their deadline, making it difficult to get the REAL facts.