Debunking the excuses (Rove)

[dsc]

I am not used to hearing pathetic excuses in the summer but the press has passed along quite a few of them lately via Rove and his spin machine.

Excuse number 1 Rove didn't break the law. Maybe Rove didn't break the specific Agee law passed in 1991. It is very narrowly drawn and it is possible that Ms. Plame wasn't covered by that law. But that isn't the only law that is involved here. In addition to the obvious perjury implications if Rove claimed he didn't leak to that grand jury after he did in fact leak, there are a myriad of other laws which cover giving secret information to the press. It is hard to imagine that she wasn't covered under those laws.

Excuse number 2 Rove didn't say her name. This one is particularly idiotic. Mr. Wilson was, by then, a public figure whose life was literally all over the press. By saying the person to whom he is married works for the CIA you have indeed divulged the identity (which is what the law covers) of a CIA employee.

Excuse number 3 Ms. Plame was widely known as a CIA agent. This is the cocktail party excuse. Can this really be true? Say for a second Wilson did indeed go around telling people that his wife was a CIA employee. Wouldn't the press have already known that when they covered him? Wouldn't someone, somewhere, have brought this up without Rove's prodding? It literally makes no sense at all that Wilson had gone around telling the world his wife was a CIA analyst dealing with WMD and that not a single, solitary, member of the press had a clue.

Excuse number 4 Ms. Plame really wasn't a secret agent. Here we have to rely on circumstancial evidence, as the CIA will neither confirm nor deny this directly. The CIA was royally pissed about this. Novak used the word operative in his column. She told everyone who knew her that she worked for a private energy company. She isn't in the CIA employee's directory. Fitzgerald didn't fold up shop five minutes after setting up shop. All of the above leads one to the conclusion that she was covert. Is it a complete proof? No. Is there any other reasonable explanation for the above facts? I can't think of one.

Excuse number 5 The CIA was plotting against Bush and needed exposed. Again, we need to use some common sense here. Does any sensible person honestly think that if they had been trying to derail the war they would have sent an agent's wife on this mission? These people are spies, after all. Even Scarecrow and Mrs. King would have had more sense that that. If this had been a set up the person sent to Niger would have been wholly unconnected to the CIA and been brimming with plausible deniability.

In the final analysis, Rove is at best a morally repugnant person who flirted with treason in order to silence a critic. By doing so he probably, but not necessarily broke a law. After the fact, he again may well have perjured himself and most definitely was quite content to let people rot in jail to save himself (There would have been snow on the hilltops of Hell before he would have signed a waiver had Time not caved). Any sensible Democrat would be simply appalled if Clinton hadn't fired a person who did this. But, believe it or not, it actually gets worse. In addition to all of the above, Rove clearly either lied to the President or wasn't asked about his role in this case by him (or the President is lying when he claims not to know the facts). This could have been solved 5 minutes after Rove signed that waiver and was revealed as the source by his being called into the Oval Office and asked to either tell the truth about his matter or resign. Clearly this didn't occur.

Where is the Republican outrage? Why are they tolerating and making lame excuses?

[writes2000]

1. great job.

[H2O Man]

2. Good questions.

Very well thought-out. Very impressive. Here are a few thoughts:

1- Time will tell. It's too early to know what indictments may result from this. However, it is apparent that Rove has been severely damaged by his lying about his role.

2- Rove identified Plame to several reporters. To think that his reference to her as Wilson's wife makes his actions less of a potential legal violation is simply wrong.

3- Plame's family, friends, neighbors, and even her personal attorney did not know she was a CIA covert attorney. The prosecutor has taken an interest in the administration officials who have said her identity was "well known," as that indicates the wide-spread wrong-doing within the White House and State Department.

4- The first witness the grand jury heard testify made "crystal clear" that Valerie was a CIA covert agent. If this person had not, the judge would have closed the investigation on day one.

5- The Niger yellow cake documents were identified as forgeries by the IAEA; the thought that there was any discussion of or sale of yellow cake was proven false by two investigations done before Wilson was sent to Niger. Unless the administration played a role in promoting the forgeries or the fib about Niger selling yellow cake to Iraq, it would be impossible to view this as the CIA being against the administration.