Post-Gazette Editorial – 7/15/05

This page was last updated on July 18, 2005.

Dump Rove / The investigation moves closer to the president; Editorial; Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; July 15, 2005.

If you believe this editorial has anything to do with the alleged “outing” of a CIA agent, I have a bridge to sell you. Liberals hate – and I really mean to use the term “hate” – Karl Rove because he tends to defeat them at every turn. Remember, a lot of liberal wackos – including a congressman [Maurice Hinchey (D-NY)] – actually blamed Karl Rove for Rathergate! Just as Messrs. Cheney and Rumsfeld before him, going after Rove is simply another attempt to “get” President Bush.

If Mr. Wilson was so worried about his wife’s alleged covert status, why did he write an op-ed piece (“What I didn’t find in Africa,” 7/6/03) for The New York Times on the subject of his trip? Further, the piece implied he made the trip on behalf of VP Cheney’s office. Didn’t Wilson know people would eventually try to confirm who recommended and/or sent him and the trail would inevitably lead to his wife (who recommended him for the trip)? Regardless of what anyone else did after the op-ed piece, Mr. Wilson started this whole thing down the road and deserves some of the blame should the investigation find anyone did anything illegal.

Does the press believe a crime was committed? Not if you believe a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court by 36 news-related organizations when they tried to get contempt of court charges against the Time and New York Times reporters overturned. Argument B was, “There Is Ample Evidence On The Public Record To Cast Considerable Doubt That A Crime Has Been Committed.” I suspect the PG is a member of at least one of these groups, but I don’t know for sure.

To argue the CIA itself didn’t treat Valerie Plame (Wilson’s wife) as a covert agent, the brief made the following points (pages nine and 10).

“The follow facts are public:

· The CIA sent a non-CIA employee, Joseph C. Wilson 4^th, on a mission to Niger to determine whether Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase ‘uranium yellow cake,’ an ingredient for making a non-conventional weapon.

· Wilson had not served in Niger for over two decades, and, unlike his supposedly undercover wife, was not an expert in nuclear weapons.

· Wilson was not required to sign a confidentiality agreement about his mission.

· Wilson was not prevented by the CIA from writing his Op-Ed for The New York Times, an article that not only criticized the Administration, but also detailed his mission and findings.

· When columnist Novak contacted the CIA to verify that Plame worked for the Agency, he says that the Agency not only verified her employment but also failed to give him a serious request not to publish her name.

· The CIA’s usual procedure when it is concerned that publishing a fact would endanger a cover agent is to have a high ranking official, usually the Director, contact the journalist and ask that information not be published.

· The CIA did not prohibit Plame from making political contributions under the name ‘Wilson, Valerie E.,’ facts that are publicly available at the FEC.”

If the press believes a crime was committed, why did it claim otherwise in its brief? If the press doesn’t believe a crime has been committed, you have to ask yourself why the mainstream press is so hot to have Karl Rove canned. As I opined above, I believe the goal is to “get” President Bush and facts won’t be allowed to get in the way.

For now, anyone who writes about this subject is speculating, including me. Until the investigation concludes and the findings become public knowledge, we can only base our opinions on snippets of uncorroborated comments and leaks. Regardless of whom we want to believe, we need to remember everything we now know was provided by persons who likely have told us only what they want us to hear.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“As the Valerie Plame case becomes increasingly the Karl Rove case, and as the rising water of it begins to lap closer to President Bush, there are several truths about this matter that are worth keeping in mind.”

[RWC] Based on a July 15^th New York Times article, the PG may end up regretting it didn’t wait a couple of days before publishing an editorial on this subject.

1. In the very beginning Mr. Bush said that it was unlikely that the leaker would ever be found. There is every reason to believe that he would then have taken steps to make that true.”

[RWC] There are at least three problems with this point. First, the Bush administration appointed a special prosecutor to conduct the investigation, going so far as then Attorney General John Ashcroft recusing himself to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. Second, President Bush instructed his administration to cooperate fully with the investigation. Third, Karl Rove in December 2003 or January 2004 signed a document provided by the special prosecutor that released anyone to whom he spoke from any confidentiality agreements. Therefore, any reporters with whom Rove may have spoken on this subject could name Mr. Rove as their source if that were the case.

2. It is now clear that presidential adviser Karl Rove did discuss Valerie Plame with reporters, however those discussions are now being described or construed. Mr. Bush said he would fire anyone in the White House who did that.”

[RWC] As most liberals, I believe the PG is revising history to make it easier to call for Karl Rove’s head. President Bush said he would fire anyone who did anything illegal. To date, no one has provided any evidence Karl Rove did anything illegal. That said, probably only the special prosecutor’s team has all the facts.

On a side note, it appears Karl Rove – or anyone else – would not have done anything illegal had they done what’s alleged. Why? The law in question (1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act) sets specific conditions that must occur for the law to be violated. Nothing reported to date indicates even one of those conditions has been met. For example, the agent in question must have been in foreign service within the past five years. According to a 2003 NYT article, however, “The CIA suspected that Aldrich Ames had given [Plame’s] name [along with those of other spies] to the Russians before his espionage arrest in 1994. So her undercover security was undermined at that time, and she was brought back to Washington for safety reasons.” Assuming this article was correct, anyone “outing” Ms. Plame in 2003 didn’t violate the law. Reports indicate other requirements for violating the law also weren’t met, but I have no links for reference.

3. The concept of nailing someone (Valerie Plame, the CIA agent) for what her spouse may have done is unforgivably retrograde in 2005. (Ms. Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, is the former ambassador who said that President Bush’s State of the Union claim that Iraq had bought uranium was false.)”

[RWC] The first sentence states something as fact that has not been proven even remotely.

The parenthetical sentence is an outright lie. President Bush did not make this claim in this speech or elsewhere. Here is the quote from the 2003 SOTU speech. “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The British stand by this position to this day.

4. ‘Outing’ a CIA agent is clearly a national security affair. The Bush administration allegedly regards national security very seriously. Mr. Bush’s father, former President George H.W. Bush, was head of the CIA in 1976-77, so there is reason to believe the current president takes the CIA seriously.”

[RWC] For this and the following point, I refer you to the above-referenced brief submitted to the Supreme Court by 36 news organizations claiming no crime had been committed in this case.

5. As a matter of national security, this is neither a Republican nor a Democratic issue. Former Clinton security adviser Samuel R. ‘Sandy’ Berger was nailed for having pilfered classified documents and thus eliminated from presidential candidate John Kerry’s prospective list of candidates for secretary of state.”

[RWC] Nice try, but Berger was caught red-handed doing something illegal – more than once. To date, all we have so far in “Plamegate” are allegations. Further, as covered in the above referenced NYT story, the more we learn, the less likely it appears Karl Rove did anything wrong, let alone illegal.

6. Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has not yet sung. He is supposed to be a tough prosecutor. That may mean that, however much slippin’ and slidin’ Karl Rove has in mind, Mr. Fitzgerald may have too much integrity to get rolled by the likes of him.

7. This isn’t Watergate, however much Democrats may be licking their chops at the thought of Bush having to choose between loyalty to his friend and a long drubbing on the subject.

“In any case, Watergate should serve as an educative experience for any president.

“Given that Mr. Bush definitely has other things to do with his time -- starting with the Iraq war -- this is probably the time to just take a deep breath and fire Karl Rove now, before this goes any further.”

[RWC] The key phrase here is “before this goes any further.” I believe folks like the PG don’t want the investigation to continue for a couple of reasons. First, I believe they are afraid the investigation will find Karl Rove did nothing wrong. Second, I believe they are afraid that when the investigation concludes, Democrats will be embarrassed.

If the PG were confident about what the investigation would reveal, why would it not wait to pass judgment until the investigation concludes?