[quote]vroom wrote:
Perhaps you and Zeb should go to the same remedial reading classes?[/quote]
…and yet more personal insults…
[quote]You are right. There is no connection.
You are a biased fool.[/quote]
Zap, you say we need a trial to convict Rove, but you are willing to state with conviction that the illicit funding is the reason for the approvals?
I’m not trying to defend Clinton or the sale of those materials in any capacity. You thinking I am doing so shows your own bias!
I’m simply trying to show you that your own stance is inconsistent.
–
Zeb, do you have anything to actually say or you are going to grind your “angry liberals” axe for a while instead?
You can go on counting words per post, words per insult or whatever else it is you wish, but it is simply useless.
Instead of using such diversionary tactics, why don’t you actually come up with something insightful to say?
[quote]vroom wrote:
You are right. There is no connection.
You are a biased fool.
Zap, you say we need a trial to convict Rove, but you are willing to state with conviction that the illicit funding is the reason for the approvals?
I’m not trying to defend Clinton or the sale of those materials in any capacity. You thinking I am doing so shows your own bias!
I’m simply trying to show you that your own stance is inconsistent.[/quote]
How am I inconsistent?
By calling for a trial before we convict Rove?
I am not calling for another conviction of Clinton. I am only using that as an example to refute your statement on Clintons national defense record.
Perhaps he is just a moron by letting crucial guidance technology into Chinese hands and it has nothing to do with the massive payoffs his campaign received. Either way it does not bode well for Bubba.
If you would tone down your negativity and actually read my posts you would see that I am disgusted by Rove’s alleged leak and believe he should be prosecuted if the evidence warrants it.
[quote]You are a biased fool.[quote]
In my honest opinion this phrase describes almost everyone on this forum.
Perhaps you should refresh my memory. What was my statement concerning Clinton’s national defense record?
What the hell are you smoking? Sign up for that remedial reading class immediately.
[quote]vroom wrote:
You are right. There is no connection.
You are a biased fool.
Zap, you say we need a trial to convict Rove, but you are willing to state with conviction that the illicit funding is the reason for the approvals?
I’m not trying to defend Clinton or the sale of those materials in any capacity. You thinking I am doing so shows your own bias!
I’m simply trying to show you that your own stance is inconsistent.
–
Zeb, do you have anything to actually say or you are going to grind your “angry liberals” axe for a while instead?
You can go on counting words per post, words per insult or whatever else it is you wish, but it is simply useless.
Instead of using such diversionary tactics, why don’t you actually come up with something insightful to say?[/quote]
Diversionary tactics? Wow…you are lost man. Pointing out the fact that you can’t seem to type a post without adding a personal insult seems important enough to point out…for now.
[quote]vroom wrote:
What the hell are you smoking? Sign up for that remedial reading class immediately.[/quote]
And the personal attacks continue…
This is a pretty good accounting of the Rove issue, minimal editorializing.
By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
July 18 issue - It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. “Subject: Rove/P&C,” (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. “Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation …” Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, “please don’t source this to rove or even WH [White House]” and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.
Last week, after Time turned over that e-mail, among other notes and e-mails, Cooper agreed to testify before a grand jury in the Valerie Plame case. Explaining that he had obtained last-minute “personal consent” from his source, Cooper was able to avoid a jail sentence for contempt of court. Another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, refused to identify her source and chose to go to jail instead.
For two years, a federal prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been investigating the leak of Plame’s identity as an undercover CIA agent. The leak was first reported by columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. Novak apparently made some arrangement with the prosecutor, but Fitzgerald continued to press other reporters for their sources, possibly to show a pattern (to prove intent) or to make a perjury case. (It is illegal to knowingly identify an undercover CIA officer.) Rove’s words on the Plame case have always been carefully chosen. “I didn’t know her name. I didn’t leak her name,” Rove told CNN last year when asked if he had anything to do with the Plame leak. Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did?and that Rove was the secret source who, at the request of both Cooper’s lawyer and the prosecutor, gave Cooper permission to testify.
The controversy arose when Wilson wrote an op-ed column in The New York Times saying that he had been sent by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate charges that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. Wilson said he had found no evidence to support the claim. Wilson’s column was an early attack on the evidence used by the Bush administration to justify going to war in Iraq. The White House wished to discredit Wilson and his attacks. The question for the prosecutor is whether someone in the administration, in an effort to undermine Wilson’s credibility, intentionally revealed the covert identity of his wife.
End
Couple of points to consider if you are interested in the facts of the case.
-
The reporter already knew the id of
Palme. He was verifying it. At that
point it was public knowledge. Rove
tried to kill it. Whetehr for
political reasons or not he tried to
kill it. -
Look at the dates. The interviews
by the other reporters occured before
the Rove call. -
Rove gave consent for the information
to be released by the reporter. A
savvy operator like Rove knows he did
not do anything illegal. -
The administration called for the
investigation. If they had something
to hide they would not drive the
issue. -
Wilson appears politcally motivated.
He uesed his wife for clearance. He
exposed her. -
Palme is called an undercover agent
working as an analyst. That’s a
contradiction. They are different
directorates. She appears to be an
analyst at the time of the story. She
and the agency did nothing to cover
her identidy that I can see.
These are the facts of the case. If you would like to comment on what I posted, it may be an interesting discussion.
Hedo,
Good post. Is the allegation that Rove confirmed the identify? How exactly did he try to “kill” the story?
JeffR
The allegation, as I understand it, is that Rove disclosed the identidy of the CIA agent which I do not think he did based on the facts in this article.
I don’t know if the facts are correct but it is supposed an accurate account of the Time Reporters notes.
He seemed to try and persuade the reporter that he was way off on the direction of the story. The opposition believes he did this to defer criticism of White House policies. I think that was certainly a part of it. The other part is the guy was wrong and Rove wants to keep a reporter in his pocket if he can. If he lies to him the reporter will not be there when he needs them.
That’s my view. Perhaps the investigators are not persuing him because they don’t see a crime either.
Hedo, not sure your numbered facts are indeed facts at this point.
–
Zeb, again, is that all you have? Instead of discussing issues you choose to focus on trying to discredit me based on criticizing my posts? Come on, please tell me you have more to offer than that.
Thanks, Hedo.
Isn’t it interesting to watch a story develop?
The headlines often end up being so misleading.
I watched John “I want the dnc to pay for my botox injections” Kerry, and Hillary “You must pay for your own room and board, Secret Service” Clinton, in a feeding frenzy earlier today. They were demanding he be fired.
I’ll be watching.
JeffR
[quote]vroom wrote:
Hedo, not sure your numbered facts are indeed facts at this point.
–
Zeb, again, is that all you have? Instead of discussing issues you choose to focus on trying to discredit me based on criticizing my posts? Come on, please tell me you have more to offer than that.[/quote]
Vroom
They are the what I pulled from the story. I don’t know if the story is accurate or not…but it seemed to be factual and devoid of opinion on the part of the reporter.
The dates don’t seem to indict Rove, and he did discourage the story according to the source. If you disagree, based on this story, or other sources why do you think he may be guilty of a crime?
I don’t see that he committed a crime but like I said before ,if he did, he knows the life, and should pay the price.
This is from Jason Smith’s political blog. It is certainly more biased then the Newsweek article but the fact remains that Wilson did identidy his wife as a CIA agent well before Rove did. If so this makes the information public.
Beginning:
The Source of Valerie Plame’s Blown Cover…
Is none other than her husband, Joseph Wilson. While the Left continues to pound the theory that Karl Rove “intentionally outed an undercover operative” as revenge on Wilson’s opposition to the Iraq war, the real story is that Wilson initiated the involvement of his wife in the story.
A story from exactly one year ago showed that a Senate Intelligence Committee panel investigating the story found that Valerie Plame had written a memo recommending Wilson for the trip to Niger, explaining that her husband “has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.”
An article in Newsweek, due out next week, reveals this little tidbit:
The controversy arose when Wilson wrote an op-ed column in The New York Times saying that he had been sent by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate charges that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from the African country of Niger.
Joe Wilson went public first with the fact that the CIA had sent him. Combine that with the Senate investigation that found that his wife, Valerie Plame was the person at the CIA recommending his trip, and you have the source of the leak as to her employment at the CIA - Wilson himself.
Although he didn’t mention her by name in his op-ed, he was playing the odds that his story couldn’t be refuted without mentioning her and thus figured his bogus claims would go unchallenged. What he didn’t count on was that anyone responding to his bogus claims by raising her name and mentioning the memo she authored, wouldn’t be “knowingly identifying an undercover CIA officer” but rather identifying a source of a memo that contradicted his bogus claims… which is not illegal.
This wasn’t about outing an agent for revenge, this was simply about refuting bogus claims by a partisan hack. Wilson brought the CIA into the story, and with the law of unintended consequences, brought his wife in as well since she was the source for the recommendation of his Niger trip.
Wilson asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger. But in addition to finding the memo where she specifically recommended him, the Senate Committee also found that Wilson had made an earlier trip to Niger in 1999 for the CIA, also at his wife’s suggestion.
I suspect the tinfoil-hat crowd will keep clinging to this story like MIchael Moore to the last Krispy Kreme in the box.
End
Hedo, I don’t see where you get point #1 from the story you posted. Also, having discouraged the story doesn’t mean he wasn’t the source of the leak in the first place.
Where I get the thought he is guilty of a crime is a collection of his own statements and his lawyers statements. He is always careful to say he didn’t know her name or reveal her name. He doesn’t say that he didn’t give identifying information about her.
Whether or not he is the first to reveal the information doesn’t change the nature of the situation if he reveals the information himself independently.
Anyway, if somehow it turns out he did nothing wrong, I’ll be surprised, but I’ll be happy to eat an appropriate amount of crow. However, if this gets buried or swept away, it isn’t the same as doing nothing wrong…
Hedo,
The claim that Wilson himself outed his wife is silly at best…
You will have to do much better than that twisted piece of non-logic.
It’s not my logic. It’s his. I posted it as anothers view of the situation.
Wilson claimed that his wife authorized the trip. He did this knowing his wife was a CIA agent and her identidy would become public. It serves to take the wind out of the argument that she was some sort of deep cover agent. What part of his testimony or the bloggers analysis is faulty?
I posted this as background information and identified the writer as a partisan blogger, but Wilson’s information was given as part of an investigation, and accepted by the Senate. This means he was not accused of lying when he spoke to the investigators, so his statements have been accepted as correct. What part of his statement do you find incorrect? After all it was written by Wilson as an op-ed article for the NYT’s. As I said it’s not my opinion it’s Wilson’s and it’s subsequent repurcussions that are reported.
The point of his story is that both Wilson and Plame are stong Democratic supporters and serves as a counterbalance that Wilson was merely caught up in the affair since he strongly argued to be selected for this fact finding mission. It is hard to believe he would have outed his wife without her consent. The motives of both certainly have to be questioned if you are going to question Rove’s?
I would propose that Wilson thought his information would be so damming that the outing of his wife would be seen as justifable and more then an acceptable cost for bringing the story to light. When it turned out to be a non-event he became distraught. Since his wife’s career was effectively capped due to the outing and the political gamesmanship gone horribly wrong…I cannot imagine things were to happy at the Wilson-Plame household around the holidays.
The argument that Rove is guilty if he independently verified Palme’s identidy is not quite accurate. If he did so before the story broke he is guilty as sin. If the reporter already had the story and tried to verify it with Rove and Rove tried to kill the story then he has committed no crime. At least according to the legal analysis I have listened too. If I am wrong in this regard let me know why via a link or posting?
Where it gets interesting is if the reporter had only a hunch and was trying to bluff Rove into committing to a positive ID. Since Rove did not, and according to the reporters notes, which he tried to protect from the investigation, Rove further tried to tell the reporter he was way off. This furthers removes Rove from outing the agent and actually demonstrates he attempted to keep the story from the public eye. Rove gave his sonsent for the reporter to release the info. He’s clear and would not have done so otherwise. Like or or not the guy is a political genius and savvy operator.
That is the information that is coming out in the Newsweek article but if someone has something different I am all ears.
If there’s something more let’s see it. It’s a great story to follow. The politics are fascinating.
[quote]vroom wrote:
Hedo, not sure your numbered facts are indeed facts at this point.
–
Zeb, again, is that all you have? Instead of discussing issues you choose to focus on trying to discredit me based on criticizing my posts? Come on, please tell me you have more to offer than that.[/quote]
Please tell me that you can actually debate a topic without using personal attacks.
The following is a statement from Karl Rove’s lawyer laying out his case.
Of particular note is the last comment regarding the prosecutor. Rove is clearly cooperating with him. If he wasn’t they would have no contact. Clearly, at this point Rove is not a target or subject of investigation.
Begin:
Lawyer: Cooper ?Burned? Karl Rove
Rove?s attorney talks to NRO.
The lawyer for top White House adviser Karl Rove says that Time reporter Matthew Cooper “burned” Rove after a conversation between the two men concerning former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s fact-finding mission to Niger and the role Wilson’s wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, played in arranging that trip. Nevertheless, attorney Robert Luskin says Rove long ago gave his permission for all reporters, including Cooper, to tell prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about their conversations with Rove.
In an interview with National Review Online, Luskin compared the contents of a July 11, 2003, internal Time e-mail written by Cooper with the wording of a story Cooper co-wrote a few days later. “By any definition, he burned Karl Rove,” Luskin said of Cooper. “If you read what Karl said to him and read how Cooper characterizes it in the article, he really spins it in a pretty ugly fashion to make it seem like people in the White House were affirmatively reaching out to reporters to try to get them to them to report negative information about Plame.”
First the e-mail. According to a report in Newsweek, Cooper’s e-mail to Time Washington bureau chief Michael Duffy said, “Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation…” Cooper said that Rove had warned him away from getting “too far out on Wilson,” and then passed on Rove’s statement that neither Vice President Dick Cheney nor CIA Director George Tenet had picked Wilson for the trip; “it was, KR said, wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd issues who authorized the trip.” Finally ? all of this is according to the Newsweek report ? Cooper’s e-mail said that “not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly that there’s still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger…”
A few days after sending the e-mail, Cooper co-wrote an article headlined “A War on Wilson?” that appeared on Time’s website. The story began, “Has the Bush administration declared war on a former ambassador who conducted a fact-finding mission to probe possible Iraqi interest in African uranium? Perhaps.”
The story continued:
Some government officials have noted to Time in interviews (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband’s being dispatched to Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein’s government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, which is used to build nuclear devices.
Plame’s role in Wilson’s assignment was later confirmed by a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation.
Luskin told NRO that the circumstances of Rove’s conversation with Cooper undercut Time’s suggestion of a White House “war on Wilson.” According to Luskin, Cooper originally called Rove ? not the other way around ? and said he was working on a story on welfare reform. After some conversation about that issue, Luskin said, Cooper changed the subject to the weapons of mass destruction issue, and that was when the two had the brief talk that became the subject of so much legal wrangling. According to Luskin, the fact that Rove did not call Cooper; that the original purpose of the call, as Cooper told Rove, was welfare reform; that only after Cooper brought the WMD issue up did Rove discuss Wilson ? all are “indications that this was not a calculated effort by the White House to get this story out.”
“Look at the Cooper e-mail,” Luskin continues. “Karl speaks to him on double super secret background…I don’t think that you can read that e-mail and conclude that what Karl was trying to do was to get Cooper to publish the name of Wilson’s wife.”
Nor, says Luskin, was Rove trying to “out” a covert CIA agent or “smear” her husband. “What Karl was trying to do, in a very short conversation initiated by Cooper on another subject, was to warn Time away from publishing things that were going to be established as false.” Luskin points out that on the evening of July 11, 2003, just hours after the Rove-Cooper conversation, then-CIA Director George Tenet released a statement that undermined some of Wilson’s public assertions about his report. “Karl knew that that [Tenet] statement was in gestation,” says Luskin. “I think a fair reading of the e-mail was that he was trying to warn Cooper off from going out on a limb on [Wilson’s] allegations.”
Luskin also shed light on the waiver that Rove signed releasing Cooper from any confidentiality agreement about the conversation. Luskin says Rove originally signed a waiver in December 2003 or in January 2004 (Luskin did not remember the exact date). The waiver, Luskin continues, was written by the office of special prosecutor Fitzgerald, and Rove signed it without making any changes ? with the understanding that it applied to anyone with whom he had discussed the Wilson/Plame matter. “It was everyone’s expectation that the waiver would be as broad as it could be,” Luskin says.
Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller have expressed concerns that such waivers (top Cheney aide Lewis Libby also signed one) might have been coerced and thus might not have represented Rove’s true feelings. Yet from the end of 2003 or beginning of 2004, until last Wednesday, Luskin says, Rove had no idea that there might be any problem with the waiver.
It was not until that Wednesday, the day Cooper was to appear in court, that that changed. "Cooper’s lawyer called us and said, “Can you confirm that the waiver encompasses Cooper?” Luskin recalls. “I was amazed. He’s a lawyer. It’s not rocket science. [The waiver] says ‘any person.’ It’s that broad. So I said, ‘Look, I understand that you want reassurances. If Fitzgerald would like Karl to provide you with some other assurances, we will.’” Luskin says he got in touch with the prosecutor ? “Rule number one is cooperate with Fitzgerald, and there is no rule number two,” Luskin says ? and asked what to do. According to Luskin, Fitzgerald said to go ahead, and Luskin called Cooper’s lawyer back. “I said that I can reaffirm that the waiver that Karl signed applied to any conversations that Karl and Cooper had,” Luskin says. After that ? which represented no change from the situation that had existed for 18 months ? Cooper made a dramatic public announcement and agreed to testify.
A few other notes: Luskin declined to say how Rove knew that Plame “apparently” (to use Cooper’s word) worked at the CIA. But Luskin told NRO that Rove is not hiding behind the defense that he did not identify Wilson’s wife because he did not specifically use her name. Asked if that argument was too legalistic, Luskin said, “I agree with you. I think it’s a detail.”
Luskin also addressed the question of whether Rove is a “subject” of the investigation. Luskin says Fitzgerald has told Rove he is not a “target” of the investigation, but, according to Luskin, Fitzgerald has also made it clear that virtually anyone whose conduct falls within the scope of the investigation, including Rove, is considered a “subject” of the probe. “‘Target’ is something we all understand, a very alarming term,” Luskin says. On the other hand, Fitzgerald “has indicated to us that he takes a very broad view of what a subject is.”
Finally, Luskin conceded that Rove is legally free to publicly discuss his actions, including his grand-jury testimony. Rove has not spoken publicly, Luskin says, because Fitzgerald specifically asked him not to.
[quote]JeffR wrote:
Thanks, Hedo.
Isn’t it interesting to watch a story develop?
The headlines often end up being so misleading.
I watched John “I want the dnc to pay for my botox injections” Kerry, and Hillary “You must pay for your own room and board, Secret Service” Clinton, in a feeding frenzy earlier today. They were demanding he be fired.
I’ll be watching.
JeffR[/quote]
I think we all agree with the senators that he should be fired immediately, or at least removed from the whitehouse right?