An "unprecedented partisan smear campaign."
It took the right-wing echo chamber longer than usual to swing into action on Rove's revelation of the name of a CIA agent. But they're in full spin mode today, and who do you think is to blame for Rove's actions? John Kerry, Howard Dean, and Hillary Clinton. It's actually reached the point where Fox, reactionary blogs, and propagandistic rags like the National Review are defending actions by this administration which are at the very least unpatriotic, and at worst treasonous.
The plan is simple-- do whatever it takes to get the attention off of Rove.
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. . . .
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."
Wow. So Rove was actually the hero in this tale. Thanks, National Review. Oh, and never mind that no-one on the left has actually used the word 'smear.' That would be because this isn't a smear-- it's simply a fact.
Salon adds this:
Ken Mehlman, the current chairman of the Republican National Committee, says that anyone who complains about the outing of a CIA agent is simply following the lead of the "far-left, MoveOn wing" of the Democratic Party." His predecessor seems to have had a different view.
As noted at Daily Kos, in September 2003, then-RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie told Hardball's Chris Matthews that "to reveal the identity of an undercover CIA operative -- it's abhorrent and it should be a crime, and it is a crime." When Matthews asked if such an action wouldn't be "worse than Watergate," Gillespie seemed to agree: "It's -- yeah, I suppose in terms of the real world implications of it. It's not just politics."
Note the dry observation in that first sentence. Anyone who complains about the outing of a CIA agent is a nutjob. How did the country reach this point?
The plan is simple-- do whatever it takes to get the attention off of Rove.
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. . . .
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."
Wow. So Rove was actually the hero in this tale. Thanks, National Review. Oh, and never mind that no-one on the left has actually used the word 'smear.' That would be because this isn't a smear-- it's simply a fact.
Salon adds this:
Ken Mehlman, the current chairman of the Republican National Committee, says that anyone who complains about the outing of a CIA agent is simply following the lead of the "far-left, MoveOn wing" of the Democratic Party." His predecessor seems to have had a different view.
As noted at Daily Kos, in September 2003, then-RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie told Hardball's Chris Matthews that "to reveal the identity of an undercover CIA operative -- it's abhorrent and it should be a crime, and it is a crime." When Matthews asked if such an action wouldn't be "worse than Watergate," Gillespie seemed to agree: "It's -- yeah, I suppose in terms of the real world implications of it. It's not just politics."
Note the dry observation in that first sentence. Anyone who complains about the outing of a CIA agent is a nutjob. How did the country reach this point?
posted by Matt Sandwich | 8:17 AM
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