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. --Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, 07.18.05
TWO POV's - left-leaning, you say? Well, when the right weighs in, I will place their opinion here, too. Fair is fair.
David Corn on the Huffington Post was about to explode! But hey, here it is: DavidCorn.com Explosive New Rove Revelation Coming Soon? [yes, sirree!]
Time to get ready for the Karl Rove frog-march? - I don't usually log on Saturday evenings. But I've received information too good not to share immediately. It was only yesterday that
I was bemoaning the probability that -- after a week of apparent Rove-related revelations--it might be a while before any more news emerged about the Plame/CIA leak. Yet tonight I received this as-solid-as-it-gets tip: on Sunday Newsweek is posting a story that nails Rove. The newsmagazine has obtained documentary evidence that Rove was indeed a key source for Time magazine's Matt Cooper and that Rove--prior to the publication of the Bob Novak column that first publicly disclosed Valerie Wilson/Plame as a CIA official -- told Cooper that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife apparently worked at the CIA and was involved in Joseph Wilson's now-controversial trip to Niger.*********************************************
AmericaBlog.org "because a great nation deserves the truth" gay contingency weighs in: "I [HEARTBEAT] ISIKOFF!" [me, too! I have a big fat crush on his energy!]
Sunday, July 10, 2005 "Newsweek Outs Rove -- They've got mail" by Joe in DC - 7/10/2005 08:03:00 AM
Every morning for the past week or so, I have been doing a google news with the terms "rove plame." Every day, there are more and more articles linking the two. Today, my search was very satisfying. So, here's something fun to read while having your coffee this fine Sunday morning.
Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reveals that Rove was Matt Cooper's source: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.Double super secret background? Wow. Anyway, it's clear that Rove was spinning the story not to believe Joseph Wilson. He was playing politics with national security and prepared to undermine Wilson at any cost:
In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson's criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time's editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine's corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.)
The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger..."
All this happened BEFORE the Novak column. Karl and the White House press people have been parsing words over this scandal since it began. Looks like Karl was right smack in the middle of it all along.
Meanwhile, we still have to see whether or not crimes were committed. Rove doing the perp walk is still a real possibility. Besides that, there should be ramifications for Rove. So, you have your leaker now, George Bush, what are you going to do about it? And, it would be really, really great if this week, if the White House Press Corps asked some questions about Rove...or maybe they are have kind of double super secret background, too.
---not sure about the White House Press Corp being double agents (Jeff Gannon, do you care to weigh in on that? Hogwash?!!!) Ohhhkay.....but why rely on answers from Scottie McLellan? Mike Isikoff took care of things. And Matt Cooper stays out of jail.
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2 comments:
This works
Something's not quite right about the Rove story
by AmericaBlog's John in DC - 7/10/2005 09:05:00 AM
So, we now know (apparently) that Rove told TIME that Ambassador Wilson's wife was a CIA agent (mind you, Wilson himself alleged this over a year ago and was skewered for suggesting it). Rove's defense, apparently, is that he didn't say what Plame's name was (he simply said "Wilson's wife"), and he didn't "know" that Plame was an undercover agent, he only knew she was CIA. Ok, a few points.
1. Whether he said "Valerie Plame" or "Wilson's wife" is irrelevant. It's the same thing, and if Bush tolerates this "definition of 'is'" garbage from Rove, well, then we really have a story.
2. Bush said he wanted to get to the bottom of this over a year ago. Why then did we have to waste all this money on a special prosecutor and a grand jury if Rove knew from day one that he was the guy who leaked Plame's identity? If Rove was so innocent, why didn't he just come forward immediately and say "yeah, it was me, but I didn't realize she was undercover"? Did he tell the president it was him? And if so, why didn't the president go public and put this investigation to an end? Or did Rove refuse the president's request and NOT come forward a year ago? And if so, what is he still doing working in the white House?
3. Perhaps it's legally relevant if Rove "knew" Plame was undercover or not, but it's not relevant in terms of him keeping his job. Rove intentionally outed a CIA agent working on WMD, it is irrelevant whether he did or didn't know if she was an undercover agent. First off, he knew she wasn't THAT public about her identity or there'd have been no need to "out" here - everyone would have known her already.
Second, the very fact that he appears to be claiming that he did NOT know about her undercover status is reason enough to fire him now. How dare the top political aide to the president out a CIA agent and not even think of checking whether she's undercover? I have worked before with CIA agents at several points in my career. The FIRST thing you learn is NOT to out them, period. If you don't know that they have some public CIA job, like spokesman, then you know from day one that you do NOT tell ANYONE who they are. It is totally unbelievable that Rove didn't know this simple fact about Washington - you don't tell people who is and who isn't CIA. Rove knew that, and he chose to out an agent working on WMD. The man should be fired.
The only remaining issue is to see if Bush starts haggling over the definition of is.
3. Who told Rove that Plame was a CIA agent? She was undercover after all.
4. Who was the SECOND administration source who leaked the info about Plame? Remember, Novak said TWO administration sources confirmed that Plame was CIA. Who was the second one?
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