Betsy's Page

Friday, July 15, 2005

Lorie Byrd is so right. The New York Times plays this story that Karl Rove got the name of Valerie Plame from Bob Novak and other journalists as if it is more of an indication of Rove's guilt instead of an exoneration of him.
Karl Rove, the White House senior adviser, spoke with the columnist Robert D. Novak as he was preparing an article in July 2003 that identified a C.I.A. officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.

After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: "I heard that, too."

The previously undisclosed telephone conversation, which took place on July 8, 2003, was initiated by Mr. Novak, the person who has been briefed on the matter said.

....On Oct. 1, 2003, Mr. Novak wrote another column in which he described calling two officials who were his sources for the earlier column. The first source, whose identity has not been revealed, provided the outlines of the story and was described by Mr. Novak as "no partisan gunslinger." Mr. Novak wrote that when he called a second official for confirmation, the source said, "Oh, you know about it."

That second source was Mr. Rove, the person briefed on the matter said. Mr. Rove's account to investigators about what he told Mr. Novak was similar in its message although the White House adviser's recollection of the exact words was slightly different. Asked by investigators how he knew enough to leave Mr. Novak with the impression that his information was accurate, Mr. Rove said he had heard parts of the story from other journalists but had not heard Ms. Wilson's name.

Doesn't this seem to make it clear that Rove didn't leak her name and only passed on what he'd heard from other journalists? Who might those other journalists be? Might one of them be Judith Miller, the NYT's own reporter whom they're proudly supporting while she sits in jail refusing to testify? It never made sense why she would be refusing to testify if her source was Karl Rove since he gave her a waiver and could have given her a more personal waiver like Matt Cooper got. And he himself testified three times for the Grand Jury.

I just don't see this story as a huge blockbuster. It seems to hold up what Rove's defenders have been saying about him all along. We still don't know who was Novak's first source, the one he described as "no partisan gunslinger." That sure doesn't sound like Rove or even Scooter Libby. In fact, knowing that Colin Powell has testified before the Grand Jury, it sounds more like him, though why he'd be talking to Bob Novak is beyond me.

You know, both the story about Matt Cooper and the one about Bob Novak say that those reporters called him, both about separate subjects and then asked about Joe Wilson. That sure was a sneaky way for Karl Rove to initiate a plan to smear Wilson by just waiting for two reporters to call him and ask him about it. I never bought that this was a campaign to smear Wilson. How is it smearing a guy to say that his wife works for the CIA. What it did do was cast doubt on part of his story. Doubt that was well founded as the Senate report made clear. That is not a smear and to continue to portray it as a smear is to buy into Joe Wilson's way of coloring the story rather than objectively portray the facts. I love it when the NYT says this,
The conversation between Mr. Novak and Mr. Rove seemed almost certain to intensify the question about whether one of Mr. Bush's closest political advisers played a role in what appeared to be an effort to undermine Mr. Wilson's credibility after he challenged the veracity of a key point in Mr. Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech, saying Saddam Hussein had sought nuclear fuel in Africa.
Gee, what will intensify? The media asking questions will intensify. And the Democrats free-riding off of the NYT's mischaractization of the story. That makes it easy to predict an intensification when the journalists themselves are part of the intensifying.

John Podhoretz thinks that this story is also a big nothing.
This surely qualifies as one of the "hey, big whoop" stories of all time. And I am not saying this because I am some partisan gunslinger. Simple fairness says that an official called by a journalist who volunteers a piece of gossip and then responds, "I heard that too," is not retailing a piece of incendiary information intended to destroy lives and place CIA assets in harm's way.

And I'm going to be blunt here. Anybody who says different has an agenda that has nothing whatever to do with Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, or much of anything else besides doing damage to the Bush administration and character-assassinating Karl Rove.

Ya think?

To do a little free-riding of my own, here are some links that Lorie Byrd has on this story. She has a great roundup of initial blog commentary on this.

The Anchoress thinks that Karl Rove has played rope-a-dope again.

Ed Morrissey points out the hypocrisy of the NYT stance on Judith Miller since this story obviously relies on someone leaking Grand Jury testimony which should be against the law, unless, I believe, it is the witness himself saying what he said. It sure doesn't seem like the NYT's source is Karl Rove for what went on in the Grand Jury. Is Mr. Fitzgerald now going to have to conduct an investigation into who is leaking the Grand Jury testimony? The NYT describes the leaker as someone who has been officially briefed on the matter. Maybe it is Rove's lawyer but he is identified elsewhere for the things he said. It could be someone in Fitzpatrick's own office, but they've been remarkably leak-proof up to now. It's all very mysterious.

A Powerline reader points out that the NYT basically exonerates Rove but ignores that and keeps wondering when Bush will fire him.

The AP has the same story and it sounds like they have the same source. It sounds like their source is either Rove's lawyer or a lawyer in Fitzgerald's office. Maybe it is someone on Rove's team or who supports him. (H/T to Lorie Byrd who got it from Michelle Malkin) They also play the story quite differently from the NYT as Lorie and Michelle point out.
Presidential confidant Karl Rove testified to a grand jury that he learned the identity of a CIA operative originally from journalists, then informally discussed the information with a Time magazine reporter days before the story broke, according to a person briefed on the testimony.

The person, who works in the legal profession and spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, told The Associated Press that Rove testified last year that he remembers specifically being told by columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of a harsh Iraq war critic, worked for the CIA.

Rove testified that Novak originally called him the Tuesday before Plame's identity was revealed in July 2003 to discuss another story. The conversation eventually turned to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was strongly criticizing the Bush administration's Iraq war policy and the intelligence it used to justify the war, the source said.

The person said Rove testified that Novak told him he had learned and planned to report in a weekend column that Wilson's wife, Plame, had worked for the CIA, and the circumstances on how her husband traveled to Africa to check bogus claims of alleged nuclear material sales to Iraq.

Novak's column, citing two Bush administration officials, appeared six days later, touching off a political firestorm and leading to a federal criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's undercover identity. That probe has ensnared presidential aides and reporters in a two-year legal battle.

Rove told the grand jury that by the time Novak had called him, he believes he had similar information about Wilson's wife from another reporter but had no recollection of which reporter had told him about it first, the source said.
Here is the AP headline: "Source: Rove Got CIA Agent ID From Media"

Here is the NYT headline: "Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer"

Quite a difference, n'est-ce pas?

I don't think there is any law against telling one reporter one another reporter told you. The Anchoress thinks that this story is going to make the press quite uncomfortable. It does seem that what was once a story about the administration leaking Plame's name has now morphed into a story about what the press knew and when they knew it and will they testify about it.

Tom Maguire, as always, has a great round up about all of this. He wants Karl to think real hard and try to remember who was the journalist who first told him about Wilson's wife. Could it have been Judith Miller?

The Washington Post also has this story and they seem to indicate that the leaker about Rove's testimony is a lawyer in the administration or on Rove's team.
The lawyer, who has knowledge of the conversations between Rove and prosecutors, said President Bush's deputy chief of staff has told investigators that he first learned about the operative from a journalist and that he later learned her name from Novak.
Sounds like pushback from the administration to show that Rove was not the one who leaked to Bob Novak. Now, I think the leaker for this story is someone working for Rove or the administration who got the story of Rove's testimony from Rove. That would not be illegal to leak since it is the Grand Jury and the prosecutors who are legally bound by the secrecy. Remember all the Clinton guys coming out of the Grand Jury talking about what they said, or like Sidney Blumenthal, lying about what they'd said. The fact that this same story is in the NYT, the Washington Post, and AP indicates a concerted effort to get out the story. And since the story helps Rove, although the NYT is too invested in the story to either realize that or to perhaps to allow that to happen, it certainly seems like a leak that came from Rove's side.

You want a hint that this story helps Rove: lefty bloggers don't like it one bit. Memeorandum has the ones linking to this story. They either don't buy it as exonerating Rove. Of course not. Or they think the story is just the administration spin to help Rove. They seem to understand what the NYT didn't - that this story helps Rove instead of hurting him.

I think we're about at stage eight of the twelve-stage process of media scandals that I described a couple of days ago.

UPDATE: With the story that Norm Coleman might be leading some of the Rove defense, you think he could be the source for the NYT/WP/AP stories?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 5:27 AM 0 comments

Comments:

Lorie Byrd is so right. The New York Times plays this story that Karl Rove got the name of Valerie Plame from Bob Novak and other journalists as if it is more of an indication of Rove's guilt instead of an exoneration of him.

Karl Rove, the White House senior adviser, spoke with the columnist Robert D. Novak as he was preparing an article in July 2003 that identified a C.I.A. officer who was undercover, someone who has been officially briefed on the matter said.

Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.

After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: "I heard that, too."

The previously undisclosed telephone conversation, which took place on July 8, 2003, was initiated by Mr. Novak, the person who has been briefed on the matter said.

....On Oct. 1, 2003, Mr. Novak wrote another column in which he described calling two officials who were his sources for the earlier column. The first source, whose identity has not been revealed, provided the outlines of the story and was described by Mr. Novak as "no partisan gunslinger." Mr. Novak wrote that when he called a second official for confirmation, the source said, "Oh, you know about it."

That second source was Mr. Rove, the person briefed on the matter said. Mr. Rove's account to investigators about what he told Mr. Novak was similar in its message although the White House adviser's recollection of the exact words was slightly different. Asked by investigators how he knew enough to leave Mr. Novak with the impression that his information was accurate, Mr. Rove said he had heard parts of the story from other journalists but had not heard Ms. Wilson's name.

Doesn't this seem to make it clear that Rove didn't leak her name and only passed on what he'd heard from other journalists? Who might those other journalists be? Might one of them be Judith Miller, the NYT's own reporter whom they're proudly supporting while she sits in jail refusing to testify? It never made sense why she would be refusing to testify if her source was Karl Rove since he gave her a waiver and could have given her a more personal waiver like Matt Cooper got. And he himself testified three times for the Grand Jury.

I just don't see this story as a huge blockbuster. It seems to hold up what Rove's defenders have been saying about him all along. We still don't know who was Novak's first source, the one he described as "no partisan gunslinger." That sure doesn't sound like Rove or even Scooter Libby. In fact, knowing that Colin Powell has testified before the Grand Jury, it sounds more like him, though why he'd be talking to Bob Novak is beyond me.

You know, both the story about Matt Cooper and the one about Bob Novak say that those reporters called him, both about separate subjects and then asked about Joe Wilson. That sure was a sneaky way for Karl Rove to initiate a plan to smear Wilson by just waiting for two reporters to call him and ask him about it. I never bought that this was a campaign to smear Wilson. How is it smearing a guy to say that his wife works for the CIA. What it did do was cast doubt on part of his story. Doubt that was well founded as the Senate report made clear. That is not a smear and to continue to portray it as a smear is to buy into Joe Wilson's way of coloring the story rather than objectively portray the facts. I love it when the NYT says this,

The conversation between Mr. Novak and Mr. Rove seemed almost certain to intensify the question about whether one of Mr. Bush's closest political advisers played a role in what appeared to be an effort to undermine Mr. Wilson's credibility after he challenged the veracity of a key point in Mr. Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech, saying Saddam Hussein had sought nuclear fuel in Africa.

Gee, what will intensify? The media asking questions will intensify. And the Democrats free-riding off of the NYT's mischaractization of the story. That makes it easy to predict an intensification when the journalists themselves are part of the intensifying.

John Podhoretz thinks that this story is also a big nothing.

This surely qualifies as one of the "hey, big whoop" stories of all time. And I am not saying this because I am some partisan gunslinger. Simple fairness says that an official called by a journalist who volunteers a piece of gossip and then responds, "I heard that too," is not retailing a piece of incendiary information intended to destroy lives and place CIA assets in harm's way.

And I'm going to be blunt here. Anybody who says different has an agenda that has nothing whatever to do with Joseph Wilson, Valerie Plame, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, or much of anything else besides doing damage to the Bush administration and character-assassinating Karl Rove.

Ya think?

To do a little free-riding of my own, here are some links that Lorie Byrd has on this story. She has a great roundup of initial blog commentary on this.

The Anchoress thinks that Karl Rove has played rope-a-dope again.

Ed Morrissey points out the hypocrisy of the NYT stance on Judith Miller since this story obviously relies on someone leaking Grand Jury testimony which should be against the law, unless, I believe, it is the witness himself saying what he said. It sure doesn't seem like the NYT's source is Karl Rove for what went on in the Grand Jury. Is Mr. Fitzgerald now going to have to conduct an investigation into who is leaking the Grand Jury testimony? The NYT describes the leaker as someone who has been officially briefed on the matter. Maybe it is Rove's lawyer but he is identified elsewhere for the things he said. It could be someone in Fitzpatrick's own office, but they've been remarkably leak-proof up to now. It's all very mysterious.

A Powerline reader points out that the NYT basically exonerates Rove but ignores that and keeps wondering when Bush will fire him.

The AP has the same story and it sounds like they have the same source. It sounds like their source is either Rove's lawyer or a lawyer in Fitzgerald's office. Maybe it is someone on Rove's team or who supports him. (H/T to Lorie Byrd who got it from Michelle Malkin) They also play the story quite differently from the NYT as Lorie and Michelle point out.

Presidential confidant Karl Rove testified to a grand jury that he learned the identity of a CIA operative originally from journalists, then informally discussed the information with a Time magazine reporter days before the story broke, according to a person briefed on the testimony.

The person, who works in the legal profession and spoke only on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of grand jury proceedings, told The Associated Press that Rove testified last year that he remembers specifically being told by columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of a harsh Iraq war critic, worked for the CIA.

Rove testified that Novak originally called him the Tuesday before Plame's identity was revealed in July 2003 to discuss another story. The conversation eventually turned to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was strongly criticizing the Bush administration's Iraq war policy and the intelligence it used to justify the war, the source said.

The person said Rove testified that Novak told him he had learned and planned to report in a weekend column that Wilson's wife, Plame, had worked for the CIA, and the circumstances on how her husband traveled to Africa to check bogus claims of alleged nuclear material sales to Iraq.

Novak's column, citing two Bush administration officials, appeared six days later, touching off a political firestorm and leading to a federal criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's undercover identity. That probe has ensnared presidential aides and reporters in a two-year legal battle.

Rove told the grand jury that by the time Novak had called him, he believes he had similar information about Wilson's wife from another reporter but had no recollection of which reporter had told him about it first, the source said.

Here is the AP headline: "Source: Rove Got CIA Agent ID From Media"

Here is the NYT headline: "Rove Reportedly Held Phone Talk on C.I.A. Officer"

Quite a difference, n'est-ce pas?

I don't think there is any law against telling one reporter one another reporter told you. The Anchoress thinks that this story is going to make the press quite uncomfortable. It does seem that what was once a story about the administration leaking Plame's name has now morphed into a story about what the press knew and when they knew it and will they testify about it.

Tom Maguire, as always, has a great round up about all of this. He wants Karl to think real hard and try to remember who was the journalist who first told him about Wilson's wife. Could it have been Judith Miller?

The Washington Post also has this story and they seem to indicate that the leaker about Rove's testimony is a lawyer in the administration or on Rove's team.

The lawyer, who has knowledge of the conversations between Rove and prosecutors, said President Bush's deputy chief of staff has told investigators that he first learned about the operative from a journalist and that he later learned her name from Novak.

Sounds like pushback from the administration to show that Rove was not the one who leaked to Bob Novak. Now, I think the leaker for this story is someone working for Rove or the administration who got the story of Rove's testimony from Rove. That would not be illegal to leak since it is the Grand Jury and the prosecutors who are legally bound by the secrecy. Remember all the Clinton guys coming out of the Grand Jury talking about what they said, or like Sidney Blumenthal, lying about what they'd said. The fact that this same story is in the NYT, the Washington Post, and AP indicates a concerted effort to get out the story. And since the story helps Rove, although the NYT is too invested in the story to either realize that or to perhaps to allow that to happen, it certainly seems like a leak that came from Rove's side.

You want a hint that this story helps Rove: lefty bloggers don't like it one bit. Memeorandum has the ones linking to this story. They either don't buy it as exonerating Rove. Of course not. Or they think the story is just the administration spin to help Rove. They seem to understand what the NYT didn't - that this story helps Rove instead of hurting him.

I think we're about at stage eight of the twelve-stage process of media scandals that I described a couple of days ago.

UPDATE: With the story that Norm Coleman might be leading some of the Rove defense, you think he could be the source for the NYT/WP/AP stories?

posted by Betsy Newmark permalink 5:27 AM 0 comments

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Friday, July 15, 2005