Rove was the source of the Plame leak... so it appears

Tico said:

Quote:

Whether she was or was not a "covert agent" under the IIPA has yet to be determined.

I want to make sure that I understand where you are headed with this, so I am asking for clarification.

Just what would determine it?

Are you suggesting that it would take the examination of a court to determine it?

sumac wrote:

Tico said:

Quote:

Whether she was or was not a "covert agent" under the IIPA has yet to be determined.

I want to make sure that I understand where you are headed with this, so I am asking for clarification.

I already know. He likes to waste people's time.

When are you two going to realize that you're in love with each other?

When are you two going to realize that you're in love with each other?

Chrissee wrote:

sumac wrote:

Tico said:

Quote:

Whether she was or was not a "covert agent" under the IIPA has yet to be determined.

I want to make sure that I understand where you are headed with this, so I am asking for clarification.

I already know. He likes to waste people's time.

I'm pretty sure that's your function here ... to make wild conjecture and unsupportable statements, attributing them as factual, and requiring others to point out the many errors in your thinking process.

Now, it has also come up that Wilson claimed that Cheney requested that he go, and that Rove was simply stopping Cooper from printing something false when he mentioned it was actually Plame that asked him to go.

But...

Quote:

Media repeated false GOP talking point on authorization for Wilson trip to Niger

Numerous media figures have repeated, or failed to question, a Republican National Committee (RNC) talking point asserting that former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV claimed that Vice President Dick Cheney "sent him" on a 2002 CIA mission to Niger, as well as White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove's reported assertion that "Wilson's wife" authorized the trip. The RNC has accused Wilson of misrepresenting the Niger trip in its effort to explain and justify Rove's alleged involvement in leaking the identity of Wilson's wife, former clandestine CIA officer Valerie Plame. Specifically, according to the RNC talking point, Rove told Time magazine writer Matthew Cooper that "Wilson's wife," who worked at the CIA, had authorized Wilson's trip because Rove was trying to prevent Cooper from writing inaccurately that Cheney had sent Wilson on the mission. As the RNC alleged: "The bottom line is Karl Rove was discouraging a reporter from writing a false story based on a false premise and the Democrats are engaging in blatant partisan political attacks."

In fact, both of the claims underpinning the RNC's defense of Rove are false: Wilson never claimed he was sent to Niger at Cheney's request, and it was the CIA's Directorate of Operations, Counterproliferation Division (CPD), that authorized the trip, not Plame.

The RNC talking point: Wilson said he was sent to Niger at Cheney's behest

In order to defend Rove's mention of "Wilson's wife" to Cooper, the RNC sought to demonstrate that Rove had reason to believe that Cooper would falsely report that Cheney sent Wilson on the Niger trip, and that Rove needed to set the record straight by telling Cooper that Plame had actually authorized the trip, as Rove's lawyer has claimed. In an attempt to suggest that public statements made by Wilson had led Cooper to believe that Cheney authorized the trip, the RNC misrepresented a July 6, 2003, op-ed by Wilson in The New York Times and distorted a remark from Wilson in an August 3, 2003, interview on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Blitzer -- made after Rove discussed Plame with Cooper and therefore could not have been a basis for Rove's purported concern -- to assert that "Wilson falsely claimed that it was Vice President Cheney who sent him to Niger."

The RNC cited Wilson's Times op-ed as evidence that he claimed Cheney sent him to Niger. But the op-ed actually noted that it was "agency officials" from the CIA who "asked if I would travel to Niger" to answer questions Cheney's office had about a particular intelligence report:

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake -- a form of lightly processed ore -- by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.

The RNC then distorted Wilson's appearance on CNN's Late Edition by excluding a crucial portion of his remarks in which he noted that "it's absolutely true" that Cheney was unaware that Wilson was traveling to Niger and reiterated that the "CIA, at the operational level, made a determination" to send Wilson to answer a "serious question" posed by Cheney's office.

Additionally, Rove's conversation with Cooper took place on July 11, 2003 -- more than three weeks before Wilson's CNN appearance -- so it is chronologically impossible for Rove to have been refuting a statement that Wilson hadn't made yet, as Salon.com has pointed out.

From the RNC talking points:

Joe Wilson: "What They Did, What The Office Of The Vice President Did, And, In Fact, I Believe Now From Mr. Libby's Statement, It Was Probably The Vice President Himself ..." (CNN's "Late Edition," 8/3/03)

From the August 3, 2003, edition of CNN's Late Edition:

WILSON: Well, look, it's absolutely true that neither the vice president nor Dr. [then-national security adviser Condoleezza] Rice nor even [then-CIA Director] George Tenet knew that I was traveling to Niger.

What they did, what the office of the vice president did, and, in fact, I believe now from Mr. Libby's statement, it was probably the vice president himself --

BLITZER: [I. Lewis] "Scooter" Libby is the chief of staff for the vice president.

WILSON: Scooter Libby. They asked essentially that we follow up on this report -- that the agency follow up on the report. So it was a question that went to the CIA briefer from the Office of the Vice President. The CIA, at the operational level, made a determination that the best way to answer this serious question was to send somebody out there who knew something about both the uranium business and those Niger officials that were in office at the time these reported documents were executed...

READ THE REST

Hey, Tico - help me out with understanding something here...
Just for my own clarification - You don't have any doubt that Rove had ill intent when he was talking to reporters about Plame, do you?

News reporters had earlier reported that VP Cheney had nominate Wilson for the Niger investigation. The evidence suggests that Rove was correcting that bit of misreporting and noting the fact that it was Wilson's wife. Plame, a CIA official, who has nominated him for the assignment. Clearly he was trying to do damage control prodthen decline is more or less axiom,aticuction orts regarding the yellowcake from Niger matter.

Perhaps in your view that constitutes "ill intent".

How would you characterize the intent of Mark Felt's series of leaks concerning Watergate? He had just been passed over for promotion to FBI Director, following Hoover's death and the appointment of an outsider (L. Patrick Grey) to that post.

I'll bet there is a Senior Administration Official who thinks she is NOT a covert agent. ....

.....But again, we don't know who this "Senior Administration Official" is, or any of the context of how or when they reached their conclusion ... do we?.....

....unless you are attributing the beliefs of some unknown "Senior Administration Official," via osmosis or some other means, to Karl Rove.

You can't possibly make a credulous argument that because some other official holds a belief, the basis for which is unknown, that Ms. Plame is or was a "covert agent," that somehow inplicates Rove. It's utter nonsense.

Rove/Novak Photos they are going to regret

In this photograph taken in June 2003, Karl Rove, senior advisor to President Bush and Robert Novak are pictured together at a party marking the 40th anniversary of Novak's newspaper column at the Army Navy Club in Washington DC. At the event a number of people wore buttons reading, "I'm a source, not a target." Rove is at the center of a controversy about the leaking of a CIA operative's identity which originally appeared in Novak's newspaper column. (AP Photo/Lauren Shay) (hat tip Robert) You can read the red button on Rove's jacket.