CRIPPLING BLOW TO BUSH ADMINISTRATION
Senior Advisor Rove Fingered in CIA Security Breach

Here's a rundown on the back story:

Back in 2002 before the US invasion of Iraq, while the Bush administration was cobbling together a case that the oil rich desert nation posessed weapons of mass destruction which it might give to Al-Qaeda, the CIA sent to Africa former US Ambassador to Iraq Joseph Wilson, who has a background in African diplomacy, to verify White House claims that Saddam Hussein had purchased weapons grade uranium from Niger. When Wilson got there, he quickly found that such claims were absurd. The White House ignored Wilson's report and continued to use the phoney "evidence" of Saddam's nuclear program in its arguments to persuade America to go to war.

Flash forward to the summer of 2003. Iraq was occupied by American forces, and the insurgency was just getting started. No weapons of mass destruction were found, and certainly no evidence of an Iraqi nuclear program was uncovered. Wilson wrote an op-ed about his trip to Niger and how the White House knew that Iraq hadn't tried to buy uranium. A minor scandal erupted about Bush's use of the false Niger-uranium story in his 2003 state of the union address. While all this was going on, conservative columnist Robert Novak wrote an essay intended to discredit Wilson: Novak said that a White House source told him that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA "operative," working on WMD issues, and the whole trip to Niger was a biased attempt arranged by her to somehow smear the White House.

As soon as the Novak column was published, David Corn of the Nation magazine, in the scoop of his life I might add, saw the ramifications of Novak's essay: revealing the identity of an undercover CIA operative is not only a massive security breach, it's highly illegal; Corn also speculated that rather than being an attempt to discredit Wilson, leaking his wife's name was most likely a political hit job, punishment for daring to publicly oppose the powerful Bush administration, and a message to anybody else who might follow in Wilson's footsteps.

Despite weeks of stonewalling, the White House eventually gave in to calls for an independent investigation of the leak. That investigation soon zoomed in on several other reporters who were also contacted by Novak's White House sources concerning Plame, even though they decided not to write about it. Two of those reporters, Judith Miller of the New York Times and Matt Cooper of Time magazine, citing their perceived Constitutional free press rights, refused to cooperate with the investigation and were threatened with jail time for contempt of court--somehow Novak is not facing a jail sentence, so many speculate that he has already cooperated, which makes sense because he's something of a sleazeball. Miller is in jail right now, but Cooper decided to talk, and his employer handed over his notes.

Now everybody knows the identity of the man who blew a CIA agent's cover in order to punish a White House political foe: Bush's right hand man, senior advisor Karl Rove. Both the press and the left side of the internet are going nuts about it, and I'm totally loving it. This is the biggest blow to the once invincible Bush administration yet, and it's huge.

Here's a bit from the first big mainstream article about it. From Newsweek by way of MSNBC courtesy of Semidi:

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.

Click here for the rest.

If that's not a smoking gun, I don't know what is. That's how the press is treating it, anyway, and it's put the White House into a rather severe position this week. Bush's press secretary, Scott McClellan who once boasted that whoever leaked Plame's name should be fired, tried to stay mum during a press frenzy today. From the Raw Story courtesy of Crooks and Liars:

TRANSCRIPT: WHITE HOUSE GRILLED ON ROVE...

QUESTION: Scott, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us, after having commented with that level of detail, and tell people watching this that somehow you've decided not to talk.

You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium or not?

MCCLELLAN: I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said. And I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation...

QUESTION: (inaudible) when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MCCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish.

QUESTION: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything.

You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation. Was he involved or was he not? Because contrary to what you told the American people, he did indeed talk about his wife, didn't he?

MCCLELLAN: There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

Click here for the rest.

This exchange, however, is much more fun to watch on video. Crooks and Liars has the footage, and it's well worth watching. See it here, along with links to numerous other blog articles about the scandal.

What we have now is a really fascinating situation. Karl Rove, who only two weeks ago called liberals traitors for the bogus reason of not supporting the war in Iraq, turns out to be pretty darned close to being a traitor, himself, in reality, for having revealed the name of an undercover CIA agent, damaging national security. He also may very well be a perjurer, and this time it's not about oral sex--this is about something vitally important. Beyond the delicious ironies, however, is this interesting thought: Karl Rove has been Bush's closest advisor for his entire political career, "Bush's Brain" as they say; without Rove, Bush could never have become Texas' Governor or President or even reelected in 2004. Indeed, Rove's political strategizing has made this White House probably the most powerful of all time. Now there's a very good chance that Bush will soon have to serve the rest of his time in office without the man who made it all possible. Already weakened, the Bush administration stands to lose what political influence it still wields. We may very well be looking at the lamest of all "lame duck" Presidents in US history, and he's only six months into his term. From strongest to weakest. Is it too soon to start singing "Ding-Dong the Witch Is Dead?"


A real traitor

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