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Jewish World Review July 18, 2005 / 11 Taamuz, 5765 Rove affair: Is it frog-march time, yet? By Clarence Page
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Now we know why it is called "spin." Your head could spin around from all of the information and disinformation swirling around disclosures that Karl Rove did, indeed, leak the identity of a CIA agent to at least one reporter.
As I boil it all down, there are three big questions:
1. Did Rove commit a crime?
2. Criminal or not, did he do anything morally or ethically wrong?
3. Who lied about it?
Background: Back in July 2003, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote a New York Times op-ed that embarrassed the White House into a big concession:
Assertions about Iraq trying to buy uranium in Niger should not have been included in President Bush's State of the Union address. Wilson knew because he had been sent to Niger to investigate the allegation.
A week after his op-ed, columnist Robert Novak identified Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, by name as the "CIA operative" behind Wilson's mission.
A week after that, MSNBC's Chris Matthews quotes Rove as saying "Wilson's wife is fair game."
The next month, Wilson comments sarcastically that he would not mind seeing "Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs."
Rove's idea apparently was to distance the Bush White House from Wilson's Niger mission. In fact, it turns out, Plame was not just any old "operative" but an "agent," which means the leak of her identity by a government official could violate federal law, besides jeopardizing her job and life.
As it turned out, the CIA did send Wilson in response to questions from Vice President Cheney's office about an intelligence report that referred to the alleged Niger sale. Wilson's wife, an expert on weapons of mass destruction, lacked the authority to send her husband, but she did suggest him, since he was a former ambassador to the region.
Question One: Did Rove commit a crime?
Hardly anyone but a partisan for one side or the other would even try to answer that question with a straight "yes" or "no," which has not stopped a lot of partisans from doing just that on talk shows.
The real answer will come clear when Patrick Fitzgerald, the tough special prosecutor named by the Justice Department at the urging of the White House, the CIA and Congress, returns some indictments or, at least, a final report.
Fitzgerald would have to show that Rove knowingly revealed Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent, breaking the law and possibly endangering her life.
But, is "Bush's brain" about to be fired, as leading Democrats have demanded? Not likely, unless he is convicted. Indictment would bring a leave of absence. There's probably been no president as closely attached to a political advisor since William McKinley and Rove's role model, Mark Hanna.
If anyone will squeeze every lemon of evidence, it is Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald's reputation is on the line here, too.
In the past, he has pursued fellow Republicans with as much vigor as Democrats. He has not leaked to the media. Instead, he urged jail time, not house arrest, for New York Times reporter Judith Miller after she refused to say who revealed Plame's identity to her for a story that Miller never wrote.
I, for one, was appalled by that extreme pursuit of Miller's source, especially since she never wrote a story. But no one can accuse Fitzgerald of trying to suck up to the press.
Question Two: Did Rove do anything morally or ethically wrong?
Morals? Ethics? Hardball political operatives say "Ha." In their world, the meaning of such words is as slippery as the greasy ground beneath their feet.
After all, "Wilson's wife is fair game."
Question Three: Who's lying?
After Rove's lawyer confirmed his leak to Time magazine, McClellan also clammed up, except to come up with endless variations on "no comment" while White House reporters impatiently bombarded him with questions. Perhaps he could use his Nixon's Press Secretary Ron Ziegler's memorable line from a Watergate-era briefing:
"This is the operative statement. The old statements are inoperative."
And that reminds us of what the real Rove scandal might be here: This administration's willful pattern of shutting up any dissenting voices like Wilson's and shutting out any disagreeable facts, like the ones he presented to the CIA, in the administration's headstrong run-up to war with Iraq.
That's not an indictable offense, as far as I can tell, but it's worth investigating. It's worth looking back at how our country got into Iraq, now that we're trying to find a way to get out.
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Comment on Clarence Page's column by clicking here. © 2005, TMS |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
