On 16 Jul 2005 12:48:26 -0700, jim rozen
wrote:

In article , Dave Hinz says...

To pretend they don't exist in the face of
them being blisteringly present doesn't do your argument any good.

Arguments notwithstanding, time will certainly tell about
the iraq war, and roves malfeasence. I'm not engaging
in any url wars because it's been proven in the past that
gunner can cook up whatever right wing fundie whack-o site
that supports *any* position. There is no credibility so
I just don't want to chase after another mary roush there.

This is one reason why Ed is conspicuously absent at this
point I think.

Jim

Humm..right wing fundi wack-o site....

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110006955

Wall Street Journal is a fundi wack-o site...interesting

Karl Rove, Whistleblower
He told the truth about Joe Wilson.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl
Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving
Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we'd say the
White House political guru deserves a prize--perhaps the next
iteration of the "Truth-Telling" award that The Nation magazine
bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee
exposed him as a fraud.

For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this
whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew
Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility.
He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been
recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice
President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In
short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could
understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a partisan
trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you,
Mr. Rove.

Media chants aside, there's no evidence that Mr. Rove broke any laws
in telling reporters that Ms. Plame may have played a role in her
husband's selection for a 2002 mission to investigate reports that
Iraq was seeking uranium ore in Niger. To be prosecuted under the 1982
Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Mr. Rove would had to have
deliberately and maliciously exposed Ms. Plame knowing that she was an
undercover agent and using information he'd obtained in an official
capacity. But it appears Mr. Rove didn't even know Ms. Plame's name
and had only heard about her work at Langley from other journalists.

On the "no underlying crime" point, moreover, no less than the New
York Times and Washington Post now agree. So do the 36 major news
organizations that filed a legal brief in March aimed at keeping Mr.
Cooper and the New York Times's Judith Miller out of jail.

"While an investigation of the leak was justified, it is far from
clear--at least on the public record--that a crime took place," the
Post noted the other day. Granted the media have come a bit late to
this understanding, and then only to protect their own, but the logic
of their argument is that Mr. Rove did nothing wrong either.

The same can't be said for Mr. Wilson, who first "outed" himself as a
CIA consultant in a melodramatic New York Times op-ed in July 2003. At
the time he claimed to have thoroughly debunked the Iraq-Niger
yellowcake uranium connection that President Bush had mentioned in his
now famous "16 words" on the subject in that year's State of the Union
address.
Mr. Wilson also vehemently denied it when columnist Robert Novak first
reported that his wife had played a role in selecting him for the
Niger mission. He promptly signed up as adviser to the Kerry campaign
and was feted almost everywhere in the media, including repeat
appearances on NBC's "Meet the Press" and a photo spread (with
Valerie) in Vanity Fair.

But his day in the political sun was short-lived. The bipartisan
Senate Intelligence Committee report last July cited the note that Ms.
Plame had sent recommending her husband for the Niger mission.
"Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his
wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his
name for the trip," said the report.

The same bipartisan report also pointed out that the forged documents
Mr. Wilson claimed to have discredited hadn't even entered
intelligence channels until eight months after his trip. And it said
the CIA interpreted the information he provided in his debrief as
mildly supportive of the suspicion that Iraq had been seeking uranium
in Niger.

About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's Lord Butler
delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: "We conclude also that the
statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January
2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein
recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was
well-founded."

In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered
in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or
even why he was sent on the mission. The media and the Kerry campaign
promptly abandoned him, though the former never did give as much
prominence to his debunking as they did to his original accusations.
But if anyone can remember another public figure so entirely and
thoroughly discredited, let us know.

If there's any scandal at all here, it is that this entire episode has
been allowed to waste so much government time and media attention, not
to mention inspire a "special counsel" probe. The Bush Administration
is also guilty on this count, since it went along with the appointment
of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in an election year in order to punt
the issue down the road. But now Mr. Fitzgerald has become an unguided
missile, holding reporters in contempt for not disclosing their
sources even as it becomes clearer all the time that no underlying
crime was at issue.
As for the press corps, rather than calling for Mr. Rove to be fired,
they ought to be grateful to him for telling the truth.

One should also note..that before Novack published his story..he
Called CIA headquarters and asked if publishing the story would be ok.
He was given the ok.


"Considering the events of recent years,
the world has a long way to go to regain
its credibility and reputation with the US."
unknown