The Press Corps is Dead; Long Li- Eh, Nevermind
The Press Corps is Dead; Long Li- Eh, Nevermind
As White House reporters are lavished with praise for actually asking a few probing questions, it’s worth reflecting on the days when the press corps didn’t care at all about Karl Rove.
And by that I mean last week, and the nine long days that passed after Newsweek revealed that Rove had indeed spoken to Time reporter Matt Cooper about Valerie Plame. During that period, Scott McClellan spoke with White House reporters one, two, three, four, five times, President Bush not once but twice. And not a single journalist was curious enough to ask even one question about whether the most powerful man in Washington had leaked the identity of a covert CIA agent in a time of war.
Just imagine — what would have happened if McClellan or President Bush had been sprung with a question about Rove out of the blue? What would they have said in the heat of the moment? And if they said anything at all, would it have prevented them from deploying their current stonewalling strategy?
We’ll never have answers to those questions, though we do now have answers to these: the questions the press corps did ask during those nine days. A few of our favorites:
Did President Bush see any of the Live 8 concert?
Do you feel like the administration is getting due credit for the efforts that they’re making, for instance, on climate change or AIDS in Africa?
What kind of birthday cake [did President Bush have]?
What did he get for his birthday?
[To President Bush:] Were you wearing a helmet?
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Move on already!
One of the most stunning revelations contained in the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA is that virtually everything Joseph Wilson has said about his trip to Niger, and the report that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger, is a lie.
First, contrary to what Wilson has said publicly, his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, did recommend him for the Niger investigation:
The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame “offered up” Wilson’s name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations saying her husband “has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.” The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.
Confronted yesterday with the Senate report, Wilson could only offer a non sequitur and a lame denial:
Wilson stood by his assertion in an interview yesterday, saying Plame was not the person who made the decision to send him. Of her memo, he said: “I don’t see it as a recommendation to send me.”
Further, the Senate report indicates that Plame and Wilson, from the beginning, had an absurdly biased view of the subject Wilson was supposed to be investigating: “The report said Plame told committee staffers that she relayed the CIA’s request to her husband, saying, ‘there’s this crazy report’ about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq.”
As has been widely reported, Wilson conducted a half-baked investigation into the uanium report. But here is the most astonishing fact uncovered by the Senate Intelligence Committee: in his book and in countless interviews and op-ed pieces over the past year, Wilson has been lying about the contents of his own report to the CIA!
July 14th, 2005 at 1:05 pmI can’t remember the timeline, but at the time the email was released and Miller when to jail is the change in tide. I think the press wants to inquire, but even more than that they don’t want to be made fools of by WH.
July 14th, 2005 at 1:06 pmAlways right,
July 14th, 2005 at 1:14 pmThis is about Plame, not Wilson. Regardless what Wilson said or his motives. Do you think Fitzgerald cares about Wilson’s politics or his effectiveness as a source?
Hey Wrong,
Maybe you should move on. Weren’t we
July 14th, 2005 at 1:18 pmall hopeless?
I see you have collected all the spin
lies this time.
Problem is that they are all inoperative.
This story has been playing too long
for you to BS over the facts.
And once again you change the subject
to Wilson and his proper conclusion
WRT the forgery.
And the great neglected question, “Which do you find harder to ride: a bicycle or a Segway?”
July 14th, 2005 at 1:22 pmIf I had wanted to read the Bushevik talking points on Rove, I would have gone here, Always Right Arm Raised: http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Exclusive_GOP_talking_points_on_Rove_seek_to_discre_0712.html
Basics:
(1) This is not about Wilson’s credibility – full stop, end of story. Wilson’s credibility stands up quite happily anyway to your ditto-heading if you take some time to look
(2) The yellowcake docs were forged, the IAEA said so, the Italians said so, so did the CIA and the Busheviks also caved on that.
(3) Rove leaked enough information to Cooper to clearly identify a covert operative of the CIA for partisan political reasons and by doing so destroyed her career and her network of 20 years construction – putting national security at risk.
(4) The intent was to undermine the first cohesive argument that the Iraq invasion was based on ‘facts fixed around the policy’ – remember it took ‘mushroom clouds’ and the 16 words in the SOTU address to push US public opinion over the top and back the Iraq war.
Without getting ahead of myself, I leave you with that rabid pinko ‘librul’, George H. W. Bush:http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_10.php#006091
July 14th, 2005 at 1:26 pm“were you wearing a helnet” – that’s a good one.
July 14th, 2005 at 1:42 pmAlways Wrong -
Who cares who recommended him? In fact, he SHOULD have been sent by Cheney’s office, because he turned out to be RIGHT about the yellowcake.
The Ken Mehlman plan to claim that Wilson lied about Cheney’s office sending him is a BIG lie itself: It’s MEHLMAN who is lying
And Wilson’s whole point was that Saddam has NOT been seeking significant quantities of Uranium from Niger, if not anywhere in Africa. And Rice, Tenet and others finally AGREED that the 16 words which Bush used to sell the war should NEVER have been in the State of the Union speech. So what’s your point?
And what this has to do with Rove leaking classified information and then LYING about it?
What else have you got?
July 14th, 2005 at 1:57 pmAlways irrelevant:
Take your own advice.
Move on already!
Thinking people won’t consume and digest the GOP talking points you seem so fond of.
July 14th, 2005 at 2:07 pmBushCo lovers/supporters must feel: If you can’t baffle ‘um with bulls**t, bury ‘um with meaningless ill-formed rambling blather about unrelated things, and then claim its the other guy who’s stupid.
July 14th, 2005 at 2:14 pmJC-
Have you been looking at their playbook again? Too bad the startegy you have described works very well for them since the average American’s attention span and memory are…
What were we talking about?
July 14th, 2005 at 2:29 pmSo…. what’s Tome Cruise upto these days?
July 14th, 2005 at 2:33 pmI’m sure most of you have seen/heard this but I felt
compelled to share.
“What this thing has been for the past two years has been a cover-up, a cover-up of the … web of lies that underpin the justification for going to war in Iraq,” said Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, a former career foreign-service officer who held diplomatic posts in the first Bush administration and served in the Clinton White House.
“And to a certain extent, this cover-up is becoming unraveled. That’s why you see the White House stonewalling,” Wilson said in an interview with NBC’s “Today” show.
July 14th, 2005 at 2:42 pmRight on Keith. “Facts were being fixed around the policy” and the yellowcake forgery was a prime time ‘fact’ that affected public opinion at a crucial time. The Rove leak is the attempt to save that part of the war justification but it backfired.
The people most likely to suffer when Wilson wrote his op-ed were the people who pushed the ‘nukular weapons’ argument hardest: John Bolton was the strongest proponent http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20050511/boltons_yellowcake.php after that you have Cheney, Rice and Chimpy himself. Someone in those offices or on the plane to Africa is the source to Karl Rove. Rove is the small fry here.
This is not about Joe Wilson, this is about Karl Rove, the DSM and the disaster for the US that is Iraq.
July 14th, 2005 at 2:52 pmDarth Filibustrous – Forget Cruise, have you heard the latest about Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie?
Z.
July 14th, 2005 at 2:54 pmDid the president get to enjoy a night with his male lover on his birthday, Jeff Gannon-Guckert, while Pickles was away in Africa? ;-)
. . .
July 14th, 2005 at 3:08 pmOff topic, but perhaps relevent:
Laura Bush is the loneliest woman in Washington DC.
Mr. Gannon has the free run of the MonkeyPalace. :-(
July 14th, 2005 at 4:12 pmRight you are. W prefers beef cake over sour pickles.
July 14th, 2005 at 4:22 pmHAHA! I’m surprised that no one in the “Priss Corp” asked if Bush recieved his birthday spanking, and by whom it was performed.
July 14th, 2005 at 5:12 pmFrom what I hear W likes Oreo cookies too. He’s got a sweet tooth for Condi.
July 15th, 2005 at 10:00 pm