Rove And Plame, Take 2

by hilzoy

Newsweek reports (h/t rilkefan):

"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. (...)

In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson's criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time's editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine's corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger ... "

Nothing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame's name or knew she was a covert operative. Nonetheless, it is significant that Rove was speaking to Cooper before Novak's column appeared; in other words, before Plame's identity had been published. Fitzgerald has been looking for evidence that Rove spoke to other reporters as well. "Karl Rove has shared with Fitzgerald all the information he has about any potentially relevant contacts he has had with any reporters, including Matt Cooper," Luskin told NEWSWEEK.

A source close to Rove, who declined to be identified because he did not wish to run afoul of the prosecutor or government investigators, added that there was "absolutely no inconsistency" between Cooper's e-mail and what Rove has testified to during his three grand-jury appearances in the case. "A fair reading of the e-mail makes clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity, but was an effort to discourage Time from publishing things that turned out to be false," the source said, referring to claims in circulation at the time that Cheney and high-level CIA officials arranged for Wilson's trip to Africa."

We may not know who that 'source close to Rove' is, but we do learn that one of the people who has been talking to Newsweek is Rove's lawyer:

"Rove has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. But last week, his lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed to NEWSWEEK that Rove did—and that Rove was the secret source who, at the request of both Cooper's lawyer and the prosecutor, gave Cooper permission to testify."

A few comments. First, whether or not Rove knew that Valerie Plame was a covert operative may matter for the legal case, but it is completely irrelevant both to the moral questions raised, and to the question whether or not Rove should resign or be fired. Suppose it occurs to me to fire a gun into a house, and I kill someone. It may be that I didn't know whether there was anyone home -- maybe I just wanted to shoot out the windows for fun. But that's no excuse: before I go shooting at a house, I have to find out whether there is anyone inside, and the fact that I didn't shows only that I was criminally reckless, not actually malicious. Likewise here: according to me, people shouldn't go around outing CIA agents at all. But if someone decides he has to do so, it is incumbent on that person to find out whether the agent in question is undercover, whether she has networks whose exposure would place people or operations at risk, and so on. Failing to do this is every bit as wrong as exposing an undercover agent deliberately. And no one who outs a CIA agent without checking these questions first should be allowed to work in our government. Period.

Second, as I said the last time I wrote on this, if Rove leaked Plame's identity, it's hard to see how we can avoid drawing damning conclusions about Bush's leadership. It's one thing to note that a President can't be expected to know every little thing that anyone in his administration does. It's another to try to explain how the President could have failed to know that the person (or: one of the people) who outed Valerie Plame was (a) one of his closest advisors, and (b) the very same person whom Joe Wilson, and others, named as the leaker. (I mean, it's not as though Bush could credibly claim that it never occurred to him that Rove might be behind this.) That being the case, there are, as before, three options: first, Bush knew about it; second, he didn't try very hard to ascertain the truth; and third, he did try, but no one told him. The first two call into question how serious he is about protecting our national security; the third calls into question his control over his administration. I really don't see that there's any other option.

Moreover, I think we can now rule out the option that Bush does care who did this, but was unable to get his administration to let him know. (Obviously, that was never a very plausible option to start with.) The last time I wrote about this, the news that Rove was (one of) the leaker(s) had only just broken. It was, therefore, not clear how Bush would respond. Since then, a week has passed, and there has been no response whatsoever. Karl Rove has not unexpectedly announced that he is taking administrative leave. He has not developed a sudden desire to spend more time with his family. He has not been fired. Absolutely nothing has happened. And that fact is really shocking to me.

Let's recall the administration's response when this story first broke. Bush said this:

"If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. "If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of."

And Scott McClellan said this:

"That is not the way this White House operates. The President expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. No one would be authorized to do such a thing."

It was obvious at the time that Bush's response was inadequate: he did not mount his own investigation of the actions of his staff, leaving McClellan to say again and again (see previous link) that the Justice Department should be allowed to investigate. But this was always beside the point: if you ran a company and one of your employees committed a serious crime, you would want the police to investigate, but you would also take it upon yourself to find out who was responsible and fire that person. Bush clearly took a different view. I suppose that at the time his supporters might have thought: perhaps he's doing something we don't know about. But now, I think, it is not possible to say that any more. We know who leaked Plame's name. So does George W. Bush. If he cared about the fact that someone in his administration was willing to compromise national security interests in order to hurt a political opponent, he has had time to act. And he has done nothing.

This is not, to me, a partisan issue. No one, Democrat or Republican, should go around outing undercover CIA agents. They should especially not do so in order to score political points, or to damage the credibility of their political opponents. This is just reprehensible, whoever does it. But it's shocking, in a different way, for a high political official to do so without being fired, and in fact without suffering any consequences at all, as far as his job is concerned. I find that fact incredible.

Third point: The press. On Friday, Think Progress noted that "for the fourth straight time since his lawyer admitted that Rove was one of Matt Cooper’s sources, no member of the White House press corps asked a question about Rove’s role." I checked (transcripts here, here, here, and here), and they're right. Some of the press briefings were, of course, taken up by things like the attacks on London, the G8, and so forth. But Monday was rather a light news day, and the press managed to find time for such important questions as: "If nobody has anything else, do you have anything on the birthday, anything at all?", "What kind of birthday cake?", and "Did he see any of Live 8 concert? Did he see his friend, Bono, in the Live 8 concert at all?" Yet oddly, no one asked about the fact that the President's most important political advisor, and a member of his staff, had outed a CIA agent and possibly broken the law. Not a single member of the press found it in his or her heart to act like a reporter, rather than a stenographer. That's shameful.

And now, quite a while after the latest Newsweek story, I have just checked all sorts of websites: CNN, MSNBC, the NYTimes, the Washington Post, the WSJ, the LA Times, the Boston Globe, the Chicago Tribune, the Baltimore Sun, all three broadcast networks, Reuters, and the AP -- and the only one to carry the story is MSNBC, which is affiliated with Newsweek. I don't get it. But I do think this: if the members of the Washington press corps are too busy preening before the cameras and congratulating one another on talk shows to do their jobs, I'm sure there are lots of hungry young would-be journalists who would be more than happy to take over for them.

(Liberal media, indeed. How anyone can claim that the media are biassed in favor of liberals when they have so spectacularly failed to cover first the Downing Street memos and now this, I cannot imagine. They are not biassed; they're just hacks trapped in an echo chamber, and too much in love with the sound of their own voices to try to escape.)

***

Update: This is funny: "Jailed Journalist Reports NY Times Desecration."

Comments

[rilkefan]

Americablog has some similar (semi-enumerated) thoughts, also reminding me to wonder who told Rove about Plame - presumably someone who knew her status and should have mentioned it.

Interesting to me in this story is the nature of the conversation - two minutes before Rove went on vacation. To me this suggests less deliberation in the outing than otherwise.

[Opus]

rilkefan, I've been wondering who told Novak, because the conversation between Rove and Cooper seems to me to indicate the following timeline (all guesses on my part):

1. WH strategists talk about how to discredit Wilson. This group includes Rove.

2. Someone who knows, or thinks he/she knows about Plame mentions that angle. She becomes part of the strategy and someone calls Novak with her ID. Novak confirms it with a second person, probably part of the initial strategy group.

3. Novak writes the column and though it isn't published until the 14th, it's out on the wire on the 11th, which is when Cooper talks to Rove.

4. Rove chooses his words carefully, using "apparently" in a way that leaves open the possibility that he's simply read Novak's column on the wire.

Blah, blah, blah.

Anyway, what bugs me about the Newsweek article is that Cooper is so deferential to Rove in terms of confidentiality. He also *seems* to swallow Rove's theory about Wilson whole.

[rilkefan]

Here's something else I don't get. The article quotes an admin official:

"A fair reading of the e-mail makes clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity, but was an effort to discourage Time from publishing things that turned out to be false," the source said, referring to claims in circulation at the time that Cheney and high-level CIA officials arranged for Wilson's trip to Africa.

I thought it was in fact Cheney's office that sent Wilson.

[hilzoy]

rilkefan: no, I think it was in response to questions Cheney had asked. Wilson:

"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.

After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government."

Matt Cooper in Time:

"A source close to the matter says that Wilson was dispatched to Niger because Vice President Dick Cheney had questions about an intelligence report about Iraq seeking uranium and that he asked that the CIA get back to him with answers. Cheney's staff has adamantly denied and Tenet has reinforced the claim that the Vice President had anything to do with initiating the Wilson mission. They say the Vice President merely asked routine questions at an intelligence briefing and that mid-level CIA officials, on their own, chose to dispatch Wilson.

In an exclusive interview Lewis Libby, the Vice President's Chief of Staff, told TIME: "The Vice President heard about the possibility of Iraq trying to acquire uranium from Niger in February 2002. As part of his regular intelligence briefing, the Vice President asked a question about the implication of the report. During the course of a year, the Vice President asked many such questions and the agency responded within a day or two saying that they had reporting suggesting the possibility of such a transaction. But the agency noted that the reporting lacked detail. The agency pointed out that Iraq already had 500 tons of uranium, portions of which came from Niger, according to the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA). The Vice President was unaware of the trip by Ambassador Wilson and didn't know about it until this year when it became public in the last month or so. " Other senior Administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, have also claimed that they had not heard of Wilson's report until recently."

[Nell]

See the story by Walter Pincus (via this Paul Lukasiak post) that shows the WH was trying to already trying to take down Wilson during 2002.

[bob mcmanus]

"CIA-sponsored February 2002 trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction."

I still think the major focus was not discrediting Wilson. They were playing their games before Wilson ever dreamed of publishing; and why did Wilson go to Niger? The story all along has been the attempt to discredit and intimidate Plame. She was a big-time respected player at Langley, with all due creds, and she was in the way.

[Bernard Yomtov]

In the long run hilzoy's third point is the most important. The Washington press corps has largely abdicated its responsibility to report.

The usual suspects are probably at work here - celebrity, money, fear, laziness - but that does not change the fact that one institutional check on government power has significantly weakened itself.

[Postit]

The Washington press corps has largely abdicated its responsibility to report.

There is no 'reporting' any more there is only access to 'anonymous sources' that's the game today, everyone's a budding Bob Woodward with their own coterie of 'contacts' to trade for fame and fortune.

[xanax]

Apropos of nothing much in this thread, anyone else see Doonesbury this morning?

"It's the stem cells. I hear their cries."

An all time classic from G. Trudeau.

[xanax]

RE: Update: This is funny: "Jailed Journalist Reports NY Times Desecration."

What's even funnier, if you scroll through the comments, there's a clenched young conservative who needed about 20 comments to figure out that it was satire. Increible! (as our nanny "Tutu" so eloquently puts it).

[Nell]

Bob, you may be right. The Pincus article supports your theory. Wilson had come back with the wrong report, so they wanted to discredit him, and they assumed (or expected others to believe) that his wife had sent him -- because she was one of the analysts who wasn't drinking the Kool-Aid.

[kenB]

who needed about 20 comments to figure out that it was satire.

Er, if you're referring to "R.A.M.", s/he's referring to a letter to the editor that appeared in the Indianapolis Star, not to the Scrappleface article.

[xanax]

The same R.A.M. who wrote:

"Edward Klein's book, "The Truth About Hillary", is riveting... I do NOT read books, (other than the Bible), but am reading this so I can see what the real hill is like. Unlike Michael Moore's tripe, Klein backs up his book in facts and is NOT a Republican or Conservative."

Wingnut.

FWIW: I heard Klein interviewed on talk radio the other day. He identified himself as both Republican and conservative.

[felixrayman]

"If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of."

What do you find to be literally false about the statement?

[Gromit]

Redstate appears to be banning folks for making some of the very points Hilzoy makes above. But we all know they don't ban for ideological reasons.

[felixrayman]

Redstate appears to be banning folks for making some of the very points Hilzoy makes above. But we all know they don't ban for ideological reasons.

Apparently the person in question, in the words of the admins there, "showed a total and complete functional uselessness toward the stated mission of this site". So he was, in the words of the commenters there, "purged".

Hahahaha.

No further comment necessary.

[Postit]

"showed a total and complete functional uselessness toward the stated mission of this site".

We wan't our own echo chamber and we are damned well going to get it!

Note using the word 'damned' would also get you promptly banned by the religous absolutists that co-exist with the Birchers over there.

If this is the result of their experiment with creating a republican public square in the blogosphere then from my perspective I think we can thakfully claim 'Mission Accomplished'.

[nikita demosthenes]

We should remember where the whole Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame story started:

* * *

"... Joe Wilson's wife is not a foreign spy - she's a desk jockey at Langley (with a cushy place in Georgetown) who's responsible for ... wait for it ... tracking down WMD for our country!"

"Why on earth did someone with that very important responsbility pre-judge the Niger-Iraq-yellowcake story as "this crazy story"? I mean, its only our national security and stuff - no biggie."

"Someone let Val Plame know: the Niger-Iraq-yellowcake "crazy story" turned out to be true."

"How many other WMD leads has Ms. Plame given short shrift? Do you know about any more "crazy" WMD leads, Val? Maybe you should go look at those files again. Does her high security clearance prevent her from getting fired for not giving a whit about national security risks for which she's the responsbile agent?"

"Not only did Ms. Plame dismiss one of the key pieces of intelligence regarding Iraq potentially creating the Arab bomb - she successfuly recommended her gadfly husband to be the sole investigator to go check out the lead! How many millions of dollars go to the CIA for intelligence gathering each year? And yet the only person we have to send to Niger to see if Saddam is building a nuke is ... the house husband of an agent at Langley?"

"What's next? Will Valerie Plame send the family golden retriever to look for missle silos in North Korea?"

"This is the real story that the mainstream press won't touch with a ten foot pole. What heads should roll at Langley for entrusting our national security to the whims of the Wilson-Plame family travelogue?"

* * *

Unbelievable. Shameful. Typical Dem crap - putting politics (and nepotism) above national security - and then lying about it when they get busted.

Fire Valerie Plame now. She's a very real risk to our national security.

-nikita demosthenes

[liberal japonicus]

Just for the sake of reference, nikita's quote comes from this link

[dmbeaster]

If this is the result of their experiment with creating a republican public square in the blogosphere then from my perspective I think we can thakfully claim 'Mission Accomplished'.

Ha Ha. I guess Ray from Tx also had the wrong bumper sticker on his car.

After all, those RedStaters are just imitating their Leader's idea of a public forum as exemplified by the recent Social Security bamboozapalooza tour.

[rilkefan]

Kinda interesting speculation.

[rilkefan]

If I linked to all the head-spinning speculation out there my fingers would fall off. Hope we get some clarity someday.

[Jesurgislac]

This is the thing that has been puzzling me since the first time I read about it (in Electrolite, I think, though it might have been Making Light - hey, it's all the same now).

Why aren't the Republicans out there more bothered by this?

I don't mean the party leaders: I mean the very ordinary people who tick R instead of D. Because, regardless of party affiliation, and regardless of whether any prosecutable crime had been committed this seems to me to be obviously a profoundly wrong thing to do. (And certainly, regardless of what Plame's husband did or wrote or said.)

Yet, almost without exception, any Republican writing about Plame picked one of three choices:

1. Wrote about her husband instead.
2. Claimed that no crime had been committed (or that no one knew if a crime had been committed) because it was possible that Plame hadn't been undercover for at least five years, or her identity was "common gossip" in Washington DC circles, or...
3. Asserted that it didn't matter anyway because Plame couldn't have been a real CIA operative because she's a GURL.

(Sometimes - often - these were combined into a double or a triple sandwich.)

I don't even have warm fuzzy feelings towards the CIA. Rather the reverse.

But just from my simple sense of apolitical morality: Valerie Plame was a covert operative. She trusted the government for whom she worked not to betray her. And they betrayed her. And it still astonishes me, in a naive kind of way, that anyone can look at that kind of behaviour and not say "This is wrong."

Further, it appears that they betrayed her not out of real need but because Karl Rove sees nothing more important than pointscoring. And yet, nothing has happened to Karl Rove: nor will, I suspect. If he couldn't be made to go ("gardening leave" is the phrase the British Civil Service use) when he was publicly revealed to be the one who leaked Valerie Plame's name to the press, then he probably can't be made to go at all. If he's charged, presumably he gets a Presidential pardon.

The question I think would be interesting to ask - not that anyone could expect to get an answer - is: "What does Karl Rove know about George W. Bush that gives him the whip hand?"

[Catsy]

Prediction: if Bush pardons Rove, it will backfire in a big way. Presidential pardons are one of the most closely scrutinized activities in politics, and Republicans have shown themselves as fairly hostile to the practice in general, particularly when the case is ethically questionable.

None of this, I realize, is a reliable predictor of future behavior. The right has shown a stupefying ability in the last four years to either forgive or deny behavior for which anyone with a (D) beside their name would be crucified. But it's my gut feeling that pardons for Rove and/or his co-conspirators would cross the line.

[Jesurgislac]

Catsy: Prediction: if Bush pardons Rove, it will backfire in a big way. Presidential pardons are one of the most closely scrutinized activities in politics, and Republicans have shown themselves as fairly hostile to the practice in general, particularly when the case is ethically questionable.

I'm not disagreeing with you (though I'd note that apparently there was no particular objection to the previous President Bush pardoning people implicated in the Iran-Contra affair - then again, perhaps there was and I missed it?) but even granted everything you say is true:

What does Karl Rove know about George W. Bush that would make even a big backfire worthwhile?

It's possible that the whole thing is one enormous bluff: the Bush administration trust that with the help of a sympathetic media, which they know they've got, they'll ride out this scandal.

It's possible that the whole thing is one enormous head-in-sand ("This can't be happening to us, so it isn't!")

And it's possible that the Bush administration are driven to the first two because Rove won't go and Bush won't make him. The only reason I can think of for that (aside from "bluff" and "head in sand") is that Rove knows that Bush can't afford to have him appear in court because of what Rove knows about Bush.

Whatever that is. I wonder, but I could be wrong...

[Cliff]

There is, of course, a valid explanation for Plame labeling the Nigerian yellowcake report as "crazy" -- namely, as a WMD proliferation expert, she could smell the bullshit on this story from the get go: Yellowcake not being very useful to begin with, Iraq having plenty of its own, Nigeria's being locked up tight would be three well-known facts that would indicate any such report was nonsense.

But the CIA was under pressure from Cheney's office to investigate any such raw-intelligence 'leads' as were stovepiped through the iraq survey group / office of special plans.

The really interesting places this might lead have to do with those wh groups, what if any miller's involvement with those groups was, and the question of where the forged docs came from.

[Cliff]

Addendum: I don't think the motives of the WH in all of this are so clear yet. It could very well be that Plame was the target of the outing (making it harder for her to work on WMD issues, as she wasn't going along with Cheney's agenda), instead of Wilson the target of a smear.

It will be interesting to see whether the "Plame was in wmd denial and anti-bush" etc. meme above gets a coordinated push. If it does it would suggest that impairing her work at the CIA was the deeper motive.

Whether in any of this they will succeed in distracting from the fact that no wmds were ever found and that Wilson was correct is becoming more doubtful.

[John Thullen]

Nikita Demosthenes has put his finger on two points which are terribly important in this whole sorry affair.

Valerie Plame works from a desk. I happen to know she possesses a credenza in her office as well, and we all should be wary of Washington elites who use this type of furniture.

Further, we can't have people in Washington D. C. living it up at a "cushy place in Georgetown." This is scandalous and a perfect example of the class warfare waged on ordinary Americans by the suspiciously unAmerican elites in their cushy lairs.

No doubt she works from a day bed at the place in Georgetown, when she should, like our Russo/Greco superhero here, be lurking in the foreign lands under Dick Cheney's desk in tights and a cape.

[ral]

The trouble with speculation in the spy game is that it always turns out there's another twist in the next chapter. It's fun, though.

How does anyone know what the truth is, anyway? Does it lie at the bottom of a bottomless pit? Hilzoy, help!!

[hilzoy]

ral: for help, you'd need a psychic,, not a philosopher ;)

My general view is: wait for the evidence; until then, treat speculation as an amusing pastime not to be taken seriously, on a par with e.g. the time I was bored and tried to while away the time by figuring out why bubbles on the top of soda tend to cluster together. (Surface tension leading the surface of the soda to be higher near a bubble, and other bubbles thereby to float towards it, I decided.)

[Sebastian Holsclaw]

"if Bush pardons Rove, it will backfire in a big way. Presidential pardons are one of the most closely scrutinized activities in politics, and Republicans have shown themselves as fairly hostile to the practice in general, particularly when the case is ethically questionable."

Did Clinton's Pardonpalozza do any real politcal damage to anyone? I'm not sure. But I suspect that point is moot, the statute in question has lots of get-out-of-jail free tidbits, I'd be surprised if one of the technicalities doesn't get Rove off the hook--which says nothing to the wisdom of the actions he took (or seems to have taken).

[Gromit]

Apropos of nothing, no more than a second of googling Presidential pardons brought me to this.

And Sebastian, I think you are missing the point. The potential backlash wouldn't come simply from pardoning some slimeball for committing illegal acts. It would come from pardoning a slimeball for committing illegal acts on the President's behalf. Whatever the controversy over how he persuaded Clinton to pardon him or whether he deserved it, Marc Rich wasn't acting as Clinton's agent when he committed tax evasion and fraud.

[Gromit]

Is the WH Press Corps growing a pair?

[Bernard Yomtov]

Gromit,

Maybe. But let's wait until we see the reporting. "Mau-Mauing the flak-catcher" is one thing. Printing what happened, and editorializing appropriately, is something else.

[dmbeaster]

I'd be surprised if one of the technicalities doesn't get Rove off the hook

Actually, Sebastian, you are more right than you know.

The only persons who are criminally liable under the statute in question are those persons with security clearances who leaked the Plame info to non-cleared persons. There are other technicalities as well, but that is a key one that keeps getting missed in discussions about this. The essence of the crime is the person with the security clearance in possession of the secret information releases it to non-cleared persons.

That's why Novak cannot be charged even though he is the critical link in the leaking -- he does not have the clearance. And that may be why Rove is not described as a target by the prosecutor because does he have a security clearance(?). I don't know what the answer is on this, but he may not have clearances simply because he is only a political operative.

[trilobite]

If Rove didn't have clearance, someone with clearance had to give him the info. And Rove was supposed to say who that criminal was, which is why he was questioned on that point before the grand jury. Which is when he committed perjury, which is a crime whether or not you have security clearance.

And a crime that 40-some Republican Senators considered to be a "high crime," no less.

BTW, whatthehell does "not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity" have to do with it? Like, it's better if he only outs CIA officers incidentally? That must make active CIA agents feel much safer.

[hilzoy]

trilobite: I think the "organized effort" stuff refers to the statute. As I said, I think that the question whether he broke the law is less important than the question, why on earth hasn't he been fired?

Though, of course, since Rumsfeld hasn't been fired, my assumption is that Bush just isn't into firing people, whatever they do.

[Jesurgislac]

my assumption is that Bush just isn't into firing people, whatever they do.

Whatever they do? When they give him good advice?

[hilzoy]

Jes: I stand corrected.

[Slartibartfast]

Jes: I stand corrected.

Uh, no, you don't.

[Jesurgislac]

Uh, no, you don't.

Hilzoy can sit corrected, for all of me.

[Slartibartfast]

There's nothing in there that contradicts the point that Shinseki wasn't dismissed, fired, canned, sacked...whatever you want to call it.

[felixrayman]

Printing what happened, and editorializing appropriately, is something else.

AP:

The issue triggered 61 questions during two press briefings Monday by McClellan. It was McClellan who had provided the previous assurances about no role for Rove, but he refused to repeat those assurances Monday.

"Did Karl Rove commit a crime?" a reporter asked McClellan.

"This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation," McClellan replied.

McClellan gave the same answer when asked whether President Bush has confidence in Rove, the architect of the president's successful political campaigns.

The investigation was ongoing in 2003 when McClellan assured the public Rove wasn't involved, a reporter pointed out, but the spokesman refused to elaborate.

The press is "printing what happened", at least. About the only way they could be any clearer would be to say, "McClellan has been lying to us, Bush has been lying to us, and it appears that Karl Rove is a felon". What a scummy administration.

[Slartibartfast]

Oh, and there are even more plausible reasons for Shinseki having been dissed: lack of ability to redesign the Army away from a Cold War machine.

And just in case you've done your Googling, Crusader wouldn't hit the field until 2008.

[Jesurgislac]

Oh, and there are even more plausible reasons for Shinseki having been dissed: lack of ability to redesign the Army away from a Cold War machine.

Into that lightweight army that Rumsfeld wanted, since it would prove so effective in invading/occupying Iraq?

Quite so. Shinseki was publicly "not fired" - in that "not firing" kind of way that says "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out" - for giving Bush (via Rumsfeld) good advice.

And this would appear to be the only crime which Bush finds unforgiveable: being right, when the Bush administration is determinedly wrong.

[hilzoy]

Slarti: I didn't get much out of your last link, since the history of the Crusader was not all that clearly tied to the Shinseki/Rumsfeld fight.

In thinking about questions like this, I've always found this site to be quite useful, since it has a bunch of great interviews with army and Pentagon people. All the generals are asked about Shinseki. Check it out.

[Slartibartfast]

since the history of the Crusader was not all that clearly tied to the Shinseki/Rumsfeld fight

Well, the connections are there. Google a combination of Rumsfeld, Shinseki and Crusader and see what you get. Shinseki did some things right (Stryker), other things completely wrong (Crusader) and was unfortunately a bit heavy-handed in attempting to manage his boss. I'm not saying he was a bad guy or anything; he was simply a guy whose objectives didn't match with that of the management. Either you have to enroll your management that your approach is the right one, or you're going to go by the wayside if you insist on sticking with it.

All the generals are asked about Shinseki. Check it out.

Done. What'd be completely unexpected, hilzoy, would be a bunch of people that had the same opinion. Upper ranks in the Pentagon are full of big egos, and those don't agree. I'm not saying big egos in a deroguotory sense, just that these are very strongly opinionated people. Each wants to do the right thing by his country, and each has the way figured out.

[Jesurgislac]

he was simply a guy whose objectives didn't match with that of the management.

True. It's just that it's not often that "management" so quickly turns out to both publicly and spectacularly wrong, and the guy they dissed and "not fired" was proved right.

Obviously, when management make mistakes to this degree, and having been warned about the mistakes by a high-level employee whom they rather publicly dissed and let go, you'd expect the shareholders to have something to say about retiring this spectacularly bad management and bringing in new management at their AGM in November 2004.

[ral]

Jes, as a practical matter, it is often difficult to dislodge even extremely bad senior managers. Not just in publicly held companies, but even in venture-funded start-ups. In general, until the money runs out, management is in control and even large shareholders shy away from a fight to get rid of them.

I don't like to think about the equivalent of "the money running out" in the political sphere.

[Slartibartfast]

It's just that it's not often that "management" so quickly turns out to both publicly and spectacularly wrong, and the guy they dissed and "not fired" was proved right.

Do the scare quotes have any meaning here, given that he was, by any and all sane measures, not in fact fired?

As for "proved right", find me something that says Shinseki anticipated the insurgency. He did say troops were needed to control "ethnic tensions", but it's not clear that what the insurgency is about is ethnicity.

Again, not whacking Shinseki; no one gets where he was without being very smart. But I repeat, his error was attempting to go around Rumsfeld and take his case for the Crusader directly to Congress. In fact, it was Shinseki and White together that did that. Coincidence, that Rumsfeld chose to keep on neither?

Rumsfeld would have been completely justified in summarily and publicly shitcanning both of them, IMO. That's not to say this is the course of action I approve of and recommend, but you simply don't go around your boss to the customer like that.

[Jesurgislac]

st: Jes, as a practical matter, it is often difficult to dislodge even extremely bad senior managers.

As a practical matter, in the US, you're meant to be able to do it every 4 years. Beats me why you didn't.

Slarti: As for "proved right", find me something that says Shinseki anticipated the insurgency.

*g* Now you're just being picky for the sake of it, Slarti. Because otherwise I would have to think you still won't accept that Bush via Rumsfeld was wrong to think that invading/occupying Iraq could be done successfully with 150 000 soldiers.

[Slartibartfast]

Now there's a violent change of subject. I guess it'll have to do in lieu of a retraction.

[Jesurgislac]

Slarti: Now there's a violent change of subject.

...?

What did you think we were talking about?

I thought we were discussing Shinseki's advice that the invasion of Iraq needed a far larger army, and Rumsfeld's disregard of it, leading to Shinseki's "non-firing": links here and here, if you missed them the first time.

If you wanted to talk about something else, Slarti, that's fine: but it ill becomes you in that case to accuse me of "violently changing the subject" just because I'm sticking to the original point I made to Hilzoy.

[Slartibartfast]

...which was something having to do with Shinseki getting fired and why, which if you still maintain your position is accurate, we're going to have to go through the dictionary and discover what you think those words mean.

[Prodigal]

So the fact that Shinseki' authority was undermined, and his career ended before the date at which he would have actually left his position, is irrelevant so long as you can clutch at the word "fired." Duly noted.

[Slartibartfast]

So the fact that Shinseki' authority was undermined, and his career ended before the date at which he would have actually left his position, is irrelevant so long as you can clutch at the word "fired." Duly noted.

Fair enough, as long as I can note in return that finishing out his allotted duration in that post equals "career ended".