DU: Blog Box on Rove

From the Blog Box on Democratic Underground:

Common Sense

I sat beside Ambassador Joseph Wilson at the "Forum On Alternatives To American Foreign And Domestic Policy Since September 11" conference in DC in July, 2003, mere days before his New York Times piece, "What I Didn't Find In Africa," (debunking BushCo's bogus yellow cake claims) was published.

This man is not a crackpot. Nor is he a raving partisan Democrat. Common sense should tell you that Ambassador Wilson is a brilliant, thoughtful diplomat, whose only political concern is, and has always been, to establish and maintain healthy relationships between the United States of America and its global sister nations.

Which is why Karl Rove had to destroy him, of course.

"Karl Rove," the search term, began at #8 and rose rapidly to its present number #2 position at Technorati.com this week. (Number #1 was some UK Vanna White game show chick, who's dealing with the sudden death of the show's host.) Thousands of bloggers are ripping KKKarl a new one, but Jane at firedoglake does it best:

As someone who is still choking on the bile that came up over a bunch of sanctimonious old hacks hijacking the constitution and sitting in judgment of Bill Clinton, I would personally like to invite every one of them to dine on a delightful repast of their own words. If revenge is a dish best served cold, you better eat fast, you bastards. This one's heating up. P.S. Oh, NYT, WaPo? You got scooped by the fucking McLaughlin Group. You should all be disemboweling yourselves in shame.

Thanks, Jane! I needed that! For leak updates, Miller-in-handcuffs news, and other play-by-play BushCo treason action, check out the mega-blogs Huffington Post, Daily Kos, Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo and some blogs you should get to know, including Yatpundit, The Common Ills, Blue Meme, and the au (so) courant Best Of The Blogs. For the 411 on FOX News' strange silence on Rove, consult MoxieGrrrl.

After Judith (Chalabi-loving) Miller smiled for the camera on her way to jail for contempt of court, Ambassador Wilson posted his reaction at TPM Cafe.

Wilson speaks out on Miller sentencing

Former Ambassador Joe Wilson spoke to Dailykos about the sentencing of New York Times Reporter Judith Miller to jail time for refusing to reveal the source for the White House leak of the status of Wilson's wife as a CiA Operative.

The sentencing of Judith Miller to jail for refusing to disclose her sources is the direct result of the culture of unaccountability that infects the Bush White House from top to bottom. President Bush's refusal to enforce his own call for full cooperation with the Special Counsel has brought us to this point. Clearly, the conspiracy to cover up the web of lies that underpinned the invasion of Iraq is more important to the White House than coming clean on a serious breach of national security. Thus has Ms Miller joined my wife, Valerie, and her twenty years of service to this nation as collateral damage in the smear campaign launched when I had the temerity to challenge the President on his assertion that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from Africa.

The real victims of this cover-up, which may have turned criminal, are the Congress, the Constitution and, most tragically, the Americans and Iraqis who have paid the ultimate price for Bush's folly.

Vyan

Rove in the Crosshairs

In the wake of the Supreme Court's decision to remand the case of Mark Cooper and Judith Miller and their confidential sources on the leaking the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame back to the lower court, Newsweek has released information that Time Magazine documentation reveals that Senior White House Advisor Karl Rove was one of those interviewed by Cooper regarding the Plame manner, hinting that Rove himself may have been the source for the leak - as many people including Plame and her husband Joe Wilson have long suspected.

The Rove Factor?

Time magazine talked to Bush's guru for Plame story.

Andy Manis / AP 'CONCERN' AT THE WHITE HOUSE: Rove

By Michael Isikoff

Newsweek

July 11 issue - Its legal appeals exhausted, Time magazine agreed last week to turn over reporter Matthew Cooper's e-mails and computer notes to a special prosecutor investigating the leak of an undercover CIA agent's identity. The case has been the subject of press controversy for two years. Saying "we are not above the law," Time Inc. Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine decided to comply with a grand-jury subpoena to turn over documents related to the leak. But Cooper (and a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller) is still refusing to testify and faces jail this week.

At issue is the story of a CIA-sponsored trip taken by former ambassador (and White House critic) Joseph Wilson to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. "Some government officials have noted to Time in interviews... that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," said Cooper's July 2003 Time online article.

Now the story may be about to take another turn. The e-mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper's sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House. Cooper and a Time spokeswoman declined to comment. But in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article. It is unclear, however, what passed between Cooper and Rove.

Read More...

According to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, leaking the name of an undercover agent is also a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, under certain circumstances. When TV commentator Chris Matthews asked Republican National Committee chairman Ed Gillespie if he thought such a leak made by government officials was 'worse than Watergate,' Gillespie replied, 'Yeah, I suppose in terms of the real-world implications of it.'"

Vanity Fair, January 2004 via DailyKos

Vyan