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July 12, 2005
Rightwing bloggers think Rove is stupid
New York Times, July 12, 2003..via Michelle Malkin:
There has been some dispute, moreover, about just how secret a secret agent Ms. Wilson was."She had a desk job in Langley," said Ms. Toensing, who also signed the supporting brief in the appeals court, referring to the C.I.A.'s headquarters. "When you want someone in deep cover, they don't go back and forth to Langley."
In any event, a violation of the IIPA seems highly unlikely. It is doubtful whether Rove or any other administration source knew of Plame's affiliation with the CIA through access to classified materials; it is further questionable whether Rove or any other source knew that she was a "covert" employee, or that the government was making an effort to keep her affiliation with the Agency a secret. (In fact, it is unclear whether the Agency did make such an effort.) As to the third situation covered by the statute, neither Rove nor any other administration source identified Plame as part of a "pattern of activities intended to identify or expose covert agents" for the purpose of impairing national security.
I believe Rove is completely off the legal hook. But what about the moral question, as opposed to the legal? Is Karl Rove an "agent outer," in the sense of Aldrich Ames or Jack Anderson? Did he leak an agent's identify (name or no name) for reasons of revenge, or to cause her harm, or because he hated the CIA, or for some other disreputable reason? Again, it seems clear that Rove did not; his motive was to protect the president from an attack that Rove, and everyone else in the White House, knew was a vicious and tendentious lie.
I have essentially the same legal credentials as P.J. O'Rourke. But I can't believe that the special prosecutor set up a grand jury without first determining whether or not there was a possibility of a crime being committed. If there is no way that Plame could be considered a covert agent under the law (which Fitzgerald would have easily determined) there'd be no need to investigate this noncrime.
Rove is also not an idiot despite the rightwing blogs attempts to characterize him as such. We're supposed to believe that Rove ignorantly gave a CIA officer's information to the press because he heard it at a cocktail party? To protect the President from "lies"? Rove either gave the information to the press knowing she was a covert operative or didn't bother to check first. Rove doesn't strike me as a "not bothering to check" kind of guy, either.
The more likely scenario is that Rove saw the intelligence fixing of Iraq being undercut by Wilson. Going after Wilson's wife and tainting Wilson was the path of least resistance.
Posted by Carla at July 12, 2005 02:30 PM