Rove Rage

I've spent a lot of time trying to write about Karl Rove and his bag of dirty tricks, but along the way I found a great piece from Southeast Texans For Peace written way back in September, 2003.

Instead, for my sake and yours since there are a lot of names in the Rove-Wilson-Cooper-Plame et al treason play, here's the list of players to keep it straight and understand what all the ruckus is about:

Joseph Wilson: The "unnamed former envoy in Niger" credited with providing evidence that "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" in Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address. Credited, that is, until Wilson wrote an op-ed piece in July, 2003 saying he informed the Administration it was highly unlikely this ever happened.

Valerie Plame: Joseph Wilson's wife, and an undercover CIA operative running a network dedicated to tracking any person or nation that might try to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. Someone leaked her secret identity days after her husband wrote that editorial, and thus destroyed the exact kind of person we need in this "War on Terror."

Karl Rove, Senior Advisor to the President at the time of the Address and the op-ed piece (now Deputy Chief of Staff since February 2005), who has been known to say about at least one person who displeased him: "We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!'" (see Southeast Texans For Peace.) Rove is no minor Deputy anything - he's been the Puppet Master of GWB since he ran for Governor of Texas, if not before.

Robert Luskin: Rove's lawyer, who said recently that Rove did speak with at least one reporter about Mrs. Wilson, but did not identify her by name. May I submit that "Wilson's wife" may look like Raymond Luxory Yacht, but it's pronounced "Valerie Plame." It's not too difficult to figure that one out.

Section 421 of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982: The law that someone, perhaps Karl Rove, broke when leaking Mrs. Plame's identity. "Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both." The key word here, that Mr. Luskin is trying to use, is "knowing."
And we got sick of the definition of "sex" last millenium.

Matthew Cooper: Time magazine reporter who, in July 2003 soon after Wilson's editorial and three days before she was publically revealed, spoke to Karl Rove. In an e-mail shortly after the interview, he wrote that Rove said it was "Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip [to Niger by Wilson]," according to a story to be released in Newsweek's July 18 issue.

Judith Miller: A NY Times reporter who was sent to jail for Contempt of Court for refusing to reveal her source who revealed Valerie Plame's role when talking about CIA operatives. Who, by the way, she never wrote about.

Robert Novak: The decidedly conservative columnist who wrote a published column naming Valerie Plame as a CIA operative soon after Wilson wrote his op-ed piece and three days after Cooper talked to Rove. He claimed two government officials told him of her identity. He then wrote an article saying the furor was all blown out of proportion and everyone knew who Valerie Plame was. Curiously, as far as I've seen, he is not being questioned about this at all. Odd that, the guy who actually OUTS the operative is not being questioned.

Osama bin Laden: that guy we're supposed to be looking for but conveniently can't be found.

WHY WHY WHY WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY do people LIKE this administration? Compared to Bush and his administration, Nixon franked some personal mail.

Something doesn't just stink in the State of Texas, it's downright putrid.

PBU28