it hasn't started

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(Before today's article, a couple of things:

1: This article is as much for my benefit as it is yours. By researching and writing it, I get a firm grasp of the facts involved with this OTHER very serious issue facing American politics today. Not an easy thing to do...especially considering the armies of breathless lefties demanding impeachment that are currently butting heads with the armies of right-wing bloggers and pundits who insist that anyone who would denigrate our President is gay. Hopefully you're a little better informed by the end, but at the end of the day, I do this so that I sound smarter at parties.

2: Whoever is leaving me text messages with no Caller ID or personal information attached... either identify yourself or stop it. I'm frustrated because I cannot reply to you, and you probably think I'm a jerk for ignoring you, when really I have no idea who you are or how to contact you and tell you "whats up." Oh, and if you're reading this, the answer is "nothin much, you?"

That is all. Grab some coffee or a cup of tea and enjoy today's story... it's pretty long, but the end makes it worthwhile.)
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If you've been paying attention, you've known for a while that Karl Rove, the president's deputy chief of staff and all-star political mastermind, is in some hot water. If you haven't.... well, he is. There are two big deals about this story, which has been getting a lot of traction over the last couple of days. One is that Rove, widely considered to be the brains behind Bush's four election victories (two for Texas governor, two for Prez), has been brought before a grand jury investigating the exposure of an undercover CIA agent's identity. He may be criminally liable for exposing this person, whose name is Valerie Plame. Two is that when this whole situation first touched down, the President, through his beleaguered mouthpiece Scott McClellan, said that anybody who was involved with outing a CIA agent would be fired.

Last Monday, all of this became very interesting. That, however, is the final page of a story that begins in 2002.

Joe Wilson is a career diplomat with an impressive resume. He was the last U.S. official ever to meet with Saddam Hussein, he was the ambassador to Gabon and Sao Tome/Principe under the first George Bush (what a sweet job!), and sat on the National Security Council during the Clinton administration, helping to create policy toward Africa.

Wilson wrote an editorial for the New York Times, published July 6, 2003. From said article:

"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.

"I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.

"Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.

"Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure."

Wilson writes that his statement, that Niger most likely did not transfer nuclear material to Iraq, only confirmed what most analysts already thought. This, of course, was not what the Bush administration wanted to hear. Relying on dubious information from a year-old British report, the State of the Union address contained language about how "Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantites of uranium from Africa."

Paragraph one of the Wilson editorial makes it clear how he feels about this situation. He effectively called out the Bush administration, accusing them of manipulating intelligence. (It turns out that's exactly what they were doing.) The White House has a long and documented history of firing, smearing, or otherwise retaliating against people who say things it doesn't want anybody to hear. So, what did they do when Joe Wilson blew the whistle on the biggest lie of all?

Robert Novak wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times about the Wilson editorial:

"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate."

What Novak (and a whole slew of other people) supposedly didn't know is that Valerie Plame was under cover, working for a front company that maintained a network of contacts with the hope that the CIA would know if weapons of mass destruction started changing hands in parts of the world. So, when this article went to print, Plame's cover was blown, and the company she was working for was exposed as a front for the CIA.

That's pretty serious business. Plame was fighting the war on terror: she was literally working to prevent the spread of weapons of mass destruction. Her career was suddenly derailed, and her husband got the message: don't mess with the White House. After the Novak story, Wilson went on television for a few days and denounced whoever leaked the information to Novak (and, as it turns out, a couple of other reporters, too). He even mentioned the name Karl Rove, fingering him as a possible ultimate source for this information. Pundits and political junkies laughed to themselves, thinking of the other instances where Rove has been suspected (but never definitively caught) of leaking information. Little did we know....

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald issued subpoenas to Judith Miller, a reporter for the New York Times, and Matt Cooper, a reporter for TIME Magazine, in connection to the Valerie Plame leak investigation. Whoever leaked the information about Plame to Robert Novak, it seemed, also contacted Miller and Cooper. Miller never wrote a related story, but Cooper did, and it wasn't pretty, suggesting (in the words of prosecutor Fitzgerald) ... "that the conduct of the officials involved an attack on an administration critic, not whistle-blowing." Miller refused to cooperate, saying that her source wished to be anonymous, and that she would not reveal his name. She was subsequently jailed for contempt of court, and will be released either when she reveals the name of her source like the subpoena wants, or when the grand jury's investigation is complete.

Cooper initially refused to cooperate as well, also saying that his source wished to remain anonymous. TIME Inc., days before Cooper was to be thrown in jail, agreed to release the content of an e-mail Cooper sent to his bureau chief regarding who told him what he knew about the leak. On July 6th 2005, Cooper agreed to testify before the grand jury, saying he had heard from his source that it was okay with him if Cooper cooperated with the grand jury.

From ThinkProgress.org:

According to the Newsweek story today, at 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003 Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper sent the following e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy:
“Subject: Rove/P&C,” (for personal and confidential)
“Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation…” “please don’t source this to rove or even WH [White House]”
“it was, KR said, wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.”

The email continues with warnings about how Joe Wilson is not to be believed, supposedly because his wife authorized this cushy vacation/intelligence mission to the well-known tropical vacation paradise of... Niger.

So, Karl Rove called members of the media and told them, on double-super-secret background, that "wilson's wife" (Plame), who "works at the agency on wmd issues," "authorized the trip." Hell of a thing to say, since it doesn't really prove anything about Wilson other than that his wife is a CIA agent. Oops.

Rove went on the record in 2003 denying that he told anybody anything, and then slightly changed his tone, denying that he told any reporter Valerie Plame's name. Scott McClellan, White House press secretary, went on the record in 2003 as saying that Rove specifically had nothing to do with the leak. President Bush went on the record in 2003 as saying that he would fire anybody in his administration that would do such a treasonous thing.

Once word got out that Rove was the leak, the White House sang a different tune altogether. Here are excerpts from White House press events:

(July 11, 2003)
QUESTION: The Robert Novak column last week . . . has now given rise to accusations that the administration deliberatively blew the cover of an undercover CIA operative, and in so doing, violated a federal law that prohibits revealing the identity of undercover CIA operatives. Can you respond to that?

McCLELLAN: Thank you for bringing that up. That is not the way this President or this White House operates. And there is absolutely no information that has come to my attention or that I have seen that suggests that there is any truth to that suggestion. And, certainly, no one in this White House would have given authority to take such a step.


(September 29, 2003)
QUESTION: Has the President either asked Karl Rove to assure him that he had nothing to do with this; or did Karl Rove go to the President to assure him that he . . .

McCLELLAN: I don't think he needs that. I think I've spoken clearly to this publicly . . . I've just said there's no truth to it.

QUESTION: Yes, but I'm just wondering if there was a conversation between Karl Rove and the President, or if he just talked to you, and you're here at this . . .

McCLELLAN: He wasn't involved. The President knows he wasn't involved.

QUESTION: How does he know that?

McCLELLAN: The President knows.


(September 30, 2003, press conference with President Bush)
QUESTION: Yesterday we were told that Karl Rove had no role in it. . .

THE PRESIDENT: Yes.

QUESTION: Have you talked to Karl and do you have confidence in him . . .

THE PRESIDENT: Listen, I know of nobody -- I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action.


Now, we fast-forward to July 11th of this year, when it has become very clear that yes, Rove was involved, and moreso, he was the culprit. If I were McClellan, after taking a beating like this, I would have gone home early, stopping on the way only for a handle of Jim Beam and a bag of ice, and maybe a glass to put them in.

(July 11, 2005)
Q Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003 when you were asked specifically about Karl and Elliott Abrams and Scooter Libby, and you said, "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me they are not involved in this" -- do you stand by that statement?

MR. McCLELLAN: And if you will recall, I said that as part of helping the investigators move forward on the investigation we're not going to get into commenting on it. That was something I stated back near that time, as well.

Q Scott, I mean, just -- I mean, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us after having commented with that level of detail and tell people watching this that somehow you decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium, or not?

MR. McCLELLAN: And again, David, I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said, and I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation --

Q Why are you choosing when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MR. McCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish --

Q No, you're not finishing -- you're not saying anything. You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke out about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation? Was he involved, or was he not? Because, contrary to what you told the American people, he did, indeed, talk about his wife, didn't he?

MR. McCLELLAN: David, there will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

Q Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?

MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.

Go ahead, Terry.

Q Well, you're in a bad spot here, Scott, because after the investigation began, after the criminal investigation was underway, you said -- October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby, as I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this." From that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began. Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?

MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's not a correct characterization Terry, and I think you are well aware of that. We know each other very well, and it was after that period that the investigators had requested that we not get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation. And we want to be helpful so that they can get to the bottom of this, because no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the President of the United States. I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point, I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I'm just not going to do that.


And, finally, we come to yesterday's press briefing, where the White House press corps has finally decided that after five years of obfuscation, dodgery, and stonewalling, they would like an answer to some questions they are burning to ask:

(July 13, 2005)
Q Scott, some White House advisors expressed surprise that the President did not give a warm endorsement to Karl Rove when he was asked about him at the Cabinet meeting. They had expected that he would speak up. Can you explain why the President didn't express confidence?

McCLELLAN: Sure. He wasn't asked about his support or confidence for Karl. As I indicated yesterday, every person who works here at the White House, including Karl Rove, has the confidence of the President. This was not a question that came up in the Cabinet Room.

Q Well, the President has never been restrained at staying right in the lines of a question, as you know. (Laughter.) He kind of -- he says whatever he wants. And if he had wanted to express confidence in Karl Rove, he could have. Why didn't he?

McCLELLAN: He expressed it yesterday through me, and I just expressed it again….

Q Scott, you know what, to make a general observation here, in a previous administration, if a press secretary had given the sort of answers you've just given in referring to the fact that everybody who works here enjoys the confidence of the President, Republicans would have hammered them as having a kind of legalistic and sleazy defense. I mean, the reality is that you're parsing words, and you've been doing it for a few days now. So does the President think Karl Rove did something wrong, or doesn't he?

McCLELLAN: No, David, I'm not at all. I told you and the President told you earlier today that we don't want to prejudge the outcome of an ongoing investigation. And I think we've been round and round on this for two days now.

Q Even if it wasn't a crime? You know, there are those who believe that even if Karl Rove was trying to debunk bogus information, as Ken Mehlman suggested yesterday -- perhaps speaking on behalf of the White House -- that when you're dealing with a covert operative, that a senior official of the government should be darn well sure that that person is not undercover, is not covert, before speaking about them in any way, shape, or form. Does the President agree with that or not?

McCLELLAN: Again, we've been round and round on this for a couple of days now. I don't have anything to add to what I've said the previous two days.

Q That's a different question, and it's not round and round --

McCLELLAN: You heard from the President earlier.

Q It has nothing to do with the investigation, Scott, and you know it.

McCLELLAN: You heard from the President earlier today, and the President said he's not --

Q That's a dodge to my question. It has nothing to do with the investigation. Is it appropriate for a senior official to speak about a covert agent in any way, shape, or form without first finding out whether that person is working as a covert officer.

McCLELLAN: Well, first of all, you're wrong. This is all relating to questions about an ongoing investigation, and I've been through this.

Q If I wanted to ask you about an ongoing investigation, I would ask you about the statute, and I'm not doing that.

McCLELLAN: I think we've exhausted discussion on this the last couple of days.

Q You haven't even scratched the surface.

Q (someone else) It hasn't started.

Q (yet another person) Can I ask for clarification on what the President said at Sea Island on June 10th of last year, when he was saying that he would fire anybody from the White House who was involved in the leak of classified information? What were the parameters for those consequences?

McCLELLAN: Again, I've nothing to add on this discussion, and if we have any other topics you want to discuss, I'll be glad to do that.

Q I'm going to go to another question, somewhat on the same subject, but a different vein. Let's talk about the Wilson family. Is there any regret from this White House about the effects of this leak on this family?

McCLELLAN: We can continue to go round and round on all these --

Q No, no, no, no. This has nothing to do with the investigation. This is about the leak and the effects on this family. I mean, granted there are partisan politics being played, but let's talk about the leak that came from the White House that affected a family.

McCLELLAN: And let me just say again that anything relating to an ongoing investigation, I'm not going to get into discussing. I've said that the past couple of days.

Q Scott, from Africa, Mrs. Bush says, Karl Rove is a very good friend of mine; I've known him for years. And she's not going to speculate on any other part of the case. Well, does the President feel the same way about Karl Rove, the relationship with Karl Rove, a very good friend for many years?

McCLELLAN: Yes, he does.

Q And at this point, is it ebbing or flowing? Is that relationship with the President ebbing or flowing? (Laughter.)

McCLELLAN: Again, this is a creative way to come out to the same kind of questions.

Q You're right, it is, and I want an answer.


If you've made it this far, congratulations. You've just read a story that took me three hours to put together, and you've also witnessed the first lie the Bush administration has ever been caught in -- that the media simply will not let go. I'd wager that today's press conference will be even less pleasant. That pretty much sums up all the facts in the case so far. Since July 6th, there has been a tremendous amount of double-talk, spin, character assassination, and other skulduggery perpetrated against the media, Joe Wilson, and the Democratic party by the chairman of the Republican National Committee, Minnesota senator Norm Coleman, New York congressman Peter King, Karl Rove's lawyer, and pretty much everyone at Fox News. If I tried to dissect all of that, you would be reading this up until the moment I posted tomorrow's story, so I'll just leave it alone and provide some concise linkage to what the GOP is saying and what the progressives have to say in return:

Talking Points for Treason
Talking Points for Treason, Part II

The White House press corps is right. We haven't even scratched the surface, and this hasn't even started yet.