But Mr. Rove understood that the facts were irrelevant. For one thing, he knew he could count on the administration's supporters to obediently accept a changing story line. Read the before-and-after columns by pro-administration pundits about Iraq: before the war they castigated the C.I.A. for understating the threat posed by Saddam's W.M.D.; after the war they castigated the C.I.A. for exaggerating the very same threat.
Mr. Rove also understands, better than anyone else in American politics, the power of smear tactics. Attacks on someone who contradicts the official line don't have to be true, or even plausible, to undermine that person's effectiveness. All they have to do is get a lot of media play, and they'll create the sense that there must be something wrong with the guy.
And now we know just how far he was willing to go with these smear tactics: as part of the effort to discredit Joseph Wilson IV, Mr. Rove leaked the fact that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for the C.I.A. I don't know whether Mr. Rove can be convicted of a crime, but there's no question that he damaged national security for partisan advantage. If a Democrat had done that, Republicans would call it treason.
But what we're getting, instead, is yet another impressive demonstration that these days, truth is political. One after another, prominent Republicans and conservative pundits have declared their allegiance to the party line. They haven't just gone along with the diversionary tactics, like the irrelevant questions about whether Mr. Rove used Valerie Wilson's name in identifying her (Robert Novak later identified her by her maiden name, Valerie Plame), or the false, easily refuted claim that Mr. Wilson lied about who sent him to Niger. They're now a chorus, praising Mr. Rove as a patriotic whistle-blower.
Posted by Timothy,
4:51 PM
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Friday, July 15, 2005 Could it ever be a problem to expose the identity of someone who had been a clandestine CIA agent? Sure, it is even worse if that person's identity is exposed while overseas (for starters, that agent could be captured or killed). But as many commentaters have noted, outing a CIA officer who was once clandestine can put in grave danger everyone that person had come in contact with on their earlier travels overseas. Intelligence networks can be damaged and destroyed. The front company that the person worked at is useless and becomes tainted. But once the agent's identity is exposed, their (and our) future effectiveness is undermined. They otherwise could have (and for all we know, would have) returned to cladestine status and went on future missions overseas. We definitely want people working on non-proliferation- I believe both Kerry and Bush said in the debates that non-proliferation should be the number one priority. So who in their right mind would imply that there is no possible danger to national security?
Update: My post was in reaction to a Dartblog post which said that Joe Wilson said that his wife was not clandestine at the time when Novak printed his column, and that Novak would thereby be exonerated if that were true. I found that last idea ridiculous, because exposure of a past agent still has effects. But the premise of the Dartblog post is also wrong. Wilson was NOT saying Novak didn't blow his wife's cover. Here's the transcript:
BLITZER: But the other argument that's been made against you is that you've sought to capitalize on this extravaganza, having that photo shoot with your wife, who was a clandestine officer of the CIA, and that you've tried to enrich yourself writing this book and all of that.
What do you make of those accusations, which are serious accusations, as you know, that have been leveled against you.
WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity. BLITZER: But she hadn't been a clandestine officer for some time before that?
WILSON: That's not anything that I can talk about. And, indeed, I'll go back to what I said earlier, the CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and that's why they referred it to the Justice Department.
She was not a clandestine officer at the time that that article in Vanity Fair appeared. And I have every right to have the American public know who I am and not to have myself defined by those who would write the sorts of things that are coming out, being spewed out of the mouths of the RNC...
For those of you who don't know, the Vanity Fair article happened after Novak wrote his column and because her cover was blown. Atrios says:
For sentient humans, it's clear what Wilson means - that she ceased to be a clandestine operative the day Novak's column came out. It's also clear from his other comments (as it was clear to Blitzer in conversation) that he has to use such language because he can't acknowledge that she ever was a clandestine operative with direct language.
HAS ANYONE CORRECTED THIS DUMBF--K? WILSON MEANT THAT THE MOMENT NOVAK BLEW HER IDENTITY SHE WAS NO LONGER UNDERCOVER NOT THAT SHE WAS NO LONGER UNDERCOVER WHEN NOVAK BLEW HER IDENTITY. JESUS CHRIST WHAT AN IDIOT
What a nice tactic: pick out an email like this, and not address the substantive point. He could at least concede what many others could have told him, that his earlier point made no sense at all.
Update 3: A few days later, Dartblog responds, which is what I asked for in my last post. He asserts (without evidence, alas) that Plame had not operated overseas in the last 5 years before the Novak column. (Again, see my original post above even if this is the case...) Dartlog bases his case on grammar. I think Wilson's number one priority was not in anyway admitting his wife had been covert: not even implying that is the number one priority for a diplomat such as Wilson. But whatever, if dartblog wants to believe that Wilson is so smart and clever to choose his words carefully and to reveal to us that his wife was not undercover, but to also only leave it until now to say (real clever, huh?) while Dartblog undoubtly himself believes Wilson has lied on other matters publically... well that's an interesting position to hold, and I've leave him to it. This does not matter too much to me anyway. Plame could have been covert the day before or year before, not the day of, Novak's column and still Novak would been exposing her, and Wilson would be telling the truth, even under Dartblog's interpretation. Dartblog says: "Grammar aside, we already know that Valerie Plame was not a covert agent via other avenues." Huh? Again, no evidence provided. Here's a round up of links about this. ALSO: Dartblog wonders suggest some alternate phrasing for what Wilson could have said. One of them goes: "My wife ceased to be a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity." Who can tell me why that would be dumb to say? Because in order to 'cease to be' a clandestine office, you had to once be one! Hence my point above about this. Dartblog illustrates perfectly why another phrasing could have been treacherous.
Posted by Timothy,
12:52 AM
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Thursday, July 14, 2005
The Karl Rove Affair's Really Blowing Up
Howard Kurtz has some good coverage of how the various right-wing media outlets are handling the Karl Rove affair. But it's hard to outdo the Editorial page of the Wall Street Journal on Karl Rove coverage. They wrote: "As for the press corps, rather than calling for Mr. Rove to be fired, they ought to be grateful to him for telling the truth." It seems like the only time Rove actually told the truth during this affair was when it was both illegal and in his political interest to do so.
One thing's for sure about this Rove scandal. It's turning into a left-wing conspiracy theorists wet-dream. I can't count how many columns I've read in which the author ended with cryptic insinuations that Rove was probably the shadowy figure behind some mystery evil. And if you really scratched any liberal about the Plame case before all this most recent stuff had come out, they'd have tentatively guessed it was Rove who was behind it. Who else could it have been but the man behind the "McCain fathered an illegitimate black child" smear campaign of 2000?
I know it hasn't been proven yet that Rove intentionally meant to out Plame, but it just seems so in character that it's hard to believe he would have done it by accident. In '92, he was expelled from Bush Senior's campaign for leaking negative information about a rival within the campaign to, that's right, Robert Novak. (In that case, his motive appears to have been pure vindictiveness) So it's hard to believe he would have "innocently" leaked something to Novak again, especially if he also conveniently leaked the same information to Cooper and Miller around the same time.
Bush and Rove have made the perfect political pair, of a Dr Jekll and Mr Hyde sort: Rove needed to find someone who exuded trustworthiness enough to hide the sort of pure evil which, of all the people in Washington, only he is capable. But Bush's closeness to Rove could really tar his image if this scandal turns out to be as big as it looks.
Updates: Now this is a really onionesque turn of events. Bush administration officials are now testifying that it was Novak who leaked Plame's name to Rove, rather than the other way about.
...Now it's starting to seem like Rove was probably a secondary source. The leak went out through someone else, and came back in through Rove, if we're to believe what the media is saying. Who is the primary source? If it were Powell, as new evidence hints, this could really neutralize criticism of Bush on the whole issue. Powell was assigned the role of blametaker-in-chief for misleading the U.N. on Iraq, so the administration might just be trying to pin this on him too.
Posted by Justin Sarma,
3:31 AM
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Tuesday, July 12, 2005 The Wonders of 80s Masculinity!
"It's such a fine line between stupid, and clever" - David St. Hubbins
Today's issue of The Dartmouth contains one of the most wonderful editorials they've ever printed. I love it. It's phenomenal. Because I honestly can't tell whether it's straight-faced or satire.
It resonates on the same level as This is Spinal Tap. Mr. Clayton, satirically or not, plays the essence of the Nigel Tufnel character. This is a character who desperately wants to take himself completely seriously and fails. This is a character who is permanently stuck in a vision of masculinity that existed only for a brief period in the mid-80s -- a time when men tucked cucumbers under their boxers, then bragged about the armadillos in their trousers.
This is simply a great editorial. Some highlights:
Last weekend, I found myself watching the romantic comedy "Something's Gotta Give" with five brothers in my fraternity. We had a remote, and there were plenty of fast-paced action movies on the other channels.
During boyhood, we are given an innate impulse to make lifelike shifting sounds when driving matchbox cars and realistic machine gun sounds when fighting with G.I. Joes.
Think kids in Russia are playing PlayStation to pass the time? No, they're drinking vodka and playing games of hide-the-old-nuclear-warhead.
I think Steve Zyck would be proud.
Posted by Nick,
1:04 PM
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Anthropological Study of Drinking at Dartmouth Finds Drinking Inextricably Tied to "Culture" (link)
Drawing from this research, Alverson came to the unorthodox conclusion that binge drinking is not a "problem behavior" that can be isolated from the rest of social interaction, but is instead inextricably tied to culture itself.
I bet the Dartmouth Review must love this guy. Science says binge drinking until you pass out in a pool of vomit is not a problem. That's great, then the college should encourage it! I don't have a problem with drinking, but it seems a bit blind to say it can't ever be a problem. I knew a few brothers who wet the bed regularly from drinking. If their binge drinking was cultural, then I suppose their bedwetting was cultural too then.
