Some Democrats are accusing Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., of playing partisan politics for blocking a congressional investigation of presidential adviser Karl Rove’s role in leaking the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame. But the opposite seems true. What appears to be a rigorous Justice Department investigation of the leak is still ongoing, and there is no pressing reason for Congress to jump in now — other than that Democrats want a public platform to discredit Rove. Besides, Rove is doing a pretty good job self-destructing on his own.
Posted by Phillip Brownlee
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30 Comments
Dems have nothing on Rove. They’ll be forced to go after DeLay again in a couple months.
It’s not a matter of “having nothing” on Rove. Rove has stepped in this pile of do-do all on his own. Now it’s up to the Congress to investigate and make sure Rove gets his walking papers.
I saw this in today’s paper.
Philip, do you actually read The Eagle, because if you did you’d see that it’s PAT ROBERTS who has decided to start his own probe of Fitzpatrick here at the eleventh hour of the investigation.
There can only be one reason Roberts would wade into this mess at this time–because it’s leading right back to Bush’s top advisors.
For you to claim that it’s the democrats who are gumming up the investigation is exactly right, if by “democrats” you mean Pat Roberts . . .
And by the way, this is why I had to let my subscription to The Eagle expire. Everybody’s entitled to their own opinions, but the Editorial board of The Eagle is not entitled to its own “facts.”
The fact is that Roberts is starting a counter-probe of Fitzgerald’s investigation. For the opinion editor to complain that it’s democrats who are the problem and not Roberts is very Bush of him.
Don’t Bush us, man.
Phillip,
Antares is right. Have you followed ANY of the reporting on this issue? Geez. I expect right wing think tank shills and Rush Limbaugh to just make stuff up, but not the members of the Eagle’s editorial board.
I believe you have been ‘hoisted on your own petard,’ as they say.
And as usual, Jimmy whistles past the graveyard.
Okay, this is worse than I thought. Here’s the Buzzflash version of the controversy. Even if you disagree with the conclusion, at least we have to agree on the reportage it’s based on.
Welcome back to the BuzzFlash.com GOP Hypocrite of the Week.
If Tony Blair is George Bush’s poodle, Kansas Senator Pat Roberts is his obedient lapdog.
Roberts is, sadly for the security of America, the Chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee. But Roberts does not see his primary role as protecting the citizens of the United States. Oh no, the first and foremost task of Roberts is to protect the Bushevism power base.
As the Boston Globe pointed out, despite Roberts’ post-election promise to do so, he now refuses to hold hearings on the now-proven false pre-Iraq War intelligence assertions of the Bush Administration.
According to the Globe, last year Roberts vowed that “his panel would examine whether Bush or his top aides misled the public about prewar intelligence, or pressured CIA agents to make a stronger case for invading Iraq. But since then,” the Globe continues, “the Intelligence Committee has made no measurable progress on the investigation. Instead, Roberts has offered vague public promises of picking up the key pieces of the probe at some point but has warned that other more pressing matters must be dealt with first.”
Apparently, one of those pressing matters is being the boy toy of Karl Rove, who recently dispatched Roberts to “review the probe of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who has been investigating the Plame case for nearly two years.” Ah yes, instead of uncovering lies, Roberts is intimidating a federal prosecutor and enabling treason.
On February 25, 1999, Pat Roberts stood before the Senate and indignantly declared: “I today voted to sustain both articles of impeachment of William J. Clinton. I so voted because I believe the President is guilty of obstructing justice and lying to a grand jury and because I believe these crimes are so serious they warrant his removal from office.”
What’s the matter with Kansas? How about senators like Pat Roberts who are more loyal to their party than to their country. When you sell out a CIA operative who specializes in trying to save America from weapons of mass destruction, you’re not just the BuzzFlash GOP Hypocrite of the Week, you are just despicable and immoral.
Until next week, remember our motto at BuzzFlash.com: So many Republican hypocrites, so little time.http://www.gophypocrites.com/2005/07/hyp05031.html
This opinion is ridiculous. I’m shocked that Brownlee has not followed this story enough, resulting in canyon-sized gaping holes in this story that contradicts his point completely. Please read your own newspaper a little better before pretending to be outraged by something you obviously know little about.
This Boston Globe article sums up the situation nicely.
http://www.boston.com/news/politics/president/bush/articles/2005/07/25/congress_plans_to_scrutinize_plame_related_issues/
It’s House Republicans who are initiating the congressional investigation. To help Rove. And themselves.
“‘It’s time there’s a comprehensive law that will make it easier for the government to prosecute wrongdoers and increase the penalties that hopefully will act as a deterrent,’ said Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the panel’s Republican chairman.”
By the way, in case you don’t see the political message here – let’s put on some hearings so we can put out the idea that Plame’s status really shouldn’t have been “covert” and that Rove did wasn’t so bad. Shameful.
And here comes Roberts, getting the Senate into the act.
“Meanwhile, Hoekstra’s counterpart in the Senate, Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, intends to preside over hearings on the intelligence community’s use of covert protections for CIA agents and others involved in secret activities.”
It’s the same message as Hoekstra. Let’s change the framework, and try and tell the American people that some secret agents aren’t really secret agents after all. Especially those whose husbands disagree with teh President.
And the kicker? Roberts is loading the gun, and preparing to shoot the messenger.
“Little [Roberts' spokeswoman] said the Senate committee would also review the probe of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who has been investigating the Plame case for nearly two years.”
Now that you know what’s going on, reread Brownlee’s editorial, and see if you can’t see how inept it is. C’mon people – it’s a newspaper!
Why do Republicans hate America so? They’re willing to destroy national security, and then do everything they can to protect the perpetrators, including destroying national security even further. They don’t care. It’s their survival and their image of infallibility that must survive at all costs. All the way to the point of trying to convince you that the sky is green, and the the grass is orange. If that doesn’t disgust you, then I’d start looking for another soul.
Hey, there’s a War on, remember? Oh yeah, I forgot – they changed that too for political purposes.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2005/07/26/news/terror.php
These people are the worst.
Why do these hacks like Brownback/Roberts keep getting re-elected?
Well, part of the reason they keep getting re-elected is because major local media like The Eagle dismiss criticisms of their huge ethical lapses (like this one) as “partisan bickering.”
Strangely, Kathleen Seibelius, a real uniter not divider, gets routinely cheap-shotted by The Eagle’s putative “non-partisanism.”
Judith Miller isn’t sitting in jail to protect Rove or Scooter Libby. So why is she sitting in jail? But hey, nothing like a rush to judgement for firing up that old herd mentality…
If the Special Prosecutor returns indictments, great. Prosecute. If he doesn’t, will someone please tell the howling partisan lynch mob to extinguish their torches on their way to the exits?
There’s no rush to judgement. Rove has already admitted who he talked to about Plame and when. How is that a rush to anything? Rove should resign because it’s the right thing to do. You don’t out a CIA operative, or even talk about her identity when it’s a state secret. It’s wrong. We’re at War. He works for a wartime president. Indictment, inshmitement. Who’s splitting legal hairs now? Whos hiding from teh truth? Why are Republicans afraid to take responsibility for their own actions?
Bush said he’d fire anyone who had anything to do with this leak. Guess what? Rove admitted he had something to do with it. So, he’ll fired now, right? Wrong! It’s bizarro Bush world, where blue is purple, and mice chase cats! Yes – no one in the Bush administration is responsible for anything. Total cowards.
Even Bush’s dad thinks Rove should go.
Miller is in jail because she’s protecting herself (how strange does that sound). It’s probable that she could be prosecuted for passing around Plame’s identity as well.
Right, the word from the halls of the NY Times (J. Miller worked there) is that Miller was so steamed that her credulous steneography of the President’s justification for going to war had been under-cut by Joe Wilson, that she may have been the source to out Plame and smear Wilson.
She may indeed be sitting in jail because she herself was an actor in the illegal smear.
Let her rot, as far as I’m concerned.
As far as the indictments go, Tully, Fitzgerald has already announced they will come out in October (two years is no “rush to judgement,” btw).
And just when Fitzgerald said he was issuing indictments, Pat Roberts suddenly summons the will to probe the investigator.
You don’t need to rush to judgement to see who Roberts is working for–protection of the GOP, not the American people.
Why does Pat Roberts keep getting elected?
Because he is a statesman! He is one of the best senators in Washington. I have been to Washington several times and I have visited all of the Senators and Conressmen from Kansas the last 12 years. I have never been treated better than I have by Senator Roberts.
He is exactly the kind of man I want in Washington from Kansas.
Why does he keep getting elected?Who rean against hem last time?
Hank
Pat Roberts has compromised his integrity BIG time. He has shown that he’s willing to sacrifice national security to further Republican political gains. It’s not even
See a good story here:
http://armando.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/25/145222/388
It doesn’t matter that this article is on a liberal blog. How can anyone defend this? When will the Republican madness stop? If you support this garbage, you are against America. Period. You’re saying that you’re willing to put us all in danger, put our troops in danger, as long as the Republicans can save political face.
But I suspect that Kansans are better than that. They would do the right thing. They wouldn’t do what Pat Roberts is doing.
Stand up for yourselves.
GetReal, while I normally hesitate to criticize Kansans (being out of state), I’d like to point out that Kansans are known for voting against their own intrests. Pat Roberts will leave office because of old age. If he went on live TV, ate a baby, and killed puppies, he’d get re-elected. Most Kansans don’t vote issues, they vote party.
And before anybody hollers, I grew up in rural Kansas.
Hammer,
I have to agree with you 100%.
Besides, babies are delicious, and puppies have been asking for it.
Shoot, GR, took the stem cells right outta my mouth.
You know GetReal, I’ve often said I love children; sauteed in butter or BBQ’d. ;=)
“Bush said he’d fire anyone who had anything to do with this leak.”
No, he didn’t. I saw that press conference. A reporter said that, interrupting an answer Bush was giving to the question to insert more questions, then conflating a mixed answer. “Gotcha” journalism. The WH has consistently said that anyone who broke the law would be history, and would be subject to prosecution, and that it was up to the special prosecutor to determine the facts. Including at that press conference.
“As far as the indictments go, Tully, Fitzgerald has already announced they will come out in October.”
No, he hasn’t, except perhaps in your fever dreams. Fitzgerald has made NO public announcements of that type, and if he did, he would be (rightly) slammed for breaching his legal duties. BTW, Fitzgerald isn’t the one who would issue indictments in any case. He can only seek them. It’s up to the grand jury to issue them, if they feel a case has been made. But we won’t know until they close up shop in October. The odds against an IIPA indictment are long indeed. Any indictments are more likely to be for perjury or obstruction or criminal contempt–the classic case of a political non-crime scandal investigation creating more “crimes” than it investigates. And that net could cover anyone who testified–or refused to.
It’s funny to watch the howling lynch mobs of the loony left get just as stupid and frothy-rabid as the rightwing whackos of the Clinton years. It’s just like watching the witch scene from HOLY GRAIL.
Tully–thanks for the clarification of what Fitzgerald is going to do in October. I stand corrected.
But of course the essence of what I meant was true–the indictments or not will come in October.
Unlike Starr’s witch-hunt of the Clinton family, this investigation has an end to it, and that end will happen in October.
As for “Bush said he would fire anyone involved in the leak” . . . actually he said anyone who was involved would be “taken care of” which in practical everyday language means the same thing, unless you’re going to crab and parse Bushisms like Hank does to cover for his clear and blatant lies.
Also, Tully, before the last presidential election, the administration wanted to prove how much it was doing in the “fight against terror.”
During the Democratic National Convention, they announced that they had captured one Mohammed Naeem Noor Khan.
This person turned out to be a double agent working with British intelligence on . . . guess what? . . . planned SUBWAY BOMBINGS.
When Khan’s name was discovered, British authorities had to arrest suspects before they had completed their investigation. As a result, some of those suspects had to be released. And as a result of that, some of those suspects later carried through their plot to kill some 80 people in London.
So Bush’s political grandstanding leads to more terror not less and people die because of it–yup, that makes me froth at the mouth pretty good, my friend.
It also shows that they are more interested in scoring political wins than in protecting, say, a CIA asset working on WMD threat.
It fits the pattern we see with this administration.
>>>”Bush said he’d fire anyone who had anything to do with this leak.”
No, he didn’t. I saw that press conference. A reporter said that, interrupting an answer Bush was giving to the question to insert more questions, then conflating a mixed answer. “Gotcha” journalism.”<<<
This is insane. You have to be some kind of crazy wingnut to say something like this based on the huge amount of videotaped evidence, transcripts, and audio recordings on this subject. This is just a great example of people believing the nutty GOP protective taking points that puts politics ahead of country. It’s so compleley insane it’s hard to know where to start, so I’ll start here:
You’re wrong.
Bush clearly said he’d fire anyone who had anything to do with the probe. It wasn’t a “gotcha” moment, it wasn’t a trick question.
First of all, the White House stated very clearly, that Karl Rove had nothing to do with it on October 7, 2003:
Q: Scott, you have said that you, personally, went to Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Elliot Abrams to ask them if they were the leakers. Is that what happened? Why did you do that, and can you describe the conversations you had with them? What was the question you asked?
McClellan: They’re good individuals, they’re important members of our White House team, and that’s why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I had no doubt of that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it’s accurate before I report back to you, and that’s exactly what I did.
Q: So you’re saying — you’re saying categorically those three individuals were not the leakers or did not authorize the leaks; is that what you’re saying?
McClellan: That’s correct. I’ve spoken with them.
Strike 1.
Let’s go to the tape for October 6, 2003:
“Q: But can you confirm that the President would fire anyone on his staff found to have leaked classified information?
McClellan: I think I made that very clear last week. The topic came up, and I said that if anyone in this administration was responsible for the leaking of classified information, they would no longer work in this administration. ”
Strike 2. Looks like you didn’t do your homework. Yep, they said that they’d fire anyone involved in the leak. So, you’re wrong. But wait! There’s more!
October 7, 2003:
“McClellan: If someone leaked classified information, the President wants to know. If someone in this administration leaked classified information, they will no longer be a part of this administration, because that’s not the way this White House operates, that’s not the way this President expects people in his administration to conduct their business.”
Strike 3! Annnd you’re out! Good lord, it’s looking bad for the wingnuts. BUt wait – that’s Scott McClelan. Maybe you could pull out some REALLY nutty argument that he doesn’t speak for the President or something. That would be crazy. BUt just in case, from the same October 7, 2003 press conference:
“McClellan: No, no. Let me answer what the President has said. I speak for the President and I’ll talk to you about what he wants.”
C’mon people – get your facts straight!
“Now we can see in full view what we’ve seen again and again in recent years, the favored tactic: terror by grand moral inversion, the lie so total and audacious that it almost knocks opponents off their feet.”
Tully, you can’t even hide behind the pretext of not knowing what you’re talking about.You’re a liar.
That is so true, Hammer. Consider this–
Bush, in an interview April 2003–”Those people who say we haven’t found the Weapons of Mass Destruction are wrong. We found them.”
Press conference, April 2004–
Question–After 9/11, what would your biggest mistake be, would you say, and what lessons have you learned from it?
THE PRESIDENT: I wish you would have given me this written question ahead of time, so I could plan for it.
John, I’m sure historians will look back and say, gosh, he could have done it better this way, or that way. You know, I just — I’m sure something will pop into my head here in the midst of this press conference, with all the pressure of trying to come up with an answer, but it hadn’t yet. . . . hope I — I don’t want to sound like I’ve made no mistakes. I’m confident I have. I just haven’t — you just put me under the spot here, and maybe I’m not as quick on my feet as I should be in coming up with one.
Duelfer report, Oct. 7, 2004–Charles A. Duelfer, whom the Bush administration chose to complete the U.S. investigation of Iraq’s weapons programs, said Hussein’s ability to produce nuclear weapons had “progressively decayed” since 1991. Inspectors, he said, found no evidence of “concerted efforts to restart the program.”
The findings were similar on biological and chemical weapons. While Hussein had long dreamed of developing an arsenal of biological agents, his stockpiles had been destroyed and research stopped years before the United States led the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
(From the Washington Post)
*****
Unbelievable . . . just unbelievable . . .
You know, Bush probably isn’t a bad guy. But I believe he’s nothing more than a figurehead, a political construct. He’s the face of the GOP, but we know someone else is pushing the buttons and pulling the levers. Have we “misunderestimated” him? A lot of people have missed the point altogether.
I really worry though. The masters have control of all 3 branches of the government, and considering the movement toward machine voting, we may never see another clean election. Considering there’s no way to check machine results, the software is not that difficult to hack (I can do it), and statements by Walden O’Dell, chief executive of Diebold Inc,
“The head of a company vying to sell voting machines in Ohio told Republicans in a recent fund-raising letter that he is “committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year.”, I’m more than worried.
We got a serious problem here.
GetReal,
Kudos–that was a textbook job calling out Tully. And because you were right, Tully will clam up and run his/her/its mouth elsewhere.
That’s what Wingnut Bush Admininstration dead-enders apologists do, folks. When called on their effrontery and lies, they slink away.
It’s right wing talk radio, I’m convinced. People are getting brainwashed through a constant barrage of Bill O’Reilly, Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and the rest of the supporting cast of wimpy cowards. Turn on the AM dial at any time of the day, and it’s like stepping into a stupid shower.
For some bizarre reason, people trust these right wing radio yo-yos to give them facts, and tell them how to think about them. Hey, it’s easier than thinking, I guess. It’s certainly easier than actually researching and learning what’s going on.
Start thinking for yourselves, people! I know it’s going to be hard learning that a lot of what you’ve been told is wrong. By now, you’ve incorporated it into your psyche as your own opinion. You’ll go through denial and anger for sure.
You’ll lash out at people for telling you the facts, and blame liberals for… something.
But the bruise to their ego will start to heal, and they’ll come out the other side changed. They’ll slowly challenge what they hear on right wing radio, and their common sense, which has been suppressed for so long, will start asserting itself.
Kansas didn’t use to be like this. Neither did America. The fever will break. It may take time, but the time for the rest of us to end our silence, and start speaking up.
Well said, CF and GetReal.
The right-wing pundits have a very appealing message to a certain type of American–”this country used to be a great place to live until _______ ruined it.”
Hitler plugged in “Jews.” Joe McCarthy used “communists.” Rush Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Lielly, etc. use “liberals.”
This makes the most successful and prosperous group in America–white males–into victims, yes, VICTIMS of political correctness, the liberal media, affirmative action, government programs, feminazism, the gay agenda . . . you name it, their suffering.
Has any group suffered like the poor conservatives have suffered these days, laughed at by cosmopolitian “elites,” scorned by limosine latte liberals, looked down upon by the academics, caricatured by the gay writers of Hollywood.
So let’s have a big pity party for the last bastion of the old guard . . . while they continue to control all three branches of government, run corporate American, and dominate for-profit media, they truly ARE the downtrodden among us.
Grammar note–”their” in paragraph four should have been “they’re.” My bad.
Makes you want to run out and set up some sort of charitable fund to help them out, doesn’t it? Oh wait, there doesn’t seem to be any more room in their pockets.