1. I do not believe he is as skilled as the legend goes. This is a guy whose candidate lost the popular vote his first try out, and had to use the worst sort of smear campaign to get his guy the nomination (McCain) and to beat a bad campaigner who happens to be a good guy (Kerry). As horrible a president and a person though he might be, George W. Bush is a decent campaigner in his own right, sans Rove.
2. Does anyone really think, seriously and without partisanship, that Karl Rove was so motivated to correct possible errors in journalism that he just kept telling every reporter who would pick up a phone about Valerie Plame?
I agree with Oliver- what makes him look “smart” is that he is not bound by any ethical standard, unlike his opponents.
How would Rove have run the 2000 Gore campaign? We would have had push polls about Bush’s cocaine rumors, and there would have been “Ellington AFB vets for Truth” talking about Bushes AWOL status. We would have had the cops who arrested Bush and Cheney for DWI on TV, and we would have heard about Laura’s car crash and the Bush twins alcoholism (not that that really matters). I think Rove would have had fun with Mary Cheney, not to mention Lynne’s lesbian romance novel.
Does anyone really think, seriously and without partisanship, that Karl Rove was so motivated to correct possible errors in journalism that he just kept telling every reporter who would pick up a phone about Valerie Plame?
If the error being made was that Dick Cheney had sent Wilson to Nigeria, then yes, absolutely, it seems like something he would put some energy into.
What part of Cooper and Novak called Rove can you not understand?
This administration has lied to reporters or at least denied their questions before. Why wouldn’t Rove clam up when he was being asked about a CIA agent?
Why would he have “already said too much”?
We already know the GOP talking points, thanks. Take the rest of the day off.
Alas, Mr. Curmudgeon has seen through my little ruse. Curses!!!
Seriously folks, ALL accounts have both Cooper and Novak calling Rove. We can debate all the live long day what Rove should have said but for Oliver to write that Rove “just kept telling every reporter” is clearly and unambiguously factually inaccurate.
By all means, Oliver: keep up this willful disregard for reality. It’s won Democrats SO many elections over the past 11 years…
I agree with Oliver- what makes him look smart is that he is not bound by any ethical standard, unlike his opponents.
The howler of the day. THAT is freaking hilarious.
SaveFerris,
Ken Mehlman? Is that you???
Seriously -do you really want seriously-
The no BS is that it isn’t a big deal to work in the CIA and have a desk job. So, it is not unusual at all for ones friends and neighbors to know you work in the CIA (or my case, a DOD intell agency) and that you do classified work. Someone who had a DC desk job for 5 years is not a covert agent – though he/she may still deal with TS and more. If what we know about Rove today is true – that he mentioned/confirmed Wilson’s (not Valerie Plame – and even if he did that a crime is questionable) wife worked for the CIA in DC for at least the last five years – it was no crime and did no harm.
Dugger Cosell, Telling It Like It Is
The CIA requested an investigation to protect a non-covert agent with a desk job. Surrre. Seems to me about a 2 minute call from Fitzgeralds office would have confirmed she was a covert op. If she wasn’t, the investigation would have ended there.
That non-covert, desk jockey, the GOP wants you to believe, has the power to recommend people for assignments that were created by a White House inquiry.
They’re spinning and spinning, spinning and spinning…..
Dugger simply isn’t telling the truth.
If one works at the CIA in an administrative billet (finance, HR, etc), one can generally disclose that to family and friends although the CIA discourages actively broadcasting the info. All the other positions are considered to be closely-held info. A former colleague spent a dozen years at the CIA in a technical capacity (desk jockey, non-agent) and he was told to tell people he worked for Defense, to be non-committal and non-specific as to his work and to report any contacts who seemed to be interested in his job.
I agree that Karl Rove is one of the most overrated political figures in American history. His principal accomplishment seems to be that he was able to enable the namesake son of a former President (and a two-term governor of the nation’s second largest state) his party’s nomination for the White House in 2000. But his thuggish tactics are politically counterproductive; Bush blew a double-digit lead in the final three weeks in 2000, including a memorable Rove-influenced decision for his candidate to take a day off from the campaign trail in late-October, and to spend valuable time and resources seeking votes in New Jersey and California, two states where Bush had no chance. And his candidate almost pulled defeat from the jaws of victory last time, winning the narrowest reelection in history, in spite of the benefits of incumbency and an inept challenger.
I don’t believe Rove is any super-brain or genius. But he has understood a lesson taught to him by his mentor, Lee Atwater: negative campaigning works.
The CW is that negative campaigning doesn’t work; that it turns off or repels voters.
Rove, like Atwater, understands people will respond to fear, anger, hatred more readily than voting for hope and new ideas.
I’d have to say that Oliver is spot-on about Rove. It isn’t that he is a genius at telling lies, it is that there is a huge chunk of the public that is so willing to believe those lies. (It doesn’t help that you have the corporate media giving the Bushies a pass on their deadly and pathological dishonesty, either.)
In a basic sense, this is nothing new in the US. In the middle of the 19th century, a huge chunk of the population went to war to defend a “way of life” that was keeping most of them poor and ignorant. Millions of their descendants still mourn various kaleidoscopic, whitewashed versions of that “Lost Cause.”
In fact, the example I just gave is directly connected to the rampant cognitive dissonance of today. Just last week RNC chairman Ken Mehlman as much as admitted (though in a backhanded way) that appealing to the gilded racism and ignorance of old Confederates (and their kindred Northern spirits) was how the Republican Party expanded and solidified its current base.
I’ve often read the opinion that Bush could be a child-molesting, baby-eating Devil-worshipper and he still wouldn’t earn the wrath that the Republican faithful directed toward the man who lied about a heterosexual blow job. Looking at the ridiculous attempts here to spin away Karl Rove’s clumsy transgression, I’d say that opinion is an understatement.
2. Does anyone really think, seriously and without partisanship, that Karl Rove was so motivated to correct possible errors in journalism that he just kept telling every reporter who would pick up a phone about Valerie Plame?
I think the answer’s obvious. He’s a robot, and some of his circuitry was crossed, causing him to repeat the same information over and over.
Incidentally, the same thing happened to Scott McKellan (”next question, please…”), Bush in the debates (”we have to stay strong!”), and pretty much anytime Al Gore has ever said anything (”I wish someone had programmed me a personality…”).
Jadegold,
Thats BS. There is no such thing officially as “closely held” information. You are using a nondefinititive colloquial term for something you know nothing about. Former CIA colleagues have already stated that many of Wilson-Plame’s friends and neighbors knew she worked for the CIA. My experience has been that this is true. Working at the CIA, even in non-clerical positions, need not be an official secret or classified. When you go back and forth to work every day for X number of years, even at places like Langley or FTD, it is hard to hide it. You do understand there are a lot of positions in between adminstrative and covert agent. Right? Positions like Valerie has. You understand that, right? Its not secretary and double-nought spy and nothing in between. Mathmeticians, historians, many, many more. Some working on very benign, non-sensitive programs. The classified part happens downstream – when the data gets rolled up. Does one want to advertise one works for the CIA? No. Do lots of folks work for the CIA and their friends and neighbors know it? Yes!
Dugger, I’m Not a Double-Nought Spy, But I’ve Pretended to be One on the Internet
Save Farris, are you saying that because Cooper called Rove, it made it ok for Rove to out a CIA operative? That’s quite striking.
And simply because Cooper mentioned it doesn’t give anyone with the clearance the right to disclose. Confirming the fact is just as illegal as stating it yourself.
And all of the you Johnny-come-lately Rove detractors: If he ain’t so hot and Jorge is the dumb frat boy, it should have been easy pickings for much more MORAL, high IQ types like the Haunted Tree and Yeargghhh!!- Man to beat him in an election. Why didn’t it happen. If Rove couln’t have done it. Wait I know. Ask Mike Moore.
Dugger, Conspiring Now for a Better Future in 2008
Pionar, that would be striking … if I had said anything of the sort.
Oliver’s contention was that Rove just kept telling every reporter who would pick up a phone. Yet all public accounts say that it was the reporters who were initiating contact.
Trival point? Who knows. But if so, why go out of your way to lie about it?
Where did you get that info Dugger?
You’re wrong, Dugger.
Former CIA colleagues have already stated that many of Wilson-Plame s friends and neighbors knew she worked for the CIA.
Dugger is citing a Moonie Times articke that has one former CIA agent saying this. In fact, this source was neither a friend nor a neighbor of the Wilson’s. However, the same article quotes several of her neighbors and friends saying they thought she was an economist.
As for CIA colleagues–would you care for a cite from her classmates. Larry Johnson? Brett Cavin? Jim Marcinkowski?
Do lots of folks work for the CIA and their friends and neighbors know it? Yes!
Not in dispute. If you work in the administration, HR, finance areas–you can share it with your neighbors. Other areas, no.
Better sources, please, Dugger.
Misspelled name: Brent Cavan. Anyway, you can read what her classmates thought here
Excerpt:
What’s kind of curious about Rustmann is that his career at CIA ended in 1990. So how would he know so much about Plame, her family and friends given that Wilson met Plame in 1997?
Mouse: Actually, Dugger’s comment should read Former CIA colleague has…
It comes from a Moonie Times article that quotes a Fred Rustmann, a former CIA case officer as saying this. Yet, the same article interviews the Wilson’s neighbors to each side and the neighbors were shocked to learn Plame worked for the CIA.
That’s unsurprising. Remember how some of the most vocal and familiar detractors of John Kerry’s war record were men who had never actually served alongside John Kerry?
“I do not believe he is as skilled as the legend goes.”
“I don t believe Rove is any super-brain or genius.”
“I agree that Karl Rove is one of the most overrated political figures in American history.”
Pardon me while I laugh. Overrated by WHOM???
Rove suddenly goes from being most evil, diabolical, conniving, shrewd, brilliant propagandist in the history of mankind to merely a second-rate rip-off artist in less than twenty four hours. Amazing. Just amazing. And all because your “scandal” was nothing more than empty partisan wind.
You can put the big white flag down now. We get the message.
Can you point out to me where Oliver said that Rove is a brilliant propagandist? Thanks!
BTW, I know Hannity told you otherwise, but the scandal is still ongoing, it is not in the past tense. I’ll be interested to see your talking points, after 3 when Limbaugh is done.
I propose a new relative of Godwin’s Law, and I call it OW’s law:
A discussion in the tread is over as soon as a commenter (and it more often than not seems to be neoconsrloopy) attempts to discredit somoene of an opposing viewpoint by trotting out the “talking points” smear.
I propose instead that you people stop coming here and trotting out talking points. Geez, have some respect for O.Dub at least, he wallows in those lies all day at work and he has to come here and see them too?
How about we compromise and Godwin any thread with the Moonie Times or any Richard Scaife owned publication linked?
Nice comeback! Your powers of debate and persuasion are second to none!
Jadegold,
I cited nothing but my personal hands-on experience. You may be referring to the word’s of Plame’s ex boss:
‘A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an “undercover agent,” saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency’s headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee.
“She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat,” Fred Rustmann, a covert agent from 1966 to 1990, told The Washington Times.
“Her neighbors knew this, her friends knew this, his friends knew this. A lot of blame could be put on to central cover staff and the agency because they weren’t minding the store here. … The agency never changed her cover status.”
Mr. Rustmann, who spent 20 of his 24 years in the agency under “nonofficial cover” — also known as a NOC, the same status as the wife of Mr. Wilson — also said that she worked under extremely light cover.
In addition, Mrs. Plame hadn’t been out as an NOC since 1997, when she returned from her last assignment, married Mr. Wilson and had twins, USA Today reported yesterday.
The distinction matters because a law that forbids disclosing the name of undercover CIA operatives applies to agents that had been on overseas assignment “within the last five years.”
“She was home for such a long time, she went to work every day at Langley, she was in an analytical type job, she was married to a high-profile diplomat with two kids,” Mr. Rustmann said. “Most people who knew Valerie and her husband, I think, would have thought that she was an overt CIA employee.”‘
Rustman’s words track with my experience.
BTW, JadeGold your source “Larry Johnson” has been out of the CIA since 1989. Know that? Are you curious about him too jade ol’ buddy, ol’ pal? He was out before Rustman. Johnson has also appeared on a number of crackpot leftwing shows like Democracy Now!
Dugger