Why Is Karl Rove Still Being Invited to News Programs?

Former White House political advisor Karl Rove was holding forth on George Stephanopoulos’ This Week news program this Sunday morning. It was pretty sickening. This is the guy who got a mediocre at best son-of-a-president elected (well, the Supreme Court cast the final votes on that one) and re-elected (again, did Ohio really go for Bush in ’04?). We spent years listening to this guy twist the truth in more ways than Fox News can even ever imagine.

Now that he has been chased out of Washington in the aftermath of his treasonous act in the Valerie Plame affair, an act that he successfully shifted the responsibility for, to the shoulders of his aide, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Rove has been very low key. Yes, he has held forth on some campaigns and is said to be advising the McCain Campaign, but he has been in the background from what I could see.

But now, George Stephanopoulos let him come on his news program to spew his garbage once more. Even now, as members of congress are poised to find him in contempt of congress for ignoring their subpoena.

Rove is claiming Executive Privilege. But it has been pointed out that the action in question never came to the attention of George Bush. Rove, by his own admission never brought up the role that he played in getting charges filed against former (Democratic) Alabama Governor Don Siegelman. How then, can he claim Executive Privilege? It doesn’t work that way. Aides and advisors don’t get to enjoy that privilege. That is reserved for the Executive.

Maybe this is why Stephanopoulos invited Rove to his program, so that he can ask him about the subpoena. The last question handed to Rove was on just this affair:

“Here’s what the House report said, it said ‘In May 2007 a Republican attorney from northern Alabama named Jill Simpson wrote an affidavit stating that in November 2002 she heard a prominent Alabama Republican operative named Bill Canary say that Karl Rove had contacted the Justice Department about bringing a prosecution of Don Siegelman. The question for Mr. Rove is whether he directly or indirectly discussed the possibility of prosecuting Don Siegelman with either the Justice Department or Alabama Republicans.’ Did you?”

Stephanopoulos’s question was “Did you do this?” But true to form, Karl Rove didn’t hear that question. The question he heard was “When did you first hear of the Don Siegelman case?”

So instead of answering the question that was asked, he answered the question he heard.

At much length.

ROVE: “Lemme say three things. First of all . . .uh . . .I think it’s interesting that everybody that was supposedly on that telephone call that Ms. Simpson talks about says that the call never took place. I’d say that . . .”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “Although she produced the cell phone record, according to the committee.”

ROVE: “Well, I would say three things. First of all, I . . . uh. . . fsh . . .I . . . uh . . I learned about Don Siegelman’s prosecution by reading about it in the newspaper. Second of all, this is really about a constitutional question of separation of powers. Congress, the House Judiciary Committee wants to be able to call presidential aides on its whim . . uh . . to testify violating the separation of powers. Executive Privilege has been asserted by the White House in a similar instance in the Senate, it will probably be asserted very quickly in this . . . in the House. Third, the White House . . . and . . . has agreed . . . I’m not asser . . .I’m not asserting any personal privilege. The White House has offered . . . and my lawyers offered . . . several different ways in which if the House wants to find out information about this they can find out information about this. And they refused to avail themselves of those opportunities. We didn’t say . . . .close off any option to do what anything else you want to do in the future. We said if you want to hear about this let’s sit down and talk about this and then if you . . .you know . . . you’re entitled to do what you want to do in the future. This is now tied up in court, it’s goin’ to be tied up in court and settled in court. And frankly, the House last week doing this . . . you know . . . uh . . .you know. . . is duplicating what the Senate has already done and it’s already found its way into the court.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “But to be very clear, you did not contact the Justice Department about this case?”

ROVE: “Uh. . . I read about . . . I’m gonna simply say what I’ve said before which is I found out about Don Siegelman’s investigation and indictment by reading about it in the newspaper.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: “But that’s not a denial . . . ”

ROVE: “Uh . . .I . . I. . . uh …I…I’ve . . . you know . . .heh . . . I read about . . .I heard about it, I read about it, I learned about it for the first time by reading about it in the newspaper.”

STEPHANOPOULOS: Mr. Rove, thanks very much."

So did George Stephanopoulos get what he wanted? This is, after all, Karl Rove we are talking about. Of course he would dance around and start talking at the speed of light about everything but not answering the question. That’s what Rove does best. So if that was the reason for bringing this traitor up in front of the cameras again to spew his vile filth, I have to wonder if they got what they wanted.

All I saw was a stammering 17 year old explaining why he hadn’t turned in his lab report.

Valerie Plame Interviewed For the First Time

It has been 4 years since Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative, was outted by high ranking officials in the Executive Branch of Bush’s regime. And she has been silent until now. But at long last she tells (some of) her story to Katie Couric on the CBS’s 60 Minutes news magazine broadcast on Sunday, October 21, 2007. Some of her story because there is at least one person who still believes in keeping these things a secret.

Now all you have to do is watch the You Tube clip embedded below, it’s a teaser that reveals how the CIA was working to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of “the bad guys”. How all of that was nullified by Plame’s outing.



And then compare that to Bush’s claims about how he is keeping us safe. Safe from Al-Qaeda and safe from Islamofascists in Iran who want to build nuclear weapons.



What is really alarming to me is that this is the lame duck president who wants to stay relevant. Well how relevant can you be when on the one hand you destroy the covert ops that were working to nullify Iran nuclear program, and on the other hand "keep everything on the table".

Bush Commutes Scooter Libby’s Sentence . . . Yawn

If anyone is surprised that Scooter Libby was going to have his sentence commuted, that’s because they still think that there is still fairness in this world. My prediction of today’s events, encapsulated here, was very nearly dead on.

It was probably a bone thrown to those of us with a sense of decency and fair play that Libby has to pay the $250,000 fine, but give me a break. Someone with a college nickname like “Scooter” doesn’t have to get a 2nd mortgage on his house to pay it.

There is a sense of moral outrage out there today, and I can only say ditto to those, because the words have already been said.

Want moral outrage? With feeling? Go read the commentary at Sommervell County Salon.

Justice. We need justice. I vote that every penny of that fine goes to Valerie Plame, the CIA operative whose cover was blown.

UPDATE:

I am ignorant of the law. I'm not trained in it, but I study it a lot. Tonight it was pointed out to me that had Scooter Libby received an outright pardon, as I predicted, he would be open to congressional subpoena to testify about any and all that he might know about the Valarie Plame affair.

But since his sentence was commuted, if he were to be asked to testify in any of these things, Libby would just be able to plead the 5th. This makes Libby's sentence commutation more than despicable. It's an attempt at outright stonewalling.

Stonewalling. Where have I heard that term before?

Scooter Libby Gets Thirty, Fined Two Fifty Large

Thirty months, that is.

It’s usually in stories like this you get to find out how many months they will actually get “inside”, you know, 30 months with X months with time off for good behavior. Not in this article. On top of 30 months Libby is going to have two years of “supervised release” when he leaves prison.

You know, so they can make sure he doesn’t lie anymore.

Well Scoots, I recommend a new nickname for you. “Scooter” works at country clubs and polo grounds, but in stir, all it will get you is the ride of your life. So I recommend something like “Knuckles” or “Johnny Two-Tap”. Or if that doesn’t work, because, let’s face it, you look like Mr. Sta-Puf, how about “HIV Mutha”?

Scooter Libby’s head rolled when Carl Rove decided to out a CIA agent, and some people got mad about that. Why, oh why did they not find him guilty of treason? Outting an undercover agent is a treasonable offence. You get the chair, like Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, for such an offense. So why not the chair? Well, as it turns out, too many had outted Valerie Plame. It was a target-rich environment for reporters. The issue wasn’t who outted Valerie Plame, but who DIDN’T, and who of the pack outted her first? The only one who didn’t out her was Carl Rove, and that’s because he didn’t have to. He had his guys do the job for him, and the Nuremburg defense, I hear, “I was only following orders”, was overruled in 1946, so they couldn’t use that.

What defense did they use? The one that worked: “Everyone was doing it.”

But we needed a head and Scooter drew the short straw (or more likely, it was drawn for him).

So they tried and convicted Scooter Libby of

“failing to tell the truth to a federal grand jury and the FBI about the disclosure of former CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity. Libby was convicted of two counts of perjury, one count of making false statements to FBI agents, and one count of obstructing justice.”

There is no word whether Bush will pardon Libby for his lying ways. Wait, did I just write that without pausing? I sure did. Let’s try that again. We haven’t heard when Bush will pardon Libby because as we all know, lying to prosecutors, investigators, or the American public is perfectly OK as long as you can get away with it. And even if you get found out, what are they going to do to you?

So go ahead, Dubya. Pardon Scooter. You know you are going to and so do we.

That’s how bad it has gotten.

Ari Skewers Scooter

The Washington Post carried a story today by Carol Leonnig and Amy Goldstein about Ari Fleischer’s testimony at Scooter Libby’s perjury and obstruction of justice trial. Ari Fleischer, former Bush press secretary, who secured immunity for himself in exchange for ratting out his former colleague, tipped over the first wall in Scooter Libby’s house of cards.

Fleischer testified that he had lunch with Scooter Libby on July 7th in the White House mess. At that lunch he was told that “that former ambassador Wilson was sent to Niger to investigate reports Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material there by Wilson's wife, not by the vice president, as some news accounts were saying.”

"He added that this was something hush-hush or on the QT, that not many people knew this information," Fleisher said. ‘My impression was Mr. Libby was telling me this was kind of newsy.’"

“Added Fleischer: ‘My thought was that what I was hearing was about nepotism.’"

Why is this significant you ask? Well first of all it shows that Scooter Libby was perfectly willing to talk to people about a covert CIA agent’s identity. But more telling is this: Libby claims that he first heard the news that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent from NBC reporter Tim Russert . . . on July 10th. It’s déja vue all over again. As in Watergate trials: “What did you know and when did you know it?” Try as they might, Libby’s defense lawyers could not shake, rattle, or roll Fleischer, who stuck to his story.

Optimism is not my strong suit. I can see how this is as far as it's going to go. But it happened before. As people who were in the know saw peripheral players get roasted, the Watergate dominoes fell as one story after another came out. Dare I hope? Naaaah.