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KARL AND MDE
By Michael Brodkorb | July 21, 2006
For one hour today, I had the privilege of visiting with White House Advisor Karl Rove. Along with a few other GOP bloggers, we had the chance to ask Karl Rove anything we wanted. He was warm, gracious, good humored and brilliant. It was a little like playing basketball with Michael Jordan for an hour (before he played for the Wizards).
I can't thank Karl Rove, Jon Seaton, Republican Party of Minnesota staffers Mark Drake, Gina Countryman, and Chairman Ron Carey enough for this opportunity. I just wish I would have gotten that "Rove Playbook" I keep hearing so much about.
Pictures and more to follow. What a great way to end an historic week.
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Topics: Uncategorized | 28 Comments »
July 21st, 2006 at 7:13 PM
Did he have any suggestions about how to spread lies, slander, and innuendo any better than you already do?
Boy, it must have been such a thrill to be RIGHT NEXT TO the man who whispers lies into Bush’s ear.
JOKING WITH the man responsible for crafting the slander against John McCain (that he was weak from his ordeal, didn’t deserve his medals, and had fathered an illegitimate black child)?
SHARING A WARM MOMENT with the man who lied to the FBI about the Plame affair?
Karl Rove, protege of Watergate tricksters? Who accused Democrats of bugging his office, and later admitted doing it himself for the media coverage?
The one who rounded up Bush campaign workers, flew them all-expenses paid to Florida, to stage a riot at the site of the hanging-chad counting, pretending they were local voters?
http://www.reference.com/browse/wiki/Karl_Rove
This Karl Rove? Bush’s baby-sitter?
// They talked about a run for Texas governor in 1990, but decided to wait until the senior Bush was no longer President. .In 1994, Rove persuaded Bush to run for Governor of Texas. They waited until George H./W. Bush was not longer in office because the senior Bush disliked and disapproved of Rove’s vicious personal attacks on his opponents. It was Rove who decided to oppose a very popular incumbent, Ann Richards, and Rove developed a political strategy based on appalling venom, often accusing Richards of being a practicing Lesbian, which she was not.
Every day for two years, the Bush campaign put out negative stories about Governor Richards, hinting she was soft on crime and overly fond of homosexuals, culminating in a devastating revelation that a prominent Richards appointee had lied about her college education. From the start, Rove kept Bush away from unscripted situations, offering him just three or four key talking points which the candidate repeated ad nauseam until the electorate not only memorized them but also started to believe them. Rove also became adept at handling the media, rigorously controlling their access and never shying away from calling a dissenting reporter at home and screaming. //
http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=2432
THAT Karl Rove?
Personally, I’d rather shake hands with a rattlesnake.
July 21st, 2006 at 7:59 PM
Congratulations MB!
Regards
July 21st, 2006 at 8:06 PM
did you ask Mr. Rove whether the White House and FEMA are geared up for the 2006 hurricane season?
I just finished reading the 600+ page Douglas Brinkley book about Katrina. This White House has NOTHING to brag about.
Their ‘pro-life’ pontificating when it comes to stem cell research is unconscionable, especially in the context of the Katrina rescues and recoveries having no reverence for life or humanity.
Shame on you for bragging about meeting Karl Rove.
July 21st, 2006 at 8:14 PM
Karl Rove was the person responsible for the immoral attempt to marginalize gays for political gain in 2004. There were a number of other voices in the Bush administration who were quite against that tactic.
I’ll agree that he is a brilliant strategist. I also think he plays dirty tricks – and he’s not someone I have much respect for.
July 21st, 2006 at 8:21 PM
Brian Hanna.
“Personally, I’d rather shake hands with a rattlesnake.”
Sorry, Brian. But Joe Wilson is not available to shake hands just now.
July 21st, 2006 at 9:07 PM
BH-
Rove whipsers no lies into anyone’s ears. Well, unless you count Howard “Scream” Dean. (HD’s downfall was the work of Rove)
The part about John McCain was only partly right. Rove made a point of showing other conservatives how JM cheated on his wife, lied to his constituents, got involved with the Keating scandal, and was as two faced as any democrat. conservatives picked up on that and proved it in the polls.
Rove did not lie in the “plame-gate”, where she admitted she publicly annouced her work at the CIA, but then went around calling people “traitors” who acknowledged her claim. Its interesting to note that her husband could be facing purgury charges as early as this fall when their case goes to court.
The counting chad incedent was the work of over zealous democrats who had all LEGAL observers from independant and republican party members removed from the process. (how is it that democrats claim to represent democracy when they resort to such draconian tactics)
As far as pointing out lies on the part of Richards, which is perfectly acceptable to the voters of Texas, I guess democrat lies should be ignored.
As far as scripted statements, have you heard the latest mush-mouth verbage from Sen. “Brave Sir Robin” Dayton? That man is a walking train wreck and incapable of formulating a complete sentence w/o stuttering.
Shake hands with a rattlesnake, indeed…
July 21st, 2006 at 9:09 PM
BILL LUTHER TO DROP OUT OF
ATTORNEY GENERAL’S RACE.
CHECK YOUR SOURCES MDE IT IS TRUE.
July 21st, 2006 at 11:15 PM
TOTALLY UNTRUE!
Bill Luther is in the race. The volunteers are lining up and the money is rolling in.
Steve Kelley should get out of the race so that corporate sell-out Jeff Johnson doesn’t become our next AG.
A vote for Kelley in the primary is a vote for Johnson in the general.
July 21st, 2006 at 11:39 PM
Is this really true? – MB, can you confirm/comment on this?
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:15 AM
Joe Wilson? Oh, the Joe Wilson who told the truth when Bush lied? The one who pulled back the curtain and showed the total fabrication behind Bush’s case for war? The one who wrote that great NYT piece that so bothered Rove, Libby, and Bush that they decided to spank him by outing his wife? The case all of us are waiting to hit the courts? That Joe Wilson?
I’d be proud to shake Joe Wilson’s hand, and call him a great American. The history books certainly will.
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:41 AM
Rove uses third parties to slander an opponent, just like MDE, then has the candidate step in above the fray (after the damage has been done, of course).
// The vets’ group denouncing McCain on behalf of Bush and Rove, the National Vietnam and Gulf War Veterans Coalition, was fronted by J. Thomas Burch Jr. … whose group was accused by McCain’s camp of spreading rumors emanating from Karl Rove about the senator’s mental stability after years in solitary confinement in a North Vietnamese prison. //
Although sometimes his candidates slander opponents directly.
// Hitting the campaign trail for reelection, Cleland, who left two legs and an arm in Vietnam, discovered that he was being called unpatriotic by his Rove-advised opponent, Saxby Chambliss, who never served in the military. A TV advertisement morphed Cleland’s face with those of Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. //
Disgusting.
So how does MDE fit into Karl Rove’s master plan? As a third-party vehicle for delivering slander, of course. With enough distance from the candidates for plausible deniability.
No wonder Karl was so warm and friendly. MDE is his bread and butter, one of the tools he uses to slice open America so he can eat the heart out of our democracy.
Does MDE support Karl Rove’s work, ethics, or techniques in any way, shape, or form? This is an important question, and it needs to be answered truthfully.
Will MDE repudiate Karl Rove’s slander and lies? If not, why not?
Why should Minnesotans listen to anything on MDE if MDE supports and affirms Karl Rove’s dirty tricks?
July 22nd, 2006 at 1:42 AM
Source for above quotes re Karl’s dirty tricks:
http://dir.salon.com/story/news/feature/2004/08/28/moore_rove_swift_boat/index_np.html?pn=1
July 22nd, 2006 at 8:59 AM
While not commenting on the “truthiness” of TRUE’s comment, I have been told not to trust anything written in caps.
July 22nd, 2006 at 10:10 AM
While I disagree with his politics, that must have been quite amazing…
July 22nd, 2006 at 2:56 PM
FOlks, don’t drink the Kool Aid Brian Hanna is passing around. The bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee totally discredited everything Joe Wilson said about Iraq, Niger and WMDs. Further, British Intelligence maintains the connection between Iraq and Niger to this day. Wilson, not an expert in intelligence, was sent to Niger by his wife. That was a conclusion by the Senate Intellige Committee as well. So Brian, how is it that Karl Rove lied to the Grand Jury now? He has not been and will not be indicted. Why don’t you go smoke some grass and leave the rest of us thinking people alone for awhile.
July 22nd, 2006 at 9:33 PM
Chris:
Too bad you have no sources for your slander. But that’s typical of the “truthiness” found here.
I’ve sourced my comments, above. I invite you to prove your slander. Oh, and try to stick to sources with some credibility.
I guess I should be honored to be slandered too. (Feels pretty slimy, actually.) If you can prove your slander about me, too, go right ahead.
Chris: // The bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee totally discredited everything Joe Wilson said about Iraq, Niger and WMDs. //
Ah, no. Wilson writes:
// In fact, on July 13 of this year, David Ensor, the CNN correspondent, did call the CIA for a statement of its position and reported that a senior CIA official confirmed my account that Valerie did not propose me for the trip:
“‘She did not propose me,” he [Wilson] said–others at the CIA did so. A senior CIA official said that is his understanding too.” //
Chris: // Further, British Intelligence maintains the connection between Iraq and Niger to this day. //
Ah, no. You are probably referring to the Butler documents, British secret documents which have not be provided to the IAEA. In fact, the only public evidence put forward was a forged letter, claimed by Bush as evidence for his lie in the state of the union address.
However, the Butler Review, besides being secret, is not totally reliable.
// And when asked by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to discuss the conclusions of British intelligence, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin stated, “The one thing where I think they stretched a little bit beyond where we would stretch is on the points about Iraq seeking uranium from various African locations. We’ve looked at those reports and we don’t think they are very credible. It doesn’t diminish our conviction that he’s going for nuclear weapons, but I think they reached a little bit on that one point.”//
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_Report
Chris: // Wilson, not an expert in intelligence, was sent to Niger by his wife. That was a conclusion by the Senate Intellige Committee as well. //
Not according to the CIA, as quoted above.
// So Brian, how is it that Karl Rove lied to the Grand Jury now? He has not been and will not be indicted. //
Ah, according to an interview with Fitzgerald:
// Fitzgerald is said to have introduced more evidence Wednesday alleging Rove lied to FBI investigators and the grand jury when he was questioned about how he found out that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA and whether he shared that information with the media, attorneys close to the case said.
Fitzgerald told the grand jury that Rove lied to investigators and the prosecutor eight out of the nine times he was questioned about the leak and also tried to cover-up his role in disseminating Plame Wilson’s CIA status to at least two reporters. //
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/042006Z.shtml
Whether or not he talked his way out of it, which it now looks like, Fitzgerald asserts he lied.
In any event, Rove did confirm Plame’s identity to Novak (now says Novak), thus effectively outing her. Just another one of Rove’s famous dirty tricks.
// Why don’t you go smoke some grass and leave the rest of us thinking people alone for awhile. //
Well, just tell the truth and back up your slander with facts, and I’ll be plenty happy.
After all, if there are slimy politicians out there, its in everybody’s best interest to get them dealt with. If you just had some proof on the DFL, instead of baseless slander, I might have a tad more respect.
July 22nd, 2006 at 9:36 PM
Additonal sources:
Joe Wilson:
http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/07/con05233.html
Yellowcake forgery:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellowcake_Forgery
It was Rove, after all:
http://toledoblade.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20060719/OPINION02/607190330/-1/OPINION
Rove denies lies:
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002955867_leak27.html
July 23rd, 2006 at 4:13 AM
Hello Brian,
I question why Bob Novak is only now accusing Rove after all the investigation.
Wilson would not have been so persistent in his message on the war’s alleged false premise if his wife Valerie Plame was not CIA and he wasn’t partisan. The reporters involved all realized this. For this reason, Robert Novak, Viveca Novak (no relation), Judith Miller, Matthew Cooper, NBC’s Tim Russert and possibly other reporters may have told other people including the white house people that Plame was CIA. That discredits Plame’s case against Rove and Cheney. There is no more insiduous pair than Wilson and Plame. Even without the new info that is coming out of captainsquartersblog.com we already knew in 2005 the tentative assurance Wilson provided our country that Saddam did not have agents seeking uranium and other nuclear components was incorrect. The US in general and Wilson in particular are lucky Wilson’s unauthorized
Niger report was ignored. If Wilson’s report had been used to justify no action Wilson may have been a national war criminal guilty of dereliction when God forbid Saddam was let off and later came back and hit us with nukes or other WMD.
I still think the CIA was guilty of dereliction by letting 9/11 happen and their argument that morale would suffer if their leadership role as overall manager of human intelligence were given to the DNI is pathetic.
http://www.newamericancentury.org/cia-20051013.htm. Maybe if the CIA thought of their job more as overseas intelligence gatherers and less as presidential power limiters they wouldn’t be on my *@#! list
Regards,
July 23rd, 2006 at 10:58 AM
Brian,
With all due respect (which is almost none in your case), wikipedia is not a credible source. Wikipedia lets nut jobs like you post anything you want about someone. As for slandering you, if you had a brain in your head you would know that slander is the spoken word while libel is the written word. Both are encompassed under the term defamation. I have not defamed you in any way.
You’ve asked for sources, and sources you will get. Read this from the Washington Post, the highlights of which I have added below: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html?referrer=emailarticle
The article states about the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, “The panel found that Wilson’s report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson’s assertions and even the government’s previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address.”
The report also contradicted Wilson’s claims that his wife had nothing to do with sending him to Niger. “The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame “offered up” Wilson’s name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations saying her husband “has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.” The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.”
Wilson was further discredited about information he gave to the press. “The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because “the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.”
“Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the ‘dates were wrong and the names were wrong’ when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports,” the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have “misspoken” to reporters. The documents — purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq — were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.”
Furthermore, “(a)ccording to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.” The Washington Post reporter actually misread the Senate Intelligence Report because Iraq had actually tried the acquire the uranium in 1999.
Brian, you accused Karl Rove of lying to the Grand Jury. Rove has not been and will not be indicted for that. So technically you have defamed Rove. It is Joe Wilson who has been the liar, but you won’t even read what the mainstream press (not sites who feed you your imbicelic opinions) reported about this matter.
So as far as I’m concerned, you can take your wikipedia and stick it.
July 23rd, 2006 at 12:46 PM
This seems to be about two things:
1. Was Joe sent to Africa based on his own credentials or bacuse his wife insisted?
2. Were his findings evidence for going to war, or proof that there was still time to investigate more?
I’ll take three minutes from partisan name calling and try to lay out a case from the facts as we know them-key- without interpreting them.
1.The Office of the Vice President requested that the CIA investigate reports of alleged uranium purchases by Iraq from Niger. The CIA setup a meeting to respond to the Vice President’s inquiry. Another CIA official, not Valerie Wilson, suggested to Valerie Wilson’s supervisor that the Ambassador (Joe Wilson) attend that meeting.
That other CIA official made the recommendation because that official was familiar with the Ambassador’s vast experience in Niger and knew of a previous trip to Africa concerning uranium matters that had been undertaken by the Ambassador on behalf of the CIA in 1999.
Valerie Wilson’s supervisor subsequently asked her to relay a request from him to the Ambassador that he would like the Ambassador to attend the meeting at the CIA. Valerie Wilson did not participate in the meeting.
So, the known, on the table facts are the VP’s Office wanted the CIA to get some info in Niger and Valerie did not initiate the Joe Wilson trip. Joe Wilson had the experience and credibility with Niger and the CIA for previously doing this exact job that was needed.
So far, we good? If not, it will always be a partisan thing for you and you should start with the equating this to liberal talking points.
I’ll use Joe’s own words, that you may dispute to answer number two. This is from Spring of 2003, after we went to war, before the Plame Scandal became partisan fodder.
2. In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger’s capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70′s and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90′s. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible.
The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger’s uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq — and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.
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.
———————-
Again, Wilson’s background is as follows:
For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, he was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d’affaires in Baghdad, he was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (He was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, he was President George H. W. Bush’s ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and PrÃncipe; under President Bill Clinton, he helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council.
————–
Wilson was more than qualified for the job at hand. What stands out for me is that he had some pretty high access during the Bush years into the MidEast policy. We all know the Cheney/Rumsfeld gang was around in diplomatic and bureaucratic postions throughout State and Defense too.
Is this bad-blood that was previous there that has spilled over into the politics? All of these people- minus Plame, have been working together, or at least around each other for over 20 years.
July 23rd, 2006 at 3:01 PM
Brian Hanna,
Just to further bury this nonsense. You also cite as “evidence” that Rove lied a 4/20/06 article by one Jason Leopold published on some website called truthout.org. You claimed that this piece was an “interview” with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, but there is not one quote from Fitzgerald in the story you linked. All the information in the article attributed to Fitzgerald comes from unnamed sources “close to the investigation”. Yet you cite this stuff as if it were quoting Fitzgerald directly. So either you didn’t read the article before you posted it, you didn’t understand what you read, or you lied about its contents. Which is it?
Moreover, this Jason Leopold character that you cited is best known for posting a subsequent article on 5/13/06 on the same truthout.org website on which he alleged that Rove ALREADY HAD BEEN INDICTED for perjury and lying to Fitzgerald’s investigators.
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/051306W.shtml
That was over two months ago. Fitzgerald has since told Rove that he won’t be indicted. Leopold has been proven wrong. The Leopold piece caused quite a commotion on the left side of the blogosphere when it was published. You obviously must have been aware of this when you posted him as a source this time.
I hope readers of these comments understand how fundamentally dishonest (or at a minimum reckless) you have been with regards to the Rove/Plame matter and remember it when assessing the veracity of all future comments that you write.
July 23rd, 2006 at 4:23 PM
DJZ,
I appreciate your thoughtful rendition of Wilson’s time in Niger and I agree with the questions you raised about this case. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee concluded based on a memo from Valerie P. Wilson that she recommended her husband to go to Niger.
To clarify the way you characterized Mr. Wilson, he was an ambassador in the region. He had no intelligence expertise. As Plame said, her husband had “lots of French contacts” which apparently qualified him for the job.
You are correct that the Vice President’s office requested to the CIA that this investigation take place. Joe Wilson repeatedly said on the news that he was sent by the Vice President – another embellishment.
His findings were also discredited by the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee. The whole trip and investigation by Wilson turned out to be a sham. Not even Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee stood up for Wilson’s findings. He is a discredited man and rightly so. In fact some of his findings strengthened the case to go to war (read the Washington Post article I referenced above).
No name calling here, DJZ. Just standing up for the fact that Wilson was sent to do a number on the Bush administration and has been subsequently discredited.
July 23rd, 2006 at 9:15 PM
MN1: // I question why Bob Novak is only now accusing Rove after all the investigation. //
Novak no doubt has his own motivations. I am not surprised that Novak confirmed Rove had a part in the Plame outing.
MN1: // Wilson would not have been so persistent in his message on the war’s alleged false premise if his wife Valerie Plame was not CIA and he wasn’t partisan. The reporters involved all realized this. For this reason, Robert Novak, Viveca Novak (no relation), Judith Miller, Matthew Cooper, NBC’s Tim Russert and possibly other reporters may have told other people including the white house people that Plame was CIA. That discredits Plame’s case against Rove and Cheney. //
Perhaps many people were whispering she was CIA. We shall see what the judge and jury think about that as justification for putting it into print.
Perhaps instead of partisan, Wilson was simply being professional and factual in calling the justification absurd. His simple, matter of fact approach and his long experience in regional affairs impressed me. That he considered Hussein a threat and supported an international effort to disarm him, should he have them, also impressed me.
The concerted effort in the Bush administration, the right-wing elements of the press, and the right-wing blogosphere to discredit Wilson as a “liar” completely surprised me. After all, the Bush administration was the one waving a forged document as “proof” of the sale of yellowcake. Even an amateur could find credible information that the document was a forgery, months before we invaded – and months before the State of the Union address.
The desperation in the voices accusing Wilson of being a “liar” struck me as just a little too shrill. What did he say? The mines were controlled by the French, and closely monitored by the IAEA. The document was a forgery. Both are easily verified. Why the character assassination?
The only reasonable answer is that what Wilson put forward was absolutely true, and politically dangerous. He must be neutralized in the media.
MN1: // There is no more insiduous pair than Wilson and Plame. Even without the new info that is coming out of captainsquartersblog.com we already knew in 2005 the tentative assurance Wilson provided our country that Saddam did not have agents seeking uranium and other nuclear components was incorrect. The US in general and Wilson in particular are lucky Wilson’s unauthorized Niger report was ignored. If Wilson’s report had been used to justify no action Wilson may have been a national war criminal guilty of dereliction when God forbid Saddam was let off and later came back and hit us with nukes or other WMD. //
I really don’t get the insideousness of a professional diplomat going on a mission at the request of the CIA, on behalf of the VP, and coming back with a report. I don’t get the insideousness of a professional diplomat married to a career CIA agent.
The only thing I see that might be true is that these two people are professional enough, believable enough, and self-assured enough not to back down to an onslaught of slanderous lies.
The judgement that someone’s report, based on his understanding of known facts, his experience, and his personal interviews with people in the region makes him possibly a war criminal is without precedent in American jurisprudence. Now if he “sexed-up” the intelligence, plastered it all over the news, and lied about Hussein having nuclear weapons when he didn’t, well, that would be a different matter. But by all believable accounts, Wilson simply went, saw, returned, and wrote what he saw. Unfortunately, this was another inconvenient truth, and he was promptly attacked.
MN1: // I still think the CIA was guilty of dereliction by letting 9/11 happen and their argument that morale would suffer if their leadership role as overall manager of human intelligence were given to the DNI is pathetic. Maybe if the CIA thought of their job more as overseas intelligence gatherers and less as presidential power limiters they wouldn’t be on my *@#! list //
As far as I remember, the CIA issued a DPB in early August 2001 entitled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US”. Also, Clinton’s outgoing cabinet did make a point of saying that Bin Laden would be their primary problem. Now, I can understand getting buried under a pile of DPBs, ignoring political opponents, and not really being able to imagine the threat, but the fact remains that the CIA and the Clinton administration did warn Bush and the government that an attack was a clear possibility.
As I see it, there are some problems at the CIA, and some larger problems with information sharing and coordination between agencies. These are not Democrat or Republican problems, and we share a motivation (I hope) to improve intelligence gathering and sharing to prevent further attacks. I believe the 9-11 Commisson strongly supported a central coordinator of intelligence.
The entire point of this is that Rove was part of a number of dirty tricks, that those dirty tricks sometimes stretch the bounds of legality, that he has been closely questioned on his role in outing Plame, and that he is no one to admire.
The fact that MB/MDE has publicly associated himself with Karl Rove, while not repudiating his dirty tricks, indicate to me that MB/MDE approves of and plans to work in at least loose coordination with Karl Rove on future dirty tricks.
And to me, that’s disappointing – but not entirely unexpected.
July 24th, 2006 at 12:03 AM
// Despite our hard and successful work to deliver a unanimous report, however, there were two issues on which the Republicans and Democrats could not agree: 1) whether the Committee should conclude that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s public statements were not based on knowledge he actually possessed, and 2) whether the Committee should conclude that it was the former ambassador’swife who recommended him for his trip to Niger. // – pp 442
Chris: // With all due respect (which is almost none in your case), wikipedia is not a credible source. Wikipedia lets nut jobs like you post anything you want about someone. As for slandering you, if you had a brain in your head you would know that slander is the spoken word while libel is the written word. Both are encompassed under the term defamation. I have not defamed you in any way. //
By accusing me of smoking grass, calling me a nut job, and telling me you have almost no respect for me, you have not defamed me? Better check that definition again.
I find that Wikipedia does a reasonable job of getting leads together. Sometimes they’ve quoted the most pertinent part of an article. Sometimes they don’t have much.
Chris: // The article states about the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee, “The panel found that Wilson’s report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson’s assertions and even the government’s previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address.†//
According to the Senate Select Committee Report:
// Conclusion 26. To date, the Intelligence Community has not published an assessment to clarify or correct its position on whether or not Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa as stated in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). Likewise, neither the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) nor the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which both published assessments on possible Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium, have ever published assessments outside of their agencies which correct their previous positions. // pp 83
There are a number of references to Iraq wanting to strike up trade relations with Niger, and it is entirely possible that they did want to purchase yellowcake. However, and this is a central point, there is no proof of that. Opinions among the intelligence community remain divided, and no clear proof has been presented. BUT BUSH CLAIMED HE HAD ABSOLUTE PROOF, and he used this to drum up the case for war. His proof, of course, was an absolute forgery.
Chris: // The report also contradicted Wilson’s claims that his wife had nothing to do with sending him to Niger. “The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame “offered up†Wilson’s name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations saying her husband “has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.†The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.†//
The Washington Post apparently missed the fact that the Senate Select Committee report did not conclusively determine that Plame recommended Wilson for the trip. As the report itself states, in an alternate view (one not fully supported by the committee):
// Despite our hard and successful work to deliver a unanimous report, however, there were two issues on which the Republicans and Democrats could not agree: 1) whether the Committee should conclude that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s public statements were not based on knowledge he actually possessed, and 2) whether the Committee should conclude that it was the former ambassador’swife who recommended him for his trip to Niger. // – pp 442
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html
A co-worker of Plame’s clears up the record:
// The Senate Intelligence Report is frequently cited by Republican partisans as “proof” that Valerie sent her husband to Niger because she sent a memo describing her husband’s qualifications to the Deputy Division Chief. Several news personalities, such as Chris Matthews and Bill O’Reilly continue to repeat this nonsense as proof. What the Senate Intelligence Committee does not include in the report is the fact that Valerie’s boss had asked her to write a memo outlining her husband’s qualifications for the job. She did what any good employee does; she gave her boss what he asked for. //
http://www.crooksandliars.com/stories/2005/07/22/correctingTheRecordOnValeriePlame.html
Chris: // Wilson was further discredited about information he gave to the press. “The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because “the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.â€
“Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the ‘dates were wrong and the names were wrong’ when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports,†the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have “misspoken†to reporters. The documents — purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq — were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.†//
Yawn. The document cited as evidence to Wilson was clearly forged. Apparently Wilson became confused at one point about whether he had seen the document himself or not. If Wilson had not, I myself had – as an easily available scan on the Internet, complete with an explanation of the forgery – six months before the invasion.
The point to remember here is that the document was clearly a forgery and was being waved about as absolute proof. If anyone is to be embarrassed about this, it should be those claiming the forgery as genuine, i.e. the Bush administration.
Chris: // Furthermore, “(a)ccording to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.†The Washington Post reporter actually misread the Senate Intelligence Report because Iraq had actually tried the acquire the uranium in 1999. //
Let me quote from the Senate Select Committee report directly:
// The intelligence report also said that Niger’s former Minister for Energy and Mines ,Mai Manga, stated that there were no sales outside of International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) channels since the mid-1980s. He knew of no contracts signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of uranium. He said that an Iranian delegation was interested in purchasing 400 tons of yellowcake from Niger in 1998, but said that no contract was ever signed with Iran. Mai Manga also described how the French mining consortium controls Nigerien uranium mining and keeps the uranium very tightly controlled from the time it is mined until the time it is loaded onto ships in Benin for transport overseas. Mai Manga believed it would be difficult, if not impossible, to arrange a special shipment of uranium to a pariah state given these controls. // pp 44.
And Joe Wilson, this time from 2003:
// 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. //
Reasonable, factual, and easily checked. Can you disprove what he’s saying?
Chris: // Brian, you accused Karl Rove of lying to the Grand Jury. Rove has not been and will not be indicted for that. So technically you have defamed Rove. It is Joe Wilson who has been the liar, but you won’t even read what the mainstream press (not sites who feed you your imbicelic opinions) reported about this matter. So as far as I’m concerned, you can take your wikipedia and stick it. //
According to the Washington Post, which you seem to like:
// But the full details of Rove’s role may never be known, because Fitzgerald is not required to issue a public report on his probe. Though Fitzgerald initially showed interest in Rove after learning, in the course of the investigation, that Rove had discussed Plame with reporters, lawyers in the case said the prosecutor spent the past two years or more trying to determine whether Rove lied to the grand jury.
Specifically, Fitzgerald wanted to know if Rove purposely hid from the grand jury in February 2004 the fact that he had discussed Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.
Rove would later tell the grand jury that he had simply forgotten the conversation with Cooper until his lawyers found an e-mail months later that showed that the Rove-Cooper conversation had occurred. For much of the investigation, Fitzgerald seemed skeptical of Rove’s foggy-memory defense. In fact, a few days before he indicted Libby, Fitzgerald appeared ready to charge Rove, the lawyers said. //
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_leak_grand_jury_investigation
Rove told the grand jury he didn’t talk to that reporter. Later, he admitted he did. Fitzgerald apparently doubted him enough that he spent two years trying to determine if there was enough evidence to charge him. Did he lie? I firmly believe that he did. He has a history of doing so in similar circumstances. Is there enough evidence to convict? Apparently not. Does that mean he is innocent? Not by a long shot.
The important point here is not what you think of me, or of Wikipedia, or whether Joe Wilson ever got confused. The point is that Rove regularly lies, plays dirty tricks on political opponents, and has just narrowly escaped being charged with lying to a grand jury. After five appearances, and claims of a foggy memory, he skates.
But is he innocent? I sincerely doubt it, and so should you.
July 24th, 2006 at 12:07 AM
Hello,
It is entirely fitting MDE is proud to meet Rove – any American should be thankful for this administration’s service.
You all on the left need to study up and realize some of your past positions have been rebuked by evidence.
As for dirty tricks I suggest you read up on Democrats – in particular a dirty tricks man who Nixon feared so much it influenced the way he ran his campaigns.
Wilson has a history of showboating in the midst of national crises – remember the hangman’s noose when his only job was to evacuate Americans from Iraq?
Below is what nailed Wilson’s coffin after the hearings and articles mentioned by Chris, Northsider and others and before evidence poured out of captainsquartersblog.com affirming Bush’s decision for war.
http://www.slate.com/id/2140058/
“In other words (I am prepared to keep on repeating this until at least one cow comes home), Joseph Wilson went to Niger
in 2002 to investigate whether or not the country had renewed its uranium-based relationship with Iraq, spent a few days
(by his own account) sipping mint tea with officials of that country who were (by his wife’s account) already friendly to him, and came back with the news that all was above-board. Again to repeat myself, this must mean either that A) he did not know that Zahawie had come calling or B) that he did know but didn’t think it worth mentioning that one of Saddam’s
point men on nukes had been in town. In neither case, it seems to me, should he be trusted with another mission that requires any sort of curiosity.”
I don’t know if the above is dereliction or not but the ommision in his report combined with the strident blame shifting should be. Wilson was not authorised to report to Cheney directly.
Regards
July 24th, 2006 at 7:49 AM
Northsider: // That was over two months ago. Fitzgerald has since told Rove that he won’t be indicted. Leopold has been proven wrong. The Leopold piece caused quite a commotion on the left side of the blogosphere when it was published. You obviously must have been aware of this when you posted him as a source this time. //
Certainly Leopold writes a lot of articles, uses anonymous sources, and has been a major pain to those on the right determined to wear blinders on Rove.
I wrote “according to Fitzgerald”, but that was inaccurate. More correct would have been “according to sources close to the investigation” or “according to Leopold’s sources”. Certainly Fitzgerald isn’t giving interviews.
Does Rove not being indicted now mean that he was not going to be, or that he hasn’t made a deal with Fitzgerald to avoid indictment? Does it mean that he never lied to the grand jury?
It simply means that he won’t be indicted.
If and until Fitzgerald reveals the results of his investigation, we may never know.
What we do know for a fact is that Rove has changed his story, and claimed a foggy memory.
Those who claim Rove is as pure as the driven snow on this or any political endeavor are likely fooling themselves.
When will MDE repudiate Karl Rove’s tactic of lying, using dirty tricks, and smearing his opponents?
August 13th, 2007 at 3:12 PM
[...] By Michael B. Brodkorb | August 13, 2007 Unless you've been living in a cave for the last 24 hours, you should know that Rove is leaving the White House. Last year, a group of Minnesota bloggers met with Rove. As I wrote last year, Rove was warm, gracious, good humored and brilliant. [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 6:22 AM
Federal Government and Politics
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article, but it sounds interesting