Open Thread

Play nice.

Rich

I don't agree with everything in this column, but this part is about right:

The president has no one to blame but himself. The color-coded terror alerts, the repeated John Ashcroft press conferences announcing imminent Armageddon during election season, the endless exploitation of 9/11 have all taken their numbing toll. Fear itself is the emotional card Mr. Bush chose to overplay, and when he plays it now, he is the boy who cried wolf. That's why a film director engaging in utter fantasy can arouse more anxiety about a possible attack on America than our actual commander in chief hitting us with the supposed truth.

If anything, we're back where we were in the lazy summer of 2001, when the president was busy in Crawford ignoring an intelligence report titled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States" and the news media were more preoccupied with a rash of "Jaws"-like shark attacks than with Al Qaeda. The sharks are back, and the "missing girl" drama of Natalee Holloway has echoed the Chandra Levy ur-text. Even the World Trade Center is making a comeback, if we are to believe that the new Freedom Bunker unveiled for ground zero might ever be built.

AS those on all sides of the Iraq argument have said, the only way for Mr. Bush to break through this torpor is to tell Americans the truth. Donald Rumsfeld did exactly that when he said a week ago that the insurgency in Iraq might last as long as 12 years. If that's so, then what? Go ahead and argue that pulling out precipitously or setting a precise exit timetable is each a bad option, guaranteeing that Iraq will become even more of a jihad central than this ill-conceived war has already made it. But what is Plan C?

More Thread

Helter Skelter is coming down fast.

More Thread

Will Live 8 conclude with Roger Waters shooting Dave Gilmour? Stay tuned...

The Rove Factor

Spikey Mikey:

Its legal appeals exhausted, Time magazine agreed last week to turn over reporter Matthew Cooper's e-mails and computer notes to a special prosecutor investigating the leak of an undercover CIA agent's identity. The case has been the subject of press controversy for two years. Saying "we are not above the law," Time Inc. Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine decided to comply with a grand-jury subpoena to turn over documents related to the leak. But Cooper (and a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller) is still refusing to testify and faces jail this week.

At issue is the story of a CIA-sponsored trip taken by former ambassador (and White House critic) Joseph Wilson to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. "Some government officials have noted to Time in interviews... that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," said Cooper's July 2003 Time online article.

Now the story may be about to take another turn. The e-mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper's sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House. Cooper and a Time spokeswoman declined to comment. But in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article. It is unclear, however, what passed between Cooper and Rove.

...

Initially, Fitzgerald's focus was on Novak's sourcing, since Novak was the first to out Plame. But according to Luskin, Rove's lawyer, Rove spoke to Cooper three or four days before Novak's column appeared. Luskin told NEWSWEEK that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." Luskin declined, however, to discuss any other details. He did say that Rove himself had testified before the grand jury "two or three times" and signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him. "He has answered every question that has been put to him about his conversations with Cooper and anybody else," Luskin said. But one of the two lawyers representing a witness sympathetic to the White House told NEWSWEEK that there was growing "concern" in the White House that the prosecutor is interested in Rove. Fitzgerald declined to comment.

Never Mind

Remember, Jeff Greenfield has suggested a "solution" to the "problem" which has nothing to do with illegal leaks for political revenge and intimidation, national security, or perjury. Nope, just about press freedom. Notice how Blitzer responds (I missed this the first time):

GREENFIELD: Yes. Wolf? I've got to make one other thing -- the one thing nobody's talked about: This might be a decent case for a presidential pardon, which doesn't get the reporters of the hook legally in the future, but says, you know, this is the wrong circumstance under which to send two people to jail. I know that sounds a little odd, but I've been thinking about this and it strikes me that, that might not be the worst solution to this.

BLITZER: All right. I suspect, though, that some people could say if the president decided to pardon these journalists, he might be participating in some sort of cover up.

GREENFIELD: I'd like to see the press attack the president for protecting the press. That would be an interesting approach.

BLITZER: I don't think the press would attack, necessarily, the president, but others might. We'll watch to see if he accepts your recommendation, if it's necessary. Hopefully that won't be necessary. We don't want to see Judith Miller or Matt Cooper go to jail.

It was so good he brought it up again the next morning. AND, he even invoked the Chewbacca defense ("murky!") to justify it:

GREENFIED: Well, part of it is "The New York Times" is not a defender. They don't face those kinds of things. But in the few seconds left, I've got to get a plug in for a possible weird solution to this.

S. O'BRIEN: What's that? OK. I'll take it. I'll bite.

GREENFIED: No, I'm serious.

S. O'BRIEN: What is it?

GREENFIED: A presidential pardon.

S. O'BRIEN: Convict them?

GREENFIED: No. A presidential pardon says we're not saying that it was right. We're not letting reporters off the hook when their evidence is really needed. But in this murky case, where they weren't -- you know, they don't have information on an ongoing crime, this is not a case where a reporter should go to jail. And given the Bush administration's relationship with the press, this may seem even cynical or weird, I'm not sure it's not a solution.

S. O'BRIEN: Or it might happen.

Convergence

It's looking like "Frog Marching Rove Down Yellowcake Road" might mean more than we ever imagined, as Josh Marshall suggests.

From E&P:

NEW YORK Adding to the growing intrigue in the Plame case, the grand jury investigating the leak of the covert CIA operative's name subpoenaed has a wide range of White House documents, including records of telephone calls from Air Force One and information relating to an internal working group dealing with Iraq, government sources confirmed to CNN on Friday.

"We are complying fully with the request from the Department of Justice," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters Friday.

Government sources told CNN the federal grand jury was seeking any information about contacts between White House officials and more than two dozen reporters. The grand jury also asked for a transcript of a briefing by former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.

The subpoenaed information regarding telephone calls to and from Air Force One, sources said, covered July 7-12, while the president was on a trip to Africa. The requested transcript was from a briefing during that trip as well.

...

Many of the documents subpoenaed Friday relate to the White House Iraq Group, a little-known task force. Newsweek reported that the group was created in August 2002.
The Newsweek report cites an earlier Washington Post article that lists senior political adviser Karl Rove, Bush advisers Karen Hughes and Mary Matalin, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney among the group's members.

Digby

This is certainly something I've wondered about through this whole thing. Now, there's certainly a difference between journalists believing they probably knew who the leaker was and being sure that what they knew was actually true and not just conventional wisdom/gossip. Digby writes:

Moreover, is it normal that members of the press know the answer to a major mystery but they withhold it, as a group, from the public? I thought their job was to reveal the answers to major mysteries. In fact, this seems like the scoop of the decade. Back in the day, reporters were racing to get the news of semen stains and talking points on the air mere seconds before their rivals. Now, they all keep quiet?

This is a very interesting professional and ethical question for the media. Does the reporter's privilege extend to his friends? Here you apparently have quite a few members of the DC press corps with a piece of very juicy information (allegedly) about the most powerful political operative in the United States --- information that also has to do with an important matter of national security and a Justice department investigation. In some sort of friendship extension of the reporter's privilege they say nothing. Amazing.

And during the time they say nothing an election is held in which the political operative in question works feverishly to smear his client's opponent with scurrilous charges of borderline treason and cowardly behavior during wartime. The entire election is premised on the fact that the president, this man's client, is the only one capable of handling national security. His prior campaign had been waged with an overt promise to bring honor and integrity back to the White House. Still nothing.

Finally, when their friend seems headed to jail and his boss has agreed to turn over notes, they start to step up and reveal what they know.

Hookay. I think it's time to convene another conference on blogger ethics and professional journalistic standards. I get so confused about these things.

Live 8

Wandered over for a bit here in Philly. Clusterfuck would be a generous description, though one can't help but appreciate a massive free concert in a truly public space.

O'Donnell Speaks

Says another source confirms Rove.

Of course it could be another Rove ratfucking... We'll find out I suppose.

Open Thread

Enjoy.

Howard Dean - Lead Singer of Green Day

Watching through Aol's stream. Billy Joe Armstrong just said "you have the power!"

Heritage

Ooops:

It began as a shouting match on a busy Capitol Hill street corner during the frenetic morning commute, a bike-vs.-car incident not uncommon in a big city.

But then the silver-haired, retired Navy lieutenant got out of his car, approached the red-headed ballet dancer riding a bike and allegedly shoved her to the ground, authorities said. He got back into his car and, as bystanders followed him, drove down the block to his nearby office, the bicyclist said.

The man was identified as Ted E. Schelenski, 64, vice president for finance and operations at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank that promotes conservative policies. He pleaded not guilty this week to a charge of simple assault.

Rover

From E&P:

Here is the transcript of O'Donnell's remarks:

"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.

"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."

Other panelists then joined in discussing whether, if true, this would suggest a perjury rap for Rove, if he told the grand jury he did not leak to Cooper.

If true, this just brings us back to an old question. We know Rove was calling people in the media, like Chris Matthews, but no one had proven that he'd pushed this story before it appeared in Novak's column...


...Talk Left has more.

Open Thread

Because there is never enough thread.

Open Thread

Enjoy.

Open Thread

Have fun.

Frog Marching Rove Down Yellowcake Lane

Multiple people have emailed to inform me that on the McLaughlin Group Lawrence O'Donnell has claimed that the primary Plame leaker was Karl Rove.

I've set the Tivo to record the next showing, but I can't as of yet verify this, but there you go...

Fresh Thread

WTF is with Brooke Shield's horrible apparent plastic surgery? [CNN]

Look people, plastic surgery sometimes works when you use it to look "better." Never use it to try to look "younger."

WWWA

In order to maintain my new online magazine format to keep the free speech protections provided by the constitution, I must inform you that prosecutors in Aruba either have or haven't charged 3 people for the murder of a missing white woman.