July 15, 2005

7/15: As Good As It Gets?

After a week of increasingly hypothetical hyperactivity surrounding Karl Rove's involvement in the Valerie Plame case, the story takes a bit of a turn today on a New York Times story indicating that Bob Novak actually 1st mentioned Plame to Rove, not the other way around. While the left blogosphere has taken the lead on playing up and picking apart various reports this past week, today the right blogosphere pushes this story to the top. In addition, the right is pretty sure once again that Plame was not a "covert" agent at the time Novak's column was published -- that is, she had not worked overseas within 5 years of '03. Meanwhile, the conservative "dump Rove" meme we noticed at midweek seems to have faded decisively.

ROVE: It's Not What You'd Call A "Good Day" But He'll Take It

• John Podhoretz comments on the Novak-told-Rove NYT story: "Simple fairness says that an official called by a journalist who volunteers a piece of gossip and then responds, 'I heard that too,' is not retailing a piece of incendiary information intended to destroy lives and place CIA assets in harm's way. ... Anybody who says different has an agenda..."
• Lefty Atrios: "Uh, I can't decipher the narrative or the tangled sourcing in this article. Anyone want to try?"
• Conservative RedState is a bit cautious, noting that "the story is so filled with misplaced modifiers and awkward mutilations of the English language that it's difficult to determine what the heck the Times authors are intending to say."
• Liberal atty Jeralyn Merritt doesn't buy it: "The key clue that it is spin? Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, isn't endorsing it. Which, to me, says it's a public relations ploy, coming from one of Rove's lawyer/p.r. friends who thinks he or she is helping Rove by this disclosure. ... Is this source a government lawyer or employee of one, and is he or she violating the law by disclosing matters that occurred before the grand jury?" Merritt updates the post several times as versions of the report appear from the AP and Washington Post. A reader writes in to suggest the leaker in this case is Luskin, but Merritt doesn't buy it.
• The Left Coaster directs speculation toward what RNC chair Ken Mehlman knew, and when he knew it.
• Daily Kos header: "Rove Confirmed That Plame Was CIA Operative to Novak."
• On 7/14 the Blogometer mentioned UCLA prof Mark Kleiman's assertion that Rove could be charged under the Espionage Act of 1917. Conservative Baseball Crank doesn't buy it, but Tom Maguire and RedState take it seriously enough to suggest a MSM journalist ask an atty (which Kleiman is not) for their interpretation.
• NRO's The Buzz attended a MoveOn-led protest outside the WH, and snapped a few pictures.

MyDD's "Rove Meter" tracks the number of Rove-related stories on Google News this week:

     Saturday:      49
     Sunday:        77
     Monday:       639
     Tuesday:    1,150
     Wednesday:  1,200
     Thursday:   1,230

Conservative James Lileks, who spent part of his early journalism career in DC: "O to be in Washington today; this is when the town is fun. This is the sort of thing that makes the smallest journalist feel Important and Part of Something. Of course, most people don't care, but that just proves your point: you're part of the Beltway herd, and we got us a stammmpede! Yee Hah!"

WILSON: How Much Does This All Hinge On His Credibility?

Appearing on "Wolf Blitzer Reports" last p.m., Joe Wilson said: "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity." Podhoretz comments: "Now reflect on the fact that there has been an ongoing investigation FOR TWO YEARS conducted, we were breathlessly and rather constantly told in the weeks surrounding the initial controversy, on the basis that the White House and reporters OUTED A CLANDESTINE AGENT. Now we know. She wasn't. Not then."

WSJ's James Taranto: "All the Democrats who are braying for Karl Rove's head can't be very confident that he's committed a crime. If they were, they would wait for an indictment, which would be a genuine embarrassment to the administration."

Meanwhile, Talking Points Memo still refers to her as a covert agent, writing that conservatives' "arguments now amount to excuses, like those of a small child caught stealing cookies: Joe Wilson's a liar. Plame's covert status wasn't protected well by the CIA. It was just a short phone call. Rove really wanted to speak about welfare reform. ... The salient point is not that each of these claims is false. The point is that they're irrelevant. ... No presidential advisor should ever disclose the identity of a covert agent at the CIA. That doesn't require elaboration. ... Rove (and, though we're not supposed to say it yet, several of his colleagues) did something obviously wrong and reckless. And they probably broke several laws by the time it was all done."

Liberal Seeing the Forest criticizes Daily Howler's Bob Somerby for taking an especially harsh stance against Joe Wilson and his defenders: "Bob is actually focusing on two trees. One tree is the infamous sixteen words in Bush's SOTU speech. The second tree is Joe Wilson's N.Y. Times editorial. Bob ignores thousands of acres of surrounding forest. He takes a very technical look at the sixteen words in Bush's speech and concludes that it is impossible for Joe Wilson to know to an absolute certainty that President Bush was lying to the American people."

• At Volokh Conspiracy, Jim Lindgren makes the case against Wilson.
• On 7/13 Raw Story interviewed Wilson.

FITZGERALD: Not To Be Stereotypical, But He's A Real Fighter

Liberal Whiskey Bar interviews an old investigative journalist friend who relays a former editor's take on prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald: "If he can't make the case he started with, he'll figure out what you did do and hit you with that. He's relentless, and he doesn't give a flying fuck about the press or the First Amendment. He'd throw us all in jail if it would help him make his case."

SENATE: Amend For The Hell Of It

Last p.m. Senate Dems and GOPers offered competing amendments that have would limited various individuals' security clearance had either passed, which they didn't. David Corn calls the Dems' version, which came 1st, the "Karl Rove Memorial Act": "No federal employee who discloses, or has disclosed, classified information, including the identity of a covert agent of the Central Intelligence Agency, to a person not authorized to receive such information shall be permitted to hold a security clearance for access to such information." From the GOP amendment: "Any federal officeholder who makes reference to a classified Federal Bureau of Investigation report on the floor of the United States Senate, or any federal officeholder that makes a statement based on a FBI agent's comments which is used as propaganda by terrorist organizations thereby putting our servicemen and women at risk, shall not be permitted access to such information or to hold a security clearance for access to such information." Talking Points Memo "In other words, the law is targeted at Sen. Durbin, making it against the law to say what he said a month ago."

Lefty David Sirota observes, under the GOP amendment, "every Senator who participated in an Armed Services Committee hearing on Gitmo yesterday might lose their clearance because the FBI agents comments were discussed." Righty Captain's Quarters adds: "None of Reid's caucus can apparently wait for the results of an independent investigation, one on which they themselves insisted, to determine whether a crime had been committed at all, and if so who did it. This is yet another example of Harry Reid going off half-cocked."

Center-right Charging RINO inaugurates a "'Governed by Children' Watch."

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: Indictment Of Television News #472,035

Confederate Yankee writes, U.S. citizen Ali Al-Timimi "was given a life sentence for treason-related charges yesterday, but you probably won't find that on the front page of your favorite news web site. ... You might think that the conviction of a man calling for holy war against the United States from just outside our nation's capitol might merit some discussion." Confederate Yankee surveys several major news sites to see how, or if, they covered the story:

     ABC News            nothing
     Fox News            nothing
     Google News         nothing
     NY Post             nothing
     Washington Times    nothing
     Drudge Report       nothing
     Washington Post     Metro section
     New York Times      main page, below the fold
     CBS News            main page, below the fold

BLOGGERS VS. BLOGGERS: Howl

Right Wing Howler writes: "Some English youths must not have liked what happened on 7-7. Yesterday they killed a Muslim man in Nottingham. Oh, well. ... [T]his will be nothing more than another excuse for MOOS-lims to stay at home, strike, protest, kill more people---whatever. It's time to play 'cowboys and muslims' for real and end this crap." Right Wing News tears the RWH a new one: "I don't like to tear into other conservative bloggers. After all, there are already hordes of liberal bloggers out there and that's their shtick. But when I read something as bigoted, offensive, and just plain ignorant as this post at the Right Wing Howler, I feel compelled to step up and say something." He does.

TERRORISM: Our Bad?

A report from ABC News raises the possibility that the U.S. threat elevation during the '04 Dem convo may have actually helped the London bombers. AMERICAblog writes: "The alert was raised because of information found on [Naeem Noor Khan]'s computer ... In its effort to either prove that the alert was serious, or to try and scare people during the Dem Convention, the administration gave the press too much information about WHY they raised the alert. This put the media on the trail of Khan -- they found him, and they published his name." More at Daily Kos. Right-leaning Balloon Juice: "I also remember something about someone in the ISI in Pakistan outing Khan, but I don't know what is going on. I am so spinned out by everyone and everything it is hard to make heads or tails of events anymore. If it is true this administration blew his cover, and these folks that bombed London were part of the same crew, not good. Again, buyer beware until this is sorted out."

A number of conservative blogs, and even some liberal ones, highlight a Pew Research [PDF] survey showing that support for suicide bombings and for Osama bin Laden are significantly lower than in '02 across several Muslim countries. Liberal Political Animal points out that in Morocco, Indonesia, and Turkey -- each of which suffered major al Qaeda attacks since '02 -- "support for suicide bombing is down to 15% or less ... and, even more dramatically, confidence in Osama bin Laden has been cut nearly in half. Attacking Muslim countries appears to have backfired badly on al-Qaeda." Additionally, "Lebanon appears to be a big success story." Conservative Power Line: "It seems obvious that as mass murder moves from fantasy to reality, it will become less popular. No one really wants to live in a world in which boarding a subway means risking random death."

GITMO: Postcards From The Edge

Andrew Sullivan looks at the gov't report on abuses at Gitmo, as led by Lt. Gen. Randall Schmidt, and comments in one of several posts on the matter: "One great merit of the Schmidt report -- which is otherwise riddled with worrying euphemisms, dismissal of troubling facts, exoneration of almost all commanders -- is that we now know that almost every one of the Abu Ghraib techniques was practised and innovated at Guantanamo." He adds, "those hoodlums didn't get their ideas from thin air. They got them from the Pentagon and the White House."

Vodkapundit reacts to a follow-up Sullivan post: "I read earlier this week that, at 42, Andrew has now spent exactly half of his life in America. Maybe by the time he's 63, he'll get it. ... [W]hen he claims that our rough treatment of rough characters 'is not the America it once was,' he's displaying an almost-willful misunderstanding of America's wartime mores."

CUNNINGHAM: More Whisper Than Bang

In a 7/14 presser, embattled (see 6/28 and 7/6 Blogometers) Rep. Duke Cunningham (R-CA) announced he would not seek re-election. Josh Marshall, arguably Cunningham's chief pursuer in the blogosphere, noted it last p.m.: "Duke Cunningham out. Won't seek reelection."

NYC MAYOR: No Contest

New York Observer's Politicker "has learned that after" the '04 election and before running for the DNC chair, Howard Dean "spoke to associates about running for Mayor of New York."

At his Ragged Thots blog, New York Post's Robert George writes, "so much for the New York City mayor's 'race.'" Despite losing the Olympics and the West Side stadium, Mayor Mike Bloomberg (R) is "completely dominating the political scene. When District 37, the Big Apple's biggest municipal workers union endorses the GOP mayor nearly four months before the general election, this thing is just about over. ... Given the way this race is shaping up, the city would be better off scrapping the election and spending the money on something that people care about. The mayor's race ain't it."

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Your Blog Of Blogs

Dawn Summers: "On Tuesday Hugh Hewitt talked about how much of the mainstream media was finally getting on board with blogging. He cited the Washington Post's latest 'Supreme Court' blog. The very next day I read an article about CBS starting a blog about its news coverage. My first reaction was 'great, maybe I can apply for a job blogging for a big news outlet!" But I changed my mind very quickly. The fun of blogging is the snark. The mercilessly brutal criticism of, well, everything and anything! So, if I were CBS what I'd do is start up a blog about ABC or NBC."

LEST WE FORGET: Okay, Even The Freepers

Unscrewing The Inscrutable, a blog which disappeared some time back, returned this week at a new address. The post announcing its return begins: "Pharynguloids, Dispatchers, High Ranking Politburo Members, Kossacks, Redstaters, Aliens from across the Cosmos, Pundits of all flavors, Godless Atheists, Self-aware Intelligent Machines and sentient energy or exotic matter constructs, inter-dimensional travelers, religious lunatics, and rational or irrational humans of every stripe ... WELCOME!!!! We're not angry, we just don't agree with you ...

In the comments below, site co-founder Brent Rasmussen writes: "You forgot Freepers" -- i.e. denizens of FreeRepublic.com. Co-founder "DarkSyde," author of the quoted post replies: "won't pick on freepers for no reason ... but I can't bring myself to say they're welcome"

BLOGOMETER SPECIAL: Ganging Up

What the blogosphere is saying about the SCOTUS vacancy:

REHNQUIST: Cooling Down

There are a few sighs of relief from conservatives in the blogosphere, who today (perhaps surprisingly) express relief that Chief Justice William Rehnquist will not step down.

Power Line's John Hinderaker: "I think it is a good thing for him to stay on the Court for a while. If President Bush were in the position of naming two Supreme Court nominees at once, I'd guess the Democrats could get away with blocking one of them."

In the 6/30 Blogometer, RedState's Josh Trevino made the following prediction, based on info from a source: "[T]he Rehnquist rumor [about him retiring] is pure bunk. He is dead set on being the longest-serving Chief Justice in history: 'dead set' as in he'll die in office if necessary. Also, it appears that O'Connor has just had her offices renovated for her husband's sake, so take that as you will."

GANG OF 14: Overserved?

From a New York Times piece on the Gang of 14's influence: "If the gang sticks together, it could become a powerful force -- so powerful that some of its members ... have insisted that the group steer clear of issues beyond the judiciary, for fear of becoming a kind of shadow leadership." Right-leaning Decision '08 admonishes the writers for being overly enthusiastic: "[G]et a grip. It was a legislative compromise, not the Manhattan Project."

TAPPED's Sam Rosenfeld writes, the "Hardball" interview with Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) "illustrated the degree to which the Gang's nuclear option deal has successfully come to be framed in the last two months as an agreement that delegitimized filibusters rather than the nuclear option." The agreement has been a "disaster" for Dems, giving DeWine and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) "free rein to frame the Supreme Court debate in a hard-line partisan fashion that is indistinguishable from the one peddled by their GOP colleagues but that benefits from the Gang's warm bipartisan glow."

Conservative MN blog The First Ring wants Senate Maj. Leader Bill Frist to step aside: "Now that Rehnquist has denied he plans to resign, for now, it's time for conservatives to breath a collective sigh of relief. It's possible that Sen. Frist may be able to handle taking point on filling Justice O'Connor's seat, but it's doubtful that he could've filled two seats." More: "What we saw in early 2005 was just the Democratic leadership testing the resolve of Majority Leader Frist. What they found was that Frist didn't have the guts to use the nuclear option, for one; he didn't have the votes, and two; he was too busy plotting a run for the White House. ... Frist should step down as Majority Leader; he just doesn't have it in him. ... If the Dems filibuster, the new Majority Leader needs the 'nuclear option' to remind the Democrats that they're the minority party in America."

ROE V. WADE: Not So Private

Liberal Daily Kos writes about the "Right Wing insistence that Roe is not threatened" by O'Connor's retirement: "Vote counts from Casey are provided. It will be 5-4 to uphold Roe we are told. And the nominees being discussed are described by the Right as NOT anti-Roe. ... Here's what I glean [from the GOP arguments]: The right to choose, as embodied in Roe and affirmed in Casey, is a WINNING political issue for Dems. Dems should embrace the right to choose as a core value. We don't need to dress it up under the right to privacy (which has a separate political potency all its own) rubric. Indeed, that weakens its political potency."

GROUPS: JUSTICE! Justice! Justice... SUNDAY! Sunday! Sunday...

Washington Monthly's Amy Sullivan: "If you didn't get enough of Justice Sunday, hold onto your hats, because Justice Sunday II is on the way. Seriously. Crazy Zell Miller is already signed up to headline -- no word on whether Bill Frist will make a return appearance."

Posted by at July 15, 2005 12:29 PM