7/18: Remember What Blogs Were Like Before The Rove/Plame Controversy? Nor Do We

As we enter the second week of intense speculation about Karl Rove's involvement in the Valerie Plame outing/investigation, there is little common ground between bloggers on the right and left. There's a good reason for this, and it tends to be overlooked: Once one side or the other makes its case effectively, the other side tends to quietly drop previous assertions. Of course, here at the Blogometer we tend to focus on what the blogs are disagreeing about -- and frequently overlook this ourselves.

First and foremost, facts have proved the left correct on the key point that's kept this story going, i.e. Rove did in fact discuss Plame with reporters. As of this weekend, the right seems to have mostly won the argument that the Intelligence Identities Protection Act does not apply to Rove; most liberal bloggers have ceased to bring it up. Some have mentioned the Espionage Act as another controlling statue, but now the focus is moving toward the Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement (PDF), aka SF-312, as raised by Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) in a 7/15 letter (PDF). SF-312 stipulates that Rove should not have confirmed Plame's CIA involvement regardless of where it originated. (There's a bit of irony here: For months, conservative bloggers hounded John Kerry by asking about military-records release form SF-180, until he finally released those records to the press. Now the "SF" is on the other foot, as it were.)

To hear the left tell it, the fact of Rove's lawbreaking is incontrovertible, and the next question is what Pres. Bush knew. To hear the right tell it, the question of Rove's culpability is closed, and any potential scandal more likely involves actions on the part of the press.

Keeping track of all the relevant angles in this case is a struggle. If we've missed a key angle, we trust you'll let us know about it.

In other news -- what there is of it -- conservatives are up in arms over the outing of Sen. Rick Santorum's (R-PA) spokesperson, the Los Angeles Times takes criticism from both sides, and the Washington Post finds out what happens when bloggers stop being polite and start getting real.

TRACKBACKS: Animal House

Where the blog swarm is headed, who's taking part, and what they're saying:

• The most popular MSM stories this weekend all had to do with the Rove controversy. Howard Fineman's "Rove at War" and John Tierney's New York Times column, where he terms the scandal "Nadagate," were among the most-cited. But even more than the others, Matt Cooper's return to the public view -- with an account of his grand jury testimony for Time and interview on "Meet the Press" -- attracted plenty of attention, mostly from left-of-center bloggers:
  
  

  >> "Billmon" calls attention to Cooper's report that Rove concluded the call by saying: "I've already said too much." Billmon interprets: "It's nice of Cooper to try to help out his phone buddy with that bit about [Rove perhaps just] being 'late for a meeting,' but I think it's pretty obvious what Karl meant. He was telling Cooper: 'See what a juicy tidbit I just gave you? Now be a good little doggie and go put it in your magazine.'" · Univ. MI prof Juan Cole notices Cooper saying on NBC: "When [Rove] said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know." Cole comments: "We may also conclude that Karl Rove knew that he was discussing classified information with Mr. Cooper. Why otherwise promise that the information would be declassified? I know that Mr. Rove has alleged that he heard about Valerie Plame from a reporter. But you have to be very careful with Mr. Rove's statements." · The Heretik invokes Dirty Harry. · Video of Cooper's appearance is available at Crooks and Liars.
  

  >> On the right, Captain's Quarters was one of the few conservative blogs to comment: "No one except the darkest paranoid conspiracy theorists could believe that Rove or [Scooter] Libby deliberately sat around, knowing Cooper would call and eventually get around to asking about [Joe] Wilson, and then use that opportunity to wreak revenge for Wilson's serial lies ... Rove and Libby both performed the traditional background role (for which the media insists it needs anonymous sources) to warn Cooper that Wilson's version had seriously distorted the record." · NRO's Mark Levin, on Cooper writing that he may have learned Plame's actual name from Google: "If he got it from Google, that would mean it was on the Internet for the entire world to see. Isn't this worth pressing Cooper about a little harder?"
  

  >> More: TalkLeft; Political Animal; Think Progress; Susie Madrak; Andrew Sullivan; War and Piece.




• It's not that conservative blogs didn't swarm around any Rove-related MSM coverage. The popular link on the starboard side this weekend was to conservative favorite Mark Steyn's Chicago Sun-Times column, "Plame security breach? It just ain't so, Joe":
  

  >> Power Line: "Steyn does not pursue the 'Black Sox' analogy suggested in the headline. Playing off Wilson's condemnation of President Bush and Vice President Cheney, however, he declares that 'the only lying sonafabitch turned out to be Yellowcake Joe.'"
  

  >> More: Instapundit; Jay Currie; The Discerning Texan; Blog Idaho; Ed Driscoll; Outside The Beltway.

ROVE: Roving Reporters By Now Pretty Much Reduced To Rove Reporters

Cooper said on "Meet the Press" on 7/17: "So did Rove leak Plame's name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'WMD'? Yes."

Conservative John Podhoretz: "Translation: Did Karl Rove break any laws? No. Did he do anything wrong? No -- because saying someone worked for the CIA on WMD is not in any way wrong." Blogs for Bush: "It's over, folks -- there is no scandal involving Rove; and there never was. This thing was made up out of whole cloth by Joe Wilson, who also made up a story about not finding any evidence of attempted uranium purchases by Saddam."

But lefty Matt Yglesias says it isn't over: "[L]et's say Rove is telling the truth, he only confirmed Plame's identity. Then, as Mark Kleiman points out this goes to show that Rove has violated Executive Order 12958 and his commitments under the 'Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement' (SF-312) that he's signed. I don't believe such violations would rise to the level of criminal conduct, but they certainly tend to suggest that the guilty party is no longer fit for White House employment."

RedState, on an AP report on Rove e-mailing then-dep. NSA Stephen Hadley about his conversation with Cooper: "Despite the hysterics of our counterparts, it appears that Rove followed procedure as it regards the 'Plame Affair.'" Liberal Yowling from the Fencepost asks: "If Rove was only following procedure, wouldn't he have said something a long time ago?"

Ex-CIA agent/Plame acquaintance Larry Johnson, a recent TPM Cafe contributor, shares a statement he and 3 other agency employees gave to Congress in '03: "Beyond supporting Mrs. Wilson with our moral support and prayers we want to send a clear message to the political operatives responsible for this. You are a traitor and you are our enemy. You should lose your job and probably should go to jail for blowing the cover of a clandestine intelligence officer."

Daily Kos continues to be Rove central, putting up relevant posts over the weekend here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, plus a lengthy summation by Markos Moulitsas. In another post, Armando writes, "it matters not whether Rove heard it from an aide or a reporter, if he knew it was classified info, he could not leak it to Cooper. The whole line of defense is nonsense anyway. And yet, in order to not open a new legal exposure, Rove is trying to dance away from the categorical denial because that exposes him to perjury charges."

At liberal TPM Cafe, Josh Marshall and Brookings scholar Ivo Daalder cite the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) report showing no uranium activity in Iraq as trumping the British Butler report and Senate Intel Cmte's reports on the matter. Marshall also writes, the "Butler Report and the Senate intel report are political documents. From start to finish." Reacting to the 2 posts, righty Gregory Djerejian calls the ISG report "besides the point vis-a-vis establishing" Bush's honesty re: WMDs, and follows up Marshall's "start to finish" comment: "That's quite a statement, and it well showcases Josh's abject hackery on this issue. ... Josh has pretty much been forced to piss all over the SSCI and Butler reports because they simply don't support the narrative he peddled assiduously for months last year."

NRO's Media Blog: "Why shouldn't the White House stonewall this press? We have an investigator doing his job. Presumably, his report will come close to telling us what actually happened. In the meantime, the press has resembled a leaky washing machine on a spin cycle. Why should the White House enable something like that?"

Andrew Sullivan comments on the grand jury: "The somewhat aggressive Grand Jury also seems to consist of many African-American women -- not exactly Rove's base."

Since 7/13, liberal MaxSpeak, You Listen! has been holding a dead pool for Rove: "You guess when Rove either resigns, is arrested, is indicted, or contracts a very serious disease, whichever comes first."

SANTORUM: It's Spreading

At Raw Story-affil. PageOneQ, gay activist Mike Rogers outs Sen. Santorum's spokesperson, Robert Traynham, as gay. In the piece, Traynham defends himself and his boss: "Senator Santorum is a man of principle, he is a man who sticks up for what he believes in, I strongly do support Senator Santorum."

California Conservative responds: "Obviously, not the answer they were looking for. So, what do homosexual activists do? They attack." Blogs for Bush: "Whoever outed this aide is, well, someone deserving of a rather severe beating. Seriously. This is disgusting -- and, unfortunately, it happens quite often. A person's sexual proclivities, provided maintained between consenting adults, are no one's business at all. ... I'd like to think that everyone on the left would denounce this sort of thing... but I'm not holding my breath." K.J. Lopez, at The Corner: "Santorum has issued a statement praising the staffer, clearly furious that one of his people has been targetted in such a rotten way. Is that the "news" too? Maybe people are shocked Rick Santorum doesn't actually hate gays?"

Liberal Norwegianity: "Like everything else in the narcissistic world of Republican opportunism, hypocrisy is only outable when they are offended (and, as we all know, no one is more easily offended than a holier than thou wingnut)." Lefty Steve Gilliard, himself African-American: "You know, black people tend to be both judgmental and forgiving. You could be a Republican, You could be gay. But both? That's pretty f---ing crazy. I mean, you don't choose to be gay, but what about the racist, deeply homophobic GOP could possibly be appealing?"

BLOGS VS. THE MSM: White Men Can't Jump To Conclusions ABout Being Picked For The Court

A 6/15 Los Angeles Times story on the SCOTUS vacancy by reporter David Savage included the following sentence re: potential replacements for Chief Justice William Rehnquist: "The leading candidates were all white men." Anonymous L.A. Co. prosecutor "Patterico" comments: "This is an entirely fictional account, as anyone who has been following the process well knows." He quotes from several relevant news stories to illustrate the point, and adds: "The paper has issued no correction of this error. However, if you click on the link for yesterday's front-page story, you'll see that the 'white men' claim has been altered to remove the word 'white.'" "Patterico" even posts a photo of the print edition. He asks: "Did someone realize that the assertion was incorrect, and have the word airbrushed from the Web version? It's hard to imagine any other explanation. This hardly seems consistent with the claim made in the recently issued ethics code: 'When we make mistakes, we quickly and forthrightly correct the record.' There's nothing 'forthright' about this at all."

Lefty Marc Cooper comments on Los Angeles Times editor Jon Carroll's new ethics guidelines for reporters: "I am as opposed as Carroll is to conflicts of interest and am in favor of upholding high standards. But to ban people from all partisan politics is, well, absolutely akin to demanding celibacy from priests. In the latter case, ok, these are after all representatives of God. But, Mr. Carroll, the latter are just ink-stained wretches. If they want to march for or against abortion or put on a Kerry or Bush bumpersticker, then why don't you just let them be (so long as they are not actively covering any of the above)? ... The demand for ideological celibacy by Carroll goes beyond any limit. So even if a Times staffer finds the time (no pun) to start a blog, his Big Brother Employer still wants to set the rules. He even wants to regulate what you say on the blogs of others."

BLOGGERS VS. BLOGGERS: The Better Button War

Ex-BC'04 web adviser Patrick Ruffini announces a set of buttons that pro-Bush bloggers can add to their sidebars. They read: "Proud Member of the Electoral-Based Community -- Est. Nov. 2, 2004." The line is principally a reference to a Weekly Standard online article on the Dem blogosphere by article by Soxblog writer Dean Barnett, and 2ndarily a response to liberal bloggers, many of whom term themselves part of the "reality-based community." Elsewhere, Hugh Hewitt and INDC Journal comment on the Barnett piece.

An Oliver Willis header from 7/14: "Why Is The Republican Party Promoting A Hate Site?" Wills comments on the RNC's new blog: "On the RNC's list of blogs it recommends reading are some of the usual suspects, including Patrick Ruffini, Powerline, Trey Jackson, Blogs for Bush, and others. But one site sticks out -- Little Green Footballs (LGF), operated by Charles Johnson, is notorious for being a promoter of and haven for some of the most virulent anti-Muslim and anti-Islam hate speech on the web." The site's rhetoric "would seem to be in stark contrast to President Bush's repeated proclamations that 'Islam is peace.'" Willis lists a number of outlandish comments from the site, press-release style. In a response at LGF, Johnson calls the outcry "a big yawn," reiterates his open comments policy, and accuses the official DNC blog of linking to "foul-mouthed far-left fanatics."

MISCELLANY: If It's News To Bloggers, It's In The Washington Post

• On 7/17 the Washington Post magazine profiled liberal Barbara O'Brien from The Mahablog and conservative Betsy Newmark, who writes Betsy's Page. Among highlights of the article, the 2 debate the Iraq war at the Nat'l Air and Space Museum, while tourists gather around. On a side note, David Von Drehle mistakes the term "Instalanche" as "Instalaunch."
• AfterDowningStreet.org e-mails bloggers to let them know about their "amazing 9-minute recreation thereof that uses the exact words of the 'Downing Street Memo,'" with actors (including Ed Asner) reading the parts. To stream the audio, click here.
• Righty Ed Morrissey, on Rep. Frank LoBiondo's (R-NJ) comments calling Gitmo detainees "worse than Hitler": "If you are an elected official, and the word "Nazi" starts to escape your lips, please please PLEASE squeeze them shut."
• At DailyKos, "pamindurham" explores why some African-Americans are switching to the GOP -- social issues including gay rights and abortion loom large.

THOUGHT OF THE DAY: Maybe There's Hope For The "Online Magazine" Movement After All

The Blog Herald: "More interesting research, this time from Nielsen//Netratings that found that a decent sized portion of blog readers don't actually realize they are reading blogs, and not only that, they don't even know what a blog is. The survey found that 13% of people who visited blogs didn't know what a blog was, and more incredibly 66% of people visiting a blog didn't realize they were visiting a blog, basically they just thought it was another web site. Whether this is bad I don't know. I'm sure people here would work it out: the 'blog' in the 'Blog Herald' would probably give it away, but the question remains, is it really a bad thing that the majority of blog readers don't actually realize they are reading blogs? If they did would they think less of the sites?"

LEST WE FORGET: A Kos By Any Other Name

Right-leaning Gay Orbit posts a cellphone snapshot of a Mercedes Benz with the license plate "KOS"; at Daily Kos, Markos "Kos" Moulitsas replies: "This isn't my car. I don't drive a Mercedes. I drive a Subaru. ... For the curious, 'kos' also means 'c---' in Farsi, and is a Greek island in the Aegean Sea. Both good reasons for someone to stick 'kos' on a license plate. ... Per the comments, 'kos' also means the Jugoslav secret police, 'kill on sight' in gamer's parlance, and 'blackbird' in Serbian. Oh, and in India, it's a 'variable measure of distance, usually estimated at two miles.'"

BLOGOMETER SPECIAL: Vacant, Indeed

What the blogosphere is saying about the SCOTUS vacancy:

Fred Barbash, from the Washington Post's Campaign for the Supreme Court blog: " The consensus of opinion ... is that [Chief Justice] William Rehnquist's decision to stay as long as his health permits at once simplifies and complicates the task for the White House. Pres. Bush has only one choice to make now. But it will be harder for him to satisfy all the various constituencies with a single nomination. I suspect that view is too short-term. It is still a strong probability, as many have written, that Bush will have other vacancies to fill during his presidency. Therefore, the White House can legitimately see the first appointment as one in a series and act accordingly. From the standpoint of vote groupings on the court, Rehnquist's departure and replacement by an equally conservative justice would have not changed the direction of the court. The [Sandra Day] O'Connor vacancy mattered more and still does."

At Bench Memos, NRO's Ed Whelan writes that a "good" SCOTUS pick would not rely on "foreign and international legal decisions and other legal materials to construe the meaning of the U.S. Constitution," as 6 SCOTUS members have done in "recent years."

GOP-leaning Confirm Them: "Maybe the most significant thing on the Sunday talk shows was Senator [Arlen] Specter saying that if Bush wants a 'dignified' hearing, he'd better nominate a moderate like O'Connor. Specter added that the moderate nominee should also be 'somebody who's been out in the world and has a more varied background.' Senator Specter ought to guarantee a 'dignified' proceeding no matter who is nominated."