By PHK
For about a day, the Bush Administration succeeded – it seemed – to deflect the White House Press Corps’s attention away from Karl Rove’s imbroglio in Plamegate and onto John Roberts, Bush's newly minted nomination for Supreme Court Justice. The Roberts story knocked Rove and the continuing Plame/Wilson revelations off the front pages of major newspapers – for a 24 hour news cycle. But this morning, the Washington Post’s Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei broke the news in a front page story that a “classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA Officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked “(S)” for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.”
But why else as ABC’s The Note, Washington Post blogger Dan Froomkin, and others have pointed out, would Bush and Company suddenly announce Roberts nomination now, in the dead of summer when he, the President, had so recently indicated that he planned to take his time to interview candidates and consult with Senators about their suitability. This is one of the most abrupt about-faces I’ve seen in recent years – except those performed by marching bands or precision drill teams trained to execute razor-sharp 180 degree turns at a whistle's blow.
Clearly, the pressure was building in the White House press room and elsewhere about Rove, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and at least one – if not more - yet unidentified White House conspirator. And, of course, far more incriminating facts have been dribbling out through sources other than the closed-mouth, toe-the-party-line press spokesman Scott McClellan whose marching orders are now to say nothing because of the ongoing investigation. (See Froomkin for McClellan’s non-responses to Rove and Plamegate in yesterday’s White House Press Briefing.)
The gaggle that orchestrates the White House’s public image clearly must have decided that Bush needed to change his rhetoric from "taking appropriate action against anyone on his staff" for leaking classified information to firing anyone on his staff convicted of a crime. This change of wording is a vital difference.
Equally significant, the White House quickly needed to change the subject. Interesting isn’t it that both of these changes took place within a week of each other – about the same time Republican minions – including and especially RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman - were launched on the offensive and sent to blanket the talk shows repeating ad nauseum the less than truthful party lines on this sordid affair.
This change of topics is also significant in our fair capital where the summer humidity is so high the British Embassy considered it a hardship assignment before air conditioning. What’s the significance? Basically, Washington is known for being a one issue town – and Rove’s involvement in Plamgate was becoming the issue. So all Bush needed to do was, well . . . change the story. And fast.
In the meantime Rove’s telling of his side of Plamegate seems ever more convoluted. Could he suffer information overload – like some of the rest of us mortals – in this data-deluged age and not remember what information was classified and what was not? Or where he got the information in the first place? Or what he did or did not say to journalists? Or who called whom?
Or is it because he’s intentionally obfuscating? Apparently, Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has indicated that Rove is not the target of the Grand Jury investigation. If not, why not and who is? Rove’s rather high up in the White House to be covering for all that many others. Or is he covering up a coordinated White House conspiracy plot? If so, where will Fitzgerald’s investigation lead?
In other words, is Rove protecting someone at a higher level? And/or is Rove then trying to cover up for an intentionally orchestrated White House smear campaign against an Ambassador who knew what he was talking about and had the courage to go public?
Regardless, it doesn’t look good. Whether the MSM continue to ask the embarrassing questions or not - and I hope the Post and others keep on the trail, the evidence thus far suggests this prosecutor will do his job.
Frankly, I’m tired of hearing – or reading – the continuing barrage of White House insinuations that Wilson lied - that he didn’t tell the truth about the Niger yellow cake “non-deal.” Maybe this plays well with the Bush faithful who are the least likely to admit to knowing anything about this complex political scandal, but it’s not resonating as well with Democrats or Independents. Recent Pew polling data, for instance, suggest that Bush’s trustworthiness quotient has fallen by 13 percent (from 62 percent in September 2003 to 49 in July 2005) and “indications are that the Rove controversy” contributes to it.
It’s really difficult for an Ambassador, or even a former Ambassador in the government’s employ, to question any administration’s pronouncements in public and certainly not in a New York Times Op-Ed - if the Ambassador didn’t know the facts. Besides, if the White House could prove Wilson wrong, why didn’t it do so? The name-calling, lying and cover-ups that have ensued so far don’t suffice. Or, at the very least why hasn’t the White House come forth with the information now - as the counsel’s noose tightens. The answer is, the White House can’t because Wilson was and is right. And blowing a covert intelligence officer’s cover is a federal offense. But then, this White House plays loose with the truth. It has done so from the beginning, and it doesn’t matter who it hurts in the process. The facts are superfluous.
So if the Pew data is right – and it corroborates with another major poll taken about the same time - maybe the American public is beginning to catch on to what much of the rest of the world understood in the summer 2002: the hypocrisy of this administration.
The sinking opinion poll numbers are just another reason, of course, for the White House to engage in the Roberts nomination deflection scheme.
But will deflection or diversion work? I hope not. Maybe for a few days, but my hunch is that it will not in the long run – as the Post articles already demonstrate.
The issue of deception, of course, lies at the bottom of all this – as it did for Richard Nixon’s Watergate. The illegal deed was part of Nixon’s undoing, but Watergate ultimately undid the Nixon presidency because of the cover-up that followed. I’m not suggesting that we will see a repeat with Rove vs. Plame, but we’ve still got three and a half years left in this President’s final term – and a lot can happen between then and now.