Good Grief….. the Washington Post is desperate for this Rove Tempest in a Teapot, GOP on Offense in Defense of Rove

Republicans mounted an aggressive and coordinated defense of Karl Rove yesterday, contending that the White House’s top political adviser did nothing improper or illegal when he discussed a covert CIA official with a reporter.

With a growing number of Democrats calling for Rove’s resignation, the Republican National Committee and congressional Republicans sought to discredit Democratic critics and knock down allegations of possible criminal activity.

“The angry left is trying to smear” Rove, RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman, a Rove protege, said in an interview.

Actually the MSM and their friends on the LEFT are trying to create a story in a slow news environment, prior to a Supreme Court nomination to replace Sandra Day O’Connor.

A federal grand jury is investigating whether anyone in the Bush administration unlawfully leaked the name of a CIA official, Valerie Plame, to the news media. Although the White House has previously said Rove was not involved in the episode, a recently disclosed internal Time magazine e-mail shows that Rove mentioned Plame, albeit not by name, to reporter Matthew Cooper before her name and affiliation became public in July 2003. The grand jury is scheduled to hear from Cooper today.

The emerging GOP strategy — devised by Mehlman and other Rove loyalists outside of the White House — is to try to undermine those Democrats calling for Rove’s ouster, play down Rove’s role and wait for President Bush’s forthcoming Supreme Court selection to drown out the controversy, according to several high-level Republicans.

The White House said Bush retains full confidence in Rove, but for a second day officials would not answer a barrage of questions about Rove’s role in the leak scandal on the grounds that the investigation is not complete. But the RNC — effectively Bush’s political arm — weighed into the controversy in a major fashion.

Mehlman, who said he talked with Rove several times in recent days, instructed GOP legislators, lobbyists and state officials to accuse Democrats of dirty politics and argue Rove was guilty of nothing more than discouraging a reporter from writing an inaccurate story, according to RNC talking points circulated yesterday.

“Republicans should stop holding back and go on the offense: fire enough bullets the other way until the Supreme Court overtakes” events, said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.).

Rove has not been asked by senior White House officials whether he did anything illegal or potentially embarrassing to the president and he spent most of the day strategizing on Bush’s Supreme Court nomination, aides said.

“No one has asked him what he told the grand jury. No one has deemed it appropriate,” said a senior White House official, who would discuss the Rove case only on the condition of anonymity. “What you all need to figure out is, does this amount to a crime? That is a legitimate debate.” Still, some aides said they were concerned about the unknown. “Is it a communications challenge? Sure,” the official said.

Ahhhh up pops the anonymous source……so famous in Washington Post lore.

Rove couldn’t talk about what he told the Grand Jury in any case, unless he wants to be indicted for that.

Privately, even Rove’s staunchest supporters said the situation could explode if federal prosecutors accuse Rove or any other high-level official of committing a crime. William Kristol, a conservative commentator with close White House ties, said it would be hard to imagine a prosecutor conducting an investigation that has landed one reporter in jail and challenged the constitutional rights of the journalism profession without indicting someone. Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald “is the problem for the White House, and we have no idea what he knows,” Kristol said.

And if Rove is indicted by the Grand Jury for inapprpriate conduct, then he is innocent until proven guilty.

Oh wait, does that apply to the President’s political director?

Flap is positive the President will take the appropraite action if Rove is indicted by the Federal Grand Jury.

Until then, I suppose we will have to be entertained by the Washington Post’s anonymous sources, innuendo and gossip.

Gee, Flap did not know that the Wilson’s and Rove’s attended the same church.

Perhaps they can pray for each other….. Sheesh.

Gee, President Bush ignores questions about Karl Rove, Bush ignores questions about Rove in leak case.

The White House is suddenly facing damaging evidence that it misled the public by insisting for two years that presidential adviser Karl Rove wasn’t involved in leaking the identity of a female CIA officer.

Damaging evidence?

And what evidence is that USA Today and ASSociated Press?

The Newsweek story?

President Bush, at an Oval Office photo opportunity Tuesday, was asked directly whether he would fire Rove — in keeping with a pledge in June, 2004, to dismiss any leakers in the case. The president did not respond.

So, what?

There is an on-going criminal investigation.

Flap didn’t think it was such a slow news day.

Update #1

White House: Bush Has Confidence in Rove

At a White House briefing afterward, spokesman Scott McClellan was pressed about Rove’s future.

“Any individual who works here at the White House has the confidence of the president. They wouldn’t be working here at the White House if they didn’t have the president’s confidence,” McClellan said.

So, Bush is not going to FIRE Rove.

What is the story here?

Update #2

The MSM continues to harass Scott McClellan, Press Briefing by Scott McClellan

The Video is here.

The MSM won’t leave it alone until Rove is frog marched out of the White House.

From whom do they get their talking point questions?

Well, we know the answer to that.

In the meantime, Flap directs those idiots continuing to look for a story, Whopper: Joseph Wilson

Update #3

Also, those lefties looking for more, there is SCANDAL IMPLOSION by John Podhertz.

Wilson was the former ambassador sent by the CIA to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium in Africa; Plame, his CIA agent wife.

In that column, I offered my speculation of what an administration official might have said to a journalist to explain just how Wilson — a Clinton administration official — got the assignment in the first place: “Administration official: ‘We didn’t send him there. Cheney’s office asked CIA to get more information. CIA picked Wilson . . . Look, I hear his wife’s in the CIA. He’s got nothing to do. She wanted to throw him a bone.’ ”

Hate to say I told you so, but . . .

According to this week’s Newsweek, Karl Rove said something very similar indeed to Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper:

In the Cooper e-mails just surrendered by Time to the prosecutor looking into the Plame case, “Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a ‘big warning’ not to ‘get too far out on Wilson.’ Rove told Cooper that Wilson’s trip had not been authorized by . . . CIA Director George Tenet . . . or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, ‘it was, [Rove] said, Wilson’s wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.’ ”

There’s no mistaking the purpose of this conversation between Cooper and Rove. It wasn’t intended to discredit, defame or injure Wilson’s wife. It was intended to throw cold water on the import, seriousness and supposedly high level of Wilson’s findings….

…What isn’t controversial is this: Karl Rove didn’t “out” Valerie Plame as a CIA agent to intimidate Joe Wilson. He was dismissing Joe Wilson as a low-level has-been hack to whom nobody should pay attention. He was right then, and if he said it today, he’d still be right.

And if Valerie Plame wants to live a quiet spy life, she should stop having her picture taken by society photographers and stop getting stories written about her on the front page of the Times.

End of story…..

Captain Ed weighs in here, Podhoretz On Rove: I Told You So

Neither Plame’s occupation nor her name, nor even her familial connection to Wilson appears to have been kept a secret, not even by Wilson and his associates. The reference to her occupation by Rove looks like the typical inside information that the media claims it needs to hold government officials accountable. Their outrage now appears to be nothing more than manufactured partisan bile, utterly undermining their claimed need for anonymous sourcing.

I will presume this tempest in a teapot will fade away as soon as Bush announces his SCOTUS nominee. Let’s hope so, anyway.

YUP!

The sharks are circling and the teeth are bared (thanks Laura Ingraham) and who are they circling? Who is in the Shark tank? – why Karl Rove of course.

Now, the New York Times whines in this piece, At White House, a Day of Silence on Rove’s Role in C.I.A. Leak.

Nearly two years after stating that any administration official found to have been involved in leaking the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer would be fired, and assuring that Karl Rove and other senior aides to President Bush had nothing to do with the disclosure, the White House on Monday refused to answer any questions about new evidence of Mr. Rove’s role in the matter.

With the White House silent, Democrats rushed in, demanding that the administration provide a full account of any involvement by Mr. Rove, one of the president’s closest advisers, turning up the political heat in the case and leaving some Republicans worried about the possible effects on Mr. Bush’s second-term agenda.

Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, cited Mr. Bush’s statements about firing anyone involved in the leak and said, “I trust they will follow through on this pledge.”

Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said Mr. Rove, given his stature and the principles involved in the case, could not hide behind legal advice not to comment.

“The lesson of history for George Bush and Karl Rove is that the best way to help themselves is to bring out all the facts, on their own, quickly,” Mr. Schumer said, citing the second-term scandals that have beset previous administrations.

The Sharks smell blood in the water and since they could not beat Rove at the polls, but a scandel (even if contrived) works for them. Besides, it is a slow news summer in Washington and the President has not named his SCOTUS nomination yet.

In two contentious news briefings, the White House press secretary, Scott McClellan, would not directly address any of a barrage of questions about Mr. Rove’s involvement, a day after new evidence suggested that Mr. Rove had discussed the C.I.A. officer with a reporter from Time magazine in July 2003 without identifying her by name.

Under often hostile questioning, Mr. McClellan repeatedly declined to say whether he stood behind his previous statements that Mr. Rove had played no role in the matter, saying he could not comment while a criminal investigation was under way. He brushed aside questions about whether the president would follow through on his pledge, repeated just over a year ago, to fire anyone in his administration found to have played a role in disclosing the officer’s identity. And he declined to say when Mr. Bush learned that Mr. Rove had mentioned the C.I.A. officer in his conversation with the Time reporter.

When one reporter, David Gregory of NBC News, said that it was “ridiculous” for the White House to dodge all questions about the issue and pointed out that Mr. McClellan had addressed the same issues in detail in the past, Mr. McClellan replied, “I’m well aware, like you, of what was previously said, and I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time.”

A moment later, Terry Moran of ABC News prefaced his question by saying Mr. McClellan was “in a bad spot here” because he had spoken from the same podium in the White House briefing room on Oct. 10, 2003, after the Justice Department began its formal investigation into the leak, and specifically said that neither Mr. Rove nor two other officials – Elliot Abrams, a national security aide, and I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff – were involved.

Mr. McClellan disputed the characterization of the question but did not directly address why the White House had appeared now to have adopted a new policy of not commenting on the matter.

But, so what?

Karl Rove’s real problem is with the Grand Jury and the federal prosecutor Fitzpatrick.

If the New York Times wishes to contribute to the truth, release Judith Miller to reveal her source and end the suspense. How convenient the MSM enshrines Miller and her jailing for contempt and now encircles Rove in the Shark tank.

Read the Newsweek Story here.

This is a tempest in a tea pot.

A press field day!

Captain Ed over at Captains Quarters has A Mystery That They Could Solve Today.

The only people engaging in a cover-up are the media — the New York Times and Robert Novak. When they want this mystery solved, they’ll tell us who leaked the name. Until then, they’ll milk this for everything it’s worth to embarrass an administration they dislike.

Michelle Malkin has a great round-up of sentiment, WHO LET THE DOGS OUT?

White House press secretary Scott McClellan got grilled yesterday afternoon on Rove/Plame-mania and came under intense pressure from the MSM hounds, particularly NBC’s David Gregory and ABC’s Terry “The Royal” Moran:

Woof. Woof. Woof. Woof.

I actually have no problem with McClellan getting justifiably barked at during his daily briefings (if only we had more Les Kinsolvings to press the White House from the right, especially on illegal immigration). But isn’t it funny how Beltway reporters who get all prissy and whiny about one Fox News Channel reporter asking the DNC chairman one mildly aggressive question have no problem turning pack-rabid on McClellan?

Stephen Spruiell at the Media Blog raises another salient point:

Is [Judith] Miller refusing to testify because she herself outed Plame? Who knows? One thing is for sure: the press wants to have it both ways — attacking Scott McClellan today for not answering questions about Rove’s involvement, but reserving a place of honor for Miller, who has done more to obstruct the investigation of this incident than McClellan has. McClellan deserved the grilling he got today, but journalists deserve an equal grilling when they refuse to divulge information that the public has a right to know.

Lorie Byrd at Polipundit has a great takedown of the blow-dried boys, and notes that yesterday’s “questioning is disgraceful not because reporters beat Scott McClellan about the head over past statements. That is fair enough. What is disgraceful is today’s performance in the context of their past reporting on this matter, which has not accurately told the full story.” Read the whole thing.

The New York Times provides team coverage of the McClellan briefing. The most interesting stuff is, naturally, buried deep down in the last few grafs of the story:

The e-mail message from Mr. [Matthew] Cooper to his [Time] bureau chief describing a brief conversation with Mr. Rove, first reported in Newsweek, does not by itself establish that Mr. Rove knew Ms. Wilson’s covert status or that the government was taking measures to protect her.

Based on the e-mail message, Mr. Rove’s disclosures are not criminal, said Bruce S. Sanford, a Washington lawyer who helped write the law and submitted a brief on behalf of several news organizations concerning it to the appeals court hearing the case of Mr. Cooper and Judith Miller, a reporter for The New York Times. Ms. Miller has gone to jail rather than disclose her source.

“It is clear that Karl Rove’s conversation with Matt Cooper does not fall into that category” of criminal conduct, Mr. Sanford said. “That’s not ‘knowing.’ It doesn’t even come close.”

There has been some dispute, moreover, about just how secret a secret agent Ms. Wilson was.

“She had a desk job in Langley,” said Ms. Toensing, who also signed the supporting brief in the appeals court, referring to the C.I.A.’s headquarters. “When you want someone in deep cover, they don’t go back and forth to Langley.”

Danny Glover at Beltway Blogroll rounds up coverage on both sides.

More…

John Podhoretz on the scandal implosion.

Betsy Newmark:

“…the media can rant all they want, but days when we are at war in Iraq, terrorists are bombing Londoners on the way to work, North Korea and Iran are inches away from getting nuclear bombs, and it’s summer and vacation time, I don’t think most people outside the Beltway and the political blogosphere care one jot about Karl Rove.

Indeed, this story will be quickly forgotten when the President names his nominee to SCOTUS.

The Left and the MSM needs to Move-On.