Does Rove Deserve An Apology?

September 7th, 2006 · 18 Comments · Main, National

There is an excellent column today in The Washington Post (and syndicated around the country) by David Broder, who is as non-partisan as columnists get. In case you haven’t seen it, click here to read it.

When word first broke of the outing of Valerie Plame, I was very concerned that an injustice had been committed. But the more I learned of it, the less worried I became. All those journalists cited by Broder (and many, many others) ought to be ashamed of themselves for jumping to conclusions.

It seems all too often we are inclined to believe the worst about people we do not like, regardless of the evidence. And let’s face it, Rove is not a very likeable guy. But now it turns out he had nothing to do with the initial leak and that it was promulgated instead by a career State Department appointee whose dislike for Bush 43 and the neocons was reportedly an open secret in Washington.

I don’t think I ever wrote anything implying a grand conspiracy to smear a decent person, but if I did, I apologize. I’m not sure I can say that Joe Conason or Sidney Blumenthal will do the same.

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18 responses so far ↓

1 Rick Howe // Sep 7, 2006 at 7:06 pm

The Armitage revelation is not the end of this matter. Here’s a quote from Michael Isikoff at Newsweek: “if the real story of the Plame outing was as simple as Armitage telling Novak everything, and Novakula then getting a terse confirmation from Rove and going to press, it makes very little sense for Fitzgerald’s investigation to unfold as it has. So it’s probably safe to assume that things didn’t happen that way.”

Time will tell if an apology is owed Rove. As to David Broder, here’s a quote from James Wolcott of Vanity Fair, “Is There a Greater Fool Than David Broder, Dean of Washington Pundits?”
Posted by James Wolcott
2 Janet Manko // Sep 7, 2006 at 10:54 pm

I think that Broder’s example of Blumenthal as the big mouth “journalist” who is one of many who owe Rove an apology is misrepresentation. Blumenthal is a former political aide from the Clinton Administration, not a journalist. There may be others who are journalists who should retract statements made about Rove, but I’ll propose that the majority of those are in broadcast media. There has been plenty of empty speculation on the cable and network news talk shows on the Plame case. So will the pundits who speculated with no basis in reality now get out the humble pie and apologize? That I’d like to see, but I’d also like to see them apologize to the Ramsey family for their speculation on their home life, etc. etc.
But, it doesn’t matter whether Armitage meant to “out” Plame or not. He did reveal her identity, and so he should be just as accountable, in the courts and in the media, as Rove would have been or may still be on some level (i.e., confirming as a second source.)
3 Jake // Sep 7, 2006 at 11:47 pm

“And letâ€™s face it, Rove is not a very likeable guy.”

Other than the fact that he consistently beats Democrats, what is it exactly that makes him not “likeable”? After all, he’s 5-0 and “Americans like a winner”… right?
4 Rick Howe // Sep 8, 2006 at 9:01 am

I must fess up that I regret including the quote from Wolcott about Broder in my comment above. Name calling is not nice.

As to Jake’s question, “what is it exactly that makes him [Rove] not ‘likeable’?” Rove has built his entire career on sliming opponents, rumor-mongering, and outright lies.

Take the case of Max Cleland. From the book “Bush’s Brain”: James Moore: “The Max Cleland case is a classic example of Rove. Senator Max Cleland [D â€“ Ga.] and Senator Joseph Lieberman [D â€“ Conn.] came up with the idea for a Department of Homeland Security. Karl bristled at it and said, we donâ€™t need another stupid huge government bureaucracy.

But he did some overnight polling to see what the publicâ€™s take on it was and discovered that there was very strong interest in it. So the Republicans cobbled together their own Homeland Security bill. But Karl threw anti-labor and anti-union provisions into the republican version of the bill. Senator Cleland couldnâ€™t vote for that and neither could Senator Lieberman. They voted against the Republican bill and for the Democratâ€™s version.

When the midterm elections come around and Senator Cleland was up for re-election, the Republicans ran an ad on television that showed Max Cleland â€“ a veteran who left three limbs in Vietnam, an American hero, whoâ€™s spent every day of his adult life in service to his country â€“ on the same screen with Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein â€“ and said that Cleland voted to stop the Homeland Security bill.

It completely destroyed his re-election efforts.”
5 Jake // Sep 8, 2006 at 2:18 pm

Bush’s Brain… well that’s a source… I guess.

Rove and Co. wouldn’t go for unionizing the Coast Guard? Gee, it’s all clear to me now.
6 Rick Howe // Sep 8, 2006 at 5:44 pm

Jake,

There’s a little more to it than “Rove and Co. wouldnâ€™t go for unionizing the Coast Guard.” 170,000 federal employees were transferred into the Department of Homeland Security. The Bush administration sought to take away the collective bargaining rights of those who were unionized. This was just a warm up to plans to change the rules for all unionized federal workers, just under one million of the 1.8 million total. That’s a serious assault on workers’ rights. However, in June of this year, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit ruled that allowing the department to unilaterally break negotiated contracts is “plainly unlawful,”
7 Marshall Miles // Sep 8, 2006 at 8:07 pm

Terry:
Plane, Rove, are all the same to me. Why should the Washington Press start apologizing now?! I am confident that they are equal opportunity misrepresenters!!! Democrats and Republicans, if they smell blood, they lose control and throw caution and good reporting to the wind.
By the way, would you want either one of them (Plame or Rove) to marry your brother or sister?!!!!

Marshall
8 Yankee // Sep 10, 2006 at 2:03 pm

A minor correction on Janet’s characterization of Sidney Blumenthal. In fact, he was a journalist, a staff writer at The Washington Post. One of the reasons he is no longer is that he seemed to find it impossible to report and write news stories that were both accurate and fair to all sides. In the Post newsroom, there were many staff writers who felt that Blumnthal was little more than a talented hack for the Democrats. This is only to say that while he may no longer be held to the higher standards of journalism, even when he was a journalist, he had little interest in giving the reader at least one crack at the facts before Sidney told them what to think. He was much better suited to being a partisan Clinton aide than to being a reporter. I doubt he has changed his stripes.
9 Terry // Sep 10, 2006 at 3:40 pm

Yankee,

Thanks for the clarification. I’m of a firm mind that even commentators or those such as Blumenthal who are partisan hacks have an obligation to be fair and refrain from jumping to conclusions before the facts are in.
10 charlie derr // Sep 12, 2006 at 8:59 am

I don’t get this. Apology? Rove still shared the name of an undercover CIA agent with people in the press who didn’t know this information. Why is this not reprehensible? It was definitely not public knowledge at the time. This deliberate act caused that information to be very widely disseminated very quickly. — It really doesn’t matter to me if the act wasn’t technically “illegal” because there is really some other guy who said it first.
11 Terry // Sep 12, 2006 at 9:19 am

Charlie,

Rove’s sharing of Plame’s name consisted of saying to Novak, “I’ve heard that, too,” when the latter asked him about Joe Wilson’s wife being a CIA operative. Contrary to the prevailing CW for the last couple of years, Rove was not the leaker.

I am not trying to minimize the reprehensible nature of the leak; I just think those who immediately jumped to the conclusion that this was some sort of well orchestrated Bush admin attempt to smear Plame/Wilson should reassess their initial reaction. I have done so and have concluded I was wrong.
12 Rick Howe // Sep 13, 2006 at 7:10 pm

Terry,

Here’s a link to a St. Louis Post-Dispatch column by Eric Mink I wish to recommend. Sorry I don’t know how to use the tag. It’s Mink’s take on the question you posed: Does Rove deserve an apology? It’s the paragraph near the end, beginning “And on July 11 . . .” to which I’d like to hear your reaction

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/columnists.nsf/ericmink/story/79BED3F49C8E0E01862571E80001C928?OpenDocument
13 Terry // Sep 14, 2006 at 11:25 am

It seems like partisans on the left want to find Rove repsonsible for everything they don’t like about this administration. Whom would you blame without him? It reminds me of the Iranians after the revolution in the 1970s blaming every ill in their nation on the CIA. Now some on the left are wondering aloud whether Rove is responsible for Nancy Johnson’s latest attack ad on Chris Murphy.

Mink’s column makes some generalizations about writers who have been critical of those who jumped immediately onto the anti-Rove bandwagon.

Finally, there has been a strident insistence that Armitage’s admission earns presidential adviser Karl Rove an apology from anyone who criticized Rove’s actions in the Wilson affair, especially anyone in the media.

That’s certainly not what I wrote. The disclosure that Armitage was the original source of the information about Plame casts doubt on the contention by people like Conason and Blumenthal that this whole affair is the result of a smear campaign initiated by Rove and the VP’s office. That’s why I think likeminded pundits (not “anyone who criticized Rove’s actions”) owe him an apology. It certainly does not let Armitage off the hook, nor should it.

Let’s not forget it was Wilson falsely stating that he had been sent by the VP’s office to Niger (when it was actually his wife who recommended him) that set this whole thing in motion. That does not excuse Armitage’s actions, but I have yet to see anyone on the left criticize Wilson’s false claim. I refer you to a column today by Bob Novak that elaborates on Armitage’s disclosure, which Novak took to be deliberate.
14 Rick Howe // Sep 14, 2006 at 2:50 pm

Terry,

I had not read that “Wilson falsely stating that he had been sent by the VPâ€™s office to Niger (when it was actually his wife who recommended him).” I know this is what Chaney (or someone in the Bush Admin) said when this whole bruhaha started, but I didn’t know that it had been proven true. Have the Wilsons admitted this? I am not saying you are wrong, just that I had read this only in connection with things being said by the admin. which had some problems with truth v. lies, and the whole yellow cake episode.

I’m also wondering, however, what difference this makes. Plame could have recommended her husband, but she could not have been the one to send him. How is this issue relevant? Again, I am not saying you are wrong, but I don’t get how this matters.

To return to Mink: “And on July 11 — before Novak’s column appeared — Rove spoke to Time’s Cooper by phone and told him that Mrs. Wilson worked at the CIA in connection with weapons of mass destruction.” Does this not make Rove more culpable of outting Plame than the simple confirmation of her status to Novak?

As to this partisan-on-the-left wanting to blame Rove for everything I dislike about this admin, ‘fraid that’s not so. There’s Bush, himself, to blame, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Hadley, . . . .
15 Terry // Sep 14, 2006 at 3:20 pm

Rick,

You probably don’t like the Wall Street Journal editorial page, but it reported that Wilson had been going on television saying the VP’s office sent him. It’s in the second paragraph of this editorial. If it had been proved not true, I’m sure the WSJ would have taken it down by now or the Wilsons would have demanded a retraction or sued the paper for defamation, in addition to everyone else they’re suing in Washington.

It’s only worth mentioning because I have never heard anyone on the left condemn Wilson’s false assertion (or a possible attempt to conceal nepotism, for that matter). But as I said, it would not justify Armitage’s disclosure, but it does expose a certain attitude of selective outrage on both sides.

In addition, it puts into context the Bush administration’s perceived need to discredit Wilson. Here was a guy getting face time on TV and telling lies about the VP’s office, so they overreacted and confirmed Armitage’s leak. It’s not an excuse but it does bring the whole thing into sharper focus.
16 Rick Howe // Sep 14, 2006 at 3:59 pm

Terry,

As I said, hadn’t read that. Thanks for the link.
17 Rick Howe // Sep 14, 2006 at 5:41 pm

Terry,

Not sure why you added this to your response to me: “You probably donâ€™t like the Wall Street Journal editorial page”

The issue was whether or not something you stated is fact, and the following from the editorial established that. What I think of the WSJ editorial page is beside the point.

“Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip,” said the report.
18 Tom Cowgill // Sep 14, 2006 at 8:40 pm

â€œInterviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip,â€

Suggested to whom, Cheny?

The Armitage leak does not yet change everything. Rove also leaked to Cooper. Libby leaked to Miller. It is beyond my belief that these two men, who were in daily contact, did not discuss it.

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