-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Treasonous Lies of Bob Novak and Karl Rove
Date: Sun, 5 Oct 2003 20:38:46 EDT
From:
CHERDAV44@aol.com
To:
apfn@apfn.org
The Bush Old Guard Shows Its True Colors: The Treasonous Lies of Bob
Novak and Karl Rove (er - the "Unnamed Official")
By Cheryl Seal
As the saying goes, you cannot serve two masters. Bob Novak and Karl
Rove, representing the most arms of America most subverted by the NeoCon
regime - the White House and the media - are making it eminently clear
who they serve, and it isn't the American public.
I watched “Meet the Press” on Sunday (Oct 5), a show that more
accurately should be called the “Tim Russert Kiss-ass Hour” (or TRKA –
which, appropriately, sounds like the title of one of the more
knuckle-dragging species of college fraternities). The show’s sole
purpose for being is to allow Bush administration officials and other
darlings of the rightwing to drop by for coffee-and-camera time each
Sunday morning and present their slanted version of the latest outrage
they have committed on America while Russert smiles, nods and simpers.
This week’s episode of the TRKA Hour was dedicated to spinning the
Valerie Plame story. As you will recall, Valerie Plame is the CIA
operative who was outed in a collusion between, mostly probably, Karl
Rove and, most definitely, Bob Novak, a blustering, pompous old coot who
remains on the payroll of the “Chicago Sun-Times" for God knows what
reason (maybe he has accumulated sufficient dirt on the folks who would
probably LOVE to fire him). Novak has the distinction of being about the
last dedicated Bush administration apologist out there amongst the
“major columnists” who make regular rounds of shows like the TRKA Hour.
First up with Russert was Joseph Wilson, husband of Valerie Plame,
who, like a gallant husband and good citizen, is enraged by the outing
of his wife. Outing a CIA agent is, as I have said before, tantamount to
attempted murder, not mention felony theft of hundreds of thousands, if
not millions of taxpayer dollars. To establish an effective cover for an
agent may take years and a great deal of resources – all paid for by
American citizens. An agent like Plame, who worked with overseas
contacts, may have people in several different countries whose
confidence they have laboriously worked to gain. Those contacts, in
turn, have contacts, and so forth. Once an agent is outed, this entire
network is compromised, as is the safety of everyone involved who can
now be linked to Plame by the “bad guys.” Not only that, but you may as
well flush those taxpayer dollars spent to construct the cover down the
toilet.
Wilson was not intimidated by Russert, who enjoys bullying anyone not
in his Kalorama Kocktail Klub (the new KKK) circle, a mutual admiration
society centered in the swank Kalorama neighborhood where Cheney and
Russert dwell as chummy neighbors. Confronted by Wilson, Russert did
what he always does when someone has a good point: first he interrupted
Wilson mid-statement, then, when Wilson failed to be cowed, merely
lapsed into silent sulking. Wilson stood by his guns. Although he of
course could not be absolutely sure Karl Rove was behind the leak, Rove
pushed the leak for days after Novak first wrote about Plame. It should
also be pointed out that Karl Rove was FIRED by Bush I in the early
1990s for leaking damaging information about someone else to a reporter.
And guess who that reporter was? His good buddy Bob Novak. Wilson also
stood by his assertion that, should Rove be proven guilty, he should be
frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs.
Next, Novak himself appeared. Russert simpered and snickered and
rapturously listened to every comment of this sellout “columnist,”
careful not to bring up any “difficult” points such as questioning Novak
about his previous episode with Karl Rove in the early 1990s. If I were
a Republican PR person, the last person I would have wished to have
appear on the TRKA Hour was a character as unsympathetic in looks and
manner as Novak. This sour, jowly, hound-dog-eyed old geezer looks like
someone sent over from central casting to play the role of the Evil Bank
Manager in a movie in which the bank forecloses on Sunnybrook Farm and
Rebecca is evicted. Worse, Novack’s only defense was bluster and the
repeated claim: “I’ve been in this business 40 years” (repeated four
times that I counted).
Let’s take a look at the gaping holes in Novak’s story:
NOVAK STORY: He claims he had absolutely no idea that the information
about Plame was a big deal. He says he got the impression that she was a
paper pusher in one of the CIA’s DC offices. He said the comment about
Plame working for the CIA was “just an offhand remark” at the end of the
conversation.
HOLE: The fact that the White House informant called several other
journalists looking for a place to plant the leak is, by itself, enough
to blow this story out of the water. But even more damning to Novak’s
case is that in his article on Plame, he referred to her repeatedly as a
CIA “operative.” Since when would anyone – even the slowest-witted among
us – describe someone who files papers in an office as a “CIA
operative?”
NOVAK STORY: “I’ve been in this business 40 years….”
HOLE: Anyone who has been a journalist for 40 years, unless they are
senile (maybe that’s Novak’s best defense!) would know the difference
between “CIA paper pusher” and “CIA operative.”
NOVAK STORY: He claims he is not revealing his source because that is
his prerogative as a journalist.
HOLE: That prerogative is supposed to apply only to sources who, at
the time of imparting the information, made the journalist promise not
to reveal the source. In the case of Turner vs. Dolcefino, for example,
the issue was that the reporter had vowed silence in exchange for the
information given by the source.
In addition, journalistic prerogative usually involves PRIVATE
CITIZENS. The protection of White House officials is, to say the least,
overstretching prerogative by most anyone's definition. Why? The press
is supposed to be in the business of PROTECTING the public from
unethical officials, not protecting the unethical officials! Once Novak
knew that he had been induced to out a CIA agent, it should have become
his duty as a journalist to expose the perpetrator. In any case, Novak
claimed that the comment about Plame was "an offhand remark" made at the
end of a regular conversation. Since when does an "offhand remark" at
the end of an "ordinary conversation" involve swearing the listener to
secrecy? C'mon, Novak. It was either leak and you KNEW it, or it was a
casual conversation and needn't be kept secret.
NOVAK STORY: When Tim Russert asked Novak is he was afraid he might
go to prison for refusing to reveal his sources, Novak smirked smugly
and said he hardly thought that would be a danger.
HOLE: If Novak takes his own story about journalistic prerogative
seriously, then he SHOULD be worried. Why isn’t he worried? First,
because he doesn’t take his own line seriously – it’s bullsh-t and he
knows it. Second, because he knows in any case that his good buddy John
Ashcroft would never put him in jail. That treatment is reserved for
young women (Vanessa Leggett) without friends in high places who aren’t
jeapordizing national security and who aren’t officially even
journalists!
NOVAK STORY: The CIA called Novak and told him not to use Plame’s
name because it would make things very difficult for her, especially
when she went abroad. Novak claims that this didn’t seem strong enough
to compel him not to reveal Plame’s name.
HOLE: As Novak is so fond of saying…he’s “been in this business 40
years” and knows how Washington works. It this is true, then he KNOWS
that the CIA cannot provide him with any details about an agent and the
nature of her work (like mentioning that she could be killed in
retaliation) because to do so would further compromise her.
NOVAK STORY: Incredibly, Novak tries to justify his injustifiable act
against Plame by saying that he thinks Wilson was too left-leaning to
have been entrusted with investigating the Iraq WMD issue.
HOLE: Novak proves here that he is anything but a patriotic American
citizen. In our system, we are supposed to have an unbiased jury, an
unbiased judge, and, ideally, a government that represents the check and
balance of two parties. When we are talking about going to WAR, then it
seems critical above all things to have an unbiased “jury” examining the
evidence. Who would think it was “American” to have a jury trying a
black man, for example, stacked with white racists? We have worked
decades to root out that kind of injustice. If Novak were a patriotic
American, he would applaud Wilson’s role, especially as Wilson’s take on
the WMDs has been confirmed by David Kay.
But the fact of the matter is, Novak and Rove -regardless of whether
Rove was the direct leaker or merely the highest-level (short of Bush)
“leak condoner”- are NOT good citizens nor are they patriotic Americans.
Here are the crimes against Democracy, the American public, and private
individuals they have committed:
1. Undermining of national security by exposing a CIA operative and
by creating a rift of trust between the White House and CIA.
2. Attempted murder. That is what outing a CIA agent amounts to,
purely and simply. In the 1990s, an agent named Welch was outed and,
within a short time, found murdered outside his home. Some of the people
in the chain of contacts of which Plame was a part may be murdered, even
if she is not. Sadly, these retaliatory murders may never be revealed
because of the secrecy of the chain.
3. Subversion of the American press. Novak allowed the American press
to be used as a tool by the White House for revenge. This is not “free
speech” or “journalistic prerogative.” This is premeditated abuse of the
press, just as surely as the Mockingbird program, through which the CIA
planted phony, damaging stories in the press to help gain White House
and Pentagon objectives. Just as no one would call the Mockingbird
program “the right of free speech,” no one would consider what Novack
did his “right.” What possible public”need to know” was there in
revealing Valerie Plame as an agent?
4. Theft of American tax dollars. By refusing to come forward with
the leaker, both Rove and Novack are forcing the need for an
investigation – a very expensive investigation. The right thing to do,
the selfless thing to do, would be for Novak to come clean about his
source and/or for the leaker to step forward for the good of the
country. The fact that this is not happening is glaring,
incontrovertible proof that Novack and Rove’s self interest outweigh all
other considerations, including the welfare of the American people they
are supposed to serve.
5. Advocation of a dictatorship: The fact that Wilson’s report on the
WMDs was considered reason enough to make he and his wife targets at the
expense of American security and tax dollars shows a despotic – in fact
murderous - intolerance of dissent that is appropriate only to the most
oppressive fascist dictatorships. That is certainly not the America that
real patriots want to be a part of or to uphold.
In future history books when they list those who made constructive
contributions to America in the early 21th century, missing from the
list will be Karl Rove, Bob Novak, Tim Russert, Rush Limbaugh and all
the otherr hypocritical, treasonous losers who have made it their
personal mission in life to tear down the American ideal so many
thousands have given their lives over the past 250 years to build.
---------------------------
This White House Scandal Finally Tips the Scale!
http://www.apfn.org/APFN/LEAKGATE.HTM
Suspicion centers on Lewis Libby
http://www.apfn.org/LEAK-GATE/libby.htm
White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales sent a notice Friday to all
White House employees instructing them to turn in copies of numerous
documents for the ongoing probe into who leaked the name of a CIA
operative to a newspaper columnist.
http://www.apfn.org/LEAK-GATE/notice.htm
From top advisers to junior staff, nearly 2,000 White House employees
were ordered to come forward by Tuesday with any documents that might
help the criminal investigation into the leak of an undercover CIA
officer's identity.
http://www.apfn.org/LEAK-GATE/clue.htm
Without Justice, there is JUST_US!
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/
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"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas Jefferson
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects what never
was and never will be...
The People cannot be safe without information." -- Thomas Jefferson
http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/message/45
