Every morning for the past week or so, I have been doing a google news with the terms "rove plame." Every day, there are more and more articles linking the two. Today, my search was very satisfying. So, here's something fun to read while having your coffee this fine Sunday morning.
Newsweek's Michael Isikoff reveals that Rove was Matt Cooper's source:
It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. "Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]" and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.Double super secret background? Wow.
Anyway, it's clear that Rove was spinning the story not to believe Joseph Wilson. He was playing politics with national security and prepared to undermine Wilson at any cost:
In a brief conversation with Rove, Cooper asked what to make of the flap over Wilson's criticisms. NEWSWEEK obtained a copy of the e-mail that Cooper sent his bureau chief after speaking to Rove. (The e-mail was authenticated by a source intimately familiar with Time's editorial handling of the Wilson story, but who has asked not to be identified because of the magazine's corporate decision not to disclose its contents.) 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 "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger... "All this happened BEFORE the Novak column. Karl and the White House press people have been parsing words over this scandal since it began. Looks like Karl was right smack in the middle of it all along.
Meanwhile, we still have to see whether or not crimes were committed. Rove doing the perp walk is still a real possibility. Besides that, there should be ramifications for Rove. So, you have your leaker now, George Bush, what are you going to do about it?
And, it would be really, really great if this week, if the White House Press Corps asked some questions about Rove...or maybe they are have kind of double super secret background, too.
