Robert Novak’s Source - Part 2
Continued discussion…
Here’s why I think that the media is not targeting Novak. There has been speculation about the reasons behind it but I am not alone in noticing that Novak is not being targeted.
making Novak the center of this investigation is about as fruitful as holding Ollie North responsible for the Iran-Contra scandal. people with much more power are behind this mess. Novak is nothing more than a lackey for the administration. i’m sure there has been a concerted effort in the White House to put some distance between Rove & Novak.
Why would Novak be targeted? There is no way he could’ve committed a crime related to Plame’s outing - he would’ve had to have much higher security clearance than any journalist would to be able to access and then illegally leak the information. I mean seriously.
I have no idea what that is supposed to mean but then I take it you have finally accepted that for whatever reason Novak is not being targeted? and apparently despite the Cooper revelation, neither is Rove. So then, why oh why does this all seem to be focusing on Judith Miller? She is after all the only one that is being sent to jail at present, right? Why? I don’t know. I am asking why?
Christ Fred, I thought we’d been over this. 1) I’ve never said it was targeting Novak. I don’t know anyone who has. 2) I’m still not convinced Rove’s not a major focus, although definitely not the central one. 3) As asked before - explain how on Earth you reach the assumption Miller is being targeted? She’s in jail because she refuses to snitch on her source, that part’s common bloody knowledge. Cooper would be in jail too, except he revealed his. Obviously either Miller values the protection of sources extremely highly or her source is someone in a particularly sensitive or powerful position. I don’t see how you can connect the dots and assume that this is all somehow focusing primarily on Miller. Is it because your attempts to get everyone focusing on Wilson have failed?
Then let me rephrase and say that currently Miller is central to all this. I find it incredible that a writer for the NY Times would have an issue about revealing a source if it in fact could damage the White House. Think of the incredible Pulitzer Prize she would be given for the new Watergate, for being the one to destroy the Bush White House and yet she is silent… Why would she remain silent if Rove were the one to have been her source? Why wouldn’t Rove also give Miller permission to reveal himself as the source when he already did so for Cooper? And why would Miller refuse to name her source IF Rove was that person given that he had already “outed” himself with Cooper?
And how much higher in the White House can you get than Rove? Do you think that Cheney or Bush would be the ones to be making phone calls to reporters? That’s not how it works in the White House. So then, not Rove and no one higher up than him so most likely someone lower, but then any such person could be relatively easily removed right? So where would the big damage be to the White House if not from one of his top lieutenants?
I am starting to think Arianna Huffington is onto something and if she is right, then I think that there is going to be very little traction for the Democrats on this. Yet another failed attempt to create and sustain a scandal. Ah well, hell hath no fury like a woman scorned. And that’s precisely what the electorate did twice to the Democrats and their “aspirations.”
And I was not trying to push this discussion off on Wilson. I merely pointed out that Plame got him the job and as such Rove’s conversation with Cooper was a very natural one in light of the context. No one will be able to prove malicious intent on that score. So where does that leave us? No one really can say until this investigation is completed and really we are going to have to find out just what Miller knows won’t we?
Let’s look at that article again…
[quote]Not everyone in the Times building is on the same page when it comes to Judy Miller. The official story the paper is sticking to is that Miller is a heroic martyr, sacrificing her freedom in the name of journalistic integrity.
But a very different scenario is being floated in the halls. Here it is: It’s July 6, 2003, and Joe Wilson’s now famous op-ed piece appears in the Times, raising the idea that the Bush administration has “manipulate[d]” and “twisted” intelligence “to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.” Miller, who has been pushing this manipulated, twisted, and exaggerated intel in the Times for months, goes ballistic. Someone is using the pages of her own paper to call into question the justification for the war – and, indirectly, much of her reporting. The idea that intelligence was being fixed goes to the heart of Miller’s credibility. So she calls her friends in the intelligence community and asks, Who is this guy? She finds out he’s married to a CIA agent. She then passes on the info about Mrs. Wilson to Scooter Libby (Newsday has identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 in Washington with an “unnamed government official”). Maybe Miller tells Rove too – or Libby does. The White House hatchet men turn around and tell Novak and Cooper. The story gets out.
This is why Miller doesn’t want to reveal her “source” at the White House – because she was the source. Sure, she first got the info from someone else, and the odds are she wasn’t the only one who clued in Libby and/or Rove (the State Dept. memo likely played a role too)… but, in this scenario, Miller certainly wasn’t an innocent writer caught up in the whirl of history. She had a starring role in it. This also explains why Miller never wrote a story about Plame, because her goal wasn’t to write a story, but to get out the story that cast doubts on Wilson’s motives. Which Novak did.[/quote]
Who is this Arianna Huffington anyway? I never heard of her before they started putting her opinions in the Yahoo News page. I think she runs a blog. I hate blogs. I never heard of Judith Miller before either.
I read an opinion piece yesterday (I forgot who) that said it’s time to finish this investigation. Two years is long enough. I agree. All we’re getting is speculation from bloggers. Where have all the leakers gone?
[quote]On another level, some of the paper’s elite reporters – not to mention some Times columnists – suggest in various pieces on the Plame affair that they are somewhat skeptical of her claim that she was contemplating writing a story on Plame in early summer 2003. The issue is critical because, if she was not actually talking to people about a story, what was she talking to them about?
Adam Liptak, who reports on legal affairs for The Times, stated to NPR’s Terry Gross on August 2: “Judy and her lawyers have declined to answer the question of whether they have done anything at all to contact the source and try to obtain a satisfactory waiver” that would permit her to break confidentiality and testify before the grand jury.
It is hard to fathom why national media critics have not made more of Doug Jehl’s critical analysis in the July 28 Times, which raised doubts about Miller’s claims to have been “reporting” on Plame in the summer of 2003. On August 1, I posed that issue to Howard Kurtz on “Media BackTalks” at the online Washington Post. His response: “The fact that Judith Miller never wrote a story about the Plame matter has been cited again and again from the first moment she was subpoenaed in the case. That does raise a question about the nature of her involvement, but it’s possible she was just talking to her sources and this matter came up, or that she was reporting a story and didn’t feel she had enough material to write (not an uncommon occurrence in journalism). I do think the Times should clarify her role…”[/quote]
and
Wonder why not?
At least we know who Rove is – a man willing to break the law to pursue partisan political gain. That the law might be 18 USC Section 641 is quite likely, given the John Dean article.
We also know who Bush is – a man willing to hide a traitor during wartime in the White House.
she is a former republican/conservative that has come to her senses and is now quite progressive/liberal.
Rove is guilty of something…you don’t get called to the Grand Jury 3 times if you’re clean.
[quote=“Hondu Grease”]Rove is guilty of something…you don’t get called to the Grand Jury 3 times if you’re clean.[/quote]I’m not entirely convinced, although that’s certainly not a good sign for him. If he is guilty of anything, I doubt it’s much more severe than perjury, though.
“I have never written an article about Valerie Plame or Joe Wilson. I did however contemplate writing one or more articles in July 2003, about issues related to Ambassador Wilson’s op-ed piece. In preparation for those articles, I spoke and/or met with several potential sources. One or more of those potential sources insisted as a precondition to providing information to me, that I agree to maintain the confidentiality of their identity.”
– Judith Miller, affidavit filed with U.S. District Court
Lewis “Scooter” Libby is the key subject of interest.
MFGR:
You know nothing of the sort. This is yet another of your frequent allegations and I expect that most likely you will once again be dancing down tangents when your direct assault does not pan out.
Libby is the focus of the investigation? News to me. How was this determined? According to Huffington and the other link I posted, Miller may have been the one to give Libby and Rove the information about Plame. This ain’t over until it’s over.
Regardless, if it is Libby then I really have to wonder about MFGR going on and on about Rove.
Again, we are not going to be able to do more than speculate until we find out what the investigations conclusions are right?
I think that we should have a contest to predict the next MFGR allegation against the administration. Those using the most MFGRisms to present their case–the more ludicrous the better–may be eligible for a nice dinner from Frederick P. Smith V. at the restaurant of their choice or absenting that perhaps willing to accept a suggestion from Frederick P. Smith V. regarding restaurant choice? This may be wise given that Frederick P. Smith V.'s expanding waistline might be a better indication than any and is direct proof of his interest in food and drink.
From Admiral Bobby R. Inman (USN Ret.) on Intel leaks and the Plame affair.
[quote]Inman on the Culture of Leaks
I recently asked Admiral Bobby R. Inman (USN Ret.), a professor at UT’s LBJ School of Public Affairs
who served as both Director of the National Security Administration and former Deputy Director of
Central Intelligence, what he thought about Wilson, Plame and the leaking of classified information.
Inman brought up an episode that has been overlooked in the recent debate
Are you really willing to say that Rove’s “not willing to break the law for partisan gain”? Check out the sorts of tricks he’s done in elections in the past, even to people like John McCain. Rove’s been up to his neck in dirty tricks for the entirety of his career. 18 USC 641 is likely the tip of the iceberg. Perhaps his years of feeling he’s above the law will finally come to a crashing halt.
Miller’s conversation with Libby in the week before Novak’s article is the key target of Fitzgerald’s investigation. Miller has said if any of her sources sign personal waivers rather than the boilerplate waivers the administration had everyone sign she’ll talk about the contents of her conversation with Libby. Libby hasn’t signed one and his superiors haven’t asked him to. He’s only signed the general waiver which Miller regards as coercive.
It’s most likely true that outing Plame did little real damage to her career. The real problems are that the lives of those overseas she’s had contact with in the past are in some jeopardy now and secondly that it’s a violation of the law for someone with a security clearance to publicly disclose the identity of covert agents.
So now it is no longer Rove? It’s Libby? Well, I wonder what MFGR will have to say about that? haha
Anyway, there is some speculation that Miller was the source of Libby’s knowledge and not vice versa. I really hope that if that is the case then Libby should sign the other waiver and let Miller say what she has to.
I just saw on the news that Miller has agreed to testify in the Rove leak probe. She is now out of jail because of the deal she reached with Fitzgerald, and she will testify to the grand jury tomorrow morning.
Should be interesting.
abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory?id=1171698
EDIT:
So I guess her source was Libby after all?
Not necessarily. Let’s see what happens. We know that the conversation involved in her refusal to testify was the one that she had with Libby but we do not know who told who what when and how.