Some Forgotten Details

In the coverage of Rove's emails, a lot of facts have gotten lost. I had to remind my wife what the whole thing is about. Much of what is being reported on the news is incomplete or inaccurate. I thought that this would be a good time for a recap.

In his State of the Union address prior to invading Iraq, President Bush stated that British intelligence learned that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium from Africa. Shortly after that, former ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote an editorial saying that Bush had lied, that Wilson had been sent to Africa to investigate the charge and found that it was false. He went on to say that he knew that the final report was wrong immediately because it named the wrong officials as confirmed by Google.

A few months after this, Robert Novak wrote a column attacking Wilson's credibility. Among other things, Novak mentioned that Wilson was not particularly qualified to have done the investigation and only got the job because his wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA operative, recommended him.

Wilson shot back charging that his wife's status as a CIA employee was secret. He wrote a book insisting that his wife's identity had been revealed specifically to endanger her life and that this was meant as a warning to any other whistle-blowers.

Democrats took up the charge, some going so far as to insist that Novak should be charged with treason.

So far this has all been covered in the re-cap. Now we get to the part that is being ignored.

Around a year ago it came out that Wilson is a liar and a political hack. He was hired because his wife recommended him. The report he turned into the White House indicated that Iraq was trying to buy Uranium, just the opposite of what he was claiming in public. As for his claim that he knew immediately that the final report was wrong - he made that up. It turns out that he has never seen the report. He does not have security clearance for it.

It is also unclear just what Valerie Plame's function is. At the time of Novak's article she was an analyst based in DC. No one seems to be sure if she ever did any field work or if it was within five years of the leak. Her daring life as a Jane Bond might be another of Wilson's fabrications.

So Rove was trying to shield the White House from a cheap political attack based on lies. In the process of defending the President, Rove told how Wilson got the job and in the process, let slip why Plame was in a position to get her husband a job. He does not appear to have meant for this information to get out but it did.

Of course, the left hates Rove with a passion. They are sure that without him they would still control the country and that the road to retaking Congress and the White House begins with removing Rove. Accordingly they are jumping all over the story and distorting the facts. Look at this example from Keith Olbermann:

In his ‘story guidance’ to Matthew Cooper of Time, Rove did more damage to your safety than the most thumb-sucking liberal or guard at Abu Ghraib. He destroyed an intelligence asset like Valerie Plame merely to deflect criticism of a politician. We have all the damned politicians, of every stripe, that we need. The best of them isn’t worth half a Valerie Plame. And if the particular politician for whom Rove was deflecting, President Bush, is more than just all hat and no cattle on terrorism, he needs to banish Rove -- and loudly.

As a news anchor, Olbermann certainly knows that the work that Plame was doing when the story leaked was not covert investigation so her value was not destroyed. Olbermann is simply working himself into near hysteria in order to justify getting rid of Rove.