Rove-gate???

Ocean Breeze

Ocean Breeze

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Jun 5, 2005
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Vanni Fucci said:
Good...hopefully the house of cards will be falling sooner than later over this...
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agree, do you get the impression that things are a tad "out of control" now?? from one crisis to another, major decisions are being balked at , ......

One too many lies?? Too much spin and getting caught up in their own spin machine??
 
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Reverend Blair

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They're coming apart at the seams. Every major policy decision they've made has a major lie attached to it and was done for political reasons involving Bush's campaign contributors. The US public is starting to wake up to that fact.
 
Ocean Breeze

Ocean Breeze

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White House Deflects Questions on Rove as RNC Defends Him
By Edwin Chen and Warren Vieth, Times Staff Writers


WASHINGTON -- The White House won't talk about Karl Rove. But as the furor over President Bush's chief political strategist continues, Republican leaders have found other ways to get their points across.

For the second consecutive day, White House press secretary Scott McClellan refused to answer questions about Rove's possible role in disclosing the identity of an undercover CIA operative, saying on Tuesday -- as he had the day before -- that any comments might damage an ongoing criminal investigation into the matter.

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"I want to be helpful to the investigation. I don't want to jeopardize anything in that investigation," McClellan said during another contentious briefing as reporters bombarded him with questions about the White House deputy chief of staff.

Yet, at the same time, the Republican National Committee -- closely allied with the White House and chaired by Rove protege Ken Mehlman -- distributed a 3 1/2-page set of talking points defending the president's chief political strategist and attacking Democrats and the CIA operative's husband, an outspoken critic of the administration's Iraq policy.

"The RNC is trying to get the attention off the White House," said David Gergen, a Harvard University government professor who has worked for presidents of both parties. "A week ago, this was all about the press. Now it's back to the White House, which is not what they want."

The controversy exploded in recent days after disclosures that Rove was a source for a July 17, 2003, article on Time magazine's Web site. That article questioned whether the Bush administration had "declared war" on former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had traveled to Africa in 2002 to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase weapons-grade uranium.

On July 6, 2003, The New York Times published an op-ed article by Wilson criticizing those claims -- a key underpinning for the White House's case for invading Iraq. The article on Time magazine's Web site, co-authored by reporter Matthew Cooper, cited "some government officials" as identifying Wilson's wife as CIA officer Valerie Plame and saying that she had been involved in dispatching her husband to Africa.

In a court proceeding last week, Cooper said his source had authorized him to reveal his identity to a federal grand jury investigating whether Plame's public outing violated a federal law barring disclosure of a covert agent's identity. The decision allowed Cooper to avoid a jail term for refusing a special prosecutor's order to reveal a confidential source. New York Times reporter Judith Miller was jailed for refusing a similar order to reveal her sources.

Although Cooper did not publicly identify Rove as his source, Newsweek magazine on Sunday published the contents of a 2003 e-mail from the reporter to his editors, saying Rove had told him that Wilson's trip had been authorized by his wife.

McClellan refused to square the latest disclosures with his previous assertions in September and October of 2003 that Rove was not involved in leaking Plame's identity to the media. "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved," McClellan said at the time.

But now, McClellan said Tuesday, it would be inappropriate for him to discuss the matter because of the ongoing investigation.

However, Republican officials had no such reservations. The RNC talking points, distributed to Republicans on Capitol Hill and party operatives across the country, provided a detailed, point-by-point defense of Rove's role in the Plame case, saying that he only discussed the situation with Cooper to prevent him from writing something inaccurate.

Appearing on CNN's "Wolf Blitzer Reports," Mehlman cited Rove's previous statement that he had not identified Plame by name.

"The fact is Karl Rove did not leak classified information," Mehlman said. "He did not, according to what we learned this past weekend, reveal the name of anybody. He didn't even the know the name. ... He tried to discourage a reporter from writing a story that was false."

The RNC's aggressive stance in the face of mounting Democratic criticism suggests that Republicans hope the public will simply dismiss the complex controversy as a partisan "food fight," in the words of one Republican senator's chief of staff, who requested anonymity. "They're trying to dilute the matter," the aide said.

Bush was asked about Rove at the end of an Oval Office photo session with the prime minister of Singapore on Tuesday morning, but he did not reply to a shouted question as aides quickly ushered reporters out of the room. Later in the day, a senior administration official said only that "we've lived with the investigation for two years and we're not changing approach or focus now."

But Gergen, who began his career in politics as an assistant to President Nixon during the Watergate scandal, questioned the White House strategy.

"They ought to do an about-face and put out the full facts and quell the storm," he said. "Their danger is, if they allow this to keep whipping up in the press, Rove could be wounded. And this president does not want to lose Karl Rove. Rove is his right arm."
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(And this president does not want to lose Karl Rove. Rove is his right arm." )

Indeed, and this would be bush's achilles heel.......(amongst a few now)
 
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Reverend Blair

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It isn't his only Achilles heel. There's also the whole Cheney-Halliburton connection and war crimes and Enron and, and, and. Rove would be good to have during the coming crises because of his polical skills, but I doubt they'll be able to keep him. More than that, the press is finally starting to go after Bush a little and this is spurring them on. One of their own is in jail because of it and it smells like a scandal.
 
Ocean Breeze

Ocean Breeze

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Re: RE: Rove-gate???

Reverend Blair said:
It isn't his only Achilles heel. There's also the whole Cheney-Halliburton connection and war crimes and Enron and, and, and. Rove would be good to have during the coming crises because of his polical skills, but I doubt they'll be able to keep him. More than that, the press is finally starting to go after Bush a little and this is spurring them on. One of their own is in jail because of it and it smells like a scandal.
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absolutely. things could just be unravelling.... :) Rove is probably the most unethical of the bunch of them. In many ways he "sculpted" bush......as bush is simply not bright/competant enough to perform on his own. (remember the debates ??? What a sham that was)

(and they can be sure of one thing:The entire world is watching this gang)

IMHO......they ENJOY power for what power is too much , yet are not competant/smart/mature enough to handle it effectively./positively
 
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Reverend Blair

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remember the debates ??? What a sham that was
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I remember them well, including Georgie's earpiece. That'll be one of Rove's tricks. If you get a chance, pick up "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them". It's a great book, but there's a section in their on Rove's use push polls that'll give you idea of what a bastard he really is.
 
Ocean Breeze

Ocean Breeze

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Reverend Blair said:
remember the debates ??? What a sham that was
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I remember them well, including Georgie's earpiece. That'll be one of Rove's tricks. If you get a chance, pick up "Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them". It's a great book, but there's a section in their on Rove's use push polls that'll give you idea of what a bastard he really is.
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thanks rev. I read the review and it looks excellent. Think I will order it via Amazon.

Have read a fair bit about this Rove character and he is one bad dude. (mind you the flavor of the entire. current bush cabal , ain't all that sweet smelling either ) Sooner they are out of office, the sooner the world can start to get sane again.

Georgie's earpiece. That'll be one of Rove's tricks.
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Absolutely. bush is the rat in the maise and Rove is the "rat" master.
 
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Reverend Blair

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The debates are completely scripted by both sides before they even start there a complete sham
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They might as well be scripted. It's like watching Gilligan's Island...even if you don't know the exact dialogue, you know roughly what the answer is going to be, and the phrasing that speech writers tend to use.

Our Canadian debates are a much better format, but we don't have enough of them. The US should adopt our debate format and we should adopt their scheduling.
 
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Reverend Blair

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You forgot about that? It was the best line in likely the last four or five elections. I'm pretty sure it was one of those off the cuff remarks that had been practiced for weeks just in case he got to use it...it was perfect.
 
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Scape

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Nov 12, 2004
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Re: RE: Rove-gate???

Reverend Blair said:
They're coming apart at the seams. Every major policy decision they've made has a major lie attached to it and was done for political reasons involving Bush's campaign contributors. The US public is starting to wake up to that fact.
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You mean the WH press Corps?

or the MSN
For two years, the White House has insisted that presidential adviser Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leak of a CIA officer's identity. And President Bush said the leaker would be fired.
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Has Rove put politics before terrorism? Is that treason? Isn't the US based on such corruption? Not Soviet era styled corruption but graft. This turd blossom has made a stink but Bush is never going to ditch Rove anymore than he will ditch Cheney or Rumsfeld. You may think the people of the US have 'woken up' but I seriously doubt they were ever asleep to begin with. They choose Bush and even if the elections were fixed or not he is still there and the government still stands, they are still in Iraq and they are still going to press on.
 
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Reverend Blair

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I think the Conservatives are losing control of this one, Scape. Maybe it's just wishful thinking, but a week ago nobody in the mainstream press was even asking questions about it, now they are.

The thing is that it, along with several other things, should have been big stories two years ago, but for some reason (check out who owns the press) the stories never broke in the US media in any big way. There are more bloggers from the left now though, and places like Truth Out have become major alternative sources. The stories get big enough on their own that the mainstream press can't ignore them.

The mainstream press was also embarrassed over their lack of coverage of the run-up to Iraq, and they've been whipped for it to the point where several of them have actually apologised. That's major.

As for the part about being asleep...I'd say that the general American public went to sleep just before Reagan got elected and are just beginning to stir now. Let's see if they hit the snooze button and roll over, or get up and have a cup of coffee.
 
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