Saving Karl Rove
Paul Waldman
July 14, 2005
Paul Waldman is a senior fellow with Media Matters for America and a senior
contributor to The Gadflyer.
Every administration has its share of scandals to deal with, and every one
handles them in a slightly different way (of course, it helps if your party
controls both houses of Congress, so there will be no pesky Congressional
investigations to deal with). But the Bush administration’s furious effort to save
Karl Rove and justify the outing of a covert CIA operative is a remarkable case
study in misdirection, a campaign whose scaffolding of spin is plain for all to
see.
Listen to the party hacks and conservative pundits and you can hear an
endlessly repeated version of the talking points issued by the Republican National
Committee. ( You can see them here, courtesy of Raw Story).
When we unpack its elements we can see not only the state of the art in
political damage control but the tools that allow the Republicans to come out on
top again and again when controversy rears its ugly head.
Step 1: It’s not really about us, it’s about them.
This is one of the fundamental divides between the two parties today,
something Republicans understand and Democrats don’t: If the controversy is about
you, you lose; if it’s about your opponent, you win. So when Democrats responded
to Karl Rove’s slander about their response to 9/11 by saying that they
supported the war in Afghanistan, they were making the mistake of arguing about
whether they were or weren’t a bunch of wimps. Every time one of these
controversies erupts, the Republicans always make it about Democrats: Who they are, what
they’ve said and what they’ve done.
So now when Republicans talk about Rove, we hear the phrases “angry left”
and “smear campaign” repeated over and over, as they argue that this is all a
tempest in a teapot being drummed up by those mean liberals. Apparently,
Democrats are angry that national security would be compromised to punish a Bush
administration opponent—go figure.
But the real target of the spin effort is Joe Wilson. As the Republicans
understand, if they can get everyone to talk about whether Wilson should have been
sent to Niger, whether he should have contributed to the Kerry campaign, or
whether a Republican Senate report did or did not contradict him, pretty soon
no one will be talking about Karl Rove anymore. Which brings us to…
Step 2: Lie through your teeth.
Republicans have argued that Valerie Plame was not a covert agent (she was),
and some have even suggested that Iraq really might have been seeking uranium
from Niger, something even the Bush administration has admitted is false. But
much of their arguments centers on the utterly phony claim that Karl Rove was
trying to stop Matthew Cooper from writing about Wilson because Wilson had
claimed that Vice President Cheney sent him to Niger. Wilson never said any such
thing; he said that the vice president’s office asked the CIA to investigate
the uranium claim, and the CIA asked him to take part in that investigation.
Spinner after Republican spinner has lied about this, trying to paint Rove’s
outing of Plame as “discouraging a reporter from writing a false story based on a
false premise,” as RNC chairman Ken Mehlman put it.
Step 3: Argue the semantics, or, it depends on what the meaning of “identify”
is.
More than once, Karl Rove has denied being the leaker. But when we look at
his past comments, we see an attention to semantic detail that is reminiscent of
no one so much as our last president. “I didn’t know her name and didn’t
leak her name,” he said. In other words, I did not have naming relations with
that woman.
Others are echoing this line. “There’s no evidence at all that he ever used
her name,” said Newt Gingrich. And even some reporters seem to be accepting
this as a reasonable defense. David Sanger of The New York Times reported that
the fact that Rove revealed Plame’s identity but not her name “could save his
job” if President Bush decides it allows him to worm out of his pledge to fire
the leaker.
In fact, the statute in question makes it illegal not to reveal an agent’s
name, but “any information identifying such covert agent.” But whether Rove can
be convicted in a court of law is a relatively minor point; he revealed the
identity of a covert CIA operative for the purpose of a political vendetta. He
may be able to avoid jail time if he didn’t know she was undercover, but his
actions were no less deplorable or harmful to American national security.
A year ago, President Bush was asked whether he would fire anyone who leaked
Plame’s name; Bush responded, “Yes”; Scott McClellan has said the same thing
more than once. But on Monday, Fox News’ Carl Cameron, who surely must be the
administration’s favorite reporter, tried to give the president some wiggle
room by claiming that Bush “never actually said the word ‘fired,’ but that is
what some reporters and Democrats seem to expect.”
This is all beginning to sound familiar.
Step 4: It’s all partisan politics.
When Richard Clarke revealed that the Bush White House virtually ignored the
issue of terrorism in the months leading up to 9/11, the White House decided
to attack the messenger and paint him as a partisan Democrat in the hopes that
doing so would convince the press to report the story as just one more
partisan squabble. The effort was largely successful, and the same template is being
applied here.
“The Democrats are engaging in blatant partisan political attacks,” said Ken
Mehlman. “They're just playing partisan politics,” said Dennis Hastert’s
spokesperson. The press will dutifully play along by reporting the conflict in he
said/she said, style, giving all claims—even blatantly false ones—equal
weight, lest they be accused of “bias.” The public, seeing yet one more case of
partisan bickering, lines up with whichever party they have more sympathy for,
and the substance of the wrongdoing begins to fade away. As The Christian
Science Monitor wrote, “At this highly partisan time, much of the public will
likely glaze over at the appearance of yet another bout of wrangling in Washington
on an issue that does not directly affect them.” The public may well glaze
over—but only if the press plays their part in Republican spin.
Politics By Other Means
Reporters have long gazed in wonderment at Rove, passing on even his most
transparent attempts at shaping news coverage as cleverly discovered insights
into the White House’s closely guarded strategies. But is it possible that the “
Boy Genius” who bestrides our political world like a colossus could have been
so utterly stupid as to compromise national security for no reason other than
punishing someone who had the temerity to criticize the administration?
Apparently so.
As Ron Suskind wrote two years ago, “In conversation with scores of people
who know him, the assessment ultimately is the same: For Karl Rove, it’s all and
only about winning. The rest—vision, ideology, good government, ideas to bind
a nation, reasonable dissent, collegiality, mutual respect—is for later.”
James Moore and Wayne Slater, authors of Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George
W. Bush Presidential came to the same conclusion. “He seemed to be driven by
a roaring internal engine to control every disagreement, rule every dispute,
and dominate every contest,” they wrote. “In everything he did, Karl Rove
wanted to win.”
And winning alone has never seemed enough for Rove. The opponent must not
simply be defeated but utterly destroyed, both personally and professionally.
Suskind reports waiting outside Rove’s door in the White House for an interview,
and hearing Rove issue a tirade about a political operative who had displeased
him. “We will fuck him,” Rove said, “Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We
will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!”
As Joshua Green recently reported in The Atlantic Monthly , a campaign Rove
ran for an Alabama judicial candidate featured a whisper campaign spreading
rumors that the opponent was a pedophile. “What Rove does,” said one campaign
consultant who had opposed Rove, “is try to make something so bad for a family
that the candidate will not subject the family to the hardship.”
Rove tried to do something similar to Joe Wilson, but in the process he
endangered national security—a fact no amount of spin will conceal. As George H.W.
Bush once said, “I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray
the trust by exposing the names of our sources. They are, in my view, the most
insidious of traitors.”
http://www.tompaine.com/print/saving_karl_rove.php
Paul Waldman
July 14, 2005
Paul Waldman is a senior fellow with Media Matters for America and a senior
contributor to The Gadflyer.
Every administration has its share of scandals to deal with, and every one
handles them in a slightly different way (of course, it helps if your party
controls both houses of Congress, so there will be no pesky Congressional
investigations to deal with). But the Bush administration’s furious effort to save
Karl Rove and justify the outing of a covert CIA operative is a remarkable case
study in misdirection, a campaign whose scaffolding of spin is plain for all to
see.
Listen to the party hacks and conservative pundits and you can hear an
endlessly repeated version of the talking points issued by the Republican National
Committee. ( You can see them here, courtesy of Raw Story).
When we unpack its elements we can see not only the state of the art in
political damage control but the tools that allow the Republicans to come out on
top again and again when controversy rears its ugly head.
Step 1: It’s not really about us, it’s about them.
This is one of the fundamental divides between the two parties today,
something Republicans understand and Democrats don’t: If the controversy is about
you, you lose; if it’s about your opponent, you win. So when Democrats responded
to Karl Rove’s slander about their response to 9/11 by saying that they
supported the war in Afghanistan, they were making the mistake of arguing about
whether they were or weren’t a bunch of wimps. Every time one of these
controversies erupts, the Republicans always make it about Democrats: Who they are, what
they’ve said and what they’ve done.
So now when Republicans talk about Rove, we hear the phrases “angry left”
and “smear campaign” repeated over and over, as they argue that this is all a
tempest in a teapot being drummed up by those mean liberals. Apparently,
Democrats are angry that national security would be compromised to punish a Bush
administration opponent—go figure.
But the real target of the spin effort is Joe Wilson. As the Republicans
understand, if they can get everyone to talk about whether Wilson should have been
sent to Niger, whether he should have contributed to the Kerry campaign, or
whether a Republican Senate report did or did not contradict him, pretty soon
no one will be talking about Karl Rove anymore. Which brings us to…
Step 2: Lie through your teeth.
Republicans have argued that Valerie Plame was not a covert agent (she was),
and some have even suggested that Iraq really might have been seeking uranium
from Niger, something even the Bush administration has admitted is false. But
much of their arguments centers on the utterly phony claim that Karl Rove was
trying to stop Matthew Cooper from writing about Wilson because Wilson had
claimed that Vice President Cheney sent him to Niger. Wilson never said any such
thing; he said that the vice president’s office asked the CIA to investigate
the uranium claim, and the CIA asked him to take part in that investigation.
Spinner after Republican spinner has lied about this, trying to paint Rove’s
outing of Plame as “discouraging a reporter from writing a false story based on a
false premise,” as RNC chairman Ken Mehlman put it.
Step 3: Argue the semantics, or, it depends on what the meaning of “identify”
is.
More than once, Karl Rove has denied being the leaker. But when we look at
his past comments, we see an attention to semantic detail that is reminiscent of
no one so much as our last president. “I didn’t know her name and didn’t
leak her name,” he said. In other words, I did not have naming relations with
that woman.
Others are echoing this line. “There’s no evidence at all that he ever used
her name,” said Newt Gingrich. And even some reporters seem to be accepting
this as a reasonable defense. David Sanger of The New York Times reported that
the fact that Rove revealed Plame’s identity but not her name “could save his
job” if President Bush decides it allows him to worm out of his pledge to fire
the leaker.
In fact, the statute in question makes it illegal not to reveal an agent’s
name, but “any information identifying such covert agent.” But whether Rove can
be convicted in a court of law is a relatively minor point; he revealed the
identity of a covert CIA operative for the purpose of a political vendetta. He
may be able to avoid jail time if he didn’t know she was undercover, but his
actions were no less deplorable or harmful to American national security.
A year ago, President Bush was asked whether he would fire anyone who leaked
Plame’s name; Bush responded, “Yes”; Scott McClellan has said the same thing
more than once. But on Monday, Fox News’ Carl Cameron, who surely must be the
administration’s favorite reporter, tried to give the president some wiggle
room by claiming that Bush “never actually said the word ‘fired,’ but that is
what some reporters and Democrats seem to expect.”
This is all beginning to sound familiar.
Step 4: It’s all partisan politics.
When Richard Clarke revealed that the Bush White House virtually ignored the
issue of terrorism in the months leading up to 9/11, the White House decided
to attack the messenger and paint him as a partisan Democrat in the hopes that
doing so would convince the press to report the story as just one more
partisan squabble. The effort was largely successful, and the same template is being
applied here.
“The Democrats are engaging in blatant partisan political attacks,” said Ken
Mehlman. “They're just playing partisan politics,” said Dennis Hastert’s
spokesperson. The press will dutifully play along by reporting the conflict in he
said/she said, style, giving all claims—even blatantly false ones—equal
weight, lest they be accused of “bias.” The public, seeing yet one more case of
partisan bickering, lines up with whichever party they have more sympathy for,
and the substance of the wrongdoing begins to fade away. As The Christian
Science Monitor wrote, “At this highly partisan time, much of the public will
likely glaze over at the appearance of yet another bout of wrangling in Washington
on an issue that does not directly affect them.” The public may well glaze
over—but only if the press plays their part in Republican spin.
Politics By Other Means
Reporters have long gazed in wonderment at Rove, passing on even his most
transparent attempts at shaping news coverage as cleverly discovered insights
into the White House’s closely guarded strategies. But is it possible that the “
Boy Genius” who bestrides our political world like a colossus could have been
so utterly stupid as to compromise national security for no reason other than
punishing someone who had the temerity to criticize the administration?
Apparently so.
As Ron Suskind wrote two years ago, “In conversation with scores of people
who know him, the assessment ultimately is the same: For Karl Rove, it’s all and
only about winning. The rest—vision, ideology, good government, ideas to bind
a nation, reasonable dissent, collegiality, mutual respect—is for later.”
James Moore and Wayne Slater, authors of Bush’s Brain: How Karl Rove Made George
W. Bush Presidential came to the same conclusion. “He seemed to be driven by
a roaring internal engine to control every disagreement, rule every dispute,
and dominate every contest,” they wrote. “In everything he did, Karl Rove
wanted to win.”
And winning alone has never seemed enough for Rove. The opponent must not
simply be defeated but utterly destroyed, both personally and professionally.
Suskind reports waiting outside Rove’s door in the White House for an interview,
and hearing Rove issue a tirade about a political operative who had displeased
him. “We will fuck him,” Rove said, “Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We
will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!”
As Joshua Green recently reported in The Atlantic Monthly , a campaign Rove
ran for an Alabama judicial candidate featured a whisper campaign spreading
rumors that the opponent was a pedophile. “What Rove does,” said one campaign
consultant who had opposed Rove, “is try to make something so bad for a family
that the candidate will not subject the family to the hardship.”
Rove tried to do something similar to Joe Wilson, but in the process he
endangered national security—a fact no amount of spin will conceal. As George H.W.
Bush once said, “I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray
the trust by exposing the names of our sources. They are, in my view, the most
insidious of traitors.”
http://www.tompaine.com/print/saving_karl_rove.php
If people only knew the facts, they would not be fighting for the 'RIGHT' to be screwed over.
+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt
Time will tell all the Truth.
VT
Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT
Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com
clock
+ $1,751,132,130,359 Social Security Trust Fund
– $7,805,708,317,936 The Gross National Debt
Time will tell all the Truth.
VT
Sean Lewis/VirtualTruth/VT
Founder
OpenDebateForum
http://VTSL.blogspot.com
clock
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