the real scandal

"But the real scandal is the ongoing mess in Iraq, the murder just the
other day of innocent children (is there any other kind?) and the false
notion that, somehow, taking out Hussein would make us all safer.
London gives the lie to that."
---------------------


Rove Isn't the Real Outrage

By Richard Cohen

Thursday, July 14, 2005; Page A25

If I were a nicer person, I would have some sympathy for Karl Rove.
After all, in a town where many of the people, if they're honest about
their job titles, would put down "character assassin," Rove merely
tried to impugn the bona fides of a Bush administration critic, the
former diplomat Joseph Wilson IV. This is what Rove is supposed to do
and what he has done for so long. It was only last month, after all,
that Rove impugned the sanity and patriotism of all liberals by saying
that the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 produced in them the desire to
"offer therapy and understanding for our attackers." This was to
political rhetoric what the spitball is to pitching.

So I am not predisposed to feel Rove's pain, assuming he has any
feeling at all. But I do have to concede that he probably did not set
out to expose a CIA operative, the by-now overexposed Valerie Wilson
(nee Plame), a specialist in weapons of mass destruction. It was Plame,
administration sources told columnist Robert D. Novak and others, who
chose her husband to go to Africa to see if Saddam Hussein's Iraq had
tried to buy uranium in Niger. He went and later said that he found
nothing, but George W. Bush said otherwise in his 2003 State of the
Union address. It was supposed to be additional evidence that Iraq had,
in the memorable word uttered by Vice President Cheney, "reconstituted"
its nuclear weapons program. That, of course, is the real smoking gun
in this matter -- the crime, if there is one at all, in what should now
be called Karlgate. (It encompasses so much -- the outing of Plame, the
jailing of reporter Judith Miller, the moral collapse of the press, the
preening of Wilson -- that it sorely needs a moniker.) The inspired
exaggeration of the case against Iraq, the hype about weapons of mass
destruction and al Qaeda's links to Hussein, makes everything else pale
in comparison. It was to protect those lies, those exaggerations, that
incredible train wreck of incompetence, ideologically induced optimism
and, of course, contempt for the quaint working of the democratic
process, that everything else stems from. Wilson was both armed and
dangerous. He claimed the truth.


The truth about that truth was contained in a Post story about the
leaks. It quoted "a senior administration official" who said that the
outing of Plame was "meant purely and simply for revenge." It also said
that two -- not one -- "top White House officials" had called "at least
six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of
Wilson's wife." This response might be reprehensible, but it was
routine for the town and, particularly, the vindictive Bush White
House. What it was not, though, was a crime. The law prohibiting the
outing of a CIA agent is so restrictive that it has been applied only
once and does not seem to fit this case. I find it hard to believe that
Rove or anyone at the White House specifically intended to blow the
cover of a CIA agent. Rove is a political opportunist, not a traitor.

Washington loves farce the way Vienna loves the waltz. It once
extravagantly inflated a sex act into the impeachment of a president,
and it has now reduced the momentous debacle of the Iraq war into a
question of what Rove or someone else said to a reporter on the phone.
Soon, the question will turn on whether Rove or others actually cited
Plame by name and whether the president's oath to fire anyone who
identified Plame as a CIA operative applies to someone who just
mentioned her job title. It will all depend on what "is" is or, to put
it another way, whether Bush will concede that he inhaled.

None of this matters -- not really. The persistent criminalization of
politics does no one any good. This is a parody of Clausewitz. He said
war is the continuation of politics by other means. Now, we have
special prosecutors as the continuation of politics by other means. The
New York Times called for one and now, as a result, its own reporter is
in jail.

Washington is electrified with the abundant energy of buzz from a
scandal -- speculation about Rove, about Bush, about Cheney's aide,
Scooter Libby. Who leaked? Who may have lied? How did Novak slip the
noose? But the real scandal is the ongoing mess in Iraq, the murder
just the other day of innocent children (is there any other kind?) and
the false notion that, somehow, taking out Hussein would make us all
safer. London gives the lie to that.

cohenr@xxxxxxxxxxxx

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