OT- Rove isn't the monster Democrats want him to be

Rove isn't the monster Democrats want him to be
by Ken Johnson

Friday, July 22, 2005

To the inflamed partisans of the left, President Bush is a simpleton, a
nincompoop without a clue.

I'll grant that our president is no genius. But he is smart enough to
have
scored a higher college grade point average than our "nuanced" junior
senator from Massachusetts.

That's what so frustrates Bush's most bitter opponents: How could one
so
lacking in brain wattage confound their well-considered schemes? How
does he
trump them every trick? How did Bush defeat their chosen candidates and
escape every effort to smear or discredit him? There must be someone
behind
the scenes, someone working the puppet strings. But who?

Karl Rove. The president's political adviser was the Rasputin they
sought.
The left became so obsessed with the image of Rove as an evil genius, a
master manipulator, that they were willing to credit him with the
wildest
schemes imaginable. Some left-wing bloggers even imagined that Rove
planted
the phony documents concerning Bush's military career that blew up in
Dan
Rather's face.

And now, with Rove's involvement in the Valerie Plame matter, they
think
they have him cornered. The left can't get enough of stories that Rove
spoke
with columnist Robert Novak and Time reporter Matthew Cooper about
Plame's
job at the CIA. It's front-page news in the New York Times and
Washington
Post.

But remember: Dracula is always at his most dangerous just as you're
about
to drive the stake through his heart.

And like the stories about the caped blood-sucker, there's more myth
than
reality to the tale of Rove as a betrayer of CIA secrets.

Here's the myth: Eager to prove Saddam Hussein was a bad guy in the
run-up
to the Iraq war, Vice President *** Cheney asked former ambassador
Joseph
Wilson IV to visit Niger and prove Saddam's agents had tried to
purchase
uranium ore - yellowcake - there. But Wilson's investigation found no
such
evidence. So in an effort to discredit him, Rove tipped reporters that
Wilson's wife - Valerie Plame - was a CIA secret agent. Revealing the
name
of a CIA undercover agent is against the law.

Here's the reality: Plame worked in the CIA's office dealing with
nuclear
proliferation. Plame, not the vice president, recommended the CIA send
her
husband on the Niger investigation.

Wilson's investigation, haphazard at best, was viewed at the CIA as
somewhat
supportive of the claim that Saddam sought nuclear materials in Africa.
That's according to a Senate Intelligence Committee report.

Rove didn't tell Novak Plame was a CIA agent. It was the other way
around.
Novak told Rove he had heard Wilson's wife worked at the agency. Rove
replied that he had heard that as well. That's from last Friday's New
York
Times.

Plame hadn't been on a covert assignment for six years when Novak
identified
her in his 2003 column. The law protecting agent identities limits that
protection to one who has been on covert assignment within five years.
The
exposure must be intentional and specific to be a crime. According to
the
New York Times, Rove knew neither Plame's name nor that she had been a
covert agent. The Washington Times reports that Plame's friends and
neighbors all knew she worked at the CIA.

So no crime, no story. Right? Guess again.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., told the Associated Press Wilson had been
targeted by "a smear campaign launched by the West Wing of the White
House."
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., ranted that Bush should
strip
Rove of his clearance to view classified information.

"This is what is known as a cover-up. This is an abuse of power," he
said.

The Democrats desperately want Iraq to be Vietnam and the Plame affair
to be
Watergate. They're fighting the political battles of 30 years ago.

As long as the left remains trapped in the past, they will have little
attention to spare on the important issues of today. That's good for
Bush,
the Republicans and the nation.

It couldn't work out any better if Karl Rove had planned it that way.

http://www.ecnnews.com/cgi-bin /04/g/gstory.pl?fn-fn-colken23 -fn

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