Wednesday, July 06, 2005

Let's Not Forget Rove



Whether he gets into trouble or not I'm going to keep the flame burning! Robert Kuttner has a good and angry opinion piece on the Rove scandal in the Boston Globe:

But what about Novak? He obviously knows who leaked the name to him. Why is Miller, who never even wrote an article, facing jail? If anyone should be threatened with contempt of court, it is Novak.

There are only two possibilities. Either Novak did tell the prosecutor the names of the officials who leaked the name and the prosecutor is going easy on them, or Novak refused and the prosecutor is going easy on Novak. Either explanation reeks of favoritism, selective prosecution, and cover-up.

One leading suspect of having leaked Plame's identity is the president's chief political adviser, Karl Rove. Given how utterly Machiavellian Rove is, readers who take press reports of Fitzgerald's pristine independence at face value are touchingly naïve.

Given the stakes, do you really think this administration would let a Justice Department official just pick some highly independent prosecutor to launch a wide ranging probe -- one that could net Novak, a reliable administration toady, and the chummy high officials Novak talks to, say, Rove or Vice President Dick Cheney?

Good stuff. Reeks of conspiracy and tinfoilhattery and truth, probably. And reminds us all how screwed we are. Sorry for the nondivine language.