Rove lied and the Republican leadership is supporting him

Whether or not Karl Rove or others in the administration actually commited a crime will have to wait for the grand jury results and any possible trials after that. The bar is high and it's not clear that Mrs. Wilson was covert anyway. What is clear is that 2 years ago, Joe Wilson wrote an Op-Ed critical of the president and after that various people in the administration, including Karl Rove, spoke with various journalists about Wilson and his wife. Then it occured to someone that identifying (not naming, but merely identifying) a CIA agent might be illegal and the administration denied they did it. The CIA got the Justice Department to investigate and after a connection to Rove was established Ashcroft (Rove's friends) appointed a special prosecutor and by all accounts the administration has fully cooperated.

But Scott McClellan made the public statement that Karl Rove "was not involved", and anything to contrary was "ridiculous". But as we learn, Karl Rove spoke to Novak (and was his second source) and to Matthew Cooper and probably to other reporters. That seems to be "involved". Now if this administration came out and said something to the effect that we checked, we were mistaken, he (and maybe others) spoke about this, we don't think anything illegal was done but are cooperating with all investigations to confirm this, any reasonable person would say ok, let's see what happens. But this administration has never admitted making any mistakes, even in the face of obviously conflicting facts. This morning's Meet the Press was just another example.

On today's Meet the Press Ken Mehlman (not technically part of the administration but the chairman of the RNC) blatently lied to distort the facts. The full transcript will be posted soon but it's clear that the talking points have been established and they are sticking to them. He says that the news that has come out in the last few days "actually exonerates and vindicates, it doesn't implicate" Karl Rove.

Tim Russet: But he said they were not involved, is that accurate?

Ken Mehlman: Well according to the information that's come out this week and again we're here speculating but the information that's come out this week that we all agree on says that they were not involved in a leak

John Podesta: Oh well I think that's absurd and I think the American public see that. The question at the time that Mr. McClellan was answering, was Karl Rove one of the two sources for Mr Novak, now we know that he was.

Karl Rove and others might not have done anything illegal but it's clear that he was doing to Joe Wilson what he's often done in the past, smear someone else and deflect the story away from the president. Then he made a mistake, he denied being involved which was clearly a lie. And still rather than come clean they keep denying it, smearing Joe Wilson. blaming the Democrats for partisanship, and trying to deflect the questions on technicalities, which to me reinforces the accusations.

Russet asked the dumb question of if this had been reversed and if the Democrats were in the White House wouldn't the Republicans be screaming for a resignation. I'd wish he had stuck to the facts rather than hypotheticals but comparisons to Clinton are ripe so lets follow them. David Brock made up a stories about Clinton in American Spectator and Paula Jones sued for sexual harrassment. While undergoing a grand jury supposedly about Whitewater when asked about a relationship with Monica Lewinsky, Clinton denied it. He was then impeached for perjury. The suit by Jones, once brought to court was summarily dismissed as groundless. He wasn't found guilty of anything to do with Whitewater. So the underlying event was false, but the Republicans impeached on perjury of the investigation. Now we don't know what Rove said to the grand jury, we'll see, but he certainly covered up his involvement and lied to the American people. What should the Democrats be doing? Taking the high road or fighting fire with fire? I"m actually not sure, but maybe there's a lesson for Mr. Rove. If your career is based on smears and sleeze maybe it comes back to haunt you.

But more importantly this really shouldn't be about getting Rove. Let's not forget what Wilson was investing were claims that Iraq was pursuing weapons of mass destruction which were found to be false even though they were used to justify going to war. The big picture here is that Bush misled the American people on going to war with another country (inventing a pre-emptive war doctrine). Whether you think the war was a good thing or not, the rationale was false.