By Staff
Karl "President Bush's brain" Rove and other acrobats at the White House Ministry of Spin hit on an interesting defense.
The political adviser was merely trafficking in gossip, since the law does not appear to cover that conduct.
Rove reportedly told federal investigators it was newspaper columnist Robert Novak - not government sources - who provided him the name of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame.
This disclosure leaves unanswered how Novak got information he revealed in a July 2003 article quoting "administration sources."
It also raises consistency questions about Rove's own previous statements.
Last summer in a television interview he "didn't know her name," let alone leak it.
Reports Plame worked for the CIA opened a federal investigation into whether Bush administration officials broke a 1982 law protecting agents' identities.
Her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, a staunch critic of the rationale for invading Iraq, characterized the leak as an attempt to smear him for telling the truth about bogus claims Saddam Hussein tried to buy uranium in Niger.
Novak broke the story, but it's New York Times reporter Judith Miller, 57, who never wrote a word about Plame, who's imprisoned.
As usual, the GOP diverts unpleasant questions by demonizing Democrats, as in the New York Post's characterization of an "hysterical rush to judgment."
A New York Times op-ed by John Tierney describes a "scandal about a spy who was not endangered, a whistle-blower who did not blow the whistle and was not smeared and a White House official who has not been fired for a felony that he did not commit."
Perhaps they're distracting us from bigger fish to stall for time until the Supreme Court nomination can drown out this controversy.
Reporters go about armed with pads and pens, not guns.
We can't arrest people, issue subpoenas, pressure people to talk by detaining them as witnesses or enter their homes to peruse their computers.
Prosecutors ought to have enough tools to make cases.
Journalists' constitutionally-protected responsibility is meant to get at and publish truth in the public interest, and some sources harbor unsavory motives - even now, we learn, a "noble whistleblower" such as Deep Throat.
Time's Matthew Cooper, in an e-mail Newsweek obtained, wrote about his July 11, 2003, conversation that Rove "implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium" from Niger.
That makes this about sustaining the false premise used to justify an invasion rather than outing a spy or a Nixonian paranoia to even political scores at the expense of fighting real enemies.
That day CIA Director George Tenet issued a statement conceding the dubiousness of the Niger claim.
It had been a "mistake" to include that allegation in the January State of the Union speech.
Rove should already have known the angle he was lobbying was not true, just as there was no evidence of a nuclear weapons program or weapons of mass destruction.
Meanwhile, that other source of drama that is such a burning issue, a constitutional amendment to outlaw flag desecration, drowned out real issues, from health care to gas prices.
The House and Senate agreed July 14 to put off action on restructuring Social Security until September at least.
Food police coming for me: The scolds at the Center for Science in the Public Interest, who labeled movie theater popcorn "oil in a day's work," fettuccini alfredo a "heart attack on a plate" and fondue as "fondon't," asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration to slap warning labels - similar to those on cigarettes and alcohol - on Coke, Pepsi and other soda pop.
Tribunals OK: A federal appeals court July 15 reinstated use of military tribunals the Bush administration established to try suspected terrorists held at Guantanamo Bay. In a significant victory for the administration, the three-judge panel unanimously sided with the claim they do not qualify for prisoner of war status and protections under the Geneva Conventions, which govern POWs' rights.
Bye bye with a birdie: Jack Nicklaus, 65, July 15 bid farewell with a flourish after 47 years, 164 major tournaments, of which he won a record 18, at the birthplace of golf, St. Andrews.
He sank a 14-foot putt for a 3 on the 18th hole for an even par round of 72 that missed the cut by two strokes.
And going: Could Eminem's current tour could be his last rap lap? A Detroit Free Press article July 14, quoting colleagues and business associates, suggests the real Slim Shady might sideline his controversial persona to concentrate on discovering and producing other artists when his Anger Management tour ends in Ireland Sept.17. "Em has definitely gotten to the level where he feels like he's accomplished everything he can accomplish in rap," Proof said. "He wants to kick back and get into the producing thing."
Going: In the 1988-89 TV season, Carsey-Werner Co. made the three highest-rated shows - "The Cosby Show," "Roseanne" and "A Different World." It's hard to regard a powerhouse that produced $3 billion in revenue as an independent studio, but it "basically became the equivalent of a mom-and-pop grocer in a Wal-Mart world," the Los Angeles Times reported on its plans to scale back development. Tom Werner is chairman and co-owner of the Boston Red Sox.
The company will remain active as a syndicated distributor of past hits and it will oversee the eighth and probably final season of Fox's "That '70s Show."
Gone: Weeping at the realization he's going to die in prison, former WorldCom chief Bernard Ebbers got 25 years in prison July 13 in New York for leading the largest corporate fraud in U.S. history, $11 billion. Even with possible time off for good behavior, Ebbers, 63, will be locked up until age 85 in 2027.
Conte cops plea: Victor Conte Jr., the central figure in the steroids scandal that linked use of performance-enhancing drugs to some of the country's top professional athletes, pleaded guilty July 15 in a deal with federal prosecutors. The founder of the Bay Area Laboratory Co-Operative faced a 42-count federal indictment. Conte pleaded guilty to one count of distributing steroids and one count of money laundering in San Francisco and could receive up to six months in prison.
Giants slugger Barry Bonds won't have to testify about alleged drug use in a BALCO trial.
NBC's "Today" show has been the top-rated morning news show for 500 straight weeks, since December 1995.
Anniversaries: first atomic bomb detonated in New Mexico, 60. In 1981, singer Harry Chapin died when his car was struck on New York's Long Island Expressway. He was 38. I met him once in Mount Pleasant.