Spencer Blog Archives 9-03

Click Here for Tom's latest blog entries

THE GUARDIAN REPORTS... 09-30-03

that I'm right about Karl Rove.

Several of the journalists are saying privately, yes it was Karl Rove who I talked to. Now, the thing is that the journalists are not going to name Karl Rove publicly because you don't name your sources, and to do so would discredit them as journalists. So the White House is safe for the time being, but Karl Rove's name is very much out there.

And the"we're too professional to have done anything this stupid" defense doesn't sound very convincing from the gang who has screwed up more things than they've gotten right and hasn't done a damn thing right in several months, eh?

That Rove is our guy is the only thing that makes sense. I mean, honestly, they really wouldn't be doing all of this for Scooter Libby.

We'll see I guess.

At this point I think the press is just amazed that they keep lying about it.

Posted by Tom at 6:46 p.m. CDTComment

MCCLELLAN DIGS THE WHITE HOUSE IN DEEPER 09-30-03

The guy who started all of this, David Corn, gives us an effective update on where things stand. His concluding paragraph is particularly good:

The facts are closing in on Bush and his crowd. And perhaps the law--that is, if Bush's comrades at the Justice Department are on the level. As Iraq continues to be a $170 billion headache, they have tied themselves to the mast of their prewar misrepresentations. As the Wilson leak threatens to become a primetime scandal, they are yielding no ground and hoping this inconvenience blows past. All in all, a precarious position for Bush. These are messes too severe to be straightened out by McClellan's heavy-handed, ludicrous spin.

I think that is becoming obvious to the press corps as well.

[Link via Atrios]

Posted by Tom at 12:44 p.m. CDTComment

KEVIN HAS A GOOD ROUNDUP... 09-30-03

of the latest" circle the wagons" excuses being provided by this administration's sycophants.

But, he boils it down quite well for all of us:

The bottom line remains pretty much the same: A couple of top Bush administration officials blabbed about a clandestine CIA operative to the press in order to try to discredit her husband, and now they're covering it up. Either you think that's OK or you don't. I don't.

Kevin also agrees with me that the names are going to come out sooner or later:

And there are too many people who know the names of the leakers for that to stay secret very much longer.

It might be a couple of days or a couple of weeks, but both of these questions are going to be answered. When they are, the Bush loyalists peddling the excuses above are going to have to put up or shut up.

Indeed.

Posted by Tom at 10:24 a.m. CDTComment

I STILL THINK ROVE WAS INVOLVED 09-30-03

I was preparing to write a post about how Bob Novak had changed his story but then I discovered Josh Marshall had already done so.

Honestly, folks, why is Bob Novak changing his story? My guess is that Rove has called him and really let him have it. Novak's being told if he ever wants to talk to ANYONE in this administration ever again, he'd better help them get out of this jam.

Furthermore, this issue about CIA"operative" versus"analyst" is a red herring folks. We wouldn't be having this scandal of she were just an analyst. Do you really think we'd be hearing all of this and that the CIA would call for a DOJ investigation of the leak of the identity of an analyst?

Come on folks, get real. Sometimes I wonder if the media thinks through the logic of what they're being told sometimes.

Oh yeah. Here's the latest WaPo story this morning as well. W still believes he can get out of this one unscathed apparently. I also love how the usual media lapdogs are telling us nothing will ever come of this because it's a leak investigation and those seldom go anywhere.

Folks, the difference here is that these idiots called six journalists with this -- not one or two. And, from what I can tell, these guys have been talking to their colleagues. This is the best known secret in Washington these days I suspect. It's only a matter of time before their names become known folks. W and the boys are hoping it'll blow over.

I think they're wrong. I agree with Torie"fashion plate" Clarke who said on CNN last night that the quickest way to end all of this would be to have those involved resign and face charges. She said that's the quickest way for this administration to put it behind them now.

Why won't W and the boys do this? Well, one possibility is, if Rove didn't make the calls himself, whomever did the calling knows that Rove was certainly"involved" and that McClellan lied about that very thing yesterday. They've now got Rove by the you-know-whats and want to be spared the humiliation and jail time. As I've said numerous times, I believe if one of the culprits (whom I think was either directly or indirectly involved) here wasn't Rove, we wouldn't be going through all of this. They'd have quickly jettisoned whomever it was and moved on.

I wonder how long it will be before someone in the media, tired of waiting for W and the boys to come clean, talks about just who it was that was shopping this information around.

I think it'll happen within the next couple of weeks. What do you think?

That's when the next firestorm will consume this White House.

Update: Josh notes that, since Alberto Gonzales's letter to the White House staff refers to Plame as an"undercover CIA employee," this"analyst" versus"operative" line is"no longer operative."

As I said earlier, it was obviously a deflective red herring that was meant to provide Republicans with an excuse to stop paying attention now -- sort of like May's"everybody knew it" excuse yesterday.

Posted by Tom at 8:54 a.m. CDT