Salon: Rove fired by Pappy Bush in 1992 for leaking information to Novak

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/07/07/rove_plame...

July 7, 2005 | WASHINGTON -- When Karl Rove was little known outside Texas political circles, he was fired from George H.W. Bush's 1992 reelection campaign for leaking information to syndicated columnist Robert Novak. According to newspaper reports at the time, Rove was terminated for passing information to Novak from a meeting of the president's chief advisors. Rove denied he was the leaker.

Today, with another Bush in office, a journalist is being jailed to protect a source that led Novak to name a CIA operative, Valerie Plame. There is fevered speculation that Novak's source was, once again, Karl Rove.

If Rove, George W. Bush's deputy chief of staff, knowingly revealed Plame's name, he could be charged with committing a felony. The same source that revealed the operative's name to Novak reportedly also spoke to two other journalists, Time magazine's Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller of the New York Times. Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, confirmed to reporters on Saturday that Rove spoke with Cooper days prior to the publication of Novak's column in July 2003. But Luskin denied that Rove named Plame.

Rove isn't the only name being thrown around as the possible leaker. Speculation has long centered on Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. But at least one critic, Valerie Plame's husband, says either way, Rove bears some responsibility for what happened -- for fanning the story's flames. "I have no idea whether was the source or not," former Ambassador Joseph Wilson told Salon on Wednesday. "But certainly he was part of the effort to push this story, including his phone call to <'Hardball' host> Chris Matthews." Wilson claims that Matthews told him that Rove had called days after the Novak column ran and said that Wilson's wife, Plame, was "fair game." Matthews has testified in the Plame case, though publicly he has neither confirmed nor denied Wilson's statement. "In my judgment, (Rove's) behavior, even if it is not criminal, it is certainly below the standards of ethics we have a right to expect from our senior White House leadership," Wilson said. "It's an outrageous abuse of power."

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. kick

[LaurenG]

2. Why hasn't Novak gone down

The man has no integrity. Anything goes with these people, anything and then they hide and fail to take responsibility for anything they do. The good old boys club is working just fine. Too bad old Judy wasn't a man.

[WCGreen]

18. It's not against the law for him to reveal the agent

The law is designed to punish those from within the government who blow cover....

He probably has talked already. That is why he hasn't been charged with anything.....

He probably named Miller as his source....

[MADem]

24. He sang like a canary to the Grand Jury, that's why

Think about this: Miller went to jail. Why? She has been a shill for the administration from the git-go. A real go-to gal when you wanted to put crap out. She was the one touting Chalabi as the Savior of Iraq before the war, warming us up to the idea of Ahmad, the Iraqi President in our pocket.

I think Miller's source is one who would have a hard time getting a Presidential pardon...like say, an elected official, one who works in the White House. One who could be impeached...

I'll bet she will get a great job or a great payday for her silence.

[mistertrickster]

25. Your theory sounds right to me. Cooper's source released him from

confidentiality. It must have been a different source than Miller's; otherwise, the source would have released her too.

I wonder how anyone even knew that Miller got contacted. She never even printed a story . . .

[liberal N proud]

3. Oh you had to post a pick, I am eating lunch here

Or I was anyway

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

4. More info on this from Buzzflash:

James Moore: It's hilarious, to me, that they would even have the chutzpah to actually deny that they were involved with this thing in any way. This is a standard pattern of behavior by Karl and Bush administration operatives, and that is to go after your enemies and silence them as quickly as possible. And it's clear that that's exactly what happened. Karl's been doing this forever and ever. I mean, he was fired in 1992 by the George H. W. Bush for President Campaign in Texas for a leak to Robert Novak.

BuzzFlash: What was the leak?

James Moore: Well, Karl was running around to all of us, talking about how the campaign was in a state of disarray, telling us that it was a mess. Rob Mosbacher, Jr. was running the campaign. Karl didn't particularly like that. But what he really didn't like was that Mosbacher had a million dollars in the budget for direct mail. Karl was a big direct-mail guy, and Mosbacher only gave Karl $250,000 of the budget, and he spent $750,000 with someone else, because he thought that they were better. All of a sudden, Karl starts talking to all of us in the Texas press corps about how bad things are, wanting us all to write this story about the campaign in disarray. We knew what was going on. We knew Karl's jealousy and everything else. So none of us ever did anything.

The next thing you know, there's a column written by Robert Novak about the Texas campaign being an absolute mess. And it was a story we had all ignored. And Novak wrote about a meeting in Dallas between Phil Graham and the party chair, Fred Meyer, and Karl and Rob Mosbacher, and George H.W. Bush, and how they're trying to get the mess straightened out, et cetera. It was a few days after that that President Bush and Mosbacher and Meyer sat down and Mosbacher said, "Look, Mr. Bush, there's only one person who had any motivation to leak this story, and he's the person who knows Robert Novak. And I think we should fire him." And H.W. Bush agreed and they fired Karl for leaking that story to Robert Novak. It's a long-standing relationship. It's a history of behavior. And it doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to connect the dots on Karl's behavior.

http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/04/int04021.html

(APRIL 2004 interview with James Moore, Author of "Bush's War For Reelection: Iraq, The White House, And The People")

[dubyaD40web]

5. Kick

The first line says it all!

[BikeWriter]

6. Deja vu all over again...

[nikraye]

7. Wasn't it in 1980, not 1992, that Rove was fired for leaking to Novak?

Or has Rove allegedly been fired more than once by Bush Sr?

BROOKE GLADSTONE: Another media management technique employed by Rove that you document could be called "strategic leakage." The issue of leaks dates back to 1980 -- the Reagan campaign -- you say that Rove was fired for leaking.

JOE MEALEY: Yes. That was a, a leak to Robert Novak, actually, involving Rob Mosbacker. Rob Mosbacker was an operative in the Bush I campaign with Rove, and Rove leaked to Robert Novak that Mosbacker had done a terrible job. It came out in Novak's column, and Rove was fired.

link: http://www.onthemedia.org/transcripts/transcripts_06040...

Also, the movie, Bush's Brain, mentions the 1980 Mosbacker leak, but says nothing of a similar leak in 1992. Does Salon have their facts right?

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

9. Look at #4 above...

...Buzzflash is saying 1992 as well.

[yellowcanine]

8. And I still think Rove was the source of the purloined "debate video"

sent to Gore's campaign in 2000 - designed to "set up" the Gore campaign. At the time, Gore was moving up in the polls. Louis "friggin" Freed "investigated" it. That is all you need to know.

[mrdmk]

10. This is old news about a young man learning his way in life and

now he has turned away from a life of women, drugs and drink to a walk with God. Karl Rove is a true patriot and has a love of the U.S.A. We appreciate all the work that Mr. Rove has done for his country.

[arewenotdemo]

11. Highly doubt that Turd-Blossom's life ever involved, much

less focussed on females.

Considering his clearly pheremonal response to the young George W.

Just sayin'.

[mrdmk]

13. The only female Mr. Rove had focus on besides his wife

was the girl who knock him off of his bike and got into his face at the age of ten.

[tjdee]

12. Why did Jr. hire a man his father had fired?

Doesn't that seem weird? Seeing as a lot of his crew is Poppy's old crew...just seems strange.

Until I realize that George "multiple arrests" Bush himself is a petty criminal ne'er do well.
Makes a lot more sense then.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

14. that's it!!! Rove is getting even with Pappy by taking down his son!

[Booster]

17. I think the answer to that is defiance to Poppy - show the old man

who's the boss, doncha know.

[Darkamber]

23. Why did Jr. Start a war that his father refused to start?.

I really hate to say this but Bush Sr. is looking better all the time. He knew that Iraq would fall apart if we went in there. And now this. He knew what Rove was able to do and got rid of him.

And we get Jr.? When will it be over...please...make it over...

[wallwriter]

15. My God, it's a pathology...

If this behavior were written in fiction, it would lack nuance.

edit for spelling

[moondust]

16. I smell conspiracy.

Some people hiding behind the facade of journalism and protection of sources while fulfilling their covert role as Karl Rove's megaphone.

[KingFlorez]

19. Nice find

[KaliTracy]

20. View Bush's Brain if you haven't already -- Rove has very dirty

hands....

Exerpt from a Review: http://www.documentaryfilms.net/Reviews/BushsBrain /

In 1986, {Bill} Clements was steadily losing what had been a 35-point lead in the polls. Rove called a press conference in October to declare that he had found a bug in his office, and charged the White campaign with planting it. John Weaver, vice-chair of the Clements campaign, tells the camera he was initially “euphoric,” but then “It began to look fishy to us.” An FBI report said that judging by its battery use, the bug had been in the wall just 15 minutes when it was “discovered,” and today Weaver says he doesn’t think White had anything to do with it.

Glenn Smith, a journalist with the Houston Post and probably Rove’s harshest critic in the film, comments: “I like to say I play hardball, but I would never consider planting a bug in my own office and blaming it on my opponent.”

Perhaps the most significant damage Rove may have engineered against an opponent was to destroy members of Hightower’s team via the courts. An FBI agent started investigations of every Democratic officeholder in the state in 1990. The investigator just happened to be the same FBI man who had looked into the “bugging” incident in Rove’s office in 1986, Greg Rampton. Rampton’s investigation managed to nail Texas agricultural commissioner Mike Moeller and senior administrator Pete McRae for soliciting contributions for Hightower.

Glenn Smith comments that “that probably only happens, accidentally, a thousand times a day” in Texas. Says nationally syndicated columnist Molly Ivins, “There was too much zeal in that case; it smelled rankly from the beginning.” But it resulted in huge fines, jail time, and the end of their elective careers for Moeller and McRae. The general counsel for the Texas Agricultural Commission said he almost cried to see these good public servants get destroyed, basically in the course of a political maneuver. The consultants who actually solicited funds were excused from prosecution for age and ill health. The man who benefited most from this confusion, Rick Perry, was elected agricultural commissioner, and eventually ascended to the governor’s mansion in 2001 when Bush left for Washington.

[DWolper]

21. Excellent film

"Bush's Brain" is an excellent look at the history of this most despicable human being. I have a feeling Karl Rove is going down though. However, his dirty work through the decades will be remembered for years - or at least it should be.

[lavenderdiva]

22. well, well, well...

this just proves what my Mother always told me, "A Leopard doesn't change his spots". Nope, he sure doesn't!