E&P: Karl Rove: Using Reporters--and Abusing the First Amendment

[sabra]

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http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/columns/shoptalk_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000973352

Karl Rove: Using Reporters--and Abusing the First Amendment
A man who taught with Karl Rove, and considers him a friend, writes that in the Valerie Plame case, Rove is using journalists, and the First Amendment, "to operate without constraint, or to camouflage breaking the law." That's why neither reporters Cooper and Miller, nor their publications, should protect the behavior of Rove (or anyone else) "through an undiscerning, blanket use of the First Amendment that weaken its protections by its gross misuse."

By Bill Israel

(July 05, 2005) -- In 99.9 percent of cases I know, journalists must not break the bonds of appropriate confidentiality, to protect their ability to report, and to defend the First Amendment. I’ve testified in court to that end, and would do so again.

But the Valerie Plame-CIA case that threatens jail time for reporters from Time and The New York Times this week is the exception that shatters the rule. In this case, journalists as a community have been played for patsies by the president’s chief strategist, Karl Rove, and are enabling him to abuse the First Amendment, by their invoking it.

To understand why this case is exceptional, one must grasp the extent of Rove’s political mastery, which became clearer to me by working with him. When we taught "Politics and the Press" together at The University of Texas at Austin seven years ago, Rove showed an amazing disdain for Texas political reporters. At the same time, he actively cultivated national reporters who could help him promote a Bush presidency.

In teaching with him, I learned Rove assumes command over any political enterprise he engages. He insists on absolute discipline from staff: nothing escapes him; no one who works with him moves without his direction. In Texas, though he was called "the prime minister" to Gov. George W. Bush, it might have been "Lord," as in the divine, for when it came to politics and policy, it was Rove who gave, and Rove who took away.

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[sabra]

1. Scary stuff about "Lord" Rove!

[Verve]

2. Great Article! I hope more of Rove's friends start speaking out. n/t

[HootieMcBoob]

3. Exactly!

Please!
This is not about protecting a whistle-blower!

Joe wilson was the whistle-blower for crying outloud!

This is about the Bush administration persecuting a whistle-blower and in the doing of it exposing an undercover operative and putting the nation's security at risk!

This is about an administration that cares more about covering up the lies that led us all into an elective and illegal war than about the people working for the CIA to track the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction!

This isn't a blow-job!
This isn't breaking into political headquarters!
This is a HIGH CRIME AGAINST THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA!

[WillyT]

4. Informative And Important Article !!! - Recommened !!!

Vote it up folks!

:kick:

[dalloway]

5. recommended!

[Straight Shooter]

6. Hear, hear! rove has made the journalists accomplices to his crime.

He did the crime, and put them behind the wheel of the getaway car.

Rove will use anybody and anything to feed his nasty mean streak of petty vengeance.

[eleny]

7. My favorite part...

"In teaching with him, I learned Rove assumes command over any political enterprise he engages. He insists on absolute discipline from staff: nothing escapes him; no one who works with him moves without his direction. In Texas, though he was called "the prime minister" to Gov. George W. Bush, it might have been "Lord," as in the divine, for when it came to politics and policy, it was Rove who gave, and Rove who took away.

Little has changed since the Bush presidency; all roads still lead to Rove."

[sans-culotte]

8. How big is this that the special prosecutor is actually going after this?

I’ve been trying to evaluate some of the claims made by Michael C. Ruppert in his “COUP D'ETAT: The Real Reason Tenet and Pavitt Resigned from the CIA on June 3rd and 4th”
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060804_coup_detat.html
I find it interesting that he links the resignations of CIA Director Tenet on June 3 2004 and then James Pavitt, the CIA’s director of operations on June 4 with the announcement that Bush and Cheney had retained lawyers due to the Valerie “leak probe”.
“Bush and Cheney have both hired or consulted private criminal defense attorneys in anticipation of possible indictments of them and/or their top assistants in the Plame investigation. On June 3, just hours before Tenet suddenly resigned, President Bush consulted with and may have retained a criminal defense attorney to represent him in the Plame case.”
He’s absolutely correct that these events coincided, and I find that Tenet’s resigning for “personal reasons” suspect as it was immediately followed by Pavitt’s resignation.

“Bush 'Willing to Cooperate' With Leak Probe” Washington Post, June 4, 2004.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A12499-2004Jun3.html

“Bush Knew About Leak of CIA Operative's Name” Capitol Hill Blue, Jun 3, 2004,
http://www.capitolhillblue.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=32&num=4629

“George Tenet Resigns as CIA Director” MSNBC, June 3, 2004.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5129314/



I’ve also been considering the claims as to Plame’s undercover CIA role at Brewster Jennings. I’ve found several referrences that say that Plame has acknowledged this role,
Such as…
“Little is known of Plame's professional career. She has described herself as an energy analyst for the private company Brewster Jennings & Associates, which was subsequently acknowledged by the CIA as a front.” ….at,
http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php/Valerie_Plame
and also at,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame
http://www.answers.com/topic/valerie-plame

There is also this article (“Apparent CIA front didn't offer much cover” 10/10/2003 The Boston Globe) that quotes “Vince Cannistraro, the CIA's former counterterrorism chief,” as saying “that when operating undercover outside the United States, Plame would have had a real job with a more legitimate company. The Boston company "is not an indicator of what she did overseas," he said.”
The article also includes the following
“Brewster Jennings was the name of the president of the former Socony-Vacuum oil company, a predecessor of Exxon Mobil Corp. But the Jennings family denies any connection, said a grandson, Brewster Jennings, a real estate investor in Durango, Colo. He said that since the firm was named as a CIA front he's heard from many friends and family members who "find tremendous humor in all this."”
http://www.boston.com/business/globe/articles/2003/10/10/apparent_cia_front_didnt_offer_much_cover/


Now I don’t know if her covert role will ever be fully appreciated by the public, and it seems to me that any claims as such, as made above will always be vulnerable to criticism due to the secrecy that naturally surrounds it. What the gist of nearly all of the claims about her covert role do imply is that she had a role with Brewster, Jennings & Associates and that this company has been tied to “energy, oil and the Saudi-owned Arabian American Oil Company, or ARAMCO. Brewster Jennings had been a founder of Mobil Oil company, one of Aramco's principal founders.” (quote from Ruppert’s Coup de’Tat).
These claims are being taken to task by a lot of persons these days, there is a good effort going on over at DailyKos “Must-Read Update! Plame Leak Exposed Brewster Jennings Asset on Oil, WMD”
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/3/16838/88864

Stepping aside from that issue, I find it interesting that if Ruppert’s claims are true, and Plame’s outing did compromise a clandestine role into a CIA shadow company, “ARAMCO, that constituted 12% of the world's total oil production” at the time.

I wonder, if her outing was of the significance that Ruppert claims to US oil interest, could this have anything to do with rising oil prices. Now this is purely correlative, but I find the coincidental upturn in oil prices following the revelation of Plame as a covert agent in 2003 is worth looking into.

World Events and Crude Oil Prices 2001-2005


Excess Crude Oil Production Capacity


from WTRG Economics, http://www.wtrg.com/prices.htm


So, I end with this, yet unanswered question. Did the outing of Valerie Plame, as Ruppert claims, unravel a long running covert operation that helped maintain US interests in world oil supplies/prices? Could the shock wave from the revelation have led to the current upturn in oil prices?

I wonder.

[wryter2000]

10. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[understandinglife]

9. "What we have here is a case of serious journalistic overrreaching."

4. What we have here is a case of serious journalistic overrreaching. Miller and Cooper begin with a sound principle and then distort it all out of proportion. Of course, they were entitled to pursue their legal arguments to the highest court in the land. But having done so, and lost, they now have a responsibility to comply with the rule of law – the very same rule of law that provides robust protection to the freedom of the press. There is no legitimate basis for their arrogant claim that they are “above the law.” And there is no legitimate basis for their claim that their obstruction of justice is “civil disobedience.” It may be moral to refuse to obey the law when the legal system itself is corrupt or oppressive or unjust, but there is no reason whatever to believe that is the case here. Here, they simply lost.

5. It is worth noting that the crime under investigation in this dispute is no small matter. The question is whether high Bush administration officials grossly abused their official power to jeopardize the national security for partisan political purposes. As newspapers like the New York Times observed at the time Robert Novak first broke this story, this is a matter of potential Watergate-level consequence. At that time, the New York Times rightly demanded an aggressive investigation of the leaks, and that’s exactly what it got.

From Miscast Martyrs by Geoffrey R. Stone

July 4 2005

More at the link:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/geoffrey-r-stone/miscast-martyrs_3626.html

Reasonable assessment.

WATCH IT; SPREAD IT http://www.bushflash.com/right.html

Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us - How ever long it takes, the day must come when tens of millions of caring individuals peacefully but persistently defy the dictator, deny the corporatists their cash flow, and halt the evil being done in Iraq and in all the other places the Bu$h neoconster regime is destroying civilization and the environment in the name of "America."

[PurgedVoter]

11. Rove after Sept. 11

Conservatives saw the savagery of Sept. 11 and the attacks and prepared for war; Rove saw the savagery of the Sept. 11 attacks and became a traitor. In the wake of Sept. 11, conservatives believed it was time to unleash the might and power of the United States military against the Taliban; in the wake of Sept. 11, Rove prepared propaganda supporting a war invading of a nation totally unrelated to those attacks. Conservatives saw what happened to us on Sept. 11 and said: We will defeat our enemies. Rove saw what happened to us and said: We can deceive America."

[glitch]

12. Very good - throw it right back at him. And welcome to DU! nt

[glitch]

13. this is the response to those that think this is just about journalists

and the first amendment.

It's about government using the protection provided to journalists to commit treason.

[WillyT]

14. Yes, And.... It IS The Exception To the 'Shield' Rule !!!

I usually support and defend the protection of anonymous sources. But...

If what Rove's friend here is saying is true, then all bets are off. And with Rove's track record, this shouldn't surprise anyone at all.

Remember... he was fired by the Reagan\Bush team in 1980 for leaking...

To one Robert Novak!!!

:mad:

[WillyT]

15. At Top Of BuzzFlash Now !!! - Vote It Up Folks !!!

Link: http://www.buzzflash.com/

Maybe if other reporters see that they are being used, manipulated, screwed, and booked for jail by Rove, et. al.... we'll get the flood-gates opened.

:shrug:

[Eloriel]

16. This is PRECISELY what I've said all along

Rove is using journalists, and the First Amendment, "to operate without constraint, or to camouflage breaking the law." That's why neither reporters Cooper and Miller, nor their publications, should protect the behavior of Rove (or anyone else)

These people -- these fascists -- are EXPERT at using our own rules against us, our own sentiments for fair play, etc. We CANNOT let them hide behind what is appropriate for most all other cases.

Too, virtually every other right has limits in this country. I'd certainly draw the line at treasonous activity like this, along with actions specifically putting others' lives in danger.

[dogday]

17. Oh I hope he is going down.....

[WillyT]

18. Kick !!!

:kick:

[KittyWampus]

19. John Dean, On Countdown, Called Leaker A Coward On Parr With Mafi Don

or drug kingpin, for hiding behind a journalist and allowing them to take the fall.

[WillyT]

20. I Saw That !!! - It Was Great, And He Is Correct !!!

Cowards... all of 'em!!!

:puke:

[Festivito]

21. Rove broke the law and thus invalidated the associated 1st A right.

Rove had a verbal understood contract with the reporters that the reporters would not reveal Rove as a source and in return the reporters would get information. This is fine.

However, Rove broke the law, specifically in releasing that same information.

Rove's illegal act renders the contract invalid and thereby uninforcible. The reporters should no longer be bound by that contract.

Had Rove contracted silence for illegal, traitorous, and murderous information the reporters would be morally bound to keep silent, but, not contractually bound.

I hold that the reporters should not even be morally bound in this case, because I doubt Rove disclosed the treasonous, murderous, AND illegality of releasing the information.