From Milwaukee

Editorial: Should this leak sink Rove?
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From the Journal Sentinel
Posted: July 12, 2005

For some time, President Bush and other administration officials have expressed their outrage over the unmasking of a CIA operative and declared their determination to help find out who leaked her name to the press and then to fire that person. But on Monday, when asked repeated questions on this subject, White House spokesman Scott McClellan shut up tighter than a clam.

This sudden silence is unacceptable. It obviously stems from the very real possibility that Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, is the leaker or one of them. Rove's dodging in this matter, in fact, has been so transparent as to undermine his credibility.

The case involves Valerie Plame, a secret CIA official whose name was published in July 2003 by columnist Robert Novak. Not only is she a CIA operative; Plame is the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, who had been sent to Africa by the CIA to check out reports - they proved baseless - that Iraq's Saddam Hussein tried to obtain nuclear material there.

Wilson, a bitter critic of Bush's Iraq policy, has said his wife was unmasked, damaging her career, in punishment for his criticism. Specifically, Wilson said Rove leaked his wife's name to Novak and other reporters. Leaking the name of a CIA agent can be illegal.

It was in the face of Wilson's accusations and other questions that Bush, Rove, McClellan and others began what turned out to be several categorical denials and promises.

In June 2004, Bush answered "yes" when asked if he would fire anyone who leaked the agent's name. In September 2003, McClellan said it was "ridiculous" to think Rove was involved in the outing and even declared that anyone at the White House who did it "would no longer be in this administration."

Rove himself has been very cautious, having said only that he never leaked Plame's "name." Maybe not. But he appears to have done the next best thing. Newsweek disclosed this week that a Time magazine reporter told his editors in an e-mail that Plame's identity was revealed to him by Rove. (The authenticity of the e-mail has so far not been challenged.)

Rove did not mention Plame's name, but the e-mail said he described her as "Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD (weapons of mass destruction) who authorized the trip" to Africa. For any halfway competent reporter, learning the name of a former ambassador's wife would be as easy as falling off a log.

If the memo is authentic, Rove's attempt to deny involvement by saying he did not "name" the CIA agent is not only disingenuous; it was obviously intended to camouflage the truth and protect him. It recalls President Clinton's infamous attempt in 1998 to evade direct answers before a grand jury in the Monica Lewinsky case by resorting to claims about what the meaning of "is" is.

If Rove didn't know outing a covert CIA agent might be illegal, he should have. He should certainly have known outing Plame would damage her career.

In the face of this week's revelations, it is unfathomable that the White House, having repeatedly proclaimed its intent on getting to the truth of the matter, should now refuse to help the American people understand why a New York Times reporter should sit in jail for not giving up her sources but why Rove should keep his job. If, as it now appears, Rove did leak the information, Bush should do what he said he was going to do: fire him, if Rove doesn't resign first.