The Karl Rove Pseudo-Scandal

The Power Line guys have posted today's WSJ editorial on the so-called Karl Rove scandal, making it avaliable without registration. They also link to several of their previous stories on the same topic. It's a good refresher on the basics of the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson affair.

It was Mr. Wilson, who first "outed" himself as a CIA consultant in a melodramatic New York Times op-ed in July 2003. At the time he claimed to have thoroughly debunked the Iraq-Niger yellowcake uranium connection that President Bush had mentioned in his now famous "16 words" on the subject in that year's State of the Union address.

Mr. Wilson also vehemently denied it when columnist Robert Novak first reported that his wife had played a role in selecting him for the Niger mission. He promptly signed up as adviser to the Kerry campaign and was feted almost everywhere in the media, including repeat appearances on NBC's "Meet the Press" and a photo spread (with Valerie) in Vanity Fair.

But his day in the political sun was short-lived. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report last July cited the note that Ms. Plame had sent recommending her husband for the Niger mission. "Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip," said the report.

The same bipartisan report also pointed out that the forged documents Mr. Wilson claimed to have discredited hadn't even entered intelligence channels until eight months after his trip. And it said the CIA interpreted the information he provided in his debrief as mildly supportive of the suspicion that Iraq had been seeking uranium in Niger.

About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's Lord Butler delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: "We conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded."

In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission.

Andrea Mitchell reluctantly admitted on MSNBC this past weekend that it was alreeady generally known among the news media that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA, so Karl Rove certainly did not out Ms. Plame to anyone. Even the Newsweek article makes it clear that Rove didn't know the woman's name nor her role at the CIA. Even if he did, it's clear, even as admitted by the NYT and WaPo that no crime was committed. Why then this feeding frenzy over Rove?

My own suspicion is that Judith Miller, or some other reporter, was Cooper's primary source for the Plame/Wilson connection; Cooper took Rove's innocent statements as confirmation of the connection; and the MSM is now trying to pin this on Rove.

Ultimately, the NYT's position is untenable. On the one hand, they have argued that no crime was committed, and they celebrate Miller's integrity for not revealing her source. On the other hand, they are going after Rove as "the source" and claim that he ought to be fired for this "crime." The NYT is trying to manufacture a scandal out of nothing.