Karl Rove: The Leak or a Whistleblower?

Is Karl Rove a Leak or a Whistleblower?

The BIG news right now (besides the War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan, bombings in London, trial of Theo van Gogh's slayer, the fact the trade deficit and budget deficit are falling due to increased exports and collections of corporate and high earning individual taxes) is the continuing story of Karl Rove. For those who have missed it, or have found the MSM's detailed account of the "leak" generally lacking - or just not present in the articles about it - here is what apparently happened:

In the Cooper e-mails just surrendered by Time to the prosecutor looking into the Plame case, "Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a 'big warning' not to 'get too far out on [Ambassador Joseph] Wilson.' Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by . . . CIA Director George Tenet . . . or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, 'it was, [Rove] said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.' "

"not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. He [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger . . ."

Note, Rove did not state Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife's name. Rove did not even state that his wife was a CIA opperative... probably because he did not know.

Finally, what Rove did state to Cooper is all true (from a bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report):

The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee.

The former ambassador's wife suggested her husband for the trip to Niger in February 2002. The former ambassador had traveled previously to Niger on behalf of the CIA, also at the suggestion of his wife, to look into another matter not related to Iraq. On February 12, 2002, the former ambassador's wife sent a memorandum to a Deputy Chief of a division in the CIA's Directorate of Operations which said, "[m]y husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." This was just one day before the same Directorate of Operations division sent a cable to one of its overseas stations requesting concurrence with the division's idea to send the former ambassador to Niger.

I am not planning on covering this "supposed leak" anymore than this, for I feel, regardless of what happens to Rove, it really isn't that important. However, readers should choose for themselves. There will undoubtedly be more information at the Drudge and Instapundit.

For those readers who are interested in more of an attack on Rove than I can offer, please check-out Andrew Sullivan and the Huffington Post.