McClellanitis is contagious.

Today--unlike yesterday--George W. Bush took questions on the Rove scandal. At the end of his Cabinet meeting, he granted White House pool reporters three questions. The first two were on Rove and the Plame/CIA leak. Bush was asked if Rove had spoken to Bush about the "Valerie Plame" matter and if Bush believes Rove had acted appropriately when he mentioned Valerie Wilson's CIA employment to a reporter. Bush answered:

I have instructed every member of my staff to fully cooperate....I will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports....I will be more than happy to comment further once the investigation is completed.

Another reporter then took another swing and asked when Rove had informed Bush that he had talked to at least to one reporter regarding Wilson/Plame. (This question presumed Rove had told Bush, but that remains unknown.) Bush said:

We're in the midst of an ongoing investigation....It's very important for people not to prejudge the investigation based on media reports....I will be more than happy to comment once this investigation is complete.

Note any similarity between his second response and his first response--and the resemblance to what Scott McClellan has been saying from the podium at the White House press room. Hey, no one is asking him to "prejudge the investigation"--whatever that means. Reporters are asking him to respond to a piece of documentary evidence that shows Rove IDed Joseph Wilson's wife as a CIA officer to a reporter. Bush is free to say, "Don't like it, don't like it a bit." Moreover, he is free to take action. Even if special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has asked the White House not to comment on the investigation, I doubt he has asked it not to reconsider an aide's access to classified information or continuing employment at the White House if troubling evidence emerges about that aide's conduct. On the basis of the Cooper email that has been made public, Bush could ask for Rove's resignation or place him on leave. And Bush certainly could explain why he chooses not to do that without "prejudging" the investigation.

The question remains: how long can Bush and McClellan fend off the reporters with this misleading mantra?
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This just in: U.S. Senator Chuck Schumer will hold a press conference at 2:00pm...to release a letter from the Democratic leadership to White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card to not only release the report on the Plame Leak, but also call for a new investigation to respond to the White House statements that Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was not involved....Is it better or worse for the Dems to make a big stink? It does keep the story going. But it has given all the right-wing spinners the opportunity to create a new framework for the story: this is just a partisan smear attack. I've done a host of radio shows in the past three days, and every Repub on the other side leads with this irrelevant point. If the White House can succeed in making the leak scandal look like another partisan catfight, that will be to Rove's benefit. Still, if the Dems stay mum, reporters might start to say that's nothing new to cover and if the Democrats are not treating this as a big deal why should we?
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I've been recruited by the right-wing spin machine. Yesterday on CNN, conservative columnist Joel Mowbray was putting in time defending Rove by blasting Joe Wilson. Yes, it didn't take the conservatives long to try to make the issue not the Rove leak but Wilson and Democratic criticism of Rove. And Mowbray--one of the friendlier conservatives I know--attempted to dismiss the importance of the Rove leak and cited me:

David Corn of "The Nation" has pointed this out -- that there was somebody, you know, from the CIA who was working at the NSC at the time on loan and that person may have mentioned that Valerie Plame was Joe Wilson's wife. She worked at the CIA and had a hand in sending him there. And it may be that Rove had no idea that she was either CIA or undercover. It could have been something that was completely innocent on his part.

True, in October 2003, I reported that I had discovered the name of a CIA officer (who was undercover) who was assigned to the National Security Council at the time of the Plame/CIA leak and who had previously worked with Valerie Wilson at the CIA in the WMD office. I wrote:

This NSC staffer might--I emphasize, might--play a role in the Wilson leak scandal. I know of no reason to suspect he or she is one of the leakers. (A recent Newsweek story referred to this NSCer, but it did not name the staffer.) But perhaps this individual--whom I was told is a CIA officer assigned to the NSC--mentioned Valerie Wilson's CIA connection to one or more White House colleagues during the period in which Joseph Wilson was causing the White House discomfort....Consequently, investigators probing the Wilson leak ought to ask this NSC officer--if they have not already done so--whether he or she talked about Valerie Wilson with anyone in the White House? If the Justice Department investigators can figure out how individuals in the White House came to know about Wilson's wife (if they did), then the gumshoes might be able to find a trail leading to the leakers.

Could it be that Rove and others had learned of Valerie Wilson's CIA position due to an offhand remark made by this person, in which he or she did not specifically say Valerie Wilson's worked at the CIA under what's called nonofficial cover (NOC)? I suppose that's possible. But it might be that this CIA loaner actually told people in the White House exactly what Valerie Wilson did at the CIA. Or he or she might have said, "Wilson's wife used to work with me at the CIA." And if an undercover CIA person said someone worked with him or her, wouldn't it be prudent to assume that the coworker also was working under cover? The fact that a former colleague of Valerie Wilson's worked at the NSC at the time of the leak is intriguing, but not telling. It offers Rove no defense.

And, sorry Joel, there's no "complete innocence" here for Rove. As I've noted previously, even if Rove wasn't explicitly told Valerie Wilson was a NOC, he still IDed her to a reporter without checking on her CIA status in order to undermine a White House critic. That was a reckless and cavalier act. But if there was merely an accident, then the White House should at least shift its stonewalling mantra to a one-word reply: "whoops."

Posted by David Corn at July 13, 2005 12:29 PM