Murry Waas -Why Novak Called Rove & Other Questions

(Kpete: These are just the beginning paragraphs of Waas's new article. If you have time to read it all, please decode for me. There is just too much info here. My brain is frying. Thanks)


ADMINISTRATION
Why Novak Called Rove
By Murray Waas, special to National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Friday, Dec. 16, 2005

On July 9, 2003, senior presidential adviser Karl Rove was well prepared as he returned a telephone call from columnist Robert Novak. On his desk were talking points and other briefing materials that then-White House Political Director Matt Schlapp and other staffers had compiled for Rove in anticipation of the conversation.


But despite the meticulous preparation for what should have been a routine phone call, something went awry. As a result of what both Rove and Novak have insisted were only brief comments at the very end of the conversation, Novak wrote a column disclosing the identity of an undercover CIA officer; a special prosecutor was named to investigate the leak; a New York Times reporter was jailed for 85 days; and the then-chief of staff to Vice President Cheney was indicted on criminal charges for concealing his own role in the leak. Rove himself anxiously awaits word on whether he will also be charged by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

Ironically, the materials prepared for Rove in advance of the conversation had nothing to do with Valerie Plame, the CIA officer whom Novak would identify -- using Rove as one of his sources -- as an "agency operative" in a July 14, 2003, column.

Instead, the voluminous material on Rove's desk -- including talking points, related briefing materials, and information culled from confidential government personnel files -- involved a different woman: Frances Fragos Townsend, a former senior attorney in the Clinton administration's Justice Department whom President Bush had recently named to be his deputy national security adviser for combating terrorism.

http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1216nj2.htm

And all those she has considered traitors to her son. This has Karen Hughes/Babs Bush/Condi written all over.

It's the "Let's Blame Cheney" strategy.

So that's okay with me.

Townsend because she was not hard line enough.
Among other things, Libby and Addington believed that Townsend would bring a more traditional approach to combating terrorism, and feared she would not sign on to, indeed might even oppose, the OVP's policy of advocating the use of aggressive and controversial tools against terror suspects. One of those techniques is known as "extraordinary rendition," in which terror suspects are taken to foreign countries, where they can be interrogated without the same legal and human-rights protections afforded to those in U.S. custody, including the protection from torture.



Then, he says:
In sharp contrast, Townsend's career is thriving. Her portfolio has been expanded to include homeland-security issues. And Bush also considered her for secretary of Homeland Security, but pulled back, in part because of her hard-line positions on the treatment of terror suspects, which could have drawn opposition to her nomination. Ironically, her views on the treatment of suspected terrorists are similar to those of Cheney.

Murray Waas has just published a long, in-depth piece in National Journal on new dimensions in the all important conversation between Bob Novak and Karl Rove in which Valerie Plame's CIA identity was discussed.

But Waas makes a solid case that Rove was prepared to talk to Novak about the president's intention to make Fran Townsend Deputy National Security advisor for Combating Terrorism, not necessarily a campaign to out Plame. The Plame discussion followed a long-ish exchange about Fran Townsend, whom Novak planned to savage as a Janet Reno-admiring "enemy within."

Rove's charge that day had been to defend Townsend. What is really fascinating is Waas's depiction of Scooter Libby's and David Addington's campaign AGAINST Townsend. Waas shows that the Vice President's henchmen and Karl Rove were working at cross-purposes on Fran Townsend -- but then seeming working in sync regarding the vengeful outing of Valerie Plame as a way to get back at Joe Wilson.

This does not alter the prospect that Rove was potentially fabricating answers or giving deceptive statements to Patrick Fitzgerald and the Grand Jury in this case, but it does add much more detail -- nuts and bolts style -- to what these retainers to Bush and Cheney were doing, and why they were doing it.

It's a long, long article -- but well worth reading. In my view, Murray Waas is quickly emerging as the kind of investigative reporter Bob Woodward used to be.

-- Steve Clemons
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/