Holy cow, anyone see this?

Bush whacked Rove on CIA leak

WASHINGTON - An angry President Bush rebuked chief political guru Karl Rove two years ago for his role in the Valerie Plame affair, sources told the Daily News.

"He made his displeasure known to Karl," a presidential counselor told The News. "He made his life miserable about this."

Bush has nevertheless remained doggedly loyal to Rove, who friends and even political adversaries acknowledge is the architect of the President's rise from baseball owner to leader of the free world.

As special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald nears a decision, perhaps as early as today, on whether to issue indictments in his two-year probe, Bush has already circled the wagons around Rove, whose departure would be a grievous blow to an already shell-shocked White House staff and a President in deep political trouble.

Asked if he believed indictments were forthcoming, a key Bush official said he did not know, then added: "I'm very concerned it could go very, very badly."

"Karl is fighting for his life," the official added, "but anything he did was done to help George W. Bush. The President knows that and appreciates that."

Other sources confirmed, however, that Bush was initially furious with Rove in 2003 when his deputy chief of staff conceded he had talked to the press about the Plame leak.

Bush has always known that Rove often talks with reporters anonymously and he generally approved of such contacts, one source said.

But the President felt Rove and other members of the White House damage-control team did a clumsy job in their campaign to discredit Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, the ex-diplomat who criticized Bush's claim that Saddam Hussen tried to buy weapons-grade uranium in Niger.

A second well-placed source said some recently published reports implying Rove had deceived Bush about his involvement in the Wilson counterattack were incorrect and were leaked by White House aides trying to protect the President.

"Bush did not feel misled so much by Karl and others as believing that they handled it in a ham-handed and bush-league way," the source said.

None of these sources offered additional specifics of what Bush and Rove discussed in conversations beginning shortly after the Justice Department informed the White House in September 2003 that a criminal investigation had been launched into the leak of CIA agent Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak.

A White House spokesman declined to comment, citing the ongoing nature of Fitzgerald's investigation.

The Jesuit in the Mix:

Here's an e-mail the Rude Pundit received yesterday from Boring Diatribe:
" Fitzgerald is 44, making him 4 years older than me, so we didn't overlap at the Jesuit high school we both attended in NYC, where we both grew up, but I can tell you a couple of things about our education:

"Regis is a 500 student high school for gifted boys. There's an entrance exam. There's an interview. There's an interview for the parents, separately, and the bad apple students are steadily weeded out over 4 years, though admissions mistakes only hover around 1-4%. Rejected students are those who can't excel in a rigorous program that at that time included 3 mandatory years of Latin and the kind of debates that are rarely seen beyond Lincoln-Douglas re-enactments.

"Have you ever looked into the eyes of Jesuits? Look long enough, and you can see the heretics burning back there. Back then, they still imparted that zeal to their students, if pointed in more helpful directions.

"When I heard Fitzgerald went to Regis, I knew Rove and the boys were in a lot of trouble. Rest assured, if there's a crime, Patrick's going to find it, and he will prosecute. At the time I attended, Regis was designed to turn out moral (in the true sense) men who would become impeccable professionals or even captains of industry. I think Fitzgerald's route is obvious.

"If you've read down this far, here's the Regis song:

"'May ours be the noble heart
Strong to endure
Daring though skies be dark and roadways unsure

"'May ours be the heroes' part
Ready to do
We are your sons fair Regis, our spirit is from you.'

"I know Roveco are criminals. You know they're criminals. If it can be proved, Patrick will prove it."

You know what'd be f***in' hilarious if Fitzgerald actually indicts a couple of criminals (or a couple dozen)? That the Bush administration would be brought down by someone who was, at least at one point in his life, a devoted Christian. For the White House, it's just a shame that he might be the type of Christian that understands the value of honoring ideas and faith above paying homage to humans.

// posted by Rude One @ 12:15 PM

What follows is some extremely sensitive information about the impending conclusion of the Valerie Plame investigations. The sources include two senior members of senate and key staffers; counsel for individuals that have been called before the grand jury; and two journalists taking a lead position in investigating the case. the following represents a composite of the information from those sources.

Plamegate coming to conclusion. The investigation has focused mostly closely on Vice President Cheney and his staff, as well as US Ambassador to the UN (and former undersecretary of state for arms control) John Bolton and his staff. We are told that eight indictments have already prepared, with the possibility of another ten. These indictments include senior white house staff, most notably Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby, Fred Flights (special assistant to John Bolton), and--very surprisingly--national security adviser Steve Hadley. apparently, Libby and Hadley have both been told by their lawyers to expect indictments. the indictment of senior bush political advisor Karl Rove seems highly probable.

Most critically, a plea bargain process has evidently been opened with Vice President Cheney's lawyer. that does not mean that an indictment is coming. but i've some critical background around the issue.

In the past several days, former Secretary of State Colin Powell had a meeting with Senator John McCain (R-AZ), primarily about the McCain-sponsored amendment on inserting a rider prohibiting torture onto the us defense budget (a bill which Powell has himself been lobbying heavily for, against objections of president Bush).

During the meeting, Powell recounted to the senator that he had traveled on air force one with Bush and Cheney, and brought to their attention a classified memorandum about the issue of whether there was indeed a transaction inolving Niger and yellow cake uranium. the document included Ambassador Joe Wilson's involvement and identified his wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert agent. the memorandum further stated that this information was secret. Powell told McCain that he showed that memo only to two people--president and vice president. according to Powell, Cheney fixated on the Wilson/Plame connection, and Plame's status.

Powell testified about this exchange in great length to the grand jury investigating the plame case. according to sources close to the case, Powell appeared convinced that the vice president played a focal role in disclosing plame's undercover status.

In his conversation with McCain, Powell felt that--at a minimum--there would be a serious shakeup at national security council as a consequence. in particular, vice president cheney would no longer hold a pivotal role in us national security affairs. Powell apparently did not discuss the potential of a cheney resignation.

Lead prosecutor patrick Fitzgerald has apparently been looking at the precedent of formerly indicted Nixon vice president Spiro Agnew. this shows the likely path, because addressing executive immunity and privilege questions would necessarily begin start with a plea-bargain deal that would entail a resignation. (more...)