The Rove That Dare Not Speak Its Plame
Did the Cheney-Rove effort to discredit Joseph Wilson include dispatching a surrogate posing as a reporter, quondam male escort Jeff Gannon, to interview Wilson ? And does the White House relationship with Gannon continue today?
I’ve pointed out before thatGannon's blog sounds very much as if it originates from the keyboard of Karl Rove. Rife with dated turns of phrase, political history arcana, and pats on the back for Rove, it's not always plausible as the voice of a man who never wrote a word or took part in politics until his late 40s.
The blog's preoccupations and elisions are also telling. Although it came into existence over Plamegate, it hasn't taken note of Rove's or Libby's fresh worries. Nor has it mentioned Judy Miller's release from jail, despite having called impatiently last summer for Miller to give testimony that the blog was somehow then sure would "clear" Rove. That was back when it looked as if it all might fall on Libby, if only Miller would talk.
But the blog's remarkably upbeat and confident on the Harriet Miers nomination. A recent post reads like a Rove speech, complete with his windy trademark omniscience and references to Sun-Tzu. Some excerpts:
"Like most conservatives, I have grown weary of how the Democrats continue to assert their relevance in governance when voters have removed them from power and reduced their numbers in three successive elections...When you peel away the top layer of beltway bloviation, the brilliant strategy becomes easier to see...If you view political strategy as war, as I am sure Karl Rove does, the Miers pick makes perfect sense....She will be confirmed, probably as easily as John G. Roberts…When conservatives stop to think about it, they will be comforted by what Bush has achieved. He will have delivered the Court he promised, without the political bloodshed everyone assumed would take place. A principle of Sun-Tzu is to have won the war before the first shot is fired."
At this point, Gannon (or Rove) is just about the only conservative blogger left standing who unreservedly admires Bush-Rove's "brilliance" in naming Harriet Miers to the court.
So, what does this all have to do with Valerie Plame's outing? Readers will recall that Gannon (nee James Guckert) did a long, three-partinterview with former ambassador Joseph Wilson in October 2003 for Talon News, a fake news outlet set up by Texas GOP activist Bobby Eberle (a friend of Rove's and Grover Norquist's) to give Gannon press cover.
Gannon subsequently was questioned at least once, in early 2004, by FBI investigators who asked him about his references during the Wilson interview to a classified State Department memo that mentioned Plame in a paragraph marked "S" for secret. According to a New York Times story Friday, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is now examining possible espionage law breaches in connection with the leaking of that memo.
Gannon may or may not have seen the memo; his answers about it have been contradictory, and the date of the interview hasn't been reported. But even assuming that his only knowledge of the memo was from an October 17, 2003 Wall Street Journal article that discussed it, how was it that Gannon first came to pursue the interview with Wilson?
Reporters and bloggers at Daily Kos, E Pluribus Media and BecomingGannon have suggested that Gannon was created as a GOP operative, originally to aid the Iraq propaganda effort. Gannon first appeared in the White House briefing room early in 2003, even before Talon News had been created. (Neither Talon News nor GOPUSA, the group that created it, was paying Gannon at the time, according to Talon's subsequent application for a Congressional press pass for Gannon.)
Gannon was useful in several ways. His puffball questions took up time that would have otherwise gone to serious questions, of course, and they also steered the agenda of discussion in directions the White House wanted.
He was on to the Wilson-Plame story early. On July 24, 2003, ten days after the Robert Novak column outing Plame was published, Gannon launched his own blog with a denunciation of the media for asking questions about the leak, which he said amounted to trying to make Bush into “George W. Nixon.”
By September, Gannon has said, he’d begun speaking with Wilson, though their interview did not take place until at least (internal date references suggest) mid-October. Well before that, at a White House press briefing on October 1, Gannon came to Scott McClellan’s aid with the question that Rove and other White House critics of Wilson had been pushing:
MR. McCLELLAN: You have a hypothetical? (Laughter.) I asked for a hypothetical. No, no. (Laughter.)
Q I'm no Bob Novak, but my feelings are really hurt that nobody leaked anything to me. (Laughter.) Has the White House asked George Tenet or anyone else at the CIA why they would send a partisan, like Ambassador Wilson, on this mission? And because he is so partisan--
MR. McCLELLAN: Has who asked? Has who asked anybody?
Q Has the White House asked George Tenet or anyone at the CIA why they would send a partisan like Ambassador Wilson on this mission? He's proven himself to be partisan, and does that cast doubt on the report that he filed in this matter?
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, I think we've kind of been through this issue already. I don't know of any such conversations. Certainly, I don't think it's my position to get into speculating about someone's motives. I think that is a role for you in the media to determine how to follow.
Q Isn't the White House the least bit curious--
MR. McCLELLAN: And how to -- and how to present it to the public.
Q -- about how the process was, that Ambassador Wilson was chosen to go on this very important mission?
MR. McCLELLAN: I've seen the news coverage, just like you have. I've seen the issues that have been raised, and, again, I think that that's best left for you in the media to determine, not me from this podium.
So, with Gannon's assistance, McClellan was able to urge "you in the media" to investigate how Wilson was chosen for the mission to Niger.
Tex MacRae, in the BecomingGannon blog , lays out a possible sequence of events in which the classified memo was handed around town by Grover Norquist (at whose exclusive Wednesday gatherings Gannon was a frequent presence by early 2003, if not before). MacRae speculates that it was Norquist who told Gannon to interview Wilson in the hope of deriving information that could be used to discredit him.
My bet is that it was Rove who set Gannon in motion on the Wilson interview, whether directly or through Norquist. The publishedinterview reads in part as an effort in scandal control: to find out exactly what Wilson knew about who was behind the leak, what he knew about Rove's involvement in particular, and to learn the names of journalists who had spoken to Wilson about the leak. At various points, Gannon asked Wilson:
-Regarding the revelation of your wife as a CIA operative, do you think Karl Rove was behind the leak?
-But the question again: Is Karl Rove the leaker?
-Any names attached to these journalists?
-So you don't blame Rove for the leak, you blame him for pushing the story and dragging your wife into the public square?
Of course by now Gannon and Rove, or whoever his overseer was, have had years to get their stories straight. But if there was a relationship with someone in the White House, and if it continues, there would be evidence in the form of phone records and email.
Gannon may be Plamegate's Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, but he knows one thing: the identity of his handler (who may also, as I suspect, be his blogging partner). If Patrick Fitzgerald has asked about that, he also knows who initiated Gannon's interview with Joe Wilson, and likely who leaked the classified memo around Washington. But Gannon’s been mum on whether he’s ever appeared before the grand jury.
And back on the wire? SeeBush's October 4th news conference starting at about 45:05 .
I’ve pointed out before that
The blog's preoccupations and elisions are also telling. Although it came into existence over Plamegate, it hasn't taken note of Rove's or Libby's fresh worries. Nor has it mentioned Judy Miller's release from jail, despite having called impatiently last summer for Miller to give testimony that the blog was somehow then sure would "clear" Rove. That was back when it looked as if it all might fall on Libby, if only Miller would talk.
But the blog's remarkably upbeat and confident on the Harriet Miers nomination. A recent post reads like a Rove speech, complete with his windy trademark omniscience and references to Sun-Tzu. Some excerpts:
"Like most conservatives, I have grown weary of how the Democrats continue to assert their relevance in governance when voters have removed them from power and reduced their numbers in three successive elections...When you peel away the top layer of beltway bloviation, the brilliant strategy becomes easier to see...If you view political strategy as war, as I am sure Karl Rove does, the Miers pick makes perfect sense....She will be confirmed, probably as easily as John G. Roberts…When conservatives stop to think about it, they will be comforted by what Bush has achieved. He will have delivered the Court he promised, without the political bloodshed everyone assumed would take place. A principle of Sun-Tzu is to have won the war before the first shot is fired."
At this point, Gannon (or Rove) is just about the only conservative blogger left standing who unreservedly admires Bush-Rove's "brilliance" in naming Harriet Miers to the court.
So, what does this all have to do with Valerie Plame's outing? Readers will recall that Gannon (nee James Guckert) did a long, three-part
Gannon subsequently was questioned at least once, in early 2004, by FBI investigators who asked him about his references during the Wilson interview to a classified State Department memo that mentioned Plame in a paragraph marked "S" for secret. According to a New York Times story Friday, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is now examining possible espionage law breaches in connection with the leaking of that memo.
Gannon may or may not have seen the memo; his answers about it have been contradictory, and the date of the interview hasn't been reported. But even assuming that his only knowledge of the memo was from an October 17, 2003 Wall Street Journal article that discussed it, how was it that Gannon first came to pursue the interview with Wilson?
Reporters and bloggers at Daily Kos, E Pluribus Media and BecomingGannon have suggested that Gannon was created as a GOP operative, originally to aid the Iraq propaganda effort. Gannon first appeared in the White House briefing room early in 2003, even before Talon News had been created. (Neither Talon News nor GOPUSA, the group that created it, was paying Gannon at the time, according to Talon's subsequent application for a Congressional press pass for Gannon.)
Gannon was useful in several ways. His puffball questions took up time that would have otherwise gone to serious questions, of course, and they also steered the agenda of discussion in directions the White House wanted.
He was on to the Wilson-Plame story early. On July 24, 2003, ten days after the Robert Novak column outing Plame was published, Gannon launched his own blog with a denunciation of the media for asking questions about the leak, which he said amounted to trying to make Bush into “George W. Nixon.”
By September, Gannon has said, he’d begun speaking with Wilson, though their interview did not take place until at least (internal date references suggest) mid-October. Well before that, at a White House press briefing on October 1, Gannon came to Scott McClellan’s aid with the question that Rove and other White House critics of Wilson had been pushing:
MR. McCLELLAN: You have a hypothetical? (Laughter.) I asked for a hypothetical. No, no. (Laughter.)
Q I'm no Bob Novak, but my feelings are really hurt that nobody leaked anything to me. (Laughter.) Has the White House asked George Tenet or anyone else at the CIA why they would send a partisan, like Ambassador Wilson, on this mission? And because he is so partisan--
MR. McCLELLAN: Has who asked? Has who asked anybody?
Q Has the White House asked George Tenet or anyone at the CIA why they would send a partisan like Ambassador Wilson on this mission? He's proven himself to be partisan, and does that cast doubt on the report that he filed in this matter?
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, I think we've kind of been through this issue already. I don't know of any such conversations. Certainly, I don't think it's my position to get into speculating about someone's motives. I think that is a role for you in the media to determine how to follow.
Q Isn't the White House the least bit curious--
MR. McCLELLAN: And how to -- and how to present it to the public.
Q -- about how the process was, that Ambassador Wilson was chosen to go on this very important mission?
MR. McCLELLAN: I've seen the news coverage, just like you have. I've seen the issues that have been raised, and, again, I think that that's best left for you in the media to determine, not me from this podium.
So, with Gannon's assistance, McClellan was able to urge "you in the media" to investigate how Wilson was chosen for the mission to Niger.
Tex MacRae, in the
My bet is that it was Rove who set Gannon in motion on the Wilson interview, whether directly or through Norquist. The published
-Regarding the revelation of your wife as a CIA operative, do you think Karl Rove was behind the leak?
-But the question again: Is Karl Rove the leaker?
-Any names attached to these journalists?
-So you don't blame Rove for the leak, you blame him for pushing the story and dragging your wife into the public square?
Of course by now Gannon and Rove, or whoever his overseer was, have had years to get their stories straight. But if there was a relationship with someone in the White House, and if it continues, there would be evidence in the form of phone records and email.
Gannon may be Plamegate's Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern, but he knows one thing: the identity of his handler (who may also, as I suspect, be his blogging partner). If Patrick Fitzgerald has asked about that, he also knows who initiated Gannon's interview with Joe Wilson, and likely who leaked the classified memo around Washington. But Gannon’s been mum on whether he’s ever appeared before the grand jury.
And back on the wire? See
