# Did Karl Rove out the CIA Agent? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 2, 2005, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791 "2005-07-02T03:04:39Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/81 "2005-07-04T00:30:23Z")
> [@](#): > > Hey! Nice way to talk about a probable Supreme Court Justice. Never happen; he’s been too willing to call BS on conservative judicial activism in the past, which means that the Dobson/Falwell/Perkins crowd will never allow it. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 12:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/82 "2005-07-04T00:30:38Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > We’re already hearing the “let’s wait until we have all the facts” dodge… Yeah, I hate that dodge. Let’s just lynch him now and get it over with. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 12:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/83 "2005-07-04T00:36:28Z")
> [@](#): > > Yeah, I hate that dodge. Let’s just lynch him now and get it over with. It’s what we’ve been hearing from the apologists from the beginning. I think it’s obvious to anyone at this point that someone in the Bush administration outed Plame as an act of petty revenge, and that the administration (at the very least) is not at all concerned with finding and punishing those who did it. If people are not willing to criticize the administration about those things because “we don’t have all the facts”, I don’t see why they’ll start once we have specific names, because there will always be facts we don’t have. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 12:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/84 "2005-07-04T00:55:11Z")
> [@DoctorJ](#): > > It’s what we’ve been hearing from the apologists from the beginning. I think it’s obvious to anyone at this point that someone in the Bush administration outed Plame as an act of petty revenge, That the source of the info was a Bush adminstration official is indisputable in as much as Novak has been saying that all along. IIRC, he said he got the info from 2 Bush administration officials. > [@](#): > > and that the administration (at the very least) is not at all concerned with finding and punishing those who did it. If people are not willing to criticize the administration about those things because “we don’t have all the facts”, I don’t see why they’ll start once we have specific names, because there will always be facts we don’t have. Uhmmm… we don’t have all the facts. I guess you can be excused for thinking we do after reading this thread. Many of the posts seem to assume that Rove has already been tried and convicted. Hey, if you want to criticize folks for not putting more pressure on the adminstration, fine, but criticizing them for something you’re “sure” they’ll do in the future is absurd. And claiming that “we don’t have all the facts” is a “dodge” when, in fact, we don’t have all the facts is assinine. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/85 "2005-07-04T01:03:34Z")
Neither the pro choice or the anti choice side wants Gonzalez. He’s perfect! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 1:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/86 "2005-07-04T01:07:17Z")
With the WH being the most secretive in history…even going so far as to re-classify things already released… do you really believe we will ever know all the facts? ---
**Author:** ![DoctorJ](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doctorj/32/2904_2.png) [@DoctorJ](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DoctorJ)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/87 "2005-07-04T01:27:15Z")
> [@](#): > > Uhmmm… we don’t have all the facts. I guess you can be excused for thinking we do after reading this thread. Many of the posts seem to assume that Rove has already been tried and convicted. I’m not even talking about Rove (specifically), or what’s been suggested recently. I’m talking about the fact that this happened a year ago, and despite pledges to investigate this breach of national security fully, we’ve yet to hear anything from them. If Bush had really been interested, he could have found the guilty party and had him out on his ass within 24 hours (preferably in leg irons). The biggest response to this from the Bush apologists has been, “We don’t have all the facts.” There are at least enough facts that principled conservatives should be speaking up and demanding some answers from their President. As Reeder points out, it is unlikely that we’ll ever have a totally undeniable set of facts, so why do I have any reason to think that those who want to believe Bush can do no wrong will ever acknowledge that we have enough information to call bullshit? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/88 "2005-07-04T02:11:43Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Uhmmm… we don’t have all the facts. What we do know now is that [Karl Rove spoke with Time magazine’s Matt Cooper in the days before Plame was outed](http://edition.cnn.com/2005/LAW/07/03/cooper.rove/). Motive, Means and Opprtunity are all there. Of course that doesn’t prove guilt, but only a fool would now take the word of Rove’s lawyer that no confidential information was passed. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/89 "2005-07-04T02:36:53Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > it had Rove’s fingerprints all over it even then. I had the same thought - I’ve been trying to Google for a cite and haven’t found anything, but wasn’t Rove fired from H.W.'s 1992 campaign for giving Novak some inside info about dissent within the campaign staff? I vaguely remember that it was something like HW was becoming unhappy with an official, and Rove wanted him out, too, so he told Novak that said official was about to be fired, or something? As soon as I heard Novak’s name, I thought that Rove was behind it, although I figured he probably had minions to do the actual dirty work for him. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/90 "2005-07-04T02:46:18Z")
> [@John Mace](#): > > Uhmmm… we don’t have all the facts. That’s why the White House needs to stop stalling this “investigation”, right? Don’t you wonder why it’s taking so long? > [@](#): > > And claiming that “we don’t have all the facts” is a “dodge” when, in fact, we don’t have all the facts is assinine. No, simply leaving it at that would be asinine. So why are you? ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/91 "2005-07-04T02:56:08Z")
> [@Katriona](#): > > I had the same thought - I’ve been trying to Google for a cite and haven’t found anything, but wasn’t Rove fired from H.W.'s 1992 campaign for giving Novak some inside info about dissent within the campaign staff? [From Ron Suskind in Esquire, January 2003:](http://www.ronsuskind.com/newsite/articles/archives/000032.html) > [@](#): > > Sources close to the former president say Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 3:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/92 "2005-07-04T03:09:30Z")
> [@Katriona](#): > > I had the same thought - I’ve been trying to Google for a cite and haven’t found anything, but wasn’t Rove fired from H.W.'s 1992 campaign for giving Novak some inside info about dissent within the campaign staff? I vaguely remember that it was something like HW was becoming unhappy with an official, and Rove wanted him out, too, so he told Novak that said official was about to be fired, or something? As soon as I heard Novak’s name, I thought that Rove was behind it, although I figured he probably had minions to do the actual dirty work for him. [http://www.bustbob.com/view.asp?ID=5](http://www.bustbob.com/view.asp?ID=5) ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/93 "2005-07-04T03:14:57Z")
> [@Reeder](#): > > [http://www.bustbob.com/view.asp?ID=5](http://www.bustbob.com/view.asp?ID=5) Thanks, Reeder - I’ve been driving myself nuts trying to find just the right combo to get back to 1992 and not the current brouhaha. ---
**Author:** ![Katriona](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/katriona/32/113_2.png) [@Katriona](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Katriona)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 3:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/94 "2005-07-04T03:16:18Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > [From Ron Suskind in Esquire, January 2003:](http://www.ronsuskind.com/newsite/articles/archives/000032.html) And thanks to Squink, too! ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/95 "2005-07-04T14:46:41Z")
I missed the Sunday newsies talk shows … any mention of the latest revelations about Rove come up? How were they handled? Hey, John Mace and Dances With Cats, do we have all the fact in on WMDs yet, I wonder? Or Saddam’s connection to 911? Seems to me we heard a lot of calls to wait for all the facts on those long after most everybody had decided the horse was dead. If you believe that “Justice delayed is justice denied” then taking interminable amounts of time to “get all the fact” can be and indeed often has been a dodge. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/96 "2005-07-04T14:48:55Z")
> [@Katriona](#): > > And thanks to Squink, too! My thanks to Squink and Reeder, too … Real Life has called me away from my disastrously underpaid duties on this message board. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 2:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/97 "2005-07-04T14:51:29Z")
> [@](#): > > Sources close to the former president say Rove was fired from the 1992 Bush presidential campaign after he planted a negative story with columnist Robert Novak about dissatisfaction with campaign fundraising chief and Bush loyalist Robert Mosbacher Jr. It was smoked out, and he was summarily ousted. I’ll bet it didn’t take Pappy Bush anything like a year to “get all the facts” on Rove’s leak, either, which speaks volumes about the current Bush admin’s unwillingness to find the perp here. ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/98 "2005-07-04T15:05:01Z")
> [@Evil Captor](#): > > Hey, John Mace and Dances With Cats, do we have all the fact in on WMDs yet, I wonder? Or Saddam’s connection to 911? Seems to me we heard a lot of calls to wait for all the facts on those long after most everybody had decided the horse was dead. If you believe that “Justice delayed is justice denied” then taking interminable amounts of time to “get all the fact” can be and indeed often has been a dodge. The “dodge” was issued at “people” (presumably some posters here as well), not the administration. Note how I already said I had no problem with criticism for slow action by the administration, only that it was absurd in this instance to say that “we don’t have all the facts” is a “dodge”. Go back and read the original exchange a few posts up. Let me ask you one simple question: do we have enough facts at this point to know that it was Rove? If we don’t, then how can “we don’t have all the facts” be a “dodge”? Here’s what started the discussion: > [@DoctorJ](#): > > > [@Reeder](#): > > > > Does anyone here really believe anything at all is going to happen to Rove? > > No, but I’m a little anxious to hear what dodges the apologists come up with for this one. We’re already hearing the “let’s wait until we have all the facts” dodge So, the complaint is that right now some people (eg, the “aploligists”) are using “let’s wait unti we have all the facts” as a “dodge”. So, do we have “all the facts”, or more importantly, enough facts to say it was Rove for certain? If not, then how can it be characterized as a dodge? I see it as a crass attempt to convict someone without enough facts, and to brush aside anyone who objects because they must be “an apologist”. ---
**Author:** ![wring](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/838e76/32.png) [@wring](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wring)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/99 "2005-07-04T15:12:44Z")
who says we have to’wait for all the facts’ to discuss the issue? far as I can see, no one has incarcerated Rove. besides, when **do** you have all the facts? AFAIK, we still debate the issues after trials have ended (Andrea Yates etc) ---
**Author:** ![SteveG1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/bb73d2/32.png) [@SteveG1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SteveG1)\ **Post date:** [July 4, 2005, 3:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791/100 "2005-07-04T15:33:11Z")
I wouldn’t mind seeing Rove, Novak, and anyone else involved go to jail. But, that would require a trial and evidence. So don’t hold your breath, everyone. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-karl-rove-out-the-cia-agent/310791.md?page=6)