# Wherein Scylla admonishes the left wing for casting Plame upon Rove **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [August 30, 2006, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737 "2006-08-30T01:20:09Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 5:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/61 "2006-08-30T17:18:25Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Powell imediately told Gonzales (who was WH council at the time). It doesn’t appear that Gonzales told Bush. [/QUOTE] Wow. Thanks, John. How on earth could Gonzales keep this from Bush? ---
**Author:** ![Larry\_Borgia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/larry_borgia/32/156_2.png) [@Larry\_Borgia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Larry_Borgia)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 5:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/62 "2006-08-30T17:19:52Z")
Reasons to hate Bush: 1.)The War. A very bad idea. 2.)The way the war has been prosecuted. Lots of little bad ideas. 3.)A tax policy that favors the rich and ignores the middle class. 4.)Fiscal irresponsibility and the looming deficit. 5.)Lack of a coherent and effective counter-terror strategy five years after 9/11. 6.)The war. 7.)Shredding the constitution and using it for toilet paper. 8.)Pandering to extremist lunatics including but not limited to a.)The defense of marriage amendment b.)Flying back to Washington to sign bill regarding Terry Schiavo c.)Lying–more or less–about stem cell research. 9.)Appointing incompetent cronies to positions of power (Meirs, Brown), leading to, among other things… 10.)…The catastrophic federal response to hurricane Katrina (less important in Bush’s mind than Terry Schiavo, apparently). “Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job.” 11.)Did I mention the war? 12.)Ignoring climate change completely. Reasons to like Bush: 1.)It wasn’t Rove who leaked Plame’s name, it was some other dude, a dude named Armitage. Hooray for Bush! (Ok, Bush seems to be trying to find a real solution on immigration, and he was right about the Dubai ports deal. But he still sucks.) ---
**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:** [August 30, 2006, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/63 "2006-08-30T17:31:08Z")
[QUOTE=BobLibDem] Wow. Thanks, John. How on earth could Gonzales keep this from Bush? [/QUOTE] Again going from what I heard during the interveiw with Isikoff, it was to keep Bush’s fingers off this whole issue. The investigation was already underway and if Bush took some action, like firing someone, then that might compromise the investigation. It sounds a bit sleezy to me, but I guess it’s not that unusual. BTW, I didn’t fully answer your original question. Powell did know about Armitrage very early on because Armitage told him right after the thing blew up (shortly after Novak wrote his column). ---
**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:** [August 30, 2006, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/64 "2006-08-30T17:36:03Z")
[QUOTE=Duke of Rat] Back when it was coming out (and this is all from memory which may be failed, I wasn’t obsessing over it), seems like Novak called Rove and asked about Wilson’s wife, or something like that. Rove told him he better be careful about running with that story, Wilson’s wife was CIA. My take on it was that Novak already knew and was calling Rove to confirm. Which he did, which made him guilty of spilling the beans. The gist I got out of it was that Rove was telling Novak not to pursue the Plame angle because she was CIA, not telling him to out Plame because she was CIA and the wife of Wilson who was in bad graces with Cheney. But I probably have it screwed up and will come across looking like a Rove apologist. [/QUOTE] No, it wasn’t Rove who said that-- maybe it was the folks at the CIA when Novak called them. They wouldn’t have confirmed the info, but they might have told him not to pursue or print anything. I believe Rove claims to have said something like: _Yeah, I heard that, too_ when Novak asked him or mentioned that he heard that Plame was CIA. ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/65 "2006-08-30T17:44:58Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Bush is man of his word and he did “take care of” those who were involved in the leak-- he let them stay in their jobs. [/QUOTE] But on the Bush scale of discipline, that is harsh punishment. He usually gives them medals. ---
**Author:** ![threemae](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/5f9b8f/32.png) [@threemae](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/threemae)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 6:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/66 "2006-08-30T18:33:10Z")
Jesus H. Christ. Another reason that I remain firmly independent. If the Republicans put up a good candidate in 2008, maybe I’ll be forced to vote for him. Trust me, I despise Bush as much as anyone here, but would it fucking kill liberals to once in a while say, “you were right, Bush was right (in this particular instance), and we rushed inappropriately to judgement with incomplete facts. We’re sorry.” ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 6:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/67 "2006-08-30T18:45:01Z")
> [@](#): > > Trust me, I despise Bush as much as anyone here, but would it fucking kill liberals to once in a while say, “you were right, Bush was right (in this particular instance), and we rushed inappropriately to judgement with incomplete facts. We’re sorry.” Um. Being extremely well-acquainted, as I am, with the publicly reported aspects of the Plame investigation as a result of my job, I can easily say that no one has demonstrated, based on what’s being reported right now, that Bush was right about anything in this particular instance. What, precisely, do you imagine these latest reports make Bush right about? In which way, precisely, are you claiming that people rushed to judgment inappropriately? ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 7:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/68 "2006-08-30T19:30:24Z")
I’ll raise my hand and say I thought that Plame was outed by someone in the administration in an effort to discredit her husband’s (not necessarily to out her, I think that was just an unfortunate side effect) report that oone important aspect of the administration’s case for war was based on either cherrypicked, unreliable or a poor interpretation of information (I forget which). Maybe it was done to punish him, I dunno. I have plenty of grievances with Karl Rove but basically he is a dirty unethical political pit fighter who can get a monkey elected president by making people afraid of a human president, I think his political skills were critical to the deception necessary to sell us the war in Iraq [White House Iraq Group - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Iraq_Group) and I thought that the Valerie Plame affair was part of the strategy. The story about the cow stomchs was a bit disturbing. [QUOTE=Scylla] **…and probably gets gangbanged by the lefties in the process when it all backfires on him.** It wasn’t Rove. It wasn’t Cheney. It wasn’t revenge. It was [Richard Armitage](http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=armitage+plame+newsweek), notorious Washington gossip who was the source for Novak and Woodward. I think you were all a little hard on the Bush. You hurt Cheney’s feelings, and you besmirched Karl Rove. I hope you all feel a little bit guilty about this. * * * This weekend I went to an agricultural demo up at Penn State. Cows, as you might note, are ruminants. At this demo, I say the latest in cow technology. It seems they’ve figured out how to install access hatches in cows. What they do is (I’m not fucking kidding about this,) they cut a hole in the side of the cow that goes all the way into it’s second stomach. They put a plastic door on the hole in the cow. The cow doesn’t seem to mind, or so they say. Now, whenever you want, you can open the door, reach into the cow’s second stomach and withdraw a sample of the partially digested food (don’t forget to close the door.) You can remove this sample and perform tests on it and make sure the cow is digesting properly and has the right mix to make good milk. I saw this with my own eyes. The guy actually put his hand in the cow and removed some cow sludge. Then he pushed his hand hard so that you could stand on the other side of the cow and see it in outline. Apparently, this is a much desirable feature to have on your cows. To a farmer, a cow with an access hatch is like a car with a cupholder, and they are now starting to do this widely. * * * For some reason, I thought about this as I read these stories about Armitage, and how the shrill and bitter accusations made for so long turned out to be the usual bunch of bullshit. Now that we know who it is, nobody really seems to care. The value doesn’t seem to be in what really happened. Rather it seems to lie in the utility of the accusation. I feel as if a door has been installed upon the second stomach of modern American liberalism and I have reached in and removed some fermenting sludge. I look upon all the besmirching lefties, and all their ilk and ask who will take this cup from me and drink this bitter milk? [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/69 "2006-08-30T19:36:19Z")
> [@](#): > > Trust me, I despise Bush as much as anyone here, but would it fucking kill liberals to once in a while say, “you were right, Bush was right (in this particular instance), and we rushed inappropriately to judgement with incomplete facts. We’re sorry.” I’m not a liberal but I’ve defended Bush when I agreed with him (admittedly there haven’t been too many times this has happened) but this new revelation really has changed the already known facts. The early judgement was that Rove leaked classified information. This has since been confirmed. The fact that other members of the Bush administration also leaked this information hardly qualifies as a exoneration. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/70 "2006-08-30T19:36:48Z")
> [@](#): > > It wasn’t Rove. It wasn’t Cheney. It wasn’t revenge. > > It was Richard Armitage, notorious Washington gossip who was the source for Novak and Woodward. Care to retract your assertion that Armitage was “the” source for Novak and Woodward, **Scylla**? ---
**Author:** ![Zebra](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/c0e974/32.png) [@Zebra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zebra)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 7:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/71 "2006-08-30T19:39:35Z")
Cheney and Rove will be the last people to be upset over political hardball playing. They play a pretty tough game themselves and they throw plenty of beaners, so I don’t think it will hurt their feelings to have suffered a political attack. Oh and they both are evil and have hot gay sex while dressed as farm animals. Oh and how does the guy reach into the second stomach? Is there a second door there? ---
**Author:** ![Waverly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/57b2e6/32.png) [@Waverly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Waverly)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/72 "2006-08-30T19:40:57Z")
[QUOTE=Gadarene] What, precisely, do you imagine these latest reports make Bush right about? In which way, precisely, are you claiming that people rushed to judgment inappropriately? [/QUOTE] As you must know, any new finding inconsistent with the original understanding negates the entire chain of logic, eradicates all facts, and further, serves as undeniable proof that the opposite is true. This is why, when Willard Libby’s calculated carbon-14 half life was found to be off several hundred years by a team from Cambridge, Libby was immediately stripped of his Nobel prize, he was sentenced to prison, and the entire field of archaeology was abolished in favor of literal biblical history. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 7:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/73 "2006-08-30T19:50:52Z")
> [@](#): > > As you must know, any new finding inconsistent with the original understanding negates the entire chain of logic, eradicates all facts, and further, serves as undeniable proof that the opposite is true. :smack: I’d forgotten about that. Carry on, then. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 7:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/74 "2006-08-30T19:57:59Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Ah, you were not listening carefully. He never said he’d fire them, he said: Bush is man of his word and he did “take care of” those who were involved in the leak-- he let them stay in their jobs. [/QUOTE] 😃 **John** , you know that given a choice between believing you and Scott McClellan, I’ll almost always choose you. Shit, given the choice between believing Joe Isuzu and Scott McClellan, I’ll be buying a car that goes faster than a speeding bullet. But in this case, [I gotta go with McClellan](http://mediamatters.org/items/200507130005): > [@](#): > > Q. Scott, has anyone – has the President tried to find out who outed the CIA agent? And has he fired anyone in the White House yet? > > McCLELLAN: Well, Helen, that’s assuming a lot of things. First of all, that is not the way this White House operates. The President expects everyone in his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. No one would be authorized to do such a thing. > > […] > > McCLELLAN: The President has set high standards, the highest of standards for people in his administration. He’s made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration. (emphasis added) Daniel ---
**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:** [August 30, 2006, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/75 "2006-08-30T20:03:43Z")
[QUOTE=Left Hand of Dorkness] 😃 **John** , you know that given a choice between believing you and Scott McClellan, I’ll almost always choose you. Shit, given the choice between believing Joe Isuzu and Scott McClellan, I’ll be buying a car that goes faster than a speeding bullet. But in this case, [I gotta go with McClellan](http://mediamatters.org/items/200507130005): (emphasis added) Daniel [/QUOTE] Poor Scotty-- he got thrown to the lions. As you know, I was making a joke above, but Bush never said he’d fire the folks who leaked classified information. I suppose you can say McLellan = Bush, and usually that should be the case. But that guy got hung out to dry-- he really was kept out of the loop. I still like my version of Bush “taking care” of the perps. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/76 "2006-08-30T20:54:28Z")
[QUOTE=John Mace] Poor Scotty-- he got thrown to the lions. As you know, I was making a joke above, but Bush never said he’d fire the folks who leaked classified information. I suppose you can say McLellan = Bush, and usually that should be the case. But that guy got hung out to dry-- he really was kept out of the loop. I still like my version of Bush “taking care” of the perps. 🙂 [/QUOTE] I dunno; I really don’t feel so sorry for him. He was pretty complicit in his getting hung out to dry, in my opinion. I know you were joking, but I think I’ve heard folks trying to argue that Bush wasn’t saying he’d fire anyone involved in the leak before, folks trying to spin his statement into something else. I wanted to kibosh that. Bush didn’t say it, but when your spokesman says something, you need to not let it go if it doesn’t represent what you think, or what you intend to do. One of the few things I’m willing to believe about McClellan is that he accurately represented what Bush wanted to say to the media. Daniel ---
**Author:** ![Triskadecamus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b19c9b/32.png) [@Triskadecamus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Triskadecamus)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/77 "2006-08-30T21:36:18Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] The early judgement was that Rove leaked classified information. This has since been confirmed. The fact that other members of the Bush administration also leaked this information hardly qualifies as a exoneration. [/QUOTE] It does, if you squint your eyes real tight, and hum “I’m not listening” over and over. Obviously, while not a liberal, you are not a Republican, or you would know this. Why do you hate freedom? Tris ---
**Author:** ![RTFirefly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c77e96/32.png) [@RTFirefly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RTFirefly)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 9:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/78 "2006-08-30T21:39:05Z")
SPOILER ALERT: Don’t click the link if you’re reading Harry Potter, but haven’t finished Book 6! Link’s also got likely NSFW language. [QUOTE=Finagle] One way or another, it’s just more snakes on a Plame. [/QUOTE] I prefer [Snapes on a Plane](http://snapeonaplane.ytmnd.com/). ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/79 "2006-08-30T21:42:39Z")
He wasn’t the _first_ to reveal such information! That means kinda like someone yelling “Olly, Olly, All in Free!” or “King’s X”! If somebody else breaks the law before you do, you’re not breaking the law. You could look it up. ---
**Author:** ![Gadarene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/e47c2d/32.png) [@Gadarene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gadarene)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2006, 9:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737/80 "2006-08-30T21:46:36Z")
> [@](#): > > You could look it up. You look it up. What do we look like, lawyers? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737.md?page=3) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/wherein-scylla-admonishes-the-left-wing-for-casting-plame-upon-rove/370737.md?page=5)