LA Times: The outing of a coward

[tuvor]

# Karl Rove could have come clean long ago. It's time for the West Wing to take the heat.

On TV recently, I called Matt Cooper's then-unknown source a thug, someone watching from a privileged perch in the White House as Cooper went through hell in the Valerie Plame case.

Now that I know the source was Karl Rove, I would like to revise and extend my remarks. Rove is not a thug, he is a coward. He could have come clean long ago, saved millions in taxpayers' dollars and spared everyone a lot of agony. Instead, we've had a two-year investigation to find out what President Bush could have learned by walking across the hall.

At one time, the president called the outing of CIA agent Plame "a very serious matter" and said that the person who did it should be fired. In certain circumstances, exposing an undercover agent is a crime. In any circumstance, it's wrong. At least six reporters were leaked information to suggest that Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, was a girlie man who needed his wife to get him a job checking out rumors of Saddam Hussein's nuclear ambitions. The idea was to discredit Wilson's finding that the rumors were untrue. At the time, Bush's press secretary, Scott McClellan, told us it was ridiculous to suspect Rove. And: "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration."

Questions about statements like that turned Monday's White House news briefing into a rare smackdown of McClellan, who went suddenly mum because of "an ongoing criminal investigation." When the 35th question came at him in as many minutes, his made-up face looked as gray as his suit. I thought he might cry.

http://www.latimes.com/news/printedition/opinion/la-oe-carlson14jul14,1,6153849.column?coll=la-headlines-sports-soccer-gal&track=mostemailedlink

[oldtime dfl_er]

1. well spoken

Rove is a coward AND a thug. that's the most contemptible combination.

http://www.cafepress.com/scarebaby/702950

[ET Awful]

2. He's a REPUBLICAN

which is the same thing in many, if not most, cases.

[Mixxster]

3. The article doesn't show up for me on that link. n/t