Rove's Connection To Valerie Plame And An Extensive History of Foul Play [View All]

[DrFunkenstein]

This may be old news around here, but this information is new - and shocking - to me. First I read the Oct. 7 Harper's Weekly that contained this nugget:

The Bush Administration rejected calls for an independent counsel in the matter of Valerie Plame, whose identity as an undercover CIA operative was revealed by at least one senior White House official, possibly Karl Rove, in retribution for her husband's skeptical remarks about the president's case against Iraq.

Rove, the president's political adviser, denied being the source of the leak, though he was reportedly fired from George H.W. Bush's 1992 reelection campaign for leaking damaging information about a rival to Bob Novak, the very columnist who exposed Plame in July.

Plame and Rove, it was reported, attend the same Episcopal church.

http://www.harpers.org/weekly-review/

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I was unaware of that connection, but Rove's 1992 work for Bush reminded me of an old profile of Rove and his early connection to the Bush family.

Rove, 48, was born in Colorado, grew up in an apolitical household and caught the political bug after the family moved to Utah. In 1971 he quit the University of Utah and moved to Washington to become executive director of the College Republicans.

In 1973, he and the College Republicans were accused of encouraging dirty tricks during the Watergate campaign year of 1972. The Republican National Committee, which was then chaired by Bush's father, investigated and eventually exonerated Rove, who blames political opponents from his chairmanship race for spreading false allegations.

But Rove acknowledges that, in 1970, he used a false identity to gain entry to the campaign offices of Illinois Democrat Alan Dixon, who was running for state treasurer. Once inside, Rove swiped some letterhead stationery and sent out 1,000 bogus invitations to the opening of the candidate's headquarters promising "free beer, free food, girls and a good time for nothing."

"It was a youthful prank at the age of 19 and I regret it," Rove says.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaigns/wh2000/stories/rove072399.htm

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