Tuesday, July 12, 2005

Finally - The Media Musters the Courage to Fight the Bush Agenda

  • Fox News is definitely in the minority on this one - A full 87% of visitors to an online MSNBC poll state that Bush should fire Rove over the Valerie Plame leak. Rove committed a crime in revealing the identity of Valerie Plame. Yet - out comes Fox News host John Gibson still attempting to smear Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson, with this editorial footage, actually trying to make the case that Rove should be given a medal. Are you kidding me?

  • Coverage on the Rove scandal is widespread, and I cannot even begin to express how glad I am to see the corruption of the Bush Administration finally being brought to light. The exchanges between Bush Press secretary Scott McClellan the past few days have been classic - Here's a link to some video footage (highly recommended!!), along with a transcript.

Some of my favorite moments:
QUESTION: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything. You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation. Was he involved or was he not? Because contrary to what you told the American people, he did indeed talk about his wife, didn't he?
MCCLELLAN: There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

QUESTION: Scott, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us, after having commented with that level of detail, and tell people watching this that somehow you've decided not to talk.

You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium or not?

MCCLELLAN: I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said. And I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation...

QUESTION: You're in a bad spot here, Scott...

(LAUGHTER)

... because after the investigation began -- after the criminal investigation was under way -- you said, October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby. As I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this," from that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began.

Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation.

  • Juan Cole states in his blog, Informed Comment, that some of Valerie Plame's contacts may have been killed by the leak.
  • Check out the array of frontpage headlines across the nation, catalogued by a Daily Kos journal. (You can't help but smirk at the title "Shrub poisoned zoo monkeys" sharing the front page headline concerning Rove on the cover of the Chicago Tribune)

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