PHILADELPHIA – President Bush may soon face the ultimate loyalty test: whether to jettison the principal architect of his political career in order to reverse his sagging public support and salvage his imperiled second-term agenda.
It would be a tough call. He and Karl Rove have been tight ever since their first encounter on Nov. 21, 1973, back when Bush was a college kid clad in an Air National Guard flight jacket and cowboy boots and Rove was a young Republican operative who, by his own recent recollection, was instantly smitten.
But now Rove has been named as one of the anonymous White House sources who helped to leak the identity of an undercover CIA official as part of an effort to discredit the official’s husband, retired ambassador Joseph Wilson, a critic of the war in Iraq.
The leak, a potentially illegal act, has triggered new questions about the Bush administration’s credibility. Two years ago, the White House was insisting any talk of Rove’s involvement was “totally ridiculous.”
Rove has not been charged with any crime; many legal experts don’t believe he violated the narrow terms of a 1982 law that mandates jail time for anyone blowing the cover of an intelligence operative.
But, legalities aside, the Rove saga could spell political trouble for a president who already has been experiencing a rocky second term (as most lame-duck presidents do). Charlie Cook, a Washington analyst who runs the nonpartisan Cook Political Report, said Friday: “This is about discrediting people on the taxpayer’s dime. It’s an embarrassment for Bush at a time when people increasingly don’t like the way the economy is going, and the way Iraq is going. For him, this is an ugly political environment right now.”
The key finding in a new NBC-Wall Street Journal survey, conducted jointly by Democratic and Republican pollsters, is Bush’s growing credibility gap. In January, 50 percent of respondents said that Bush was “honest and straightforward,” while 36 percent disagreed. In the latest survey – completed before the Rove news surfaced last weekend – 41 percent said Bush was honest, while 45 percent said otherwise.
Bush and press secretary Scott McClellan are refusing to answer questions about Rove’s role in the Wilson affair or to address their previous denials of his involvement. Nor are they saying whether Rove – who, in addition to his political work, now enjoys a broad portfolio on policy – is in any danger of being ousted. Would Bush deem him in the clear in the absence of a criminal indictment?
“I bet Bush is struggling with that question,” said Bruce Buchanan, a political analyst at the University of Texas who has tracked the Bush-Rove bond for years in the Lone Star state. “The president comes from a family that prizes loyalty, but the family has also shown the ability to deep-six people if necessary. Rove is a special case, however, a longtime friend, and I doubt Bush would want to (dismiss) him if most Americans merely decided that his actions were inappropriate.”
Here’s a thumbnail timeline: In 2002, Joseph Wilson was tapped by the CIA to investigate an Italian report that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear material from Niger. He traveled there and found no basis for the claim (a conclusion later confirmed by the International Atomic Energy Agency and the State Department). In January 2003, however, Bush invoked a Saddam-Niger connection in his State of the Union speech. Six months later, in a July 6 New York Times column, Wilson disputed Bush and contended that intelligence had been “twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”
This was a big deal; Wilson had been ambassador to Iraq under President George H.W. Bush, and the senior Bush had lauded Wilson as a “hero.” But on July 14, 2003, conservative columnist Robert Novak, citing “two senior administration officials,” said in print that Wilson had been tapped for the mission to Niger because his wife, “Valerie Plame … an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction,” had suggested him for the job.
On July 22, Novak said in a Newsday interview: “I didn’t dig it out, it was given to me.” He said that his administration sources “thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it.” Reports have indicated that Bush officials spoke with at least six journalists about Plame; Bush critics interpreted her outing as payback for Wilson’s dissent.
On July 30, the CIA formally complained to the Justice Department; a CIA spokesman said, “If she was not undercover, we would not have a reason to file a criminal referral.” A special prosecutor, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, was subsequently appointed. In court papers unsealed last month, Fitzgerald framed the case this way: “It’s about potential retaliation against a whistle-blower.”
It’s now known, as a result of Fitzgerald’s probe, that Rove mentioned Wilson’s wife and job to Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper. And on July 8, several news reports, citing an insider in the investigation, identified Rove as a source for Novak’s outing scoop. The insider, described as sympathetic to Rove, said that Rove had essentially confirmed what Novak already had. (Rove and Novak have a long history. In 1992, while working in the senior Bush’s re-election race, Rove was fired because the brass suspected he was leaking to Novak.)
Buchanan sees this saga as a morality tale: “Rove has long been one of the premier hardball practitioners in America, and this (case) may be the tipping point. When people play close to the edge, they can win for a long time. But, like Icarus, they can fly too close to the sun, and their wings can melt.”
Yet it’s far from clear whether Rove is criminally liable. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Fitzgerald would have to prove that Rove was fully aware of Plame’s undercover status and that the CIA was taking “affirmative steps” to keep it secret. Even a legal brief by 36 media organizations, filed in an effort to keep several leak recipients out of jail, recently claimed there was “serious doubt as to whether a crime has even been committed.”
“Based on what we know, it’d be very hard to convict Rove,” said Rosa Brooks, a University of Virginia law professor. “But Fitzgerald may well be looking at whether anyone impeded his investigation. This could be about perjury and obstruction of justice. He seems willing to follow this wherever it leads.”
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That’s the danger for the Bush team. Even as the White House mounts its defense – party strategist Rich Galen said Wednesday that “the notion that Karl Rove has been hiding or covering up is beyond ridiculous” – and insists, in the words of GOP chairman Ken Mehlman, that Democratic partisans are “smearing someone’s good name for political gain,” the Rove defenders may be hostage to future events, as dictated by the criminal justice process.
Key questions also remain unanswered. In 2003, McClellan said, “I have spoken with Karl Rove,” who denied leaking. Rove “didn’t condone that kind of activity and was not involved in that kind of activity.” Did Rove reassure Bush in this manner? To what extent did they discuss the case? Did Bush know anything then about Rove’s true role?
And has the White House now decided that only an indictment would trigger a firing? Two years ago, the administration was saying that any role at all was grounds for dismissal. McClellan said: “The president has set … the highest standards. … If anyone in this administration was involved in (the CIA leak), they would no longer be in this administration.”
But a large swath of the population won’t ask these questions. Charlie Cook explained: “The president has a comfort zone, because so many people today are “bitter enders’ who refuse to believe anything they don’t want to believe. That helps Rove. Forty percent of the electorate wants to hang him, another 40 percent wants to look the other way, and the remaining 20 percent will ask, “Who’s Karl Rove?”‘
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ARCHIVE PHOTOS on KRT Direct (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): Karl Rove
PHOTOS (from KRT Photo Service, 202-383-6099): Karl Rove
AP-NY-07-17-05 1710EDT
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