Arianna Wants A Meeting

Arianna Huffington, blogging from the Aspen Institute’s five-day Ideas Festival, gives us the reaction of media bigs to the latest developments in the Plame leak investigation, and ponders Karl Rove's future:

According to the players, the key to whether this story has real legs -- and whether it will spell the end of Rove -- is determining intent. And a key to that is whether there was a meeting at the White House where Rove and Scooter Libby discussed what to do with the information they had gotten from the State Department about Valerie Plame being Joe Wilson’s wife, and her involvement in his being sent on the Niger/yellowcake mission. If it can be proven that such a meeting occurred, then Rove will be in deep trouble -- especially if it is established that Rove made three phone calls leaking the info about Plame and her CIA gig… one to Matt Cooper, one to Walter Pincus, and one to Robert Novak.

Well, let's have a meeting - in August 2003 the WaPo described the White House Iraq Group, which was formed in August 2002 to coordinate the run-up to negotiations, war, or whatever:

Systematic coordination began in August, when Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. formed the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, to set strategy for each stage of the confrontation with Baghdad. A senior official who participated in its work called it "an internal working group, like many formed for priority issues, to make sure each part of the White House was fulfilling its responsibilities."

...The group met weekly in the Situation Room. Among the regular participants were Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser; communications strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; and policy advisers led by Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, along with I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.

 

Oh, my - we have already seen Lewis Libby all over this story (and if the WaPo stands by their reporting from last fall, he is Judy Miller's secret source).

And we recognize Karl Rove's name.

Now, our official editorial position continues to be that the leak was an innocent mistake, and we love the Walter Pincus story to illustrate that.  We also like the theory about the information flow from the INR memo through Colin Powell as described in this recent post.  That theory, by the way, corrects a point made in Arianna's post, where she wonders if "Rove and Scooter Libby discussed what to do with the information they had gotten from the State Department about Valerie Plame being Joe Wilson’s wife".  The info that Colin Powell received from the INR did *not* mention Ms. Plame's "last name or undercover status".

Time will tell.  In related news, this old post from Sept 2003 has held up well, as light comedy anyway.  It does contain a useful lesson - when making a Bold Prediction, hedge:

It's not Rove.  Or, if it is, we have a deeply psychotic press corps.

I stand by at least half of that. 

MORE:  Jay Rosen has a good round-up here.  Dan Froomkin of the WaPo wants journalists to stop respecting Special Counsel Fitzgerald's request for silence, and start respecting the public's right to know.  Good point.  For example, can Judy Miller tell us whether her source has refused to grant a special personalized waiver, or whether she simply has not asked?  This LA Times story suggests she won't ask:

"Miller would not ask her sources to waive their anonymity. She said intelligence officials might feel coerced into admitting they had talked to a reporter."

My *guess* is that Ms. Miller was making a general comment about waivers, rather than commenting on her specific situation - the LA Times says she would not make herself available for this story.  However...

Comments

[Lion]

"...discussed what to do with the information they had gotten from the State Department about Valerie Plame being Joe Wilson’s wife..." The fact that they were husband and wife had been published by both of them--by Wilson in his on-line bio, and by Plame on a genealogy website in which she not only listed her name as Valerie Plame Wilson by gave her e-mail address as Wilson's.

[kim]

Cherchez la femme.
==================

[richard mcenroe]

"Miller would not ask her sources to waive their anonymity. She said intelligence officials might feel coerced into admitting they had talked to a reporter."

— Because, y'know, that happens sooooo seldom...

[richard mcenroe]

Besides. everyone knows the Secret Order of the Stonemasons is really behind this whole mess... "Who made Steven Gutenberg... a star?... We do! WE DO!"

[Jeff]

Here's another dot: Newsday broke the story back in 2004 that there were grand jury subpoenas for the records of the WHIG during the fateful month of July 2003, as well as for the records of phone calls from Air Force One -- Bush and who knows who from the WHIG were traveling in Africa at the time. (Very strangely, by the way, Editor and Publisher published a story about this a few days ago, then took it down as it had in fact been published originally over a year ago. Perhaps hoping to jog our memories.)

[ArminTamzarian]

Now the Leftists are fuming that this was the fourth White House briefing in which no one asked about the Plame-Rove connection. They naturally consider this evidence that the White House press corps is too busy fellating W. to get around to it, or has been frightened into submission by Rove and McClellan swinging their ID cards around menacingly.

[The Kid]

In this post I argue that Pincus knew Plame’s identity and employer in June 2000. He learned it not from the Bush administration but from Wilson, and had used Plame in his June 2003 article.

Arianna, up to her old tricks, is as well informed as usual.

[jerry]

Any guesses as to why Fitz wanted the guest list to a White House party for Ford and Greenspan on July 13 2003?

Also, Fitz requested that the White House provide a missing transcript for a press conference in Africa between the Wilson article and the Novak article. Why is it missing, has it been found?