What it is, is

The right wriggles and howls and attempts to escape facing Karl Rove’s crimes

© Bryan Zepp Jamieson

7/13/05

http://zeppscommentaries.com/VRWC/is.htm

Remember how right wingers used to howl and moan endlessly about the famous Clinton quote, "It depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is"? It was supposed to represent Clinton duplicity and pettifogging.

All Clinton was doing was asking for clarification of a question put to him during a court deposition, something any lawyer would tell his client he must do in a deposition if he isn’t crystal clear on what is being asked of him. All completely straightforward and legitimate.

Any notion that Clinton was being sneaky or devious by asking for that clarification belongs in the tall pile of utter bullshit that the right-wing likes to try to convert into truth through constant repetition, along with all the discredited Clinton "scandals" such as travelgate, Whitewater, and Paula Jones, or the infamous $200 haircut story.

Of course, right wingers, moral and ethical paragons that they are, are just assiduously safeguarding the public from lying and duplicitous politicians and lawyers, and would no more stand for it in Clinton than they would in one of their own.

Ain’t that right, boys?

After this past week, you might expect to hear a bit less of such right wing sanctimony. No, they didn’t take a vote and decide to stop being sanctimonious. It’s just that every time they try whining about "what the meaning of ‘is’ is" liberals are just going to laugh at them.

It’s the Karl Rove thing, you see. Once the Supreme Court ruled that first amendment protections for the press didn’t extend to government whores dressed up as journalists using their positions to cover up government crimes, the whole Karl Rove thing has come unstuck, and now the man known affectionately in liberal circles as "that pasty white turd blossom" is facing possible felony indictments for anything from knowingly revealing the identity of a national security operative to perjury. REAL perjury, and not the pretend kind they tried to hang Clinton for.

We got to watch Scott McClellen go from confidante and good buddy of Karl Rove (ah, the late nights they spent together, looking at pictures of liberals they could target and giggling like schoolgirls) and how Karl had confided to his truest, most dearest friend that he would never DREAM of endangering a CIA operative as an act of political retribution against her husband to Scott barely knowing the man, and refusing to comment on matters that were under the same legal review that they were when he commented on them freely a dozen times or more over the previous 18 months. That was pretty good.

Watching Novak contain his fury when a column he wrote about Joe Wilson in 1990 emerged, in which he wrote of Wilson, who he later tried to characterize as a life long Democratic appointee and one of Clinton’s moles: "The chief American diplomat, Joe Wilson, shepherds his flock of some 800 known Americans like a village priest. At 4:30 Sunday morning, he was helping 55 wives and children of U.S. diplomats from Kuwait load themselves and their few remaining possessions on transport for the long haul on the desert to Jordan. He shows the stuff of heroism." Note that in 1990, Clinton was not President. When last seen, Novak was telling a Grand Jury that he didn’t MEAN to refer to Valerie Plame as a "CIA operative." That must have been a typo, or something. Just as it was a prolonged belch he emitted that came out sounding suspiciously like "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me. They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it." when explaining about the "two senior administration officials" who told him about Joe Wilson’s wife.

Watching George flat-out stonewall on Rove today was delirious. Imagine if Clinton, during a joint interview with a foreign leader, had tried pretending that certain questions hadn’t been asked. Oh, the howls from the right we would have heard!

It gets better. Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, is a pretty amazing piece of work, but he started out getting outslicked by the lawyer who represented Matt Cooper, the Time Magazine reporter the SC had just ruled had to go to jail for contempt. This guy, Richard Sauber, sees where Luskin has told the Wall Street Journal, "If Matt Cooper is going to jail to protect a source, it's not Karl he's protecting." Since I’m just a poor dumb essayist and not a smartypants lawyer with a bunch of fancy degrees and all that, I won’t presume to guess what Luskin had in mind when he said that, but Sauber read it, and decided it meant that Karl was asking Cooper not to go to jail on his account, and was releasing Cooper from reporter-source confidentiality. One can only imagine the relief he felt upon being relieved of this noble burden!

So he whispers – or at least types – sweet nothings to the Grand Jury, who are duly impressed to learn that it was Karl Rove who brought up Plame in friendly discussion. Just the White House Chief of Staff (think "Leo" from "The West Wing") sharing a few state secrets with an ink-stained wretch, happens all the time, don’t you know?

Luskin must correct this little faux pas, since he is honor bound to try and keep his client out of jail, whether he deserves it or not. So he points to the law in question that the Grand Jury is considering, and notes that "Rove did not mention her name to Cooper." He didn’t, either, apparently. Instead, he referred to "Joe Wilson’s wife" and there must be thousands of Joe Wilsons in the country. No reason to suppose he meant the same Joe Wilson they had been discussing for the past hour. And as for "Joe Wilson’s wife," phhht. Guys like Joe have hundreds of wives, sometimes thousands. Ain’t that right, Karl?

Well, it all depends on what the meaning of "is" is.

The best "depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is" moment came today. Several Democrats said that Putsch had promised to fire any administration official who was involved in leaking the identity of Valerie Plame to Novak and other members of the media. Not so, crowed the right. He said "Listen, I know of nobody – I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action. And this investigation is a good thing."

Hmm. Let’s see. He has someone in a position of power and responsibility in his administration who committed a felony, spilled state secrets to the press, possibly endangered dozens of other American operatives, and lied and tried to cover it up. Those are the actions that he feels demand "appropriate action." But his supporters claim that this didn’t mean FIRING the guy. Nothing drastic like that.

Knowingly identifying an American undercover operative. Lying about it. Perjury to a Grand Jury.

If Putsch’s notion for an appropriate response to this sort of thing doesn’t include firing (at the very least) then maybe it’s time we fired Putsch. Who needs a moral imbecile like that with his finger on the nuclear button?

But if some right wing sanctimonious twit starts moaning about "depends on what the meaning of ‘is’ is," you know what to do.

Just think of it as free target practice.