Media Quiet on Karl Rove Involvement in Plame Leak

Why haven't we been hearing more about Karl Rove's alleged involvement in leaking Valerie Plame's (identified as a CIA operative) name to the media? One of the most potentially damaging stories of the year for the current administation and it is obviously being played down.

Isn't it odd that one of the most treacherous acts against the country is going under-reported? Revealing the name of an intelligence operative and compromising, more likely resulting in the death of, other assets and intelligence channels which have taken years to develop. According to the law, the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the act by itself warrants imprisonment.

Ariana Huffington's opinion, appearing July 6th on her site, is the obvious fear of what Karl Rove and the White House are capable of doing, to even the biggest of media moguls and their empires, to those who cross them.

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.

So, it's a given Karl Rove is involved, the questions is to what degree he willingly, and with premeditated intent to cause harm, released the information. Did he encourage, demand, or suggest (wink, wink) the name be made public as pay-back for Ambassador Joe Wilson's (Valerie Plame's husband) public denial of the Nigerian yellowcake uranium memo used by the Bush administration as proof of Sadam's weapons program.

Other than intent, the other big legal question raised was: will Rove be able to get away with claiming that he did not know Plame was an undercover agent?

We all know what happened after Rove placed those calls. The question is, what will happen now?

Yes, what will happen now? Good question, indeed.

Last week, New York Times reporter Judith Miller was sentenced to jail, being held in contempt of court for refusing to reveal a confidential source to the grand jury investigating the disclosure of Plame's identity. We can only hope this ultimately results in the revelation of the identity of the leak.

One thing is for certain, the media will wish this go away or some other news rise to the surface. You see, this will be the only way to avoid being held to the public scrutiny of having failed in their responsibility to report this egregeous action and bring to light this obvious violation of public trust by our leaders.

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