If there is one thing that the Republicans will learn from the Plame investigation, it’s that they can’t talk to “normal” reporters or they could get caught. They need die-hard, true believer, amoral, press release spigots to disseminate their talking points to.
Like Jeff Gannon, who continues to spout his lies about the Plame investigation.
If Rove doesn’t go down & the entire WH doesn’t take a serious, and I mean Senate investigations serious, hit for this endangerment of national security, then they will get smarter about how they use their propaganda tools. There will be more “interns” sent into major newsrooms (basically ditto heads who will be doing the research for the “real” reporters); more “independent” news outlets will sprout up (i.e. Talon News, but better disguised) & their reporters will gain remarkable access to the corridors of power, shutting out the non-conformist news outlets from the “scoop”; and they’ll call in their favors at GE, Fox & Clear Channel to amp up the noise.
Next time the leaks will only go to Safire, Novak, the Washington Times & Fox News. And perhaps Drudge. They will never talk. Even if it means going to jail (like that would ever happen to them… ah, hello, what the hell is Novak still doing polluting the airwaves??). They would be the perfect soldiers for the assault on democracy. Rove got cocky and drunk with his own power and screwed up by going too broad and too much into people who are actually journalists. He’s a sharp guy, he wouldn’t make the same mistake twice.
And don’t bother to say “but he would resign or be fired”. Who cares? Seriously. You think that just because he isn’t in the Oval Office he wouldn’t still be a major player? He’s too valuable to them. They would never let him go. Unless he went to jail of course.
These guys have studied at the feet of the master propagandists and if they do learn from their mistakes we are all in big fucking trouble. Really the only thing that would stand in their way would be the Internet, Air America, Newsweek & CBS (oh and the rest of the world, but that’s not a consideration for these guys, or this day).
So what do we do? We keep pushing. We keep talking about & using the frames of: national security & patriotism & time of war & betrayed state secrets & treasonous & corrupt administration & lies. Keep bringing it back to the basics. Don’t even bother arguing specific details IMO, the reporters (& prosecutor) can take care of that… just keep bringing it back to where we want them to focus their attention… On the President’s Brain… his ‘go-to-guy’ who has been with him since the beginning. The guy who leaked classified information concerning a covert WMD expert working on Iraq, the country the Bush Admin said was planning to nuke American cities (paraphrasing), during a time of war.
Let’s make sure they don’t get away with it, m’kay?
🙂
Update [2005-7-12 20:32:34 by spiderleaf]: We are underestimating Rove if we believe that he did not know Valerie’s status IMO (refering to BooMan’s Devil’s Advocate post – I posted a comment there, but me being me, I had to add it here too ;).
Rove is a shrewd guy. He didn’t get to where he is now without understanding angles and leverage. I have no doubt that he built a dossier and planned his “angle” right about the time Wilson first got back from Africa. He didn’t know Wilson, he wouldn’t have trusted him. He needed something he could discredit or blackmail him with in case he disobeyed the marching orders… so he did some digging into his background (he most likely has sources all over the place feeding him info — including in the CIA or Pentagon) & found Valerie. But he didn’t think the whole scenario through (as I pointed out above, let alone the whole blowing of a covert operative’s cover) & we have arrived at this point.
But no way this was something he decided to do on the spur of the moment. He had his attack planned & launched it within days of Wilson’s article.
