Friday , March 29 2024

Dear Karl Rove

Karl,

First, I hope you don’t mind that I call you Karl but after I saw the movie about you – Bush’ Brain – I started feeling like I knew you. Of course that meant I had to shower each time I saw you on tv because of all the stinky underhanded dirty work you do.

But you know all that.

So let me cut to the chase, Karl.

Did you or didn’t you? Leak, that is. Your lawyer says you didn’t but others say you did.

Liberal bloggers make a number of interesting points,with some saying you are the one who leaked the name and suggesting possible legal ramification and defensive move by George Bush and you.

Even John Dean – yes, that John Dean – is getting in on the action.

Conservative bloggers say you didn’t do the leaking and think it’s just awful that reporters/bloggers, etc would suggest otherwise.

You’re probably too smart – read too sneaky and crafty – to leak yourself but instead had an underling do the actual call thus giving you the needed wiggle room.

I recently tried asking Robert Novak but he ain’t talking which makes him look worse than you, and that’s saying something. Why more people aren’t criticizing him for his silence about his role in this affair – and what he told the prosecutor – rather than making other reporters who did stories following up on his piece go to jail is beyond me. For those like Jay Rosen who have done so, I say, “Amen.”

It’s one thing to protect a source who is a whistle-blower. It’s another to protect a source whose aim is to disclose a CIA agent’s name. Less admirable, surely, but still there are shield laws, appropriately, for such situations. But when you have talked to the prosecutor and named your source while others are going to jail for not talking about the same or related sources, well, your integrity is dropping faster than that of the prosecutor.

You are making Jayson Blair and Judith Miller look good in comparison!

Here’s a few questions – maybe they can be answered by you or Novak – since he too seems be a mouthpiece/blow hard for the administration:

1) Why is the emphasis on prosecuting the reporters when the administration official – as Novak referred to the anonymous source(s) he quoted in his column – was the one breaking the law?

2) George Bush senior has said anyone who discloses the name of a CIA agent is guilty of “treason.” Do you agree with that?

3) Are you sure you don’t want to try to stop the prosecution and jailing of the New York Times’ Judith Miller, who seems to have long been in bed with the administration, printing many of their lies about the weapons of mass destruction all over Iraq, the ones that were never found?

4) Or is this like a double play where you both get reporters to be afraid while also getting whistleblowers like Plame’s husband, from publicly disclosing information the administration does not want people to hear or see, such as this document?

5) Why should you not be facing jail time or at least a trial for this and the long list of other dirty tricks you allegedly engaged in?

Please write.

Scott/Scoop

P.S. If Judith Miller or Matthew Cooper worked for Fox, would they be headed for jail?

About Scott Butki

Scott Butki was a newspaper reporter for more than 10 years before making a career change into education... then into special education. He has been working in mental health for the last ten years. He lives in Austin. He reads at least 50 books a year and has about 15 author interviews each year and, yes, unlike tv hosts he actually reads each one. He is an in-house media critic, a recovering Tetris addict and a proud uncle. He has written articles on practically all topics from zoos to apples and almost everything in between.

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