White House silence speaks volumes

THE NEWS TRIBUNE
Published: July 13th, 2005 12:01 AM

The Bush administration knows how reprehensible it is for a top administration official to blow an intelligence officer’s cover. That’s why back in 2003, and again in 2004, a normally tightlipped White House adamantly defended presidential adviser Karl Rove from just such allegations.

Now those words might come back to bite the White House.

Rove’s own attorney admitted this week that Rove told a Time reporter that former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson — who had been investigating the administration’s claims about Saddam Hussein — had a wife who worked for the CIA.

That admission does not square with the administration’s pronouncements of Rove’s innocence, no matter how the lawyers parse them.

On three separate occasions in 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Rove was not involved in disclosing the identity of agent Valerie Plame, Wilson’s wife. President Bush himself said he would consider such involvement a firing offense.

That was before the revelation by Rove’s attorney. Now the White House has gone suspiciously silent.

During two combative news briefings Monday, McClellan refused to answer a barrage of questions about Rove. McClellan said he couldn’t comment while the Justice Department’s criminal investigation of the matter is underway — a ludicrous statement since both McClellan and Bush have talked publicly about the Plame leak since the federal investigation began.

On Tuesday, Bush himself dodged reporters’ questions, leaving it to McClellan to offer this lame response: “Any individual who works here at the White House has the confidence of the president.”

That might be the problem exactly. Rove’s official title is deputy chief of staff, but he plays politics second to none. President Bush — who has dubbed Rove “boy genius” — has relied on Rove most of his political life.

That kind of influence gives Rove a great deal of power in Washington, D.C. Is it enough power to earn the protection of the White House, or the ability to dupe it? We don’t know, and the administration is not talking.

Rove may not have done anything illegal. But even if he didn’t identify Plame by name or know she was undercover, he clearly was “involved” in identifying her.

The White House needs to explain why it insisted otherwise. It’s too late to shut up now.