Qtec
10-30-2005, 11:20 PM
Reid: White House owes an explanation
Poll shows dimmer view of Bush's ability to manage effectively
Programming Note: Joseph Wilson talks about the CIA leak investigation, on CNN's The Situation Room, Monday, 7 p.m. ET.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate minority leader said Sunday that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney owe the country an explanation of "what's going on" in the administration and called for White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove to be fired.
"I think not only should the president appear before the American public and explain what is going on and take a few questions from the press, but certainly the vice president should do that," Sen. Harry Reid said on CNN's "Late Edition."
The Nevada Democrat referred to past comments from the president that anyone found to have been involved in the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name to the media would be fired.
Bush later amended his comments to say that anyone guilty of a criminal act would be fired.
"Everyone knows Karl Rove is involved," Reid said. "If the president is a man of his word, Rove should be history."
Rove is widely believed to have been named as "official A" in the five-count indictment handed up Friday against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Libby resigned Friday as Cheney's chief of staff after a federal grand jury indicted him on five charges related to the leak probe: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements.
A leading Republican cautioned that Rove hasn't been charged with any crime.
"Mr. Rove, like every other citizen, is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and until somebody says that he's done something wrong, he ought to be permitted to go about his business like anybody else," said Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Rove was not indicted, but special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said the investigation of the leak affair would continue, and sources said Rove was not out of legal jeopardy.
Bush made a short statement Friday at the White House in which he called the legal proceedings "serious" and said the administration was focused on many issues.
"There was not a word of apology, not a word of explanation to the American people," Reid said. "The president's going to have to get a touch of reality."
Reid urged Bush to follow an example set by President Reagan when he was faced with the Iran-Contra scandal, and "clean house."
The two-year investigation into the leak raised questions about political retribution by the White House and one of its central points for going to war against Iraq -- the search for weapons of mass destruction.
2004
"REMEMBER THE affair of "the sixteen words"? A year ago this month official Washington was convulsed by a controversy over whether President Bush had knowingly twisted the truth about Iraq to persuade the country to go to war. A former U.S. ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV, made that charge. As evidence he cited Mr. Bush's statement in his January 2003 State of the Union address that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," a finding that seemed to support the conclusion that Iraq's nuclear weapons program was active. Mr. Wilson suggested that the White House should have known this was not true, because he himself had traveled to the African state of Niger at the request of the CIA a year before the speech and debunked the intelligence. A few days later, embarrassed by the fact that part of the evidence about Niger was a forgery, the White House said the sentence should not have been included in the president's speech"
The day after Wilson's op-ed, the govt admitted that they made a mistake. The sixteen words should not have been included in the President's speech. The normal procedure would be to find out who made the mistake and kick his or her ass- end of story.
My question is, why did Rove/ libby etc try to discredit Wilson AFTER they had admitted that what Wilson claimed was basically correct?
Was it jsu for spite or was it a diversion?
Q
Poll shows dimmer view of Bush's ability to manage effectively
Programming Note: Joseph Wilson talks about the CIA leak investigation, on CNN's The Situation Room, Monday, 7 p.m. ET.
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The Senate minority leader said Sunday that President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney owe the country an explanation of "what's going on" in the administration and called for White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove to be fired.
"I think not only should the president appear before the American public and explain what is going on and take a few questions from the press, but certainly the vice president should do that," Sen. Harry Reid said on CNN's "Late Edition."
The Nevada Democrat referred to past comments from the president that anyone found to have been involved in the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name to the media would be fired.
Bush later amended his comments to say that anyone guilty of a criminal act would be fired.
"Everyone knows Karl Rove is involved," Reid said. "If the president is a man of his word, Rove should be history."
Rove is widely believed to have been named as "official A" in the five-count indictment handed up Friday against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Libby resigned Friday as Cheney's chief of staff after a federal grand jury indicted him on five charges related to the leak probe: one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements.
A leading Republican cautioned that Rove hasn't been charged with any crime.
"Mr. Rove, like every other citizen, is entitled to the presumption of innocence, and until somebody says that he's done something wrong, he ought to be permitted to go about his business like anybody else," said Sen. Arlen Specter, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Rove was not indicted, but special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said the investigation of the leak affair would continue, and sources said Rove was not out of legal jeopardy.
Bush made a short statement Friday at the White House in which he called the legal proceedings "serious" and said the administration was focused on many issues.
"There was not a word of apology, not a word of explanation to the American people," Reid said. "The president's going to have to get a touch of reality."
Reid urged Bush to follow an example set by President Reagan when he was faced with the Iran-Contra scandal, and "clean house."
The two-year investigation into the leak raised questions about political retribution by the White House and one of its central points for going to war against Iraq -- the search for weapons of mass destruction.
2004
"REMEMBER THE affair of "the sixteen words"? A year ago this month official Washington was convulsed by a controversy over whether President Bush had knowingly twisted the truth about Iraq to persuade the country to go to war. A former U.S. ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV, made that charge. As evidence he cited Mr. Bush's statement in his January 2003 State of the Union address that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," a finding that seemed to support the conclusion that Iraq's nuclear weapons program was active. Mr. Wilson suggested that the White House should have known this was not true, because he himself had traveled to the African state of Niger at the request of the CIA a year before the speech and debunked the intelligence. A few days later, embarrassed by the fact that part of the evidence about Niger was a forgery, the White House said the sentence should not have been included in the president's speech"
The day after Wilson's op-ed, the govt admitted that they made a mistake. The sixteen words should not have been included in the President's speech. The normal procedure would be to find out who made the mistake and kick his or her ass- end of story.
My question is, why did Rove/ libby etc try to discredit Wilson AFTER they had admitted that what Wilson claimed was basically correct?
Was it jsu for spite or was it a diversion?
Q