You know it is bad for the administration when the Press is no longer buying the talking points. Today I watched Anderson Cooper from CNN hand a Republican Hack his HAT on the Rove Leak. This is the complete section of the transcript from todays 360, that dealt with the issue. Pay special attention to the italicized comments.
(Begin Bush Video)
BUSH: I have instructed every member of my staff to fully cooperate in this investigation. I also will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports. We're in the midst of an ongoing investigation. And I will be more than happy to comment further, once the investigation is completed.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
COOPER: That was President Bush speaking earlier today. And as our White House correspondent Dana Bash reported at the beginning of the program, some people were surprised by the president's remarks that he didn't defend Karl Rove more vocally.
Well, there is certainly a lot of angles to this story. And as often happens in Washington, opinions are clearly divided along political lines. Earlier I spoke to Terry Holt, a former spokesman for the Bush/Cheney campaign, and Paul Begala, a CNN political analyst and former adviser to President Clinton.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
COOPER: Paul, were you surprised that the president didn't come to a stronger defense of Karl Rove?
PAUL BEGALA, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: Yes. I think it's -- I don't want to read too much into the tea leaves -- but, look, there's clearly some there, there. And it could well be that Karl -- we know that Karl misled the country and misled Scott McClellan. He said he had I had nothing to do with this. It might have been that Karl walked into his boss and said, Mr. President, I didn't have anything to do with this. And misled him. If that's the case, then Bush should have fired him right away.
COOPER: Terry, is there some there, there?
TERRY HOLT, REPUBLICAN STRATEGIST: I'm not sure it's all that nefarious. The president is in a tough spot with respect to an ongoing investigation. And what he said today is just factually true, that he's in the middle of an ongoing investigation, one that the White House has cooperated with for over a year.
COOPER: But this has been an ongoing investigation for some two years. And the White House has made comments about it in the past. Why no comments now?
HOLT: Well, the comments that they made out the outset, obviously. But I'm not sure we're talking about the same thing today that we were talking about two years ago in 2003 when this came up. We were talking at that time about a CIA leak of Valerie Plame's name. That's not happened here. The White House -- Karl Rove called a reporter to warn them off of a story that now has been prove untrue. Joe Wilson said a bunch of things that just turned out not to be the case. He lied.
COOPER: You made a lot of statements there. Paul, I want to you respond to that. There are a lot of different things to respond to.
BEGALA: I feel like Roy Rogers, whoa, Trigger!
HOLT: Go, man, go.
BEGALA: You're getting way out there, Terry.
Look, Ambassador Wilson, in fact, told the truth. The president in his State of the Union told the country...
HOLT: He said that Vice President Cheney...
(CROSSTALK)
BEGALA: The president told the country that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellow cake uranium in Africa. Now that turned out not to be true. Mr. Wilson went and investigated it.
COOPER: Terry, you're saying that Karl Rove was simply trying to warn a reporter of a false story. Beyond whether or not the story was false, wasn't -- I mean, the other side of it is he was he was really trying to discredit Joe Wilson by just saying: Yes, this is a guy whose wife sent him to Africa. Isn't that kind of one interpretation?
Any senior-level official in this town deals with reporters every day and I think that all of us understand that when you're talking to reporters, you're talking to the media, you're talking about how stories develop and what's true and what's not true and giving guidance, you have off-the-record conversations like this clearly was. If he was out to discredit Joe Wilson, why in the world wouldn't he let the reporter use the information? I mean, that'...
BEGALA: He did. He just didn't want his fingerprints on it...
HOLT: No.
BEGALA: ... And in fact, there was a lot of coverage. It's continuing tonight in this interview of people trying to smear Joe Wilson, Terry.
HOLT: Paul. He said double secret background. I mean that's our euphemism for "off the record."
BEGALA: No, it's not a euphemism for off the record. The White House tried to smear Joe Wilson.
HOLT: It sure is.
BEGALA: That was what has happened here, is that -- now, we also know in the process of smearing Joe Wilson, the name of a CIA operative on weapons of mass destruction trying to protect from us the terrorists, her name was revealed and the undercover company for which she worked.
HOLT: She was a Langley bureaucrat.
BEGALA: ... was revealed. No, this did enormous damage, Terry.
COOPER: Wait a minute.
Terry, wait a minute. Let me just jump in here. I mean, whether or not you think this was a high-level CIA officer, she was a CIA officer. You know, this is a war time. This is an undercover operative who has put their life on the line to serve our country...
HOLT: I'm not sure that she is an undercover operative.
COOPER: Isn't it a little disingenuous for Republicans now to basically be de-feigning her and saying: You know, she was a bureaucrat. She was nothing? If a Democrat had done this...
HOLT: I'm not saying that.
COOPER: Wouldn't you be saying this is treasonous?
HOLT: I'm not saying that, Anderson. I'm just saying that according...
COOPER: You just said she's a bureaucrat.
HOLT: That's right.
COOPER: She's a woman -- she's dedicated. I mean whether or not if she's good or not or high level or not, she's serving her country.
HOLT: But a bureaucrat isn't necessarily a negative word. You might take it that way, but the fact of the matter is, that in order for this law to be broken, this person has to be a covert, undercover operator. They have very, very high standard for braking this law.
COOPER: She works with the deputy director of operations. She has an undercover position.
HOLT: But at the same time -- at the same time, was the United States actively trying to keep her cover secret? We don't -- we need to find out what's going on with this investigation. If there's a crime, that's one thing, but if there's no crime, then this story is all about politics.
COOPER: Terry Holt, thank you. Paul Begala, thanks.
HOLT: Thanks.
BEGALA: Thanks, Anderson.
I think the Republicans have grown accustomed to people swallowing this crap whole. Well it seems that the press has finally woke up. Or perhaps they just smell blood in the water... Whatever the case, no one is buying this crap anymore. Immorality is out of vogue.
CNN has been running a clip all day with some Republican woman blandly quoting the talking points... What is funny is that it is obvious she is doing a scripted spiel, and even funnier... She did not even seem to believe it. Reading the pathetic attempt by Rob at Wizbang to spin this is almost funny, if it wasn't so sad. Sad how people will put the welfare of the country, common sense and even basic morality, behind political partisanship.
