CAIRO, 12 August 2005 — Will US President George Bush keep Karl Rove, his former campaign manager, on as deputy White House chief of staff? Or will Bush give Rove the boot? Hard to believe, but it “depends on what your definition of ‘is’ is.” Sounds Clintonesque. But Bush really said that. More or less. You know the story, and frankly, we’re all sick of hearing it.
But do let’s tell it again. When all the hoo-ha about Bush justifying his invasion of Iraq because Saddam Hussein allegedly had bought nuclear weapons-grade “yellow cake” uranium from Niger, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson said, “I don’t think so!” in the middle of the 2004 presidential campaign. More or less. Wilson claims Rove retaliated by unmasking Wilson’s wife, Victoria Plame, as an undercover CIA agent.
“Oooh!” their suburban neighbors reportedly gasped. “We had no idea.”
Some pundits and Wilson supporters claim the “unknowing neighbors” hypothesis proves Rove broke the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, theorizing that if Plame and Wilson’s neighbors had “no idea” she was a CIA agent; she must certainly have been deeply undercover. But Wilson’s “know-nothing neighbors” hypothesis must necessarily fail, because in America, the neighbors never know anything.
We joke a lot about “nosy neighbors,” but in fact, in America, we have absolutely no idea who our neighbors are — let alone whether they are spies or not. Unless tragedy strikes and we have to bring over a homemade casserole, often purchased in the grocery store’s takeaway section, or unless they aren’t at home and Federal Express leaves their packages with us (and chances are we won’t be home to take them, either), we rarely meet them.
Even as a nation, most US citizens have no idea where our neighbors to the north and south — Mexico and Canada — are, unless we regularly buy cheap pharmaceutical drugs. America’s modern neighbor-disconnect phenomenon was documented in the 1970-something television series, “Bewitched,” where the plot revolved around Samantha, a beautiful witch who struggled to live a normal mortal life with a mortal husband, all the while casting spells of convenience that went hilariously awry in the middle of visits from demented witch and warlock relatives (all now badly revived as a movie), while her neighbor, Gladys, haplessly spied on the witchy goings-on, only to be mocked and disbelieved by her husband, Abner, who buried his head deeper in his daily newspaper rather than show any interest in what his neighbors were up to.
Wilson and Plame’s neighbors actually seem kind of dopey. Beltway neighbors are traditionally an exception to the “neighbor know nothing” rule. At least, they claim to be.
Beltwayers pride themselves on routinely “outing” CIA operatives in their midst, or at least guessing at who has what level security clearance. Even dinner parties where nobody knows their neighbors and folks never bring over store-bought homemade casseroles or take delivery of the FedEx packages are not complete without the chat about which neighbor is the secret agent.
But maybe Plame’s neighbors are just savvier, because even neighbors can be prosecuted under the act. And who needs that? Why end up in jail over a neighbor? Especially one you’ve never met? And especially when you have to sit in jail watching Rove out there enjoying not only his freedom but a cushy government job?
Better to just avoid the whole store-bought homemade casserole FedEx package thing and look the other way while pulling out of the driveway. Don’t even wave. Build a fence or grow a thorny hedge and get a security light, so the folks next door will know where the property lines are. It’s the American way.
But back to Wilson and Rove. Wilson and his supporters now point to the neighbors’ disingenuousness to say, “See? Valerie was in deep cover, blown by Rove, and so now Bush should fire him.” Actually, Bush agreed with that. More or less.
To his credit, Bush twisted up his lower lip in that “angry” look he does so well that’s supposed to transcend partisan politics, and he said both himself and through a spokesman that he, Bush, US president and son of a president and CIA head, would personally fire anyone — anyone — and that would certainly include Rove — “involved” in disclosing Plame’s identity. More or less.
Technically, Robert Novak, a reporter, “outed” Plame. Even though Bush is president, his authority to “fire” Novak could be questioned. Freedom of the press and all. More or less. But Bush is completely free to fire those “involved” like Rove, who works at Bush’s pleasure and has been repeatedly briefed on the Identity Act. Rove supporters now insist Plame is not one of the super-secret select that the act was designed to protect. Victoria Toensing, a former deputy assistant attorney general when the act was drafted, claims that Plame doesn’t “qualify” as a “covert” agent since her status as “undercover” wasn’t “classified.” Nor had she been “assigned to duty outside the United States currently or in the past five years.”
But Toensig misses the point — if Plame’s identity is or was “classified,” wouldn’t that in itself be a state secret? That is what “classified” means. Government employees like Rove aren’t supposed to out secret agents to reporters or to their neighbors. And New York Times writer Nicholas Kristof insists that the treasonous spy Aldrich Ames outed Plame to the Russians back in 1994, when the CIA then whisked her back to America for her safety, allowing her to make the “transition” from secret agent to CIA “management” under State Department cover. But Kristof’s argument is specious, since in fact the United States worked a deal with Aldrich Ames to prevent him from using his espionage prosecution to do even more damage to US intelligence, like publicly outing Plame. And there’s no evidence the Russians passed Plame’s name on to anyone else.
One’s eyes glaze over at the intricacies...the Byzantine quality of the arguments.... All that really matters is whether Bush will do what he said he’d do. Does it truly depend upon what the definition of “is” is?
More or less. And how long must we wait for the answer?
