From Capitol Hill Blue, so the usual caveats apply:
Chief of Staff Andrew Card cancelled a weekend schedule of appearances and events to spend the weekend with Bush at Camp David and deliver the bad news personally, White House insiders tell Capitol Hill Blue.
With indictments expected against Lewis “Scooter� Libby, Vice President Richard Cheney’s chief of staff, and possibly White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, Card told Bush that both will have to resign if the administration is to salvage any chance of recovering from the scandal.
“We’re hip deep in this and the sharks are circling,� Card told the President.
According to multiple White House sources, Card laid out a detailed scenario of White House involvement in a staff-directed campaign to destroy administration critic Wilson. That scenario includes:
A concentrated effort directed by Libby to monitor Wilson’s travel, speeches and activities and develop talking points to attack his credibility and plant false stories about the Ambassador’s activities, statements and motives. Libby’s plan included “outingâ€? Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative. Card told Bush he believes Vice President Cheney was aware of Libby’s activities.
Approval of the program by Rove who helped spread the information to “administration-friendly� reporters, including conservative columnist Robert Novak and New York Times reporter Judith Miller who has since publicly admitted helping spread false administration-based information claiming the existence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, a claim now discredited.
Attempts by White House personnel to cover up administration involvement in the Plame affair, including Rove-directed public statements by press spokesman Scott McClellan claiming “no White House official is involved� in the leaking of Plame’s name.
So Bush was not involved? Imagine my surprise. Something tells me this is the WH version of what Card and Bush spoke about this weekend, perhaps not the full reality.
Sorry I don’t buy it. Bush has political instincts and skills similar to Rove and there was too much for the WH to gain (and protect) by attacking Wilson. To think the President did not know stretches belief. However, I fully expect the MSM to buy in whole hog. It fits their “good guy led astray” version of Bush. I suspect that synergy is either planned by the WH or a nice side effect of this planted story.
Libby’s supposed tracking of Wilson’s activities also sounds comparable to Nixon’s Watergate activities. Very interesting, if true. Someone clearly is trying to feed Libby to the sharks. I wonder if/when Libby squeals and turns them all in.
Susie,
What are “the usual caveats”? I’ve read some pretty far-out things on CHB, but does anyone know how reliable they are?
CHB specializes mostly in stories that can’t be proved one way or another, so everyone takes them with a grain of salt.
Of course Bush knew. It’s not like he’s an Alzheimer’s-riddled Ronnie Reagan befuddled about Iran-Contra.
If anything, he’s more like his dear old daddy, claiming to be out of the loop when he was waist-deep in htings.
And if he didn’t know, he should be impeached for not exercising oversight over his troops.
Even a stopped watch is right sometimes–so let’s see whether any part of this report pans out.
Given the number of different people implicated in this thing by the press–with the Italian investigation opening another can of worms–the odds are that CHB will be no less wrong than the more respectable sites.
To quote William Goldman, “nobody knows anything.” I think I’m beginning to get Fitzmas fever from the waiting.