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By Linda Staude, ARD-Radio Studio, Washington

Translated By Hartmut Lau

July 25, 2005

Original Article (German)

For Scott McClellan, Keeping Mum About Karl Rove Is a Full-Time Job

As things stand, Scott McClellan more than once may have cursed the day he accepted his job at the U.S. President’s side.  The White House spokesman has the unenviable, daily task of avoiding the question that his boss doesn’t want answered: “Did Bush’s right hand man, Karl Rove, betray a CIA secret?” McClellan’s umpteenth version of his usual “no comment” only manages to further annoy the journalists in the White House.

It all started over two years ago with Bush’s notorious Iraq comments during the State of the Union speech. The president had claimed that Saddam Hussein had tried to acquire uranium from Africa.  Former ambassador [Joe Wilson] publicly exposed the claim to be a deliberate canard.

Rove’s Revenge?

Joe Wilson

Less than a week later, columnist and declared Bush fan Robert Novak “outed” Wilson’s wife as a CIA agent. He stated that friends in the White House were his source. Was this an act of revenge by Bush’s top advisor?  Wilson is convinced of it. He said, “Respectable journalists told me that Karl Rove had called around for a week after the Novak article [was published] and said that Wilson’s wife is free game.” The accused promptly denied the charge. Said Rove, “I didn’t know her name and I didn’t leak it.” That’s not entirely true. Since then Time reporter Matt Cooper reported on a telephone call he had had with Rove in which he first heard of the connection between the CIA and Wilson’s wife.

No matter who lied, the American press sees more than juicy headlines at stake in the scandal that could cost Rove his job in the White House and the president his most important aide. The issue is the protection of sources.  “If reporters are too nervous to use anonymous sources and the sources themselves cannot be certain that they can trust the media, that would definitely mean that less information about the government or corporations would be made public,” says Howard Kurz of The Washington Post.

Reporter Behind Bars

Notes for Judith Miller at the National Press Club

Knowlingly exposing a secret agent is a crime in the U.S., and a case for a special prosecutor.  And the investigator wants answers from the journalists, no matter what the cost.  Matt Cooper only talked just before being imprisoned for contempt, when his boss handed over internal e-mails and he recieved a green light from Rove himself.  His colleague, Judith Miller of The New York Times maintains her silence and has been behind bars for two weeks now.

“When you have an investigator that goes to, extremes it changes people’s behavior,” says Ron Brownstein of The Los Angeles Times.  “But confidential conversations are as common as the air itself in Washington – they won’t disappear entirely.” Now Congress is debating a new law that is supposed to protect journalists from the choice between indiscretion or prison. Democratic Senator Christopher Dodd says, “The issue is not giving representatives of the fourth estate special privileges. On the contrary, it’s all about the right of all citizens to be informed and to give information.”

Pro Forma Firing?

In the meantime the White House press corps is continuing to dig for the truth about Rove’s role in the scandal. Rumors have it that the president is already thinking about forgetting his heretofore legendary loyalty and formally firing Karl Rove -- while keeping him employed behind the scenes.