Some Things Too Vile to Experience First Hand

There are things I really won't sink to watching, and one is O'Reilly. Faux News is another, and I skipped the SuperBowl for the first time ever this year because it would have required tuning in Faux. Fortunately, Froomkin watches this stuff, so he told us about it and I am going to post it here.

McClellan was unflappable throughout, and even slapped down O'Reilly's clumsy and absurd defense of his now Fox-News colleague Karl Rove.

O'Reilly: "What's your beef on Karl Rove and Plame, Valerie Plame? What's your beef about Rove specifically? Because he works for us."

McClellan: "Well, I spoke with Rove about that very incident, and he told me unequivocally that he was not involved in the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity."

O'Reilly: "Right. That's what he told me. So are you telling me he's a liar?"


McClellan: "Did he reveal Plame's identity to anyone? Yes! Matt Cooper. He revealed her identity to Matt Cooper."

O'Reilly: "He said Cooper called him and said -- "

McClellan: "No, what Cooper wrote was that he was the first one to tell me -- the first time I learned that she worked at the CIA."

O'Reilly: "You believe Cooper and you don't believe Rove? . . . I asked him on this show last week. I asked him, did you tell anyone about Valerie Plame. The guy says no. I didn't. No!"

McClellan: "Her name! He said her name. It's a distinction without a difference, Bill. He revealed her identity. He talked to [Robert] Novak and he talked to Cooper and he revealed her identity."

Later last night, Rove responded on another Fox News show to McClellan's statements. Rove is apparently maintaining his hair-splitting defense that since he didn't use Plame's name, he didn't reveal her identity. And he once again tried to change the focus to State Department official Richard Armitage. Armitage was the first to disclose Plame's identity to journalists, but that doesn't change the fact that Rove and Libby did so too, likely for more nefarious reasons than Armitage, and then lied about it.

All roads lead to Rove, the lowest form of life yet to become accepted in White House circles in my experience. His name has become a part of our language, "Rovian", meaning 'slimey behavior'.

If you know of a better definition, please tell me in comments.

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Having included such slime in my post, I think it should need some beautification. Here's my regal lily in bloom: