Backpedaling and Reframing

It's not so much the fact that President Bush is backpedaling on his promise to fire anyone in the administration who leaked Valerie Plame's name that makes me angry. It's the reframing of what has been reported that bugs me. President Bush said during a Cabinet meeting today, at which Karl Rove was present, "I also will not prejudge the investigation based on media reports." That smacks of the whole nonsense of 'We don't want this case to be tried in the media.' It ignores the facts that have been released concerning the investigation. It tries to paint facts as opinion. And to me, that is more offensive than the backpedaling Bush has done vis-a-vis his promise to fire anyone found to have leaked Plame's name.

And it's just another indication that things are going to play out as I've described them in a previous post. No matter how plainly guilty Rove is, we're going to be fought tooth and nail on this one, bickering over semantics and points tangential to the issues presented by the case.