Finally responsibility for something has been laid at feet other
than those of Karl Rove. When it was announced
that Amber Frey’s daughter was proven by DNA to have been fathered
by someone other than the poor schnook who has been paying child
support for four years, we all held our breath. But no, Karl is not
the father; that honor goes to a Mr. Funch. Still, whatever else
might be wrong in American society is putatively the work of that
rascally Rasputin with the Machiavellian machinations: “The
Architect.”
Indeed the Washington Post has received a leak on the
subject of Mr. Rove. Previous Post leaks have led to
Plumbers, and since then we monitor them carefully. In this case,
some drip in the White House leaks that staffers there are fretful
that Rove may soon be indicted. Indicted for …what? Not
indicated. And so we are left with a leak without a source about a
vague feeling about a specific event occurring to a specific person
for a vague reason. There should be a special Pulitzer awarded for
this kind of journalism but the winner should be unannounced and
the presentation done at an undisclosed location.
This is hardly a leak, more like condensation. Oh, the
humidity!
THE FACT IS that this sort of reporting is deleterious and should
be deleted. There has been no hint anywhere in the real world that
Rove might have committed a crime. To our knowledge, no reporter
has testified that Karl was their first source about Valerie
Plame’s identity as a CIA operative. Additionally, the law against
outing an active agent applies only when that agent is in the field
on a covert assignment, which was not the case with Ms. Plame. The
law also has language which requires intent to harm the agent; at
worst, Rove was trying to discredit her husband, not her.
But there has been an infelicitous series of concomitant events
that has served to create an artificial mood. A fellow named
Safavian from the Procurement Office has been charged with
accepting gifts from someone who had pending business with his
office. (The charges are outlined in detail by Matthew Continetti
in a recent issue of the Weekly Standard; they strike me
as very thin and I predict a not-guilty verdict unless new evidence
surfaces.) One of Cheney’s gophers turned out to be a Philippine
spy (which would be tragic were it not hilarious). Tom DeLay had to
step down as Majority Leader because a trigger-happy prosecutor in
Texas threw together a phony baloney indictment for conspiracy.
All of this together constitutes a vibe. What a Supreme Court
Justice might call a penumbra. What Martha Stewart might call a
pinch. What Janet Jackson might call a glimmer. What Giorgio Armani
might call a scent. What John Zogby might call a trend. Just the
sort of thing that makes White Houses look off-color.
Add to this some residue of dissatisfaction from Hurricanes
Katrina, Rita, and Harriet, and what have you — and what
have you? You have a moody feeling in the White House. You and I
are smart enough to know that without the Washington Post
getting secret messages from a new leaker (let’s call him Deep
Threat). Sometimes in any organization a moody pessimism overtakes.
Everything is going wrong: what’s coming next down the pike?
THERE IS ONLY ONE WAY for an Administration to counter this force
of gravity pulling it down (now we get gravitas?). There has to be
a palpable air of cheer and optimism emanating from the White
House. Dust off the Ronald Reagan handbook and get busy. Smile
until your cheeks ache. Visit happy places. Attend uplifting
events. Give out medals for heroism. Hand out awards for
achievement. Tell jokes, dammit. Doesn’t anyone remember how to
tell a good tasteful joke?
Which reminds me of the one about the blonde who needed cash, so
she decided to kidnap a child from the playground. She grabbed a
kid at random and pinned a note to his shirt, saying that she had
kidnapped him and was demanding that the mother leave ten thousand
dollars in cash on a park bench. Then she sent the kid home with
the note. Sure enough, her plan worked. The next day there was ten
thousand dollars in a bag on the bench, with this note: “How could
you do this to a fellow blonde?” In other words, the Post
cannot flood the Administration with its teeny trickle of leakage
unless the White House blinks and sinks itself.
Somehow we seem to have arrived back at Amber Frey and her own
original little blonde joke. Her attorney, Gloria Allred (a rare
leftist who proclaims it in her last name), says that Amber
collected the child support these past four years “in good faith.”
Couple that with the good faith of the Post leaker and we
have a regular faith-based initiative: can good works be far
behind?
