While Andrew Sullivan and others on the left hold that Karl Rove (either or his own or through his mischievous minions) leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to the media in order to “smear Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson,” anyone who spends a few moments studying the facts of the case will see that what little Rove had to say (or do) with the matter involved an attempt to steer a reporter away from the story. That doesn’t sound like much of a smear to me. While the President’s enemies think Rove was involved in an effort to retaliate against a critic, at most, he was involved (and tangentially at that) in an effort to discredit a dishonest critic, a man one who lied to the American people in his criticism of the Administration.

Even Andrew’s one-time New Republic colleague (to whom Andrew introduced me in 1991) Jacob Weisberg (via Instapundit) finds that “Wilson’s accusation that administration officials outed his wife to punish him for speaking up was never really credible.” Based on Judith Miller’s account of her testimony, Weisberg suggests that another Administration official, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the Vice President’s chief of staff, may have leaked the name, not to smear Wilson, but as part of public dispute between the White House and the CIA. Weisberg notes that “Libby’s comments don’t look anything like retaliation against Joe Wilson—especially now that we know that Libby first mentioned Wilson and his wife to Judith Miller three weeks before Wilson went public with his op-ed piece.” (Emphasis added.)

Indeed, as Bush-haters are salivating at the possibility that Rove might be indicted, so certain are they that he sought to slime Mr. Wilson, they ignore how little Mr. Rove actually said to the media about Ms. Plame. Indeed, so far, I have yet to find any evidence that he ever mentioned her name to anyone at all, much less a reporter (before that name became common knowledge).

It seems Rove addressed the matter only two times, once merely acknowledging that he was aware that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. When columnist Robert Novak mentioned to him that “he had learned that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA,” Rove replied, “I heard that, too.” The second time was when Rove warned Time reporter Matt Cooper “not to ‘get too far out on Wilson‘” as it was his wife “who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.”

It is clear from those comments that, as Rove’s attorney Robert Luskin put it, his client “was trying to discourage Time magazine from circulating false allegations about Cheney, not trying to encourage them by saying anything about Wilson or his wife.” But, so eager are Bush’s critics to smear Karl Rove that they read his attempt to kill a story as a strategem to slime an administration critic.
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With the Stonewall Democrats attacking anything our president says or does (whether or not it is related to gay issues), with HRC and NGLTF obsessed with abortion and with Log Cabin issuing bromides or blathering on about the radical right hijacking the GOP, it’s left to bloggers to take on Democrats who pander to people’s prejudices. In an e-mail this morning, blogger Eva Young alerted me to this post which reports that Tim Kaine, the Democratic nominee for Governor in the Old Dominion has used a radio spot to accuse Jerry Kilgore, his Republican opponent, of “not being straight.”

As Mike Slaven notes in an editorial in the University of Virginia’s Cavalier Daily, “The Kaine camp fails to add the obligatory “with voters;” the ad simply observes, “Jerry Kilgore is not being straight,” period.” Kilgore, married with two daughters, has what some have called a “gay-sounding” voice (whatever that is) and has been described as effeminate.

If a Republican released an ad claiming that a Democrat with a similar voice and appearance was “not being straight,” you can be sure that all the leading gay organizations (including Log Cabin) would be taking him to task. Yet, today, all these groups are silent. If it weren’t for bloggers like Eva Young and Pam Spaulding, we would likely not hear of this anti-gay pandering.

Since LCR spends more time attacking the party to which it allegedly supports than it does to taking on the opposing political party, I expect them to maintain their silence on this. And I don’t think it will upset HRC or NGLTF too much either. They seem to see themselves as part of a broad “progressive” movement which defines Republicans as the enemy and excuses all kinds of behavior among Democrats, even actions and statements which play to anti-gay prejudices.

-Dan (AKA GayPatriotWest): GayPatriotWest@aol.com

UPDATE: Reading this post on GayOrbit, I realized that I had previously read about Democratic attempts to insinuate that Kilgore is gay. Back in April, on his blog, my friend Rick Sincere wrote that Kaine supporters would use innuendo to raise doubts “in voters’ minds about . . . Kilgore’s sexual orientation.” Check it out here!