One of the most efficient tools in the hands of skilled propagandists is the
ability to build a wall of disinformation around a particular fact,
insulating it from examination without first having to breach the outer
walls, first.

The key to seeing through propaganda is to first understand how it works.

Sometimes, it is the disinformation process itself that is worthy of
examination. Our forefathers and the Bible say to seek first knowledge, then
understanding, which together, yield wisdom.

'Knowledge' tells you how to start a car. You turn the key. 'Understanding'
tells you what processes are involved in starting a car, telling you to give
the engine time to circulate the oil before revving the engine, what happens
if you pump the gas and why, things like that.

Taken together, the person with both knowledge and understanding makes wiser
decisions when trying to start a clunker on a cold morning, if you can
follow the analogy.

There is a disinformation campaign being waged by several here, the media
and the political left against our commander in chief and Karl Rove for
allegedly revealing the name of an undercover CIA agent to two reporters.
The campaign itself is worthy of examination.

The Democrats and their allies in the press have been throwing around such
words as 'traitor' to describe Rove and 'treason' to describe his having,
'revealed the classified name of an undercover CIA agent' who was, to quote
Dr. Howard Dean, 'fighting on the front lines of the war on terror' until
Rove 'destroyed her career'.

Former ambassador Joe Wilson, has demanded that Rove be fired to 'uphold the
dignity' of the president's word when he said he would fire anybody leaking
information from his office.

One needs to view Wilson's comments in perspective; the 9/11 Commission
concluded that Wilson's testimony was not trustworthy and was discounted
accordingly. Wilson claimed he was sent to Niger by Dick Cheney. That was a
lie. Wilson testified that his wife had nothing to do with his appointment.
That was also a documented lie.

The point isn't Rove; his case is pretty straightforward. In testimony given
almost two years ago, Rove freely admitted that he spoke with two
journalists, Matt Cooper and Judith Miller.

At the time of his testimony, Rove also signed a blanket waiver releasing
any journalist he ever spoke with, on or off the record, from any agreements
of confidentiality.

That release was in effect a year and a half before Miller and Cooper
claimed 'journalistic privilege' -- and got real famous real fast. ( Watch
for a new book called, "I Was a Prisoner of Conscience" )

Rove also freely admitted that he mentioned that Wilson's wife worked at the
CIA, although he didn't name her by name.

And it was in the context of explaining how in the world anyone as hostile
to the administration as Joe Wilson could have been sent, as Wilson himself
claimed, ( in another lie ) at the request of the Vice-President.

Rove simply said he wasn't sent by Cheney, but by the CIA, where Rove said
his wife 'apparently' was in a position of authority and could have
influenced his appointment.

Contrary to the claim of 'political revenge' Rove and both journalists agree
that Rove didn't call them, it was the other way around. Both were looking
for background on a story that Rove was waving them off. And as it unfolded,
the story was as false as Rove told them it was.

Remember Bob Novak? He was the one who actually named Valerie Plame, by
name, two days later, in his syndicated column. Although Cooper and Miller
faced jail for not revealing their source, nobody has paid much attention to
Novak, or his sources.

One or two die-hard liberals have gone out on a limb and claimed Rove was
Novak's source, too, but those in the know kept quiet. Their silence speaks
volumes.

Novak was no story at all, but Miller and Cooper became so important to the
special prosecutor that he was willing to throw them in jail unless they
disclosed their confidential source. He wasn't expecting it to be Rove.

Rove had already given a blanket release from any promise of
confidentiality. He'd already told the special prosecutor what he told
Miller and Cooper, eighteen months ago.

But Miller is still in jail, and Cooper's naming of Karl Rove as his source
to avoid jail, is weak, at best.

Add to that the fact that Plame was no longer a covert agent 'on the front
lines in the war on terror' but just another Langley bureaucrat and you
really have to stretch to find anything resembling 'treason' in Rove's
'disclosure'.

The only bomb remaining in the liberal's arsenal was defused -- that Rove
revealed classified information -- when it was disclosed that Rove learned
of Plame's CIA role from Bob Novak.

Bob Novak, the journalist who first revealed Valerie Plame's name to the
public, didn't learn it from Karl Rove . . . Novak TOLD Karl Rove!

Rove testified to that effect eighteen months ago -- eliminating the
possibility that this is some new White House spin on the facts.

The truth has been out there, all the time. Rove's accusers know it, but
even a false accusation leaves an impression.

And an accusation so obviously and patently false kicks in the principle of
The Big Lie, whereby anything that outrageous MUST be true or 'they'
wouldn't dare say so.

Note how the walls of disinformation are constructed. In order to get to the
truth, which is that Rove simply told two reporters what he had been told by
a third reporter, one must systematically dismantle the layers of lies
surrounding it all.

Before you can get to Rove, you have to dismantle the layers of lies around
Joe Wilson. That Wilson lied with he said Dick Cheney sent him.

To know that Rove was correcting the record, you have to know WHERE the
record was distorted. You won't find out from the mainstream propaganda
machine.

You have to dismantle the wall of disinformation around Valerie Plame. That
she wasn't a covert agent.

That she and husband Joe were so 'protective' of her identity that they were
the subjects of a pre-disclosure Vanity Fair photo spread. That she pulled
strings to get Wilson sent to Niger in the first place.

And that the reason she did so was so Wilson could actively work against the
policy of his country during time of war.

But Henry Waxman called ROVE a traitor. Howard Dean said Plame was a 'secret
CIA agent fighting on the front lines on the war on terror'. If any of that
were true, then any explanation in defense of Rove is irrelevant. So those
walls have to be breached first.

You have to breach the disinformation wall that says Rove was motivated out
of political revenge. Although all the evidence says otherwise, it sounds
logical.

Wilson did make it much more difficult for America to make its case for war
to either the UN or America's domestic critics. It would seem that revenge,
however petty and vindictive, would be a reasonable motive.

Which is why the mainstream has said little about the fact that Rove didn't
call the reporters in question, they called him. For it to be 'revenge'
given those circumstances is ridiculous. They called and asked him directly;
Why would Cheney send Wilson? And if not Cheney, then who?

Since Rove learned of Plame's CIA role from Bob Novak, to argue Rove
knowingly revealed classified information collapses, and the answer to the
question was Plame.

Leave Plame out and Rove is left with, "Cheney didn't send him. Don't know
who did."

THAT answer would have spawned a new headline; "Rove: Nobody At the White
House Knows What They Are Doing".

Now, to the point. How many ordinary, workaday Americans have either the
time or the inclination to clamber over all the walls of disinformation
necessary to get to the actual truth, as we have here?

Who has the time to research Joe Wilson, pore over the special prosecutor's
subpoenas, sort through the disinformation about Wilson, Plame, their
involvement in a plot to use the resources of the US government to undermine
the policy of that same government, or the minute details of how the
reporters interacted with Rove during this alleged 'disclosure'?

Who has the time or the inclination to accumulate all these facts, including
the fact that Rove waived any promise of confidentiality more than eighteen
months ago, releasing every reporter who ever spoke to him on background to
name him as their source?

Instead, they hear that Karl Rove revealed the identity of a covert CIA
agent fighting on the front lines in the war on terror, ruining her career,
as part of some petty, vindictive effort at political revenge. And they join
the chorus already shouting, "Off with his head."

What is the net effect? An administration totally distracted from the
existential threat facing it from all sides.

While resources are tied up with damage control efforts, domestic or foreign
policy agenda items become secondary, making the administration appear to be
what it HAS become, adrift, forced into dangerous compromises, and losing
support on every side.

The Bush administration has been in power for more than five years, and this
is the closest thing to a scandal in all that time.

Yet it has been rendered all but powerless by the constant drip, drip, drip
of false accusations and news plants forcing it to first, deny the
accusations, and, having denied them, prove why they are false.

By the time it has breached the walls of disinformation, all anybody can
remember is that Bush lied about something. Somehow.

Here is how powerful propaganda is. Somebody out there will come away seeing
me as a blind defender of the Bush administration, and that is all they will
take away.

They'll miss the fact that what is true has no political affiliation. And
what is false ALWAYS does. They'll miss the fact that a weak and distracted
administration during a war that threatens our existence like no war in
history is NOT a good thing for America, regardless of one's party
affiliation. Except the Communist Party, of course.

And they will add another distraction and keep on going with their drivel
against the USA and it's commander in chief. That's how these propaganda
artists work.