Posted on 07/16/2005 9:37:20 AM PDT by Checkers
An interesting post by Cliff May:
"This morning, I have a piece up elsewhere on NRO showing that The Nation’s David Corn--not syndicated columnist Bob Novak--was the first to reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover operative. It further suggests that David did so based on information provided to him by none other than Joseph C. Wilson IV.
While working on that piece, I had an exchange with David and, with his permission, I thought I’d share that with you. Dear David:
I have a question--one you may not be willing to answer but I’m curious so let me try:
Novak’s column said that Plame was an “Agency operative.” Novak claims he didn’t know--and didn’t mean to imply--that she was a covert agent.
Your piece, a few days later, says quite explicitly that Plame was “a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to nationally security.”
How did you know that?
- Cliff David responded:
Come on, Cliff. I'm disappointed in you--especially as a former NY Times reporter. Here's what I wrote:
Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?
You will note that this is a question, not a statement of fact. David then quotes extensively from his piece, which I had already read several times and which you can find here.
I then sent him this message: Dear David,
You’re too loyal to acknowledge that Wilson was your source.
You’re also too honest to deny it.
Allbest,
Cliff David replied: You wrote:
You’re too loyal to acknowledge that Wilson was your source.
You’re also too honest to deny it.
All I can say again is, nice try. When I spoke to Joe Wilson after the Novak leak, he would not tell me whether or not his wife worked at the CIA. He spoke only in hypotheticals. He said, imagine if she did, what would this leak mean, AND imagine if she did not, what would this leak mean. So I do deny that he told me because he did not. That's the truth, the absolute truth. No spin. No parsing. No stonewalling. If you find any wiggle room in this response, let me know and I will unwiggle it. And you can believe it or not.
David
PS Mind if I write about our correspondence?
My final message to him: Dear David,
You’re a good reporter. You know when a hypothetical is really a confirmation.
When Wilson told you: “So, hypothetically, here’s what it what it would mean if my wife were a top-secret agent--which I’m not saying she was; and here’s what it would mean if she had been on undercover on dangerous missions tracking WMD purchases abroad--which, of course, I’m not saying ever happened; and here’s what the consequence would be for her extensive network of sources if she were exposed, though I’m still not confirming anything…”--you knew exactly what he was telling you with a wink and a nudge.
Bob Novak did not know that Plame was or had ever been an undercover agent. His sources didn’t tell him that. He did not write that she was an undercover agent. If he had known she was a secret agent of any sort he says he would never have published her name.
Novak has maintained all that consistently. I’ve disagreed with Bob Novak on many issues and on many occasions. I’ve debated him publicly--on the war in Iraq, among other things, where he probably is more in agreement with Wilson than with me.
But one thing about Bob Novak: He’s been around this town about 50 years. He’s a patriot. He would not knowingly burn a spy. And he doesn’t lie. You don’t stay a major media figure for half a century if you’re a liar.
Let me say this clearly: Novak did not know and did not reveal that Plame had been an undercover operative.
You were the first to reveal that.
You did that hypothetically, of course. You were just asking a question, of course. You didn’t know whether she was or was not what you called “a top-secret operative”--but you thought it sure would be interesting if you raised that possibility.
And how much more interesting if you accused the Bush administration of purposely leaking that information as a way to punish Wilson--which has been Wilson’s allegation all along-- since he claimed (falsely it turns out) Cheney’s office sent him to Niger.
You and I know that he shared all this with you and more--hypothetically, of course.
You got this snowball rolling, David. And it produced the avalanche you and Wilson expected it would. I give you full credit for that.
You certainly may write about our correspondence.
I may do that, too.
Allbest,
Cliff"
RELATED POST:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1443739/posts
RELATED POST:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1443448/posts
Rush talked about this on his show yesterday, but I wasn't able to hear all the details. Thanks.
Corn's column:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=823
Corn's column:
http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=823
My pleasure.
Follow-up at http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_07_10_corner-archive.asp#069692 :
BURIED LEDE [Cliff May]
Rather deep in the Washington Times story today by Stephen Dinan and Joseph Curl is this revelation:
A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an "undercover agent," saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency's headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee.
"She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat," Fred Rustmann, a covert agent from 1966 to 1990, told The Washington Times.
"Her neighbors knew this, her friends knew this, his friends knew this.”
If her neighbors knew she worked for the CIA, if her friends new she worked for the CIA, no crime was committed by anyone passing such information along to a reporter--as long as they didn’t know and tell that she had once been undercover, and as long as the source of their knowledge was not classified documents.
It bears repetition: Knowing Plame worked at the CIA does not mean knowing she had ever been a covert agent.
Bob Novak did not know she had been undercover--until The Nation’s David Corn suggested that, based on information that clearly came from Joe Wilson himself. And Corn was the first to raise the suggestion that Plame was a secret agent--one who had been exposed by the Bush administration to punish Wilson. (My piece on this is elsewhere on NRO today.)
Also, while I hate say I told you so, I did write on NRO back on Sept. 29, 2003:
It’s the top story in the Washington Post this morning as well as in many other media outlets. Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA?
What also might be worth asking: "Who didn't know?"
Corn is a true jerk.
BTTT It would be absolute sweet irony if Wilson and Corn, a major writer of that Stalist rag, The Nation, were the ones indicted, or at least publicly exposed, as the architects of this kerfuffle.
David Corn is running scared. The above quote sounds just like something he would attack Rove for doing in his conversations with Cooper and Novak.
Thanks for that.
He's got rat-teeth... a slightly more masculine version of Elanor Clift.
Corn seems very scared, and not like someone who should be enjoying that he's been wrongly thrown into a headline-grabbing story which he actually has nothing to do with. Instead he sounds like someone starting to sweat.
You are welcome
Joe Wilson is like the arsonist who photographs the crime he has committed and ejaculates at the sight of the fiery spectacle.
Now, is this a question or a telling statement?
These lunatics are pathetic. How can Rove be the leaker if he was the receiver?
mmmm... David Corn frog marched out of The Nation in handcuffs...interesting image (hypothetically speaking)
Pray for W and Our Freedom Fighters
"Joe Wilson is like the arsonist who photographs the crime he has committed and ejaculates at the sight of the fiery spectacle."
Do you have an analogy for Mr. Corn?
Well, consider the source is Corn; I don't think ferrets have very good hearing/reading skills.
I can just see that schmuck Wilson oh so cleverly making the hypothetical supposition that his wife is a secret agent to a writer for the Communist Nation.
This surely wasn't part of the game plan. The original idea, I'm sure, was to work through "authoritative MSM" sources like the NY Times. But Wilson is so convinced that he is the consummate wily diplomat that he outsmarted himself--again. How this guy ever got a job as a diplomat in the first place is a sad commentary on the judgment of the folks who run the State Department.
This whole episode fits right in with that famous picture of Joe and Val in Vanity Fair, with that big smirk on his face while he flashes his chic jewelry.
I clicked your link and all I got was a black screen.. Must've have been a link directly into his mind. :)
Another follow-up by Cliff May: http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_07_10_corner-archive.asp#069737
RE DAVID CORN
My friend David Corn is hopping mad and he’s calling me names and questioning my motives. I understand that. I feel his anger.
But he hasn’t actually challenged any of the facts or analysis in my piece.
Except one: He is arguing that providing the name of a CIA employee – or operative -- is the same as exposing the identity of a CIA covert agent.
Now that may play out in the boondocks among people who have never known anyone who worked at the CIA and who assume that everyone at CIA has a secret identity and works for a CIA front.
But anyone with any knowledge or experience knows that is it doesn’t work like that.
The facts are these: (1) Bob Novak did not say that Valerie Plame was a secret agent; (2) David Corn did; (3) we don’t know who Bob’s sources were; (4) we know David’s source was Joe Wilson.
The rest is commentary.
No the whine is right there. You are however correct with the second part of your post. :)
Another follow-up from Cliff May:
http://corner.nationalreview.com/05_07_10_corner-archive.asp#069740
CORN STRIKES BACK [Cliff May]
On his blog, David Corn attempts to rebut my NRO piece. I don’t think he gets very far but it’s here so you can judge for yourself.
His major argument is that Bob Novak reporting that Joe Wilson’s assignment for the CIA came about because Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA operative, recommended him, is no different from David Corn revealing that Valerie Pame was a “top-secret” CIA agent.
He adds: “Once Valerie Wilson's name appeared in Novak's column, her days as a CIA undercover official were done.”
But why would that be? If the day after Novak’s column came out, Valerie Plame, CIA analyst at CIA HQ in Langley, were to disappear, and Mallory Flame, arms dealer, were to arrive in Istanbul with a passport and contacts and a “legend,” how would anyone make the connection?
They could not, nor would anyone who had worked with Plame in the past know anything --assuming that when Plame had been under cover she had used false identities.
However, once Wilson told Corn – and Corn published -- that Plame was not just a CIA analyst but a secret agent with an extensive network of contacts, and once she and Joe posed for pictures in Vanity Fair, her career as an undercover spy was indeed over.
BTW, he also says I ignored his notes to me. In fact, I published them all, though not in the story but here in the Corner under the title “Reporters’ Notebooks.”
He also continues to deny that Wilson was his source. So how did he know things that Novak didn’t report? He doesn’t tell us, he just says things llike, “the story was that Valerie worked for an energy firm…”
The story? Whose story? Novak didn’t tell this story? Who did? What was the source?
David Corn is a partisan hack, and always has been. He has failed on TV, radio and newspapers. Corn has been absent from anything near the MSM for years, and NOW he's some sort of expert? I don't buy it. Corn is a third to tenth tier Democrat shill, if anything at all, and he does not deserve respect or attention for normal news analysis. Corn was on-air in Denver and his ratings were so low he couldn't get recognized even wearing a sign on his head.
Because of the Plame affair I've now seen Corn on FNC being interviewed. What a waste of air time, and it's apparent the Democrats are running up trial balloons to see if they can get any traction with the public. The public has seen through the rest of these Democrat bit players so I guess it's Corn's turn to try fooling the viewing public.
It's not that Corn lies, per se. He actually has selective knowledge that filters out truth and accepts everything the left can feed him, ala Juan Williams and his weekly Democrat talking point memos. Only worse. Williams can sometimes accept logic whereas Corn sits there with a blank stare on his face as logic flies by him, going over his head.
Corn is evidently the first to publish the "Plame is a covert agent" story. So now he's stuck with it.
bttt
Perfidia
Joe helped the Islamicists' side,
When he wrote that the President lied
The Times spread his tale
Please keep them in jail
And, certainly, Joe should be fried.
I hope the Grand Jury calls David Cornholer to make him testify.
His testimony would be, "Mr. Wilson and I spoke in hypotheticals." And the members of the Grand Jury would sit there looking at each other.
Shouldn't Val Plame also be fired?
Maybe a warrant should be made for the arrest of Joseph C Wilson IV.
At the very least.
Maybe she should be "fried" with Joe, too.
I dislike David Corn intensely, and I think he is a snake. I hope he gets burned badly for his deception and smear.
He was being interviewed on FOX a couple of times yesterday morning, while I was listening to Rush. I usually have FOX on with the sound turned way down - and I was watching Corn's facial expressions and his body language. He was definitely squirming a lot - and his usual SMIRK was no where to be seen.
I think he's sweating it .. BIG TIME.
That's funny you mention that because I saw him for all of ten seconds yesterday and he looked shifty, not his usual smirking self. He always seems like a wiseass when he's got the goods on someone else, but he looked like someone looking for which direction the next punch was coming from.
OK, we believe you, but I haven't read anywhere that the MSM believe KOVAK leaked Plame. ;)
Who is Kovak?
In their hysteria, the Left is just hoisting itself on its own petard over this "story." This is so much fun to watch!
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