Was the Narcissistic Joe Wilson a Source in "Outing" His Own Wife Valerie Plame as a "CIA Agent"? FreeRepublic.com, Conversation with Victor Davis Hanson, Posts re David Corn, the Nation, et al. ^ | 7/20/05 | FReetheSheeples
Posted on 07/20/2005 1:04:42 AM EDT by FReethesheeples
Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's cover?
It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press.
Here's an example of Joe's apparently routine and open bragging about Valerie being a "CIA agent," which became known directly to me over a year ago:
He certainly bragged about it per a famous and highly reliable source's (named below) account of his own face-to-face encounter with Amb. Joe Wilson prior to Valerie Plame's "outing" as a CIA agent/employee.
Based upon a personal conversation (we were in a small group eating; it was NOT an "off the record") I had with eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson (we were at a luncheon table together during a trip to Europe), it appeared entirely possible that Joe Wilson himself was the (or one source, if not the original one) possible source in revealing his own wife's status as a CIA agent or employee.
Victor Davis Hanson (Wilson presumably knew Victor Davis Hanson wrote regularly for NRO (National Review Online), had done OpEds for the Wall street Journal, and other publications, and had his own Website with a widespread following) said he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were both in the same "Green Room" before a televised debate-discussion on Iraq, etc. and Joe first warned the TV make-up person not to get powder on his $14,000 Rolex watch, then he bragged to Victor about several things (possessions and trips to Aspen, etc.), like his expensive car (I think it was a Mercedes), and then bragged about his beautiful ("hot") wife who, Joe Wilson said (braggingly) was a CIA operative.
I asked Victor Davis Hanson Why he didn't write up this account.(?) He replied that Joe Wilson would probably simply deny it, since only he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were in the Green Room together before the broadcast.
However, it is now easy to surmise that Joe Wilson is a crass, materialistic, self-promoting, vain, egotistical, bragaddocio-opportunist, so this account is perfectly consistent with Valerie Plame's TWO photo shoots in Vanity Fair.
Importantly, perhaps, and inferentially corroborative of the above account is the fact that David Corn in the Nation did an article on Valerie Plame's identity evidently (& reportedly) a day after he met with Joe Wilson.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1446543/posts
This gives us 2 different accounts of Joe Wilson bragging about his wife in a TV green room.
I am trying to confirm the Hanson report. I thought I'd seen that at NRO. Can anyone find confirmation of it elsewhere? Thanks. I imd Freethesheeples but have not received a response.
http://www.davidcorn.com/
November 04, 2005
What Did Novak's Source Know About Plame?/Me and Triumph on Broadway: A Review
'Who is Mr. X and what did he know? That is, which administration official was the first source who told Bob Novak that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA operative, and what did this source tell Novak about Valerie Wilson? Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald must know the answers to this question; otherwise Novak would be sitting in the slammer (as Judith Miller did for 85 days). But since this information is not critical to the question of whether Scooter Libby lied to FBI agents and grand jurors about how he had learned of Valerie Wilson's employment at the CIA, it was not included in the Libby indictment. But as I noted a few days ago, Fitzgerald placed a rather tantalizing fact in the indictment; he reported that on June 12, 2003--weeks before Joseph Wilson published his now-infamous New York Times op-ed about his trip to Niger--Dick Cheney told Libby that "Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division." That was significant because the Counterproliferation Division is part of the operations directorate--aka the DO--which is the clandestine service of the CIA. This meant that Cheney and Libby had reason to believe--or at least suspect--that Valerie Wilson was an undercover employee of the CIA.
After I wrote about this small slice of the indictment (which Fitzgerald presented with no elaboration) a sharp-eyed reader emailed to point out an interesting line in a column that Novak published on October 1, 2003. Writing about his original article that included the Plame/CIA leak, he reported,
During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. [Emphasis added].......'
bttt