The Dean dilemma (NOVAK)

TownHall ^ | 12/22/2004 | Robert Novak

[Erasmus]

Dean will be the Dukakis of 2004.

Dean is Dukakis, without the charm.

<);^)

[optimistically_conservative]

This is what Novak wrote:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

So, if she was an analyst and not an operative at the time, Novak used the wrong term foolishly - which has been his explanation.

Either way, it seems foolish to name any non-appointee that works at CIA. He also fumbles answering why or how Wilson was chosen.

Treason? Hardly. Did he "out" her? I don't think it was in the public record at the time that Valerie Plame worked at the CIA, so in a sense, yes. Did he "out" a CIA operative? Well, the CIA and DOJ are investigating that given the media circus surrounding the issue.

My hope is that the FBI puts a ton of pressure on the journalists that stoked this fire and supposedly know who leaked, and supposedly shopped around, this information.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The Clintons, according to Rush Limbaugh, have aready planned for their loss of control of the party by arranging the diversion of funds to PACs they control, away from Dem part[y] coffers.

Campaign "finance reform" threatens to evicerate the parties, anyway.

[TigersEye]

Well at least Dean is the first physician ever to run for the Presidency in the US,...

Which is not a qualification to do anything other than practice medicine (and in Dean's case it's still questionable) much less be Pres. of the U.S..

[TheGeezer]

Campaign "finance reform" threatens to evicerate the parties, anyway.

Interestingly, the Democrat party average donation was in the thousands of dollars, while the Republican party average donation was only a couple hundred. That seems to conform to left coast and wealthy white liberals' support of the Democrat party. Campaign finance reform for that reason may hurt Dems more than Repubs for that reason.

Regards.

[TigersEye]

With Soros willing to spend a half-billion dollars to defeat GWB, my greatest hope is that Dean will win the nomination. Then, even with Soros' money, a Dean victory is unlikely.

And Soros will be out a half-billion dollars. More good news!

[babble-on]

actually, she WAS an operative, fyi

[fish hawk]

Question: If Dean gets the nomination, will a lot of Democrats vote for Bush? I hope so. It would make the biggest landslide election ever.

[Ispy4u]

If you are pointing out she's was a Democrat operative, in that case I agree. But CIA, I have very good reasons for doubting that.

[babble-on]

and i have very good reasons for saying she had been a CIA operative

[Ispy4u]

We obviously know different people. But that's expected. I don't necessarily doubt you though....Is that possible?

[justshutupandtakeit]

That is completely false ( the product of diseased RATmedia minds). Novak "outed" no one. There is nothing secret about bureaucrats.

Just because the RATmedia tries to make it appear that she was some sort of secret agent does not make it so.

[justshutupandtakeit]

Plume was not an "operative" but an analyst. HUGE difference. She was nothing more than a bureacrat.

[Rays_Dad]

BUMP FOR LATER READ

[babble-on]

at the time the story broke she was an analyst. However she had, in the past, been an operative.

[hunter112]

The only person I see that would sit well with the Deaniacs, might be Gore.

Ah, always a bridesmaid, never a bride!

Nope, even the Deanie-weenies are smart enough to see that a guy who couldn't win his own state in his own run for the Presidency is not going to help them one bit. Since it would be suicide to appoint Hillary, even if Howard the Coward could stand her, he's going to have to go with a "bold stroke". I look for him to nominate the first black VP candidate, someone who is going to use the wreckage of the SS Dean to cling to for political survival much the same way Rose did in Titanic. I can't see anyone else wanting to book passage on this doomed ship.

[Stultis]

Note: Clark is not out of the picture yet.

Good. IMHO Clark would be an even worse disaster for the 'Rats than Dean. They're both nuts and say dumb things. Dean may be meaner, but Wesley's flip-floped more dramatically. The big plus with Wesley is the "crazy/creepy eyes" thing. Once he starts getting real scrutiny during the general, it'd be one "Ross Perot moment" after another.