Posted on 07/01/2005 8:45:26 PM PDT by YaYa123
A minor flap has been brewing since syndicated columnist Robert Novak, citing "two senior administration officials," reported in July that Joseph C. Wilson IV was married to a Central Intelligence Agency specialist on "weapons of mass destruction" named Valerie Plame.
Wilson is the former diplomat sent by the CIA last year to check out allegations that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. He caused the Bush administration no small embarrassment by stating, in a July 6 op-ed, that he'd reported "it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place." Novak hasn't particularly supported the Iraq war, and his column essentially took Wilson's side. But the fact that Novak blew Plame's cover (in the course of relating that Wilson was sent at Plame's suggestion) gave The Nation's David Corn the opportunity to accuse the Bush administration of compromising national security, in violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982.
(Excerpt) Read more at slate.msn.com ...
The problem with this theory is Rove would have to know about the Wilson trip in order to be able to leak about it. Since he didn't he couldn't.
Elementary, my dear.
:)
It's not strange in the least. Remember Joe Wilson personally accused Rove of this early on and said he hoped to see Rove "frog-marched" out of the WH.
O'Donnell is simply assisting in another round of spin as these documents are delivered. Rove was a source AFTER the Novak column and that fact will be used to muddy the waters (as it has in the past). Because he said it, some loons will always believe it no matter what the truth is (which is that Rove and Scooter Libby, nor anyone at the WH had anything to do with leaking Valerie Plame's wretched name).
Aha! I had just referenced the infamous "frog-marched" nonsense from Wilson. Glad to see a cite posted.
You're the best!
I'd be really interested in your comments on Novak's early revelations, detailed here:
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/09/29/novak.cia/
O'Donnell has gone absolutely nuts with his hate of Bush and anybody close to him. THE PROSECUTOR SAID MONTHS AGO THAT KARL ROVE WAS NOT A TARGET OF HIS INVESTIGATION. This is just wishful thinking on the left's side.
O'Donnell, like so many other lefties, have been consumed with an epic, growing hatred for Bush since 2000.
The article states that the "16 words" turned out to be based on forged documents. That is false. The CIA headquarters was not in possession of the documents until February---after the SOTU. While this article was from early in the debacle, a very little fact-checking would have revealed this at that time.
Also this:
The Washington Post quoted a "senior administration official" in a story Sunday as saying that two top White House officials disclosed the identity of Wilson's wife in calls to at least six Washington journalists. Novak was the only recipient of the information who published it, the Post reported.
Is what I was referring to on this thread when *after* the Novak column 6 reporters said they were contacted. This was spun and twisted to try and convey that the same source for this was the same source Novak had. Rubbish.
Also note Novak initially told Wilson his sources were CIA and later said he "misspoke" (wouldn't reiterate, is more like it).
I read an excellent New York Sun editorial yesterday that agrees with my take. I am concernced that they note that Fitzgerald's court filings refer to an act of possible retaliation. I will be very aggravated if he started from the point of Wilsonian spin. He should have been dealing with "just the facts". If Plame wasn't undercover (Novak noted early on he was told she was an analyst) then even if Wilson's lies (about his trip and subsequent "findings") were true, how could revealing her role in sending him amount to retalation if a) that underlying fact was true and b) she wasn't undercover?!
The twisting these types take of simple facts makes my head hurt.
In all my time at FR, I've never seen anybody with the complete and total grasp of a story like you have of this one.
It's simply amazing.
public interest also obtains in disclosing the connection between Mr. Wilson and the CIA, because the CIA - one could almost say a renegade CIA - had opposed all along President Bush's policy of a democratic liberation of Iraq. It preferred a Baathist coup. So a CIA role in attacking the president publicly about the justification for the Iraq war takes on a sinister aspect all its own, and one could argue that the real whistle-blower in this case is the still-unnamed source or sources trying to warn Americans of what was going on.
~snip~
It's a point to remember as this case - which, again, involves a rogue CIA effort to undermine America's commander in chief during wartime - works its way through the courts. The real whistle-blowers and heroes here are those who understood this point and got word via the press to the American public.
Thank you. Don't be giving me a big head now!
ha
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