Posted on 07/11/2005 11:18:25 PM PDT by Howlin
I WROTE a column on Oct. 10, 2003, about the strange case of Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame.
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...I offered my speculation of what an administration official might have said to a journalist to explain just how Wilson — a Clinton administration official — got the assignment in the first place: "Administration official: 'We didn't send him there. Cheney's office asked CIA to get more information. CIA picked Wilson . . . Look, I hear his wife's in the CIA. He's got nothing to do. She wanted to throw him a bone.' "
Hate to say I told you so, but . . .
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There's no mistaking the purpose of this conversation between Cooper and Rove. It wasn't intended to discredit, defame or injure Wilson's wife. It was intended to throw cold water on the import, seriousness and supposedly high level of Wilson's findings.
While some may differ on the fairness of discrediting Joseph Wilson, it sure isn't any kind of crime.
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So if the offense wasn't against Plame, what of the offense against Wilson? There was no offense. As many of Joe Wilson's own hottest defenders would no doubt argue in relation to President Bush, exposing a liar is not only not a crime, it's a public service.
And Wilson lied. Repeatedly.
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What isn't controversial is this: Karl Rove didn't "out" Valerie Plame as a CIA agent to intimidate Joe Wilson. He was dismissing Joe Wilson as a low-level has-been hack to whom nobody should pay attention. He was right then, and if he said it today, he'd still be right.
And if Valerie wants to live a quiet spy life, she should stop having her picture taken by society photographers and stop getting stories written about her on the front page of the Times.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
The “Confusion” Of Joseph Wilson
By Vincent Fiore (07/21/04)
Memo to the masses: When you see the words “misspoken,” “erred,” and “confused,” in relation to former ambassador Joseph Wilson, know this: These words are typical beltway qualifiers that seek to say in essence that “I lied,” without ever having to say the word “lied.”
snip
In his New York Times op-ed, Wilson brazenly declared: “Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”
But as the Senate Intelligence Committee’s July 9 report of this year shows, it is Wilson who twisted intelligence to actually downplay Iraq’s nuclear threat, thereby meeting his own political agenda of helping Kerry win the election in November.
Consider the Senate committee’s findings:
-The panel found that Wilson’s report, “rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, actually bolstered the case for most intelligence analysis.”
(www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39834-2004Jul9)
snip
-Ambassador Wilson’s wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, “specifically recommended” Wilson for the trip to Africa. In a memo from Plame dated February 12, 2002 to the deputy chief of the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) from Plame, the Senate report concludes that according to the CIA testimony, Plame “offered up his (Wilson) name.” (www.gopusa.com/news/2004/july/0713_wilson_plame_intel.shtml)
-Wilson misled the Washington Post in June of 2003, when he told the paper that the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." In fact, Wilson had never seen the reports.
When the Senate committee staff asked Wilson how he could have come to that conclusion, Wilson replied he may have “misspoken” (See first paragraph) to reporters.
(www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A39834-2004Jul9)
-Contrary to Wilson’s claim’s that the Bush administration understood that it was knowingly passing along questionable information to the American public, the Senate committee found in its investigations that the CIA did not tell the White House it had its own doubts about an Iraq/Niger connection for the procuring of uranium.
Joseph Wilson has had extensive ties to the Democratic Party throughout much of his time in Washington. Wilson is an unabashed supporter and donor to the Kerry/Edwards campaign for the presidency. In 2000, he donated to Vice President Gore’s election, as has his wife, Valerie Plame. In the mid-eighties, Wilson worked for Gore as a congressional staffer. He has donated money to such liberal stalwarts as Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy. He has in the recent past spoken to liberal “527” groups like Win Without War, which is a part of MoveOn.org, the premiere liberal hate group that is renowned for its coarse and hate-inspired political sloganeering.
WILSON, VALERIE E
WASHINGTON,DC 20007
N/A/RETIRED
10/11/2004
$372
America Coming Together
And I still want to know how she managed to have four kids, whilst undercover in dangerous places and who raised them. Or, is this Wilson's trophy second wife and the kids aren't theirs?
bttt
ACT is continuing to build the largest voter mobilization effort in history.In 2004, our first year, ACT employed 5,000 canvassers and trained over 80,000 volunteers. Together, their work resulted in the highest Democratic voter turnout in history.
The 2004 presidential election was determined by less than 120,000 votes in Ohio. Countless federal, state and local elections were determined by even smaller margins. Many close races were won by Democrats because of ACT’s work in the battleground states.
In 2005, we will continue to lead the fight against George Bush’s radical right-wing agenda by continuing our work in 7-9 battleground states with key elections in 2005, 2006 and 2008.
I wonder how a "covert" CIA operative can be retired while claiming that she was outed by Karl Rove and also manages to donate to a ANTI-AMERICAN group funded in large part by GEORGE SOROS, Mr. Hate America and CROOK?!
America Coming Together
Formed: July 2003
The initial funding for ACT, estimated at $10M, came from George Soros who publically declared his intention to help defeat George Bush.
One of the leading Democratic interest groups dedicated to defeating President Bush in November. Run by longtime Democratic operatives and financed in part by wealthy Democratic donors, the group plans a massive voter mobilization effort in 17 battleground states.
# Ellen Malcolm, president (president, EMILY's List)
# Steve Rosenthal, chief executive officer (former political director, AFL-CIO)
# Minyon Moore (former Chief of Operations, Democratic National Committee)
# Carl Pope, treasurer (executive director, Sierra Club)
# Cecile Richards (president, America Votes)
# Andy Stern (president, Service Employees International Union)
# Peter Lewis (chairman, Progressive Corp.), $10 million pledge
# George Soros (financier), $10 million pledge
# Sierra Club
# $8 million pledged from labor groups, including SEIU
If Valerie really was a covert CIA operative, no wonder American intelligence has been so horrible and left us wide open for 9/11.
Maybe one unintended consequence of this is that the libs will finally admit Saddam was an enemy of the US--after all, Wilson was looking into his activities, and the "leak" led to that.
Tell us, libs--how can it be treason if we aren't fighting a war, and Bush invented the threat from Saddam?
Sounds more serious than "someone spoke to a reporter to correct errors in a national security story and he repeated common knowledge about someone who everyone in DC knew about already."
http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/cspan.csp?command=dprogram&record=545623247
At 4:46 a.m. ET, C-SPAN will be replaying the 31 minute White House Daily Briefing from yesterday. Listening to it on the radio it sounded as if David Gregory was going to have a heart attack.
Thanks for that great post. Interesting take by the writer, even if he does come off as a pandering, pompous know-it-all.
I don't know about David Gregory because I don't remember hearing him but Terry Moran (ABC)was having a hissy fit. I couldn't believe what I was hearing. He was so disrespectful it was sickening. He acted as if he was a child talking back to his parents.
I just assumed it was Gregory. On now. Just started.
bump
Exactly! And if there's really somebody there who thinks that there's any difference in the level of suspicion the other side would have between that accorded to an agency employee and that accorded to the Ambassador's wife, they're in BIG trouble. "Hey, Abdul, I saw Farhad talking to the Ambassador's wife, but it's not like that's any security risk or anything. I mean, I'm sure she wouldn't tell the American government anything."
Sheesh! How could anybody think the connection between the Ambassador's wife and the U.S. Government would be secret? It has to be somebody who thinks military attaches are really attaches. It's the "Get Smart" school of spycraft.
bookmark
Gregory seemed to get exercised the most but there was enough frustration to go around.
Two things are apparent to me: 1) No one has all the facts yet and 2) If Rove was 'getable,' the left side of the media would have already gotten him.
A lot of FAR LEFT LIBERALS believe that they are moderates.
It is a um... delusion of theirs that the center has shifted so far to the left that socialists are the new middle.
Bump
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