Nice house, huh?
(BTW, you all have GOT to get Google Earth!)
Posted on 07/13/2005 3:28:51 PM PDT by Jean S
Please allow me to share with you some of the things I don’t know.
I don’t know what Valerie Plame’s status with the CIA was in July 2003 when Robert Novak wrote his column mentioning that she was an “agency operative” and had recommended her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for a fact-finding trip to Niger. Was Plame a covert agent then? If not, how recently had she been a covert agent?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know what’s going on with The New York Times’ Judith Miller.
Since top presidential adviser Karl Rove and top vice-presidential adviser Lewis Libby signed strongly worded waivers releasing all reporters from any pledges of confidentiality, why hasn’t Miller testified? Does that mean her source was someone else who has not signed a confidentiality waiver?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why Miller is involved in all this at all, since she never wrote a story about it. Was she some sort of “carrier,” as is now being theorized, and actually helped spread word of Plame’s identity?
I don’t know.
For that matter, I don’t know what Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper was doing either. Rove’s lawyer says Rove signed the waiver about a year and a half ago and has never changed it. Why was that waiver not acceptable to Cooper for 18 months and then, on the brink of going to jail, Cooper agreed to testify?
I don’t know.
I don’t know anything about the role the other journalists caught up in the case — Tim Russert, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler — played. Apparently on the basis of waivers signed by sources, they all gave information to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. What did they say?
I don’t know.
And of course I also don’t know what is happening with Novak. Given Fitzgerald’s aggressiveness in dealing with all figures in this case, Novak must have made some sort of accommodation. Did he testify? Refuse to testify?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why many in the press, most notably The New York Times, were once so enthusiastic about the Fitzgerald investigation. On Dec. 30, 2003, the Times published an editorial headlined “The Right Thing, At Last,” which said, “After an egregiously long delay, Attorney General John Ashcroft finally did the right thing yesterday when he recused himself from the investigation into who gave the name of a CIA operative to columnist Robert Novak.” Why did the Times do that?
I don’t know.
And then, why did the Times change its position and condemn Fitzgerald who, the paper said, “can’t even say whether a crime has been committed.” Why would the Times say that, when it had once been so sure that a crime had been committed?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know about the actions of Joseph Wilson. For example, in his book, The Politics of Truth, he wrote, “The assertion that Valerie had played any substantive role in the decision to ask me to go to Niger was false on the face of it. ...Valerie could not — and would not if she could — have had anything to do with the CIA decision to ask me to travel to [Niger].” But later, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in its bipartisan report, said that “interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate that [Wilson’s] wife, a CPD employee [a reference to the CIA’s Counterproliferation Division], suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told committee staff that the former ambassador’s wife ‘offered up his name’ and a memorandum to the deputy chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from [Wilson’s] wife says, ‘my husband has good relations with both [Niger’s prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.’” So why did Wilson say his wife played no “substantive role” in it?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why Wilson’s defenders accuse the White House of “smearing” him. What was the smear? Was it a smear to say that Wilson got the Niger assignment, at least in part, because his wife recommended him? If so, then the Senate committee “smeared” him, too. If not, what is the smear?
I don’t know.
And finally, I don’t know about Karl Rove’s public statements on the case. Last year on CNN, he said of Plame, “I didn’t know her name and didn’t leak her name.” Even if he hadn’t passed on Plame’s name — just mentioned her as Wilson’s wife — why not just say nothing, especially since the whole thing is under criminal investigation?
I don’t know.
The bottom line is, some of the most critical facts in the whole Wilson/Plame/CIA matter are just not known, at least not known by anyone outside of the Fitzgerald investigation.
But don’t worry. At least we can be sure that we will someday know them, right?
I don’t know.
York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week.
E-mail: byork@thehill.com
Deborah Orin brought that up the other day
Chris acting like he didn't hear a thing she said
Agreed ... but it will eventually come out
It always does
I agree. Even a few folks on this site need to take those three little words to heart.
For people who like stuff like this:
http://eyeball.sabotage.org/plame-eyeball.htm
I think so too. Or else she wouldn't be sitting in jail if the source was Karl Rove since he signed the waiver over a year and a half ago. I think ole' Matt and Judith are in a predicament of their own making. lol! And so is the New York Times.
Schrum is on Hardball claiming he has never met Joe Wilson and has never talk to him in his entire life
Hello??
Aldrich may have given her up in '94, but that doesn't mean anyone knew it then.
The CIA knew it.
Who says she was in Brussels?
Nice house, huh?
(BTW, you all have GOT to get Google Earth!)
This reminds me of a magician who gets his audience to watch his face or his hat so they won't concentrate too hard on his hands where the trick is done.
Whatever finally comes out about the Plame outing, it will pale in comparison to the great damage done by an unnamed speechwriter who put those 16 words in Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.
That's where the investigation should have been centered, IMHO.
Instead we are told it's all about politics.
Yeah, sure.
Who's house is that?
liberal political consultant Bob Shrum—a Novak friend and source for thirty years—has long provided Novak with scoops from inside the Democratic Party
******
Bob Shrum worked for John Kerry and so did Joe Wilson. He is lying.
Courts leak, counsels talk and jurors chat. I think it safe to say, Fitzgerald isn't the only one who knows what's going on. What we hear are leaks, planted leaks and guesses.
circa 1997 : (VALERIE PLAME OUTS HERSELF TO A C-in-C US ARMED FORCES IN EUROPE POLITICAL ADVISOR, WILSON, THAT SHE IS IN THE CIA, ACCORDING TO LATER REPORT BY MAUREEEN DOWD OF THE NY TIMES) Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson both happened to alight in Washington, their jet-set schedules intersecting, and spotted each other across a cocktail party filled with foreigners."I saw this striking blonde," he recalled, still sounding smitten six years later. At first she said she was an energy analyst, but confided sometime around the first kiss that she was in the CIA. "I had a security clearance," grinned Wilson, then a political adviser to the commander of U.S. forces in Europe. - "Maureen Dowd : Ambassador Wilson and the Spy Who Loved Him, " NY Times, October 3, 2003
1997 : (WILSON RETURNS FROM OVERSEAS TO WASHINGTON AS SENIOR DIRECTOR OF AFRICAN AFFAIRS AT THE NSC) That same year [1997], Wilson also came back to Washington, as a senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council...A source, however, says that Wilson was not universally popular, because of what was perceived to be too strong sympathies for the interests of the Africans and Europeans. via FR's seamole, Jan 2, 2004*
1997 : (WORLD BANK RECEPTION ORGANIZED BY WESTAR GROUP : JOSEPH WILSON MEETS MOHAMED AL AMOUDI) Joseph Wilson IV. The latter had already met Mohamed Al Amoudi in 1997 at the time of a reception organized for the World Bank by Westar Group (LAW n.794). --- "(Some) Well introduced businessmen ," The Letter of The Indian Ocean, October 23, 1999 via 100 posted on 06/26/2004 6:42:46 PM PDT by Shermy
Wilson ran his company out of the offices of an investment company called Rock Creek Corporation. Rock Creek was controlled by Mohammed Alamoudi, whom Wilson had met in 1997 at a reception organized for the World Bank by Westar Group. Alamoudi was a member of the Saudi-Ethiopian Alamoudi dynasty, which was heavily invested in the segments of the African economy Wilson was seeking to penetrate. The Alamoudi-affiliated company Delta Services--a Swiss subsidiary of the Saudi company Delta Oil--handled Iraqi oil export contracts in 2000 and 2001 and was revealed in 2003 as a recipient of Iraqi Oil-for-Food vouchers channeled through Abu Abbas, a Palestinian terrorist with Iraqi connections.
--- "What Wilson Didn't Say About Africa," Fedora, Original Freeper Research, Oct 25, 2004, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1256475/posts
Valerie and Joe's place.
You are ABSOLUTELY RIGHT...
...about the fact that you 'sure as heck don't know', that is.
Mm hmm. Bet that's it. It certainly can't have anything to do with journalistic integrity. It's CYA and CDA all the way.
Here's her Who's Who entry - whodathunkit? Note that until '97 she was still working for Joulware in Europe, then back to DC
Birth: November 6, 1949 in Bridgeport, Connecticut, United States
Occupation: Ambassador
Source: The Complete Marquis Who's Who TM. Marquis Who's Who, 2003.
Family: s. Joseph Charles III and Phyllis (Finnell) W.; m. Susan Dale Otchis, Apr. 27, 1973 (div. 1986); m. Valerie Elise Plame, Apr. 3, 1998; children: Sabrina Cecile, Joseph Charles, Trevor Rolph, Samantha Finnell Diana.
Education: BA, U. Calif., Santa Barbara, 1972.
Avocations/Research/Interests: golf, bicycling, fitness
E-mail: joewilson@rockcreekcorp.com
Memberships: Am. Polit. Sci. Assn., Am. Fgn. Svc. Assn. (William R. Rivkin award 1987), U. Calif. Santa Barbara Alumni Assn., San Onofre Surfing Club.
Addresses: Office, Ste #300, 1717 Pennsylvania Ave NW, Washington, DC, 20006-4619.
Recipient Disting. Alumni award U. Calif. Santa Barbara, 1991, Comdr. Order of Equatorial Star govt. Gabon award, 1995, Disting. Def. Dept. Civilian award, 1997; named hon. adm. County Commr., El Paso, Tex., 1991.
Positions Held: pres., JC Wilson Internat. Ventures, Washington, 1998; spl. asst. to pres., sr. dir. for African affairs, Nat. Security Coun., Washington, 1997-98; polit. adv. to Commdr. in Chief, U.S. Armed Forces Europe, 1995-97; amb., Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe, 1992-95; dep. chief of mission, Am. Embassy, Baghdad, Iraq, 1988-91; dep. chief of mission, Am. Embassy, Brazzaville, Congo, 1986-88; dep. chief of mission, Am. Embassy, Bujumbura, Burundi, 1982-85; congl. fellow, Am. Polit. Sci. Assn., Washington, 1985-86; fgn. svc. officer, Dept. of State, Washington, 1976-98. Career-Related: Adj. scholar Mid. East Inst., 2002.
Where's John LeCarre when we need him? :o)
I just linked one to you. Don't you read anything that might conflict with what you think?
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