Posted on 07/17/2005 8:03:13 PM PDT by CHARLITE
Two years ago, after reading a Bob Novak column, I called former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and asked, half-jokingly, "Why didn't you tell me your wife was in the CIA?" In a somber voice, Wilson said, "I can't tell you that now." When I first read that Novak column outing Valerie Wilson (a k a Valerie Plame) as a CIA officer and citing "two senior administration officials," I didn't immediately comprehend the leak's seriousness. But as I spoke with Wilson, I could see the potential harm. And I realized the leak was no accident. At the time, the White House and its allies were mounting a fierce campaign against Wilson, who had revealed in a New York Times op-ed that on a 2002 CIA-sponsored trip to Niger he had gathered information undermining one of George W. Bush's justifications for the Iraq War: that Iraq had been shopping for uranium in Africa. And as we discussed the Novak leak--that is, talked around it--it occurred to me that the leakers might have violated an obscure law that prohibits government officials (not journalists) from knowingly disclosing the identity of an intelligence officer. I mentioned this to Wilson; he was unfamiliar with the law. I said I might write about the leak and this law. He didn't encourage me. He was hoping that somehow this story might blow over and was not eager to draw more attention to it. He was in partial (though understandable) denial. Two days later I posted a piece that first raised the question of whether this leak was evidence that White House officials had committed a crime.
Initially few in the mainstream media cared about the leak. But liberal bloggers and other Internet denizens howled. A handful of Democratic Congress members complained. Two months later, the news broke that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate the leak, and there was a flurry of media coverage. Then the story receded, as the investigation generated little news (i.e., few leaks). But through the early stages, the White House claimed Bush wanted to get to "the bottom of it"; that leakers would be punished; and that Karl Rove, Lewis "Scooter" Libby and Elliott Abrams--three White House officials linked to the leak by Washington's rumor mill--had not been involved. Next the case came to be dominated by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's zealous pursuit of reporters--particularly Time's Matt Cooper and the New York Times's Judith Miller. But now that the Cooper and Miller cases have been resolved--with Miller imprisoned--and evidence implicating Rove has emerged, the focus has returned to the original sin: the leak itself.
Because of Fitzgerald's (appropriate or inappropriate) hounding of Cooper--which led to Time's surrendering Cooper's e-mail and notes--Newsweek's Michael Isikoff was able to obtain a damning e-mail that Cooper wrote three days before Novak's column appeared. That e-mail noted that Cooper had spoken to Rove on "double super secret background" and that Rove had told him that Wilson's "wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues." This was the first documentary evidence that Rove had been involved in the leak. His lawyer's immediate spin was that Rove had not mentioned Valerie Wilson/Plame by name. (This was a thin defense; a Google search would have yielded her name.) The White House stonewalled, absurdly refusing to answer any questions about Rove or its previous statements on Rove and the leak. Angry White House reporters accused the White House of having misled the public.
It has taken a while, but the leak has finally led to a flood of trouble, and Bush's most important aide is in peril. Rove might escape legal jeopardy, given how the relevant law is written. But if that famous e-mail contradicts what he told Fitzgerald's grand jury, he should fear a perjury charge. The issue, though, is not only whether Rove engaged in criminal behavior. It's also what the White House will do about Rove--and others involved in the leak. (Novak did say he had two sources.) The Cooper e-mail proves that Rove leaked national security information to undermine a critic. (And if Rove didn't know Valerie Wilson was under cover, he leaked without checking, which means he handled secret information recklessly.) By the White House's earlier statements, Rove engaged in wrongdoing that warrants dismissal--regardless of how Fitzgerald's investigation ends. And if Bush was sincere when he called for the leakers to "come forward and speak out," shouldn't he order Rove to tell us all he knows? But Team Bush has hunkered down, ignoring press inquiries, deriding Democratic criticism as baseless partisan attacks and hoping this storm will pass. It is refusing to acknowledge the reality revealed by that e-mail. But the White House--at least, Rove--has always known what happened. Bush needed no special prosecutor to "get to the bottom" of this. He only had to ask his own people to tell him the truth. That is, if he didn't already know.
The outing law clearly states that she would have had to been overseas as a covert op for 5 years prior to being "outed". She's been at a desk job at Langly for the past 6. No laws were broken. Period.
" Two years ago, after reading a Bob Novak column, I called former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and asked, half-jokingly, "Why didn't you tell me your wife was in the CIA?"
Shouldn't this more correctly read
" Why didn't you thell me that your wife was in the THEEIA ? "
Korn and his wife, VandenHeuvel, are the two most vile partisans I've ever seen on a tv set.
Because everyone already knew it according to Valerie Plame's former CIA boss!
If you're ever asked to define the word 'smarmy', just mention David Korn's name.
well duh! Almost thought in a way that Corn admitted the press were democrat hacks.
feh.
Korn and Wilson outed her as an undercover officer in order to accuse Rove of outing her.
Except that Rove didn't out her, they did. And she wasn't undercover, but thats just details.
Wilson, who had revealed in a New York Times op-ed that on a 2002 CIA-sponsored trip to Niger he had gathered information undermining one of George W. Bush's justifications for the Iraq War: that Iraq had been shopping for uranium in Africa
He outed himself as being a CIA agent in order to accust Bush of lying. Except that the CIA didn't send him to Niger, so he wasn't really an agent. And while he was in Niger he did no investigating that he couldn't have done over the phone. What he did find confirmed that Bush had told the truth.
His only written report was the opinion piece in the Times, in which he lied about his findings.
The press still seems oddly incurious about a fake CIA mission that was used to tilt an election, and which was used to undermine the war effort.
Bush told the truth, and Wilson knew it even as he wrote his piece accusing him of lying. Iraq had come calling in Niger looking for uranium, and Wilson knew it. If Korn's IQ is above subnormal, then Korn also knows it. Which means that this piece, like Wilson's, is not merely incorrect but a lie.
These guys get paid for stuff like this. That never fails to astonish me.
He's married to Katrina van den Heuvel (sp?)? Imagine being the dumbest one in that relationship.
Let's see; Wilson writes an op-ed piece AFTER he goes to work for John Kerry, claiming that he was sent to Niger at the request of Dick Cheney and declares that the words Bush spoke in the SOTU were lies and were the false basis with which Bush led the country to war.
Are they insinuating that the White House was to do NOTHING? Say nothing? Not defend themselves? Not try to at least correct Wilson's claims -- which, we all know now, turned out to be, almost to a word, a pack of lies.
Just stop and think a minute about that: if the White House hadn't refuted the lies Wilson told, his "facts" would have been used to what end - why, to get John Kerry elected, right?
More noise from the half-vast left-wing conspiracy.
If any wrong was done. it MUST be laid to a pubbie. Otherwise, it MUST be classified as an OOPSIE. There, ain't that simple? Ancha glad ya axed me?
Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's "cover" (even if she had not been a covert CIA agent at the time of the alleged "leaks")?
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.
Exactly!
Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's "cover" (even if she had not been a covert CIA agent at the time of the alleged "leaks")?
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.
Just remember: nobody--NOBODY--can digest Corn.
I suspect Korn is rewriting history - what his pal Wilson said was "literary flair". Somebody needs to carefully check when Korn's article on Wilson was actually submitted. Methinks he doth protest too much!
STOP POSTING THE SAME THING TO ME ON EVERY THREAD!!!
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