Well, Vanity Fair got the headline right, eh?
Posted on 09/02/2006 5:19:23 AM PDT by Clive
Has a Washington scandal ever ended with a more anti-climactic splat than the Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson affair?
This week it was at last fully and finally confirmed that it was former deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage who had leaked the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame.
Put like that, the story sounds pretty bare. So let me put it another way. Imagine that Ken Starr's investigation had concluded that Monica Lewinsky had made the whole thing up -- and that it was established beyond all possible doubt that at the very moment Monica claimed she was experiencing ecstasy in the Oval Office with Bill Clinton, Clinton was in fact up in the White House family quarters helping Hillary sort old wedding photographs.
Imagine all that, and you only begin to imagine how utterly the biggest scandal of the Bush years has fizzled into nothing.
The scandal originated in George Bush's Jan. 28, 2003, State of the Union address:
"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Six months later, on July 6, 2003, The New York Times published an op-ed by one Joseph Wilson that accused the president of twisting intelligence. Wilson explained that the CIA had sent him to Niger in 2002 to investigate Iraqi uranium buying -- and that he had reported back that it was all bunk. Suddenly all Washington was asking the same question: Who the hell was Joe Wilson?
Wilson, a former ambassador to Gabon now struggling to earn a living as an international business consultant, seemed a very unlikely person to investigate a secret nuclear transaction. The next week, syndicated columnist Robert Novak provided the answer: Wilson had been proposed for the assignment by his wife, Valerie Plame, "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."
The administration's critics immediately erupted in outrage. "Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a U.S. intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security -- and break the law -- in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?" So demanded David Corn of The Nation magazine.
For his part, Ambassador Wilson vehemently denied that his wife had anything to do with his assignment.
The administration succumbed to media pressure and appointed a special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, to investigate the case. Critics gleefully settled in to wait for "Fitzmas" -- the happy day when the prosecutor would indict the so-called neocon cabal. Many speculated that the scandal must touch the Vice President, even the President. Wilson himself said he was looking forward to seeing Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs.
Over time, it became clear that almost every detail of Joe Wilson's original story was false. Wilson's appointment was engineered by his wife. The report he filed did not acquit the Iraqis. Wilson had not detected forged documents. Above all: An Iraqi trade mission had in fact sought uranium in Niger in 1998 -- the President had spoken accurately.
Nonetheless, the Plame scandal ricocheted throughout the government. The Bush administration's pro-democracy, pro-Israel foreign policies were ferociously opposed by most of the U.S. national-security bureaucracy, and especially the CIA. Inflamed by the Plame allegations, CIA officials acted almost as part of the Kerry campaign organization through campaign 2004. Since Kerry's defeat, CIA betrayals of administration secrets have helped clinch one Pulitzer Prize for The New York Times and another for the Washington Post.
Yet somehow Fitzmas never came.
And then last week, Newsweek excerpted a new book co-authored by the magazine's Michael Isikoff and arch-conspiracy theorist David Corn that reveals that the Plame leak sprang not from Rove or Cheney, but from Armitage -- and that Patrick Fitzgerald has known this truth for close to three years.
Armitage was never an administration hawk. Indeed, he and his close friend Colin Powell loathed the so-called neocon cabal as fervently as David Corn himself. Armitage identified Plame to Novak not to settle scores, but out of a weak-minded delight in gossip.
Armitage, a former Marine, often questioned the physical courage of civilians who disagreed with him. But after the scandal exploded, and even as his administration colleagues and the President to whom he owed loyalty were exposed to enormous legal jeopardy by his actions, he kept silent to protect himself.
It's a shameful story. But the shame does not fall quite where the media promoters of the story hoped it would. Which may explain why newspapers such as The New York Times and left-wing blogs which once relished every last twist and turn of the saga have suddenly gone as silent about it as Armitage himself.
Well, Vanity Fair got the headline right, eh?
The fact that a Secretary of State, The Saint Colin Powell knew as well as his deputy and both said nothing ,both undermining a President in time of war not to mention lowering the Morale of all our troops and spawning the "Bush Lied " mantra that was heard 24 hours a day .
Where are the apologies ,yeah dont hold your breath ,all you get are movies showing W getting shot .
This is an isue if the Republicans had half a brain would clobber the democrats over the head with.A good case can be made that a shadow govt was installed over at State and CIA.
The democrats of course with their allies were oh so quick to judgement with glee to try and bury Bush just like with Jumping all over the US Marines ,this is who we want running the country?
I'd settle for 3 or 4, straight-rights to Chris Matthews' snot-locker.
If that Vanity Fair photo is not the face of arrogance, I don't know what is.
Let's live large--why can't we have both?
Our best work may be just ahead of us.
The republic is in that much danger.
My question is, what is the cabal planning as their next attempt to fabricate a scandal? Certainly they are scheming various frauds to perpetrate after the election.
In fact, that is one reason they speak of democrat victory as though it were a foregone conclusion. Build up expectation, then when they lose it will be easier to sell the idea of some sort of voting scandal.
Another area of opportunity for the leftists to perpetrate fraud has to do with the possibility that we take military action against Iran. The number one priority for the leftist cabal would be to fabricate various scenarios to turn people against the Bush administration or against the military in general.
I doubt he's "struggling" too much. The left takes pretty good care of its hatchet men.
For those with a modicum of brain power, this has never been much of a "scandal". I fail to see how "outing" an overpaid paper pusher amounts to anything but an effort on her (her husband and their fellow travelers, as well) part to create a problem for this administration. Nothing more.
I feel like cutting, pasting and emailing this to WAPO and the Slimes.
If Fitzgerald knew Armitage was the leaker, and went on a witch hunt to embarrass the President, he should be thrown in jail. Fitzgerald lined his own pocket with tax money he deliberatly wasted.
[Over time, it became clear that almost every detail of Joe Wilson's original story was false. Wilson's appointment was engineered by his wife. The report he filed did not acquit the Iraqis. Wilson had not detected forged documents. Above all: An Iraqi trade mission had in fact sought uranium in Niger in 1998 -- the President had spoken accurately.
Nonetheless, the Plame scandal ricocheted throughout the government. The Bush administration's pro-democracy, pro-Israel foreign policies were ferociously opposed by most of the U.S. national-security bureaucracy, and especially the CIA. Inflamed by the Plame allegations, CIA officials acted almost as part of the Kerry campaign organization through campaign 2004.]
This is why so many Christian conservatives are looking for a third party, the republicans are weak,selfish and foolish and do absolutly nothing to bring these renegade organizations and the leftist manipulaters therein to justice!
I want to see leftist lawbreakers of the unconstitutional communist party out of American government.
Yup. Don't expect anyone in the GOP to go on a scalping raid. They just don't have the 'nads.
The MSM will give the latest revelations so little attention that most of the public who followed the story (probably less than 50% anyway) will never realize that Joe Wilson was totally discredited and will continue to think the whole thing was a Karl Rove plot.
Since Fitzgerald has charged Libby with lying (simply because his recollections didn't match some reporters' recollections 100%), he can go ahead with his persecution/prosecution regardless of the other developments in the casse. Nobody in the media will object, apart from Brit Hume and the Fox All-Stars.
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