Was Plame Covert? A Review of Isikoff and Corn's Hubris

Original FReeper research | 10/5/2006 | Fedora

[windchime]

Thanks for your work, Fedora!

In your piece you said:

"Although this question seems highly relevant to the key issue of whether Plame was covert at the time of Novak’s column, Isikoff and Corn choose to gloss over it by relegating their discussion to a footnote (as they frequently do with other important information inconvenient to their spin)."

Their ommissions could be more useful than what they mention in the way of narrowing target areas of further inquiry.

[norton]

"Official cover" literally means "open secret".
The only people who don't know who you are are not even near the game and usually they are other Americans who have few if any dealings with the embassy or whatever other agency is being used.
It's cover but only by definition and it can be pretty entertaining in practice.

I think a more telling area for covert/not covert research would be to find out when she was issued a sticker to use the parking lot at langley.

[betty boop]

This is an excerpt from a longer piece I'm working on.

I'm looking forward to reading more! Please do ping me Fedora, when you post the rest!

[windchime]

I noticed that, too, PDR.

David Corn - Washington Editor of The Nation Magazine

THE NATION - On the far left, The Nation magazine and its Nation Institute have been supported by OSI (Soros' Open Society Institute). The magazine published a generally flattering piece about the Soros-funded Center for American Progress.    http://www.aim.org/special_report/A2089_0_8_0_C/

Soros funded/supported groups involved in both Foley and Plame controversies.

Google search results in everything from Corn's leftist articles to accusations of Corn being a mole in the progressive movement.

 

[the Real fifi]

Fitz says he's making no allegation about Plame's status..and therefore need not and won't put in any evidence of that. Libby's lawyers are trying to make certain that Fitz doesn't try to sneak that in in a backhanded way--i.e., by suggesting as he has that thinking she was gave Libby a motive to lie.

[marron]

Excellent work.

I can't get past the fact that CIA confirmed her employment to Novak. If CIA outs you over the phone to some guy calling in, you are not covert. End of story.

If she were covert, first they wouldn't have confirmed it over the phone. Second, Novak is the one who outed her in print, and Corn revealed that she was supposedly covert. If anyone were going to be prosecuted, it should be those two. The fact that they get a pass tells you all you need to know about the motive for the investigation.

What is there to investigate? First, she's not covert, the CIA gave her up over the pnone. Second, they know who printed the information (Novak, Corn) and they know where the original information came from (Armitage).

An "investigation" when you already know the answers is a hoax.

[Fedora]

If anyone were going to be prosecuted, it should be those two. The fact that they get a pass tells you all you need to know about the motive for the investigation.

The fact Armitage also got a pass strikes me as well. Very strange prosecutorial procedure: the three suspects whom the strongest case can be made against become witnesses whose testimony is used against a guy (Libby) fingered by one of them (Corn).

[Fedora]

Thanks. Does that mean his press conferences aren't counted as evidence of what he is alleging? I had in mind this press conference (though I see he used the term "classified" rather than "covert"--which seems a bit odd, as I believe the law he's basing the indictment on pertains to protecting covert operatives, not classified information):

Transcript of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's Press Conference

Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community.

[Fedora]

Thanks for the additional Foley info! I'm planning to come back to his discussions with Robert Joseph when I post the rest of this.

[the Real fifi]

Right. He is now saying he's not arguing any of the most outrageous things he said in the presser.

[Fedora]

Corn knew Wilson from Fox News when Wilson was just getting involved with the antiwar movement in late 2002/early 2003. Corn invited Wilson to write a piece for Nation, which appeared on their website on February 13, 2003, several weeks before Wilson made his first public statement on the Niger forgeries during a CNN interview. Wilson and Corn both claim Corn was the one who initially suggested Novak's column may have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. So there's good reason to suspect Corn has a vested interest in this whole thing.

[Fedora]

Their ommissions could be more useful than what they mention in the way of narrowing target areas of further inquiry.

Definitely. Analyzing what Isikoff and Corn put in their footnotes is like a psychological case study in repression :-)

[Fedora]

Thanks for explaining that. I can see the legal logic behind his argument from the perspective of a prosecutor, though from the defendant's perspective of course it's unjust, and outside a court of law it's absurd. This case makes my head spin. . .

[the Real fifi]

Yes. It's an outrage.

[BJClinton]

Do you have a Cliff's notes version?

[Fedora]

Not at this time. I may streamline it when I post the full list of questions. If someone wanted a condensed version to post elsewhere, they might use ellipses to omit some of the direct quote from the House Report cited under Question #3. The main point there is that WINPAC did not divide neatly into the analytic/covert compartments emphasized by Isikoff and Corn but was designed to coordinate the entire CIA's nonproliferation efforts with those of the rest of the intelligence community, so the information they provide about Plame's background with CPD is not sufficient to conclude that she was not connected with WINPAC or belonged exclusively in the CIA's "covert" box.

[okie01]

Fedora, you're a FReeper treasure.

Were that the minions of "journalism" were half as curious and a quarter as diligent...

[Fedora]

Thanks, okie! :-)

[piasa]

Isn't it FUNNY how David Corn keeps popping up all over the place -- he's in the middle of the Plame business (and knew who the leak was and kept his mouth shut) and he's in the middle of the Mark Foley business too.... somebody should take a closer look

The Mark Foley case and Plame case share these figures:

Nick Rahall, James Abourezk, Alexander Cockburn, Mohammed Alamoudi, and Al Gore.

[piasa]

Isn't it FUNNY how David Corn keeps popping up all over the place -- he's in the middle of the Plame business (and knew who the leak was and kept his mouth shut) and he's in the middle of the Mark Foley business too.... somebody should take a closer look

The Mark Foley case and Plame case share these figures:

Nick Rahall, James Abourezk, Alexander Cockburn, Mohammed Alamoudi, and Al Gore.

As it happens Nick Rahall, James Abourezk, Mohammed Alamoudi and Al Gore remind me of Nelson Mandela of all people.