Outing Valerie Plame: Remember when she was the poster girl for Bush and Cheney-haters?

New York Post ^ | 12/23/2014 | Thomas Lifson

[SeekAndFind]

Remember the outrage when CIA operative Valerie Plame’s name was leaked to newspaperman Robert Novak?

Plame and her husband, Joe Wilson, accused the Bush White House of doing it in retaliation, because her husband was a critic of its war policy. Wilson said it would be “fun to see Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs.”

Only one problem: Rove didn’t do it. The State Department’s Richard Armitage did.

Now the worm has turned.

Last week, Glenn Greenwald, the man who helped Edward Snowden get stolen American secrets published, wrote an article naming the woman — a career CIA officer — who worked at the unit tracking Osama bin Laden and who was also involved in the interrogation of Khalid Sheik Mohammed.

True, in some circles her name has been known. But that was true with Plame, too.

At a time when we remain at war with radical Islamists, there are many who would like this woman killed. But instead of denouncing Greenwald for publicizing the name of this CIA officer, Plame has happily retweeted Greenwald’s article to the world.

[Slings and Arrows]

“The issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution.”
—David Horowitz, quoting unnamed SDS leader.

[sauropod]

Valerie Plame is the worst of the worst.

[BluH2o]

Valerie Plame is idolized in the very liberal environ of Santa Fe, NM where she now resides. Travel thru Santa Fe from time to time ... seems she's always on the cover of their local magazine that caters to visitor/tourist types.

[Ben Ficklin]

This article is screwy in that it names Rove and Armitage, when it was Scooter Libby who was indicted, convicted, and then not pardoned by Bush. Libby took the bullet for Cheney.

With Libby's leaving, Cheney's Legal Counsel, David Addington, moved up to be Cheney's Chief of Staff, and he is best known for setting up the initial NSA apparatus(revealed by Snowden), and torturing at GITMO.

[GilesB]

Libby took the bullet for no one. He was convicted for something only peripherally related to the investigation.

The left wanted Rove - when it became apparent that it was Armitage (and that was known for quite a while), they quietly forgot the original, bogus investigation and pursued Libby, because Libby was close to Bush and Cheney.

The charges against Libby should have been dropped. And Bush should have pardoned Scooter immediately; it is shameful that he didn’t.

Finally - THERE WAS NO TORTURING AT GITMO. When you make foolish statements like that, you diminish the horrors suffered by those who are tortured, and give cover to the most twisted monsters on the planet.

[Socon-Econ]

Can somebody tell me what was wrong with outing Plame as a CIA employee? At the time, she was not an undercover agent. She was a CIA bureaucrat who was trying to use her husband to undercut the Bush administration. She had no right to escape public criticism for her political chicanery.

[Ben Ficklin]

"And Bush should have pardoned Scooter"

I imagine that Bush knew a hell of a lot more about what was going on than you do.

Armitage was out of the loop. Only the NeoCons were in the loop and Armitage is a Realist. In those days the NeoCons had 100% control of everything. It was also not in Armitage's interest to undermine Wilson's findings, and the last thing he would have done is reveal Plame.

But blaming it on Armitage was the NeoCon story.

It might have made a difference at that time, but the NeoCons, and Bush, Rove, Cheney, etc eventually had to acknowledge that Joe Wilson's investigation was correct and there was no yellow cake

[GilesB]

Your fast-and-loose manipulation of the facts is impressive.

There was yellowcake - Wilson even said so.
Armitage DID give Plame’s name to Novak.

Bush may have known more than me about what was going on...but that doesn’t change the fact that he should have pardoned Libby. The charges brought against Libby were “letter of the law” not “spirit of the law” prosecution; which means it was a witch-hunt.

Any President should pardon anybody in his administration who is convicted in such a witch-hunt.

[Ben Ficklin]

The witch hunt judge(Walton) was appointed to the federal bench by GW Bush, and would go on to become a FISA judge, but not the one that signed off on the Addington/Cheney NSA program.

Scooter Libby

[GilesB]

Oh, talk sense! If you have any. The presiding judge was not the witch-hunter.

[Ben Ficklin]

The prosecutor was a republican.

Look, you try to tell me I'm poorly informed, then that I'm stupid and senseless.

The reality is that you are poorly informed and not talking sense.

You are spouting off the NeoCon talking points. You don't need to bother with the NeoCon talking points because I already know what they are.

You are complaining because Libby was the butt of a ramrodded witchhunt because he was convicted of lying to the FBI, the prosecutor, and the grand jury, not leaking. And furthermore, you use another NeoCon talking point of blaming Armitage.

The reality is that what Wilson had to say was very detrimental to the concocted story that the NeoCons used to pursue a disastrous foreign policy.

You may try point the finger away from Libby and towards Armitage, or Rove, or Hadley, but they were all leaking the story as way to undermine Wilson's credibility. It was co-ordinated. Some gave the leak to Novak, some gave it to the NYT reporter, but we have no way of knowing everyone who leaked or who they leaked to.

And it wasn't just the Wilson story. Not long after that, that part of the intelligence attributed to the informant known as "Curveball" began to fall apart, and Bush/NeoCons blamed that on the CIA.

Even your criticism of Bush for not giving Libby a pardon is a NeoCon talking point, and it didn't just apply to Libby. The NeoCons were mad at Bush for other reasons also.

The first NeoCon that Bush fired was Doug Feith who was defense undersecretary of policy.

Then Bush fired Paul Wolfowitz who was the deputy secretary. Except Bush had to give Wolfowitz the job as prez of the World Bank, but that created problems at the World Bank because they detested NeoCons, so Bush had to replace Wolfowitz with the Realist Bob Zoellick, and the NeoCons were mad that Bush would replace Wolfowitz and especially mad because it was Zoellick who replaced him.

Wolfowitz had been Libby's professor at law school and Wolfowitz got Libby his first govt job in Reagan's State Dept. When Wolfowitz got the undersecretary job for GHW Bush, he hired Libby as his deputy and they authored what would be called the Wolfowitz Doctrine AKA NeoCon Doctrine AKA Bush Doctrine.

The NeoCons were also mad because Bush replaced NeoCon Rumsfeld with Realist Bob Gates.

And finally, the NeoCons were mad that Bush replaced NeoCon Scott Bremer in Iraq with the Realist Ryan Crocker, and Ryan Crocker was the first US official to sign the Iraq Status of Forces Agreement. Bush's team in Iraq for the surge would be Gen Petraeus, Gen Allen, and Ambassador Crocker. Obama ended up with the same three men in charge in Afghanistan.

You can try to spin it however you want, but the facts are the facts

[GilesB]

LOLOL - blah, blah, blah, blah

I said to talk sense, if you have any - if you choose to read that as “you are stupid and senseless”, then you’re right.

You talk such blather - and all that you say is some kind of NeoCon conspiratorial rant. You throw out “facts” which are completely irrelevant to what I said - accurate or not.

Valery Plame was not an asset that needed protecting. Wilson himself blabbed about her. All of the Wilson nonsense was an effort to try to “prove” that Iraq did not have WMDs nor capable of producing nuclear weapons. If you want to rest your addled head on that pillow, go ahead. But don’t try to claim it as fact.

Hussein had chemical weapons and he was willing to use them.

Hussein was again developing nuclear weapons - and was in possession of “yellow cake”.

Wilson’s little venture was for one purpose - do discredit the Bush administration and it’s deposal of Hussein.

I don’t give a rat’s behind about the prosecutor’s political affiliation (John McCain and Lindsey Graham are republicans also) - it was a witch-hunt, and the questioning was used to set up Libby for the follow on prosecution and conviction.

You babble like a dizzy liberal. You throw out information that has no value or pertinence.

I have no affection for Rove or Wolfowitz or any of the other names you toss around - but I know lies and injustice when I see it.

The major clue here is your constant use of “NeoCon” perjoratively and “Realist” positively. This is nothing but your particular brand of propaganda.

Your fanatic devotion to your propaganda, your meandering thought process - throwing everything and the kitchen sink into an argument about Wilson, Plame and Liddy, your defense of the highly politicized Wilson and Plame...all paint you into your little corner, far away from credibility.

Again:
Hussein had WMDs and was developing nuclear weapons - he was a clear threat.
Wilson was a political hack...proposed for a political dirt-digging mission by his political hack wife.
Plame was not a protected asset at the time, but was painted as one in order to begin the witch-hunt.
Libby was caught in the middle of the political witch-hunt, and set up by the prosecutor for his charges of lying and misleading and obstruction. It was completely bogus. An attempt to discredit the Bush administration, specifically Dick Cheney.
AND - the guy they were looking for was Armitage, and they knew it long before they started putting the frame around Libby.
Bush should have fully pardoned Libby for being caught up in a purely political prosecution.

Now - go on another “NeoCon”/”Realist” wild-eyed conspiracy rant.

[Ben Ficklin]

You want to argue with me about it when you need to be arguing about it with Bush, Cheney, and Rove.

All three of them have said there were no WMDs.

[GilesB]

You’re the one who started the argument.

Now, this should be easy for you: IF there were no WMDs, what was it that Hussein used to kill the Kurds?

I say it was chemical WMDs...what do you say it was?

[xrmusn]

You want to argue with me about it when you need to be arguing about it with Bush, Cheney, and Rove.

All three of them have said there were no WMDs.
= = = = = = = = = = = =

After the fact they may have admitted.

Rest assured they had been informed or strongly believed WMD’s were present.

Proof being....

If they knew for a ‘FACT’ there were no WMD’s, we surely would have found enough to justify the actions we took.

[piasa]

But blaming it on Armitage was the NeoCon story.

Armitage admitted it. It's not even arguable. Nor was he out of the loop, he was an aide to Powell, who most certainly was in the loop. Now we find out Hillary Clinton and Valerie's husband [who lest we forget is a pal of Alamoudi] have been involved in this email thing as well... in regard to the heavy metals mining business.

[Ben Ficklin]

No. You see Armitage was/is a realist and there was no benefit to the realists in revealing Plame. It was to the realist's benefit for her to not be revealed.

OTOH, the NeoCons benefitted immensely from revealing Plame.

Her husband's study contradicted the NeoCon mis-info story on the yellowcake. So the neocons had to impeach his study by impeaching him and the best way to do that was to say that he was dumb and unqualified, and the only reason he was given the task was because his wife was in a position of influence. But to do that, the NeoCons had to reveal who she was, that she had used her influence to give him the task.

[piasa]

Armitage is the one who admitted it... thus it was not the “neocon story”...

And Wilson’s story didn’t even match his own testimony.

[piasa]

The prosecutor was Patrick Fitzgerald, a very close friend of James Comey, godfather to Comey’s children, a man whose job has been to throw cases or at the least minimize and contain damage in the Holy Land Foundation, IAP, and other investigations going back quite a few years.
Comey was also said to be a Republican, though he never acted like it; not to mention he is married to a rabid leftist and fan of Hillary Clinton, and proudly proclaims his children love Hillary Clinton nd his family attended the terrorist-led women’s march in DC. His every move has been to provide cover for Hillary Clinton.