Posted on 07/11/2005 11:18:25 PM PDT by Howlin
I WROTE a column on Oct. 10, 2003, about the strange case of Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame.
--
...I offered my speculation of what an administration official might have said to a journalist to explain just how Wilson — a Clinton administration official — got the assignment in the first place: "Administration official: 'We didn't send him there. Cheney's office asked CIA to get more information. CIA picked Wilson . . . Look, I hear his wife's in the CIA. He's got nothing to do. She wanted to throw him a bone.' "
Hate to say I told you so, but . . .
--
There's no mistaking the purpose of this conversation between Cooper and Rove. It wasn't intended to discredit, defame or injure Wilson's wife. It was intended to throw cold water on the import, seriousness and supposedly high level of Wilson's findings.
While some may differ on the fairness of discrediting Joseph Wilson, it sure isn't any kind of crime.
--
So if the offense wasn't against Plame, what of the offense against Wilson? There was no offense. As many of Joe Wilson's own hottest defenders would no doubt argue in relation to President Bush, exposing a liar is not only not a crime, it's a public service.
And Wilson lied. Repeatedly.
--
What isn't controversial is this: Karl Rove didn't "out" Valerie Plame as a CIA agent to intimidate Joe Wilson. He was dismissing Joe Wilson as a low-level has-been hack to whom nobody should pay attention. He was right then, and if he said it today, he'd still be right.
And if Valerie wants to live a quiet spy life, she should stop having her picture taken by society photographers and stop getting stories written about her on the front page of the Times.
(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...
McClellan, Sept. 29, 2003:"MR. McCLELLAN: If someone leaked classified information of the nature that has been reported, absolutely, the President would want it to be looked into".
And if no classified information was leaked then what?
1. You seem to accept as fact that Valerie Plame was a classified CIA agent when in fact it was common knowledge in Washington that she worked at the CIA.
2. You also disregard the fact that this was in the context pertaining to Joe Wilson's trip to African. Wilson not only lied about the report he made but he also lied about how he got selected for the trip. When Karl Rove told Cooper that Wilson was lying and that he shouldn't believe what he was saying, Cooper asked how Wilson was selected in the first place Rove stated his wife got him appointed.
You would have to be a complete idiot to believe that chain of events consitutes "outting" a CIA covert agent. Of course if you knew what you were talking about or had actually read and learned about this topic you would have already known all this. You take one line out of several pages of Qs and As and act like its all clear, you have a grudge that's certainly your right but it doen't mean a lie is the truth. And this entire BS alleged "scandle" is based on a lie.
Valerie Plame was not a covert agent it was common knowledge she worked for the CIA and identifying that she was the person who got Joe Wilson a plum assignment which he is lying publicly about is not "outting" her...
Just asking questions, that's all.
But, if asked my opinion, I'd say the whole thing stinks. I didn't vote for Rove, and the last thing the administration needs now (with the recent attacks in London, the war in Iraq, a pending supreme court justice nomination battle, etc.) is a pointless battle to defend a campaign hack (nicknamed Turd Blossom by President Bush, as I recall). Cut him loose. The President isn't running for office again. Rove is just dead weight and a distraction.
If there is ever a dispute that this was on the web, I have the snapshot.
The subpoenas are for information on what was said about Plame, Wilson, the trip to Niger and what was said about Iraq trying to obtain uranium. Perhaps leaks about the yellowcake matter itself are a focus.
Why did Rove deny that he had any involvement at all when he was asked by McClellan;
He didn't (of course). It has long been stated that Rove spoke with reporters about it but did not out a covert agent.
Why didn't Rove correct McClellan when McClellan publically announced that Rove had no involvement at all (thus putting the White House in its present hot seat trying to explain the contradiction between then and now);
There was no correction needed. As noted above, Rove and McClellan's statements comport perfectly with the known facts.
What did Rove tell the grand jury;
I'm sure he told the truth.
Does it matter that the offical position of the White House was that it would fire anybody involved, and that the position seems to have softened considerably since the discovery that Rove was involved (even tangentially);
The position of the WH was they would fire anyone leaking classified information. They certainly never vowed to fire someone for providing facts to reporters. Rove did what he should have done. Your continued assertion that Rove's role is a recent "discovery" is false.
Why was McClellan so defensive during the press conference yesterday, and who told him to dodge all questions with the excuse that he couldn't talk during an ongoing investigation (when he was clearly free to talk previously about the case);
He wasn't defensive and the SP has asked him not to comment
If it's all so harmless and meaningless, why is McLellan under instructions not to talk until the ongoing investigation is completed?
Everyone appearing before the grand jury has been instructed not to talk.
I have to believe that the law allows for CIA agents to use their front groups legally for all required references. For example, if she was getting a loan.
The question we keep coming back to is who first told someone that Valarie worked for the CIA. It is clear that her husband knew her real employment, and since he didn't have government clearance it seems that he shouldn't have had that information.
And we know that at some point, he publicly announced that she was a secret CIA operative, confirming that her cover had been "blown" by Novak's statement -- which was merely an opinion piece and had deniability of fact, until Wilson CONFIRMED it.
How did Rove know that Valarie worked on WMD issues at "the agency"? He wouldn't have had access to that information either, and he probably heard it around. Most stories that came out at the time of the "leak" said that everybody knew she worked at the CIA, but that nobody knew she was an operative.
Rove didn't say she was an operative, and it looks like he didn't know, so that would mean he couldn't have leaked that information.
It still seems to come back to Wilson verifying his wife's employment and secret operative status -- something he shouldn't have known, and shouldn't have confirmed. His wife shouldn't have told him (those with security clearances are not allowed to tell their spouses about secret things).
You don't like Karl Rove so be it, but that still doesn't make a lie the truth. And since the President is loyal to his people I would be very surprized and actually disappointed if he let lies and false accusations disgrace a loyal advisor.
Actually President Bush's loyalty is one of the things I admire the most about him, especially when most Washington politians would sell their mothers for political leverage.
For the record, Valerie Plame's political donation and listing Brewster Jennings as her employer was information in the WaPo in 2003, at the start, and posted here on FR.
The Washington Post seemed to think this proved she was covert. Others (like me) thought it showed she was a partisan hack with none too much concern about any ostensible cover she was supposed to have (ergo it demonstrated the exact opposite of what the sages at the WaPo concluded).
Looks like you've formed an opinion on faulty "facts" and aren't interested in answers to your "questions".
"But Rove's committed a classic case of treason - deliberately outing a secret operative for base political motives - and Freepers seem willing to give him a get-out-of-jail card."
The flaw with your statement is that Rove didn't out her.
He did mention her name and that she worked for the CIA.
The vast majority of people who work for the CIA are not agents and definately not undercover agents.
It's also very questionable if she was really undercover as well.
The limited exerpt of the email doesn't seem to imply that Rove was aware that she was an agent, merely that she worked for the CIA, and that she had a hand in getting her hubby the job. A fact that her hubby publicly denied.
Wilson is the one that has been clearly caught lying in several cases. He lied about his findings. He made comments in the press that the documents were clearly forged when he never had access to the documents.
The facts do not support the accusation that Rove did something wrong.
That does leave us with the question of why the administration denied Rove had anything to do with this whole affair.
I guess we'll have to wait until the entire email is released, and we have enough information to develop a timeline of the events.
The press has a way of scewing what the administration says to suit their own ends. I'll wait until I see what was actually said and when it was said before I even start wondering if the administration screwed up with their statements.
Bump to self
"But Rove's committed a classic case of treason - deliberately outing a secret operative for base political motives..."
It's still nepotism.
So two years, a thousand editorials, 100,000 threads on a thousand message boards and it's all still just speculation about what someone might have said.
Even if you take today's NY Times at their word (which I don't) there is no evidence of a crime, no evidence intent to out anyone, no evidence of intent to harm the intelligence community.
If this is the worst they can do then this issue really ought to be settled.
Rove told Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper that the woman ''apparently works'' for the CIA and that she had authorized her husband's trip to Africa to assess allegations that Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake uranium for nuclear weapons, according to a July 11, 2003, e-mail by Cooper obtained by Newsweek magazine.
So the worse possible face that the Times and Newsweek together can put on this still shows no intent to do anything other than to show the motivation for Wilson's trip.
Isn't that the definition of victory in conservative politics - when the NY Times spends 2 years going after you and comes up comes up empty?
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/national/AP-CIA-Leak-Investigation.html?hp&ex=1121227200&en=b1ea03377dbcf2ed&ei=5094&partner=homepage
If Mrs W was officially working for Brewster Jennings and reporting for work at CIA headquarters every day; no body had to "out" her.
If there is ever a dispute that this was on the web, I have the snapshot.
That's great. Please don't lose it. lol! You have the evidence.
Where did you read it, and was the source credible? This is the one crucial element of this story that's attained will-'o-the-wisp status and it's the only one that means a damned thing.
Was she still an active covert agent, or was she "in from the cold?" Did Rove or Novak blow her cover by mentioning she worked for the CIA and was Wilson's wife even though those facts were well known? The MSM consistently operates on the premise she was still doing cloak and dagger assignments. Why is this element so damned hard to pin down definitively? Are the media distorting the truth as usual, or is another shoe about to drop? What's missing here?
I don't like Rove putting the President and McClellan in the position of contradicting themselves. Both the President and McClellan said that Rove had no involvement, apparently acquiring that information from Rove himself. Even if Rove's involvement was tangential (as it appears to be) he should have disclosed that immediately.
I don't believe for a minute that the strong statements of no involvement would have been made by the President and McClellan had Rove come clean. Instead, the explanations we are hearing now would have been made back then, and the matter would have been put to rest early on vis a vis the non-involvement of Rove.
But now we have the passage of a year, conflicts between the representations of no involvement made in September of '03 and the facts revealed at present (facts revealed not by the White House, but by an MSM intent on bludgeoning the administration), lots of word parsing to make the statements of no involvement look like something other than what they were clearly intended to be taken for, and a needless controversy that makes the administration look like it is dissembling.
I place this at Rove's feet. If that's loyalty to the President on his part, it's a strange kind of loyalty. Maybe President Bush is willing to go to the mat for the guy (which, I agree, is an admirable trait). But I wouldn't be.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.