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.
Bush/Rove machine got to them.
What you have right here boys & girls is RATher/Mapes/Burkett/Lockhart 1.0... with an upgrade. This time, the DNC had loyal operatives(Clinton stooges) in critical positions willing to whore for them... instead of some old, half-nuts DNC activist in TX.
No crude forgeries were needed on this one... it was all word of mouth... he-said... she-said.
I wondered about a class action suit against the publisher for publishing "fiction" as non-fiction". Some people may want their money back....
Good for Mark he gets right to the heart of the matter. Who's listeneing?
Yeah. The MSM is not gonna cover this to any large degree. This story is gonna go down the Orwellian memory hole.
You summed it up quite nicely.
"Yep ole honest straight-shooter Fritz knew a long time ago the leak was a non-issue, but he continued down the path very carefully wording stuff so he could continue his non-investigation hoping something else may turn up all while collecting big fat government checks."
Fitz was shooting for Attorney General Fitz in 2008 as thanks from the DNC. Sorry Fitz, you will have to chase ambulances come 2008.
Britain has a law that the loser pays costs, but not here. Libby will have to seek satisfaction through lawsuits of his own. I wish we could charge Howard Dean's, Harry Reid's, Nancy Pelosi's,Barb Boxer's, Diane Feinstein's, the NYTimes' and the WashPost's bank accounts to make Libby whole.
The Republicans should have fund raising dinners to help Libby.
How many times have we heard ALL of the media, not just "MSM" use that term? Ad nauseum--literally. Now that the truth's out, is anyone besides WaPo and Fox covering this? Shouldn't there be some apologies from the media to Scooter Libby for publicly defaming him? As for Fitz, seems there should at the very least be a prosecutorial misconduct charge.
"Libby will have to seek satisfaction through lawsuits of his own."
If this is his only recourse, I sincerely hope he does.
If you or I misappropriately funds the the extent Fitzpatrick has, we would be prosecuted.
Has anyone information re. prosecutorial misconduct by the Fitzpatrick?
Now, the MSM just wants this to go away.
I think we are in the age where more people are using the Internet for in depth news.
The MSM is in a decline for news events, this is quite evident in lay offs for those working in the publishing business.
Forums such as we have here at FR are the news for the future and, growing more every month.
It's so refreshing to read the truth from people we have come to know as , "truth searcher's" and take the time to write their discoveries for the American people.
I use to be a MSM news freak until a Dr., M.D. introduced me to the Internet and, gave me a P/c. That was seven yrs. ago and, today the only TV news I care about and, watch is evening news on Fox.
If this is true, didn't Fitsgerald himself break the law?
Agreed. Same here re: Fox News. Anything else I find unwatchable, or part of an alternate universe.
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