Free Republic

Sept. 4, 2006 issue - In the early morning of Oct. 1, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell received an urgent phone call from his No. 2 at the State Department. Richard Armitage was clearly agitated. As recounted in a new book, "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War," Novak ...wrote, was a "senior administration official" who was "not a partisan gunslinger." Armitage was shaken. After reading the column, he knew immediately who the leaker was. On the phone with Powell that morning, Armitage was "in deep distress," says a source directly familiar...

Doesn't the Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee read? In a Washington Post article by Walter Pincus in Friday's edition, Representative Peter Hoekstra (news, bio, voting record), who has succeeded in pushing the Bush administration to start releasing some of the 2 million documents captured in Iraq, said,“Whether Saddam Hussein destroyed Iraq's weapons of mass destruction or hid or transferred them, the most important thing is that we discover the truth of what was happening in the country prior to the war.”Conservatives and war-backers have been howling for the release of all these documents because they believe--or hope--that they...

This weekend some interesting developments appeared to rip some holes in the Wilson Gambit and further erode Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s credibility. David Corn of The Nation magazine and VIPS (Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) have pushed nonsensical claims that Valerie Plame was a nonofficial cover agent (NOC), supplying the necessary predicate for an Agee Act (Intelligence Identity Protection Act) prosecution. While I could find scant reporting in the pre-indictment period poking holes in this ridiculous notion, Saturday’s Chicago Tribune carried five stories doing just that. In two of the most significant articles, the paper showed how easy it was...

NEW YORK A media Web site scheduled to debut Wednesday will seek to blend traditional journalism with the freeform commentary developed through the emerging Web format known as blogs. Some 70 Web journalists, including Instapundit's Glenn Reynolds and David Corn, Washington editor of the Nation magazine, have agreed to participate in OSM _ short for Open Source Media. OSM will link to individual blog postings and highlight the best contributions, chosen by OSM editors, in a special section. Bloggers will be paid undisclosed sums based on traffic they generate. The ad-supported OSM site will also carry news feeds from Newstex,...

Did Joseph Wilson expose his own wife as a CIA employee months before columnist Robert Novak published that information? Fox News military analyst and retired Major General Paul E. Vallely is being threatened with a lawsuit for saying that the answer is yes, and that he was there when Wilson confirmed her CIA status. What's more, Vallely tells Accuracy in Media that he is prepared if necessary to go to court to prove it. He may have to. Wilson's attorney, Christopher Wolf, categorically rejects Vallely's claim. He tells AIM, "It never happened I can assure you that. Vallely is making...

Now that George Will, William Kristol, David Frum, Linda Chavez, Charles Krauthammer, Edwin Meese, Robert Bork and all the other conservative power brokers have forced George W. Bush to fall to his knees and kiss their feet--by nominating Federal Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito to replace Harriet "I Love W" Miers to replace Sandra Day O'Connor on the US Supreme Court--there is no escape for the Senate Democrats. They have only one strategic option: Make the battle over Alito a political fight about substance. ... If the Alito nomination becomes the titanic battle that both sides in the judicial wars...

If a senior White House official leaks classified information that identifies an undercover CIA officer to reporters in order to undermine a critic of the administration, he is not entitled to lie about it to FBI agents and a grand jury charged with the task of determining if such a leak violated the law. That was special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's message, as he held a dramatic press conference at the Justice Department to explain the five-count indictment his grand jury issued against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. "This is a very serious matter,"...

Call-In Political News Review C-SPAN, Washington Journal York, Byron, Correspondent, [National Review], White House Corn, David, Editor, [Nation, The], Washington, DC Journalists talk about the previous week’s major news stories including the White House leak investigation, withdrawal of Supreme Court Nominee Miers, and events in Iraq.

With each passing day, the manufactured "scandal" over the publication of Valerie Plame's relationship with the CIA establishes new depths of mainstream-media hypocrisy. A highly capable special prosecutor is probing the underlying facts, and it is appropriate to withhold legal judgments until he completes the investigation over which speculation runs so rampant. But it is not too early to assess the performance of the press. It's been appalling. Is that hyperbole? You be the judge. Have you heard that the CIA is actually the source responsible for exposing Plame's covert status? Not Karl Rove, not Bob Novak, not the sinister...

Here we go again. Another pick for the Supreme Court without much--or, in this case, any--judicial experience. And that will make it hard for senators--or anyone else--to assess what sort of Justice Harriet Miers, currently George W. Bush's White House counsel, will be if the Senate confirms her as Bush's pick to replace the retiring Sandra Day O'Connor. In announcing his selection of Miers, Bush said, "I believe that senators of both parties will find that Harriet Miers's talent, experience and judicial philosophy make her a superb choice." But what precisely is her "judicial philosophy"? And how can it be...

This is an article by the avowed socialist editor for The Nation, David Corn. In it Corn points out the background of the organizers of today's ANSWER rally on the Mall in Washington, DC. Those speaking at the demonstration today are much the same speakers who are always appear at these ANSWER rallies. Apart from newly arrived star, Cindy Sheehan and her pals, felony ex-con racist Moslem, Malik Rahim, the rapidly anti-Semitic Hadi Jawad, and the convicted terrorist abettor Lynne Stewart -- this is the same roster as has appeared at every other prior ANSWER rally. Such as at Bush's...

Last week, the Justice Department issued a new indictment of Lawrence Franklin, the Pentagon official accused of passing secrets to officials of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobbying outfit. The indictment is bad news for the Bush White House and Karl Rove. That's not only because the Franklin case is embarrassing for the administration, the Pentagon, and their neocon allies. (Franklin worked with Douglas Feith, who until recently was a senior Pentagon official close to the neocons.) The Franklin indictment is a sign that Rove and any other White House aide involved in the Plame/CIA leak might be vulnerable to prosecution under...

AS THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS SPIDERWEB OF LIES SPUN BY former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of…Karl Rove. Despite Rove’s demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame’s non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons’ blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson’s two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to “truth,” and his inconsolable remorse that his wife’s closely guarded anonymity had become...

AS THE SEEMINGLY ENDLESS SPIDERWEB OF LIES SPUN BY former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV unravels, the media has gone out of its way to question the credibility of…Karl Rove. Despite Rove’s demonstrable non-leak of Valerie Plame’s non-secret identity, the dogs continue to gather, hungry for a second term scandal, while the Wilsons’ blatant self-promotion erodes whatever basis they had for a story in the first place. Perhaps Joe Wilson’s two biggest whoppers were his claim to have spoken out because of his deep, non-partisan commitment to “truth,” and his inconsolable remorse that his wife’s closely guarded anonymity had become...

WASHINGTON - Sen. Charles E. Schumer, D-N.Y., revealed Friday that two years ago he discussed the blown cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame with then CIA director George Tenet and that Tenet "was furious." Tenet promptly called the Justice Department to demand an investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak, Schumer said at a hearing held by House and Senate Democrats. Novak revealed Plame's identity in July 2003 in a column in which he said she played a key role in having her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, sent to Niger to investigate...

Two years ago, after reading a Bob Novak column, I called former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and asked, half-jokingly, "Why didn't you tell me your wife was in the CIA?" In a somber voice, Wilson said, "I can't tell you that now." When I first read that Novak column outing Valerie Wilson (a k a Valerie Plame) as a CIA officer and citing "two senior administration officials," I didn't immediately comprehend the leak's seriousness. But as I spoke with Wilson, I could see the potential harm. And I realized the leak was no accident. At the time, the White House and...

I am thinking about writing a letter to my local fish wrap because editor was crying about the Rove nonsense and the fact that Judith Miller was a hero to all for standing up for the press and their "First Amendment Rights" and protection of confidential sources. The jest of my letter is going to focus on why we shouldn't feel sorry for Ms. Miller and the rest of the press because they (the liberal press) are the first ones to applaud when the First Amendment protections to free speech during federal elections was attacked (McCain/Feingold) and when a court...

In journalism, the definition of “leak” suggests that it is applied to government officials who purposely give reporters secret or confidential information in order to publicize something they do not like so that it can be defeated before being voted upon. “Outing” a CIA agent is only a crime if the agent is under cover overseas or has been during the past five years. This law was created to prevent the assassinations of CIA agents on foreign shores as had been caused by Philip Agee in 1978 who listed CIA agents undercover in foreign cities, causing the murder of some....

The buzz is that all of the fun-loving Dims are having "Rovegate" parties to trash Karl Rove and GWB over the CIA outing controversy. We need to show we can have fun too......by having a Wilson-Plame Look-Alike Contest. Post here your choices for the look-alikes.

Was it really a secret that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA? It's the top story in the Washington Post this morning as well as in many other media outlets. Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA? What also might be worth asking: "Who didn't know?" I believe I was the first to publicly question the credibility of Mr. Wilson, a retired diplomat sent to Niger to look into reports that Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase yellowcake uranium for his nuclear-weapons program. On July 6, Mr. Wilson wrote an...