OT - Karl Rove Named as CIA Agent Leak

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by timmynausea

Clinton was going after terrorists in Sudan. Apparently there was bad intelligence about the pharmaceutical factory, but he was going after Osama.

They wanted Kosovo to be a NATO project, but the other NATO countries wouldn't agree to use ground troops. I agree that it was a flawed strategy, but there were diplomatic reasons. I personally disagreed with them and still do, but it's not like Clinton just randomly decided to only strike through the air. The real truth is that it was an attempt to make NATO relevant again, since it has had little use since the USSR dissolved.

In any case, those are hardly examples of corruption at all. Mistakes to varying degrees? Yes. Corruption? Not so much.

That's interesting. . . because when Osama was captured and in custody, Clinton refused to take him, instead letting the Sudan send him to Afghanistan.

You can pass if off as minor, but Clinton lied to a grand jury. The Clinton presidency was filled with scandals. Non stop really. From start to finish.

Very similar to Bush as well. People threw a fit, called him a corrupt, lying jack ass. And voted him in for a second term.

Go figure.

[Klinglerware]

Originally Posted by SFL Cat

BAD INTELLIGENCE? There's no such thing. CLINTON LIED!

Hee hee, I wonder what the opinions of the more partisan members of this board would be on these international policy situations if a republican was in office instead of Clinton and a democrat instead of GW Bush...

Originally Posted by SFL Cat

whose wife Denise "donated" several hundred thousand dollars to the Clinton Library Foundation.

Not to mention wrote Mandy Moore's teeny-bopper hit, "Candy". Yeah yeah, yeah yeah!

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by TroyF

That's interesting. . . because when Osama was captured and in custody, Clinton refused to take him, instead letting the Sudan send him to Afghanistan.

Just out of curiosity, do you have any proof for this outside of the ramblings of one Mansoor Ijaz, former "lobbyist for Pakistan" and more recently an investment banker in New York and commentator for Fox News?

[SFL Cat]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Just out of curiosity, do you have any proof for this outside of the ramblings of one Mansoor Ijaz, former "lobbyist for Pakistan" and more recently an investment banker in New York and commentator for Fox News?

I've heard the audio clip of Clinton himself talking about this during one of his post-presidential lectures. He refused to take Bin Ladin because he didn't think, at the time, that the U.S. had grounds to hold him.

[SFL Cat]

found the transcript, if you look, I'm sure you can find the actual audio file (it's poor quality, but you can understand what he's saying)

Ex-President Clinton's Remarks on Osama bin Laden
Delivered to the Long Island Association's Annual Luncheon
Crest Hollow Country Club, Woodbury, NY
Feb. 15, 2002

Question from LIA President Matthew Crosson:

CROSSON: In hindsight, would you have handled the issue of terrorism, and al-Qaeda specifically, in a different way during your administration?

CLINTON: Well, it's interesting now, you know, that I would be asked that question because, at the time, a lot of people thought I was too obsessed with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda.

And when I bombed his training camp and tried to kill him and his high command in 1998 after the African embassy bombings, some people criticized me for doing it. We just barely missed him by a couple of hours.

I think whoever told us he was going to be there told somebody who told him that our missiles might be there. I think we were ratted out.

We also bombed a chemical facility in Sudan where we were criticized, even in this country, for overreaching. But in the trial in New York City of the al-Qaeda people who bombed the African embassy, they testified in the trial that the Sudanese facility was, in fact, a part of their attempt to stockpile chemical weapons.

So we tried to be quite aggressive with them. We got - uh - well, Mr. bin Laden used to live in Sudan. He was expelled from Saudi Arabia in 1991, then he went to Sudan.

And we'd been hearing that the Sudanese wanted America to start dealing with them again.

They released him. At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.

So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan.

We then put a lot of sanctions on the Afghan government and - but they inter-married, Mullah Omar and bin Laden. So that essentially the Taliban didn't care what we did to them.

Now, if you look back - in the hindsight of history, everybody's got 20/20 vision - the real issue is should we have attacked the al-Qaeda network in 1999 or in 2000 in Afghanistan.

Here's the problem. Before September 11 we would have had no support for it - no allied support and no basing rights. So we actually trained to do this. I actually trained people to do this. We trained people.

But in order to do it, we would have had to take them in on attack helicopters 900 miles from the nearest boat - maybe illegally violating the airspace of people if they wouldn't give us approval. And we would have had to do a refueling stop.

And we would have had to make the decision in advance that's the reverse of what President Bush made - and I agreed with what he did. They basically decided - this may be frustrating to you now that we don't have bin Laden. But the president had to decide after Sept. 11, which am I going to do first? Just go after bin Laden or get rid of the Taliban?

He decided to get rid of the Taliban. I personally agree with that decision, even though it may or may not have delayed the capture of bin Laden. Why?

Because, first of all the Taliban was the most reactionary government on earth and there was an inherent value in getting rid of them.

Secondly, they supported terrorism and we'd send a good signal to governments that if you support terrorism and they attack us in America, we will hold you responsible.

Thirdly, it enabled our soldiers and Marines and others to operate more safely in-country as they look for bin Laden and the other senior leadership, because if we'd have had to have gone in there to just sort of clean out one area, try to establish a base camp and operate.

So for all those reasons the military recommended against it. There was a high probability that it wouldn't succeed.

Now I had one other option. I could have bombed or sent more missiles in. As far as we knew he never went back to his training camp. So the only place bin Laden ever went that we knew was occasionally he went to Khandahar where he always spent the night in a compound that had 200 women and children.

So I could have, on any given night, ordered an attack that I knew would kill 200 women and children that had less than a 50 percent chance of getting him.

Now, after he murdered 3,100 of our people and others who came to our country seeking their livelihood you may say, "Well, Mr. President, you should have killed those 200 women and children."

But at the time we didn't think he had the capacity to do that. And no one thought that I should do that. Although I take full responsibility for it. You need to know that those are the two options I had. And there was less than a 50/50 chance that the intelligence was right that on this particular night he was in Afghanistan.

Now, we did do a lot of things. We tried to get the Pakistanis to go get him. They could have done it and they wouldn't. They changed governments at the time from Mr. Sharif to President Musharraf. And we tried to get others to do it. We had a standing contract between the CIA and some groups in Afghanistan authorizing them and paying them if they should be successful in arresting and/or killing him.

So I tried hard to - I always thought this guy was a big problem. And apparently the options I had were the options that the President and Vice President Cheney and Secretary Powell and all the people that were involved in the Gulf War thought that they had, too, during the first eight months that they were there - until Sept. 11 changed everything.

But I did the best I could with it and I do not believe, based on what options were available to me, that I could have done much more than I did. Obviously, I wish I'd been successful. I tried a lot of different ways to get bin Laden 'cause I always thought he was a very dangerous man. He's smart, he's bold and committed.

But I think it's very important that the Bush administration do what they're doing to keep the soldiers over there to keep chasing him. But I know - like I said - I know it might be frustrating to you. But it's still better for bin Laden to worry every day more about whether he's going to see the sun come up in the morning than whether he's going to drop a bomb, another bomb somewhere in the U.S. or in Europe or on some other innocent civilians. (END OF TRANSCRIPT)

[JW]

Clinton was right about one thing. The Bush administration did not take Al Qaeda seriously until 9/11.

And, about Rove, just my opinion, but the country would be better off if he resigned. Of course the NYT is after him now not in a search for truth but in an attempt to damage the Bush administration, in a purely political way, but Rove has done enough damage. Among other things he is the architect of our policy of ignoring the Mexican border problems, and he is the leading proponent of ignoring radical Islam in the US. He has always placed politics above the good of the country. JMO.

[SFL Cat]

I agree about the Mexican border thing. The lack of response regarding this problem from either party is going to wind up biting both of them in the a$$es imo.

[Blackadar]

Deleted message, inaccurate information. My apologies.

[SFL Cat]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

The above seems to assume that Rowe acted on his own in this instance. I find it difficult to believe that a White House Press Secretary took it upon himself to do this with no advice or consent from any of his superiors. These guys are the "voice' of the administration and don't generally take a shit without a consensus.

Hell, for all you know, her hubby got drunk at a social gathering and bragged to buddies about how he was married to "Jane" Bond. DC is a small and incestuous town -- everyone is an insider, or thinks they are.

If the evidence is there, Rove will be prosecuted. If not, I'm sure the NYT will do its typical sandbag job hoping to cause as much political damage to the administration as possible. Either way, Rove is screwed, so rejoice!

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by SFL Cat

Hell, for all you know, her hubby got drunk at a social gathering and bragged to buddies about how he was married to "Jane" Bond. DC is a small and incestuous town -- everyone is an insider, or thinks they are.

If the evidence is there, Rove will be prosecuted. If not, I'm sure the NYT will do its typical sandbag job hoping to cause as much political damage to the administration as possible. Either way, Rove is screwed, so rejoice!

Read my above retraction. Rowe isn't the Press Secretary.

[SFL Cat]

His name isn't Rowe, either.

[Blackadar]

Originally Posted by SFL Cat

His name isn't Rowe, either.

V, W...they look the same on 1 1/2 hours of sleep.

[Arles]

Good column in the NY Post on all this. It now appears that Plame had been listed in Wilson's public bio (available before the Novak column) and that Wilson lied about his wife's role in recommending him for the WMD trip:

http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/op...ists/49903.htm

Scandal Implosion

July 12, 2005 -- I WROTE a column on Oct. 10, 2003, about the strange case of Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame.

Wilson was the former ambassador sent by the CIA to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium in Africa; Plame, his CIA agent wife.

In that column, 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 . . .

According to this week's Newsweek, Karl Rove said something very similar indeed to Time magazine's Matthew Cooper:

In the Cooper e-mails just surrendered by Time to the prosecutor looking into the Plame case, "Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a 'big warning' not to 'get too far out on Wilson.' Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by . . . CIA Director George Tenet . . . or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, 'it was, [Rove] said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.' "

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.

Rove was suggesting to Cooper that that folks lower down in the CIA than its own director commandeered the process so that the husband of one of their own could get the gig. And the husband in question then went and misrepresented his findings to various journalists (The Washington Post's Walter Pincus and The New York Times's Nicholas Kristof) and then in his own now-famous Times op-ed.

This Rove-Cooper conversation discredits Wilson, not Plame. In fact, nothing we know so far was done either with the purpose of exposing or even the knowledge that these remarks would be exposing an undercover CIA operative.

But Plame's undercover status at the time was and is a little questionable in any case. How undercover could she have been when her name was published at the time as part of Joseph Wilson's own biography online (see cpsag.com/our_team/wilson.html)?

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.

First off, Wilson long denied he was recommended for the job by his wife: "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," he writes in his book. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."

But the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence actually found the memo in which Valerie Plame recommended her husband for the job.

There were other lies as well. Wilson's own report was far from definitive in any way on the question of whether Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger — thus giving the lie to his later bald claim that he came back insisting there was no link.

"The report on the former ambassador's [Wilson's] trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002," said the Senate Select Committee, "did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq."

Thus, Rove was telling Cooper the truth. According to one of Cooper's e-mails, "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. He [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger . . ."

A few days later, for reasons that remain unexplained, the United States said it could no longer stand by the claim in the 2003 State of the Union that Saddam was seeking uranium in Africa.

But that retraction of Bush's words remains hotly controversial. As a 2004 British inquiry chaired by Lord Butler put it: "We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government's dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded."

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 Plame 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.

[Klinglerware]

But nowhere in that bio does it mention Plame's job title or status as an undercover employee of the CIA. "Undercover" doesn't mean "dead to the world", it just means that your public employment status is subterfuge--Wilson acknowledging the name of his wife doesn't violate that...

[Blackadar]

Lil' Scottie trying, and failing, at the old Potomac Two Step over Rove.

hxxp://movies.crooksandliars.com/Scotty_Rove.wmv

[flere-imsaho]

Tim Russert on this morning's "Today" show:

"As one Republican said to me last night, if this was a Democratic White House we'd have congressional hearings in a second."

[SFL Cat]

I'm curious.

I remember the NYT was really pushing for Robert Novak to give up his source when he named Plame in his column. In fact, the NYT has really been pushing for this investigation. Now, Time turned over Matt Cooper's notes and allowed Cooper to testify before the grand jury when his "source" (Rove, supposedly) released the reporter from maintaining his confidentiality.

Now if Rove is the source who gave up Plame's identity, and he gave Cooper "a personal, unambiguous, uncoerced waiver to speak to the grand jury"....and Time allowed their reporter to go before the grand jury, why is NYT reporter Judith Miller still sitting in jail, especially since NYT has been one news organization really pushing this story forward?

Did Rove give conditional waiver? Matt you can talk, Judith...sorry babe...you gotta keep your mouth shut and sit in jail. What gives? In fact, since Miller never wrote a story about Plame at all...why is she involved in this mess?

[NoMyths]

Another large question: if the investigation has been as intense and thorough as the government promised back when the leak happened, why has it taken this long for such a key figure like Rove to not either a) admit his involvement to pretty much everyone in the know or b) be found out by the investigators? This can't be new information to the President and in-the-know administration staffers.

[SFL Cat]

I would say it has been throrough if the grand jury wants to question a reporter who never actually wrote a published story on the Plame incident. They got her name from someone. And apparently since she says she is protecting a source, she does know something.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by TroyF

That's interesting. . . because when Osama was captured and in custody, Clinton refused to take him, instead letting the Sudan send him to Afghanistan.

You can pass if off as minor, but Clinton lied to a grand jury. The Clinton presidency was filled with scandals. Non stop really. From start to finish.

Very similar to Bush as well. People threw a fit, called him a corrupt, lying jack ass. And voted him in for a second term.

Go figure.

Don't you think that some of the thinking was "If they voted Clinton in for a 2nd term when we thought he was the anti-christ then we're going to do the same with Bush"?

[Buccaneer]

Summary:

Those that hate this administration will find any reason to continue hating, pick any argument, grasp at any strawman and read what they want to read just because they want to.

Those that do not hate this administration will find any reason to give the benefit of the doubt, counter any argument, grasp at any positives and read what they want to read just because they want to.

There is at least a couple here that knows how to debate and analyze (Troy and JW). Most of the rest is just noise.

[NoMyths]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Summary:

Those that hate this administration will find any reason to continue hating, pick any argument, grasp at any strawman and read what they want to read just because they want to.

Those that do not hate this administration will find any reason to give the benefit of the doubt, counter any argument, grasp at any positives and read what they want to read just because they want to.

There is at least a couple here that knows how to debate and analyze (Troy and JW). Most of the rest is just noise.

Man, with such a stellar example of debate and analyzation such as this, how could we possibly continue this discussion? Once again Buccaneer has humbled us with the majesty of his political mind. While some would choose to express the exact same feeling in the rolling eyes smiley, Buc is kind enough to grace us with an articulate exploration of each side's position. Clearly we are lucky to have his input on such matters.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

Summary:

Those that hate this administration will find any reason to continue hating, pick any argument, grasp at any strawman and read what they want to read just because they want to.

Those that do not hate this administration will find any reason to give the benefit of the doubt, counter any argument, grasp at any positives and read what they want to read just because they want to.

There is at least a couple here that knows how to debate and analyze (Troy and JW). Most of the rest is just noise.

Then there others who contribute nothing to the conversation...

[Buccaneer]

Never claimed it to be anything but an observation of internet bulletin board political drivel, including what I wrote. In that you clearly see yourself in my first example got you so blinded to an obvious attempt at sarcasm that you chose to write a reply that rings so stupid, much like what you and others have written here?

Hey, I like this game. Your turn.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by Chubby

Then there others who contribute nothing to the conversation...

...by being defensive.

Do I win a kewpie doll?

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by Buccaneer

...by being defensive.

Do I win a kewpie doll?

How was I being defensive? I was merely making an observation of a blatant trolling post.

I just don't get the point of jumping in and saying "both sides are stupid"... oh wait, you were just trolling nevermind carry on...

[Buccaneer]

Being defensive in believing that anything you wrote in a political thread will persuade or change anyone's mind? I was merely making an observation that threads such as this plays exactly like a tennis match. It's actually fun to watch. Nothing wrong in saying that.

Edit: Shit, I forgot to put in a smiley thingy.

[timmynausea]

Originally Posted by SFL Cat

BAD INTELLIGENCE? There's no such thing. CLINTON LIED!

Going after Osama? Was he at the pharmaceutical company factory at the time?

It's funny that later in the day you posted an interview which showed not only that he was going after Osama (and missing by hours), but apparently it wasn't bad intelligence and the factory was part of the terrorists attempts to stockpile weapons, both of which make the post I've quoted look a bit silly.

[Flasch186]

i still have no grasp of whata troll is. I mean I know what you guys told me the definition is but, say me. I love politics so of course im going to get into most POL threads. So Im a troll? Thats just dubious because if you get in a thread and speak your mind on something you like to talk about youre trollin'. Thats just too broad a label IMO.

[JW]

Another view on the Karl Rove affair. And, as I've stated, I have no love for Rove and think he is the source of most of the problems of the Bush administration, but it is pretty clear that what we have here is just political mud wrestling. Bush knows this and will not fire Rove short of a crime having been committed, and all indications are that none were.

Valerie Plame was well known in DC circles at working at the CIA, and more and more people are confirming that she was not a covert agent and had not been one for some time, if at all. I would concede that there are some unanswered questions here, for example, who was Novak's source. But at the moment this appears to be typical DC attack politics.

It is humorously ironic that Rove is the target, since he elevated the art of attack politics during Bush's election campaigns, for example the trashing of John McCain, and in many ways, he deserves what he is getting right now. But let's not kid ourselves that this is some huge national security issue.

REVIEW & OUTLOOK

Karl Rove, Whistleblower
He told the truth about Joe Wilson.

Wednesday, July 13, 2005 12:01 a.m. EDT

Democrats and most of the Beltway press corps are baying for Karl Rove's head over his role in exposing a case of CIA nepotism involving Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame. On the contrary, we'd say the White House political guru deserves a prize--perhaps the next iteration of the "Truth-Telling" award that The Nation magazine bestowed upon Mr. Wilson before the Senate Intelligence Committee exposed him as a fraud.

For Mr. Rove is turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry pseudo-scandal. He's the one who warned Time's Matthew Cooper and other reporters to be wary of Mr. Wilson's credibility. He's the one who told the press the truth that Mr. Wilson had been recommended for the CIA consulting gig by his wife, not by Vice President Dick Cheney as Mr. Wilson was asserting on the airwaves. In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign. Thank you, Mr. Rove.

Media chants aside, there's no evidence that Mr. Rove broke any laws in telling reporters that Ms. Plame may have played a role in her husband's selection for a 2002 mission to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium ore in Niger. To be prosecuted under the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Mr. Rove would had to have deliberately and maliciously exposed Ms. Plame knowing that she was an undercover agent and using information he'd obtained in an official capacity. But it appears Mr. Rove didn't even know Ms. Plame's name and had only heard about her work at Langley from other journalists.

On the "no underlying crime" point, moreover, no less than the New York Times and Washington Post now agree. So do the 36 major news organizations that filed a legal brief in March aimed at keeping Mr. Cooper and the New York Times's Judith Miller out of jail.

"While an investigation of the leak was justified, it is far from clear--at least on the public record--that a crime took place," the Post noted the other day. Granted the media have come a bit late to this understanding, and then only to protect their own, but the logic of their argument is that Mr. Rove did nothing wrong either.



The same can't be said for Mr. Wilson, who first "outed" himself as a CIA consultant in a melodramatic New York Times op-ed in July 2003. At the time he claimed to have thoroughly debunked the Iraq-Niger yellowcake uranium connection that President Bush had mentioned in his now famous "16 words" on the subject in that year's State of the Union address.
Mr. Wilson also vehemently denied it when columnist Robert Novak first reported that his wife had played a role in selecting him for the Niger mission. He promptly signed up as adviser to the Kerry campaign and was feted almost everywhere in the media, including repeat appearances on NBC's "Meet the Press" and a photo spread (with Valerie) in Vanity Fair.

But his day in the political sun was short-lived. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report last July cited the note that Ms. Plame had sent recommending her husband for the Niger mission. "Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip," said the report.

The same bipartisan report also pointed out that the forged documents Mr. Wilson claimed to have discredited hadn't even entered intelligence channels until eight months after his trip. And it said the CIA interpreted the information he provided in his debrief as mildly supportive of the suspicion that Iraq had been seeking uranium in Niger.

About the same time, another inquiry headed by Britain's Lord Butler delivered its own verdict on the 16 words: "We conclude also that the statement in President Bush's State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that 'The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa' was well-founded."

In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission. The media and the Kerry campaign promptly abandoned him, though the former never did give as much prominence to his debunking as they did to his original accusations. But if anyone can remember another public figure so entirely and thoroughly discredited, let us know.

If there's any scandal at all here, it is that this entire episode has been allowed to waste so much government time and media attention, not to mention inspire a "special counsel" probe. The Bush Administration is also guilty on this count, since it went along with the appointment of prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald in an election year in order to punt the issue down the road. But now Mr. Fitzgerald has become an unguided missile, holding reporters in contempt for not disclosing their sources even as it becomes clearer all the time that no underlying crime was at issue.

As for the press corps, rather than calling for Mr. Rove to be fired, they ought to be grateful to him for telling the truth.

http://www.opinionjournal.com/editor...l?id=110006955

[Flasch186]

my initial problem with the WHOLE thing, which Arles will say Im naive about, is the motivation behind revenge actions, taken by our White House. I just think its shameful for our admin. to act in this light. NOw, I know Arles will say thats politics and I have to say, "Oh well" to it...but when I see something that, IMO, is immoral I say "no" to it. Ill be disdainful towards anyone who acts immoral regardless of party affiliation and have done so on numerous threads on both sides.

[Blackadar]

JW, it's not just the federal crime of outing an undercover agent, but also of perjury and making false statements to Federal officials. Now he's not been proven guilty of any of the three, but there is the possibility of multiple charges.

[CamEdwards]

Originally Posted by Flasch186

my initial problem with the WHOLE thing, which Arles will say Im naive about, is the motivation behind revenge actions, taken by our White House. I just think its shameful for our admin. to act in this light. NOw, I know Arles will say thats politics and I have to say, "Oh well" to it...but when I see something that, IMO, is immoral I say "no" to it. Ill be disdainful towards anyone who acts immoral regardless of party affiliation and have done so on numerous threads on both sides.

So Joseph Wilson, the guy who was lying through his teeth in that original column, bears no culpability... but someone who warns a reporter "on background" that the story is bogus is somehow out for revenge?

It wasn't revenge, Flasch. It was trying to get the truth to the press. If Rove broke a law while doing so, send him to jail. But as has been pointed out, most people don't believe he broke the law. Even Andrea Mitchell has said on MSNBC that it was no secret in DC that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.

[Flasch186]

if he broke the law he should go, if he didnt he shouldnt BUT you will never convince me, considering when the story broke compared to the initial statements made by Plame's husband dissenting with the pres., that it wasn't correlated. This admin. has a past history of rebuking and responding to dissent in a very aggressive manner.

EDIT: to add - but you righties keep parsing words like Clinton. "She wasn't undercover [enough]". That is a garbage and slimy way of trying to get around it....her bosses say she was, and thats good enough for me for that facet.

[flere-imsaho]

Found today in, of all places, the Billings Gazette:

"If she was not undercover, we would have no reason to file a criminal referral," the CIA official said, insisting on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation."

Take your grains of salt, of course.

How long until Fitzgerald delivers his report?

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Found today in, of all places, the Billings Gazette:

"If she was not undercover, we would have no reason to file a criminal referral," the CIA official said, insisting on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation."

Take your grains of salt, of course.

How long until Fitzgerald delivers his report?

Of course she was undercover. This is not in dispute really except perhaps among a few hardcore right wingers. The question is whether Rove knew it. I think he did, but it's a very hard charge to prove so I maintain that nothing will come of this investigation.

[HomerJSimpson]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

I think he did, but it's a very hard charge to prove so I maintain that nothing will come of this investigation.

Yup.

[Flasch186]

then why didnt he just blatantly say her name instead of trying to be shadowy about it. "Its somebody's wife over there." when supposedly everyone knew who she was and who she was married too. Thats kind of contradictory to the idea of not needing to hide her due to her covert status, no?

[JW]

Originally Posted by Blackadar

JW, it's not just the federal crime of outing an undercover agent, but also of perjury and making false statements to Federal officials. Now he's not been proven guilty of any of the three, but there is the possibility of multiple charges.

Those are big if's. If he committed any crime, he should be jailed, and it would not make me feel the least bit bad. But the outcry from the Democrats has nothing to do with whether a crime has been committed. They just see a chance to take Rove down.

[JW]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

Found today in, of all places, the Billings Gazette:

"If she was not undercover, we would have no reason to file a criminal referral," the CIA official said, insisting on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation."

Take your grains of salt, of course.

How long until Fitzgerald delivers his report?

Then why did the CIA tell Novak there was no problem with using her name? I guess the CIA needs to get its story together, too.

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by JW

Those are big if's. If he committed any crime, he should be jailed, and it would not make me feel the least bit bad. But the outcry from the Democrats has nothing to do with whether a crime has been committed. They just see a chance to take Rove down.

Then you think the same could be said if we substituted Clinton for Rove and Republicans for Democrats?

[JW]

Originally Posted by Chubby

Then you think the same could be said if we substituted Clinton for Rove and Republicans for Democrats?

Sure, and I've made that every clear. Don't try to paint me as a foaming-at-the-mouth partisan here. Let's remember what Novak himself said about Plame.

There is more to this by the way. We need to know who was the source for the female reporter who is now in jail, and who was Novak's source. This will all come out in time. But the Dems should stop trying to lynch Rove before the evidence is in, even if he perhaps deserves some of what he has been dishing out.


http://www.townhall.com/columnists/r...20031001.shtml

The CIA leak
Robert Novak (archive)


October 1, 2003 |


WASHINGTON -- I had thought I never again would write about retired diplomat Joseph Wilson's CIA-employee wife, but feel constrained to do so now that repercussions of my July 14 column have reached the front pages of major newspapers and led off network news broadcasts. My role and the role of the Bush White House have been distorted and need explanation.

The leak now under Justice Department investigation is described by former Ambassador Wilson and critics of President Bush's Iraq policy as a reprehensible effort to silence them. To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.

The current Justice investigation stems from a routine, mandated probe of all CIA leaks, but follows weeks of agitation. Wilson, after telling me in July that he would say nothing about his wife, has made investigation of the leak his life's work -- aided by the relentless Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. These efforts cannot be separated from the massive political assault on President Bush.

This story began July 6 when Wilson went public and identified himself as the retired diplomat who had reported negatively to the CIA in 2002 on alleged Iraq efforts to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger. I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment. Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one.

During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.

How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry.

A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in my column as an "operative," a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years. While the CIA refuses to publicly define her status, the official contact says she is "covered" -- working under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the Agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations.

The Justice Department investigation was not requested by CIA Director George Tenet. Any leak of classified information is routinely passed by the Agency to Justice, averaging one a week. This investigative request was made in July shortly after the column was published. Reported only last weekend, the request ignited anti-Bush furor.

[Barkeep49]

Originally Posted by JW

Then why did the CIA tell Novak there was no problem with using her name? I guess the CIA needs to get its story together, too.

Source for this?

[Chubby]

Originally Posted by JW

Sure, and I've made that every clear. Don't try to paint me as a foaming-at-the-mouth partisan here. Let's remember what Novak himself said about Plame.

There is more to this by the way. We need to know who was the source for the female reporter who is now in jail, and who was Novak's source. This will all come out in time. But the Dems should stop trying to lynch Rove before the evidence is in, even if he perhaps deserves some of what he has been dishing out.

Never painted you that way, you sure do like to try and put words in other people's mouth tho don't you?

You know as well as I do that this is the same thing (kinda) Clinton went through and is simply payback on the Dems part. Turnabout is fair play.

Where are all the press announcements saying "Rove had nothing to do with it. The President is sure." now?

[Mr. Wednesday]

Um....

Originally Posted by JW

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.

[Barkeep49]

Here's my problem with this ordeal. Valarie Plame is a patriotic American. An american who was willing to put her life at risk. Unlike most CIA operatives who have diplomatic cover she had no such cover, meaning if caught in another country she could face serious harm, even death. In the war on terror many agree that we need more human intellegence, the kind that can be gathered by people working for the CIA who aren't hidng behind so called "black passports". Some have argued she was a pencil pusher/desk jockey. As was pointed out earlier there would be no investigation if this were true. The company she "worked" for was one which housed several other operatives as well. Who knows what the damage was from having those people's covers blown as well.

So let's put the BEST case scenerio on this. Karl Rove finds that someone who has been smearing his administration was given his position because of his wife. Nepotism can be a bad thing indeed and could cast Wilson's allegations in a whole new light. So he decides to leak this information to the press. The problem with this is that he did not take the time to find out what Plame's position was with-in the CIA. After all, in the best case scenerio he did not know she was undercover. This to me is still reckless. This man is trusted with many of our nation's most important pieces of information and so it is incumbant upon him, in my opinion, to be very careful with that information. Why not take the extra step, once he finds out that Plame might be repsonsible for Wilson's "lies", and find out who exactly she is. To me at the bare minimum Karl Rove made an oversight, which might have placed our ability to gather intellegence at risk. A mistake? Yes, but a mistake for which he should still resign. And this is to me the best case scenerio: Karl Rove was careless with confidential information.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by JW

Then why did the CIA tell Novak there was no problem with using her name? I guess the CIA needs to get its story together, too.

1. I've not seen this. Do you have a link?

2. From the Novak column you posted after this post:

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by Novak

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered.

That's a pretty big leap there, Bob.

How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry.

Novak, who need Plame's status to be "common knowledge" to save his skin, and Republican activist and NRO contributor Clifford May are the two "credible" sources here saying that "everyone" knew of her status.

Honestly, what a hack.

[JW]

Originally Posted by Barkeep49

Here's my problem with this ordeal. Valarie Plame is a patriotic American. An american who was willing to put her life at risk. Unlike most CIA operatives who have diplomatic cover she had no such cover, meaning if caught in another country she could face serious harm, even death. In the war on terror many agree that we need more human intellegence, the kind that can be gathered by people working for the CIA who aren't hidng behind so called "black passports". Some have argued she was a pencil pusher/desk jockey. As was pointed out earlier there would be no investigation if this were true. The company she "worked" for was one which housed several other operatives as well. Who knows what the damage was from having those people's covers blown as well.

So let's put the BEST case scenerio on this. Karl Rove finds that someone who has been smearing his administration was given his position because of his wife. Nepotism can be a bad thing indeed and could cast Wilson's allegations in a whole new light. So he decides to leak this information to the press. The problem with this is that he did not take the time to find out what Plame's position was with-in the CIA. After all, in the best case scenerio he did not know she was undercover. This to me is still reckless. This man is trusted with many of our nation's most important pieces of information and so it is incumbant upon him, in my opinion, to be very careful with that information. Why not take the extra step, once he finds out that Plame might be repsonsible for Wilson's "lies", and find out who exactly she is. To me at the bare minimum Karl Rove made an oversight, which might have placed our ability to gather intellegence at risk. A mistake? Yes, but a mistake for which he should still resign. And this is to me the best case scenerio: Karl Rove was careless with confidential information.

Despite the 'um' above from Mr. Wednesday, it sounds like the CIA was not too concerned with her name being released, since it was already common knowledge in DC, which means that our enemies and competitors most likely already knew about her. Had the CIA been concerned, you can bet the issue would have been raised and Novak would have had a call from a more senior CIA official with a more definitive and pointed request not to use the name. You do raise a valid point, but it has been engulfed in the partisan politics of the issue. There remains much none of us know. I'm still waiting on what the prosecutor has to say at the end. Few others are willing to do that. Some are ready with the rope right now. But that is business as usual in DC, and, as I've pointed out, Rove is one of the leading practitioners of attack politics.

[QuikSand]

At several points in this whole debate, I have seen references to the phrase "use her name" commingled with references to her as "Joseph Wilson's wife." (paraphrasing)

Is there anyone who would sincerely argue that making reference to a person as "______'s wife" actually is meaningfully different from actually using her name? I honestly can't tell whether there is anyone trying to make the argument that this is a meaningful difference. It sounds like it to me, but maybe I'm just to deeply cynical.