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Friday, September 01, 2006
Outing of Valerie Plame Wasn't Nefarious White House Conspiracy After All "We're reluctant to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage. "Mr. Armitage was one of the Bush administration officials who supported the invasion of Iraq only reluctantly. He was a political rival of the White House and Pentagon officials who championed the war and whom Mr. Wilson accused of twisting intelligence about Iraq and then plotting to destroy him. Unaware that Ms. Plame's identity was classified information, Mr. Armitage reportedly passed it along to columnist Robert D. Novak 'in an offhand manner, virtually as gossip,' according to a story this week by the Post's R. Jeffrey Smith, who quoted a former colleague of Mr. Armitage. "It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue. "It now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously." The most laughable thing about this entire affair has been the idea that Democrats and liberals could care about the outing of a CIA agent to begin with. Democrats have traditionally pretty much despised the CIA, as well as other intelligence agencies, since the 1970s when in an effort to curb some of the CIA's excesses, it went wildly overboard and arguably destroyed much of its effectiveness. Not since the Vietnam era have Democrats and liberals been much interested in defending the U.S. or its interests either at home or abroad. Consider their hissy fits over NSA wiretapping of terrorists' phone calls into the country. Why in the world would they care about the so-called outing of a CIA employee who had been office-bound in Langley, Virginia since 1997 and whose very covertness was actually a subject of debate? It doesn't wash and it never did. Back in May it was reported that Plame/Wilson had agreed to a $2.5 million book deal for her memoir to be entitled "Fair Game." By the fall of 2007, you can't help but wonder how many people are still going to care enough about the Valerie Plame story to fork out the 25 or 30 bucks for her book. This one's destined for the cheap bin. Greg Strange provides conservative commentary with plenty of acerbic wit on the people, politics, events and absurdities of our time. See more at his website: http://www.greg-strange.com/ Blogger News Network is advertiser-supported, and your visits to our advertisers help BNN to meet its expenses. Help keep us afloat! posted by Greg Strange at 10:19 AM |
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2 Comments:
How unfortunate that Scooty Libby may actually go to prison for mistating facts to an FBI agent, just as Martha Stewart did, while NOT under oath and while the cops, in the same conversation, may have lied through their teeth without fear of punishment, and are likely rewarded.
People should be more afraid than ever to talk, on ANY level, to law enforcement, as a cop works 24/7 and he could be lying to you at anytime.
The Police States of America step a little closer.
Fitzgerald new from the beginning who the source of the leak was, so you have to ask yourself.....Why in the world was there an investigation at all?
He should be prosecuted, shouldn't he? He spent MILLIONS of U.S. tax dollars for absolutely no reason. Also, a reporter went to jail as a result and several people were forced to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars in attorneys fees to defend themselves.....for what?
Where are the cries from the liberals in congress for an investigation into THIS mess?
Kudos to the Washington Post for admitting it was wrong. Thus far, the NY Times has been silent about the entire matter.
After running front pages stories on the subject for the past couple of years, doesn't it seem odd that a NEWSpaper wouldn't deem it important enough to report the TRUTH, even if it buried it in the classifieds somewhere?
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