I heard Rush say some time ago outing Plame was not a crime because her covert activities were longer than 5 years before she was outed.  

After listening to Russert and others over the weekend it appears clear that Novak's column was the first outing of Plame.  Apparently Rove was a confirming source for Novak but no one has revealed the primary source yet.  Since Novak testified before the grand jury it is reasonable to assume he told them who the primary source was.  So, the grand jury must have known who the primary source was and still did not issue an indictment on the outing charge.  I conclude the outing was not a crime.  Libby's misleading testimony perhaps obscured a conspiracy to smear Wilson and to out Plame as punishment.  But if the outing was not a crime, there could be no illegal conspiracy.  

So, Rove and Cheney were unhappy that Wilson was slamming them with the story that he reported the yellowcake uranium story was unreliable and the administration claimed it was reliable.  They figure out Plame suggested Wilson for the trip and leak to the press that she sent him not the CIA.  (I don't see what was wrong with Plame, in counter-proliferation, to suggest husband Wilson, who did have good contacts.)  They damage Plame's career, imply Wilson's trip was not really official, and maybe jeopardize Plame's former foreign operatives.  All of this to punish Wilson for bringing back correct intelligence they chose to ignore?  

OK, after investigation they are not criminals.  But what a slimy, dishonest bunch they are to do this.  Are the Bush supporters proud of this?

To early to say if a the outing of Plame was a crime or not.

Fitzgerald is an old-school prosecutor, proficient in squeezing the little fish. Let's see see how the prosecution of Libby plays out.

If it goes to trial, should be a battle royal between the Special Prosecutor and Cheney. As in, "Gee, Mr. Cheney, why won't you testify, and why are you attempting to hide behind executive privilege".

Better put Cheney's defibrillator on Terror Alert - Red.

It doesn't matter if it's a crime, or not, it's still unspeakable treachery to reveal the identity of US agents.  And this is coming from the White House.

Whose side are these guys on, anyway?  They're on their own side, and that doesn't include you if you're not hooked directly to the RNC.

Yeah, I know, all you Jesus people will get your reward when they get you killed.  I just don't want to be standing next to you when it happens.

Plamegate's real liar, by Max Boot:

'SCOOTER" LIBBY'S indictment was not exactly good news for the White House, but it could have been a lot worse. Feverish speculation had been building that Karl Rove would soon be "frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs," as Valerie Plame's bombastic hubby, Joe Wilson, had hoped. Or even that Dick Cheney would have to resign.

But with his investigation all but over, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has found no criminal conspiracy and no violations of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime in some circumstances to disclose the names of undercover CIA operatives. Among other problems, Plame doesn't seem to fit the act's definition of a "covert agent" — someone who "has within the last five years served outside the United States." By 2003, Plame had apparently been working in Langley, Va., for at least six years, which means that, mystery of mysteries, the vice president's chief of staff was indicted for covering up something that wasn't a crime.

Making the best of a weak hand, Democrats argued that the case was not about petty-ante perjury but, as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid put it, "about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president." The problem here is that the one undisputed liar in this whole sordid affair doesn't work for the administration. In his attempts to turn his wife into an antiwar martyr, Joseph C. Wilson IV has retailed more whoppers than Burger King.

The least consequential of these fibs was his denial that it was his wife who got him sent to Niger in February 2002 to check out claims that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence later stated, in a bipartisan report, that evidence indicated it was Mrs. Wilson who "had suggested his name for the trip." By leaking this fact to the news media, Libby and other White House officials were merely setting the record straight — not, as Wilson would have it, punishing his Mata Hari wife.

Much more egregious were the ways in which Wilson misrepresented his findings. In his famous New York Times Op-Ed article (July 6, 2003), Wilson gave the impression that his eight-day jaunt proved that Iraq was not trying to acquire uranium in Africa. Therefore, when administration officials nevertheless cited concerns about Hussein's nuclear ambitions, Wilson claimed that they had "twisted" evidence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." The Senate Intelligence Committee was not kind to this claim either.

The panel's report found that, far from discrediting the Iraq-Niger uranium link, Wilson actually provided fresh details about a 1999 meeting between Niger's prime minister and an Iraqi delegation. Beyond that, he had not supplied new information. According to the panel, intelligence analysts "did not think" that his findings "clarified the story on the reported Iraq-Niger uranium deal." In other words, Wilson had hardly exposed as fraudulent the "16 words" included in the 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." In fact, the British government, in its own post-invasion review of intelligence, found that this claim was "well founded."

This is not an isolated example. Pretty much all of the claims that the administration doctored evidence about Iraq have been euthanized, not only by the Senate committee but also by the equally bipartisan Robb-Silberman commission. The latest proof that intelligence was not "politicized" comes from an unlikely source — Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, who has been denouncing the hawkish "cabal" supposedly leading us toward "disaster." Yet, in between bouts of trashing the administration, Wilkerson said on Oct. 19 that "the consensus of the intelligence community was overwhelming" that Hussein was building illicit weapons. This view was endorsed by "the French, the Germans, the Brits." The French, of all people, even offered "proof positive" that Hussein was buying aluminum tubes "for centrifuges." Wilkerson also recalled seeing satellite photos "that would lead me to believe that Saddam Hussein, at least on occasion, was … giving us disinformation."

So much for the lies that led to war. What we're left with is the lies that led to the antiwar movement. Good thing for Wilson and his pals that deceiving the press and the public isn't a crime.

... First, opinions in the LA Times are not facts.

Patrick Fitzgerald had a brief to investigate who leaked Valerie Plame's government work to the press.  He did not have a brief to investigate whether the leaker violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.  That is what he did and what he emphasized about a thousand times in his single press conference.  

So..  What does that mean?  

First, NOBODY is off the hook for a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.  Nobody includes the press, Karl, and Scooter.  Claiming that ANYONE had been cleared is disingeneous. Nobody has even been investigated yet.  

Second, the reason Valerie Plame's CIA connections came up at all was because there was a battle going on between the administration and the CIA.  The issue was the intellegence and, apparently, Wilson was spot on.  Lets say it together;  "If Joe Wilson did the work and got the right answers IT DOES NOT MATTER A FLYING FUCK WHO SENT HIM".  

Joseph Welch's question to Sen McCarthy so many years ago seems relevent to the GOP today: "Have you no shame?".    Like Clinton, the leakers perhaps "did not have sex with that woman" (Ms Plame), but they surely did try to fuck her anyway.

Harry

Here are NON-facts from this thread:

"All of this to punish Wilson for bringing back correct intelligence.."
"Wilson was spot on"
"If Joe Wilson did the work and got the right answers.."

Below are the facts about Kerry campaign advisor/media whore Joe Wilson, so yes let's please get them straight:

http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html
http://www.investors.com/editorial/IBDArticles.asp?artsec=20&artnum=1&issue=20051026
http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2004_07/004335.php

blow an operative's cover.

BJ's in the WH are not illegal.  Crappy judgment, but not illegal, and entirely consensual.  

Blowing an operative's cover, and therefore an entire intelligence program, may or may not (according to your source) be illegal.  But it's obviously far beyond poor judgment, and well into treachery.  We will never know how many people will pay for that treachery, or how.

It comes back to the same thing:  today's Republicans are, and depend on, people who would rather stick a knife in the back of their own people than lose power.  Entirely consistent with the way they treated McCain's candidacy, etc etc.  That sort of person is the lowest form of filth.



-- Modified on 11/2/2005 9:47:20 AM

or they wouldn't have smeared honorable records of honorable men, McCain and Kerry, on behalf of a lush who can't remember where he was for reserve drills.

Leavenworth should be enough to make the point - if we brought back the chain gangs and breaking rocks.

When you're argument turns on this, I don't feel the need to go into the other non-sequitars, distractions, and misrepresentations in this article.  If the writer thinks Wilson was more egregious, I ask you who has been indicted with a charges that carry 30 years in prison?  

Karl Rove is not off the hook, and people higher in the administration might not be either, and there's only one or two people higher.  



-- Modified on 11/2/2005 10:24:14 AM

The Libby indictment does identify the orignal source for Novak as "offical A," who is characterized as a "senior White House official."  Several press reports have named Rove as "official A" so Fitzgerald does know that he was the original source for Novak's story.

White House.  Whatever happened was the result of the HMFIC's action or inaction - it wasn't some low level guy taking it on himself to out a CIA operative.

Just like Ollie North - anybody who believes he dreamed up that scheme on his own doesn't get it.

Okay, Killer

If we're to ague that Wilson's allegiances may have created a bias in his perspective, and hence his actions, then the same standard must be applied to Bush.

I'll give all due credit, and declare that we here are all lucid adults (well, maybe not I), as are those in the White House. Accordingly, we have the ability to distinguish between actual truth, and what we wish was the truth.

Surely you must concede, that in light of Bush's fabled Divine Epiphany -- facilitated by the Almighty himself -- his subsequent motives and judgement are a bit suspect.  

Ya know, this all sorta reminds of the time when I was absolutely convinced that a certain mesmerizing beauty was more interested in my riveting company than the ritual tribute I left on her nightstand.

Indeed, the mind is a powerful thing . . .

not sure what bj's in the whitehouse have to do with it. But since you brought it up, perjury is perjury, period. Bill Clinton lied to investigators and the public over something stoopid. Joe Wilson lied to the public about something very serious. Libby has been indicted for lying to a GJ over something very serious. If he's found guilty in court then he needs to pay the price.

So far though, it's still not clear if Plame was a covert agent who was illegally outed. If it turns out that's the case, then hang the bastards. So for now let's just stick to facts, see what happens and stop pretending.

what does that mean???

But seriously, you guys continue to hope that the nefarious PNAC/RNC/KKK machine outed a covert agent in an effort to undermine her fine/noble/upstanding husband's honest dealings with the public.

Well...
QUESTION: Can you say whether or not you know whether Mr. Libby knew that Valerie Wilson's identity was covert and whether or not that was pivotal at all in your inability or your decision not to charge under the Intelligence Identity Protection Act?

FITZGERALD: Let me say two things. Number one, I am not speaking to whether or not Valerie Wilson was covert. And anything I say is not intended to say anything beyond this: that she was a CIA officer from January 1st, 2002, forward.

I will confirm that her association with the CIA was classified at that time through July 2003. And all I'll say is that, look, we have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally outed a covert agent.

FITZGERALD: We have not charged that. And so I'm not making that assertion.

"Let's not presume that Mr. Libby is guilty. But let's assume, for the moment, that the allegations in the indictment are true. If that is true, you cannot figure out the right judgment to make, whether or not you should charge someone with a serious national security crime or walk away from it or recommend any other course of action, if you don't know the truth.

So I understand your question which is: Well, what if he had told the truth, what would you have done? If he had told the truth, we would have made the judgment based upon those facts. We would have assessed what the accurate information and made a decision.

We have not charged him with a crime. I'm not making an allegation that he violated that statute. What I'm simply saying is one of the harms in obstruction is that you don't have a clear view of what should be done. And that's why people ought to walk in, got into the grand jury, you're going to take an oath, tell us the who, what, when, where and why -- straight"

it's still the lowest, vilest treachery that makes it crystal clear that the White House loyalty is to the GOP, not the American nation.

I'd be more than willing to finance a troop of dancers to keep Clinton's loyalty.  But I'd need a lobotomy to get Bush's loyalty.

18 USC Section 2381. Treason

     Whoever, owing allegiance to the United States, levies war
   against them or adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and
   comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason
   and shall suffer death, or shall be imprisoned not less than five
   years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and
   shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States.


I mean, we're at war, right?  And isn't identifying covert agents giving aid to the enemy?
Seems like it to me.

After all, I'm sure not going to ask a Republican to use their good judgment.

thanks for bringing that up.

"adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and
comfort within the United States or elsewhere, is guilty of treason"

Can we start with members of the Democratic "Leadership" ?!?!

"It’s not a Republican who invoked Pol Pot and Nazis and Soviet gulag operators when discussing American troops at Guantanamo Bay. That was Democrat Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois, who kept his Senate Minority Whip position and who continues to blame an “orchestrated right-wing attack” for what came out of his mouth.

It’s not Republicans who suggested that President Bush had advance knowledge of the September 11th attacks or that Osama bin Laden has already been captured. Those notions were advanced by former Secretary of State Madeline Albright and current Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.

And it wasn’t a Republican who asserted that the war Iraq was “just as bad as six million Jews being killed.” That was Democrat Rep. Charlie Rangel, who has refused to apologize and whom no Democrat leader has denounced.

The views of unhinged liberals are no longer relegated to the private remarks of a few Democrat politicians or the bloviations of a few fringe figures on the far Left. The syndrome is far more pervasive, intense, and sanctimoniously self-delusional than anything on the Right."

-- Modified on 11/2/2005 4:35:01 PM

turning out a covert agent isn't, and walking us into the most obvious and expensive swamp since Vietnam so the GOP can stifle dissent isn't either.  Thanks for squaring me away on that.

Well, it's not like anybody is getting any BJs in the Oval Office.  We may lose 2,000 people and fuck up our foreign policy for the indefinite future over some miscalculations, but at least nobody's getting a BJ in the Oval Office.
That really puts my mind at ease.


-- Modified on 11/3/2005 8:56:45 AM

Why it's OK for Republicans to compromise national security, but treason for Democrats to object?

I know - it must be, because Dubya is suffering from an alcoholic haze.  Yeah, that's it.

-- Modified on 11/3/2005 10:58:21 AM

over-the-top, baseless, and downright idiotic rhetoric from leading politicians that plays perfectly into the propoganda aims of the enemy is not rational, fact-based disagreement.

If you can't tell the difference there's no point in us wasting time with one another.

because it's obviously untrue.  If it's not, then you're whining about the fact that we have a democracy.  It's a real pain in the ass, isn't it?

IOW, what you're saying here is that people who disagree with your boys piss you right off, and that makes you accuse them of aiding & abetting the enemy.

What I'm wondering here is, exactly who IS the enemy, that we have people in the White House outing our agents?   I don't care if it's legal, it doesn't strike me as very good policy.   Yes, I know suggesting that a Republican could be mistaken is treason, but if this be treason, make the most of it.

no, that's not what I'm saying. But thanks for the insight.

that post is the biggest crock of turds - it comes down to the fact that you don't like what some people are saying, and you can't think of anything else to say.  You can't deal with the issues, and aren't satisfied with calling them idiots.

If idiocy was a crime, the entire White House would be breaking rocks.

disagreement is OK, outing agents is OK, sleeping thru national disasters is OK, but being a Democrat is treason.  

It's not what anybody says, it's that they're Democrats, and the whole party is just a bunch of rag-headed traitors, right?  The fact that they're not drunks just proves they're muslims, too?

It doesn't matter to you guys how much money is wasted, how many people are killed, as long as some idiotic REPUBLICAN drunk is in the White House, and nobody says anything that might hurt his feelings.

Feh. Al Sharpton would be an improvement on the RNC.

-- Modified on 11/3/2005 12:10:19 PM

Lets say it together;  "If Joe Wilson did the work and got the right answers IT DOES NOT MATTER A FLYING FUCK WHO SENT HIM".  

But his answers are WRONG and you still don't give a fuck.......

first, you'll have to show me where I stated that criticising the Bushies is UN-patriotic. Try not to resort to simple semantical tricks and innuendo like the other fellow. Then we can chew the fat!

generally were traitors because of their over-the-top rhetoric.

Now I realize that Ann Coulter is never over the top, nor is Dick Cheney when he tells a Senator to "go fuck yourself", nor is the President when he calls a reporter a "major league asshole" -  but the problem here is that you've boxed yourself into defending a double standard, and calling the people you don't agree with traitors.

Yes, I do think there is a serious question about the loyalty of ANY American who reveals the identity of a covert agent.   Hell, I know better - my CHILDREN know better - than to reveal information about an ongoing police investigation when it drops in my lap.   Let alone information affecting national security.

What I think is funny is remembering how the Republicans sputtered about Clinton's BJ, and how it was about "the lie", then they turned around and nominated a bigger liar, ie, one who forgets DUIs and reserve drills, and THAT idiot could screw up a wet dream  (eg read the 9/11 commission report, and tell me exactly how we got our tax $$ worth of protection against Katrina).   Jesus, he makes the hippie-assed left look COMPETENT if they show up walking a straight line.

-- Modified on 11/3/2005 3:00:01 PM

so it's OK to compromise national security.

It's not that Wilson might have been a Democrat - they'll stab their own people in the back, like they did McCain.

Just don't piss them off, or they'll set your wife up, create a PAC to smear your record, etc.  

And there are people who will believe them, because (a) they sound good (jeez, what does it take to sound bad?) (b) Jesus told me, (c) I don't trust anybody that uses words with 3 syllables, (d) I'm trying to screw up my country and my childrens' future.

waiting for your definition of Patriotism

-- Modified on 11/3/2005 6:49:25 PM

I see no possible justification for outing a covert agent, even if they happen to be married.

If secret information fell into MY lap (and it could as we do Freedom of Information requests weekly) and somebody working for me released that to the press, no prosecutor would have to come looking for the leak, because I'd already have their head on a platter.

What baffles me is that the White House sees this differently than I do, and speaks highly of a staffer who has been indicted for obstructing the prosecutor's investigation.

The only possible explanation I can imagine is that the Bush 2 White House is not loyal to Americans as a nation, but only to their small and specific fraternity of Republicans who aspire to feed on the rest of us.

Riem offered to take the issue of partisan affiliation off the table, by asking you what you thought patriotism was.  

So you side-step by presenting a counter-question that really has nothing to do with his.

Look, there is really no way the White House can talk this away.  The best thing they can do is amputate any people who have any involvement, cut their losses and get other issues into the news.

The more people talk about this, the more they're gonna get unspeakably pissed at the entire White House, and by extension, the RNC that peed on other Republicans to get Dubya there.