David Corn works overtime (as well he might) to point out that even though Richard Armitage had already leaked – for no apparent reason – Valerie Plame’s CIA affiliation, the other subsequent leakers (Rove and Libby) remain culpable. Perhaps so, in a technical sense (assuming they did it). And that’s not good. But I would have to say finally – so what? They didn’t end up adding anything to the story and the cat was already out of the bag. Way out. Armitage didn’t leak to the Sandusky Tribune. He leaked to Robert Novak who, although few would mistake him for G. K. Chesterton or E. M. Forster as a master of English prose, is one the major players in the Beltway journalism scene. Everyone reads him. The rest, as they say, is commentary.
Meanwhile, as we all know, anyone seriously interested in Ms. Plame’s provenance could have found out long before with only slight effort. With her name in her husband’s Who’s Who listing, she was no Eli Cohen when it came to clandestine activity, assuming she still engaged in it. (Although perhaps I’m not giving her enough credt…. Cohen wound up hanged in Damascus’ Martyr’s Square while Plame, as again we all know, ended up on the cover of Vanity Fair.) Still, there are other aspects of this case that perplex me more than the putative leaking. As a very minor student of intelligence matters, I am curious why the CIA would send someone (Wilson) to Niger for a week to drink tea with officials and expect a definitive (or even relatively) analysis of something as controversial and secretive as yellowcake uranium. Now I admit my direct background in intelligence (for weird reasons of personal history) is more with friends in the onetime KGB than in the CIA, but I don’t really understand why Langley would decide to do something of that nature in this kind of flat-footed and obvious manner. The only thing that makes any sense is that they were trying to fire a salvo at the administration by getting a predictable response, which they succeeded at. The administration may then have fired back. The whole thing seems like a pretty dismal partisan entreprise. As one who declines any longer to identify as a Republican or a Democrat, I find this gamesmanship particularly dangerous in these times. But it is the CIA that worries me more than the administration. Administrations come and go, subject to the vote. The CIA, whose track record would have put a normal corporation into bankruptcy several times over, remains, although now under the supervision of another developing bureaucracy, with its personnel, more or less like mediocre tenured professors, essentially intact. There must be a better way.
UPDATE: In case you missed, Hitchens has weighed in on The End of the Affair. Amusing, of course.
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26 Comments
1. ex-democrat:maybe so, roger, but my understanding is that wilson’s verbal report to langley tended, if anything, to confirm the story. moreover, there is still nothing inaccurate about the famous 16 words. given this, the rest is sophistry by the fourth estate in an attempt to defeat the administration.
Aug 28, 2006 - 11:28 pm 2. Terrye:I am disgusted with a lot of people over this. My disgust extends to David Corn who started this whole thing, who was one of the major instigators of the whole scenario and now it seems not only was there no crime but people were ruined and millions spent while some Special Prosecutor went fishing. Libby still has to stand trial because of this farce. And Armitage is not exactly looking like a stand up guy right now.
I never did like the CIA and I like it even less right now. If Valerie Plame is a typical employee then it is no small wonder they did not see 9/11 coming, They were too busy hatching their little plots and playing their little games.
Aug 29, 2006 - 4:06 am 3. HA:Roger,
And let’s take a moment to point out the sheer cowardice of Armitage and Powell who left Libby and Rove twisting in the wind for the last 3 years. Armitage and Powell could have spared the nation a great deal of turmoil, and Libby and Rove a great deal of legal jeopardy. They have dishonored and disgraced themselves.
Aug 29, 2006 - 4:08 am 4. Syl:The spin is revealing on this.
Armitage had no idea she was covert and it was just offhand gossip he related to Novak.
Libby and Rove, on the other hand, had nefarious motives so they are guilty as sin.
For what?
Isikoff on MSNBC said both Libby and Rove ‘discussed’ Plame with reporters.
Yeah. Rove said ‘I heard that too’ or somesuch to Novak. Libby said ‘I heard that too’ to Cooper.
Some ‘discussion’.
And Rove, according to Cooper, told him that Wilson’s wife was CIA and sent him on the trip. But that is Cooper’s word. Judge Tatel, who has reviewed Cooper’s notes and drafts says Cooper’s testimony is impeached by the various versions which are contradictory.
So it’s possible Rove never said such a thing at all!
But, nevermind, it was obvious there was a conspiracy to damage Wilson because the administration was leaking classified information (which was parts of the NIE and the NIE had nothing, nada, to say about Wilson or his trip) and since Valery’s status was classified they lump that in there as if THAT was what the administration was attempting to reveal.
Bait and switch.
Well, asks Nora O’Donnell, didn’t the Bushies (she can barely keep herself from rolling her eyes every time she utters that word) give the info to Armitage on the sly so he would leak it, knowing he’s such a gossip?
At least Isikoff shot that down.
The irony is that Armitage apparently learned the info from the same classified paragraph in the INR memo that the Left was sure Rove had learned from himself. They shouted it was classified, stupid! You should have KNOWN she was covert.
But Armitage gets a pass.
This ‘outed Plame in revenge against a whistleblower’ is the CW. I saw part of talk by the authors of a book on impeaching Bush on BookTV and one of the things stated was that you just KNOW how rotten this administration is because they outed a covert agent in revenge.
Thank you David Corn. Some day maybe you’ll get your head out of your a** and quit this nonsense. I know you like him, Roger, but he has such a blind spot on this and is so invested in his own reality that he just can’t seem to help himself.
Aug 29, 2006 - 4:10 am 5. Oyster:I think it’s despicable that Fitzgerald would decide turn this into the circus it’s become even knowing who Novak’s source was early on.
Still, your very first sentence says it all. Some liberal bloggers are still trying to contort this into high treason holding different standards to some than others. I never thought for a minute that her name was leaked with any such treasonous intent. There was no clear evidence at anytime that this was so. It was only in the minds of those who were grasping at straws.
Aug 29, 2006 - 4:33 am 6. Carl Spackler:All I can do is picture a cheap suited French royal court. Corn, the Wilsons, Armitage, Libby, Isikoff, everyone vaporized, the whole D.C. metro area and the nation would be better off.
None of these type of people are fit to wash a Lance Corporals boots, but man-o-man do they get off on TV face time. Oxygen thieves each and every one.
Aug 29, 2006 - 5:01 am 7. David Thomson:I accurately saw through this Valerie Plame nonsense from the very beginning. Common sense dictated that she had not been a covert agent for a number of years. The woman was married to a high profile diplomat and even drove her own car daily into the CIA building in Langley, Virginia. Moreover, the Bush administration always handled itself admirably. It had every right, even a duty, to defend itself from Joe Wilsonís mischief. ìLeakingî is an unavoidable fact of life in a viable democracy. The system would utterly collapse without it. We must prudentially decide when the practice is appropriate.
Aug 29, 2006 - 5:06 am 8. David Thomson:There is something else we should not forget about the Valerie Plame ÔøΩscandalÔøΩ:
ÔøΩStill, the revelation is a blockbuster for one reason: It comes in a book co-authored by David Corn, whose column in The Nation and blog have been central clearinghouses for the notion that everybody and his mother in the Bush administration should be tried and convicted, then drawn and quartered for the monstrous evil of deliberately exposing the uniquely delicate secret-agent woman Valerie Plame to all but certain murder.
Corn has put a stake in the heart of one of the foundational theories behind the “Bush Lied” lie – after having spent several years promoting that very theory.ÔøΩ
—John Podhoretz
David Corn has utterly disgraced himself. There is no way to get around this harsh fact.
Aug 29, 2006 - 6:12 am 9. jedrury:The Plame “scandal,” according to the MSM, is the big scandal of the Bush Administation. Of course, this non-crime is “a media crime” of very little consequence except for poor “Scooter” Libby who is sitting down there before Judge Reggie looking at time and hoping his fine cast of attorneys can save him. This is “Le Scandal.” Small potatoes, as they say. But big mashed potatoes to Keith Obermann and Chris Matthews.
Six years into the Clinton Administration. the nation had Bill reeeling literally on his knees, oops, meant to say Monica, Mike Espy indicted, Whitewater roaring, Paula Jones suing, Harold Ickes fighting for his political life, the press was breathless in writing about all the scandal in Washington. Ahh, the difference a decade makes.
Aug 29, 2006 - 6:24 am 10. jedrury:Note: how the Washington Post plays the Armitage story; it is fine and permissible to leak, even the name of a CIA agent; it all depends how pure is your heart.
“But Armitage, the source Novak had described obliquely as someone who is “not a political gunslinger,” was by all accounts hardly a tool of White House political operatives. As the No. 2 official at the State Department from March 2001 to February 2005, Armitage was a prominent Republican appointee. But he also privately disagreed with the tone and style of White House policymaking on Iraq and other matters.
“Just because Armitage did this on his own, earlier, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a White House conspiracy to ‘out’ Valerie [Plame] Wilson. We don’t think it affects the case,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the group pressing the lawsuit.”
Aug 29, 2006 - 7:02 am 11. Rhy0lite:There must be a better way? How about Open Source Intelligence?
http://www.oss.net/
Aug 29, 2006 - 7:26 am 12. Steven Mitchell:There are lots of better ways to run intelligence gathering. I seriously doubt any of them would be tolerated by our populace, let alone our Congress. So the only fixes I see are marginal stopgaps that must be renewed every few years.
I have now met personally several people that get all of their information about Plame from the New York Times. I always ask them about Sandy Burglar’s pants and the Churchill commission. When they can’t talk about those intelligently, I know that their pious raving about the Bush illegal and unethical behavior is sheer uninformed moonshine.
Aug 29, 2006 - 8:00 am 13. cathyf:Just because Armitage did this on his own, earlier, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a conspiracy to ‘out’ Valerie [Plame] Wilson.
Just because Armitage did this on his own, earlier, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a State Dept conspiracy to ‘out’ Valerie [Plame] Wilson.
Just because Armitage did this on his own, earlier, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a CIA conspiracy to ‘out’ Valerie [Plame] Wilson.
Just because Armitage did this on his own, earlier, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a French conspiracy to ‘out’ Valerie [Plame] Wilson.
Just because Armitage did this on his own, earlier, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a conspiracy by pink unicorns from outer space to ‘out’ Valerie [Plame] Wilson.
Yep, all true…
Aug 29, 2006 - 9:10 am 14. TedM:There is something about this that has puzzled me from the start. How does the CIA operate with
a “special mission” where there apparently was
no “mission statement” agreed to and where NO written report was required of the agent.
AND, no confidentiality agreement was signed off
Aug 29, 2006 - 9:41 am 15. jedrury:by the “agent”.
Ted:
Cathy has it right – “pink unicorns from outer space.”
You have a good point tho – why has not the vanguard of democracy. our press, our 4th Estate, ask the basic question:
“Ambassador Joe, what about the confidentiality statement and what about the written report?
Aug 29, 2006 - 10:01 am 16. Demosophist:David:
That long non-embedded url you posted makes this post almost impossible to read. If you don’t know how to embed a post using html then go to Tiny URL and shrink the darn thing!
Aug 29, 2006 - 1:54 pm 17. Barry Dauphin:Down the drain and jumped the shark. If Wilson is really the source for Corn’s original article, as Cliff May suggests, then he will have gotten this started only to end up being one of the few to profit off of it (except the lawyers of course). I guess they don’t make socialists like they used to (then again….). Could even Diane Rehm ignore that? (ed-yeah, she could).
Aug 29, 2006 - 6:29 pm 18. David Thomson:ìDavid:
That long non-embedded url you posted makes this post almost impossible to read. If you don’t know how to embed a post using html then go to Tiny URL and shrink the darn thing!î
Gulp! Sorry about that. I am immediately taking your advice. Tiny URL has been bookmarked—and will be put to use from here on end.
Aug 29, 2006 - 6:58 pm 19. Lem:This is hilarious
Judith Miller spent 12 weeks in jail over NOTHING.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/09/30/cia.leak/index.html
By the time she went to jail, most if not all the players knew each others cards.
What is it that happens when good men do nothing? Armitage should have come forward and cleared this up as soon as he discovered himself covertly identified by Novak as a source.
He did not, instead he cowardly ran under Powell’s skirt.
Aug 29, 2006 - 8:16 pm 20. Lem:It took a couple of weeks for 2 states and a foreign country to get it together and figure out Marc Carr confession was phony bologna.
A “chit chat, gossip” however.
Were are the folks that joke about Bush’s intelligence and lack of curiosity?
Aug 29, 2006 - 9:07 pm 21. Barry Dauphin:In some ways Bush is blessed by having political enemies who are real boobs. These folks just automatically assume Bush must be as mendacious as Clinton, and thus end up making asses of themselves.
Aug 29, 2006 - 9:31 pm 22. Lem:Down the wrong lane Plame
too soon?
Aug 29, 2006 - 9:51 pm 23. Fred Z:Ought Fitzgerald be disbarred? I think so.
Aug 30, 2006 - 10:22 am 24. Captain Hate:I dunno Fred; I think it’s more that the independent counsel law ought to be totally deep-sixed. It really gives unlimited power to the prosecution and becomes impossible to deal with if you’re caught in the crosshairs, as Scooter knows.
Having said that, by ignorantly calling for one the MSM deserves to have their assumed rights totally shredded, particularly during Libby’s trial. And Clinton had a chance to shit-can it but, like every other drenched-in-hubris move that over-educated hick made, signed it while claiming to be about to about to preside over the most ethical administration ever, which was just too rich in comedic potential.
They can dump RICO while they’re at it too.
Aug 30, 2006 - 3:52 pm 25. Fred Z:Cap’n Hate, you are right, but notwithstanding bad press lawyers are (supposed to be) honest and honorable. They are not supposed to lie or even mislead. If they mislead and if it’s related to their profession they get disbarred.
They are not supposed to abuse their positions and knowledge of the legal system. If they do, likewise, disbarment.
Fitzgerald gotta go.
Aug 30, 2006 - 5:18 pm 26. cathyf:The independent counsel law WAS totally deep-sixed. There is also a “special prosecutor” provision in the DoJ procedures, but it specifies that such an appointee must come from outside the federal government (Fitzgerald is a sitting federal prosecutor in Chicago juggling multiple important cases) and furthermore that a “special prosecutor” is bound by the procedures and guidelines of the DoJ. Fitzgerald’s appointment very specifically specifies that Fitzgerald is not bound by any DoJ rules, and does not report to anyone.
The Constitution says quite clearly in the Appointments Clause that every employee (officer) of the United States must fit into one of three categories:
1) an elected official
2) an official appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate
3) a subordinate who reports to either an elected or appointed official. The supervisor must exercise real supervision over the subordinate’s activities, not just have the ability to fire and hire.
Fitzgerald does not fit into any of those 3 categories, so he is not a legitimate officer of the United States. I have said before — half in jest full earnest — that Fitzgerald is in fact a foreign power. One who seems to have declared war on us…
Aug 31, 2006 - 9:11 am