Some disappointing news for you today in the Financial Times:
Karl Rove, deputy White House chief of staff and the top political adviser to US President George W. Bush, did not reveal the name of a covert CIA agent at the centre of a politically charged investigation, according to grand jury testimony from a Time magazine reporter.
The investigation concerns whether top administration officials broke US laws in an effort to undermine a high-profile critic of the Iraq war.
Matt Cooper, the reporter who escaped a jail sentence when he agreed to testify in the case, told the investigation last week that Mr Rove had tried to discredit Joseph Wilson, a former US ambassador, by challenging Mr Wilson’s version of a 2002 investigation into whether Saddam Hussein, the former Iraqi dictator, was trying to buy uranium from Niger. Mr Rove told the reporter that the Niger investigation had not been ordered by the director of the CIA, but that instead Mr Wilson was sent to the African country on a low-level mission at the suggestion of his wife, a covert agency operative working on weapons of mass destruction.
But Mr Cooper told the grand jury he was certain that Mr Rove had never used the name of Mr Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, and never indicated she was a covert operative.
Ho-hum. Next scandal.
Clearly, those evil Republicans have gotten to Mr. Cooper. Does Rove have no end to his evil ways???
end sarcasm
No doubt Rove has Coopers family detained somewhere and their release is contingent on Cooper saying the right things.
Via Powerline;
Another reader has forwarded the transcript of Cooper’s Meet the Press appearance. It appears that the AP’s account was seriously misleading, at best. Cooper clearly said this morning that he told Libby that Plame worked for the CIA, not vice versa:
MR. RUSSERT: Did Mr. Libby say at any time that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA?
MR. COOPER: No, he didn’t say that.
MR. RUSSERT: But you said it to him?
MR. COOPER: I said, “Was she involved in sending him?,” yeah.
MR. RUSSERT: And that she worked for the CIA?
MR. COOPER: I believe so.
We already knew from day one that the chances of a law being violated were ridiculously low. The more recent revelations merely provide additional evidence that the MSM are not to be trusted. They are lying to themselves concerning their so-called objectivity and fairness. Matt Cooper was not up front with Karl Rove about his real agenda. It was only later in the conversation that Cooper broached the subject of Joe Wilsonís trip. Letís face facts—this is why he probably did not wish to testify. We now know that Cooper, the husband of a top Democratic operative, is a most duplicitous fellow.
The Democrats and their MSM cohorts did not waste their time. This scandal alone, for instance, may have prevented President Bushís coattails from helping Pete Coors to achieve victory in Colorado. A few bad breaks and John Kerry would today be living in the White House. The election was close only because of the slimy behavior of the MSM.
Jack Kelly has a very good piece suggesting that Fitzgerald may well be moving in a direction that the MSM is going to find very uncomfortable.
It would really be hilarious if Plame were indicted as the fitting end to this teapot tempest.
Joe Wilson lies and says he was sent by Dick Cheney to Nigeria to follow up on any yellowcake connection. Joe Wilson lies and says his wife had nothing to do with it. A memo is found that proves Joe Wilson was indeed introduced and recommended by his wife at a time when the CIA had a clear axe to grind with this President. A reporter divulges these facts and the name of the CIA Agent perpetrating this fraud to a member of the Whitehouse and what happens? The Whitehouse is accused and blamed for all these events as if it were perpetrated by them!
What the hell is going on? Roger, can I ever call myself a liberal again and not hang my head in shame? Excuse my French but what a fucked up world we live in! We are at War with Islamo-Fascism while our press and the left is at War with our President. An ambassador and CIA agent try to slander and undermine our Commander in Chief during War with clear deceit and lies… is their any such thing as treason anymore?
When the sun also sets on this affair, could Wilson be the leaker? Isn’t it pretty to think so?
But folks, for real entertainment over this kerfuffle, check into the Huffington Post. The moonbats are thrashing about like sharks at a feeding frenzy that doesn’t have enough chum in the water. It is comical–they are quite convinved that this is the end of Rove, the present administration, and the Republican party. And all of this is aided and abetted by the liberal bottom feeders that write for this blog. This URL is starting to rival Kos and Democratic Underground for displays of left-liberal hatred and sheer, bone-bending ignorance.
ìAn ambassador and CIA agent try to slander and undermine our Commander in Chief during War with clear deceit and lies… is their any such thing as treason anymore?î
The Nixon administration failed to have Jane Fonda prosecuted for treason. This was a horrible mistake and resulted in a growing confusion regarding what constitutes the betrayal of oneís country. Too many individuals cannot make the proper distinction between the legitimate exercise of our First Amendment rights and outright illegally damaging our country during wartime. Joe Wilson is a proven liar. Indeed, why hasnít he been arrested? Why does an apparent post modernist understanding of truth deter us from doing what is justified in matters such as the Valerie Plame fiasco?
Oh for a muse of fire…. Needless to say, Mark Steyn can hit these hanging curve balls out of the park all day:
“But if you seriously think the only important aspect of a politically motivated narcissist kook’s drive-thru intelligence mission to a critical part of the world is the precise sequence of events by which some White House guy came to mention the kook’s wife to some reporter, then you’ve departed the real world and you’re frolicking on the wilder shores of Planet Zongo.”
In Chicago Sun-Times:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/steyn/cst-edt-steyn17.html
Roger:
The MSM doesn’t need facts to try to keep a “scandal” going past it’s prime. They are already using the automatic MSM outrage inflation gambit to keep this going. First it was he broke the law and he is gone. Then it became even if he didn’t break the law he outed a CIA officer so he must be fired. Now that facts are clear, unless something else comes up, that Rove wasn’t calling anyone, that the press was telling Rove, they have reached for the “well why didn’t you say something earlier and you could have saved Miller from jail” whine.
Can you imagine if Rove would have come out two years ago? Rove would have told the truth. The reporters would have hemmed and hawed and not being under oath could have put the story in ambigous enough terms so the media could have bullrushed Rove out of town. Instead the truth comes out, Rove wins, and the press is grinding it’s teeth in rage because they were already writing their self rightous op-eds that would have used the typical press logic that “Roves resignation shows the rot the lies in the center of the Bush Presidency and the Iraq war’. And of course any combination of the haliburtonabughraibbaghdadlootingexitplanwmdgitmoarchitectoftorturevotersuppressionenrontaxcutforthe wealthywarforoilbushstupidheknewsevenminutereadingtochildren run on cliche that the Press has been churning out all this time.
The scandall is dead. The press will spend months trying to prop it up and keep it alive on life support. I thought Joe Wilson was gone but he keeps coming back like herpes, Rovegate will too. It doesn’t have to be true.
Kevin Peters
I think the administration has dropped the ball on Wilson.
Follow me on this.
Here is Joe Wilson, an oracle, all seeing, all knowing clairvoyant, making what looks like an afterthought trip to Niger, at the behest of his wife, clearly the only one intimately knowledgeable, deeply under the covers about what he could do.
We seem to have failed to throw this great resource to prosecute the WOT.
Where was Wilson when Pakistan (in complete pre-test secrecy) tested a nuclear device? ? Why didn’t the CIA send him to Pakistan?
Where was Wilson when The USS Cole was attacked? Why didn’t the CIA procure an audience with his eminence, Wilson, to aid us seek out those responsible?
Where was Wilson on when North Corea told us they had the bomb?
I suppose it is possible that Mr. Wilson’s powers were developed post 911, or that perhaps his super-vision is limited to the folks native to Nigeria.
Or, we are in the middle of a bomb. Talk about jumping the shark.
WILSOOOOON…. WILSOOOOOON…. This is the democrat’s version of Cast Away.
I do not know what is more ridiculous, this socalled scandal or the Democrat and lefty reaction to it.
They could care less that people died in London, too busy to think about that. And Schumer is frothing at the mouth over this but I don’t recall any talk of finding the leaker at the CIA when those leaks of classified material were hurtful to Bush. Niether the media or the reporters that ran with those stories were even slightly concerned with naitonal security or any silly bogus war. nosiree their real enemy is the GOP. aka the anti Christ.
But hey, they don’t even seem to care that someone is leaking the Grand Jury testimony. silly laws, they are not made for the likes of the MSM.
Huffington and Kos etc are just showing their true colors. They don’t care about anything but mean spirited partisan politics. Their country be damned, that is their motto.
I think the media created this whole thing and their already low approval rating may be a little lower when it is all over and done with.
Abu Ghraib, TANG, Eason Jordan, exit polls, terrorists with press credentials and now we get to add this silly charade.
disgraceful.
Sorry, this is one of those times where I once again part company with allies.
IF Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent
AND Valerie Plame is Joseph Wilson’s wife
THEN telling a reporter that Joseph Wilson’s wife is in the CIA is equivalent to blowing Valerie Plame’s cover.
End of story.
A B
Let’s see, every war is another Vietnam, ever republican president is another Nixon waiting to be impeached. Seems the reality based community stripped a gear in their ancient timepiece and is stuck in an alternate reality where it is still 1972. Oh well.
Seems to me that the political “brilliance” of Rove and Bush lies in simple honesty and straight forward action. Meanwhile, the oh so clever folks in the MSM and Democratic party are so very, very clever that they keep walking into walls, even when the door is open. The devine sense of humor is in play as Stan Laurel has been reincarnated in multitudes.
But the most hilarious thing is that Watergate turned out to be a bureaucrat using reporters to fight a bureaucratic turf war. Suckered, they were, completely missed the *big* story. This looks to be the same.
Karl Rove signed a waiver 18 months ago giving permission for all involved to reveal any and every communication with him. He also testified before of the grand jury under oath.
Give it up guys. People in London have been murdered and others are seriously mangled in hospitals and you, the creme de la creme of the media continue to pound on something two years old that wasn’t a crime then and isn’t a crime now.
I’m sorry – In my previous post I mistakenly confused Nigeria with Niger.
Wilson would not have made that mistake, surely.
Terrye,
If you want get a bit more exercised, cast your memory back to Clinton cashing Loral checks while they were peddling classified toys or Johnny Huang and Clinton cashing Lippo? checks or Chinese wandering around Los Alamos while the dumbest DoE Secretary who ever lived looked on with a smile.
After all, it’s not as if the CIA has never interfered with an election before. It’s just the first time they’ve tried it in the US. It reminds me of the great hoohaw about Nixon thinking about using the FBI to gather a bit of dirt and the burial of the news that Mz. Hilary had dispatched Livingston to grab 900 FBI files within a short time of Hubbabubba taking the oath. Different things, you see?
I hope Fitzgerald is really on the ball and we see Plame using the spousal privilege to keep from testifying against her husband. Grand juries being secret – it may have already happened.
Well, A B,
You seem to have missed the point that Valerie Plame was not undercover, nor had been for five years. Nor did Rove disclose that she was Wilson’s wife, he merely agreed that he had heard that rumor too. Perhaps you can further expand on the ‘allies’ thingee?
AB:
Oh please. Valerie Plame’s neighbors knew she worked at the CIA. It was common knowledge. You can not leak common knowledge.
The truth is Wilson should never have gone to Africa in the first place and he should not have written an oped in the NYT about it and made a false statement about who sent him there. He opened the door.
I heard an agent say the other day that the CIA had pulled this woman off of any undercover work back in the 90′s because her cover had already been blown by smoe guy named Asche; he also said the CIA is slow to change status sometimes. I think they call that kind of thing incompetence. No wonder our intelligence services were taken by surprise on 9/11.
But this should be a lesson to Rove….do not talk to reporters. ever.
The real story is why Mrs Wilson wanted Joe out of the way for a while..If you really wanted to send your spouse on a junket would you pick Niger? Weather stations in the Arctic?
As I understand it, under current law, Fitzgerald is not required to write an investigation report if he doesnít find anyone to indict. The old independent counsel law no longer applies. So, if Fitzgerald finds no crimes committed, then we may never hear what he found. His documents will probably go into an archive somewhere for umpt-teen years. The basic facts will still be up in the air.
Rick:
Oh well, as far as that is concerned we have Bill Clinton writing the Iraqi Liberation Act in 1998 and going on TV with Tom Daschle at his side when he read the damn thing and said that not only did Saddam have the weapons he would use them. None of the Demcorats calling Bush a liar doubted one word Bill said.
That Hillary is kinda spooky isn’t she?
ìSorry, this is one of those times where I once again part company with allies.
IF Valerie Plame was a covert CIA agent
AND Valerie Plame is Joseph Wilson’s wife
THEN telling a reporter that Joseph Wilson’s wife is in the CIA is equivalent to blowing Valerie Plame’s cover.
End of story.î
Are you truly one of our allies? Might you be doing a ìMobyî on us? If you are indeed sincere—it shows how well the MSM have confused the general public. It also proves that you do not thoroughly read the posts and comments on this very blog. Your lack of knowledge was perhaps understandable a year ago. But today? At best, you are obviously not paying attention.
Peter:
I had the same thought.
I know…Valerie was having an affair with Karl Rove and wanted to get the old man out of town. When she refused to become a registered Republican Rove flew into a rage and tried to seek retribution by forcing her idiot husband to write an oped full of silly lies.
that crafty diabolical Rove.
Yeah, like Medusa was spooky.
Just where would Valerie Plame be useful as a “deep cover agent”,Democratic cocktail parties?
Who exactly was her cover blown to,where in the world isn’t an American accused of being a spy.USSR down the tubes,she would stick out like a sore thumb in the Middle East,China,North Korea,…. Ah Scandinavia!!!
I said Plame was outed by Asche, I meant Ames.
This whole thing is getting me confused.
Say . . . what if it was Joe Wilson instead that was the source? Which could be why Miller is holding out . . .
Terrye,
I can hear Wilson now….
“Letmeletmeletmeletmeletme go,I wannagowannagowannago to Niger”…..
“But Darling you don’t know yellowcake from fruitcake and you know how the heat brings you out in hives…….now there is a very nice weather station……”
“The basic facts will still be up in the air.”
What I want to know is who is the player to be named later?
Who is the Brett Butler of this bush league?
Ted Turner were are you? We need another leak.
Peter:
And then he said “Darn, you won’t let me have any fun. I want to play spy too.”
Read that link to Jack Kelly’s piece up in the thread. That is interesting.
What everyone is overlooking here is that someone planted forgeries and someone sent Wilson on this wild goose chase. Why? And who is Miller’s source?
I could be wrong [would not be the first time] but I have the feeling the Democrats are going to end up looking like Wiley Coyote again.
beep beep.
Miller? she’s living the high life. and sponsoring NASCAR.
How did any of this become public or media knowledge? What I see is an agency (CIA) that appears in need of a thorough and comprehensive vetting. Massively failed intelligence over the past 15 years, failures that have directly harmed this country, not to mention Aldrich Ames and the damage he caused. One man, Peter Goss, can only do so much. Cleanup on aisle 007, please. After all, who spies on the spies?
Terrye,
I feel an affinity for Wiley that somehow isn’t there for the left.Whereas the Cayote is rather Quixotic and human in his vain endeavours,there is an artlessness to him,a endearing fatalism in his dogged determination.
The modern left on the other hand is pure calculaing bile who don’t even have a cayote’s honesty when they fail.
Terrye,
Dems and lefties may look even more like a Lemming stampede than Wiley E. Coyote. They don’t just miss the cliff, they charge right off it!
BTW, wasn’t Judith Miller “reporting” for the NYT that peppered us with a CIA informant named “curb ball” and his inside knowledge of Iraq’s suposed WMD? I remember her talking about this on PBS Charlie Rose.
Is anybody keeping score? Judith stuck out with curb ball. Hell hath no fury.
Ed Poinsett,
Yes and the same cartoon rules apply,gravity doesn’t take effect until they realise there is no ground beneath their feet.
My apologies Wiley E. ….Coyote.
Hey ñ I think we’re onto something. Fitzgerald real targets are Coyotes. See, There not endangered anymoreÖ.. ah, Is this thing on?
OT, Beldar was laid up recently with a heart attack. What is with right wing bloggers and health problems? (Roger, I’m making you an honorary right winger, and hoping that won’t cause a heart attack.)
Chuck,
You mention the bureaucratic turf war, then mention that the MSM missed the big story. Huh? Of all the big stories from that era (My vote: Snoopy dogfighting the Red Baron), which one are you referring to?
PSGInfinity,
Sure, Snoopy dogfighting the Red Baron was a big story with multiple episodes. Those halcyon days are sadly gone along with the Red Baron restaurant and its big neon sign of the Baron. Sambo’s diner is gone too, lost in the mists of time. *Sigh*.
But back to the lesser story of Watergate, I think the tale of the deputy director of the FBI leaking stuff to the WaPo to damage the President because of a turf war is one hell of a story. Sure a lot more interesting, well, at least as interesting, as the details we got on Nixon.
AB:
Not everyone that works at the C.I.A is covert. Rove mentioned his wife to correct the B.S. that Wilson was peddling. Rove didn’t bring the subject up to the reporters, they asked him. plus the press has been pumping her covert status just to help create the impression of a scandal. Whatever the extent of her spywork, she hadn’t been covert since 97 and she went to work at Langley and didn’t use the standard covert answer of foreign service when asked where she was working. If Plames plumber and her cocktail party buddies knew that she worked at the C.I.A. then Rove saying that she worked there is no outing. Roves purpose wasn’t to punish Wilson , it was to correct the agit-prop he was selling, and at quite a healthy profit to boot. There is no there there. This is pumpkin shooting territory. if Scott McClelland was under oath during his press conferences you might have a slight chance at popping chubby Scott but that is as far up the food chain as you are going to get. Who was the source of her covert status, I don’t know but it looks more likely it has press origins at this moment unless something else comes out. Kevin Peters
As to the turf war:
L. Patrick Gray, theFBI chief during the Watergate break-in, says he believes deputy W. Mark Felt became the anonymous source known as Deep Throat because he was angry at being passed over as J. Edgar Hoover’s successor and wanted to sabotage Gray.
‘Course, I don’t know how true that is, Grey is just speculating and Felt is unlikely to be forthcoming, or even recall his true motivations for that matter. But it is all a juicy story, or could have been.
Just where would Valerie Plame be useful as a “deep cover agent”,Democratic cocktail parties?
Perhaps you should read this: http://blamebush.typepad.com/blamebush/2005/07/karl_rove_the_n.html
Russert: For the record, the first time you learned that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA was from Karl Rove?
Cooper: That’s correct.
mika
Thanks, thats priceless.
“It was a daunting task, requiring long hours in a third world country with shitty golf courses, but he would do it for Mumsy-Wumsy. He would do it for the country he loved. And he would do it for America, too.”
MosesWine
What is more relevent, what Cooper said to Russert on a political show, or what he tesitied under oath before a grand jury?
But Mr Cooper told the grand jury he was certain that Mr Rove had never used the name of Mr Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, and never indicated she was a covert operative.
At some point this will once again rightfully become about the MSM and how they decide to spin the news. The reporters already knew more then Rove could have ever told them.
mu
Re: chuck at July 17, 2005 08:38 PM
The late L. Patrick Gray was trying to correct the Watergate story when he died recently. He keeps getting accused of throwing Watergate evidence in the Potomac. According to him, what he did was burn (not throw in the river) some phony smears against the Kennedy Brothers that White House Plumber, E. Howard Hunt, cooked up and left in his White House office safe. President Nixon didn’t want to be associated with it, and wanted Gray to get rid if it for him. Gray looked at each page as he burned them, one by one, and none of the documents had anything to do with the “White House Plumbers,” or Nixon, or Watergate, according to Gray. They were “evidence” against JFK about Vietnam, Ted Kennedy and his girlfriends, etc. Hunt apparently had some unhealthy obsession with bringing down the Kennedys.
Oh by the way, did anybody wish to see the photograph of ìsecret agentî Valerie Plame? Please feel free to scroll down the page of Nathans Lunch website:
http://www.nathanslunch.com/PhotoPage.htm
The photograph was obviously taken with the full permission of Joe Wilson and his wife. Her face is literally accessible to anyone with an internet connection.
And another thing.
Why is Wilson so doggedly holding on negating his wife involvement in his Niger caper?
It appears that Wilson is not man enough to admit that his wife is the bread winner; she wears the pants, brings in the bacon. Instead of celebrating his wife sucsess he seems to want her delegated to the kitchen passing out cookies. Clintonian if you ask me.
What kind of Kerry supporter is this anyway?
Wow. I can’t believe that before the leak, he was seen in public with his wife. Astonishing!
Re: MosesWine at July 17, 2005 09:11 PM
Wife of a former US Ambassador to the Middle-East is generally not a good cover story for the covert CIA agent.
Why not?
I thought that covert agents often had cover stories as embasssy personnel, scientists, academics, and business executives. In her case, she was an analyst for Brewster Jennings.
Who is to say that wife of a former ambassador and business analyst is such a bad cover?
What do you really know about covert agents and their cover stories?
Has anybody ever seen Queen Noor and Valery Plame in the same room at the same time?
Oh my god, I think I just outed her magesty.
The US assumes that everyone working at the embassies and counsulates of foreign countries are potential spies, along with their spouses and relatives. Other countries make the same assumption about us.
If the CIA actually thought that Valerie Plame was undercover, then we are in far, far worse shape then even I thought.
I’ll throw in some further advice for the CIA. If you want to create a cover for someone, you might want to try something a little more elaborate than having a woman agent go by her maiden name.
Re: MosesWine at July 17, 2005 09:22 PM
> What do you really know about covert agents and their cover stories?
Nothing. But that status alone would seem to limit movement, because you’d be a higher-value target for terrorist killers and kidnappers.
(correction: Wilson was Acting Ambassador in Kuwait, Ambassador in Niger)
I should have said ” probable spies”, rather than potential ones.
Duck and cover.
Ah, those were the days.
M Wine
“I thought that covert agents often had cover stories as embasssy personnel”
“Who is to say that wife of a former ambassador.. is such a bad cover?”
The fact that everyone in the world, even you, knows that embassy personnel are often spies, is why it is such a bad cover.
“Wilson was Acting Ambassador in Kuwait, Ambassador in Niger”
Nope.
The “real” Moses Wine was sharp as a tack. I’m thinking you must be an imposter!!
Re: RBMN at July 17, 2005 09:31 PM
Lesson: When googling don’t just pick any random link to quickly check Joe Wilson’s CV.
(correction to the correction:
1988 to 1991: Deputy Chief of Mission, and Acting Ambassador (1991), at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq
1992-1995: U.S. Ambassador to the Gabonese Republic and to the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe)
Joe Wilson was also our Ambassador to our key ally Gabon. I dont quite know where that is but… What is a Gabon in Italian?
RBMN,
Wow, sounds like ambassador Wilson suffered a slight demotion after 1991. Link, Gabon and Sao Tome. Wonder why?
Oops, link here.
Shumer – Mr Chairmen it’s not fair that in California is beraley 10 pm while here in NY, where we need more time, is now 1 am. Is a question of fairness, fairness let’s do what is fair. They have more time and nee…
The gentleman’s time has expired.
It looks like Wilson was shuffled off to what was known, in the 19th century as “The White Mans Graveyard”
Yesterday Senator Harmon [D] joined Schumer in calling for Rove’s security clearance to be pulled. I actually muted the TV when she started babbling just because I am so tired of listening to outraged Democrats be outraged.
If the Democrats do not want people to think this whole thing is just a partisan smear job it might be a good idea if they shut up right now. I know that goes against their natural inclination to shoot their mouths off, but sometimes discretion is the better part of valor.
Everytime I see some Democrat on TV ranting and raving about this the more sure I am that Rove was set up. Scott McClellan is standing there trapped and nobody seems to be asking the reporters the simple question: Do you people have any responsibility for what you print? Can you just say anything that pops into your heads and go on your merry way or what? Is it safe to have a conversation with a reporter? Or let one take your picture?
I remember when those election workers were killed in Baghdad and the stringers who took the picture got a Pulitzer in spite of the fact that they knew something was going to happen there and would not tip off the authorities. To them that picture was more important than those men’s lives. And they got rewarded for that.
And so it goes. I have lost so much respect for the press in the last frew years and this is just one more instance of a managed and created partisan scandal.
Disgraceful.
And I don’t even like Rove all that much, but he sure comes out looking better than a lot of the self rigteous parasites feeding off of this nonstory.
Terrye,
The way I look at it, Rove will still have his job until he asks for a leave of absence to run a few Senate campaigns next year. He will have payback in the only venue that counts. There is also the chance that he might manage the campaign for the Rep candidate in ’08. Taking three in a row (or five in a row – depending on how the ’02, ’06 elections are viewed) is the political equivalent of Ruth hitting 60 HRs.
Dem pols and their MSM megaphones aren’t worth a bucket of warm spit when viewed from the perspective of results.
RBMN: I thought (I could be wrong) that Hillary was also part of the team to destroy (or seal until the year 4350) that info on Kennedy.
You orter check out Tom Maguire … the moonbats just will not let this go.
The three judges in this investigation are so convinced that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is going to establish that there was a deliberate effort to undermine the credibility of Joseph Wilson (which continues to this day — see Ken Mehlman’s weekend) that they are willing to jail reporter Judith Miller (who knows much more than we do right now and likely holds the key to where this goes).
It has to be accepted that, however you feel about Joe Wilson, there is no reasonable explanation for his wife’s identity being made public. Do you recall the outcry when Geraldo Rivera put the military in harm’s way by revealing their location in the early days of the war? There is no difference. Valerie Plame had worked in undercover operations for years. The revelation of her identity could put lives in jeopardy. That didn’t change because her job did.
And, even if no one is ever harmed physically by this revelation, you have to remember that Karl Rove, “Scooter” Libby and Robert Novak were willing to take that risk.
This story is simply not going to go away. The Washington press corp is waking from its long slumber (I wonder if the revelation of Mark Felt as Deep Throat hasn’t recharged a few batteries). And no Supreme Court nomination or Saddam Hussein trial is going to keep it out of the news.