Posted on 08/17/2004 9:54:11 AM PDT by gopwinsin04
The New York Times has recieved two more subpoenas from prosecutors investigating who leaked the identity of former CIA officer Valerie Plame to the press, Editor and Publisher has learned.
'We now have a total of three subpoenas,' Times spokeswoman Catherine Mathis said today.
'We will have to comply or file a motion to quash by August 20. The Times will move to quash.'
The subpoenas are the latest in a string of actions taken in recent weeks against journalists by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is leading the investigation into the Plame identity leak.
The Plame investigation stems from a July 14, 2003 column by Robert Novak the revealed Plame, married to a former diplomat, as a CIA officer.
Plame was brought in to show that Wilson was not qualified to do the work, that he obtained his job through family connections.
Exactly so!
Realizing this, I searched out the names of the Ambassador and the General and Googled them, hoping to see what they actually said. No luck. Their reports are not available. So that's where we stand.
And Steyn says;
"Even his original New York Times piece must rank as one of the paper’s weakest efforts to damage Bush... As a claim to expertise, it’s laughable."
Which is my point exactly!
So why bring in Plame? No good reason. It was an egregious mistake for which the Administration may pay dearly.
This thing must be backfiring big time because if it was bad for Bush it would be over already.
Novak said he got his info from Administration sources. If he now announces that he got it from the Wilsons or the Democrats his career is over. Nobody will believe him about anything.
"Administration" can also mean 'Rats still working in the admin. Technically speaking, both Wilsons are also part of the admin.
To complete my thought: Joseph Wilson was a former ambassador, not Billy Carter or Roger Clinton, and if his wife played a role in him getting the Niger assignment it would be hard to prove convincingly that he was unqualified and/or incompetent. And, as it turned out, the media generally did rally around him and defend his competence and fitness for the role. At best, "outing" Plame would show that Wilson's appointment was slightly irregular, but this is a far cry from discrediting him.
A possible interpretation, I guess.
If true, Novak is in deep, deep doo-doo. The CIA asked him not to reveal Plame's name and he did it anyway...apparently just to be the gossip with the most to tell.
Post #40 makes a lot more sense to me; Someone off-handedly mentions Plame to Novak to explain how Wilson got the job. An error, but not a security violation, not mean-spirited, not vindictive, not vengeful. Novak sees a chance to be king of the hill and blabs...despite a CIA request that he not do so. That's believeable.
Right......I must have missed the part where you said he should be indicted, or at the very least, have a hot electrode shoved up his rectum......although such mature discourse might have gone right over my little kindergartener head.
Grow up.
I have little doubt that if Wilson were the one who leaked to Novak, Novak would have no qualms about saying so. After all, that would be incredible chutzpah for Wilson to leak it and them blame the Bush administration. I don't think Novak would let him get away with that, and I think the press would stand by Novak in outing a source who was such a blatant liar. I still think that the leak was an innocent one by someone in the Bush administration, and that later on Wilson and others tried to capitalize on it by attributing sinister motives to it, motives which in my opinion don't make a lot of sense and are therefore probably a fabrication of Wilson and his supporters.
Another scenario which might emerge in the investigation is a pattern of entrapment in which members of the media - after the original Novak story, and possibly in cahoots with Wilson - tried to trick Bush administration members into making damaging statements about Wilson and/or Plame, to support the "outing" and "payback" themes.
While this is possible I think it wrong.
Simple errors and paranoia go a long way towards explaining human behavior...
Wilson, already angry at Bush, was most likely completely outraged to see his wife's CIA connection revealed and leaped to the conclusion that it was a deliberate attempt at revenge.
A comedy of errors (if it is a comedy)...
I'm normally not a conspiracy guy, but Wilson was very open and public about his desire to bring down Bush, which is why many in this forum - including myself - would not be surprised if he somehow played a role in engineering this whole scandal. But I do not think it's credible that he's the one who leaked to Novak; as I said in other post, I don't think Novak would let him get away with that.
But don't forget that it's still possible that the Administration WAS acting vindictively AND stupidly.
That's my worst nightmare.
I've supported the Administration on Iraq because I believe they've courageously adopted and competently executed a good plan for dealing with very, very dangerous Muslim extremists.
But I had a discussion, prior to the war, with gcochran who thought the whole lot were crazed lunatics who had no idea about what they were doing. Cochran was an extremely smart, extremely well-connected insider with a long family history of patriotism and service to the country. I've never forgotten what he said nor even been able to entirely discount it.
The Iraq war was a huge gamble, and I'm sure it upset many, many people both in State and the DOD, for whom the operative principle is "No one will ever criticize you for not fixing a problem in some other country, so don't try too hard; just go through the motions of diplomacy and hope things don't get worse." Bush upset this thinking by wanting to go in and solve something, once and for all, to make real change.
You sound like you might like that action.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.