Posted on 07/11/2005 5:27:52 PM PDT by WhistlingPastTheGraveyard
There is a conspiracy all right, the liberal, traitorous, MSM is conspiring to protect their illegal sources.
Hope this works, I messed up the other post
http://www.aim.org/aim_column/3833_0_3_0_C/
Perhaps you should actually read that law on what is 'covert' and what characterizes a leak of that info...
From John at Powerlineblog just shortly after noon on Sunday.
http://foi.missouri.edu/bushinfopolicies/protection.html
http://www.powerlineblog.com/
Newsweek notes that "[n]othing in the Cooper e-mail suggests that Rove used Plame's name or knew she was a covert operative."
It is highly unlikely that Rove (or any other as-yet-unidentified source) violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. That statute applies when:
1) a person having access to classified information that identifies a "covert agent" discloses the agent's identity to a person not authorized to receive the information, where the person making the disclosure knows that "the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States";
2) same thing, only the person making the disclosure "learns the identity of a covert agent" through his access to classified information; or
3) a person discloses the identity of a covert agent "in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States."
First of all, it is not clear that Valerie Plame was a "covert agent." Here is the definition of "covert agent":
(4) The term “covert agent” means—
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or
(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and—
(i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or
(ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or
(C) an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose past or present intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information and who is a present or former agent of, or a present or former informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency.
So whether Plame was a covert agent appears to turn on whether shse served outside the United States during the five years preceding her identification. I haven't seen any definitive answer to this question
Looks like Tuesday. From National Review's "The Corner"...great spot by the way...great deal on the on line magazine as well:
QUICK JOE WILSON BLEG [John Podhoretz]
Two years ago Joseph C. Wilson IV had a bio available online in which he mentioned his wife Valerie Plame's name. The bio has vanished. If anyone perchance saved it or a screenshot of it and can e-mail it to me, I'd be grateful. (PS: It's now 4:15 pm EDT. If you don't do it by 4:30, don't bother.)
ENOUGH JOE WILSON! [John Podhoretz]
Thanks, everybody, for the multiple copies of his bio. Check out the NYPost tomorrow for my use of it...
Posted at 04:40 PM
And, if you read carefully, I said that they would "TRY TO" use this. I didn't say that it would work.
And, you really shouldn't disagree with me on that point.
I mean the demoSCUMs have tried to use everything that has come up to have a negative effect on the admin. Remember the missing Iraqi weapons a week before the election, they were talking up major investigation then too. So, there is no doubt in my mind that they are going to try to make this into the next "-gate".
The dems are in a time warp, stuck in the Richard Nixon/Vietnam mindset. They simply can't get out of it. On top of that, they are utterly desparate.
If there anctics weren't dragging so many decent people into the mud, it would be funny. Unfortunately, their antics get play because of their kook friends in the mainstream press.
Because they get attention by the media outlets, their gripes seem legitimate. You know, the whole "seriousness of the charge".
And, because the media whores hate Bush too, they play right along. Never works that way when a demoSCUM is on the other end.
It doesn't matter that Joe Wilson essentially took an unauthorized trip to a foreign country because his spouse (regardless of what her name is or what her post was/is) thought it would be a good idea.
There is some seriousness to that charge too --that Wilson may have been on an unauthorized trip on taxpayers expense. That while he was supposed to be investigating, he spent the majority of the time sitting in a luxury resort sipping on green tea.
Whether or not that is the whole truth, that seems to be a serious charge. Why isn't the press even asking that question? Well, of course it's because they're commies too.
So, this kind of thing gets me really pissed off.
All I'm asking for is marginal fairness. I'm not even asking for full equity (though that should actually be the measure). If the media would even look into and PUBLISH 1/10th of the facts in this case, no American would believe this leftist BS.
And, yes, I do predict that the Joe Wilson affair will be used to try to leverage impeachment hearings. I simply won't put it past the current group of demoSCUM.
The Federal Election Commission needs to explain why New York Times is NOT required to file for 527 status.
So true and because its summer nobody's watching the news or reading much in the paper beside the Travel section.
To the Bush White House?
The rulings cover professionals --
and not amateurs.
Did you bother to read the many news articles that point out that there has been no idication that Plame was a covert agent.
SHE WAS A DESK ANALYST. That is NOT a covert/protected gig.
Andrea Mitchell of NBC stated on MSNBC that it was well known, BEFORE ANY OF THIS STUFF WENT DOWN, that Plame worked for the CIA.
PLAME HAD A BAD TREND OF TELLING PEOPLE SHE WORKED FOR THE CIA WHEN SHE WAS AT DINNER PARTIES IN THE BELTWAY.
SHE IS AN ATTENTION WHORE......NOT A SPY.
I don't know. I read the article and in his mind Miller is saving herself. That she is the one who told people in the administration first. My guess it would be something like you know his wife is CIA?
Another Jayson Blair story?
I swear , that was my first thought ,... they're on the ONLY path they hope will give them traction , this trumps all other news/issues for the MSM to embarrass the administration
I saw that Podhoretz was looking for the bio and posted at the Corner many readers had hooked him up.
For those who don't know, Wilson's bio was indeed posted (and now removed) from The Middle East Institute.
The phrasing about his wife was something like "He is married to the former Valerie Plame".
I know it was posted long long ago right here at FR (in fact it was posted on threads many many times) at the very beginning of this saga. Too bad Podhoretz and the New York Post didn't realize that back then and start presenting that to America. (Don't get me wrong, I'm glad he's finally getting around to it.)
I'm sorry to be dense, but does the "his purpose" in the statement refer to Kuttner or Wilson? I just want to make sure I understand this.
That was Deborah Orin of the New York Post.
Well, I agree. But, again, I just hate seeing this, because even in their lame attempt, they get "mud" on people who don't deserve it.
MALKIN HAS SOME GREAT STUFF AS WELL! She mentions how it was NY TIMES EDITORS THAT DEMANDED THE INVESTIGATION THAT LANDED THEIR REPORTER IN THE CAN.
WILSON AND HIS WIFE INTENTIONALLY LIED ABOUT A NATIONAL SECURITY REPORT. I WOULD CONSIDER THAT TO BE TREASON!
Check out the great stuff Malkin has..
http://www.michellemalkin.com/
STARK ROVE-ING MAD
By Michelle Malkin · July 11, 2005 07:32 AM
Bush-bashers have been in a tizzy all weekend over the latest Rove revelations. The Washington Post follows up; Pavlovian salivation ensues.
For a non-heavy-breathing perspective, read:
Betsy Newmark on the "scandalette."
Lorie Byrd at Polipundit on "Some Of The Worst 'Reporting' I Have Seen – And That’s Saying A Lot."
Tom Maguire at Just One Minute plays editor and notes:
Eventually, an enterprising reporter will ask Matt Cooper whether some of the sources he is shielding are other journalists; his answer may provoke a bit more head-scratching.
And the Power Line team weighs in. Paul Mirengoff writes:
The media feeding frenzy will, indeed, be massive. But absent a serious claim of a statutory violation or perjury, it's questionable whether anyone apart from liberal bloggers and other pre-existing Bush haters will partake in the media's dog food.
***
More...
Leon H. at RedState sums up:
So let's review - Wilson lied about how he got to Niger, he lied about seeing a report that didn't even exist at the time, he lied about the conclusions of his own report(!), he lied about what the administration had been told, and his wife, Valerie Plame, specifically sent him on a mission to intentionally debunk a claim, not to find facts or perform inspections. I'd say the WaPo's conclusion is pretty sound on this one.
Also, it certainly gives life to the question of why the heck these two lied so darn much in absence of a clear and compelling political agenda driving their every move. Let's not rush to make these partisan hacks into saints - they attempted to cook the books against the administration and got busted for being the compulsive liars that they are. In the course of attempting to discredit the ludicrously false claims, someone in the White House (presumably Rove) told the press that Wilson was sent to Niger on dubious premises in the first place (the recommendation of his wife), without giving the name of Wilson's wife, which Rove apparently did not know.
When this story first broke on the scene, I thought that Rove should properly be banished from the administration team, despite the fact that even at that time it was pretty clear that no crime took place. However, given the serial and politically motivated lies of Wilson and Plame, it's clear that the fairy tale the liberals have constructed in which Plame was the heroic CIA agent unjustly outed by Arch-Demon Karl Rove is totally and completely false - and I won't be shedding any more tears about either of their fates.
Regarding media coverage of Judith Miller's imprisonment, Tim Graham at The Corner calmly reminds:
Left out of almost all the media coverage of Judith Miller’s decision to go to jail rather than reveal sources to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is the way the New York Times editorialists pounded the table for the special-counsel probe that boomeranged on them...
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.