Bad faith in Rovegate

What tangled webs we weave. A few days ago, The New York Times, the most representative outlet of liberal opinion in the country, was extolling government leaks as absolutely necessary to the First Amendment and to public knowledge of the workings of government. A prosecutor who asks a reporter to reveal his anonymous sources could chill such leaks, and freedom of the press in America would enter a long twilight period.

Now, a leaker in the Valerie Plame case, which was the occasion for this dire inanity from the Times, turns out to have been White House adviser Karl Rove. That puts things in a new light. Even though his leak — that Plame, a CIA officer, got her husband and President Bush critic Joe Wilson a jaunt to Niger to probe whether Saddam Hussein had attempted to acquire uranium there — added important new information to the public knowledge of the case, the Times has the vapors. Surely Thomas Jefferson couldn't have crafted the First Amendment with icky Karl Rove in mind?

Thus the Plame controversy continues to churn out bad faith the way Willy Wonka's factory produces chocolate. At first, the media hyped the leaks about Plame as practically the Lindbergh baby kidnapping for the 21st century — a spectacular and dastardly crime (revealing the identity of a covert CIA operative potentially violates the law). The furor forced the administration to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate. He has managed to get one Times reporter, Judith Miller, jailed for refusing to testify about who leaked to her, and he nearly bagged Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper too.

Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's cover?

It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press.

Here's an example of Joe's apparently routine and open bragging about Valerie being a "CIA agent," which became known directly to me over a year ago:

He certainly bragged about it per a famous and highly reliable source's (named below) account of his own face-to-face encounter with Amb. Joe Wilson prior to Valerie Plame's "outing" as a CIA agent/employee.

Based upon a personal conversation (we were in a small group eating; it was NOT an "off the record") I had with eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson (we were at a luncheon table together during a trip to Europe), it appeared entirely possible that Joe Wilson himself was the (or one source, if not the original one) possible source in revealing his own wife's status as a CIA agent or employee.

Victor Davis Hanson (Wilson presumably knew Victor Davis Hanson wrote regularly for NRO (National Review Online), had done OpEds for the Wall street Journal, and other publications, and had his own Website with a widespread following) said he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were both in the same "Green Room" before a televised debate-discussion on Iraq, etc. and Joe first warned the TV make-up person not to get powder on his $14,000 Rolex watch, then he bragged to Victor about several things (possessions and trips to Aspen, etc.), like his expensive car (I think it was a Mercedes), and then bragged about his beautiful ("hot") wife who, Joe Wilson said (braggingly) was a CIA operative.

I asked Victor Davis Hanson Why he didn't write up this account.(?) He replied that Joe Wilson would probably simply deny it, since only he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were in the Green Room together before the broadcast.

However, it is now easy to surmise that Joe Wilson is a crass, materialistic, self-promoting, vain, egotistical, bragaddocio-opportunist, so this account is perfectly consistent with Valerie Plame's TWO photo shoots in Vanity Fair. (Or was it Vogue? No, probably too crass for Vogue, n'est pas?)

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.