Posted on 07/31/2005 8:49:58 AM PDT by Republican Red
THE STATE DEPARTMENT PLOT THICKENS [John Podhoretz] Time Magazine has a new story about the revelation of Valerie Plame's name -- a story that, despite Time's own bizarre spin, reinforces the claim that Karl Rove and others learned that Joseph Wilson was married to a CIA operative from the media.
"As the investigation tightens into the leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, sources tell TIME some White House officials may have learned she was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration," writes Massimo Calabresi.
Later, he writes: "The previously undisclosed fact gathering began in the first week of June 2003 at the CIA, when its public-affairs office received an inquiry about Wilson's trip to Africa from veteran Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus....The same week, Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman asked for and received a memo on the Wilson trip...Sources familiar with the memo, which disclosed Plame's relationship to Wilson, say Secretary of State Colin Powell read it in mid-June. Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage may have received a copy then too."
According to Calabresi, "A source familiar with the memo says neither Powell nor Armitage spoke to the White House about it until after July 6."
So what does this tell you?
It tells you that the State Department, which leaks like a sieve, knew about Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame in June. It also tells you that neither Powell nor Armitage talked to anybody in the White House about it until after Joseph Wilson published his New York Times op-ed on July 6 -- though he had clearly been the anonymous source for a piece by Pincus and an op-ed by the Times' own Nick Kristof back in early June.
So for those who think something very bad happened here, why isn't attention now circling around the State Department, whose two top guys at the time -- Colin Powell and Richard Armitage -- leaked like sieves to the media?
Instead of asking that question, Time's Calabresi instead suggests that this "increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer."
That doesn't follow at all. Doesn't this tale "increase the chances" that Rove and others are simply telling the truth? It seems a bunch of people knew a bunch about this in June, and their names are Walter Pincus of the WaPo, Kristof and evidently Judith Miller of the Times, not to mention Colin Powell and Rich Armitage at State (not to mention State's Marc Grossman and Carl Ford, who generated the memo). Their names are not Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
Reporters and State Department people were in the know here. Which makes the idea that White House people found out about Wilson's marriage to a CIA operative who got him the gig in Niger from reporters even more plausible
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1088666,00.html
I didn't even waste time reading the Time article spin. I'd rather read Podhoretz take on the "new information". He tends to be logical, smart and imo, dead-on with the facts.
Workable link to the Time article "When They Knew":
http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1088666,00.html
Again the finger points at Colin Powell.
Would anyone in the media go to jail to protect Colin Powell?
Let's think about that for a second...would the media rather protect Powell...or Rove? Hmmm.
Yes there are a few.
Looks like Powell helped the anti Bolton groups.
Time tries to paint this as bad for Rove but I think just the opposite. It points the finger away from White House and right at the State Department.
The State Department was no friend to the Bush White House.
Valarie Phlame and Joe Wilson are suck a$$ demos who clamor for attention because their work product never amounted to crap. Neither has ever had a real job.
Towards the last few years that Powell was in the Administration, the media too a decided "liking" to him, after basically portraying him as an "house slave" and Condi Rice as an "Aunt Jemima"....
I am thinking that the change just may have occured around the time that all of this was getting started...
SO, obviously the media would/will/is covering for Powell, where they wouldn't for Rove or Libby.
Bwaaa, Haaa, Haaa - I'll bet Fitzgerald is.
This would seem to jive with the comment made some time ago- that his source was an 'administration official' who was 'no partisan gunslinger'
I have been pointing to Colin Powell as the leaker since July 13th.
He is a darling of the MSM and my belief is that Judith Miller is trying to (1)protect Colin Powell and all her other State dept leakers and (2)help her bosses keep the story from moving on to........the truth.
So, is Colin going to step forward as a Repblican or remain undercover as a "moderate"?
I actually think the Wilson-Plame story is just getting interesting. The Democrats and their media have been making such a big deal out of a non-story that when the facts actually start to come out it looks like it will bite them all in their collective butts.
On Meet The Press this morning the the story was being talked about by reporters with more "we really don't know yet" comments. That is far different from Rove outed a covert agent.
I'm not sure that State Department personnel are considered "administration officials". I don't think that the blanket disclosure waiver issued by the White House applies to the State Department.
So Miller rots in jail to protect Foggy Bottom.
For the sake of argument, let's say Powell is Judith Miller's source. But everyone thinks it's Rove. So everyone believes Rove is a scumbag for leaking the name. Powell, along with Rove and Libby, has signed a blanket waiver releasing all reporters from any confidentiality agreement. Is it ethical for Miller to keep her mouth shut if it unfairly impugns the integrity of both Rove and the White House?
Ah... The story that won't go away even though no one outside the media gives a rip.
I saw that too. Kate O'Bierne (sp) was real funny. She insinuated that the leak was not from the White House but from another part of the administration. I was hoping she would say "CIA", because that's what I thought until I read about State.
Russert was beside himself, like it was the first time anyone could have thought that it was not the White House.
One of the Kalbs (Marvin?) was on Fox this morning spouting the Time mag spin. (What's going on with Fox? They're becoming as bad as MSM.) Wish they'd put Podhoretz on to comment on this story, so it could, indeed, be "fair and balanced."
I think so, since he shared many of the liberal views, and was a prolific leaker according to most.
Oh, I'm actually kind of happy to see the media try to keep this alive. There will be a lot more egg on their faces when some of them, or some of their leaky buddies in State are indicted.
Fow is just helping Kalb supplement his Social Security.
He'd be better as a Walmart greeter.
Has Powell or Armitage been interviewed by the prosecutor/grand jury? Anybody know?
There are only two people on earth I can see our current media going to jail to protect...Bill and Hillary Clinton. And they're not connected to this "story", are they?
I don't know if the Clintons have been connected yet. I do know that Powell has been the media darling for awhile now, and when the President didn't keep him on as SOS, there was a fair amount of wailing and hand wringing among the media.
"I am not and have never been a member of the Communist Party," Alger Hiss said under oath on Aug. 5, 1948, and calmly refuted the accusation of former Soviet agent Whittaker Chambers. The House Un-American Activities Committee had subpoenaed Chambers two days before. Then a senior editor at Time magazine, Chambers had testified reluctantly.
Time Magazinr has been a tool of the communists, and the Democrat Party, for at least 60 years. Of course, so has the State Department.
Remember that Bill and Hill's people were working for (or sabatoging) the Kerry Kampaign. Wilson was worth nothing to Kerry without the possibility of a scandal out of this.
It just didn't pan out in time. Now they have to muddy the water to confuse everyone when the truth comes out.
There are two others whom it is absolutely vital for the MSM to protect: Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.
Powell testified last July. I don't know about Armitage. I would think if Powell testified that he would have been called too
Somebody wake me up when the media see the giant billboard outside the Plame/Wilson house that proclaims "CIA employee lives HERE with her husband, Joe Wilson!!"
Plame and Wilson, themselves, are at the center of this alleged "Leak" in this non-story.
Colin Powell, former head of ythe Joint Chiefs of Staff and SecDef, a LEAKER!!?? It is to laugh, if not outright guffaw!!
I said that weeks ago and got my head handed to me on the proverbial platter.
IMO, he is the ONLY person who has been in this administration that they WOULD go to jail for.
We don't want hear your suggestions, Calabresi; we want you to answer the question, truthfully that is.
Hmmmmm, what does that say about the two top guys at state?
Really? Powell's been on my short list of possibles for quite awhile now. I guess I just assumed he was on everyone's.
"Colin Powell, former head of ythe Joint Chiefs of Staff and SecDef, a LEAKER!!?? It is to laugh, if not outright guffaw!!"
Why is this outright guffaw? Look what we got with Bubba and Hitlery when they were in the White House? Guggaw, I think not.
COLINOSCOPY: THE REAL COLIN POWELL
The American Thinker ^ | April 26, 2005 | Ed Lasky
Posted on 04/27/2005 1:30:18 AM EDT by sinanju
While President Reagan enjoyed a reputation as the “Teflon President,” able to prevail against critics determined to besmirch his reputation, one figure handily eclipses him in his ability to avert any criticism by the mainstream media: Colin Powell.
Knowledgeable insiders have long characterized Powell’s meteoric rise from colonel to Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff as based on exceptional skills at bureaucratic infighting and deft wielding of the press leak stiletto. But the general public sees only the picture of high-minded public servant. In the wake of the disclosure that he is attempting to use his wiles to torpedo the nomination of John Bolton as the US Ambassador to the United Nations, it is high time to break out the kryptonite and honestly appraise the record and actions of Colin Powell...
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Also Click Here
He's got the biggest mouth in D.C.; and he's a self-serving smug politico, if you ask me.
Sometimes when I read this stuff, , especially late at night, it occurs to me that the entire government could fall.
Nah. The leaker is Valerie Plame/Joe Wilson. She has been tight with a group of leftie newsettes forever. It could have been stuff she was leaking "off the record." Joe has been a loudmouth forever, and in fact "outed" his old lady a long time before this particular brouhaha.
Fun story.
Hate to burst your bubble, but people at the top in DC all excel at this. If they didn't they wouldn't survive.
The most interesting fact here is that the special prosecutor has been on this ivestigation for two years. The media, in its hubris, sought to solve it in one week. That's very unlikely.
Sometimes, I feel the same sort of chill.
I've also heard from folks who served with Powell that he would stab someone in the back in a heartbeat if it meant getting ahead, but then, maybe that's true more often than we think.
Yes, but now Condi is at State and she arrived with a great big, industrial sized broom :o)
Sounds like the MSM is getting ready to deep-six the Rove/Plame story now that the facts are not panning out quite like the Libs hoped.
You're not busting my bubble; he's just quit an accomplished leaker and backbiter, which, needless to say, the press never reports.
He's not quite as "clean" as he or the MSM protrays himself/him.
No.
No one in the media would go to jail to protect any Republican. The information had to come from someone the MSM likes - either a fellow reporter, a dem CIA agent, or a dem who's still in the administration.
Hell would freeze over before any liberal would go to jail for a Republican - they would expose the guy themselves if he was one of us.
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