There are a lot of things to be angry about the Plame affair, if it turns out that senior white house officials are outing voert CIA agents. I will wait for the investigation before I make any real statements, but I must point out that the liberal hyperventilating is getting amusing.
Please, guys- there are a number of things that you can say about the Plame affair- but the one that just makes me giggle is the assertion that the ‘President just doesn’t care.’
Robin Roberts
This is going to end up resembling the BBC / Gilligan affair where the media take the backblow.
Joshua Martin
I have yet to see any confirmation that Plume’s identity as a CIA agent (much less a covert CIA agent) was anything but common knowledge. Contrary to the NYT’s claims, Novak never identified her as a cover agent, and there’s a good piece up on NRO dicussing the fact that her employment with the CIA wasn’t exactly secret. Regardless of the facts, I expect the “secret” nature of her employment with the Agency will become conventional wisdom, a la Bush’s “now-discredited claim that Hussien sought uranium from Africa” (which is, of course, anything but).
Kimmitt
I must have missed where the President ordered an internal investigation when the Novak piece first came out and announced that a couple of members of his staff would be leaving their positions immediately, given the fact that their upcoming trials were going to be taking up a lot of their time.
The WaPo makes extremely clear the fact that Plame was an undercover agent.
Robin Roberts
Evidently, you’ve missed a lot of things Kimmitt. Dan Drezner has many of the links.
Mark L
And, of course, we know that the WaPo is always right and never wrong. Just like the BBC, CNN and Gray Lady.
Kimmitt
So what you’re saying is that you have seen evidence that Plame was an undercover agent, but you do not yet find it convincing. Fair enough, but it seems like you could do a little hunting around cia.gov to see if the investigation the WaPo is alluding to is taking place.
Dugger
Am I the only one to notice the Democrats have shifted from their party-line “Bush Lied” mantra to Valerie Plame.
Keep these simple facts in mind re Plame and don’t let the left wing Bozos deter you:
1. Novak never, ever said the Admin told him Plame was CIA
2. Nobody has accurately described Valerie Plame’s postion at the CIA so if anyone tells you she was an undercover agent, they are lying or should be in jail (for the same reasons being put forward regarding the alleged Admin leakers). Its been alleged she was an analyst. The CIA employs a ton of desk jockey analysts so that may be true, but we don’t know. If so, that means a Washngton desk job and not at all a covert agent.
3. All of the sources on this issue so far are anonymous – except one, Wilson.
4. But. Wilson has now acknowledged he lied about Carl Rove and has been identified with the highly partisan, anti-Bush MoveOn organization.
caleb
It certainly seem that the dems are thinking this is their “Monica Moment”.
Just as the repubs thought “We finally got the bastard” when Monica came to the surface, the dems seem to be thinking the same thing.
Kimmitt
Actually, I’m just utterly enraged at the idea of burning spooks for petty revenge. I mean, sure, at some point three months from now I’ll notice that some kind of political advantage was gained, but at this point it’s solid white-hot fury.
Joshua Martin
Dugger sums up my point in #2. I’ve seen it claimed that Plame was a covert agent, and I’ve seen it claimed that she’s an analyst. If she merely worked for the CIA, outing her as such hardly seems like a big deal (although I plead ignorance as to the criminal sanctions for so doing).
The WaPo calls her an “undercover officer” (unattributed) who is “a case officer in the CIA’s clandestine service and works as an analyst on weapons of mass destruction” (also unattributed).
The use of the phrase “undercover” or “covert” operative clearly brings to mind a field agent (as does the uncredited allegation that her former overseas “contacts” might be tracked down as a result of the Novak column). But if Plame is working a desk in D.C. as an analyst, she’s not a field op (although she might have been), and the “expose” of her employment with the CIA hardly carries the sense of menace that exposing a field op does.
Further, don’t ignore Digger’s point that Novak never claimed the White House told him Plame worked for the CIA. What he said is as follows: Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. “I will not answer any question about my wife,” Wilson told me.
Hardly the smoking gun it’s being made out to be.
I could be wrong, but I’d guess that this will turn out to be a case of a generally liberal-leaning press overpursuing a story they expect (hope?) will damage Bush.
HH
‘Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson’s report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson’s involvement in the mission for her husband — he is a former Clinton administration official — they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives’… – Novak on Crossfire as transcribed by Drudge
GFW
I just hope there *is* an investigation. It looks like the CIA asked for one in July, and they had to leak that request to get any movement on the issue from DoJ.
S Brecht
So what are we now… 8 months later? No investigation… no reprisals for Whitehouse staff… no comments from the President… no nothing. So much for everyone’s confidence that “Bush cares”
heh…