She really was covert

February 6, 2006

One of the more annoying angles to the Plame scandal has been the persistent claims by administration allies that Valerie Plame may have been in the CIA when the White House helped expose her identity, but she wasn’t undercover. The Bush gang exposed her work, conservatives say, but this would only be a big deal if Plame was covert.

All available evidence has told us, repeatedly and over the course of two years, that the conservatives’ claim is bogus. But in case there was any lingering doubt, Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff helps set the record straight this week.

Newly released court papers could put holes in the defense of Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, in the Valerie Plame leak case. Lawyers for Libby, and White House allies, have repeatedly questioned whether Plame, the wife of White House critic Joe Wilson, really had covert status when she was outed to the media in July 2003. But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done “covert work overseas” on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA “was making specific efforts to conceal” her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge’s opinion.

I certainly don’t expect all of the White House allies who got this completely wrong to apologize or run a correction — especially not you, Mr. Safire — but as the case proceeds and Fitzgerald’s new grand jury continues its work, is it too much to ask that the right at least drop this talking point from their rhetorical quiver?

Sure CB, they’ll drop this talking point right after they admit FDR saved the country with the New Deal.

  • is it too much to ask that the right at least drop this talking point from their rhetorical quiver?

    Yes. It is.

  • No, it is too much to ask for honesty from these people, but it is pointless. They are fighting a war to stay in power, and honesty gets in their way. Your final question gives them too much credit. They will do anything to stay in power, even to the detriment of our country.
    We have gone way beyond any point where we can trust the right wingers. They don’t respect us enough to tell the truth. But since they have the power, there is no way we can force them to acknowledge the truth, we can only continue to point out their lies.

  • June 14, Plame outed.
    June 17, Dr. David Kelly disappears.
    June 18, Kelly found suicided.
    June 21 (or thereabouts) serious question about “suicide” theory.

    Was outing Plame an attempt to roll up the counterproliferation network so Bush could plant the WMD?

    What is wrong with a conspiracy theory when the coincidence theory is full of holes? We pretty much know what didn’t happen and that’s what Bush says, including the WMD.

    But isn’t it significant that Plame and Kelly do have something in common after all? And it’s not just proximity on the time line.

    How did Kelly KNOW there were no WMD in Iraq? (He was the anonymous source who originally leaked to the UK media that the WMD reports were “sexed up”.)

    We need to roll up the Bush network and if there’s anyone left outside of prison afterwards, let’s hold an election and boot this thing up that we’ve been waiting to try.

    http://usconstitution.net/const.html

  • The Righties are vehement about how evil the Wilson are. I just read a Righty blog that parses each word of Isikoff’s articles into atoms to prove that Fitzgerald is dirty and the CIA lied about Valerie Wilson’s covert status. There are none so blind… yadda yadda yadda.

  • I don”t always pay attention to bylines so I really didn’t know who Judith Miller was until after the Iraq war. When the Plame issue came up, I read her profile in New York magazine and happily lapped up Arianna Huffington’s juicy, gossip-filled attacks on Miller. But then I came around to thinking that I really didn’t know what Miller’s part in the Plame affair was and maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to toss journalists in jail even if they are neocon shills.

    Safire is maddening. Before 9/11, I only read the NYT on Sunday so Safire’s column on words was a pleasure and I assumed because he cared about language and words, he cared about truth. Boy, was I ever wrong! Bert Lance said that Safire admitted to smearing him because
    Safire and his buddies did not want Lance to be Fed chairman. As far as I know, Safire never refuted him. Don’t like your opponent – use the NYT to drag his name through mud.

    After 9/11, I knew I did not know enough about world affairs but I recognized Safire’s 9/24/01 column about Saddam’s nuclear scientists working “feverishly” underground for what it was – blatant propaganda. I read on as Safire happily smeared entire countries. Am I the only one who remembers that Jacques Chirac was the first world leader to show up at the WTC after 9/11? He was even gracious enough to appear on TV with Rudy Giuliani wearing an NYCFD baseball cap. I knew that France had 6,000 troops in Afghanistan before the Iraq war and so did Mr. Safire.

    I just don’t get it. On one hand, he railed against the Total Information Awareness Program but on the other, he never, not even once, championed a 9/11 investigation. He went after Putin because the Russians expected an oligarch to pay his taxes. Of course, Putin must be picking on the Jews. Excuse me but if was Russian, I would want to hang every one of those thieves by their fingernails.

    Maybe the next guy who aspires to be just like William Safire won’t be a friend of Israel. Some legacy, huh? Safire, an intelligent guy who just didn’t get it.

    BTW, I went through the 990s of the Parents in Charge Foundation started by major right winger, Ted Forstmann of Forstmann & Little in 2000. He put in $10 million the first year and the Waltons put in $10 million the next. I’m pretty sure that the millions paid to J. D. Thompson etc. were disguised campaign contributions for a couple of reasons.

    Arianna Huffington and an associate of hers were on the foundation’s payroll in 2002. What was Huffington doing working for a big right winger like Ted Forstmann?

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