Wednesday, August 17, 2005
The Judith Miller/Valerie Plame theory of immaculate
conception: The cover story on Salon.com today is a piece on
Judith Miller by Joe Strupp, a careful and meticulous senior
editor with Editor & Publisher. Linking to my recent story
which first disclosed a July 8, 2003 meeting between Miller
and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Strupp writes:
More prominently, a recent report that Miller met with I.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of
staff, less than a week before Robert Novak outed former CIA
agent Valerie Plame in a 2003 column, has added to the
speculation over what role Miller may have played in the
leak of Plame's identity. The theory being peddled on the
Huffington Post and elsewhere in the lefty blogosphere has
Miller not on the receiving end of information from an
administration leaker about Plame's identity, but as the one
disseminating information about Plame to administration
officials. This is just a theory, of course, with no known
evidence supporting it. But it's fair to say that many Times
staffers want Miller's role in the Plame affair clarified,
and some of her Times colleagues are downright angry about
what is known, and unknown, about her involvement.
Some long overdue comments on my part: Whatever one thinks
of Judith Miller's reporting on Iraq and WMD, it is patently
unfair for so many bloggers, Times colleagues (who while
condeming her, BTW, who never speak for the record), and
others to conclude without any evidence whatsoever that she
was "not on the receiving end of information from an
administration leaker", but rather "the one disseminating
information about Plame to administration officials."
And if "some of her Times colleagues are downright angry
about what is known, and unknown, about her involvement," as
Strupp reports, it is hardly her fault. She has an
obligation to protect a confidential source– one that she is
keeping– and which quite likely is the only reason that we
do not know as much as we would like to otherwise. But
simply the fact that there are "unanswered questions" should
not be cause to condemn a woman who is now spending her 44th
night in jail.
It is obviously quite possible that as journalists and Bush
administration officials spoke to one another in the days
just prior to Robert Novak's now infamous column outing
Valerie Plame that there was a "circular" flow of
information, whereby information and rumors about Valerie
Plame and Joe Wilson flowed both ways.
But it is has also been virtually a universal talking point
of both those under investigation and the RNC that nobody in
the White House could have been guilty of leaking any
classified information regarding Valerie Plame because the
leakers, quite possibly-- if not likely– originally learned
about Plame's work for the CIA from journalists in the first
place.
Those on the left who despise Miller because of her WMD
reporting, and want to think the very worst of her are
playing right into the hands of those who actually leaked
the identity of Valerie Plame, and are now covering up how
that occurred.
But whatever we ultimately find happened here (and it is
unclear that we ever will, despite the dogged efforts of
Patrick Fitzgerald) somebody, somewhere in the U.S.
government or the Bush administration had to have been the
original source of information that Valerie Plame worked for
the CIA.
The information had to originally have come from somewhere!
The baby Jesus may have been born of immaculate conception.
The information leaked to Robert Novak and Matthew Cooper
and others that Valerie Plame was employed by the CIA had a
more earthly origin.
posted by murray waas at 4:13 PM
http://whateveralready.blogspot.com/
==================================================
This White House Scandal Finally Tips the Scale!
Leak of Identity of CIA Operative Valerie Plame:
21 Administration Officials Involved In Plame Leak
The cast of administration characters with known connections
to the outing of an undercover CIA agent:
APFN INFO AND LINKS:
Rep. John Conyers (D-MI) is calling for an investigation
into the role of former Attorney General John Ashcroft in
the outing of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Conyers' call comes after a new report by investigative
journalist Murray Waas that a special prosecutor was
appointed in the case in large part because FBI
investigators had begun to specifically question the
veracity of accounts provided to them by Karl Rove. We speak
with Conyers and Waas.
http://www.pacifica.org/programs/dn/050818.html
The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed
a wider range of
... Democratic senators press CIA leak probe By DONNA DE LA
CRUZ ...
HTTP://WWW.disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=149495;article=88064;title=APFN
Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (50 U.S.C.
421 et seq.)
(governing disclosures that could expose confidential
Government agents)
http://foi.missouri.edu/bushinfopolicies/protection.html
NOVAK STORY: He claims he had absolutely no idea that the
information about Plame was a big deal. He says he got the
impression that she was a paper pusher in one of the CIA's
DC offices. He said the comment about Plame working for the
CIA was "just an offhand remark" at the end of the
conversation.
HOLE: The fact that the White House informant called several
other journalists looking for a place to plant the leak is,
by itself, enough to blow this story out of the water. But
even more damning to Novak's case is that in his article on
Plame, he referred to her repeatedly as a CIA "operative."
Since when would anyone - even the slowest-witted among us -
describe someone who files papers in an office as a "CIA
operative?"
NOVAK STORY: "I've been in this business 40 years."
HOLE: Anyone who has been a journalist for 40 years, unless
they are senile (maybe that's Novak's best defense!) would
know the difference between "CIA paper pusher" and "CIA
operative."
NOVAK STORY: He claims he is not revealing his source
because that is his prerogative as a journalist.
HOLE: That prerogative is supposed to apply only to sources
who, at the time of imparting the information, made the
journalist promise not to reveal the source. In the case of
Turner vs. Dolcefino, for example, the issue was that the
reporter had vowed silence in exchange for the information
given by the source.
In addition, journalistic prerogative usually involves
PRIVATE CITIZENS. The protection of White House officials
is, to say the least, overstretching prerogative by most
anyone's definition. Why? The press is supposed to be in the
business of PROTECTING the public from unethical officials,
not protecting the unethical officials! Once Novak knew that
he had been induced to out a CIA agent, it should have
become his duty as a journalist to expose the perpetrator.
In any case, Novak claimed that the comment about Plame was
"an offhand remark" made at the end of a regular
conversation. Since when does an "offhand remark" at the end
of an "ordinary conversation" involve swearing the listener
to secrecy? C'mon, Novak. It was either leak and you KNEW
it, or it was a casual conversation and needn't be kept
secret.
NOVAK STORY: When Tim Russert asked Novak is he was afraid
he might go to prison for refusing to reveal his sources,
Novak smirked smugly and said he hardly thought that would
be a danger.
HOLE: If Novak takes his own story about journalistic
prerogative seriously, then he SHOULD be worried. Why isn't
he worried? First, because he doesn't take his own line
seriously - it's bullsh-t and he knows it. Second, because
he knows in any case that his good buddy John Ashcroft would
never put him in jail. That treatment is reserved for young
women (Vanessa Leggett) without friends in high places who
aren't jeapordizing national security and who aren't
officially even journalists!
NOVAK STORY: The CIA called Novak and told him not to use
Plame's name because it would make things very difficult for
her, especially when she went abroad. Novak claims that this
didn't seem strong enough to compel him not to reveal
Plame's name.
HOLE: As Novak is so fond of sayinghe's "been in this
business 40 years" and knows how Washington works. It this
is true, then he KNOWS that the CIA cannot provide him with
any details about an agent and the nature of her work (like
mentioning that she could be killed in retaliation) because
to do so would further compromise her.
NOVAK STORY: Incredibly, Novak tries to justify his
injustifiable act against Plame by saying that he thinks
Wilson was too left-leaning to have been entrusted with
investigating the Iraq WMD issue.
HOLE: Novak proves here that he is anything but a patriotic
American citizen. In our system, we are supposed to have an
unbiased jury, an unbiased judge, and, ideally, a government
that represents the check and balance of two parties. When
we are talking about going to WAR, then it seems critical
above all things to have an unbiased "jury" examining the
evidence. Who would think it was "American" to have a jury
trying a black man, for example, stacked with white racists?
We have worked decades to root out that kind of injustice.
If Novak were a patriotic American, he would applaud
Wilson's role, especially as Wilson's take on the WMDs has
been confirmed by David Kay.
But the fact of the matter is, Novak and Rove -regardless of
whether Rove was the direct leaker or merely the
highest-level (short of Bush) "leak condoner"- are NOT good
citizens nor are they patriotic Americans. Here are the
crimes against Democracy, the American public, and private
individuals they have committed:
1. Undermining of national security by exposing a CIA
operative and by creating a rift of trust between the White
House and CIA.
2. Attempted murder. That is what outing a CIA agent amounts
to, purely and simply. In the 1990s, an agent named Welch
was outed and, within a short time, found murdered outside
his home. Some of the people in the chain of contacts of
which Plame was a part may be murdered, even if she is not.
Sadly, these retaliatory murders may never be revealed
because of the secrecy of the chain.
3. Subversion of the American press. Novak allowed the
American press to be used as a tool by the White House for
revenge. This is not "free speech" or "journalistic
prerogative." This is premeditated abuse of the press, just
as surely as the Mockingbird program, through which the CIA
planted phony, damaging stories in the press to help gain
White House and Pentagon objectives. Just as no one would
call the Mockingbird program "the right of free speech," no
one would consider what Novack did his "right." What
possible public"need to know" was there in revealing Valerie
Plame as an agent?
4. Theft of American tax dollars. By refusing to come
forward with the leaker, both Rove and Novack are forcing
the need for an investigation - a very expensive
investigation. The right thing to do, the selfless thing to
do, would be for Novak to come clean about his source and/or
for the leaker to step forward for the good of the country.
The fact that this is not happening is glaring,
incontrovertible proof that Novack and Rove's self interest
outweigh all other considerations, including the welfare of
the American people they are supposed to serve.
5. Advocation of a dictatorship: The fact that Wilson's
report on the WMDs was considered reason enough to make he
and his wife targets at the expense of American security and
tax dollars shows a despotic - in fact murderous -
intolerance of dissent that is appropriate only to the most
oppressive fascist dictatorships. That is certainly not the
America that real patriots want to be a part of or to
uphold.
In future history books when they list those who made
constructive contributions to America in the early 21th
century, missing from the list will be Karl Rove, Bob Novak,
Tim Russert, Rush Limbaugh and all the otherr hypocritical,
treasonous losers who have made it their personal mission in
life to tear down the American ideal so many thousands have
given their lives over the past 250 years to build.
This White House Scandal Finally Tips the Scale!
http://www.apfn.org/APFN/LEAKGATE.HTM
"Dissent is the highest form of patriotism" - Thomas
Jefferson
"If a nation expects to be ignorant and free, it expects
what never was and never will be...
The People cannot be safe without information." -- Thomas
Jefferson
http://disc.server.com/Indices/149495.html
Author: Cheryl Seal
Link:
Posted: Monday October 06, 2003 03:05 AM
http://la.indymedia.org/mail.php?id=87172
