Spinning Wheel
I gotta admit, Red Dog is perplexed. I'm totally missing something, but I am sure that there is a "vast Right Wing Conspiracy" involved.
This whole business of Judith Miller and Matt Cooper and the outing of Valerie Plame is a total mystery that even Agatha Christie could never solve.
Reviewing:
Someone in the White House leaked to Robert Novak the name of a CIA operative (Valerie Plame) and Novak writes an article identifying her as a CIA Agent. The publishing of the article is not a crime, but leaking the identification of an agent is. O.k. so whoever told Novak is a criminal and could be punished as a traitor. The White House (Bush) says this is a serious matter and whoever leaked the name would be dealt with. So couldn't the president just call everyone together and ask who did it? Let's, for the sake of argument, say that he did and no one fessed up.
Tomorrow Newsweek (here we go again) will publish a story claiming the person who leaked the identity to Matt Cooper was none other than Karl Rove. Rove's attorney (why does Rove have an attorney?) verified that Karl Rove did in fact mention to Matt Cooper that Joe Wilson's wife (Valerie Plame) was someone at the CIA dealing with WMD investigations, but he did not mention her by name (a subtle technicality).
Now, the conversation between Cooper and Rove took place three days before the Novak article was published. Novak, in his article, cited source(s), more than one.
Patrick Fitzgerald is a special prosecutor investigating the case and has Matt Cooper threatened with jail and has Judith Miller in jail for refusing to identify their sources. Cooper received a "permission slip" from his source before the deadline to reveal his source. The permission slip was from Rove, apparently. So, Cooper avoids going to jail, but he must testify to the Grand Jury. Judith Miller apparently received no permission slip from her source or she wants to be a martyr for the First Amendment.
The judge's ruling in this case is that the First Amendment doesn't always apply, especially if there is a matter of National Security involved.....therefore, the journalists must reveal their sources. Neither Matt Cooper nor Judy Miller published their stories nor revealed any names in any articles, yet they are the ones facing jail time! What about Robert Novak?
So, the questions will be forthcoming and Red Dog will be trying to figure out the answers to these questions:
- Why isn't Novak being pressured for his sources by being threatened with jail? Maybe he is cooperating with the Grand Jury and has given testimony.
- Who is the other Novak source?
- Are Judith Miller's sources the same as Matt Cooper and Bob Novak?
- Did Karl Rove break any laws?
- Why does Karl Rove have a "need to know" of agents at the CIA?
- Is Dick Cheney involved in any way? There is a connection between Cheney and Miller over Chalibi. Is Judith Miller protecting a bigger fish than Rove?
- Is Bush involved? If Rove did fess up, is George covering up and obstructing justice?
- Is Fitzgerald on to something really big that smacks of Watergate?
- Will Rove 'fall on the sword' for his friends in the WH?
- How does this all lead back to the "yellow cakes" and cooking the intelligence to go to war?
Stay tuned we will all find out soon, or the spin doctors will pull off the coverup of the Century. Some integrity!, this stuff makes 'Ol Bubba look like a Boy Scout, only lying about an affair with an intern, what was he thinking?
posted by Red Dog @ 9:29 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
We should remember where the whole Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame story started:
* * *
Valerie Plame should be 'frog-marched' out of Washington
... Joe Wilson's wife is not a foreign spy - she's a desk jockey at Langley (with a cushy place in Georgetown) who's responsible for ... wait for it ... tracking down WMD for our country!
Why on earth did someone with that very important responsbility pre-judge the Niger-Iraq-yellowcake story as "this crazy story"? I mean, its only our national security and stuff - no biggie.
Someone let Val Plame know: the Niger-Iraq-yellowcake "crazy story" turned out to be true.
How many other WMD leads has Ms. Plame given short shrift? Do you know about any more "crazy" WMD leads, Val? Maybe you should go look at those files again. Does her high security clearance prevent her from getting fired for not giving a whit about national security risks for which she's the responsbile agent?
Not only did Ms. Plame dismiss one of the key pieces of intelligence regarding Iraq potentially creating the Arab bomb - she successfuly recommended her gadfly husband to be the sole investigator to go check out the lead! How many millions of dollars go to the CIA for intelligence gathering each year? And yet the only person we have to send to Niger to see if Saddam is building a nuke is ... the house husband of an agent at Langley?
What's next? Will Valerie Plame send the family golden retriever to look for missle silos in North Korea?
This is the real story that the mainstream press won't touch with a ten-foot-pole. What heads should roll at Langley for entrusting our national security to the whims of the Wilson-Plame family travelogue?
* * *
Unbelievable. Shameful. Putting nepotism above national security.
Fire Valerie Plame now. She's a very real risk to our national security.
-nikita demosthenes
Oh, Nikki. This is the exact spin the White House is looking for, discredit those who are the victims! Wow, what a scoop. The "yellow cake" business was a figment in the mind of "Curveball" who turned out to be a screwball. Tenet has already apologized for "missing" the inaccuracy in the STOU address by Bush. The story was false from the beginning. But the administration was using it because it supported the cause for war.
That being said, nothing explains how Karl Rove would have access to CIA agents (he was a political strategist and domestic advisor). As to Valerie Plame's real job, I don't know what it was, but I doubt very seriously if as a 'desk jockey', she had the authority to send her husband on a fact finding mission in Niger, especially if National Security was involved.
Even if all you said were true, that still does not answer the question of who is Judy Miller trying to protect? I'm sure she is not having a fabulous time in jail just for the hell of it. I'm sure that if all we have read so far is all there is too it, Mr. Fitzpatrick would have folded up shop long ago and closed the case, unlike one other special prosecutor we all know.
The crime here may be treason, maybe not. But eight blank pages in a judge's opinion that were censored because of National Security leads me to believe that Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, and Matt Cooper are all victims. The jury is still out (no pun intended) on Judy Miller's role in aiding and abetting.
Dog do you really belive Miller would go to jail to protect a republican?
Nofatcat
Post a Comment
<< Home