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You are here: Home / Open Threads / The Plame Game Continues

The Plame Game Continues

by John Cole|  July 10, 20059:46 am| 17 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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Talkleft links to this Newsweek piece stating Karl Rove was Matt Cooper’s source:

It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. “Subject: Rove/P&C,” (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. “Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation …” Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, “please don’t source this to rove or even WH [White House]” and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.

Last week, after Time turned over that e-mail, among other notes and e-mails, Cooper agreed to testify before a grand jury in the Valerie Plame case. Explaining that he had obtained last-minute “personal consent” from his source, Cooper was able to avoid a jail sentence for contempt of court. Another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, refused to identify her source and chose to go to jail instead.

Tom Maguire , whose motto of late has been ‘All Plame, All the Time,’ has no update yet.

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Reader Interactions

17Comments

  1. 1.

    SomeCallMeTim

    July 10, 2005 at 9:53 am

    If Karl Rove did disclose information inappropriately, he did it for America. If people doubt the Administration, the terrorists win.

  2. 2.

    CaseyL

    July 10, 2005 at 10:25 am

    More stories elsewhere say the investigation involves a “series of leaks” that included outing Plame, and that all were damaging to national security.

    Remember John Bolton, Cheney’s mole in the State Department? He had a funny habit of spying on other State Department officials, asking for NSA intercepts to find out who was saying what to whom, and sabotaging nuclear non-proliferation policies.

    Be interesting to know if the Plame Outing intersects Bolton’s arc of destruction. Particularly since Bolton has always been Cheney’s creature, whereas Rove is Bush’s Brain.

    Outing Plame compromised WMD surveillance program. Bolton sabotaged vital non-proliferation policies. The war in Iraq has drained the military and made terrorism worse. These are demonstrable, inarguable facts.

    I’m sorry, really, but a tinfoil hat is *not* needed anymore to speculate that the Bush Administration is staffed top to bottom with people actively engaged in undermining American security and national defense.

  3. 3.

    Stormy70

    July 10, 2005 at 10:38 am

    The Wilsons are discredited. Valerie sends her husband to Africa (nepotism, hello?), then he tells the CIA one thing, and publishes a lie in the NYT. I don’t think he was counting on his report becoming unclassified, and included in the 9/11 Commission’s report. He is a partisan hack, and he lied. She outed herself by recommending her husband for a sensitive mission, then allowing him to write an oped for the NYT. Way to stay undercover there, missy. I think they are both frauds, and the CIA was leaking all kinds of classified info to discredit the Administration. Goss accepted quite a few resignations when he took over, and, suddenly, less leaking to the NYT. This is just the left’s hatred for Bush driving this, and I don’t trust Newsweek, and especially Isakoff. He burned his bridges with me when he printed his last set of Koran lies. I will wait for Fitzgerald to show his cards before I beleive leftist reporters with an anti-bush agenda.

  4. 4.

    Christie S.

    July 10, 2005 at 11:04 am

    Tim, of what use to America was the outing of a covert CIA operative?

    Even if the woman was no longer actively undercover, she HAD been. And the assets of her activities were still in place. Her outing put those assets at risk.

    People, undercover operatives don’t work in a vacuum. Whenever one person resigns, retires or is reassigned, the government will put someone else in that person’s place. The new operative will inherit the old one’s contacts and intelligence operations.

    So, even though Valerie Plame may no longer have been actively covert; her network was still viable. And with her outing, that network was put in jeopardy.

    It really doesn’t matter to me WHO was ultimately responsible for that outing. What matters to me is that she was outed and a network was put in danger because of it. Even if that outing doesn’t turn out to be against the law, is was seriously STUPID.

    Stupidity doesn’t belong to either party exclusively. Both have their fair share.

  5. 5.

    Stormy70

    July 10, 2005 at 12:01 pm

    She sure didn’t act like a covert op when she sent her husband on a CIA trip. You don’t think that foreign governments would not know his entire background by the time he arrived. It was no secret he married to her. She outed herself with her move to send her husband (a partisan hack) on a sensitive mission. She sounds like the crappiest spy in the world, if that is what she truly was previously. What spy allows their spouse to write a flamethrowing oped about the administration in the NYT? Also, what kind of credible spy lets him lie in his oped, considering she would have had access to his original report, which contradicted his lying oped? No wonder the CIA sucked in the nineties, if stellar “agents” like her were running around playing spies.

  6. 6.

    Rick

    July 10, 2005 at 12:09 pm

    Stormy,

    You’re on fire!

    Cordially…

  7. 7.

    Tim F

    July 10, 2005 at 12:10 pm

    Tim was dishing out snark. Meanwhile stormy sends out her daily dispatch from some other planet.

  8. 8.

    Halffasthero

    July 10, 2005 at 12:29 pm

    Stormy, don’t post so damned loudly. I have a serious hangover. Last night was Summit ale and liquid cocaine night while listening to a friend bather on endlessly about an argument with his girlfriend, blah blah blah.

    I am feelin rather apolitical today and don’t have an opinion one way or the other. Even about that scumbag, Rove.

    Carry on, quietly.

  9. 9.

    Stormy70

    July 10, 2005 at 12:33 pm

    I live on Planet Reality, not Planet Reality-based. Reality-based is what they have to classify reality shows now because they use writers to make crap up, much like the reality-based community.

    Rick – don’t blow my “double super secret background”, or I will have to put you on double super secret probation!

    Cooper has to be an idiot to write that phrase down in an email. Journalism is reaching the bottom of the barrel.

  10. 10.

    Stormy70

    July 10, 2005 at 12:36 pm

    Halfasthero – Ok, I’m done now. I slept in, so I have lots of energy. :) Apolitical gene kicking in in T minus 5-4-3-2-1

    Go Go!

  11. 11.

    CaseyL

    July 10, 2005 at 12:38 pm

    Sorry, kids, wrong on all counts.

    1. The CIA knows who its covert ops are. The CIA asked for the investigation of Plame’s outing on the basis that she was a covert op. Therefore, she was a covert op. “Covert op” doesn’t mean someone with a false identity living a false life: that’s what’s known as an “agent in place” or a “mole.” Covert ops can, and do, have what seem to be ordinary jobs under their own names – but their employer may be a front for their work, as Plame’s was, and their work might not be what their job title says it is. Hindrocket/Rush/LGF, whoever you’re getting your “intelligence agency info” from, know about as much about the subject as I do about Han-era epic poetry.

    2. Wilson is not a “leftist liar.” He’s a career diplomat who worked for GOP as well as Dem Administrations, and he’s highly regarded as a tough professional. He flipped off Saddam Hussein face to face and lived to tell the tale: that’s more than you, Hindrocket/Rush/LGF, and even Bush the Lesser can say. He also has expertise in the very area that he was sent to Niger to investigate.

    3. What did he lie about, exactly? He said Niger was not selling Saddam yellowcake; he said the yellowcake charge in the SOU was a lie: these are true and accurate statements. He said Bush was selling a war with Iraq based on false charges and discredited intelligence: are you seriously suggesting he was wrong about that?

    4. I don’t understand at all why “letting” her husband publish an op-ed means she’s not a covert op. Joe Wilson has a career and established identity of his own. He had tried, repeatedly, to warn the Administration it was wrong about teh Niger yellowcake. When the Administration kept making the charge anyway, he knew they were lying about a serious matter of national security. Why should he have kept quiet? Is it your position that Presidents should lie about threats to national security? Is it your position that Presidents should be able to start wars based on lies? Is it your position that Presidents should be able to send soldiers off to kill and die on false pretences?

    Your obedience to the Party Line is touching. But the propaganda you’re pushing is long past its pull date.

    Keep it up, though. There’s something nostalgic about Party Faithful chanting discredited propaganda; it’s like listening to old Marxists-Leninists insisting there were no mass murders under Stalin.

  12. 12.

    Tim F

    July 10, 2005 at 12:39 pm

    Let’s call it ‘planet stormy’ and leave it at that.

    I’ve observed that on Planet Stormy you become ‘discredited’ the moment some online wingnut somewhere decided that he doesn’t like you. The second rule of Planet Stormy being, no internet rumor that serves the wingers will ever, under any circumstances, become discredited.

    So, wherever this talking point about Wilson ‘lying’ came from, it will never die. There is no standard of proof high enough to pass the filters on Planet Stormy.

  13. 13.

    Tim F

    July 10, 2005 at 12:41 pm

    Nice effort Casey. Won’t penetrate.

  14. 14.

    Sinequanon

    July 10, 2005 at 12:42 pm

    Folks, Plame did not send nor authorize her husband, Ambassador Wilson, to perform this investigation. She had nothing to do with it. Read some articles. It’s been all over the newspapers for over a year and was restated in various articles by Newsweek and others very recently… (there are even a couple links in this post for your edification)

    Christie ^5

    I’m not sure I understand how ANYONE, regardless of your political leanings can defend Karl Rove on this matter.

    WHY WOULD ROVE DO SUCH A THING?:
    Can you say

  15. 15.

    Christie S.

    July 10, 2005 at 12:43 pm

    I can’t and won’t comment on the credibility or effectiveness of Plame as an agent. I have no idea whether she was an idiot or an expert.

    My point was that whomever outed her as a ‘covert operative’ was stupid. It’s simply my not very informed opinion that outing agents is a stupid thing to do.

    Whatever. ::shrug:: YMMV

  16. 16.

    Stormy70

    July 10, 2005 at 12:45 pm

    The talking point came from the 9/11 commission, that wonderfully bipartisan stalwart of the left. Why do you think Wilson disappeared off the media radar after the commission released it’s report? He was discredited.

    Have to run along and play on Reality Planet now. It’s lunchtime.

  17. 17.

    Darrell

    July 10, 2005 at 1:05 pm

    Folks, Plame did not send nor authorize her husband, Ambassador Wilson, to perform this investigation. She had nothing to do with it.

    Helloooo, earth to ‘reality based’ community..From a bipartisan 9/11 Senate committee intelligence report. Washington Post:

    The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame “offered up” Wilson’s name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations saying her husband “has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.” The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said

    That would make Joseph Wilson, and all you lefties defending him, lying sacks of sh*t, would it not?

    Valerie Plame gave money to the Gore campaign and listed her employer as the CIA. Some ‘secret’ agent, huh? Wait, there’s more. From the linked WP article:

    The panel found that Wilson’s report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson’s assertions and even the government’s previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address.

    And this:

    The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because “the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.”

    Like I said, lying sacks of sh*t

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