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You are here: Home / Politics / Almost Forgot

Almost Forgot

by John Cole|  July 29, 200511:36 am| 41 Comments

This post is in: Politics

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Got done with my morning reads, and I was about to get to work when I realized I had forgotten to put up the Daily Plame Flame War Thread. No new stories in the WaPo or the NYT, so I had to go to the second stringers at the LA Times from several days ago:

Scandals metastasize. That is the pattern since Watergate. What starts out looking like a small, isolated incident gradually reveals itself to be part of a larger abuse of power. Meanwhile, an unraveling coverup adds new elements. Is that happening now with the scandal over White House leaks of the identity of a CIA agent?

Some folks say that as we learn more, the scandal is getting smaller, not larger. Valerie Plame was a CIA functionary commuting openly to agency headquarters, not a spy working behind enemy lines. The law against revealing the identities of intelligence agents is complicated and probably wasn’t broken in this case. And the story line gets muddier: Journalists may have revealed Plame’s identity to White House honchos.

We don’t buy it. However they came to learn about this juicy factoid, people in the Bush administration misused an intelligence secret to discredit a critic of its Iraq policy. And outing Plame, whether illegal or not, did harm to our national security. Plame may work in Langley, Va., but she worked with others who work in more dangerous locales. You only need to imagine how Republicans would have treated such a leak in the Clinton administration to dismiss their protestations that it’s all no big deal.

Now go play Whack a Mole with each other in the comments. BTW- what happened to Darrell?

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Reader Interactions

41Comments

  1. 1.

    Another Jeff

    July 29, 2005 at 11:38 am

    “BTW-what happened to Darrell?”

    Maybe he’s hanging out with his brother Larry and his other brother Darrell.

  2. 2.

    Steve

    July 29, 2005 at 11:46 am

    Bring back Ken Starr. Investigations are more fun when you get juicy leaks from the prosecutor’s office every day.

  3. 3.

    Mr Furious

    July 29, 2005 at 11:47 am

    Shhh… If you say his name he comes back to life.

  4. 4.

    ppGaz

    July 29, 2005 at 11:53 am

    Darrell is on sabbatical. DougJ is filling in as Temporary Village Idiot, and doing a damned fine job.

  5. 5.

    Paul L.

    July 29, 2005 at 12:10 pm

    From Media Research

    “Flash back seven years ago to the Lewinsky scandal, when the New Yorker ran an article attempting to discredit Linda Tripp by announcing that she had been arrested for shoplifting as a teenager, but hadn’t noted the arrest when she applied for a Pentagon security clearance (because the judge had expunged the arrest from her official record). Bill Clinton’s Pentagon spokesman, Kenneth Bacon, eventually confessed to leaking Tripp’s confidential personnel file to the New Yorker’s Clinton-friendly reporter Jane Mayer, but his “apology” could be described as less than contrite: “I’m sorry that I did not check with our lawyers or check with Linda Tripp’s lawyers about this,” he said at a May 21, 1998 briefing.

    But when the victim was an anti-Clinton whistleblower, the networks didn’t seem to care that a high-ranking government official had used an illegal leak (violating the Privacy Act) to a reporter in an effort to discredit a critic. From March 1998 to November 2003 (when Tripp was awarded $595,000 from the Defense Department), the ABC, CBS and NBC morning and evening shows ran just 13 stories on Clinton’s “Leakgate” over five-and-a-half years. Much of the coverage was downright hostile to Tripp, not those who violated her privacy. (See box.)

    The media’s outrage over the supposed campaign to discredit Joe Wilson would seem a lot less contrived if they had shown the slightest bit of sympathy when Team Clinton used illegal leaks to malign Linda Tripp.”

  6. 6.

    Luddite

    July 29, 2005 at 12:14 pm

    “Darrell is on sabbatical. DougJ is filling in as Temporary Village Idiot, and doing a damned fine job”.

    This is the “Post of the Day” here on BJ! Thanks. :-)

  7. 7.

    Mark

    July 29, 2005 at 12:18 pm

    Paul L.-

    Two wrongs don’t a right make. Any way you slice it, Bush’s people did a bad thing. Bringing up Clinton and playing the Moral Relativism Game only show you got no defense of your boy Rove.

    He used a CIA operative as a political pawn. He thinks attacking a critic’s wife is “fair game”. Regardless of the law, Rove is scum. Bush defends scum, therefore is scum himself.

    Hey right-wingers! Any defenses that don’t involve attacking Wilson or Clinton?

  8. 8.

    Steve

    July 29, 2005 at 12:30 pm

    Complaints that the media covers scandal X more closely than it covers scandal Y are always yawners, because you can always find a way to whine about media coverage.

    For example, maybe the leak of Linda Tripp’s juvenile arrest record didn’t get as much attention as the leak of a covert CIA operative’s identity. (Both are wrong, but uh, you would have to be a real Bushbot not to get that the latter is much more serious.) But of course, the Linda Tripp story was just one small footnote in the midst of a much greater scandal. At a time when everyone was obsessing over details of the President’s sex life, is it really that shocking that the Washington Post didn’t routinely run front-page stories updating us on the leak of Linda Tripp’s juvenile record?

  9. 9.

    ppGaz

    July 29, 2005 at 12:32 pm

    Any defenses that don’t involve attacking Wilson or Clinton?

    Well, they always have “The world is better off without Saddam.”

    I’m waiting for them to come forth with “No controlling legal authority,” but they need to get it out before the indictments hit the papers.

  10. 10.

    Mike S

    July 29, 2005 at 12:35 pm

    But when the victim was an anti-Clinton whistleblower, the networks didn’t seem to care that a high-ranking government official had used an illegal leak (violating the Privacy Act) to a reporter in an effort to discredit a critic.

    Right. Some A-hole, during the Clenis term, violated the “privacy act” by exposing a teenaged shoplifting charge.

    A couple to a few A-holes, during President Bush’s first term, violated an act to be determined by exposing a CIA operative.

    I don’t even think “moral relativism” fits the boneheadedness of that comment.

  11. 11.

    Scott W. Somerville

    July 29, 2005 at 12:42 pm

    I must admit that I’m trolling the DU pages waiting for the moonbats to hit that horrible moment when they realize that salvation will NOT be coming in the form of seeing Rove frog-marched off in handcuffs. It’s a clear case of “schadenfreude,” that guilty pleasure we get from watching other people’s pain.

    Of course, the Kos crowd and DU aren’t feeling the pain yet. But some of them HAVE to be wondering if maybe the other shoe isn’t going to drop… they just don’t dare admit it in public. Such heresy would be savagely and instantly punished.

    Isn’t the “reality-based community” fun to watch?

  12. 12.

    Mark

    July 29, 2005 at 12:59 pm

    Mr. Scott W. Somerville, III, esq., etc.-

    Do you realize that aside from somewhat higher diction, your post above is nothing more than a child’s taunt of “neener neener neeeener!”

    Pathetic.

    Still waiting for someone to come to Rove’s (and Bush’s) defense…anyone…anyone?

  13. 13.

    Steve

    July 29, 2005 at 1:02 pm

    Is that the kind of stuff they teach in home schools these days?

  14. 14.

    Mark

    July 29, 2005 at 1:04 pm

    P.S.- I clicked Mr. Somerville’s link above…wtf is the “Home School Legal Defense Association”?

    It sure sounds like a legal activist group that attacks public education. Please correct me if I’m wrong.

  15. 15.

    Mike S

    July 29, 2005 at 1:13 pm

    wtf is the “Home School Legal Defense Association”?

    Hard to say. The page just keeps loading with nothing on it. The same could probably be said for Scott’s brain.

  16. 16.

    Paul L.

    July 29, 2005 at 1:22 pm

    Mark I was pointing out the hypocrisy of the press ( in this case the LA times.)

    “Any way you slice it, Bush’s people did a bad thing.”
    It appears Karl Rove did not break the law. Where as Kenneth Bacon did.
    I’ll await the results of the investigation before I decide if Bush/Rove is guilty or not.

    However, it is currently my belief is that Mrs. Wilson outed herself when she lobbied for her husband to go to Niger.

    “Any defenses that don’t involve attacking Wilson or Clinton?”
    So pointing out hypocrisy or showing them to be not credible is attacking or is it considered attacking if I criticize someone you support/agree with?
    Can I use the same defence if someone compares Plamegate to Watergate like the LA Times did?
    Any defenses that don’t involve attacking Nixon.

  17. 17.

    mac Buckets

    July 29, 2005 at 1:32 pm

    Two wrongs don’t a right make. Any way you slice it, Bush’s people did a bad thing. Bringing up Clinton and playing the Moral Relativism Game only show you got no defense of your boy Rove.

    Hey, Mark, do you realize that aside from somewhat higher diction, your post above is nothing more than a child’s taunt of “neener neener neeeener!” Pathetic.

    Couldn’t resist that. Sorry.

    Hey right-wingers! Any defenses that don’t involve attacking Wilson or Clinton?

    I don’t think he was attempting a defense of Rove. He was pointing out hypocrisy by the media and the left. It’s OK to reference Clinton if he’s trying to show that Democrats and Big Media give each other a free pass. Who else could he bring up…Jimmy Carter?

  18. 18.

    Mike S

    July 29, 2005 at 1:32 pm

    It appears Karl Rove did not break the law.

    Oh please. We have no idea whether Rove did or did not break the law. It “appears” to me that he did but I don’t know either. But I do know that everytime I see the description “lawyers familiar with…” or “lawyers briefed…” or any other such thing, I am reading Luskins latest spin.

    In a few months one side or the other will look spectacularly stupid, that’s about the only thing I am sure of.

  19. 19.

    mac Buckets

    July 29, 2005 at 1:33 pm

    Sorry for jumping in there, Paul. Didn’t see yours.

  20. 20.

    Mike S

    July 29, 2005 at 1:37 pm

    He was pointing out hypocrisy by the media and the left. It’s OK to reference Clinton if he’s trying to show that Democrats and Big Media give each other a free pass.

    Heh. I am surprised that anyone could claim that Clinton got a free pass by the media. Unless you slept through the late 90’s and missed the “all Monica, all the time” coverage.

  21. 21.

    Tom

    July 29, 2005 at 1:39 pm

    The HSLDA is a group that started in the 80s to help homeschoolers fight legal challenges to their right to homeschool. While they were always a right-wing, Christian organization, in the past few years, their focus has expanded from homeschooling to include most of the typical anti-gay, right-wing talking points.

    They started Patrick Henry College, which is a far-right liberal arts school, populated largely by homeschoolers, which has a goal of eventually taking over the government for Christ.

  22. 22.

    Steve

    July 29, 2005 at 1:55 pm

    The irony is that the Supreme Court decision which prohibited government from making public school mandatory (in the sense that you can send your kid to private school instead) is in the same “substantive due process” line of cases as Roe v. Wade, Griswold v. Connecticut, and other decisions that may not be very popular among the home-schooling crowd.

  23. 23.

    Veeshir

    July 29, 2005 at 1:56 pm

    I’ll jump in, the media totally defended Clinton throughout.
    They made it “all about sex”.
    They ignored the Gore/Chyrnomyrdin deal where Clinton had Gore make a deal that broke a law Gore sponsored while a senator. This was the only story I ever saw in either the NY Times, Wash Post, LA Times, ABCCBSNBCCNN about about them possibly committing treason.

    They never even speculated on the curious timing of his two missile attacks on Iraq and Sudan. They never even quibbled about his launching missiles over Pakistan without telling them until too late and attacking a sovereign nation (Afghanistan and Sudan).

    They’re pretty much saying now that the reason NoKo is so close to having/getting nukes is Bush, nevermind the deal that Carter made and Clinton kept but that poofy-haired maniac didn’t.

    They attacked everybody who attacked Clinton. What were they calling Drudge? They all knew the same story but it was their golden boy so…

    The media covered for Clinton so much it was ridiculous. I’ll repeat, the media framed the whole Lewinsky farce as “Just about Sex”. It wasn’t just about sex, it was about perjury in a trial which proceeded under a law that Clinton signed to great fanfare.

    As a proud Clinton-hater one of the things that infuriated me the most was the major media blatantly ignoring major stories that hurt Clinton. If there was a blogosphere in 1995 and 1996 there would have been no second Clinton presidency as those stories wouldn’t have been hidden.

  24. 24.

    Mike S

    July 29, 2005 at 2:02 pm

    The media covered for Clinton so much it was ridiculous

    Thanks for the laugh. I had no idea that the countless alternate reality sci fi shows were based on truth.

  25. 25.

    ppGaz

    July 29, 2005 at 2:05 pm

    I’ll jump in, the media totally defended Clinton throughout.

    Actually, the press was beating on Clinton all the time. They did the same thing to Ronald Reagan, IIRC. In neither case did it have any lasting effect. Both of these grotesquely flawed men were popular and able to survive their own stupidities.

    Now you have Bush, another grotesquely flawed specimen, and the press appears to have gone to sleep. Up until recently. Now that the people seem to be questioning the sainthood of the smirking chimp, some journalists are actually starting to act like journalists.

  26. 26.

    Lee

    July 29, 2005 at 2:28 pm

    The only way I think people can claim that the press covered for Clinton with a straight face is because they are too young to have been aware of the press and are just reading off the talking points. Or maybe they are so old their long-term memory is shot.

    Either way people without diminished cognitive abilities should remember the bar-b-queing that Clinton got in the press.

  27. 27.

    Mark

    July 29, 2005 at 4:15 pm

    Damn, well this thread seems to be all about Clinton now, not Plamegate. Ugh.

    Mac buckets- if cutting and pasting my own words, followed by my own snark makes you feel self-important, go for it.

    I give up, nobody defending Rove here. Hard to defend the indefensible, I suppose. And yes, I say that even *if* no crime was committed.

  28. 28.

    Mark

    July 29, 2005 at 4:19 pm

    I can’t resist…

    Sorry Veeshir, you’ll get no sympathy here. Clinton was assailed for years, and the reason why you wingers are still foaming at the mouth about it can be summed up as follows:

    1. he got reelected,

    2. he left office more popular than Reagan, and

    3. he was never indicted for a crime.

  29. 29.

    BCT

    July 29, 2005 at 4:27 pm

    PaulL. –

    I wish they would have gone after Kenneth Bacon’s leak about Tripp. Then they would have had to go after Starr and associates’ illegal, and frequently fabricated, leaks about Clinton.

    Who am I kidding? They’d never go after Starr.

    Bacon’s leak did make a splash in the press, it just didn’t change anything That’s because Starr and the elves, were leaking everything so fast that leaks weren’t a scandal. Or have you forgotten all those anonomous sourced stories about Peyronie’s disease.

  30. 30.

    Stormy70

    July 29, 2005 at 7:46 pm

    Plamed out.

  31. 31.

    Bob

    July 29, 2005 at 8:17 pm

    Kevin Bacon connected to Kenneth Starr?

  32. 32.

    DougJ

    July 29, 2005 at 9:01 pm

    A couple points, libs:

    (1) NO CRIME WAS COMMITTED. There is no law against outing desk jockeys. Otherwise, the people who discovered Anderson Cooper was gay would all be in jail.

    (2) Even if someone is somehow convicted, they will certainly be pardoned ASAP.

    Why Fitz has wasted two years on this, I’ll never know. But I can’t wait until he comes out with his report exonerating the Bush administration.

  33. 33.

    Sojourner

    July 29, 2005 at 9:26 pm

    Why Fitz has wasted two years on this, I’ll never know.

    Hey Dougie, when did you decide that national security was optional?

  34. 34.

    DougJ

    July 29, 2005 at 9:28 pm

    Come on, Sojourner, you can do better than that.

    I’m starting to worry that you’ve gone soft on me since we bounded over mescal and hot-cross buns.

  35. 35.

    DougJ

    July 29, 2005 at 9:28 pm

    “bounded” should have been “bonded”

  36. 36.

    Sojourner

    July 29, 2005 at 9:33 pm

    I’m starting to worry that you’ve gone soft on me since we bounded over mescal and hot-cross buns.

    Not as soft as you’ve gone on national security.

  37. 37.

    DougJ

    July 29, 2005 at 9:35 pm

    “Not as soft as you’ve gone on national security.”

    Weak stuff. Howard Dean and Paul Hackett would be ashamed of you.

  38. 38.

    Sojourner

    July 29, 2005 at 10:00 pm

    Weak stuff. Howard Dean and Paul Hackett would be ashamed of you.

    This is starting to get boring.

  39. 39.

    ppGaz

    July 30, 2005 at 12:17 am

    There is no law against outing desk jockeys.

    The covert status of an agent is not dependent upon assignment or post. It’s a designation that is under the purview of the agency.

    That ground has been covered many times. You are wrong.

    STFU.

  40. 40.

    Scott W. Somerville

    August 1, 2005 at 10:49 am

    Yes, I must admit that my last comment didn’t have a lot of substance beyond a good “Neener neener neener.” I’ve examined my conscience, and think that was a lapse. Sorry about that.

    On the other hand, I keep reading the papers to see if the attack on Rove is picking up speed or losing steam. By my latest count, “Rovegate” is going nowhere. Today’s piece by Novak may whip up some new interest, but it hardly adds to the case against Rove.

    So… is the “reality-based community” still in touch with reality in their hopes that Rove will be the undoing of Bush, who will be impeached by the same Republican-dominated House that just gave us CAFTA, an Energy Bill, the new NRA Protection Act of 2005, and all the other goodies that Republicans have been wanting for years?

  41. 41.

    Veeshir

    August 2, 2005 at 3:02 pm

    That ground has been covered many times. You are wrong.

    Yes it has, but he isn’t.
    If somebody drives in the front gate at the CIA headquarters every day they are not undercover. I’m not exactly sure how you can not understand that. Undercover CIA agents don’t advertise their CIAness by entering the front gate. I mean, to pretend otherwise is just silly.
    CIA agents are ghosts in the real world, but they are not all undercover.
    I sold a car to two CIA agents and their credit reports returned absolutely nothing. Nada. They didn’t exist. Were they undercover? I doubt it, they told me they worked there. If they were undercover, they were pretty stupid to tell a car salesman they worked there. When I saw the credit report I was depressed because usually adults with no credit history don’t get car loans very easily, but the finance director told me that was standard for CIA agents. If these two had been undercover they would have told me they worked for State or something else.

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