For the Plame afficionados, Tom Maguire has the latest flap/incident regarding Joseph Wilson and his wife.
Of course, certain partisans will immediately conclude that Wilson’s wife was not covert, others will immediately conclude the General is a liar. I am betting political affiliation has an impact on which each side’s decision.
Krista
Quick question, though…why would the General wait two years to come out with this?
Tim F.
Seems as though those two could have saved Libby and everybody else a lot of trouble if they’d come out while, say, the Grand Jury was still interviewing witnesses. Let them come forward under oath.
Geek, Esq.
I remain in that portion of the population wishes Joe Wilson would disappear from the national debate.
Let the criminal investigation continue, but for gawd’s sake let Joe Wilson hang out with Cindy Sheehan so we can put a big “Ignore” sign over both of them.
DougJ
Hey, I just linked to this. As I predicted, Maguire would repeat the right-wing lies!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
DougJ
This is exciting stuff. I hope everyone watches closely while this new smear campaign unfolds.
DougJ
The guy is scum. Sure, Republicans hailed him as hero in Gulf War I, but he said that vice-president sent him on the trip to Niger when the reality was that the vice-president asked the CIA to send someone to Niger and the CIA sent him.
He’s lying scum. Send him to Gitmo with Aaron Broussard! Oh, if only that Jefferson Parrish weren’t so all-powerful, we could be water boarding Aaron Broussard right now. Freedom is on the march.
Steve
Let’s say, hypothetically, that the allegations are true. I hardly think it would make a difference in the legal proceedings.
There is no rule that says if classified information is privately shared with one person who isn’t supposed to know it, it instantly becomes public domain and everyone is free to broadcast it whether or not they even know about the private communication. That would be quite silly.
In any event, I think it’s extremely implausible that Joe Wilson, who was a Republican before he became opposed to the neo-con agenda, went blurting out this information to a couple of warhawks at Fox News. These were exactly the people whose agenda he was opposing.
DougJ
It is very common for husbands of CIA agents with unofficial cover to tell total strangers that their wives are CIA agents.
Steve S
This still sounds a lot like the Swiftboat allegations.
Veeshir
From what I’ve seen of both of them, I would believe Vallely long before Wilson.
DougJ
George Bush recently said that the earth was flat. Of course, certain partisans will immediately conclude that this proves that evolution is a fraud, others will immediately conclude the George W Bush is a liar. I am betting political affiliation has an impact on which each side’s decision.
ppGaz
World Net Daily, for crissakes. A bunch that has published articles questioning whether a Boeing 757 actually struck the Pentagon on 9-11.
Never under any conditions would I believe anything published in WND. Period.
Where’s the Plane?
Bob In Pacifica
General Vallely says in his own bio:
“Paul E. Vallely retired in 1991… was commissioned in the Army in 1961 serving a distinguishing career of 32 years in the Army… He has served on US security assistance missions on civilian-military relations to Europe, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Indonesia and Central America with in-country experience in Indonesia, Columbia, El Salvador, Panama, Honduras and Guatemala.”
Let us reflect on “in-country experience” of the “civilian-military” kind in Indonesia (the murder of 250,000 to a million during the Suharto coup, aided by the U.S. government), El Salvador (brutal murderous civil war with dead squads, directed by the U.S. government), Panama (cooptation of Torrijos, Noriega, drug-smuggling, then the coup directed by the U.S. government), Honduras (more death squads directed by the U.S. government), Guatemala (deaths squads yet again, directed by the U.S. government).
Before he shares with us his secret conversations with Joseph Wilson, perhaps he could tell us what he did during his tours overseas.
My guess is that the good general has lied many, many times as to what he and his underlings were up to in his many postings. It would be interesting to see the dates of his overseas assignments. It sounds like he was in the dirty wars division and probably worked in a number of black ops during his time overseas. Now he’s collecting a pension and continuing the good war at his new assignment. I’d love to see his ass on the witness stand.
Nikki
I hope Fitzgerald calls both of them before a grand jury.
RonB
I think that this story is eventually going to shift to just where the White House’s people get off using classified documents to discredit political enemies, not so much whether “cover was blown”. Regardless of Plame’s status at the time of the stories, to have your wife’s job publicized as a result of using classified information to do so must be unnerving, and certainly illegal in some manner.
I watched Wilson on CNN, and even he seemed to admit that there may not have been any Crime with a capital C committed, but he definitely is adamant that the government has no right to do this to people.
Slide
Cole:
Fitzgerald did not strike me as a partisan and he said that no one outside of the intelligence community knew of Ms. Plame’s occupation with the CIA (covert or not). Not her neighbors. Not her friends. But we are to believe Wilson told total strangers, associated with Fox News no less, this information? No, you don’t have to be partisan to believe that, you have to be delusional.
Oh, and one other question. When everyone was discussing Fitzgerald’s investigators talking to the Wilson neighbors to determine if they knew about her CIA affiliation, did these individuals contact his office to offer their very very relevant information? If not, why not?
Arf
You bet wrong. Some of us live in the middle and are quite skilled at avoiding being squished like a grape. My instinct is that the general is a liar – why else would it take two years for this to come out? The general is also an eedjit – he will now find himself the target of Wilson’s lawyer or Fitzpatrick himself.
Frank
Why do you continue to refer people to Tom Maguire given his astonishing ignorance regarding basic facts of the case. (For example he was completely unaware that the CIA asked Robert Novak not to publish Plame’s identity.
jill
I don’t believe the general, neither should you. Smarten up, timing is everything.