Libertarian Leanings

Power Line Remembers...

Valerie Plame.  Valerie Plame, for those who may not remember, is the former CIA employee who was supposedly "outed" by the Bush White House in retaliation for a New York Times op ed by her husband, Joseph C. Wilson. 

When George Bush said in a State of the Union address that Saddam Hussein had been trying to acquire large quantities of uranium from Africa, Wilson countered in his editorial that in his opinion the African country of Niger could not possibly have gotten away with selling uranium to Iraq.  Therefore George Bush was lying. 

The couple have been glorified by Hollywood, but the glory isn't sticking so well.

“Fair Game” starred Naomi Watts and Sean Penn. It grossed $9.4MM domestically, against a production budget of $22MM. Fewer Americans than anticipated, it seems, wanted to view the sweeping drama of a couple of D.C. mediocrities sipping poorly selected wine at the Four Seasons Georgetown and falling backwards into a glorious victimhood.

As you may or may not remember, it was not the Bush White House who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame.  A higher up State Department official, Richard Armitage, was the leaker.  I don't think I ever knew exactly why, but he revealed to the late Robert Novak that Wilson's wife had helped to arrange the trip her husband made to Africa upon which he based his Times op ed.  Armed with that information Novak looked up the double top secret name of Wilson's wife in "Who's Who in America" and published it in a story of his own about Wilson's trip and his editorial.  A witch hunt ensued.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald conducted a grand jury inquisition into possible violations of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.  Fitzgerald learned early in the investigation that it was Richard Armitage who revealed the identity of CIA "operative" Valerie Plame, but he concluded that no crime had been committed.  Still, he kept the investigation going until he finally netted Scooter Libby, Vice President Richard Cheney's chief of staff, for lying. 

In grand jury testimony Libby said he thought he had first heard of Valerie Plame from the late Tim Russert of Meet the Press fame.  He later amended his testimony, based on notes he had showing that he must have heard her name earlier, but he said hadn't recalled the notes, nor the meetings in which they were made.  Patrick Fitzgerald argued that he did too recall them.  Libby was convicted of lying.  Lying about a non-crime, actually. 

So why does the subject of Valerie Plame resurface?  Just recently another agent — this time a real honest to god covert agent — was outed.  But this time, news outfits tripped all over themselves celebrating an Obama administration intelligence coup.

WASHINGTON — The suicide bomber dispatched by the Yemen branch of Al Qaeda last month to blow up a United States-bound airliner was actually an intelligence agent for Saudi Arabia who infiltrated the terrorist group and volunteered for the mission, American and foreign officials said Tuesday.

In an extraordinary intelligence coup, the double agent left Yemen last month, traveling by way of the United Arab Emirates, and delivered both the innovative bomb designed for his aviation attack and inside information on the group’s leaders, locations, methods and plans to the Central Intelligence Agency, Saudi intelligence and allied foreign intelligence agencies.

Officials said the agent, whose identity they would not disclose, works for the Saudi intelligence service, which has cooperated closely with the C.I.A. for several years against the terrorist group in Yemen.

Apparently there are a couple of problems with that narrative. 

As the story broke, the establishment media was more than happy to attribute the intelligence coup to the CIA and the Obama administration, describing the mole as a “CIA informant.”

It turns out that wasn’t true. The double-agent hadn’t been recruited and placed by the CIA, but by British intelligence, who also managed the operation. In fact, the Americans had only recently been made aware of the joint British-Saudi effort.

The leaks about the operation from the American side have infuriated British intelligence officials, who had hoped to continue the operation. The leaks not only scuttled the mission but put the life of the asset in jeopardy. Even CIA officials, joining their MI5 and MI6 counterparts, were describing the leaks as “despicable,” attributing them to the Obama administration.

Compare press coverage of this blown cover to the trumped up case over Valerie Plame, a CIA employee who commuted to an office at CIA headquarters in Langley every day, and whose name was listed in "Who's Who in America."  Ms. Plame, who was in no way endangered by publication of Novak's story, became a media celebrity, victim of an imagined retaliatory leak from the Bush White House. 

This time, though, the life of a British agent is threatened, opportunities for more intelligence have been thrown away, and from all outward appearances it's because of the Obama administration's compulsion to score political points wherever they may be had.  And this time the press is too busy touting Obama's supposed "evolution" on gay marriage to report on anything else.

Hillary hires the Wilsons

In a dramatic appeal to the lunatic left, the Hillary Clinton campaign has hired Joe Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame.  Joe immediately went to work burnishing Hillary's anti-war credentials, by claiming the Bush Administration misled her into voting in favor of military action against Saddam Hussein.

"The administration lied in order to secure support for its war of choice, including cooking the intelligence and misleading Congress about the intent of the authorization," Mr. Wilson continued. "Senator Clinton's position, stated in her floor speech, was in favor of allowing the United Nations weapons inspectors to complete their mission and to build a broad international coalition. Bush rejected her path."

Ambassador Joe, you may recall, had determined -- or maybe concluded is a better word -- actually, speculated would be most accurate -- OK, he made it up -- that the Bush Administration twisted the intelligence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.  So, now here he is on board with the Hillary campaign to help her match Obama's anti-war fervor.  Come general election time this may turn into a handicap.

This is the same Senator Clinton who spoke extensively of the threat posed by Saddam Hussein and his WMD, who endorsed the invasion as a way to remove that threat, whose husband endorsed the invasion, and who supported the war for years afterward until it began to jeopardize her chances of winning the Democratic nomination...

As for Mr. Wilson, he was last seen campaigning for a Democratic Presidential hopeful for a brief period in 2004. John Kerry's campaign dumped him as a spokesman that summer after the Senate Intelligence Committee found Mr. Wilson had lied in claiming his wife had played no role in sending him to Niger to investigate whether Saddam was seeking to acquire uranium yellowcake. The same bipartisan report found that Mr. Wilson's trip, which he had advertised in a splashy New York Times op-ed, had produced no information of any intelligence value.

So in order to blunt Mr. Obama's attacks over Iraq, Mrs. Clinton has resorted to relying on the word of someone whose antiwar inventions were too embarrassing even for the Kerry campaign.

If Hillary is still on the campaign trail after August, it's likely by then she will have cut her ties with the Joe and Val show, as did the Kerry campaign in 2004.  While their antics may fire up the loons on the left, reaction from the center-right may not be so cordial.  Some of us would take delight in the public airing that a general election campaign might give to the Wilson-Plame story.  But I don't see that ever happening.

Did Matt Cooper admit to perjury?

The net is all abuzz with the news that Matt Cooper "stopped short" of calling Karl Rove a liar on Meet the Press yesterday.  Lefty Blogs have it that Cooper is now accusing Rove of leaking the identity of Valerie Plame.  "Matt Cooper Says Rove DID Leak Valerie Plame’s Identity To Him," screams CrooksandLiars.com who quote him this way.

Gregory: Matt Cooper, let’s pick up on an aspect of the interview with, with Karl Rove having to do with the leak case, the CIA leak case, that you were part of as well. And something’s that’s very interesting, he, he went out of his way to say, “I would not have been a confirming source on this kind of information” and taking issue with, with Novak’s testimony in his column that he knew who Valerie Plame was. He said he would never confirm that information. That’s different from your experience with him.

Cooper: Yeah, I, I think he was dissembling, to put it charitably. Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame’s identity on July 11^th, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson was in the news that week. I didn’t know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD. I mean, to imply that he didn’t know about it or that this was all the leak…

So what actually did Rove say on Meet The Press?  Here is a brief excerpt.  It's from page three.

MR. GREGORY:  Were you a confirming source for Robert Novak?

MR. ROVE:  No.  And I, I remember it slightly differently.  I remember saying, “I’ve heard that, too.” Let, let me say this.  There is a civil lawsuit filed by Mr. Wilson and Ms. Plame.  It has been tossed out at the district court level.  They’ve announced their intention to appeal.  I think it is better that I not add anything beyond what is already in the public record until that suit is resolved.  But, as I’m—my recollection is that I said, “I heard that, too.” We—I would point you to...

MR. GREGORY:  Where, where had you heard that?

MR. ROVE:  You’ll have to wait.

MR. GREGORY:  But that’s an important distinction, because the—you—“I heard that, too,” suggests that you heard it from somebody else rather than knowing it yourself.

MR. ROVE:  That’s correct.

MR. GREGORY:  But he, he took those notes down just as you said them.

MR. ROVE:  Well, but I—my recollection is, “I’ve heard that, too.” So—but the point is, if, if, if a journalist had said to me, “I’d like you to confirm this,” my answer would have been, “I can’t.  I don’t know.  I’ve heard that, too.”

MR. GREGORY:  It, it, it’s important to point out that the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, declined to bring any criminal charges against you.  But given the president’s emphatic statement about getting to the bottom of this, were you ever held to account by the president for what you did?

MR. ROVE:  You know, I acted in an appropriate manner, made all the appropriate individuals aware of, of, of my contact.  I met with the FBI right at the beginning of this, told them everything.  You’re right, the special prosecutor declined to take any action at all.  I was never a target.  In fact, it’s—what’s interesting to me is that the person who did give the name, Richard Armitage, we found out at the end of the process, did, did have the conversation with Novak, took no action against him either.

MR. GREGORY:  Was it an inappropriate investigation?

MR. ROVE:  It’s entirely appropriate to look into these kind of things, sure.

MR. GREGORY:  Should Armitage have come forward sooner, do you think, to the administration?

MR. ROVE:  That’s—that was his decision, and those are the people who were advising him.  That’s fine.

MR. GREGORY:  The president seemed frustrated that he didn’t.

MR. ROVE:  I, I’m, I’m going to leave it there.

MR. GREGORY:  Do you think you owe Valerie Plame an apology?

MR. ROVE:  No.

MR. GREGORY:  You do not?

MR. ROVE:  No.

MR. GREGORY:  You considered her fair game in this debate?

MR. ROVE:  No.  And you know what?  Fair game, that wasn’t my phrase.  That’s a phrase of a journalist.  In fact, a colleague of yours.

MR. GREGORY:  Was she an appropriate target in this debate?

MR. ROVE:  No.

MR. GREGORY:  She was not.

MR. ROVE:  No.  Look, her husband wrote a op-ed that we now know by—in a statement issued on July 11^th by the director of the CIA, backed by a report by the Senate Select Intelligence Committee, was misleading and inaccurate. The vice president, the White House and the director of the CIA did not send Mr. Wilson to Africa to look into—to the question of uranium cake from Niger to Iraq.  We also know that he did—he came—the information he came back with was not dispositive, was not conclusive, did not disprove the British intelligence finding that the Iraqis had attempted to acquire uranium cake. In fact, we now know that he brought back information not disclosed in his article that added to the belief, that confirmed the British intelligence report that the Iraqis had attempted to acquire uranium cake.  He brought back information about a previously unknown contact where the Iraqis, working through a third party, attempted to bring and did bring to Niger a trade delegation.  And since the only thing Niger had to sell was uranium cake that was on a U.N.  sanctions list, they declined to do any business.  He brought back information that affirmed the, the British intelligence report.  After this all came out, the British did a study, did a review, appointed a commission to review their intelligence finding and came back and confirmed that they stood by their original assessment that, that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium yellow cake from Niger in—and exactly as was in the president’s speech.

But what did Cooper say to the grand jury that was investigating that leak?  We may never know, but we know what he said he said to the GJ.  The following is from a reprint of his Time magazine article of the Monday, July 25, 2005 Issue.

Much of my grand jury session revolved around my notes and my e-mails. (Those e-mails and notes were given to the special counsel when Time Inc., over my objections, complied with a court order.) Owing to my typing, some words were a jumble. For instance, I wrote "don't get too war out on Wilson," when I clearly meant "far out." There were some words in my notes that I could not account for--at one point they read, "...notable..." I didn't know if that was Rove's word or mine, and one grand juror asked if it might mean "not able," as in "Wilson was not an able person." I said that was possible, but I just didn't recall that. The notes, and my subsequent e-mails, go on to indicate that Rove told me material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission and his findings.

    As for Wilson's wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak's column or Googled her, I can't recall which. Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the "agency"--by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. Rove added that she worked on "WMD" (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction) issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson.

Back in the day, Cooper was "certain Rove never used her name."  MacRanger wonders Cooper perjured himself. 

In fact Matt Cooper himself told Fitzgerald - under oath I might add - that Rove NEVER mentioned Valerie Plame to Cooper. Let’s also not forget who called who with the baited question.

If Cooper wants to change his story now then he needs to explain why he committed perjury then.

I doubt it.  Cooper's words on Meet the Press were obviously chosen very carefully:

Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame’s identity on July 11th, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson was in the news that week.  I didn’t know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD.

"...about Valerie Plame's identity..."  What does that mean?  It does not mean that Rove gave Cooper her name, but using the phrase "about Valerie Plame's identity" is certainly intended to create that impression.

Don't hold your breath - hold a press conference

According to Byron York, there is at least one congressman who has become a bit more curious over recent testimony Valerie Plame gave to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.  That's the one chaired by California Democrat Henry Waxman.  In denying that she had any role in the choice of her husband for the fact finding mission to Niger, she told a story about some junior officer who came to her very concerned and upset by a phone call from somebody in the Vice President's office she said, asking for information about a supposed sale of yellowcake uranium by Niger to Iraq.  Another officer passing by overheard and made the suggestion that Wilson make the trip.

Well.  My question is, why all the angst by the junior officer?  What's the big deal?  The V.P. asks a question, just do your job.  Go find the answer.  What's the matter, you don't like your job? 

But, that's not what has Representative Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia asking questions.  Congressman Westmoreland's problem is different.

Her testimony seemed to offer new insight into the beginnings of the Niger mission. But soon after Mrs. Wilson’s appearance, Missouri Republican Sen. Christopher Bond, vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, told National Review Online that Mrs. Wilson, in her interview with Senate investigators, never mentioned the young junior officer, the call from the vice president’s office, or the passing CIA official who suggested Joseph Wilson’s name.

“Friday [March 16] was the first time we have ever heard that story,” Sen. Bond said in a statement. “Obviously if we had, we would have included it in the report. If Ms. Wilson’s memory of events has improved and she would now like to change her testimony, I’m sure the committee staff would be happy to re-interview her.”

Well, the obvious thing to me is, it neatly explains how the memo Val wrote recommending her husband could have been dated a day before Cheney asked about the sale of yellowcake.  (I think Val reads JustOneMinute.)  Be that as it may, in keeping with what I suppose are congressional protocols, Congressman Westmoreland requested some transcripts from his committee chairman, Representative Henry Waxman.

In addition to asking for the transcript of Mrs. Wilson’s interview with Senate investigators, and the full text of her February 12, 2002, memo, Westmoreland submitted a question to Mrs. Wilson that could tell us more about that chance, why-don’t-we-send-Joe meeting with unnamed CIA colleagues. “List all the parties participating in the conversation you described in detail during the March 16, 2007 hearing,” Westmoreland asked Mrs. Wilson, “including, but not limited to, who told you there was a query from the Vice President’s office and who suggested your husband for the trip to Niger because of his expertise in Africa?”

The question now is whether chairman Waxman will be inclined to do anything about Westmoreland’s request. Other than place it into the official record of the hearing, he doesn’t have to do anything. But Westmoreland is hoping otherwise. “It is our understanding that no one is under any obligation to pass on our questions, and Mrs. Wilson is not obligated to answer them,” says Brian Robinson, Westmoreland’s deputy chief of staff. “That said, it is our hope and intent in doing this that she will be made aware of them, and that she will want to answer them.”

Well, let's not hold our collective breath waiting around for that to happen.  However, what Congressman Westmoreland can do is take a page from the Democrats' playbook.  In fact, the page is here.  It's a memo from the office of Senator Jay Rockefeller outlining the way to play politics with the this very same topic -- Niger and pre-war intelligence.  It says in part,

3) Prepare to launch an independent investigation when it becomes clear we have exhausted the opportunity to usefully collaborate with the majority. We can pull the trigger on an independent investigation at any time-- but we can only do so once. The best time to do so will probably be next year either:

A) After we have already released our additional views on an interim report -- thereby providing as many as three opportunities to make our case to the public: 1) additional views on the interim report; 2) announcement of our independent investigation; and 3) additional views on the final investigation; or

B) Once we identify solid leads the majority does not want to pursue. We could attract more coverage and have greater credibility in that context than one in which we simply launch an independent investigation based on principled but vague notions regarding the "use" of intelligence.

Substitute "the origins of that trip" in place of "the 'use' of intelligence", and keep asking for information.  Hold press conferences and continue to ask for information.  I'm sure Congressman Waxman will refuse to budge, but my sincere hope is that Congressman Westmoreland will also refuse to budge, and refuse to take no for an answer.  Then he can hold a press conference and ask why Waxman is stonewalling.  Won't that be fun!

Update:  Speaking of JustOneMinute, here is a characteristic Tom Maguire reaction to York's column:  "Why do the rest of us fear aging when clearly memory improves with time?"

Serving Oneida County

Three cheers for the Rome Sentinel! Hip Hip Hooray!  They may not be mainstream, but they are the press!

The Wilson/Plame/Libby episode may seem distant, but local readers should learn about it because it exposes low-level abuse as poisonous as the graffiti and petty crime that corrupted New York City in the early 1990s until people became fed up enough to do something about it. What you tolerate is what you live with. Three successive editorials will expose misbehavior: 1) the web of incompetence, 2) the web of deceit, and 3) the web of politics. The abuse will continue so long as you tolerate it.

Via Tom Maguire.

A tragedy

Details of Valerie Plame's tragic existence are revealed today in the Washington Post.  With her CIA cover blown by Bob Novak's July 2003 column, she has lived the past four years in a surreal world, but today she will speak out at a hearing of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.  Since her retirement from the CIA, Plame's life has been fraught with hardship:

Over the past year Plame has completed a book, "Fair Game," which netted her a seven-figure sum, although the book remains tied up in a CIA review process and its publication date is uncertain.

She and her husband have sold the movie rights for their life story to Warner Bros.

Earlier this week the couple closed the $1.8 million sale of their Washington house, which they purchased in 1998 for $735,000.

They have relocated to Santa Fe, N.M., buying a spacious adobe home with a mountain view and a reported $1.1 million mortgage.

Her and her husband's fame give them access to top politicians (including, last week, Sen. Hillary Clinton, with whom the couple had dinner) and Hollywood types.

In his book, Wilson described a dinner in Los Angeles where "Valerie found herself seated between Norman Lear and Warren Beatty..."

Said Valerie,

"My life is becoming more surreal every day."

Why, it's positively heartbreaking. 

According to the Post, Plame's goal in testifying is to dispel claims that she was not an undercover agent.  We can expect soft toss questions from majority members of the committee which is chaired by the undoubtedly sympathetic Henry Waxman.  Committee members from the Republican minority might be somewhat less sympathetic than Representative Waxman, and if they are permitted to interrogate Ms. Plame, a Rick Ballard column in American Thinker offers suggestions for some questions they might ask.

Since the CIA maintains an office which is responsible for contacts with the press, on what date did you report your May 2 and 3 contacts with Nicholas Kristof to that office?

Did you also inform that office of the nature of your contacts? Who did you speak to?

Inquiring minds would love to hear the answer to these and other questions.  For instance:  What credentials did husband Joe have to offer Nicholas Kristof in order to gain the credibility for such prominent exposure of his story?  You, perhaps?  I've been wondering for a long time now, what was the real reason for husband Joe's trip to Niger in 2002?

The trial of Scooter Libby

Best coverage of the trial of Scooter Libby may be found at JustOneMinute, where the legal analysis by JOM commenters provides a view into the case that you simply will not find anywhere else.  The following is the conclusion reached by one Azaghal, a former law enforcement officer and a JOM regular.

...the release of all 8 hours of Libby's testimony before the Grand Jury disclose the inordinate amount of time Fitzgerald spent grilling Libby about the declassification of the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) and when Libby talked to reporters about that. This is a clear indication that Fitzgerlad was fully aware that there was no hope for a violation of the IIPA, despite the outrageous statements he made to the trial jury. It is further apparent from the record that the CIA did not want the declassification of the NIE to take place quickly even though that left the Administration hanging out on a cliff, unable to respond to Wilson's charges. Moreover, when DCI Tenet made his July 11 mea culpa he refused to do what the Administration wanted him to do--state publicly that the CIA, not the Office of the Vice President (OVP) had sent Wilson to Niger. From all the above, it is clear beyond dispute that this entire disgraceful episode was manufactured deceitfully as part of a campaign to undermine and even bring down the Bush Administration.

It's really fascinating stuff.  Take some time to read all of it, including the comment section.

Getting it straight

Under the headline, Libby 'Told a Dumb Lie,' Prosecutor Says in Closing Argument, the Washington Post repeats the dumber lie.

Wilson turned out to be a potent critic. He had been sent to Niger by the CIA a year earlier to check on reports that Iraq had tried to obtain material for nuclear weapons there, and concluded that the reports were false.

For one thing I'm not sure anyone knows why Joe Wilson was really sent to Niger.  Contrary to the what the Washington Post says, the stated reason was not to find if Iraq tried to obtain material for nuclear weapons.  The stated reason behind Joe's trip was to find out if Iraq and Niger had actually closed a deal for uranium, and he found that no deal had been made.  But as to whether or not Iraq was trying to acquire uranium, here's what George Tenet had to say about Joe's fact finding mission.

In an effort to inquire about certain reports involving Niger, CIA's counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region to make a visit to see what he could learn. He reported back to us that one of the former Nigerien officials he met stated that he was unaware of any contract being signed between Niger and rogue states for the sale of uranium during his tenure in office. The same former official also said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales.

The excerpt above is from a statement by Tenet dated July 11, 2003. At that time Tenet was the Director of Central Intelligence.  In the words of George Tenet we learn that Iraq really had made "an attempt to discuss uranium sales," and that the person who made that discovery was Joe Wilson. 

Thirty or forty years ago it would have seemed utterly unthinkable that a professional news organization like the Washington Post would be unable to get this straight.  Today, we can be certain the Post is able, but uncertain that the Post is willing.  In fact I've long since concluded that the Post is not willing to get that story straight.  They seem to be heavily invested in the theme that the Bush Administration lied or "twisted" intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.

So we're getting that theme again, complete with the standard misrepresentations about what Joe found on his trip to Niger, because I. Lewis Libby, former Chief of Staff for Vice President Richard Cheney, is on trial for perjury and obstruction of justice.  It's a convoluted case that purportedly started out as an investigation into the criminal disclosure of a CIA agent's identity, the CIA agent being Joe Wilson's wife.  It turns out there was no crime committed.  Mrs. Wilson was outed by Richard Armitage of the State Department at the time, a fact that was quickly discovered by investigators. 

Unfortunately for all of us, the Special Prosecutor carried on his investigation for two years beyond the discovery of that fact, in hopes of pinning something on somebody at the White House.  All he could come up with were several instances where media luminaries Tim Russert, Matt Cooper, and Judith Miller disagreed with Libby over who heard what first about Joe Wilson's wife sending him off to Africa.  LIbby's fate will soon be in the hands of the jury.

And the Washington Post would like him convicted.  It will be their vindication for reporting the news as they would like to see it.  So as the case is about to go to jury, the Post takes a moment to remind us what it's all about.  As the Post story goes, a "whistle blower" had stepped forward to refute what President Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union Address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.''  That story would fall apart if they reported what Joe Wilson actually found in Africa.  Iraq really was looking for uranium in Africa.

The press and the Libby trial

Tom Maguire has been taking the New York Times to task for its inability to get the story straight when it comes to the trial of Scooter Libby.  From Tuesday:

Neil Lewis and Scott Shane give us a laugh with their Libby trial daydreaming:

A surprise revelation came when Mr. Pincus, who writes about national security and intelligence [for the Washington Post], disclosed that he was first told on July 12, 2003, about Ms. Wilson by Ari Fleischer, then the White House spokesman, and not Mr. Libby.

Surprise to whom?  Did these two intrepid reporters really think that Walter Pincus had received a Plame leak from Libby?

And yesterday:

Neil Lewis and Scott Shane of the NY Times continue to cover the Alternate Reality version of the Libby trial.

With greatest respect for Mr. Maguire, I have to say I don’t believe it’s reasonable to expect the press to get it right at this juncture.   Oh, I think they should get it right, and I'm happy to beat on them when they don't.  But the press... well, they've got their story and they're sticking to it. 

Let’s face it. The notion that the White House would deliberately burn a covert CIA agent for any reason whatever makes no sense, and it never did.  That they would do it over a story as lame as the one Joe Wilson was peddling makes even less sense.  But Tim Russert & Co. decided this was a story that would sell, so he threw his, shall I say considerable, weight behind it, and voila! Credibility!  MSM heavyweights fell in line, injecting it into their "news" day in and day out as a stipulated related fact to the story du jour.  Having jumped on the Joe Wilson bandwagon and given his story legs, there's no way MSM will suddenly decide they've seen the light.  This story is their creature. 

More importantly, they haven’t achieved the goal that precipitated the Plame game to begin with.  That would be the goal of stopping the war in Iraq. Regardless of any facts that come out of the trial - how about those documents proving that Joe's trip was set in motion before Dick Cheney got around to behesting it - we can count on MSM to continue to claim the case for invasion was a lie, there never were any WMD, nor were there any connections to terrorists. They will continue to claim that the war was a mistake, that Joe Wilson was a whistle blower whose wife was a victim of a vengeful White House, that we are losing the war, and that the war can’t possibly be won.  MSM are impervious to any contradictory possibilities, and up to now they just have not been getting their way. 

If the Democrats were in the majority back in 2003 or if a career Republican politician was in the White House, the invasion of Iraq would have been averted by the mere suggestion from MSM that Iraq was posed no threat.  But the cowboy in the White House crossed them up and went ahead anyway.  The media and Democratic establishment went absolutely ripshit.

But the Democrats are in the majority now, thanks to stepped up violence in Baghdad dutifully reported by MSM as further indication that all is lost in Iraq.  Now the Democrats intend to supplement the anti-war MSM campaign with a campaign of their own.

The legislative strategy will be supplemented by a multimillion-dollar TV ad campaign designed to pressure vulnerable GOP incumbents into breaking with President Bush and forcing the administration to admit that the war is politically unsustainable.

The Democrats and the press will hammer and hammer and hammer, hoping they will eventually get their way. And the beauty of it for the press - they get paid to do it.  Come to think of it, the Democrats do too.

The press filter

When Joe Wilson wrote his famous column for the New York Times accusing the Bush Administration of twisting the intelligence to justify the war in Iraq, he left out a few bits of information.  The infamous sixteen words in the President's 2003 State of the Union address claiming that Iraq was attempting to acquire uranium in Africa, were said by the press to have been refuted by Ambassador Joe when he said he found no such thing. 

But Joe left out the part where he learned that an Iraqi delegation had approached officials from the African country of Niger with a proposal to expand trade between the two countries, and that Nigerian officials took that to be an attempt to open discussions for a uranium deal.  Mainstream press coverage of the flap has followed Wilson's lead.  Their version of events continues to claim intelligence was twisted, and the visit by the Iraqi trade delegation is rarely, if ever, mentioned.

It has been the hope among many on the right side of the blogosphere that these facts would get an airing in perjury trial of former Vice Presidential Chief of Staff, I. Lewis Libby.  Libby, you may recall, is at this very moment on trial for perjury and obstruction of justice as a result of differences between his grand jury testimony and testimony of three reporters - Tim Russert, Matt Cooper, and Judy Miller.  What gets little attention is that there is no underlying crime to the case. 

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was tasked with discovering who broke the law by revealing the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame, who happens to be Ambassador Joe's wife, and who is also the one most responsible for getting Joe sent to Africa to discover what he and the press don't want to talk about.  That being that Iraq was really trying to get uranium.  In the course of his investigation Fitzgerald quickly found that Richard Armitage, formerly of the State Department, was the individual who revealed Val's identity, not anybody working in the White House.  He then immediately decided that it was not a crime. 

Still, Fitzgerald has clung to the theory first publicly voiced by lefty David Corn, that the outing of Valerie Plame was an act of revenge by a White House intent on punishing Joe Wilson for "refuting" the President's claim in the 2003 State of the Union.  How inconvenient that the no one in White House outed Valerie Plame.  But in order to preserve the dearly held maxim that the Bush White House is evil, the mainstream press has had to gloss over these inconvenient facts.  Meanwhile Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald's case against Libby seems to rest on the theory that there really was a White House plot to punish Joe by outing Val, and that Libby was lying to cover it up.

This case is of immense importance to the American people on a number of levels.  For one thing the facts of it show that the White House was not involved in any plot to destroy the career of a CIA employee.  The case really reveals the emptiness of Wilson's charges.  It's been Joe Wilson and his allies in the press who've been twisting the facts, and we can depend on them to continue doing it.  For example, the President's decision to declassify portions of the National Intelligence Estimate to refute Wilson's charges has been reported in some circles as "leaking the NIE".

At another level, Fitzgerald has as much as said that the charges of perjury and lying are a surrogate case for revealing CIA employee Val's identity - which he has already said is not a crime.  If Libby is convicted of disagreeing with Russert, Cooper, and Miller, the press will be sure convict the Bush Administration in the court of public opinion.

The best place to follow what's going on with the Scooter Libby trial is over at JustOneMinute.  Tom Maguire has been providing detailed analysis of this case since it began.  That in itself is reason enough to rely on his commentary on it, but he has also drawn a circle of readers and commenters, many of whom are attorneys.  D.C. attorney Clarice Feldman is one of them.  In addition to her contribution to the JustOneMinute comment sections, she regularly posts at American Thinker.  Clarice has also had opportunity to "live blog" the trial.  Much as I loath the concept of live blogging, I have to admit her reporting is great. 

While bloggers have been given access to the Libby trial, I don't believe it will make much of a dent in public perception of a scheming nefarious White House.  The press will win out with this one.  They have been too much part of the story to back off now.  Joe's ridiculous claims would never have earned credibility on their own.  Our anti-administration press had to go along with the program for his story have traction.  They have and will continue.  You might say they will be covering their own tracks.