July 09, 2007


IMPEACH BUSH


IMPEACH CHENEY

REBUTTING THE RIGHT WING PLAME SPIN


I was reading some right wing drivel in posts at The Denver Post. Since right-wingers derive their talking points from Limbaugh, O'Reilly, and Hannity we can conclude that these posts are fairly representative of right-wing spin about Scooter Libby, Valerie Plame, and Ambassador Joseph Wilson. One of the most disgusting claims is that Valerie Plame was not covert, so no harm done, right? Wrong. Even if Plame had not been covert, how was it justified for the administration to ruin her career as an act of political revenge? We know for a certainty that Bush lied in the State of the Union address about Iraq trying to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. Just follow the bouncing lies: Bush wanted an excuse to attack Iraq, Saddam Hussein was allegedly trying to build nuclear weapons and that gave Bush an excuse, Joseph Wilson found out that Hussein was not building weapons, and Bush wanted to discredit Wilson. This article by Clarence Page is at www.chicagotribune.com:

Time to call in the truth squad: Contrary to the drumbeat of misinformation and dis-information that you may have heard on various talk shows, Valerie Plame was a covert agent under the relevant 1982 law that makes it a crime to disclose the identity of a covert intelligence officer. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald cleared up that dispute in a memorandum during the sentencing phase of Libby's trial. "It was clear from very early in the investigation," he wrote, "that Ms. Wilson qualified under [the 1982 law] as a covert agent whose identity had been disclosed by public officials, including Mr. Libby, to the press." Four days later, Fitzgerald filed an "unclassified summary" of Plame's CIA employment which described her work as including "at least seven" overseas trips as chief of a unit working on Iraq weapons issues.

And, yes, Armitage did leak Plame's name to columnist Robert Novak, who was the first to report it to the public. But Armitage was not the first or the only leaker. Weeks before Novak reported Plame's name in his July 14, 2003, column, Libby revealed Plame's CIA job in meetings with then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller on June 23 and July 8. Novak also received confirmation of Armitage's tip from Karl Rove, Bush's senior political adviser. Rove also discussed Plame, without mentioning her name or covert status, with Matt Cooper, then of Time magazine.

But Fitzgerald's critics wish he had ended his investigation immediately after learning that Armitage was the source of one leak, Novak's. To me, that's like telling police who have busted a teenager for marijuana that they need not bother to find out who the kid's suppliers are.