White_Male_Canada
03-07-2007, 03:34 AM
Been there, done that:
In fact, the prosecutor concluded that there was no crime; hence, no indictment. And we now know that the original "leak," in casual conversations with reporters Novak and Bob Woodward, came not from the conspiracy theorists' target in the White House but from the deputy secretary of state at the time, Richard Armitage, an esteemed member of the Washington establishment and no pal of Rove or President Bush.
Blumenthal's example is far from unique. Newsweek, in a July 25, 2005, cover story on Rove, after dutifully noting that Rove's lawyer said the prosecutor had told him that Rove was not a target of the investigation, added: "But this isn't just about the Facts, it's about what Rove's foes regard as a higher Truth: That he is a one-man epicenter of a narrative of Evil."
And in the American Prospect's cover story for August 2005, Joe Conason wrote that Rove "is a powerful bully. Fear of retribution has stifled those who might have revealed his secrets. He has enjoyed the impunity of a malefactor who could always claim, however implausibly, deniability -- until now."
These and other publications owe Karl Rove an apology.And all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.
davidbroder@washpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/06/AR2006090601648_pf.html
I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention.
After you have noted that the Niger uranium connection was in fact based on intelligence that has turned out to be sound, you may also note that this heated moral tone ("thuggish," "gang") is now quite absent from the story. It turns out that the person who put Valerie Plame's identity into circulation was a staunch foe of regime change in Iraq. Oh, that's all right, then. But you have to laugh at the way Corn now so neutrally describes his own initial delusion as one that was "seized on by administration.
In particular, the bureaucracy at the State Department and the CIA appear to have used the indiscretion of Armitage to revenge themselves on the "neoconservatives" who had been advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein. Armitage identified himself to Colin Powell as Novak's source before the Fitzgerald inquiry had even been set on foot. The whole thing could—and should—have ended right there.
http://www.slate.com/id/2148555
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage's identity been known three years ago.
Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083101460_pf.html
WITH the disclosure that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the initial source for Robert Novak's July 2003 column that outed CIA operative Valerie Wilson -- also known as Valerie Plame, wife of former ambassador and Iraq-war critic Joseph Wilson -- it is now clear that all the hype about a Bush-inspired vendetta against the Wilsons is bunk.
The irony is that as Joe Wilson charged that the White House was pursuing him as an act of revenge, he emerges as a partisan bent on punishing those with whom he disagreed. Wilson, after all, once bragged that he wanted to see Rove "frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." The Wilsons filed a silly lawsuit suit against Libby, Cheney and Rove.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/31/EDG0SJ7NHV1.DTL
the investigation should never have been launched in the first place. It was the product of wild charges from an embittered, partisan former official, combined with bad faith and lack of candor from the top two men at State.
The president should not let Libby - an otherwise honorable public servant - remain a scapegoat.
As others, including The Wall Street Journal, have noted, the president should pardon Libby. Let him move along with his life - and let the country put this sorry episode behind it.
Finally.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/justice_for_scooter_libby_editorials_.htm
In 2003-04, the Senate Intelligence Committee spent considerable time investigating why the CIA got the intelligence wrong on Iraq. As part of that mandate, staffers delved into the Niger mission.
First, it reported that, despite Mr. Wilson's denials, he did get the Niger assignment because of his wife. When her unit, the Counterproliferation Division, got word that Mr. Cheney wanted the yellowcake report investigated, Mrs. Plame recommended him to her boss, and she put it in writing.
The Senate investigators reported that Mr. Wilson did, in fact, find evidence that an Iraqi overture to buy yellowcake may have occurred. To Republicans, this meant Mr. Wilson's op-ed in the New York Times -- the essay that triggered the whole affair -- was inaccurate, just as Mr. Libby contended to Mrs. Miller that it was.
In an addendum to the bipartisan report, Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican, wrote that "public comments from the former ambassador, such as comments that his report 'debunked' the Niger-Iraq uranium story, were incorrect and have led to a distortion in the press and in the public's understanding of the facts surrounding the Niger-Iraq uranium story. The committee found that, for most analysts, the former ambassador's report lent more credibility, not less, to the reported Niger-Iraq uranium deal."
http://ww.washtimes.com/national/20060905-121843-2994r.htm
In fact, the prosecutor concluded that there was no crime; hence, no indictment. And we now know that the original "leak," in casual conversations with reporters Novak and Bob Woodward, came not from the conspiracy theorists' target in the White House but from the deputy secretary of state at the time, Richard Armitage, an esteemed member of the Washington establishment and no pal of Rove or President Bush.
Blumenthal's example is far from unique. Newsweek, in a July 25, 2005, cover story on Rove, after dutifully noting that Rove's lawyer said the prosecutor had told him that Rove was not a target of the investigation, added: "But this isn't just about the Facts, it's about what Rove's foes regard as a higher Truth: That he is a one-man epicenter of a narrative of Evil."
And in the American Prospect's cover story for August 2005, Joe Conason wrote that Rove "is a powerful bully. Fear of retribution has stifled those who might have revealed his secrets. He has enjoyed the impunity of a malefactor who could always claim, however implausibly, deniability -- until now."
These and other publications owe Karl Rove an apology.And all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.
davidbroder@washpost.com
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/06/AR2006090601648_pf.html
I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention.
After you have noted that the Niger uranium connection was in fact based on intelligence that has turned out to be sound, you may also note that this heated moral tone ("thuggish," "gang") is now quite absent from the story. It turns out that the person who put Valerie Plame's identity into circulation was a staunch foe of regime change in Iraq. Oh, that's all right, then. But you have to laugh at the way Corn now so neutrally describes his own initial delusion as one that was "seized on by administration.
In particular, the bureaucracy at the State Department and the CIA appear to have used the indiscretion of Armitage to revenge themselves on the "neoconservatives" who had been advocating the removal of Saddam Hussein. Armitage identified himself to Colin Powell as Novak's source before the Fitzgerald inquiry had even been set on foot. The whole thing could—and should—have ended right there.
http://www.slate.com/id/2148555
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage's identity been known three years ago.
Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/08/31/AR2006083101460_pf.html
WITH the disclosure that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage was the initial source for Robert Novak's July 2003 column that outed CIA operative Valerie Wilson -- also known as Valerie Plame, wife of former ambassador and Iraq-war critic Joseph Wilson -- it is now clear that all the hype about a Bush-inspired vendetta against the Wilsons is bunk.
The irony is that as Joe Wilson charged that the White House was pursuing him as an act of revenge, he emerges as a partisan bent on punishing those with whom he disagreed. Wilson, after all, once bragged that he wanted to see Rove "frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." The Wilsons filed a silly lawsuit suit against Libby, Cheney and Rove.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2006/08/31/EDG0SJ7NHV1.DTL
the investigation should never have been launched in the first place. It was the product of wild charges from an embittered, partisan former official, combined with bad faith and lack of candor from the top two men at State.
The president should not let Libby - an otherwise honorable public servant - remain a scapegoat.
As others, including The Wall Street Journal, have noted, the president should pardon Libby. Let him move along with his life - and let the country put this sorry episode behind it.
Finally.
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/editorial/justice_for_scooter_libby_editorials_.htm
In 2003-04, the Senate Intelligence Committee spent considerable time investigating why the CIA got the intelligence wrong on Iraq. As part of that mandate, staffers delved into the Niger mission.
First, it reported that, despite Mr. Wilson's denials, he did get the Niger assignment because of his wife. When her unit, the Counterproliferation Division, got word that Mr. Cheney wanted the yellowcake report investigated, Mrs. Plame recommended him to her boss, and she put it in writing.
The Senate investigators reported that Mr. Wilson did, in fact, find evidence that an Iraqi overture to buy yellowcake may have occurred. To Republicans, this meant Mr. Wilson's op-ed in the New York Times -- the essay that triggered the whole affair -- was inaccurate, just as Mr. Libby contended to Mrs. Miller that it was.
In an addendum to the bipartisan report, Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, Kansas Republican, wrote that "public comments from the former ambassador, such as comments that his report 'debunked' the Niger-Iraq uranium story, were incorrect and have led to a distortion in the press and in the public's understanding of the facts surrounding the Niger-Iraq uranium story. The committee found that, for most analysts, the former ambassador's report lent more credibility, not less, to the reported Niger-Iraq uranium deal."
http://ww.washtimes.com/national/20060905-121843-2994r.htm