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Plame Game

So Valerie Plame was covert after all.  Sort of.*  Which raises the question, not particularly well addressed in this NBC article, of why $2 million worth of special prosecution produced only a highly questionable off-topic charge. Newsweek offers a little more but suggests some ambiguity, “Was She or Wasn’t She?”

Patterico, like Newsweek, suggests Fitzgerald couldn’t prove intent, hence the failure to prosecute any primary crime. Patterico suggests this news justifies the prosecution of an alleged crime stemming from a non-crime. His first commenter notes that there is that problem that Libby wasn’t the outer.  Which gets us back to the fact that Libby’s conviction for walking into the echo chamber of what was by then apparently widespread knowledge is, at best, Fitzgerald’s booby prize. 

*Captain’s Quarters cocks an eye at the Tenet CIA and its idea of how to run covert operations, adding, “I suppose the only reason that Fitzgerald didn’t bother to indict Richard Armitage for the crime was that it would have meant explaining how the CIA tried to hide its NOC asset in plain sight.”

I suppose the only reason Fitzgerald didn’t prosecute Joe Wilson is that his intent wasn’t to out his wife.  This astute freelance operative/former ambassador married to a CIA analyst apparently didn’t see that one coming.  His intent was only to embarrass the United States government.

Which brings us back to the underlying issue, which is the quality of  Wilson’s work. 

Topics: moronocy, pols, shameless opportunism, shameless self-promotion

  Posted by Jules Crittenden at 8:20 am on Wednesday, May 30, 2007

13 Responses to “Plame Game”

1. corndog Says:
   May 30th, 2007 at 8:46 am

   “I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.”
   George H.W. Bush

2. corndog Says:
   May 30th, 2007 at 9:22 am

   “So Valerie Plame was covert after all.”

   Gee, so all those people who kept saying they knew for a fact that she wasn’t covert were not actually speaking truthfully. Who’da thunk it?

3. The_Real_JeffS Says:
   May 30th, 2007 at 9:51 am

   Wilson worked? Who woulda thunk it?

   As for Valerie……maybe she was “covert”, but the CIA is most certainly run by idiots. Either that or she was carried as covert solely for the extra pay.

   Or perhaps both.

4. RebeccaH Says:
   May 30th, 2007 at 10:26 am

   This whole drawn-out episode elicits just one respone from me: “Buh?”

5. The Thunder Run Says:
   May 30th, 2007 at 10:28 am

   Web Reconnaissance for 05/30/2007

   A short recon of what�s out there that might draw your attention.

6. BitsBlog » Democrats claim again Plame was covert. In other news, large light scheduled to appear in east. Says:
   May 30th, 2007 at 11:20 am

   [...] BLOG, The Mahablog, Washington Monthly, protein wisdom, About U.S. Politics, The American Mind, Jules Crittenden, Balloon Juice, Flopping Aces, The Impolitic,Last 10 posts by BitheadThompson to annouce over 4th [...]

7. El Cid Says:
   May 30th, 2007 at 11:23 am

   And this begs the question…Is the U.S. less safe today because a useless bureaucracy, that leaks secret information so much more important by LIGHT YEARS, then the exposure of Valerie Wilson? Or that misses truly important intelligence, vital TO the security of the U.S.?

   And the answer is Fuck No!

8. El Cid Says:
   May 30th, 2007 at 11:42 am

   OH, before some smart ass goes D’uh, to this part of my post…Or that misses truly important intelligence, vital TO the security of the U.S.?

   And the answer is Fuck No!

   The fact that the U.S. is still here, despite the bungling “Keystone Kops”, aka, the CIA, that a once important agency, that is now a joke, proves my point.

9. Dave Surls Says:
   May 30th, 2007 at 12:25 pm

   “Patterico, like Newsweek, suggests Fitzgerald couldn’t prove intent, hence the failure to prosecute any primary crime.”

   I’d say the intent of Plame and Wilson was obvious. They intended to sabotage the foreign policy of the United States by releasing information that provided aid and comfort to our enemies during a time of war.

   The crime committed is treason, btw.

10. 4iraqisfuture Says:
    May 30th, 2007 at 3:06 pm

    Dave Surls nails it. They have permanently scared the foreign policy of the United States. Treason is their crime—pure and simple.

    Plame was an activist agent using her position to further deep seated personal political convictions. She conspired with her husband to sabotage the foreign policy of the USA at one of its most critical junctures.

    This is good reason for the CIA to regularly conduct lie detector tests to see if its agents are meeting with reporters or divulging information about ongoing operations to people outside the agency. Once that was determined, she should have been fired and prosecuted. Not rallied around and protected. Is the CIA a democratic institution? No, it should be apolitical.

    Her testimony before that senate committee had all the hallmarks of lying under oath. She stuttered, stammered, and froze. Her testimony wandered into areas that were totally peripheral to the necessary facts as she tried to get her mental bearings. See the following passage:

    “MS. PLAME WILSON: Thank you, Congressman. I’m delighted as well that I am under oath as I reply to you.

    In February of 2002, a young junior officer who worked for me — came to me very upset. She had just received a telephone call on her desk from someone — I don’t know who — in the office of the vice- president asking about this report of this alleged sale of yellow cake uranium from Niger to Iraq . She came to me, and as she was telling me this — what had just happened, someone passed by — another officer heard this. He knew that Joe had already — my husband — had already gone on some CIA mission previously do deal with other nuclear matters. And he suggested, “Well why don’t we send Joe?” He knew that Joe had many years of experience on the African continent. He also knew that he had served — and served well and heroically in the Baghdad Embassy — our embassy in Baghdad during the first Gulf War. And I will be honest. I had — was somewhat ambivalent at the time. We had 2-year-old twins as home, and all I could envision was me by myself at bedtime with a couple of 2-year-olds. So I wasn’t overjoyed with this idea. Never the less –

    REP. LYNCH: I get it”

    If you watch the video of this it is riddled with stops and starts, pauses, stuttering. If your spouse, child, or co-worker was telling you a story with this kind of lengthy explanation and delivery you’d know immediately it was a lie.

    “She just received a telephone call on her desk…” Why “on her desk” this poorly rehearsed story. If anyone has watched a teenager, cheating spouse, or thief, lie this is how there stories go. Their lies are complicated. The truth is simple. Her story was a convoluted mess. The fact more republican senators didn’t show up to grill her on her inconsistencies is a travesty.

    Assad, Ahmadinejad, and Chavez probably have framed pictures of the Wilson-Plames on their wall of honor. Maybe signed pictures no less.

    I couldn’t think of worse traitors to the United States of America.

11. Dave Surls Says:
    May 30th, 2007 at 7:36 pm

    The job of our spy agencies isn’t to gather information that they can use to discredit our government in time of war.

    If they do that, then they’re out and out traitors.

    And it looks like that’s exactly what the Wilsons did.

    We have a treason statute, and it’s high time we started applying it against traitors.

12. Sister Toldjah » Fitzmas in May? Says:
    May 30th, 2007 at 7:41 pm

    [...] more via: Instapundit, Flopping Aces, Jules Crittenden, Pajamas Media Posted By: Sister Toldjah in: Law/Judiciary, Plamegate/Joe Wilson, Scandals | [...]

13. So It Was a Plan to Smear From the Start? « Tai-Chi Policy Says:
    May 31st, 2007 at 4:33 pm

    [...] Crittendon, meanwhile, has some more roundup of after the fact details coming [...]

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