So after two years (including 85 days in jail), Judith Martin finally tells everything she knows about who gave her the name of Valerie Plame. Drum roll, please:
Mr. Fitzgerald asked me about another entry in my notebook, where I had written the words "Valerie Flame," clearly a reference to Ms. Plame. Mr. Fitzgerald wanted to know whether the entry was based on my conversations with Mr. Libby. I said I didn't think so. I said I believed the information came from another source, whom I could not recall
She doesn't recall? After all of this she forgot who gave her the name? It seems to me that Steve Martin did a version of this back in the 1970s:
You.. can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You can be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes! You say.. "Steve.. how can I be a millionaire.. and never pay taxes?" First.. get a million dollars. Now.. you say, "Steve.. what do I say to the tax man when he comes to my door and says, 'You.. have never paid taxes'?" Two simple words. Two simple words in the English language: "I forgot!" How many times do we let ourselves get into terrible situations because we don't say "I forgot"? Let's say you're on trial for armed robbery. You say to the judge, "I forgot armed robbery was illegal."
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6 comments:
What responsibility for this whole mess does Joe Wilson bear, after publicizing his role in Vanity Fair? Did it occur to him that reporters and columnists would wonder how and why he was given the assignment to investigate Iraq's links to Niger? With the shady dealings and outright criminal acts committed by both parties, I can't believe this "outing" of Valerie Plame has so outlasted its allotted five minutes.
What responsibility for this whole mess does Joe Wilson bear, after publicizing his role in Vanity Fair?
None. The crime was committed months before the Vanity Fair article.
My mistake - I meant to refer to Wilson's Op-Ed in the NY Times published in July 2003.
My mistake - I meant to refer to Wilson's Op-Ed in the NY Times published in July 2003.
Still, the answer is none. Novak is the first person to publicly "out" Plame. Why in the world would Wilson out his own wife?? His op-ed discussed his trip to Niger and what he found.
Interestingly, according to Miller--albeit a serial liar--Scooter had discussed Wilson's wife with her prior to Wilson's op-ed.
My point is that when Wilson wrote his Op-Ed piece, he potentially exposed his wife's position in the CIA. It was unreasonable at that point for him to assume his motivation for writing the piece and his bona fides wouldn't be called into question by the press. This doesn't excuse anyone's intentional, overt outing of Ms. Plame or any subsequent lying under oath, but it calls into question whether her covert status could reasonably have been expected to remain in place.
She was outed as we now know from Libby's testimony because of Cheney's declassification of her role using executive order 13292. It was passed on March 25, 2003. http://www.fas.org/sgp/bush/eoamend.html
About a month later Wilson was working for John Kerry's campaign and Bush would have known who Wilson was talking with a month or so prior (March) with the "domestic terrorism spying act" which allows spying on "whomever" Bush chooses with no FISA oversight. Bush was probably spying on Kerry, (among others) and knew Wilson was a threat long before the July 03 op-ed piece. This executive order was crafted just for the Plame\Wilson retatliation. Maybe Nixon should have passed these executive orders as well. The Watergate breakin could have been legal. After all, we we're "in a warlike state". Not actually a declared war. You have to "find cause" to be able to do that.
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