BLINDING INSIGHT!!
Note that in Novak's follow-up column, he states that the CIA 'denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection' as the agent to investigate the Niger yellowcake charges. So if Plame didn't recommend Wilson for the assignment, why did the 'senior administration official' say that she did? One of the following things must have happened. Either this administration official:

1. Thought, incorrectly, that Plame had nominated Wilson, and
2. Known, correctly, that Plame was a CIA operative, and so
3. Told Novak the incorrect information in (1), while simultaneously
4. Not knowing, or forgetting that it was a felony to blow a CIA agent's cover, thus revealing that tidbit to Novak as well, even though it really wasn't relevant to the question.

OR. . .

The official knew quite well that Plame had nothing to do with the selection of Wilson, but saw an opportunity to blow Plame's cover and took it.

I'm sorry folks, I've tried to keep an open mind on this, but at this point, I'm convinced that this was an intentional leak. The only questions now are: Who leaked? and Will s/he be caught?

The second question is one of growing importance, for a lot of obvious reasons. And I can't believe I completed my last post without also mentioning the staggering conflict of interest inherent in John Ashcroft's Justice Department investigating a leak in which Karl Rove is a prime suspect.
12:35 PM | Link

 
More about Plame.

So, no one seems to dispute (other than possibly Novak) that within a week of Joe Wilson's criticism of Bush for continuing to use discredited intelligence information, someone in the White House blew Valerie Plame's CIA cover. As I noted yesterday, Novak insists that it wasn't really a leak, just an offhand remark some official made when Novak was questioning him/her about the Wilson affair.

The more I think about it, the more the 'offhand remark' statement lends credibility to the idea that there was a systematic attempt to blow Plame's cover. Think about it. For the sake of argument, let's assume that Wilson is right, and someone in the White House decided to get retribution on Wilson in order to intimidate other agents who might be thinking about blowing the whistle on the White House. If someone seriously wanted to blow Plame's cover, what would be the best way to do it?

Well, they most likely would not call a press conference and say 'I'd just like to announce that Valerie Plame, wife of Joseph Wilson, has worked as an undercover agent for the CIA for more than 30 years.' While that approach would be effective, it would be suicide for the leaker. Nor would the leaker make a covert effort to contact journalists and make such a straightforward statement. Even then, there would be a risk of the journalist calling the FBI, and at a minimum, most professional journalists would know better than to print such a thing.

No, the only way to have a hope of it working is to make the decision to leak, and then look for opportunities to do so. Volunteer nothing, but if a journalist should call asking about the Wilson allegations (and the leaker knew that dozens of journalists would call, as the yellowcake story got quite a bit of press), try to find a way to casually drop the Plame revelation into the conversation. If you make a big deal about it, that would raise a red flag for the journalist. But if you treat it as no big deal, as an offhand remark, then there's a chance of it slipping under the journalist's radar (as it did Novak's) and getting published.

There's even a good chance that no one outside the intelligence community will even notice it. Indeed, this whole story almost did pass unnoticed by everyone but Joseph Wilson, his wife and, no doubt, others in the intelligence community.

This is just my conjecture of course, and it proves nothing. However, Wilson has said that he suspects Karl Rove is behind the leak, and others among the six reporters have privately named Rove as well (scroll down to 'Audio reports'). This still isn't solid proof that Rove is the one who did the leaking, but this leak does seem to have Rove's fingerprints on it. Take a look at these articles by Lou Dubose in The Nation and Wayne Madsen in CounterPunch to learn more about Mr. Rove's long and sordid career in politics.

Finally, I couldn't help myself. I know I should probably ignore her, but Ann Coulter and her book Treason really annoy me. And since the Plame revelation certainly qualifies as treason (it put 30+ years of research on WMD at risk), I wanted to see what Ms. Coulter had to say about it. Not surprisingly, I've been unable to find her views about it published anywhere, so I wrote her a letter (actually, it went to some guy named Tom, who clearly screens her email for her):

      I'm a little surprised that I have not yet seen an article
    by Ms. Coulter on the whole Valerie Plame affair. Since
    Ms. Coulter's latest book is all about the subject of treason,
    I would think she would have a great deal to say about
    the allegations that a member of the Bush White House
    blew the cover of a CIA operative, which potentially did a
    great deal of damage to this country's reasearch about WMD.

      These allegations, if true, certainly constitute treason.
    I would like to know Ms. Coulter's views on the subject


We'll see what response, if any, that elicits.
12:02 PM | Link

 
More on the Plame wars. Bob Novak has published his reaction to the investigation his story started. As a supporter of the administration, he offers several explanations as to why this story is really no big deal, including:

1. The White House official who made the revelation about Wilson's wife did so 'offhand'.


2. The White House official who made the revelation was 'no partisan gunslinger'.


3. 'The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and found [Novak] as a willing pawn is simply untrue'.


4. He was only asking questions in the first place because he couldn't understand why the Bush administration picked a liberal to investigate the Niger report.


5. The fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative was 'not much of a secret'.


6. An 'unofficial source' at the CIA says that Plame was an analyst, and not involved in covert operations.


7. 'The Justice Department investigation was not requested by CIA director George Tenet'.

That's a pretty impressive list of explanations. Let's analyze them one at a time.

It seems that Novak's argument in the first explanation is that the comment was not an intentional leak. If the White House were truly leaking in order to make an example of Wilson, they wouldn't have been so casual about it. That may be true, however, if someone knew they were breaking the law by leaking such information, it is in their interest to make such a leak appear accidental. Besides, it strains credibility to state that a high-ranking White House official could be so careless with a CIA agent's identity, especially in this White House, which emphasizes its main focus as the "war on terror". In either case, whether accidental or not, the damage has been done.

The second explanation is faintly ludicrous. Of course all of Bush's team are partisan Republicans, just like the close advisers of any President are deeply committed to their side. And Bush's team is particularly partisan in, for example, questioning the patriotism of anyone who disagrees with them.

It's a little unclear what Novak is claiming as 'untrue' in the third explanation. Is he simply denying his status as 'a willing pawn' (which is sort of what you'd expect) or is he denying that six different reporters were contacted? Given that the Guardian has contacted all six reporters about this story, it seems more likely Novak is disputing that he was a willing pawn. And the fact that six reporters were given this info would seem to indicate that this was an intentional effort to leak information, no matter how 'offhandedly'.

It is true that Joe Wilson is an avowed Democrat, and is currently working on John Kerry's presidential campaign. However, given Wilson's distinguished service as a career diplomat, I doubt that his political affiliations would unduly influence his report on Iraq's attempts to obtain yellowcake from Niger. Besides, even if Joe Wilson were the country's most horrendous anti-Bush partisan, that wouldn't justify felonious conduct from Bush's staff.

Of course it's impossible now to determine how many people knew Valerie Plame's real occupation before Novak blew her cover on July 14. It's certainly possible that Novak is telling the truth here. However, I tend to trust former CIA analyst Larry Johnson, a lifelong Republican, more than I trust Novak in assessing just how serious this is. In fact, this counters Novak's sixth point as well.

Finally, the Washington Post and other media outlets maintain that Tenet did request the investigation. So it boils down to who you believe. But that really doesn't matter. The Justice Department is investigating the allegations of a leak, which they likely would not be doing if the allegations weren't credible.

Overall, I conclude that Novak wrote his rebuttal because he had to, and doesn't want to look like a patsy, but it doesn't change the fact that this really is a big deal.

And as a bonus (and proof that it's a big deal), we now have the Hardball transcript in which Ed Gillespie, chair of the Republican National Committee, does indeed admit that this leak would be bigger than Watergate, if proven out.
5:23 PM | Link

 
Just wanted to follow up on yesterday's post. As of now, we have no proof of official misconduct in the White House, only allegations from multiple sources. However, the administration's response doesn't pass the smell test. Here's why.

First, consider the Bush administration's 'Standards of Official Conduct', which was published on the day George Bush was inaugurated. If the Bush administration wishes to live up to those standards, wouldn't it be reasonable to expect that they would take the allegations in the Plame affair very seriously? Wouldn't they conduct their own, internal investigation immediately in order to arrive at the truth of the matter, and punish the offender? And yet, when Novak's column first appeared on July 14, the White House did nothing. When George Tenet first requested a criminal investigation in late July, the White House did nothing. And now that the media are making a big deal about it? The White House is still taking no action, firmly stating that the Justice Department is the proper agency to handle the investigation.

Well, that may be a fair response, but can John Ashcroft's Justice Department be trusted to handle such an investigation fairly? Not surprisingly, everyone in the Bush administration seems to think so, as do most Republican members of congress, which is a bit odd, considering that many of these same Republicans didn't think that Janet Reno could conduct an impartial investigation into the Clinton White House.

This comparison was made in the White House press conference referenced above. Here's the story of that press conference from someone who was there.
11:38 AM | Link

 
Wow, I'm just barely up and running, and already I've got a hands-down, no fooling Bush White House scandal to write about! Of course I'm talking about the accusation that one or more senior officials in the Bush White House illegally blew the cover of Valerie Plame, formerly a deep undercover CIA agent investigating weapons of mass destruction (WMD). In the unlikely event you've found this site without hearing all about it, the Washington Post provides a fairly detailed overview of what's going on.

Is this something to be concerned about? I think that, objectively speaking, the answer would have to be 'yes'. But as per my Declaration of Principles, I'll document that conclusion. First of all, note that in Novak's original column, he indeed refers to Wilson's wife as 'an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction'. So even if it makes a difference whether Plame was an 'analyst' or an 'operative', clearly the person doing the leaking thought she was an operative, and so clearly wasn't concerned about committing a felony. Anyway, whether Plame was actually an 'operative' or merely an 'analyst' is irrelevant. The News Hour aired an interview with a former coworker of Plame's who states emphatically that Plame had been undercover for three decades.

There are even clues about who did the leaking; none other than 'Bush's Brain' himself, Karl Rove. Of course we can't know that for certain yet, but according to Julian Borger of The Guardian, several reporters are privately naming Rove (click on the audio link under 'Audio Reports').

So, based on the evidence we have so far, it appears that Karl Rove, the man who has engineered most of Bush's political successes, committed a felony and put at risk 30 years of undercover work on WMD in an effort to intimidate members of the U.S. intelligence establishment who might, like Wilson, come forward and blow the whistle on how badly people like Bush and Rove were cooking intelligence data.

Remember, these are the same people who have suggested that criticism of Bush's policies might assist the terrorists. It's kind of hard to believe that they really care anything about national security, this country, or anything other than their own political agenda after this.

Ordinarily, directing a statement like that toward a sitting administration could be considered nothing more than a partisan cheap shot. But have I really violated my Principles on just my second day of blogging? Well, I have offered documentation for my statements from credible sources. Perhaps more convincing is the fact that sources which tend to be partisan conservative sources support this conclusion as well. For example, I would never cite Newsmax when it criticizes the left, because it makes no effort to conceal its highly partisan conservative agenda. Which is why it's so stunning that they're admitting this is a big deal. Even more unbelievably, early reports indicate that Ed Gillespie, chair of the Republican National Committee, will admit on tonight's edition of Hardball that these allegations, if true, would be "worse than Watergate".

If that's not a fair and balanced indictment of the administration, I don't know what is!

By the way, those wishing to investigate this story in much greater deapth are encouraged to visit Calpundit.
9:42 PM | Link

 
Hello.

If you've read this far, then you must have some interest in politics. This blog will feature almost nothing but politically-oriented content, so if politics bores you, surf elsewhere now.

Also, if you think you're interested in politics, but your definition of 'politics' is a shouting match, you too are politely asked to leave. I aim to speak to people who can disagree with someone without questioning their intelligence, religion, patriotism or sexual practices. Note the 'well-reasoned' qualifier in my mission statement.

Finally, all statements should be backed up by actual knowledge. Consider the following statements:

1. Weapons of mass destruction (WMD) have been discovered in Iraq.
   
2. George W. Bush regularly used cocaine in his college and early post-college years.

A person possessing actual knowledge would not make either of these statements, since the first is known to be false and the second is fanciful conjecture at best. Note the 'informed' qualifier in my mission statement. I will make every effort to document the statements I make in this blog. Should you feel compelled to write to me (and you are encouraged to do so), you should make an effort to hold yourself to the same standard.

Examples of reputable sources for documented truths are generally those like:

    The Economist
    The Christian Science Monitor

Examples of disreputable sources for distortions and misinformation are generally those like:

    Ann Coulter
    Rush Limbaugh

and lots and lots of angry blogs and websites run by those on the left AND the right with a fairly obvious agenda.

Fans of the cinema may recall the famous 'Declaration of Principles' scene in Orson Welles' epic film Citizen Kane. As you know, Kane goes on to break each of the principles he sets out for himself when he first enters the publishing business. The principles I've outlined above are the ones I aim to hold myself to in the course of publishing this here blog. If at any time you feel I've strayed from them, please feel free to let me know about it.
7:50 PM | Link