It’s not unexpected that Novak would try to softball his report, once he realized how badly he screwed his team. Surely we’ve all heard the stories of the premium the Bush family puts on loyalty.
Hey kids, time for a game! Try and spot where Novak attempts to discredit Wilson even further! (Hint: it’s more than once.)
"Because it isn’t a crime to disclose information that you don’t have a security clearence to have in the first place. "
So, if in a drunken, cocaine-induced stupor at a strip bar, George Bush told me something highly classifeid, ultra-top secret, hush hush, for his eyes only, and I then turned to Osama Bin-Laden, who is sitting next to me and stuffing $100 bills into the g-string of the stripper, I’m not guilty of violating the law?
Is this a great country, or what?
Assuming, of course, that I then relayed the secret information to Mr. Bin-Laden in the scenario above. I may have forgotten to in my own drunken, cocaine-induced stupor.
Umm, no. There is an exception for journalists.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A24144-2003Sep30.html
Here is a link with a summary of many stories on this issues and why it will continue to be a leading story for a while, despite the frevent hope of some:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A27207-2003Oct1.html
Stuff is there for everyone. Enjoy!
I’m confused.
If Wilson’s wife is indeed a covert agent for the CIA and someone outed her in such a non-concrete way, why wouldn’t the CIA just deny it. Why go to the press and confirm the information? Wouldn’t that put her in more danger?
Also, could someone explain to me why having a spouse who’s a covert CIA operative, or even an analyst, could be a discredit to Wilson? I would think that his having potential access to more information about Iraq would make him more credible.
mornea, the leak was more retribution than an attempt to discredit, I suppose.
You wouldn’t be guilty of violating THAT law. You could certainly be tried for treason.
That is a bit odd.
“Hello, CIA? Is 345B324GX the secret launch code?”
“No.”
“Hello, CIA? It’s me again. Is 45323HF3F the secret launch code?”
“No”
“Hello, CIA? Ya, it’s me. Hey, is 55432DE the secret launch code?”
“Yes. Please don’t tell anyone!”
Back in the good ol’ days, a ‘no comment’ is what Mr.Novak would have gotten. Oh how the mighty have become incompetent…
I could be wrong, but my guess is that a denial is useless – an agent depends on not being the focus of sustained attention in order to be able to do their work.
Imagine, for example, that her work depends on people trusting her and not suspecting her of beng an agent. Suddenly, a major columnist in the US claims to have word from a senior administration official that she’s an agent.
Whether or not the CIA denies it, she’s not going to be able to continue to function. Anyone that doesn’t want their activities not to get back to CIA HQ is going to make damn sure she doesn’t know about their activities, just in case. They’re not going to say, “Well, maybe Novak accused her of being a spy, but until the CIA confirms it, I’ll keep doing business with her.”
A credible accusation in such a case would be as bad as an outright admission.
Daniel
I ain’t got no problem with double negatives, apparently. In case there’s any confusion, a sentence above should read:
(bolding mine)
It’s my understanding that Wilson has said his wife is 40 years old. How can she be undercover for three decades?
Only if the feds can flip the stripper.
So keep your mouth shut and keep tipping!
1988-2003? It’s only 15 years, but, in a quick guesstimate, it’s 3 decades…
Limbaugh was on air today pimping the ‘no big deal’ angle. Of all the aspects he brought to ligt on his show, he somehow forgot the part where Tenet himself wrote a letter about the issue and allowed it to be printed in national newspapers.
If you know a ditto head, you ought to remind them that while there’re 50 some odd instances of DoJ investigations into this sort of thing every year, this is th eonly one where the DCI has his letter to the DoJ about the case published in the national news. Rush forgot to cover th eparty line as why this is. Why DCI Tenet is playing into the hands of the Liberals.
There’s one other part of that interview that I loved:
"LARRY JOHNSON: I say this as a registered Republican. I’m on record giving contributions to the George Bush campaign. This is not about partisan politics. This is about a betrayal, a political smear of an individual with no relevance to the story. Publishing her name in that story added nothing to it. His entire intent was correctly as Ambassador Wilson noted: to intimidate, to suggest that there was some impropriety that somehow his wife was in a decision making position to influence his ability to go over and savage a stupid policy, an erroneous policy and frankly, what was a false policy of suggesting that there were nuclear material in Iraq that required this war.
"This was about a political attack. To pretend that it’s something else and to get into this parsing of words, I tell you, it sickens me to be a Republican to see this. "
Yes. More problematic is that Johnson claims he left the CIA in 1989, pretty much at the end of the Cold War. So how current can his knowledge of Plame’s occupation really be? Do you know what all your co-workers from 1989 are doing now? I assume that once you leave the CIA, you’re out of the loop. (And why would a former agent go out of his way to emphasize the deep cover nature of a former colleague’s employment?)
I suspect one reason Tenet wrote that letter is that there are plenty of CIA agents who are worried sick that they might be outed and all their contacts murdered or imprisoned, on the whim of Karl Rove. Not a good precedent, and not at all good for our intelligence-gathering activities.
Our national security might well ride on the outcome of this investigation to a greater extent than we know … certainly greater than any Repub will be willing to admit.
Evil Captor:
That’s an unfair mischaracterization, especially in light of how seriously the White House is dealing with it.
I consider the protection of intelligence assets to of paramount importance. You don’t burn your own people whether they are analysts or in the field. You do not allow them to be burned. If they get burned anyway you do everything possible to get to the bottom of it and punish the guys that did it so that nobody will ever dare do it again.
I’m not sure where you come off with this “certainly greater than Repub will be willing to admit” horseshit.
Why is everything an excuse for a partisan politic cheapshot?
I saw Larry Johnson on PBS Newshour last night. If he’s pointing in the general direction of Cheney (and Scooter Libby) - the CIA is doing a bit more than ‘firing shots across the bow’
The Agency was likely unhappy about Dick Cheney showing up at CIA Langley to see what could be cooked up re: Iraq.
Tenet taking the fall for Condi not reading/recalling ‘notes’ from the CIA.
Dunno if I was the first to reference this case on SDMB. In the July 22 thread White House “outs” ABC reporter as gay (AND Canadian) - I posted some details as reported in my local paper, Newsday. I prefer quoting Satisying Andy Licious reply: