Where there's smoke there's...more smoke.
Anne Coulter: Mission Implausible
A spicy look at what Mr. Joe Wilson has actually dished up in his attempt to undermine President Bush and the War in Iraq.
This looks like another liberal smear job gone waaaaaay bad.
More to come!
posted by Underground Logician @ 3:49 PM
23 comments
23 Comments:
I still think Rove was being spiteful, though.
From what I understand, Rove claims that what he told the reporter was that Wilson wasn't qualified to be an inspector and no one from the Bush administration had asked him to go: it was Wilson's wife, a low level CIA operative, who had asked him to.
However, I don't know why Rove couldn't have simply stopped at "no one from the Bush administration had asked him to go..."
Rove told time that Wilson's wife was a CIA operative for the same reason someone else leaked it to Novak. The administration clearly wanted to punish Wilson, and intimidate anyone else who might "cross" them. These people are sleeze, worse than Nixon, Mitchell and Halderman.
No, actually the administration is not going to put up with someone who flip-flops the information that actually supported what President Bush stated in the State of the Union Address in 2003 in the first place. Wilson's actions are a direct personal attack against the credibility of the President. I suppose that this is reason enough to oppose the actions of Wilson, don't you?
Virtually every intellegence agency in the world, along with the authors of the independant commision report, agree with Wilson. That 3 Party hacks don't is hardly ringing evidence. Of the three senators mentioned, none is anything like independant.
This is just another smokescreen to attempt to take the heat off someone who deliberately endangered national security and the lives of many for an act of revenge and intimidation. It borders on treason. You should be ashamed to have any part in it.
GWB: You cite the "independent" commission along with other intelligence agencies. That's supposed to lend weight to your argument? Surely you jest.
How about the testimony of Wilson himself to the Senate Intelligence Committee? What is more shameful is the unmitigated lies that have billowed out of the smoke machines of the Left, Wilson being a major smokestack. The shame should rest on those who for political revenge from the 2000 election, wish to undermine the President and bring the War on Terror to failure. That is where the shame should rest.
This Rove-Rave is a sham created by Liberals who have no plan other than obstuction. Barak Obama is wrong in stating that the Democratic Party has to take time to discover its core values. They have got core values, and they are obstructionist to the core.
I wonder if Clown Coulter has read this:
White House admits Iraq claim wrong
"REUTERS , WASHINGTON
Wednesday, Jul 09, 2003,Page 6
The George W. Bush administration has acknowledged for the first time that the president's claim in his State of the Union address in January that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Africa was an error, The Washington Post reported yesterday.
"Knowing all that we know now, the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech," a senior Bush administration official said in a statement authorized by the White House, the newspaper reported."
Everthing else is bullshit. The White House (Bush) admits it/he was WRONG to include the lie in the SOTU speech.
Wilson was correct.
Everthing else is bullshit. Especially Clown Coulter.
Underground Logician:
"This Rove-Rave is a sham created by Liberals who have no plan other than obstuction."
Yeah, some sham, UL. The investigation is headed by a Bush appointee, chosen to investigate this case by another Bush appointee, at the behest of a Bush-appointed attorney general and with the acquiescence of the president himself -- who has declared, sincerely or not, his desire to “get to the bottom” of this matter, according to White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan.
The issue is not Joe Wilson, or Valerie Wilson, the issue is that the Bush Administration lied the US into the Iraq war.
The White House has admitted that it was WRONG to have included the Niger yellowcake claim.
Wilson was correct.
White House admits it was wrong.
Or was the WH lying when it said it was wrong to include the Niger claim in the SOTU address?
Which is it?
I'll go with the Senate Intelligence Commitee report. It's based on Wilson's own flip-flopping and padding of information. Lying to the United States government in areas of intelligence is a federal crime too. Right? Oh, and by the way, the Iraqis WERE looking to purchase yellow cake.
You are wanting to get to the truth of the matter. Maybe if you read it, you'll find a little light. Right now, you've got a lot of heat and smoke, lots of smoke.
Oh, and by the way, if you'r not up on it, there are over 34 news organizations that filed a brief in court stating that jailed Judith Miller's actions do NOT meet the criteria in the Intelligence Identity Security Act of 1982. I'm sure if you're interested, you are capable of using a popular search engine and find this information. You may find some other tidbits of info showing that others besides Rove outed Plame, including Plame herself when she gave a contribution to the Gore Campaign.
It's out there, Isabella, if you're willing to do the work. I'm not going to do it for you.
You still avoid my question.
The White House said it was wrong for the president to include that passage on the Niger yellowcake.
Why did they say that if Joe Wilson was wrong? Hmmmmm?
And I don't give a fig about Judith "Mrs. Chalabi" Miller.
So Plame "outted herself?" Nice try.
Why didn't the CIA fire her when she "outted" herself? You don't think the CIA knows what all of their agents do or have done?
Your repeating the RNC talking points is not working.
Sorry.
You don't want to do the work, do you?
A little help...maybe Plame's cover wasn't an issue. Boing!
UL, I respectfully submit that you are the one not doing the work.
Here is testimony given by a former CIA collegue of Valerie Plame today, July 22.
I would tend to believe him and not Ann Coulter.
(Copy of Larry Johnson's testimony to be presented on Friday, 22 July 2005 before a joint session of Congressional Democrats.)
I submit this statement to the Congress in an effort to correct a malicious and disingenuous smear campaign that has been executed against a friend and former colleague, Valerie (Plame) Wilson. Neither Valerie, nor her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson has asked me to do anything on their behalf. I am speaking up because I was raised to stop bullies. In the case of Valerie Plame she is facing a gang of bullies that is being directed by the Republican National Committee.
I entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985 as a member of the Career Trainee Program. Senator Orin Hatch had written a letter of recommendation on my behalf and I believe that helped open the doors to me at the CIA. From the first day all members of my training class were undercover. In other words, we had to lie to our family and friends about where we worked. We could only tell those who had an absolute need to know where we worked. In my case, I told my wife. Most of us were given official cover, which means that on paper we worked for some other U.S. Government Agency. People with official cover enjoy the benefits of an official passport, usually a black passport--i.e., a diplomatic passport. If we were caught overseas engaged in espionage activity the black passport was a get out of jail free card. It accords the bearer the protections of the Geneva Convention.
Valerie Plame was a classmate of mine from the day she started with the CIA. At the time I only knew her as Valerie P. Even though all of us in the training class held Top Secret Clearances, we were asked to limit our knowledge of our other classmates to the first initial of their last name. So, Larry J. knew Val P. rather than Valerie Plame. Her name did not become a part of my consciousness until her cover was betrayed by the Government officials who gave columnist Robert Novak her true name.
Although Val started off with official cover, she later joined a select group of intelligence officers a few years later when she became a NOC, i.e. a Non-Official Cover officer. That meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport. She was using cover, which we now know because of the leak to Robert Novak, of the consulting firm Brewster-Jennings. When she traveled overseas she did not use or have an official passport. If she had been caught engaged in espionage activities while traveling overseas without the black passport she could have been executed.
We must put to bed the lie that she was not undercover. For starters, if she had not been undercover then the CIA would not have referred the matter to the Justice Department. Some reports, such as one in the Washington Times that Valerie Plame's supervisor at the CIA, Fred Rustman, said she told friends and family she worked at the CIA and that her cover was light. These claims are not true. Rustman, who supervised Val in one of her earliest assignments, left the CIA in 1990 and did not stay in social contact with Valerie. His knowledge of Val's cover is dated. He does not know what she has done during the past 15 years.
Val only told those with a need to know about her status in order to safeguard her cover, not compromise it. Val has never been a flamboyant, insecure person who felt the need to tell people what her "real" job was. She was content with being known as an energy consultant married to Joe Wilson and the mother of twins. Despite the repeated claims of representatives for the Republican National Committee, the Wilson's neighbors did not know where Valerie really worked until Novak's op-ed appeared.
I would note that not a single member of our training class has come forward to denounce Valerie or question her bona fides. To the contrary, those we have talked to have endorsed what those of us who have left the CIA are doing to defend her reputation and honor.
As noted in the joint letter submitted to Congressional leaders earlier this week, the RNC is repeating the lie that Valerie was nothing more than a glorified desk jockey and could not possibly have any cover worth protecting. To those such as Victoria Toensing, Representative Peter King, P. J. O'Rourke, and Representative Roy Blunt I can only say one thing--you are wrong. I am stunned that some political leaders have such ignorance about a matter so basic to the national security structure of this nation.
Robert Novak's compromise of Valerie caused even more damage. It subsequently led to scrutiny of her cover company. This not only compromised her "cover" company but potentially every individual overseas who had been in contact with that company or with her.
Another false claim is that Valerie sent her husband on the mission to Niger. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee Report issued in July 2004, it is clear that the Vice President himself requested that the CIA provide its views on a Defense Intelligence Agency report that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger. The Vice President's request was relayed through the CIA bureaucracy to the Director of the Counter Proliferation Division at the CIA. Valerie worked for a branch in that Division.
The Senate Intelligence Report is frequently cited by Republican partisans as "proof" that Valerie sent her husband to Niger because she sent a memo describing her husband's qualifications to the Deputy Division Chief. Several news personalities, such as Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly continue to repeat this nonsense as proof. What the Senate Intelligence Committee does not include in the report is the fact that Valerie's boss had asked her to write a memo outlining her husband's qualifications for the job. She did what any good employee does; she gave her boss what he asked for.
The decision to send Joe Wilson on the mission to Niger was made by Valerie's bosses. She did not have the authority to sign travel vouchers, issue travel orders, or expend one dime of U.S. taxpayer dollars on her own. Yet, she has been singled out by the Republican National Committee and its partisans as a legitimate target of attack. It was Karl Rove who told Chris Matthews, "Wilson's wife is fair game".
What makes the unjustified and inappropriate attacks on Valerie Plame and her reputation so unfair is that there was no Administration policy position stipulating that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium in February 2002. That issue was still up in the air and, as noted by SSCI, Vice President Cheney himself asked for more information.
At the end of the day we are left with these facts. We went to war in Iraq on the premise that Saddam was reacquiring weapons of mass destruction. Joe Wilson was sent on a mission to Niger in response to a request initiated by the Vice President. Joe Wilson supplied information to the CIA that supported other reports debunking the claim that Saddam was trying to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger. When Joe went public with his information, which had been corroborated by the CIA in April 2003, the response from the White House was to call him a liar and spread the name of his wife around.
We sit here more than two years later and the storm of invective and smear against Ambassador Wilson and his wife, Valerie, continues. I voted for George Bush in November of 2000 because I wanted a President who knew what the meaning of "is" was. I was tired of political operatives who spent endless hours on cable news channels parsing words. I was promised a President who would bring a new tone and new ethical standards to Washington.
So where are we? The President has flip flopped and backed away from his promise to fire anyone at the White House implicated in a leak. We now know from press reports that at least Karl Rove and Scooter Libby are implicated in these leaks. Instead of a President concerned first and foremost with protecting this country and the intelligence officers who serve it, we are confronted with a President who is willing to sit by while political operatives savage the reputations of good Americans like Valerie and Joe Wilson. This is wrong.
Without firm action by President Bush to return to those principles he promised to follow when he came to Washington, I fear our political debate in this country will degenerate into an argument about what the meaning of "leak" is. We deserve people who work in the White House who are committed to protecting classified information, telling the truth to the American people, and living by example the idea that a country at war with Islamic extremists cannot expend its efforts attacking other American citizens who simply tried to tell the truth.
I am stunned that people continue to excuse treasonous behavior by top officials in George Bush's administration.
I guess their "loyalties" are to the party and not to their country.
Despicable.
You know, you use people other than the man himself, Joe Wilson. This is real easy. Maybe I'm wrong, I think you work too hard.
No, UL, I don't work too hard.
I just watched the Congressional hearings on the Plame Scandal CSPAN). And I heard testimony from 3 former CIA agents (I think they were all Republicans).
They were all in agreement that this (the outing of Valerie Plame) is a shameful, cowardly blot on this country.
So far, after 2 years, no CIA agents supporting the treasonous outing of Valerie Plame have come forward.
You will, eventually, come to see how awful this administration has behaved.
Nah.
Nah?
Oh, yes, I understand.
Ideology and the cult of conservatism over the rule of law.
My friend, you cannot see because you do not want to.
Yes, NAH! Nah to your statement that I will soon see how awful this administration has behaved. Phooey!
I cannot treat your statements with an infinitesmal of a degree of seriousness anymore. You have made up your mind long ago, perhaps around the 2000 election, that you are going to spout what the Left thinks and feels toward Bush. YOU don't see all the evidence, you CHERRY PICK your way through the media scraps hoping to find anything damning of the president and his policies. And I must say, it goes against the common master.
You pontificate to me as you quote from other liberal rags like Reuters, NYTimes, LATimes etc regarding secondary information, including the White House statements made in July of 2003. It was at this time the administration initially believed Mr. Wilson when he first disclosed the "damning" information. This has been later has proven to be dis-information by the Senate Intelligence Commitee. So you quote secondary and tertiary sources, I go to what Wilson actually said, a primary source.
What is inconsistant on your part is that you believe what the Republican Senate Intelligence Committee says about weapons of mass destruction, but YOU DISCOUNT THIS SAME REPORT regarding their findings on Wilson. Can you see a red flag here? Don't you see how inconsistant your thinking is? I see it, and it doesn't lend weight to the Left's allegations.
What I have tried to do with this particular post is show the absolute idiocy of the Media Left's vendetta of using Joe Wilson when, according to his own conflicted testimony, he deflates his own credibility. Your faithful gaggle of yellow journalists will never bring this out. It takes bloggers and conservative journalists to do the scooping of real journalism. Do you think the evidence is made up about Valerie Plame Wilson outing herself by giving out her undercover name and company that she worked to the Al Gore Campaign and George Soros Moveon.org? If true, it would seem to me that this undermines the entire case against Rove. And you say that I cannot see. Tell me, are you okay with contradictions?
The other thing that is so ludicrous is your idea of the "rule of law." The left wants to crucify Rove in general, and Bush in particular regarding the Plame issue, but on the other hand, wants to stand in solidarity with Judith Miller, stating that the outing of Plame doesn't violate any law, including the 1982 Intelligence Identity Security Act. Such contradictions shows blatant hypocrisy on the left. And you, dear lady, seem to ignore this while pouring on the rhetoric. If we follow the rule of law, according to liberals, we'd have to let Judith Miller out of jail and then put Rove in jail. For what? There is no truth in a contradiction. This shows a fierce prejudice and pure sophistry. And, it is my intense hatred of sophistry that fuels my posts and my comments. Any sophisty, from the left or right is an obfuscation of the truth. This is how I see things.
My mind through this whole thing has been that if Plame was supposed to remain super secret and Rove outed her in retaliation for real intelligence, then he should pay. Big time. Period. Get the evidence on everything, both on Plame, Rove, Wilson and whoever else, and let's weigh it. Unfortunately, the evidence has been so sparing, and so contrary to the allegations, that a reasonable person could not come to the same conclusion that the Left has. I refuse to overlook the obvious in order to get rid of Rove.
As a person, Mr. Rove doesn't like Wilson, didn't like the fact that Wilson has attacked his boss by calling him and the Vice-President a liar, and likes using the "F" word in describing how he wants to get Wilson. Yeah? This is not evidence. This shows Rove to be fiercely loyal, angry, profane and fallible...but did he BREAK THE LAW?
All I see is ALLEGATION UPON ALLEGATION only; and it's getting more shrill. What the Left would want me to believe is that the presence of allegations means we must hang the man. And then these axe grinders put together the particulars they want me to believe that support their pre-conclusions. Their inductive method is so flawed and transparent that it is impossible for me to come to the same conclusion. So, I take the unpopular route and say what I think, and I put forth some posts that rattle a few cages.
In conclusion to a long comment (thanks for bearing with me, by the way), I choose not to see things your way. Nothing personal against you; my mind is a steel trap that is closed to the fractured, contradictory information that you tried to give me. So, I say "nah" to give myself time to put together what I am thinking. I will not see how awful this administration is unless there is evidence. ALLEGATIONS ARE NOT EVIDENCE.
An aside: even though we disagree, I want to thank you for your input. It allows me to see things that I wouldn't have noticed on my own and allows me to grow. You may think I am a part of a cult of conservatism and blind to what is happening, but no matter, I still appreciate your dropping by.
If you think I am a part of a cult, with a master pulling strings, wait until you see what I think about the wasted efforts toward democratization of Islamic countries. With this particular Bush policy, I am VERY cynical.
UL,
I read the post. Yes, it was long, and I did bear with you.
There are only two things I have to say:
1. The White House admitted it was wrong to include the 16 words in the State of the Union address--confirming what Wilson said in his July 6, 2003 column.
2. The White House lied (via Scott McClellan) when it categorically stated that Rove had nothing to do with the Plame affair.
Everything else is toro poo-poo.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=awNg9bJB5JFU&refer=us
At issue are past statements by McClellan, who in September and October 2003, denied Rove's involvement in the leak. ``They assured me that they were not involved in this,'' McClellan said on Oct. 10, 2003, referring to Rove, Deputy National Security Adviser Elliot Abrams and Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.
July 7, 2003 – White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer retracts the 16-word yellowcake claim from the State of the Union address, calling the President's statement “incorrect.” ( White House Press Gaggle, July 7 2003) .
MR. FLEISCHER: So this was something that the CIA undertook as part of their regular review of events, where they sent him. But they sent him on their own volition, and the Vice President's office did not request it. Now, we've long acknowledged -- and this is old news, we've said this repeatedly -- that the information on yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect.
UL,
With regard to your very long post, you suggested that I relied on allegations by left-leaning media.
No.
See above.
These are quotes from George W. Bush's White House press secretaries.
Question: Why did Scott McClellan, who is the WH press secretary state categorically that Rove wasn't involved? Why did the White House lie about the involvement of Bush's senior advisors?
Why did the White House attack Joe Wilson when it turns out THE WHITE HOUSE AGREED WITH HIS FINDINGS, i.e., the 16 words in Bush's SOTU address "indeed, turned out to be incorrect."??????
The CIA refered to the DoJ what it considered a violation of the law when Valerie Plame Wilson was outed by the officials in the White House.
The investigation of the CIA's allegations was taken on by the then AG, John Ashcroft. Under pressure because of his conflict of interest in the matter (Rove worked for his campaign for Senator)he recused himself and turned the investigation over to the deputy AG, who in turn appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as special prosecutor.
The special prosecutor in turn called many of the WH staff to appear before a special grand jury investigating the allegations.
Karl Rove was called three times.
The special prosecutor presented evidence to a three-judge circuit court of appeals in Washington, DC, to justify the seriousness of the alleged national security violation. Based on Fitzgerald's presentation of this evidence, the judges issued subpoenas to several members of the press, requiring them to testify about their sources in the case.
Several of the members of the press appealed to the Supreme Court, claiming journalistic privilege and the Supreme Court declined to hear their appeal, thus the lower court's requirement for the journalists to testify stood.
Miller of the NYTimes refused to reveal her source, and was sent to jail for contempt.
Cooper of Time, Inc., turned over his notes and testified as to his source, i.e., Karl Rove.
These are the facts as the public understands them today.
There is no "liberal" crusade or campaign behind any of these facts (which you know are stubborn things). It is a legal and constitutional process, which follows our existing law and jurisprudence.
Therefore, I find it illogical for you to claim that this is a liberal-media inspired smear/campaign/witchhunt against the president and his administration.
It is alleged that an unlawful act was committed.
The White House has been caught lying about it.
Why did the White House allow McClellan to lie?
You keep avoiding the obvious. The press is two faced. It condemns Rove as the one who outed her, and yet in their friend of the court briefing, the 36 represented news agencies list the criteria of the 1982 Intelligence Identity Security Act to be violated. In order for the law to have been broken, one who has clearance to classified information regarding covert agents identies are the ones who are liable. Rove is NOT one of those people. He doesn't have clearance. Which means she was outed prior to the Rove incident.
As to the yellow cake comments by the White House in 2003, that was based on the report by Wilson in 2003, who was found by Feb. of 2004 to have mishandled and/or mislead the government in 2003, where it was clear that Iraq WAS interested in purchasing the yellow cake, which exhonorated the president's statements in 2003.
Isabella, you are beating a dead horse, bury it and move on; it's starting to smell.
UL said:
"Isabella, you are beating a dead horse, bury it and move on; it's starting to smell."
I am not beating a dead horse. You are avoiding the issue. AVOIDING.
Number One: The White House said it was incorrect when it included the 16 words on the yellowcake. If, as you state, this was in fact correct information, then WHY DID THE WHITE HOUSE SAY IT WAS WRONG TO INCLUDE IT?
You avoid this question. Why?
I don't care about whether or not Karl Rove technically broke a law.
WHY DID THE WHITE HOUSE LIE WHEN IT CATORGORICALLY STATED HE WAS NOT INVOLVED.
You avoid this question. Why?
This is not beating a dead horse. That is your characterization of something you seem to be very uncomfortable or unwilling to address.
Why?
Not unwilling...not uncomfortable. Sigh. It is a complete waste of time, Isabella! You stubbornly persist in thinking you got something by quoting the WH admitting error when they based their judgement on intelligence available in 2003. February 2004 rolls around, and to our surprise, the faltering Wilson confirms that what the president said in 2003 is actually true!
What is amazing to me is that you don't quit, which says a lot about you personally, but lends nothing to your conclusion. The particular you are pressing lends no weight to your conclusion. It is absurd to continue.
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