WP Op Ed: Oozing Hypocrisy Over a Leak

Richard Cohen nails it! This is the real story!


.... After Walter Pincus of The Post reported on Wilson's Africa trip, Wilson himself went public in a New York Times op-ed essay. That was July 6. On July 14, Robert Novak identified Wilson's wife by name as a CIA "operative." She had been instrumental in sending Wilson to Africa, Novak wrote.

Maybe so. And if so, that's moderately interesting. But much more interesting is the fact that yet another leaker -- this one identified as a senior official -- told The Post that Valerie Plame's name was leaked "purely and simply for revenge." The Post noted that it is "rare for one Bush administration official to turn on another," which indeed it is. This leaker is now the one who needs protection. We have a latter-day Deep Throat.

snip

.... Rest assured, it will not be the button man who put a hit on Wilson and his wife but the one who blew the whistle. White House security is at fault.

Somehow, someone got in with a conscience.


more at
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A30697-2003Oct1.html

who is cia, I believe. He thought this was disgusting and I said cia blood is thicker than repugnant water.

But here's another person with a deeper cover who has a conscience.

Cohen rips this White house apart. If even 1/2 of what he says are actual true facts, ....serious things be happening. Crisis level.

:evilgrin:

:grr:

too good to even imagine... the parallels... folks we have a latter day and far more evil spiro agnew... a latter day and far more evil Haldemman... and a latter day tricky dick... and now it seems a latter day deep throat. And for those not catching the irony of the whole thing, this is being played, for all to see in the Washington Post... I wonder do we have a latter day Woodward and Bernstein team? (Howard Pinkus needs a a side kick)

:kick:

And the neocons go down in flames.

Some enterprising journalist needs to find out who the "latter-day Deep Throat" in the WH is and start investigating!

Scooter Libbly, Cheney's Chief-of-Staff. (Novak was, as he claimed, interested to know how a Clinton appointee had been sent by the administration to undertake such an investigation.) So he naturally calls Scooter (at the time of the editorial, Wilson was said to have been sent by the Vice President's Office. Remember?), and Scooter was ready for him.

They talked about Wilson's editorial, why the State-of-the-Union Speech referred to Nigerian yellow-cake uranium and why Powell didn't mention it at the UN, and how Cheney had never heard of Wilson. Then Scooter explains, telling Novak that Cheney, the previous summer, had asked the CIA to look into the reports of uranium sales to Iraq from Niger and that it was the CIA who had sent Wilson. Then Scooter lets it drop, "Well, you know Wilson's wife? Valerie Plame? She was the CIA agent who had him sent." Novak's ears perk up (all he hears is "nepotism," missing the real insinuation: that Wilson put his wife up to having him sent because he had an anti-War agenda or because he was anti-administration and wanted to put the breaks on the rising crescendo of war rhetoric that fall). Novak checks spelling ("P-L-A-M-E"), thanks Scooter, hangs up. Checks second source, etc.

It's important to realize the purpose was to discredit Wilson as a maverick-with-an-agenda, getting his wife to send him on a mission the results of which would undercut Bush's bellicose rhetoric or make Bush pull back from his decision to invade Iraq.

Given the circumstance of the following summer (2003) when everyone was questioning the existence of WMD and then to have a key item in the President's State of the Union Speech undercut in a NY Times editorial-length letter, Scooter's plant was artful and effective, despite Novak's dull-witted interpretation (nepotism). I was clever without crushing anyone (Libby is more circumspect and pragmatic than Rove). The purpose was not primarily to inflict revenge upon Wilson, nor was it necessarily a warning to others who might take similar public stands, but to undercut an opponent who had momentarily risen in their midst. Bloodlessly, swiftly.


Coda: Wistful Thinking

I'm guessing Scooter Libby is spending the day with lawyers and staff, figuring out how to minimize legal and politial damage. Tomorrow he'll resign.

:kick: