Funmurphys: the Blog

The Triumph of Hope over Experience

Posts Tagged Joe Wilson

Why Is Scooter Libby On Trial?

Feb 1

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Current Events | No Comments

I’ve promised one last Plame post numerous times, but the Scooter Libby trial requires comment — if only for the sheer fun of saying the defendant’s name. If you want the ins and outs, Tom Maguire is as always your man. I’m taking a big picture look.

First off, near as I can tell just about everybody who got roped into Fitzgerald’s investigation has had trouble with remembering what actually happened — who said what to whom when — or has changed their story, yet only Mr. Libby is on trial. Mr. Fitzgerald claims that is because Mr. Libby deliberately mislead him and impeded his investigation, but his investigation into what? He determined that no crime occured, and that determination had nothing to do with who leaked first, it had to do with Ms. Plame-Wilson’s status.

Secondly, Joe Wilson has lied long and loud and clear yet he suffers no penalty for doing so. I’m not even sure he actually went to Niger since he’s lied about everything else. And as it turns out, he is the guy who actually leaked his wife’s status as an ex-NOC — up until he yapped to Mr. Corn, his wife simply worked at the CIA. It’s bad enough Armitage, Fleischer, Rove and Libby let out that much, but Joe himself did the most damage.

Third and last, why is Fitzgerald and the government wasting time with this prosecution when real live CIA leaks that actually caused harm are going uninvestigated and unpunished?

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Wilson Plame Who Cares Anymore?

Nov 30

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Current Events | No Comments

Yes, I know some of you never cared about the whole Wilson Plame saga from the beginning, and some gave up caring long ago, but I’ve stopped. I know, Tom Maguire who is a better writer and investigator is still going full steam ahead, but this is I hope my last word on the subject. I’m going cold turkey.

Yes, I’m upset by the leaking of classified information, but then unlike a lot of people excited by the whole affair I’m upset by the leaking of any classified information. Frankly, it was a shock when Fitzgerald announced that revealing classified information wasn’t a crime in and of itself. It ought to be, but then there might not be anyone left at the CIA (or Congress for that matter).

Part of the ennui is the excessive focus on the least important parts and the ignoring the of the most important. And by that I mean the focus should be on our ability to gather intellegence, analyze it, promulgate it, and protect it. In other words, the process. Instead, the focus has been on the personalities, the who instead of the what. The whole mess has been (or at least should have been) an embarrassment to everyone involved. The CIA comes off as bumbling at best or rogue at worst; the press comes off as bumbling at best and biased at worst; even the vaunted Patrick Fitzgerald comes off as a bumbler – he didn’t deliver on what he was asked to do, namely get to the bottom of who leaked to Bob Novak — instead he got Libby who appears to have leaked to everybody but Novak, his prosecution of Libby now looks weak since Bob Woodward nonchalantly announced that he got a leak from somebody else before Libby started and while I’m always up for perjury the idea that Libby diverted Fitzgeralds investigation is nonsense – it ultimately saved it from coming up empty – because Libby wasn’t party to the leak to Novak. Apparently, prosecuting the mafia, terrorists, and Illinois politicians is a walk in the park compared to unraveling the relationships between the press and the government in D.C. – which is a reflection not on Mr. Fitzgerald but the Byzantine workings of Washington. The whole prosecution has this weird feel because even though we have a prosecutor investigating a crime, he can’t come after the witnesses, and let’s face it, partners in crime AKA reporters with the full majesty of the law like he could against mob bosses, terrorist masterminds, and crooked politicians.

And finally, the left seems to be deranged on the subject. Consider Marty Kaplan, otherwise brilliant renaissance man – bright light to my dim bulb, who wrote the most astonishing blog post A Piss Is Not A Leak:

When government officials or campaign operatives go off the record to a reporter in order to smear someone, spread disinformation, lie about an opponent, stab someone in the back while wearing the cloak of anonymity, kindle a propanganda brush fire, slander critics, psych out enemies, and throw red herrings in an investigator’s path, they are engaging in the dark arts of psy ops.

And that’s from the calmer part of the rant. Why do I consider it deranged? Becuase of the often heard claim, repeated not just by the many like Kaplan but Joe Wilson his own self, that he was smeared by the Bush Adminstration. What exactly was this smear? Was it that he as a cross dresser, like the left likes to smear the definately unsaintly J. Edgar Hoover? Did they call him a traitor or a liar like President Bush is routinely savaged? Nope, the big bad smear is that somebody in the administration pointed out that Joe Wilson got the job to go to Niger because of his wife. Holy Mackaloney, that’s about the worstest thing you could say about anyone. Instead of “your mother wears army boots”, tell somebody they got a two week paid assignment because their spouse wrote a glowing assessment, then watch the punches fly. And the really crazy thing is, the left hates to admit, and Joe Wilson pretty much can’t admit it himself, but it’s the truth. There, I said it, Joe Wilson got the job to go to Niger and nose around because his wife recommended him, and that’s been backed up by every investigation into the matter.

 

On the other hand, this laudable devotion to the truth and fair politics somehow falls to the wayside when it comes to examining Joe Wilson’s claims which again, have been revealed to be false by every investigation into the matter. Those claims which were, how shall we say, leaked under the cover of annonymity to the New York Times to kindle a propanganda brush fire – a propanganda brush fire that continues to burn (Bush Lied!) and divert attention and resources from important things. So you have Wilson pretty much doing everything the left is foaming at the mouth mad at the Bush administration for but not doing, which strikes me as deranged. It must be amazingly emotionally satisfying, to be so utterly convinced of one owns superlative righteousness that reality itself is distorted into a mirror image. Excuse me if I find it boring to hear such smug assertions of fairy tales.

Perhaps we can find a middle ground with it comes to kicking the tar out of Randy Cunningham, who I hope we can all agree behaved reprehensibly in accepting bribes and who’s actions are, in a word, unpatriotic. Frankly, I don’t know if it worse or mitigating that he was a war hero in Vietnam.

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Wilson Plame Libby Woodward

Nov 17

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Current Events | 1 Comment

The case against Scooter Libby took an odd turn the other day when investigative reporter extraordinaire (just ask him, he’ll tell you) Bob Woodward announced the other day that he’d been given Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA analyst by an administration source other than Scooter Libby before Libby talked to Miller, Cooper, and Russert.

Tom Maguire is all over this, as always. And from every angle, especially Cheney.

What I think it means is that Fitzgerald will have a harder time convicting Libby. Why? Because Mr. Fitzgerald’s claim was that Libby was the first leaker based on the testimony of Miller, Cooper, and Russert and therefore his claim to have heard it from reporters first has to be a lie, and not just a disagreement over what was said in a brief conversation a couple of years ago. If it cannot be established that in fact this info was not leaked prior to Libby, then that claim goes down in flames. And further, Woodward claims he told Walter Pincus about Ms. Wilson, although Pincus doesn’t remember that. So now we have two reporters disagreeing about who told what during a brief discussion a couple of years ago. But wait, there’s still more – Mr. Woodward kept mum about this leak, despite the investigation, until Mr. Fitzgerald contacted him because one of Woodwards sources spilled the beans to Mr. Fitzgerald. So no doubt everybody is wondering who else is out there but hunkered down and waiting for Fitzgerald to make the first contact.

I think it also means we’re less likely to ever make sense out of it beyond partisan ax grinding. And that might be a good thing, because as far as I can tell it has become a sideshow, a distraction, the mother of all red herrings, from the important questions – what can we do to improve intelligence collection and analysis at the CIA and what can we do to safeguard classified information better. This is a case where we can’t see the forest for the trees.

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Policy Dispute or Morality Play?

Nov 9

Posted by Kevin Murphy in The War on Terror | No Comments

There are two things I find very offensive about the claim that the Bush administration lied about WMD just so that we could go to war – it insults my intellegence as it is so obviously wrong to anyone who has the slightest ability to remember, or absent that, to anyone who takes the slightest time to investigate; and it takes a straightforward policy dispute (whether or not to to to war) and turns it into a morality play (Bush lied and people died!).

And in this fantasy, it’s Joe Wilson who exposed the administration. Let’s examine the circumstances around Joe Wilson’s trip and the claim that, for instance, the administration either made stuff up out of whole cloth or at least leaned on intellegence agencies to provide intel like the White House wanted. The VP and his staff (i.e. Scooter Libby) took a strong interest in intellegence and even visited CIA headquarters a few times. Thus the claims that the VP pressured the CIA to tell him stories he wanted to hear.

Wilson’s trip starts, according to the CIA, when Vice President Cheney indicated an interest during his daily CIA brief in more information about a report that Saddam tried to buy Uranium from Niger. So the CIA sends former Ambassador Wilson at the recommendation of his wife to check the story out. He spends some time in Niger talking to old friends, briefs our Ambassador there about his findings, returns home and briefs the CIA about his findings. What did he find in Niger? He found that indeed, the Iraqi’s in 1999 had gone to Niger and made overtures that the Nigerians interpreted as a desire to buy uranium, but that the Nigerians didn’t sell any, and couldn’t anyway because of monitoring. Did the CIA, under pressure from Cheney, immediately alert the Vice President that in fact they had confirmed the Iraqi’s tried to buy uranium from Niger? No, the CIA concluded that the report was inconclusive because all Wilson did was talk to contacts who knew he was reporting to the US government (which they knew he did before he left) and handled the report routinely without informing the White House of it’s contents. Later on Ambassador Wilson would go on to lie or mislead about almost every aspect of his trip, his findings especially, in a successful attempt to make people believe that the White House lied about WMD, when the only liar was Joe Wilson.

So what does the uncontested part of Wilson’s trip tell us? If the CIA felt any pressure to say what the White House wanted, they sure as hell didn’t act like it. Here we have the Vice President show an interest in a report about WMD, and the CIA went out of their way to investigate in such a way as to generate a report they could ignore while telling the White House if asked that they had indeed investigated but the results were inconclusive even if, as it happened, they turned up evidence that Iraq did try to obtain uranium from Africa.

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Excellence, Not Privilege

Nov 4

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Current Events, Media Criticism | No Comments

What, exactly, is freedom of the press? Is it the freedom not to testify to grand juries? I sure don’t think so. I think freedom of the press is the freedom to investigate and publish without prior government restraint; the freedom of the press isn’t a trump card over any and all consequences. And last time I looked in the constitution, it said nothing about “the public’s right to know.” To know what exactly? Apparently not the identity of sources.

Judith Miller is in jail for refusing to name a source to a grand jury conducting a criminal investigation. I don’t see how freedom of the press provides any coverage here, especially since there’s every possibility that the source committed a crime, and the crime itself was a source disclosing confidential information. To my mind, Ms. Miller is clearly breaking the law by impeding a criminal investigation and has no basis for the claim that she has a legal right to confidentiality. The promise of confidentiality at this point is an illegal contract, and can’t (nor should it) be enforced.

But the press tells me there’s a bigger issue here – the ability to protect confidential sources. They tell me this is very important for America, and often mention Watergate. Well. President Nixon’s underlings were investigated, indicted, and convicted by the judicial system, and President Nixon resigned rather than be impeached and convicted by Congress. From my vantage point, the triumph of Watergate is that the separation of powers worked, not that the fourth estate was needed. It wasn’t. It didn’t do a darn thing but report what real branches of government (and in the case of Woodward and Bernstein, the executive branch) were doing. Confidential sources contributed nothing to the outcome, even if they contributed to the Washington Post’s bottom line.

But what about the case of a whistleblower who bravely steps forward to alert the public to danger? By and large, these are not criminal offenses and the confidentiality protects the whistleblower from reprisal, not criminal investigation. And where a crime is committed, or may have been committed, the proper resolution is that it be adjudicated by a court, not stonewalled by a reporter. That is, the source should have their day in court so that their deed can be judged, not hidden because of a reporter’s promise. 

Ultimately what the press is asking for is the easy road, not the best road. They truly do want to be above the law, which is wrong. Ms. Woolner skirts the issue:

Still, reporters, like prosecutors, can’t always choose their sources. We find ourselves getting information from people with their own agendas, some of them lacking a certain degree of character. The trick is to independently assess the information, taking into account the weaknesses and motivation of the source. It is a task that can rarely be completed in that first discussion with the source, the one where the terms of the conversation and the degree of confidentiality are negotiated. 

OK, how about just throwing in a clause that the confidentiality agreement is null and void if a crime is involved? How hard is that? Realistically, the journalist is in a weak position relative to the source, and journalists, especially big name journalists, rely on sources. So they have the Faustian bargain that is only alluded to — they advance the interests of the source, typically make the interest of the source their own, without fully knowing and understanding the interests of the source. And the interests of the source may have nothing to do with the public interest – in fact it might be quite the opposite. And given the rush to publish, it’s doubtful that the reporter ever has a full understanding of what the source is about, or is truly interested. But because on rare instances a source’s interests do coincide with the public good, we should treat all sources as advancing the public good? I don’t think so.

I have no illusions that because of this blog I’m a “journalist”, although technically I am. I don’t think I should get any special privileges or treatment because I post stuff to the internet where it can be read by others. Nor should be people get special privileges or treatment because they write stuff that is published and read by others. That’s just crazy talk.

Sourcing isn’t the only area the journalists and journalism want special privileges – they want special treatment for product liability. Thus they successfully argued for the malice standard for slander/libel. Thus they want measely correction columns to satisfy the informationally injured – both the party that was directly wronged and the consumers of the false information. Journalism is gung ho about everybody else being held to high standards and facing lawsuits, but about themselves, well, it would have a chilling effect. They don’t accept that argument from any other party, why should I accept it from them? 

What would journalism look like if people could sue not based on maliciousness, but simple truth and accuracy? What if their consumers could sue and collect damages if they could show that their product wasn’t true and accurate as claimed? Ignorance, laziness, and disregard for others would quickly be banished as money talked, bulls**t walked. Yes, it would have chilling effect on the lousy side of journalism, but I’m not convinced that it wouldn’t lead to accurate stories based on fact, not opinion and restore the trust in journalism that is rapidly eroding — both of which can’t but help boost the bottom line. But that’s the hard way to excellence, and it’s much easier to move the goal posts.

One final note: I realize that contrary to Ms. Woolner’s published opinion which I linked to, Joseph Wilson did not discredit the Bush administration’s claim that Iraq tried to purchase Uranium in Africa – in fact he confirmed it, but then lied to Nick Kristoff about it as an anonymous source and then lied about it repeatedly as himself before ultimately admitting the truth that indeed Iraq’s then foreign minister, known as Baghdad Bob, made overtures to Nigerian officials that they interpreted as trying to buy uranium. I guess her column goes to the point I’m trying to make in more than one way.

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Libby Indicted, Resigns

Oct 29

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Current Events | No Comments

Lewis “Scooter” Libby was indicted on charges of obstruction of justice, false statements, and perjury yesterday. He wasn’t charged for the actual disclosure of classified information. Since Fitzgerald is alleging that Libby engaged in a pattern of deception, namely Libby’s claim that he first found out about Valerie Plame from reporters and merely passed along what he had heard from reporters, I think he should be charged with perjury. But what I don’t understand is, since Fitzgerald made clear that he considered Plame’s status with the CIA classified information and that Libby did indeed disclose it without proper authorization, why Libby wasn’t also charged with the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. So my complaint isn’t that Libby was charged with perjury, but that he was just charged with perjury.

If that’s all Libby faces, what message does it send? It’s OK to leak classified information, just own up to it in court? We seem to have adopted a standard in the US that disclosing classified information to foreign governments, friendly or otherwise is punishable, but disclosing to the press isn’t punishable. When was the last time a leak to the press itself investigated and charges brought? Here was a chance, and Fitzgerald has (so far) declined to take it. Does disclosure to the press somehow do less damage to national security? I sure don’t think so.

I’m also of the opinion that lying Joe Wilson should be charged for unauthorized disclosure of classified information, and there is some ammunition in Fitzgerald’s Press Release. First, Ambassador Wilson made the most damaging disclosure of classified information about his wife to David Corn since he went far beyond my wife works for the CIA. But he also maintained that there was nothing classified about his trip – neither his taking it nor his findings. Yet we find in the press release this statement:

on or about June 9, 2003, a number of classified documents from the CIA were faxed to the Office of the Vice President to the personal attention of Libby and another person in the Vice President’s office. The documents, which bore classification markings, discussed, among other things, Wilson and his trip to Niger, but did not mention Wilson by name.

Hmm, was the trip so unclassified as Ambassador Wilson has asserted?

After consulting with the State Department’s African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government.

And Fitzgerald’s statement in the press release

shortly after publication on or about June 19, 2003, of an article in The New Republic magazine online entitled “The First Casualty: The Selling of the Iraq War,” Libby spoke by telephone with his then Principal Deputy and discussed the article. That official asked Libby whether information about Wilson’s trip could be shared with the press to rebut the allegations that the Vice President had sent Wilson. Libby responded that there would be complications at the CIA in disclosing that information publicly, and that he could not discuss the matter on a non-secure telephone line;

it’s not clear if the information that couldn’t be disclosed about Wilson’s trip is limited to, or even includes his wife recommending him for the job — which would reveal her CIA employment. Maybe there was more classified information to Wilson’s trip and report besides his wife.

Is this the end of the indictments? What about Karl Rove? Only Fitzgerald knows, and he (still) isn’t talking. Certainly the evidence uncovered so far is weaker against Rove or he’d have been indicted too; maybe Karl is in the clear because he did hear from a reporter before saying things like “I hear that too”.

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Fitzgerald, Plame, Wilson, Rove, Libby, Cheney

Oct 26

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Current Events | No Comments

The web’s aflame with rumor and speculation over Fitzgerald’s investigation into the Plame kerfuffle. Of course, I get all my Plame news from Tom Maguire, who never grows tired of the fact that we know so little. Consider that Fitzgerald and his people are famously closed lipped. Who do all these leaks come from? Even if they came from Fitzgerald (gigantic if there), let me remind you of the most important point about leaks involving politics (OK, any leak for that matter) – they are always self serving for the leaker. Always. The fact that the leaker can provide only partial truth allows the leaker to control and manipulate the story.

And isn’t leaking grand jury testimony a crime as well? I understand a witness can come out and talk about the questioning, even lie about it like good old Sid Blumenthal, but other than that the testimony is legally protected. So the only way for it not to be a crime is if the leaker about a particular witnesses testimony ultimately derived their leak from the particular witness? Which leads us right back to the self serving nature of any leak. Sigh.

So what’s really going on here. Is the most important part of the whole sodden mess the fact that Valerie Plame was outed as a CIA employee? Is it that CIA is a rogue organization that is trying to undermine the elected President of the United States? Or does it’s import derive as proxy for the Iraq war itself?

Personally, what I care about most is the unauthorized discloure of classified information. If Fitzgerald can return indictments about that, even perjury indictements, I’ll consider it a successful investigation. But I want the perjury to be perjury, not just how good Karl Rove’s memory is. So if he deliberately lied to conceal unauthorized disclosure, then good. If he forgot a particular conversation of several that occured with one or more people, then bad. And by that I mean if he were tardy in disclosing a conversation with Matt Cooper, someone who Rove had no reason to believe wouldn’t disclose, then an indictment is just butt covering.

But if it turns out that the Valerie Plame wasn’t covert and the CIA persued this case while it has let plenty of other equally or more serious dislosures go in the past, then I think the CIA becomes the big story. Why should it be OK for a disgruntled current or ex-CIA employee to disclose classified information to the press, but not the White House?

Here are the unanswered questions for me. Was Valerie Plame a covert agent at the time her name was leaked? If so, it raised for me another important question then – how did her name leave the CIA? What does that say about their security proceedures? If not, what is the CIA trying to pull here?

Which reporter broke the sacred confidentiality to tell Joe Wilson who the sources were? I mean, how else was he able to finger Karl Rove and Scooter Libby way back at the start of the kerfuffle? It was only a month after Novak’s article that Wilson said he wanted to see Karl Rove “frogmarched” out of the White House in handcuffs. Libby’s name followed soon after, and then Joe Wilson backtracked and shut up about it. Odd how the press isn’t interested in Joe Wilson’s source, which he admitted to, and how that source named the two people that have been most prominently featured as people who talked to the press.

Speaking of Joe, why isn’t he being investigated as the man who clearly did the most to out his own wife? For those who like convoluted conspiracies (I’m not one), why not think the Valerie was tired of living the covert life, have Joe out you, and bam you’re out, in the clear, the darlings of the media, book deals, Vanity Fair articles. Hey, it’s more plausible than Flight Plan.

What about the role of the State Department? Plame was “moving to State Department cover”, there are reports of a State Department memo with her name in it, State opposed the war in Iraq just like the CIA. Has the institutional opposition at these two power centers overstepped the bounds of good government? And will we ever see that probed?

Most of all, what does Fitzgerald really have?

OK, that last one is a repeat of how we know so little. And what amazes me is how there are some who don’t seem to realize that. We don’t even know if Valerie Plame was covert. Did the neighbors know she worked for the CIA? I have no idea, but Mark Kleiman is convinced by an article in the LAT which relies on two neighbors. Did the LAT contact “all” the neighbors but only inlcuded quotes from two? Cliff May said lots of people in Washington knew a long time ago – but Cliff wasn’t a neighbor. Was he just talking trash, or was he telling the truth? Beats me, I don’t live in Washington. We have to rely on these leaked reports to the press, which clearly has lower standards about such leaks than, say, allegations by a victim that she was raped by Bill Clinton.

Some people don’t even know what we do know – namely that Joe Wilson is a liar who came forward not courageously before the war, but after when the status of the Iraq WMD was known. If Ambassador Wilson was so upset by President Bush’s so called manipulation of intellegence before the war (you know, when CIA head Tenet was claiming that Iraqi WMD was a “slam dunk”), why didn’t he come forward then, when it could have done some good?

One last final thoughts (not for the subject, just the post) – whatever you may think of Fitzgerald’s integrity, it seems as if people are treating the indictments as the final word on the subject. They aren’t, they are just accusations. I know that depending on whose ox is being gored, people will ignore that fact or ignore every other fact.

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Novak, Wilson, and Plame

Oct 2

Posted by Kevin Murphy in Current Events | 1 Comment

The latest Washington scandal sounds like an old rock group, but it is serious business. Did someone at the Bush Whitehouse leak the name of a CIA operative (Valerie Plame Wilson) who was the wife of a former ambassador (Joseph Wilson IV) who wrote an op-od critical critical of the Bush administration? If administration officials broke the law by deliberately leaking her status with the CIA, then by all means they should be prosecuted and fired. If it was a nobody somewhere in the great Military Industrial Complex who did this (i.e. me), that’s the fate they would suffer. It shouldn’t change because of either its political nature or the position of the officials. I know that in the past nothing happens to leakers, but it ought to. I think putting a few senators and representatives in the dock would be highly beneficial, but then I think all public officials, regardless of party affiliation, should be held accountable to the same standards as everybody else.

If you want blog coverage, Just One Minute is all over this. If you prefer your coverage from big media, Google News is always a great source.

The odd thing to me is that the parts that should be straightforward are so murky and the the murky stuff is simply opaque. The CIA should know whether or not Ms. Plame is an undercover operative as covered by law and therefore whether or not the leak broke the law. If she isn’t covered, there should be no investigation, so I have to assume she is. And the next stop should be to question the star witness, Bob Novak – just like they should for any journalist who is an eyewitness to a crime. I don’t buy the notion that there is some right to keep sources confidential if a crime has been committed, and I don’t think journalists should be treated any differently than any other private citizen. So it should be straightforward whether or not a law was broken and if so, who did it.

But it isn’t, and so Bush will twist slowly, slowly in the wind while the investigation fumbles along to no certain conclusion. If Bush were machievellan, he’d get a couple of volunteers to claim they were the leakers, that it was inadvertant and not malicious, and have them resign. What would Novak do – reveal his real sources? The scandal would be over, and the whole matter would be forgotten by most of the electorate.

The larger picture is very much confused in my mind. Apparently, Dick Cheney was concerned enough about the intel about Iraq trying to buy yellow cake from Africa that he asked the CIA to indepently check on it. So the CIA sends Joe Wilson – why? Of all the nutty yet courageous ex-Ambassadors, they picked him. What, wasn’t Felix Leiter available? Besides being married to an agent, what were his qualifications (remember his contacts in Niger were from 25 years ago)?

So he conducts his investigation by talking over tea with some Nigerians, comes back to the US where he files only a verbal report, and then goes on to right an op-ed that claims that based on his brief and cursory investigation, Iraq didn’t get yellowcake from Niger, and therefore the Bush administration was lying when it claimed that UK intellegence was reporting that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake from Africa.

Then somebody tells Bob Novak that his wife works for the CIA, and that’s how he got the job. How does this person know that Mrs. Wilson works for the CIA? Do they sign their reports, and as an expert on WMD proliferation they’ve been reading a lot of them recently? Is this how everybody seems to know that she works for the CIA? And how is leaking her CIA connection supposed to intimidate the Wilsons, or even undercut his op-ed, which if anything is enhanced by giving him some connection, however tenuous, with expertise in WMD proliferation? It is either really stupid, or simply honest.

After this Wilson claims that even mentioning her maiden name is somehow a breach of security, despite the fact that he included it in his bio on the net. And now he’s claiming that he knew all along that Iraq didn’t have WMD, although he apparently felt confident of it earlier to claim that Saddam would use it against US troops. Yeah, I know, a foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of small minds.

And now we have the press outraged that somebody would leak a CIA agent’s name, although not outraged that the press would print it, we have serial leakers (i.e. congresspeople) outraged that somebody would leak confidential information, and we have people demanding a special prosecutor despite their track record when all we need is a justice department that isn’t afraid to put a journalist in jail for refusing to name a criminal.

And yes, you have me, who hopes that we find out who did what and why, who hopes that the guilty are punished and the innocent exhonerated, that justice be applied impartially, and that we all remember and hold accountable the people we place our trust in, in public service or in the media. But then, I’m just an old fashioned guy.

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