Cia/white House Leak Scandal

[jku]

What do you guys think about this in re to the leak scandal:

XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX TUES SEPT 30, 2003 20:52:37 ET XXXXX

'SHE HAS BEEN UNDER COVER FOR THREE DECADES'

A former counter-terrorism official at the CIA and the State Department claimed Tuesday night that outted CIA agent
"Valerie Plame" was under cover for three decades and was not a "CIA analyst" as columnist Bob Novak has suggested.

Larry Johnson made the charge on PBS's NEWSHOUR.

"I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been under cover for three decades. She is not as Bob
Novak suggested a "CIA analyst." Given that, i was a CIA analyst for 4 years. I was under cover. I could not divulge to my
family outside of my wife that I worked for the CIA unti I left the Intelligence Agency on Sept. 30, 1989. At that point I
could admit it. The fact that she was under cover for three decades and that has been divulged is outrageous. She was put
undercover for certain reasons. One, she works in an area where people she works with overseas could be compromised...

"For these journalists to argue that this is no big deal... and if I hear another Republican operative suggesting that,
well, this was just an analyst. Fine. Let them go undercover. Let's put them go overseas. Let's out them and see how they
like it...

"I say this as a registered Republican. I am 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 who had no relevance to the story.
Publishing her name in that story added nothing to it because the entire intent was, correctly as Amb. Wilson noted, to
intimidate, to suggest taht 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 was nuclear material in Iraq that required this war. This was about a political attack. To pretend it was
something else, to get into this parsing of words.

"I tell you, it sickens me to be a Republican to see this."

[REALAUDIO OF THE INTERVIEW]

Developing...
ated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
APTV-09-30-03 1658PDT

[SunDevil]

The thing I don't get is how a wife of an ambassador could blend in enough to get good intel. The CIA needed to get people inside the chemical, bio, and nuclear labs to find out what was really going on. I'm sure they tried with some of those inspector teams though.

The media person who printed this should be held accountable as well.

[jku]

Wait a minute SunDevil - Valerie Plame, the outed CIA agent, wasn't even in IRAQ - that we know of.

Her husband, Joe Wilson, discredited the Bush team claim that Iraq got uranium from Niger as Bush stated in the STATE OF THE UNION address in 2003 - as retaliation/revenge to Wilson for going against the Bush Administration, they OUTED his wife who has been working undercover with the CIA for the past 3 decades. Valerie Plame, the wife, always told even her close friends that she was an ENERGY CONSULTANT.

The fact that this MELROSE PLACE style hairpulling against people who tell the truth about this corrupt war is coming out of the Bush Administration, if true, is sickening.

How anyone can support the Bush administration after this is beyond me. This story has been floating around for the past three months - and NOW Bush is getting serious about cracking down?

As Chuck D said - "Don't believe the hype"...Bush and gang outed this agent to tell other CIA people to shut the hell up, or risk getting your contacts killed. NOW Bush says he will cooperate to find the "culprit?" What? A nickle short and day late.

Plame's contacts are probably dead now - and if this Admin did leak her name, blood is on the hands of the Bush Administration.

By the way - the journalist who leaked was none other than right wing mouthpiece Robert Novak.
Also known as the old guy on "Crossfire."

[dakotagopher]

I am pleased to see an investigation in this moving forward. Seems warranted.

Is unfair at this point to paint the entire Bush team as if they got together and deliberately planned this leak........odds are, the leak was the same as most other admin level leaks are, from some individual staffer acting alone out of either spite for Bush (hoping to get him in trouble) or spite for the Ambassador for contradicting Bush.

I can't see Bush & the core team, with the possible exception Rove, as releasing this data. And I think Rove would be smart enough to see the negative political repurcussions of releasing the data, so he probely didn't do it either. I think they see the big picture better than that.

Can't hold Novak accountable either. The media operates with impunity as long as there are a couple of sources to back them up. However, this passes the line of common sense and decency and is a black mark on his career. Odds are he did honestly think she was just an analyst and outing her wouldn't do much harm, but even if that was his line of thought, it's still unacceptable. Over the years, there have been many in the media who've been used as puppets, and in their eagerness for the scoop they often don't even knowing they're being puppetted. Odds are this was Novak in this case. Smart people are often the easiest to manipulate....

The wife of an ambassador would be extremely well suited to espionage. Unlink the James Bond movies, most espionage is done by boring career pencil pushers interacting and developing relationships with other boring beaurocrats (spelling?).

[jku]

Can anyone here imagine what would be happening if a Democrat was in the White House and:

- A CIA operative was outed, compromising our National Security
- A War was waged on unproven claims
- An economy was in a slump with record unemployment
- Members of the Democratic Administration had ties to company engaged in blatant war profiteering.
- Soliders died on a daily basis, in a foreign land.
- A President and son of priveledge with minimal political experience who never served in the military, and actually got a break doing National Guard duty, stood on an aircraft carrier claiming victory, later telling enemies to "bring it on."

I seriously think there would be a riot at the doors of the White House. Charges of a LIBERAL MEDIA not covering the story with the appropriate tone of outrage would be discussed daily. T-shirts, bumper stickers, and commentators on television as far as the eye could see. Talk radio would have 24 hour marathon discussions on these topics.

One thing I truly admire about the right wing in this country is their organization and distribution of talking points. The minute a scandal hits, three or four different media outlets will be spouting the exact same defense.
By the afternoon my neighbor and some people on this list will be able to regurgitate what they have heard. At the same time, justifying to themselves, the incongruity between what the right wing CLAIMS to stand for - and what they are actually doing to this country.

[Benwa]

Take heart that W's approval rating continues to plummet. Take even more heart that its dropping in my neck of the woods, where his second largest campaign contributor is one zipcode over. Cincinnati is so republican that W uses it as a safe haven to come to announce some shady proposals. When making a case for war, its good to have a complacent crowd rather than one that hurls garbage at you. "kill them Iraqis, if god had meant for them to live he'd have made them white, american, Judeo-Christian, god fearing, republicans." Don't be too quick to laugh at my exageration, because for many people in my town it isn't an exageration.

So if his approval is dropping here, you can be sure that concerns made by Bush opponents have merit and aren't just a case of republican bashing. The issue most people around me are taking up with him is the floundering economy, but increasing is the floundering war effort. The people want to be able to find work and know when their family members will be coming back from overseas. Response: "Yeah, we'll get back to you on that, but lets talk about getting more of your tax money in the war chest and hey your youngest son looks about 18, have him watch this recruiting video and he can kill some of them brown folk, I mean he can fight terrorism."

One thing that perplexes me is that the admin doesn't really represent republicans in general. Most people with conservative/repulican tendencies aren't wealthy (at least not as wealthy as the Bushies), don't believe in war profitering and are mainly nonviolent in their personal lives (ie. they don't shoot people the have a disagreement with). So why they support this admin is a mysterious thing to me. W isn't being fiscally responsible, which many conservatives pride themselves in. W isn't reducing taxes for most conservatives. And W's blatant war profiteering for his buddies is exactly the opposite of free market, which conservatives are so adamant about.

The new CIA fiasco doesn't surprise me in the least. It matches the "with us or against us" mentality the admin loves so much. They feel they are 100% right about most everything and anyone whostrays is obviously wrong and must be dealt with. And generally people who are "wrong" are painted as "evil". This is not the behaviour of a responsible leader. It is the behaviour of an immature, small headed, large egoed, adolescent. The behaviour a a boy who never faced many of the hardships or consequences others faced. His mind stayed small, his body grew into a man with issues about his father. How does a son please a father who was leader of the free world. Most children of larger than life leaders either become leaders themselves or become hopeless alcoholics (W became both!). So he becomes president also and continues his fathers work. Whoa! Heavy man! Hey Freud, how ya like them apples!

[jku]

In re to the Bush psyche - I see a lot of similarities between Bush and Kim Il in North Korea. Both sons of well respected leaders, both insecure about their power base, both willing to go against world opinion to further their own personal and political ends. Nonetheless, I think Bush may have thought that exposing the wife of the man who burned his Administration, the same as Il sees sending a critic of his regime to concentration camps. The "don't f__k with me, I'm powerful" mentality is common among rich kids.
They've never felt the blunt end of adversity, and when it comes near their head, they act out.

Bush won't go down for this awful act. But for Repuiblicans to claim that this is purely political is ridiculous. The Republicans have Ed Gillespie, HEAD of the Republican National Committee going around saying the motivation is pure politics! That's absurd at face value - at least get a retired CIA agent to come out and say that!
Oh wait, a CIA spook that did come out - and went to PBS Newshour and said that Plame IS an agent, and her identity being revealed did compromise sources related to National Security.

It must be a hard time to be a Republican and deny to oneself the truth about their party. An ultra- wealthy minority of powerbroker pied-pipers bringing in poor and middle class people into their party with the "tunes" of morality, patriotism and God - and upon reaching the promise land, finding economic ruin, greed, lust for war, and revulsion for the true values that most Americans hold dear - fair wages, a chance at opportunity, positive relations overseas, safety at home.

With Limbaugh, the drug addict, exposed today - can we say the dying breaths of the OLD Republican dragon are huffing in our collective faces?
Will a new Republican party emerge(one I think people like our list friend DakotaGopher seems to represent)? One of working people, who understand the value of investment in the future, opportunity fair taxes for all, positive cooperative foreign policy, and responsible Government at home - who believe that freedom from large nebulous Government forces is just as American as Daryl Worley?

Let these old GOP ghosts fade away. Next November lets all decide to elect someone new and get this country headed on a proper course that guarantees fairness and prosperity for our generation.
This blatant corruption, greed, and hunger for power and moral authority is more than I can stand.

[dakotagopher]

Good grief.

JKU - no offense dude, but if there were a left-wing Rush Limbaugh that is the sort of stuff he'd spew.



Benwa - you are correct, many "traditional conservatives" are finding that Bush's policies don't match the tenants of traditioanl conservatism. Espeically RE finance and less intrusive gov't. Unless he can sell himself as a true conservative, OR the dems nominate an extremeist candidate (unlikely), Bush is in for an interesting fight in 2004.

[jku]

hi Dakota -
Upon a second read, I would tend to agree with you. But there isn't a left wing Limbaugh because there doesn't seem to be much money in it.

I do think there is some trouble up the road for this Republican machine that has done so well the past 10 years.

Basically, what they are saying and what they DO, just don't match up. I wish it did.