Up in Plames
Lee Emmerich Jamison
In the summer of 1995 I wrote an article for the Huntsville Item about the then-current state of affairs in what was widely referred to as "PLAMEGATE" in the Washington-New York-Boston center of the known universe. The issue at hand was who "outed" CIA agent Valerie Plame. The problem, as I saw it then, was that there so clearly was NO STORY. Virtually all of Plame's aquaintances knew she worked for the CIA. It was common knowledge, too, that she has been "under cover" (Her children even famously spouted off as much in the Boston Airport about the time this article was written.)
This is all current today because the only person indicted in the witchunt for a way to put Karl Rove in jail, Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, is now on trial for perjury. Was he the leaker? No. Everybody who does not depend on the network news shows or the front pages of a major liberal newspaper for their news now knows not only that Richard L. Armitage admitted in September that he was the leaker, but we now know that Plamegate special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald KNEW FROM DAY ONE that he was the leaker. Libby's prosecution turns on whether he really remembered who first told him Valerie Plame was a spy and when or if he really forgot and misreported his first knowlege during the unnecessary investigation.
This blog is not just about whatever pops into my head. It is about prejudice, bigotry, and how some people use those foibles to empower themselves. I have stated that bigotry is the bias we can't see in the mirror. That is an innocent form. There is a form that is simply unmitigated evil, though, and this series of events is a clear case of a bigoted media mis-, dis-, and un-informing us for the sake of practicing and keeping power for themselves and their friends.
I re-print the article exactly as I first submitted it below.
by Lee Emmerich Jamison
You have heard it over and over. Karl Rove is a leaker. He is said to have leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent, Valerie Plame, in a effort to blunt the impact of the attacks of another, former, CIA agent, one Joe Wilson. Leaking the name of an undercover agent is a federal crime. Therefore you are to conclude that Carl Rove is a criminal.
Joe Wilson is also a former Ambassador. I don't know to whom, but it seems very important to those who inform us that this is so. That gives him gravitas, you know.
Former CIA agent/ambassador Wilson wrote in a book a couple of years ago that he was sent by the vice-president to Niger to see if claims that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium were true. He states in his book that his report discredited those claims. He made these statements after the president famously said in his 2003 State of the Nation address that British intelligence said that Iraq had made overtures to do just that.
Now since that time some group of what one supposes we must consider nefarious others have claimed that this trip was not authorized by the vice-president. Instead it was suggested, they say, by someone close to Joe Wilson- his wife. Her name is Valerie Plame.
It is here this story gets really interesting. If we are to believe Joe Wilson one must believe that Valerie Plame, who, in photographs I've seen is a rather attractive young woman has posed, in her most recent covert activity, as the vice-president of the United States. You see for the story to be a story some group of the above-mentioned facts must be true. It works if Ms. Plame is impersonating the vice-president. Then she is at least under cover. Otherwise she was not, nor had she been for a number of years, according to the findings of the bi-partisan Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Unanimous Report.
Other possible "true" facts might include that Rove had revealed Ms. Plame's name. But the very newspapers who are trying to use this story as a whip with which to flog Mr. Rove have stated that he did not do so. If Ms. Plame is not under cover there is no crime. Whoops, that means there is no story! If Carl Rove did not reveal Ms. Plame's name, or any other information which might lead enemies to her undercover identity, there is no crime. Rove only said that Joe Wilson's wife might have had something to do with his being sent to Niger. Wife is a pretty generic term. Lots of men, and a select few women, have them. Whoops, there is no story!
Well, what about the foundations of the story? Didn't former CIA agent/ambassador Joe Wilson go to Niger and debunk a report that Iraq was looking to buy uranium? If he was a psychic, maybe. When Valerie Plame, a.k.a. Dick Cheney sent then-not-yet-former CIA agent Joe Wilson to Niger to check on reports that Iraq wanted to buy uranium the report he claims to have been debunking was six months from being published. Don't you wish your stockbroker could do that? Even then it appears that Joe Wilson must not write very well. According to the Senate Select Committee report "...For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) report on the uranium deal..." That sounds like pretty weak debunking. It's the sound of a story dying.
For their part British intelligence has never backed (and to this day [02/02/07] STILL has not backed) away from their conclusion that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger. If there really is a story that means they don't understand what a good psychic former CIA agent Joe Wilson is.
In an editorial two days ago as this is being written USA Today stressed the importance of standing by leakers, even suggesting that leakers be given protection under the law (implying along the way that people who steal documents and illegally hand them to news sources ought to be given blanket protection). They stated that one of the most crucial roles of such leakers is steering reporters away from stories that would make them look stupid. If one knows the facts about Joe Wilson and Valerie Cheney/Plame one can see that the most plausible explanation of Carl Rove's actions is that he was trying to do just that. The trouble was that the truth didn't serve, nor does it yet serve, the national media's purposes.
The story is that there is no story- and you're going to hear it anyway.
Lee Jamison can be reached for comment at lee@leejamison.com .
(Well, then again, if Scooter Libby is acquitted, maybe you're not.)
Comments
many things to discuss… But anyway I’m not going to discuss such a personal topic. Reading it is ok, but discussing it makes you look like a chatter –box and a rumor-spreader.
Posted by: ichigo bankai | April 6, 2008 11:59 AM
It's a pain in everyone else's butt. Let’s just stop discussing this crap, the topic is too questionable.
Posted by: Curt | April 9, 2008 03:54 AM