Clear As Mud

"As clear as an unmuddied lake, Sir. As clear as an azure sky of deepest summer. You can rely on me, Sir.” --Alex De Large (Main character and humble narrator of “A Clockwork Orange” by Anthony Burgess)

Initially, I held off in commenting on the circus involving Judith Miller because it’s all just too confusing. I was waiting for things to become clear before weighing in on it, but it seems that it may never get any more clear.

I realize that I don’t have any legal background. I don’t have a Law degree, but I am pretty certain that there has to be a crime before indictments can be brought.

Plame wasn't even covert, and you have to have been covert within the last five years in order for it to be against the law to reveal an operative‘s identity. There's a six-year period of time we're talking about here between the last time she was covert and when her identity came out.
A covert CIA agent having lunch, in public.

John Podheretz said:

“I hope some day somebody writes all this down, because the whole story is unbelievable. Miller never writes a story about Plamegate, but insists she must keep her sources secret, even though the name of her primary source, Cheney chief of staff Scooter Libby, has long since been a matter of public record -- and has publicly released her from her pledge of anonymity. She decides to go to jail to protect the principle of source anonymity, and is only weeks away from being sprung (because the grand jury she was refusing to talk to will go out of business in October) before she abandons her stand on principle and decides to talk. And all this in relation to a matter that may well not have been a crime to begin with. Weird wacko crazy bananas.”

Miller’s notes contain a reference to a “Valerie Flame” but she says that name did not come from Scooter Libby, and she said the name came from “another source” but she can’t recall who that source could be. A few days later, a variant of Valerie Wilson, --Victoria Wilson-- appears in Miller’s notes. Mrs. Miller had called “other sources” about Mr. Wilson’s wife, but she did not say with whom she spoke.

Miller didn't get a non-covert CIA operative's name from Scooter Libby. She might have gotten it from Karl Rove, but she can't recall. No one knows if she even spoke to Rove. So why did she go to jail again?

Rove and Libby both say they got Plame's name from reporters, But no one can find any indication anywhere that Rove ever mentioned Joe Wilson's wife by name, but that doesn't matter because just mentioning that Wilson's wife works at the CIA is enough to get indicted by the New York Times, if not by a grand jury. Except that outing a CIA employee who is no longer covert isn't illegal.

Whew! Bring in the clowns now, the dog and pony show is over.

Do I have all that straight now? Who knows?

It seems the only thing that we know for sure is the fact that we don’t know anything for sure.

See? Clear as Mud.