Wednesday, October 26, 2005

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.

10 comments:

Mark said...

As I indicated, The whole thing is confusing to me. I may be at times uninformed but I'm not stupid.

I went to some web sites and read several articles about this thing, and I came out of it just as confused as I went in. The problem in this case is that all the various reporters and commentators see this story in light of their own bias. Left and right. Consequently, there are different views on the same story. And I don't want to make this too long a post, so I tried to encapsulate what I see as the main points, although there are many more points that perhaps should be addressed as well. I just don't seem to have the patiemce to delve in depth today. Here is a particuarly lucid comment on the Judy Miller story which I found well after i wrote this post:

http://www.aim.org/special_report/4118_0_8_0_C/

Mark said...

I am going to assume that boo man is a covert CIA operative himself, since he is an expert on what a covert operative is and since he has been a member of blogger since January, and has yet to post a single word on his own blog.

So now he is outed too. Arrest me.

Anonymous said...

You just want to be handcuffed and told to spread them.

Daffy76 said...

I lost all respect for boo-man when he called you a moron. Thank you Sheila for your civility.

Anyone who reads this blog should know by now, whether or not you agree with Mark--he is not stupid.

As to this whole mixed-up mess--my head is just spinning. I can't make heads or tails of any of it. I can only hope the truth will come to light and that any wrong doing will be justly punished.

Anonymous said...

It makes no sense because the spinmasters have been at it. They should arrest the whole Godless lot in Washington and let them simmer for a while in jail. But that won't happen. The ACLU would spring them right away!

Anonymous said...

Mark I urge you to research this a little more ....

Judith Miller a rightwing journo who tows the party lies at the NYT...

Scooter Libby a Cheney Advisor told by Karl Rove about Plames ID...

Cheney told Scooter of said Identity when He was told by one George Tenant who resigned when he knew what trouble he was in....

rich bachelor said...

I have the same question as Mark though; why did Judith Miller serve time, again? Was that the opening salvo in the investigation, and she wouldn't cooperate?

tugboatcapn said...

Sheila, are you referring to the "Espionage Act" that was passed in 1938, and makes reference to prosecuting people who expose the location of Telegraph stations and Ship yards?

Why does it not register with anyone that if you had walked into the building where Plame worked at the time when she was supposedly "outed", and asked if she worked for the CYA, They would have told you "Yes."

This whole thing started when Wilson and Plame came up with a scheme to make an end run around the White House and go to Niger, for the purpose of undermining the War Effort, and when that fell through and they were exposed as liars, they started screaming that she was "outed", even though she was no longer covert, IN ORDER TO START THIS WHOLE CONVOLUTED MESS.

I really do hope that indictments are handed down.
I really do.
I just hope that they indict the right people.

tugboatcapn said...

And I agree whole-heartedly with that.

It's just that this whole sordid mess looks to me like it was stirred up from nothing by the Wilson's and the mainstream media in order to criminalize the Bush Administration.

The more I learn about it, the more it looks that way to me.

tugboatcapn said...

Don't get me wrong.

I have absolutely no patience with corruption in Government, and I believe that there is plenty of it there.

I just don't believe that this case is all that it has been hyped up to be.