Forgive me, but I'm all Plamed out...I can't even muster any further OUTRAGE! at this ridiculous non-story...
Mark's Remarks
Having scoured source after source....Here is the Plame Games rundown, in terms of what we know:
1. Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. She had been out of any remotely related clandestine operation for over five years when her supposed "cover" was "blown."
2. The law the "law and order left" keep bringing up was written to protect overseas undercover operatives, and Plame had not been overseas for six years, far beyond the limitations of the law in question.
3. She was working in an analytical capacity when this firestorm erupted.
4. She lobbied to get her husband the Niger gig.
5. Joe Wilson, her husband, is a pathological liar. He claimed the Vice President sent him to Niger. Dick Cheney said he had not spoken with Wilson nor did his office. If you look at the Senate Intel Committee Report on the whole Niger business, it was ultimately revealed that Wilson was sent by CIA at the lobbying of his wife.
6. The op-ed pieces Wilson wrote for the LA Times, Washington Post, and NY Times were full of misrepresentation. He alleged that his report said there was no indication that Saddam had attempted to get yellowcake from Niger, when that was not the case. Firstly, he filed no written report. He simply came in and told his story. What that reveals is that he did not do much in Niger aside from touring. However, what he did supply to the CIA affirmed what the analysts had been saying, and what the British had been saying, that Saddam had sought to buy uranium yellowcake from Africa. Look at Conclusion 13 in the Senate Intel Committee Report, which was unanimously approved by the members of the Committee. Wilson was caught in his lies once again.
7. None of the above mentioned papers have written retractions or corrections for the Wilson misrepresentations.
8. Karl Rove did not broadcast the name of Ms. Plame. Novak, Cooper, and the woman in jail called Rove. The Cooper and Novak calls were unrelated to Wilson/Plame, and in both cases the reporters brought up the Wilson/Plame connection. All Rove did in the case of Novak was to say, yeah, I did hear that his wife worked at the Agency. He did not say her name or tell Novak to go with it. In the case of Cooper, Rove was attempting to correct the idea that Wilson was sent by Cheney or the Administration.
9. Rove has completely cooperated in the investigation, and has been open in letting Coopoer reveal him as the source.
10. Far from having been at the last minute, Mr. Rove's confidentiality waiver was given to Cooper over a year and a half ago, according to Rove's attorney and the dating of the waiver.
11. Cooper went ahead and revealed Rove. The reporter in jail has a waiver from her source, but she is sitting on it.
12. Rove has not been running around, OUTRAGED. People on the Left, however, have. Joe Wilson has continued to misrepresent his wife's status, what he found in Niger, and who sent him even today.
13. We know that Rove is not the target of this Grand Jury investigation. His attorneys, and the special prosecutor, have said as much.
14. Wilson has been proven to lie and obfuscate, and his wife's role in getting him the job speaks of blatant nepotism. Their ties to the Democratic party lead one to think of things far more sinister.
All of this, including Mr. Levin and others work, leads me to believe that Wilson is the target of the investigation, and Wilson may be the source the Times reporter is protecting. Or, the Times reporter may be pulling a Jason Blair and has no source at all. However, I believe Wilson is the target of the investigation and is creating this buzz about Rove to make any prosecution of him look like a political hit, whereby he hopes, any charges will be dropped out of political expediency.
