Letters to the Editor
Scientician
Published Letters: 534 Editor's Choice: 1
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Elephantman:
[Read the article: Joe Klein's stirring defense of Lewis Libby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]If it was a crime to 'out' Mrs. Plame-Wilson, why wasn't Armitage charged? If the goal of the investigation was to figure out who told Armitage, why not demand that information from Armitage? What the heck does Libby have to do with a conversation between Armitage and Robert Novak?
1. It was a crime to out her. Right wingers like yourself think that crime takes place when a member of the administration tells a reporter who subsequently publishes it. Not so. Publication is immaterial to the crime.
2. Armitage was not cleared to know she was a covert agent, so it was not his crime to reveal it to Novak since he was not knowingly revealing classified info. People at State are not typically privy to the names of covert CIA agents. Armitage says he learned it from a memo, and that in 40 years at state he had never seen a covert CIA operative named. He assumed she was not covert.
So how did it get into the memo?
The crime was committed by the original person, cleared to the info, who revealed it to anyone not cleared to know Plame's status, or who revealed it someone cleared, but did not specify the information was classified.
The only person who fits is Dick Cheney. As VP he can demand a list of CIA covert operatives and recieve it. Libby cannot. Rove cannot. They are not cleared for that info.
Also, Libby and Rove were leaking the info to other reporters, and Libby even knew she was covert! Again, though, since Libby was not cleared to know it, he was not committing a crime in repeating it.
The crime occurred before Novak printed his column. Otherwise we may as well ask, why not prosecute Novak?
I think I know how Armitage knew who and what Joe Wilson's wife was. It is this -- I presume that it was common, ordinary, widely-dispersed knowledge within the State Department, where the gossipy Armitage and Wilson both worked.
The office of the Vice President wouldn't have had anything to do with State or the CIA. Those two institutions didn't like the Vice President, and he didn't like them.
Gee, do you think CIA has good reason to not like the VP when his office goes around spreading the names of CIA operatives to the media who piss him off?
It's possible many people at state knew Plame's identity, after all, Armitage saw it in a memo. How did it get there? Accusing Wilson of leaking it is absurd. It's his fricking wife, are you saying he cared so little for her career and safety so as to out her as mere gossip? If so, no one has testified to hearing about Plame's status from Wilson. No reporter has come forward to recount such a thing. This claim is thrown out, again and again but it is baseless speculation with no first hand account to back it.
Do you get it yet? Once a secret is outed, the people who spread it further are not breaking any law. Only the initial leaker has committed a crime, and that cannot be Armitage and it actually can't be Libby or Rove.
The base fact remains that Valerie Plame was beyond any doubt a CIA covert operative, and her identity was outed by the negligence or malice of someone in the Bush Administration and that person remains as yet unknown as a matter of law.
Libby is going to prison for working to prevent that person from being known to the law.
Adding 2+2 tells us he was protecting the VP, but that remains to be proven in a court.
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[Read the article: Joe Klein's stirring defense of Lewis Libby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]It really does beggar my imagination that for right wingers, the explanation that "Wilson outed Plame through being a gossip" is to them the most likely explanation for her outing.
So the woman's own loving husband is the most likely source of the leak, and not the group of administration neo-conservatives who had motive and opportunity to do so maliciously?
Seriously, I'm tempted to read deeper into their views on marriage that they think this is the most obvious thing. Would they gossip about their wives if they worked in ultra secret CIA jobs? I guess they would.
Or is just more personality politics - that they cannot imagine having an accomplished wife working a dangerous job, because it would threaten them too much? They hated Hillary more than Bill, probably because she is a woman with her own career and life outside her husband. Do they just hate Plame for being attractive and accomplished, and loathe Wilson for allowing his wife to have a life?
After all Wilson has a fantastic resume on his own, as an accomplished diplomat, and technically, since he was an ambassador he "outranks" her on the accomplishment scale anyway, so to argue he would feel the need to gossip about his wife to brag or some shit is preposterous. Particularly when, as yet, no one has come forward with a first hand account of Wilson telling them about his wife's CIA work at a party.