Letters to the Editor
Published Letters: 2149 Editor's Choice: 7
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Short attention span theater
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]These falsehoods are never retracted because they are a critical part of the role they play.
This is of course one of the most frustrating aspects of political debate. Once you abandoned the idea that there is such a thing as reality, that can be examined independently of any personal opinions or emotional constructs, then there is no longer any reason for conversation.
There is a reason that our criminal justice system is so elaborate, with the right to the twelve different viewpoints a jury represents granted to defendants, and elaborate rules for what is and is not admissible as evidence. It's all based on the assumption that truth exists but is often difficult to ascertain.
Once truth has been abandoned, all thats left is noise. That the noise still has a sizable audience, is distressing but it's something we still have to deal with forcfully and continuously.
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Far from correcting the record
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]it would appear that the current strategy is to reasserrt the lie yet again...and again....and again.....
http://www.americanthinker.com/2007/05/fitzgerald_plame_cia_director.html
Like the shape-shifting T-1000 cyborg of Terminator 2, Patrick Fitzgerald's claim that Valerie Plame was a covert agent, and that therefore Scooter Libby deserves a harsh sentence for supposedly outing her, not only won't die a proper death due to lack of proof, it keeps mutating into new forms. Of all the curious behavior associated with the Libby case, that of the CIA's director for the past one year, stahnds out for its puzzling obtuseness.
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The CIA asked for the criminal investigation into outing Valarie Plame
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]But the CIA is tasked with discovering intelligence AKA the truth and is careful to be sure that political considerations don't infect their fact-seeking activity.
They are therefore liberal-traitor-scum!
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More pushback....
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MjRkMjU3YmQ2MzIwZjhhNDkwYWE3NWI1ZjhhZmRkMmY=
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-05-29-plame-testimony_N.htm
Look! A penny!
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I don't understand the ferocity
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]There are two separate reasons for the particular ferocity.
A: It shows how they ginned up the evidence and ignored the truth in order to start the Iraq war.
But that's no big deal - we all know that - but
B:They don't actually give a rat's ass about weapons proliferation, terrorism or national security.
THAT'S why they have to push back so hard. Because they would gladly sacrifice our safety in order to pursue their wider agenda which has absolutely NOTHING to do with defending us against terrorism.
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Actually he had a point...
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]My thanks to Pudgenet for explaining that a claim that is right is just as wrong as a claim that is wrong. Right?
In the context of the Lancet study controversy, it was conceded that arguing from ignorance isn't vindicated if later information comes out that proves your guess to be correct. Unfortunatly for the wingnuts, the people most able to determine her covert status were the ones who drafted the letter requesting the criminal investigation in the first place.
No one's been arguing out of ignorance unless you expand the term to include ignoring known facts.
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Penalties
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/casecode/uscodes/50/chapters/15/subchapters/iv/sections/section_421.html
Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent.
Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
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If I were a wagering man...
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I would bet that U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton is better informed on the issues of the case than is shooter242.
I'd actually stake quite a bit on it.
But of course the whole exercise is one of blowing smoke.
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In case anyone hasn't read the filing that is the subject of all this
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]http://media.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/documents/Libby_Sentencing_memo052507.pdf
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From the filing
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]First, it was clear from very early in the investigation that Ms. Wilson qualified under the relevant statute (Title 50, United States Code, Section 421) as a covert agent whose identity had been disclosed by public officials, including Mr. Libby, to the press. Early in the investigation, however, the critical issue remained as to precisely what the particular officials knew about Ms. Wilson’s status and what the officials intended when they disclosed her identity to the media.
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Again per Fitz...
[Read the article: Right-wing noise machine: Plame not covert]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]While not commenting on the reasons for the charging decisions as to any other persons, we can say that the reasons why Mr. Libby was not charged with an offense directly relating to his unauthorized disclosures of classified information regarding Ms. Wilson 15 included, but were not limited to, the fact that Mr. Libby’s false testimony obscured a confident determination of what in fact occurred, particularly where the accounts of the reporters with whom Mr. Libby spoke (and their notes) did not include any explicit evidence specifically proving that Mr. Libby knew that Ms. Wilson was a covert agent. On the other hand, there was clear proof of perjury and obstruction of justice which could be prosecuted in a relatively straightforward trial. As Judge Tatel noted in his concurring opinion in In re Grand Jury Subpoena, Judith Miller, 438 F.3d 1141, 1182 (D.C. Cir. 2006), “insofar as false testimony may have impaired the special counsel’s identification of culprits, perjury in this context is itself a crime with national security implications. What’s more, because the charges contemplated here relate to false denials of responsibility for Plame’s exposure, prosecuting perjury or false statements would be tantamount to punishing the leak.”