The real purpose of the Times story seems fairly obvious: The leakers (those mysterious "people who have been briefed") wanted to point a finger of suspicion at Colin Powell, the man who was seen holding the smoking memo in his hand on the plane to Africa.
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July 17, 2005
WB: All the News That’s Shit
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Though I disagree with Billmon’s byzantine parsing, when he dubs the NY Times Pravda, the snark hits the point I was making in the last thread.
“Journalist” like “Cultural Attache” or “Commercial Advisor” is a function that has often been used as a cover by spooks and Government agents.
Under the old USSR you wouldn’t have looked at a Pravda “journalist” the same way as you would have looked at one from the WaPost, the Times of London or Le Monde.
I think the same applies here: was Judy Miller an “asset” is THE question.
Certainly her behavior pre- and during the Iraq War would indicate so. Was she part of the White House Iraq Group?
I don’t pretend to know the answers, but my position is simple: first determine if Miller was a government agent in some way or another, and if so, she has, IMHO, relinquished every right to be treated as a journalist.
In other words, you play, you pay.
Posted by: Lupin | Jul 17 2005 6:48 utc | 1
This scandal is not about them in the end, any more than Watergate was about Dwight Chapin and Donald Segretti or Woodward and Bernstein. It is about the president of the United States. It is about a plot that was hatched at the top of the administration and in which everyone else, Mr. Rove included, are at most secondary players.
…
This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit – the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes – is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That’s why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. operative who posed for Vanity Fair.
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Seasoned audiences of presidential scandal know that there’s only one certainty ahead: the timing of a Karl Rove resignation. As always in this genre, the knight takes the fall at exactly that moment when it’s essential to protect the king.
I don’t pretend to know the answers, but my position is simple: first determine if Miller was a government agent in some way or another, and if so, she has, IMHO, relinquished every right to be treated as a journalist.
Distinction w/out a difference, esp. in this time of “privatization”. Are private contractors in Iraq US govt. agents. She was a fellow traveller working in the press to facilitate the accomplishment of certain objectives. When she leaves NYT perhaps she goes back to working w/Daniel Pipes again.
what does that even mean? Would she have to be getting a paycheck from them? If not, then what?
Posted by: jj | Jul 17 2005 7:39 utc | 3
It would be interesting to know if Fitzgerald sees this case the same way Frank Rich does.
Posted by: lonesomeG | Jul 17 2005 7:41 utc | 4
@jj: I disagree; it is on the contrary a crucial distinction to make, today more than ever.
If we don’t, we have in effect abandoned the notion of “free press” and have facilitated the birth of the Pravdas of our times.
Now I’ll agree that the distinction is becoming almost impossible when Woodward worships Bush and CNN behaves as a lapdog to the Right, but we here, on the Left, should continue to insist on it.
Just because Miller carries a Press Card does not mean that she is a journalist, no more than Tokyo Rose was.
Posted by: Lupin | Jul 17 2005 8:30 utc | 5
Maybe this has all been explained but, if so, I missed it. Valerie Wilson used Plame as her surname when she was in the field. Did she go by Wilson when she was at CIA headquarters? I was under that impression. And, was she still doing field work? I have read accounts both ways. If not, she would not have used the name Plame since the time she stopped working in the field. How long was that? If she had been using the name Wilson while at CIA headquarters, why would Novak or anyone else have searched for another name? If all they wanted to do was discredit Joe by saying Valerie got him a job, why wouldn’t the name Valerie Wilson do just as well, especially since that was the name she was currently known by to everyone? Why use Plame at all in Novak’s column?
Either:
1) the leaker actually knew her as Valerie Plame (i.e., was introduced to her as Valerie Plame and later learned she was she was Wilson’s wife but thought she kept her maiden name), which would mean she was introduced to the leaker as an operative (Novak reported her as one), or
2) they deliberately blew her cover since the leaker would have to know both names she used and, given that he/she had security clearance, would know when and why she used each.
#1 is a screw-up, Mayberry style. But #2 is a deliberate act made with full knowledge of the potential consequences to Valerie’s field contacts. This seems too stupid for even this administration.
Am I missing something?
Posted by: lonesomeG | Jul 17 2005 8:32 utc | 6
Jay Rosen, journalism professor says:
Of course Bush spin is still around– lots of it. But notice: Scott McClellan isn’t particularly good at spin or telling the President’s side of the story. That’s not the game anymore. His are the skills of non-communication; he was hired to absorb questions and let no light escape through his non-answers. Beyond that he repeats a pre-determined White House line in rote (many say robotic) fashion.
Press rollback, the policy for which McClellan signed on, means not feeding but starving the beast, downgrading journalism where possible, and reducing its effectiveness as an interlocutor with the president. This goes for Bush theory, as well as Bush practice. The president and his advisors have declared invalid the “fourth estate” and watchdog press model. .. They have moved on, and take it for granted that adversaries will not be as bold.
…
This feature of the Bush style (the White House is entitled to its own facts, and what are you going to do about it?) has brought the Administration into conflict with the CIA, with the press, and now with Republican prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. All are engaged in empirical work–truth collection and verification–of one variety of another.
A final thought: “A few months ago I told the American people I did not trade arms for hostages,” said Ronald Reagan on March 4, 1987. “My heart and my best intentions still tell me that’s true, but the facts and the evidence tell me it is not.” I wonder what caused him to say that, because whatever it was seems to be much weaker today.
(Billmon is mentioned too)
The best fact summarize of the affair so far: In Plame Leaks, Long Shadows
Whatever happened to the Texas cowboy who would fight to defend the honor of a woman being attacked by bullies? Whatever happened to the Commander-in-Chief responsible for protecting the lives of CIA officers? George Bush, unfortunately is missing in action. He is standing idly by while a legion of Republican operatives fan out on the airwaves in an unrelenting assault on the character and reputation of Valerie Wilson, a CIA intelligence officer. Valerie, who is still a full time employee of the CIA, is not allowed to defend herself against this attack.
The memo that Powell was seen reading. WHO saw him reading it? How did this person know what he was reading? Did Powell share the info? Did the AF1 informant write the memo, or read it first, then pass it to Powell? Did anyone on the AF1 trip to Africa not read or hear about the memo?
Whether or not anyone actually saw him reading it, as Sec State it’s a good bet Powell did read this State memo on this subject. We’ll still have to wait to hear from Powell what he thought about it.
b, I’ve also wondered when Rove might fall on the sword. But he probably won’t, if the rest of the gang aren’t pretty sure that will close the subject. In any case, it seems unliikely that the slimers would have gone to all this trouble to protect Powell, never one of their in-crowd. Just another opportune fall guy now? Good enough to muddy waters for the easily distracted press for a couple more days, at least through the Sunday news cycle?
Maybe we can hope, at least, that, while the gang that cooked up the Plame scheme and manipulated the U.S. into an inexcusable war in Iraq, while this group is preoccupied with saving their own skins from the grand jury, maybe saner minds will find an unguarded opening to begin arranging a plan for extricating the whole world from this grotesque fiasco in the ME.
Posted by: small coke | Jul 17 2005 11:16 utc | 10
the verifiable and hypothesizable aspects of plamegate are numerous indeed, and despite spending hours reading about it i find that my head begins to spin – who said what to whom? when? with what intent? there are too many actors, and keeping track of all the trees gets more difficult all the time
so i was very glad to read frank rich’s ny times piece, quoted above by b, in which he points out that the general outline of the forest is clear – that valerie plame’s secret cia role was outed in order to punish her husband and intimidate any other potential truth-tellers, and that his offense – like that of several other former officials who have become the target of the vast right wing smear machine – was to point out that the alleged “justification” of the iraq war was based on lies
the rest is details – it is the job of the prosecutor and the grand jury to keep track of these details – ideally, i hope that rove and his partners in crime get a fair trial [unlikely – even if indicted, i expect bush to issue a pre-emptive pardon], and then some small fraction of the punishment they deserve – both in this life and the one after that, if any
may the Creative Forces of the Universe stand beside us, and guide us, through the Night with the Light from Above – metaphorically speaking
Posted by: mistah charley | Jul 17 2005 11:33 utc | 11
The NYT, WSJ, and WaPO accessories to the Iraq clusterfuck:
You provide the pretext, we will provide the war.
The Hearstian wet dream has turned into a nightmare.
They are stakeholders in the investigation. I don’t understand why anyone would expect them to do anything but confound the process.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 17 2005 13:56 utc | 12
Newsweek has some new bits of (dis)information:
Meanwhile, in transatlantic secure phone calls, the message machinery focused on a crucial topic: who should carry the freight on the following Sunday’s talk shows? The message: protect Cheney by explaining that he had had nothing to do with sending Wilson to Niger, and dismiss the yellowcake issue. Powell was ruled out. He wasn’t a team player, as he had proved by his dismissive comments about the “sixteen words.” Donald Rumsfeld was pressed into duty, as was Condi Rice, the ultimate good soldier. She was on the Africa trip with the president, though, and wouldn’t be getting back until Saturday night. To allow her to prepare on the long flight home to D.C., White House officials assembled a briefing book, which they faxed to the Bush entourage in Africa. The book was primarily prepared by her National Security Council staff. It contained classified information—perhaps including all or part of the memo from State. The entire binder was labeled top secret.
…
Missions accomplished. Except for a few little details. Under a 1982 law, it’s a felony to intentionally disclose the name of a “covered” agent with the intent to harm national security. Under another, older statute, it could also be a felony to willfully disclose information from a classified document—which the State Department memo and, apparently, the Condi briefing book were. There is no indication that Rove saw the briefing book (Rumsfeld didn’t get one) or that anyone disclosed classified information. But no one in the administration seems to have noticed the irony—or the legal danger—in assembling a top secret briefing book as guidance for the Sunday talk shows. Exactly what papers with what classifications were floating around on Air Force One? Who, if anyone, was dipping into them for info about the Wilson trip?
Coopers story is out: “What I Told The Grand Jury”
.. As for Wilson’s wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak’s column or Googled her, I can’t recall which. Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the “agency”–by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. Rove added that she worked on “WMD” (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction) issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson’s wife.
Rove never once indicated to me that she had any kind of covert status. I told the grand jury something else about my conversation with Rove. Although it’s not reflected in my notes or subsequent e-mails, I have a distinct memory of Rove ending the call by saying, “I’ve already said too much.” This could have meant he was worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else. I don’t know, but that sign-off has been in my memory for two years.
This was actually my second testimony for the special prosecutor. In August 2004, I gave limited testimony about my conversations with Scooter Libby. Libby had also given me a specific waiver, and I gave a deposition in the office of my attorney. I have never discussed that conversation until now. In that testimony, I recounted an on-the-record conversation with Libby that moved to background. On the record, he denied that Cheney knew about or played any role in the Wilson trip to Niger. On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson’s wife sending her husband to Niger. Libby replied, “Yeah, I’ve heard that too,” or words to that effect. Like Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame’s name or indicated that her status was covert, and he never told me that he had heard about Plame from other reporters, as some press accounts have indicated. Did Fitzgerald’s questions give me a sense of where the investigation is heading? Perhaps. He asked me several different ways if Rove indicated how he had heard that Plame worked at the CIA. (He did not, I told the grand jury.) Maybe Fitzgerald is interested in whether Rove knew her CIA ties through a person or through a document.
A surprising line of questioning had to do with, of all things, welfare reform. The prosecutor asked if I had ever called Mr. Rove about the topic of welfare reform. Just the day before my grand jury testimony Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, had told journalists that when I telephoned Rove that July, it was about welfare reform and that I suddenly switched topics to the Wilson matter. After my grand jury appearance, I did go back and review my e-mails from that week, and it seems as if I was, at the beginning of the week, hoping to publish an article in TIME on lessons of the 1996 welfare-reform law, but the article got put aside, as often happens when news overtakes story plans. My welfare-reform story ran as a short item two months later, and I was asked about it extensively. To me this suggested that Rove may have testified that we had talked about welfare reform, and indeed earlier in the week, I may have left a message with his office asking if I could talk to him about welfare reform. But I can’t find any record of talking about it with him on July 11, and I don’t recall doing so.
So did Rove leak Plame’s name to me, or tell me she was covert? No. Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes. Did Rove say that she worked at the “agency” on “WMD”? Yes. When he said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don’t know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me. At this point, I’m as curious as anyone else to see what Patrick Fitzgerald has.
Once again we have the ubiquitous “people who have been briefed on the case,
Do people who have briefed on the case trump unnamed Pentago source, or, are they the same fucks?
I am impressed on the sheer eager pride with which the New York Daily Plant-it and the Washington Post knowingly serve their masters desire to control America with manipulative lies. “Who wants to plant one of my lies today?” “Me me me me! Pick me! I’ll never tell you told me the lie!”
From the Post article, which is just as bad:
The uproar over the leak was ephemeral, as the story seemed to wilt in the summer heat. But in late September, a senior White House official was quoted as telling The Post at least six reporters had been told of Plame before Novak’s column, “purely and simply out of revenge.”
Something I learned about journalisming – stories wilt in the summer heat. Hell, it beats hiding behind the passive voice. Thw Washington Post is helpless to control the summer weather, and could do nothing as the storie wilted. How convenient.
The showdown over sources has already impeded at least two major media outlets. The Cleveland Plain Dealer, fearing criminal prosecution, has decided against publishing two investigative pieces not related to the Plame controversy because they were based on anonymous leaks. And Time reporters have said that at least two sources have told them they would no longer provide information because the company turned over documents in the Plame case.
Always room to sqeeze some rightieous self justification into a story. Though if the Posties really believed in this he said she said bullshit school of journalism, they would have come to someone for a list of the lies that weren’t told as a result of the showdown over sources.
But as the story hurtles toward a conclusion sometime this year, there are several elements that remain uncertain. The most important — did anyone commit a crime?
As many here have pointed out, that is not the most important story. The most important story is how in a free republic a small group of unelected men has taken over the STate apparatus to spread lies and destroy who gets in their way by misusing State power with the eager participation of the press, with one result a insane war insanely conducted in a foreign land that is making America less secure while plunging that poor pre ravaged country into a living hell which the press can’t be bothered to report because the conditions aren’t favorable for the well to do brand of reproting popular news they are committed to as a matter of corporate policy, while the press goes on stroking itself and murmuring the depth of its love for itself no matter what it does.
But this morning I cannot find what I read last night, the paragraph insert about Valerie Wilson contributing to Al Gore’s campaign, which has absolutely postiviely no place in this particular story and was 100% proof the press blindly serves Rovian bidding, which, I now cannot find. Did I miss it or was it so embarassing it was removed by some sane person?
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 17 2005 15:28 utc | 15
It sounds to me like Cooper is caught up in something through happenstance. It looks like Roves lawyer lied about the welfare reform question and they are severely covering their asses.
susang has a great posting at kos about a former cia persons take on the whole affair and how the rnc is using and twisting the Senate reports findings.
Thanks for posting the Cooper version b.
Posted by: jdp | Jul 17 2005 15:34 utc | 16
Re Miller Time:
Remember Miller’s modus…she functions to feed copious amounts of official bullshit to NYT readers thanks to her direct tie-in to administration agents of disinformation. Being singularly responsible for the Iraq run-up WMD media hysteria, why would Plame ever call this typhoid Mary about anything?
She is important because Rove? Libby? Abrams? could be honest to a fault with her knowing that getting her bones on the WMD disinformation campaign, she would never blow their cover like, say, the treacherous swine Novak. So, at least two people called her – so she has “two unidentified administration officials” sources being open and honest with her.
Please, spare the American people, Judith. Mums the word. Enjoy the amenities of the Graybar Hotel for a few years (with no phone!) and write about prison food…something i hope that you gain a long and lasting familiarity with.
Posted by: Chuck Roast | Jul 17 2005 19:51 utc | 17
What I am finding more and more irresistable about this whole sordid affair is how transparent the terrible journalism has become. The spectacle of the Times trying to catch its own tail by covering itself (the quotes from the Times lawyer about Miller was absolutely priceless) is one that almost makes me forget we’re dealing with a real threat to national security here.
This particular story is just a jewel for just the reason noted above; it reports that Powell was “seen reading” the memo on AF1 without any attribution or explanation. As if the Secretary of State reading a classified memo is just one of those incredibly annoying randoms who sits in 14B next to you and can’t resist interrupting your sleep/ movie-watching/ bourbon drinking/ etc to slap the in-flight magazine and ask if you’ve ever been to this new sports bar in Denver, looks great. Powell,”damn, somebody ought to come read this classified memo; this guy Wilson sounds like a jerk!”
Indeed, I think one of the great as-yet-untold parts of this story is Powell’s involvement. HE’s widely believed to be the source that confirmed to WaPo in Sept 2003 that the July leak had been a vendetta gainst Wilson …and even more interesting, he’s the one I presume Bushie was referencing in his oft-repeated Oct 2003 quote that “its a big administration with lots of officials” and distinguished from “this staff of mine.”
My guess is that when it surfaces that Bolton dug up the “dirt” and passed it along to Libby, and if the WH is still making Rove its highest priority at that time, thinks it will be ready to pounce, blaming it on Powell.
Powell has been silent throughout the last few weeks, apparently off making money in of all things a private-placing venture capital firm specializing in Silicon Valley start-ups.
Posted by: desmoulins | Jul 18 2005 6:41 utc | 18