Redstate

Keep in mind the ship may still be leak free. Fitzgerald has asked (not ordered) parties to refrain from commentary, and the NYT sources don't appear to be GJ members or Fitzgerald staff.

I think your "muddy waters" commments are closer to the mark. This anonymous comments seem to be all the other subjects/witnesses attorney's following Luskin's lead from last week.

That, and the NYT is hopelessly conflicted.

especially given that it has been apparantly leak free until now.

If Rove is guilty, then he should get the boot, but I also can't help but wonder who is doing the leaking and for what purpose.  There have been some "pro Rove" leaks and some "anti Rove" leaks so far, this one fits in the latter, makes me wonder what else I am not being told by the media whose hands are very dirty in this whole affair.

That what we as the conservative blogosphere should be doing now, at this point, is to start folding up our commentary on this case and stop talking about it for the time being.  I say that because we're no longer the source of material for the media, we're creating the buzz, we're creating the potential that this will become an even bigger story than it is, we're giving all our best analysis and thought to things that the MSM is throwing out, and we're not so much a creator of the news as we are the reflector of the news.

In other words, we're on the defensive, and if we stay on the defensive, we're going to get creamed.  The problem is that we can't get off the defensive until Fitz. finishes his investigation and all the facts are known.  In the meantime, we can be assured that the lefty blogosphere will keep talking about this case, and I am really beginning to believe we should just let them get their heads so far out in front of their skis that they plant themselves in the ground.

I don't know what the President might think about this, but I have a feeling that he might say:  if the Conservative blogosphere decides to shut up about the case for the time being, that's fine with me.  Our impulses are against screaming against that:  we know the MSM is going to continue to be unfair and biased.  We know that they're working to preconvict Karl Rove, and we know that they're working to make sure that no matter what happens, Rove is believed to be guilty even if Fitzgerald's investigation says otherwise.  I think they already may have succeeded in implanting that in the public mind.  But what I think we should do is just put a big STOP sign in front of all this commentary, go dark on any further analysis -- in a kind of profound silence -- unless and until we know something much more substantive than we do right now.  

We are stirring the pot for the MSM, we are now becoming their handmaidens, and I think we should stop right now and just let this thing go until it reaches its natural conclusion.  We're not getting anywhere substantive with our analysis any more.  We've done the best we can do in the absence of really new information from the Prosecutor, and I think we should wait and let the leftys create their own spin at this point.  

Just a thought.

I went back and re-read the article a third time, slowly, silently with my lips moving from word to word, and I still cannot quite figure it all out.

Before I wander over to you know where to see the raging left analysis, it strikes me that they really spend a lot of time dragging in a whole bunch of other folks (even Bolton) and really only open and close the article with Rove mentions of stuff that is either obvious (he's working the political angle) or rehashed (He and Cooper have varied recollections and emphases).

They are clearly still fixated on Rove, and the only reference to a possible leak from Fitzgerald's side is Ari's testimony (unless Ari himself is relaying it confidentially). All the other sources are "people briefed" or "attorneys for parties". To be totally paranoid, those could all be internal NYT staffers and reporters.

They also only report that Rove denies seeing the memo, and offer nothing to indicate otherwise.

I'm getting a headache.

I would like to say that this diary is the EXACT reason why I continue to post in the hostile waters of redstate.  

It's not that I think that Rove is bad/evil/wrong/etc.  I don't know what will ultimately become of that.

What I truly respect is that you are willing to question the CW and say MAYBE this guy did something wrong.

This is what separates RedState from most of the other blogs.

This article started off expressing support for Rove and demanding accuracy and justice.  Most Conservatives think this way.

For Liberals, any development is a game move.

Rove said something to someone?  Guilty!

A secret memo is found?

Conclusive proof of guilt!

If the prosecutor finds nothing on Rove?

Cover up!

Liberals are still whining because they were unable to steal the election five years ago.  They will be whining about Rove for years, regardless of the outcome of the Grand Jury.  This type behavior is what Liberals do in place of thinking.  The only saving grace is that most people do not believe the Liberal game.  But it is disturbing that so many do.

I don't give a shit if the memo had "Super Top Secret" on it! Plame was not covert, hasn't been covert, and will never again be covert.

Why? Because she has been working out of Langley for five years!.

HUH? Anyone entering Langley is ID'ed by foreign agents.

Why? Because that's spook central!

So? She was made by foreign agents! And Langley knows it! Covert my ass!

But? The memo....bullshit!

But? She said...bullshit!

But? He said....bullshit!

But? The MSM said.....bullshit!

The reality of her "true" agent status should make all of this bullshit go away! But it's a shot at ROVE so it won't......what a waste of time and effort.  And with us in the middle of a war!

NOW THAT IS CRIMINAL!

If anybody still thinks she was covert they should go Leon's link http://www.redstate.org/redhot#2198

But watch the profanity.
-bro

I think your diary is a mistake, and not because I am a blind Rove adherent. But what does this change?

For days we have known of this State Department memo, and also that rove was not on the plane to Africa, and that he says he did not see it, and nobody knows any differently.

Frankly, any hack knowing the rel'p between Rove and Powell would not have expected him to.

What has changed, Leon?

To my mind, this shifts the story in the direction of Rove's innocence. Do you not recall Novak said his source was "no partisan hack" as well as being a "senior administration official"?

Sounds mighty like one C. Powell to me. There was that speculation somewhere in the blogosphere but this memo makes it 100% more likely, no?

The only new wrinkle I can see here is that Tenet thought it necessary to put something out there countering Wilson's lies and that Rove was asked to assist - making what Rove did in effect on the CIA's behalf.

I truly don't understand your concern and this post, and only know the kos kids will have a field day with it. Now if this pointed to Rove's guilt then shrug, let them. But as it seems to exculpate him - I think this is an error on your part.

This is significant, I think:

http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2005/07/i_claim_press_c.html

From Tom Macguire

"

SOME DAYS CHICKEN SALAD:  Decison '08 sends me to this Bloomberg account of a discrepancy in Tim Russert's story:

Lewis "Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity.

Well, well.  The NY Times puzzled over Mr. Russert's odd situation in the Liptak article (Russert only testified about what he told Libby, not what Libby told him) and we had mocked his lawyer's easily parsed "denial":

Mr. Russert, however, according to the NBC statement, said "he did not know Ms. Plame's name or that she was a C.I.A. operative and that he did not provide that information to Mr. Libby."

Please - did Russert tell Libby that Joe Wilson's wife tapped him for the Niger trip, without giving a name?  Did Russert say she was an "analyst", not an "operative"?"

Review the posting rules.

Consider yourself has having received the first and only warning you are going to get on being a potty mouth.

If you can't say what you want to say without resorting to vulgarity, it's possible it isn't worth saying.

You're probably right. The more we talk about Rove, the more we kick the story another day. "There's no there there," really, and we should just treat it as such. Let it alone. The Democrat/media smear campaign against Rove is not working.

Not that I would defend Rove if he was clearly Nixonian, but even if he ran afoul of the law for technical reason, I'm not sure I'd be calling for his head (of course, on the other hand, I despised the entire impeachment process, Whitewater, and all the other Republican partisan nonsense that was thrown at Clinton; I don't personally think that's how politics should be done).

I didn't like the politics of personal destruction then and I don't like it now. Even if Rove was found to say a little more than maybe he really knew he should have, the relentless assault on him from the Democrats and the media should be recognized for the "politics of personal destruction" that it is, and shouldn't be allowed to succeed.

One of my biggest fears about the Clinton impeachment was that, if it actually worked in getting him out of office, every president from every party would be impeached for the rest of all time. I don't think that's the way either party really makes progress in the political arena (and given that the 1998 election was the only one since 1994 were the Republicans lost seats, and that 2000 was much closer than 2004, I'd argue that the partisan attacks on Clinton hurt the Republicans more than the Democrats).

But making the Nixon mountain over the Rove molehill is, to me, politically unpalatable, and I'd say the exact same thing were it a Democrat president and Republicans mercilessly beating on him, looking for any technical objection (in fact, I did!).

Rove gets more support from me just because they are all so obviously out to get him.

Republicans are not afraid of tough love. Unlike the Democrats who defended the Clinton administration even though it was the more people connected with it were prosecuted that any other administration since Nixon.

If Rove broke the law he should be prosecuted. If he didn't then it will be the media caught with its pants down again.

Everything of the sort is top secret.  Everything.  They give secret designations to things like your personnel file.  And I have never even seen or heard of a classified document (the lowest type of classification).

Further, after working at three organizations that dealt with classified organizations, I'm surprised that these documents were only marked as "S".  Every SOP I've read has required that each page be marked "Secret" in full.

The article didn't say the whole document was marked "S"; it said the paragraph with her information was marked (S). That is fully in line with most agencies' SOPs. The top and bottom of the page would have the full classification markings. As for the lowest type of classification, that's "confidential", but I think that was just a typo.

Not sure what you mean by your first sentence.

Remember, Powell was publicly sticking up for going into Iraq in 2004.  But it's because he probably figured out that Joe Wilson had been lying.

Remember the intelligence committee's report?  Wilson was found to have lied.  When he saw the first reports coming out, he had to wonder.  When Wilson released his op-ed, Powell got ticked.  Because he probably got those conclusions from CIA, and he'd have to be wondering how they could be so different from what Wilson was saying in his op-ed.

I've often seen things marked "Confidential", and most personnel info I've seen is (C). I also would assert that NOC lists must have a higher classification than "Secret", such as Top Secret codeword, although I wouldn't play down the importance of protecting Secret information, either.

Leon,

I am just stunned with this surrender talk.  First off, Fitzgerald could claim there was a leak, technically, by Rove - even when all of DC knew Wilson/Plame worked at the CIA.  Gimme a break.  And it is clear Wilson/Plame talked to the press about her role - which is illegal by the same statute you site.  You cannot confirm or deny secret information when it is in the open.  So when information is confirmed (liked when the CIA confirmed to Novak Plame was CIA) it is either not secret or an error was made.

But this is such a non-issue.  If Rove got a speeding ticket would you call for his resignation? If did not pay his bills on time and had a bad credit report, would you call for his resignation?  Is this a 'one minor strike and your out' level of tolerance?  Geez, Rove at worst accidentally let it be known Plame worked for the CIA - something the CIA confirmed and lots of people knew anyway. Sandy Burger went around stealing classified documents and destroying them.  John Duetsch took mountains of classified material home and left it on an unprotected computer.  This was real classified information - not this technical stuff about Plame and the CIA.

Why do we hold ourselves to inhuman standards and extreme punishments when the press makes up a scandal?  You think stepping down would EASE the press feading frenzy?  In my opinion Bush probably already read everyone the riot act on following the rules and told them to get back to work.  That is good enough for me given all the things Rove and others do correctly.  I refuse to be a thin skinned about this just because the left is foaming at the mouth.  That is their little fantasy world - not mine.

I still have my secret clearance from Lincoln Laboratory. I dealt with Classified stuff all the time. Its a bit disingenous IMHO to dismiss "Secret" as the "second-lowest classification". The data I worked with daily on ballistic missile defense was just as critical to national security as the plame stuff, and it was never classified above Secret.

Most agencies will go on a para by para level and designate what is (S) or (T) and what is not (U). However, if there is any (S) content, then the whole file is marked according to eth highest classification within.

understand you.

jadedmara works with this material daily, professionally, and you are chiding her over being disingenuous.

I never voted for Clinton either time.  Was always afraid he would spend to much.  

But the attack on Clinton was an attempt by the Republican party to unseat an elected president for sour grapes.  There never was a high crime and misdemeanor.  

In retrospect, I think Clinton did a good job.  And I don't think I can trust Republicans to not overspend.

And this outing of an covert agent (despite the rationalizations to the contrary) smells a whole lot like that same mindset.

I doubt I will ever vote Republican again.  

From Texas (the most red of the states)

Stanford

That doesn't mean he wasn't told of its contentss. This sounds a bit like "I didn't know her name, I didn't leak her name", when we all know he could identify her without actually using her name. Much the same he could have been told about the contents of the memo, part of the reason why AF1 phone records were subpoened - anyone hear if the WH ever finally complied or are they still refusing to turn those over?

by professional Mobys. There is nothing more irritating to those who have seen the real thing than to have our time wasted by a rank amateur.

Even if she wasn't exactly acting like 007 at that point, the issue is that if someone did intentionally "out" her, the foreign intelligence services and contacts she helped setup would be compromised.  Granted, none of us on the left or right knows if any damage was done, but I guarantee that foreign intelligence services ran her name through the wringer after it appeared in Novak's article (any half wit would do that upon hearing about it).  That is the major problem if there was a purposeful leak about her, and why someone should be held accountable (assuming Fitz can prove it).  All in all however, even as a Dem., I tend to agree that the media has permanent cranial rectal inversion (also known as terminal head up the butt) and the big thing is what happens with Fitzgerald's investigation.  So far he's proven himself to be a fair and responsible guy, and I applaud the right for recognizing that here at Redstate.  The higher degree of intellectual honesty keeps me coming back for more punishment.

this discussion.

It isn't so much that secret isn't a worthy classification, but whether a covert agent would have a classification higher than secret given the fact that secret isn't all that high in the various levels of classification.

Then getting into just how secret/not secret the rest of the document itself is classified.

according to Nicholas Kristoff she was outed by Aldrich Ames around 1996/97 so the damage to national security had already taken place.

commenters need to read the bold print, as well.

Let me summarize, for those who are struggling to understand this post. Viable defenses for Rove are as follows:

1. He didn't intentionally out Plame
   
   
2. She was not covert
   
   
3. He didn't know she was covert
   
   
4. He didn't learn her identity from access to classified information

Now, I still believe that all of these are true.

But, if he DID intentionally out her, she WAS covert and he knew it, he might still have a legal loophole to wriggle through on the "stateside for more than 5 years" business, but that's not a loophole I'll wriggle through with him.

Hope that's clearer.

from  Washington Monthly. The original column is available through a subscription fee that I'm not going to pay.

Keep everyone that doesn't agree down the line they are trolls.  See what that gets you.

There are a lot of independents.  And if you check my comments in other areas you will see there is a strong Libertarian bent.  Libertarians don't fit neatly in one party or the other.  Call them trolls if you wish.

BTW, I have actually been a delegate for a Buchannan.  I may be one of the few that voted for Ford.  But if you want to call me a troll, have at it.

In this case, I think Rove should be fired - now.

On the other hand, I doubt he committed a crime in outing an agent.  I doubt he knew he was doing that and I don't think he would have done it had he known.  

He may be guilty under that weird law that got Martha Stewart.  I don't want to see him go down for that kind of crime.  I agree that you can't lie under oath, but misleading investigators seems to me an extension of 5th Amendment protections (notice libertarian leaning here).  One isn't required to help the prosecutor it seems to me and immediately having to leap to claiming the 5th, telegraphs to a prosecutor that something may be there.  Even when that "something" is embarrassing and not criminal.

Similarly, I think the partisan on Clinton was one of the worst things I have ever seen.

If that makes me a troll, so be it.  Just don't call me a Freeper.

imho,

Stanford

that if he was lying to the GJ or lying to the investigators in order to cover up any role he had in this (whether he intentionally outed her or not) I won't be at his back either.

I think everyone has an obligation to be truthful in these cases, and lying to cover up doesn't further or help at all.

I still think in the end Rove isn't the guilty party, and the media is just loving the witch hunt while the GJ is still in session.  There is still at least one other somebody out there who was spilling information to Novak and maybe others-we know that somebody wasn't Rove unless Rove and Novak are both lying.

Rove knew that the information about Plame, now known from the INR memo, was not public knowledge.

I think it likely that someone from the administration would have told the press about Plame, in an official manner, if it wasn't classified. The administration was talking to the press about Wilson from early June.

Doesn't Rove, knowing the information about Plame is not public knowledge, have an obligation to check and see if the information about Plame is classified before he tells reporters?    

drive the car in Jimmy Hoffa's disappearance. If you believe your 4 points are true, you don't need the qualifier.

then.

So how will you feel about Rove if that is what he is charged with.

Will you advocate for him to keep his job?

Sorry, but I don't get into apologists for Clinton.  I agree that a lot of what was said/done towards him was nothing more than a partisan witch hunt (but I think the same can be said at this point of Rove-the investigation isn't finished, and even with this information it isn't clear that Rove did anything illegal), but I drew the line when it came to lying under oath.  I don't care if you are covering up an affair or your involvement in a government leak, nobody is above the law or exempt from telling the truth while under oath.

the law is a defense.

If he was told about it, and wasn't told that she was covert, then you are missing the element of intent.

We can debate ethics, but honestly if somebody told you about the situation, didn't say she was covert, and then a reporter calls you with the same info that the CIA confirmed, I have a hard time holding somebody accountable in that case.  That just turns into a witch hunt and pure partisanship and hyopcrisy (since almost any leak that puts the government in a bad light is adored and praised by the left-I find the outing of the CIA cover airline far more offensive than the maybe/maybe not outing of a single covert agent).

with the information, then how do you assume it isn't public knowledge.

her involvement in Wilson's trip is what wasn't public knowledge, and if Wilson is yaking about the trip, then it is understandable that sharing her involvement was a legitimate defense.

At this point you seem to be wanting to hold him accountable for something you aren't holding anyone else (ie leaks of classified information in general) in this story accountable for.  Was Wilson justified any less in leaking his information to the press?  It is hard for me to believe that none of what he was sharing wasn't classified at some level.

This is where the press in this story has failed us I think.  The press chose sides a long time ago, and are purposefully obsfuscating the truth, so that we don't know the extent of their own involvement in the story.  When you can't trust the press to accurately cover their own role in the mess, how can you trust them to accurately cover anyone else's?

I just watched an ex CIA analyst that disagrees.  

CPAN.org has a live congressional conference on this now.  You can watch it online.

enjoy,

Stanford

much difference what he says, does it? His real disagreement is with the CIA people who told Kristoff.

I rambled a bit in my last post, so it makes sense if you misunderstood me: I agree that secret being the second-lowest level classification argument is faulty, considering many important things are classified secret. Streiff, I'm sure he wasn't chiding me; he was chiding the author of the article quoted in the original post.

I want to also clarify something else: NOC lists, especially the sort of deep undercover agent type list, in my opinion would be codeword clearance. However, some clandestine agents do have looser covers and their identities I believe can be just "Secret//Noforn". I am completely staying out of Plame-gate; just giving some firsthand observations.  

about the press and trust me I think their up to their necks in it.

But I think Rove, with his security clearance, is responsible for protecting information. I think he shouldn't have said a word about Plame, including "I heard that too", until he checked and knew that the information wasn't classified.

I will be upset if Rove outright lied to the grand jury over outing a CIA agent.  I will not be upset if he didn't intend this to happen and he parses his testimony.  

So now you know how I would feel about the Clinton perjury.  Personally, I think he was able to parse and didn't commit perjury in a very technical reading.

But no, perjury over having sex with an intern is not a high crime and misdemeanor.  Neither is a traffic ticket.

imho,

Stanford  

between a NOC and a clandestine agent exactly?  Are both covered by the IIPA?

Also, if one was a former NOC (which it appears Plame was at one time) wouldn't their name remain more highly classified, or would they downgrade, and why would they downgrade it?  That doesn't make much sense to me, but then I admit I have never worked with or handled secret documents.

A CIA operative that works in an American embassy would be cladestine but would not be considered in a NOC role.  

Most countries treat "official" spies differently than NOC spies.  If they catch an "official" spy doing something they shouldn't they will often simply send them home.  If they catch a NOC doing someone naughty they will usually send them to prison.

Republicans are not afraid of tough love. Unlike the Democrats who defended the Clinton administration even though it was the more people connected with it were prosecuted that any other administration since Nixon.

This is....simply...not...true.  Can you name even ONE high-ranking member of the Clinton administration who was convicted, indicted or forced to resign for any malfeasance related to their official duties?  There may be one or two - but I've asked this question in dozens of conservative forums and have yet to get a valid response.  

And I can easily answer the same question about the Reagan administration with 30-50 valid names including multiple Cabinet heads and quite a few who actually worked in the White House. And then there's Bush Sr. who had to pardon his Secretary of Defense and Secretary of State on his way out of office to keep himself out of federal prison.

I know you guys really enjoyed going after Clinton. But at some point you've got to face up to the truth. His was investigated more than any administration in history, yet everything came up dry holes.  Objectively speaking the Clinton administration was easily the cleanest ethically since at least Eisenhower.

I don't work with operations, so this is my basic knowledge of the situation and not informed from a professional point of view:

A NOC is a non-offical cover agent, someone who pretends to be working for a front business or company but is really in the CIA's employ. I don't know if Ms. Plame was a NOC agent; I'm really trying not to follow this story. I believe NOC is a subset of the larger set of clandestine agents, with covers such as working for the US government in an embassy or as an analyst, just without their true job description known.

I'm not entirely sure about that, though.

the stuff being investigated was not stuff done while he sat as president.

And there were several convictions, including the governor or Arkansas in those investigations.

The FBI files though take on an interesting light though with this Rove matter, considering the fact that those are classified, and the white house should not have had access to them.

But for the most part I was never a huge fan of all the Clinton investigations, I figured they didn't happen while he was in office, if it didn't bother us before it shouldn't bother us now.

I was bothered by the perjury-I really don't care what it is you are under oath for, you are under an obligation to tell the truth, and Clinton failed in that regard and he was later convicted and sentenced because of it, and he was also disbarred.

You are rewriting history to an extent here.

I don't want to get into a Clinton debate but, IIRC, the White House was AUTHORIZED to have access to the FBI files.  However their alleged USE of the files may have crossed ethical and possibly legal lines.

He's probably right that the Clinton Administration had the most people prosecuted.  However I think that speaks poorly of the people attacking Clinton and not his administration since none of the prosecutions ever led to anything.

On second thought I think it would be more appropriate to say that the Clinton Administration had the most people INVESTIGATED.

you are calling for Rove to be fired?

See it is that hypocrisy that this is about.

In general liberals rally round their bad guys and support them til they all fall down or beat off the attackers.

COnservatives will rally round, but if it turns out something illegal/unethical happened, the majority will feed them to the wolves-although a few hangers on may engage in the battle, we generally abandon our bad guys in the end.

Also, the liberals in general have the cooperation of the media in their bad behavior, while the press acts like they are on a personal witch hunt with pitchforks drawn regarding the GOP.  Having the media nominally on your side helps, and lest you forget, the Clinton's would have succeeded in their efforts to totally trash Monica had Monica not followed the advice of Linda Tripp (who was turned into the evil witch of the West by the Clinton's attack machine) to save it.  Bill Clinton would have gotten away with his lie, and succeeded at trashing Monica (granted she was culpable to some degree) if it wasn't for DNA.

but I drew the line when it came to lying under oath.  I don't care if you are covering up an affair or your involvement in a government leak, nobody is above the law or exempt from telling the truth while under oath.

Ronald Reagan.

I'm sorry, but the hypocrisy is just drippping from conservatives who had this road to Damascus epiphany about the evils of lying under oath round about 1998.  If you didn't call for Reagan's prosecution in 1987 you have no business deriding Democrats for staying with Clinton in 1998.  What goes around comes around. Mote from thine own eye. Etc.

Impeaching Reagan would've been the wrong thing to do - even though he clearly lied under oath about official criminal national security activities. Impeaching Clinton for lying about sex was also wrong.   Disagreeing with both those statements I can understand.  Disagreeing with the first but not the second is possible - due to the very different nature of what was being lied about. But I don't think there's any intellectually honest way to disagree with integrity with the second but not the first.

YMMV.

Leon,

I appreciate your sensible and principled position.  One barometer of where this thing is headed is James Baker.  If he is called in to help coordinate the defense, then we know that we're headed into very deep water, and it's getting serious.

that you are reffering to when you say that I am defending them?  I'm not defending anyone.  I stated a fact, or least what my memories claims is a fact.

I'm not calling for Rove to be fired.  Right now there is no reason for him to be fired.  If the GJ comes back and he is charged with a felony crime then, yes, he should be fired REGARDLESS of whether he is innocent or guilty of that charge.  He is in too sensitive a position to allow him to stay on during a trial involving national security.  I believe that he would, in that situation, lose his clearance anyway.  

Bill Clinton certainly wasn't afraid to throw mud at his opponents.  But please don't try and portray Linda Tripp as some innocent woman unfairly maligned by the Clintons.  What she did was unethical at the very least and pretty sleazy REGARDLESS of whether you agree with her motives or not.

"In general liberals rally round their bad guys and support them til they all fall down or beat off the attackers."

LBJ was dishonest with us about Vietnam and liberals didn't rally around him.  They went after him.  And they got him.

Stanford

Bush, Chaney and Rove have all obtained private representation as I understand it.

Stanford

...in fact it's part of my main point.  With all that investigating - probably more than all the rest of our Presidents combined, if you stop and think about it - all they could ever come up with is a few convictions of loose associates for things that happened a decade or more before.

I think it's clear that trying to add up Arkansas real estate developers and governors and come up with, as the original poster put it, "more people connected with it were prosecuted that any other administration since Nixon." is the revisionist history. Those people weren't "connected" to the Clinton administration in any meaningful way.

(And even if they were, and you were allowed to actually include anyone Clinton ever knew, the number would still be only a small fraction of the number of actual Reagan administration members who were indicted for real, on-the-job malfeasance)

As far as I can tell - and like I said, I've issued this challenge in dozens of conservative forums and it's yet to be met - not one single high-ranking Clinton Admin member was ever indicted, prosecuted or forced to resign for official misconduct on the job.  They ran a squeaky clean administration by any rational objective measure.

Anyway, I've said enough about this here - ya'll are entitled to your misconceptions. I'll bow out of the Clinton defense business for now (I was never a big Clinton fan anyway.)  

Unless someone actually takes up the challenge, that is. I'd be really curious if someone here (where I think the actual knowledge level is higher than most of the other conservative forums I've asked in) can actually name a few.  I don't doubt that there probably are a couple - every administration has a few. But so far the closest anyone has come is Cisneros...but his misdeeds were part of the confirmation process so technically weren't on duty.

As far as I can tell - and like I said, I've issued this challenge in dozens of conservative forums and it's yet to be met - not one single high-ranking Clinton Admin member was ever indicted, prosecuted or forced to resign for official misconduct on the job.  They ran a squeaky clean administration by any rational objective measure.

You should say "that you are aware of."  Or they were better at hiding their dirt.

One thing this Rove matter has proven to me is just how complicit the media is in how they cover and attack stories.

The troublesome part of this whole Rove affair is the relationship between the leakers, the press and who and how they are covering the story.  It is always possible that Clinton had a better lid on his leaks, or because of political philisophy they chose not to use what was leaked.

You may see Clinton as the epitome of ethics, I just don't.  Also, as this Rove matter is probably going to prove-you may be able to find ethics, but provind crimes beyond reasonable doubt may in the end mean nobody gets charged with anything.

Clinton to be the epitome of ethics and I think he is pretty unethical in his personal life.

However I must question the belief by some on the Right that the media was easier on Clinton than it has been on Bush.  Whitewater was a FRONT PAGE news item for YEARS.  And when it was discovered that, not only did the Clinton's not commit any crimes, they actually LOST MONEY on the deal it was simply discarded.

Whitewater, travelgate, filegate, monicagate, chinagate.  The press ate it all up without stopping for a second to look at the validity of any of the charges.  If there was a potential conspiracy the media was MORE THAN WILLING to put it front and center.

If the media is a friend of the Democrats, then the Democrats don't need any enemies.

Yes the media chased the story, but they also chased it with a dose of skepticism that I don't see when they chase the stories on Bush.

The difference is almost like for Clinton the media sort of played detective-they listed the bad stuff, but they also covered the exculpatory evidence.  They covered it as if Clinton might be guilty, but were open to him not being guilty (granted the conservative publications weren't so open to this, but their bias was a given).

With the Rove stuff, and Bush in general they don't seem to have that attitude, there isn't much skepticism, there isn't much "well there is this that points away from this" the media has not only helped in the Rove witch hunt they have passed out thepitchforks and helped built and light the fire-they aren't at least in the Rove matter just covering the story, they also now have a stake in the story, and they can't claim a lack of bias on this one (at least the major media outlets can't, they all signed an amicus brief arguing that a crime wasn't committed, but here they are passing out the pitchforks to get Rove).

Basically it is the missing skepticism, the missing openness to the fact that the charges may be wrong.

With Clinton they acted as detectives, with Bush they act like they are on a witch hunt and don't care about the truth.

does not equal "not knowing about it."  If, as you pose, he wasn't told it was secret, he might have a legal out, but I believe he is required to check those things out before confirming and certainly before pushing the story.

OK - I'm replying here without rancor or malice, solely as an exercise in 2-minute googling.

Here's the 5th entry when googling "clinton administration convictions":

http://prorev.com/legacy.htm

Again - I've no clue as to the truth or accuracy of the contents, but only offer 2 observations:

1 - It's quite an exhaustive effort and list

2-  It indicates a great deal of effort or obsession or some of both.

That said, googling "bush administration convictions" doesn't get much of relevance on the first results page.

What does all this mean?

I dunno, Bill left quite the legacy - so much that it can argued or qualified by both sides; the right is more obsessed with compiling the dossier on Clinton, while the left is simply lazier in devoting the effort to the equally liable GOP administrations; numerous unrelated, individual acts of minor malfeasence are not as bad as a single, systematic failure on an issue of grave importance; all of the above, none of the above????????????

But I do think it's a stretch to claim the primary spot on the good government list for the Clinton administration. I've always thought of him as the pop culture-politically successful version of Nixon.

you either are covert or you are not.  All the evidence I have heard points to the fact that Plame was not a covert agent and hadn't been one for well over 5 years. The law says 5 years, not four, not six, but five.  Your whole premise about "outing" a covert agent (your words)therefore has no merit and Rove has no culpability.  We will see this when the special prosecutor rules in the near future.  But I predict that the press will suffer more embarrassment when he does rule.  Rove must go?-Hell no!

I am amazed that we even worry about this.

You mentioned ethics. What ethics?  We do not hold congress to inhuman standards.  We have people with three ethical violations from the house ethics panel. Nothing will happen to them and the Rove case is just a distraction.

The only concern here is that media is upset that a reporter is in jail.  The sooner we pass the reporter shield law the sooner this will go away.

If Rove leaked the name ethically he should not have.  Does this mean he will be reprimanded?  No. (Bush should not have made the statement that he would fire anyone who leaked the name. This was a political blunder.)

Rove is wearing his Teflon suite.  Nothing is going to stick. This will all come down to a point of law that cannot be proven.  Rove will remain where he is and we need not worry.

If he signed SF 312 he's obligated to check out any potentially classified information if unsure about classification:

I understand that if I am uncertain about the classification status of information, I am required to confirm from an authorized official that

the information is unclassified before I may disclose it, except to a person as provided in (a) or (b), above..

http://www.uscg.mil/hq/g-m/mp/pdf/SF0312.pdf

She is covert as long as the CIA says she is.

Question to Larry Wilson on CSPAN:  Can  you be covert and work at Langly.

Answer:  I was everyday for 5 years.

Fired? yes.  should have already be done.  Even if she wasn't covert.  

Jailed? I doubt it.  We will see.

Stanford

i did NOT mean to imply jadedmara was being disingenous. I was just continuing along her comment's trajectory - my reply was a "me too", not a "you suck"

apologies JM if it read the wrong way. I was only trying to agree in a roundabout way. I worked with classified materials directly for two years, so I felt some kinship.

as other Rove defenders have suggested, Plame's identity was pretty secret, but not super secret? :)

The rationale behind classification as always been utterly mystifying to me. An engineer at the Lab where I worked told me an anecdote (utterly unverifiable) of once doing some Shuttle-related work. He came up against the TS barrier left and right, and only had S clearance. Ultimately he went to eth Internet and pulled down the exact schematic info he needed - from the public NASA website!

probably a tall tale. but theres a lot of bizarreness in the rationale behind classification when I worked on that stuff. Why would the radar signature of a XXX from country ZZZ be TS whereas the existence of radar system YYY doing the detection be S, for example? the detection platform is a more important secret than the data it collects.

I dont think theres any one person who decides these things,. it just sort of evolves. At least not on teh DoD lab side. The DoD administration side, things may well be different. I'll defer to JM.

If he was told about it, but wasn't told the info was secret, then he was more a leakee than a leaker.

That being said, as soon as he found out he was the leakee of information that was alleged to be classified, didn't he have an obligation to turn the leaker in? Wouldn't national security interests demand it? Where was his outrage at finding out he'd been used as a pawn to channel classified info to the press? Why try to cover it up?  Why not demand an investigation instead?

As Grandma would say "this stinks to high heaven" but a man is innocent until proven guilty.  None of us are privy to all of the pertinent facts, so we are just going to have to wait for the GJ.  

but I could also quote many sources who say the opposite, and I could site the actual law about outing a covert agent, but all I would be doing is what others on this site have already stated-"stirring the pot for the MSM".  I'll wait for the prosecutor to decide.  We Republicans all too often like to throw our brethren overboard at the slightest hint of trouble.  Thank God GWB is not as weak-kneed as are some in his own party.

Just to clarify a couple of things.

The government has 3 of security classifications.  Confidential, Secret, and Top Secret*.  

Secret information is information that would create serious harm to our national security if publicly released.  It is most certainly a crime to release secret information.  I had a secret clearance in the military and I can assure you that they took it very seriously.

Secondly if a memo is classified secret it DOES NOT MATTER whether the information in the memo relates to other security related information or simply is a daily briefing.  It is a crime to divulge ANY information provided in the memo to anyone without a secret clearance or higher.

So if someone, Rove or anyone else, were to divulge the information provided in a secret document to anyone not properly cleared they would be committing a crime.  In that case it wouldn't matter if Plame's identity was still considered Top Secret or not.

*- Actually Top Secret is a compartmentalized clearance.  People are given specific codewords that allow you to specific classified information related to your responsibilities.   You can have, however, generic Top Secret clearance as well.

But Stanford's point wasn't that she WAS still considered covert.  His point was that she MIGHT still be covert.  

You, otoh, seemed to suggest that she WASN'T still covert.  That is, at this point, an unprovable claim.

although we do not know if he failed to turn in the leaker, if that is the case, so far we only know he talked to two reporters one who gave him information and one he gave information to-we don't know anything else at this point.

We do know Rove was cooperating with the investigators almost as soon as the investigation began based on when he signed the press release waiver.

it certainly goes a long way towards explaining Khobar Towers, the embassy bombings, the USS Cole bombing, and 9-11. All of our covert agents are working at Langley using CIA employment as their cover story.

Probably their idea of a Purloined Letter strategy.

why aren't you and other liberals out there hollering for Wilson's arrest, after all he divulged classified information to the press.

Why isn't anyone out there hollering for the leaks that leaked the CIA covert operation flying teams to fight terrorists around to be prosecuted.

See my issue to some degree is the hypocrisy in this.  On any other day, the liberals love the leaks of classified information, because nine times out of ten the leak is meant to harm the administration or the prosecution of the war on terror.  But these guys are celebrated.

If you are going to call for Rove to be fired because here, then lets call for an investigation into the sieve that is the CIA and State department and start cleaning house.

but I heard someone on the radio yesterday (didn't catch who it was) saying that covert agents are often based at Langley and make trips for say 30 days or less to other places in the world, then come back to Langley until they are sent on another op.

That talked about this at the congressional meeting just minutes ago - several CIA case workers and agents.

But one point is that most countries are not the old Sovet Union.  They don't have people staked out recording license plates around the clock.

How and when an asset is used, I think is more of a sliding scale then an on/off switch.  But we really shouldn't care.  Rove didn't check to make sure she wasn't covert.  He was trying to smear Wilson and she was collateral damage.  

I found Larry's blog.  He is (or at least was) a good Republican.  You can read his statement here:

http://noquarter.typepad.com/

Be warned.  This guy is pretty tick off.

Stanford

in this case the fact that it can collect the data at a certain resolution could be what is important.

For instance, without saying anything out of school here a perfect example of this was the KH-1 satellite.

Mentioning data had been collected via KH-1 automatically classifed the data (S), you could mention the data had been collected and it might be (U), if you mentioned the resolution (like saying you could read a license plate) then the data became TS/TK.

[I only mention this particular system because the system and the clearance level has been de facto declassified over the years.]

If Joe Wilson leaked classified information in violation of federal law he should be charged with a crime.

However I don't know if that is the case or not.  We don't know if he leaked anything that was considered classified.  We don't know if he knew it was classified.

This reminds me of the story of Tom Clancy's run in with the spooks.  After Clancy wrote The Hunt for Red October he had a peculiar knock on the door.  It was,  IIRC, the FBI.  Seems they were curious how he "knew" so much about our nuclear submarines.  They found it suspicious that a civilian had so much sensitive information and they wanted to find out if someone was leaking the information.  Turns out someone was.  Sadly for the FBI it was Jane's Book of Fighting ships which had a wealth of information about the Los Angelos class subs.  The point here is that simply because something is classified DOESN'T mean that you are breaking the law by mentioning it.

What we do know is that the CIA does not apparently believe a crime was committed in that regard since they have had 2 years to charge him with something but haven't done so.

The same is true of the Air America II story.  While some Conservatives point to that as an example of classified information being divulged with no criminal prosecution those Conservatives DON'T know if the information divulged was actually classified.

The call for an investigation of Plame didn't come from the Democrats.  It came from the CIA.  

my husband was a Navy Nuke.

There were some things he could talk about, other things were classified.  Some things regarding his job could be found on the internet or in a Tom Clancy book, other things were classified.

what Wilson was saying couldn't have possibly been classified.

Now maybe there is some rule about how specific the information has to be to qualify, but I suspect that the CIA didn't care, because the media wasn't after Wilson, or demanding an investigation into him, they were demanding it for Plame.

The CIA was and still is leaking like a sieve, Wilson's leaks are par for the course, and probably routine, but I think half the problem is this belief that leaks are normal except when the media makes them not normal.

Do you think the CIA would have issued a request for an investigation had the media not jumped on the "war against Wilson" "OUting of Plame" bandwagon?

agreed, the capabilities of the sensing system is the more important thing - that wasnt something that could be inferred from teh data which i was referring to. Have to be somewhat vague unfortunately but it was less a "image" and more of a "signature".

i have no clue whether the system i am talking about is still classified or not, actually...

because claiming someone is a covert agent when they work in the open as a CIA employee and then claiming that their covert status is blown when someone mentions what is obvious - that they are a CIA employee - is just profoundly stupid.

And if anyone should be fired over a situation like this it is who ever was enough of a numbskull to think this arrangement made sense. Though I must say, given the CIA's track record over the last decade, I would not be surprised if this were the case.

And you need to Google Larry Johnson. He's not a disinterested observer in this matter.

Perhaps Wilson did divulge classified information.  I don't know.  But barring an accusation from any law enforcement agency I have no way of determining whether he committed a crime or not.  I am not privy to what was and was not classified.  

Whether the CIA leaks like a sieve or not is largely irrelevant.  

I also don't know whether the CIA would have requested this investigation if not for the political pressure.  I will say that, unlike many other leaks of classified information, this alleged leak had a specific victim that makes the investigation more compelling.

what you mean. I used the KH-1 example, like I said, because it was declassified through exposure.

A better example of some of this is the NRO. Until about 1995, or so, mentioning the National Reconnaissance Office in a document got the document classified SECRET. Even though you could read articles about the NRO in tech journals and novels. It's cover was finally "blown" through a fraud investigation where they had moved enough money into a slush fund that they built a new facility, off the books.

The call for an investigation of Plame didn't come from the Democrats.  It came from the CIA.  

So have a bunch of the leaks. So did the decision to send Wilson to Niger... twice. So also the targeting of the Chinese embassy in 1999. Lots of interesting stuff goes on inside that CIA. I'm not sure everybody is singing out of the same hymnbook over there, particularly on the issue of whether they or the elected government is in charge of setting foreign policy.

The CIA bounces from being a loose cannon(Allende) to being completely unwilling to do their job(Hunt for Osama in the 90s).

People assume that the CIA serves at the pleasure of the President.  That is often not the case.

about the outing of the CIA covert operation.

That one named names, attempted to interview some ofthose names, it named missions, and it named companies.

I would say there were some specific victims involved, but you see the media was being the good guy then, they were exposing the evil Bush administration and the evil CIA, so there was no attack from the MSM, and there were no letters written to the DOJ encouraging an investigation, nope there was mostly just silence.

I maintain that there would probably have been no refereal, and if there was a referral no investigation had the MSM and Dems not inserted themselves into the proccess.  

it stays as a loose cannon in both cases. Much like State it is staffed with a lot of people who believe it is their right to set foreign policy rather than their duty to carry out the foreign policy of the the Administration they serve.

of anomosity.  I read the article.  Basically it said that the CIA had started up Air America II.  There were no moral judgements in the article.  

And as I said we don't know if there was any classified information revealed in that story.

The problem with career civil servants is that they start to think that the elected officials are only temporary and if they ignore them long enough they will go away, which they will.

of the CIA this can lead to some very unethical things.

Things like leaking like a sieve and then whining about a single leak, because the MSM decided to carry it as their banner.

Bush's standard is that there is no leaks from his administration.  That's it.  Not that a crime has to be committed.  Not that great harm has to come from the leak.  No leaks.

Now even that wouldn't be a big deal had Bush come out and said, hey, we did this but there was no intent.  It was inadvertant.  But he didn't.

Instead, his spokesman (McClellan) swore that his staff was not involved.  He spoke to them remember?  Not involved.  Now we are going to debate what involved is?

I point out that we outed a British intelligence operation last year and we came out and admitted it.  And the whole thing went away.  

That's how this should have been handled.  Now we stand around trying to prove Plame is ineffective or just a desk jockey or whatever.  And when ex CIA say we are wrong... we attack them too.  There are 10 of them now - many good dues paying Republicans.  In the meantime Valerie can't respond.  Why?  Because of her sensative position the CIA won't apporve her press release.  So now her commander in chief is taking pot shots at her through his staff and the RNC, and telling her though the chain of command to just shut up and take it.  

I don't know how anyone could advise their relatives to follow this kind of commander in chief into war.  Who has your back?

imho,

Stanford

because of the Clinton Administration's aversion to imposing it's will on the Armed Forces [dating to the Barry McCaffery and the we-don't-talk-to-the-military fiasco], the same culture nearly sprang up in the Pentagon. The Pentagon's recalcitrance in getting onboard Clinton's rather flaccid attempts to get UBL being a case in point.

is irrelevant.  Karl Rove is a master at political gamesmanship.  I'm not about to shed tears for him because someone didn't play fair with him.  He's never concerned himself with playing fair.  Why should anyone else?

when it came to the military from virtually the day he was sworn in.  The way he handled the gays in the military issue completely alienated the military leadership and it was an uphill battle from there.  The military leadership felt that he was trying to usurp their authority and they never trusted him again.  

It could be argued that was his biggest political blunder that didn't involve Monica Lewinsky.

So I assume you aren't too concerned about the leftie meme about Brewster Jennings then.

Also, you notice they use words like 'secret' liberally throughout the text.  They also use terms like "cover" liberally to desrcibe the company's involved.

They mention missions, missions that involve CIA special forces teams-are you actually arguing that the movements of those guys wouldn't fall under classified information?  I am willing to bet they would disagree with you.

I like this one: The agency has concealed its ownership behind a web of seven shell corporations that appear to have no employees and no function apart from owning the aircraft.

I am thinking that if they have concealed it, they have made its existence classified information.

If Brewster Jennings and its relationship to the CIA was classified then these company's would be.

Here's another quote:

A C.I.A. spokeswoman declined to comment for this article. Representatives of Aero Contractors, Tepper Aviation and Pegasus Technologies, which operate the agency planes, said they could not discuss their clients' identities. "We've been doing business with the government for a long time, and one of the reasons is, we don't talk about it," said Robert W. Blowers, Aero's assistant manager.

AT least two people confirmed Valarie Plame worked at the CIA to reporters and her name is supposedly top secret, but they don't talk about this, when you argue it isn't classified-come on  you aren't that dense.

Here you go on secret again:  He asked not to be identified because when he was hired, after responding to a newspaper advertisement seeking pilots for the C.I.A., he signed a secrecy agreement.

This guy who signed the secrecy agreement then proceeds to generally discuss his various missions for the CIA.

Also, the scary thing was they took the names of the company's, traced their flight logs (which were public record) and attached them to variuos movements an capture of known terrorists.  That to me isn't too helpful in the war on terror.

As the C.I.A. tries to veil such air operations, aviation regulations pose a major obstacle. Planes must have visible tail numbers, and their ownership can be easily checked by entering the number into the Federal Aviation Administration's online registry.

He said one method used in setting up past C.I.A. proprietaries was to ask real people to volunteer to serve as officers or directors. "It was very, very easy to find patriotic Americans who were willing to help," he said.

Aero's president, according to corporate records, is Norman Richardson, a North Carolina businessman who once ran a truck stop restaurant called Stormin' Norman's. Asked about his role with Aero, Mr. Richardson said only: "Most of the work we do is for the government. It's on the basis that we can't say anything about it."

Now are you really going to keep arguing that none of that stuff was classified?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/national/31planes.html?pagewanted=4&e
i=5088&en=6007accb4801296c&ex=1275192000&partner=rssnyt&emc
=rss

I won't bother to address your compendium of Known Facts™, heavily larded with rather imaginative writings.

But since you subscribe to the ridiculous position that a covert agent can work overtly as a CIA agent then by your logic mentioning any CIA employee's name is potentially illegal. What a crock of manure.

of the problem.

Once he'd alienated them, he taught them that they could walk all over him with no repercussions. They (we?) were never going to love him, but he could have made them fear him.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/05/31/national/31planes.html?pagewanted=4&e
i=5088&en=6007accb4801296c&ex=1275192000&partner=rssnyt&emc
=rss

Or are you going the flyerhawk route and arguing that none of this was classified.

because none of it involves a character assassination of someone in the Bush Administration.

What is your point here?

Stanford

a whole list of company's that are cover covers for the CIA that flies missions in the war on terror.

The name the names of the company's.  The name the names of the company owners (two guys were in fact real people),  They name missions etc.

My point is that the plame stuff is in reality manufactured outrage by those on the left.  You really do not care about the release of classified information to the press, you just care about taking down Karl Rove.

If you cared about the release of classified information, there would be post after post after post criticizing stories like the one I linked to.

this is about hypocrisy.

that Rove was trying to smear Wilson.  All of what you have posted shows no evidence of that.  The prosecutor, at this point in time, apparently sees no such evidence either.  Let's stop smearing Rove.

I went back and re-read the article a third time, slowly, silently with my lips moving from word to word, and I still cannot quite figure it all out.

OK, I'll explain it to you: Rove's lawyer is being played like a harp.

The is the second time he has been "a person briefed" for the New York Times, it's the second time he's handed them stuff that exonerates Rove, and it's the second time that the NYT has surrounded his stuff with nonsense and innuendo, with a headline and conclusion that Rove is in even deeper trouble than we thought.

You'd think that after the first time they did this to him, with those two Ukrainian trainees as the authors, he would have learned his lesson and passed the next leak to Wes Pruden or somebody a little less hostile. But noooo... he hands the New York Times another reason to write another hit piece on his client. When does this guy figure out that the press is not covering this story? The press is this story.

Without getting too snarky here I seem to remember that several of Clinton's opponents during the whole Lewinsky scandal were also having affairs, and the Democratic charges of hypocrisy were dismissed because it was about lying in the White House. This seems analogous to me. And learning from that history I'm going to say that people don't care about hypocrisy. Clinton was still impeached by some of the adulterers because he lied. That precedent is now eagerly gobbled up by Dems and there's no undoing it.

This is just what happens in second terms, to Nixon, to Reagan, to Clinton, and now to Bush. There will always be elements of hypocrisy in the scandalmaking -- and those charges will always be ignored by the opposition party and the media -- so I don't really think this is a winning line for the pro-Rove forces. It seems a little too moral relativist (especially from the Republicans!) -- if other people did it too and are being hypocritical then it's ok -- to fly with the American public.

I don't like that we outed public information but the only thing comprable between this and Rove is that I doubt either was criminal.

I don't think Rove committed a crime - at the time.  He may have now.  I just think the cover up is worse than the crime.  That's why I pointed out the error from the prior year and how it was handled.  You don't see post after post talking about the British Mole Khan being outed - do you?  You know why?

Tom Ridge said:

"But I know there was the regrettable disclosure of information that British officials would have much preferred to remain confidential...So I can say, from my perspective, the public expression of disappointment and displeasure was appropriate. As it turned out, all's well that ends well, but understanding the restrictions and the conditions under which your law enforcement community operates in this country, we should do everything we can to avoid compromising or undermining it, period."

That's different, then - "Let's wait and see if a crime has been committed".

imho,

Stanford

I see absolutely nothing insidious about the use of terms like secret and cover.  They seem like words that go hand in hand with an article about the CIA.  

They mention missions, missions that involve CIA special forces teams-are you actually arguing that the movements of those guys wouldn't fall under classified information?  I am willing to bet they would disagree with you

What I'm ACTUALLY saying is that there is no way to KNOW whether these were considered classified AFTER ACTION.   You assume that they are but you don't have any reliable reason to believe that.

I am thinking that if they have concealed it, they have made its existence classified information.

And maybe you're right.  I HAVE NO IDEA.  

Here you go on secret again:  He asked not to be identified because when he was hired, after responding to a newspaper advertisement seeking pilots for the C.I.A., he signed a secrecy agreement.

Sounds like a employment contract.  Certainly doesn't appear that this guy has a security clearance unless the CIA is now putting up want ads for sensitive jobs involving national security.

Also, the scary thing was they took the names of the company's, traced their flight logs (which were public record) and attached them to variuos movements an capture of known terrorists.  That to me isn't too helpful in the war on terror

Why?  Please explain how this hinders the war on terror in any way?  According the article the CIA front company is simply a paper organization. They could hire anyone and use and aircraft they want.     Would you feel the same way about "outing" a front trucking company?

Now are you really going to keep arguing that none of that stuff was classified?

I am going to CONTINUE to TELL YOU that just because you INFER that this stuff was classified DOESN'T make it so.  Maybe it was, maybe it wasn't.  Maybe it was after-action declassified.  The fact that they hired civilians with, presumably, no security clearance suggests to me that it wasn't exactly the NOC list they were guarding here.

Hearing on Security Implications of Revealing Covert Agent's Identity (07/22/2005) can be watched at CSPAN.org.

You can watch for yourself what ex CIA officers and analyst have to say.

Stanford

Copy A:

(s)Valerie Wilson is a covert secret agent, blah blah blah.

Copy B:

($) Valerie Wilson is a covert secret agent, blah blah blah.

Copy A could have been released under FOIA while still classified 'secret'.

Copy B could have been declassified by routine declassification procedures.

The point is that you can't draw any conclusions about the security status of anything based on the document in use.  The FOIA release includes the security status of the document at the time of the release.  

Copy A: even if it says "Secret" on top and bottom and has an (s) in front of every paragraph-- it isn't secret if it has been released through FOIA.

I thought you said it was a "hearing". It seems like there aren't any members of the legislative majority there. Why would that be? Never mind. I know. This is the sister event to Conyers' "impeachment" hearing.

Copy A could have been released under FOIA while still classified 'secret'.

Classified documents are exempt from the FOIA.  

If you go to CSPAN you will see I gave you the precise listing they have on their website.

Stanford

I was just commenting on the fact that it wasn't a "hearing". Freakshow is a better description.

Yige bite, pengyou.

You guys are way more rational on average than dkos, even though I agree with their general theme more of the time.  Any article on daily kos has at least 20 comments that could just be replaced with WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHH.  

This freak show is growing - I mean PlameGate.

Now I am reading the Bolton is a WMD source for Judith Miller and you can see how people want to connect the dots.  

And Ari Fleisher was on the airplane with Bush and Powell, was seen to have the memo and called Novak.

My point was and is - that Rove has to go because he essentially lied to the president ... or the president lied to us.  And really, all of this could have been avoided if Bush had handled this outing the way Tom Ridge did the Khan outing.

You should watch the CIA testimony.  I think you would find it challenges your view and I think you would find at least some of the testimony credible.

imho,

Stanford

Period.

Personally I'd reverse that second half... nowadays they don't play detective at all, they just bring people on to 'present both sides', no matter how weak the other side may be. The fact is, the media has largely given Bush a free pass, until recently when his job approval rating has gone down far enough that they no longer feel they have to toe the line. If they're just getting to the witch hunt now, then Bush had a 5 year head start that Clinton never got from the media.

Ken Starr is out of a job by 95.

Starr was such an evil bad boogyman out to get everyone in the Clinton administration?

I notice one huge difference in the Starr investigation and the Fitzgerald one-the investigator is not the story nor is he villified.  During the Clinton years Star always equaled bad guy helping the GOP take down Clinton.  During this investigation Fitzgerald has been treated with utmost respect by both sides of the issue, and maybe that is because the GOP folks don't see a need to attack the investigator.

Note the difference it is important.

This Grand Jury isn't leaking like a seive.  Starr might as well have had a nightly press conference to go over the events of the GJ proceedings.  

This prosecutor hasn't been assigned to investigate one crime only to discover wrongdoing, 6  years later, in something completely unrelated to what he was supposed to be investigating.

Really bad comparison, JM.  Ken Starr was given a lot of respect for SEVERAL years.  But he lost his credibility when it became apparent that he was simply on a government funded fishing expedition.  And if you think that I say this simply because I'm a partisan let's not forget that the reputation of the Special Prosecutor position was so ruined that Congress let that position die rather than risk such a travesty again.

and once again the media was complicit in trashing Ken and they were trashing him pretty early, not just when Monicagate developed.

And they're clearly adding to the orchestra. Bolton, Barton, Fleischer and Powell. Winkin, Blinkin and Nod in the wings.

Rather than silencing ourselves on Roviana, perhaps we should start chanting back.

Rove, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo, Delay, Lott, Gingrich, Regean, Nixon. Whatever.

Interesting that the Cunningham folderol is simply disappearing without a trace or whimper.

I haven't checked any local SoCal press, but that seems to be a scandal with real evidence.

One point that I haven't heard made yet....

There is a common journalistic tactic to upgrade the level of certainty of an assertion.  Take something you've heard as an unconfirmed, 2nd-hand rumor.  Run the rumor by a better source. Say, "I've heard that such-and-such happened."  If the better source confirms the rumor, then you have your story.

So, sources need to be careful when a journalist tries to confirm a rumor. Karl Rove is much too experienced to not recognize the tactic.

If Novak (or another journalist) has a rumor about classified information, and tries to confirm it with a government official, it's up to the official not to comment.

Saying "yes, I heard that too" is not an out.

for the information. I didn't realize it may be a legal issue as well.

In some reports about Ames/Plame, it is written that Plame "may have been outed by Ames" and in others is written that Plame "had been outed by Ames."  Even Kristof only says that the CIA suspected her of being outed.  I'm no espionage expert but it seems to me that they would have preferred to uphold the uncertain status quo - you know, see what's left salvage.

There's a big difference between "may have been" and "had been."  Is this a matter of older information?  Do we know for sure that Plame had been outed by Ames or are you taking a suspicion as fact?

and I ain't going to look.

Ames absolutely outed some people, that the CIA knew for sure had their names handed over.

There was also a list of people that were likely to have been outed, but documentation (from the investigation of the damage Ames did) was weak.  The CIA opted to pull all those people on the list from the field and put them in jobs where they weren't exposed.

I suspect that is where the "was outed" and "may have been outed" it isn't that the Ames connection is in doubt, but that the uncertainty as to whether or not Ames actually turned her name over that is in doubt.  But in the end the CIA opted for caution for all those people and pulled them to be on the safe side.

I know the reference to her being outed by Ames was in the Vanity Fair piece and the Wilson's were the main sources for most of that piece.

Streiff,

I hear you loud and clear! My definition of vulgar and profane does not include those particular words but it's your place not mine.

And Streiff , I don't want another warning. Kill my "Potty Mouth" account. I did break your profanity rules and I guess your rules then allow you to personally insult me.

Let's call it a day, as I don't like your rules.  

Adios!

Everyone else has too.  Russett, Miller, WILSON/ PLAME, Cooper.......

We would too.

Bob Bennett is the man you want, when you are guilty or in really big trouble.

and Leon's article begs the question, what does Bush know?  We hired Bush to run the WH and I would think he would have gotten to the bottom of this long ago.  I know MY boss would have figured out any malfeasance on the spot.

Clinton was smarmy and I had always maintained that he should have resigned when caught perjuring himself.  The problem was that HE was the boss and nobody was around to fire him.  I am still unsure if his crime was an impeachable offense, and I still think that the time and effort spent on that endeavor was wasteful and politically motivated.

Bush suffers in the Plame case because 1) something untoward-- if not illegal-- happened and 2) he appears to STILL have no knowledge of the details. That's what will spell trouble for Bush.  This potential crime is more heinous than a blowjob and Bush would behoove himself to put it behind him-- pronto.

determined the outing of Plame was an actual Crime.

But I dont think Bush is personally or impeachably responsible for press leaks, I don't think he micromanages to that point.

Perjury, if Rove, Libby or some other admin official committed it is a personal crime, one that Bush has no control over.

The other stuff, maybe, but I think in the end we are going to learn that Plame was not a covert agent (as defined by the law) and nobody gets charged.

with your points.  Something else, regardless of the memo and if Rove saw it, once Novak 'told' him about her, I find it hard to believe that he himself, or through his staff, would not have investigated exactly who she was and what she was doing before he spoke of it to Cooper.  I just wish Fitzgerald would wrap things up quickly as Bush is going to continue to be pounded on this by the media as they can't do anythign with Roberts and the 2nd London attack got coverage for what.. 12 hours? Unless they shoot somebody else it will be gone by Monday.  The clock is ticking on the second term and I'll be mighty upset if Bush's ability to enact his agenda is weakened/endagered by a political hacks bad judgement/coverup/etc.  Innocent until proven guilty for sure, but anything short of completely clearing these guys will be major trouble for the administration.  

Fascinating concept when applied to the CIC and civilian authority vs the general staff.

The CIC needn't go so far as to usurp our authority, he already has it by dint of the Constitution, whether we happen to like that or not.  Being men of principal means taking the rough with the smooth, as opposed to being men of values, who may change them at their convenience.

Maybe I am not saying this just the right way, which of course is part of my point: that it is not possible to tell the classification of information based on your existant copy of a document.

Please see here.

This assesment is classified U, unclassified.  It contains paragraphs that are S/NF, secret, US and UK only.  The lines withdrawing the S/nf clssification are hand drawn on the released copy.  The document has been released through FOIA.  Presumably all the extant copies  of this document have not had their s/nf heads crossed out.  Yet, this information has been declassified under FOIA.  An extant copy that still has s/nf on it could be shown to anyone as long as there were no redactions needed.

Secrecy can be a grounds for denying FOIA requests, but documents with security classifications are not exempt.

The rule instruct the agency to maintain the status for not LESS THAN 5 years but it iis the agency which decides and it is not a bit unusual for the classifies status to be maintained through retirement and death.  

Too many commenters here are conflating operational assignment (Clandestine) with security status (Classified).  Please don't change the name of this site to RedherringState.  Ie one's clandestine history remains classified because especially in WMD, there is so much to be done and so few resources with which to do it. Any agent may have to go back in at any moment.  Which is in fact what we have all been yelling about for so long. The wholesale destruction of this WMD network has been tragic.  

responsible, but I find it strange that this item has lingered so long.  Whether Rove/Libby committed an illegal offense or not, I find impossible to believe that Bush never asked either of them what happened.

If Plame was not a covert agent, something that could be determined in about 20 minutes, then why did the CIA refer this to DOJ?

And I quote:  It was the Central Intelligence Agency's general counsel who asked the Justice Department to open an inquiry into a July newspaper column, by the syndicated writer Robert Novak, that named an undercover C.I.A. agent.

Bush does not have control over the actions of his staff, but he certainly has control over his response to those actions.

and depending how this turns out, McClellen and the white house do have to answer for what appear to be lies (admitedly there is some wiggle room, but not much) in how they dealt with the press when this story broke.

But I also think that if Rove and Libby didn't actually committ a crime, that a verbal, written reprimand would suffice to deal with this.  Shoot the CIA agents that screwed up and had the Chinese embassy blown up in Serbia didn't get fired, and three people died.  So, honestly it is more than possible that Bush has dealt with this, but chose not to make us privy to what was done.  We do not know yet exactly what happened, if there was a crime, or anything else.

I think it is funny that Howard Dean believes that he shouldn't discuss Osama's guilt until he has been tried and convicted, but Dean thinks Rove should be fired right now, when we really don't have enough information to determine if he did anything wrong or even unethical.  If OBL get's to be innocent until proven guilty, then Rove should have the same courtesy extended to him.

If he is guilty of something, I will be first in line to demand his resignation, but until we know more than selective leaks to the media (whose hands aren't clean in this story) I think we should wait to determine whether or not the man should lose his job.

Also, if I remember correctly Bush was touring Africa when the Plame thing went down, it is more than possible Bush wasn't discussing this stuff with Rove or Rove with him, and we sometimes I think don't realize the whole media/anonymous source game that goes on everyday in Washington.  Pick up any newspaper on any day of the week, and I could guarantee you that there will be at least one story on the administration that involves at least one anonymous source-that is how Washington, poltics and the news works in the Beltway.

You'd think Plame was murdered in the White House and Rove was seen fleeing the seen with bloody clothes and knife!

This is the most overblown NON-STORY I've ever seen.

1. Reporters like to talk about it because it's fun for them to get back at Republicans,
   
2. The left still think Bush is illegitimate so truth of allegations is irrelevant to them,

Americans don't care because they can put things in perspective.  The story is dead.

to at least one reporter.  Bush has said that he knows nothing and the he will "trust" the investigation.

I'm just surprised at the lack of candor on the part of the WH on this issue.  Bush may have been touring Timbuktu in 2003, but did Bush talk to Rove about this when it hit the headlines?  I know MY boss would have wanted to know immediately what I was up to.

Chinese embassies and Dean's opinions have nothing to do with this issue.  I don't pay Dean's salary, I do pay Bush's.

Maybe

1. Rove told Bush everything instantly
   
   
2. Maybe Bush "believed" him, and still does
   
   
3. Maybe Rove told the GJ everything, even if over 2 or 3 sittings, with added info each time
   
   
4. Maybe Rove knew nothing of the status of Plame, other than she "worked" at the CIA in some role which veered into Wilson's assignment
   
   
5. Maybe this in an outrageous conflict of interest that screams for resolution
   
   
6. Maybe Porter Goss has reported back to the POTUS on the status of internal CIA investigations as to Plame's status, and the history of her status
   
   
7. Maybe Bush "thinks" there's no crime, but only the prosecutor, GJ, trial, and trial jury can determine that
   
   
8. Maybe Bush "thinks" it won't get past the GJ stage
   
   
9. Maybe nothing happens.

I dunno, he may be right.

I am not sure how much candor they can have.

Also, Bush may not have been fully told of Rove's involvement (if you are talking crime here, the WH may not be able to make him talk, because those conversations wouldn't be priviledged-like the Attorney Client one)-depends on when Rove lawyered up, and what his lawyer recommended he say.

But with an investigation still in progress and some of the players still exposed, keeping quiet may be the best thing to do.

Although news reports indicate that the WH is confident that Rove is not a target of the investigation, hasn't committed the Plame crime, and hasn't been exposed through perjury or similar crimes related to the investigation.  They may be wrong, but the WH seems to be confident and I have said their behavior reminds me very much of the reaction to the TANG/CBS/Rather report.  I still think the WH is letting the media hang themselves with their own rope-but we will see.

Karl Rove has been leaking since he was in diapers.  Difference now is that he has committed treason instead of poopies.  He put covert American operatives at risk for political gain regarding the refutation of administration assurances that Iraq was seeking enriched uranium from Niger.  It is sad and infuriating for an independent like myself to witness such calous disregard for the safety of those trying to protect our nation by someone who is trying to save his own butt.  Shameless.

Karl Rove has been leaking since he was in diapers.  Difference now is that he has committed treason instead of poopies.  He put covert American operatives at risk for political gain regarding the refutation of administration assurances that Iraq was seeking enriched uranium from Niger.  It is sad and infuriating for an independent like myself to witness such calous disregard for the safety of those trying to protect our nation by someone who is trying to save his own butt.  Shameless.

I know this post won't be popular, but . . .

We have reason to believe that Plames identity was secret (e.g. the CIA request for an investigation, the memo marked "secret")

Rove has admitted talking about Plame to reporters who have no security clearance.

Isn't this at least negligence?  When Rove got his security clearance, didn't he agree not to be negligent with sensitive information?

If your answer is yes to these questions, shouldn't Rove have his security clearance revoked?

If you believe that Rove's behavior wasn't negligent, or if you believe that there should be no consequences when one is negligent with secret information, please explain your position.