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July 20, 2005
A leak-proof White House and liberal manipulations
Such has been the case with the constant barrage of stories relating to the supposed outing of a covert CIA agent by Bob Novak, a conservative writer from the Chicago Tribune. Because of his supposed close relationship with the President, it was automatically assumed by the liberal D.C. beltway reporters the information came from inside the White House. The reason they wanted to believe this is they dislike the President because he is not a member of the liberal elite and if they could show his staff violated the law by exposing an active covert agent, they could do untold damage to his ability to function during his second term. After all, they have pretty well consigned his attempt to save Social Security to oblivion and aided in creating the aura of a quagmire in Iraq. For reasons unknown they have opposed our stopping the most murderous dictator since Joseph Stalin and seem to believe if we had only not gone to war the radical Islamic terrorist sects would suddenly find peace. They present the daily murders by these terrorists as if they were the actions of rebels and fail to recognize that fewer Iraqis have died since the war began than died in one week when Saddam used chemical weapons on his Kurdish minority. As a matter of fact, it would take more than 27 years of war to reach the 350,000-body count from mass graves discovered thus far. But I digress and want to take a much closer look at the covert CIA agent story. Let's begin with the facts of the story known thus far. So there is no mistake, there is in fact a law on the books making it a crime to divulge the name of an active CIA covert agent. To be considered active, the agent must have worked in the field covertly within the last five years. To update those who have not been following this story, James Wilson went to Africa to determine whether the stories about Saddam Hussein buying nuclear weapons material from Niger were true. President Bush had mentioned in a State of the Union address that Saddam had sought to buy the stuff. Upon returning he filed a report that stated Saddam did not buy the material and gave a scathing report on the actions of the U.S. against Iraq. He even went as far as writing a book on the subject. Then came a story by Robert Novak in which Valerie Plame, wife of James Wilson, was named as a CIA operative. Almost within the blink of an eye, the beltway media jumped on the story that White House insiders had exposed a covert CIA agent in order to demean the work of James Wilson, and the person they chose to be the fall guy in this scenario was Karl Rove. You know, the guy whose name, according to George Soros, begins with K just like the Klan. The Washington Post and New York Times began relentlessly trying to expose this crime and even called for a special prosecutor to look into how the identity was made public. The call was made because they believed Robert Novak would be held responsible and his source, wishfully Karl Rove, would be exposed and, because he was instrumental in the re-election of the President, removed. As it now turns out, the initial story of how Mr. Wilson got the job of going to Africa was submerged in the rhetoric of the moment. Perhaps the fact his wife's advice to lower echelon CIA administrators to send him in the first place might be relevant. That along with the fact she had not been in covert operations since 1997, longer than the law covers, seem to indicate no crime was committed in the first place. But it gets better. The investigation has now revealed that it was the reporters, Matt Cooper and Robert Novak who first told Karl Rove who Valerie Plame was, although not by name, and the best any of them can recall is that he indicated he had heard of her from another reporter. The special prosecutor has now discovered that the anonymous source(s) referenced by the reporters might have been a State Department memo concerning the sending of a CIA administrator's husband on a taxpayer paid vacation to Africa that was circulated through the administration weeks prior to the Novak story. This would mean Karl Rove was accused wrongly and perhaps with malice aforethought. As this story winds down, the players will go to their separate corners and begin their intrigues once more. The reporters whose bias has been demonstrated so willfully in this incident will continue to write stories counter to the long term interests of our country, as they have every right to do. I can only hope that one day they realize that if they had been born in Iraq, Iran, China, Russia, or dozens of other countries where such dissent is penalized, their story might be concluded with an obituary rather than a byline. Little writes from Pahrump. His column, "The Other Side," appears here on Wednesdays. |
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