January 12, 2005
KEEP INVESTIGATING, CHANGE THE FOCUS:
The Plame Game: Was This a Crime? (Victoria Toensing and Bruce W. Sanford, January 12, 2005, Washington Post)
Why have so many people rushed to assume that a crime was committed when someone "in the administration" gave columnist Robert D. Novak the name of CIA "operative" Valerie Plame? Novak published her name while suggesting that nepotism might have lurked behind the CIA assignment of her husband, Joseph Wilson, to a job for which he was credentially challenged: The agency sent him to Niger to determine whether Iraq was interested in acquiring uranium from that country, although he was an expert neither on nuclear weapons nor on Niger.Journalists are being threatened with jail for not testifying who gave them information about Plame -- even journalists who did not write about Plame but only talked with sources about her. Ironically, the special prosecutor has pursued this case with characteristic zeal after major publications editorialized that a full investigation and prosecution of the government source was necessary. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution even claimed that the allegations came "perilously close to treason."
It's time for a timeout on a misguided and mechanical investigation in which there is serious doubt that a crime was even committed.
It has seemed unlikely all along that the revelation even violated the law. At any rate, the investigation should really focus on the CIA's and Palmes' attempt to subvert their own elected government by sending in someone tasked to not find corroborating evidence of the yellowcake, as they sought to prop up Saddam. Posted by Orrin Judd at January 12, 2005 12:24 PM
"...nepotism might have lurked behind the CIA assignment of her husband, Joseph Wilson, to a job for which he was credentially challenged:"
Absolutely ludicrous. Wilson's appointment could very well have been a case of nepotism in action, and one could reasonably argue that the purpose of his trip was not simple fact-finding but to actively discredit the case for war with Iraq. But he was eminently, perhaps ideally, qualified for the task, having foreign service experience both in Niger and (notably) in Iraq, where he was something of a hero in the first Gulf War.
And of course, as a possible example of interagency squabbling, or even of CIA rebelliousness, Wilson's trip was not a crime. The public outing of Plame as a CIA operative was, regardless of the talking points coming out of the Bush Administration now.
Posted by: M. Bulger at January 12, 2005 3:16 PMWeren't we calling them the Palmes? As in palming? As in sleight of hand?
As in deceit?
Posted by: jim hamlen at January 12, 2005 10:23 PM