Ernest Partridge, Co-Editor
The Crisis Papers.
March 20, 2007
Valerie Plame Wilson was not a covert agent (so says
Victoria Toensing), and furthermore the White House did not know that she
was a covert agent (so says Rep. Tom Davis). It’s all the fault of the CIA
for not telling the White House that she was covert.
That appears to be the essence of the Bush loyalist’s
rebuttal to Valerie Plame Wilson’s testimony to Henry Waxman's Committee
hearing. That this account is a flat-out contradiction is of concern only to
elite nit-picking liberals and not to the aforementioned loyalists whose
elaborate excuses transcend mere logic.
Like mariners stranded on an iceberg adrift in the Gulf Stream, the Bush
apologists have less and less to cling to as, with time, the refuting
testimony and evidence accumulate.
It has now come to the point that pro-Bush apologetics are so pathetically
lame and absurd that their defenses serve only to strengthen the case
against the Busheviks. Case-in-point: the testimony last Friday of Victoria
Toensing before the Waxman Committee.
The “not really a covert agent” dodge:
This much can be stipulated: To the “outside world,” Valerie Plame was
employed as an “energy analyst” by “Brewster Jennings and Associates.” (To
distinguish husband and wife, I will use the names “Wilson” and “Plame”
respectively). However, “Brewster Jennings” was a “front” for the CIA,
through which essential information about weapons of mass destruction was
gathered, coordinated and assessed. Plame’s and Brewster Jennings’ actual
work, intelligence gathering, was a closely held national security secret.
Accordingly, the Director of Central Intelligence, General Michael Hayden,
stated for the public record:
During her employment at the CIA, Ms.
Wilson [Plame] was under cover. Her employment status with the CIA was
classified information prohibited from disclosure under Executive Order
12958. At the time of the publication of Robert Novak's column on July
14,2003, Ms. Wilson's CIA
employment status was covert. [EP
emphasis] This was classified information.
But no, says Victoria Toensing, Valerie Plame was not really
“covert.” Not according to The Intelligence Identities Protection Act which,
Ms. Toensing wants us all to know, she helped draft a couple of decades ago.
Toensing contends that Plame qualified as “covert” according to all
provisions of the Act save one, which stipulates that a covert agent is one
“... who resides and
acts outside the United States as an agent [etc]...” This is Toensing’s “gotcha!”
Plame, she says, did not “reside” outside the US in the required past five
years, so she was not, says Toensing, “covert within the meaning of the
statute, which I am an expert on because I helped draft it.” Never mind
that Plame was employed by a CIA front organization, that she engaged in top
secret intelligence gathering, that the information so gathered was
essential to the national security of the United States, that her very life
and that of her operatives abroad depended on the non-disclosure of her CIA
association. And finally, no matter that the CIA Director explicitly
identified Plame’s activity as “covert.” Never mind all that. Victoria
Toensing points out that Plame did not reside outside the United States, as
the law requires.
Ergo, Valerie Plame was not “covert.”
Committee Chair, "Hammerin' Hank" Waxman would have none of
it, as he subjected Toensing to a withering interrogation. You
can see it here.
Quibbles such as Toensing's are, no doubt, the reason that
Charles Dickens famously wrote, “the law is an ass,” and the reason that
some lawyers' three piece suits have Kevlar vests.
So what are we asked to make of this? That because Plame was
not “covert” according to the exact letter of the law, therefore no damage
to national security resulted from her “outing?” That it was perfectly OK
for Robert Novak to put an abrupt end to Plame’s enterprise and that of the
fake company, Brewster Jennings, thus shutting off the inflow of vital
information, and putting numerous courageous operatives at grave risk?
If that’s the best that the defenders of the Bushevik finks can come up
with, then their case is reduced to absurdity.
But it gets much worse. For Toensing is also defeated by the “letter” of
her precious Intelligence Identities Protection Act. An alternative
provision of the Act allowed that a “covert agent” may have “served” outside
the U.S., as Plame clearly had done. Accordingly, we have the alternatives
“reside” or “serve.” Thus Toensing is undone by the simple word “or”. It
therefore follows (as if it really matters) that Plame qualified as “covert”
according to the exact letter of the law. (This point is brilliantly argued
in “Daily Kos” by “Litigatormom,”
whose post includes quotations from the Intelligence Identities Protection
Act).
Exit the “not really covert” excuse.
Next, the “African Junket” excuse.
We hear that “Joe Wilson’s trip to Africa was of no importance – it was just
a “junket” arranged by his wife, who worked for the CIA.
I suppose by this we are asked to imagine the following conversation, chez Wilson:
Val: “Honey, how would you like to
get away from the house for a few days – take a little vacation on the
CIA’s tab? I’ll just stay home and take care of the twin babies all by
myself.”
Joe: “Great! Where shall I go? Rio for the Carnivale? Paris for
the Opera? The Riviera? Moscow to see the Bolshoi Ballet?”
Val: “No, this will be really special: an all expense paid luxurious
“junket” to Niamey, Niger, the world-renowned “garden-spot of Africa.’”
Joe: “Oh, Wow! When do I leave?”
Don’t know about you, but I’d just as soon stay at home.
More so, if my wife were Valerie Plame.
Then we are told that Joe Wilson wasn’t really qualified for the job. No
matter that he spoke fluent French, the official language of Niger, that he
served as the U.S. ambassador to the neighboring country of Gabon, that he
had spent twenty-three distinguished years in government service for which
he was awarded citations from, among others, President George Herbert Walker
Bush.
Finally, the “Who Knew?” Complaint.
Tom Davis, ranking Republican member of the Waxman Committee, expects us to
believe that none of the many individuals who passed word of Plame’s CIA
employment around the White House, the State Department and the Washington
Press corps, knew, or thought to ask the CIA, whether or not she was a
covert agent, and further, whether any harm might come from disclosing her
name to the public. When word circulated among that select group that
“Wilson’s wife works for the CIA,” did it occur to no one that it might be
best to assume covert status, until and unless assured otherwise by the
CIA? Hadn’t they heard that “loose lips sink ships”? Karl Rove apparently
had, when he told Time’s Matt Cooper that “I’ve already said too much.” And
when, in his infamous column of July 14, 2003, Robert Novak identified Plame
as “an agency [CIA] operative on weapons of mass destruction,” and when the
CIA begged him not to publish this information, could he have possibly
believed that Plame was just a “desk jockey?” What
on earth was he thinking?
And why is Robert Novak still at large?
What’s next?
With the official cover story on Plamegate reduced to ruins, what lies
ahead? Full White House disclosure? Appropriate firings? Apologies to the
Wilsons?
Don’t be silly!
There will be a frantic Bushevik search for new defenses. Here are some
possibilities:
-
Point out that as an experienced CIA
operative, Valerie Plame is a skillful liar. And so, she lied to the
Waxman committee, start to finish. Perjury? Not to worry, we’ll be told.
The committee is controlled by the Democrats.
-
Shift attention away from the crimes
and misdemeanors of the Busheviks and the negligence of the mainstream
media, to the personal shortcomings of the Wilsons, real or invented.
Here’s one: Valerie Plame is a narcissistic cry-baby. That ploy just
might be in the works. At Google News this morning (10 AM EDT), I found
these, and only these, headlines about Plame’s testimony: “Wilson: Leak
cut off path to career.” (New York Times). “Former CIA spy says betrayed
by Bush Administration. (Xinhua). “Ex Spy says what leak did to career.”
(SF Chronicle). We’ve already been told by the Washington Post
editorialists that Joseph Wilson is a “blowhard.” Expect more of the
same.
-
Finally, take a lesson from the
master, Josef Goebbels, and concoct a “big lie,” the more outrageous and
fantastic, the better. Then repeat, and repeat, and repeat.
John Gibson of (what else?) FOX News
is leading the way. On March 7, Gibson served up this astonishing
hypothesis: “There was a cabal inside the CIA working against the
president's policy and they wanted to hide behind their secret status
while they did what was essentially an anti-war political hitjob.” (This
is such a perfect example of pure, unadulterated malarkey, that I have
subjected Gibson’s three-minute fantasy to a scrupulous analysis and
running commentary. You
will find it in my personal blog. I hope you enjoy reading it as
much as I enjoyed writing it).
Face it: the exposure of Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings, was a crime
against the state, that has caused enormous, if unknowable, harm to the
security of the United States. Some dare call it “treason.” Quite frankly, I
don’t see why not.
The Bush Administration is frantically trying to avoid just retaliation by
the law, the Congress, the media, and the public for this crime.
As one defense after another is stripped away with new evidence and plain
common sense, and as the public becomes ever more aware of the enormity of
this crime, the Busheviks become both more vulnerable and more dangerous.
We must all, therefore, be resolute, wise, and cautious. But no American
worthy of his or her political heritage, has any excuse to sit this one out.
For if this crime goes unpunished, what defenses remain against the oncoming
dictatorship?
Copyright 2007 by Ernest Partridge
