Even if convicted, Libby’s fate is a big non-story
Hatchet
By Lucas Roebuck
As a recovering journalist, few media practices grate on me more than the misleading shock headlines being slapped on the coverage of the perjury trial of Lewis Libby, the former chief of staff of Vice President Dick Cheney. Most of the coverage refers to the trial as the “CIA leak” case, as if some confidential information compromising American security was given to the press.
Libby is in fact on trial for allegedly perjuring himself when giving testimony to a grand jury. Apparently Libby said he didn’t tell NBC’s Tim Russert about CIA agent Valerie Plame; Russert says Libby did — a classic he said/he said. If Libby did commit perjury, and is convicted, then he should do the time for the crime. (Just like President Clinton should have when he committed perjury.) But Libby is not on trial for any illegal CIA leaking, as the misleading headlines would have you believe.
First of all, Libby did not leak the name of CIA worker Valerie Plame to legendary political columnist Robert Novak, who first printed Plame’s name in a 2003 column. Left wing loonies have been advocating the theory that the great smear machine in the Bush White House wanted to punish a certain Joe Wilson, a former ambassador who was sent on a junket by the CIA to see if Iraq was trying to acquire “Yellowcake” Uranium from Niger in advance of the Iraq War. Wilson published an Op/Ed piece in the New York Times claiming the Bush administration misrepresented Iraq’s nuclear ambition in President Bush’s state of the Union address. And Wilson is Plame’s husband.
Second of all, the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the law governing punishing those who out classified CIA agents, was not violated. Plame had to have been out in the field in the last five years on assignment and her identity would have to have been officially classified, or on the non-official cover (noc) list. As it is, Plame worked at CIA Headquarters and she was withdrawn from the field around 1994, when spy Aldrich Ames gave Plame’s name to the Russians, according to New York Times author Nicholas Kristof. No law was broken when Novak published Plame’s name.
Anyway, the conspiracy theorists say that Bush’s minions told the press that Plame was Wilson’s wife. Thus by “outing” Plame and blowing her deep cover, the Bush administration could stick it to Wilson. And sometimes they mention the fact that Plame was the person who recommended her husband for the junket. Nothing like a little nepotism in the CIA — the reason Novak wrote about Plame in the first case.
Unfortunately, the conspiracy theory fell apart when both Novak and Bob Woodward, Washington Post demigod famed for his role in exposing Watergate, revealed that they had found out Plame’s relation to Wilson from Richard Armatage, Deputy Secretary of State under Colin Powell. Far from being a Bush flunky, Armatage was a career diplomat who was beloved by the left for resisting the war efforts of the neo-cons in the Bush administration. Fortunately for Armatage, as I said before, the release of Plame’s name was not a crime — nor are any of the left-wingers who were calling for the head of the leaker (and secretly hoping it was Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove), calling for the head of Armatage.
Some critics of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had noted that he must have known that Armatage was the leaker before the grand jury convened (Novak told him and the grand jury), meaning he was going fishing to hoping to prosecute someone on slip up — and never had any intention of prosecuting the leaker, the reason the grand jury was formed in the first place.
A few other ironic points: Novak said that Armatage didn’t actually tell him Plame’s name, rather that Wilson’s “wife” was the one who recommended him for the junket. Novak wrote in a column that the name of Wilson’s wife was ready available to anyone who wanted to look it up in a copy of Who’s Who in America. Also, a bipartisan Senate committee found that Wilson lied when Wilson denied his wife hadn’t advocated him for the Niger job. The committee also found that based on what Wilson brought back, there was reason to suspect that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger.
So the next time you read a headline about the Libby CIA leak case, know that nobody was prosecuted for any CIA leaking because no leak laws were violated — and even if they were, it was not by Libby or the Bush Administration, but by anti-war sympathizer Armatage.
(c) Lucas Roebuck 2007
Wednesday, February 28, 2007
Wednesday, February 14, 2007
That Chilling Effect
Shutting up Mr. Plame and the Global Warming Critics
Hatchet
By Lucas Roebuck
Are we returning to the good old days of science when you could be excommunicated from the faith for bucking the orthodoxy? Somewhere, in the passion of Al Gore and left-wing environmentalism and anti-globalization, the world of science has forgotten the work of Galileo, famed astronomer who fought to separate minority-opinion scientific study from the whim of the political system (which then was married to the Church).
By contrasting the issues of global warming theory, the so-called Valerie Plame CIA leak, and the general acceptance of freedom of speech as an important and inalienable human right, a dangerous pattern of the political left emerges. This pattern: Freedom of speech is only a right when it suits their side.
The right, left and center of the American political spectrum generally agree that freedom of speech is foundational to our representative democracy and to our way of life. Which is why I am so surprised that the environmental left is so quick to silence a minority of scientists who question global warming. (For the record, I personally am in favor of reducing carbon emissions and eventually replacing our fossil fuel energy infrastructure with one that is based on a combination of nuclear, solar, hydroelectric and wind power.)
No matter what you think about global warming, the effort to silence those who question the prevailing theory is scary, considering it comes from the supposedly open-minded left.
Liberal New York Times columnists Ellen Goodman said people who question global warming were like people who questioned the Holocaust. In Oregon, the Democrat governor is attempting to take away the title of the “state climatologist,” a title given by Oregon State University, from the meteorology professor who has held it for over a decade because that faculty member questions some aspects of global warming theory. The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist, Heidi Cullen, said meteorologists who disagree with global warming theory should lose their certification.
"If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the (American Meteorology Society) shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn't agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns," Cullen wrote on the Weather Channel Web site.
Apparently the debate is over. The world is flat. If you say otherwise, you might as well be someone who secretly advocates the slaughter of the Jews. The sky is falling, we will all be killed by the revenge of Mother Earth, and you better put Al Gore and his allies into power or we are all doomed.
Funny, that sounds to me like politically motivated fear mongering the left often accuses the Bush administration of using to gain power from the War on Terror.
Speaking of the War on Terror, the left-leaning media (I know, I sound like a broken record with all this left-winging), have accused the Bush administration of creating a chilling effect by attempting to silence Joe Wilson, a former ambassador who allegedly debunked claims that Iraq was trying to acquire “yellowcake” uranium from Niger, by leaking that his wife was a CIA agent. (Wilson, according to a bipartisan Senate committee, misrepresented the Iraq-Niger uranium situation and lied about the nepotism that got him the job to go to Niger and investigate the yellowcake in the first place).
I agree with anyone who says we all should hear what Wilson has to say. And we have, through his op-ed piece in the New York Times and many, many, many news stories since then on the subject. In fact, I think Wilson should have a blog or even a talk show on MSNBC if he needs one, to continue to give voice to his position.
The Democrats and their allies claimed by leaking Valarie Plame’s (Wilson’s wife) identity as a CIA agent, they were trying to punish Wilson for speaking out. (The leak actually came from someone who was against the Iraq war — Richard Armitage — not a vengeful Bush administration, but that is a story for another column.)
Why doesn’t the left want to give the voices of descent on global warming a platform in the name of free speech a platform to be heard? Instead the left seems bent on punishing those who would speak out against the majority from their sincere scientific conclusions. Just like the left accused Bush of trying to silence dissent on Iraq, so they are trying to silence dissent on global warming theory.
We need to hear voices of dissent on Iraq, just like we need to hear voices of dissent on global warming. I am surprised a free-speech loving progressive party and movement doesn’t understand this.
© 2007 Lucas Roebuck
Hatchet
By Lucas Roebuck
Are we returning to the good old days of science when you could be excommunicated from the faith for bucking the orthodoxy? Somewhere, in the passion of Al Gore and left-wing environmentalism and anti-globalization, the world of science has forgotten the work of Galileo, famed astronomer who fought to separate minority-opinion scientific study from the whim of the political system (which then was married to the Church).
By contrasting the issues of global warming theory, the so-called Valerie Plame CIA leak, and the general acceptance of freedom of speech as an important and inalienable human right, a dangerous pattern of the political left emerges. This pattern: Freedom of speech is only a right when it suits their side.
The right, left and center of the American political spectrum generally agree that freedom of speech is foundational to our representative democracy and to our way of life. Which is why I am so surprised that the environmental left is so quick to silence a minority of scientists who question global warming. (For the record, I personally am in favor of reducing carbon emissions and eventually replacing our fossil fuel energy infrastructure with one that is based on a combination of nuclear, solar, hydroelectric and wind power.)
No matter what you think about global warming, the effort to silence those who question the prevailing theory is scary, considering it comes from the supposedly open-minded left.
Liberal New York Times columnists Ellen Goodman said people who question global warming were like people who questioned the Holocaust. In Oregon, the Democrat governor is attempting to take away the title of the “state climatologist,” a title given by Oregon State University, from the meteorology professor who has held it for over a decade because that faculty member questions some aspects of global warming theory. The Weather Channel’s most prominent climatologist, Heidi Cullen, said meteorologists who disagree with global warming theory should lose their certification.
"If a meteorologist can't speak to the fundamental science of climate change, then maybe the (American Meteorology Society) shouldn't give them a Seal of Approval. Clearly, the AMS doesn't agree that global warming can be blamed on cyclical weather patterns," Cullen wrote on the Weather Channel Web site.
Apparently the debate is over. The world is flat. If you say otherwise, you might as well be someone who secretly advocates the slaughter of the Jews. The sky is falling, we will all be killed by the revenge of Mother Earth, and you better put Al Gore and his allies into power or we are all doomed.
Funny, that sounds to me like politically motivated fear mongering the left often accuses the Bush administration of using to gain power from the War on Terror.
Speaking of the War on Terror, the left-leaning media (I know, I sound like a broken record with all this left-winging), have accused the Bush administration of creating a chilling effect by attempting to silence Joe Wilson, a former ambassador who allegedly debunked claims that Iraq was trying to acquire “yellowcake” uranium from Niger, by leaking that his wife was a CIA agent. (Wilson, according to a bipartisan Senate committee, misrepresented the Iraq-Niger uranium situation and lied about the nepotism that got him the job to go to Niger and investigate the yellowcake in the first place).
I agree with anyone who says we all should hear what Wilson has to say. And we have, through his op-ed piece in the New York Times and many, many, many news stories since then on the subject. In fact, I think Wilson should have a blog or even a talk show on MSNBC if he needs one, to continue to give voice to his position.
The Democrats and their allies claimed by leaking Valarie Plame’s (Wilson’s wife) identity as a CIA agent, they were trying to punish Wilson for speaking out. (The leak actually came from someone who was against the Iraq war — Richard Armitage — not a vengeful Bush administration, but that is a story for another column.)
Why doesn’t the left want to give the voices of descent on global warming a platform in the name of free speech a platform to be heard? Instead the left seems bent on punishing those who would speak out against the majority from their sincere scientific conclusions. Just like the left accused Bush of trying to silence dissent on Iraq, so they are trying to silence dissent on global warming theory.
We need to hear voices of dissent on Iraq, just like we need to hear voices of dissent on global warming. I am surprised a free-speech loving progressive party and movement doesn’t understand this.
© 2007 Lucas Roebuck
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