That’s the problem with unidentified sources: credibility and qualifications to make such an judgement (about Plame’s status and the wisdom of leaking it) is also unidentified. Perhaps Novak’s unidentified source was not at a paygrade that understood the difference between Official Cover (pretends to be affiliated with a gov’t agency) and Non Official Cover status (pretends to be affiliated with a non-gov’t agency) –both are covert.

Maybe so, JP, but I’d say that points to a systemic problem in the CIA rather than attributing blame to “right wing apologists” as you did in an earlier post. Unless Novak is making this up out of thin air, the CIA has some splaining to do. Why would employees at all pay grades not be made to understand what they can and cannot disclose to the press?

http://www.atlanticfreepress.com/content/view/993/81/

“…Valerie Plame was undercover until the day she was identified in Robert Novak’s column. I entered on duty with Valerie in September of 1985. Every single member of our class — which was comprised of Case Officers, Analysts, Scientists, and Admin folks — were undercover. I was an analyst and Valerie was a case officer. Case officers work in the Directorate of Operations and work overseas recruiting spies and running clandestine operations. Although Valerie started out working under “official cover” — i.e., she declared she worked for the U.S. Government but in something innocuous, like the State Department — she later became a NOC aka non official cover officer. A NOC has no declared relationship with the United States Government. These simple facts apparently are too complicated for someone of Ms. Toensing’s limited intellectual abilities.

“…Richard Armitage told Novak (who confirmed the story with Karl Rove) and Novak ultimately exposed not just Valerie but her NOC cover company, Brewster Jennings. That leak by the Bush Administration ruined Valerie’s ability to continue working as a case officer and destroyed an international intelligence network. You do not have to take my word alone that Valerie was under cover. Other members of our training class also came forward in 2003 and vouched for Valerie’s covert status…”

“Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this,” Novak said on “Crossfire.” “There is no great crime here.”

Novak said Monday that he was working on the column when a senior administration official told him the CIA asked Wilson to go to Niger in early 2002 at the suggestion of his wife, whom the source described as “a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction.”

Another senior administration official gave him the same information, Novak said, and the CIA confirmed her involvement in her husband’s mission.

In his column, Novak attributed the information about Plame’s involvement in Wilson’s trip to Africa to two unnamed senior administration officials.

“They asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative and not in charge of undercover operators,” Novak said.

July 8, 2006: Columnist Robert Novak interviews Armitage, who tells him that Wilson’s wife works for the CIA. Novak says this was confirmed the next day by White House political adviser Karl Rove.

July 14,2006: Columnist Novak reports that Wilson’s wife is a CIA operative on weapons of mass destruction and that two senior administration officials, whom Novak did not name, said she suggested sending her husband to Niger to investigate the uranium story.

Sept. 7, 2006: Armitage admits he leaked Plame’s identity to Novak and to Woodward. Armitage says he did not realize Plame’s job was covert.

Ergo: the law doesn’t apply to those who are think they know better than the CIA who is undercover and whose ID needs no protection.

The problem with this argument, JP, is that the CIA confirmed Plame’s identity to Novak, so obviously they didn’t think her identity needed to be protected.

THE WHOLE POINT OF THE LAW is that it’s not up to YOU to decide which CIA operatives need protection and which you can blab about BECAUSE YOU ARE NOT QUALIFIED TO MAKE THAT CALL! Nor is Cheney; nor is Libby; nor is Novak.

Libby: “how would you know if someone is undercover?”
Addington: “You wouldn’t.”

PERJURY AND LYING TO A GRAND JURY are real crimes. They disrespect the Rule of Law and all of us. (Consider this: IF THERE WAS NO CRIME, truth would have enabled Fitzpatrick to determine that early on and go home – lying OBSTRUCTS JUSTICE.

cmbennett (God, there are 23 of you?) needs to stop being an apologist for an administration that has never regretted anything nor acknowledged the consequences of its behavior. Ask any forensic shrink: knowing the difference between right and wrong and the ability to experience remorse are the keystones of REALITY. The absence of both defines serial offenders.

Its possible that when Wells saw what Fitz intended to present at the trial, and heard the testimony of the prosecution witnesses, that he realized that having either testify would guarantee conviction for Libby and put the VP in legal or political jeopardy. I actually wonder alternatively, if this was just PR and they never intended to have Libby, Rove or Cheney testify. Certainly, the fact that Cheney was in Australia at the time of the trial (could you get any farther away,lol) seems to support that theory.

The defense kept saying that Libby and Cheney would testify – up until the last few days.

Why the change of heart?

Any ideas?

I know the CIA requested it, but a combination of liberal bloggers and some of the Media (Newsweek, NY times, the nation, etc) lobbied on behalf of a special investigation making it a national issue, desperate to catch the evil karl rove and cheney in something dirty. Instead we get a jailed journalist, a chief of staff indicted for charges barely related to the original concern and an episode that detracts from important government responsibilities. In a town like Washington there are plenty of dirtier and damaging things to make into national scandals. Plus it will have adverse effects on the relationship between journalists and GO’s and could actually serve as a backwards step as far as their access to government information is concerned. But hell if you get in some political points, then so be it.

to me it doesn’t make sense that the vice president would go out of his way to silence one particular critic (who was wrong) in such an irrational way that didn’t even provide the revenge that you people accuse him of seeking.

Rudi:
Some of my comments are informed opinions obviously, but here are some links:

Regarding the inaccuracies of Joe Wilson’s op-ed and various claims and in general the possibility that Iraq sought uranium in Niger.

1) The British Butler Report (not based on forged Italian docs)
http://www.butlerreview.org.uk/

2) The senate intelligence report 2002
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html

3) Various articles by Christopher hitchens ( google him)

4) Clifford May article (yes he is a conservative, but he knows the issue intimately and he makes various points)
http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may200407121105.asp

5) common sense about saddam Hussein’s regime, its past dealings with trying to get uranium.

Regarding Plame’s Status (granted this is still being debated by minds far greater than mine, but no one was charged of a crime, which suggests that fitz didn’t think there was a crime committed or that he thought it would be too difficult to prove.)

1) Oped by victoria toensing in wash post
2) articles by cliff may and Andy McCarthy for national review
http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200507180801.asp
3) the fact that Fitzgerald didn’t charge anyone with the crime.
4) Washington time articles and Chicago tribune articles claiming Russians outed her 7 years ago

The most important thing is that Fitzgerald knew who leaked her name from the beginning and still brought charges (after he changed the perimeters of the indictment). If anyone should have been indicted for the major crime (if it even was a crime) was Armitage. This was a political trial pure and simple. The idea that they would out a CIA agent as payback suggests more about the motives of people who believe this. Don’t you think that people so sinister would have come up with a better way to get Wilson back? There is plenty of blame to go around including to the bush administration, but it would be interesting to hear why fitz decided to pursue the claim so vigorously and went as far as jailing a journalist.

That’s how Armitage got away clean. He admitted giving the information, but claimed it was an innocent (not malicious) mistake.
It’s next to impossible to prove otherwise.

And what with ‘executive privelages’ and everything being classified, well, you get the idea.

I’m even surprised by the Libby conviction, since so much depended on a he said, he said scenario.

Given the circumstances, I think Patrick did a great job. Plus, we got a look at the belly of the beast in the process.

The point is that the criminalization of politics on both sides of the isle, but in this case the left side is dangerous and so are over zealous prosecutors. There was no damage to Plame (many argue that she had already outed herself to neighbors and who’s who is Washington) and no one has been able to provide any examples of how her imaginary outing hurt any CIA’s operations, even though the MSM has tried. IF she was so concerned about her cover, maybe a cover on Vanity Fair wasn’t the best idea. Oh and by the way, the person who “outed her ” was armitage, not libby.

My question is whether a House subcommittee will obtain Fitz’ files and investigate for an impeachable offense by Cheney — just on matters connected to this case.