Anybody hear Conason on "Reliable Sources?

[ewagner]

Did I hear him say what I thought I heard?

I thought I heard him say that it was CHRIS MATHEWS who called Joe Wilson and told him : "I just got off the phone with Karl Rove and he says your wife is fair game."

I couldn't post this right away because I had to go out, but I was surprised that there wasn't a Conason link when I got back.

Can anybody confirm this?

[grasswire]

1. I saw it somewhere else in a story last night

I can't remember where, though. Rove said to Tweety that Wilson's wife is fair game.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

8. I wonder if Matthews knew what he was doing?

[lindashaw]

2. yes, it's confirmed.

He was on Wolf Blitzer's Late Edition, and I think Wolf was the one who made the confirmation.

[VolcanoJen]

5. Ohmygosh!!!!!

Tweety's the one who told Wilson? Holy crap!

I had no idea... what say you, Tweety the Bush Apologist?

[ewagner]

3. Thanks, I thought I was

going nuts...well, I am but not because of this...

hehehe....tweety gonna be getting a visit from the FBI real soon?

he can't protect a source he's already exposed.......

This could get good because the way Mathews has been carring water for the WH recently it would be justice if his words caused the SOBs to get convicted.

[TacticalPeek]

4. Did I also hear Smokin' Joe mention

that Nofacts had previously disclosed his confidential source when it was fibbie Robert Hanssen, a prior traitor in tryst with Bob?

:shrug:

[ewagner]

6. Missed that

also don't know the background...can you elaborate?

[TacticalPeek]

12. Wow! Conason column in the Observer on Nofacts and Hanssen.

And this is not a 'when I was young and reckless' item, it just happened:

snip
That certainly seems possible in light of another revelation, under the venerable byline of Robert Novak. The conservative columnist admitted on July 12 that Mr. Hanssen had served as his main source for a 1997 column attacking Janet Reno, then the U.S. Attorney General, for supposedly covering up 1996 campaign-finance scandals. Although Mr. Novak still believes that the information offered by Mr. Hanssen was valid, even he cannot help wondering whether Mr. Hanssen was 'merely using me to undermine Reno.' (Adding another dimension to this curious confession is Mr. Novak's reportedly close relationship with a prominent Washington cleric who works in Opus Dei's offices near the White House.)

Apparently Mr. Hanssen would have been eager to use Mr. Novak against the Clinton administration, if a June 16 cover story published by Insight magazine is to be believed. The author, Paul Rodriguez, obtained numerous e-mails allegedly written by the spy in recent years, some of which include venomous invective against President Clinton and his appointees. The messages are full of speculation about subjects ranging from Mr. Clinton's personal behavior to the Elian Gonzalez and China fund-raising affairs. One of the Hanssen e-mails concludes sardonically, 'I guess from this you can determine that I am not a big fan of Clinton.' The article omits the names of the recipients of those messages. Perhaps the magazine was protecting the privacy of innocent persons or its own sources. It ought to be noted, however, that Insight is a conservative publication, put out by the same outfit that publishes the Washington Times.
snip

http://www.observer.com/pages/story.asp?ID=4650

[pretzel4gore]

7. fyi....

robert hanssen was notorious for his freeper like right wing reactionary views.....he was SO at home in FBI....and he sold out for cashmoney (maybe that makes it less awful then had he, like Chris Boyce (Falcon and the Snowman) done it out of disgust with the bullying thug nature our cops/secret service etc love to display!)

[grasswire]

9. here's what you want

Let's start with the Wilson leak. In the issue coming out October 6, Newsweek will be reporting that after Bob Novak published a July 14 column containing the leak attributed to "senior adminsitration officials" that identified former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA operative, White House officials were touting the Novak story, according to NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell. Apparently, these officials were encouraging reporters to recycle or pursue the story about Wilson's wife. The newsmagazine also notes that, according to a source close to Wilson, shortly after the leak occurred Bush's senior aide Karl Rove told Hardball host Chris Matthews that Wilson's wife was "fair game." Matthews told Newsweek that he would not discuss off-the-record conversations. (He told me the same weeks ago when I made a similar inquiry about this chat with Rove.) An anonymous source described as familiar with the exchange--presumably Rove or someone designated to speak for him--maintained that Rove had only said to Matthews it was reasonable to discuss whether Wilson's wife had been involved in his mission to Niger. (In February 2002, Wilson had been asked by the CIA to visit Niger to check out allegations Iraq had been shopping for uranium there; he did so and reported back that the charge was probably untrue. In July, he publicly challenged the White House's use of this claim and earned the administration's wrath.)

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?

[Snellius]

10. Why was it important to Rove to implicate Wilson's wife?

I still don't get this line of attack. Wilson's wife was the reason the CIA sent her husband. So what? It's probably not even true and Wilson had his own expertise to recommend him. This is the kind of partisan paranoia that consumed Nixon. Just because they can somehow imply that Wilson was a D, it automatically invalidates everything about him. But Rove isn't as paranoid or stupid as Nixon. The only possible reason must be, as Wilson says, is to publish his wife's name as a direct and personal threat to her life and livelihood. The story was just a pretext to out the name.

[Resistance Is Futile]

11. A chilling effect

It was an effort to intimidate others into not coming forward and splashing the cold water of reality on the Texas Fascist Party's brand of delusional fantasy.