Read a new pro-Rove talking point: Plame was already outed, KGB mole in 97

[Bucky]

source: http://www.rightwingrightminded.modblog.com/?show=blogview&blog_id=684341A">really dumb guy

You think I'm shitting you, and I should be. But I'm not. So be ready for this next chatter point: Wingers are now saying Plame wasn't an operative because she was outed by KGB mole Aldrich Ames in 1997. There's a few problems with that excuse, however (even if it's true).

1) The issue isn't only naming her; it involves how Rove ensured publicizing her identity--he went to three different reporters on this. That's not a slip of the tongue. That's a deliberative, premeditated process.

2) While the law states that revealing an agent's identity is only a crime for up to five years after they come off of covert services, it wasn't just the personal damage to Mrs Wilson's career

3) The CIA didn't know Plame was ID'd by Ames, they only suspected it. She was yanked from the field in '97 apparently, but this only counts as a true outing if Russian intelligence shared this information with the people Plame was investigating.
Mrs Wilson was working the Saudi-Aramco-WMD beat thru the CIA cover company Brewster-Jennings & Associates. So who would the Russian-CIS security agencies peddle this information? To Saudis? Just how chummy are we claiming Russian to be with Aramco and the Saudi royals?

Sorry, but that doesn't track.

4) The other outing Rove did was blowing the lid off of the security work done under the aegis of Brewster-Jennings & Associates. When you publicize Plame's identity and work, you pretty much expose everyone who ever used Brewster-Jennings as an NOC cover. the BJA firms work was to keep an eye on the Saudis.

Rove's vendetta against Wilson blinded him to the fact that he was making the country all but intel-blind during the middle of a war on terron.

[tuvor]

1. How does this jive with the latest news that ...

"Plame's Identity Marked As Secret"?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1944979

[Bucky]

10. Why, it's a Republican point of denial, of course. Who needs facts?

See, the problem is, too many people deal with the real world. You see. But I'm the president. A war time president. I guess you could say I'm a good steward of the environment. But we need to protect families, you see, and that's hard work. And I'm not afraid to do hard work, you see. But we were attacked, so freedom's on the march, you see. And that's hard work.

[Kagemusha]

2. Here's what Pincus' page 1 WP article today tells me.

It tells me that the CIA was taking affirmative measures to protect "Valerie Wilson" 's identity by the simple virtue of the fact that her identity was disclosed in a paragraph in that memo that made it to Air Force 1 which was marked Secret. If it was marked Secret, the CIA didn't want the information spread. Period.

This makes how the relevant law was written make much more sense (i.e. it doesn't punish people for disclosing the identity of an agent they know is covert, but that they know whose employment the US is attempting to keep secret). In other words, just 'cause the KGB might know, doesn't relieve senior US officials from their responsibility to the nation to keep Secret information Secret.

[burrowowl]

3. Damn Right!

You are!

[writes2000]

4. They're WRONG Again.

If they actually did some research they would learn, that the CIA never received proof that Aldrich outed Plame's cover. They thought her cover might have been outed. They never got actual confirmation.

BUT IT WAS HER COVER. NOT VALERIE PLAME'S REAL NAME.

So Valerie's identity was still safe.

Furthermore, this is the domain of the CIA. Just because the REpublican party is desperate to claim that Plame wasn't undercover doesn't make it so. The CIA listed her as undercover. She didn't put the CIA down on her income tax forms. She had a cover company she worked for.

Before the Bush White House outed her, Valerie Plame could assume multiple identities for the CIA. If one of those identities was outed, Plame was still safe.

Not anymore thanks to the deliberate efforts of Rove, Libby and several others, I suspect.

[radfringe]

5. spin the wheel

[Vickers]

9. That's a fantastic graphic!

:toast::toast::toast::toast::toast:

[Kingofalldems]

6. I read she didn't start til 1986

and Ames was already gone by then??? In which case he would not know her from Adam.

[seaglass]

7. If you were investigating who outed a covert agent, wouldn't

you first check whether the person was covert or not?

If she isn't covert, there is no need for an investigation, right?

[Justice]

8. What matters is what Rove thought at the time, not what he and we

learn after months of investigating and posturing.

On that day when Rove spoke to Novak and on the day he spoke to Cooper and revealed her identity - I guarantee you he was not think - oh, it is okay because her cover was already outed by Aldrich, and if I weigh the risk and benefit, it is okay.

All this stuff now is just desparate attempts to have him avoid jailtime.