Novak in WaPo today: "Was She Covert?"

[Sparkly]

Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra could hardly believe what he heard on television Friday as he watched a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic committee chairman, said his statement had been approved by the CIA director, Michael Hayden. That included the assertion that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative when her identity was revealed.

As House intelligence committee chairman when Republicans controlled Congress, Hoekstra had tried repeatedly to learn Plame's status from the CIA but got only double talk from Langley. Waxman, 67, the 17-term congressman from Beverly Hills, may be a bully and a partisan. But he is no fool who would misrepresent the director of central intelligence. Waxman was correctly quoting Hayden. But Hayden, in a conference with Hoekstra yesterday, still did not answer whether Plame was covert under the terms of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/21/AR2007032101788.html

He goes on to ask other questions (raise the same tired talking points) that have been answered over and over and over again...

AGAIN... They want to hang on to "The Act" a la Victoria Toensing, and act befuddled that the CIA didn't spell out, "Why yes! She is a covert operative and since she is a covert operative we can't tell you she is a covert operative!"

Shame on the WaPo for printing this crap AGAIN!!! :puke:

[BOSSHOG]

1. Its incredibly difficult

for conservatives and bush enablers to admit they are and have been wrong and their mistakes have done great danger to our country. And just how the hell did toensing know Ms Plame's travel schedules for the five years prior to novak's treasonous column? I have to ask, and will until a conservative answers, if she were not covert, why did her status HAVE to be exposed? If there were no underlying crime, why did libby HAVE to lie?

[MUAD_DIB]

6. Ding! That is the query that the GOPigs will run away from in droves.

By the way... did you hear about Anna Nichole Smith's baby... bla bla bla...

[Sparkly]

9. Exactly -- All the questions he, Toensing and the other parrots say weren't answered

WERE answered.

The claims about a "desk job," about not working overseas, about "people knew" and "you drove to work" etc., have been ANSWERED.

I can't believe the WaPo is still printing this!!

[11 Bravo]

16. Novak has to parse the covert issue as carefully as he can, otherwise ...

he would have to admit that he is, you know, a fucking traitor!

[truedelphi]

21. He lied because he couldn't help it??

The main thing the Repukes say is that First: Their sin was not committed.
Two: They ignore/deny the fact that lies were perpetuated to hide a sin that didn't cocur.

I AM CONVINCED THAT YOU COULD PUT REPUBLICANS IN A ROOM WITH THREE WEEK OLD ROTTING FISH
and they wouldn't smell a thing.

[TankLV]

30. It would still depend on who owned the fish...

[Virginia Dare]

2. Novak is a bilious traitor...

and I second your comment that the Washington Post should be ashamed, but they obviously have no shame.

[Norquist Nemesis]

3. "under the terms of the IDPA" crap again

They keep trying to pigeon hole it into this particular act.

:eyes:

[AtomicKitten]

4. Jon was right.

[izzybeans]

5. Didn't Novak know her status prior to original publication? because in Plame's

testimony it appeared that personal appeals were made to him. He knew she was covert because it was made clear to him what it would mean to publicize it.

This guy will put party over country to the better end.

[Paulie]

7. If she wasn't a NOC, the CIA would have never submitted the inquiry request to justice

That a special prosecutor was assigned, with others excusing themselves, puts the whole question of her status in the rubbish bin where it belongs.

They are traitors, please lets treat them as such.

[The Count]

8. And the criminals keep yelling "thief"! Unf*ing believable!

[Botany]

10. Even though it has been proven that she was covert ......

........ they have to sell the lie because if not THE FACT that what happened
was treason and they would have nothing to say.

Just as Val Plame wasn't covert is their mantra so will be .....
Partisan show trials under klieg lights.

When the truth is toxic all that is left is the lie.

[mmonk]

11. It's the NOC situation and the rules. Republicans are using it

to try and promote the lie she wasn't covert because the law might not be exact on someone that is not official and thus, they are suppose to deny even knowing.

[RDANGELO]

12. She was covert.

She was covert.

She was outed.

Damage was done to our national security.

People need to be held accountable.

The fact that her status might not have been applicable to the law is besides the point, and that means that it is now congress' job to find those responsible.

[twiceshy]

13. If Plame was covert

And Novak was known early in the investigation to have learned the fact from Armitage then why were not Armitage and Novak charged with the crime of revealing a covert CIA operative's identity? Libby was at worst a bit player in the whole fiasco. Why didn't Fitzgerald prosecute the most obvious culprits?

[Sparkly]

15. No one's been prosecuted for the leak.

Hearings are still trying to get to all the facts. But the whole story isn't out there because the White House (including, but no doubt not limited to, Libby) obstructed justice.

[Toots]

28. That is a very good question especially because there is no if

Plame was COVERT...The fucking head of CIA said plain out She was Covert.. How fucking much more do you need.. She was Covert She was outed by Republicans in the Administration and their friends in the Media. She was a Covert CIA Agent that had her career destroyed by the Administration. Why has no one gone to jail???

[mod mom]

14. Waxman, 67, may be a bully and a partisan? WTF?

[Supersedeas]

22. Novak does have a way with the ad hominem.

[ShortnFiery]

17. Why does that TRAITOR, Bob Novak, still get a column in any newspaper? n/t

[mmonk]

18. Maybe he'll quit writing after he receives his Medal of Freedom.

[Jack Rabbit]

19. The IIPA is irrelevant

The right wing, including Mr. Novak, is trying to spin this from "Ms. Plame was not covert under the IIPA" into "She was not covert".

Libby was convicted of obstructing justice, but the rightists assert that there was no underlying crime.

Horepucky.

Like Ms. Plame herself, I am not a lawyer. However, for three years I handled classified information in the US Army. I had a TS clearence. I signed papers acknowledging that I understood that I could be prosecuted if I divulged classified information.

I would not have been prosecuted under the IIPA. There are two reasons I know that:

• The classified information I handled did not concern the identities of secret agents; and
• I debruefed and receuved an honorable discharge in 1979, three years before the IIPA was written.

If I have the facts straight, Ms. Plame's employment with the CIA was Secret, with a capital S, meaning that it was classified higher than Confidential and lower than Top Secret.

Divulging the information that Ms. Plame worked for the CIA was a crime, period.

Ms. Plame was covert, if not under the IIPA, than under under any conventional use of the word. In addition to her employment at the CIA being classified, the CIA furnished her a cover story that she worked for Brewster Jennings, which she provided when applying for credit or other personal business where her source of income would be an issue. Her husband, Ambassador Wilson, also gave the cover story when asked. Even in the days after her cover was blown, Wilson still answered a question from journalist David Corn about Ms. Plame's employment with the cover story.

If I had mishandled classified information as did Rove, Libby, Fleischer and Cheney, then I could have faced a court martial.

[Disturbed]

20. Does Novak also claim the Brewster Jernnings was not

a covert Operation?

[Jack Rabbit]

23. I don't know if Novak is saying that specifically

However, I do come across the talking point that no damage was done to national security by exposing Ms. Plame's status or employment at the the CIA.

Again, basing this on what I learned 30 years ago in the Army, where I was trained to handle classified information, that's a lot of horsepucky.

We now know that anybody who said he was working for Brewster Jennings was CIA and that it is reasonable to assume that many people who did "business" with Brewster Jennings were CIA informants.

[Sparkly]

24. I recall her testifying that even she didn't know the full extent of damage control

or repercussions.

But I think they don't want to sound cavalier about anything with the words "National Security" involved, and probably want to switch the focus away from that entirely (and toward the "worked at a desk, wasn't covert, Wilson lied" discrediting and distraction from the implications to Iraq).

[Jack Rabbit]

25. The right wing talking points

Check this out.

[MasonJar]

26. Why isn't he in jail? He outed a CIA agent after the agency warned him

not to. At the very least he should be stripped naked and tarred and feathered.

[butterfly77]

27. I wish Shays would have shown up...

so that he could have been made to look as silly as he is...

[TankLV]

29. Novak: YES - YES SHE WAS - you ignorant slut!!!