Fall Guy?: WH Claims Scooter Libby Acted (Nearly) Alone

The story is that the WH wanted to just ignore Joe Wilson, but Scooter Libby was "passionate" about taking him on.

I could care less if this is true or not. The whole story is a joke. The CIA leaked sensitive information for years and the only one leak being investigated involves Soccer Mom 007, the Non-Covert Non-Agent With a License To Bake?

Give me a break.

Let's recap:

* Joe Wilson's wife got him the job.

* Joe Wilson's report was considered to add nothing to the investigation of Iraqis seeking uranium. His big reveal was that Niger officials denied committing crimes. What a shock.

* Joe Wilson lied on multiple occasions about what his report said, what it proved, and who had ordered it. He claimed that he was sent to Niger by Dick Cheney himself, to add credibility to his claims.

* He wasn't asked to sign a confidentiality agreement... Gee, it's almost as if his wife and her friends got him the job and didn't sign him to confidentiality because they wanted him to meet with a few Nigerian officials, get their perfectly predictable denials, and then go public with the explosive revelations that Iraq intelligence had been "twisted." Almost.

Once Joe Wilson enters the public debate -- as had been planned all along -- how does one refute his lie about how he came to have his job without introducing the truth?

Truth is a defense in libel. It should also be a defense against violating security protocols, especially in cases like this, where a determined cadre of anti-war CIA liberals leaks like sieves, create false reports and misattribute their creation to high administration officials, and then seek to hide behind their non-covert non-agent status to pin an espionage rap on anyone willing to stand up to them.

Is that how it works? Valerie Plame gets to indulge in a little domestic black-bag ops and then hides behind her supposed status as a CIA operative?

Interesting Sidenote... This comes from someone in the LATimes, who's now circulating LAT political stories and editorials to bloggers.

posted by Ace at 05:02 PM

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