Redstate

On Sunday, Senator Roberts said that he didn't know if someone who went to work at Langley every day could be considered covert. That is scary. He doesn't need to hold hearings to learn that the CIA does indeed have covert operatives working out of Langley. And he is the committee chairman!

Far be it for me to defend Drum and anyone else who casts such a blatantly prejudicial eye on Roberts' hearings before they've even started.  But his comment about driving in and out of Langley is provocative, so you can't blame the far left for getting up in arms (or maybe you can -- it takes so little to provoke them nowadays).

Still, it might be unwise to prejudge Roberts' intentions the other way.  Politicians tend to defend their own, and it would not be shocking if the Roberts hearings is a prong of the Rove defense strategy.  The two goals we have heard for the hearings are reviewing covert protections AND reviewing the special prosecutor's case, so it seems likely that both will get at least some criticism (which helps Rove and Libby).  All I'm saying is, we shouldn't get all sarcastic and snarky over something that might shake out as pure politics...  Let's correct the far-left spin, and leave the facts to tell the true story.

maybe he was being blackmailed, or maybe it was part of a radical conspiracy to stop the Russian Empire by focusing their attention on a sex scandal.  I mean, we can't read minds, can we?

But they, or the implied parallels, need at least to have a grounding in reality first.

"Far be it for me to defend Drum and anyone else who casts such a blatantly prejudicial eye on Roberts' hearings before they've even started.  But his comment about driving in and out of Langley is provocative, so you can't blame the far left for getting up in arms (or maybe you can -- it takes so little to provoke them nowadays)."

It's not just the far left, I don't think.  Be that as it may...

The Washington Post is reporting on what the CIA told Novak and I think it sheds light on this controversy about Plane's role being classified.

Excerpt:

"Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified."

The Washington Post article is here:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR200507260
2069_pf.html

Stanford

It seems to me that a silly nonsequitur would become something else -- perhaps just a nonsequitur, if grounded in reality.  :)

so why should I trust his truth telling here?

Also, I think the fact that he confirmed her employment is about as troubling.

Maybe there isn't an easy way around this, but Novak was going to print the story of her involvement (which was the truth by the way) whether he mentioned her name or not, which takes us back to the former "Valarie Plame" on the website of Wilson (I have said repeatedly that he was stupid to mention her Maiden name on his website-he could have just as easily said "lives with his wife Valarie" or even better "lives with his wife and children" and nobody would have been able to connect Valarie Plame with Joe Wilson.

the original post was about Roberts and all this information does little to explain why we should prejudge his intentions one way or another before the hearings start.  If he is providing cover for Rove et al, or if he is concerned with preventing covert agents from being so easily exposed, either way we will find out then.

The original post was about Pat Roberts, the Republican Senator from Kansas, not John Roberts, SCOTUS nominee. Go back and read it again.

I had understood that the purpose of the hearings was to increase the level of protections available to CIA agents.  (Unfortunately, I can't recall where I read that, or I'd link it).  Indeed, it would be bizarre -- and profoundly stupid -- for Robert to emerge from the hearings as a champion for fewer protections for covert agents.  We're at war; covert agents will be on the front lines; and the need for (and lack of) good humint is well known.  

Undoubtably, though, should Roberts' committee eventually propose more protections for covert agent, Mr. Drum will criticize the proposal as impinging on our freedoms and as inimical to a free press.

Funny how the brain works.  At first I snapped to Robert Bolton and was totally confused.  It took a minute for the light bulb to go on.  Seems as I get older it takes longer.

Stanford

Who is Robert Bolton?

Don't know where that came from.

Meant to write John Roberts.  Keep this up and we will be discussing Robert Preston.

Stanford

the appointment, elections or anything that would further add either another Roberts or Robert to the mix, it is cause confusion within the ranks.

The hearings I refer to are Pat Roberts' hearings on the use of CIA cover, not the SCOTUS confirmation hearings.  I don't understand why you think I got them mixed up, or why I deserved your ire...

ad absurdum.  If you aren't allowed to draw inferences from facts as to motives, then you can't go anywhere in life.  The inferences here are simple and obvious, and the post has an air of grasping at straws.  To take Pat Roberts's actions away from the context of the Rove investigation requires a willful ignorance that is the moral equivalent of taking away the actus reus of Bill's blow job from the mens rea.

trip is a "known fact" (i.e., a conclusion that is in serious dispute).  That Plame "authorized" her husband's trip is an agreed factual wrong.  Nobody is currently working under the assumption that Plame, who lacked the authority to authorize anyone going to Niger, authorized her husband's trip.

Stanford, not you, was the one getting the two mixed up. My apologies.

The SSIC found the actual memo in which Plame recommended her husband, so that's pretty much an Actual Fact.

I personally don't think Plame had the muscle to "authorize" the trip, so I'm on board as far as that goes. However, it is clear that she was certainly working the system to get her husband to go.

The SSIC dissent stated that the SSIC had mischaracterized the memo.  This dissent was signed on to by every Democrat on the SSIC.  To claim that this is a "known fact" means that the GOP are allowed to create facts whenever they choose by majority vote.

I'm not going to say this is an "actual lie", but since the memo is still classified and whether it shows a reccomendation by Plame depends on partisanship, it still is a "known fact".

The text of the memo read:

My husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.

That is a fact, not in dispute. The notion that Democrats would dispute documented hard evidence, including indisputably authored memos, is certainly not news, and does not shed any doubt whatsoever on the conclusion.

Why should I change?  He's the one that sucks.

No one really knows what the context of that comment was.  Was she recommending him initially?  Or was she responding to a question about the qualifications of his husband?  Two significantly different situations.  

I sure don't know.  But I will say that I am not about to hold the SSIC to be gospel.  

someone has a case of the Mondays

sucks doesn't even rise to the level of a Known Fact.

and Actual Fact

...sucks worse than an F5 tornado...

I would hope the goal is to protect CIA agents. they are our biggest asset in the 'war on terror'.. If the press can out them, and disclose our spy network (by virtue of association with a known agent), we will never win the war.  We also have to find out who would disclose this... Call everyone in on the carpet and do a Donald Trump.. Ask questions, fire the liars, and move on..

Since y'all are mostly Red around here, I'll risk a guess that you don't read my favorite blogger - Bob Somerby and his "Daily Howler".  But check him out today - he and Pejman are on the same page:

DRUMMING ROBERTS: What does Pat Roberts plan to do with those upcoming Senate hearings? We have very little idea; at THE HOWLER, we lack major mind-reading skills, and Roberts has said next to nothing about what the hearings will encompass. But the liberal web has rocked with premonitions of perfidy, and omigod! Now they've even got Drum! Our fellow PAC-10 sports enthusiast is normally known as Mr. Medium Cool. But yesterday, he too jumped to puzzling conclusions about what's behind those bad hearings.

Read the rest - Somerby is incomparable(TM)!

.....because of when he said that 9/11 was because of our fallen morals.   :)

Robert's speaks with forked tongue.

He defends Rove and downplays Plame status whilst putting on airs that he cares about covert status.

It's posturing. It will not help the GOP.

GOP should hold hearings into Plame along side investigation if they had any confidence they were not complicit in dirty games.

You guys are amazing traitors.

"You guys are amazing traitors."

Cute like assertions like this could get you sent to The Pile.

Hope you enjoyed your 15 seconds.