Shutting down wingnut defenses

Much like in the Trent Lott affair, Josh Marshall is driving the Plame story -- an advantage of being a real journalist with sources and all.

Today he shuts down two wingnut defenses of the administration's treasonous outing of a CIA agent.

The first is Novak's claim that the administration didn't contact him with the Plame dirt.

Another big problem with Novak's comments on Crossfire today. Today he said ...

Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction.

But then there's this passage in a July 22nd article in Newsday ...

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."
I'd say the story's changed.

So Novak is clearly a liar. Either he lied in the Newsday article, or he lied yesterday when he defended the administration. Looking at motives, it's clear that yesterday is the most likely lie as he seeks to provide cover to his Republican buddies.

Then there's the claim that Plame was not an undercover CIA employee. Marshall merely points to a letter from the White House counsel to all White House employees:

PLEASE READ: Important Message From Counsel's Office

We were informed last evening by the Department of Justice that it has opened an investigation into possible unauthorized disclosures concerning the identity of an undercover CIA employee.

Not bad for a few hours work, Josh. So what do they have left?

That Ambassador Wilson is a partisan Democrat out to get the administration? That was the line for a bit, even getting top-of-the-page Drudge treatment. Until it was noted that Wilson donated $1,000 to the Bush campaign in 1999.

Reminds me of those cheesy action flicks. Were the hero keeps getting out of sticky situations despite the bad guy's best diabolical efforts. At the end, during the final showdown, the villian says, "Damn it! Why don't you just stay dead?!"

They can keep trying to minimize the clear criminal acts of this administration -- how endangering national security is somehow less noteworthy than a blowjob. But it's clearly not working. The Justice Department has launched a full-blown investigation, and the press is in feeding frenzy mode.

It's a new day in America.

Posted September 30, 2003 09:02 AM | Comments (111)