Webs of incompetence, deceit and politics
The Wilson/Plame/Libby episode may seem distant, but local readers should learn about it because it exposes low-level abuse as poisonous as the graffiti and petty crime that corrupted New York City in the early 1990s until people became fed up enough to do something about it. What you tolerate is what you live with. Three successive editorials will expose misbehavior: 1) the web of incompetence, 2) the web of deceit, and 3) the web of politics. The abuse will continue so long as you tolerate it.
1. The web of incompetence
• The CIA and Department of State have long engaged in back office sniping, policy advocacy, and turf wars. They peddled flawed intelligence about Libya, Iran, North Korea, Pakistan, and Iraq, amongst others. Rather than provide intelligence, isolated staffers tried to set policy and, when ignored, they leaked. Interestingly, the CIA never insisted Joe Wilson sign a standard confidentiality agreement before his Niger trip.
• When the CIA leaked, the Department of Justice often did little. In some cases they under-reacted. Former Clinton National Security Adviser Sandy Berger, who repeatedly purloined secret documents that he stuffed down his shorts, was not given a lie detector test to reveal what he had done and why. Berger was lightly fined and had to pick up trash in a Virginia Park. At the other extreme, acting Attorney General James Comey, an old Senator Schumer friend and associate, broke rules that forbade appointing staff like Patrick Fitzgerald as special prosecutor. Comey went beyond the law to extend to Fitzgerald powers that earlier caused Congress to terminate the special prosecutor statute. Then Comey refused to supervise Fitzgerald, which allowed the unethical perjury trap that ensnared Republican Libby during his lengthy eight hours of grand jury testimony.
• CIA director George Tenet referred the Plame non-issue to the DOJ. Then Tenet dallied about who had sent Wilson, what was found, how it was used, and dragged out declassifying portions of the National Intelligence Estimate that supported the President’s position.
• During the case, the FBI did not follow standard procedures, created notes that were incomplete, gave testimony that was belligerent, and "lost" notes about NBC host Tim Russert’s testimony.
• White House spokesman Ari Fleischer backpedaled on the 16 words about Iraq seeking uranium in Africa included in Bush’s State of the Union address. The 16 words turned out accurate.
• Journalistically, Time Magazine’s Matt Cooper wrote incomprehensible notes and testified he let his editor manufacture quotes attributed to Libby. New York Times’ Nick Kristof, megaphoned Wilson’s serial lies repeatedly and for years after corrections should have been made to his articles. To its credit, the Washington Post eventually acknowledged its involvement in perpetuating Wilson’s dissembling, but it took years.
Incompetence, deceit and politics operate independently, but one facilitates another and the third magnifies the damage of the other two. Next we will look at the web of deceit and then the web of politics.
2. The web of deceit
In the Wilson/Plame/Libby case, Lewis "Scooter" Libby was found guilty of perjury. But besides that, dangerous webs of incompetence, deceit, and politics color the case. This second chapter discusses deceit — independent of any attributed to Libby. Amongst those who likely presented misrepresentations to the American people were:
• Joseph Wilson claimed to speak truth to power but misrepresented who sent him to Niger, that his wife recommended him for the trip, and what he reported to the CIA. His July 6, 2003, NY Times article is a masterpiece of dissembling.
• Valerie Plame recommended her husband for the CIA Niger trip even before Vice President Cheney asked the CIA questions about the National Intelligence Estimate.
• Acting Attorney General James Comey appointed Patrick Fitzgerald special prosecutor on Dec. 30, 2003, although as an employee of the DOJ Fitzgerald was ineligible for the position.
• Patrick Fitzgerald violated prosecutorial standards overstating the evidence at the indictment press conference. He ignored the trail of admitted leakers that included deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage, White House spokesman Ari Fleisher, CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, and Wilson. Fitzgerald regularly alluded to Plame’s employment status during the trial even though the judge admonished him that her status was unknown and irrelevant to the case. Fitzgerald closed the Libby trial with unsubstantiated conjectures about Cheney complicity that drew a stern rebuke the presiding judge.
• Richard Armitage, on Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward’s June, 2003, tape played at the Libby trial, said, "Everybody knows [Wilson[Apostrophe]s wife works for the CIA.] … And they know ’cause Joe Wilson’s been calling everybody." Armitage outrageously claimed his leak was inadvertent but he also contacted and leaked to columnist Robert Novak. For years Armitage ignored the White House directive to report any leak to the President. Armitage violated grand jury procedure when he relayed his testimony to his assistant Mark Grossman before Grossman testified. Armitage, an inconvenience to Fitzgerald’s crusade against the White House, was advised by Fitzgerald to keep quiet.
• Bill Harlow, CIA spokesman confirmed Plame’s CIA employment to columnist Robert Novak yet Fitzgerald never pursued him. Either Harlow was a leaker or Plame was not covert.
• The Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) included former members of CIA, DOS and DOD recycled and reused by sympathetic reporters as pseudo-experts although their obvious agendas had been unmasked and discredited.
In the rarified air of major news, a leak may lead to primetime TV or front page prominence. Journalists so tempted were susceptible to furtive leaks often only loosely checked before they were trumpeted to the world. Meanwhile, because major news media cut the cloth to fit their predetermined storylines, it was, according to witness testimony, difficult for the administration to get its version of the story out. Disinterested in fact-based reality, journalists let liars and dissemblers have their way:
• Judy Miller, the New York Times reporter, probably had other sources, possibly including Plame. Although Libby released her from confidentiality, she refrained from testifying until Fitzgerald agreed to question her only about Libby. That may have left unexamined other leakers to Miller.
• Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times reporter, met with Wilson and Plame in May, 2003, at which time Wilson outed himself as the Niger envoy. Kristof reported Wilson’s claims unchallenged. Senate investigators later concluded Wilson had not debunked the uranium reports. The Times continued reporting the bogus storyline for years without printing corrections.
• Nation writer David Corn pushed Plame’s non-official cover — covert — status despite overwhelming evidence she was not. At its simplest, clandestine operators do not work out of embassies. Plame did. She may also have been in the country long enough to lose covert status.
NBC’s large stable of journalists dissembled to protect its image and its "talent":
• Tim Russert, "Meet the Press" host, producer, and former aide to Mario Cuomo and Patrick Moynihan, asserted journalistic privilege against testifying when he had already spilled his story to the FBI. Fitzgerald silently supported Russert’s misleading affidavit to the court. Russert, who received special treatment during the investigation and an attorney himself, claimed at the trial not to know attorneys were not allowed in grand jury appearances. Several videotapes show Russert knew.
• NBC Correspondent Andrea Mitchell researched weapons of mass destruction, Plame’s area of expertise. On the Imus Show, she admitted of Plame’s identity "Everyone knew." She later backpedaled.
• Immunized witness Ari Fleischer said he told NBC correspondent David Gregory about Plame. Gregory has not commented on Fleischer’s testimony. Gregory may well have called back to Washington, and correspondents usually inform their producers of breaking information.
• MSNBC’s "Hardball" host, Chris Matthews, has continuously repeated misinformation he knew to be incorrect. He regularly provided a platform for partisan hacks like Senator Schumer’s former Judiciary Crime Sub-committee counsel and CREW (for the misnamed Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington) executive director Melanie Sloan. The Libby trial judge rebuked her December appearance for comment that "borders on unethical conduct."
• MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann and David Shuster repeatedly revised inconvenient facts that undermined their falsified narrative.
Having described webs of incompetence and deceit, the next piece will examine the Plame/Wilson/Libby web of politics.
3. The web of politics
This is the last of three pieces that describe the incompetence, deceit and politics that entwine the Wilson/Plame/Libby case.
By May 2003, Wilson was firmly part of the Democratic Party sphere. He attended the May 2, 2003, Democratic Senate Policy Committee hearing at which New York Times reporter Nicholas Kristof was a guest. The Wilsons met with Kristof and agreed to let him write about the Niger trip, not using Wilson’s name. Also in May, Wilson joined the Kerry presidential campaign as an unpaid adviser. Later, in July, Wilson penned the New York Times article that challenged the 16 words in Bush’s State of the Union speech about Iraq and uranium. By deceptively substituting "bought" for "sought" and "Niger" for "Africa" Wilson gave the article "legs." Wilson’s actual observation substantiated Iraq’s 1999 attempt and a Senate investigation later determined Wilson’s claims were untrue.
Personal crusades often take precedence over one’s job. For instance, deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage undermined the administration by not disbursing Radio Liberty funding President Bush had released. Members of the CIA who disapproved of presidential policy undermined it through leaks to reporters like Mary McCarthy is reported to have done with Washington Post reporter Dana Priest. Paths to oppose presidential policy often are incestuous. In one instance, Dana Priest’s husband runs the Center for International Policy (CIP), a Fenton Communications client. Fenton’s Iraq Policy Information Program (IPIP), designed to get out the anti-war message, kept Joe Wilson as a featured speaker. Fenton set up the Tides Foundation, heavily contributed to by John Kerry’s wife, Theresa Heinz. Mel Goodman, a former CIA staffer, worked for CIP and was a Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity member. Other VIPS members like Larry Johnson and Ray McGovern are regular talking heads for mainstream media like NPR or CNN, but their anti-Bush predilections are overlooked, even when Democrats trundle them out for congressional hearings.
Plausible deniability of political connections is important when engaged in political dirty work. Melanie Sloan, former counsel of the Judiciary Crime Sub-committee under Charles Schumer, heads CREW. CREW timed and conflated exposing the Mark Foley emails and instant messages. CREW cheered the special prosecutor who chased Libby. Schumer is prominent in the Democratic Senate Policy Committee that heard Wilson in May 2003. Schumer shepherded Comey’s appointment to acting Attorney General. Schumer urged the Fitzgerald investigation on through early, strident public letters. Yet years later, when told just before Libby’s trial that Fitzgerald had known about Armitage from the beginning, Schumer feigned surprise. Schumer’s "surprise" was as implausible as Libby’s surprise "hearing [about Plame from Russert] as if for the first time" except that Libby earned a felony conviction. Schumer diminished Bill Clinton’s grand jury lie, factually exposed by the stained blue dress, but is outraged by Libby’s less demonstrable one.
Politicians posture outrageously. The press reports the posturing as news. The voters tolerate the politicians and the pseudo-news. Senator John Kerry pontificated about the Libby result, "This verdict brings accountability at last for official deception and the politics of smear and fear." Rubbish. Smear is the name Washington Democrats give to inconvenient truth. Wilson was no whistleblower. He worked with Democrats and for them. He perpetrated a political smear as a gambit to bring down the Bush administration in the middle of a war in the vain hope for political office had Kerry been elected. The sound you hear is press credibility evaporating as it allows Wilson’s false storyline to continue in succeeding reports. Such is the record of the New York Times, Time, Newsweek, and the NBC television network. While sometimes vanity, economics, or ignorance lead to abuse, former Democratic staffer Chris Matthews’ show on MSNBC deserves to be called "Hardball" not because of tough political reporting, but for the partisan hardball he plays.
Libby was found guilty of perjury. He also fell victim to political opportunists. Special prosecutors are designed to punish. Those efforts can obscure the public learning what happened. The inconvenient truth is that incompetence facilitated deceit that allowed political manipulation. Since the election a new congressional majority enjoys the partisan friendliness of a sympathetic press. Little changed. Many congressional leaders are tired, worn, venal hacks whose windy verbosity goes unnoticed in the press, to the detriment of a public that seems to have given up hope or not to care.
Should it matter? New York City got on for years in the early 1990s tolerating graffiti, broken windows, and slack behavior. Like the Big Apple, behavior won’t change until you do what the Rome Sentinel does here — warn politicians, staffers, and sycophant journalists that their pattern of behavior is unacceptable.
romesentinel.com
hattip to Clarence Feldman of American Thinker. |
