Stephen Spruiell Reporting - Inman on the Culture of Leaks
Stephen over at National Review asked a question of Admiral Bobby R. Inman (USN Ret) about the Plame Game:
"I was utterly appalled during the 2004 election cycle at the number of clearly politically motivated leaks from intelligence organizations — mostly if not all from CIA — that appeared to me to be the most crass thing I had ever seen to influence the outcome of an election. I never saw it quite as harsh as it was. And clearing books to be published anonymously — there was no precedent for it. I started getting telephone calls from CIA retirees when Bush appointed Negroponte, talking about how vindictive the administration was in trying to punish CIA, and I was again sort of dismayed by the effort to play politics including with information that was classified. What is the impact on younger workers who see the higher-ups engaged in this kind of leaking?"
When asked more specifically about Plame the Admiral reponded:
"[The leaking of Plame's identity] is still one I would rather not see, but she was working in an analytical organization, and there’s nothing that precludes anyone from identifying analytical officers. I watch all the hand-wringing over the ruining of careers… there are a lot of operatives whose covers are blown. It doesn’t mean the end of their careers. Many move to the analytical world, which is where she already was. It meant she couldn’t deploy back off to Africa, but nothing I’ve seen indicated that was possible in the first place.
On the first part we know that the CIA WAS leaking information to the media during the 2004 Presidential Election. In fact the leaks were coming so fast and furious the only thing they didn't do was construct a Media Drive Through at Langley, "Would you like some fries with that memo?"
Now you don't have to be as smart as ...me, to figure out why that was happening - but the question remains WHO was leaking the information. I hope to have that in the next few days - me buds down at the office are working on it.
The second part of the Admiral's answer confirms my affirmation that Plame was not in a covert/protected status on the day, before the day, and for some time before Novaks article. She worked a desk. Again, working at Langly no more makes you covert than working as a 911 Dispatcher let's you carry a gun and arrest people. To me, her status is a dead issue.
This lame argument that Larry Johnson makes that if she wasn't covert there wouldn't have been an investigation, is flawed. Who is he jiving with that kosmik debri? The CIA didn't even cover the Protected Identities law when they asked for the investigation.
While I'm at it, several things need to be cleared up. First, the MSM and even some bloggers are dead set on the idea that the Administration purposely outed Valerie just to get back at Joe. They have repeated this assertion so many times that people are quoting it as if were already a fact of Fitzgerald's investigation. Again, we don't have a clue of what he is looking at.
The left's nutty logic that since Rove and Libby's testimony is contradicted by Novak and Cooper that somehow means that Rove and Libby are lying - is in a word - crap. Who knows, given the toss up and consequences and the record of media honesty of late (Jason Blair; Dan Rather..), I'll take the word of Rove and Libby over any of the media types at this point.
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