Everyone know that only boys get to do that kind of stuff.

Hmm. Props on the Waas/Jeff book. I was making great points at an EmptyWheel thread I later realized had died, but my best point was, why can’t Jeff just go on vacation?

Re this:

But surely Fitzgerald’s interpretation is a perfectly reasonable one, and one that there is simply no reason to doubt he made in good faith. As such, the investigation itself was on perfectly sound footing…

I have no good answer, nor will I, unless science delivers a GoodFaithOmeter which we can hook up to Fitzgerald.

However, you seem to have slid right past the *other* question before the house – was Ms. Plame “covert” as per the statute, or not?

We agree that Fitzgerald had plausible reasons to think so, and that his investigation had a plausible basis; we *seem* to agree that Ms. Toensing has a colorable argument.

My official editorial position is that we still don’t “know” , in the sense that we have not seen competing briefs and had a judge rule; nor have we seen an even arguably disinterested brief from, for example, the CIA Counsel. (As of April 2007, they were still stroking their beards in puzzlement):

On March 21, Hoekstra [Ranking Republican on the House Intel Committee] again requested the CIA to define Mrs. Wilson’s status. A written reply April 5 from Christopher J. Walker, the CIA’s director of congressional affairs, said only that “it is taking longer than expected” to reply because of “the considerable legal complexity required for this tasking.”

I think “I don’t know” is a perfectly reasonable answer, and a careful reading of you post suggests you agree with me, but I have the impression that the commenters here think that the question is settled.

This is somewhat akin to being “the most attractive hippopotamus out there.”

Good point. And I bet you say that to all the hippos.

From the earl of huntingdon at 62:

One might plausibly claim that domestic police and counter-intelligence services might protect all manner of employees performing intelligence duties at home, in Langley, VA, for example.

Step into another country and all bets are off, because that country’s police and counter-intelligence services determine what’s allowed in their back garden and what’s not.

Which means that if you’re “out there” gathering intelligence without admitting that’s what you’re doing, you’re engaged in covert activity. At least as understood on the street. Since that seems to be what exposes an intelligence officer to danger – either “out there” or by way of retaliation when back here – one would think that would be the starting point for a statutory analysis, too.

Frankly, this whole line of defense by Libby’s supporters seems cretinous.

Cretinous? Golly.

Your basic point started promisingly – I hauled out a link (scroll way down to “More On The IIPA“) to a discussion of the case against Agee (who inspired the IIPA), and yes, it was activity abroad that troubled people, and yes, the absence of reliably friendly US police protection was one issue.

However, the other issue was that agents *stationed* abroad were especially vulnerable because they were generally known to the locals, who could observe their daily routine and infer that the ostensible Foreign Service officer was not doing a whole lot of foreign service-related work. That would not be an issue for someone flying in on a short assignment.

(Bonus Absurdity – the Foreign Service insisted that CIA people on Foreign Service cover had a different category of personnel number; hence, anyone with access to a “Foreign Service” roster could easily pick out the CIA officers, which also led to mass outings. Oops.)

I probably ought to talk up my Challenge Round a bit – per CIA regs, officers with service abroad get a bump up in their pension. So, did Ms. Plame get a bump for service abroad between, say, June 1998 and June 2003?

No harm in asking old Joe. Have him document his answer with someone credible, and maybe we will believe him, too.

To be fair, internal CIA pension calculations may not jibe with the IIPA either, but it would be an interestin gdata point.

Now that you’ve conceded that much maybe you can discuss whether you have an opinion on the motive in the original exposure of Plame and the subsequent criminal obstruction into the investigation of that act. Maybe you can even arrive at some kind of a judgment on the broader actions of the people arrayed against Plame and Wilson. In the particular matter under discussion here, your defense of them is that, oops, it wasn’t really clear whether Plame was covert, so why not err on the side of recklessness and fuck her good, and I imagine your defense of the war itself would be, too, that — oops — no one really knew there weren’t WMD in Iraq. Honest mistakes, both, huh? Why not drag the woman into the limelight and wreck her career when the risk of that dandy Wilson blabbing could only be greater than the risk Plame and everyone associated with her might be compromised?

I’m just a schlump who knew enough from reading the papers to know that the war was based on lies. That you persist in a moot argument about Plame’s status reveals a kind of sophistry positively sociopathic in its aim of distracting from the host of war crimes the assault on Plame was in the same way meant to obscure.

Tom Maguire @ 7

However, you seem to have slid right past the *other* question before the house – was Ms. Plame “covert” as per the statute, or not?

We agree that Fitzgerald had plausible reasons to think so, and that his investigation had a plausible basis; we *seem* to agree that Ms. Toensing has a colorable argument.

Now that you’ve conceded that much maybe you can discuss whether you have an opinion on the motive in the original exposure of Plame and the subsequent criminal obstruction into the investigation of that act. Maybe you can even arrive at some kind of a judgment on the broader actions of the people arrayed against Plame and Wilson. In the particular matter under discussion here, your defense of them is that, oops, it wasn’t really clear whether Plame was covert, so why not err on the side of recklessness and fuck her good, and I imagine your defense of the war itself would be, too, that — oops — no one really knew there weren’t WMD in Iraq. Honest mistakes, both, huh? Why not drag the woman into the limelight and wreck her career when the risk of that dandy Wilson blabbing could only be greater than the risk Plame and everyone associated with her might be compromised?

I’m just a schlump who knew enough from reading the papers to know that the war was based on lies. That you persist in a moot argument about Plame’s status reveals a kind of sophistry positively sociopathic in its aim of distracting from the host of war crimes the assault on Plame was in the same way meant to obscure.

BlueStateRedHead @ 7

Am I right in remembering that the liveblogging of
Toensing’s testimony before Waxman’s Committee recorded Waxman’s telling her that her testimony would be subject to verification on points of fact and law before being entered into the Congressional record, including–he joked-her age at the time she helped draft the law? With the picture of her performance before us, this seems to be the right time and place in our discussions to ask: what happened?

Why did Waxman leave the record open for Toensing to change for 30 days? Why not hammer Toensing for undermining Fitz case?

Kathleen@186. You seem to know Congressional procedure so bear with me as I ask a follow up question. If I understand correctly you indicate that there is a 30 day period in which the record can be corrected. But who does the correcting, the witness or the Committee staff?
In either case, if already done, it would be very enlightening to make a comparison and see what got corrected–and, possibly, how close VT came to perjury. If EW and Jane have not already done so and think it might be useful, are there any volunteers for a joint effort? Jeff,Jane, EW–let us know if this would help.

Fred Thompson, incipient Republican presidential candidate and staunch defender of Scooter Libby, recently gave a nice prcis of this argument in a speech delivered to the Council for National Policy on May 12, 2007:

[T]here was no violation of the law, by anyone, and everybody — the CIA, the Justice Department and the Special Counsel knew it. Ms. Plame was not a “covered person” under the statute and it was obvious from the outset.

It seems like Thompy boy is showing his loyalty to the Goopers by getting involved in Bush’s criminality. Somewhat OT, but he’s also getting Cager Griffin to run his campaign.

Am I right in remembering that the liveblogging of
Toensing’s testimony before Waxman’s Committee recorded Waxman’s telling her that her testimony would be subject to verification on points of fact and law before being entered into the Congressional record, including–he joked-her age at the time she helped draft the law? With the picture of her performance before us, this seems to be the right time and place in our discussions to ask: what happened?

Why did Waxman leave the record open for Toensing to change for 30 days? Why not hammer Toensing for undermining Fitz case?

A commenter over at TBogg had this suggestion on dealing with all the yapping brownshirts who STILL refuse to recognize Plame’s covert status:

Someone needs to ’splain it to them real slow like — as if to Forrest Gump: her existence isn’t the secret, it’s her affiliation that’s the secret. Valerie Plame was a pretty lady married to Joe Wilson who had two nice kids and worked for a company called Brewster Jennings. The secret (until some blabbermouth blew it) was that she really was a spy, working for the CIA, on Iraq weapons issues. Now, all the other nice people who worked for Brewster Jennings have been screwed, too. And all the nice people they pretended to do business with.

That’s why we don’t tell secrets.

I doubt it will work, but I got a kick out of it…

Real slow. And by outing Plame the U.S.’s ability to collect info on WMD’s into or out of Iraq, Iran (where ever else Valerie was doing her spy work) has been completely undermined. Her outing has also undermined U.S. National Security.

Forrest Gump would have gotten it right away.

Toensing, Novak, Woodward do not want to get it. Why is that? Would that mean that they are traitors?

Where is Victoria Novak?

Why is it that Toensing, Novak, Woodward, Thompson, etc do not consider the undermining of U.S. National Security by outing Valerie Plame a crime which Libby and others should be held accountable for?

What would these people consider crimes? Robbing a corner service station? Their priorites are twisted and telling.

Would these people be considered traitors in other countries?

tommy yum @ 41

I may be a drunk, but that woman’s an alcoholic.

She’s married to Joe DiGenova. Some measure of self-medication is to be expected.

I flew back from Paris last year with these two in the next row. Even if I didn’t know their politics, I could have guessed. Disfunctional doesn’t describe it. Ugh! Blech!!! I need brain bleech just to cleanse the memory cells.