There has been a feud between the CIA and the WH, with Dems throwing in with the CIA. "ok so where does fitzgerald fit in?"
- - As of now, he's chosen to side with the CIA.
The CIA says she was classified; other sources say she was not. "what source says she was not classified that is more credible than the cia and patrick fitzgerald? <- please answer this"
- - What makes the CIA credible? Just one thread up people are talking about how the CIA isn't to be trusted. But here, where it fits your needs, your willing to accept that they wouldn't ever lie! Let's ask Victoria Toensing, who helped draft the Identies Protection ActL
Toensing, the former deputy attorney general who helped draft Intelligence Identities Protection Act - which Bush critics insist was violated when Valerie Plame was identified to Novak - said earlier this year that it's unlikely any laws were broken in the case. Writing in January in the Washington Post, former Assistant Deputy Attorney General Victoria Toensing explained that she helped draft the 1982 law in question.
Said Toensing: "The Novak column and the surrounding facts do not support evidence of criminal conduct."
For Plame's outing to have been illegal, the one-time deputy AG explained, "her status as undercover must be classified." Also, Plame "must have been assigned to duty outside the United States currently or in the past five years."
Since in neither case does Plame meet those criteria, Toensing argued: "There is a serious legal question as to whether she qualifies as 'covert.'"
The law also requires that the celebrated non-spy's outing take place by someone who knew the government had taken "affirmative measures to conceal [the agent's] relationship" to the U.S.
Toensing said that's unlikely.
In fact, the myth that the Intelligence Identities Protection Act was violated in the Plame case began to unravel in October 2003, when New York Times scribe Nicholas Kristof revealed that she abandoned her covert role a full nine years before the Novak column.
"The C.I.A. suspected that Aldrich Ames had given [Plame's] name [along with those of other spies] to the Russians before his espionage arrest in 1994," reported Kristof. "So her undercover security was undermined at that time, and she was brought back to Washington for safety reasons."
The Times columnist also noted that Plame had begun making the transition to CIA "management" even before she was outted by Novak, explaining that "she was moving away from 'noc' – which means non-official cover ... to a new cover as a State Department official, affording her diplomatic protection without having 'C.I.A.' stamped on her forehead."
Kristof concluded: "All in all, I think the Democrats are engaging in hyperbole when they describe the White House as having put [Plame's] life in danger and destroyed her career; her days skulking along the back alleys of cities like Beirut and Algiers were already mostly over."
Stolen from NewsMax
"so you have no reason to think fitzgerald is a zealot, but you think it anyway. why?"
- - His behavior identifies him as a zealot, I think that goes without saying. Perhaps your confusing "zealot" with "partisan."
"it means that your attempt to compare the starr investigation to the fitzgerald investigation is inherently flawed. there is ample evidence that the starr investigation was nothing but partisan war."
- - Back up the truck there Buford. Two dozen Clintonistas were indicted, dozens more fled the country and/or took the Fifth to avoid prosecution. Partisan war? Give me a break. I think there was over a hundred years of jail time before it was all finished, and a pretty significant body count.
"you have yourself admitted that you have absolutely no reason to believe that fitzgerald is some kind of political agent. yet you choose to believe it anyway,"
- - I never said that. I said he could be a well-meaning zealot. Look the word up.
Cousin Elwood - Team Over-the-hill Racing
Brought to you by the good folks at Metamucil and Geritol...