Thursday, June 29, 2006

Re-writing the rules

Once again, the American people are finding out more about Valerie Plame than we originally were meant to. Of course, when the most recent declaration concerning Ms. Plame originates from Tom Delay, it's probably a decent bet that he's simply trying to cover numerous tracks, and that truth may not actually be found within the statement.

Plame, the CIA operative outed first by Robert Novak, was the subject of an intense investigation surrounding who could have possibly leaked that information. So far, only "Scooter" Libby has been indicted, for perjury and obstruction of justice, but certain members of the administration, namely VeeP Fudd and KRove, have never officially denied that they knew about Plame's identity, and may have let some words slip.

Tom Delay recently appeared on MSNBC's Hardball, and, during a discussion regarding the New York Times leaks, he stated his feelings that leaks should never be accepted. Unless they are a leak that comes from within the Presidential administration. In which case, there wasn't a leak, because "Valerie Plame was not a CIA agent." Instead, Delay says she worked in one of the CIA offices, and, as she wasn't in the field, than that meant she wasn't a true agent.

Oddly enough, when the news first broke about Plame, it turns out that she was listed as an NOC (or non-official cover operative). NOC is the most dangerous of classifications to receive, as it basically is a statement saying "We don't admit to knowing you're there, in case your cover gets blown." In the case of an NOC, the agent is required to be active overseas for 5 consecutive years, but they do not need to live there. From the sounds of things, Ms. Plame was a fairly active agent, who may not have been in covert operations at the time (which was the contention of Libby and others), but she was still most definitely someone who could see field time.

Now, overall the law that pertains to this is a law called the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which is a law meant to ensure that, if someone is or has recently been involved with a covert operations. Plame was outed in 2003. It was documented that, within her cover job, she spent time overseas in 2001, 2002, and 2003. That seems to be pretty recent to me.

Basically, what this comes down to is Tom Delay once again, as he and other officials have been wont to do since they found themselves facing possible legal trouble, is rewriting history to make it fit into his particular world view. Delay believes that the Bush administration did no wrong with regards to Plame. Therefore, if there was not any possibility for wrongdoing, then the administration is quite obviously innocent.

Kinda like if I said that I couldn't possibly have eaten all of the cookies you bought, because you never bought them in the first place. Except on a much larger scale, with more serious consequences. Of course, this really doesn't surprise me. Delay's the same guy who was smiling in his mug shot. I bet it makes a lovely Christmas card.

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