Talk:Valerie Plame

The whole thing is confusing, and the McClellan book doesn't help.

I don't understand why Fitzgerald would "investigate" the source of a leak if:

1. He knew it was Armitage before he launched his investigation
2. Plame was not covered by the Identities Act

What did President Bush hope to gain by having (letting?) Fitzgerald keep the "investigation" going for 3 years, when their was no crime to investigate and the leak source had already come forward? --Ed Poor ^Talk 09:36, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

In your second point, are you suggesting that Plame was not a covert agent and therefore not covered by the Identities Act? --Jareddr 09:45, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

On the first point, are you suggesting that Armitage was the only one who did any leaking?--Frey 21:55, 2 June 2008 (EDT)

I am no more "suggesting" these points are true than you are "suggesting" they are false. What are you guys getting at? --Ed Poor ^Talk 10:22, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

I was asking if you were "suggesting" that not to indicate it was false, but to understand your reasoning. You said she wasn't covered because Robert Novak's column said she wasn't covered. But the column doesn't explain WHY she wasn't covered. Since I can't ask Novak, I was asking you. It seems she was a covert agent at the time of the leak, so I wanted to understand what qualification wasn't met for her to be protected. Rather than take a defensive posture and assume we have ulterior motives, perhaps you can expound on the qualifications for coverage by the Identities Act? --Jareddr 11:33, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

Oh, okay. All I know is what I read in the newspapers. Looks like Novak thought she wasn't covered by the act, while the 3-page Salon document says she had a covert "cover" identity; these sources seem to conflict somewhat. There's also the messy detail about backtracking on the coverage dates. Let's you and me try to get this minor detail straight.

The bigger fish to fry here is to lay out the dispute between the anti- and pro-Bush sides of the controversy:

1. Bush and his gang went after Wilson and Plame - for various "bad" reasons; versus,
2. Armitage (hardly a Bush crony) spilled the beans - so Bush et al. are off the hook

My collaboration strategy would be this:

• identify the undisputed facts
• identify the facts that are in dispute
• identify the conclusions partisans draw

My working definition of undisputed is, no well-known conservative, liberal or "other" party has indicated disagreement. For example, everyone agrees that Plame and Wilson were married to each other, that Wilson went on an important trip related to WMD, that Plame's job dealt with nonproliferation; that the general public didn't know Plame worked for the CIA before the July 2003 Novak column; that it took years for Armitage's "leak" to come to public attention; that Fitzgerald was appointed to investigate the matter; that (certain people) were or were not charged with illegally "outing" Plame; that Scooter Libby was convicted (of something); that Libby got his sentence commuted (? not the same as being pardoned.

Stuff like that is easy. There's no liberal-conservative bickering about any of that, or if there is we'll just move any disputed item down to the "in dispute" section.

What's really interesting to me is what Fitzgerald (and the general public) knew - and when they knew it. A timeline would come in handy here. Especially if it's compared to political posturing by various partisans.

Eventually, I'd also like to see something about the significance of the whole affair. What relationship, if any, did this have to Bush's decision to invade Iraq? That decision, of course, deserves an entire article of its own. --Ed Poor ^Talk 12:20, 3 June 2008 (EDT)

My point, which I guess I should have just stated rather than trying to be clever, is that it wasn't just Armitage who did the leaking. Karl Rove told Matt Cooper [1], and Scooter Libby told Judith Miller [2], and those talks happened at around the same time, or soon after, the Joe Wilson piece came out. So, we had three separate administration officials, in at least three separate conservations with at least three different reporters (I heard six, but I don't know the identities), all within a week of each other, and in each case, Valerie Plame Wilson was a topic of discussion.

So, for Patrick Fitzgerald, the question went from, Who leaked and was it intentional? to, Was there actually a conspiracy to leak this?. In that circumstance, knowing who told Novak is only part of the investigation, since you'd need to know who else leaked and what their intentions were. (It seems to me, anyway)--Frey 12:44, 4 June 2008 (EDT)