Think Progress

Up = Down.

By Judd Legum on Apr 17th, 2006 at 2:18 pm

Up = Down.

The New York Sun twists logic to “prove” that Valerie Plame wasn’t covert.

Comments
9

9 Responses to “Up = Down.”

gordon says:

What do you expect from a rag like the New York Sun?
April 17th, 2006 at 2:53 pm
the fly-man says:

What if the President de-classified her ? He can do so under the guise of Natlional Security at his pleasure. This does not in any way redeem Mr. Libby’s Perjury charges does it? Just like the lame ass arguments the National Review is touting as concrete evidence that Saddam and Al-Qualude worked together. Does that change in any way the execution or the planning of the WAR? NO. http://www.nationalreview.com/mccarthy/mccarthy200604170640.asp
April 17th, 2006 at 3:06 pm
Stashu says:

OT, but here’s some more Conservative corruption going on:

Former Illinois Governor George Ryan, a hero to death penalty opponents for halting executions in the state, was found guilty on Monday of fraud, racketeering, tax evasion and other public corruption charges.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060417/pl_nm/crime_ryan_dc_5
April 17th, 2006 at 3:12 pm
oldtree says:

why don’t we see if we can illustrate something for the Sun,

about the CIA, central intelligence agency, they gather “intelligence” sometimes from sources that want it to remain “private”
agents are usually trying to do things that are “private”
agents are usually trying to work on things that are “secret”
agents are trying to keep this “secret” work, “private”

when someone outs someone doing secret work, they can’t do that work again, because it was “secret” and now it isn’t “private”

do you understand?
April 17th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
squegeeboo says:

“”The notion the Sun has is just not correct,” he continued. “For someone in the media, [Luskin's reasoning] may make a whole lot of sense. But the fact is that in the intelligence community, it’s just assumed that somebody might be undercover. You always classify. . . you don’t assume that they’re not. Never.”"

This would seem to back up the Sun’s reasoning, if you assume undercover automatically, you make the whole thing secret. By not giving any extra precautions to the bits about her, it would seem to mean that she was mentioned in the same standard format any other agent would be mentioned in.

It does nothing to prove she wasn’t covert, but also does nothing to prove that she was covert.
April 17th, 2006 at 3:13 pm
Parrotlover77 says:

I’m guessing the New York Sun is using some form of NewSpeak?
April 17th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
james risser says:

this is all a load of neoconservative bullshit.

valerie plame was covert as defined in the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (50 U.S.C. 421 et seq.)

not that the bush crime family reads statutes, but, if they did, they would see

that at the time of the disclosure was taking â€˜affirmative measuresâ€™â€”e.g., the use of clandestine means of communication to conceal her intelligence relationship with the United States government by using a cover-identity, the creation of a false business, and the maintenance of an office for her false businessâ€”in order conceal Valerie Plameâ€™s intelligence relationship to the United States

i have studied this rather thoroughly and, in my opinion, she was a covert agent and either the head monkey or one of two monkey handlers released it in violation of the statute.

these fuckers make me sick!!!!

oh, and FUCK BUSH
April 17th, 2006 at 3:33 pm
Gryn says:

This is incredible logic…

So if only a teensy bit is marked Secret you know which parts are secret, but if almost the whole thing is marked Secret then how can you tell which bits are really Secret? Therefore since you can’t tell which parts are really secret, it makes it easier to say “I didn’t know that bit was ‘Secret’”.

So to recap, the more paragraphs you mark Secret the less secret any individual classified item becomes…. WTF?!?
April 17th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Seixon says:

Gryn,

Let me try and make it clear to you. Let’s say you have 100 pages. You are looking for any evidence that the contents on page 5 distinguish themselves as highly sensitive. You find out that 95 pages of the 100 are marked in the same manner, including page 5. Now, do you think that proves that page 5 should obviously have been highly sensitive?

Nope.

The State Department was pissed off that the CIA ever sent Wilson, and had no bones about sharing with anyone that Wilson’s wife helped send him to Niger, including her job as an analyst or “managerial” type.

Which is also why Richard Armitage told Novak and Woodward that Plame worked at the CIA, and set up the mission as a boondoggle for her husband.

Tada, mystery solved. Darn, the Bushies didn’t out Plame to punish Wilson for lying. That wily Armitage has ruined the whole story.
April 18th, 2006 at 8:28 pm

Up = Down.

Up = Down.

9 Responses to “Up = Down.”

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