How could she forget me? Valerie Plame and lawsuits

If she does expand the suit and add me to the list, I'll be sure to update things here so everyone can help contribute to my legal defense fund

You don't think she has a legitimate complaint? Because her husband contradicted the White House her career was ended out of sheer vindictiveness. She didn't want notoriety, she just wanted to continue to do her job.

Fame is a narcotic.  NOw that it has been proven in everything except a court of law that there was no crime, the fame is fleeting. The suit is to keep her name in the public eye.  She is addicted.

Time for the Methadone program for her and her publicist husband.

You don't think she has a legitimate complaint? Because her husband contradicted the White House her career was ended out of sheer vindictiveness. She didn't want notoriety, she just wanted to continue to do her job.

Can you really back up that claim Locamama? Or better yet can she or he? The answer is truly NO and the lawyers for these idiots may yet get to prove that in court as they try to get this suit through the system.

She (and he) both made use of their positions in ways that they shouldn't have. Both were incredibly *sloppy* with providing others information on who she worked for and in using their positions to help each other gain assignments (such as Wilson's trip to Niger).

So in answer to your first question, NO. She has no legitimate complaint. If she had maintained secrecy/cover and kept her identity concealed she'd still be in that job, he'd never have taken the trip and made swipes at the White House at all, and no one would care.

She also could have kept herself well concealed even after her name was released. She never needed to put out her pictures and his, and neither needed to provide any information to Vanity Fair, the New York Times, the Washington Post or a host of other outlets they used to further their causes and further profiteer from their exposure.

Because her husband contradicted the White House her career was ended out of sheer vindictiveness. She didn't want notoriety, she just wanted to continue to do her job.

I hope you understand that her husband was shown to be a fraud. We have documented that with Senate reports that showed his "conclusions" were basically bs.

You don't think she has a legitimate complaint? Because her husband contradicted the White House her career was ended out of sheer vindictiveness.

You need to read up on what actually happened, Locamama - "they" didn't do anything, much less out of vindictiveness. The truth is there was no orchestrated administration campaign to "get even" with Joe Wilson by disclosing his wife's employment at the CIA. The notion that doing so would do anything to undermine Wilson is silly, anyway. Bob Novak found out Wilson's wife worked at the CIA (something Wilson himself had already disclosed, I do believe), found out her name on his own by looking it up in Who's Who, for crying out loud, confirmed her employment by simply asking the CIA, and printed the story. End of story. I'll be very surprised if she's able to collect so much as a nickel. The whole point of the suit is to fluff her book deal, though the statute of limitations and their disappointment over Rove not getting "frogmarched" out of the White House in cuffs had a lot to do with the timing, I'm sure.

So if there was no wrong doing why was Scooter Libby indicted? If there was no validity to Joe Wilson's findings in Africa why did George Tenet, former head of the CIA, say that Bush should not have included that info in his state of the union speech?

So if there was no wrong doing why was Scooter Libby indicted? If there was no validity to Joe Wilson's findings in Africa why did George Tenet, former head of the CIA, say that Bush should not have included that info in his state of the union speech?

First, Scooter was indicted for perjury.  As bob Novak (the original publisher of the information) has already said, the DA already knew the source of the information in july 2004, yet never indicted a soul.

Second, Tenet is a FORMER head of the CIA.  Dont you think the CURRENT head of the CIA carries more weight with Bush?

Two things, Locamama:

Libby's indictment accuses him only of lying to a grand jury under oath. That has yet to be proven, of course - the legal standard for obtaining an indictment is far lower than the standard required for conviction. Nothing in the indictment relates in any way to having unlawfully disclosed the name of any CIA agent, let alone Plame.

Tenet in fact personally & specifically vetted those "16 words" - he later said he wished he hadn't, but not for the reason you presume. Wilson's "findings" were never in dispute; they were duly considered & analyzed by the CIA. The majority opinion was that his findings did not contradict the suspicion that Saddam was fishing for yellowcake, and in fact tended to support that suspicion (as judged by the Senate committee which investigated his report after the fact). Wilson's "claims" in the NYT article, as opposed to his actual "findings," were the bone of contention, since they were at odds with the truth of the matter. There was also the matter of his disclosing information from a classified report that he had no authority to disclose (the question of why he wasn't required to sign an NDA for that report is still unanswered).

One other observation. Your comments and questions confirm for me the power of the mainstream media, driven by their blinding hatred of all things Bush, to sabotage the truth through innuendo & repetition, encouraging otherwise intelligent & thoughtful folks to arrive at conclusions quite unsupported by facts.

Link

Okay here is a link of the actual indictment against Scooter Libby. I don't think I'm the one who has the facts wrong in this case. I haven't seen one source linked to back up everyone's assertations about this issue. Every source I have found backs up my perception of the plame affair. These have all been newspaper articles. Though I will admit that I other than finding the indictment, I am having a hard time finding a "just the facts" article about this situation. I would like to find a good, unbiased source to research things but I'm coming up blank. Does anyone know of any unbiased websites?

The punchline of the whole stupid non story is that, in the end, Novak got the confirmation that Valarie Plamme worked for the CIA, by Calling the CIA and asking! There was nothing "secret" or "covert" about her employment at the CIA, it was information readily available with a simple phone call!

The real story here is the lies that Joe Wilson told, and how his wife got a Kerry Campaign Employee on the trip to Niger. So far, the only liars in this case are Valarie and Joe themselves. Oh and maybe Fitzgerald for perpetuating an investigation for years after he knew there wasn't a case.

As for leaving you out of the lawsuit... apparently you should have been included, since the suit is against people who did nothing wrong.

Reply By: LocamamaPosted: Friday, July 14, 2006 Link

No one is making assertions.  We are stating facts.  And if you read the indictment, you will see it is for Perjury.  Not leaking a secret.  If you like, we can provide you with Bob Novak's own column where he states the told the DA who the leaker was.  If you are not going to believe Novak, just fold up your tent and go home.  Cause nothing is going to convince you of anything.

Okay here is a link of the actual indictment against Scooter Libby. I don't think I'm the one who has the facts wrong in this case. I haven't seen one source linked to back up everyone's assertations about this issue.

The long preamble in the indictment setting up the circumstances in which Fitzgerald alleges Libby perjured himself is all about what he knew of Plame and when (anyone hear the echo of Howard Baker?), but there is absolutely no evidence in that indictment which even hints at, much less lends credence to, the allegation that the administration conducted an orchestrated smear campaign against Wilson, the principle weapon of which was the unlawful disclosure of his wife's name and role in the CIA.

If there had been any evidence of that, someone would have been indicted for it. Noone here has to prove something didn't happen. The burden of proof is on those alleging that a crime was committed or that a smear campaign was conducted and so far that burden has not been met, not by Fitzgerald or anyone else.

I guess the true test will be how far this lawsuit goes. If it goes to trial or gets thrown out before. If it does make it to trial whether it is found in Plame's favor. A civil suit has a completely different burden of proof than a criminal one. Preponderance of evidence instead of beyond a reasonable doubt.

Also I notice that though everyone keeps disputing the facts in the Plame Affair not one person has offered a link backing up their perception of the issue.

Also I notice that though everyone keeps disputing the facts in the Plame Affair not one person has offered a link backing up their perception of the issue.

With due respect, Locamama, and once more with feeling, innocence does not require proof, only guilt.

You already have the indictment, which should be source enough, but you want links, we got links:

Senate Committee Report Link

Butler Report (UK) Link

I guess the true test will be how far this lawsuit goes. If it goes to trial or gets thrown out before. If it does make it to trial whether it is found in Plame's favor. A civil suit has a completely different burden of proof than a criminal one. Preponderance of evidence instead of beyond a reasonable doubt.

An indictment has an even lower burden and Fitzgerald couldn't get one (or wouldn't - he hasn't said which, and he won't since GJ proceedings are supposed to remain sealed).

Plame will have a very steep hill to climb to make her case, which I don't believe she thinks has a snowball's chance in hell. The suit serves chiefly to maintain the buzz long enough for her book to come out & for her to cash in. Anyone who thinks her "career was harmed" needs to see the Wilson's tax return for 2000 and compare it with their return for 2005 (no I haven't seen them, but I doubt 10 years of her CIA salary would approach her book advance & Joe's speech fees).

So if there was no wrong doing why was Scooter Libby indicted?

if there was no evildoing, why did not novak, rove & libby simply come forward to admit and explain everything that's since come to light?

why did the whitehouse so steadfastly deny any involvement?

if there was no evildoing, why did not novak, rove & libby simply come forward to admit and explain everything that's since come to light? why did the whitehouse so steadfastly deny any involvement?

There you go with that hazy "involvement" thing again. They did not believe anyone intentionally leaked Plame's name, and certainly noone internally confessed to having done so, and further Fitzgerald found no evidence that anyone did; hence, there was no reason to "admit" involvement.

Since there was no Oz hiding behind the curtain manipulating the whole thing, I don't think any one of them knew exactly who told what to whom when. You know perfectly well that noone in DC goes looking for shit to step in. The huffing & puffing accusations of an orchestrated smear campaign, violation of national security statutes, demands for a special prosecutor, yada yada - all that started within hours of Novak's article being published. Nothing good could come of volunteering to sort it out for the press at that point. When the water's full of sharks, you don't slit your wrist if you can avoid it.

This whole fiasco has been a demonstration of the political equivalent of the Swiss cheese theory of accidents - the one they use to explain how a set of seemingly unrelated events or points of vulnerability manage to "line up" in just the right way and result in a crash. Most plane crashes are unintentional. In this case, the media's logic went something like this: "A plane crashed. We know the copilot must have sabotaged it on purpose - there's no other explanation, at least none we're willing to believe. And what the hell was the pilot doing, anyway?"