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MYTHS & FACTS ABOUT FIZGERALD INVESTIGATION
The unmasking of Valerie Plame was not an odd occurrence. It was part of a pattern of deliberate manipulation and disinformation. At the end of the day, American men and women have died because of this lie. It is up to the American people to hold the Bush administration accountable for these actions: Larry Johnson / Former Intelligence analyst .
What goes around, comes around ~ and the flagrant abuse of power that has been an ongoing trademark of the Cheney/Bush administration is now coming around to haunt them ~ if not indict them.
Already Cheney/Bush apologists like Bill Kristol and Fox News are screaming conspiracy and the new code word " criminalizing conservatives " ~ but it won't fly in light of the fact that Fitzgerald was hand-selected by the Bush administration to lead the investigation .
At times like this I turn to the Center for American Progress to separate the myths from the facts ~ and they are more than up to the task.
Allen L Roland
Criminal Rationalization
American Progress Action Fund [progress@americanprogressaction.org] 10/19/05
by Judd Legum, Faiz Shakir, Nico Pitney
Amanda Terkel, Payson Schwin and Christy Harvey
Right-wing commentator Bill Kristol has figured out what special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the CIA leak scandal is all about: criminalizing conservatives. (Along with his colleagues at Fox News, he is pushing the line repeatedly on TV.. According to Kristol's theory, Fitzgerald's probe is an example of "a kind of ideological criminalization" lead by "the left and the elite professions, including journalism and teaching, in which they predominate." Karl Rove and Scooter Libby are central figures, not because they did anything particularly wrong, but because they are among "the most prominent promoters of the conservative agenda of the Bush administration." There is one big problem with Kristol's argument: Fitzgerald was hand-selected by the Bush administration to lead the investigation. His appointment was announced by Deputy Attorney General James Comey on December 30, 2003. Comey said that Fitzgerald had been selected because of his "his sterling reputation for integrity and impartiality," calling him "an absolutely apolitical career prosecutor." President Bush agrees, recently applauding the “dignified way” in which Fitzgerald is conducting the probe.
Kristol's argument about the investigation may be totally baseless, but that doesn't mean he won't keep repeating it. It's just one of many myths being propagated by the right as Fitzgerald's investigation draws to a close.
MYTH -- LEAKING THE NAME OF A CIA OPERATIVE IS NO BIG DEAL: Kristol argues that the leak of Valerie Plame's identity is no big deal. According to Kristol, "In today’s Washington, as has been true for decades, classified information is leaked by many different players in any given policy fight in the government." It might offend Kristol's clubby Washington sensibilities, but exposing an undercover CIA agent is no ordinary leak. In a 1999 speech to the CIA, George H.W. Bush said he had "nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.” (Watch him say it.)
MYTH -- FITZGERALD WAS SUPPOSED TO BE INVESTIGATING THE INTELLIGENCE IDENTITIES PROTECTION ACT: The right is also arguing that Patrick Fitzgerald has exceeded his authority because he is only supposed to be investigating violations of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. New York Times columnist John Tierney compared Fitzgerald to "an inquisitor with the zeal of Captain Ahab - even more zeal, actually, because he'll keep hunting even after he learns there's no whale." Fitzgerald's investigation didn't actually have that limitation. In Comey's letter to Fitzgerald appointing him as special prosecutor, he wrote "I hereby delegate to you all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department’s investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee’s identity."
MYTH -- VALERIE WILSON WASN'T UNDERCOVER: This week, Fox News' Fred Barnes said, "Fitzgerald has had two years, two years to answer a simple question, and that is, was the law violated by someone having willfully exposed an undercover CIA agent? Now, we know that wasn’t true. Valerie Plame wasn’t even an undercover agent at the time." This is a classic right-wing argument, but it's still not true. In 2003, the New York Times reported, "[W]ithin the C.I.A., the exposure of Ms. Plame is now considered an even greater instance of treachery. Ms. Plame, a specialist in nonconventional weapons who worked overseas, had ‘nonofficial cover,’ and was what in C.I.A. parlance is called a Noc, the most difficult kind of false identity for the agency to create.”
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TRUTHTALK
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