Althouse: "You won’t believe this (or maybe you will). The LA Times claims that Scooter Libby 'leaked' the name of Valerie Plame."

May 27, 2014

"You won’t believe this (or maybe you will). The LA Times claims that Scooter Libby 'leaked' the name of Valerie Plame."

"As we all know the leak came from Richard Armitage. I wonder how a mistake like that got by all those editors and fact checkers. The reference was in [an] article about the White House blowing the identity of the CIA station chief in Afghanistan."

39 comments:

Henry said...: The three stages of disbelief:

"You won’t believe this (or maybe you will)."

"Could there have been room for a simple misunderstanding...?"

"Intellectual disability is a condition, not a number..."; 5/27/14, 9:13 PM
Unknown said...: I smell libel; 5/27/14, 9:14 PM
Original Mike said...: "or maybe you will"

Who can claim to be surprised?; 5/27/14, 9:23 PM
jr565 said...: Because they beleive their own talking points. Just like George Zimmerman "stalked" Trayvon. Don't let facts get in the way of a good story.; 5/27/14, 9:28 PM
MayBee said...: Scooter Libby got convicted when prosecutors compared his memory about Plame to the memory of journalists.

And now journalists can't remember what Libby got convicted for.; 5/27/14, 9:33 PM
Drago said...: As mentioned in other threads: folks like cookie and ARM and garage and the other crazies on the left are so invested in the Bush/Cheney leaked it meme that basic facts must be ignored and alternate, more "useful" facts be put forth.

9-11 Truthers.

October Surprise Truthers.

Scooter Libby/Bush/Cheney leakers.

These are theories that are articles of faith and received wisdom on the left.

The major media, as an arm of the democrats, simply will not allow their (the media) perfidy to be made clear.

Expect more of this over the next week or so right up to the time that the media deems it "old news" and therefore beyond the pale to mention, quickly becoming a "move on.org" and "What difference, at this point, does it make" event.; 5/27/14, 9:39 PM
Darrell said...: The memory of journalists was refuted by hard evidence like the phone LUDs. And Libby's lawyer getting the respected journalist to admit that his journals were contemporaneous--he often wrote up his memories weeks later. But wahat should that matter to a jury wher two members were spouting stuff from Kos and the DU that was never presented at trial? Another day Justice died.; 5/27/14, 9:43 PM
Drago said...: Darrell: "But wahat should that matter to a jury wher two members were spouting stuff from Kos and the DU that was never presented at trial? Another day Justice died."

The best hammer the dems have is the potential to drag Rep's/cons/libertarians in front of DC juries.

That's solid Democrat Underground territory and no republican/conservative/libertarian is going to get a fair shake there.

Libby was convicted of not agreeing with the non-contemporaneous notes put down by liberal reporters.

The then the liberal press used that to hide the fact that it was anti-BushCheney Armitage who leaked plames role in assigning wilson.

SOP for the left.; 5/27/14, 9:55 PM
Beldar said...: See more generally: "L.A. Times: Leaker of Valerie Plame Identity Was [strikeout]Richard Armitage[/strikeout] Scooter Libby" and the comments thereto.; 5/27/14, 10:07 PM
gk1 said...: Like the George Bush holding a "plastic turkey" for the Troops in Iraq, this lie will never die. The left is emotionally bonded to this lie as they are to the Scooter Libbie outed Plame lie. Their moral righteousness is wrapped up with the lie to the point even if they concede they are wrong on the facts, they are still "right"; 5/27/14, 10:08 PM
Skeptical Voter said...: Look as a long suffering subscriber tot he Los Angeles Times (I admit it, I have a morning newspaper habit wherever I am), I realize that the Los Angeles Times ceased to be a serious newspaper many years ago.

And this particular "boot" is pretty much the daily ration of crapola we get from the ignoranuses on the LA Times newsroom staff.; 5/27/14, 10:14 PM
Beldar said...: @ Uknown (5/27/14, 9:14 PM), who wrote, "I smell libel."

That could be. Libby's sentence wasn't commuted, contrary to what the LA Times reported just now, rather, it was commuted only in part, as to imprisonment, leaving in place his felony conviction for offenses of moral turpitude (perjury and obstruction of justice) that will likely forever bar his reinstitution to the bar, substantial fines, a quarter-million-dollar fine, and a supervised probation (that has already been completed without incident).

However, Libby will never sue anyone for libel or slander, regardless of the factual inaccuracies of the LA Times report. It's not his style, and regardless, as a matter of law (see the defamation doctrine of "substantial truth"), he already had no good reputation for a libel or slander to destroy.; 5/27/14, 10:20 PM
traditionalguy said...: But the wonderful George W. Bush never pardoned the convicted man. So he remains the scapegoat.; 5/27/14, 10:40 PM
cubanbob said...: The blonde bimbo who was never a real covert agent outed herself when she arranged to have her hack diplomat husband assigned to do the yellowcake investigation. So a prosecutor with no ethics convicted a man for nothing. Makes for a compelling reason to strip prosecutors of their immunity.; 5/27/14, 11:06 PM
Drago said...: gk1: "Like the George Bush holding a "plastic turkey" for the Troops in Iraq, this lie will never die."

We just had cookie on here yesterday insisting that despite the fact that it was anti-Bush/Cheney-Iraq policy Armitage (who worked for anti-Bush/Cheney-Iraq policy Powell) working with anti-Bush/Cheney-Iraq policy Novak that exposed Plame it was still all the fault of the Bush/Cheney "cabal".; 5/27/14, 11:12 PM
Paul G said...: The LA Times correction is just dying for a withering Althousian response: "An article in the May 27 Section A stated that former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby disclosed that former intelligence official Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. Former State Department official Richard Armitage said he was the first to disclose that Plame worked for the agency."

Count the dissemblings: no admission that the original statement was false, Armitage "said" he was the first to disclose (as if there is some reason to doubt his admission), and "first to disclose" implies that there were multiple leaks and Armitage was merely the first.

Come on!; 5/27/14, 11:23 PM
RecChief said...: it's not a mistake.
next.; 5/27/14, 11:33 PM
RecChief said...: @Drago -
This from the WAPO film critic Ann Hornaday:

"In Washington, watching fact-based political movies has become a sport all its own, with viewers hyper-alert to mistakes, composite characters or real stories hijacked by political agendas. But what audiences often fail to take into account is that a too-literal allegiance to the facts can sometimes obscure a larger truth.

...Thus, the movies about Washington that get the right stuff right - or get some stuff wrong but in the right way - become their own form of consensus history. "Follow the money," then, assumes its own totemic truth. Ratified through repeated viewings in theaters, on Netflix and beyond, these films become a mutual exercise in creating a usable past. We watch them to be entertained, surely, and maybe educated. But we keep watching them in order to remember."

Shorter: If you just repeat a lie often enough, it becomes the truth you want.; 5/27/14, 11:36 PM
gk1 said...: I hope republican's learn a thing or two from obama on how to handle a scandal. Whenever the opposition thinks you should assign a special prosecutor tell them to go bight a fart like obama does. Sure the democrats with bylines will give you crap but who really cares what they think at this stage?; 5/28/14, 12:31 AM
Saint Croix said...: My brother, who is a PhD, believes that Scooter Libby outed Valerie Plame, and it was intentional. A lot of liberals believe this. Hollywood spent millions of dollars to make a movie about this conspiracy, a "conspiracy" that many Republicans think is a joke.

My brother, who consumes as much journalism as I do, thinks there are no scandals in the Obama administration at all. He thinks Benghazi is a joke.

It's almost like our news is segregated now, with right-wingers getting right-wing news and liberals getting liberal news.; 5/28/14, 5:59 AM
Brando said...: The entire coverage of that story at the time was offensively poor. It was taken as an accepted fact that some war hawk in the Bush administration leaked Plame to punish her husband, perhaps at the orders of Bush or Cheney. The anti-war left was so outraged by this you'd have thought fire would flow from their ears.

Then, when it turns out the leaker was no hawk but a war critic, Richard Armitage, and the leak was not to punish Plame but to try and discredit the case for the war--media interest in the story dropped like a stone. This should have been the equivalent of finding out that the Watergate break-in was orchestrated by Archie Cox himself, but everyone was moving on to the next story.

It's not surprising half the country doesn't trust the media from an ideological standpoint, and the other half doesn't trust it from a competence standpoint.; 5/28/14, 6:54 AM
mezzrow said...: Ve vill conform to ze narratif, ze trruth be dammt. When ze hiztory is wrrriten, it vill come out OUR way.

or:

red pill or blue pill. your choice.; 5/28/14, 7:02 AM
Larry J said...: Saint Croix said...
My brother, who is a PhD, believes that Scooter Libby outed Valerie Plame, and it was intentional. A lot of liberals believe this. Hollywood spent millions of dollars to make a movie about this conspiracy, a "conspiracy" that many Republicans think is a joke.

My brother, who consumes as much journalism as I do, thinks there are no scandals in the Obama administration at all. He thinks Benghazi is a joke.

No offense, but this just proves once again that you can get a Ph.D. and still be stupid.; 5/28/14, 7:23 AM
tim in vermont said...: Funny how Cookie showed up on the gay marriage thread, but not here.; 5/28/14, 7:59 AM
Hagar said...: "Leaked" or "disclosed" is already tendentious language. Armitage was just gossiping to Novak about the inside Beltway chic scene.

And as the #2 man at State and the #1 career official, he knew to distinguish between official secrets and party gossip.; 5/28/14, 8:02 AM
damikesc said...: LAYERS of fact checkers.

LAYERS!; 5/28/14, 8:20 AM
Hagar said...: Wasn't the story Novak told at the time that Armitage just told him it was Valerie Plame at the CIA who had recommended Joe Wilson for the Niger mission, and that Novak then looked up Valerie Plame in his Washington Who is Who and found that she also was Mrs. Joseph C. Wilson IV?
And Armitage claimed he had not known that?; 5/28/14, 8:23 AM
Robert Cook said...: "We just had cookie on here yesterday insisting that despite the fact that it was anti-Bush/Cheney-Iraq policy Armitage (who worked for anti-Bush/Cheney-Iraq policy Powell) working with anti-Bush/Cheney-Iraq policy Novak that exposed Plame it was still all the fault of the Bush/Cheney 'cabal.'"

Yep! 'twas, indeed.; 5/28/14, 8:40 AM
Robert Cook said...: "Funny how Cookie showed up on the gay marriage thread, but not here."

Jesus, am I obliged to comment on every iteration of every thread on a subject I've commented on? Sometimes I lack the time, sometimes the interest, and sometimes I don't see the thread.

Sometimes, when I've said what I have to say, I see no reason to say it again, and to continue to correct everyone all over and over again.

Sometimes.

Sometimes I can't help myself.; 5/28/14, 8:47 AM
Drago said...: Cook: "Yep! 'twas, indeed."

Feel free to elaborate.

don't be afraid to explain the motivations of Armitage and how his attempts to undermine the Bush policy on Iraq was actually "double-reverse secret squirrelly" an attempt to buttress the Bush policy.

And then perhaps you'd like to tackle that other leftist axiom that fire can't melt steel.

All should be quite entertaining.; 5/28/14, 9:09 AM
Hagar said...: And Valerie Plame's story was that she had been at a meeting where the CIA honchos were yukking it up about this silly request they had got from the Vice-President's office to investigate this ridiculous claim by British intelligence that Saddam Hussein had been buying yellowcake in Niger, so she piped up and suggested they send her husband, who had just retired from the State Dept. and was hanging around the house with nothing to do, and they could use the money, what with 3 small children and all.
And they said, well what the hell, it is waste of money, but at least it will do the Wilsons some good, and Valerie is such a nice person.

And that is how it all started.; 5/28/14, 9:20 AM
tim maguire said...: It's one of the more dishonest corrections I've read: We said Libby leaked the name, but it turns out Armitage was the first to disclose (so Libby was a leaker, just not the first one). But either way, that darn Bush was out to get her.

http://www.latimes.com/nation/nationnow/la-na-nn-white-house-cia-name-afghanistan-20140526-story.html; 5/28/14, 9:37 AM
tim maguire said...: Saint Croix, I've found that to be true as well--it's not just that liberals and conservatives have widely divergent takes on the news, they're actually reading different news. They're reacting to entirely different sets of scandals.

Conservatives rarely hear much about what the liberals are all up in arms over, and liberals never hear much about what the conservatives are all up in arms over.; 5/28/14, 9:41 AM
Marty Keller said...: Bush Derangement Syndrome--alive and well.; 5/28/14, 10:00 AM
Sam L. said...: "When the legend is bigger than the truth, print the legend." Or something close to that, in "The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance".

Also, when it hides the truth, and promotes your story.; 5/28/14, 12:46 PM
Hagar said...: Tim, Tim,
Pay attention; Scooter Libby was not prosecuted for "leaking" Valerie Plame's identity. He was prosecuted - and convicted - of lying to the FBI - though they had no actual record of the interview - impeding an official investigation, etc., and so forth, and the subject of contention was the identity of just who told him about Valerie Plame, not whom he told.

It would not have mattered anyway, since it was all over town by the time Libby heard about it.

Scooter Libby was essentially prosecuted and convicted of being Dick Cheney's chief of staff. Just that.; 5/28/14, 12:50 PM
mikee said...: Brando, there is no avoiding the conclusion that the media is both incredibly incompetent and maliciously biased.

One does not rule out the other.

In fact, being incompetent is an added incentive to follow a biased narrative rather than objective facts in a news story.

And being maliciously biased sort of requires one to overlook a lot of inconvenient truths.; 5/28/14, 4:05 PM
Paul said...: Honest truth is...

Liberals will try to find anything to show Obama's administration is not stupid.

Twist any fact, fake any news, dream up any story...; 5/28/14, 5:09 PM
Drago said...: And PRESTO!!

Cookie disappears when he realizes his nonsensical assertions can not be defended.; 5/28/14, 11:23 PM