Dude, get outta here! Another operatic bass on the BBS? What are the chances? Oberlin (hotbed of liberalism!!!), Cincinnatti, eventually JOC- which used to be AOC, that basso was at. Small world.
ok, so it's worldnet daily and fox news, but a retired US army general claims Joe Wilson told him and his wife "Muffin" in 2002 that his wife worked at the agency...predictably, Wilson is claiming the general and Muffin are Big Fat Liars! http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47242 -- THE PLAME GAME Analyst says Wilson 'outed' wife in 2002 Disclosed in casual conversations a year before Novak column By Art Moore © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com A retired Army general says the man at the center of the CIA leak controversy, Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, revealed his wife Valerie Plame's employment with the agency in a casual conversation more than a year before she allegedly was "outed" by the White House through a columnist. Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely told WorldNetDaily that Wilson mentioned Plame's status as a CIA employee over the course of at least three, possibly five, conversations in 2002 in the Fox News Channel's "green room" in Washington, D.C., as they waited to appear on air as analysts. Vallely and Wilson both were contracted by Fox News to discuss the war on terror as the U.S. faced off with Iraq in the run-up to the spring 2003 invasion. Vallely says, according to his recollection, Wilson mentioned his wife's job in the spring of 2002 – more than a year before Robert Novak's July 14, 2003, column identified her, citing senior administration officials, as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." "He was rather open about his wife working at the CIA," said Vallely, who retired in 1991 as the Army's deputy commanding general in the Pacific. Vallely made his claim in an interview Thursday night on the ABC radio network's John Batchelor show. Vallely told WND that, in his opinion, it became clear over the course of several conversations that Wilson had his own agenda, as the ambassador's analysis of the war and its surrounding politics strayed from reality. "He was a total self promoter," Vallely said. "I don't know if it was out of insecurity, to make him feel important, but he's created so much turmoil, he needs to be investigated and put under oath." The only indictment in Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's two-year investigation came one week ago when Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was charged with one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of making false statements and two counts of perjury in the case. He could face up to 30 years in prison and $1.25 million in fines if convicted on all five counts. Vallely said, citing CIA colleagues, that in addition to his conversations with Wilson, the ambassador was proud to introduce Plame at cocktail parties and other social events around Washington as his CIA wife. "That was pretty common knowledge," he said. "She's been out there on the Washington scene many years." If Plame were a covert agent at the time, Vallely said, "he would not have paraded her around as he did." "This whole thing has become the biggest non-story I know," he concluded, "and all created by Joe Wilson." Fitzgerald has been investigating whether Plame's identity was leaked by the White House as retaliation against Wilson for his assertion that the Bush administration made false claims about Iraq's attempt to buy nuclear material in Africa. Wilson traveled to Niger in February 2002 on a CIA-sponsored trip to check out the allegations about Iraq and wrote up his findings in a July 6, 2003, New York Times opinion piece titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa." White House defenders insist the aides simply were setting the record straight about Wilson, seeking to put his credibility in context by pointing out it was Plame who helped him get the CIA consulting job. Wilson denied his wife's role initially, but a bipartisan report by the Senate panel documented it. Wilson declared in the column that his trip revealed the Iraq-Niger connection was dubious, but his oral report to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence actually corroborated the controversial "16 words" in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Libby's charges pertained only to the investigation itself, not the 1982 act that made it illegal to blow a covert U.S. agent's cover. The Washington attorney who spearheaded the drafting of that law told WND earlier this year that Plame's circumstances don't meet the statute's criteria. Victoria Toensing – who worked on the legislation in her role as chief counsel for the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence – said Plame most likely was not a covert agent when White House aides mentioned her to reporters. The federal code says the agent must have operated outside the United States within the previous five years. But Plame gave up her role as a covert agent nine years before the Rove interview, according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof. Kristof said the CIA brought Plame back to Washington in 1994 because the agency suspected her undercover security had been compromised by turncoat spy Aldrich Ames. Wilson's own book, "The Politics of Truth," states he and Plame both returned from overseas assignments in June 1997 and never again were stationed overseas – placing them in Washington at least six years before the 2003 "outing." Moreover, asserted Toensing, for the law to be violated, White House aides would have had to intentionally reveal Plame's identity with the knowledge that they were disclosing a covert agent.
and more http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=47289 -- THE PLAME GAME General wants Wilson apology Threatened again with lawsuit over claim of 'outing' CIA wife By Art Moore © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com Maj. Gen. (Ret.) Paul Vallely Threatened with a lawsuit for "slander," retired Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely is turning the tables on Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, calling on the man at the center of the CIA leak controversy to offer a public apology for accusing him of lying. As WorldNetDaily reported, Vallely claimed Wilson revealed wife Valerie Plame's employment with the CIA to him in a casual conversation the year before she allegedly was "outed" by columnist Robert Novak. Vallely said he brought up Wilson's disclosure last week because he saw Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation of the alleged leak as unfinished. Wilson, he said, has made so many misstatements of fact, "but nobody has taken him to task." Why Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald did not question Wilson and Plame under oath, "is a mystery to me," Vallely said. Meanwhile, Wilson's lawyer Christopher Wolf notified Vallely and WorldNetDaily that his office mailed an official demand letter yesterday threatening a lawsuit unless the general retracts his claim. The letter follows an e-mail Saturday to both Vallely and WND warning of legal action. Wolf warned Vallely "the claim that Ambassador Wilson revealed to you or anyone that his wife worked for the CIA is patently false, and subjects you and anyone publishing your statements to legal liability." But Vallely said Monday he still has no intention of backing down. He first made the claim in an interview on the ABC radio network's John Batchelor show Thursday night. Since speaking with WND late Friday, Vallely has clarified the number of occasions Wilson mentioned his wife's status and when the conversation occurred. After recalling further over the weekend his contacts with Wilson, Vallely says now it was on just one occasion – the first of several conversations – that the ambassador revealed his wife's employment with the CIA and that it likely occurred some time in the late summer or early fall of 2002. He is certain, he says, the conversation took place in 2002. Wilson admits to two encounters with Vallely, the first in July 2002. Fox News Channel would not provide information about Wilson's and Vallely's appearances, but WABC's Batchelor told WND his staff has found that Wilson appeared on the network at least 25 times from Aug. 13 to Dec. 31 of 2002 and that Vallely appeared from 150 to 200 times during that year. After two years of investigating the CIA leak allegations, Fitzgerald's only indictment – of vice presidential Chief of Staff I. Lewis Libby Oct. 28 – pertained to the investigation itself, not the 1982 law that made it illegal to blow a covert U.S. agent's cover, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. One of the key drafters of the law, Washington attorney Victoria Toensing, told WND earlier this year she believed it did not apply to Plame. Fitzgerald has been probing whether Plame's identity was leaked by the White House as retaliation against Wilson for his assertion that the Bush administration made false claims about Iraq's efforts to buy nuclear material in Africa. Wilson traveled to Niger in February 2002 on a CIA-sponsored trip to check out the allegations about Iraq and wrote up his findings in a July 6, 2003, New York Times opinion piece titled, "What I Didn't Find in Africa." White House defenders insist the White House aides simply were setting the record straight about Wilson, seeking to put his credibility in context by pointing out it was Plame who helped him get the CIA consulting job. Wilson denied his wife's role initially, but a bipartisan report by the Senate panel documented it. Wilson declared in the column that his trip revealed the Iraq-Niger connection was dubious, but his oral report to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence actually corroborated the controversial "16 words" in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Widely known? At least two veteran reporters say Valerie Plame's association with the CIA was widely known, and a prominent analyst on military and political affairs, Victor Davis Hanson, told WorldNetDaily his own green-room encounter with Wilson revealed a man who is unusually free with personal information to strangers. Former Time magazine correspondent Hugh Sidey told the New York Sun in a story published Sunday. "[Plame's] name was knocking around in the sub rosa world we live in for a long time." NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell, in an appearance on CNBC's "Capitol Report," Oct. 3, 2003, was asked how widely it was known in Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. "It was widely known among those of us who cover the intelligence community and who were actively engaged in trying to track down who among the foreign service community was the envoy to Niger," she said. Hanson, a Hoover Institution fellow and National Review columnist, told WND that like Vallely, he had a casual but unusually frank conversation with Wilson in the Fox News green room before appearing on the air with the ambassador some time, he believes, in early 2003. But contrary to a report, Hanson said Wilson did not disclose his wife's CIA employment. Nevertheless, Hanson found the first-time encounter to be revealing, describing Wilson as being very "indiscreet" and "unguarded" with personal information, rambling in a "stream of consciousness" manner. "It was almost as if he were bored; he was non-stop talkative and sort of self-absorbed," Hanson said. "When I left, I seemed to know a lot about Joe Wilson that he had spontaneously offered to a stranger." While Wilson did not tell Hanson anything of his wife's CIA connection, Hanson was a witness to an intense 30-minute conversation between the ambassador and The Nation magazine Editor David Corn, who apparently were meeting for the first time. Corn's July 16, 2003, column was the first published mention of Wilson's claim that the White House intentionally had "outed" Plame as retaliation for the Niger report. Entitled "A White House Smear," Corn's column said, "Soon after Wilson disclosed his trip in the media and made the White House look bad, the payback came. Novak's July 14, 2003, column presented the back-story on Wilson's mission and contained the following sentences: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate" the allegation. Corn claims Wilson never confirmed whether his wife was a covert agent, yet he writes: Without acknowledging whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee, Wilson says, "Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames." Corn concluded: "The Wilson smear was a thuggish act. Bush and his crew abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security."
Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely told WorldNetDaily that Wilson mentioned Plame's status as a CIA employee over the course of at least three, possibly five, conversations in 2002 in the Fox News Channel's "green room" in Washington, D.C., as they waited to appear on air as analysts. This just in from Fox News. WMD have been found in Iraq, just like Bush said we would. Film at 11.
I don't know why they aren't upfront about it, and declare Fox News an arm of the new Department of Propaganda. Keep D&D Civil.
Please note, while the incident may have occured on the premises of the fox news dc bureau, fox did not originate this report.
i'd only work on brit hume's show, otherwise it's a bit, uhmmm, noisy for me. although i wouldn't mind seeing laurie dhue and another fox babe going at it in a bathroom stall...
No one could ever accuse Hume of being noisy. I have an audio recording of snippets of Bret, which I use for insomnia. It works better than Ambien. I highly recommend it. You are, even if indirectly, assisting millions of Americans to reach a state of complete, if slightly queasy, stupor, for which I commend you, basso. Keep D&D Civil.
and yet, the general seems a respectable guy. are you suggesting he didn't say what he said, which, btw, he's now repeated on air. are not his charges as least as believable as, oh, say, those of a wildly anti-american italian journalist?
Senior Senate Democrats, including Sen. Harry Reid (D-NV), Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) asked President Bush to pledge that he would not pardon anyone convicted in connection with the CIA leak investigation. November 8, 2005 The Honorable George W. Bush The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President: The indictment of I. Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney№s Chief of Staff, marks the first time in 131 years that a senior White House official has been charged with a crime while still serving in the White House. The charges, while not yet proven, are extraordinarily serious and deeply disturbing. Although it is too early to judge Mr. Libby guilty or innocent of these particular charges, it is not too early for you to reassure the American people that you understand the enormous gravity of the allegations. To this end, we urge you to pledge that if Mr. Libby or anyone else is found guilty vof a crime in connection with Patrick Fitzgerald№s investigation, you will not exercise your authority to issue a Presidential pardon. It is crucial that you make clear in advance that, if convicted, Mr. Libby will not be able to rely on his close relationship with you or Vice President Cheney to obtain the kind of extraordinarily special treatment unavailable to ordinary Americans. In addition you should do nothing to undermine Mr. Fitzgerald№s investigation or diminish accountability in your White House. A pardon in these circumstances would signal that this White House considers itself above the law. We also urge you to state publicly whether anyone in the White House B including White House counsel Harriet Miers or Vice President Cheney B has already discussed the possibility of a pardon with Mr. Libby. Particularly given that the American people are still in the dark about what precisely transpired in the White House with respect to the CIA leak, it would be highly inappropriate if there were such discussions going on behind the scenes. Swift public action on your part will make clear that you take seriously perjury and obstruction of justice at the highest levels of our government and that you meant what you said about bringing Ahonor and dignity@ to the White House. We eagerly await your response and hope that you will announce your intentions promptly.
It looks like the general made this sh*t up. Swift Boating Joseph Wilson Won't Work I can't believe I took the time to do this, but I did. At the end of the post you will find all of the same day appearances, times included, for 2002 for Joseph Wilson and Paul Vallely. [Source: Lexis.com] With the possible exception of one date, September 12, when they were on different segments of Studio B with Shepard Smith, they would not have been in the green room within hours of each together. And even that date is dubious unless Vallely arrived very early for his segment.
read the original article. Vallely says he was incorrect about the spring dates, and said it occurred in the fall. also, in his defense, he's 65, and as joe wilson said about being over 50, he sometimes forgets dates.
first the guy's story keeps changing. second even if the guy believes what he said, we then have to accept that he gets confused about little details. The conversation could have easily gone something like this. Gen:What does your wife do? Wilson:She works for the govt. after a good deal of time passes and the Plame leak happens the general believes he remember being told about what Wilson's wife did Gen: She couldn't have been undercover Wilson told me what she did. Either way this is hardly compelling evidence of anything.
