Plame Twist: Kerry, Lugar may have blown agent's cover

Red herring. This has absolutely zip to do with Plame.

Nice attempt at diversion from the White House felon, though.

 

I would be referring to the thread title. If Kerry or anyone else broke the law, they should be prosecuted.

(just like the person who outed Plame)

 

Dude you have an obsession.

 

Me or him or both?

 

"Drudge tried to smear Kerry with false AP charge that he outed CIA operative"

Conservative Internet gossip Matt Drudge attempted to smear Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) by linking to an Associated Press report that falsely suggested that Kerry and Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard Lugar (R-IN) "may have blown" the cover of CIA officer Fulton Armstrong.

Drudge went further than the AP in implicating Kerry. Omitting Lugar's name, he titled the link simply "Kerry Blows CIA Agent Cover?..." The AP article, written by AP diplomatic writer Anne Gearan, reported that Kerry and Lugar both mentioned Armstrong by name during the April 11 Senate confirmation hearings of John Bolton, President Bush's nominee to be U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, and falsely suggested that they "may have blown his cover" by doing so.

In fact, while Bolton's critics had apparently not previously mentioned Armstrong in connection with allegations that Bolton tried to retaliate against an intelligence analyst who corrected the text of a speech he delivered, government, news, and non-profit sources had publicly identified Armstrong as a CIA officer on multiple occasions prior to the April 11 hearing. In claiming that Armstrong "works covertly," Gearan apparently overlooked several significant references

- Former intelligence official Larry C. Johnson referred to "a senior CIA analyst by the name of Fulton Armstrong" in a January 23, 2004, interview with Salon.com.

- A House International Relations Committee schedule for the week of February 24, 2003, identified "Mr. Fulton Armstrong (Invited), National Intelligence Officer for Latin America, CIA" as a possible witness for a hearing titled "Overview of U.S. Policy Toward the Western Hemisphere."

- A summary of a 2001 conference hosted by the National Intelligence Council (NIC), an agency that advises the director of central intelligence, titled "Prospects for WTO Trade Negotiations After Seattle: Foreign Strategies and Perspectives," identified Armstrong as a "National Intelligence Officer" for Latin America, a post within the NIC that "reports to the Director of Central Intelligence in his capacity as head of the US Intelligence Community."

- A listing of "expert speakers" on the website of the American Management Association identified "Fulton Armstrong, National Intelligence Officer for Latin America, long-time C.I.A. expert in the region." (That page is no longer posted on the website but is available through the Internet Archive Wayback Machine.)

The faulty AP story appeared in major newspapers including the Los Angeles Times, Newsday, and The Washington Post, which actually expunged Armstrong's name from the version of the story it published despite it having been widely reported both before the hearing, as noted above, and in coverage of the hearing.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200504120007

 

Whag, thank you for clearing that up. So neither Kerry nor Lugar outed anyone. That's good to know. If they had, they should pay.

It's ashame that folks like Drudge will continue to attempt inaccurate smear after inaccurate smear, and despite having been shown to be erroneous time and time again, some folks will eagerly believe it.

 

Those were the exact folks I was talking to when I mentioned that some people still listen to what Drudge has to say. The criticism was aimed at those people precisely.

It really flies in the face of all this 'liberal media' stuff we hear all the time.

 

One huge difference is that the CIA isn't claiming that he was outed. That was not the case with Valery Plame. If the CIA believes Lugar, and Kerry blew the man's cover, then there should be an immediate investigation, and if they committed a felony they should pay for it.

People from the WSJ, you and other apologists for the Plame felony can cry and moan about how unfair it all is, while ignoring little facts such as the CIA who has the ultimate say in such matters of covert status.

As far as your contention that it was just something to hang around Bush's neck during the election is ludicrous. I doubt the CIA was busy looking for any little ol' thing they could find to hang around Bush's neck. Secondly if you don't believe that exposing the cover a CIA operative involved in WMD investigations while we have troops in the field supposedly because of a WMD threat, then I ask you, Why do you hate America? Why don't you support our troops, who rely on such intel information as might be gathered by an operative like Plame?

 

The only reason that you don't think anything happend WRT Plame is that you have been blinded by the right.

You must be smoking something REALLY strong if you believe this.

If you took politics out of the Plame affair, someone would be rotting in prison right now.

If there has been an outing here, I would prefer that we charge whoever did the outing, sitting Senator or not.

 

The CIA is trying to get Bush? I've been paying attention and considering they let him get away with murder regarding intel and Iraq, I would hardly say that they are out to get him.

The CIA is out to get Bush, the Liberal Media is out to get Bush, Kerry was out to get Bush, Paul O'Neil was out to get Bush, Richard Clarke was out to get Bush, Colin Powell was out to get Bush, a long list of generals and other military personell were out to get Bush, Christine Todd Whitman was out to get Bush, Joe Wilson was out to get Bush, etc.

That poor guy. Bush never does anything wrong, and all those mean bad people are all out to get him. This administration is whining as much as Clinton's did during the Monica hype.

 

Figures, the polls are dipping and support is slipping, so what does basso do? He goes on an Anti-Kerry rampage. Just let him tire himself out guys.

 

I have it on the down low that John Kerry and Joe Wilson are gay lovers and that Kerry outed Valery Plame after a spat with Joe. This drove Val into an illicit affair with none other than Hillary Clinton, but unfortunately Billy C found out and black mailed them both into a menage a trois. All parties are openly worried about this every becoming public.

Remember you read it here first.

 

Holy crap I'm outraged without any care about whether this is true or not!