Valerie Plame

Discredited 'Journalist' Jason Leopold Pesters Valerie Plame with Karl Rove Fixation
By P.J. Gladnick | November 19, 2007 | 9:14 AM EST

What do you do when your heavily hyped book plummets from number 6 on the New York Times bestseller list to a mere 299 on Amazon.com in just a matter of a few weeks? If you're Valerie Plame, you turn to discredited "journalist" Jason Leopold for self-hype help as you can see in this video. Howard Kurtz has written of Leopold's dubious background in a March 9, 2005 Washington Post article:

Jason Leopold got a journalistic black eye three years ago when Salon retracted a story the freelancer had written about a Bush administration official, saying it could not authenticate the piece.

Now the former Los Angeles Times and Dow Jones reporter has written a book, "Off the Record," that criticizes journalists as lazy. Oh, and by the way, Leopold says he engaged in "lying, cheating and backstabbing," is a former cocaine addict, served time for grand larceny, repeatedly tried to kill himself and has battled mental illness his whole life.

Blitzer Asks Richard Armitage About Valerie Plame Leak
By Brad Wilmouth | November 11, 2007 | 10:36 PM EST

On Sunday's "Late Edition," CNN host Wolf Blitzer asked former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage about his role in accidentally leaking that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA, an event often ignored as most media coverage has focused on Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

Fame Game: Plame Protests Too Much
By Mark Finkelstein | October 29, 2007 | 8:36 AM EDT

With a little help from Joe Scarborough, Valerie Plame Wilson tried this morning to paint herself as someone who, far from seeking "Vanity Fair" fame, had celebrity thrust upon her in a moment of distraction. Right.

And try this quick quiz:

Q. Is it possible to get through an extended interview of Valerie Plame Wilson without mentioning Richard Armitage?

A. Yes, if Joe Scarborough is the interviewer.

Valerie Plame Hates The Washington Post, Compares It to Pravda
By Tim Graham | October 28, 2007 | 7:53 AM EDT

In her interview tour of left-wing, Bush-hating Web sites, Valerie Plame threw a bone to Firedoglake (the one that refers to Joe Lieberman as "Rape Gurney Joe" for not forcing Catholic hospitals to provide "emergency contraception" for rape victims). She also granted one to BuzzFlash.com, which just this week awarded its "Wings of Justice" Award to Pete "Bush Is Amused by Soldiers Dying" Stark. She amused them with lines like "I want a t-shirt that says, 'I was slimed by the Republican administration.' You can make a lot of money on that." But the really interesting section of the interview is her continuing hatred for The Washington Post. (On NBC and elsewhere, she compared the Post editorialists to Pravda, the hoary state propaganda newspaper of the Soviet Union.) Here, the BuzzFlash guru and Plame take turns bashing the Post:

Zero 'Trash for Cash' Questions for Valerie Plame In Network Puff Tour
By Tim Graham | October 26, 2007 | 7:07 AM EDT

For years now, Valerie Plame has been the toast of the liberal glitterati, a celebrated combat specialist against the Vast Bush Conspiracy. Every move the former CIA employee has made has oozed political and commercial calculation. She struck a book deal with Simon & Schuster worth more than $2 million. She struck a movie deal based on the book deal with Warner Brothers for millions more, so she can be played as a patriotic heroine on the silver screen by Nicole Kidman or Naomi Watts. How many millions more? Two million? Five million? Don’t wait for the media to ask. They're too busy playing her as victimized.In the Clinton years, any opponent in a Clinton scandal was assumed to be overwhelmed with greed, desperate to get an agent and make millions with lies about the president, to sell "trash for cash." Since she's been encouraged to wage political war by Hillary Clinton, none of these assumptions have been applied to Valerie Plame, or her husband, Joe Wilson. Here’s a rundown of the Plame interviews and the number of questions about the Wilsons making millions:

'How Dirty Did the Tricks Get?' NYT Swallows All Valerie Plame's Claims
By Clay Waters | October 23, 2007 | 2:22 PM EDT

Valerie Plame (wife of serial anti-war misleader Joe Wilson) has just published "Fair Game," the biography of her life before and after columnist Robert Novak "outed" her as a "CIA operative" in a column in 2003, starting a domino effect that made her and her husband heroes of the antiwar movement and the media, including the New York Times.Times critic Janet Maslin's review Monday neither questioned Plame's story nor raised a single inconvenient truth.

"Needless to say, the story of how her career was derailed and her C.I.A. cover blown also has its combative side. But the real proof of Ms. Wilson's fighting spirit is the form in which her version of events has been brought into the light of day. 'Anyone not living in a cave for the last few years knew I had a career at the C.I.A.,' writes Ms. Wilson (who has gone by that name since she married former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV in 1998). Once that career was destroyed, she wrote this account of her experiences as a means of both supporting herself and settling scores. She was contractually obligated to submit a draft of the book to the Central Intelligence Agency's Publications Review Board. That draft came back heavily expurgated. She was then expected to rewrite her book so that it made sense despite many deletions."
Vieira Tougher Than Couric With Plame, Still Frets Over War With Iran
By Brent Baker | October 23, 2007 | 2:04 AM EDT

Meredith Vieira on Monday's "Today" show, like Katie Couric on Sunday's "60 Minutes," offered a sympathetic venue to Valerie Plame Wilson, but unlike Couric, her replacement pointed out how the leaker of Plame's name was not a White House operative with a vendetta against Plame's husband and quoted an editorial that contended Plame's outing was her husband's fault.

Vieira began the interview by prompting Plame to explain her perception of “four-and-a-half years of character assassination.” When Plame said she felt “betrayal,” Vieira suggested: “By the President himself?” Vieira also invited Plame to denounce the supposed “beating of the drums” about Iran, “a lot of the rhetoric that you heard leading up to Iraq from the President and from the Vice President,” and wondered: “Do you believe what happened in Iraq could possibly happen in Iran? Do you believe we are headed toward war in Iran?”

CBS: Valerie Plame a Victim, Despite Admitting to Being ‘Partisan’
By Kyle Drennen | October 22, 2007 | 4:56 PM EDT

Both CBS "Evening News" anchor Katie Couric and "Early Show" co-host Harry Smith portrayed Valerie Plame and her husband, Joe Wilson, as innocent victims, even though Plame admitted to being "partisan" in a "60 Minutes" interview with Couric on Sunday.

On Friday’s "Early Show," Smith opened a segment previewing the upcoming interview by explaining that, "Valerie Plame spent nearly 20 years in the shadows of the CIA. Then suddenly, she became a public figure." He later played a clip of the interview in which Couric exclaimed how "18 years of meticulously crafted cover were gone in an instant." Strangely there was no mention of the "Vanity Fair" photo op that Plame and her husband posed for, which Couric asked about in the "60 Minutes" interview:

Weekend Captionfest
By NB Staff | October 20, 2007 | 6:50 AM EDT

Original Caption: Valerie Plame Wilson, left, the former covert CIA officer whose leaked identity resulted in a national scandal that reached all the way to the White House, speaking to Katie Couric.

Couric to Portray Plame as Heroic Victim of White House 'Smear'
By Brent Baker | October 19, 2007 | 10:02 PM EDT
It's clear from Friday previews on CBS that Katie Couric's Sunday 60 Minutes interview, to promote Valerie Plame's new book, Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House, will frame the story just as the media have all along -- Painting Plame as a heroic victim of an orchestrated “smear” with little, if any, consideration to who actually gave her name to Bob Novak or the responsibility and motivation of her husband who picked a high-profile political fight with the White House. On The Early Show, Harry Smith asserted Plame's “life story reads like a spy novel,” gushing that “she is beautiful, smart, a covert agent.” Smith recalled how “Robert Novak revealed her identify as an undercover CIA agent in his syndicated column” and that “speculation was rampant that the leaking of her name, which is a crime, came from inside the Bush administration, in retaliation for her husband's column.” Whether it is a “crime” is far from settled, but without ever pointing out how Novak got the name from Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, a political enemy of Dick Cheney and Karl Rove who opposed the Iraq war, Smith noted that “no one was ever charged with knowingly leaking Valerie Plame's name.”

Couric told Smith that Plame is “very charming, incredibly intelligent and eloquent and really mad about what happened to her, angry and resentful of being outed, if you will, having her career end this way.” On Friday's Evening News, Couric avoided Armitage's name as she reported that “when senior administration officials leaked her name to reporters, they may have exposed other spies and damaged operations targeting Iran.” Couric soon relayed Plame's contention that “that the leak of her name had serious repercussions.” In a likely understatement, Couric ended her preview by highlighting how “Valerie Plame Wilson also has some harsh things to say about President Bush.”
Couric Previews Valerie Plame Interview, No Mention of Leaker Armitage
By Kyle Drennen | October 19, 2007 | 2:52 PM EDT

Perhaps one of the most distorted stories in recent mainstream media history, the Valerie Plame CIA leak controversy, has become even more so with Plame’s upcoming "60 Minutes" interview with CBS Anchor, Katie Couric. On Friday’s CBS "Early Show," co-host Harry Smith talked with Couric about the interview and began by describing Plame as "...beautiful, smart, a covert agent."

Smith then went on to summarize the media-manufactured scandal that ensued after Plame’s name was mentioned in Bob Novak's syndicated column:

Speculation was rampant that the leaking of her name, which is a crime, came from inside the Bush Administration, in retaliation for her husband's column. The leak grew into a scandal that embroiled the political elite in Washington....When it was all over, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was charged and convicted of lying to investigators and obstruction of justice. President Bush later commuted sentence, no one was ever charged with knowingly leaking Valerie Plame's name.

The problem with this little summary is that it completely leaves out the fact that person responsible for giving Plame’s name to Novak was former Undersecretary of State, Richard Armitage, who mentioned her name in an interview with Novak and was never charged with any crime. Also missing was any indication of her husband, Joe Wilson, being a Kerry Campaign advisor in 2004.

Media Won't Report on Bush Malaria Initiative
By Richard Newcomb | October 19, 2007 | 1:04 PM EDT

Since 2000, the mainstream media has conducted a war against the Bush Adminstration the likes of which have not been seen since their equally vitriolic campaign against Richard Nixon.