The Joseph Wilson / Valerie Plame affair is, in my recollection, associated with Three Big Bloggers from the left - Josh Marshall, Kevin Drum, and Mark Kleiman.
Josh Marshall is experiencing his experience, and do check his site for updates.
Kevin Drum has put up one post that I noticed, calling attention to the WaPo story and suggesting that "... it sure has an impact on Wilson's credibility". Indeed.
And what about Mark Kleiman? Good question, actually. We infer from his blog that he has been off at a very interesting conference, and his thoughts are available at his blog.
So, might we expect his latest thoughts on Joe Wilson? Well, and this may be a bit of a surprise to some on the left, his assessment of Wilson's credibility has been gloomy for quite a while - last September, when Wilson backed away from his Karl Rove allegation, Mr. Kleiman suggested that folks might be justified in their hesitancy about taking Wilson at his word. He repeated this thought in December (late in an update), both times noting (correctly) that, Wilson notwithstanding, there is a legal process which must go on.
But surely there is more to the latest Senate revelations than the question of Joe Wilson's ability to attract an audience? Mr. Kleiman might have some insights into possible changes in the legal or political environment. Or he might want to suggest a mirror image to this post, and view the latest blogospheric reaction in Left profile. Well, if he can find any reaction to review.
My thought - it may come as a shock to the folks on the left not following this story closely that one of their own threw in the towel on Wilson a long time ago. Since Wilson is back in the news, would Mr. Kleiman care to re-apprise people of that fact? Or (and I can't think why) has he since changed his mind about Wilson, picked up the towel, and re-joined the left?
In light of these new Senate report revelations, has he re-calibrated just how much hestitancy about taking Wilson's word is he now experiencing, or recommending to others? Does he think that Kerry should continue to have Wilson as an advisor to his campaign?
Not that we would presume to tell him when or how to run his blog, but the Djerejian Challenge lives.
MORE: Related only to the minor point of dictating terms of surrender prematurely: My home-court version of Point-Counterpoint. Oh, man, and this is how friends treat each other...
At an early point, we (most of us) suspected that our intelligence (about al-Qaeda and terrorists) was faulty and that our security suffered. Politicians have gotten in queue to point this out. We (and they) ought to have figured out that Joe Wilson and the intelligence he brought with him and the security provided by Richard Clarke were inept, inadequate, and in need of overhaul.
Posted by: Howard Cornell | July 15, 2004 at 04:55 PM
Glad you wrote this post. I think I might be vulnerable to a wee bit of the hypocrisy charge if I started demanding Kleiman blog about stuff . . .
Posted by: Crank | July 15, 2004 at 05:56 PM
As you note, I guessed some time ago that Wilson was a flake and a publicity hound. Nothing in the Senate report causes me to change that assessment.
But Joe Wilson isn't running for anything. George Bush is. We know, without any need to believe anything Wilson says, that senior members of Team Bush illegally revealed the identity of an extremely covert CIA officer working to prevent the accquisition of WMDs by rogue regimes and terrorist groups. Some of them are likely to go to prison for it. That was, and is, the main story.
Other than that, I have nothing to add to Josh Marshall's analysis. I expect to have more to say when the indictments come down, which I would expect to be any day now.
[Unlike the Crank, I have no objection to someone pointing out my silence on a story with which I had been identified. But now that you know my views, I'd like to have yours. Do you regard the President's transparent indifference to a serious national security breach committed for political reasons by senior members of his staff as a serious reason not to vote for him this year? If not, why not?]
Posted by: Mark Kleiman | July 15, 2004 at 09:59 PM
As you note, I guessed some time ago that Wilson was a flake and a publicity hound. Nothing in the Senate report causes me to change that assessment.
But Joe Wilson isn't running for anything. George Bush is. We know, without any need to believe anything Wilson says, that senior members of Team Bush illegally revealed the identity of an extremely covert CIA officer working to prevent the accquisition of WMDs by rogue regimes and terrorist groups. Some of them are likely to go to prison for it. That was, and is, the main story.
Other than that, I have nothing to add to Josh Marshall's analysis. I expect to have more to say when the indictments come down, which I would expect to be any day now.
[Unlike the Crank, I have no objection to someone pointing out my silence on a story with which I had been identified. But now that you know my views, I'd like to have yours. Do you regard the President's transparent indifference to a serious national security breach committed for political reasons by senior members of his staff as a serious reason not to vote for him this year? If not, why not?]
Posted by: Mark Kleiman | July 15, 2004 at 10:00 PM
Crank - you say "wrote", I say "stole". Whatever.
Mark - No.
But first, who is this:
"...extremely covert CIA officer working to prevent the accquisition of WMDs by rogue regimes and terrorist groups."
This person?
Secondly, when you say "We know... that senior members of Team Bush illegally revealed the identity...
Who is "we", and is that "know" as in "I know that 2 + 2 = 4, or is that "know" as in "I know Kerrry would be a better President than Bush"? I think it is helpful to folks who might sensibly view you as an expert on this to distinguish between fact and opinion.
As to what we do or don't know about illegal activity, I will believe a crime has ocurred when I see indictments (a very fashionable Dem position a few years ago, IIRC). Ms. Plame was in a liason role, moving to State Dept cover; her husband was ex-State; someone may have heard she was involved in suggesting him without guessing she was CIA (and you can see the original Novak, with the ambiguous sourcing.) The leaker may have lacked intent, and a "reckless disregard" prosecution may fail, or not be attempted; Novak may have picked up her CIA connection elsewhere; there are exculpatory scenarios. IMHO.
And I don't think the President had any obvious recourse other than to let the system grind through this - Ashcroft has recused himself and the special counsel is serious talent.
Some folks say "the President could have solved this with one phone call". OK, maybe a few phone calls. Ridiculous. If Bush had announced in the first week of this that, after a White House review, the following two aides were being sacked, what would have happened?
Dems would have thanked him and sent him two dozen roses? Wrong.
Schumer and many other Dems would have screamed for a proper investigation, pegged the two offered up as sacrificial lambs ("who are they protecting"?), cried cover-up, and alleged obstruction of justice by the President himself, since he had ordered an improper in-house review in order to coordinate stories and tamper with evidence. That is my guess, anyway.
The President had to let the professionals handle it.
Why the wait until September? Tenet meets with the President daily, and didn't raise it. Maybe Bush took Tenet more seriously than he took Paul Krugman or Maureen Dowd - his mistake.
My aproach has been Congressional hearings and a possible public flogging; my suspicion is that the current path will never result in indictments, but Dems don't care since all the headlines are good. (Some Reps don't care, because they will claim "if they don't indict, it's alright", aka, the Hillary standard.)
I missed your answer to the question of whether Kerry should announce that Wilson is no longer with the campaign.
And a bonus question - are you seriously pretending that this issue was the deal-breaker for you, that otherwise you might have considered Bush?
Posted by: TM | July 15, 2004 at 10:48 PM
I will believe a crime has ocurred when I see indictments.
That's right! The suspense of a trial vexes me!
OK, I believe something meriting investigation has occurred. I'll believe we have crossed a criminal threshold when we see indictments, which I think won't happen.
I don't think they had criminal intent, and it strikes me as plausible that they didn't know her covert past, had no reason to suspect it, viewed her as incidental to the story, and made a mistake.
If I were going to vote not-Bush because of his mistakes, this is not the one I would focus on.
Posted by: TM | July 15, 2004 at 11:00 PM
The theory that Plame's role in recommending Wilson was more widely known than her secret CIA identity gains a bit of support both from the fact that she'd also gotten him sent on an earlier trip, and from the apparent casualness with which the "crazy" Niger intel was treated within the agency. (I can imagine her eagerness to have hubby sent abroad being the subject of water-cooler humor in spook circles: "Old Joe should try coming back a day early from the next one. He might find out more than he learns on the junket.")
Kleiman's certainty regarding the legal issue continues to mystify.
Posted by: Paul Zrimsek | July 16, 2004 at 05:57 AM