Author: Dean Pajevic

Today, Wolf Blitzer promoted another falsehood, more serious than many, about Joe and Valerie Wilson. Blitzer floated the notion that two of Wilson’s own defenders in the intelligence community have said that, in posing for the Vanity Fair photo [LEFT], he and Valerie risked her former contacts.

Speaking to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson today on CNN’s Situation Room, Wolf Blitzer said:

BLITZER: [S]ome of your supporters were on this program last week — Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer; Pat Lang, a former DIA intelligence analyst [Blitzer assigned Lang the wrong job title; see correct info below fold].

BLITZER CONTINUES: They say your decision and your wife’s decision to let her be photographed represented a major mistake because, if there were people out there who may have been endangered by her name, certainly when people might have seen her picture, they could have been further endangered.

First, what did Larry and Pat actually say to Wolf? Second, by posing for the photo, did Valerie Plame endanger any of her contacts she’d met through the CIA front company, Brewster Jennings?

Larry Johnson was interviewed by Wolf Blitzer on Oct. 26:

BLITZER: Were you surprised that, after her name was revealed, that she posed for pictures, that famous picture in “Vanity Fair,” that she posed for pictures elsewhere … a lot of people have suggested [that] this was no big deal…. [L]ook at her. She’s sort of flaunting it.

JOHNSON: Yes. With the benefit of hindsight, I don’t think Joe and Valerie would have done that again.

But they also recognized, at the time when they did it, her career had been completely destroyed. … (Crooks & Liars has the video.)

So, today, did Wolf convey what Johnson said to him last week? No.

And what did Pat Lang say on Oct. 27?

The chain of circumstances that led to that is an unfortunate thing. It in fact ruined the possibility of ever using her as a field operative again, that’s absolutely true. (Crooks & Liars video)

That’s all that Lang said about the photo. Not quite the same thing as saying she’d endangered her contacts, is it?

In that photo [UPPER LEFT], Valerie Wilson is sitting behind her husband, wearing large sunglasses and a scarf. And, as Wilson told Blitzer today, the real damage had already been done:

WILSON: Her contacts and her network was endangered the minute that Bob Novak wrote the article. The photograph of her did not identify her in any way anybody could identify.

Now you asked me this question — you’ve asked me this question three or four times…

BLITZER: About the photograph?

WILSON: About the photograph.

Now, I have never heard you ask the president about the layout in the Oval Office when they did the war layout. I’ve never heard you ask Mr. Wolfowitz about the layout in Vanity Fair. But you ask me all the time.

So let me just get this very clear: When one is faced with adversity, one of the ways one acts in the face of adversity is to try and bring a certain amount of humor to the situation. It’s called irony.

And if people have no sense of humor or no sense of perspective on that, my response is: It’s about time to get a life.

But in no way did that picture endanger anybody. What endangered people was the outing of her name –her maiden name — and, subsequently, the outing of the corporation that she worked for. … continued below:

I bet that Blitzer was channeling the scuttlebutt he’s heard around D.C. about the photo, and that he failed to recall — and failed to review — last week’s interviews before he talked to Wilson today. He misquoted both of his guests last week. He owes them an apology and, in my opinion, an opportunity to return to his show to correct his errors.

My daughter gave out candy to kids all afternoon at the downtown storefront for the company she works for. She took photos of several of the children, including this toddler in a fancy spaceship costume:

BELOW: See what happened next … and this IS an OPEN THREAD!

His first since the indictments on Friday!

P.S. As of 12:50pm PT: Joe Wilson is coming up soon on CNN’s Situation Room. Wolf Blitzer did excellent interviews of Larry Johnson (transcript segment) and Patrick Lang (transcript segment) last week. I hope this is as informative and interesting as those were. And, I must say that I like CNN’s intel reporter, David Ensor. He gets it. His remarks and interview last week with Michael Sheuer were great.

Check this story for more about Joe Wilson’s media blitz and links to several videos.

“I think the president should fire [Karl Rove] … these are firing offenses,” Joe Wilson told NBC Today show’s Katie Couric.

MSNBC has the Today show video. “Wilson said Rove also had a role since Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper has said it was Rove who told him about Plame.” Wilson also told Couric that Rove is a “party to the compromise of national security of this country.”

On ABC’s This Week yesterday, Sen. Minority Leader Harry Reid also called on President Bush to fire Karl Rove and apologize to the nation. Crooks & Liars has Reid’s statement on video. Raw Story links the WaPo story on Reid’s remarks.

Wilson, who appears today on CNN’s Situation Room between 3pm-6pm ET, told Ed Bradley of CBS’s 60 Minutes last night (article / 60 Minutes video) that “[i]t was the White House that decided they were going to go after me, and the tactic they decided to use was to go after my wife.” Crooks & Liars also has excerpts of the 60 Minutes segment.

This was done to silence others. This was a shot across the bow to others. The message was if you do to us what Wilson did to us, we’ll do to you what we just did to Wilson’s family.

“Her career has been ended,” [former CIA agent Jim Marcinkowsk] said on 60 Minutes. The MSNBC article also quotes another former CIA agent, BoomanTribune contributor Larry Johnson, a CIA classmate of Valerie Plame, who he knew only as Val P.:

For all intents and purposes out at the CIA, she’s like a leper … she’s radioactive.”

For more talking points on the CIA leak case, read Larry’s recent stories here:

• Bob Woodward, Lost in Cronyism?, Oct. 30

• Update on the Lies of Ambassador Wilson, Oct. 30
  
• A Good Start, Oct. 28
  
• The Marriage Canard and Valerie Plame, Oct. 27

Update [2005-10-31 10:59:14 by susanhu]: Larry Johnson is Amy Goodman’s guest for a major segment today on Democracy Now!. You can listen or watch, dial-up or broadband. On DISH satellite, I watch DN! on both Free Speech TV and LINK TV. LINK TV is also on DirectTV satellite.

Talk about “being careful what we wish for.” This nomination, unlike Miers, will solidify Bush’s base, which he will need on his side in order to thwart fall-out from the CIA leak case.

Samuel Alita, of the U.S. Court of Appeals in Philadelphia, will be nominated Monday by the White House. “Alito, 55, is considered a conservative in the mold of Justice Antonin Scalia.” (Yahoo/Reuters)

Notes the A.P. ominously, “Bush believes that Alito has not only the right experience and conservative ideology for the job, but he also has a temperament suited to building consensus on the court.”

Great … I was so hoping for a Scalia-like consensus builder. Harriet doesn’t look so bad now, given that Alita looks like a near shoo-in despite expected Democratic bluster:

While Alito is expected to win praise from Bush’s allies on the right, Democrats have served notice that his nomination would spark a partisan brawl. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada, said Sunday that Alito’s nomination would “create a lot of problems.” A.P.

CNN just reported that Harry Reid didn’t receive the “courtesy call” from the White House until CNN and others had already been reporting Alita’s nomination.

The White House hopes the choice mends a rift in the Republican Party caused by his failed nomination of Miers, and puts his embattled presidency on a path to political recovery. Democrats already put the White House on notice that a conservative judge such as Alito would create problems.

So consistently conservative, Alito has been dubbed “Scalito” or “Scalia-lite” by some lawyers because his judicial philosophy invites comparisons to conservative Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia. But while Scalia is outspoken and is known to badger lawyers, Alito is polite, reserved and even-tempered. (TimesUnion)

Born in 1950 — he’s young, with decades ahead — Alito was nominated for the third circuit of the Court of Appeals by Dubya’s father in 1990. He graduated from Princeton and Yale law school. (fed. judge bio site)

“As the author of a widely noted dissent urging his court to uphold restrictions on abortion that the Supreme Court then struck down, in a decision that reaffirmed Roe v. Wade, Alito could be especially filibuster-prone. Like Scalia, he frequently makes his mark in dissent,” reports Slate, via OutsideTheBeltway.

From ThinkProgress:

ALITO WOULD OVERTURN ROE V. WADE: In his dissenting opinion in Planned Parenthood v. Casey, Alito concurred with the majority in supporting the restrictive abortion-related measures passed by the Pennsylvania legislature in the late 1980’s. Alito went further, however, saying the majority was wrong to strike down a requirement that women notify their spouses before having an abortion. The Supreme Court later rejected Alito’s view, voting to reaffirm Roe v. Wade. [Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania v. Casey, 1991]

ALITO WOULD ALLOW RACE-BASED DISCRIMINATION: Alito dissented from a decision in favor of a Marriott Hotel manager who said she had been discriminated against on the basis of race. The majority explained that Alito would have protected racist employers by “immuniz[ing] an employer from the reach of Title VII if the employer’s belief that it had selected the ‘best’ candidate was the result of conscious racial bias.” [Bray v. Marriott Hotels, 1997]

ALITO WOULD ALLOW DISABILITY-BASED DISCRIMINATION: In Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, the majority said the standard for proving disability-based discrimination articulated in Alito’s dissent was so restrictive that “few if any…cases would survive summary judgment.” [Nathanson v. Medical College of Pennsylvania, 1991]

ALITO WOULD STRIKE DOWN THE FAMILY AND MEDICAL LEAVE ACT: The Family and Medical Leave Act (FMLA) “guarantees most workers up to 12 weeks of unpaid leave to care for a loved one.” The 2003 Supreme Court ruling upholding FMLA [Nevada v. Hibbs, 2003] essentially reversed a 2000 decision by Alito which found that Congress exceeded its power in passing the law. [Chittister v. Department of Community and Economic Development, 2000]

ALITO SUPPORTS UNAUTHORIZED STRIP SEARCHES: In Doe v. Groody, Alito agued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home. [Doe v. Groody, 2004]

ALITO HOSTILE TOWARD IMMIGRANTS: In two cases involving the deportation of immigrants, the majority twice noted Alito’s disregard of settled law. …

Oui has a diary with more stories and insights.