Since the people who praise the NY Times for publishing a CIA employee's name even after being warned that it would put him and his family in danger, are trying to justify their actions by claiming a double standard by bringing up the publishing of Valerie Plame's name by Robert Novak, I decided to start the thread they were too chicken sh!t to start...

So here it is boys and girls... Fire away.

Tell me again about me having a double standard. Please be prepared to present facts, because that's what my value system is based on... Not partisan lies and distortions. If you can't do that, then crawl back under the liberal rock from which you came.

Good luck... And have fun, because I will.

Does this about cover it boys and girls?

Two wrongs certainly don't make it right, but I can't help to have the impression that this is a baiting thread.

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Carolina Politics Online

Sam

Every thread Grim posts is a baiting thread.

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From my understanding this CIA employee was not operating covertly?

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"Have you no decency, sir? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?"
-Joseph Welch

Yea that's what I heard as well.
He was not a covert operative unlike
Valarie Plame who was covert.

Pretty straight forward little difference there
that really makes all the difference in the world.

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Walt Whitman
"I say that democracy can never prove itself beyond cavil, until it founds and luxuriantly grows its own forms of art, poems, schools, theology, displacing all that exists, or that has been produced anywhere in the past, under opposite influences."

How can this be a "baiting" thread... Did you not see the quotes I posted?

The question is, do I have some sort of double standard... And the answer is NO!

The NY Times was told before hand by the CIA, that if they published this mans name, it would endanger him and his family. They published it anyway, and I think that was reprehensible, especially since his name was not a necessary component to the story.

When Robert Novak was about to publish Valerie Plame's name, no such warning was ever issued by the CIA. Someone from the CIA asked him not to publish her name, but never stated that if he did so, it would be breaking the law (which it wasn't) or that it would put her, or anyone else in danger (which it didn't).

Here is an excerpt from a Washington Post story about this issue:

There are ways of perceiving whether the government was actually taking the required necessary affirmative measures to conceal its relationship with Plame. We can look, for example, at how the CIA reacted when Novak informed the press office that he was going to publish her name. Did the general counsel call to threaten prosecution, as we know has been done to other reporters under similar circumstances? No. Did then-Director George Tenet or his deputy pick up the phone to tell Novak that the publication of her name would threaten national security and her safety, as we know is done when the CIA is serious about prohibiting publication? No. Did some high-ranking government official ask to visit Novak or the president of his newspaper syndicate to talk him out of publishing -- another common strategy to prevent a story? No.

Novak has written that the CIA person designated to talk with him replied that although Plame was probably not getting another foreign assignment, exposure "might cause difficulties if she were to travel abroad." He certainly never told Novak that Plame would be endangered. Such a meager response falls far legally shy of "affirmative measures."

The bottom line is, the NY Times knowingly put a man and his family in danger for no good reason. On the other hand, Robert Novak did not put anyones life in danger when he published Valerie Plame's identity in his story.

There is no double standard here... NONE.

And before you even go there, the CIA never stated that Plame was a covert agent prior to Novak's story either. In fact, they freely published her identity in a brief, and discussed her identity in phone conversations with the state department.

It was never stated in any way, shape or form by the CIA, that Valerie Plame's identity was classified prior to the Novak story. That's why there has never been anyone indicted for leaking her name... It's because nobody, including the CIA themselves, ever knew her identity was supposed to be classified.

If Libby, Armitage, Rove or Novak would have been told by the CIA or anyone else, that her identity was classified, or that the public discloser of her name would have put her or anyone else in danger of physical harm, I would have called for their heads... All of them...

But that wasn't the case.

Like I said, there's no double standard here... NONE

WOW...

It's been over 12 hours since I posted my rebuttal to the many charges of hypocrisy, and none of those of you who so freely lobbed that accusation at me, have said a word.

I will take your silence to mean you retract your statements, since it's obvious none of you possess the integrity to come out and actually say it.

If I'm wrong, and there are some of you who still want to pursue your false allegation, I certainly hope you do so by presenting facts instead of your typical unsubstantiated accusations.

Or maybe we all see you as a joke and don't feel you are worth responding too. Sometimes silence is just hysterical laughter that you are unable to hear.

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lol... as I said.

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