by Kerry Thomas
February 6, 2004
In
the February 6 edition of the Lakeland Times, Thorvald Ericsson, repeating the mindless rantings
of the liberal left, demanded to know the truth behind the "public
disclosure" by columnist Robert Novak of Valerie Plame,
the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, as a CIA employee. Ericsson wrote "We know that the
White House is harboring the felon that leaked information to columnist
Novak..." Ericsson continues
"It is time to ferret out the felon or force Novak to disclose his
source..." Ericsson even tries to
tie this "leak" to the terrorist attacks of 2001, and, surprise,
blames it all on President George W. Bush.
It
took me about five minutes of searching the internet to find the facts behind
this situation. I didn't have to call a
special prosecutor, or spend months and hundreds of thousands of dollars to do
it, either. After Robert
Novak’s column of July 14, 2003 was used as the basis for claims that White
House officials outed Valerie Plaine, the facts behind the original article
were fully disclosed by Robert Novak himself, on October 1, 2003 in his
townhall.com column.
In
his July 14 column, Novak reported “Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his
wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me
Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report.”
Note these are two sentences. The first points out that Joe Wilson was not
a CIA employee, but his wife was. The
second, says administration officials told Novak that it was Wilson’s wife who
suggested sending Wilson to Niger. This
does not say administration officials told Novak who Joe Wilson’s wife
was. That fact was commonly known in
Washington circles, as Novak pointed out in his rebuttal column of October 1.
Without
boring you with all the details of Novak's column, I'll just include a few
excerpts here. Writes Novak "The
published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story
with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply
untrue."
"How
big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife
worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote [September 29], in
National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a
non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common
knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's
"Who's Who in America" entry."
As
to Ericsson's hollow echoed assertions about the planning of the Iraq war by
President Bush being the cause of the terrorist attacks of 2001, he might do
well to recall the first attack on the World Trade Center towers was in
1993. Our Marine barracks in Beirut,
Lebanon was attacked in October, 1983.
Our embassy in Iran was overrun in November, 1979. And in 1996 Usama Bin Laden actually
declared a world wide Holy War, issuing a formal Declaration of
War against America.
We
have been battling a war with terrorists for more than 24 years. The difference is now we have a President in
the Oval Office who isn't afraid to take this war to the enemy, rather than
waiting for them to strike us again.