Valerie Plame Wilson Watch

What could ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson -- who was outed as a spy by the traitorous Bush-Cheney cabal -- have to say on the eve of her book release, "Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House"?

Maybe details about how she was involved in preventing Iran from building a nuclear weapon and the classified mission, Operation Merlin?

Nah, as an honorable, stalwart defender of America's national security and former CIA NOC, she can't say all that much. Too bad the Bush WH doesn't measure up to her standards.

But some of what Valerie would say is this:

PLAME: I can tell you all the intelligence services in the world were running my name through their databases to see did anyone by this name come in the country? When? Do we know anything about it? Where did she stay? Who did she see?

COURIC: And what would be the ramifications of that?

PLAME: Well, it was very serious. It puts in danger, if not shuts down, the operations that I had worked on.

You can hear and watch more tonight when CBS 60 Minutes will air an interview with Valerie (Check your local listings). Preview here. I've already set my timer as I count the days until the arrival of her book pre-ordered at Amazon.

Monday night, Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson will appear on CNN's Larry King's show.

Also of special note on Monday, Sidney Blumenthal will host Valerie at FireDogLake for a special FDL Book Salon... at 10:30am -12:30pm PT/ 1:30-3:30pm ET.

And, of extra, extra special note, a trip down memory lane...

Remember when the Left Blogosphere cried out for the public release of the Libby letters that were written by Scooter's supporters (for example, GOP presidential candidate Fred Thompson) appealing to the judge to go easy on sentencing the Cheney aide? Didn't we want to see who defended the convicted felon for his part in the CIA leak case and what they could possibly write about Libby?

Only a couple of liberal bloggers had the guts to go to the mattresses. Hat tip to Blue Girl and...(with emphasis added)

...Bill Moore, a lawyer who contributes to the blog Watching Those We Chose (proctoringcongress.blogspot.com)...

The principle was more important, said Mr. Moore, who personally wrote a brief to the court asking that the letters be made public. “If the powerful in our government are asking for someone to be spared, we ought to know,” he said. “The purpose of the letters is to influence the judge on sentencing, and if there is influence that ought to be transparent.”

Applause, applause!

UPDATE: In acknowledging Blue Girl and bmaz for going to "the mattresses," for taking a stand, writing the legal brief, and coordinating the footwork to get the Libby letters released to the public, I failed to recognize Pale Rider. He delivered the brief to Judge Walton's chambers. Thanks to one and all.

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Scooter On Over To The Big House Bubba!

Well, OK then; Scooter is one step closer to the Big House. I trust the Libby Lobby will make the obligatory application to the Supremes, but as I have opined previously, that application should go to Justice Roberts as the "hot judge" for such matters from the DC Circuit (each Supreme is responsible for a certain area of the country, or grouping of districts, for purposes of matters like this and emergency applications) and I don't think Roberts is likely to summarily overrule his compatriots in the DC District and DC Circuit Courts that he so recently served with and among. The significance of the unanimous opinion on this by the DC Circuit panel, including the right wing weather vane Judge Sentelle, is that it removes any cover for Justice Roberts should he be inclined to spring the Scoots. This is in addition to the reason of quieting the incredible noise machine of the Goopers and Libby Lobby .

Now the interesting thought is, and I think it was John Dean that lightly touched on this early on, that if Bush uses the pardon power for Libby (commutation is a derivitive of the pardon power) it then creates a cogent and compelling basis for an obstruction and aiding and abetting investigation. Here is where the thought gets really interesting: the obvious agent for this investigation is none other than Mr. Pat Fitzgerald. In fact he needs no further impetus or designation of authority, it is inherent in his current delegation. In this regard, I am tempted to hope Bush exercises some aspect of the pardon power on Libby tomorrow. This is also a salient reason, however, why it will be very difficult for Bush to appease his base and Cheney with the pardon/commutation for Scooter.

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I think we have arrived

We get a kind mention in the New York Times on Monday. Our very own bmaz is directly quoted.

Here is the article:

Libby’s Supporters Who Wrote to Judge Learn That Letters Take on New Life on the Web

By NOAM COHEN

In what may be a sign of things to come, the lawyers for I. Lewis Libby Jr. last month invoked the rarely used courtroom tactic: the “bloggers can be mean” defense.

The issue was whether to release the more than 150 letters written to Judge Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court in Washington, nearly all in support of Mr. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Mr. Libby was convicted in March of lying in investigations into the leak of the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative, Valerie Plame Wilson. Last week, Judge Walton sentenced Mr. Libby to 30 months in prison.

As the judge considered the appropriate punishment, he received testimonials to Mr. Libby’s character from luminaries like former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and Paul D. Wolfowitz, who was pressured to resign the Word Bank presidency amid charges that he engaged in favoritism in the employment of his girlfriend.

When representatives of the news media asked that the letters be released, Mr. Libby’s lawyers argued against that, saying it “needlessly risks undermining the fair administration of justice.”

Then, alluding to the sometimes combative world of online media, they added there was “the real possibility that these letters, once released, would be published on the Internet and their authors discussed, even mocked, by bloggers.”

The judge rejected these arguments on May 31, though, saying that “the court must strive to be as transparent as possible without compromising the fairness of the system or the ability of the court to acquire information relevant and helpful to the sentencing process.”

The letters were released Tuesday — with some personal details covered in black ink — and were readily available online. The Washington Post organized them alphabetically by letter writer, and the Smoking Gun, a Web site, quickly had 30 pages ready for easy perusal.

As Mr. Libby’s lawyers feared, the bloggers came to mock. The Libby trial has been a favorite of liberal blogs. One, Firedoglake, committed to “live blogging” the trial.

One blogger, Rick Perlstein, writing at commonsense.ourfuture.org, belittled Mr. Bolton’s letter in support of Mr. Libby: “So there it is: yes, maybe he perjured himself. But only because he was so busy protecting us ... Don’t you, dear judge, want us protected from Armageddon?”

Kagro X, writing at the site the Next Hurrah, took on Kenneth L. Adelman’s letter by recalling his prediction about the war in Iraq being a “cakewalk.” As Mr. Adelman, Kagro wrote: “I’m a great judge of character, Your Honor. Trust me! Sentencing is gonna be a cakewalk!”

Asked about the amount of mocking he had seen online, Bill Moore, a lawyer who contributes to the blog Watching Those We Chose (proctoringcongress.blogspot.com), said: “There is some, sure — not an undue amount. Some of the stuff that goes on needs to be mocked.”

The principle was more important, said Mr. Moore, who personally wrote a brief to the court asking that the letters be made public. “If the powerful in our government are asking for someone to be spared, we ought to know,” he said. “The purpose of the letters is to influence the judge on sentencing, and if there is influence that ought to be transparent.”

Marcy Wheeler, one of the bloggers who helped cover the trial for Firedoglake, said the argument concerning mockery indicated that the Libby legal team “may be frustrated by the amount of attention paid on this trial that otherwise wouldn’t have been paid.”

“If you want to dismiss transparency,” she said, “just talk about bloggers.”

Phone messages left with Mr. Libby’s lawyers on Friday were not returned.

Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University, agreed that the letters had to be made public because of the serious issues involved, but said that the legal system must address the rapid spread of information online that, in the past, would be available only “in the dusty courthouse file.”

“The act of writing a letter in a much lower-profile case will be on the ‘permanent record’ of the Internet,” he said. “That is a difference, and it is totally sensible to think about if this is what we want.”

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I guess a few words are called for

Maria Carter, a reporter for the KC NPR affiliate, KCUR 89.3, interviewed bmaz and I today about that amicus brief we filed on behalf of the blogosphere.

We are both convinced we sound like morons, and we both hate the sound of our own voices, so we really hope that no one listens. We write for a reason, you know...

However, if anyone is inclined to listen to us yammer on, they can do so on the streaming audio at 5:34, 7:34 and 9:34 central time on Tuesday morning.

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