Kos kids lose reality grip: Part 2
After quoting this piece in the Washington Post:A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.
Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.
The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.
Kos goes on to pontificate:
So who is singing to the WSJ and WaPo? This piece cites "two sources familiar with the investigation." The special prosecutor has been leak-free thus far, and would likely try to stay that way (especially one who has shown as much contempt for the press as this one). The Rovians, who have leaked like sieves (most of it lies), aren't going to leak this golden nugget. Powell? He did his damage yesterday, placing the memo right on the White House's lap. So who's left?
It's the CIA. Funny how those guys don't like their covers blown.
There are only 4 problems with all of this.
1. Just because a paragraph in a memo which contains a persons name is marked as secret doesn't mean that their identity is secret. If a paragraph on a CIA memo marked secret contained the DCIA's name or title would that lead one to believe that his name/position is secret.
2. We know full well that Wilson's wife was not a covert operative at the time of the "leak" and had not been for more than 5 years. We further know that her cover had been blown in the international intelligence community at least 10 years before the "leak".
3. It is not even implied that Karl Rove ever saw this memo. The "sources" quoted give us no reason to believe that this memo is important enough for the assistant chief of staff to have bothered to read it. I have to assume that there are hundreds if not thousands of such memos produced each day. To make a leap that because a "secret" memo was produced that a senior player read it is insane.
4. The sources quoted are clearly criminals. The investigation into this matter has a gag order in place. Further, to describe in any detail the contents of a top secret, not yet declassified memo, to the press is a crime. And you might notice that the sources are anonymous. Big shock.
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