Kimsch at Musing Minds has transcribed the Valerie Plame statement to the House Committee today.

She mentions by title the Vice President and Scooter Libby by name, but somehow doesn’t mention the one who has admitted to outing her name: Richard Armitage.

Plame would have us believe she was still a covert agent at the time her name was publicly mentioned, when in fact, no one was ever charged with that crime. If she had been covert Armitage would have stood trial for outing a covert CIA agent.

Instead Scooter Libby was convicted of perjury for not remembering who he told about Plame and when.

If Plame’s husband Joe Wilson hadn’t written the article in the New York Times that lied about his mission to Niger none of this would have even been an issue.

I’ll say one thing for Mrs. Wilson: she can certainly pour it on.

I’ve served the United States loyally and to the best of my ability as a Covert Operations Officer for the Central Intelligence Agency. I worked on behalf of the National Security of our country, on behalf of the People of the United States until my name and true [emphasis Plame-Wilson] affiliation were exposed in the national media on July 14th 2003 after a leak by administration officials.

Today I can tell this committee even more. In the run up to Iraq, I worked in the Counterproliferation Division of the CIA, still as a covert officer whose affiliation with the CIA was classified. I raced to discover solid intelligence for senior policy makers on Iraq’s presumed Weapons of Mass Destruction programs. While I helped to manage and run secret worldwide operations against his WMD target from CIA headquarters in Washington, I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence.

Valerie, dear, if you were still covert why was no one ever charged with outing you? Instead we get a runaway jury to convict a man simply because he was a member of the Bush Administration.

His memory was no better and no worse than many of the reporters who testified in the case, but the judge wouldn’t allow a memory expert to testify. That was one of the questions asked in the jury room during deliberations.

The judge also wouldn’t allow testimony about what Libby was working on in detail at the time of the trial because Libby exercised his right not to testify.

No, I don’t feel sorry for Plame-Wilson. I feel sorry for Scooter Libby who faces time in jail and a loss of his savings to protect his name, while still having young children living at home.

Justice would be served if he gets a new trial, the verdict is tossed or he gets the same type of punishment President Clinton got when he was found guilty of perjury to a grand jury—a slap on the wrist and a chance to go on the speaking circuit to make some money after having served his country.

Others blogging on the Plame hearing:Conservative Times, Sister Toldjah,and Powerline.

UpdateYou can see Victoria Toensing’s testimony and reference material here. Victoria Toensing was the attorney working for Goldwater when the law making covert agents names public was written. She wrote the law. Very interesting read.

From today’s New York Times comes an article about White House Counsel Fred Fielding visiting Capitol Hill to try to do some damage control over what was said by  Gonzales regarding the firings of the eight US Attorneys.

It was hardly a social call when Fred F. Fielding, the new White House counsel, turned up Wednesday afternoon on Capitol Hill.

He had come to negotiate with Democrats, who are investigating whether politics played a role in the dismissal of eight federal prosecutors and demanding testimony from Karl Rove and other top aides to President Bush. But Mr. Fielding’s real task is even bigger and more delicate: to serve as the point man for the White House as it decides the future of Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales, a longtime Texas friend and confidant of Mr. Bush.

In bringing Mr. Fielding back to the West Wing this year, Mr. Bush turned to the kind of consummate Washington insider he disdained when he first came to town, a Republican who remained prominent in the capital as presidents of both parties have come and gone.

Now, occupying a job he held under Ronald Reagan more than 20 years ago, Mr. Fielding, 67, is the White House front man in a high-stakes showdown with the new Democratic majority on Capitol Hill even as he scrambles behind the scenes to determine what his new colleagues knew and when.

Soft-spoken and slightly rumpled, he was polite but did not reveal much on Wednesday, lawmakers said. He stayed 20 minutes, just long enough to hear Democrats make their case that Mr. Bush should not assert executive privilege to keep his aides from talking. He left without a hint of what he might do, and said he would report back to them on Friday.

“He was not chatty,” said Representative Linda T. Sánchez, the California Democrat whose subcommittee is running the House inquiry. “He said, You have to understand that I have certain constraints that I am working under, and there are some things I need to work out.”

The article is basically a human interest story on Mr. Fielding, giving his White House working experience in the Nixon and Reagan administrations.

The first thing I want to say about the firings is that all US Attorneys serve at the pleasure of the president and can be fired at any time for any or no reason.

The second thing is the Judiciary Committee Chairman in the House of Representatives is John Conyers, a man who has stated he would like to bring impeachment charges against the president.

When Bill Clinton became president all 93 US Attorneys were dismissed with no reason given. But, and it’s a big but, it was at the beginning of his administration when it is practice to ask for resignations of all holdovers and accept or reject them as the president sees fit.

I do not entertain any ideas that President Bush knew of each individual firing, if he knew personally about any of them. I do think Gonzales has not served him well.

If any US Attorney deserves to be fired it would be Johnny Sutton in Texas, who seems to have a grudge against any and all Border Patrol agents and even gives immunity to known illegals who smuggle drugs into our country from Mexico.

Then the agents are convicted and sent to the same prisons where some of the people they arrested are, and one has already received a beating for his job.

The New York Times is no friend of the Bush Administration and between them and Representative Conyers this story that was unknown until a couple of weeks ago could have legs for a long time.

From reading the article I would say Mr. Bush has chosen wisely when he chose Mr. Fielding to replace Harriet Miers.

On March 4 my neighbor and good friend of 27 years left earth and went home to Heaven. On March 8 my best friend’s father died very suddenly and unexpectedly.

Also on March 8 I received an email by one I thought was a friend speaking on her behalf and on behalf of another I thought was a friend. I was betrayed by both of them.

In my pain I have run across this video.

Yes, give me Jesus. He will never leave nor forsake me or you.

Betsy Newmark of Betsy’s Page has written an interesting post about a loophole left when the new Congress banned gifts to Congressmen and women.

Congressman Jeff Flake is proposing an amendment to get rid of a loophole that the new Congress left in when they banned gifts to Congressmen by lobbyists.
When Democrats took control of Congress in January, they passed a sweeping set of ethics rules, including a ban on gifts that prohibits lobbyists from buying a lawmaker as much as a hamburger.
But the gift ban left in place a little-noticed loophole: It doesn’t apply to government agencies and public institutions. That exemption, which dates back more than a decade, leads to a stark disparity when it comes to public and private universities, which compete fiercely for federal money.

While private universities are banned from giving gifts, public universities can offer members of Congress free tickets to some of the country’s most sought-after sporting events. That includes the upcoming NCAA men’s basketball tournament, in which 43 of the 65 teams represent public schools.

Go read the rest and the article from USA today she references.

As an example of what we don’t want to happen on this blog I would like to point you to this post at Politico. Pay particular attention to the comments on a post that states former Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was hospitalized for some kind of heart procedure.

I will quote some of them:

f**k cheney, rove, and rumsfeld!

Posted By: wagman | March 15, 2007 at 10:14 PM

Why should any reasonable American care whether he lives or dies? Prisons are filled with the likes of Donald Rumsfeld.

Posted By: jjohnson | March 15, 2007 at 09:53 PM

May God forgive all of rummy’s followers, supporters, & peanut gallery crazies.

Posted By: JoannaOregon | March 15, 2007 at 09:35 PM
REPORT ABUSE

Wouldn’t that require to actually have a heart ???

Posted By: jollyjoker | March 15, 2007 at 09:29 PM

What a pity that people wish other people ill health or worse.

I’m a few days late and a few dollars short, but finally we have this blog up and I can express my opinion on the possibility of Fred Thompson running for president.

Of all the announced Republican candidates he’s the one I can get behind and support the most.

I remember him from the Watergate hearings when he was the minority counsel on the Senate Committee. He struck me as very thoughtful (it may have been his pipe), was the one who encouraged former Sen. Howard Baker to ask the famous question, “What did the president know and when did he know it?”, was the one who found out from Butterfield there was a taping system in the Oval Office, and let the chips fall where they may.

He is pro-life, fiscally conservative and seems to be the ideal candidate. Unfortunately, or maybe not, many people today think of him only as an actor on “Law and Order”.

I urge you to do a search on his name and take a look at his record as a politician and attorney. He’s worth taking a second, third and fourth look and if he runs I would say he gets my vote in the primary as of now.