Fair Game

[Sensia]

I never watched this movie when it first came out, but now its running on my cable channels and I am watching it.

I was amazed that the Bush Administration outed their own CIA covert agent. I just don't recall it ever being in the news as anything big.

Any of you watched this movie? I wonder how close to the truth the depiction is. I looked up Valerie Plame on Wiki and came up with this. Valeria Plamehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame

In the movie it shows many people in hot bed countries having to go farther underground and some people even being killed and or compromised over this.

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by Sensia

I never watched this movie when it first came out, but now its running on my cable channels and I am watching it.

I was amazed that the Bush Administration outed their own CIA covert agent. I just don't recall it ever being in the news as anything big.

Any of you watched this movie? I wonder how close to the truth the depiction is. I looked up Valerie Plame on Wiki and came up with this. Valeria Plamehttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame

In the movie it shows many people in hot bed countries having to go farther underground and some people even being killed and or compromised over this.

Valerie Plame was not a covert agent. The woman who co-wrote the statute, that was supposedly violated, Victoria Toensing, said that Valerie Plame did not meet the definition of the term. The requirement, by law, is that in order to be considered covert, you must have served overseas within the prior five years as an agent; Plame had not.

Bob Novak, the journalist that mentioned that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA in one of his columns, got the information from Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's assistant at the State Department. He did not get it from Dick Cheney or Karl Rove. Novak asked Armitage how he knew that Plame worked for the CIA. Armitage told him it was because everyone in DC knew it. Joe Wilson, her husband, used to tell people she worked for the CIA.

The movie, "Fair Game" is propaganda. It is filled with lies and distortions. I'm attaching an editorial from the Washington Post, a liberal newspaper, that exposes the movie as a pack of lies.

Hollywood myth-making on Valerie Plame controversy

Friday, December 3, 2010; 8:54 PM

WE'RE NOT in the habit of writing movie reviews. But the recently released film "Fair Game" - which covers a poisonous Washington controversy during the war in Iraq - deserves some editorial page comment, if only because of what its promoters are saying about it. The protagonists portrayed in the movie, former diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV and former spy Valerie Plame, claim that it tells the true story of their battle with the Bush administration over Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Ms. Plame's exposure as a CIA agent. "It's accurate," Ms. Plame told The Post. Said Mr. Wilson: "For people who have short memories or don't read, this is the only way they will remember that period."

We certainly hope that is not the case. In fact, "Fair Game," based on books by Mr. Wilson and his wife, is full of distortions - not to mention outright inventions. To start with the most sensational: The movie portrays Ms. Plame as having cultivated a group of Iraqi scientists and arranged for them to leave the country, and it suggests that once her cover was blown, the operation was aborted and the scientists were abandoned. This is simply false. In reality, as The Post's Walter Pincus and Richard Leiby reported, Ms. Plame did not work directly on the program, and it was not shut down because of her identification.

The movie portrays Mr. Wilson as a whistle-blower who debunked a Bush administration claim that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country of Niger. In fact, an investigation by the Senate intelligence committee found that Mr. Wilson's reporting did not affect the intelligence community's view on the matter, and an official British investigation found that President George W. Bush's statement in a State of the Union address that Britain believed that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger was well-founded.

"Fair Game" also resells the couple's story that Ms. Plame's exposure was the result of a White House conspiracy. A lengthy and wasteful investigation by a special prosecutor found no such conspiracy - but it did confirm that the prime source of a newspaper column identifying Ms. Plame was a State Department official, not a White House political operative.

Hollywood has a habit of making movies about historical events without regard for the truth; "Fair Game" is just one more example. But the film's reception illustrates a more troubling trend of political debates in Washington in which established facts are willfully ignored. Mr. Wilson claimed that he had proved that Mr. Bush deliberately twisted the truth about Iraq, and he was eagerly embraced by those who insist the former president lied the country into a war. Though it was long ago established that Mr. Wilson himself was not telling the truth - not about his mission to Niger and not about his wife - the myth endures. We'll join the former president in hoping that future historians get it right.



http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...120306298.html

[i'va biggen]

My memory is kinds bad did they ever find any WMD'S ????

[Old-T]

Originally Posted by joe bloe

Valerie Plame was not a covert agent. The woman who co-wrote the statute, that was supposedly violated, Victoria Toensing, said that Valerie Plame did not meet the definition of the term. The requirement, by law, is that in order to be considered covert, you must have served overseas within the prior five years as an agent; Plame had not.

Bob Novak, the journalist that mentioned that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA in one of his columns, got the information from Richard Armitage, Colin Powell's assistant at the State Department. He did not get it from Dick Cheney or Karl Rove. Novak asked Armitage how he knew that Plame worked for the CIA. Armitage told him it was because everyone in DC knew it. Joe Wilson, her husband, used to tell people she worked for the CIA.

You really should stick to things you know. You choose to believe the people who support the point of view you want to believe, and disregard those who have different view, facts, or opinions.

To keep this one simple--I could write a few pages but won't since you will discount them anyway:

--It is likely that Plame did not fit the technical/legal def of "covert". However it is the kind of fine technical detail that doesn't matter i what is right/wrong. Outing her publicly was WRONG. No amount of politico spin "Oh, we waited 5 years and 2 days so it's OK" crap turns it right.

--Oh, I am sure you believe that since Rove didn't autograph the teleprompor words he wasn't the person behind it. It typical slimeball fashion he had some other lackey do his disgusting work. He approved it at least, and it was his brainstorm more likely than not. Those things didn't happen without King Karl's approval. Dick Armitage was a policical lackey who did the bidding of his bosses (not Powell).

--"Everyone in DC knew it". Complete BS. "The people in the administration" is not quite "everyone", and telling someone something at an insider event is not quite the same as in the open press. If it was comon knowledge as the coverup claims, why did no one on this board know who she was before she was knifed in the back by her bosses? (OK, maybe not "no one" since I know a few in the agency who are also on here, but certainly not many at all). But beyond all that, it is simple professional rule #1 in that arena: NEITHER CONFIRM NOR DENY. That means "don't formally out one of your own".

Quit spinning revisionist history: not every activity in the Bush era was a cold, calculated evil act, but this one was. (Of course anything KR touched was indeed cold, calculated, and evil--that's the kind of guy he is).

There is room to argue a lot of things--this one was tratorous and vindictive, period.

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by Old-T

You really should stick to things you know. You choose to believe the people who support the point of view you want to believe, and disregard those who have different view, facts, or opinions.

To keep this one simple--I could write a few pages but won't since you will discount them anyway:

--It is likely that Plame did not fit the technical/legal def of "covert". However it is the kind of fine technical detail that doesn't matter i what is right/wrong. Outing her publicly was WRONG. No amount of politico spin "Oh, we waited 5 years and 2 days so it's OK" crap turns it right.

--Oh, I am sure you believe that since Rove didn't autograph the teleprompor words he wasn't the person behind it. It typical slimeball fashion he had some other lackey do his disgusting work. He approved it at least, and it was his brainstorm more likely than not. Those things didn't happen without King Karl's approval. Dick Armitage was a policical lackey who did the bidding of his bosses (not Powell).

--"Everyone in DC knew it". Complete BS. "The people in the administration" is not quite "everyone", and telling someone something at an insider event is not quite the same as in the open press. If it was comon knowledge as the coverup claims, why did no one on this board know who she was before she was knifed in the back by her bosses? (OK, maybe not "no one" since I know a few in the agency who are also on here, but certainly not many at all). But beyond all that, it is simple professional rule #1 in that arena: NEITHER CONFIRM NOR DENY. That means "don't formally out one of your own".

Quit spinning revisionist history: not every activity in the Bush era was a cold, calculated evil act, but this one was. (Of course anything KR touched was indeed cold, calculated, and evil--that's the kind of guy he is).

There is room to argue a lot of things--this one was tratorous and vindictive, period.

Richard Armitage was Colin Powell's but boy at the State Department. He was not loyal to Bush, neither was Colin Powell, for that matter. Powell and Armitage had constantly leaked information to the press that made Bush look bad. Did you even read the Washington Post editorial. It doesn't sound to me like you did. The Washington Post completely discredits the movie.

You dismiss the fact that no law was violated as a technicality; that's amazing to me. The whole point of naming a special counsel is because a law was violated. The special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, wasted millions of dollars. Finally, after several years, and millions wasted, Fitzgerald, went after Scooter Libby on trumped up perjury charges, just to make it look like he hadn't completely gone on a wild goose chase.

"Fair Game" is a shameless propaganda movie that was made for the purpose of trying to make Bush look like a liar. The producers of the movie only succeeded in exposing themselves as liars.

[Old-T]

I made no comments about the movie. I assume EVEY political event movie is fiction. look at last year's (I think it was last year) Lincoln assasination movie--pure fiction. I saw that one under duress with a lady friend who wanted to see it. My stomach still churns from that one. I have no desire to see this movie.

My comments were about the actual event. I agree with you that Powell was his own man; not so much Armitage. Powell had every reason to be angry with Bush, Cheney, Rove, etc.

I don't know that Bush lied--he was into such a state of isolation that lots happened he was clueless about. Cheney & rove not so.

You can be happy in your Texas rural outpost, but just because Rove et. al. are conservatives doesn't make them good people. They are scum in the worst sense of the term. Libby was found guilty because he was a fall guy for C & R. An expendable pawn. The special investigator was there to look for legal violations, and as I acknowledged the technicality likely meant there was no legal issue with the outing.

But morally there was. Period. However "moral" and "Rove" should never be used in the same paragraph. It was a vile and evil premeditated thing to do. Personally I find vile, evil, and premeditated to be worse than illegal, but you may disagree.

You are so brainwashed to believe your conservative heroes cannot do anything wrong it is scary.

[Jackie S]

I just wish Saddam and his to fine Sons were still in power.

[joe bloe]

Originally Posted by Old-T

I made no comments about the movie. I assume EVEY political event movie is fiction. look at last year's (I think it was last year) Lincoln assasination movie--pure fiction. I saw that one under duress with a lady friend who wanted to see it. My stomach still churns from that one. I have no desire to see this movie.

My comments were about the actual event. I agree with you that Powell was his own man; not so much Armitage. Powell had every reason to be angry with Bush, Cheney, Rove, etc.

I don't know that Bush lied--he was into such a state of isolation that lots happened he was clueless about. Cheney & rove not so.

You can be happy in your Texas rural outpost, but just because Rove et. al. are conservatives doesn't make them good people. They are scum in the worst sense of the term. Libby was found guilty because he was a fall guy for C & R. An expendable pawn. The special investigator was there to look for legal violations, and as I acknowledged the technicality likely meant there was no legal issue with the outing.

But morally there was. Period. However "moral" and "Rove" should never be used in the same paragraph. It was a vile and evil premeditated thing to do. Personally I find vile, evil, and premeditated to be worse than illegal, but you may disagree.

You are so brainwashed to believe your conservative heroes cannot do anything wrong it is scary.

The topic of the thread is the movie. My comments were directed to the content of the movie. The movie was presented as if it was factually accurate. Sensia, the poster of the thread, was impressed by the movie, and shocked at it's content. She obviously took it seriously. That was the intention of the producers of the movie; it's propaganda.

If a movie was made which used lies to discredit a liberal Democrat, I'm sure you wouldn't be so cavalier in your attitude about the accuracy of it's political content.

You talk about morality being more important than legality. If you really believed that, you wouldn't be defending a movie that defames an honorable man's character.

[WTF]

Originally Posted by Jackie S

I just wish Saddam and his to fine Sons were still in power.

I wish we had all our dead and maimed soldiers back whole...and all the money we wasted. Was it worth it is my question?

[CJ7]

everything that represents Bush in a dim light is propaganda

everything else is socialist, communist and marxist ..

joe is always 100% correct,trust him

EOS

[Old-T]

PLEASE OPEN YOUR EYES AND READ MY POST!!!!

Where did I defend the movie? I said I didn't see it and don't intend to.

It is near impossible to separate a thread into being about the movie or the reality the movie claims to portray--and you were defending the real actions of evil people. The reality is Rove & Co are sleazy pigs who did (and do) morally reprehensible things, such as outing VP in a vendetta.

I would have the exact same reaction to a Democratic slime. I am not a Democrat and never claimed to be. On a 1-100 scale with 100 being the conservative end I am probably a 60. You see me as a flaiming liberal democrat because the majority of this board is pegged out at 99.5 on that scale.

As far as I can tell from your posts your first hand knowledge of DC politics and reality is minimal. That is not a negative comment, just a statement. I am in a position that for 30+ years I have gotten to see a lot of the inside the sewer workings. Neither side is a good as they want you to believe, and neither side is as bad as the others want you to believe. Very, very, very few people are good or evil 100%--but our political discussions say everyone must be 100% good or 100% evil. I find it part humerous and part frustrating when so many on here spew stuff they don't know anything about--only what THEIR preferred political spin machine wants them to think.

[Rove is an exception: he IS 100% evil, or as close to it as I have ever known personally.]

[JD Barleycorn]

I don't hear anyone criticizing Obama for all the dead and injuried in Afghanistan. He has already telegraphed that we are going to lose and yet we are still there. Everyone killed or injuried in Afghanistan is in vain and only something to stoke Obama's ego as a war president. It would also kill his chances for reelection as if they we're getting smaller all the time.

As for the Plame case. Since it was shown that Valerie Plame was not working covertly, no one was outed. Her own sleazy husband ran around Washington cocktail parties talking about his wife the CIA agent. This is where the press became aware of her. Bush made a mistake sending her husband, a democrat, to Niger to find out if Saddam was trying to buy "yellowcake". He lied to Bush, to his president, about what he found out. You could say he committed a form of treason by his lies but Bush had other sources that said Saddam was buying "yellowcake". The only purpose of "yellowcake" is enrichment for power or weapons. Saddam had a reactor in the 80s but Israel took care of that. He had no known reactor in 2000 so he must be developing weapons. Iraq had already used chemical weapons on his own people and Iranians. Note some of the stories today about "Syrian" chemical weapons. Every once in and awhile someone will slip up and mention those weapons may have come from Iraq.

Hollywood was always good at propaganda. Check out the movie sometime called "Mission to Moscow". It presented the USSR as very progressive, good, energetic, and a country that we should strive to be like. It was all shit.

[Old-T]

Originally Posted by joe bloe

You talk about morality being more important than legality. If you really believed that, you wouldn't be defending a movie that defames an honorable man's character.

Which honorable man are you talking about?

Bush I assume. I can actually believe he was honorable in much of what he did. He was just in way over his head, seemed to be truly unprepaired for how Iraq turned out, and surrounded himself with too many very bad choices of advisors.

[Old-T]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

I don't hear anyone criticizing Obama for all the dead and injuried in Afghanistan. He has already telegraphed that we are going to lose and yet we are still there. Everyone killed or injuried in Afghanistan is in vain and only something to stoke Obama's ego as a war president. It would also kill his chances for reelection as if they we're getting smaller all the time.

As for the Plame case. Since it was shown that Valerie Plame was not working covertly, no one was outed. Her own sleazy husband ran around Washington cocktail parties talking about his wife the CIA agent. This is where the press became aware of her. Bush made a mistake sending her husband, a democrat, to Niger to find out if Saddam was trying to buy "yellowcake". He lied to Bush, to his president, about what he found out. You could say he committed a form of treason by his lies but Bush had other sources that said Saddam was buying "yellowcake". The only purpose of "yellowcake" is enrichment for power or weapons. Saddam had a reactor in the 80s but Israel took care of that. He had no known reactor in 2000 so he must be developing weapons. Iraq had already used chemical weapons on his own people and Iranians. Note some of the stories today about "Syrian" chemical weapons. Every once in and awhile someone will slip up and mention those weapons may have come from Iraq.

Hollywood was always good at propaganda. Check out the movie sometime called "Mission to Moscow". It presented the USSR as very progressive, good, energetic, and a country that we should strive to be like. It was all shit.

Just like much of your post.

[Old-T]

Originally Posted by JD Barleycorn

I don't hear anyone criticizing Obama for all the dead and injuried in Afghanistan.

I must be getting senile:

--What year did we go into Afghanistan?

--Who was president?

--When did we make the stupid decision to put Afghanistan on hold (with the job unfinished) to send troops somewhere else for no good reason?

--Who was president then?

Do you want to answer those simple questions or should I?