Could Libby have known she worked at the CIA? Yes - even I can access various publications and find a name and a phone number. Those directories are available all over DC for the various agencies. And just because someone works at the CIA, it is not a “Red Flag”. I should know because my wife worked there for 20 years and never held a clearance above Secret but she was not “covert” and worked in an office full of people who were not “covert”. I even have an old phone directory of the CIA dated 2001 and guess what - Valerie Plame’s name, office and phone number is in there! Any star or special symbols by her name to indicate she was covert? Uh, No.

You can also call over at the CIA and ask for a phone number - guess what - there is a directory assistance over there that will give you a person’s phone number essentially if it is available through the same printed directory. Call it - the number is (703)482-0623. The website is also really easy - http://www.cia.gov - and the same phone number is posted there and they even a point of contact available “To Verify a CIA Employee’s Employment” if you are a mortgage company, creditor or potential employer.

As far as any limits to what the President or VP has access to, there are none that I know about. But i can tell you that any inquiry by anybody on the White House staff start fevers boiling all over DC. A staff member from the White House calls over for some information and entire staffs are called out in lock step formation, if necessary, to return the info. I have seen General Officers in the Pentagon in a veritable slather trying to get information to a member of the National Security Office and if you are tasked with a “Presidential Inquiry” you have Cart Blanche throughout the entire building.

So the thought of someone on the White House staff calling around and to quietly get some information is patently bullsh*t. It doesn’t happen that way.

OK, so in this context the people involved (according to the story) would have said that they wanted to know.

Frankly, when you are talking about the President and Vice President, there aren’t any limits to what they could know if they wanted to, are there?

For someone to seek information that is classified, two things must be present before the information can be granted.

The first is the appropriate security clearance. You must have a clearance equal to or greather than the information is rated. A person with a Secret Clearance cannot have access to Top Secret material.

The second, and the one area most misunderstood by the public is “Need To Know”. Just because you have a clearance does not allow you to rifle through the files perusing the information that is there. You have to have a legitimate “need to know” in order to access any classified material. People who work with classified materials over time stay away from such material whenever they can. I have held as high as a Top Secret clearance and to tell you the truth, I did not want to know. If the information was material to my job - that was one thing. If it was not - keep it the hell away from me! The hassles with dealing with classified material and the penalties for mishandling such material minimized any curiosity I may have had.

Well, presumably because he didn’t find enough evidence for a prosecution.

“WHy was scooter Libby prosecuted for outing a ……..er, faulty memory?”

That’s an easy one. He was indicted and convicted for lying to a grand jury which was trying to determine if there was any crime to be prosecuted.

I don’t get why people are so quick to ignore perjury.

“Its not about Nukular weapons, but about Saddam seeking Yellowcake uranium in Niger. You don’t even know what the central issue is about – do you?”

That was, of course, nothing to do with the conviction for perjury. Perjury is lying under oath you see.

Besides, I continue to wonder about your judgement of the “We’ll get to the bottom of this!” statement by your President followed by obviously not investigating it and not simply asking his closest advisors if they knew anything about it.

maybe your just getting so used to being lied to that you don’t notice it anymore.

I guess the fact that the current Director of the CIA, confirmed Plame’s status as covert should in no way be taken to mean that yea she was actually covert or anything.

I don’t understand. The “They” in question are the highest members of the government. They have the security clearance to know pretty much anything, don’t they?