Depends on what the meaning of ‘S’ is
Regarding the State Department memo on the Plame/Wilson/Niger trip, the Washington Post noted:
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. …
Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame’s name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret.
Blogger Captain Ed channels Bill Clinton with this response:
That sounds pretty damning — and it might still be, but this description and the rest of the article doesn’t establish this as dispositive at all. In any classified document, each paragraph has to carry a label indicating the level of classification for the information contained within. Later in the article by Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei, we find out that the paragraph contains seven sentences, and that Plame only gets mentioned in two of them. That doesn’t establish that her identity was classified, although it could. It could just as easily mean that other information in the same paragraph carried that classification.
So now information in paragraphs marked “secret” is not really “secret” at all. I suppose it is up to the reader of such a paragraph to make that determination for himself, and to be permitted to reveal any part of such a “secret” paragraph that he wants, based on his own judgement of which sentences or words within the paragraph are intended to be “secret.”
UPDATE: Republican bloggers are losing interest in defending Rove. (There are many ways to phrase this; “jumping ship,” “becoming disenchanted with,” “coming around,” etc.. I’ll not worry about the phrasing; choose one that doesn’t offend you and that doesn’t misrepresent these statements.)
Mark Coffey: If I become convinced that he leaked the identity of a CIA asset that he knew or thought to be classified, though, I will join in the call for his resignation. I hope that day doesn’t come…
Kevin Aylward of Wizbang: If either Libby or Rove can be tied to the memo it’s game over for them. I’m still wholly underwhelmed by the story, but given the details that have emerged (and are likely to emerge), it’s just about time that both Rove and Libby take one for the team and step down.
Rick Moran: I’ve been saying [Rove should step down] for two weeks.
Al Gore? Funny?
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