Joe Wilson's threat against me

I haven't commented much on what has come to be called "the CIA leak case."

I haven't commented on it for two reasons:

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1. Until I. Lewis Libby was indicted on charges in the case that could theoretically put him behind bars for 30 years, I'd considered it a tempest in a teapot.

2. As a newsman, I was bored with what I considered an overblown story – much ado about nothing.

Then, last weekend, I, along with my news organization, was thrust into the center of this story.

On Saturday, WorldNetDaily published a story based on an interview with Maj. General Paul Vallely, a distinguished career military man and Fox News analyst, who said Ambassador Joseph Wilson, the man at the center of the CIA leak case, had told him in casual conversations in the Fox News studios that his wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA employee – more than a year before this was first disclosed publicly in a column written by journalist Robert Novak.

The 18-month investigation by Independent Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald focused on who leaked this information about Plame.

This disclosure by Gen. Vallely prompted a demand for retraction by Wilson's attorney and a threat of a defamation case against my news organization for publishing it.

Go figure. One public figure gives an interview about another public figure and I am threatened with a lawsuit for publishing it. Is that what the First Amendment has come to mean in America in the 21st century?

Interestingly, in making the demand by e-mail, Wilson's lawyer passed along to multiple staffers at WND an earlier e-mail written to him by Wilson. When I offered to Wilson and his attorney in a return e-mail the opportunity to set the record straight and present their viewpoint in a follow-up interview, they declined – instead reiterating their bullying legal threat.

Again, interestingly, in his e-mail to the attorney, Wilson did not seem to be disputing that he told Gen. Vallely that his wife was with the CIA. He does not seem to be disputing that he told him this information a year or so before it was publicly revealed in a column written by Bob Novak. What he does seem to be disputing is the precise month he conveyed the information.

Why do you suppose that time frame is so critical to Joe Wilson?

I strongly suspect it is because if Gen. Vallely is right, Wilson himself might be subject to prosecution for "outing" his wife – something with which even Scooter Libby has not been charged.

Now that I have been dragged into this story, let me give you my opinion about Wilson.

I went back and read dozens of news articles about this man during the time he first came to the attention of the American people – back in 1990 when he was charge d' affairs at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad in the run-up to the first war with Iraq. If your memory is good, you might recall it was Joe Wilson who became the highest ranking U.S. government employee in Iraq when his boss, the hapless Ambassador April Glaspie, went on vacation the very week Iraq invaded Kuwait. It was Glaspie who stood accused of misleading Saddam Hussein into believing the United States wasn't concerned about the sovereignty of Kuwait.

When Saddam took foreigners hostage and threatened to hang them in the event of a U.S. invasion, Joe Wilson called a press conference with a noose around his neck telling Saddam, "If you want to hang someone, hang me." It may have been his proudest moment. But it was the first indication that he was a personality defined by flamboyance – a man who craved the center of attention.

Another famous line uttered by Wilson during that period was: "No one will be able to blame Joe Wilson for losing Iraq."

And that turned out to be a very prophetic statement, I think, in light of his actions during this second war with Iraq.

Wilson doesn't have a case against me or my news organization, I can assure you of that. I'm not losing any sleep over it. We interviewed a public figure about a public figure and reported what he said – in fact, after he had said it on a national radio show. I gave Wilson the opportunity to tell his side of the story and he refused.

But some interesting questions are raised by this new wrinkle in this story that has preoccupied the media, if not the American people.

The indictment of Scooter Libby makes clear that when Wilson's Niger report came over to the vice president's office, it was still classified. How is it that Joe Wilson was permitted to disclose classified information in an op-ed piece in the New York Times? Is that not a bigger crime than anything for which Libby has been charged?

Why is this guy – Wilson – bulletproof? Why is he not subject to the same laws to which everyone else is subject? Why were so many people called before the grand jury and forced to testify under oath about the circumstances of this supposed "leak," but not Joe Wilson?