Topic: CNSNews.com
In a July 21 CNSNews.com harangue, Frank Salvato -- last seen here suggesting that Hillary Clinton wants to kill all conservatives -- made numerous false and unsubstantiated claims in the course of bashing anyone who has criticized President Bush as a "Fifth Column."
Salvato attacked Joseph Wilson as "the whiniest man on the face of the planet," criticizing him and his wife, Valerie Plame, as "disgruntled political has-beens" for filing a "nuisance lawsuit" against Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Scooter Libby over their role in exposing Ms. Plame's undercover CIA status "as Hezbollah committed itself to an all out war against Israel, the United States and the free world, setting the Middle East afire." Salvato wrote: "Pay no attention to the fact that during an investigation into the Plame matter a federal prosecutor failed to find one noteworthy piece of evidence to bolster the assertion that Cheney, Rove or Libby had anything to do with facilitating columnist Robert Novak with Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA covert operative." In fact, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation is continuing and he has made no public conclusions about whether Cheney, Rove or Libby "had anything to do with" leaking Plame's name.
Salvato added: "Disregard the unarguable fact that Plame was serving as a CIA analyst and hadn't been a covert operative for years at the time the story was printed." His assertion seems to conflict with an actual unarguable fact: that Plame's CIA status was classified, and it is presumably an offense on some level when a classified CIA operative's identity is disclosed.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi also made Salvato's list of fifth-columnists. Why? Because Pelosi wanted to include language in a resolution expressing support for Israel in its battle against Hezbollah and Hamas language "asking that both sides concern themselves with limiting civilian casualties." According to Salvato, "by including such language Pelosi would have had the United States House of Representatives recognizing Hezbollah and Hamas as legitimate entities worthy of seats at a negotiating table rather than the terrorist organizations that they are," though he doesn't explain exactly how this would, in fact, be so.
