Tag Archives: State Department

How historically accurate are movies made by Hollywood?

Well, here’s an example from the radically leftist Washington Post of all places. The new movie “Fair Game” about the two Democrats Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame. (H/T ECM)

Excerpt:

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.”

[…]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.

As everyone knows, Valerie Plame was not outed by the White House. Even the leftist CBS News reported that she was outed by Dick Armey (Richard Armitage) – and it was an accident. This is not in dispute. And in any case, she was a CIA desk employee at the time of the story, not a CIA field agent.

The root problem of so many of our difficulties these days, from the national debt, to the breakdown of the family, etc., is this seemingly limitless capacity we have to insist on having fun all the time. People seem to not care that if they lie to themselves about a person, then it will not matter if they act on the lies – so long as the lies are entertaining.

Obama administration will sue Arizona for enforcing immigration law

Story here from CBS News. (H/T Michelle Malkin)

Excerpt:

As Hotsheet reported yesterday, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a television interview in Ecuador this month that the Obama Justice Department “will be bringing a lawsuit” against the controversial Arizona immigration measure signed into law earlier this year.

The comment was striking because both President Obama and Attorney General Eric Holder had said only that the administration was considering a suit. Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who signed the law, called Clinton’s comments stunning and added that “to learn of this lawsuit through an Ecuadorean interview with the secretary of state is just outrageous.” She has said in the past she is prepared for a court fight.

It was unclear yesterday whether Clinton’s comments were simply a prediction or mistake or whether instead she was getting ahead of a planned announcement by the administration.

Now a senior administration official tells CBS News that the federal government will indeed formally challenge the law when Justice Department lawyers are finished building the case. The official said Justice is still working on building the case.

Contacted about Clinton’s comments today, State Department spokesman PJ Crowley said they reflected her beliefs.

Oh he’s going to lose bad in 2010. The secular leftists are more interested in punishing law enforcement and American states than they are in punishing terrorists and rogue regimes like Iran.

Obama administration complains about Arizona immigration law to China

From CNS News.

Excerpt:

In a “candid and constructive” human rights dialogue with officials from the People’s Republic of China last week, Obama administration officials brought up Arizona’s new immigration-enforcement law, telling the Chinese Communists it was an example of a “troubling trend” in the United States and an indication of “discrimination or potential discrimination” in American society.

Ironically, the State Department’s most recent report on human rights in China indicates that the government there restricts the internal travel of its own citizens.

[…]On Fox News Tuesday morning, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley–trying to defend Posner’s comments – was asked if he had read the ten-page Arizona law. He said he has not read it, although he did criticize it.

Attorney General Eric Holder, who is weighing a constitutional challenge to the law, admitted last week that he has not read it; and Homeland Secretary Janet Napolitano on Monday told a Senate panel that she had not read the law, either.

The People’s Republic of China is “an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party constitutionally is the paramount source of power,” according to the State Department’s 2009 Human Rights report on China.

The report also states, “Individuals and groups, especially those deemed politically sensitive by the government, continued to face tight restrictions on their freedom to assemble, practice religion, and travel.”

China is one of the biggest violators of basic human rights on the planet. So what do the Democrats do? They go to the major human rights violators and tell them that the United States is just as evil. We’re evil because we protect our borders and enforce our immigration laws. China murders people for their religion and sells their organs, and we’re equal to China – at least according to Democrats.

UPDATE: Republican senators are demanding that the Obama administration publicly retract their outrageous comments.