grossman, sibel, Jamerson

further to my grossman post earlier today, the week after the Priest/Allen article where it appears that grossman successfully cemented the idea that the outing of plame was retribution for wilson's dissent, Pincus and Allen wrote another article, including a return appearance by our SAO (presumably grossman)

"The source elaborated on the conversations last week, saying that officials brought up Plame as part of their broader case against Wilson.
“It was unsolicited,” the source said. “They were pushing back. They used everything they had.”"

But here's the thing. Pincus did'nt believe it. He'd already declined to write the story on Plame because he didn't believe it, and here's how he tantalisingly chose to end the article:

" An administration source said, “One of the greatest mysteries in all this is what was really the rationale for doing it and doing it this way.”"

note that this was a week after the 'pure retribution' article - but before the meme turned to written stone.

here's another paragraph from the story that speaks to pincus' disbelief in the story:

"Administration sources said they believe that the officials who discussed Plame were not trying to expose her, but were using the information as a tool to try to persuade reporters to ignore Wilson."

too absurd. ignore wilson by creating a controversy about his wife? surely he doesn't believe that - but he obviously enjoys a dry sense of humour.

Emptywheel has stripped this article to its bones, although she doesn't come to the same conclusions that i have. She does say this however (without really explaining herself):

"Now, clearly Grossman or someone close to Grossman is a central source for this story. But I can't imagine how Grossman could be witness to the six journalist leak the week of July 7."

if we take both of those sentences to be true, then Grossman was presumably playing pointman in an orchestrated campaign. he wasn't some renegade 'turning on' his fellow criminals associates, he was delivering their collective message. and pincus saw straight through it. notice again how he turns to the story of grossman again on fitzmas eve.

(i've already discussed many of these issues here)

and for avid sibelologists, in the same post, emptywheel also points to this quote from Wilson's book (circa 1995).

"Throughout the two years I was at European Command, our relations with the Turkish military needed constant attention. [Deputy CINC] Jim Jamerson was on the phone several times a week with the U.S. ambassador to Turkey, Marc Grossman, working on the most trivial details. (Politics of Truth 218)"

Here's Jamerson's official bio:

General James L. Jamerson is deputy commander in chief, U.S. European Command, Stuttgart-Vaihingen, Germany. He oversees the daily activities of a unified command with an area of responsibility encompassing 83 countries and more than 13 million square miles. The command supports and advances U.S. interests and policies throughout the area. Also, it provides combat-ready forces in support of U.S. commitments to the NATO alliance.

Sounds like a busy job, yet he was micro-managing 'the most trivial details' of turkey's military? with grossman? I wonder if Douglas Dickerson was equally interested in such detail? In fact, i wonder if jamerson was at the same airbase in germany as the dickersons? sibel has often pointed to a NAATO connection...

(incidentally thats the only occassion that wilson mentions grossman in the book - and it's quite an obscure reference.)