Rob Simmons flip-flops on Plame outing - ammo for Joe Courtney

[NewJeffCT]

Good stuff for Joe Courtney next year... Hopefully, this can start to be Simmons' undoing, and good catch by Dave Lightman of the Hartford Courant:

CAUCUS
People, Politics, Punditry
July 19, 2005
MUCH ADO ABOUT MUCH ADO?

Has Rob Simmons flipped?

Democrat Joe Courtney, who is challenging Simmons for the 2nd District congressional seat, thinks so.

In October 2003, Simmons, R-2nd District, told The Courant how uneasy he felt about the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's name.

"I hate it. We all hate it. It not only places the agent and his family at risk, it places the asset at risk," the former CIA official said. Asset is a CIA term for contacts.
Simmons added that "anytime an agent's cover is blown, it's a very serious matter. Maybe a matter of life and death."

Last week, Simmons again commented on the Plame matter, which has since involved presidential adviser Karl Rove as a source of a leak to reporters. The blowup over the leak, Simmons said, was "much ado about nothing."

http://www.courant.com/news/nationworld/hc-caucus0719.a...

[HarrietBrown]

1. I wrote to him when it first came out, asking his opinion as ex-CIA.

A month or so later, I got a huge envelope filled with pages and pages and pages of internet search results, with many sections highlighted. I'd seen most them before, having done my own searches. What I didn't get was his opinion--which is what I'd asked him for

[NewJeffCT]

2. he did that to me, too

I emailed him about the Downing Street Memo & a month later got a PDF of a Washington Post editorial saying it was "old news"...

He did not respond to me about Plame & Fitzgerald yet (I had asked if he supported Fitzgerald's investigation and will stand by his findings)

[femmedem]

5. Me three!

Although it wasn't Plame, it was a different topic. I was part of a group that went to his Norwich office at the beginning of the war and said, "You can't just say that the reasons we're going to war are classified. Going to war is too important. You have to tell us why."

The next week his staff gave us this enormous pile of bogus, already debunked articles from the NYT and other sources, crap like the forged Niger documents.

We staged a photo op where we put all those papers in a big cardboard coffin labeled "truth." But he's still pulling that? Disappointing.

[NewJeffCT]

6. I was kicking it from last summer

just wondering if anybody ever used it.

[Don1]

3. Simmons and DeLay

I believe that Simmons can be tied to the DeLay scandal. That is probably the best ammo against him, irrespective of party boundaries.

http://houseofscandal.org/members/RobSimmonsCT-2.html

[NewJeffCT]

4. 13 month kick

Hopefully, somebody will remember this!