The Plame Page

Countdown To Zero, City Screen, York, June 21

TODAY is Demand Zero Day, as declared by Dogwoof, the British distributor of Countdown To Zero, a new film that highlights “our present nuclear threat”.

Written and directed by Academy Award-nominated documentary maker Lucy Walker, it will be shown at City Screen, York, this evening at 6.30pm, as part of a nationwide premiere.

All the venues will link up afterwards via satellite for a panel discussion at the London BAFTA screening with Queen Noor of Jordan, former Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett, ex-CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson and Oscar-winning producer and activist Lawrence Bender.

From the makers of the environmental wake-up call An Inconvenient Truth, Countdown To Zero traces the history of the atomic bomb from its origins to the present state of global affairs.

At present, nine nations possess nuclear weapons, and as others race to join them, the world is in a delicate balance that could be shattered by an act of terrorism, failed diplomacy or a simple accident.

International statesmen Jimmy Carter, Mikhail Gorbachev, Tony Blair and former Pakistan president Pervez Musharraf all contribute to the film’s case for worldwide nuclear disarmament, and the words of the late President John F Kennedy still resonate loudest of all.

“Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles, hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident, or miscalculation, or by madness,” he warned in his address to the UN in New York in 1961.

Thirty-eight years later, President Barack Obama told the UN: “The time has come for the world to move in a new direction. In an era where our destiny is shared, power is no longer a zero-sum game.”

The following day, the UN’s National Security Summit adopted a unanimous resolution calling for the elimination of all nuclear weapons.

Amid 100 nations uniting in the drive towards Global Zero, Lucy Walker set about making her documentary against the backdrop of constantly changing world events.

“This issue is on the front page of newspapers around the world every day,” she says.

“Not a day goes by that the news doesn’t tell me that this movie could not be more important or more timely.

“On the other hand, we knew we couldn’t be merely ‘newsy’ as we can’t compete with the news cycle, and a movie deserves a long shelf life. I know that I still get a great deal out of older movies about nuclear weapons from Dr Strangelove to The Day After, Threads, When The Wind Blows, Dark Circle… so much great work and more.

McClellan on Plame - Page 1 - Robert Novak - Townhall Conservative

WASHINGTON, D.C. -- In Scott McClellan's purported tell-all memoir of his trials as President George W. Bush's press secretary, he virtually ignores Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage's role leaking to me Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA employee. That fits the partisan Democratic version of the Plame affair, in keeping with the overall tenor of "What Happened."

Although the media response dwelled on McClellan's criticism of Bush's road to war, the CIA leak case is the heart of this book. On July 14, 2003, one day before McClellan took the press secretary's job for which many colleagues felt he was unqualified, my column was published asserting that Plame at the CIA suggested her Democratic partisan husband, retired diplomat Joseph Wilson, for a sensitive intelligence mission. That story made McClellan's three years at the briefing room podium a misery, leading to his dismissal and now his bitter retort.

In claiming he was misled about the Plame affair, McClellan mentions Armitage only twice. Armitage being the leaker undermines the Democratic theory, now accepted by McClellan, that Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and political adviser Karl Rove aimed to delegitimize Wilson as a war critic. McClellan's handling of the leak by itself leads former colleagues to suggest he could not have written this book by himself.

On page 173, McClellan first mentions my Plame leak, but he does not identify Armitage as the leaker until page 306 of the 323-page book -- then only in passing. Armitage, anti-war and anti-Cheney, cannot fit the conspiracy theory that McClellan now buys into. When Armitage after two years publicly admitted he was my source, the life went out of Wilson's campaign. In "What Happened," McClellan dwells on Rove's alleged deceptions as if the real leaker were still unknown.

McClellan at the White House podium never knew the facts about the CIA leak, and his memoir reads as though he has tried to maintain his ignorance. He omits Armitage's slipping Mrs. Wilson's identity to The Washington Post's Bob Woodward weeks before he talked to me. He does not mention that Armitage turned himself in to the Justice Department even before Patrick Fitzgerald was named as special prosecutor.

McClellan writes that Rove told him this about his conversation with me after I called him to check Armitage's leak: "He (Novak) said he'd heard that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. I told him I couldn't confirm it because I didn't know." Rove told me last week he never said that to McClellan. Under oath, Rove had testified he told me, "I heard that, too." Under oath, I testified that Rove said, "Oh, you know that, too." Read the latest conservative news and political commentary from the #1 conservative news source - Townhall.com. Stay up to date with news headlines, political news, and conservative opinion with Townhall columnists including Ann Coulter, Michelle Malkin, Bill O'Reilly, Dick Morris, Ken Blackwell, Michael Barone, Charles Krauthammer, Star Parker, Dennis Prager, Thomas Sowell, George Will, and many more of your favorite conservatives. Get your fix of funny political cartoons full or satire and political humor from editorial cartoonists including Michael Ramirez, Glenn McCoy, and Henry Payne. Townhall.com also features the latest news videos and pictures on the latest political hot topics. Get the lastest news on hot topics including health care reform, the economy, immigration, government tax, President Obama, Sarah Palin, Iraq, Arizona politics, gay marriage laws, and many more big news issues. As an extension of Townhall.com, Townhall Magazine offers more than what you find online. Our conservative magazine coverage features investigative journalism, in-depth reporting, heavily researched analysis, interviews with the heavy hitters and powerful exposés - all in a monthly news and opinion journal from the same team of right-thinking reporters, opinions makers, insiders and political leaders conservatives have trusted for 15 years. In addition to being the leader news source for conservatives, Townhall provides the latest business and finance news at Townhall Finance. Get up to date stock market numbers, financial advice, and track your investments in your stock portfolio. Townhall - Your Source for Conservative News, Cartoons, Issues, Blogs, Finance & Magazine.

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