Talk:Fair Game (memoir)

Fair game
has Chris Matthews ever confirmed Joe Wilson's account of their phone conversation? i can't find a source anywhere of Matthews confirming that Rove told him wilson's wife was fair game. it's interesting to note that rove is denying he said this. it should be included in this article. Anthonymendoza 16:04, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * See the testimony in United States v. Libby; e.g., the transcript published in the book by Murray Waas. The statement about the comment is sourced vis-a-vis WP:POV and Neutral point of view.  If you have a reliable and verifiable source stating the contrary, you may want to define a controversy; but without a source, you have nothing other than your own point of view: see WP:NOR. --NYScholar 22:31, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I see now that the person who posted that question has already added Rove's denial in a mass media tv interview program. What someone says on tv is not the same as what he may have testified under oath in, say, the CIA leak grand jury investigation (in the case of both Matthews and Rove).  The point made in the article about the book is the basis for the title's phrase "fair game": this article accurately says what the derivation in the title is; it derives from what Joe Wilson says Matthews told him.  Whether or not it is true is not what is being discussed in the article on the book (which is not yet published).  --NYScholar 22:46, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * I documented the discussion more accurately with quotation from the transcript. --NYScholar 22:59, 21 August 2007 (UTC)


 * i think a brief discussion about the orgin of the term "fair game" is appropriate here. i've added that chris matthews has declined to confirm whether or not Rove indeed told him plame was "fair game."  this should be sufficient.  Anthonymendoza 17:49, 22 August 2007 (UTC)


 * The previous presentation seemed to violate neutral point of view to me; I corrected it by providing chronological coherence of the contexts, dates, full citations, and relevant quotations. The focus is on the meaning of the phrase "fair game" in the title as well as on its origins; who said what to whom when is not verifiable (there is too much "spin"); one can only document what they said and the points of view in the controversy in a neutral manner that does not take sides and that does not privilege one point of view over the other.  This article is about Valerie Wilson Plame's book and its relationship to what happened to her and her husband (their autobiographical accounts of their lives), not about Matthews per se or the other people involved.  The other articles are cross-linked and can be read for fuller contexts which this book relates to.  This is not the place to try to prove whether or not Rove used the phrase "fair game" to Matthews; neither one of them is testifying about that under oath in these statements quoted; they are part of media accounts and their public presentations of themselves and they need to be understood in that context too.  What people say to Newsweek, The Nation and on Hardball are part of mass media "news entertainment" publications and programs; it is not testimony before a grand jury or in another court of law.  The transcript of the trial (which is now published--see Murray Waas and other publications) has the grand jury testimony verbatim.  This article does not cite it. See United States v. Libby, e.g., for citations to such recorded testimony. --NYScholar 22:13, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Readjustment of emphasis in presentation because saying that one "would not discuss" an "off-the-record" comment is not the same as denying that one made it. One is neither confirming nor denying it.  The lack of a denial, however, seems pertinent.  Rove, in contrast, has publicly denied that the phrase "fair game" is his own phrase.  Nonetheless, what the phrase indicates (it's a metaphor to begin with) is that the White House (as represented by Rove, who advised the President) "targeted" (considered Wilson's wife) a "target" (also a metaphor--in this case that used by David Gregory (as cited), who is restating in another word what "fair game" signifies (in the viewpoint of the Wilsons).  [Just an observation (trying to keep matters in perspective): one wonders if Matthews had never (reportedly) used this phrase in talking "off the record" with Joe Wilson, whether the Plame affair would have developed as it has done into a full-blown political scandal.] --NYScholar 23:03, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * And how does "off-the-record" pertain to what a reporter says to a former ambassador; what is "on the record" in that situation? Doesn't it work the other way round? (just wondering why this emphasis on "off-the-record" by Matthews has any meaning in establishing "the facts" of real life (as opposed to media "spin" [creating an appearance of reality]?) and why it should go unquestioned in a "neutral point of view" account of what he has said. --NYScholar 23:06, 22 August 2007 (UTC)
 * On reconsideration, Matthews may be referring to the conversation that he had with Rove as "off-the-record?" Unclear which--the phone conversation with Wilson about what Rove said or the conversation [where, when?] with Rove--or, maybe both. ??? --NYScholar 00:33, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * frankly, i think you overanalyze too much. it's not difficult to understand that Matthews is talking about his conversation with Rove as being off the record.  there is also nothing in United States v. Libby discussing the alleged "fair game" phrase;  i don't know why you keep referring me to it.  did matthews testify to the grand jury about his conversation with Rove?  all that was needed was a short paragraph about the orgins of the phrase (Joe Wilson said he heard it from Matthews; Rove denies it; Matthews has no comment; end of story) and now what we have is yet another mini Plame Affair subsection that has nothing to do with the subject of the main article.  "fair game" was not a metaphor used; it's an alleged direct quote from Rove that he now denies.  why are you making this more complex than it is?? Anthonymendoza 13:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Actually, you have been over-complicating this and adding misleading presentations from the sources, which I have attempted to straighten out. This article is about a book: from a literary perspective, which is appropriate in this article, the phrase "fair game" in the title is a metaphor [a figure of speech--which Matthews (reportedly) told Wilson that Rove used; whether or not he used it is not that relevant; I was documenting where the phrase came from--it came from Wilson's reported conversation with Matthews re: the actions of the White House (as advised by Rove)]; its usage in the title is metaphorical not literal.  The book is not about hunting.  The metaphor comes from the literal context of hunting.  Thus, Gregory's related (also metaphorical) reference to "target."  To "target" someone is also a metaphorical concept.  I provided the contexts of their discussion.  The public discussions in media programs like Meet the Press or Hardball with Chris Matthews are not sworn testimonies; they are basically hearsay and involve what the media term spin. What they (Wilson, Matthews, Rove) talk about on the programs are memory-related as well and not verifiable.  I quoted a source that is considered "reliable and verifiable" (Wilson's published book) as an illustration of the origin of the phrase.  I stand by that.  Your introduction of points relating more directly to the Plame affair into the article about the book are going off the focus of the article on the book.  I have returned the focus to the book's use of a phrase in a title.  --NYScholar 16:10, 23 August 2007 (UTC) [updated w/ points in brackets. --NYScholar 16:13, 23 August 2007 (UTC)]
 * you have not returned the focus of the article to the book. you've added an interview chris matthews gave with john kerry, an interview he had with joe wilson, and a paragraph devoted to the fact that rove wasn't indicted.  this has nothing to do with the book.  joe wilson, in his book, writes that "fair game" was a direct quote from rove, revealed to him in a conversation wilson had with matthews, and it has been made clear that the book's title is related to this alleged direct quote.  a short paragraph detailing that rove denies he stated this and matthews declining to comment directly relates to a subsection detailing the orgin of the books title.  it's completely unnecessary to have three paragraphs that show how,  metaphorically speaking, plame was allegedly considered fair game by the white house.  comments made regarding this issue printed in newsweek and spoken on meet the press are just as credible as joe wilson's book.  how do we know he isn't spinning what matthews told him?  i don't understand your edits or your argument for making the subsection about the title's orgin so  unnecessarily long.  Anthonymendoza 20:25, 23 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Given the misleading nature of your original insertions of the material, I had to provide a more neutral presentation of it, with quotations to show what these sources actually say. I think you took the original focus of the section on the book off the topic, and I have re-focused it on the book by relabeling the section "contexts" of the allusion in the title.  I do not understand your not perceiving the problems that your original insertions created and the need to correct the misperceptions that they created.  At least the material that I added is accurate and well sourced.  If people want to follow links in the citations, they can read the full articles for themselves; that's why the citations are there, and the contexts are there so that statements are not taken out of context to state what they do not state.  --NYScholar 00:12, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

Regarding "spinning": everyone involved in this matter is probably involved in spin at this point in time, as they were also in 2003-2007. The subject of this article is Valerie Plame Wilson's book, not the Plame affair. If you want to work on the Plame affair, work on that. But please don't continue to re-hash already long-contentious content warring here. It is inappropriate to do so; doing so will not improve this article. This talk page is for discussing improvements to the article. It is clear, it is accurate, and it is well sourced. Due to WP:NOR the speculations by Wikipedia editors about whether or not who said what is true or not violate Wikipedia editing policies and also Talk page guidelines as well as WP:BLP. It is not appropriate to accuse living persons or to imply or to insinuate that living persons did not tell the truth (as they knew it at the time) in their publications without any reliable and verifiable sources to the contrary. Again, WP:NOR. Any such poorly-sourced insinuations about living persons can be removed on sight.

Re: spin: see the context of Gregory's interview of Rove in 2007--they focus on current partisan presidential-election politics, Hillary Clinton's potential candidacy and so on; the discussion of what Rove may have said to Matthews in 2003 is a small part of the interview and, given its distance in time from 2003 and its partisan contexts, it is not a reliable or verifiable source for what Wilson reports that Matthews told him in his published book The Politics of Truth. I did not insert that material in this article originally; the other editor did. The insertion was not done in a neutral manner and I have tried to restore neutral point of view. Rove's point of view is hardly "neutral"; it is a "point of view" that is self-admittedly partisan (biased). Matthews himself has not denied that he told Wilson what Wilson reports that he told him; he just declined to discuss what he said. That is not a denial. Whether Rove created the metaphor or whether Matthews did is moot; the point of this article on the book is that the statement that Wilson quotes in The Politics of Truth is the source of the allusion for the phrase in his wife's book's title. The rest of the discussion clarifies what the contexts of that phrase are. Nothing wrong with that. If it's complicated, it's because the contexts are complicated. --NYScholar 00:28, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

For some information about Rove's grand jury testimony (in a media account published about 2 years before the 2007 interview with Gregory, please see: Rove testimony. Thanks. --NYScholar 05:57, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

For some information with links to audio of Libby's grand jury testimony relating to Rove [and others], as published by National Public Radio, please see Related NPR stories and "Ari Fleischer Disputes Libby's Account At Trial" (with additional related NPR links): even after testifying that at a lunch Libby revealed the fact that Plame worked at the CIA to him and said that it was "hush hush", Fleischer still "told Plame's identity to reporters from Time magazine and NBC News": Their lunch conversation took place as the White House was in the thick of an effort to rebut criticism from Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Wilson had gone to Africa to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein sought uranium for nuclear weapons from the Nigerian government. When Wilson found no such evidence and the White House continued to assert otherwise, Wilson began to criticize the White House publicly. <br. Fleischer is the fifth government official to testify that Libby was part of a coordinated White House effort to refute Wilson's claims. Fleischer said, "I never in my wildest dreams would have thought this information (about Plame's identity) would be classified." According to Fleischer's testimony, he told Plame's identity to reporters from Time magazine and NBC News a few days later, during a presidential trip to Africa. --NYScholar 06:01, 24 August 2007 (UTC) [updated. --NYScholar 06:49, 24 August 2007 (UTC)]
 * It seems clear from all these news reports about the grand jury testimon played during the trial proceedings in United States v. Libby that Rove and other White House officials talked to reporters about Plame (not that they actually learned of Plame's CIA identity from the reporters but that they knew about Plame's CIA identity prior to talking to reporters)--that was established in the trial.

It is also clearly established by reliable and verifiable sources that Matthews and Rove talked to each other about Wilson and Wilson's wife. Precisely what language each of them used in their "off-the-record" [?] (according to Matthews later) conversation, which was reported as hearsay by Newsweek (Newsweek [who at Newsweek is not identified], which spoke with some also unidentified person who spoke with Wilson--third-hand, at least, that is) as is also quoted in Wilson's The Politics of Truth (in capital letters), is not at this time verifiable [see WP:NOR); it is, however, what Wikipedia terms a reliably- and verifiably-sourced "point of view" in a controversial article about a well-known public figure (statements in Wikipedia about all of these people (the Wilsons, Rove, Matthews, and the other named reporters) are subject to policies stated in WP:BLP).

But the phrase "fair game" which Wilson reports that Matthews said that Rove had used (whether or not he did actually use it) is still the source of the metaphor "fair game" in Mrs. Wilson's book title. Whether or not Rove actually used the phrase that Wilson writes that Matthews said "and I quote" is not factually verifiable and also not factually not verifiable. That is, there is no tape recording of their (Matthews' and Rove's) conversation in the public record (or perhaps any record). We everyday readers and consumers of news do not know whether or not one of the two of them or both of them taped their conversation without telling the other; when Matthews refers to "off-the-record" conversations, he seems to imply that he did not tape these conversations. Even if one or both of them did tape record the particular conversation in question, neither one of them has disclosed that publicly; no such tape recording (or notes of the conversation) have, according to news reports that I have seen, been subpoenaed by Fitzgerald in either the grand jury investigation or the Libby trial; no such information has been introduced into "evidence" in court proceedings.

As this whole business is legally still in the justice system (via the Wilsons' appeal of the dismissal of their civil case), we (the reading public--Wikipedians) do not yet know some of the answers to these questions (if there are any). All we know (all that is reliably- and verifiably-well-sourced) is that Rove says that he himself did not use the phrase "fair game" that Wilson says that Matthews told him he did. That does not mean that Wilson is not telling the truth about what Matthews told him; nor does it mean that Rove said what Wilson reports that Matthews said Rove said. Matthews has neither confirmed nor denied where the phrase comes from originally--whether it really was Rove's or whether it was Matthews' own invention to convey what it seemed to him that Rove was telling him; those possibilities do not mean that Wilson was not "telling it like it is"--not repeating what Matthews had said to him. Matthews has not stated that Wilson did not tell the truth in The Politics of Truth about their (Matthews' and Wilson's) conversation. [corrected typographical error. --NYScholar 17:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)]

The upshot of all this is that the phrase "fair game" is still a metaphor in Mrs. Wilson's title and that she chose it as her title because of its thematic and legal importance in the lives of herself and her husband. Their books are memoirs--about their lives from their own points of view. That is what memoirs are. Given Wikipedia's core policies Neutral point of view, WP:V, and WP:NOR, in writing this article about this book, one cannot argue with Mrs. Wilson's presentation of her own point of view, which is clearly based in part on what her husband has said that Matthews told him--the origin--for her--of the phrase "fair game" in relation to the leaking of her CIA identity. Given WP:NOR, one [Wikipedia editors] can just state and document what her (documented) point of view is and what it relates to, [using reliable and verifiable sources and adhering to both Neutral point of view and WP:V.] That is what I tried to do in the article thus far. --NYScholar 07:18, 24 August 2007 (UTC) --[Added clarification w/ Wikilinks in brackets and emphasis (bold). --NYScholar 17:52, 24 August 2007 (UTC)]

Editing this article
After the book is published, this article will be reconceived and take account of the contents of the book (which we do not currently know) and book reviews (its reception). This is no place to create or to engage in further controversies about the Plame affair. One can read the articles relating directly to the Plame affair and work on them (as both of the editors commenting here so far have already done).

Until the book is actually published, this preliminary (stub) article would seem to suffice to inform readers what the book deals with and its historical contexts (briefly). --NYScholar 00:16, 24 August 2007 (UTC)

"leading to her decision to retire in her prime from the CIA"
As NOC married to a government official I would assume she fell out of her "prime" when she got hitched. I guess it's moot, but the phrase "in her prime", to me, only seems to be there to evoke sympathy.141.161.119.79 15:55, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

The phrase is not intended "to be there to evoke sympathy"; it is there because she retired "in her prime" in 2005, long before customary retirement age (for employees of the CIA). I had tried "retired early" but that did not convey literally what occurred. I will figure out her exact age and put it in the sentence with "2005" in a bit. It is also not the case that "she fell out of her 'prime' when she got hitched." That is an absurd conclusion or suggestion and has nothing to do with anything. Please look up the meaning of "prime" in relation to ages of adults and career expectations of adults. Someone is in their "prime" when they are in the "prime" earning years of their career or profession. In 2005, Valerie Wilson was still in her "prime" years in that sense. She was "forced" to resign by the public outing because she could no longer do the work that she had been trained to do, which was clandestine espionage work for the CIA. She resigned because of the interference in her ability to do her work (and what some might term "present danger" as well). --NYScholar 23:06, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Lots of info about the plame affair, little about the book
Although the subject of the book is the Plame Affair, the subject of the article should be about the book, not its subject. After all, we have articles on Valerie Plame which contain information about this event, we also have an article about the Plame affair, generally. Can we cut out all the extra coatrack stuff in this article? Bonewah (talk) 20:08, 13 March 2009 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified one external link on Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20050706043356/http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8445696/site/newsweek to http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8445696/site/newsweek/

When you have finished reviewing my changes, you may follow the instructions on the template below to fix any issues with the URLs.

Cheers.— InternetArchiveBot  (Report bug) 15:16, 27 September 2017 (UTC)