Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know the name of the White House staffer who leaked Valerie Plame's name to the media--and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.
NEW YORK Now that Time Inc. has turned over documents to federal court, presumably revealing who its reporter, Matt Cooper, identified as his source in the Valerie Plame/CIA case, speculation runs rampant on the name of that source, and what might happen to him or her. Tonight, on the syndicated McLaughlin Group political talk show, Lawrence O'Donnell, senior MSNBC political analyst, claimed to know that name--and it is, according to him, top White House mastermind Karl Rove.
Here is the transcript of O'Donnell's remarks:
"What we're going to go to now in the next stage, when Matt Cooper's e-mails, within Time Magazine, are handed over to the grand jury, the ultimate revelation, probably within the week of who his source is.
"And I know I'm going to get pulled into the grand jury for saying this but the source of...for Matt Cooper was Karl Rove, and that will be revealed in this document dump that Time magazine's going to do with the grand jury."
Other panelists then joined in discussing whether, if true, this would suggest a perjury rap for Rove, if he told the grand jury he did not leak to Cooper.
Now, here is the interesting part. The leak of Valerie's identity as a CIA agent was apparently done to punish Joseph Wilson for challenging Bush's claim that Iraq was importing "Yellow Cake" uranium from Niger.
Since then, the documents Bush cited as proof of the Niger claim have been exposed as clumsy and obvious forgeries, and proof of intent to deceive the public.
The nation's largest news organizations and journalism groups [filed a brief in federal court Wednesday arguing that] a federal court should first determine whether a crime has been committed in the disclosure of an undercover CIA operative's name before prosecutors are allowed to continue seeking testimony from journalists about their confidential sources
The 40-page brief, filed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, argues that there is "ample evidence . . . to doubt that a crime has been committed" in the case, which centers on the question of whether Bush administration officials knowingly revealed the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame in the summer of 2003.
...an even more basic issue has been raised...the real possibility that the disclosure of Ms. Plame's identity, while an abuse of power, may not have violated any law. Before any reporters are jailed, searching court review is needed to determine whether the facts indeed support a criminal prosecution under existing provisions of the law protecting the identities of covert operatives.
And in August of last year, I noted the following:
Quote: under the law , an employee is a "covert agent" for the purposes of the statute if and only if he "is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States."
Given that Plame gave birth to twins in 1999 or 2000, and unlikelihood that the CIA would send a new or expectant mother overseas on a dangerous assignment, one may surmise that Plame was not a covert agent.
So, even if this allegation is true, I think before you hold that "Felony Treason Trial," you need to first have a criminal violation.
You know, I did a lot of reading on this story...and I'm still confused to no end on what the heck went on. It's just not computing in CJ's head here...
NEW YORK Adding to the growing intrigue in the Plame case, the grand jury investigating the leak of the covert CIA operative's name has subpoenaed a wide range of White House documents, including records of telephone calls from Air Force One and information relating to an internal working group dealing with Iraq, government sources confirmed to CNN on Friday.
"We are complying fully with the request from the Department of Justice," White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters Friday.
Government sources told CNN the federal grand jury was seeking any information about contacts between White House officials and more than two dozen reporters. The grand jury also asked for a transcript of a briefing by former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer.
The subpoenaed information regarding telephone calls to and from Air Force One, sources said, covered July 7-12, while the president was on a trip to Africa. The requested transcript was from a briefing during that trip as well.
Newsday reported that two of the subpoenas dealt mostly with requests for information before and after the publication of Robert Novak's fateful July 14 column, which outed Plame.
Many of the documents subpoenaed Friday relate to the White House Iraq Group, a little-known task force. Newsweek reported that the group was created in August 2002. The Newsweek report cites an earlier Washington Post article that lists senior political adviser Karl Rove, Bush advisers Karen Hughes and Mary Matalin, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Dick Cheney among the group's members.
The grand jury, which met again Friday, has heard from at least four current or former White House officials. Much of its work recently has also reportedly been to pore over many documents relating to the case.
Rather than taking the word of the right wing perspective G-Man graciously provides ("nothing to see here folks, move along"), i'll just update the grand jury case itself and let you guys make your own conclusions.
Quote: the G-man said: About three months ago, it was pointed out on these very boards that that the so-called "outing" of Plame was probably not criminal after all:
So, even if this allegation is true, I think before you hold that "Felony Treason Trial," you need to first have a criminal violation.
Quote: FLASHBACK: Bush about Plame leak, Oct 6, 2003 PM
Q Mr. President, on another issue, the CIA leak-gate. What is your confidence level in the results of the DOJ investigation about any of your staffers not being found guilty or being found guilty? And what do you say to critics of the administration who say that this administration retaliates against naysayers?
PRESIDENT BUSH: First of all, I'm glad you brought that question up. This is a very serious matter, and our administration takes it seriously. As members of the press corps here know, I have, at times, complained about leaks of security information, whether the leaks be in the legislative branch or in the executive branch. And I take those leaks very seriously.
And, therefore, we will cooperate fully with the Justice Department. I've got all the confidence in the world the Justice Department will do a good, thorough job. And that's exactly what I want them to do, is a good, thorough job. I'd like to know who leaked, and if anybody has got any information inside our government or outside our government who leaked, you ought to take it to the Justice Department so we can find out the leaker.
I have told my staff, I want full cooperation with the Justice Department. And when they ask for information, we expect the information to be delivered on a timely basis. I expect it to be delivered on a timely basis. I want there to be full participation, because, April, I am most interested in finding out the truth.
And, you know, there's a lot of leaking in Washington, D.C. It's a town famous for it. And if this helps stop leaks of -- this investigation in finding the truth, it will not only hold someone to account who should not have leaked -- and this is a serious charge, by the way. We're talking about a criminal action, but also hopefully will help set a clear signal we expect other leaks to stop, as well. And so I look forward to finding the truth.
Newsweek just released a story on this. It provides some background on the story for those who aern't as familiar with this case.
Quote: The Rove Factor? Time magazine talked to Bush's guru for Plame story.
By Michael Isikoff
Newsweek
July 11 issue - Its legal appeals exhausted, Time magazine agreed last week to turn over reporter Matthew Cooper's e-mails and computer notes to a special prosecutor investigating the leak of an undercover CIA agent's identity. The case has been the subject of press controversy for two years. Saying "we are not above the law," Time Inc. Editor in Chief Norman Pearlstine decided to comply with a grand-jury subpoena to turn over documents related to the leak. But Cooper (and a New York Times reporter, Judith Miller) is still refusing to testify and faces jail this week.
At issue is the story of a CIA-sponsored trip taken by former ambassador (and White House critic) Joseph Wilson to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from the African country of Niger. "Some government officials have noted to Time in interviews... that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction," said Cooper's July 2003 Time online article.
Now the story may be about to take another turn. The e-mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper's sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House. Cooper and a Time spokeswoman declined to comment. But in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article. It is unclear, however, what passed between Cooper and Rove.
The controversy began three days before the Time piece appeared, when columnist Robert Novak, writing about Wilson's trip, reported that Wilson had been sent at the suggestion of his wife, who was identified by name as a CIA operative. The leak to Novak, apparently intended to discredit Wilson's mission, caused a furor when it turned out that Plame was an undercover agent. It is a crime to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA official. A special prosecutor was appointed and began subpoenaing reporters to find the source of the leak.
Novak appears to have made some kind of arrangement with the special prosecutor, and other journalists who reported on the Plame story have talked to prosecutors with the permission of their sources. Cooper agreed to discuss his contact with Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide, after Libby gave him permission to do so. But Cooper drew the line when special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald asked about other sources.
Initially, Fitzgerald's focus was on Novak's sourcing, since Novak was the first to out Plame. But according to Luskin, Rove's lawyer, Rove spoke to Cooper three or four days before Novak's column appeared. Luskin told NEWSWEEK that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA." Luskin declined, however, to discuss any other details. He did say that Rove himself had testified before the grand jury "two or three times" and signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him. "He has answered every question that has been put to him about his conversations with Cooper and anybody else," Luskin said. But one of the two lawyers representing a witness sympathetic to the White House told NEWSWEEK that there was growing "concern" in the White House that the prosecutor is interested in Rove. Fitzgerald declined to comment.
In early October 2003, NEWSWEEK reported that immediately after Novak's column appeared in July, Rove called MSNBC "Hardball" host Chris Matthews and told him that Wilson's wife was "fair game." But White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters at the time that any suggestion that Rove had played a role in outing Plame was "totally ridiculous." On Oct. 10, McClellan was asked directly if Rove and two other White House aides had ever discussed Valerie Plame with any reporters. McClellan said he had spoken with all three, and "those individuals assured me they were not involved in this."
Quote: the G-man said: About three months ago, it was pointed out on these very boards that that the so-called "outing" of Plame was probably not criminal after all:
So, even if this allegation is true, I think before you hold that "Felony Treason Trial," you need to first have a criminal violation.
Quote: PaulWellr said: FLASHBACK: Bush about Plame leak, Oct 6, 2003 PM We're talking about a criminal action,but also hopefully will help set a clear signal we expect other leaks to stop, as well. And so I look forward to finding the truth.
Many investigations start as "criminal actions" but as the evidence is gathered it reveals that no crime, per se, occurred.
Quote: But according to Luskin, Rove's lawyer...Rove himself had testified before the grand jury "two or three times" and signed a waiver authorizing reporters to testify about their conversations with him.
If Rove is "the source" and, as noted above, Rove had signed a waiver, why would Time have to require a court order to surrender the information?
If the article is accurate, this would seem to indicate that the source is someone other than Rove.
Quote: the G-man said: [
If Rove is "the source" and, as noted above, Rove had signed a waiver, why would Time have to require a court order to surrender the information?
The TIME link I provided at the bottom of my last post provides more insight into TIME's surrendering of the notes. Or at least their spin on the matter. It was done basically to keep their reporter Matthew Cooper out of jail which is where this was headed.
The New York Times should also have some extensive coverage of this story as Judith Miller their pro-Iraq war reporter (the one who's anonymous source for her WMD stories was Ahmed Chalabi) is also facing jail time for failing to cooperate with the grand jury.
Right now i'm pressed for time with weekend family commitments so if anyone wants to research their end of the story, be my guest.
Now comes the speculation that the leaker isn't even a government employee at all.
The Washington Post, declaring Wednesday an "historic" day in the history of the press in America, suggested that perhaps the "leaker" of Valerie Plame's identity as a covert CIa operative was not a Bush administration official but a reporter (or reporters).
In a Wednesday A3 story, Carol Leonnig writes, "Sources close to the investigation say there is evidence in some instances that some reporters may have told government officials -- not the other way around -- that Wilson was married to Plame, a CIA employee."
The following letter, drafted by Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), was issued to other House Democrats for signature this afternoon.
Conyers, the ranking Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, calls on Bush adviser Karl Rove to explain his role in the outing of a CIA agent or resign his office.
Quote: July 7, 2005
The President
The White House
Washington, DC
Dear Mr. President:
We write in order to urge that you require your Deputy White House Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, to either come forward immediately to explain his role in the Valerie Plame matter or to resign from your Administration.
Notwithstanding whether Mr. Rove intentionally violated the law in leaking information concerning former CIA operative Valerie Plame, we believe it is not tenable to maintain Mr. Rove as one of your most important advisors unless he is willing to explain his central role in using the power and authority of your Administration to disseminate information regarding Ms. Plame and to undermine her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
We now know that e-mails recently turned over by Time, Inc. between writer Matthew Cooper and Time editors reveal that one of Mr. Cooper’s principal sources in the Plame matter was Mr. Rove. This has been confirmed by Newsweek and two lawyers representing witnesses involved in the investigation. Mr. Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, also has confirmed that Mr. Rove was interviewed by Mr. Cooper in connection with a possible article about Ms. Plame three or four days before Robert Novak wrote a column outing Ms. Plame as a CIA operative.
We also know that Mr. Rove told Chris Matthews that Ambassador Wilson’s wife and her undercover status were “fair game.” A White House source also appears to have previously acknowledged that Mr. Rove contacted Mr. Matthews and other journalists, indicating that “it was reasonable to discuss who sent Wilson to Niger.”
The above facts appear to be directly inconsistent with previous statements by you and representatives of your Administration concerning leaking in general and the Plame case in particular. For example, on September 30, 2003, you stated “there’s just too many leaks [in Washington]. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is.” You also stated “I want to know the truth. If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business.” On October 10, 2003, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan was asked if Mr. Rove or two other aides in your Administration had ever discussed the Plame matter with any reporter, and he stated he had spoken to Mr. Rove and the others and “they assured me that they were not involved in this.”
Regardless of whether these actions violate the law – including specific laws against the disclosure of classified information as well as broader laws against obstruction of justice, the negligent distribution of defense information, and obligating reporting of press leaks to proper authorities – they seem to reveal a course of conduct designed to threaten and intimidate those who provide information critical of your Administration, such as Ambassador Wilson.
We hope you agree with us that such behavior should never be tolerated by any Administration. While it is acceptable for a private citizen to use every legal tool at his or her disposal to protect himself against legal liability, high-ranking members of your Administration who are involved in any effort to smear a private citizen or to disseminate information regarding a CIA operative should be expected to meet a far higher standard of ethical behavior and forthrightness. This is why we believe it is so important that Mr. Rove publicly and fully explain his role in this matter.
John Dean - whoever it is, he or she is a huge coward. The fact that they would let someone do this.. This is the sort of thing that mafia people do, that drug kings do. Not someone who is serving the White House as a public servant.
Well Judith Miller was sent to jail immediately until she testifies or until the grand jury ends it's term in October.
I have my own reasons for not shedding any tears for Ms. Judith Miller, seeing as how she was one of the main cheerleaders in the press for this war and seeing how she was passing bogus WMD info from Ahmed Chalabi to make the case for war.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A judge on Wednesday sent a New York Times reporter to jail after she said she could not reveal her confidential source to a grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA operative's name to the media.
Chief U.S. District Judge Thomas Hogan ordered New York Times correspondent Judith Miller to jail immediately and said she must stay there until she agrees to testify or until the end of the grand jury's term in October.
Another case involving Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper was resolved when he told the judge he had just received the "expressed personal consent" of his source to reveal his identity. "Consequently I am prepared to testify," he said.
Miller told the judge she did not want to go to jail but had no choice but to protect her sources.
"If journalists cannot be trusted to keep confidences, then journalists cannot function and there cannot be a free press," she said.
The grand jury investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, a Justice Department prosecutor, seeks to determine who in the Bush administration leaked the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame in 2003 to the media and whether any laws were violated.
Plame's name was leaked, her diplomat husband charged, because of his criticism of the Bush administration's handling of the Iraq war.
Fearing jail time, the other reporter, Matthew Cooper is going to testify though.
From Editor & Publisher, a fairly damning editorial from Bill Israel, a UMass journalism professor who taught with Rove at the University of Texas:
Quote: [T]he Valerie Plame-CIA case that threatens jail time for reporters from Time and The New York Times this week is the exception that shatters the rule. In this case, journalists as a community have been played for patsies by the president's chief strategist, Karl Rove, and are enabling him to abuse the First Amendment, by their invoking it. [...]
The problem, as always, in dealing with Rove, is establishing a clear chain of culpability. Rove once described himself as a die-hard Nixonite; he is, like the former president, both student and master of plausible deniability. (This past weekend, in confirming that Rove was indeed a source for Matthew Cooper, Rove's lawyer said his client "never knowingly disclosed classified information.") That is precisely why prosecutor Fitzgerald in this case must document the pattern of Rove's behavior, whether journalists published, or not.
For in this case, Rove, improving on Macchiavelli, has bet that reporters won't rat their relationship with the administration's most important political source. How better for him to operate without constraint, or to camouflage breaking the law, than under the cover of journalists and journalism, protected by the First Amendment? [...]
Reporters with a gut fear of breaching confidential sources must fight like tigers to protect them. But neither reporters Cooper nor Miller, nor their publications, nor anyone in journalism should protect the behavior of Rove (or anyone else) through an undiscerning, blanket use of the First Amendment that weakens its protections by its gross misuse.
Again, be aware that the informed wisdom is that Fitzgerald is working on perjury or obstruction charges -- he's not necessarily going to indict anyone as the "original leaker", but he may very well be preparing indictments against Bush administration officials who gave false testimony to the grand jury. And then there's the whole conspiracy angle which, if Rove's own testimony can be believed, could easily come into play...
It also should be noted that Cooper and especially Miller don't exactly have universal support from other journalists in their steadfast insistence that they be allowed to ignore the court's rulings. Fitzgerald's almost-but-not-quite snarky brief [PDF] to the court opposing Miller's request for house arrest draws heavily on press editorials strongly disputing the claims of journalistic privilege claimed by Cooper and Miller. It's worth a read.
Interesting. This was an investigation that I figured was not going to go anywhere despite how many people who must know who was behind leaking Plame's name.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Interesting. This was an investigation that I figured was not going to go anywhere despite how many people who must know who was behind leaking Plame's name.
...and the story gets weirder still.
Quote: Connection to Plame investigation
Guckert has been questioned by the Justice Department in relation to the department's criminal investigation into the Valerie Plame affair, in which Plame's identity as an undercover CIA operative was allegedly illegally leaked to a number of journalists and commentators by one or more senior administration officials. On October 28, 2003, Talon News published an interview Guckert had conducted with Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, Plame's husband, whom the CIA had sent to Niger in 2003 to investigate claims that Iraq was attempting to procure yellowcake uranium. In the interview, Guckert asked Wilson about an "internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel" that said Plame had suggested Wilson for the job. In a February 2005 interview, Guckert told CNN's Wolf Blitzer that the FBI had spoken to him in an effort to learn who had leaked the classified memo and to whom, but that he had not been asked to appear before the grand jury investigating the case.
Jeff Gannon. The White House credentialized fake news reporter Jeff Gannon AKA James Juckert from fake right wing news agency Talon News for the White House press pool.
The Washington Post reported that Gannon had access to the internal CIA memo that names Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert agent.
So who leaked the memo to Gannon/ Guckert?
Incredible how something like this is coalescing into other White House scandals....
Internal Time e-mails reportedly reveal that White House political guru Karl Rove was the magazine's source as it probed the outing of a covert CIA operative — but also show that Rove never disclosed the agent's name or spy status.
Time reporter Matt Cooper's e-mails show that Rove did not name CIA agent Valerie Plame — and referred to her only in passing.
In other words, Rove talked to Time, but was not the person who leaked Plame's name or job title to them.
Quote: MisterJLA said: So who...I mean PaulWellr started a hysterical thread accusing a "neocon" before having all the facts?
Shocking!
Yea, and then Who.... er, Paul goes on to forget who it was he was accusing in the first place.
Quote: So who leaked the memo to Gannon/ Guckert?
Um, I think you meant Rove, Paul.
On Saturday i decided to listen to Air America. Asside from noting that none of the shows I listened to ever fielded a call from the opposition (a claim that is made about Rush libaugh inspite of the fact that he takes at least 25% of his calls from the opposition) They started out by asserting that Rove DID leak Plames ID (as though it were fact) then went on to mention briefly that his involvement hadn't been proven and was still speculation. Then they treated it as fact for the rest of the program that he'd been convicted assuming thier listeners were either too stupid or too ideolistic to question thier premise (not a bad assumption mind you) At one point they mentioned that Rove had told the grand jury that he wasn't involved and based on teh fact (thier assertion) that he had infact was the one who leaked the name he lied and should be thrown in jail for .... get this..... LYING TO A GRAND JURY. I lmost wet myself!
I also heard in a few hours of listening to Air America several times that I was a Nazi (I often heard the term "right" replaced with "reich") and that Republicans acctually don't want the troops to ever come home but we WANT them to die. I also heard very few sponsers. Most of the ad time was service announcements or parody comercials. And I heard NO ads for local buisinesses even though I live in a liberal hotbed.
On Saturday i decided to listen to Air America. Asside from noting that none of the shows I listened to ever fielded a call from the opposition (a claim that is made about Rush libaugh inspite of the fact that he takes at least 25% of his calls from the opposition) They started out by asserting that Rove DID leak Plames ID (as though it were fact) then went on to mention briefly that his involvement hadn't been proven and was still speculation. Then they treated it as fact for the rest of the program that he'd been convicted assuming thier listeners were either too stupid or too ideolistic to question thier premise (not a bad assumption mind you) At one point they mentioned that Rove had told the grand jury that he wasn't involved and based on teh fact (thier assertion) that he had infact was the one who leaked the name he lied and should be thrown in jail for .... get this..... LYING TO A GRAND JURY. I lmost wet myself!
I also heard in a few hours of listening to Air America several times that I was a Nazi (I often heard the term "right" replaced with "reich") and that Republicans acctually don't want the troops to ever come home but we WANT them to die. I also heard very few sponsers. Most of the ad time was service announcements or parody comercials. And I heard NO ads for local buisinesses even though I live in a liberal hotbed.
I hate to say it but....I agree WBAM, Air America sucks! I try listening to it now and then, this morning in fact. For a guy that makes a living as a comedian, Al Franken was not funny. Sanctimonious is an adjective that comes to mind. For entertainment value, the fat junkie wins hands down!
I don't mind agreeing wbam on this one. I hate it when the other side does it. But things grow odder. Karl Rove is definitely not off the hook as I see it. His lawyer says Rove didn't mention her by name but essentially said enough for anybody with Internet access to figure out her maiden name within minutes. And there is the Gannon thing as PaulWellr discussed. Could this be part of the reason Gannon had a press pass?
According to what I've read, the Time reporter spoke to Rove AFTER Plame's name had been leaked by a completely different reporter (Novak). So the fact that the Time reporter spoke to Rove, even if Rove had used Plame's name, seems irrelvant. The cat was not only out of the bag, but Time was, itself, investigating the previous release of the name.
As noted before, this tends to exonerate, not implicate Rove.
As a legal matter it may not be irrelvant though. Rove could still have directed other people into leaking Plame's name. At this point he could even be charged with perjury if he did not tell the truth about this to the Grand Jury. Pure speculation of course.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: As a legal matter it may not be irrelvant though. Rove could still have directed other people into leaking Plame's name. At this point he could even be charged with perjury if he did not tell the truth about this to the Grand Jury. Pure speculation of course.
I'm no more willing to attest to Rove's innocensce (save for him legaly being innocent until proven guilty) than I think it would be appropriate to attest to his guilt at this stage in the game.
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 48 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - For the better part of two years, the word coming out of the Bush White House was that presidential adviser Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leak of a female CIA officer's identity and that whoever did would be fired.
But Bush spokesman Scott McClellan wouldn't repeat those claims Monday in the face of Rove's own lawyer, Robert Luskin, acknowledging the political operative spoke to Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, one of the reporters who disclosed Valerie Plame's name.
President Bush's chief of staff Andrew Card, left, senior advisor Carl Rove, center, and press secretary Scott McClellan, right, leave the White House, Tuesday, April 20, 2004, for a trip to Buffalo, N.Y. and New York City with President Bush. For the better part of two years, the word coming out of the Bush White House was that presidential adviser Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leak of a female CIA officer's identity and that whoever did would be fired. But Bush spokesman Scott McClellan wouldn't repeat those claims Monday July 11 2005 in the face of Rove's own lawyer, Robert Luskin, acknowledging the political operative spoke to Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, one of the reporters who disclosed Valerie Plame's name.(AP Photo/Ron Edmonds)
McClellan repeatedly said he couldn't comment because the matter is under investigation. When it was pointed out he had commented previously even though the investigation was ongoing, he responded, "I've really said all I'm going to say on it."
Democrats jumped on the issue, calling for the administration to fire Rove, or at least to yank his security clearance. One Democrat pushed for Republicans to hold a congressional hearing in which Rove would testify.
"The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration," said Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "I trust they will follow through on this pledge. If these allegations are true, this rises above politics and is about our national security."
The investigation into the 2003 leak had largely faded into the background until last week, when New York Times reporter Judith Miller went to jail rather than reveal who in the administration talked to her about Plame.
Cooper also had planned to go to jail rather than reveal his source but at the last minute agreed to cooperate with investigators when a source, Rove, gave him permission to do so. Cooper's employer, Time Inc., also turned over Cooper's e-mail and notes.
One of the e-mails was a note from Cooper to his boss in which he said he had spoken to Rove, who described the wife of former U.S. Ambassador and Bush administration critic Joe Wilson as someone who "apparently works" at the CIA, Newsweek magazine reported.
Within days of the July 11, 2003, e-mail, Cooper's byline was on a Time article identifying Wilson's wife by name — Valerie Plame. Her identity was first disclosed by columnist Robert Novak.
The e-mail did not say Rove had disclosed the name. but it made clear that Rove had discussed the issue.
That ran counter to what McClellan has been saying. For example, in September and October 2003, McClellan's comments about Rove included the following: "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved," "It was a ridiculous suggestion," and, "It's not true."
Reporters seized on the subject Monday, pressing McClellan to either repeat the denials or explain why he can't now.
"I have said for quite some time that this is an ongoing investigation and we're not going to get into discussing it," McClellan replied.
Asked whether Rove committed a crime, McClellan said, "This is a question relating to an ongoing investigation."
McClellan gave the same answer when asked whether the president has confidence in Rove.
Rove declined to comment Monday and referred questions to his attorney. Last year, he said, "I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name."
The Rove disclosure was an embarrassment for a White House that prides itself on not leaking to reporters and has insisted that Rove was not involved in exposing Plame's identity.
The disclosure also left in doubt whether Bush would carry out his promise to fire anyone found to have leaked the CIA operative's identity. Rove is one of the president's closest confidants — the man Bush has described as the architect of his re-election, and currently deputy White House chief of staff.
Rove's conversation with Cooper took place five days after Plame's husband suggested in a New York Times op-ed piece that the Bush administration had manipulated intelligence on weapons of mass destruction to justify the invasion of Iraq. Wilson has since suggested his wife's name was leaked as retaliation.
The e-mail that Cooper wrote to his bureau chief said Wilson's wife authorized a trip by Wilson to Africa. The purpose was to check out reports that Iraq had tried to obtain yellowcake uranium for use in nuclear weapons. Wilson's subsequent public criticism of the administration was based on his findings during the trip that cast serious doubt on the allegation that Iraq had tried to obtain the material.
Luskin, Rove's lawyer, said his client did not disclose Plame's name. Luskin declined to say how Rove found out that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and refused to say how Rove came across the information that it was Wilson's wife who authorized his trip to Africa.
Rove's lawyer says his client has done nothing wrong.
"In the conversation, Karl is warning Cooper not to get too far out in front of the story," Luskin said. "There were false allegations out there that Vice President Cheney sent Wilson to Niger and that Wilson had reported back to Cheney about his trip to Niger. Neither was true.
"A fair-minded reading of Cooper's e-mail is that Rove was trying to discourage Time magazine from circulating false allegations about Cheney, not trying to encourage them by saying anything about Wilson or his wife."
Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean said it is "disturbing that this high ranking Bush adviser is not only still working in the White House, but now has a significant role in setting our national security policy."
Dean's counterpart, Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, responded: "It's disappointing that once again, so many Democrat leaders are taking their political cues from the far left. ... The bottom line is the Democrats are engaged in blatant partisan political attacks."
Sen. Frank Lautenberg (news, bio, voting record), D-N.J., and a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, called on Bush to suspend Rove's security clearances, shutting him out of classified meetings.
Rep. Henry Waxman (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif., asked the Republican chairman of the House Government Reform Committee to hold a hearing where Rove would testify.
Rove should resign or the president should fire him, said Tom Matzzie, Washington director of the liberal advocacy group MoveOn PAC.
Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., asked Rove to detail any conversations he had about Plame before her name surfaced publicly in Novak's column.
But all of this is secondary...
Why on earth are the Republicans on this board in such deep denial? Rove's own lawyer last week practically admitted Rove was the leaker when he said Rove didn't KNOWINGLY leak Valerie Plame's ID.
Now Newsweek has also disclosed Rove as the leaker by releasing a Cooper e-mail revealing Rove as the source of the leak.
WASHINGTON — Top White House advisor Karl Rove was one of the secret sources who spoke to reporters about a covert CIA operative whose identity was leaked to the media, Newsweek magazine reported in its latest edition.
The magazine said Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove talked to a Time magazine reporter about former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame.
Luskin said Rove recently gave Time reporter Matthew Cooper permission to testify about the conversation to a grand jury investigating the leak in 2003, Newsweek reported.
A federal judge ordered Cooper, along with New York Times reporter Judith Miller, to testify and reveal their confidential sources.
Last week, Cooper avoided a jail sentence for contempt of court by agreeing to testify in the case. Miller refused to testify and was jailed.
The case has become an important test involving freedom of the press, pitting journalists' traditional use of anonymous sources against a federal prosecutor's efforts to investigate a possible crime.
It is illegal to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA agent.
Although Rove has made statements about the Plame leak, he has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about the CIA agent.
Rove has carefully chosen his words when questioned about the leak. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," he told CNN last year.
Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has led a two-year investigation into the leak amid questions about whether it came from the White House as part of an attempt to discredit Wilson after he contradicted President Bush's assertions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
As an aside, what Does WBAM's Air America diatribes or JLA's paranoid rants have to do with the topic at hand?
Well, it was a rhetorical question. Now that the question of who leaked has been solved (partially I think), now maybe the question of how and why a male prostitute/fake news reporter was allowed unprececdented access inside the White House, can also be answered.
Quote: Q Does the President stand by his pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak of a name of a CIA operative?
MR. McCLELLAN: Terry, I appreciate your question. I think your question is being asked relating to some reports that are in reference to an ongoing criminal investigation. The criminal investigation that you reference is something that continues at this point. And as I've previously stated, while that investigation is ongoing, the White House is not going to comment on it. The President directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, we made a decision that we weren't going to comment on it while it is ongoing.
Q Excuse me, but I wasn't actually talking about any investigation. But in June of 2004, the President said that he would fire anybody who was involved in this leak, to press of information. And I just want to know, is that still his position?
MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, but this question is coming up in the context of this ongoing investigation, and that's why I said that our policy continues to be that we're not going to get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation from this podium. The prosecutors overseeing the investigation had expressed a preference to us that one way to help the investigation is not to be commenting on it from this podium. And so that's why we are not going to get into commenting on it while it is an ongoing investigation, or questions related to it.
Q Scott, if I could -- if I could point out, contradictory to that statement, on September 29th, 2003, while the investigation was ongoing, you clearly commented on it. You were the first one who said, if anybody from the White House was involved, they would be fired. And then on June 10th of 2004, at Sea Island Plantation, in the midst of this investigation is when the President made his comment that, yes, he would fire anybody from the White House who was involved. So why have you commented on this during the process of the investigation in the past, but now you've suddenly drawn a curtain around it under the statement of, "We're not going to comment on an ongoing investigation"?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, John, I appreciate the question. I know you want to get to the bottom of this. No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the President of the United States. And I think the way to be most helpful is to not get into commenting on it while it is an ongoing investigation. That's something that the people overseeing the investigation have expressed a preference that we follow. And that's why we're continuing to follow that approach and that policy.
Now, I remember very well what was previously said. And at some point, I will be glad to talk about it, but not until after the investigation is complete.
Q So could I just ask, when did you change your mind to say that it was okay to comment during the course of an investigation before, but now it's not?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think maybe you missed what I was saying in reference to Terry's question at the beginning. There came a point when the investigation got underway when those overseeing the investigation asked that it would be their -- or said that it would be their preference that we not get into discussing it while it is ongoing. I think that's the way to be most helpful to help them advance the investigation and get to the bottom of it.
Q Scott, can I ask you this; did Karl Rove commit a crime?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, David, this is a question relating to an ongoing investigation, and you have my response related to the investigation. And I don't think you should read anything into it other than we're going to continue not to comment on it while it's ongoing.
Q Do you stand by your statement from the fall of 2003 when you were asked specifically about Karl and Elliott Abrams and Scooter Libby, and you said, "I've gone to each of those gentlemen, and they have told me they are not involved in this" -- do you stand by that statement?
MR. McCLELLAN: And if you will recall, I said that as part of helping the investigators move forward on the investigation we're not going to get into commenting on it. That was something I stated back near that time, as well.
Q Scott, I mean, just -- I mean, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us after having commented with that level of detail and tell people watching this that somehow you decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium, or not?
MR. McCLELLAN: And again, David, I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said, and I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation --
Q Why are you choosing when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?
MR. McCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish --
Q No, you're not finishing -- you're not saying anything. You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke out about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation? Was he involved, or was he not? Because, contrary to what you told the American people, he did, indeed, talk about his wife, didn't he?
MR. McCLELLAN: David, there will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.
Q Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.
Go ahead, Terry.
Q Well, you're in a bad spot here, Scott, because after the investigation began, after the criminal investigation was underway, you said -- October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby, as I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this." From that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began. Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?
MR. McCLELLAN: No, that's not a correct characterization Terry, and I think you are well aware of that. We know each other very well, and it was after that period that the investigators had requested that we not get into commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation. And we want to be helpful so that they can get to the bottom of this, because no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the President of the United States. I am well aware of what was said previously. I remember well what was said previously. And at some point, I look forward to talking about it. But until the investigation is complete, I'm just not going to do that.
Q Do you recall when you were asked --
Q Wait, wait -- so you're now saying that after you cleared Rove and the others from that podium, then the prosecutors asked you not to speak anymore, and since then, you haven't?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, you're continuing to ask questions relating to an ongoing criminal investigation, and I'm just not going to respond any further.
Q When did they ask you to stop commenting on it, Scott? Can you peg down a date?
MR. McCLELLAN: Back at that time period.
Q Well, then the President commented on it nine months later. So was he not following the White House plan?
MR. McCLELLAN: John, I appreciate your questions. You can keep asking them, but you have my response.
Go ahead, Dave.
Q We are going to keep asking them. When did the President learn that Karl Rove had had a conversation with the President -- with a news reporter about the involvement of Joseph Wilson's wife and the decision to send --
MR. McCLELLAN: I've responded to the questions.
Q When did the President learn that Karl Rove had --
MR. McCLELLAN: I've responded to the questions, Dick.
Go ahead.
Q After the investigation is completed, will you then be consistent with your word and the President's word that anybody who was involved would be let go?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, after the investigation is complete, I will be glad to talk about it at that point.
Q And a follow-up. Can you walk us through why, given the fact that Rove's lawyer has spoken publicly about this, it is inconsistent with the investigation, that it compromises the investigation to talk about the involvement of Karl Rove, the Deputy Chief of Staff?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, those overseeing the investigation expressed a preference to us that we not get into commenting on the investigation while it's ongoing. And that was what they requested of the White House. And so I think in order to be helpful to that investigation, we are following their direction.
Q Scott, there's a difference between commenting on an investigation and taking an action --
MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, Goyal.
Q Can I finish, please? ........
Quote: Carl, go ahead. I'll come to you, David, in a second.
Q Does the President continue to have confidence in Mr. Rove?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, these are all questions coming up in the context of an ongoing criminal investigation. And you've heard my response on this.
Q So you're not going to respond as to whether or not the President has confidence in his Deputy Chief of Staff?
MR. McCLELLAN: Carl, you're asking this question in the context of an ongoing investigation. And I would not read anything into it other than I'm simply not going to comment on an ongoing --
Q Has there been -- has there been any change --
MR. McCLELLAN: -- investigation.
Q Has there been any change or is there a plan for Mr. Rove's portfolio to be altered in any way?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, you have my response to these questions.
Go ahead. Sarah, go ahead. ....
Quote: Now I'll go back to David. Go ahead.
Q There's a difference between commenting publicly on an action and taking action in response to it. Newsweek put out a story, an email saying that Karl Rove passed national security information on to a reporter that outed a CIA officer. Now, are you saying that the President is not taking any action in response to that? Because I presume that the prosecutor did not ask you not to take action, and that if he did, you still would not necessarily abide by that; that the President is free to respond to news reports, regardless of whether there's an investigation or not. So are you saying that he's not going to do anything about this until the investigation is fully over and done with?
MR. McCLELLAN: Well, I think the President has previously spoken to this. This continues to be an ongoing criminal investigation. No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the President of the United States. And we're just not going to have more to say on it until that investigation is complete.
Q But you acknowledge that he is free, as President of the United States, to take whatever action he wants to in response to a credible report that a member of his staff leaked information. He is free to take action if he wants to.
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, you're asking questions relating to an ongoing investigation, and I think I've responded to it.
Quote: MR. McCLELLAN: Go ahead, April. Go ahead.
Q Scott, what was the President's interaction today with Karl Rove? Did they discuss this current situation? And understanding that Karl Rove was the architect of the President's win for the second term in the Oval Office, how important is Karl Rove to this administration currently?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, this is coming at it from --
Q It has nothing to do with what you just said.
MR. McCLELLAN: This is still coming at the same question relating to reports about an ongoing investigation, and I think I've responded to it.
Q Who is Karl Rove as it relates to this administration?
MR. McCLELLAN: Do you have questions on another topic?
Q No, no, no, no. Who is Karl Rove as it relates to this current administration?
MR. McCLELLAN: I appreciate the question, April. I think I've responded.
Go ahead, Connie. ...
Quote: Go ahead.
Q Scott, I think you're barrage today in part because we -- it is now clear that 21 months ago, you were up at this podium saying something that we now know to be demonstratively false. Now, are you concerned that in not setting the record straight today that this could undermine the credibility of the other things you say from the podium?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I'm going to be happy to talk about this at the appropriate time. Dana, you all -- you and everybody in this room, or most people in this room, I should say, know me very well and they know the type of person that I am. And I'm confident in our relationship that we have. But I will be glad to talk about this at the appropriate time, and that's once the investigation is complete. I'm not going to get into commenting based on reports or anything of that nature.
Q Scott, at this point, are we to consider what you've said previously, when you were talking about this, that you're still standing by that, or are those all inoperative at this point?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, you're still trying to come at this from a different angle, and I've responded to it.
Q Are you standing by what you said previously?
MR. McCLELLAN: You've heard my response.
Go ahead. ....
Quote: Go ahead, Alexis.
Q When the leak investigation is concluded, does the President believe it might be important for his credibility, the credibility of the White House, to release all the information voluntarily that was submitted as part of the investigation, so the American public could see what the -- what transpired inside the White House at the time?
MR. McCLELLAN: This is an investigation being overseen by a special prosecutor. And I think those are questions best directed to the special prosecutor. Again, this is an ongoing matter; I'm just not going to get into commenting on it further at this time. At the appropriate time, when it's complete, then I'll be glad to talk about it at that point.
Q Have you in the White House considered whether that would be optimum to release as much information and make it as open a process --
MR. McCLELLAN: It's the same type of question. You're asking me to comment on an ongoing investigation, and I'm not going to do that.
Q I'm actually talking about the communication strategy, which is a little different.
MR. McCLELLAN: Understood. The President directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation. And that's what he expects people in the White House to do.
Q And he would like to that when it is concluded, cooperate fully with --
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I've already responded.
Go ahead.
Q Scott, was it -- who in the investigation made this request of the White House not to comment further about the investigation? Was it Mr. Fitzgerald? Did he make the request of you --
MR. McCLELLAN: I mean, you can ask -- you can direct those questions to the special prosecutors. I think probably more than one individual who's involved in overseeing the investigation had expressed a preference that we not get into commenting on the investigation while it's ongoing. I think we all want to see the prosecutors get to the bottom of this matter. The President wants to see the prosecutors get to the bottom of this matter. And the way to help them do that is to not get into commenting on it while it is ongoing.
Q Was the request made of you, or of whom in the White House?
MR. McCLELLAN: I already responded to these questions.
Go ahead.
Quote: Bob, go ahead.
Q Yes, in your dealings with the special counsel, have you consulted a personal attorney?
MR. McCLELLAN: Again, I'm just not going to say anything further. I expressed all I'm going to say on this matter from this podium.
Quote: PaulWellr said: ... Who knew the formerly spineless White House press corps could ask follow up questions and keep asking after getting a scripted non-answer?
To many people were starting to notice their silence on this IMHO. Was it ever resolved who sent Wilson on that mission in the first place BTW? Rove was apparently telling reporters that it was Plame who sent her husband. If she didn't, why would Rove tell reporters otherwise?
Quote: PaulWellr said: ...
Who knew the formerly spineless White House press corps could ask follow up questions and keep asking after getting a scripted non-answer?
To many people were starting to notice their silence on this IMHO. Was it ever resolved who sent Wilson on that mission in the first place BTW? Rove was apparently telling reporters that it was Plame who sent her husband. If she didn't, why would Rove tell reporters otherwise?
Plame DID INTRODUCE her husband to the people that sent him, but she did not SEND him. She didn't have the authority to do that. The Directorate's boss sent him. The repub spin machine said all along that she SENT him, like she was some sort of ball-busting, power-hungry mad woman sending her husband off on a cushy, ridiculous mission to embarrass the president.
Quote: PaulWellr said: what Does WBAM's Air America diatribes or JLA's paranoid rants have to do with the topic at hand?
G-Man??
In the case of WBAM, he was discussing "Air America's" coverage of the Plame/Rove story:
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said:
On Saturday i decided to listen to Air America. ....They started out by asserting that Rove DID leak Plames ID (as though it were fact) then went on to mention briefly that his involvement hadn't been proven and was still speculation. Then they treated it as fact for the rest of the program that he'd been convicted .... At one point they mentioned that Rove had told the grand jury that he wasn't involved and based on teh fact (thier assertion) that he had infact was the one who leaked the name he lied and should be thrown in jail for .... get this..... LYING TO A GRAND JURY.
The thread is about Plame and Rove, is it not?
In the case of JLA, all he did was state, sarcastically, that your premise was flawed and posted as a thread before all the facts were in.
As such, both seem to be pretty much on topic to me.
Now you're being silly. This is not the "doctored photo" forum.
If Rove turns out to be the leaker, meaning that he is named by the Grand Jury, or other competent authority, as the person who made the initial disclosure to Bob Novack, posting that pic might make sense. But right now, all you're doing is undercutting your own arguments on an issue that you could be proven correct on someday.
Jon Podhoretz has a pretty good column on why, as discussed previously, all of this may amount to nothing anyway:
In the Cooper e-mails just surrendered by Time to the prosecutor looking into the Plame case, "Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a 'big warning' not to 'get too far out on Wilson.' Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by . . . CIA Director George Tenet . . . or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, 'it was, [Rove] said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.' "
There's no mistaking the purpose of this conversation between Cooper and Rove. It wasn't intended to discredit, defame or injure Wilson's wife. It was intended to throw cold water on the import, seriousness and supposedly high level of Wilson's findings.
While some may differ on the fairness of discrediting Joseph Wilson, it sure isn't any kind of crime.
Rove was suggesting to Cooper that that folks lower down in the CIA than its own director commandeered the process so that the husband of one of their own could get the gig. And the husband in question then went and misrepresented his findings to various journalists
This Rove-Cooper conversation discredits Wilson, not Plame. In fact, nothing we know so far was done either with the purpose of exposing or even the knowledge that these remarks would be exposing an undercover CIA operative.
But Plame's undercover status at the time was and is a little questionable in any case. How undercover could she have been when her name was published at the time as part of Joseph Wilson's own biography online (see cpsag.com/our_team/wilson.html)?
So if the offense wasn't against Plame, what of the offense against Wilson? There was no offense. As many of Joe Wilson's own hottest defenders would no doubt argue in relation to President Bush, exposing a liar is not only not a crime, it's a public service.
And Wilson lied. Repeatedly.
First off, Wilson long denied he was recommended for the job by his wife: "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," he writes in his book. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."
But the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence actually found the memo in which Valerie Plame recommended her husband for the job.
There were other lies as well. Wilson's own report was far from definitive in any way on the question of whether Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger — thus giving the lie to his later bald claim that he came back insisting there was no link.
Thus, Rove was telling Cooper the truth.
What isn't controversial is this: Karl Rove didn't "out" Valerie Plame as a CIA agent to intimidate Joe Wilson. He was dismissing Joe Wilson as a low-level has-been hack to whom nobody should pay attention. He was right then, and if he said it today, he'd still be right.
And if Valerie Plame wants to live a quiet spy life, she should stop having her picture taken by society photographers and stop getting stories written about her on the front page of the Times.
WASHINGTON — Top White House advisor Karl Rove was one of the secret sources who spoke to reporters about a covert CIA operative whose identity was leaked to the media, Newsweek magazine reported in its latest edition.
The magazine said Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove talked to a Time magazine reporter about former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame.
Luskin said Rove recently gave Time reporter Matthew Cooper permission to testify about the conversation to a grand jury investigating the leak in 2003, Newsweek reported.
A federal judge ordered Cooper, along with New York Times reporter Judith Miller, to testify and reveal their confidential sources.
Last week, Cooper avoided a jail sentence for contempt of court by agreeing to testify in the case. Miller refused to testify and was jailed.
The case has become an important test involving freedom of the press, pitting journalists' traditional use of anonymous sources against a federal prosecutor's efforts to investigate a possible crime.
It is illegal to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA agent.
Although Rove has made statements about the Plame leak, he has never publicly acknowledged talking to any reporter about the CIA agent.
Rove has carefully chosen his words when questioned about the leak. "I didn't know her name. I didn't leak her name," he told CNN last year.
Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has led a two-year investigation into the leak amid questions about whether it came from the White House as part of an attempt to discredit Wilson after he contradicted President Bush's assertions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
As an aside, what Does WBAM's Air America diatribes or JLA's paranoid rants have to do with the topic at hand?
G-Man??
If you had acctually read my diatribe about Air America, i was primarily discussing thier willingness to discuss Roves guilt as though it were concusive. Wich as I recall WAS the topic at hand. I will try and go slower for you next time...... retard.
Not sure where it's been proven that Wilson lied G-man. He may not have known that his wife recommended him. Besides there is a difference between recommending somebody & actually being the person making the decision. According to what Rove was leaking to at least one reporter, she masterminded the whole thing. It's also interesting that Rove apparently knew so much about Plame, but not her name.
If you had acctually read my diatribe about Air America, i was primarily discussing thier willingness to discuss Roves guilt as though it were concusive. Wich as I recall WAS the topic at hand. I will try and go slower for you next time...... retard.
Quote: the G-man said: Now you're being silly. This is not the "doctored photo" forum.[/quote But you do agree that it should be?
Quote:
If Rove turns out to be the leaker, meaning that he is named by the Grand Jury, or other competent authority, as the person who made the initial disclosure to Bob Novack, posting that pic might make sense. But right now, all you're doing is undercutting your own arguments on an issue that you could be proven correct on someday.
brrrr someone's being defensive. I'm not surprised with all this. I used to watch the Twilight Zone and people who sell their souls always end up with ironic endings.
Plame's undercover status at the time was and is a little questionable in any case. How undercover could she have been when her name was published at the time as part of Joseph Wilson's own biography online (see cpsag.com/our_team/wilson.html)?
It's true that we don't KNOW with certainty that Plame is covered. But, the application of common sense is not against the law or fair contemplation one hopes.
Common sense tells me that 2 years into the investigation, the Plame prosecutor would have gathered enough facts to make such a determination. Seems a simple enough question. Heck, to me 2 hours seems sufficient. Served overseas? Check. In the last five years? Well, the CIA would know that one hopes. And the CIA referred the case to Justice. My application of common sense tells me that the answer is probably yes. Not enough? How about this:
Quote: The CIA declined to discuss Plame's intelligence work, but an agency official disputed suggestions that she was a mere analyst whose public exposure would have little consequence. "If she was not undercover, we would have no reason to file a criminal referral," the CIA official said, insisting on anonymity because of the sensitivity of the investigation.
Don't know about G-Man, but the CIA official makes sense to me.
Also, isn't Fitzgerald's investigation ultimately premised on the supposition that a crime took place, the crime being the revealing of a covert agents identity? Wasn't this one pretty much already a given?
G-Man?
This article brings up some good facts on Plame and her undercover status.
If this really was an accident and Rove did not know Plame was covert, what did he do after Novak's column came out and it was obvious there was a problem? Did he go to the president and apologize? Did he explain fully how he learned Plame worked at the CIA at all, to help figure out who leaked the info to Rove?
No. He called Chris Matthews to say "Wilson's wife is fair game!"
Not much of an apology in my book.
Quote: Excerpt from George H Bush's Speech April 26th, 1999 at the dedication of George Bush Center for Intellegence Gathering.
"…we need more protection for methods we use to gather Intel. That means more protection for our sources particularly our human sources. These are people who are risking their lives for their country. Even though I am a tranquil guy at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those you betray the trust by exposing the names of our sources. They are in my in my view the most insidious of traitors."
Quote: the G-man said: Jon Podhoretz has a pretty good column on why, as discussed previously, all of this may amount to nothing anyway:
[LIST]In the Cooper e-mails just surrendered by Time to the prosecutor looking into the Plame case, "Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a 'big warning' not to 'get too far out on Wilson.' Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by . . . CIA Director George Tenet . . . or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, 'it was, [Rove] said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.' "
There's no mistaking the purpose of this conversation between Cooper and Rove. It wasn't intended to discredit, defame or injure Wilson's wife. It was intended to throw cold water on the import, seriousness and supposedly high level of Wilson's findings.
While some may differ on the fairness of discrediting Joseph Wilson, it sure isn't any kind of crime.
Rove was suggesting to Cooper that that folks lower down in the CIA than its own director commandeered the process so that the husband of one of their own could get the gig. And the husband in question then went and misrepresented his findings to various journalists
This Rove-Cooper conversation discredits Wilson, not Plame. In fact, nothing we know so far was done either with the purpose of exposing or even the knowledge that these remarks would be exposing an undercover CIA operative.
This is a red herring, G-Man....
Ken Mehlman (and apparently the New York Post) is now pushing the same argument as Rove attorney Robert Luskin.
This from the AP ...
Quote: Rove "was discouraging a reporter from writing a false story based on a false premise," said Mehlman. Cooper's e-mail says that Rove warned him away from the idea that Wilson's trip had been authorized by CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney.
The argument, as elaborated by others, is that Rove was warning Cooper off Wilson's phoney story because it was about to be debunked by a soon-to-be-released statement by George Tenet.
A great argument. Only Wilson never said that. He said that the CIA, following up on a query from the vice president, sent him on a fact-finding mission to Niger.
Here's his account from his New York Times column ...
Quote: In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.
After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government.
Whatever else you can say about Wilson, no one has ever disputed these points. He never said that Cheney or Tenet authorized his trip. A vice-president would never 'authorize' such a trip. Nor would there be any need for the DCI to 'authorize' it. The whole thing is a dodge and a distraction. It's irrelevant to the question that was under discussion.
It's just yet another attempt to whip up a phoney cover story after the fact.
RawStory has just published a copy of RNC anti-Wilson talking points. Item three says that "The False Premise [which Rove was trying to knock down] Was Joe Wilson's Allegation That The Vice President Sent Him To Niger." This is such a ridiculous up-is-down lie you'll want to keep an eye out for gullible reporters who parrot it. Clear as day it's a lie. But if they think if they repeat it often enough people won't check.
And i'll forgive G-man for passing on these misleading talking points. The New York Post,...... what can I say.....
Quote: AP: "President Bush, at an Oval Office photo opportunity Tuesday, was asked directly whether he would fire Rove — in keeping with a pledge in June, 2004, to dismiss any leakers in the case. The president did not respond."
Paul, without getting into a point by point debate with you, I note that much of your most recent post seems predicated on the fact that Wilson's version of events differs from Rove's.
You're trying to build a case against Rove based in no small part on a discredited individual, with a discredited version of events.
At this point, no one knows exactly what the facts are. And, as noted above, if more facts come out, it is possible that Rove's complicity may be established (though, even then, as noted above, it is very possible that the release of Plame's name by ANYONE was not a crime).
However, until those facts come out, trying to build a case on innuendo is rather pointless.
Quote: the G-man said: Paul, without getting into a point by point debate with you, I note that much of your most recent post seems predicated on the fact that Wilson's version of events differs from Rove's.
You're trying to build a case against Rove based in no small part on a discredited individual, with a discredited version of events.
At this point, no one knows exactly what the facts are. And, as noted above, if more facts come out, it is possible that Rove's complicity may be established (though, even then, as noted above, it is very possible that the release of Plame's name by ANYONE was not a crime).
However, until those facts come out, trying to build a case on innuendo is rather pointless.
Please explain why the issue of Wilson's credibility makes any difference at all.
Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that Wilson was completely wrong.
1. Does that mean that Plame wasn't a CIA agent? 2. Does that mean that Plame was not outed? 3. Does that mean that Rove did not out Plame? 4. Does that mean that it is not a Federal crime to knowingly reveal the identity of a CIA agent? 5. Does that mean that McClellan did not say that Rove was not involved? 6. Does that mean that Bush did not say that if anybody in the White House was involved, they would be fired?
If not, what the hell difference does it make?
Once again we see a classic attempt to distract attention from the real issue. Expect to hear this nonsense parroted endlessly by wingers, Republican politicians, RNC members, Republican spokespersons, media shills and right-wing media outlets.
Quote: the G-man said: Paul, without getting into a point by point debate with you, I note that much of your most recent post seems predicated on the fact that Wilson's version of events differs from Rove's.
You're trying to build a case against Rove based in no small part on a discredited individual, with a discredited version of events.
At this point, no one knows exactly what the facts are. And, as noted above, if more facts come out, it is possible that Rove's complicity may be established (though, even then, as noted above, it is very possible that the release of Plame's name by ANYONE was not a crime).
However, until those facts come out, trying to build a case on innuendo is rather pointless.
Please explain why the issue of Wilson's credibility makes any difference at all.
Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that Wilson was completely wrong.
1. Does that mean that Plame wasn't a CIA agent? 2. Does that mean that Plame was not outed? 3. Does that mean that Rove did not out Plame? 4. Does that mean that it is not a Federal crime to knowingly reveal the identity of a CIA agent? 5. Does that mean that McClellan did not say that Rove was not involved? 6. Does that mean that Bush did not say that if anybody in the White House was involved, they would be fired?
If not, what the hell difference does it make?
Once again we see a classic attempt to distract attention from the real issue. Expect to hear this nonsense parroted endlessly by wingers, Republican politicians, RNC members, Republican spokespersons, media shills and right-wing media outlets.
Quote: the G-man said: Paul, without getting into a point by point debate with you, I note that much of your most recent post seems predicated on the fact that Wilson's version of events differs from Rove's.
You're trying to build a case against Rove based in no small part on a discredited individual, with a discredited version of events.
At this point, no one knows exactly what the facts are. And, as noted above, if more facts come out, it is possible that Rove's complicity may be established (though, even then, as noted above, it is very possible that the release of Plame's name by ANYONE was not a crime).
However, until those facts come out, trying to build a case on innuendo is rather pointless.
Please explain why the issue of Wilson's credibility makes any difference at all.
Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that Wilson was completely wrong.
1. Does that mean that Plame wasn't a CIA agent?
2. Does that mean that Plame was not outed?
3. Does that mean that Rove did not out Plame?
4. Does that mean that it is not a Federal crime to knowingly reveal the identity of a CIA agent?
5. Does that mean that McClellan did not say that Rove was not involved?
6. Does that mean that Bush did not say that if anybody in the White House was involved, they would be fired?
If not, what the hell difference does it make?
Once again we see a classic attempt to distract attention from the real issue. Expect to hear this nonsense parroted endlessly by wingers, Republican politicians, RNC members, Republican spokespersons, media shills and right-wing media outlets.
Quote: The Republicans now want to hide behind the legalism that "no laws were broken". I don't know if a man made law was broken but an ethical and moral code was breached. For the first time a group of partisan political operatives publically identified a CIA NOC. They have set a precendent that the next group of political hacks may feel free to violate.
They try to hide behind the specious claim that Joe Wilson "lied". Although Joe did not lie let's follow that reasoning to the logical conclusion. Let's use the same standard for the Bush Administration. Here are the facts. Bush's lies have resulted in the deaths of almost 1800 American soldiers and the mutilation of 12,000. Joe Wilson has not killed anyone. He tried to prevent the needless death of Americans and the loss of American prestige in the world.
But don't take my word for it, read the biased Senate intelligence committee report. Even though it was slanted to try to portray Joe in the worst possible light this fact emerges on page 52 of the report: According to the US Ambassador to Niger (who was commenting on Joe's visit in February 2002), "Ambassador Wilson reached the same conclusion that the Embassy has reached that it was highly unlikely that anything between Iraq and Niger was going on." Joe's findings were consistent with those of the Deputy Commander of the European Command, Major General Fulford.
The Republicans insist on the lie that Val got her husband the job. She did not. She was not a division director, instead she was the equivalent of an Army major. Yes it is true she recommended her husband to do the job that needed to be done but the decision to send Joe Wilson on this mission was made by her bosses.
At the end of the day, Joe Wilson was right. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It was the Bush Administration that pushed that lie and because of that lie Americans are dying. Shame on those who continue to slander Joe Wilson while giving Bush and his pack of liars a pass. That's the true outrage.
As you can see, Johnson has dealt with that smear. So is Johnson -- and every other CIA person who's backed up Plame's and Wilson's accounts -- a "liar", too?
G-Man refuses to admit that Plame was a NOC. Johnson and other CIA staff have admitted that she was. I'll take Johnson word, thanks.
Quote: the G-man said: Paul, without getting into a point by point debate with you, I note that much of your most recent post seems predicated on the fact that Wilson's version of events differs from Rove's.
You're trying to build a case against Rove based in no small part on a discredited individual, with a discredited version of events.
At this point, no one knows exactly what the facts are. And, as noted above, if more facts come out, it is possible that Rove's complicity may be established (though, even then, as noted above, it is very possible that the release of Plame's name by ANYONE was not a crime).
However, until those facts come out, trying to build a case on innuendo is rather pointless.
Please explain why the issue of Wilson's credibility makes any difference at all.
Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that Wilson was completely wrong.
1. Does that mean that Plame wasn't a CIA agent?
2. Does that mean that Plame was not outed?
3. Does that mean that Rove did not out Plame?
4. Does that mean that it is not a Federal crime to knowingly reveal the identity of a CIA agent?
5. Does that mean that McClellan did not say that Rove was not involved?
6. Does that mean that Bush did not say that if anybody in the White House was involved, they would be fired?
If not, what the hell difference does it make?
Once again we see a classic attempt to distract attention from the real issue. Expect to hear this nonsense parroted endlessly by wingers, Republican politicians, RNC members, Republican spokespersons, media shills and right-wing media outlets.
Whomod--Er...I mean, Paul. You don't even live in this country. What would a fedral crime involving American affairs matter to you?
Quote: Pariah said: Whomod--Er...I mean, Paul. You don't even live in this country. What would a fedral crime involving American affairs matter to you?
shut the fuck up. you know if this was happening in England or Russia or France you'd be sure to put your 1cent in.
NEW YORK Time's magazine's Matt Cooper today testified to a grand jury that White House aide Karl Rove was a source for a story about a CIA operative that has investigators deciding whether any laws were broken by the leak of the agent's identity.
Cooper told E&P late today, "I'm allowed to talk about what happened in the Grand Jury and plan to write about it." When asked when it might appear, he said, "soon, but I don't know when."
After more than two hours of testimony, Cooper addressed reporters outside the courtroom. "It is my hope to get back to being a normal journalist on the other side of the microphones," Cooper said. "I hope to go back to Time magazine and write up an account of what took place here today and my story."
When Cooper was pressed, he responded, "But I'm not going to do it here, right now. ... I'm not going to scoop myself today."
Cooper said he hoped his testimony would speed up the grand jury's investigation, which would allow The New York Times' Judith Miller to be released from jail.
He confirmed that his source on the leak was Deputy Chief of Staff Rove, one of President Bush's most trusted advisers and the man credited with Bush's four consecutive campaign victories.
The waiver that freed Cooper to cooperate with the grand jury was signed by Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin. Cooper's attorney, Richard Sauber, was on hand Wednesday to pass out photocopies of the waiver to reporters.
Which is what all this dishonesty, hubris, and hypocrisy is all about anyways.
All that was really needed after your post though (to make it truly pointless and irrelevent) was an off the cuff insult directed at me and for Mr JLA to pop up and start giving out points for it.
In the abscense of actually intelligently defending your position (and G-Man's daily RNC talking points) that is.
Furthermore, only 41 percent give Bush good marks for being "honest and straightforward" -- his lowest ranking on this question since he became president. That's a drop of nine percentage points since January, when a majority (50 percent to 36 percent) indicated that he was honest and straightforward. This finding comes at a time when the Bush administration is battling the perception that its rhetoric doesn't match the realities in Iraq, and also allegations that chief political adviser Karl Rove leaked sensitive information about a CIA agent to a reporter. (The survey, however, was taken just before these allegations about Rove exploded into the current controversy.)
July 14 (Bloomberg) -- Two-year old assertions by former ambassador Joseph Wilson regarding Iraq and uranium, which lie at the heart of the controversy over who at the White House identified a covert U.S. operative, have held up in the face of attacks by supporters of presidential adviser Karl Rove.
Rove is a subject of a special prosecutor's investigation into how the name of the agent, who is Wilson's wife, was leaked to journalists. There has been no evidence made public that Rove identified the agent to reporters. Rove's allies are arguing that he was in fact trying to steer journalists away from taking too seriously Wilson's criticism of President George W. Bush's reasons for going to war in Iraq in 2003.
The agent, Valerie Plame, was publicly identified July 14, 2003, a week after Wilson wrote an article for the New York Times about an investigative trip he took in 2002 at the behest of the Central Intelligence Agency. Wilson wrote that the administration's claim that Saddam Hussein's regime tried to buy uranium in Africa for nuclear weapons was wrong.
The main points of Wilson's article have largely been substantiated by a Senate committee as well as U.S. and United Nations weapons inspectors. A day after Wilson's piece was published, the White House acknowledged that a claim Bush made in his January 2003 state of the union address that Iraq tried to buy ``significant quantities of uranium from Africa'' could not be verified and shouldn't have been included in the speech.
While the administration was justified at the time in being concerned that Hussein was trying to build nuclear weapons, ``on the specifics of this I think Joe Wilson was right,'' said Michael O'Hanlon, a scholar of foreign policy studies at the Brookings Institution in Washington.
Criticism of Wilson
Republicans are attempting to defend Rove by discrediting Wilson, saying the former ambassador misled the public about why he was sent to Niger and what he found there.
Bush supporters such as former House Speaker Newt Gingrich contend that Wilson lied in claiming that Vice President Dick Cheney dispatched him on the mission to Niger. That echoes a Republican National Committee talking-points memo sent to party officials.
Wilson never said that Cheney sent him, only that the vice president's office had questions about an intelligence report that referred to the sale of uranium yellowcake to Iraq from Niger. Wilson, in his New York Times article, said CIA officials were informed of Cheney's questions.
``The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office,'' Wilson wrote.
Senate Report
The ``Wilson/Rove Research & Talking Points'' memo distributed by RNC Director of Television Carolyn Weyforth contends, ``Both the Senate Committee on Intelligence and the CIA found assessments Wilson made in his report were wrong.''
Yet the Senate panel conclusions didn't discredit Wilson. The committee concluded that the Niger intelligence information wasn't solid enough to be included in the State of the Union speech. It added that Wilson's report didn't change the minds of analysts on either side of the issue, while also concluding that an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate ``overstated what the Intelligence Community knew about Iraq's possible procurement attempts.''
Vulnerable
Wilson is vulnerable to some criticisms. The Republican talking points say Wilson has lied about the role his wife played in his trip. In his memoir, ``The Politics of Truth,'' Wilson asserted his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger. ``Valerie had nothing to do with the matter,'' he wrote. ``She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip.''
The Senate Intelligence Committee report states that a CIA official told the panel that Plame ``offered up'' Wilson's name for the Niger trip and later sent a memo to a CIA official saying her husband had good relations with leaders in Niger.
Republicans also dismiss Wilson as a partisan because of his ties to the 2004 presidential campaign of Democrat John Kerry, the four-term U.S. senator from Massachusetts. He advised the Kerry campaign for several months on foreign policy and donated money to his race.
The crux of Wilson's argument in his New York Times article was that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program -- a central part of the Bush administration's justification for invading Iraq -- ``was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.''
Backing Away
Well before Wilson's article was published -- though after Bush's State of the Union address -- administration officials were backing off the contention that Iraq sought nuclear material from Africa.
On Feb. 4, 2003, State Department officials gave the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency information it requested about Iraq's attempts to obtain uranium from Niger. It told the agency that it could not confirm the reports and had questions about specific claims.
The next day, Secretary of State Colin Powell presented evidence, based on U.S. intelligence, about Iraq's prohibited weapons program to the UN Security Council. He didn't mention Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Africa.
On March 7, IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei told the UN Security Council that the documents that detailed uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger were ``not authentic'' and ``these specific allegations are unfounded.'' On March 9, Powell acknowledged that the documents were false. The U.S. launched the invasion of Iraq on March 19.
A White House Concession
Finally, in July 2003, after Wilson's piece was published, the White House conceded that the uranium assertion should not have been included in the president's speech. Several administration officials have accepted responsibility for allowing it into the speech, including Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser and now secretary of state; Stephen Hadley, then Rice's deputy and now the national security adviser; and then-CIA Director George Tenet.
In October 2002, as the White House was reviewing drafts of a speech Bush would give in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, the allegation that Iraq sought ``substantial amounts of uranium oxide'' from Africa was removed after Tenet called Hadley to raise doubts about the information. On Oct. 5 and 6, the CIA sent memorandums to the White House expressing concerns about the Niger intelligence and differences on it between the U.S. and British spy agencies.
Novak's Column
Plame's identity was first revealed July 14, 2003, by syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who cited two unidentified administration officials as his sources for the information.
Knowingly disclosing the identity of a covert agent is a federal crime, and that is the subject of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation. Part of that probe is seeking information about confidential sources from reporters.
Rove's name surfaced in a July 11, 2003, e-mail from a Time magazine reporter to his editor that was disclosed this week by Newsweek magazine. The memo says Rove gave a ``big warning'' about pursuing Wilson's claims and said it was ``Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD issues who authorized'' Wilson's trip to Niger, according to Newsweek.
Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, said yesterday that Rove has done ``nothing to expose him to any legal liability.''
Quote: However, until those facts come out, trying to build a case on innuendo is rather pointless.
G-Man, the facts came out. Rove is one of the leakers. Now the fun part is guessing who the other leaker is. I'd want to say Cheney or Bolton but i'll wager it was Ari Fleisher, who coincidentally resigned immediately after the story broke.
Quote: the G-man said: Paul, without getting into a point by point debate with you, I note that much of your most recent post seems predicated on the fact that Wilson's version of events differs from Rove's.
You're trying to build a case against Rove based in no small part on a discredited individual, with a discredited version of events.
At this point, no one knows exactly what the facts are. And, as noted above, if more facts come out, it is possible that Rove's complicity may be established (though, even then, as noted above, it is very possible that the release of Plame's name by ANYONE was not a crime).
However, until those facts come out, trying to build a case on innuendo is rather pointless.
Please explain why the issue of Wilson's credibility makes any difference at all.
Let's assume, just for the sake of argument, that Wilson was completely wrong.
1. Does that mean that Plame wasn't a CIA agent?
2. Does that mean that Plame was not outed?
3. Does that mean that Rove did not out Plame?
4. Does that mean that it is not a Federal crime to knowingly reveal the identity of a CIA agent?
5. Does that mean that McClellan did not say that Rove was not involved?
6. Does that mean that Bush did not say that if anybody in the White House was involved, they would be fired?
If not, what the hell difference does it make?
Once again we see a classic attempt to distract attention from the real issue. Expect to hear this nonsense parroted endlessly by wingers, Republican politicians, RNC members, Republican spokespersons, media shills and right-wing media outlets.
This is a rather sweeping statement, loaded with blanket hatred for all Republicans.
Continuing on Whomod/Paul Wellr/Jeff Gannon/Paul Mandral/unrestrained id's fanatical holy mission to prove all Republicans are evil or whatever.
First off (although all the facts are not known yet) the conversation Rove had on the telephone with columnist Robert Novak, and the TIME reporter's (Cooper's) e-mail saying to his editor that "[Rove] said Wilson's wife selected him" for the Niger/yellow-cake uranium mission, does NOT outright say that Rove named Valerie Plame and blew her cover.
From everything revealed so far, Rove said something to the effect of: "I don't know, I heard his wife picked him for the mission".
And if Rove made such a statement (there is evidence of nothing more than that) it is not a leak of any information that can be proven, just hearsay without specifics, the reporter would still have to find out the name of Wilson's wife and verify she works for the CIA, what her function and history is at the CIA, and whether or in what capacity she contributed to Wilson being selected for the mission.
So Rove's disclosed statement on the phone to a reporter, reveals nothing.
Second, since Valerie Plame is not working now for the CIA as a covert field agent, and has not for over 7 years, how would Rove be expected to know that ?
How can it possibly be proven that Rove "knowingly revealed" the identity of a CIA covert agent, when he didn't even mention her name ?
Thirdly, you ( PaulWellr/Whomod ) assert that the White House and other Republicans are liars ( liars, grrrr, ooooo ,outrage, LIARS !! ) for asserting that Valerie Plame selected Joseph Wilson for the Niger mission.
But from everything I can see, the Republicans are NOT lying.
Whether Valerie Plame personally selected Wilson for the mission, or whether Valerie Plame recommended Wilson for the mission to others above her who instead authorized Wilson for the mission... regardless, the end result is the same.
Without Valerie Plame's direct participation, he would not have been sent, someone else would have been sent.
Quote: Captain Sammitch said: Is it me, or are the 'scandals' being unearthed by lefties these days getting kinda weak?
Karlgate.
Brilliant.
Poor desperate bastards.
Yeah, I'd be more inclined to believe there was some substance to this most recent allegation about Rove, if it wasn't on the tail end of an endless stream of baseless smear campaigns against the Bush administration since he took office four years ago.
The strategy is to smear Bush, and raise the allegations over and over till the uninformed masses think they MUST be true. And it seems to be working, as evidenced by Bush's declining numbers in recent polls.
Raise enough smoke, and you don't have to prove there's a fire. People will just believe it's there.
The alleged crime at the heart of a controversy that has consumed official Washington--the "outing" of a CIA officer--may not have been a crime at all under federal law, little-noticed details in a book by the agent's husband suggest.
In The Politics of Truth, former ambassador Joseph Wilson writes that he and his future wife both returned from overseas assignments in June 1997. Neither spouse, a reading of the book indicates, was again stationed overseas. They appear to have remained in Washington, D.C., where they married and became parents of twins.
This meant that Plame would have been stationed in the U.S. for six years before Bob Novak published his column citing her two years ago today. As USA Today notes:
The column's date is important because the law against unmasking the identities of U.S. spies says a "covert agent" must have been on an overseas assignment "within the last five years." The assignment also must be long-term, not a short trip or temporary post, two experts on the law say.
So why I should admit or concede a point that even USA Today is reporting remains in dispute?
In fact, it seems to me that id, Paul and the rest of the people nationally who are braying for Karl Rove's head can't be very confident that he's committed a crime. If they were, they would wait for an indictment, which would be a genuine embarrassment to the administration. The fact they are jumping the gun, so to speak, may mean they are the ones who end up embarrased.
What does Valerie Plame actually do for the CIA? That's one of the $64,000 questions (the other is who the other leaker is), so this might be a good time to gather together all the evidence in one place. Here's what various news reports have said so far:
Robert Novak's original column, July 14:
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.
David Corn in the Nation, July 16:
....a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as "nonofficial cover" and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material....a woman known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm.
Newsday, July 21:
Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday Monday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity -- at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.
....A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger.
Washington Post, September 29:
She is a case officer in the CIA's clandestine service and works as an analyst on weapons of mass destruction. Novak published her maiden name, Plame, which she had used overseas and has not been using publicly. Intelligence sources said top officials at the agency were very concerned about the disclosure because it could allow foreign intelligence services to track down some of her former contacts and lead to the exposure of agents.
MSNBC, September 30:
CIA lawyers answered a series of 11 questions "affirming that the woman's identity was classified, that whoever released it was not authorized to do so and that the news media would not have been able to guess her identity without the leak."
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, September 30:
I know Joseph Wilson well enough to know that his wife was in fact a deep cover operative running a network of informants on what is supposedly this administration’s first-priority issue: Weapons of mass destruction.
Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst on NewsHour, September 30:
I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been undercover for three decades....she works in an area where people she meets with overseas could be compromised.... she's a woman of great integrity....This is a woman who is very solid, very low key and not about show boating.
CNN, October 1:
Sources told CNN that Plame works in the CIA's Directorate of Operations -- the part of the agency in charge of spying -- and worked in the field for many years as an undercover officer. "If she were only an analyst, not an operative, we would not have filed a crimes report" with the Justice Department, a senior intelligence official said.
(An earlier version of this story quoted CNN reporter David Ensor saying, "This is a person who did run agents. This is a person who was out there in the world collecting information.")
Mel Goodman, former CIA analyst, Washington Post online Q&A, October 1:
....I've worked in Washington for the past 38 years, including 24 years at the CIA...and I know Ambassador Wilson....and I did not know that his wife was an agency employee. Let's face it....this was targetted information as part of a political vendetta....a pure act of revenge.
Jim Marcinkowski, former CIA case officer, LA Times, Ocotber 1:
The exposure of Valerie Plame — who I have reason to believe operated undercover — apparently by a senior administration official, is nothing less than a despicable act for which someone should be held accountable. This case is especially upsetting to me because she was my agency classmate as well as my friend.
New York Times, October 2:
Valerie Plame was among the small subset of Central Intelligence Agency officers who could not disguise their profession by telling friends that they worked for the United States government.
That cover story, standard for American operatives who pretend to be diplomats or other federal employees, was not an option for Ms. Plame, people who knew her said on Wednesday. As a covert operative who specialized in nonconventional weapons and sometimes worked abroad, she passed herself off as a private energy expert, what the agency calls nonofficial cover.
New York Daily News, October 2:
Two former senior intelligence officials confirmed that Valerie Plame, 40, is an operations officer in the spy agency's directorate of operations - the clandestine service.
Plame "ran intelligence operations overseas," said Vincent Cannistraro, former CIA counterterrorism operations chief.
Her specialty in the agency's nonproliferation center was biological, chemical and nuclear weapons and "recruiting agents, sending them to areas where they could access information about proliferation matters, weapons of mass destruction," Cannistraro said.
Four separate ex-CIA employees are now on the record saying Plame was undercover and ran a network of informants, and a fifth who knew Wilson and had 24 years at the Agency says he didn't know Plame worked there — which means her status was hardly common knowledge.
Quote: Captain Sammitch said: Is it me, or are the 'scandals' being unearthed by lefties these days getting kinda weak?
Karlgate.
Brilliant.
Poor desperate bastards.
...and Watergate of course was just a 3rd rate burglury.
I seem to recall once reading that you were impartial.
I hope no one bought it.
By the way, this scandal is not being unearthed by "lefties". It's being unearthed by a special prosecutor, a federal criminal investigation, and a Grand Jury. Nice dodge and nice way to try to minimalize this story though.
Now if it wasn't glaringly obvious that you excuse any and all malfeasance just so long as it's being done by Republicans, here's something more to consider: It wasn't just Plame who was compromised. It was every foreign source who was known to spend time with her. It was Brewster-Jennings, a CIA front constructed over many years at great expense.
Rove's own lawyer has admitted publicly he was involved. Vital assets to American national security were destroyed. And the reason it was done was to try to discredit a critic of the administration.
1 + 1 + 1 = Treason. Period. If some Democrat apparatchik in the Clinton White House had done exactly the same thing, you people would be screaming bloody murder, demanding his summary execution. You know it, I know it, and a growing body of the American people knows it too. The utter hypocricy and amoral ambition of this administration is finally being exposed, and your desperate attempts to spin your idols out of trouble are failing miserably.
This must be better than porn to teh fringe lefties. I mean they can't touch Bush, they can't convince 51% of Americans that conservitism doesn't work, but at least they ca take down Rove for perhaps maybe outing a CIA agent who hasn't been under cover for years and didn't think her identity so sacr3ed as to refrain from doing a spread in Vanity Fair. It's hillarious to watch them A: try and convince Americans that there was even a crime commited and if there was that KKKarl Rove was the mastermind of this devious attack. I mean seriously can anyone even point to a single negative concequence of Plame's "outing"?
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Aw cmon WBAM, name calling isn't your style.
The only reason name calling would seem out of character is because I reserve it for only the most appropriate times. I made the comparrison of PaulWellerrere to a mentally hadicapped individual because he so clearly lost what I was saying that the only way I would believe that he acctually read it (which was his claim) was if he was severly metally hadicapped. I mean seriously the topic of this thread is the "Rove leak" and i posted my observations on the handling of the Rove leak by Air America and he claimed to have no idea how that tied into the subject. Tell me, does that sound like someone with a normal capacity for cognitive reasoning to you?
On a side note I had the advantage of going to a highschool that took all the mentally challenged students from the school district. I observed that one of thier favorite means of artistic and creative expression was cut and paste. They would cut out artistic expressions from others that they felt expressed what they wanted to communicate but were unable to and paste them on paper, presenting them as original works of expression........ take that for what you will.
Quote: It wasn't just Plame who was compromised. It was every foreign source who was known to spend time with her. It was Brewster-Jennings, a CIA front constructed over many years at great expense.
sourse please.
Quote: Vital assets to American national security were destroyed.
Such as?
Quote: 1 + 1 + 1 = Treason.
The punishment for treason under the law is execution. Do you think that Rove should be executed for his crimes against our soverignty as a nation?
Quote: It wasn't just Plame who was compromised. It was every foreign source who was known to spend time with her. It was Brewster-Jennings, a CIA front constructed over many years at great expense.
Quote: Vital assets to American national security were destroyed.
Such as?
See above links.
Quote:
Quote: 1 + 1 + 1 = Treason.
The punishment for treason under the law is execution. Do you think that Rove should be executed for his crimes against our soverignty as a nation?
That's for a court to decide. If he's guilty of treason during wartime, then it'll be interesting if the Administration decides to quibble the defenition of "wartime". Executed? The laws the law, eh?
I want to add that this story almost parallels the story of Mohammed Khan who was a valuable Al Queda mole in the employ of British intelligence. The Bush Administration seeking short term POLITICAL GAIN exposed him shortly before the November elections thus destroying valuable intelligence in the war on terror. You can even argue that Khan's exposure may have caused the London bombings, which people have suggested.
Quote: PaulWellr said:...wasn't the fact that the CIA asked for an investigation in the 1st place enough to tell you they thought a crime had been committed?
No.
First off, speaking from experience, an investigation, especially in the context of government operations, often means no more than "let's find out what happened," not "we want someone charged."
However, let us assume, for the sake of argument, that the CIA as a group did want someone charged.
Does that mean they legitimately believed a crime was committed? Possibly.
However, it could also mean that the CIA, still smarting from having given us substandard intelligence in the first place (both pre-9/11 and pre-Iraq war) might, just might, want to draw some heat from themselves and turn it to someone in the White House. They might also want to "get even" with the White House for firing George Tenet, their director.
Furthermore, Tenet was, you might recall, a holdover from the Clinton administration. Can you say for a fact his loyaties might not have lie with a faction that would like to see Rove and/or Bush embarrased, especially after the intelligences failures of his agency mentioned above?
As noted previously, there is simply not enough evidence at this point to determine what happened. And what evidence there is, as noted before, sometimes comes from already discredited sources (such as Wilson).
So why do you insist, when everyone from the Wall St. Journal to USA Today, is now quoting legal experts who say the same thing I've been telling you for months now? That even if Rove was the leaker, it may not have been a crime at all?
Remember during the Clinton impeachment scandal fat-ass Henry Hyde (and others) and the sanctimonious comments about the importance of telling the truth and the grave abhorrance of "nitpicking" and "legal hair-splitting"?
I recall a great tide of public opinion on the right, at the time, saying (in basically these words) that it wasn't about the below-job, it was about the lie.
Just think. If they hadn't doggedly pursued impeachment proceedings for something as minor as illicit sexual acts, we wouldn't have such solid ground for nailing an administration for high treason nearly a decade later.
So why do you insist, when everyone from the Wall St. Journal to USA Today, is now quoting legal experts who say the same thing I've been telling you for months now? That even if Rove was the leaker, it may not have been a crime at all?
Actually your USA Today article also says...
Quote: But, Toensing said, "reading between the lines, I'd say he's got a 'Martha Stewart case' " involving perjury or obstruction of justice. In other words, though a crime may not have been committed at the start, one may have occurred during the investigation when someone lied to Fitzgerald or to a federal grand jury.
Considering what the President has said about firing anyone involved with leaking Wilson's wife ID, things are not looking good for Rove even if nothing new comes out.
However, IF Rove lied to a grand jury and IF Cooper's notes proved that Rove lied to a grand jury....WHY did Rove sign a release to allow Cooper to testify before the grand jury?
What possible reason would Rove have had to sign a release that allowed to Cooper to implicate him...unless Rove believed that Cooper's information proved he was innocent?
As noted before, there are still too many unanswered questions here to keep claiming that Rove committed "treason."
One of the things that attorneys and judges are trained to do, when trying to interpret a statute, is look at what the drafters intended the law to mean, and apply it to the facts accordingly.
Doing so would seem to be further indication that Rove is innocent:
Democrat leaders and editorialists accusing Karl Rove of treason for referring to CIA agent Valerie Plame in an off-the-record interview are ignorant of the law, according to the Washington attorney who spearheaded the legislation at the center of the controversy.
Plame's circumstances don't meet several of the criteria spelled out in a 1982 statute designed not only to protect the identity of intelligence agents but to maintain the media's ability to hold government accountable, Victoria Toensing told WorldNetDaily.
Toensing – who drafted the legislation in her role as chief counsel for the chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence – says the Beltway frenzy surrounding Plame's alleged "outing" as a covert agent is a story arising out of the capital's "silly season."
Toensing, now a private attorney in Washington, says Plame most likely was not a covert agent when Rove referred to her in a 2003 interview with Time magazine's Matt Cooper.
The federal code says the agent must have operated outside the United States within the previous five years. But Plame gave up her role as a covert agent nine years before the Rove interview, according to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof.
Kristof said the CIA brought Plame back to Washington in 1994 because the agency suspected her undercover security had been compromised by turncoat spy Aldrich Ames.
Moreover, asserts Toensing, for the law to be violated, Rove would have had to intentionally reveal Plame's identity with the knowledge that he was disclosing a covert agent.
Toensing believes Rove's waiver allowing reporters testifying before the grand jury to reveal him as a source – signed more than 18 months ago – shows the Bush strategist did not believe he was violating the law.
Rove, according to Cooper's notes, apparently was trying to warn the reporter not to give credence to Wilson's investigation, because he had no expertise in nuclear weapons and was sent to Africa on the recommendation of his wife. Wilson had claimed he was sent by Vice President Cheney.
Another element necessary for applying the law is that the government had to be taking affirmative measures to conceal the agent's identity.
Toensing says that on the contrary, the CIA gave Plame a desk job in which she publicly went to and from work, allowed her spouse to do a mission in Africa without signing a confidentiality agreement and didn't object to his writing an op-ed piece in the New York Times about his trip.
Columnist Robert Novak, who first published Plame's name, also apparently didn't think it was a big deal, Toensing said, or he would have put it in the first paragraph.
Novak's aim was to expose the incompetence of the CIA, she argued.
"These are the kinds of stories we wanted to still be put out there when we passed the law," she said. "We only wanted to stop the methodical exposing of CIA personnel for the purpose of assassination."
In other words, the very person who wrote the law that "Paul" says Rove broke says that Rove is innocent.
That's pretty close to an "expert opinion," wouldn't you say?
From what I've read many reporters feel that those waivers were forced to be signed thus not releasing them from any promises of confidentiality. They also need the person to contact them & say "go ahead & reveal our private conversation"
Toensing, like the rest of us, is only dealing with the information that is known. The Grand Jury might have information that would change her opinion. And Wilson never said Cheney sent him, that is a GOP talking point & like many others just isn't true.
"What Mr. Rove understood, long before the rest of us, is that we're not living in the America of the past, where even partisans sometimes changed their views when faced with the facts. Instead, we're living in a country in which there is no longer such a thing as nonpolitical truth."
WASHINGTON - Chief presidential adviser Karl Rove testified to a grand jury that he talked with two journalists before they divulged the identity of an undercover CIA officer but that he originally learned about the operative from the news media and not government sources, according to a person briefed on the testimony.
The person, who works in the legal profession and spoke only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy, told The Associated Press that Rove testified last year that he remembers specifically being told by columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, the wife of a harsh Iraq war critic, worked for the CIA.
Rove testified that Novak originally called him the Tuesday before Plame's identity was revealed in July 2003 to discuss another story.
The conversation eventually turned to Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador who was strongly criticizing the Bush administration's use of faulty intelligence to justify the war in Iraq, the person said.
Rove testified that Novak told him he planned to report in a weekend column that Plame had worked for the CIA, and the circumstances on how her husband traveled to Africa to check bogus claims that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear materials in Niger, according to the source.
Novak's column, citing two Bush administration officials, appeared six days later, touching off a political firestorm and leading to a federal criminal investigation into who leaked Plame's undercover identity. That probe has ensnared presidential aides and reporters in a two-year legal battle.
Rove told the grand jury that by the time Novak had called him, he believes he had similar information about Wilson's wife from another member of the news media but he could not recall which reporter had told him about it first, the person said.
When Novak inquired about Wilson's wife working for the CIA, Rove indicated he had heard something like that, according to the source's recounting of the grand jury testimony.
Rove told the grand jury that three days later, he had a phone conversation with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper and — in an effort to discredit some of Wilson's allegations — informally told Cooper that he believed Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, though he never used her name, the source said.
An e-mail Cooper recently provided the grand jury shows Cooper reported to his magazine bosses that Rove had described Wilson's wife in a confidential conversation as someone who "apparently works" at the CIA.
Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, said Thursday his client truthfully testified to the grand jury and expected to be exonerated.
"Karl provided all pertinent information to prosecutors a long time ago," Luskin said. "And prosecutors confirmed when he testified most recently in October 2004 that he is not a target of the investigation."
In an interview on CNN earlier Thursday before the latest revelation, Wilson kept up his criticism of the White House, saying Rove's conduct was an "outrageous abuse of power ... certainly worthy of frog-marching out of the White House."
But at the same time, Wilson acknowledged his wife was no longer in an undercover job at the time Novak's column first identified her. "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity," he said.
Federal law prohibits government officials from divulging the identity of an undercover intelligence officer. But in order to bring charges, prosecutors must prove the official knew the officer was covert and nonetheless knowingly outed his or her identity.
Rove's conversations with Novak and Cooper took place just days after Wilson suggested in a New York Times opinion piece that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.
Democrats continued this week to sharpen their attacks, accusing Rove of compromising a CIA operative's identity just to discredit the political criticism of her husband.
On Thursday, Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada pressed for legislation to strip Rove of his clearance for classified information, which he said President Bush should have done already. Instead, Reid said, the Bush administration has attacked its critics: "This is what is known as a cover-up. This is an abuse of power."
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said Democrats were resorting to "partisan war chants."
Across the Capitol, Rep. Rush Holt (news, bio, voting record), D-N.J., introduced legislation for an investigation that would compel senior administration officials to turn over records relating to the Plame disclosure.
Pressed to explain its statements of two years ago that Rove wasn't involved in the leak, the White House refused to do so this week.
"If I were to get into discussing this, I would be getting into discussing an investigation that continues and could be prejudging the outcome of the investigation," White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.
So far there is no evidence that Rove leaked Plame's name. All things made public to this point say it wasn't him. But the Democrats are concentrating on calling for his dismissal instead of working on our economy, the war on terror, Social Security reform, or any of the million other problems our country faces. Even worse is that the Republicans have also put all their attention and efforts into this. This is why I fucking hate the two party system. They're too busy putting on their war paint and trying to massacre each other in the eyes of the public that we can't get shit done in this country anymore. Time for the Revolution.
Quote: the G-man said: That's pretty close to an "expert opinion," wouldn't you say?
I wonder what you were saying during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Because that wasn't technically illegal, it was just viewed as immoral...and it didn't even put anyone's life at risk.
Bush should dump Rove. He already has his own Vietnam, does he need his own Watergate too?
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: shut the fuck up.
you know if this was happening in England or Russia or France you'd be sure to put your 1cent in.
No I wouldn't. And even if I did, it would prolly only be "1cent". Not 3 pages of bias articles that deceptively go over what other people think about the situation rather than what's really going on. You really think I'd care that much about Jaques Chirac getting indicted in his own country for shop-lifting or some shit?
Quote: PaulWellr said:
As for Pariah...
1 word:
IRAQ.
So even if he is innocent, you'd definitely vote him guilty if you could--For this offense--And even whilst having the knowledge that it doesn't concern you or any other country?
Quote: Captain Sammitch said: Is it me, or are the 'scandals' being unearthed by lefties these days getting kinda weak?
Karlgate.
Brilliant.
Poor desperate bastards.
...and Watergate of course was just a 3rd rate burglury.
I seem to recall once reading that you were impartial.
I hope no one bought it.
By the way, this scandal is not being unearthed by "lefties". It's being unearthed by a special prosecutor, a federal criminal investigation, and a Grand Jury. Nice dodge and nice way to try to minimalize this story though.
Now if it wasn't glaringly obvious that you excuse any and all malfeasance just so long as it's being done by Republicans, here's something more to consider: It wasn't just Plame who was compromised. It was every foreign source who was known to spend time with her. It was Brewster-Jennings, a CIA front constructed over many years at great expense.
Rove's own lawyer has admitted publicly he was involved. Vital assets to American national security were destroyed. And the reason it was done was to try to discredit a critic of the administration.
1 + 1 + 1 = Treason. Period. If some Democrat apparatchik in the Clinton White House had done exactly the same thing, you people would be screaming bloody murder, demanding his summary execution. You know it, I know it, and a growing body of the American people knows it too. The utter hypocricy and amoral ambition of this administration is finally being exposed, and your desperate attempts to spin your idols out of trouble are failing miserably.
Other than that, have a nice day.
Whoa, check out Paulmod.
First of all, moderate and impartial are two very different things. I'm not one of 'you people', and Republican politicians aren't my 'idols'. I never claimed to be thoroughly impartial. However, there are things I have very little patience for - least of all seeing comparative nonissues blown out of proportion by armchair politicians who are such pussies that they have to spout their nonsense hiding behind alt ids. I'm not going to give equal consideration to all ideas, because whether or not you feel enough attention is given to 'dissenting views', some of those 'dissenting views' are just plain half-assed no matter how you look at it. Quit trivializing your freedom of speech by wasting your breath (and our time) trying to gain some sort of twisted moral superiority.
Quote: the G-man said: That's pretty close to an "expert opinion," wouldn't you say?
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: I wonder what you were saying during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Because that wasn't technically illegal, it was just viewed as immoral
When did they legalize perjury? Because that is what Clinton was charged with and that is what he was ultimately disbarred for.
He was neither charged with, impeached over or disbarred for sex with an intern.
First of all, moderate and impartial are two very different things. I'm not one of 'you people', and Republican politicians aren't my 'idols'. I never claimed to be thoroughly impartial. However, there are things I have very little patience for - least of all seeing comparative nonissues blown out of proportion by armchair politicians who are such pussies that they have to spout their nonsense hiding behind alt ids. I'm not going to give equal consideration to all ideas, because whether or not you feel enough attention is given to 'dissenting views', some of those 'dissenting views' are just plain half-assed no matter how you look at it. Quit trivializing your freedom of speech by wasting your breath (and our time) trying to gain some sort of twisted moral superiority.
Let's look at the latest to emerge on the Plame matter:
The New York Times, the Washington Post and the Associated Press all report that, as the AP puts it, Rove "originally learned about the operative [Plame] from the news media and not government sources, according to a person briefed on the testimony."
According to the Times account, Rove was the second source for Bob Novak's column identifying Plame's role in arranging Wilson's trip to Niger:
Mr. Rove has told investigators that he learned from the columnist the name of the C.I.A. officer, who was referred to by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, and the circumstances in which her husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, traveled to Africa to investigate possible uranium sales to Iraq, the person said.
After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: "I heard that, too." . . .
On Oct. 1, 2003, Mr. Novak wrote another column in which he described calling two officials who were his sources for the earlier column. The first source, whose identity has not been revealed, provided the outlines of the story and was described by Mr. Novak as "no partisan gunslinger." Mr. Novak wrote that when he called a second official for confirmation, the source said, "Oh, you know about it."
That second source was Mr. Rove, the person briefed on the matter said.
If this account is accurate, then Rove simply confirmed a fact that was already in circulation. He no more "outed" Plame than Wilson did when he peddled his "outing" allegation to various left-wing journalists after Novak's column ran.
Meanwhile, the Washington Times quotes an erstwhile colleague of Plame's who casts further doubt on the Democratic narrative:
A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an "undercover agent," saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency's headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee.
"She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat," Fred Rustmann, a covert agent from 1966 to 1990, told The Washington Times.
"Her neighbors knew this, her friends knew this, his friends knew this. A lot of blame could be put on to central cover staff and the agency because they weren't minding the store here. . . . The agency never changed her cover status."
Mr. Rustmann, who spent 20 of his 24 years in the agency under "nonofficial cover"--also known as a NOC, the same status as the wife of Mr. Wilson--also said that she worked under extremely light cover.
In addition, Mrs. Plame hadn't been out as an NOC since 1997, when she returned from her last assignment, married Mr. Wilson and had twins, USA Today reported yesterday.
In an interview with CNN yesterday, Wilson acknowledged, "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity," though he refused to say anything about her career before that day.
As I noted yesterday, though, the source for that USA Today report was none other than Wilson himself, in his book, which apparently no one bothered to read until now.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: I wonder what you were saying during the Monica Lewinsky scandal. Because that wasn't technically illegal, it was just viewed as immoral
When did they legalize perjury? Because that is what Clinton was charged with and that is what he was ultimately disbarred for.
Oh, please. You and I both know that while that was the official issue, everyone was complaining about the fact that he got blow jobs in the Oval Office. Perjury was always mentioned as an after thought.
Quote:
He was neither charged with, impeached over or disbarred for sex with an intern.
"Tit for tat" is not legal precedent. Sorry.
Again. Come on! We both know he was given shit more for the sex than the perjury.
Friday, July 15, 2005; Posted: 2:42 p.m. EDT (18:42 GMT)
(FindLaw) -- As the scandal over the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity has continued to unfold, there is a renewed focus on Karl Rove -- the White House deputy chief of staff whom President Bush calls his political "architect."
Newsweek has reported that Matt Cooper, in an e-mail to his bureau chief at Time magazine, wrote that he had spoken "to Rove on double super-secret background for about two min[ute]s before he went on vacation ..." In that conversation, Rove gave Cooper "big warning" that Time should not "get too far out on Wilson."
Rove was referring, of course, to former Ambassador Joe Wilson's acknowledgment of his trip to Africa, where he discovered that Niger had not, in fact, provided uranium to Iraq that might be part of a weapons of mass destruction (WMD) program.
Cooper's email indicates that Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney; rather, Rove claimed, "it was ... [W]ilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on [WMD] issues who authorized the trip." (Rove was wrong about the authorization.)
Only the special counsel, Patrick Fitzgerald, and his staff have all the facts on their investigation at this point, but there is increasing evidence that Rove (and others) may have violated one or more federal laws. At this time, it would be speculation to predict whether indictments will be forthcoming.
Identities Protection Act
As I pointed out when the Valerie Plame Wilson leak first surfaced, the Intelligence Identities And Protection Act is a complex law. For the law to apply to Rove, a number of requirements must be met.
Rove must have had "authorized access to classified information" under the statute. Plame was an NCO (non-covered officer). White House aides, and even the president, are seldom, if ever, given this information. So it is not likely Rove had "authorized access" to it.
In addition, Rove must have "intentionally" -- not "knowingly" as has been mentioned in the news coverage -- disclosed "any information identifying such a covert agent." Whether or not Rove actually referred to Mrs. Wilson as "Valerie Plame," then, the key would be whether he gave Matt Cooper (or others) information that Joe Wilson's wife was a covert agent.
Also, the statute requires that Rove had to know, as a fact, that the United States was taking, or had taken, "affirmative measures to conceal" Valerie Plame's covert status. Rove's lawyer says he had no such knowledge.
In fact, there is no public evidence that Valerie Wilson had the covert status required by the statute. A covert agent, as defined under this law, is "a present or retired officer or employee" of the CIA, whose identity as such "is classified information," and this person must be serving outside of the United States, or have done so in the last five years.
There is no solid information that Rove, or anyone else, violated this law designed to protect covert CIA agents. There is, however, evidence suggesting that other laws were violated. In particular, I have in mind the laws invoked by the Bush Justice Department in the relatively minor leak case that it vigorously prosecuted, though it involved information that was not nearly as sensitive as that which Rove provided Matt Cooper (and possibly others).
Leak prosecution precedent
I am referring to the prosecution and conviction of Jonathan Randel. Randel was a Drug Enforcement Agency analyst, a Ph.D. in history, working in the Atlanta office of the DEA.
Randel was convinced that British Lord Michael Ashcroft (a major contributor to Britain's Conservative Party, as well as American conservative causes) was being ignored by DEA and its investigation of money laundering. (Lord Ashcroft is based in South Florida and the off-shore tax haven of Belize.)
Randel leaked the fact that Lord Ashcroft's name was in the DEA files, and this fact soon surfaced in the London news media. Ashcroft sued, and learned the source of the information was Randel. Using his clout, soon Ashcroft had the U.S. attorney in pursuit of Randel for his leak.
By late February 2002, the Department of Justice indicted Randel for his leaking of Lord Ashcroft's name. It was an eighteen count "kitchen sink" indictment; they threw everything they could think of at Randel. Most relevant for Karl Rove's situation, count one of Randel's indictment alleged a violation of Title 18, United States Code, Section 641. This is a law that prohibits theft (or conversion for one's own use) of government records and information for non-governmental purposes. But its broad language covers leaks, and it has now been used to cover just such actions.
Randel, faced with a life sentence (actually 500 years) if convicted on all counts, on the advice of his attorney, pleaded guilty to violating Section 641. On January 9, 2003, Randel was sentenced to a year in a federal prison, followed by three years probation. This sentence prompted the U.S. attorney to boast that the conviction of Randel made a good example of how the Bush administration would handle leakers.
Precedent bodes ill for Rove
Rove may be able to claim that he did not know he was leaking "classified information" about a "covert agent," but there can be no question he understood that what he was leaking was "sensitive information." The very fact that Matt Cooper called it "double super-secret background" information suggests Rove knew of its sensitivity, if he did not know it was classified information (which by definition is sensitive).
United States District Court Judge Richard Story's statement to Jonathan Randel, at the time of sentencing, might have an unpleasant ring for Rove.
Judge Story told Randel that he surely must have appreciated the risks in leaking DEA information. "Anything that would affect the security of officers and of the operations of the agency would be of tremendous concern, I think, to any law-abiding citizen in this country," the judge observed. Judge Story concluded this leak of sensitive information was "a very serious crime."
"In my view," he explained, "it is a very serious offense because of the risk that comes with it, and part of that risk is because of the position" that Randel held in DEA. But the risk posed by the information Rove leaked is multiplied many times over; it occurred at a time when the nation was considering going to war over weapons of mass destruction. And Rove was risking the identity of, in attempting to discredit, a WMD proliferation expert, Valerie Plame Wilson.
Judge Story acknowledged that Randel's leak did not appear to put lives at risk, nor to jeopardize any DEA investigations. But he also pointed out that Randel "could not have completely and fully known that in the position that [he] held."
Is not the same true of Rove? Rove had no idea what the specific consequences of giving a reporter the name of a CIA agent (about whom he says he knew nothing) would be--he only knew that he wanted to discredit her (incorrectly) for dispatching her husband to determine if the rumors about Niger uranium were true or false.
Given the nature of Valerie Plame Wilson's work, it is unlikely the public will ever know if Rove's leak caused damage, or even loss of life of one of her contracts abroad, because of Rove's actions. Dose anyone know the dangers and risks that she and her family may face because of this leak?
It was just such a risk that convinced Judge Story that "for any person with the agency to take it upon himself to leak information poses a tremendous risk; and that's what, to me, makes this a particularly serious offense." Cannot the same be said about Rove's leak? It dealt with matters related to national security; if the risk Randel was taking was a "tremendous" risk, surely Rove's leak was monumental.
While there are other potential violations of the law that may be involved with the Valerie Plame Wilson case, it would be speculation to consider them. But Karl Rove's leak to Matt Cooper is now an established fact.
First, there is Matt Cooper's e-mail record. And Cooper has now confirmed that he has told the grand jury he spoke with Rove. If Rove's leak fails to fall under the statute that was used to prosecute Randel, I do not understand why.
There are stories circulating that Rove may have been told of Valerie Plame's CIA activity by a journalist, such as Judith Miller, as recently suggested in Editor & Publisher. If so, that doesn't exonerate Rove. Rather, it could make for some interesting pairing under the federal conspiracy statute (which was the statute most commonly employed during Watergate).
John W. Dean, a FindLaw columnist, is a former counsel to President Nixon.
Friday, July 15, 2005; Posted: 2:42 p.m. EDT (18:42 GMT)
(FindLaw) -- As the scandal over the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity has continued to unfold, there is a renewed focus on Karl Rove -- the White House deputy chief of staff whom President Bush calls his political "architect."
Newsweek has reported that Matt Cooper, in an e-mail to his bureau --- He has to be guilty, because I want him to be. Please we haven't been doing very well at the polls we NEED this one, please just let us have this one. We'll put Howard Dean in front of the mic more if you just let us have this! --- nerate Rove. Rather, it could make for some interesting pairing under the federal conspiracy statute (which was the statute most commonly employed during Watergate).
John W. Dean, a FindLaw communist, is a former counsel to President Nixon.
I was going to call for money that Rove will resign before the end of August.
But then I remembered that there was pressure for Rumsfeld to resign over al-Ghariab (it happened on his watch - Westminster principles of government mean he should have fallen on his sword), and he did not.
I'm assuming he'll have to resign........as opposed to like, you know, being fired. Since fearless leader's new standard appears to be that:
If someone is convicted of a crime, involving leaking classified secrets, while riding in a yellow cab with an expired registration, while transporting a minor across state lines to get an abortion, without first obtaining the consent of her father and 3 other adult male siblings, while taking prescription drugs imported from Canada, by a French firm specializing in the construction of aluminum tubes, while burning the American flag, after stopping by a free clinic in a fruitless attempt to obtain medical marijuana. Then that person shall no longer be working for this misadministration.
Good old straight-talkin' GW, what country wouldn't be proud to almost elect him.
At the beginning of this thread, certain posters were all proceeding from the assumption that Rove was guilty of some crimes, including, but not limited to, treason.
Three pages later, the debate seems to be shifting to an assumption that he is probably not guilty of any crime but that he should be fired anyway.
He may yet be found quilty of some crimes, the jury is still out (sorry, couldn't resist). I doubt treason will be one of them, but perhaps obstruction of justice and/or perjury. And of course the original outing charge could still bite him in the ass, but the way it's written it'd be tough to prove that one on anyone (judging intent and what one actually knew is always a tough one).
I do however think he's unfit to hold the deputy CoS job. He's purely a political operative. If Bush wants him as an advisor, that's Bush's business (and poor judgement), but he shouldn't hold the CoS position. No more than a James Carville should from the left. Those types (and I don't think Carville's near a sleazy as Rove) are just to prone to put ideology, or simply winning a given battle, above the good of the nation.
At the beginning of this thread, certain posters were all proceeding from the assumption that Rove was guilty of some crimes, including, but not limited to, treason.
Three pages later, the debate seems to be shifting to an assumption that he is probably not guilty of any crime but that he should be fired anyway.
It's buckshot debate. Instead of fireing a single charge and depending on the presision of that charge they throw as many charges as they can in hopes that even if none penetrate the sheer volume will have a debilitating effect.
Maybe it's more a case of having his grubby little fingers in many pies that leads to all the charges. Nothing wrong with pursuing multiple avenues. Kinda like Capone & tax evasion.
Capone was an organized crime figure, who was charged with a relatively minor crime because they could not prosecute him on more violent ones.
Furthermore, no one is saying that Rove broke the law on multiple occasions. It's one specific incident that is under investigation. So your "finger in many pies" theory fails also.
Capone was an organized crime figure, who was charged with a relatively minor crime because they could not prosecute him on more violent ones.
Furthermore, no one is saying that Rove broke the law on multiple occasions. It's one specific incident that is under investigation. So your "finger in many pies" theory fails also.
How much more violent can you get than starting a war?
Capone was an organized crime figure, who was charged with a relatively minor crime because they could not prosecute him on more violent ones.
Furthermore, no one is saying that Rove broke the law on multiple occasions. It's one specific incident that is under investigation. So your "finger in many pies" theory fails also.
How much more violent can you get than starting a war?
Friday, July 15, 2005; Posted: 2:42 p.m. EDT (18:42 GMT)
(FindLaw) -- As the scandal over the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity has continued to unfold, there is a renewed focus on Karl Rove -- the White House deputy chief of staff whom President Bush calls his political "architect."
Newsweek has reported that Matt Cooper, in an e-mail to his bureau --- He has to be guilty, because I want him to be. Please we haven't been doing very well at the polls we NEED this one, please just let us have this one. We'll put Howard Dean in front of the mic more if you just let us have this! --- nerate Rove. Rather, it could make for some interesting pairing under the federal conspiracy statute (which was the statute most commonly employed during Watergate).
John W. Dean, a FindLaw communist, is a former counsel to President Nixon.
I'm actually deeply interested as to WBM's rationale for calling John Dean a "communist"?
I'm all ears.
Incidentally, only 25% of American's believe Bush is telling the truth.
You didn't think your furious spin was going to work forever did you?
Quote:
Skepticism about the administration's cooperation has jumped. As the initial investigation began in September 2003, nearly half the public, 47 percent, believed the White House was fully cooperating. That fell to 39 percent a few weeks later, and it's lower still, 25 percent, in this new ABC News poll.
This view is highly partisan; barely over a tenth of Democrats and just a quarter of independents think the White House is fully cooperating. That grows to 47 percent of Republicans -- much higher, but still under half in the president's own party. And doubt about the administration's cooperation has grown as much among Republicans -- by 22 points since September 2003 -- as it has among others.
Quote: Lou Dobbs Tonight, (7/15/05) as Lou was introducing a piece on the Rove story.
Lou says, "...Rove testifying that he first learned about Plame from columnist Robert Novak, a CNN contributor. Danna Bash reports." Immediately after that you can clearly hear a female voice on mic whispering "that's bullshit". Then Dana Bash continues with her report.
Moving the goalposts. Bush really does this sort of thing all the time.
September 29, 2003:
Quote: McClellan: "If anyone in this administration was involved in it [the improper disclosure of an undercover CIA operative's identity], they would no longer be in this administration."
September 30, 2003"
Quote: Bush: "If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."
Today:
Quote: Bush: "If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."
Seriously, think about what he said today. It was absolutely meaningless, yet brilliant in its deceptiveness. If someone in my administration is sent to jail I won't keep them on the federal payroll. Well bully for you, big boy. I can see why they call you "commander in chief." No decision, however difficult, stumps you.
Tomorrow Bush might even tell us that if someone on his staff dies, they will no longer work in his administration.
Bush had it right back in 2003. But he's not a man of his word.
Quote: I think the American people--I hope the American-I don't think, let me--I hope the American people trust me.-George W. Bush
Some more quotes:
Quote: Sept. 29, 2003
Q: You said this morning, quote, "The president knows that Karl Rove wasn't involved." How does he know that?
A: Well, I've made it very clear that it was a ridiculous suggestion in the first place. ... I've said that it's not true. ... And I have spoken with Karl Rove.
Q: It doesn't take much for the president to ask a senior official working for him, to just lay the question out for a few people and end this controversy today.
A: Do you have specific information to bring to our attention? ... Are we supposed to chase down every anonymous report in the newspaper? We'd spend all our time doing that."
Q: When you talked to Mr. Rove, did you discuss, "Did you ever have this information?"
A: I've made it very clear, he was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was.
___
Quote: Oct. 7, 2003
Q: You have said that you personally went to Scooter Libby (Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff), Karl Rove and Elliott Abrams (National Security Council official) to ask them if they were the leakers. Is that what happened? Why did you do that? And can you describe the conversations you had with them? What was the question you asked?
A: Unfortunately, in Washington, D.C., at a time like this there are a lot of rumors and innuendo. There are unsubstantiated accusations that are made. And that's exactly what happened in the case of these three individuals. They are good individuals. They are important members of our White House team. And that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I had no doubt with that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did.
___
Quote: Oct. 10, 2003
Q: Earlier this week you told us that neither Karl Rove, Elliot Abrams nor Lewis Libby disclosed any classified information with regard to the leak. I wondered if you could tell us more specifically whether any of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?
A: I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this. And that's where it stands.
Q: So none of them told any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA?
A: They assured me that they were not involved in this.
Q: They were not involved in what?
A: The leaking of classified information.
___
Quote: July 11, 2005:
Q: Do you want to retract your statement that Rove, Karl Rove, was not involved in the Valerie Plame expose?
A: I appreciate the question. This is an ongoing investigation at this point. The president directed the White House to cooperate fully with the investigation, and as part of cooperating fully with the investigation, that means we're not going to be commenting on it while it is ongoing.
Q: But Rove has apparently commented, through his lawyer, that he was definitely involved.
A: You're asking me to comment on an ongoing investigation.
Q: I'm saying, why did you stand there and say he was not involved?
A: Again, while there is an ongoing investigation, I'm not going to be commenting on it nor is ... .
Q: Any remorse?
A: Nor is the White House, because the president wanted us to cooperate fully with the investigation, and that's what we're doing.
Time identifies chief of staff as 2d source
By Diedtra Henderson, Globe Staff | July 18, 2005
WASHINGTON -- I. Lewis ''Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, was a second source for a Time magazine article that revealed the identity of a covert CIA agent, the magazine reported yesterday, undercutting repeated White House denials.
For two years, the Bush administration has said that neither top presidential adviser Karl Rove nor Libby was involved in identifying Valerie Plame, the covert CIA agent first named in a July 2003 article by syndicated columnist Robert Novak.
Last week, Rove, Bush's deputy chief of staff, was identified as a confidential source of Time reporter Matthew Cooper and that disclosure led to some Democrats calling for Rove's resignation while others pressed for the revocation of his security clearance. The disclosure also resulted in the White House no longer denying Rove's involvement and instead declining to comment because the matter is under investigation.
The partisan attacks are expected to continue this week with Libby -- a neoconservative and member of the team planning for the war -- being linked again to the story, and as Congress hears testimony backing a federal shield law to protect reporters from testifying about unnamed sources. It was reported last year that Libby waived a confidentiality agreement with Cooper, allowing him to give testimony, but the topic of their conversation was not known.
Republicans continued yesterday to defend Rove. Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, appearing on NBC's ''Meet the Press," argued that Rove learned of Plame's identity from journalists, and that Democrats are attacking Rove based on information that exonerates Rove. Mehlman said Democrats owe Rove an apology.
A lawyer familiar with Rove's grand jury testimony told the Associated Press yesterday that Rove learned about the CIA officer either from the media or from someone in government who said the information came from a journalist. The lawyer spoke on condition of anonymity because the federal investigation is continuing.
Also appearing on ''Meet the Press," John Podesta, chief of staff during the Clinton administration, said if Rove had ''an ounce of character," he would resign. ''Mr. Rove has created a tremendous credibility problem for this White House, for this president, for this country on a matter of utmost national security," he said. ''The one thing that is unassailable at the end of this week is that Mr. Rove did not tell the truth in 2003."
In a first-person article about his grand jury testimony in this week's issue of Time, Cooper said he called Rove about Joseph C. Wilson IV, author of a New York Times op-ed article on his mission to Niger in which he found no evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to procure uranium to make nuclear weapons. The Bush administration justified going to war in Iraq as necessary to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and Wilson's article said it twisted intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.
Critics of the administration have charged that Plame's cover was deliberately leaked as retribution for Wilson's article. Knowingly revealing the identity of covert personnel is a felony.
During the conversation with Rove, Cooper learned that Wilson's wife -- whom Rove did not name -- worked at the CIA on weapons of mass destruction and that she -- not Cheney -- was responsible for sending Wilson to Africa. Rove ended the call by saying he had ''already said too much," though Cooper was not sure what he meant.
The next day, Cooper repeated details gleaned from Rove to Libby. According to Cooper's article in this week's Time, Libby, speaking on the record, denied Cheney had any role in or knowledge of Wilson's trip to Niger. At one point, when the conversation was on background, Cooper asked about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger. ''Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that, too,' or words to that effect," according to the article. His article reveals the ''microscopic, excruciating detail" sought by the grand jury and special prosecutor in his 2 1/2 hours of testimony Wednesday and echoes comments he made yesterday on news shows.
Meanwhile, investigators, in an effort to determine the source of the leak, are focusing on a 2003 State Department memo that details why Wilson was chosen for the trip and what role Plame played in his selection, according to reports in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leak, has focused on a classified memo and meeting notes sent by State Department officials to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, the Los Angeles Times reported. The day after Wilson's op-ed article was published, Bush traveled to Africa on Air Force One. Powell, also on Air Force One, had a copy of the classified documents. The New York Times reported that Powell was walking around the aircraft with the memo in his hands. Cooper wrote that he first spoke to the special prosecutor in August 2004, giving ''limited testimony" in his attorney's office about his interview with Libby. ''Like Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame's name or indicated that her status was covert, and he never told me that he had heard about Plame from other reporters," Cooper wrote.
Cooper's account of his grand jury testimony, which he gave last week, said Fitzgerald's questions hinted at the investigation's direction. ''He asked me several different ways if Rove indicated how he had heard that Plame worked at the CIA," Cooper wrote. ''(He did not, I told the grand jury.) Maybe Fitzgerald is interested in whether Rove knew her CIA ties through a person or through a document," Cooper wrote.
Cooper's notes and e-mail messages turned over to the special prosecutor by Time -- over the reporter's objections -- indicate that Rove told him ''material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson's mission and his findings." Speaking on ''Meet the Press," Cooper said there may have been government officials other than Rove and Libby who were sources for his article. Asked on CNN's ''Reliable Sources" about a third unnamed administration source, ''a policy person in Africa," Cooper declined comment.
Cooper wrote that sitting before the grand jury, which hears testimony in secret, he was struck by the mostly African-American, mostly female group and their inquisitiveness as they sat in black vinyl chairs and at desks ''as if it were a shabby classroom at a rundown college." Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller fought such testimony to the Supreme Court. They lost. Miller remains jailed in Alexandria, Va.
Cooper wrote that he was surprised to be questioned extensively about welfare reform, a reporting topic he shelved in favor of the Wilson story. ''To me, this suggested that Rove may have testified that we had talked about welfare reform," Cooper wrote.
Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, declined comment yesterday.
This week, Cooper will testify before Congress on behalf of a federal shield law that could have helped him avoid testifying before the grand jury.
For the most part, Republicans have stood firm behind the White House. Yesterday, however, Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the third-ranking House Republican, appeared on CBS's ''Face the Nation." Responding to a question about the administration's previous denials of Rove's involvement, Blunt said the administration needs ''to be very thoughtful about what they say and be sure that their credibility is sustained."
Information from the Associated Press was used in this report.Diedtra Henderson can be reached at [Email]dhenderson@globe.com.[/Email]
from the LA Times article:
Quote: Although lower-level White House staffers typically handle most contacts with the media, Rove and Libby began personally communicating with reporters about Wilson, prosecutors were told.
A source directly familiar with information provided to prosecutors said Rove's interest was so strong that it prompted questions in the White House. When asked at one point why he was pursuing the diplomat so aggressively, Rove reportedly responded: "He's a Democrat."
At this point, the best you might be doing is building a case against Libby.
In the case of Rove, all you're doing it repeating the same, questionable, theory over and over, and peppering it with graphics that do little more than demonstrate that the media's relentless drumbeat of speculation and Bush bashing is working.
Quote: the G-man said: At this point, the best you might be doing is building a case against Libby.
In the case of Rove, all you're doing it repeating the same, questionable, theory over and over, and peppering it with graphics that do little more than demonstrate that the media's relentless drumbeat of speculation and Bush bashing is working.
Regardless of Rove's legal liability (which is still undetirmined despite your assertions), the description of his role runs contrary to earlier White House statements that Rove and Libby were not involved in the unmasking of Wilson's wife, and it suggests they were part of a campaign to discredit Wilson.
In other words, the White House and Scott McLellan LIED.
Quote: I'm actually deeply interested as to WBM's rationale for calling John Dean a "communist"?
I'm all ears.
It was a play on words you humorless troll.
Quote:
Incidentally, only 25% of American's believe Bush is telling the truth.
You didn't think your furious spin was going to work forever did you?
So now the court of public opinion is as valid in convicting someone of a crime as the judiciary?
All that means is that your sides tactic of repeating something over and over again makes it true works in the short term. At least you've come clean and addmitted that his acctuall guilt is secondary to public opinion.
Was anybody comforted by our President's bold statement, that "...And if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration," Why did he even bother breaking his silence on this subject with that?
As I already mentioned, the statement is completely meaningless and lowers the ethical bar he had set earleir. But it sounds almost identical to his 2003 vows and also gives the spin machine something to run with in the Administrations defense of Rove and his continued presence in the White House.
Gladly though, it just sounds like Bush being dishonest to 75% of Americans.
The Wall Street Journal released an interesting article today.
By ANNE MARIE SQUEO and JOHN D. MCKINNON Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL July 19, 2005; Page A3
A classified State Department memo that may be pivotal to the CIA leak case made clear that information identifying an agent and her role in her husband's intelligence-gathering mission was sensitive and shouldn't be shared, according to a person familiar with the document.
...Investigators are trying to determine if the memo, dated June 10, 2003, was how White House officials learned that Valerie Wilson was an agent for the Central Intelligence Agency
...
The paragraph in the memo discussing Ms. Wilson's involvement in her husband's trip is marked at the beginning with a letter designation in brackets to indicate the information shouldn't be shared, according to the person familiar with the memo. Such a designation would indicate to a reader that the information was sensitive. The memo, though, doesn't specifically describe Ms. Wilson as an undercover agent, the person familiar with the memo said.
Generally, the federal government has three levels of classified information -- top secret, secret and confidential -- all indicating various levels of "damage" to national security if disclosed. There also is an unclassified designation -- indicating information that wouldn't harm national security if shared with the public -- but that wasn't the case for the material on the Wilsons prepared by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. It isn't known what level of classification was assigned to the information in the memo.
Who received the memo, which was prepared for Marc Grossman, then the under secretary of state for political affairs, and how widely it was circulated are issues as Mr. Fitzgerald tries to pinpoint the origin of the leak of Ms. Wilson's identity. According to the person familiar with the document, it didn't include a distribution list. It isn't known if President Bush has seen the memo.
The memo's details are significant because they will make it harder for officials who saw the document to claim that they didn't realize the identity of the CIA officer was a sensitive matter. Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, may also be looking at whether other crimes -- such as perjury, obstruction of justice or leaking classified information -- were committed.
Obstruction of justice immediately jumps to the top of the list. This document pretty much tells the story. Sen. Harkin laid it all out way back in October 2003:
Could Alberto Gonzalez be a subject in the cover-up portion of the Plame investigation?
In short, after Attorney General John Ashcroft delayed mounting any investigation into the Plame leak, he then delayed informing the White House of the investigation (in order to trigger their duty to preserve documents). Once Ashcroft did notify the White House, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzalez asked if he could wait until the next day to send out the official notice to White House staff to preserve documents relevant to the investigation. Even though the request was extraordinary, and outside any normal prosecutorial procedures, Ashcroft obliged.
Quote: On September 23 (2003), the Attorney General says he and CIA Director Tenet sent a memo to the FBI requesting an investigation.
On September 26, the Department of Justice officially launches its investigation.
Interestingly, it took 4 days after that "official" launch for the Justice Department to call White House Counsel Gonzales and notify him of the official investigation. Gonzalez then asked for an extra day before the Justice Department gave the White House the official notice, which means all documents and records must be preserved.
A letter was also sent to the President from Senators Daschle, Schumer, Levin, and Biden which also expresses concern about this break from regular procedure.
They wrote:
Quote: Every former prosecutor with whom we have spoken has said that the first step in such an investigation would be to ensure all potentially relevant evidence is preserved, yet the Justice Department waited four days before making a formal request for documents.
Interestingly, the letter goes on:
Quote: When the Justice Department finally asked the White House to order employees to preserve documents, White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales asked for permission to delay transmitting the order to preserve evidence until morning. The request for a delay was granted. Again, every former prosecutor with whom we have spoken has said that such a delay is a significant departure from standard practice.
That is what has been happening--departure from standard practice.
Quote: I am also troubled that the White House Counsel's Office is serving as "gatekeeper'" for all the documents the Justice Department has requested from the White House. Mr. Gonzales' office said he would not rule out seeking to withhold documents under a claim of executive privilege or national security
Mr. Gonzales says he can withhold these documents from this investigation on the basis of national security.
Wait a minute. It is our national security that has been breached by this leak. They then invoke protecting national security to protect who leaked it??!
This matter could have been resolved very quickly. President Bush could have called his senior staff members into the Oval Office way back in 2003 and asked them one by one if they were involved. He could have had them sign a document stating they were not involved in this leak. He could have had each of them sign a release to any reporter to release anything they have ever said to a reporter thereby exempting the reporters.
But now here we are 2 years later with a scandal.
Incidentally, who is Judith Miller protecting? Libby and Rove are not choices as they have released reporters from silence about sources. So, who is Miller protecting?
Quote: PaulWellr said: Wait a minute. It is our national security that has been breached by this leak. They then invoke protecting national security to protect who leaked it??!
Quote: PaulWellr said: Regardless of Rove's legal liability (which is still undetirmined despite your assertions), the description of his role runs contrary to earlier White House statements that Rove and Libby were not involved in the unmasking of Wilson's wife, and it suggests they were part of a campaign to discredit Wilson.
In other words, the White House and Scott McLellan LIED.
Agreed. Bush's 2003 statement was anyone involved in the leak would be fired, now its anyone who did something illegal. As Jon Stewart pointed out its a good thing lying about who you'd fire isn't a crime.
Incidentally, only 25% of American's believe Bush is telling the truth.
You didn't think your furious spin was going to work forever did you?
So now the court of public opinion is as valid in convicting someone of a crime as the judiciary?
All that means is that your sides tactic of repeating something over and over again makes it true works in the short term. At least you've come clean and addmitted that his acctuall guilt is secondary to public opinion.
so when people support Bush then they're just ignoring the liberal media, when they think he's lying the liberal media is tricking them?
Is that so?
Quote: PaulWellr said: ... Incidentally, who is Judith Miller protecting? Libby and Rove are not choices as they have released reporters from silence about sources. So, who is Miller protecting?
Could they have only released certain reporters? I don't know about Novak but Cooper waited till Rove gave him the go ahead personally (beyond the waiver they were forced to sign) before talking to the Grand Jury. Miller may not have gotten that phone call. So Libby & Rove could still be the sources Miller is protecting.
Incidentally, only 25% of American's believe Bush is telling the truth.
You didn't think your furious spin was going to work forever did you?
So now the court of public opinion is as valid in convicting someone of a crime as the judiciary?
All that means is that your sides tactic of repeating something over and over again makes it true works in the short term. At least you've come clean and addmitted that his acctuall guilt is secondary to public opinion.
so when people support Bush then they're just ignoring the liberal media, when they think he's lying the liberal media is tricking them? Is that so?
I have enough trouble understanding what you're saying w/out a thousand smileys. I find it amazing how seldom you acctually make a point, but rather say some flip comment meant to be funny or clever (I'll admit you occasionally succeed.) Frankly I know nothing about the poll. I'm only half following this story, but so far it seems like much ado about nothing (unless of coures you presupose that Conservitives are out to get you) You have a guy who might have, but evidence suggests he may not have done something that probobly isn't even a crime. I tend not to trust pols in general because you can pretty much get a poll to say whatever you want it to. The sample they'd have to have used of people who are acctually following this story would have to be incredibly small in the first place. In taking the poll they would have of course dismissed anyone not familiar with the story and the only people really following the story are political junkies most of whome are following this story because they want to see blood.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I have enough trouble understanding what you're saying w/out a thousand smileys. I find it amazing how seldom you acctually make a point, but rather say some flip comment meant to be funny or clever
takes one to know one.
Quote: (I'll admit you occasionally succeed.)
that's a lie, and you know it!
Quote:
Frankly I know nothing about the poll. I'm only half following this story, but so far it seems like much ado about nothing (unless of coures you presupose that Conservitives are out to get you)
I'm not even bothering to address the rest of your post (no offense, I just want to make one general point). The media is controlled by money, not politics. If it were as liberal as republicans claim then you wouldn't have seen any coverage of Monica Lewinsky or Gary Condit (he was a democrat, right?)
Fox News however, is conservative. There's enough proof out there (just check fair.org) to show that. The head of the network worked for Bush sr., the reporters contribute to a lot of conservative newspapers and there are more stories on bad democrats than anything else. Also, note their attacks on Clinton (some of which was earned) compared to their rolling over and supporting Bush (O'reilly went so far as to quote Bush's campaign messages and say "sounds good to me.")
An interesting quote comes from a republican in 1992. Years ago, Republican party chair Rich Bond explained that conservatives' frequent denunciations of "liberal bias" in the media were part of "a strategy" (Washington Post, 8/20/92). Comparing journalists to referees in a sports match, Bond explained: "If you watch any great coach, what they try to do is 'work the refs.' Maybe the ref will cut you a little slack next time."
I have nothing more to say on this thread except Bush said in 2003 he'd fire anyone who was responsible for the leak, now he's saying anyone who did anything illegal. He's already got his own Vietnam, he shouldn't go looking for his own Watergate.
Quote: the G-man said: In any event, there is a thread about whether or not the press is liberal here. Most of what we're discussing about the press is a rehast from there.
who are you to tell us where to post? that's what Hitler did.
Quote: the G-man said: Any thoughts on the Rove/Plame topic?
Rove gave away classified information for political spite.
Even if technically a legal act, its the wrong thing to do and brings down the Bush administration farther than it already is. If Bush wants to go out with any sort of diginity by 2009 then he needs to dump Rove.
This article does mention something more tangible than a crime over revealing a covert agents ID that Rove HAS violated and has been pretty much ignored by the media.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Eleven former intelligence officers say the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity may have damaged national security and the government's ability to gather intelligence.
The former officers made their views known in a three-page statement to congressional leaders.
They said the Republican National Committee has circulated suggestions for officials to deal with the Plame case by focusing on the idea that Plame was not working undercover and legally merited no protection.
Thousands of U.S. intelligence officers work at desks in the Washington area every day whose identities are shielded, as Plame's was when her identity was leaked by Bush administration officials, the 11 former officers said.
The former officers' statement comes amid revelations that top presidential aide Karl Rove was involved in leaking Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak and Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.
Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, also was a source for Cooper on the Plame story.
The Plame leaks followed public criticism of President Bush's White House by Plame's husband, Joseph Wilson.
Wilson, a former ambassador and career diplomat, suggested administration officials had manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq.
A criminal investigation into the leaks is under way.
"Intelligence officers should not be used as political footballs," the 11 said. "In the case of Valerie Plame, she still works for the CIA and is not in a position to publicly defend her reputation and honor."
Quote: I'm actually deeply interested as to WBM's rationale for calling John Dean a "communist"?
I'm all ears.
It was a play on words you humorless troll.
Quote: D. McDonagh said: If you're going to make inflammatory statements, trying to hide behind [flippancy] is a very lame cop out.
Liberals and communists are two different things. One group are very taken with Karl Marx, the other is composed of capitalists who don't like to see the untermensch getting shat on. Unless you can get your head around that detail, there's little point in your even trying to discuss politics.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said:
Quote: magicjay said:
How much more violent can you get than starting a war?
Quote: Virtual wars are conflicts in which one can kill others without either witnessing their deaths or having to take moral responsibility for them. The Iraq war, we were told, would be quick and few people would die. It is as though we believed that by pressing a button and eliminating others far away we would not experience any guilt or suffering — on our side.
By bullying and cajoling the media, governments can conceal this part of any war, but only for a while. We think of children being corrupted by video games — imitation violence making them immune to the reality of actual violence — but this is something that has happened to our politicians. Modern Western politicians believe that we can murder others in faraway places without the same thing happening to us, and without any physical or moral suffering on our part.
This is a dangerous idea. The only way out is to condemn all violence or to recognize that violence is a useful and important moral option in the world. Despite our self-deception, we are quite aware of how necessary it is, at times, to kill others to achieve our own ends and to protect ourselves. If we take this position, we cannot pretend it is morally easy and seek to evade the consequences. - "The exchange of violence" By Hanif Kureishi
Quote: Schoolchildren, take note. There will still be high standards for you, your teachers and your schools. But at the White House, the rule is a little different: No pal left behind.
and double OUCH.
todays Post
It looks like Bush rushed forth his SCOTUS nomination for nothing.
and OUCHx3
In this photograph taken in June 2003, Karl Rove, senior advisor to President Bush and Robert Novak are pictured together at a party marking the 40th anniversary of Novak's newspaper column at the Army Navy Club in Washington DC. At the event a number of people wore buttons reading, 'I'm a source, not a target.' Rove is at the center of a controversy about the leaking of a CIA operative's identity which originally appeared in Novak's newspaper column.
Not any more you're not, Karl.
and finally from Bloomberg for the snickering 25% who scoffs at the Supreme nomination having anything to do with KARLGATE, I present this.
Quote: Bush accelerated his search for a Supreme Court nominee in part because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name, according to Republicans familiar with administration strategy.
Bush originally had planned to announce a replacement for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on July 26 or 27, just before his planned July 28 departure for a month-long vacation at his Crawford, Texas, ranch, said two administration officials, who spoke on the condition they not be named.
The officials said those plans changed because Rove has become a focus of Fitzgerald's interest and of news accounts about the matter.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: and you (just as a Republican) should want Rove gone because this scandal (and Bush's lack of action) will help the democrats in 2008.
Bush can't run in 2008. By then, this "scandal" will be forgotten by everyone other than the extreme partisans who wouldn't vote for a Republican anyway.
Furthermore, as noted before, so far no one has shown Rove did anything other than talk to a reporter AFTER Novak's original story was printed about a CIA employee who MAY have been a covert op.
Using the standards of some of the posters here (that subsequent discussion was still a crime), they should all go to prison because they keep talking about Plame's ID.
Bush can't run in 2008. By then, this "scandal" will be forgotten by everyone other than the extreme partisans who wouldn't vote for a Republican anyway.
Furthermore, as noted before, so far no one has shown Rove did anything other than talk to a reporter AFTER Novak's original story was printed about a CIA employee who MAY have been a covert op.
Using the standards of some of the posters here (that subsequent discussion was still a crime), they should all go to prison because they keep talking about Plame's ID.
You're forgetting that scandals tend to grow as the investigation continues. How long before a special prosecuter is appointed? Who knew in 1996 that Whitewater would lead to an impeachment trial of the President for lieing about a blow job? Maybe we'll find out what Bush's true relationship with Jeff Gannon was! I can see the headlines; 'Bush Impeached for Pandering' Gannon "I was the President's Ho"
Quote: First Amongst Daves said: So lying about getting a blow job from an intern is a scandal...
I take it you were sick the days they taught perjury and obstruction of justice in law school.
Quote: but a senior policy advisor to the President disclosing the identity of a CIA agent to the press by way of payback to a critical ambassador isn't.
And playing hooky the day they taught evidence, since you have just assumed a sentence full of "facts" for which there is still inadequate evidence.
Sarcasm aside, I would respectfully submit that you are letting your anti-Bush bias cloud your judgement.
At this point, there is no evidence of a scandal. Maybe there will be later, but right now, there isn't.
Furthermore, by bringing up the ghost of Clinton and Lewinsky all you do is prove my point.
Clinton's "scandal" did not particularly hurt his popularity, why should this one hurt whomever runs in 2008?
Moving images, ID. During Vietnam such pictures were printed in popular media or shown on TV. But today the media only reports on 'collateral damage' .
Quote: G-Man said : By then, this "scandal" will be forgotten
Use of inverted commas indicates that you don't think this is a scandal.
Hmm.
So lying about getting a blow job from an intern is a scandal...
The issue is not Clinton cheating on his wife with Monica Lewinsky in the Oval Office. Contemptible as cheating on your wife is.
The scandal in that case was that Clinton lied about his infidelity when questioned about it before a grand jury, and lied about it to obstruct a 40-million-dollar special prosecutor investigation. And that Clinton's stubborn refusal to simply admit to it and allow the nation to move on prevented virtually any legislation from occuring in the two years the Lewinsky scandal dominated Washington.
And I hasten to add that, in this proven criminal act ( semen-stained dress produced by Lewinsky in the 11th hour, otherwise Clinton would have gotten away with it), Clinton was censured by Congress, and was disbarred as an attorney.
Quote: First Amongst Daves said:
... but a senior policy advisor to the President disclosing the identity of a CIA agent to the press by way of payback to a critical ambassador isn't.
Just checking.
As G-man said: Pending further evidence to the contrary, Rove has committed no crime, and this remains (yet another) liberal smear campaign.
So lying about getting a blow job from an intern is a scandal...
And I hasten to add that, in this proven criminal act ( semen-stained dress produced by Lewinsky in the 11th hour, otherwise Clinton would have gotten away with it), Clinton was censured by Congress, and was disbarred as an attorney.
And I've always wondered, Wonder Boy; How did that seman stain get there? Did the President blow his load in Monica's face and let it drip down on to her dress? Or did he shoot on her tits and she got the jizz on the dress while arrainging herself post coitus? Important questions that Ken Starr never answered.
Quote: Wonder Boy said:
Quote: First Amongst Daves said:
... but a senior policy advisor to the President disclosing the identity of a CIA agent to the press by way of payback to a critical ambassador isn't.
Just checking.
As G-man said: Pending further evidence to the contrary, Rove has committed no crime, and this remains (yet another) liberal smear campaign.
Come on, a guy like Rove has enemies on both sides of the isle. The knives are out and Rove isn't going to come through this without a few slices missing.
Quote: magicjay said:How did that seman stain get there? Did the President blow his load in Monica's face and let it drip down on to her dress? Or did he shoot on her tits and she got the jizz on the dress while arrainging herself post coitus? Important questions that Ken Starr never answered.
She's probably not a swallower.
You know...at the rate the "liberal" pundits are trying to compare this case to the Clinton, they'll have the average American so confused, they'll think the gist of the "scandal" is that Valerie Plame gave Karl Rove a blowjob in Niger.
Quote: magicjay said:How did that seman stain get there? Did the President blow his load in Monica's face and let it drip down on to her dress? Or did he shoot on her tits and she got the jizz on the dress while arrainging herself post coitus? Important questions that Ken Starr never answered.
She's probably not a swallower.
You know...at the rate the "liberal" pundits are trying to compare this case to the Clinton, they'll have the average American so confused, they'll think the gist of the "scandal" is that Valerie Plame gave Karl Rove a blowjob in Niger.
She did? Get the search warrant G-man, we'll take her entire wardrobe and search for Rove spooge! Check his diapers, too!
I think Tom Delay is behind all these scandals. He is the source of the leaks. Notice how Rove, Gannon and memogate have pushed him off the headlines? The committees won't get around to investigating his corrupt butt until he's ready to retire!
Quote: the G-man said: ... You know...at the rate the "liberal" pundits are trying to compare this case to the Clinton, they'll have the average American so confused, they'll think the gist of the "scandal" is that Valerie Plame gave Karl Rove a blowjob in Niger.
The "conservative" pundits & politicians have been doing a good enough job confusing the issue IMHO. Something as simple as Plame's status at the CIA when her ID was leaked (something the CIA confirmed a while back) is still being questioned.
Quote: the G-man said: I must have missed the day that we threw out the judiciary and decided that the CIA ruled on matters of law.
so if I revealed something that ruined someone's career only days after their husband embarassed me you'd still think I was fit (ethically/morally) to work with and advise the president?
Quote: the G-man said: I must have missed the day that we threw out the judiciary and decided that the CIA ruled on matters of law.
You we're probably writing a post on the RKMB when it happened. Ever wonder why you silly conservatives are always the last to know? (unless it involves Presidential spooge!)
Quote: PaulWellr said: Wait a minute. It is our national security that has been breached by this leak. They then invoke protecting national security to protect who leaked it??!
Our national security?
As in: Us and you?
You forget that while this particular Alt claims to be from Jolly old England Whomod acctually lived in L.A. so yes it would be his national security as well.
All that has been confirmed is that Rove spoke to a reporter AFTER Novak "outed" Plame.
It has not been confirmed that Rove was Novak's source.
It has not been confirmed that Plame was, in fact, a covert operative.
It has not even been confirmed that Rove THOUGHT Plame was a covert operative.
We're arguing in circles now. You, and a few other, posters are assuming all of the above is true. Myself, and a few other, posters are pointing out it isn't.
The bottom line is that all of the facts are not in. Why not wait until they are?
Quote: PaulWellr said: Wait a minute. It is our national security that has been breached by this leak. They then invoke protecting national security to protect who leaked it??!
Our national security?
As in: Us and you?
You forget that while this particular Alt claims to be from Jolly old England Whomod acctually lived in L.A. so yes it would be his national security as well.
Yet another time that unrestrainedPaulwhoGannonMandralID has slipped up.
Quote: They use real quotes to back up their point. Are they liberal? Maybe. But they back up their points.
Maybe?
Oh, and Fox News uses real quotes too.
have you ever watched fox news? they're a political propaganda machine.
even if you like their politics, you shouldn't agree with "news" being used to spin political rhetoric.
Acctually I don't watch them that much, but you proved my point even from your own perspective "real quotes" mean nothing if thier spun to the right rather than the left. I recognise that Fox is Conservitive. I've never denied it as some on the right will do or most on the left will do when it comes to all other news services.
In response to ID's pictures. It sucks that there are wars. I don't like war. I wish we never needed to go to war, but if we didn't go to war far more Iraqis would be suffering what's pictured and then even worse, but you wouldn't be posting those pictures. You wouldn't even care, because it's not politically expedient.
Quote: the G-man said: I must have missed the day that we threw out the judiciary and decided that the CIA ruled on matters of law.
You we're probably writing a post on the RKMB when it happened. Ever wonder why you silly conservatives are always the last to know? (unless it involves Presidential spooge!)
So you're saying that G is wrong. That teh CIA DOES rule in matters of law?
Quote: PaulWellr said: Wait a minute. It is our national security that has been breached by this leak. They then invoke protecting national security to protect who leaked it??!
Our national security?
As in: Us and you?
You forget that while this particular Alt claims to be from Jolly old England Whomod acctually lived in L.A. so yes it would be his national security as well.
Yet another time that unrestrainedPaulwhoGannonMandralID has slipped up.
Quote: the G-man said: I must have missed the day that we threw out the judiciary and decided that the CIA ruled on matters of law.
You we're probably writing a post on the RKMB when it happened. Ever wonder why you silly conservatives are always the last to know? (unless it involves Presidential spooge!)
So you're saying that G is wrong. That teh CIA DOES rule in matters of law?
Quote: PaulWellr said: Wait a minute. It is our national security that has been breached by this leak. They then invoke protecting national security to protect who leaked it??!
Our national security?
As in: Us and you?
You forget that while this particular Alt claims to be from Jolly old England Whomod acctually lived in L.A. so yes it would be his national security as well.
Yet another time that unrestrainedPaulwhoGannonMandralID has slipped up.
Quote: the G-man said: Again, that assuming facts not in evidence.
um, its pretty much confirmed that he leaked it.
G-man, you've got to wake up for school now.
If it's been confirmed that he leaked the name, please show me proof and I'll stand behind you 100% that Bush should get off his ass and fire Rove.
I'm wary however based on your use of the term "pretty much" I mean pretty much has alwayse meant something hadn't been done. You ask someone if they finnished a job and they say "pretty much" they mean "no". If a buddy says he retty much got laid last night it means a girl gave him a fake phone number.
Quote: the G-man said: Again, that assuming facts not in evidence.
um, its pretty much confirmed that he leaked it.
G-man, you've got to wake up for school now.
If it's been confirmed that he leaked the name, please show me proof and I'll stand behind you 100% that Bush should get off his ass and fire Rove.
pretty much as in a lot of the people involved who have seen the evidence say it points to Rove. Now, granted that's not 100%, because they could all be lying as part of some vast left wing conspiracy. But when/"if" it is proven 100% I'll take out the pretty much.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: If a buddy says he retty much got laid last night it means a girl gave him a fake phone number.
r3x is very familiar with that scenario...
Yea, but his buddies alwayse make it up to him.
I want to say this now. I want to say this to the American people. There's been a lot of attacks from other posters, and you know who you are. After posting, I went to a bar and met a girl. She gave me her number. It was legit. Now alot of people, and I'm not saying I agree with them, but a lot of people think I'm worthy of a phone number. So that's where the phone number came from.
The American posters deserve to know whether or not their r3x is a player. Well I am a play. I earned every digit.
Quote: the G-man said: Again, that assuming facts not in evidence.
um, its pretty much confirmed that he leaked it.
G-man, you've got to wake up for school now.
If it's been confirmed that he leaked the name, please show me proof and I'll stand behind you 100% that Bush should get off his ass and fire Rove.
pretty much as in a lot of the people involved who have seen the evidence say it points to Rove. Now, granted that's not 100%, because they could all be lying as part of some vast left wing conspiracy. But when/"if" it is proven 100% I'll take out the pretty much.
Quote: the G-man said: Again, that assuming facts not in evidence.
um, its pretty much confirmed that he leaked it.
G-man, you've got to wake up for school now.
If it's been confirmed that he leaked the name, please show me proof and I'll stand behind you 100% that Bush should get off his ass and fire Rove.
pretty much as in a lot of the people involved who have seen the evidence say it points to Rove.
Now, granted that's not 100%, because they could all be lying as part of some vast left wing conspiracy. But when/"if" it is proven 100% I'll take out the pretty much.
Quote: the G-man said: Again, that assuming facts not in evidence.
um, its pretty much confirmed that he leaked it.
G-man, you've got to wake up for school now.
If it's been confirmed that he leaked the name, please show me proof and I'll stand behind you 100% that Bush should get off his ass and fire Rove.
pretty much as in a lot of the people involved who have seen the evidence say it points to Rove. Now, granted that's not 100%, because they could all be lying as part of some vast left wing conspiracy. But when/"if" it is proven 100% I'll take out the pretty much.
Quote: the G-man said: Again, that assuming facts not in evidence.
um, its pretty much confirmed that he leaked it.
G-man, you've got to wake up for school now.
If it's been confirmed that he leaked the name, please show me proof and I'll stand behind you 100% that Bush should get off his ass and fire Rove.
pretty much as in a lot of the people involved who have seen the evidence say it points to Rove. Now, granted that's not 100%, because they could all be lying as part of some vast left wing conspiracy. But when/"if" it is proven 100% I'll take out the pretty much.
Translation: We aint proved shit!
I'd kiss you if you weren't so damned ugly.
ah. uncomfortable silence.
Did you just hit on me?
No. Just trying to creep you out.
The fact that you read gay context into my statement raises an eyebrow. So much so that I shall now place an eyebrow raising smiley at the end of my post
Quote: the G-man said: Again, that assuming facts not in evidence.
um, its pretty much confirmed that he leaked it.
G-man, you've got to wake up for school now.
If it's been confirmed that he leaked the name, please show me proof and I'll stand behind you 100% that Bush should get off his ass and fire Rove.
pretty much as in a lot of the people involved who have seen the evidence say it points to Rove. Now, granted that's not 100%, because they could all be lying as part of some vast left wing conspiracy. But when/"if" it is proven 100% I'll take out the pretty much.
Translation: We aint proved shit!
I'd kiss you if you weren't so damned ugly.
ah. uncomfortable silence.
Did you just hit on me?
No. Just trying to creep you out.
The fact that you read gay context into my statement raises an eyebrow. So much so that I shall now place an eyebrow raising smiley at the end of my post
1st the idea that you're surprised that I would take a man offering to kiss another man in a gay context causes me to raise an eyebrow.
Furthermore. I live in Seattle so it takes a little more than being hit on by a guy to "creep me out".
I think that these posts relate to the Rove / Plame leak in that they demonstrate the convoluted communication styles that lead to these sort of miscommunications and should therefore not be moved.
Quote: the G-man said: I must have missed the day that we threw out the judiciary and decided that the CIA ruled on matters of law.
You we're probably writing a post on the RKMB when it happened. Ever wonder why you silly conservatives are always the last to know? (unless it involves Presidential spooge!)
So you're saying that G is wrong. That teh CIA DOES rule in matters of law?
Quote: the G-man said: I must have missed the day that we threw out the judiciary and decided that the CIA ruled on matters of law.
You we're probably writing a post on the RKMB when it happened. Ever wonder why you silly conservatives are always the last to know? (unless it involves Presidential spooge!)
So you're saying that G is wrong. That teh CIA DOES rule in matters of law?
Quote: the G-man said: Again, that assuming facts not in evidence.
um, its pretty much confirmed that he leaked it.
G-man, you've got to wake up for school now.
If it's been confirmed that he leaked the name, please show me proof and I'll stand behind you 100% that Bush should get off his ass and fire Rove.
pretty much as in a lot of the people involved who have seen the evidence say it points to Rove. Now, granted that's not 100%, because they could all be lying as part of some vast left wing conspiracy. But when/"if" it is proven 100% I'll take out the pretty much.
Translation: We aint proved shit!
I'd kiss you if you weren't so damned ugly.
ah. uncomfortable silence.
Did you just hit on me?
No. Just trying to creep you out.
The fact that you read gay context into my statement raises an eyebrow. So much so that I shall now place an eyebrow raising smiley at the end of my post
1st the idea that you're surprised that I would take a man offering to kiss another man in a gay context causes me to raise an eyebrow.
Furthermore. I live in Seattle so it takes a little more than being hit on by a guy to "creep me out".
I think that these posts relate to the Rove / Plame leak in that they demonstrate the convoluted communication styles that lead to these sort of miscommunications and should therefore not be moved.
you're the hitler! i took a sudanese refugee into my home.
Quote: the G-man said: I must have missed the day that we threw out the judiciary and decided that the CIA ruled on matters of law.
You we're probably writing a post on the RKMB when it happened. Ever wonder why you silly conservatives are always the last to know? (unless it involves Presidential spooge!)
So you're saying that G is wrong. That teh CIA DOES rule in matters of law?
Quote: the G-man said: I must have missed the day that we threw out the judiciary and decided that the CIA ruled on matters of law.
I wasn't speaking of law but of an agent's status. It's the CIA that decides that, isn't it? Plame had a designated status before Rove started leaking to reporters. It's something recorded in her file. I take it that your suggesting that the CIA may have somehow retroactively changed her status in order to get Rove?
Quote: the G-man said: Again, that assuming facts not in evidence.
um, its pretty much confirmed that he leaked it.
G-man, you've got to wake up for school now.
If it's been confirmed that he leaked the name, please show me proof and I'll stand behind you 100% that Bush should get off his ass and fire Rove.
pretty much as in a lot of the people involved who have seen the evidence say it points to Rove. Now, granted that's not 100%, because they could all be lying as part of some vast left wing conspiracy. But when/"if" it is proven 100% I'll take out the pretty much.
Translation: We aint proved shit!
The reporter from Time (Cooper) testified that he first learned of Plame when Rove leaked it to him.
Quote: the G-man said: I must have missed the day that we threw out the judiciary and decided that the CIA ruled on matters of law.
I wasn't speaking of law but of an agent's status. It's the CIA that decides that, isn't it? Plame had a designated status before Rove started leaking to reporters. It's something recorded in her file. I take it that your suggesting that the CIA may have somehow retroactively changed her status in order to get Rove?
Two points in answer to your post, MEM :
1) It's not proven that Rove is the leaker of Plame's name as the one who sent Wilson to Niger.
The most incriminating thing I've seen about Rove so far is his phone conversation with reporter Robert Novak (about a week prior to when Novak first mentioned Plame by name in his column). Where Novak said to Rove: "I hear that it was Wilson's wife who got him picked for the Niger mission".
And Rove responded: "Yeah, I heard that too."
So Rove and Novak's conversation, if that's the extent of it, was just off-the-record chitchat about things inside the beltway.
Rove wasn't a primary source for a story.
Rove wasn't even a secondary source confirming someone else's leak.
He just said: "Yeah, I heard that too." Which didn't verify that Plame was the one who sent Wilson on the mission, and doesn't verify she worked for the CIA. Rove just affirmed that he heard the rumor, not whether it was true or not.
and
2) The law regarding CIA agent confidentiality says an agent cannot be outed if the agent has worked covertly in the field within the last 5 years.
But Plame left the CIA in 1997, which made it 6 years from her last possible field work and when she was publicly named.
Rove spoke with Novak on July 8, 2003, 2 days after Wilson's Op-ed piece came out. On July 11 Rove talks to Times reporter Cooper. Cooper walks away knowing that Wilson's wife works for the agency about WMD issues. Rove also says Wilson's wife authorized his trip to Niger.
July 14 Novak outs Valerie Plame in his column. Novak writes "Two Senior Administration officials told me that his wife suggested sending Wilson to Niger to investigate."
Considering the timeline, Rove talked to at least one reporter for sure (Cooper) before Novak outed her in his column. And unless Cooper is totally lying, Rove said far more than "Yeah, I heard that too"
As for Plame, according to the latest issue of Time, her status was classified as a covert operative at the time of the leak. You may argue that she shouldn't have been still classified that way but that doesn't change what it was.
Quote: the G-man said: Again, that assuming facts not in evidence.
um, its pretty much confirmed that he leaked it.
G-man, you've got to wake up for school now.
If it's been confirmed that he leaked the name, please show me proof and I'll stand behind you 100% that Bush should get off his ass and fire Rove.
pretty much as in a lot of the people involved who have seen the evidence say it points to Rove. Now, granted that's not 100%, because they could all be lying as part of some vast left wing conspiracy. But when/"if" it is proven 100% I'll take out the pretty much.
Translation: We aint proved shit!
I'd kiss you if you weren't so damned ugly.
ah. uncomfortable silence.
Did you just hit on me?
No. Just trying to creep you out.
The fact that you read gay context into my statement raises an eyebrow. So much so that I shall now place an eyebrow raising smiley at the end of my post
1st the idea that you're surprised that I would take a man offering to kiss another man in a gay context causes me to raise an eyebrow.
Furthermore. I live in Seattle so it takes a little more than being hit on by a guy to "creep me out".
I think that these posts relate to the Rove / Plame leak in that they demonstrate the convoluted communication styles that lead to these sort of miscommunications and should therefore not be moved.
you're the hitler! i took a sudanese refugee into my home.
Quote: the G-man said: Again, that assuming facts not in evidence.
um, its pretty much confirmed that he leaked it.
G-man, you've got to wake up for school now.
If it's been confirmed that he leaked the name, please show me proof and I'll stand behind you 100% that Bush should get off his ass and fire Rove.
pretty much as in a lot of the people involved who have seen the evidence say it points to Rove. Now, granted that's not 100%, because they could all be lying as part of some vast left wing conspiracy. But when/"if" it is proven 100% I'll take out the pretty much.
Translation: We aint proved shit!
I'd kiss you if you weren't so damned ugly.
ah. uncomfortable silence.
Did you just hit on me?
No. Just trying to creep you out.
The fact that you read gay context into my statement raises an eyebrow. So much so that I shall now place an eyebrow raising smiley at the end of my post
1st the idea that you're surprised that I would take a man offering to kiss another man in a gay context causes me to raise an eyebrow.
Furthermore. I live in Seattle so it takes a little more than being hit on by a guy to "creep me out".
I think that these posts relate to the Rove / Plame leak in that they demonstrate the convoluted communication styles that lead to these sort of miscommunications and should therefore not be moved.
you're the hitler! i took a sudanese refugee into my home.
As I mentioned earlier G-Man, everything you're posting here is nothing but the same GOP talking points being bandied around relentlessly by the GOP punditry. Therefore it's absolutely nothing new and it's mostly false.
Quote: the G-man said: All that has been confirmed is that Rove spoke to a reporter AFTER Novak "outed" Plame.
See MEM's post.
Quote: It has not been confirmed that Rove was Novak's source.
It has been confirmed though that Rove was a secondary source. Whether Novak has offered up his 1st source is still unknown.
Quote: It has not been confirmed that Plame was, in fact, a covert operative.
Quote: Newsday, July 21:
Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday Monday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity -- at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.
....A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger.
Quote: New York Times, October 2:
Valerie Plame was among the small subset of Central Intelligence Agency officers who could not disguise their profession by telling friends that they worked for the United States government.
That cover story, standard for American operatives who pretend to be diplomats or other federal employees, was not an option for Ms. Plame, people who knew her said on Wednesday. As a covert operative who specialized in nonconventional weapons and sometimes worked abroad, she passed herself off as a private energy expert, what the agency calls nonofficial cover.
among many other news sources if you'd only bother to look...
Quote: It has not even been confirmed that Rove THOUGHT Plame was a covert operative.
We're arguing in circles now. You, and a few other, posters are assuming all of the above is true. Myself, and a few other, posters are pointing out it isn't.
I agree, you're dancing in circles G-Man. This question was answered by the confidential nature of the document that named Plame. Whether Rove "knew" or not is irrelevent. He was passing material to reporters that was classified.
Quote: The bottom line is that all of the facts are not in. Why not wait until they are?
Because of all the false assertions you just made. You're taking the right to pass these misleading talking points but everyone else has to follow the Presidents lead and wait until the investigation is complete?
Sorry, it doesn't work that way. The happy thing of course though is that the prosecutor won't be swayed by GOP talking points. All this is, is finger in the dike damage control.
The issue, though, is not only whether Rove engaged in criminal behavior. It's also what the White House will do about Rove...and others involved in the leak. (Novak's other source.) The Cooper e-mail proves that Rove leaked national security information to undermine a critic. (And if Rove didn't know Valerie Wilson was under cover, he leaked without checking, which means he handled secret information recklessly.)
By the White House's earlier statements (of which they've now altered to "if any one is ever convicted"), Rove engaged in wrongdoing that warrants dismissal--regardless of how Fitzgerald's investigation ends. And if Bush was sincere when he called for the leakers to "come forward and speak out," shouldn't he order Rove to tell us all he knows?
But The Republicans have hunkered down, ignoring press inquiries, deriding Democratic criticism as baseless partisan attacks, spreading misleading talking points and generally muddying up the waters in order to hopefully confuse the average American into boredom on the subject. And of course hoping this storm will pass.
All this of course is simply refusing to acknowledge the reality revealed by Cooper's e-mail. But the White House--at the least, Rove--has always known what happened. Bush needed no special prosecutor to "get to the bottom" of this. He only had to ask his own people to tell him the truth. That is, if he didn't already know.
Bloomberg News has slotted a story alleging that senior Bush advisor Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff 'Scooter' Libby provided false testimony to the special prosecutor & to the grand jury.
Quote: Rove, Libby Accounts in CIA Case Differ With Those of Reporters July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Two top White House aides have given accounts to a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to people familiar with the case.
Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of Central Intelligence Agency operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, one person said. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity, the person said.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who was first to report Plame's name and connection to Wilson, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor, the person said.
These discrepancies may be important because Fitzgerald is investigating whether Libby, Rove or other administration officials made false statements during the course of the investigation. The Plame case has its genesis in whether any administration officials violated a 1982 law making it illegal to knowingly reveal the name of a covert intelligence agent.
`Twisted' Intelligence
The CIA requested the inquiry after Novak reported in a July 14, 2003, column that Plame recommended her husband for a 2002 mission to check into reports Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. Wilson, in a July 6, 2003, article in the New York Times, had said President George W. Bush's administration ``twisted'' some of the intelligence on Iraq's weapons to justify the war.
Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, said yesterday that Rove told the grand jury ``he had not heard her name before he heard it from Bob Novak.'' He declined in an interview to comment on whether Novak's account of their conversation differed from Rove's.
There also is a discrepancy between accounts given by Rove and Time magazine reporter Mat Cooper. The White House aide mentioned Wilson's wife -- though not by name -- in a July 11, 2003, conversation with Cooper, the reporter said. Rove, 55, says that Cooper called him to talk about welfare reform and the Wilson connection was mentioned later, in passing.
Cooper wrote in Time magazine last week that he told the grand jury he never discussed welfare reform with Rove in that call.
Miller in Jail
One reporter, Judith Miller of the New York Times, has been jailed on contempt of court charges for refusing to testify before the grand jury about her reporting on the Plame case.
Cooper testified only after Time Inc. said it would comply with Fitzgerald's demands for Cooper's notes and reporting on the Plame matter, particularly regarding his dealings with Rove.
Libby, 54, didn't return a phone call seeking comment.
The varying accounts of conversations between Rove, Libby and reporters come as new details emerge about a classified State Department memorandum that's also at the center of Fitzgerald's probe.
A memo by the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research included Plame's name in a paragraph marked ``(S)'' for ``Secret,'' a designation that indicated to anyone who read it that the information was classified, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
State Department Memo
The memo, prepared July 7, 2003, for Secretary of State Colin Powell, is a focus of Fitzgerald's interest, according to individuals who have testified before the grand jury and attorneys familiar with the case.
The three-page document said that Wilson had been recommended for a CIA-sponsored trip to Africa by his wife, who worked on the CIA's counter-proliferations desk.
Bush had said in his State of the Union message in January 2003 that Iraq was trying to purchase nuclear materials in Africa. Days after Wilson's article -- in which he said there was no basis to conclude that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear material in Africa and that the administration had exaggerated the evidence -- the White House acknowledged that the Africa assertion shouldn't have been included in the speech.
The memo summarizing the Plame-Wilson connection was provided to Powell as he left with Bush on a five-day trip to Africa. Fitzgerald is exploring whether other White House officials on the trip may have gained access to the memo and shared its contents with officials back in Washington. Rove and Libby didn't accompany Bush to Africa.
One key to the inquiry is when White House aides knew of Wilson's connection to Plame and whether they learned about it through this memo or other classified information.
Some Bush allies hope that the Fitzgerald investigation, which dominated the news in Washington for the first part of July, will subside as attention shifts to Bush's nomination of Judge John Roberts to fill the first vacancy on the Supreme Court in 11 years.
Fitzgerald's term of service lasts until October, which is also the length of time remaining for the grand jury hearing evidence in the case.
Wow! Rove/Luskin blame Novak. Blink. And Novak blames Rove. .Double-blink. B-I-N-G-O!!! I just friggin' got hit with the spirit. One of them has to be lying...if not both...BUT both of them can't be telling the truth. It's definately C.Y.A. time now.
As an attorney, would'nt you say that this is the break right there, G-Man? The Grand Canyon. Checkmate...
I read this and was surprised. When people mention "Grand juries" I tend to picture a bunch of stodgy old professional white males. Whether that is accurate or not is up to debate but that's the impression I had at least from watching too many law and crime shows on TV.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush's failure to take action against a top aide involved in the outing of a covert CIA operative sends "the wrong message" overseas, former U.S. intelligence officials said on Friday.
At a hearing sponsored by Democrats, the retired agents said U.S. intelligence gathering had been damaged by the leak of Valerie Plame's name two years ago after her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, criticized the White House's justification for going to war in Iraq.
Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper told a federal grand jury that presidential adviser Karl Rove told him that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, but did not disclose her name.
Cooper has also said he discussed the Wilsons with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.
"What has suffered irreversible damage is the credibility of our case officers when they try to convince an overseas contact that their safety is of primary importance to us," Jim Marcinkowski, a former CIA case officer, said.
He also criticized Republican efforts to minimize the damage caused by the leak.
"Each time the political machine made up of prime-time patriots and partisan ninnies display their ignorance by deriding Valerie Plame as a mere paper pusher or belittling the varying degrees of cover used to protect our officers or continuing to play partisan politics with our national security, it's a disservice to this country," he added.
Bush vowed this week to fire anyone found to have acted illegally in the controversy, backing away from a broader pledge to dismiss anyone found to have leaked information in the case.
CRIMINAL STANDARD
Marcinkowski said the criminal standard was too high and that Bush should take action against those involved.
"Inaction itself sends the message -- the wrong message," he said.
As controversy over the matter heated up in recent weeks, the White House has refused to answer questions about Rove, who is credited with being the architect of the president's election victories.
So far, the only person to suffer legal sanction in the case is New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has been jailed for refusing to testify about her sources.
Congressional Republicans have rushed to defend Rove and criticize Wilson, who took a CIA-funded trip in 2002 to investigate a charge that Iraq tried to buy nuclear materials in Africa, and later accused the Bush administration of exaggerating the Iraqi weapons threat. They said Rove is a "whistleblower" because Wilson told lies about the trip and he was trying to set the Time reporter straight.
Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst who said he was a registered Republican, spoke harshly of the criticisms of Wilson and efforts to minimize his wife's job at the CIA.
"This is wrong. This should stop. And it could stop in a heartbeat if the president would simply put a stop to it -- he hasn't," Johnson said. "That speaks volumes."
White House officials have sought to put the controversy behind them pending the outcome of a federal investigation.
But the matter continues to dog the administration, with key Bush aide Karen Hughes facing questions from reporters on Friday after testifying on Capitol Hill.
"There's an ongoing investigation," she said.
I'll try to find some decent audio/video or at least some excerpts from the CIA testimony as they said some incredibly powerful statements. C-Span though has the full video under "Hearing on Security Implications of Revealing Covert Agent's Identity (07/22/2005)"
We also now know that the Top Secret memo most consistent with the talking points that Rove and Libby told reporters was seen in the hands of Press Secretary Ari Fleischer in the days before the leak occurred. And that Fleischer told the grand jury he never saw it.
CIA agents James Marcinkowoski and Larry Johnson are the most vocal and blunt critics of the lies and diversion tactics employed by the right wing punditry. And sadly, they had to add disclaimers as to their Republican credentials so their testimony won't be predictably dismissed as partisan by the same punditry.
Quote: Testimony of James Marcinkowski
July 22, 2005
What is important now is not who wins or loses the political battle or who may or may not be indicted; rather, it is a question of how we will go about protecting the citizens of this country in a very dangerous world. The undisputed fact is that we have irreparably damaged our capability to collect human intelligence and thereby significantly diminished our capability to protect the American people.
Understandable to all Americans is a simple, incontrovertible, but damning truth: the United States government exposed the identity of a clandestine officer working for the CIA. This is not just another partisan "dust-up" between political parties. This unprecedented act will have far-reaching consequences for covert operations around the world. Equally disastrous is that from the time of that first damning act, we have continued on a course of self-inflicted wounds by government officials who have refused to take any responsibility, have played hide-and-seek with the truth and engaged in semantic parlor games for more than two years, all at the expense of the safety of the American people. No government official has that right.
For an understanding of what is at stake it is important to understand some fundamental principles. No country or hostile group, from al Qaeda to any drug rings operating in our cities, likes to be infiltrated or spied upon. The CIA, much like any police department in any city, has undercover officers--spies, that use "cover."
To operate under "cover" means you use some ruse to cloak both your identity and your intentions. The degree of cover needed to carry out any operation varies depending on the target of the investigation. A police officer performing "street buys" uses a "light" cover, meaning he or she could pose as something as simple as a drug user, operate only at night and during the day and, believe it or not, have a desk job in the police station. On the other hand, if an attempt were made to infiltrate a crime syndicate, visiting the local police station or drinking with fellow FBI agents after work may be out of the question. In any scenario, your cover, no matter what the degree, provides personal protection and safety. But it does not end there. Cover is also used to protect collection methodology as well as any innocent persons a CIA officer may have regular contact with, such as overseas acquaintances, friends, and even other U.S. government officials.
While cover provides a degree of safety for the case officer, it also provides security for that officer's informants or agents. In most human intelligence operations, the confidentiality of the cover used by a CIA officer and the personal security of the agent or asset is mutually dependent. A case officer cannot be identified as working for the CIA, just as the informant/agent cannot be identified as working for the CIA through the case officer. If an informant or agent is exposed as working for the CIA, there is a good chance that the CIA officer has been identified as well. Similarly, if the CIA officer is exposed, his or her agents or informants are exposed. In all cases, the cover of a case officer ensures not only his or her own personal safety but that of the agents or assets as well.
The exposure of Valerie Plame's cover by the White House is the same as the local chief of police announcing to the media the identity of its undercover drug officers. In both cases, the ability of the officer to operate is destroyed, but there is also an added dimension. An informant in a major sophisticated crime network, or a CIA asset working in a foreign government, if exposed, has a rather good chance of losing more than just their ability to operate.
Any undercover officer, whether in the police department or the CIA, will tell you that the major concern of their informant or agent is their personal safety and that of their family. Cover is safety. If you cannot guarantee that safety in some form or other, the person will not work for you and the source of important information will be lost.
So how is the Valerie Plame incident perceived by any current or potential agent of the CIA? I will guarantee you that if the local police chief identified the names of the department's undercover officers, any half-way sophisticated undercover operation would come to a halt and if he survived that accidental discharge of a weapon in police headquarters, would be asked to retire.
And so the real issues before this Congress and this country today is not partisan politics, not even the loss of secrets. The secrets of Valerie Plame's cover are long gone. What has suffered perhaps irreversible damage is the credibility of our case officers when they try to convince our overseas contact that their safety is of primary importance to us. How are our case officers supposed to build and maintain that confidence when their own government cannot even guarantee the personal protection of the home team? While the loss of secrets in the world of espionage may be damaging, the stealing of the credibility of our CIA officers is unforgivable....
And so we are left with only one fundamental truth, the U.S. government exposed the identity of a covert operative. I am not convinced that the toothpaste can be put back into the tube. Great damage has been done and that damage has been increasing every single day for more than two years. The problem of the refusal to accept responsibility by senior government officials is ongoing and causing greater damage to our national security and our ability to collect human intelligence. But the problem lies not only with government officials but also with the media, commentators and other apologists who have no clue as to the workings of the intelligence community. Think about what we are doing from the perspective of our overseas human intelligence assets or potential assets.
I believe Bob Novak when he credited senior administration officials for the initial leak, or the simple, but not insignificant confirmation of that secret information, as I believe a CIA officer in some far away country will lose an opportunity to recruit an asset that may be of invaluable service to our covert war on terror because "promises of protection" will no longer carry the level of trust they once had.
Each time the leader of a political party opens his mouth in public to deflect responsibility, the word overseas is loud and clear--politics in this country does in fact trump national security.
Each time a distinguished ambassador is ruthlessly attacked for the information he provided, a foreign asset will contemplate why he should risk his life when his information will not be taken seriously.
Each time there is a perceived political "success" in deflecting responsibility by debating or re-debating some minutia, such actions are equally effective in undermining the ability of this country to protect itself against its enemies, because the two are indeed related. Each time the political machine made up of prime-time patriots and partisan ninnies display their ignorance by deriding Valerie Plame as a mere "paper-pusher," or belittling the varying degrees of cover used to protect our officers, or continuing to play partisan politics with our national security, it is a disservice to this country. By ridiculing, for example, the "degree" of cover or the use of post office boxes, you lessen the level of confidence that foreign nationals place in our covert capabilities.
Those who would advocate the "I'm ok, you're ok" politics of non-responsibility, should probably think about the impact of those actions on our foreign agents. Non-responsibility means we don't care. Not caring means a loss of security. A loss of security means a loss of an agent. The loss of an agent means the loss of information. The loss of information means an increase in the risk to the people of the United States.
There is a very serious message here. Before you shine up your American flag lapel pin and affix your patriotism to your sleeve, think about what the impact your actions will have on the security of the American people. Think about whether your partisan obfuscation is creating confidence in the United States in general and the CIA in particular. If not, a true patriot would shut up.
Those who take pride in their political ability to divert the issue from the fundamental truth ought to be prepared to take their share of the responsibility for the continuing damage done to our national security.
When this unprecedented act first occurred, the president could have immediately demanded the resignation of all persons even tangentially involved. Or, at a minimum, he could have suspended the security clearances of these persons and placed them on administrative leave. Such methods are routine with police forces throughout the country. That would have at least sent the right message around the globe, that we take the security of those risking their lives on behalf of the United States seriously. Instead, we have flooded the foreign airwaves with two years of inaction, political rhetoric, ignorance, and partisan bickering. That's the wrong message. In doing so we have not lessened, but increased the threat to the security and safety of the people of the United States.
Some sober food for thought for all the apologists and talking points peddlers out there (and here)
I read the second article (I mean c'mon there are only so many hours in the day) and it sounded less like he was providing evidence, but rather giving his opinion.
I realise this is all very exciting to the left, but frankly fo rthe most part I'll wait for the verdict.
Quote: the G-man said: Again, that assuming facts not in evidence.
um, its pretty much confirmed that he leaked it.
G-man, you've got to wake up for school now.
If it's been confirmed that he leaked the name, please show me proof and I'll stand behind you 100% that Bush should get off his ass and fire Rove.
pretty much as in a lot of the people involved who have seen the evidence say it points to Rove. Now, granted that's not 100%, because they could all be lying as part of some vast left wing conspiracy. But when/"if" it is proven 100% I'll take out the pretty much.
Translation: We aint proved shit!
The reporter from Time (Cooper) testified that he first learned of Plame when Rove leaked it to him.
liberal testimony doesn't count in the court G-man.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: liberal testimony doesn't count in the court G-man.
You just reminded me of the case of this rat bastard crook.
Quote:
Quote: James Tobin, a Bangor native and leading Republican operative who is being charged with masterminding a campaign to block democratic phone lines during the 2002 New Hampshire Senate election is challenging the indictments against him on the basis that some members of the grand jury were Democrats. His attorneys are arguing that only a panel made up of all Republicans can legally indict him since his alleged crime made all Democrats in NH his "victims".
James Tobin also wants to know whether they´re Democrats, Republicans or independents and whether they watch TV shows such as "West Wing," CNN´s "Crossfire," MSNBC´s "Hardball," or "The McLaughlin Group," which mostly runs on public television stations.
Those questions are part of a proposed jury pool questionnaire for Tobin´s trial on charges he conspired to jam Democrats´ get-out-the-vote phones on Election Day 2002, as well as a ride-to-the-polls line run by the Manchester firefighters union.
"You don´t have to do research to know that someone who likes "West Wing" isn´t going to like these defendants," said Patricia McEvoy, a Chicago jury consultant[...]
The proposed questionnaire asks prospective jurors about union membership, whether they´ve ever had a bumper sticker on their car and what it said, what Web logs they read, and whether the take part in online chat groups.
Tobin´s lawyers also want jurors to describe themselves by checking off all that apply: "aggressive, articulate, emotional, entrepreneurial, intelligent, laid back, loyal, naive, perceptive, stubborn, (or) other."
what does this have to do with Rove? Rove wrote the book on despicable dirty tricks to gain political advantage. This fucker is obviously a protoge. So see, it's all connected....
as part of her confirmation hearings for a State Department public relations position, Karen Hughes was, by law, obligated to answer a questionnaire, that among other things, asked whether there were any legal proceedings to which she might be a be part of: She admitted that she had testified before Fitzgerald's grand jury. The NY Times points out, Bolton answered "no" on the questionnaire -- though,accoring to David Shuster on Hardball, Bolton did testify. It turns out he also testified before the grand jury on the contents of the Plame memo.
If Bolton intentionally misled the Senate in his questionnaire, he's toast. End of story.
Who's right and who's wrong? Or are both right, and Bolton simply failed to disclose it?
I haven't read the language of the question. However, typically, in government service, that questions is meant as "are there any court cases in which you are a party to could become a party to," meaning "have you been sued, or could you be sued?"
This little detail is buried halfway down in a story about Karlgate.
Quote: The White House response began at 9:30 a.m. on July 7, a Monday, as Mr. Fleischer briefed the press at the White House. "There is zero, nada, nothing new here," he said of Mr. Wilson's claims. But under questioning, Mr. Fleischer's account became murkier. He seemed to concede, before backing away, that Mr. Bush's entire statement about Saddam Hussein's search for uranium in Africa might have been flawed.
By evening, as Air Force One lifted off, officials on the plane were calling The Times and The Washington Post to make it clear that they no longer stood behind Mr. Bush's statement about the uranium - the first such official concession on the sensitive issue of the intelligence that led to the war.
So no debate, people. Joe Wilson came forward with his op-ed and appearances on Sunday talk shows to say the President lied to the American people in his State of the Union address. Bush made flat claims that he KNEW he didn't have the evidence to back up. The only proof we need? The very next day, the White House spokesperson Ari Fleischer started to admit Bush's central claim might have been flawed. The very next day, they were calling the biggest newspapers in the country to "make clear" they did not stand behind that claim.
One day after Joe Wilson's public comments, Bush admitted he couldn't back up what he said. They've tried to prevaricate and lie and whitewash this admission. They've smeared Joe Wilson and attacked his wife and endangered his children and weakened national security all in an attempt to discredit it. But the White House never has and never will take back that retraction. They can't.
If Bush wants to claim vindication, let him make that charge about Hussein trying to get uranium in Niger all over again. If he can't, he should apologize to joe Wilson and fire Rove and Scooter and whomever else is involved.
If anyone wants to pretend Joe Wilson was wrong, they've got to argue with Bush first. Bush retracted the very words Wilson objected to. So argue with Bush. Not Wilson.
So, like, has this question been asked by the media and of the media: if Joseph Wilson was just outright wrong, why didn't the Bush administration just prove that Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger? Put up or shut up.
Right wingers everywhere are mischaracterizing Wilson's findings, saying, for instance, that they "bolstered" British allegations on the uranium: says Ann Coulter, "His conclusion is contradicted by the extensive findings of the British government." Or they say that Wilson just was a lazy hack who didn't find out anything.
Why did Karl Rove and Scooter Libby bother trying to "help" reporters not work on stories about Wilson's findings? Why try to discredit Wilson if you can prove he's wrong? Why not just show the British findings? Damn, if that answer ain't about as obvious as a herpes sore on a hooker's lip, you deserve all the diseases you get.
The Bush Administration came right out approximately two years ago, voluntarily, and said they could no longer stand behind the yellowcake claims, which came from British intelligence.
How is that "misleading" America?
In fact, until the Bush administration made that statement, very few people were challenging the allegation.
Ironically, it was not until the White House came forward, in effort at full disclosure, that the left started screaming "Bush LIED".
Hmmn, couldn't really hear the left screaming at the time because the right was screaming even louder that Wilson was (fill in the blank) & that his wife sent him.
Ironically, it was not until the White House came forward, in effort at full disclosure, that the left started screaming "Bush LIED".
admitting that you lied before someone accuses you of lying does not negate the lie in the first place.
I guess that makes The New York Times and The Washington Post, Time magazine, and other sources liars as well.
Who routinely make errors, and print retractions to correct those errors.
Your argument is absurd.
There's a difference between lying, and simply admitting a factual error.
Of a statement that was the best available facts at the time the statement was made, and a correction later made when the facts were proven uncorroborated.
Not proven false, just uncorroborated.
Or in the case of U.S. invasion of Iraq over WMD's, that the White House believed and acted based on considerable circumstancial evidence that Saddam was pursuing WMD's (as every other nation's intelligence on Iraq also believed) and simply do not have the hard evidence to prove it beyond all doubt.
So they admitted to a lack of corroborating sources to put it in the State of the Union Address.
But they can't be proven wrong.
And the evidence doesn't exist to say they "lied".
And it is thus a lie for liberals to say that Bush "lied".
It appears that the Rove kerfluffle is paying off...for Republicans:
Some Democrats in both the House and Senate are wondering why the party continues to beat on the supposed Karl Rove scandal, despite the fact that there is no clear evidence the story is helping the party politically.
"I haven't seen a single, serious poll beyond the media's that attacking Rove helps us one bit with the voters," says a Democratic House member. "No one can show me numbers. This is all the fringe people like MoveOn and even Howard Dean. It's all about not getting past 2000 and 2004. And I really fear we're going to pay for it down the road."
He points to the energy bill wending its way out of both the Senate and House, as well as the USA PATRIOT Act renewal, and the highway bill as evidence that his party is losing sight of good political fights they should be waging, and instead are focusing on what amounts to minor scandals.
"My party is making a huge bet on something we really know nothing about," says the Democrat. "We don't know where this Plame thing is going to go, yet we're giving these people a huge platform. I'd rather be fighting for the issues that we know Americans care about: the environment, more of their tax dollars on national security and homeland defense. That stuff resonates at home."
gees! Why can't libera;s take a joke? I mean figure what it would take to make enemies into enemas by way of typo. I would have to have completely left out two letters and hit the "a" and the "s" at the same time..... forget it. It wasn't a pun it was a neocon consperacy.
WASHINGTON, July 27 (UPI) -- The investigation into whether a federal official leaked the name of a CIA operative is wider than originally believed, the Washington Post reported.
The Post Wednesday said special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is both trying to determine whether a government official leaked the name of a CIA agent and how the Bush administration shifted the blame for Iraq weapons allegations in the president's 2002 State of the Union speech. ...
Quote: [Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) spokeswoman Sarah] Little said the Senate committee would review the probe of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, who has been investigating the Plame case for nearly two years.
This is quite an amazing little turn in the Rove scandal. The GOP couldn't smear Wilson enough to make the investigation into the wrongdoing go away, so now they are going to have to start casting doubts directly on the investigator.
Also, remember that this is the guy who indicted former IL governor George Ryan. A quick google search reminds us how Ryan got ensared in the first place; namely, that a good prosecutor takes the investigation wherever it leads him/her, not simply to a foregone conclusion:
Quote: The investigation, dubbed Operation Safe Road, initially focused on bribes exchanged for licenses for unqualified truck drivers when Ryan was secretary of state. It expanded into a broader investigation of political corruption that snared several of his top aides and associates.
"It was not opened up as an investigation of George Ryan, it was opened up as an investigation of licenses for bribes at the secretary of state's office," Fitzgerald said.
If the Republicans really mean to follow through with this threat of investigating Fitzgerald as some sort of means of either intimidation or of throwing him off the hunt, I think they will have seriously miscalculated.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: gees! Why can't libera;s take a joke? I mean figure what it would take to make enemies into enemas by way of typo. I would have to have completely left out two letters and hit the "a" and the "s" at the same time..... forget it. It wasn't a pun it was a neocon consperacy.
Historic precedent is against you, Wbam! Whether intintional or not, it was funny. And I'll concede your spelling has improved.
------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rove Scandal: Cover Story Slippage
David Corn Thu Jul 28,10:40 AM ET
The Nation -- Another part of the save-Rove cover story is not holding. ADVERTISEMENT
Once the Plame/CIA leak became big (mainstream-media) news in September 2003--when word hit that the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate the leak, which had appeared in a Bob Novak column two months earlier--friends of the White House, including Novak, started saying that Valerie Wilson wasn't really under cover at the CIA and, thus, the disclosure of her employment at the CIA wasn't worth a federal case (or investigation). They claimed that no big wrong had occurred, and this argument also conveniently offered any leaker a legal defense. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, a government official can only be prosecuted for disclosing information identifying a "covert agent" whose cover the United States government was taking steps to protect. White House allies asserted that while Valerie Wilson may have technically been a clandestine CIA official, in practice she wasn't. So all this bother over the leak was much ado about nothing.
Novak, for example, downplayed Valerie Wilson's covert status in an October 1, 2003 column, in which he vaguely described how he had originally learned of her connection to the CIA. He noted that after a senior administration official told him that Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, he called the CIA:
At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.
Bush-backers have cited this paragraph to argue that the CIA didn't do much to protect Valerie Wilson's cover. I've heard GOP lawyer Victoria Toensing, who helped draft the Intelligence Identities Act, claim that Novak's exchange with the CIA is proof that the CIA was not taking serious measures to preserve Wilson's cover--which means the law she helped concoct does not apply in the case of this leak.
Should Novak be taken at his word on this point? Until now, the public only knew of his side of his conversation with the CIA. But The Washington Post published a piece on Wednesday that provides the CIA's version of this exchange. And it is significantly different from Novak's account. The paper reports,
[Bill] Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission [to Niger taken by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson] and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.
Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.
So how many contradictions can you find? Novak indicated he had one substantive conversation with a CIA official about Valerie Wilson and he received no clear signal that revealing her name would cause any significant trouble. Harlow said there were two conversations and that in each one he warned Novak about using her name. (Harlow also said he told Novak that Valerie Wilson had not authorized her husband's trip. Remember, several Rove defenders have maintained that when Rove spoke to Time's Matt Cooper--and told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and had authorized his trip to Niger--he was merely trying to make sure that Cooper published an accurate account of what happened. Yet the CIA says she did not authorize this trip. Rove was feeding Cooper misleading information.) http://news.yahoo.com/s/thenation/20050728/cm_thenation/38813/nc:742
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: gees! Why can't libera;s take a joke? I mean figure what it would take to make enemies into enemas by way of typo. I would have to have completely left out two letters and hit the "a" and the "s" at the same time..... forget it. It wasn't a pun it was a neocon consperacy.
Historic precedent is against you, Wbam! Whether intintional or not, it was funny. And I'll concede your spelling has improved.
I haven't been trying to improve my spelling, but my mispellings and typos still follow a certain logic.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: gees! Why can't libera;s take a joke? I mean figure what it would take to make enemies into enemas by way of typo. I would have to have completely left out two letters and hit the "a" and the "s" at the same time..... forget it. It wasn't a pun it was a neocon consperacy.
Historic precedent is against you, Wbam! Whether intintional or not, it was funny. And I'll concede your spelling has improved.
I haven't been trying to improve my spelling, but my mispellings and typos still follow a certain logic.
Indeed. Wbam's typos do follow the logical path of Surak.
Quote: the G-man said: It may be a misunderstanding on someone's part.
I haven't read the language of the question. However, typically, in government service, that questions is meant as "are there any court cases in which you are a party to could become a party to," meaning "have you been sued, or could you be sued?"
Quote: John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for U.N. ambassador, mistakenly told Congress he had not been interviewed or testified in any investigation over the past five years, the State Department said Thursday.
Bolton was interviewed by the State Department inspector general in 2003 as part of a joint investigation with the Central Intelligence Agency into prewar Iraqi attempts to buy nuclear materials from Niger, State Department spokesman Noel Clay said.
The admission came hours after another State Department official said Bolton had correctly answered a Senate questionnaire when he wrote that he has not testified to a grand jury or been interviewed by investigators in any inquiry over the past five years.
The reversal followed persistent Democratic attempts to question Bolton's veracity just days before Bush may use his authority to make him United Nations ambassador after Congress adjourns for its summer recess. For months, Democrats have prevented the Senate from confirming the fiery conservative to the post.
"It seems unusual that Mr. Bolton would not remember his involvement in such a serious matter," said Sen. Joseph Biden, D-Del., the senior Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "In my mind, this raises more questions that need to be answered. I hope President Bush will not make the mistake of recess appointing Mr. Bolton."
Seems Karl didn't get his info. about Plame from reporters after all according to Time:
Quote: As the investigation tightens into the leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, sources tell TIME some White House officials may have learned she was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration. That prospect increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer.
Now if Karl told something different to the FBI or the Grand Jury...he's in big trouble. And this also increases the likelihood that people in the White House knew Plame's undercover status when they were outing her.
I suspect Rove at the very least perjured himself & broke some lower laws concerning leaking. His story just doesn't fit with Cooper's testimony or from Novak's. Despite the White House's early assertions that he wasn't involved in leaking Plame's ID, it's quite clear that Rove was. So even if they can't prove that he intentionally outed an undercover agent, it's hard to see a scenario where Rove comes out of this intact. I'm curious about who else the Grand Jury might be after at this point.
Quote: PaulWellr said: Seems Karl didn't get his info. about Plame from reporters after all according to Time:
Quote: As the investigation tightens into the leak of the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, sources tell TIME some White House officials may have learned she was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration. That prospect increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer.
Now if Karl told something different to the FBI or the Grand Jury...he's in big trouble. And this also increases the likelihood that people in the White House knew Plame's undercover status when they were outing her.
It's a small distiction, but in his opening comments PaulWhomod says that "Seems Karl didn't get his info. about Plame from reporters after all according to Time: "
Well, Paul, that's not true. According o TIME it's possible that Rove MAY have known ahead of time. You attribute a certainty to TIME that they didn't express. That would be dishonest of you. I think think you know that few people still read your articles and hope we'll just believe what you say thay say..
Quote: Bush: Rove has 'my compete confidence' despite leak
Reuters
Monday, August 1, 2005; 8:38 PM
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Bush on Monday declared "complete confidence" in his top political adviser, Karl Rove, despite his alleged role in leaking a covert CIA operative's identity, according to an interview.
WashingtonPost Our President couldn't elaborate any further because they have to see how fucked they are Grand Jury wise.
Turnaround, every now and then I get a little bit lonely and you're never coming around Turnaround, Every now and then I get a little bit tired of listening to the sound of my tears Turnaround, Every now and then I get a little bit nervous that the best of all the years have gone by Turnaround, Every now and then I get a little bit terrified and then I see the look in your eyes Turnaround bright eyes, Every now and then I fall apart Turnaround bright eyes, Every now and then I fall apart
Turnaround, Every now and then I get a little bit restless and I dream of something wild Turnaround, Every now and then I get a little bit helpless and I'm lying like a child in your arms Turnaround, Every now and then I get a little bit angry and I know I've got to get out and cry Turnaround, Every now and then I get a little bit terrified but then I see the look in your eyes Turnaround bright eyes, Every now and then I fall apart Turnaround bright eyes, Every now and then I fall apart
And I need you now tonight And I need you more than ever And if you'll only hold me tight We'll be holding on forever And we'll only be making it right Cause we'll never be wrong together We can take it to the end of the line Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks I really need you tonight Forever's gonna start tonight Forever's gonna start tonight
Once upon a time I was falling in love But now I'm only falling apart There's nothing I can do A total eclipse of the heart Once upon a time there was light in my life But now there's only love in the dark Nothing I can say A total eclipse of the heart
Turnaround bright eyes Turnaround bright eyes Turnaround, every now and then I know you'll never be the boy you always you wanted to be Turnaround, every now and then I know you'll always be the only boy who wanted me the way that I am Turnaround, every now and then I know there's no one in the universe as magical and wonderous as you Turnaround, every now and then I know there's nothing any better and there's nothing I just wouldn't do Turnaround bright eyes, Every now and then I fall apart Turnaround bright eyes, Every now and then I fall apart
And I need you now tonight And I need you more than ever And if you'll only hold me tight We'll be holding on forever And we'll only be making it right Cause we'll never be wrong together We can take it to the end of the line Your love is like a shadow on me all of the time I don't know what to do and I'm always in the dark We're living in a powder keg and giving off sparks I really need you tonight Forever's gonna start tonight Forever's gonna start tonight
Once upon a time I was falling in love But now I'm only falling apart There's nothing I can do A total eclipse of the heart Once upon a time there was light in my life But now there's only love in the dark Nothing I can say A total eclipse of the heart
Quote: Captain Sammitch said: It's really sad that I've been away from this forum for weeks and upon coming back, I honestly don't feel I've missed anything.
Maybe the final piece of the puzzle falls into place...
Quote: Jailed reporter reaches deal in CIA leak probe
The New York Times' Miller: 'It's good to be free'
Friday, September 30, 2005; Posted: 11:22 a.m. EDT (15:22 GMT)
(CNN) -- After spending 12 weeks in jail for refusing to name a source, The New York Times reporter Judith Miller testified Friday before a federal grand jury looking into a CIA leak case after her source gave her permission....
Quote: Rove to give additional testimony in leak inquiry
Prosecutors won't guarantee that Bush advisor won't be indicted
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal prosecutors have accepted an offer from presidential adviser Karl Rove to give 11th hour testimony in the case of a CIA officer's leaked identity but have warned they cannot guarantee he won't be indicted, according to people directly familiar with the investigation.
The persons, who spoke only on condition of anonymity because of grand jury secrecy, said Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has not made any decision yet on whether to file criminal charges against the longtime confidant of President Bush or others.
The U.S. attorney's manual requires prosecutors not to bring witnesses before a grand jury if there is a possibility of future criminal charges unless they are notified in advance that their grand jury testimony can be used against them in a later indictment. ...
By Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus Washington Post Staff Writers Tuesday, October 18, 2005; A01
As the investigation into the leak of a CIA agent's name hurtles to an apparent conclusion, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has zeroed in on the role of Vice President Cheney's office, according to lawyers familiar with the case and government officials. The prosecutor has assembled evidence that suggests Cheney's long-standing tensions with the CIA contributed to the unmasking of operative Valerie Plame.
In grand jury sessions, including with New York Times reporter Judith Miller, Fitzgerald has pressed witnesses on what Cheney may have known about the effort to push back against ex-diplomat and Iraq war critic Joseph C. Wilson IV, including the leak of his wife's position at the CIA, Miller and others said. But Fitzgerald has focused more on the role of Cheney's top aides, including Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, lawyers involved in the case said.
One former CIA official told prosecutors early in the probe about efforts by Cheney's office and his allies at the National Security Council to obtain information about Wilson's trip as long as two months before Plame was unmasked in July 2003, according to a person familiar with the account.
There are two very odd stories in the news today. The Associated Press and Reuters are both reporting that all their previous stories on Karl Rove and Scooter Libby could be wrong.Reuters just wrote that three separate CIA accusers are suddenly backing off. They now say that, well, maybe Rove didn’t know that Valerie Plame was undercover, and therefore he couldn’t have deliberately exposed her identity.
Plame, Wilson’s wife, never worked for WINPAC, which is on the overt side of the CIA. [WINPAC is an analytical unit on unconventional weapons – ed.]. She worked on the CIA’s secret side, the directorate of operations, according to three people familiar with her work for the spy agency.
The three all spoke on condition of anonymity, citing Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s ongoing grand jury investigation into the leak of Plame’s identity in 2003.
And the Associated Press notes
The inaccurate information could suggest Libby thought Plame was not an undercover spy, and therefore didn't know her identity was classified. ...as former top FBI official Danny Coulson suggests, it could simply mean that Libby's information came from "dinner talk" involving people who were uninformed.
Much of it is speculation, though we do know some things. Early statements made by Rove & Libby don't match the accounts given by reporters Cooper & Miller after they testified.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Much of it is speculation, though we do know some things. Early statements made by Rove & Libby don't match the accounts given by reporters Cooper & Miller after they testified.
Well, then Rove and Libby MUST be lying. After all, it is not as if a reporter has ever been caught in lie or mistake.
And, of course, if Rove or Libby's statements were inaccurate, it MUST be that they were lying. It COULDN'T be faulty memory, misunderstanding or any of the usual, non sinister, reasons that people get things wrong.
Seriously, however, it there is good evidence that either of these guys lied under oath, they should be prosecuted. But at the same time simply having "he said she said" discrepancies is not particularly good evidence, just because the "he" is a Republican.
Quote: the G-man said: ...
Seriously, however, it there is good evidence that either of these guys lied under oath, they should be prosecuted. But at the same time simply having "he said she said" discrepancies is not particularly good evidence, just because the "he" is a Republican.
I agree with you on that point. Hopefully you would apply the same reasoning if it was a Democrat in a similar position.
Quote: the G-man said: ...
Seriously, however, it there is good evidence that either of these guys lied under oath, they should be prosecuted. But at the same time simply having "he said she said" discrepancies is not particularly good evidence, just because the "he" is a Republican.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I agree with you on that point. Hopefully you would apply the same reasoning if it was a Democrat in a similar position.
I seem to recall at least one prominent democrat who was prosecuted for lying under oath, and was found to have lied under oath and fined by the court. Where did you stand on his prosecution?
Quote: the G-man said: ... Seriously, however, it there is good evidence that either of these guys lied under oath, they should be prosecuted. But at the same time simply having "he said she said" discrepancies is not particularly good evidence, just because the "he" is a Republican.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I agree with you on that point. Hopefully you would apply the same reasoning if it was a Democrat in a similar position.
I seem to recall at least one prominent democrat who was prosecuted for lying under oath, and was found to have lied under oath and fined by the court. Where did you stand on his prosecution?
If it was a Republican under the same circumstances, I would really feel the same way. If say President Bush was legally maneuvered to testify about embarrassing aspects of his sex life & then lied about it, he would be just as guilty of perjury just like Clinton was. Not something I would want to undo an election for! I would be quite happy with some of the rules being changed (like being able to sue a sitting President) so that the nation doesn't have to go through that again, no matter what party it benefits at the time.
Meanwhile, check out this hard-hitting editorial on the Plame kerfuffle:
Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's CIA-leak inquiry is focusing attention on what long has been a tactic of U.S. President George W. Bush's administration: slash-and-burn assaults on its critics, particularly those opposed to the president's Iraq war policies.
If top officials are indicted, it could seriously erode the administration's credibility and prove yet another embarrassment to Bush on the larger issue of how he and his national security team marshaled information--much of it later shown to be inaccurate--to support their case for the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003.
Quote: ....As the White House braced for a decision by Mr. Fitzgerald, Republicans began suggesting that they would pursue a strategy of minimizing any charges as technicalities or the product of an overzealous prosecution.
Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, speaking on NBC's "Meet the Press," compared the leak investigation to the case of Martha Stewart, "where they couldn't find a crime and they indict on something that she said about something that wasn't a crime."
Senator Hutchison said she hoped "that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars."...
In case people forgot, Clinton got into some serious trouble for perjury a couple of years back. NYTimes.com
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Sounds like tomorrow is the day. While there is of course the chance that nobody gets indicted, it doesn't sound likely. Libby & Rove are looking like indictment recipients for lying their asses off to Fitzgerald. (unless there is a conspiracy amongst the reporters)
It's been fun googling for new news tonight. Limbaugh was just happy it wasn't Wednesday. Coulter apparently declared that Plame's neighbors were lying and that they needed to be prosecuted. (I suppose they could be in the conspiracy with the reporters) The Wall Street Journal offered an editorial that suggested that because Fitzgerald has taken a full 2 yrs that he must not have anything worthy to call a crime. It must be a bitch being part of the GOP smear machine. Fitzgerald definitely looks like a "No Spin Zone."
Happy Fitzmas!
Okay.
Let's assume they did lie about something under oath.
That's bad. They should be punished. I called for Clinton to be punished when he lied and this would be no different.
However, if the only thing they are indicted for is perjury (which is illegal and wrong), that means they were cleared of outing the CIA agent. Which is what you guys have been telling us for two years is what they were guilty of.
So...how does that implicate Bush himself in regard to the Iraq war?
Actually somebody could be guilty of perjury in addition to outing CIA agent intentionally couldn't they. Not to mention other things. And please don't stick words in my mouth. They may or may not be guilty, I've just been pointing out various things & a bit of speculation. (pretty much what you do)
As for implicating Bush in the Iraq war, I don't know. Maybe it might shed new light on that faulty intel that sidestepped the CIA & mysteriously got into the President's State of the Union. Fitzgerald from what I've read has been able to access stuff that others have not been able to. Personally I'm not expecting this to somehow get President Bush.
I should mention that Indictment Day was a seperate thread but G-man tacked it onto the Rovegate one. Despite that Indictment Day deals with what may happen to far more than just Rove. There can only be one thread pertaining to Rove (Libby & the rest just have to share)
Quote: Matter-eater Man said:I should mention that Indictment Day was a seperate thread but G-man tacked it onto the Rovegate one. Despite that Indictment Day deals with what may happen to far more than just Rove. There can only be one thread pertaining to Rove (Libby & the rest just have to share)
Quote: On Fri Sep 30 2005, on this very thread, Matter-eater Man said:It appears that Scooter libby was the source being protected.
Quote: On Tue Oct 18 2005 Matter-eater Man said: Early statements made by Rove & libby don't match the accounts given by reporters Cooper & Miller after they testified.
Quote: On Wed Jul 20 2005 Matter-eater Man said: Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis libby, also was a source for Cooper on the Plame story.
Quote: On Wed Jul 20 2005 Matter-eater Man said: libby & Rove could still be the sources Miller is protecting.
And that's only your posts discussing Libby on this thread. Whomod, Ray and others have also done so.
This thread has been about Scooter Libby for months.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Actually somebody could be guilty of perjury in addition to outing CIA agent intentionally couldn't they.
They could. However, that was the original charge that was being investigated and at, at this point, it appears unlikely that original charge is being prosecuted.
If, after all this, the Special Prosecutor isn't pursuing the original subject of the investigation ("outing a CIA agent"), it would tend to indicate that no outing occurred.
Vice President Dick Cheney's chief aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby (search) was indicted Friday by a grand jury in relation to the investigation of a leak of a CIA operative's name to reporters two years ago.
The indictment charges Libby with two felony counts for making false statements to mislead the grand jury. He was also charged with obstruction of justice and and two perjury charges. Five indictments were handed down in total.
Each count carries a maximum of five years in jail, meaning a guilty verdict could mean a maximum 25-year jail sentence. Federal prison has no parole. The odds of Libby, someone without a prior record and with years of public service, getting a maximum sentence are pretty low.
Karl Rove, President Bush's top political aide, was spared from criminal charges on Friday
You forgot to add that Rove is still being investigated & may be charged later. BTW, you have to wonder how good Bush's right hand man is if his memory is so feeble that he forgets things in front of a Grand Jury. It's sad that we didn't elect a President who knew how to use his own right arm.
Quote: Calls for White House shakeup focus on Karl Rove
By Randall Mikkelsen
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President George W. Bush, whose top adviser Karl Rove remains in jeopardy in a CIA-leak probe, needs to shake up his White House staff if he hopes to revive a presidency reeling from multiple setbacks, Republican and Democratic lawmakers said on Sunday.
The lawmakers also urged Bush to investigate the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, whose chief of staff, Lewis Libby, resigned on Friday and was indicted on perjury and other charges in connection with the probe.
Bush should take Cheney "to the woodshed" if necessary, a Democratic lawmaker said, and the Senate's top Democrat said Rove should be fired or quit.
"I think Karl Rove should step down," Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said on ABC's "This Week."
Mississippi Republican Sen. Trent Lott said the Bush administration needed "new blood, new energy, qualified staff," and that he expected the president to address his problems.
"I'm not talking about wholesale changes, but you've got to reach out and bring in more advice and counsel," Lott said on "Fox News Sunday."
Rove remains under investigation in the probe into who leaked the identity of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose diplomat husband is a prominent Iraq war critic. The White House's credibility has been hurt by disclosures that Rove and Libby leaked Plame's identity, despite earlier official denials attributed to the two men.
Reid said Bush and Cheney owed the public an apology. "They should come clean with the American public," he said on ABC....
I'm not sure how Bush can keep Rove & not lose his credibility. Rove spoke to at least one lawyer about classified information. There seems to be a very low standard being used to keep Rove. And considering that whatever happened in the White House ended up blowing an agent's cover, President Bush does need to say sorry. Reuters
Quote: Captain Sammitch said: So we can only hope that at least a few Slate.com reporters will be getting theirs soon?
Do these internet reporters have security clearances where they promised to not secretly leak classified info in order to have said security clearances? Post 9/11 I would think government officials would be held accountable for doing what Rove did but apparently a lower standard now applies to having a security clearance.
I'll wake you up if/when the indictments are handed out
You forgot to wake me. They were handed out. Is Rove going down or did they get teh big dog himslef Cheney.... Ooh now that the iddictments are out, I bet the whole Bush complex is going down in flames, right?
I'll wake you up if/when the indictments are handed out
You forgot to wake me. They were handed out. Is Rove going down or did they get teh big dog himslef Cheney.... Ooh now that the iddictments are out, I bet the whole Bush complex is going down in flames, right?
As Fitzgerald said it's not over. We do now know despite Cheney claiming that he never heard of Wilson or his wife that he was one of Libby's sources thanks to the indictment last Friday. I'm sure he just forgot his conversation with Libby. Quite a bit of that going on at the White House. I'm not going to hold my breath for the Republican politicians to police their boss but thankfully America does have Fitzgerald who puts his job before politics. (thankfully he's not a Democrat or else he would of gotten the Wilson treatment himself)
Quote: Jim Jackson said: Rove has been spared so far.
Thank Christ for the Moral Administration.
This is the Administration America re-elected. I hope to fucking hell they're happy.
We are and thank you.
Should I point out that you refered to America as "they" or just let it hang out there on it's own?
then you're clearly misinterpreting. 51% of voters put Bush in (an embarassing margin for a sitting president) because he scared them and lied to them. Those people had the slight majority and now its on them. I knew it would go bad if he was reelected (excuse me, elected) in 2004. Lying and corrupt administrations always collapse.
Attorneys for Lewis "Scooter" Libby are likely to question whether the political bias of news outlets involved in the Leakgate case played a role in testimony by their reporters against top White House officials, reports the Wall Street Journal.
"Just wait until defense counsel starts examining their memories and reporting habits, not to mention the dominant political leanings in the newsrooms of NBC, Time magazine and the New York Times," warns the Journal in an editorial on Friday.
NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert - the star prosecution witness against Mr. Libby - should offer particularly fertile ground on this count.
His "Meet the Press" broadcast was among the first to showcase claims by Leakgate accuser Joe Wilson, the disgruntled former Clinton official who famously charged that the White House lied about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
After Wilson's wife was allegedly "outed" as a result of leaks now attributed to Libby and others, the Wilsons posed for two pictorial spreads that ran in Vanity Fair magazine, where Mr. Russert's wife, Maureen Orth, has served as special correspondent since 1993. Another problem for prosecutors: Russert's claim that he had no way of knowing that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA before his conversation with Libby - when senior NBC correspondent Andrea Mitchell, who works under Russert, has described Plame's CIA connection as "widely known."
Time Magazine's Matthew Cooper offers another troubling indication of political bias that defense attorneys could cite as evidence of a lack of objectivity by some of Libby's media accusers. Cooper is married to Mandy Grunwald, a longtime advisor to Hillary Clinton - who bashed Libby's alleged crime last week as "reprehensible."
Then there's the New York Times own Judy Miller, who finally gave up what she knew about Libby after an 85-day stint in jail.
"Rest assured," says the Journal, "that Ms. Miller's evocative self-description, 'Miss Run Amok,' will surface on cross-examination."
Some Republicans on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence are wondering what it is Democratic member Rep. Rush Holt (NJ) thinks he's doing by so publicly discussing issues related to the Joe Wilson scandal. Particularly since Holt, like other Democrats, has been receiving information that little to no damage appears to have occurred as the result of Wilson's wife's name having become more publicly known. Holt has appeared on a number of TV shows, including an embarrassing 60 Minutes advertorial for Wilson.
Holt has claimed that he knows almost certainly that damage was done to intelligence resources as a result of Valerie Plame's name being further disseminated. But the CIA has briefed both the House and the Senate Intelligence Committees that thus far that does not appear to the case at all.
Of course, that information would be confidential, and Holt shouldn't discuss it.
"The fact is Holt shouldn't be talking at all to anyone, especially the press," says a Republican House colleague. "More important, if he is going to talk, he ought to be honest, and what he is telling the media right now is not accurate. It's what they want to hear, but it's not accurate or complete."
Ironic that some Republicans are scolding a Democrat & then go on & do the same thing that their upset about. You offer a partisan websight with some hypocritical allegations with zero substance.
As long as they're your partisan web sites that is. I think you should listen to Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved from now on, but whatever you do don't dismiss them because of thier bias, because that would be wrong.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: As long as they're your partisan web sites that is. I think you should listen to Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved from now on, but whatever you do don't dismiss them because of thier bias, because that would be wrong.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: As long as they're your partisan web sites that is. I think you should listen to Rush Limbaugh and Michael Medved from now on, but whatever you do don't dismiss them because of thier bias, because that would be wrong.
WBAM come on. Did I say anything like that? Ironically pretty much anytime I've posted something from Media Matters, it's pointed out that it's a partisan websight & any info it contains isn't worth consideration. In fact you recently replied in such a manner on the last one. It didn't matter what it contained (mostly a section of a government document on security clearances) I'm guessing there wasn't anything you could argue & just did a sarcastic dismissive response. With G-man's post I responded to the article beyond just saying it was partisan. I pointed out what I saw what was wrong with it. I guess I truly feel like your holding me to a different standard than you or G-man on this one.
1. Rush is actually pretty slim now 2. Technically, "Junk" is "heroin." Rush was never a heroin addict, so I don't think you can him a junkie. 3. But even if he was a "junkie," by all accounts Rush is currently off the stuff so technically he would be a "former Junkie"
Quote: the G-man said: 1. Rush is actually pretty slim now Did he go on that Jennie Crack diet everyone's talking about? 2. Technically, "Junk" is "heroin." Rush was never a heroin addict, so I don't think you can him a junkie. He ate oxy's like M&Ms! Oxy, morphine, heroin are all the same. They're opiates. The only differance is the size of the required dose 3. But even if he was a "junkie," by all accounts Rush is currently off the stuff so technically he would be a "former Junkie" Yea? When was the last time he submitted to a random blood and urine analysis?
Quote: the G-man said: ... Almost immediately preceding this post, you dismissed something I posted because it was from a partisan website.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Ironic that some Republicans are scolding a Democrat & then go on & do the same thing that their upset about. You offer a partisan websight with some hypocritical allegations with zero substance.
You'll notice that I also said what was wrong with the your partisan article besides just noting that it was partisan. Far better than what I get usually.
Quote: I'm guessing there wasn't anything you could argue & just did a sarcastic dismissive response.
It's even worse than that. I didn't even read the article. I dismissed the sourse, sorry, but it could very well be a "boy who cried wolf" situation in which they're acctually right this time, but i can't be bothered to bite everytime they cry conspiracy. In addition to my conservitive talk radio, I acctually listen to Air America on a weekly basis and keep up with NPR and the mainstream press, so I haven't issolated myself from the opposition, but I'll tell you, I've gotten some information from conservitive websites that I thought was important and I almost NEVER post it, because I know that would be futile.
And speaking of that partisan website, another columnist does a pretty good deconstruction of the Joe Wilson story:
There are just too many anomalies in the Wilson mission to Niger to believe that anyone who wasn't planning to bash the president could possibly have chosen Wilson for the task.
He had no expertise in WMD, hadn't been in Niger since the 1980s, and had no intelligence training.
One of the most revealing aspects of Wilson's mission, relevant to showing it was part of a disinformation campaign, was that he wasn't required to sign a CIA secrecy agreement before taking on the mission. In plainest terms, that meant his CIA bosses wanted him to go public on his return. And he did. The other point that proves Wilson's mission was anything but serious is that, in Wilson's own words, he told everyone he met that he was an agent of the U.S. government.
In his July 6, 2003 NYT op-ed, Wilson said, "The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the CIA paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government."
You tell everyone you're speaking to that you're in the government's employ so they can feed you whatever line of baloney they want the U.S. government to hear?
Wilson's "mission," in short, was a pathetic joke and not an intelligence mission by any definition. The CIA knew this. Who in the CIA authorized, paid for, and managed this mission? Why did they do it? There's no plausible explanation other than the intent to embarrass and discredit the Bush administration.
A source who spoke on the condition of anonymity said Valerie Plame -- who suggested her husband for the Niger mission -- was too low on the CIA totem pole to have approved and paid for the mission. Logically the person who approved the Wilson mission would have had to be some senior person in the Operations Directorate.
Regardless of who started the mission, the CIA responded to the Novak column by sending a classified criminal referral -- the allegation of criminal conduct requesting a formal investigation -- to the Justice Department. When it did so, it had to have known that Plame's status was not covert (as defined in the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982) and probably knew (it is an intelligence organization, after all) that Wilson had blabbed his wife's identity around town.
Why, then, was the criminal referral made? Who approved it? Such actions had to be approved at least by the CIA general counsel and probably by CIA Director Tenet or at least his deputy, McLaughlin. Why did they do that knowing what they must have known?
The December 30, 2003 letter from Deputy Attorney General Paul Comey appointing Patrick Fitzgerald special prosecutor, says, in part: "I hereby delegate to you all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department's investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity." What was the allegation? If it were made falsely -- say with the knowledge that Plame's identity wasn't covert or had become public -- the person who made the referral may have committed a serious crime.
The whole Wilson/Plame affair stinks to high heaven. And the smell is coming from Langley. Porter Goss should receive credit for working hard to fix the CIA. The Wilson affair isn't his problem, it's ours. Right now, the CIA's disinformation campaign has cost Scooter Libby his future, threatens other White House staffers and -- most importantly -- burdens the credibility of the president in time of war. It affects our standing in the world, our relationship with our allies, and our strength in the eyes of our enemies. In short, this damned thing needs to be unraveled, publicly, and right bloody now.
IF all that is true, then why did they need to blow his wife's cover? Or did it take them too long to create the Swift-Ambassadors for Truth so they ruined the wife's cover for efficiency?
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: IF all that is true, then why did they need to blow his wife's cover? Or did it take them too long to create the Swift-Ambassadors for Truth so they ruined the wife's cover for efficiency?
Wilson blew his own wifes cover. I'm sorry, but it was public knowledge that they were married so if he was so concerned with exposing her wife as a possible agent of teh United sates where does he get off announcing to the world that he's doing undercover work for the governmet. At the very least her cover would be blown by nature of association. Or do you think possible threats to the united states will overlook that possibility.
So when it comes to clearing Wilson we acctually care what the indictment says? because when it comes to Rove and teh idea that this was a retaliation job and Bush lied etc... everyone is guilty untill proven guilty.
Testimony by Washington Post editor Bob Woodward in the CIA leak case is a bombshell to the special prosecutor's case against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, an attorney for Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff told FOX News on Wednesday.
The disclosure by Woodward in Wednesday's Post shows that Libby was not the first government official to tell a reporter the secret identity of a CIA operative, said Ted Wells, one of Libby's lawyers.
Libby resigned from his position immediately after he was indicted on perjury and obstruction charges last month. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald alleged the former aide lied about his role in revealing the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson to reporters.
Plame Wilson is the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Her name was first revealed in a column by Robert Novak in July 2003.
Woodward wrote in his account of the testimony that he talked to Libby on June 20 and June 27 but didn't recall Libby mentioning Plame Wilson. Woodward's account undermines Fitzgerald's argument that Libby was involved in a scheme to discredit Plame Wilson by leaking her name and identity to the press, Wells said.
the Post reported that at least one unnamed senior Bush administration official told Woodward about Plame Wilson about a month before her identity was revealed in published reports.
The newspaper reported that Woodward told Fitzgerald that the official talked to him about Plame Wilson in mid-June 2003. Woodward and editors at the Post refused to identify the official to reporters other than to say it was not Libby.
Woodward said he has not been released to disclose his source's name publicly.
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Karl Rove's legal team, said Rove was not the official who talked to Woodward.
I'm not sure how this is a "bombshell" for the prosecution, as it doesn't seem to be relevant to what Libby is charged with, to wit, lying to the grand jury.
The only thing I could think of was that if this isn't the first time an agents' cover has been blown, then why give this case so much special attention?
Quote: theory9 said: The only thing I could think of was that if this isn't the first time an agents' cover has been blown, then why give this case so much special attention?
It's post 9/11, Plame was an undercover agent, it involves the highest levels of our government. Remember Watergate started out as a burglary.
yeah, but "burglary" is "bright line" crime. It's pretty impossible not to know that breaking into a locked office, no matter who owns it, is illegal.
Some of the rules on confidentiality in government are a lot more vague. As noted before it was, and is, questionable whether Plame's status was even confidential.
Quote: the G-man said: ... I'm not sure how this is a "bombshell" for the prosecution, as it doesn't seem to be relevant to what Libby is charged with, to wit, lying to the grand jury.
It might help Libby because of Woodward's phrasing that it was all conversational chit chat with other gov't officials that occured before Libby's conversations with reporters. And it might help Rove as it supports his story & keep him from being indicted. I would think Woodward's sources might have some explaining to do if they came forward at this point though.
Not sure what to think of Woodward. He has actively commented on this story while secretly a part of it.
Just a couple of questions I'd like to throw out that I haven't seen addressed here or anywhere.
If the leaking of the Valerie Plame's name wasn't illegal, does that still make it okay? Even if the claim of "no harm, no foul is true," was it still right for Plame's name to be told to a reporter, if that's indeed what happened, and for that reporter to print it?
I guess what I'm trying to get at is, does a law have to be broken or does somebody have to be hurt for something to be wrong to do?
As with any time it exercises its prosecutorial or police powers the government is not supposed to get involved in attacking legal conduct. Especially if the conduct involves the excercise of speech, which is protected by the First Amendment.
The other issue would be motive.
Some think the motive was to "get back" at Wilson.
Others think the motive was an attempt to point out that Wilson was unqualified for his post and there only because of nepotism. Bringing to light unqualified people holding government authority because of nepotism is far less sinister.
Quote: the G-man said: As with any time it exercises its prosecutorial or police powers the government is not supposed to get involved in attacking legal conduct. Especially if the conduct involves the excercise of speech, which is protected by the First Amendment.
Not really what I was getting at. Like I said, my question wasn't related to legality.
Quote: Others think the motive was an attempt to point out that Wilson was unqualified for his post and there only because of nepotism. Bringing to light unqualified people holding government authority because of nepotism is far less sinister.
Point.
But if that was indeed the case, something doesn't add up.
Why didn't whoever did it step forward and admit it if there wasn't any wrongdoing, legal or otherwise, in their own opinion? If their motives were indeed noble, and if their actions were indeed legal, why not stand up and take pride in what you've done, especially now that we've seen the consequences of the leak and the effect it's had on the Bush administration? This could have been resolved long ago, and it would have prevented a truckload of fuel from being added to the flames of partisanship.
So getting back to the ethical and non-legal viewpoint, is it right to stand by and let other people be attacked and villified if they are indeed innocent? If Rove and Libby are genuinely innocent of all charges, is it ethical for the person who did leak the names to come forward to clear the names of his or her comrades in arms? Especially if Plame's name was leaked for noble reasons (in the eyes of the leaker)?
Good point Darknight. I was wondering sorta the same thing with Woodward. He makes a point saying the information exchanged wasn't a big deal, yet it was important enough to be kept a secret?
Speaking from experience, it is not uncommon for even minor things to be spoken "off the record" or as "confidential source" for reasons unrelated to importance.
More on Woodward's role, and who the leaker might have really been, from Newsweek:
Though he gave testimony to the special prosecutor, Woodward refused to publicly identify his source. But he has repeatedly emphasized on talk shows and in interviews that when all the facts become known, the Plame affair will be seen as much ado about very little. In private conversations with journalists, Novak has suggested the same.
So who is Novak's source—and Woodward's source—and why will his identity take the wind out of the brewing storm? One by one last week, a parade of current and former senior officials, including the CIA's George Tenet and national-security adviser Stephen Hadley, denied being the source. A conspicuous exception was former deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage, whose office would only say, "We're not commenting." He was one of a handful of top officials who had access to the information. He is an old source and friend of Woodward's, and he fits Novak's description of his source as "not a partisan gunslinger." Woodward has indicated that he knows the identity of Novak's source, which further suggests his source and Novak's were one and the same.
If Armitage was the original leaker, that undercuts the argument that outing Plame was a plot by the hard-liners in the veep's office to "out" Plame. Armitage was, if anything, a foe of the neocons who did not want to go to war in Iraq. He had no motive to discredit Wilson. On "Larry King Live" last month, Woodward was dismissive of the special prosecutor's investigation, suggesting that the original leak was not the result of a "smear campaign" but rather a "kind of gossip, as chatter ... I don't see an underlying crime here."
That doesn't mean special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald will fold his tent. Last week he announced he would present evidence to a new grand jury. While Scooter Libby's lawyers exulted that Woodward's revelation helped their client's case, Libby still faces strong evidence that he lied to the Feds. And it's not clear that White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove is out of the woods. When and if the true identity of Novak and Woodward's source becomes known (if indeed they are one in the same), the two-year-old mystery may be resolved. But the game is not over yet.
Quote: the G-man said: If Armitage was the original leaker, that undercuts the argument that outing Plame was a plot by the hard-liners in the veep's office to "out" Plame. Armitage was, if anything, a foe of the neocons who did not want to go to war in Iraq. He had no motive to discredit Wilson. On "Larry King Live" last month, Woodward was dismissive of the special prosecutor's investigation, suggesting that the original leak was not the result of a "smear campaign" but rather a "kind of gossip, as chatter ... I don't see an underlying crime here."
G-man, correct me if I'm wrong here. But is ignorance of the law an excuse to break the law?
If this turns out to not be a smear campaign. And her name was really leaked within weeks of her husband writing a column blasting Bush, then I will be shocked. This will be the largest coincidence in history. Much more coincidental than the guy who jumps off a roof and is shot in the chest by random gunfire as he passes the 5th floor windows.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said:But is ignorance of the law an excuse to break the law?
Not per se. However, many crimes require an element of "intent."
Depending on how the facts of the case play out, and assuming Plame's status was even that to which "outing" is a crime (as noted before it possibly wasn't), it may be that Armitage did not intend to out a covert agent. In which case, depending on the facts as they develop, and the language of the statute, it may not have been a crime.
WASHINGTON — Watergate sleuth Bob Woodward last night let slip that his "Deep Throat" in the CIA leak case is a man — and the tip that Iraq war critic Joe Wilson had a CIA wife came when they were shooting the breeze.
Woodward — who rocked the CIA probe by revealing he got an early tip about Wilson's wife — said the "casual, offhand" way he was told convinces him that talk of "some vast conspiracy to slime Joe Wilson and his wife," Valerie Plame, is false.
Woodward also stressed that his source said Plame was a CIA "analyst," which meant she wasn't undercover.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said:But is ignorance of the law an excuse to break the law?
Quote: Not per se. However, many crimes require an element of "intent."
But isn't the whole point of Confidential information that it is not supposed to just slip out during gossip. At the very least (even if you're right about her status, which I've read otherwise) this is negligence in the handling of confidential information.
However, if, as noted above, the source didn't realize that the information was confidential, there is an argument to made that the leak was not intentional. Therefore, depending on the language of the statute, the leak would not be a crime.
Again, this assumes that Plame even was a "covert operative" for purposes of the statute which, as noted ad nauseaum, may not even be the case.
Quote: the G-man said: However, if, as noted above, the source didn't realize that the information was confidential, there is an argument to made that the leak was not intentional. Therefore, depending on the language of the statute, the leak would not be a crime.
Again, this assumes that Plame even was a "covert operative" for purposes of the statute which, as noted ad nauseaum, may not even be the case.
Legality aside...
Even if no crime was committed, do you think the leaker demonstrated a degree of carelessness that should cost him or her their job, or have other consequences?
If there was that kind of uncertainty about whether Plame was covert or not on the part of the source, shouldn't the source have erred on the side of caution? Yeah, you can't always do that in conversation - things slip out and you can't help it - but it's not impossible to show a bit of restraint and stop yourself from saying something you probably shouldn't.
I think we should also be looking at the CIA to find out how well they keep government officials informed about the status of certain people so they know not to talk about them to make sure something like this doesn't happen.
If the leaking of Valerie Plame's name was not a criminal act, it was an act of carelessness that I think should have some serious consequences.
And as I stated earlier in this thread, whoever is the leak should have 'fessed up a long time ago, and should be ashamed of themselves for letting others take the heat for their actions - assuming the people who are being investigated or indicted aren't the leakers.
It depends on the circumstances. If Plame wasn't a covert agent (see earlier posts) I don't think you can argue this was unduly careless. After all, under federal "open goverment" laws there is a presumption of open information.
Woodward has a very important data point quoted in today's Washington Post:
"Remember the investigation and the allegations that people have printed about this story is that there's some vast conspiracy to slime Joe Wilson and his wife, really attack him in an ugly way that is outside the boundaries of hardball. The evidence I had, firsthand, a small piece of the puzzle I acknowledge, is that was not the case." (emphasis added).
There are several things we should gather from this:
(1) The mainstream media hype over Wilson and Plame is simply that. They are creatures who wouldn't exist were the cameras not pointed at them or the editorial pages crying out in their name; (2) that the supposedly Machiavellian Bush White House was not trying to protect itself from fatal damage by destroying Joe Wilson and avenging itself on his wife; and (3) that someone outside the White House inner circle -- Richard Armitage? some high-ranker at CIA? -- was the source for Woodward and probably Novak as well as part of the CIA and State Department political campaign in opposition to the Iraq war.
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald seems to have settled in for a long Washington stay. Some other body needs to investigate the CIA and the State Department connection here. The Senate Intelligence Committee is the best body to investigate this.
Quote: WASHINGTON -- Months before Karl Rove corrected his statements in the Valerie Plame investigation, his lawyer was told that the president's top political adviser might have disclosed Plame's CIA status to a Time magazine reporter.
Rove says he had forgotten the conversation he had on July 11, 2003, with Time's Matt Cooper. But the magazine reported Sunday that in the first half of 2004, as President Bush's re-election campaign was heating up, Rove's lawyer got the word about a possible Rove-Cooper conversation from a second Time reporter, Viveca Novak. ...
StarTribune.com This is what was keeping Fitzgerald from indicting Rove from what I understand with his pal "Lying Libby" so we should be finding out soon about Rove.
Quote: as President Bush's re-election campaign was heating up, Rove's lawyer got the word about a possible Rove-Cooper conversation from a second Time reporter, Viveca Novak.
The fact that someone else, Viveca Novak, remembered the conversation doesn't mean that Rove did.
Quote: as President Bush's re-election campaign was heating up, Rove's lawyer got the word about a possible Rove-Cooper conversation from a second Time reporter, Viveca Novak.
The fact that someone else, Viveca Novak, remembered the conversation doesn't mean that Rove did.
A couple of things, Raw posts new docs on CIA leak; Third journoulist didn't testify; Libby says 'superiors' oked leak White House may have deleted leak emails...
A Chicago Tribune investigation provides more evidence that the entire Plame affair is about nothing:
Plame's secret life could be easily penetrated with the right computer sleuthing and an understanding of how the CIA's covert employees work.
When the Tribune searched for Plame on an Internet service that sells public information about private individuals to its subscribers, it got a report of more than 7,600 words. Included was the fact that in the early 1990s her address was "AMERICAN EMBASSY ATHENS ST, APO NEW YORK NY 09255." . . .
After the completion of her Athens tour, the CIA reportedly sent Plame to study in Europe. According to her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame was living in Brussels when the couple first met in 1997.
Two years later, when Plame made a $1,000 contribution to Vice President Al Gore, she listed her employer as Brewster-Jennings & Associates, a Boston company apparently set up by the CIA to provide "commercial cover" for some of its operatives.
Brewster-Jennings was not a terribly convincing cover. According to Dun & Bradstreet, the company, created in 1994, is a "legal services office" grossing $60,000 a year and headed by a chief executive named Victor Brewster. Commercial databases accessible by the Tribune contain no indication that such a person exists. . . .
After Plame left her diplomatic post and joined Brewster-Jennings, she became what is known in CIA parlance as an "NOC," shorthand for an intelligence officer working under "non-official cover." But several CIA veterans questioned how someone with an embassy background could have successfully passed herself off as a private-sector consultant with no government connections.
Genuine NOCs, a CIA veteran said, "never use an official address. If she had [a diplomatic] address, her whole cover's completely phony. I used to run NOCs. I was in an embassy. I'd go out and meet them, clandestine meetings. I'd pay them cash to run assets or take trips. I'd give them a big bundle of cash. But they could never use an embassy address, ever."
Another CIA veteran with 20 years of service agreed that "the key is the [embassy] address. That is completely unacceptable for an NOC. She wasn't an NOC, period."
Patrick Fitzgerald would show real courage if he admitted his mistake and dropped the charges.
Quote: Patrick Fitzgerald would show real courage if he admitted his mistake and dropped the charges.
Fitzgerald, a Republican who has gone up against mobsters has to adopt the GOP spin to show real courage? I think the guy has talked to other CIA people who say her cover was blown. Instead of a lack of courage, Fitzgerald may put more weight onto his sources than anonymous sources.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Fitzgerald, a Republican who has gone up against mobsters has to adopt the GOP spin to show real courage?
The Chicago Tribune is "GOP spin"?
No one questionsed Fitzgerald's integrity. I only suggested that he would be showing courage-again-to drop this case if he doesn't have more that we've been seen so far.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Fitzgerald, a Republican who has gone up against mobsters has to adopt the GOP spin to show real courage?
The Chicago Tribune is "GOP spin"?
No one questionsed Fitzgerald's integrity. I only suggested that he would be showing courage-again-to drop this case if he doesn't have more that we've been seen so far.
I was referring to your spin that for Fitzgerald to show "real courage" he needed to admit a mistake. The Chicago Tribune's article wasn't spin but it also didn't include any of the evidence Fitzgerald used to decide if Plame was truly indeed undercover. Your just picking the bits that support the GOP spin, ignoring what doesn't. I doubt Fitzgerald is working the same way.
Has it not occurred to Bush's critics that the Bush administration didn't need to do anything to reveal that Valerie Plame was a CIA operative?
Former ambassador Joe Wilson (Valerie Plame's husband), started this whole fiasco when he wrote an editorial in the New York Times criticizing Bush, alleging Bush's State-of-the-Union statement that Saddam Hussein was seeking yellow-cake uranium from Niger was false. That Wilson claimed he knew to be false, because he went to Niger and saw no sign of Saddam seeking a purchase (at least not from the Niger operatives Wilson spoke to).
Joe Wilson's allegation in that New York Times editorial obligates the news media (at least a theoretical news media that is not clearly biased and overwhelmingly liberal) to investigate Wilson's allegations and the details of his mission to Niger.
That would entail investigating who recommended, selected and supervised Joe Wilson's recruitment for the trip to Niger, and the true documentation of his findings.
Which would have revealed Valerie Plame's role, and her identity.
So... when Joe Wilson went public in his New York Times editorial, it was him, he, Joe Wilson, no one else, who outed his wife as a C.I.A. agent !
It was Wilson who opened the door, and made a public spectacle of what his mission was, required others to verify the accuracy (or innacuracy) of his statements.
And a necessary part of that was knowing who Valerie Plame is, and her role in this CIA excursion into Niger.
But leave it to liberal partisans in Washington, and the news media, to shunt the blame onto Republicans, instead of on Joe Wilson, where it truly belongs.
Quote: the G-man said: ...former deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage...was one of a handful of top officials who had access to the information.
If Armitage was the original leaker, that undercuts the argument that outing Plame was a plot by the hard-liners in the veep's office to "out" Plame. Armitage was, if anything, a foe of the neocons who did not want to go to war in Iraq. He had no motive to discredit Wilson.
Ben Bradlee, the Washington Post editor who helped expose the Watergate scandal, says former Secretary of State Colin Powell's top deputy, Richard Armitage, was the first member of the Bush administration to leak the fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA agent, Vanity Fair magazine reports in its new edition.
"That Armitage is the likely source is a fair assumption," the magazine quotes Bradlee as saying.
Bradlee's remarks raise questions as to why special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicted Libby but not Armitage, who testified to a grand jury without 'fessing up
But leave it to liberal partisans in Washington, and the news media, to shunt the blame onto Republicans, instead of on Joe Wilson, where it truly belongs.
So you find Libby and Rove running around leaking classified information to reporters anonymously blameless because Wilson spoke up? I have to ask, do you find their actions honorable. Is this how you want other administrations to act when countering information?
But leave it to liberal partisans in Washington, and the news media, to shunt the blame onto Republicans, instead of on Joe Wilson, where it truly belongs.
So you find Libby and Rove running around leaking classified information to reporters anonymously blameless because Wilson spoke up? I have to ask, do you find their actions honorable. Is this how you want other administrations to act when countering information?
As I said earlier in the topic, that's yet to be proven, that Rove is the leaker.
Libby has been indicted, but again, not yet proven guilty.
In any case, this is not comparable to leaking missile technology to the Russians or Chinese. In the worst case scenario --assuming that Rove and Libby actually did reveal secrets to the media, which is not proven-- even if they did:
1) Joe Wilson already made revelation of Valerie Plame's CIA employment inevitable. His
editorial alone, regardless of what Rove, Libby, Armitage, or any other Republican did alone created the spotlight in the Niger mission that would have outed Plame as Wilson's spouse.
2) again, it is still a source of debate whether she was even a covert agent !
3) Regardless of whether Valerie Plame was a field agent or not, she is well beyond the number of years after which her covert CIA status can legally be revealed to the public.
For her CIA work to be so many years ago, so far beyond the statute of limitations of being "top secret", makes clear the falseness that her outing allegedly "jeapordizes national security" , as liberals hyperbolically wail.
and
4) Again, as discussed earlier, Rove's conversation with reporter Robert Novak was just a conversation between two freiends who happen to be Washington insiders, chatting about the latest Beltway gossip.
It was Novak who mentioned to Rove (not Rove passing info to Novak) a rumor that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and had Joseph Wilson recruited by the CIA for the Niger yellow-cake investigation.
Novak said "I heard..."
And Rove responded (neither confirming nor denying the rumor) "Yeah, I heard that too."
5) Finally, nothing surprises me in Washington.
Well, not too often.
Monica Lewinsky and the semen-stained dress surprised me.
Rove and Libby used what leverage they had politically to spin things in their favor, just like Pelosi, Daschle, Reid, Gore, Hilary, Bill Clinton, Kennedy and the rest all do.
But it amuses me to see these lifelong anti-war pacifists and leftists wrap themselves in the flag and allege that Rove and the Bush White House defending themselves against Wilson's allegations, that these Republicans-on-the-defensive, and not Wilson himself, are responsible for the spotlight being shined on his wife's CIA role.
I don't see mentioning that Wilson's wife sent him on the Niger mission as the most high-road tactic by Republicans. But it is relevant in spotlighting that Wilson was picked for the Niger mission for reasons other than his qualifications. And also spotlights that perhaps he wasn't the most informed source to write a New York Times editorial accusing President Bush of being a liar.
I've seen far more sleazy, underhanded, and outright treasonous actions from the Democrat party, and I've highlighted many of them in various topics here.
But Republican or Democrat, politics is politics. Each time you say: "How DARE they...", I can show you an example where the Democrats have done the same, if not exceeded the alleged underhandedness of Rove and the other conservative puppetmasters. Democrats pull their own strings, and don't always put on a classy show.
As I said earlier in the topic, that's yet to be proven, that Rove is the leaker.
Libby has been indicted, but again, not yet proven guilty.
That is a legal determination. I think it's fair to say you don't need a legal determination to make a nonlegal judgement that Libby & Rove lied.
Quote: In any case, this is not comparable to leaking missile technology to the Russians or Chinese.
According to the CIA, Plame was a NOC. Your making an assumption that she never worked on anything important.
Quote: In the worst case scenario --assuming that Rove and Libby actually did reveal secrets to the media, which is not proven-- even if they did:
1) Joe Wilson already made revelation of Valerie Plame's CIA employment inevitable. His editorial alone, regardless of what Rove, Libby, Armitage, or any other Republican did alone created the spotlight in the Niger mission that would have outed Plame as Wilson's spouse.
The obvious flaw to your logic there is that if it was truly inevitable, Libby & Rove would never have had to bring it up when speaking to reporters. I actually doubt any reporter would have been able to find out that Plame suggested sending her husband to Niger beyond a gov't official with enough clearence willing to leak classified information.
Quote: 2) again, it is still a source of debate whether she was even a covert agent !
Considering that the CIA & Fitzgerald say she was, I'm not sure what more could be offered.
Quote: 3) Regardless of whether Valerie Plame was a field agent or not, she is well beyond the number of years after which her covert CIA status can legally be revealed to the public. For her CIA work to be so many years ago, so far beyond the statute of limitations of being "top secret", makes clear the falseness that her outing allegedly "jeapordizes national security" , as liberals hyperbolically wail.
This was posted before & according to the CIA it wasn't true at the time. At this point I'm guessing it's no longer a lie but only because a couple of years have now passed.
Quote: and
4) Again, as discussed earlier, Rove's conversation with reporter Robert Novak was just a conversation between two freiends who happen to be Washington insiders, chatting about the latest Beltway gossip. It was Novak who mentioned to Rove (not Rove passing info to Novak) a rumor that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and had Joseph Wilson recruited by the CIA for the Niger yellow-cake investigation. Novak said "I heard..." And Rove responded (neither confirming nor denying the rumor) "Yeah, I heard that too."
Rove had also talked with Cooper where he outed Plame. Novak learned about Plame from Libby. You seem to be picking the one conversation that supports what your saying but ignoring everything else.
Quote: 5) Finally, nothing surprises me in Washington. Well, not too often. Monica Lewinsky and the semen-stained dress surprised me.
Rove and Libby used what leverage they had politically to spin things in their favor, just like Pelosi, Daschle, Reid, Gore, Hilary, Bill Clinton, Kennedy and the rest all do.
I'm unaware of any of them running around Washington outing NOC agents to reporters.
Quote: But it amuses me to see these lifelong anti-war pacifists and leftists wrap themselves in the flag and allege that Rove and the Bush White House defending themselves against Wilson's allegations, that these Republicans-on-the-defensive, and not Wilson himself, are responsible for the spotlight being shined on his wife's CIA role.
I don't see mentioning that Wilson's wife sent him on the Niger mission as the most high-road tactic by Republicans. But it is relevant in spotlighting that Wilson was picked for the Niger mission for reasons other than his qualifications. And also spotlights that perhaps he wasn't the most informed source to write a New York Times editorial accusing President Bush of being a liar.
I never understood how it mattered to partisan Republicans that Plame suggested sending her husband to Niger. The CIA still approved his credentials. The documents still would have been fakes.
Quote: I've seen far more sleazy, underhanded, and outright treasonous actions from the Democrat party, and I've highlighted many of them in various topics here.
I can remember when treason wasn't a term that was hastily & casually thrown out by some Republicans. It was reserved for those that did evil things... like telling our nation's enemies who our spies were.
Quote: But Republican or Democrat, politics is politics. Each time you say: "How DARE they...", I can show you an example where the Democrats have done the same, if not exceeded the alleged underhandedness of Rove and the other conservative puppetmasters. Democrats pull their own strings, and don't always put on a classy show.
If somebody does something wrong, it's not less wrong because you feel somebody else did the same thing.
As I said earlier in the topic, that's yet to be proven, that Rove is the leaker.
Libby has been indicted, but again, not yet proven guilty.
That is a legal determination. I think it's fair to say you don't need a legal determination to make a nonlegal judgement that Libby & Rove lied.
But a lie is not a crime.
I could point to any number of incidents where Democrats such Gore, Kerry, Feinstein, etc., have lied.
And Republicans as well.
It's a fact of life that politicians on both sides bend the truth. Or outright distort and fabricate their own truth to suit their political ends.
I wish there were laws against lying, that would eliminate the partisan bickering on both sides and force our leaders to limit their rhetoric to the facts, to tone down the anger to the point that real core issues could be discussed and actually resolved.
But as it stands, a lie is not a crime.
Quote: MAtter Eater Man said:
Quote: Wonder Boy said:
In any case, this is not comparable to leaking missile technology to the Russians or Chinese.
According to the CIA, Plame was a NOC. [You're] making an assumption that she never worked on anything important.
No, that's your misrepresentation of what I said. Her work was no doubt very important. But she was not a field agent or spy.
And even if she was a spy at some point in the past, her work was already 6 years in the past, 6 years beyond the statute of limitations where it would be a crime to reveal her covert activity, IF SHE EVER WAS a covert agent, when Rove allegedly exposed her.
(Although it appears now it was actually Richard Armitage, and not Rove.)
Quote: Matter Eater Man said:
Quote: Wonder Boy said:
In the worst case scenario --assuming that Rove and Libby actually did reveal secrets to the media, which is not proven-- even if they did:
1) Joe Wilson already made revelation of Valerie Plame's CIA employment inevitable. His editorial alone, regardless of what Rove, Libby, Armitage, or any other Republican did alone created the spotlight in the Niger mission that would have outed Plame as Wilson's spouse.
The obvious flaw to your logic there is that if it was truly inevitable, Libby & Rove would never have had to bring it up when speaking to reporters. I actually doubt any reporter would have been able to find out that Plame suggested sending her husband to Niger beyond a gov't official with enough clearence willing to leak classified information.
Again: Richard Armitage is the apparent leaker, not Rove.
As G-man said above.
Quote: Matter Eater Man said:
Quote: Wonder Boy said:
2) again, it is still a source of debate whether she was even a covert agent !
Considering that the CIA & Fitzgerald say she was, I'm not sure what more could be offered.
I've seen any number of higher-ups in the CIA appear on PBS NEWS Hour and various Sunday morning talk shows who dispute that Plame was ever a field agent.
Quote: Matter Eater Man said:
Quote: Wonder Boy said: 3) Regardless of whether Valerie Plame was a field agent or not, she is well beyond the number of years after which her covert CIA status can legally be revealed to the public.
For her CIA work to be so many years ago, so far beyond the statute of limitations of being "top secret", makes clear the falseness that her outing allegedly "jeapordizes national security" , as liberals hyperbolically wail.
This was posted before & according to the CIA it wasn't true at the time. At this point I'm guessing it's no longer a lie but only because a couple of years have now passed.
So it's not a lie, and not a crime on Rove's part.
Quote: Matter Eater Man said:
Quote: Wonder Boy said: and
4) Again, as discussed earlier, Rove's conversation with reporter Robert Novak was just a conversation between two friends who happen to be Washington insiders, chatting about the latest Beltway gossip.
It was Novak who mentioned to Rove (not Rove passing info to Novak) a rumor that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and had Joseph Wilson recruited by the CIA for the Niger yellow-cake investigation.
Novak said "I heard..."
And Rove responded (neither confirming nor denying the rumor) "Yeah, I heard that too."
Rove had also talked with Cooper where he outed Plame. Novak learned about Plame from Libby. You seem to be picking the one conversation that supports what [you're] saying but ignoring everything else.
Cooper has his own credibility issues about being forthcoming with what he knew.
And likewise, Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward also has a credibility issue, where he apparently knew for months where the leak came from, but disclosed to no one while denying he knew.
Quote: Matter Eater Man said:
Quote: Wonder Boy said: 5) Finally, nothing surprises me in Washington.
Well, not too often.
Monica Lewinsky and the semen-stained dress surprised me.
Rove and Libby used what leverage they had politically to spin things in their favor, just like Pelosi, Daschle, Reid, Gore, Hilary, Bill Clinton, Kennedy and the rest all do.
I'm unaware of any of them running around Washington outing NOC agents to reporters.
Again, it's not proven that Plame was even a field agent, to be "outed".
And even if Plame was a field agent, her covert status was at least 6 years in the past, well past the point where her potential covert actions would be considered a security risk, and be protected from public disclosure by federal law.
Quote: Matter Eater Man said:
Quote: Wonder Boy said: But it amuses me to see these lifelong anti-war pacifists and leftists wrap themselves in the flag and allege that Rove and the Bush White House defending themselves against Wilson's allegations, that these Republicans-on-the-defensive, and not Wilson himself, are responsible for the spotlight being shined on his wife's CIA role.
I don't see mentioning that Wilson's wife sent him on the Niger mission as the most high-road tactic by Republicans. But it is relevant in spotlighting that Wilson was picked for the Niger mission for reasons other than his qualifications. And also spotlights that perhaps he wasn't the most informed source to write a New York Times editorial accusing President Bush of being a liar.
I never understood how it mattered to partisan Republicans that Plame suggested sending her husband to Niger. The CIA still approved his credentials. The documents still would have been fakes.
Because Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger was far from a full and thorough investigation.
Wilson stayed at some plush hotel in Niger , made a few phone calls, and was visited by a few businessmen and diplomats.
A conclusive investigation by someone truly seeking absolute certainty on whether there was yellow-cake uranium solicited and/or sold to Saddam would have required a far more thorough investigation.
Quote: Matter Eater Man said:
Quote: Wonder Boy said: I've seen far more sleazy, underhanded, and outright treasonous actions from the Democrat party, and I've highlighted many of them in various topics here.
I can remember when treason wasn't a term that was hastily & casually thrown out by some Republicans. It was reserved for those that did evil things... like telling our nation's enemies who our spies were.
As already answered above, Plame, if she ever was a covert agent, was already 6 years past being a covert agent, and beyond the statute where her activities were considered top secret and banned from public disclosure.
Quote: Matter Eater Man said:
Quote: Wonder Boy said: But Republican or Democrat, politics is politics. Each time you say: "How DARE they...", I can show you an example where the Democrats have done the same, if not exceeded the alleged underhandedness of Rove and the other conservative puppetmasters. Democrats pull their own strings, and don't always put on a classy show.
If somebody does something wrong, it's not less wrong because you feel somebody else did the same thing.
As I made clear above, Rove has not clearly done anything wrong. He has not broken laws, or he would have been indicted with Libby.
And even Libby may be found innocent. As G-man said earlier in the topic, to prove a case against Libby will be very difficult.
There's a lot of rhetoric coming from both sides, that while legally and morally permitted, is in questionable judgement and taste.
John Kerry mentioning Dick Cheney's daughter is a lesbian during a presidential debate, for example.
Senator Dick Durbin, for example. Comparing American soldiers in Iraq to "Nazi storm troopers, Soviet Gulags and the Pol Pot regime", giving pre-packaged distorted rhetoric to the Arab media, which arguably increases danger and violence against our soldiers stationed in Iraq and Afghanistan.
DNC Chairman Howard Dean, for example, saying there's "No Way we can win in Iraq." Undermining the morale of our troops with defeatist rhetoric, and emboldening insurgents to attack U.S. forces.
Legally permitted. But in questionable judgement and taste.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said:Considering that the CIA & Fitzgerald say she was [a covert operative], I'm not sure what more could be offered
That's a little like arguing that just because the cop and the D.A. say you're guilty, you're guilty and we don't need a trial.
No, that would be prejudging legal guilt or innocence. This is a bunch of partisans saying no crime was commited after it's been established that there has been.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: This is a bunch of partisans saying no crime was commited after it's been established that there has been.
But it hasn't been established that a crime was committed.
The only way you can establish a crime was committed, as a matter of law, is when there has been a conviction.
There hasn't been a conviction for outing a CIA covert operative. In fact, to date, no one has even been charged with that.
In one sentence you acknowlege that taking the word only of the agency and the prosecutor would be prejudging guilt. In the other, you claim that the elements of guilt have been established.
Poor choice of words on my part G-man. Instead of crime I should have said that Plame's status with the CIA has been determined as a NOC. The CIA has the paperwork & documentation on Plame, Fitzgerald presumably checked that at the start.
Quote: This just hit the internet at Raw Story, and TWN has confirmed the essential points through a source close to Rove:
According to several Pentagon sources close to Rove and others familiar with the inquiry, Bush's senior adviser tipped off Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to information that led to the recent "discovery" of 250 pages of missing email from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.
Rove has been in the crosshairs of Fitzgerald's investigation into the outing of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson for what some believe to be retaliation against her husband, former U.S. Ambassador to Gabon, Joseph Wilson. Wilson had been an ardent critic of pre-war Iraq intelligence.
While these sources did not provide any details regarding what type of arrangements Rove's attorney Robert Luskin may have made with the special prosecutor's office, if any, they were able to provide some information regarding what Rove imparted to Fitzgerald's team. The individuals declined to go on the record out of concern for their jobs.
According to one source close to the case, Rove is providing information on deleted emails, erased hard drives and other types of obstruction by staff and other officials in the Vice President's office. Pentagon sources close to Rove confirmed this account.
None would name the staffers and/or officials whom Rove is providing information about. They did, however, explain that the White House computer system has "real time backup" servers and that while emails were deleted from computers, they were still retrievable from the backup system. By providing the dates and recipient information of the deleted emails, sources say, Rove was able to chart a path for Fitzgerald directly into the office of the Vice President.
Rove giving Patrick Fitzgerald a path into 250 pages of deleted and/or previously unprovided electronic communications from and within the Vice President's office must give serious heartburn to Scooter Libby's defense team, being paid for in part by this cabal of supporters.
Fitzgerald, as I have written before, is setting a high standard for how public officials should conduct themselves.
We have about nine months before the Scooter Libby trial starts. The real question is whether Fitzgerald will widen the pool of those charged with crimes -- and it's still too early to tell.
The Washington Note Earlier on it was speculated that Rove not sharing Libby's fate was a squeeze tactic on Fitzgerald's part. This suggests that it may have worked.
WASHINGTON - The White House faced a barrage of questions Friday over the timing of President Bush's decision to declassify intelligence that was then leaked to the press by Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff.
In a tense briefing, White House spokesman Scott McClellan was asked repeatedly to explain his statement from three years ago that portions of a prewar intelligence document on Iraq were declassified on July 18, 2003.
Ten days earlier, Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis Libby, had leaked snippets of intelligence from the document to New York Times reporter Judith Miller to rebut allegations by Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, Libby told prosecutors, according to documents revealed this week.
Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff, said he had passed the information to Miller after being told to do so by Cheney, who advised Libby that Bush had authorized it, said a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.
McClellan told reporters July 18, 2003, that the material being released on Iraq ''was officially declassified today.'' On Friday, McClellan interpreted his words to mean that is when the material was ''officially released.''
Asked when it was declassified, McClellan refused to answer, saying the matter was part of Fitzgerald's ongoing CIA leak probe that resulted in Libby's indictment.
Libby faces charges of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI regarding the disclosure that Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife, worked for the CIA. He is accused of making false statements about how he learned of her CIA employment and what he told reporters about her.
Plame's CIA employment was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak eight days after her husband, Wilson, accused the Bush administration of manipulating prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat from weapons of mass destruction.
The declassification issue marks the second time in the CIA leak probe that the White House's previous public statements have been called into question.
After checking with Libby and presidential adviser Karl Rove, McClellan said in 2003 that neither aide was involved in the leak of the CIA identity of Wilson's wife. Rove remains under investigation in the leak probe.
John Podesta, a former chief of staff in the Clinton White House, said, ''Scott McClellan's credibility isn't just in tatters. It is more like confetti.''
Administration critics said Bush's actions were a misuse of the declassification process.
Bush's ''selective declassification of highly sensitive intelligence for political purposes is wrong,'' said House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco.
Pelosi said a presidential executive order requires a uniform system for classifying, declassifying and safeguarding national security information and asked, ''Why didn't President Bush follow this protocol before authorizing the selective leak of highly sensitive intelligence?''
Rep. Rush Holt, D-N.J., called for a House Intelligence Committee investigation and for the president to explain his actions in person to Congress.
Last year, a commission appointed by Bush to look into the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq cautioned against leaks for political purposes.
''Policymakers who leak intelligence to the press in order to gain political advantage... may do so without fully appreciating the potential harm that can result to sources and methods,'' the commission said.
It said the intelligence community should consider implementing ''a widespread, modern-day equivalent of the 'Loose Lips Sink Ships' campaign to educate individuals about their legal obligations and possible penalties to safeguard intelligence information.''
On Friday, McClellan said there's a difference between providing declassified information when it's in the public interest, and leaking classified information that could jeopardize national security.
''Now, there are Democrats out there that fail to recognize that distinction or refuse to recognize that distinction,'' said McClellan. ''They are simply engaging in crass politics.''
The intelligence Libby was authorized to leak to Miller stated that Iraq was ''vigorously trying to procure'' uranium. Administration officials said in the run-up to the war they were concerned about Iraq building a nuclear weapon.
Monterey Country Herald Why Bush did this declassification in such a secret way is a presidential first I think. It doesn't really make sense why he went that route either. If it was a case of rebutting Wilson, why the cloak & dagger? Were there other elements, like outing Plame that Bush & Cheney chose to secretly slip some reporters classified information?
Here is how the filing by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald describes what happened (page 23):
Defendant [Libby] testified that the Vice President later advised him that the President had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions of the NIE [National Intelligence Estimate]. Defendant testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then Counsel to the Vice President, whom defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document.
In other words, this was an authorized disclosure of information, the opposite of a leak.
These reports have served as pornography for the Angry Left, which has constructed an elaborate fantasy world around the Plame kerfuffle. In fact, it is nothing more than a battle over procedure.
Libby is seeking to compel the prosecution to turn over certain information to the defense; Fitzgerald is resisting. Among the information Fitzgerald has so far refused to turn over, by the way, are the two facts supposedly at the center of the case: whether Valerie Plame was a covert agent (extensive evidence on the public record comes close to proving that she was not), and who "leaked" Plame's identity to columnist Bob Novak.
More than anything else, the whole kerfuffle is a reflection on the way anti-Bush animus has fed into the adversarial culture of post-Watergate journalism in America. First the New York Times beat the drums for a special prosecutor to investigate who provided accurate information to reporters, albeit supposedly in violation of the law. Among the results: A Times reporter went to jail.
Now we witness the astonishing spectacle of newspapers trying to spin a scandal out of a legal disclosure of information to the press, as if releasing facts means having something to hide.
Maybe we can't expect better from political partisans, but journalists are supposed to stand for the neutral principle of the public's right to know. If they pervert that principle in the pursuit of a partisan program, they will find it harder to assert it when it serves their purposes, whatever those purposes may be.
Quote: ...Now we witness the astonishing spectacle of newspapers trying to spin a scandal out of a legal disclosure of information to the press, as if releasing facts means having something to hide.
The way the President & VP released their selective "facts" indicates they do have something to hide. They chose to be sneaky when they didn't have to. Why?
What is being described here is an ordinary journalistic transaction, in which a source gives information to a reporter in the hope of generating a favorable story.
Somehow reporters are now "scandalized" by the practice of journalism when it works to the benefit of the U.S. government... or at least the Bush administration.
Quote: ...Is a President, on the eve of his reelection campaign, legally entitled to ward off political embarrassment and conceal past failures in the exercise of his office by unilaterally and informally declassifying selected -- as well as false and misleading -- portions of a classified National Intelligence Estimate that he has previously refused to declassify, in order to cause such information to be secretly disclosed under false pretenses in the name of a "former Hill staffer" to a single reporter, intending that reporter to publish such false and misleading information in a prominent national newspaper?
The answer is obvious: No. Such a misuse of authority is the very essence of a criminal conspiracy to defraud the United States. It is also precisely the abuse of executive power that led to the impeachment of Richard M. Nixon.
How is what Nixon did (covering up a clear felony, to wit, a burglary) at all similar to a President choosing to allow a member of his administration to release information to a journalist?
There is quite a long lead in to what I posted from that column G-man. (for those that are interested, give it a read) I would imagine like the Nixon supporters at the time, you see things differently.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: There is quite a long lead in to what I posted from that column G-man. (for those that are interested, give it a read) I would imagine like the Nixon supporters at the time, you see things differently.
You're a facist! But, I'm sure, like the Nazis in the time of Hitler, you'll deny it.
You're playing such childish rhetorical games. I'm havine more trouble taking you seriously every time you post.
Just for the heck of it, I decided to read your artical to see if the entire artical was anything more that exadurated rhetoric. Here's what I found.
Quote: The latest in a parade of horrors emanating from the Bush administration appeared Thursday in the form of a revelation
On Friday, in a press conference that bore a striking similarity to Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First?"
the increasingly robotic McClellan said
At this point I got bored, but the jist of the artical is that it doesn't really matter if it's legal or not, we hate Bush, therefore anything he does is evil. Amen.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: This is a bunch of partisans saying no crime was commited after it's been established that there has been.
But it hasn't been established that a crime was committed.
The only way you can establish a crime was committed, as a matter of law, is when there has been a conviction.
There hasn't been a conviction for outing a CIA covert operative. In fact, to date, no one has even been charged with that.
In one sentence you acknowlege that taking the word only of the agency and the prosecutor would be prejudging guilt. In the other, you claim that the elements of guilt have been established.
How are you not the one acting as a partisan?
Wouldn't you say outing an agent for personal reasons is unethical and immoral, even if its not illegal?
Quote: The extent and nature of the affinity between Fascism and Nazism has been the subject of much academic debate. Although the modern consensus sees Nazism as a type or offshoot of fascism, there are some experts who still argue that Nazism is not fascism, either on the grounds that the differences are too great, or because they disagree that fascism can be generic.
It would seem even modern scholars would deny that the Nazis were facists. But hey you were insulting him because he hates America enough to want the President to be an honest person so I'll leave you to that.
Quote: the G-man said: it hasn't been established that a crime was committed.
The only way you can establish a crime was committed, as a matter of law, is when there has been a conviction.
There hasn't been a conviction for outing a CIA covert operative. In fact, to date, no one has even been charged with that.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: Wouldn't you say outing an agent for personal reasons is unethical and immoral, even if its not illegal?
You are changing the terms of the debate to suit your agenda.
The question was not about ethics. That is, typically, a matter of individual conscience.
The question was whether or not a crime was committed. That is a legal conclusion, requiring adequate evidence.
Furthermore, you assume facts not in evidence with your question. You assume that: (a) an agent was "outed;" (b) the motive for the outing was personal, not policy.
At this point, there is at least as much evidence to suggest your "facts" are wrong; that Plame was not a covert agent and that the revelation of her identity was simply to explain a potential conflict of interest between herself, her husband and his statements.
Accordingly, the issue you present is not per se an issue presented here.
To the great credit of the editorial board of the Washington Post, its Sunday editorial on Bush's declassification of some intelligence material is right on target.
PRESIDENT BUSH was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. Presidents are authorized to declassify sensitive material, and the public benefits when they do.
Rather than follow the usual declassification procedures and then invite reporters to a briefing -- as the White House eventually did -- Vice President Cheney initially chose to be secretive, ordering his chief of staff at the time, I. Lewis Libby, to leak the information to a favorite New York Times reporter. The full public disclosure followed 10 days later. There was nothing illegal or even particularly unusual about that; nor is this presidentially authorized leak necessarily comparable to other, unauthorized disclosures that the president believes, rightly or wrongly, compromise national security.
After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson's charge [that his wife was "outed"]. In last week's court filings, he stated that Mr. Bush did not authorize the leak of Ms. Plame's identity.
(NOTE: read that again, MEM, Ray, etc. Keep reading it until it sinks in. The Washington Post, a premier member of the "mainstream media," the newspaper that reported Watergate and brought down Nixon, is telling you that you are WRONG)
Mr. Libby's motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Mr. Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Mr. Cheney. In fact Mr. Wilson was recommended for the trip by his wife. Mr. Libby is charged with perjury, for having lied about his discussions with two reporters. Yet neither the columnist who published Ms. Plame's name, Robert D. Novak, nor Mr. Novak's two sources have been charged with any wrongdoing.
As Mr. Fitzgerald pointed out at the time of Mr. Libby's indictment last fall, none of this is particularly relevant to the question of whether the grounds for war in Iraq were sound or bogus. It's unfortunate that those who seek to prove the latter would now claim that Mr. Bush did something wrong by releasing for public review some of the intelligence he used in making his most momentous decision.
What's really bizarre, though, is that Patrick Fitzgerald is going so far afield in an increasingly odd attempt to save his unraveling case against Libby.
Frankly, when he first laid out the case, I was impressed by Fitzgerald, but subsequent behavior and revelations have made me think he's just lost his mind, or at least all reasonable perspective.
If anybody still believes that Scooter Libby knowingly and deliberately and maliciously lied to Fitzgerald, rather than merely having gotten confused, that somebody has some 'splainin to do, because I and most other people I talk to just don't see it -- and again, I was inclined to believe Fitzgerald at first, even though it never made sense to me for Libby to have lied in the first place.
Quote: the G-man said: You are changing the terms of the debate to suit your agenda.
I wasn't really part of the debate. I was just chiming in to see your opinion on that particular facet.
Quote: The question was not about ethics. That is, typically, a matter of individual conscience.
I think that's morals. Ethics is more the community morals of expected behavior. You're a (supposed) lawyer, you should know that sometimes being ethical is immoral (attorney/client privledge can be considered immoral, even though its ethical).
Quote:
Furthermore, you assume facts not in evidence with your question. You assume that: (a) an agent was "outed;" (b) the motive for the outing was personal, not policy.
A. an agent was outed. how is that even in debate. B. Policy is pretty much whatever the president does.
Quote: At this point, there is at least as much evidence to suggest your "facts" are wrong; that Plame was not a covert agent and that the revelation of her identity was simply to explain a potential conflict of interest between herself, her husband and his statements.
Where did this come from? Everything I have ever read says she was a CIA agent and it wasn't public knowledge. She may not have been undercover in some terrorist cell, but she was still a secret agent.
Quote: Accordingly, the issue you present is not per se an issue presented here.
blah blah blah. Accordingly blah blah visa vie blah blah blah
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: you should know that sometimes being ethical is immoral (attorney/client privledge can be considered immoral, even though its ethical
Your example only serves to illustrate my point. When you say it "can be considered immoral", you admit that this is a matter of individual conscience, not law.
Further, you shouldn't use the attorney code of ethics as an example of ethics being separate from law. The Code of Ethics is, in fact, a law. So a violation of the Attorney Code of Ethics is an illegal (if not criminal act) requiring proof, etc.
Quote: The extent and nature of the affinity between Fascism and Nazism has been the subject of much academic debate. Although the modern consensus sees Nazism as a type or offshoot of fascism, there are some experts who still argue that Nazism is not fascism, either on the grounds that the differences are too great, or because they disagree that fascism can be generic.
It would seem even modern scholars would deny that the Nazis were facists. But hey you were insulting him because he hates America enough to want the President to be an honest person so I'll leave you to that.
No, acctually, I was making a rediculous statement to demonstrate teh rediculouseness of his statement "I would imagine like the Nixon supporters at the time, you see things differently. " It's a juvinile rhetorical tool to present a dichotomy in which the responder condems themselves regardless of wether they affirm or deny the charge. to imply thatt denying one is like Nixon only serves to prove that one is.
Quote: A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush Critic Prosecutor Describes Cheney, Libby as Key Voices Pitching Iraq-Niger Story
As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.
Bluntly and repeatedly, Fitzgerald placed Cheney at the center of that campaign. Citing grand jury testimony from the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald fingered Cheney as the first to voice a line of attack that at least three White House officials would soon deploy against former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Vice President Cheney "specifically directed" his then-top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, far right, to tell reporters about a 2002 report that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger, according to prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Cheney, in a conversation with Libby in early July 2003, was said to describe Wilson's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger the previous year -- in which the envoy found no support for charges that Iraq tried to buy uranium there -- as "a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife," CIA case officer Valerie Plame.
Libby is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for denying under oath that he disclosed Plame's CIA employment to journalists. There is no public evidence to suggest Libby made any such disclosure with Cheney's knowledge. But according to Libby's grand jury testimony, described for the first time in legal papers filed this week, Cheney "specifically directed" Libby in late June or early July 2003 to pass information to reporters from two classified CIA documents: an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate and a March 2002 summary of Wilson's visit to Niger.
One striking feature of that decision -- unremarked until now, in part because Fitzgerald did not mention it -- is that the evidence Cheney and Libby selected to share with reporters had been disproved months before.
United Nations inspectors had exposed the main evidence for the uranium charge as crude forgeries in March 2003, but the Bush administration and British Prime Minister Tony Blair maintained they had additional, secret evidence they could not disclose. In June, a British parliamentary inquiry concluded otherwise, delivering a scathing critique of Blair's role in promoting the story. With no ally left, the White House debated whether to abandon the uranium claim and became embroiled in bitter finger-pointing about whom to fault for the error. A legal brief filed for Libby last month said that "certain officials at the CIA, the White House, and the State Department each sought to avoid or assign blame for intelligence failures relating to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction."
It was at that moment that Libby, allegedly at Cheney's direction, sought out at least three reporters to bolster the discredited uranium allegation. Libby made careful selections of language from the 2002 estimate, quoting a passage that said Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium" in Africa.
The first of those conversations, according to the evidence made known thus far, came when Libby met with Bob Woodward, an assistant managing editor of The Washington Post, on June 27, 2003. In sworn testimony for Fitzgerald, according to a statement Woodward released on Nov. 14, 2005, Woodward said Libby told him of the intelligence estimate's description of Iraqi efforts to obtain "yellowcake," a processed form of natural uranium ore, in Africa. In an interview Friday, Woodward said his notes showed that Libby described those efforts as "vigorous."
Libby's next known meeting with a reporter, according to Fitzgerald's legal filing, was with Judith Miller, then of the New York Times, on July 8, 2003. He spoke again to Miller, and to Time magazine's Matt Cooper, on July 12.
At Cheney's instruction, Libby testified, he told Miller that the uranium story was a "key judgment" of the intelligence estimate, a term of art indicating there was consensus on a question of central importance.
In fact, the alleged effort to buy uranium was not among the estimate's key judgments, which were identified by a headline and bold type and set out in bullet form in the first five pages of the 96-page document.
Unknown to the reporters, the uranium claim lay deeper inside the estimate, where it said a fresh supply of uranium ore would "shorten the time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons." But it also said U.S. intelligence did not know the status of Iraq's procurement efforts, "cannot confirm" any success and had "inconclusive" evidence about Iraq's domestic uranium operations
One time I was looking to buy a pony, but it only did one trick. I thought to myself, "Who would want a one trick pony?" It was pretty sad, it just kept doing the same trick, over and over untill everyone got bored and stopped paying attention.
Quote: The extent and nature of the affinity between Fascism and Nazism has been the subject of much academic debate. Although the modern consensus sees Nazism as a type or offshoot of fascism, there are some experts who still argue that Nazism is not fascism, either on the grounds that the differences are too great, or because they disagree that fascism can be generic.
It would seem even modern scholars would deny that the Nazis were facists. But hey you were insulting him because he hates America enough to want the President to be an honest person so I'll leave you to that.
No, acctually, I was making a rediculous statement to demonstrate teh rediculouseness of his statement "I would imagine like the Nixon supporters at the time, you see things differently. " It's a juvinile rhetorical tool to present a dichotomy in which the responder condems themselves regardless of wether they affirm or deny the charge. to imply thatt denying one is like Nixon only serves to prove that one is.
you can't get ridiculous, but you do fine with dichotomy?
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: you should know that sometimes being ethical is immoral (attorney/client privledge can be considered immoral, even though its ethical
Your example only serves to illustrate my point. When you say it "can be considered immoral", you admit that this is a matter of individual conscience, not law.
You don't seem to be reading what I'm saying. I wasn't talking legal/illegal. I was asking if, even if revealing her name was legal, you thought it was a moral act for him to essentially ruin the woman's career over a politcal problem he had with her husband. And, if he released the name simply to discredit the report that discredited Bush's speech, isn't that the kind of dirty politics Bush vowed in 2000 to be against? I believe in 1999 it wasn't a matter of law, it was a matter of morals in impeaching Clinton. With Clinton no careers were ruined and his lie was about sex, not motives for war (and make no mistake, if Bush is found to have been directly involved with the Plame leak than he is a liar for denying knowledge).
Quote: Further, you shouldn't use the attorney code of ethics as an example of ethics being separate from law. The Code of Ethics is, in fact, a law. So a violation of the Attorney Code of Ethics is an illegal (if not criminal act) requiring proof, etc.
um...I was talking about the difference between ethics and morals. And I said ethics is the accepted standards of practice, even when they're not technically moral.
Quote: I believe in 1999 it wasn't a matter of law, it was a matter of morals in impeaching Clinton.
Not at all. Clinton was impeached because he committed a crime. He lied under oath. That's a crime. It doesn't matter whether you lied about a moral act or immoral act, if you do it under oath its illegal. Whether something is or isn't illegal is, per se, a matter of law.
And, for the record, if Libby actually lied under oath, I think he should be prosecuted too.
Quote: I believe in 1999 it wasn't a matter of law, it was a matter of morals in impeaching Clinton.
Not at all. Clinton was impeached because he committed a crime. He lied under oath. That's a crime. It doesn't matter whether you lied about a moral act or immoral act, if you do it under oath its illegal. Whether something is or isn't illegal is, per se, a matter of law.
And, for the record, if Libby actually lied under oath, I think he should be prosecuted too.
okay, if Bush was found to have knowingly presented the war in a false manner (or any member of his staff withheld certain information that may have made the war look less favorable) in order to go to war, isn't that technically ilegal? If not, it should be. I mean I'd rather someone lied about cheating on their wife than lie and send thousands to their deaths.
Quote: The extent and nature of the affinity between Fascism and Nazism has been the subject of much academic debate. Although the modern consensus sees Nazism as a type or offshoot of fascism, there are some experts who still argue that Nazism is not fascism, either on the grounds that the differences are too great, or because they disagree that fascism can be generic.
It would seem even modern scholars would deny that the Nazis were facists. But hey you were insulting him because he hates America enough to want the President to be an honest person so I'll leave you to that.
No, acctually, I was making a rediculous statement to demonstrate teh rediculouseness of his statement "I would imagine like the Nixon supporters at the time, you see things differently. " It's a juvinile rhetorical tool to present a dichotomy in which the responder condems themselves regardless of wether they affirm or deny the charge. to imply thatt denying one is like Nixon only serves to prove that one is.
you can't get ridiculous, but you do fine with dichotomy?
Unless you can give me more, like the information was presented under oath, then, no, it wouldn't be illegal.
To keep using the Clinton analogy: Clinton went on national TV and lied, saying "I did not have sexual relations with that woman." That wasn't illegal even though it was a lie. And he wasn't impeached for that lie.
However, he [Clinton] also went in front of a court of law and lied under oath about the same subject. Lying in court, lying under oath, about anything, is a crime. As a result he was impeached (he was also disbarred, found in "contempt of court" and ordered to pay fines and attorneys fees for lying under oath).
In short, its the circumstance of the lie (eg, was it under oath), not the content, that makes it legal or illegal.
Finally, I should note that, to date, no one has actually shown Bush lied. At best, we've seen that he made statements which some have disputed and/or which have been shown to be potentially mistaken.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said:... okay, if Bush was found to have knowingly presented the war in a false manner (or any member of his staff withheld certain information that may have made the war look less favorable) in order to go to war, isn't that technically ilegal? If not, it should be. I mean I'd rather someone lied about cheating on their wife than lie and send thousands to their deaths.
I think this latest revelation of how Bush used his power to declassify prewar intel that was dubvious at best while keeping the other stuff classified would certainly be an abuse of his authority that should be examined.
Quote: The White House faced new questions Wednesday about President Bush's contention three years ago that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq.
The Washington Post reported that a Pentagon-sponsored team of experts determined in May 2003 that two small trailers were not used to make biological weapons. Yet two days after the team sent its findings to Washington in a classified report, Bush declared just the opposite.
"We have found the weapons of mass destruction," Bush said in an interview with a Polish TV station. "We found biological laboratories."
Bush spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday that Bush was relying on information from the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency when he said the trailers seized after the 2003 invasion were mobile biological laboratories. That information was later discredited by the Iraq Survey Group in its 2004 report.
The CIA and DIA publicly issued an assessment one day after the Pentagon team's report arrived in Washington that said U.S. officials were confident that the trailers were used to produce biological weapons. The assessment said the mobile facilities represented "the strongest evidence to date that Iraq was hiding a biological warfare program."
McClellan said it was unclear whether officials at the White House were aware of the contradictory field report when Bush repeated the claim in the television interview.
"If and when the White House became aware of this particular issue, I'm looking into that matter," McClellan said. "The White House has asked the CIA and the DIA to go and look into that issue."
The Post did not say that Bush knew what he was saying was false. But ABC News did during a report on "Good Morning America," and McClellan demanded an apology and an on-air retraction. ABC News said later in a clarification on its Web site that Charles Gibson had erred. McClellan said he had received an apology.
"This is nothing more than rehashing an old issue that was resolved long ago," McClellan said. "I cannot count how many times the president has said the intelligence was wrong."
"The intelligence community makes the assessment," he said. "The White House is not the intelligence-gathering agency."
CIA spokeswoman Jennifer Dyck declined to speak specifically about the classified field report but said in general that producing a finished intelligence report takes time, coordination, debate and vetting.
"This is not a fast process, especially when dealing with complex issues," she said. "It is not typically something that happens in a matter of hours."
The trailers — along with aluminum tubes acquired by Iraq for what was believed to be a nuclear weapons program — were primary pieces of evidence offered by the Bush administration before the war to support its contention that Iraq was making weapons of mass destruction.
Intelligence officials and the White House have repeatedly denied claims that intelligence was exaggerated or manipulated in the months before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The Iraq Survey Group concluded in 2004 that there was no evidence that Iraq produced weapons of mass destruction after 1991.
now of course this comes from a newspaper that isn't owned by Rupert Murdoch so it can't be trusted. But if you were to believe a dirty liberal rag, it would seem Bush said the opposite of what the submitted report said. So either he can't read, or he is a liar.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: The article seems more ambuguouse that you make it out to be.
did you mean "ambiguous than?" If so, then I agree its not definitive. But it does look bad. And if the reports about the report can be substantiated then it'll be damning to Bush.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: The article seems more ambuguouse that you make it out to be.
did you mean "ambiguous than?" If so, then I agree its not definitive. But it does look bad. And if the reports about the report can be substantiated then it'll be damning to Bush.
You're right, if the reposts about the rports given to some guy by the other guy who knew the guy whith the reports are substatiated by the reports about the reports about the reports, then things will look bad for Bush..... Assuming CBS didn't forge them.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: The article seems more ambuguouse that you make it out to be.
did you mean "ambiguous than?" If so, then I agree its not definitive. But it does look bad. And if the reports about the report can be substantiated then it'll be damning to Bush.
You're right, if the reposts about the rports given to some guy by the other guy who knew the guy whith the reports are substatiated by the reports about the reports about the reports, then things will look bad for Bush..... Assuming CBS didn't forge them.
no offense. and i mean this will all due respect. you're an idiot. Its one thing to hold conservative values, but its another thing to blindly support a member of the party just because he's in charge. Bush has admitted he was wrong about the intel on the trailers, that's not in debate. As it stands, it seems the report exists. Even if it doesn't, then Bush went to war based on false intel. So if the report exists, then he was flat out lying.
JIM LEHRER: OK.
New subject, the -- the Libby statement to the grand jury that was released yesterday. He claims that the president OK'ed the release of sensitive intelligence information on Iraq. How do you read that?
MARK SHIELDS: I -- I think, legally, the president probably has a case. Politically, he's damaged.
JIM LEHRER: Legally, meaning he has the authority, as president of the United States, to declassify anything he wants?
MARK SHIELDS: That's right. That's right.
JIM LEHRER: OK.
MARK SHIELDS: But... they're into splitting hairs right now. They're saying, well, it was legal for the president to do it; therefore, it wasn't classified because the president let it out.
The president is selectively leaking, or having leaked, information that is classified for narrow domestic political purposes. And that -- that is not the George Bush that we -- that I think most Americans came to see as a straight-shooter, direct guy, un-nuanced, doesn't talk about the meaning of is, tells you straight from the shoulder.
JIM LEHRER: David?
DAVID BROOKS: Mark doesn't understand the difference between a leak and a drip.
A leak hurts me. A drip is -- is information that hurts the other side.
JIM LEHRER: That the public needs to have.
DAVID BROOKS: That they need to have.
(CROSSTALK)
DAVID BROOKS: It's called open governments.
JIM LEHRER: Open government, right.
(LAUGHTER)
DAVID BROOKS: And, so, there is a little hypocrisy on the Bush side.
JIM LEHRER: Yes.
DAVID BROOKS: But there's a lot of hypocrisy on the Democratic side. I don't remember Democrats getting upset about leaks that made Donald Rumsfeld look bad or the NSA story.
People like the leaks that help themselves.
So, is Bush hypocritical about the leaks?
Yes.
Are Democrats hypocritical?
Yes.
Is it a scandal, a legal scandal?
No.
It's -- it's embarrassing. But it's not the scandal that some people think it is that's going to lead to resignations and firings.
And, by the way, I think, just on political terms, I -- I think this Plame thing has never had any political traction out in the country. Iraq has political traction. This Plame thing is of interest to a lot of people, but it has no real political traction.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: The article seems more ambuguouse that you make it out to be.
did you mean "ambiguous than?" If so, then I agree its not definitive. But it does look bad. And if the reports about the report can be substantiated then it'll be damning to Bush.
You're right, if the reposts about the rports given to some guy by the other guy who knew the guy whith the reports are substatiated by the reports about the reports about the reports, then things will look bad for Bush..... Assuming CBS didn't forge them.
no offense. and i mean this will all due respect. you're an idiot. Its one thing to hold conservative values, but its another thing to blindly support a member of the party just because he's in charge. Bush has admitted he was wrong about the intel on the trailers, that's not in debate. As it stands, it seems the report exists. Even if it doesn't, then Bush went to war based on false intel. So if the report exists, then he was flat out lying.
I'm an idiot simply because I'm not going to throw the president under the bus based on an "if"? That's the point... It's an if. So considering all the other stuff your side has tried to pull, I'm not even going to entertain it untill the the "if" is removed. This isn't blind partisanship on my part. It's the fact that your side has thrown out so many accusations that didn't stick, I'm not going to flinch over an "if" and if you evepect me to, then with all due respect, you're an idiot.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: The article seems more ambuguouse that you make it out to be.
did you mean "ambiguous than?" If so, then I agree its not definitive. But it does look bad. And if the reports about the report can be substantiated then it'll be damning to Bush.
You're right, if the reposts about the rports given to some guy by the other guy who knew the guy whith the reports are substatiated by the reports about the reports about the reports, then things will look bad for Bush..... Assuming CBS didn't forge them.
no offense. and i mean this will all due respect. you're an idiot. Its one thing to hold conservative values, but its another thing to blindly support a member of the party just because he's in charge. Bush has admitted he was wrong about the intel on the trailers, that's not in debate. As it stands, it seems the report exists. Even if it doesn't, then Bush went to war based on false intel. So if the report exists, then he was flat out lying.
I'm an idiot simply because I'm not going to throw the president under the bus based on an "if"? That's the point... It's an if. So considering all the other stuff your side has tried to pull, I'm not even going to entertain it untill the the "if" is removed. This isn't blind partisanship on my part. It's the fact that your side has thrown out so many accusations that didn't stick, I'm not going to flinch over an "if" and if you evepect me to, then with all due respect, you're an idiot.
Quote: Wonder Boy said:... Is it a scandal, a legal scandal? No.
It's -- it's embarrassing. But it's not the scandal that some people think it is that's going to lead to resignations and firings. ...
Libby had to resign quite a while ago & Rove still may be indicted so I think it's fair to say that it's past embarrassing & well into being a legal scandal. On the other hand if Brooks is talking a legal scandal compared in scope to something like Watergate, he may be right.
no offense. and i mean this will all due respect.
you're an idiot.
Its one thing to hold conservative values, but its another thing to blindly support a member of the party just because he's in charge.
Bush has admitted he was wrong about the intel on the trailers, that's not in debate. As it stands, it seems the report exists. Even if it doesn't, then Bush went to war based on false intel.
So if the report exists, then he was flat out lying.
1) Personally insulting those who disagree with you.
You disagree, okay, but it's easier to respect your views without the insults.
2) Accusing your opposition of "blindly" supporting Bush. Myself, G-man, WBAM and other conservatives here at RKMB, and in the public mainstream, have not been shy about opposing, Bush's Harriet Myers U.S.S.C. nomination, Bush's immigration amnesty proposal, Bush's social security plan, Bush's tax cuts, or even many aspects of the Iraq war.
So it's a smear tactic by yourself and other Democrats to label support of Bush as "blind".
3) As has been said repeatedly, Bush began the Iraq invasion in March 2003 with the same intelligence that every other nation in Europe and the Middle East had on Iraq's WMD's (and again, as Bush's speeches leading up to the war --available at www.whitehouse.gov -- make clear, WMD's were not the only reason to invade Iraq. WMD's were only key to the Senate vote allowing the President to legally go to war in Iraq).
So... every country in Europe and the Middle East, AND THE U.N., with the best intelligence available at the time, believed Saddam Hussein had WMD's.
And the David Kay report showed that Iraq was in "material breach" of a ban on WMD's in Iraq, that Saddam was ready to pursue a WMD program as soon as U.N. sanctions would have been lifted, and that U.S. invasion prevented a "nuclear arms bazaar" in Iraq, as the state was on the verge of collapse when the U.S. invaded.
And the arguments by liberals all purposefully circumnavigate these truths, to distort the seriousness of the pre-war Iraq situation.
Did Bush make mistakes? Sure he did.
Should he jettison Secretary Rumsfeld and replace him with someone who will restore trust in the Iraq war operations?
I think so.
Were there similar mistakes made in the WW II, Korean and Vietnam wars?
Faulty intelligence about the Fall of the Berlin Wall?
Non-existent advance intelligence regarding the collapse of Eastern Europe?
The collapse of the Soviet Union itself?
Aldritch Ames?
Taking Chalabi and other Iraq defectors at their word?
Absolutely.
There are still heated debates about Hirosima, Nagasaki, Dresden, postwar German POW's, and a thousand other incidents. Even from our most honorable and "just" wars.
No matter how right and decisive the action, there will always be sour-grapes dissenters churning out bestsellers to say they saw and advised the true path to a better way, and that the decision made was wrong.
Some right, some not.
But we still won these wars, without smearing our nation and our leaders, way beyond the limits of a civil dialogue (except in the case of the Vietnam War, where the dialogue got equally ugly).
Bush deserves criticism, yes. But let's stick to what's proven. And anything that's specualtion should be clearly labelled as speculation.
Alleging more than that is just partisan smear.
Quote: Wonder Boy said:...
Is it a scandal, a legal scandal?
No.
It's -- it's embarrassing. But it's not the scandal that some people think it is that's going to lead to resignations and firings.
...
Libby had to resign quite a while ago & Rove still may be indicted so I think it's fair to say that it's past embarrassing & well into being a legal scandal. On the other hand if Brooks is talking a legal scandal compared in scope to something like Watergate, he may be right.
Okay, touche.
You're right on Libby (at least partly. Judge Fitzgerald himself said that Bush authorized the intelligence report leak to answer the Joseph Wilson accusations, but ultimately that was just de-classification of intelligence that was safe to release in answer to the charges. But Fitzgerald said there was no indication that Bush or Cheney authorized publicly disclosing Plame's identity. Whether that would have been simply "unethical", or an actual crime.)
A Rove indictment is still speculation at this point. It looks to me like the level of scandal on this has crested and receded.
And what about Brooks' point that --to Democrats--mentioning Valerie Plame amounted to treason, but that Democrats have a different standard regarding:
1) exposure of the NSA top secret phone-tapping surveilance of Muslim terrorist calls overseas?
2)What about internal White House strategy secrets revealed by Richard Clarke?
3)What about exposure of abuses at Abu Ghraib (which the U.S. military JAG was already investigating internally, and the CBS expose story just made it that much harder to get the facts) ?
4)What about public officials revealing interrogation procedures at Guantanamo Bay and other military prisons, information that will make it that much harder for our military to get information from captured terrorists, that Al Qaida now knows our interrogation procedures and can resist them?
And for the record, despite not agreeing with you often, I appreciate the civility with which you present your liberal perspective in recent months. I think since the Bush/Kerry election, you've been much less inflammatory. Although we all have our moments. I certainly think r3x is capable of doing the same, as are many others here on both the left and right.
And I'm doing my best to be less inflammatory myself.
1) Personally insulting those who disagree with you. You disagree, okay, but it's easier to respect your views without the insults.
i'm always polite. stop being such a cunt.
Quote:
2) Accusing your opposition of "blindly" supporting Bush. Myself, G-man, WBAM and other conservatives here at RKMB, and in the public mainstream, have not been shy about opposing, Bush's Harriet Myers U.S.S.C. nomination, Bush's immigration amnesty proposal, Bush's social security plan, Bush's tax cuts, or even many aspects of the Iraq war. So it's a smear tactic by yourself and other Democrats to label support of Bush as "blind".
you're being a cunt. i asked you to stop.
Quote:
3) As has been said repeatedly, Bush began the Iraq invasion in March 2003 with the same intelligence that every other nation in Europe and the Middle East had on Iraq's WMD's (and again, as Bush's speeches leading up to the war --available at www.whitehouse.gov -- make clear, WMD's were not the only reason to invade Iraq. WMD's were only key to the Senate vote allowing the President to legally go to war in Iraq).
So... every country in Europe and the Middle East, AND THE U.N., with the best intelligence available at the time, believed Saddam Hussein had WMD's.
And the David Kay report showed that Iraq was in "material breach" of a ban on WMD's in Iraq, that Saddam was ready to pursue a WMD program as soon as U.N. sanctions would have been lifted, and that U.S. invasion prevented a "nuclear arms bazaar" in Iraq, as the state was on the verge of collapse when the U.S. invaded.
And the arguments by liberals all purposefully circumnavigate these truths, to distort the seriousness of the pre-war Iraq situation.
i asked you to stop. being a cunt like this is never cool.
Quote:
Did Bush make mistakes? Sure he did.
if someone makes a mistake in their job and hundreds of thousands die, should that person not be held accountable for negligence?
Quote: Should he jettison Secretary Rumsfeld and replace him with someone who will restore trust in the Iraq war operations? I think so.
obviously. and several retired generals who served in Iraq feel the same way. but that won't happen (see: crony)
Quote: Were there similar mistakes made in the WW II, Korean and Vietnam wars? Faulty intelligence about the Fall of the Berlin Wall? Non-existent advance intelligence regarding the collapse of Eastern Europe? The collapse of the Soviet Union itself? Aldritch Ames? Taking Chalabi and other Iraq defectors at their word?
Absolutely.
see, there you go again. being a cunt.
Quote: There are still heated debates about Hirosima, Nagasaki, Dresden, postwar German POW's, and a thousand other incidents. Even from our most honorable and "just" wars.
look, this whole being a cunt thing is getting tired. just stop.
Quote: No matter how right and decisive the action, there will always be sour-grapes dissenters churning out bestsellers to say they saw and advised the true path to a better way, and that the decision made was wrong.
and there will always be people who look at obviously faulty choices and still support them rather than admit to being wrong. oh, FYI. you have yet to stop being a cunt. work on it for me, won't you?
Quote: Some right, some not.
But we still won these wars, without smearing our nation and our leaders, way beyond the limits of a civil dialogue (except in the case of the Vietnam War, where the dialogue got equally ugly).
Bush deserves criticism, yes. But let's stick to what's proven. And anything that's specualtion should be clearly labelled as speculation. Alleging more than that is just partisan smear.
just try and work on not being a cunt this weekend. maybe just take it slow, then by monday you can come back and not be a cunt. okay?
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: ... stop being such a cunt.
...being a cunt.
...a cunt.
...cunt.
... cunt...
cunt.
...cunt....a cunt. okay?
Wow. Thank you for such an intelligent and well-thought-out rebuttal to the objections I raised.
It actually is pretty funny, both intentionally and unintentionally. It is overflowing with the sneering contempt and intolerance for opposing views you (and the kind of tantrum-prone liberal Democrats you represent) are known for, that makes having a civil dialogue on the core issues so difficult.
And I find it amazing that all the areas I said myself and many others conservatives here have voiced dissent with Bush, short of jumping to conclusions... and then you went right back to alleging we mindlessly support whatever Bush does (i.e., "still support them rather than admit to being wrong." ) Despite that we've clearly voiced objection to Bush policy we didn't like at every turn over the last three years.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: ... stop being such a cunt. ...being a cunt.
...a cunt.
...cunt.
... cunt... cunt.
...cunt....a cunt. okay?
Wow. Thank you for such an intelligent and well-thought-out rebuttal to the objections I raised.
It actually is pretty funny, both intentionally and unintentionally. It is overflowing with the sneering contempt and intolerance for opposing views you (and the kind of tantrum-prone liberal Democrats you represent) are known for, that makes having a civil dialogue on the core issues so difficult.
And I find it amazing that all the areas I said myself and many others conservatives here have voiced dissent with Bush, short of jumping to conclusions... and then you went right back to alleging we mindlessly support whatever Bush does (i.e., "still support them rather than admit to being wrong." ) Despite that we've clearly voiced objection to Bush policy we didn't like at every turn over the last three years.
And, of course, are cunts.
please watch your language, this is a family friendly forum.
Quote: Wonder Boy said:... You're right on Libby (at least partly. Judge Fitzgerald himself said that Bush authorized the intelligence report leak to answer the Joseph Wilson accusations, but ultimately that was just de-classification of intelligence that was safe to release in answer to the charges. But Fitzgerald said there was no indication that Bush or Cheney authorized publicly disclosing Plame's identity. Whether that would have been simply "unethical", or an actual crime.)
A Rove indictment is still speculation at this point. It looks to me like the level of scandal on this has crested and receded.
I think the way Bush authorized the leak hurts him in the eyes of many who saw him as honest. He discreditted himself by declassifying intel that was less than rock solid & propped it up by keeping contradictory intel classified. A Libby trial hasn't even started yet. I guess I would be surprised if this has crested yet.
Quote: And what about Brooks' point that --to Democrats--mentioning Valerie Plame amounted to treason, but that Democrats have a different standard regarding: 1) exposure of the NSA top secret phone-tapping surveilance of Muslim terrorist calls overseas? 2)What about internal White House strategy secrets revealed by Richard Clarke? 3)What about exposure of abuses at Abu Ghraib (which the U.S. military JAG was already investigating internally, and the CBS expose story just made it that much harder to get the facts) ? 4)What about public officials revealing interrogation procedures at Guantanamo Bay and other military prisons, information that will make it that much harder for our military to get information from captured terrorists, that Al Qaida now knows our interrogation procedures and can resist them?
I can understand why Brook's would prefer looking at Dem's reactions to other leaks now. That type of hypocrism goes both ways though. In fact I think the two leak threads on this board illustrate that quite clearly.
Quote: And for the record, despite not agreeing with you often, I appreciate the civility with which you present your liberal perspective in recent months. I think since the Bush/Kerry election, you've been much less inflammatory. Although we all have our moments. I certainly think r3x is capable of doing the same, as are many others here on both the left and right. And I'm doing my best to be less inflammatory myself.
Thanks, & I've noticed the less inflammatory Wonder Boy myself. It's nice. Hopefully I can follow your lead.
Quote: President Bush says he declassified portions of the prewar intelligence assessment on Iraq because he "wanted people to see the truth" about Iraq's weapons programs and to understand why he kept accusing Saddam Hussein of stockpiling weapons that turned out not to exist."
This would be a noble sentiment if it actually bore any relationship to Mr. Bush's actions in this case, or his overall record. ... Mr. Bush did not declassify the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq — in any accepted sense of that word — when he authorized I. Lewis Libby Jr., through Vice President Dick Cheney, to talk about it with reporters. He permitted a leak of cherry-picked portions of the report. The declassification came later.
And this president has never shown the slightest interest in disclosure, except when it suits his political purposes. He has run one of the most secretive administrations in American history, consistently withholding information and vital documents not just from the public, but also from Congress. Just the other day, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the House Judiciary Committee that the names of the lawyers who reviewed Mr. Bush's warrantless wiretapping program were a state secret.
Obviously, we do not object to government officials talking to reporters about important matters that their bosses do not want discussed. It would be impossible to cover any administration, especially one so secretive as this, unless that happened. (Judith Miller, who then worked for The Times, was one of the reporters Mr. Libby chose for this leak, although she never wrote about it.) But the version of the facts that Mr. Libby was authorized to divulge was so distorted that it seems more like disinformation than any sincere attempt to inform the public.
....
This messy episode leaves more questions than answers, so it is imperative that two things happen soon. First, the federal prosecutor in the Libby case should release the transcripts of what Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney said when he questioned them. And the Senate Intelligence Committee must report publicly on how Mr. Bush and his team used the flawed intelligence on Iraq. Senator Pat Roberts, the committee chairman, says the panel will meet this month to discuss three of the report's five sections. That's a step. And it has taken only two years to get this far.
What a Shocker! Someone at teh times has a negative oppinion of Bush and questioons his motives! Thank you for posting that, it changed my whole perspective on things.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said:President Bush says he declassified portions of the prewar intelligence assessment on Iraq because he "wanted people to see the truth" about Iraq's weapons programs and to understand why he kept accusing Saddam Hussein of stockpiling weapons that turned out not to exist."
so a portion would be something like "we have reports that Saddam was trying to buy from Niger" and then left out portions would be "but that was disproven."
Quote: Matter-eater Man said:President Bush says he declassified portions of the prewar intelligence assessment on Iraq because he "wanted people to see the truth" about Iraq's weapons programs and to understand why he kept accusing Saddam Hussein of stockpiling weapons that turned out not to exist."
so a portion would be something like "we have reports that Saddam was trying to buy from Niger" and then left out portions would be "but that was disproven."
I guess that's where I have a hard time understanding WBAM & others. What was declassified was clearly misleading. They obviously see something else or just ignoring the portions that don't work with what Bush says.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said:President Bush says he declassified portions of the prewar intelligence assessment on Iraq because he "wanted people to see the truth" about Iraq's weapons programs and to understand why he kept accusing Saddam Hussein of stockpiling weapons that turned out not to exist."
so a portion would be something like "we have reports that Saddam was trying to buy from Niger" and then left out portions would be "but that was disproven."
I guess that's where I have a hard time understanding WBAM & others. What was declassified was clearly misleading. They obviously see something else or just ignoring the portions that don't work with what Bush says.
Show me the portions that contradict what the president said? You say you "don't understand" why we believe what we believe. Well, perhaps that's teh problem. You've become so ideologicaly one sided that not only do you dissagree with the opposition, but you become baffled that the entire world doen't buy into your interpretation of events. You post opinions as though they're facts then wonder why we ignore such "facts". You've become so immersed in the "hate Bush" movement that you forget that things you accept as fact haven't been substatiated. Just because Joe Wilson said something doesn't make it gospel truth.
Not sure how reliable this site is but it might explain why Bush moved Rove back into the shadows.
Quote: Just as the news broke Wednesday about Scott McClellan resigning as White House press secretary and Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove shedding some of his policy duties, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald met with the grand jury hearing evidence in the CIA leak case and introduced additional evidence against Rove, attorneys and other US officials close to the investigation said.
The grand jury session in federal court in Washington, DC, sources close to the case said, was the first time this year that Fitzgerald told the jurors that he would soon present them with a list of criminal charges he intends to file against Rove in hopes of having the grand jury return a multi-count indictment against Rove.
In an interview Wednesday, Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove remains a "subject" of Fitzgerald's two-year-old probe.
"Mr. Rove is still a subject of the investigation," Luskin said. In a previous interview, Luskin asserted that Rove would not be indicted by Fitzgerald, but he was unwilling to make that prediction again Wednesday.
"Mr. Fitzgerald hasn't made any decision on the charges and I can't speculate what the outcome will be," Luskin said. "Mr. Rove has cooperated completely with the investigation."
Fitzgerald is said to have introduced more evidence Wednesday alleging Rove lied to FBI investigators and the grand jury when he was questioned about how he found out that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA and whether he shared that information with the media, attorneys close to the case said.
Fitzgerald told the grand jury that Rove lied to investigators and the prosecutor eight out of the nine times he was questioned about the leak and also tried to cover-up his role in disseminating Plame Wilson's CIA status to at least two reporters.
Additionally, an FBI investigator reread to jurors testimony from other witnesses in the case that purportedly implicates Rove in playing a role in the leak and the campaign to discredit Plame Wilson's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose criticism of the Bush administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence lead to his wife being unmasked as a covert CIA operative. ...
Columnist Robert Novak, whose July 2003 column prompted the Plame investigation, spoke out about it at a forum sponsored by the Chicago Sun-Times:
Novak also claimed that investigators know who leaked the information, although he did not say how they know.
"The question is, does Fitzgerald know who the source was?" Novak asked. "Of course. He's known for years who the first source is. If he knows the source, why didn't he indict him? Because no crime was committed."
Christopher Hitchens is dogged in his pursuit of Joe Wilson, the man who claimed to have debunked the president's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.
Hitchens explains that "in February 1999, Saddam Hussein dispatched his former envoy [Wissam al-Zahawie] to the International Atomic Energy Agency, and former delegate to non-proliferation conferences at the United Nations, to Niger." Hitchens asks a reasonable question, what was Zahawie doing in Niger in 1999, and why didn't Joe Wilson have anything to say about it? After all, Joe was well-connected with Niger government officials, that's why the vice president, the CIA, former Clinton official and Kerry supporter Mary McCarthy (?) sent him to Niger on a special mission to discover whetherdispel any claim that Iraq had contacted Niger regarding yellowcake uranium.
Joseph Wilson went to Niger in 2002 to investigate whether or not the country had renewed its uranium-based relationship with Iraq, spent a few days (by his own account) sipping mint tea with officials of that country who were (by his wife's account) already friendly to him, and came back with the news that all was above-board. Again to repeat myself, this must mean either that A) he did not know that Zahawie had come calling or B) that he did know but didn't think it worth mentioning that one of Saddam's point men on nukes had been in town. In neither case, it seems to me, should he be trusted with another mission that requires any sort of curiosity.
What is curious is why this was an ongoing, 24 hour a day story when Joe Wilson announced in the New York Times the results of his secret mission. Yet now that Wilson's claims are throughly, if not debunked, then rebutted, why has the media not worked itself into a frenzy? Where are the questions for Wilson's supporters? Where are the investigative journalists who are all too willing to dig up classified information that they can publicize at the risk of endangering U.S. policy and U.S. troops?
Certainly there must be some reason that there is no effort to undermine the primary narrative of the Iraq War and how we got into it. It must be more than incompetence on the part of the news editors and their inability to put two and two together.
Hitchens is calling for a special counsel to investigate the McCarthy leaks and throw reporters in jail if they don't turn over their notes, a la Scooter/Rove/Fitzgerald.
If it happens, it will be interesting to watch the Bush-haters, in the CIA and the press, themselves get what they wanted for the President.
Quote: Multiple networks confirm: Rove to testify before grand jury .... MSNBC, AP, Fox News and CNN have all confirmed an NBC report that Deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove will be testifying under oath for a fifth time in the investigation into the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame, RAW STORY can report.
Rove met with attorneys to prepare this morning.
Failure by Rove to report conversations about Plame with Time reporter Matt Cooper was one focus of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's meeting with the grand jury yesterday. It was only the second time Fitzgerald has met with the grand jury.
Rove didn't report the conversations until near one year after the probes began. Months before Rove related the conversations to Fitzgerald, columnist Robert Novak told investigators that Rove may have discussed Plame's identity with Cooper.
The presidential advisor, who stepped down from his policy making role last week, is widely expected to be addressing new information that has recently emerged indicating that Rove attorney Robert Luskin had spoken to another Time magazine reporter, Viveca Novak, at a point critical in the prosecutor's case.
Still unknown is the identity of who shared information about Plame with reporter Bob Woodward.
Rove has not received a notification that he is a target of the investigation, or that he would likely be indicted. According to AP, Fitzgerald recently told Rove attorneys that he has not decided whether or not Rove will be facing charges.
RAW STORY reported earlier this month that those close to the case say that Rove is cooperating with the prosecution and may have provided the prosecutor with information that led to the White House turning over hundreds of pages of previously 'missing emails.'
Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, adamantly denied the report.
Your source, however, says that Rove is cooperating with the prosecutors and providing them information. If your source is correct, that would tend to mean he is not going to be indicted.
Quote: the G-man said: Your source, however, says that Rove is cooperating with the prosecutors and providing them information. If your source is correct, that would tend to mean he is not going to be indicted.
Palpatine coorperated with the Jedis mostly....mostly.
Quote: the G-man said: Your source, however, says that Rove is cooperating with the prosecutors and providing them information. If your source is correct, that would tend to mean he is not going to be indicted.
Palpatine coorperated with the Jedis mostly....mostly.
Star Wars is a work of fiction, much like your claims regarding Bush, Hitler, Science, electability of Vice Presidents, religion... fiction.
Quote: MSNBC confirms: Outed CIA agent was working on Iran
On Chris Matthews' Hardball Monday evening, just moments ago, MSNBC correspondent David Shuster confirmed what RAW STORY first reported in February: that outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson was working on Iran at the time she was outed.
RAW STORY's Larisa Alexandrovna broke the story earlier this year, which went unnoticed by the mainstream media (Read our full story).
According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.
Reports Shuster in this rush transcript: "INTELLIGENCE SOURCES SAY VALERIE WILSON WAS PART OF AN OPERATION THREE YEARS AGO TRACKING THE PROLIFERATION OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS MATERIAL INTO IRAN. AND THE SOURCES ALLEGE THAT WHEN MRS. WILSON'S COVER WAS BLOWN, THE ADMINISTRATION'S ABILITY TO TRACK IRAN'S NUCLEAR AMBITIONS WAS DAMAGED AS WELL. ...
What this story really says is that Plame was an analyst, not a covert operative.
Further, if she was, in fact, working on Iran...then that tends to indicate she had little, if any, real knowledge of IraQ, which tends to indicate her recommending her husband for the job was, in fact, an uninformed recommendation...or perhaps one designed to hurt the Bush administration.
Quote: the G-man said: What this story really says is that Plame was an analyst, not a covert operative.
Further, if she was, in fact, working on Iran...then that tends to indicate she had little, if any, real knowledge of IraQ, which tends to indicate her recommending her husband for the job was, in fact, an uninformed recommendation...or perhaps one designed to hurt the Bush administration.
You have yet to provide any valid reason to destroy her career.
Quote: the G-man said: What this story really says is that Plame was an analyst, not a covert operative.
Further, if she was, in fact, working on Iran...then that tends to indicate she had little, if any, real knowledge of IraQ, which tends to indicate her recommending her husband for the job was, in fact, an uninformed recommendation...or perhaps one designed to hurt the Bush administration.
You have yet to provide any valid reason to destroy her career.
You have yet to prove that anyone is more guilty than her own husband in outing her.
Quote: the G-man said: What this story really says is that Plame was an analyst, not a covert operative.
Further, if she was, in fact, working on Iran...then that tends to indicate she had little, if any, real knowledge of IraQ, which tends to indicate her recommending her husband for the job was, in fact, an uninformed recommendation...or perhaps one designed to hurt the Bush administration.
You have yet to provide any valid reason to destroy her career.
You have yet to prove that anyone is more guilty than her own husband in outing her.
Her husband didn't out her. Even if he did fake his story, for the sake of argument but i don't buy that he did, then they still had no right to out her.
I don't think you can really say ANYONE "outed" her.
As noted above, Plame was a WMD analyst, not a field agent. She was based out of CIA headquarters since 1997.
Her exact position was classified, but to argue that anyone who drove through the main gates of the CIA in Langley every day for work is somehow covert is asinine.
On at least one occasion, Wilson himself was forced to admit she wasn’t covert. His exact word was "clandestine" in a July 14, 2005 interview with Wolf Blitzer of CNN.
As for what revealing Plame’s name did or didn’t do to her section in the CIA, I think MEM and his friends at Raw Story are making assumptions.
Plame is hardly the only WMD analyst in the CIA, and is quite likely to be one of many working on Iran. While, granted, this is an assumption on my own part, given Iran has been one of our main enemies since at least the Carter administratiom, I think that's a safer assumption than the one RAW makes.
The bottom line here is that the only reason RAW, or MEM, or you, care about Plame at all is because you see it as an excuse to bash Bush. If you really cared about national security, you'd be more upset about the other leaks that have been documented that did, in fact, compromise the war against terror.
I would kindly suggest G-man that your letting partisanship cloud your judgement. Luckily this matter is in the courts & hopefully escapes such partisanship judgement.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I would kindly suggest G-man that your letting partisanship cloud your judgement. Luckily this matter is in the courts & hopefully escapes such partisanship judgement.
For about two years now, I've been telling you guys that there was real doubt that Plame was outed at all, that "outing" her may not be a crime, etc. For about that same time, you've been accusing me of being partisan.
To date, however, not a single person has been charged with outing Plame and the only criminal charge to date was a count of lying to the grand jury, which I said was, in fact, a crime.
In other words, to date, the courts have operated in a manner consistent my position, not yours.
Maybe, at some point, new evidence will surface to support what you've been saying. However, to date, my "biased" and "partisan" claims have been the ones borne out, while your hysterical predictions of indictmens of Rove, et al, haven't.
Quote: ...As MSNBC first reported yesterday, Wilson was not just undercover... but was, according to intelligence sources, part of an effort three years ago to monitor the proliferation of nuclear weapons material into Iran. And the sources allege that when Mrs. Wilson's cover was blown, part of the administration's ability to track Iran's nuclear ambitions was damaged as well.
There is no evidence Vice President Cheney, who gave information to his now indicted chief of staff Scooter Libby, knew what Wilson was involved in. But intelligence experts say the Vice President appears to have had indications that Wilson's responsibilities were sensitive. The Libby indictment says, quote, "on or about June 12, 2003, Libby was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division."
In the Intelligence community, that division means something special.
Rand Beers: You know for a fact that firstly, the people who work there could be undercover agents working in that office or people on the agent's side of the CIA. And secondly, the issues were among the two most important issues the CIA was working on."
Vice President Cheney was no stranger to the CIA. In the run-up to the Iraq war, he visited CIA headquarters on half a dozen occasions. And Scooter Libby, his chief of staff, was also well versed on the intelligence community.
But prosecution documents in the Libby case paint a picture of a white house so intent on undercutting Cheney critic Joe Wilson that officials failed to consider the possible harm to Wilson's wife or the possible damage to the CIA. In other words, say intelligence experts, the white house war on the Wilsons may have actually weakened the administration's war on terror.
Rand Beers: Even at the time of the undermining in the summer of 2003, we were still deeply worried about what was happening in the Iranian nuclear program. So, why would you want to undermine that." ...
A blogger at American Thinker thinks that Wilson himself might have been the one who "outed" his wife.
That's a long shot. However, given how willing Wilson is to trade on his wife's alleged "covert" status even to this day, it's not completely impossible.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: [Plame] was not just undercover... but was, according to intelligence sources, part of an effort three years ago to monitor the proliferation of nuclear weapons material into Iran. And the sources allege that when Mrs. Wilson's cover was blown, part of the administration's ability to track Iran's nuclear ambitions was damaged as well.
Wow. Look at this. It's the Who's Who entry for Joe Wilson. There's his wife's name, Valerie Plame, right there since the late 1990s.
The secret part was that Plame was a NOC. If it's any consolation, if there is any merit to this somehow being a CIA out to get Bush conspiracy, they won't get away with it. That still wouldn't help Libby or (if indicted) Rove, for lying though.
Quote: Cheney Penned Note About Plame, Filing Shows
After former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV publicly criticized a key rationale for the war in Iraq, Vice President Cheney wrote a note on a newspaper clipping raising the possibility that the critique resulted from a CIA-sponsored "junket" arranged by Wilson's wife, covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, according to court documents filed late Friday.
The filing by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald is the second that names Cheney as a key White House official who questioned the legitimacy of Wilson's examination of Iraqi nuclear ambitions. It further suggests that Cheney helped originate the idea in his office that Wilson's credibility was undermined by his link to Plame.
Fitzgerald's filing states that Cheney passed the annotated article by Wilson to his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who Fitzgerald says subsequently discussed Wilson's marriage to Plame in conversations with two reporters, despite the fact that Plame was a covert CIA officer and her name was not supposed to be revealed. The filing was first reported by Newsweek on its Web site.
Fitzgerald does not allege in his filing that Cheney ordered Libby to disclose Plame's identity. But he states that Cheney's note to Libby helps "explain the context of, and provide a motive for" many of the later statements and actions by Libby. Libby was indicted last year for making false statements to FBI agents, obstruction of justice and perjury, mostly based on Libby's testimony that he did not confirm Plame's involvement in conversations with the two journalists. ...
Fitzgerald does not allege in his filing that Cheney ordered Libby to disclose Plame's identity.
Furthermore, as the article later goes on to point out, it seems as if Cheney's concerns may have been more about Wilson having a conflict of interest than anything else
"Have they done this sort of thing before?" Cheney wrote. "Send an amb[assador] to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?"
Granted, none of that is a defense for Libby if Libby committed perjury. However, it does tend to confirm what some have said all along: that this was less a deliberate attempt to "out" a "covert" agent, and more of a discussion of whether Wilson was, in fact, qualified for the job in the first place.
It would be interesting to hear Cheney's side of the story on this (under oath of course) Did he & others find out that part of the CIA was conspiring against him & the President? Perhaps during the Libby trial.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: It would be interesting to hear Cheney's side of the story on this (under oath of course) Did he & others find out that part of the CIA was conspiring against him & the President? Perhaps during the Libby trial.
Since Libby is on trial for perjury, NOT "outing" a "covert" operative, Cheney's testimony on that issue would seem largely irrelevant.
Quote: Libby Prosecutor Focuses on CIA Officer's Status Filings Say Ex-Cheney Aide Knew That Plame Was Classified, Giving Him Reason to Lie to Grand Jury
The classified status of the identity of former CIA officer Valerie Plame will be a key element in any trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, according to special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald.
Fitzgerald has said that at trial he plans to show that Libby knew Plame's employment at the CIA was classified and that he lied to the grand jury when he said he had learned from NBC News's Tim Russert that Plame, the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, worked for the agency. ...
Quote: the G-man said Sat Jul 02 2005 09:39 AM: Even if true that Rove leaked the name, it has been noted on more than one occasion here that this was quite possibly not even a crime…the so-called "outing" of Plame was probably not criminal after all.
Quote: the G-man said Mon Jul 11 2005 11:57 AM: At this point, Rove is looking innocent
Quote: the G-man said Fri Jul 15 2005 02:23 PM: … Rove simply confirmed a fact that was already in circulation. He no more "outed" Plame than Wilson did when he peddled his "outing" allegation to various left-wing journalists after Novak's column ran.
Quote: the G-man said Wed Apr 26 2006 01:32 PM: If your source is correct, that would tend to mean he is not going to be indicted.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I would kindly suggest G-man that your letting partisanship cloud your judgement. Luckily this matter is in the courts & hopefully escapes such partisanship judgement.
Quote: the G-man said Tue May 02 2006 08:58 PM: For about two years now, I've been telling you guys that there was real doubt that Plame was outed at all, that "outing" her may not be a crime, etc. For about that same time, you've been accusing me of being partisan.
To date, however, not a single person has been charged with outing Plame and the only criminal charge to date was a count of lying to the grand jury, which I said was, in fact, a crime.
In other words, to date, the courts have operated in a manner consistent my position, not yours.
President Bush’s political adviser Karl Rove won’t be charged with any wrongdoing in connection to the investigation of the leak of a covert CIA officer’s identity, Rove's lawyer said Tuesday.
Rove learned of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's decision on Monday after he stepped off a plane in New Hampshire where he was delivering a speech to state Republican officials.
“We believe that the special counsel's decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove's conduct,” Rove attorney Robert Luskin said in a statement. "In deference to the pending case, we will not make any further public statements about the subject matter of the investigation."
Fitzgerald’s decision ends speculation into the investigation that started in 2004 that Bush could lose his longtime political aide if criminal charges came down against him.
I'm sure that MEM, or someone, will show up to tell us this event is all part of "another Rovian plot to distract us from Iraq...he orchestrated this whole investigation, at the potential cost of his own reputation, only to divert attention from the booming economy and the Iraq disaster, where we've accomplished nothing more than removing a tyrant and establishing a piddling little representative democracy in the heart of the Arab world...I think we should investigate Patrick Fitzgerald the special prosecutor...since this is obviously a vast right wing conspiracy..."
Quote: the G-man said Sat Jul 02 2005 09:39 AM: Even if true that Rove leaked the name, it has been noted on more than one occasion here that this was quite possibly not even a crime…the so-called "outing" of Plame was probably not criminal after all.
Quote: the G-man said Mon Jul 11 2005 11:57 AM: At this point, Rove is looking innocent
Quote: the G-man said Fri Jul 15 2005 02:23 PM: … Rove simply confirmed a fact that was already in circulation. He no more "outed" Plame than Wilson did when he peddled his "outing" allegation to various left-wing journalists after Novak's column ran.
Quote: the G-man said Wed Apr 26 2006 01:32 PM: If your source is correct, that would tend to mean he is not going to be indicted.
President Bush’s political adviser Karl Rove won’t be charged with any wrongdoing in connection to the investigation of the leak of a covert CIA officer’s identity, Rove's lawyer said Tuesday.
Rove learned of Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's decision on Monday after he stepped off a plane in New Hampshire where he was delivering a speech to state Republican officials.
“We believe that the special counsel's decision should put an end to the baseless speculation about Mr. Rove's conduct,” Rove attorney Robert Luskin said in a statement. "In deference to the pending case, we will not make any further public statements about the subject matter of the investigation."
Fitzgerald’s decision ends speculation into the investigation that started in 2004 that Bush could lose his longtime political aide if criminal charges came down against him.
so, your opinion as a lawyer, is that if someone isn't charged then they must be innocent?
Beyond the whole "innocent until proven guilty" concept, there is the fact that, for a grand jury to charge someone, there need only be a "probable cause" or a reasonable basis to believe that person committed a crime.
In the case at hand, the grand jury apparently found there was not even a reasonable basis to believe that Rove committed a crime. Therefore, yes, he is technically "innocent."
Quote: the G-man said: Beyond the whole "innocent until proven guilty" concept, there is the fact that, for a grand jury to charge someone, there need only be a "probable cause" or a reasonable basis to believe that person committed a crime.
In the case at hand, the grand jury apparently found there was not even a reasonable basis to believe that Rove committed a crime. Therefore, yes, he is technically "innocent."
look you can say "see? he wasn't charged" but you can't sit there like an ass and proclaim "he was innocent all along, bring on the oiled boys"
This has got to be the worst day for the Angry Left since at least last Thursday. For months they have been the day that the grand jury handed up indictments of Rove and--who knows?--maybe even the vice president himself.
Sorry, guys.
Anyway, look around the Web and you can find examples of the Angry Left going through the five stages of grieving:
Denial.Truthout.org (motto: "If you want the truth, get out of here") "reports" that Rove actually has been indicted. "As of Friday afternoon that indictment, returned by the grand jury the week of May 10th, remains under seal--more than a month after it was handed up by the grand jury. The case number is "06 cr 128." On the federal court's electronic database, '06 cr 128' is listed along with a succinct summary: 'No further information is available.' " Says blogress Christy Smith: "Unless and until I hear it from Patrick Fitzgerald, the investigation continues to be ongoing. Which means that there are still potential developments down the road."
Bargaining. "This latest news doesn't prove or disprove the basic question of whether Fitzgerald was ready to indict Rove," claims Duncan "Atrios" Black. "It's quite likely Rove has cut a deal of some sort. It's quite possible that Fitz's letter to Luskin, which hasn't been made public as far as I can tell, says something along the lines of 'as long as you cooperate as promised your ass is safe for now.' " Black's employer, Media Mutters, says maybe Rove will lose his security clearance for--well, for what isn't quite clear.
Anger. "He doesn't belong in the White House. If the president valued America more than he valued his connection to Karl Rove, Karl Rove would have been fired a long time ago," says Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean on the "Today" show. "So I think this is probably good news for the White House, but it's not very good news for America."
Despair. "My Heart Is Broken, My Spirit Crushed, My Faith in America Destroyed," declares "Dementer"on DemocraticUnderground.com. "On the other hand, I am sure that there are numerous other criminal enterprises that Kkkarl [sic] has participated in, so we just have to keep digging. Perhaps Fitz is doing just that--he has the license to do so. Or am I approaching the definition of insanity, here?"
Acceptance. "I think the chances are nil that Luskin is making this up since that'd be practically daring Patrick Fitzgerald to indict his client," says Josh Marshall. "Whatever else he may be . . ., he's no fool." Though Marshall must be feeling quite foolish for having been one of Wilson's most enthusiastic and credulous cheerleaders way back when.
Drudge notes that many Angry Left Web sites have been strangely quiet, though MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, who according to Drudge has predicted Rove's indictment at least 26 times, does comment: "It is the 'Perfect Storm' of baseball scandals."
Quote: the G-man said: This has got to be the worst day for the Angry Left since at least [url=http://www.rkmbs.com/showflat.php/Number/717203#717203">last Thursday</a>. For months they have been the day that the grand jury handed up indictments of Rove and--who knows?--maybe even the vice president himself.</p><p>Sorry, guys.</p><p>Anyway, look around the Web and you can find examples of the Angry Left going through <a href="http://rovianconspiracy.blogspot.com/2006/06/reality-based-community-goes-through-5.html]the five stages of grieving[/url]:</p> <ul>
Denial. [url=http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/061206Z.shtml]Truthout.org[/url] (motto: "If you want the truth, get out of here") "reports" that Rove actually has been indicted. "As of Friday afternoon that indictment, returned by the grand jury the week of May 10th, remains under seal--more than a month after it was handed up by the grand jury. The case number is "06 cr 128." On the federal court's electronic database, '06 cr 128' is listed along with a succinct summary: 'No further information is available.' " Says blogress [url=http://www.firedoglake.com/2006/06/13/dodging-cipa-graymail-bulletsand-other-legal-notes/]Christy Smith[/url]: "Unless and until I hear it from Patrick Fitzgerald, the investigation continues to be ongoing. Which means that there are still potential developments down the road."<br><br></li>
Bargaining. "This latest news doesn't prove or disprove the basic question of whether Fitzgerald was ready to indict Rove," claims [url=http://atrios.blogspot.com/2006_06_11_atrios_archive.html#115021086256551479]Duncan "Atrios" Black[/url]. "It's quite likely Rove has cut a deal of some sort. It's quite possible that Fitz's letter to Luskin, which hasn't been made public as far as I can tell, says something along the lines of 'as long as you cooperate as promised your ass is safe for now.' " Black's employer, [url=http://mediamatters.org/items/200606130002]Media Mutters[/url], says maybe Rove will lose his security clearance for--well, for what isn't quite clear.<br> <br> </li>
Anger. "He doesn't belong in the White House. If the president valued America more than he valued his connection to Karl Rove, Karl Rove would have been fired a long time ago," says Democratic National Committee chairman [url=http://www.woai.com/news/local/story.aspx?content_id=D3F63690-656F-4AA8-9A27-5EFD0CE765C1]Howard Dean[/url] on the "Today" show. "So I think this is probably good news for the White House, but it's not very good news for America." <br><br> </li>
Despair. "My Heart Is Broken, My Spirit Crushed, My Faith in America Destroyed," declares "[url=http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=2335471&mesg_id=2335481]Dementer[/url]"on DemocraticUnderground.com. "On the other hand, I am sure that there are numerous other criminal enterprises that Kkkarl [sic] has participated in, so we just have to keep digging. Perhaps Fitz is doing just that--he has the license to do so. Or am I approaching the definition of insanity, here?"<br> <br> </li>
Acceptance. "I think the chances are nil that Luskin is making this up since that'd be practically daring Patrick Fitzgerald to indict his client," says [url=http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/008729.php]Josh Marshall[/url]. "Whatever else he may be . . ., he's no fool." Though Marshall must be feeling quite foolish for having been one of Wilson's most enthusiastic and credulous cheerleaders way back when.</li>[/LIST]<p>[url=http://www.drudgereport.com/flash2ri.htm]Drudge[/url] notes that many Angry Left Web sites have been strangely quiet, though MSNBC's [url=http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12131617/#060607a]Keith Olbermann[/url], who according to Drudge has predicted Rove's indictment at least 26 times, does comment: "It is the 'Perfect Storm' of baseball scandals." </p>
You are a such a sad, petty person. The fact that an adult, supposed professional lawyer, takes the time to make such a fancy little post that ultimately boils down to a petty "i told you so" logical fallacy is so sad. Are we still supposed to believe that you're married with a job? Are we?
I must not be a member of that group "the angry left". Sure I'm skeptical of Rove having a faulty memory & the almost half dozen times he went before the Grand Jury to amend & clarify earlier statements. Rove probably did lie when earlier questioned. Yet I'm fine with perjury not being decided on a "probably". Considering Fitzgerald has demonstrated that he's a tough but fair prosecutor, we're left with a "probably". That is a good thing. Perjury is & should be a hard thing to prove.
BTW I'm guessing PaulWellr didn't change the title of this thread but perhaps a mod?
President Bush told the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case that he directed Vice President Dick Cheney to personally lead an effort to counter allegations made by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV that his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to people familiar with the president's statement.
Bush told prosecutors he directed Cheney to disclose classified information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson.
Bush also told federal prosecutors during his June 24, 2004, interview in the Oval Office that he had directed Cheney, as part of that broader effort, to disclose highly classified intelligence information that would not only defend his administration but also discredit Wilson, the sources said.
But Bush told investigators that he was unaware that Cheney had directed I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice president's chief of staff, to covertly leak the classified information to the media instead of releasing it to the public after undergoing the formal governmental declassification processes.
Bush also said during his interview with prosecutors that he had never directed anyone to disclose the identity of then-covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife. Bush said he had no information that Cheney had disclosed Plame's identity or directed anyone else to do so.
Libby has said that neither the president nor the vice president directed him or other administration officials to disclose Plame's CIA employment to the press. Cheney has also denied having any role in the disclosure.
On October 28, 2005, a federal grand jury indicted Libby on five felony counts of making false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice, for allegedly concealing his own role, and perhaps that of others, in outing Plame as a covert CIA officer. ...
National Journal Guess we now understand why Bush ammended his original statement about the leaks.
Quote: the G-man said: This has got to be the worst day for the Angry Left ... For months they have been the day that the grand jury handed up indictments of Rove and--who knows?--maybe even the vice president himself.... look around the Web and you can find examples of the Angry Left going through the five stages of grieving...Denial
If you noticed G-man, the National Review article was about Bush being responsable for the leak. To be more precise he's admitted to the parts that could be traced back to him. Please explain why Rove not being indicted has to do with that?
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: If you noticed G-man, the National Review article was about Bush being responsable for the leak.
Oh, is that what it was about?
Quote: Bush also said during his interview with prosecutors that he had never directed anyone to disclose the identity of then-covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife. Bush said he had no information that Cheney had disclosed Plame's identity or directed anyone else to do so.
I find it ironic, hell, I find wildly hypocritical, that the same people who constantly whine about wanting "open government" suddenly consider it a high crime for the President of the United States, of all people, to decide to release information that was his to classify or declassify in the first place.
As noted in the past, it seems that the actual standard that the MEM's of the board want is that information that is potentially embarrasing to Bush should be public, whilr the rest should be classified.
Furthermore, I find it equally ironic that the MEMs of the board think that this debate should be so damn one-sided. They want the Joe Wilsons to be able to say whatever they want without challenge, but as soon as the Bush team tries to point out flaws in Wilson's case, or potential conflicts of interest he might have, then suddenly they don't want debate. Instead, they cry "foul" and "character assasination."
I don't want it to be one sided but then again I'm addressing the guy who titles his thread "ROVE INNOCENT, MEM WRONG, G-MAN RIGHT!" Just a suggestion but when you personalize things like that, it looks not so much like debate.
You talk about "open government" but Bush & gang were using reporters to rebut & discredit Wilson so that it couldn't be traced back to them. How do you consider that "open government"?
Quote: the G-man said: I find it ironic, hell, I find wildly hypocritical, that the same people who constantly whine about wanting "open government" suddenly consider it a high crime for the President of the United States, of all people, to decide to release information that was his to classify or declassify in the first place.
because he chooses to declassify the things that will help him and hurt his political enemies. Which is unethical.
Quote: As noted in the past, it seems that the actual standard that the MEM's of the board want is that information that is potentially embarrasing to Bush should be public, whilr the rest should be classified.
no, but its easy for you to say that and ignore the real issue. We want information that is important to be released. Like what the government is doing, not who some guys wife is. We have an administration that has on the record lies that got us into war, unanswered questions about 9/11, "free speech zones" to keep any dissenting voice far from the president, torture, failure in wars, and Bush chooses to be open about some minor bullshit so it can hurt some guy who questioned him.
Quote: Furthermore, I find it equally ironic that the MEMs of the board think that this debate should be so damn one-sided. They want the Joe Wilsons to be able to say whatever they want without challenge, but as soon as the Bush team tries to point out flaws in Wilson's case, or potential conflicts of interest he might have, then suddenly they don't want debate. Instead, they cry "foul" and "character assasination."
Did Bush show the absolute proof Wilson was wrong, or just out his wife as a CIA agent? I guess the G-man's of the board have some twisted sense of what an intelligent and fair government is.
It seems, however, that the standard for what is 'important' is how much it will hurt and/or embarrass the Bush administration.
Furthermore, it is, to use that word again, ironic, that the same group that thinks nothing of attacking the administrations' motive for war as based on alleged family and business ties to (choose one): Haliburton, the Saudi Royal Family, Israel, Bin Laden and even the first President Bush suddenly finds examining family ties unsavory when it is a Bush critic who might have a conflict of interest.
Oh, and go back and read the rest of the thread, Ray. There are a number of posts about how congress find out Wilson lied.
Wilson isn't on trial G-man. We know the White House tried to secretly discredit him & the conservative press & partisans such as yourself certainly tried to convict him in the court of public opinion but it's fortunatley since moved into a legal arena.
And, to date, "the legal arena" has not only failed to charge a single official with "outing an agent" but has cleared the one person (Rove) that you predicted would be implicated.
Robert Novak reports that he has also been cleared in this case:
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has informed my attorneys that, after two and one-half years, his investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to me has been concluded.
Published reports that I took the Fifth Amendment, made a plea bargain with the prosecutors or was a prosecutorial target were all untrue.
He also states that:
For nearly the entire time of his investigation, Fitzgerald knew -- independent of me -- the identity of the sources I used in my column of July 14, 2003.That Fitzgerald did not indict any of these sources may indicate his conclusion that none of them violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.
Again, to date, despite allegations by the left, not a single person has been charged with "outing a covert operative," perhaps because, as Novak notes:
I learned Valerie Plame's name from [husband] Joe Wilson's entry in Who's Who in America.
At what point will the media, if not the hard left, be forced to drop the fiction that Valerie Plame was outed?
Quote: Now that Karl Rove won't be indicted, now that the president won't fire him, now that it really doesn't matter anymore, more details of the Valerie Plame leak investigation trickle out.
In his latest syndicated column released Wednesday, columnist Robert Novak revealed his side of the story in the Plame affair, saying Rove was a confirming source for Novak's story outing the CIA officer, underscoring Rove's role in a leak President Bush once promised to punish.
The columnist said he learned of Plame's CIA employment from a source he still refuses to publicly identify, and then confirmed with Rove and then-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, whose roles in talking to Novak have been previously reported.
Novak said for the first time that prosecutors looking into the leaks already knew his sources when he agreed to disclose them.
Novak comes late to the Plame game, long after several other reporters talked publicly about the involvement of Rove and of Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, in leaking the CIA identity of the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Novak says he kept his mouth shut so long because prosecutors asked him to.
A month ago, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald said he didn't anticipate seeking charges against Rove. Novak wrote that, more recently, Fitzgerald told his lawyer that after 2 1/2 years his investigation of the CIA leak case concerning matters directly relating to Novak has been concluded, freeing him to talk now.
Triggering the criminal investigation that resulted in Libby being charged with perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI, Novak revealed Plame's CIA employment on July 14, 2003, eight days after her husband went on the attack against the Bush administration.
Initially refusing to identify his sources to the FBI, Novak knew that Fitzgerald had obtained signed waivers from every official who might have provided Novak information about Plame. Despite that, Novak was prepared to resist. He says he relented in early 2004 when it became clear that Fitzgerald "knew the names of my sources."
Novak could still have protected his sources, but his lawyer told him "I was sure to lose a case in the courts at great expense."
In contrast to other reporters whose news organizations footed the bill for lengthy and expensive legal battles, the fact that Novak was a no-show in contentious court proceedings fed a rumor mill.
"Published reports that I took the Fifth Amendment, made a plea bargain with the prosecutors or was a prosecutorial target were all untrue," Novak writes. The facts were simpler. He was telling prosecutors everything he knew, and taking a beating in public for not talking about it.
Keeping quiet had the effect of providing protection for the Bush White House during the 2004 presidential campaign, because the White House had denied Rove played any role in the leak of Plame's CIA identity.
As Rove's legal problems grew a year ago, Bush said he stood by his pledge to "fire anybody" in his administration shown to have leaked Valerie Plame's name. His press secretary, after checking with Rove and Libby, assured the public that neither man had anything to do with the leak.
Now that he's finally opening up, Novak is stirring up more trouble, saying without elaboration that his recollection of his conversation with Rove about Plame differs from Rove's. Rove's spokesman says the difference amounts to very little.
"I have revealed Rove's name because his attorney has divulged the substance of our conversation, though in a form different from my recollection," Novak wrote. Novak did not elaborate.
A spokesman for Rove's legal team, Mark Corallo, said that Rove did not even know Plame's name at the time he spoke with Novak, that the columnist called Rove, not the other way around, and that Rove simply replied he had heard the same information that Novak passed along to him regarding Plame.
"There was not much of a difference" between the recollections of Rove and Novak, said Corallo.
Novak says he told Fitzgerald that Harlow of the CIA had confirmed information about Plame.
Harlow declined to comment Tuesday night. But a U.S. intelligence official familiar with the matter denied that Harlow had been a confirming source for Novak on the story. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Harlow repeatedly tried to talk Novak out of running the information about Plame and that Harlow's efforts did not in any way constitute confirming Plame's CIA identity.
The official spoke on condition of anonymity because Harlow may end up being a witness in a separate part of Fitzgerald's investigation, the upcoming criminal trial of Libby.
I believe Bush originally said that anyone who leaked the name, had no place in his administration. I sure hope WBAM won't be mad for me saying: BUSH LIED. HE'S A FUCKING LIAR AND HAS NO FUCKING PLACE AS PRESIDENT. IMPEACH THE FUCKER!!!
The problem is that Rove didn't leak Plame's name.
Novak says that someone else told him that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent, that he (Novak) found additional information from Wilsons own autobiographical entry at Who's Who, and that Rove and another CIA official later confirmed the info.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said:... I believe Bush originally said that anyone who leaked the name, had no place in his administration....
That was the pretend one, it's been made pretty clear that Rove fits right into the real one. Look at it this way, I think the nation has only gotten a peak at how this administration does business. When all this started, Bush was ranked really high in the honesty department. Not so anymore. The Libby trial hasn't even started yet.
Quote: the G-man said: The problem is that Rove didn't leak Plame's name.
Novak says that someone else told him that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent, that he (Novak) found additional information from Wilsons own autobiographical entry at Who's Who, and that Rove and another CIA official later confirmed the info.
I usually don't care what the "talking heads" have to say but I was surprised to see this one...
Quote: Conservative Scarborough: 'Accidental' leak story 'garbage'
Fox News and some right-wing commentators are touting columnist Robert Novak's version of the CIA leak story, but Republican commentator Joe Scarborough says he has his doubts.
Novak has claimed the leak was accidental, and was not a personal attack on Joe Wilson for his efforts to discredit the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium for use in nuclear weapons. Scarborough disagrees that the leak of Valerie Plame's covert status was "accidental", calling it "garbage".
Scarborough goes on to say:
"Conservative commentators are already trumpeting Novak's claim that the leak was inadvertent and accidental... Maybe I'm cynical or perhaps it's because I worked in Congress for years. But you know what, I always found that leaks of this size were rarely mistakes regardless of what the writer or the right-wing people may tell you. I can assure you that if you assign selfish motives to leakers, you will rarely be proven wrong."
Novak, however, who, unlike Scarbourough was actually present for the conversation, points out:
I saw no such campaign [to discredit Wilson through Plame]. Nobody in the administration ever said anything critical about Wilson to me. And my column was not critical of Wilson. The information came out to me in the course of an interview by a person who was not, believe me, not in the business of playing political dirty tricks. I initiated the call to Karl Rove [for confirmation]. We talked about Joe Wilson's wife for maybe 20 seconds in the course of the conversation, which I took as a confirmation.
I mean, really, this is just comical.
In regards to Rove, Novak hasn't told us anything today we didn't already know. The fact that Novak talked to Rove after the fact was reported months, if not years ago.
Now, today, we have Novak telling us things we didn't know, namely, that Fitzgerald know who the real "leaker" is, but has never indicted him or her, that this indicates that no crime occurred and, further, that Wilson himself "outed" Plame in his own writings.
And what do the Angry and Desperate Left focus on? Some sort of fiction that Novak somehow implicated Rove today when the exact opposite is true.
Seriously, this is taking on the characteristic of a mass mental illness. How much more in denial can you guys be?
Quote: Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."
Being inconsistent isn't an indictable offense otherwise Rove would be joining his buddy Libby. After all he didn't go before the Grand Jury a zillion times because he was consistent. You can certainly grasp to what Novak is saying now but he has said other things that can hardly be labeled "consistent".
The only thing you've cited as proof of Novak's "inconsistencies" is a Newsweek article which uses second hand information, or hearsay.
Novak's own words are, apparently, consistent.
Furthermore, let's assume that Novak testified in a certain manner before the Grand Jury. Let us further assume, that thereafter he provided, as you claim, inconsistent versions to the press.
One of the versions he provided to the press would have had to contradict what he told the Grand Jury, correct?
So why wouldn't Fitzgerald use those inconsistent statements as a basis to investigate Novak for lying before the grand jury? As noted above at least one of them should, under your theory, have contradicted his testimony.
This "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it." sounds like hearsay to you?
Novak's explanation for that comment wasn't "...very artfully put" when he was asked about it on Russert's show. MSNBC
I still wonder why you guys are so willing to bend over backwords grasping at straws for this "leak" case, but don't seem at all concerned w/ the New York Times leak case.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I still wonder why you guys are so willing to bend over backwords grasping at straws for this "leak" case, but don't seem at all concerned w/ the New York Times leak case.
me personally, it goes towards power. I want my newspapers to give me information on what the government is doing. i don't want elected leaders using their information to attack people who disagree with them. besides, bush said after 9/11 they'd be tracking money and bank transfers so any smart terrorist/criminal would've thought of that.
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: me personally, it goes towards power. I want my newspapers to give me information on what the government is doing.
Robert Novak's story was published in a newspaper.
It was about what a branch of the government, the CIA, was doing.
No one has seriously shown that Novak's story in any way assisted terrorists or impeded agency operations.
I guess they don't teach you to read in law school, just to pick one thing and assume that's all there is. Novak's story helped Bush to attack Wilson. There's a difference between "the cia is torturing people" and "the cia have a covert agent and here's her name."
Quote: r3x29yz4a said: Novak's story helped Bush to attack Wilson.
And the NY Times stories could help terrorists attack thousands. Physically.
And you still think the one is worse?
Probably because the NY Times stories also help democrats attack the president, which, as we know, is the only thing that matters to the angry, desperate, left.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I still wonder why you guys are so willing to bend over backwords grasping at straws for this "leak" case, but don't seem at all concerned w/ the New York Times leak case.
me personally, it goes towards power. I want my newspapers to give me information on what the government is doing. i don't want elected leaders using their information to attack people who disagree with them. besides, bush said after 9/11 they'd be tracking money and bank transfers so any smart terrorist/criminal would've thought of that.
Right wich is exactly why there was no need for the Times to publish teh details to assist terrorists in hiding thier money. As you statted we all knew the gov. was doing it so it wasn't in the public intrest to disclose details. Also who do you want making policy decicisions in regard to the national security, elected officials or unelected newspaper editors?
Quote: the G-man said: More on Woodward's role, and who the leaker might have really been, from Newsweek:
One by one last week, a parade of current and former senior officials, including the CIA's George Tenet and national-security adviser Stephen Hadley, denied being the source.
A conspicuous exception was former deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage, whose office would only say, "We're not commenting."
If Armitage was the original leaker, that undercuts the argument that outing Plame was a plot by the hard-liners in the veep's office to "out" Plame. Armitage was, if anything, a foe of the neocons who did not want to go to war in Iraq. He had no motive to discredit Wilson. On "Larry King Live" last month, Woodward was dismissive of the special prosecutor's investigation, suggesting that the original leak was not the result of a "smear campaign" but rather a "kind of gossip, as chatter ... I don't see an underlying crime here."
Renewed speculation centered on Colin Powell's top aide Richard Armitage as the original leaker in the Valerie Plame case yesterday after columnist Robert Novak's latest revelations.
Novak was the first journalist to identify Plame as a CIA staffer and in a column yesterday he gave new information but declined to identify his first source, simply repeating it wasn't "a political gunslinger."
That fits Armitage who, like Powell, was skeptical about the Iraq war and knew that Plame played a role in setting up an Iraq-linked trip for her husband, Joe Wilson.
If Armitage was the source of the leak, it is unlikely his goal was discredit Iraq war critics as Wilson has claimed.
The Post has [also] reported Armitage is the likely source
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: I still wonder why you guys are so willing to bend over backwords grasping at straws for this "leak" case, but don't seem at all concerned w/ the New York Times leak case.
me personally, it goes towards power. I want my newspapers to give me information on what the government is doing. i don't want elected leaders using their information to attack people who disagree with them.
besides, bush said after 9/11 they'd be tracking money and bank transfers so any smart terrorist/criminal would've thought of that.
Right wich is exactly why there was no need for the Times to publish teh details to assist terrorists in hiding thier money. As you statted we all knew the gov. was doing it so it wasn't in the public intrest to disclose details. Also who do you want making policy decicisions in regard to the national security, elected officials or unelected newspaper editors?
I trust neither, to be honest. Its like asking who you want to watch your baby, the retarded guy or the other retarded guy.
Though, in this case, the retarded guy with the most powerful position in the country who has lied, cheated, and caused death maybe deserves extra scrutiny.
Quote: Plame files suit against Cheney, Rove, Libby
Valerie Plame, the undercover CIA operative whose identity was revealed to reporters, has filed suit against Vice President Dick Cheney, former top presidential policy adviser Karl Rove, and Cheney's ex-chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on Thursday, RAW STORY has learned.
Plame is reportedly accusing the men of conspiring against her, targeting her career and reputation.
Conservative columnist Robert Novak revealed Plame's status as an undercover CIA operative in a July 14, 2003 opinion column. The piece ran just one week after Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, wrote a New York Times op-ed claiming that the Bush administration had manipulated pre-war intelligence on Iraq.
The couple have started a website, wilsonsupport.org, aimed at raising funds to cover legal costs.
Novak last week claimed that the revelation of Plame's name may have been an accident.
"Robert Novak, some other commentators and the Administration continue to try to completely distort the role that Valerie Wilson played with respect to Ambassador Wilson's trip to Niger," Wilson responded in a statement to RAW STORY today. "The facts are beyond dispute."
Wilson re-iterated then what he contends to be the facts in the Plame Affair:
"Robert Novak, some other commentators and the Administration continue to try to completely distort the role that Valerie Wilson played with respect to Ambassador Wilson's trip to Niger. The facts are beyond dispute. The Office of the Vice President requested that the CIA investigate reports of alleged uranium purchases by Iraq from Niger. The CIA setup a meeting to respond to the Vice President's inquiry. Another CIA official, not Valerie Wilson, suggested to Valerie Wilson's supervisor that the Ambassador attend that meeting. That other CIA official made the recommendation because that official was familiar with the Ambassador's vast experience in Niger and knew of a previous trip to Africa concerning uranium matters that had been undertaken by the Ambassador on behalf of the CIA in 1999. Valerie Wilson's supervisor subsequently asked her to relay a request from him to the Ambassador that he would like the Ambassador to attend the meeting at the CIA. Valerie Wilson did not participate in the meeting.
"As the CIA itself has officially confirmed, Valerie Wilson did not send Ambassador Wilson to Niger and she neither suggested him nor recommended him for the trip. Furthermore, the Ambassador agreed to travel to Niger pro bono with only his travel expenses being paid.""
RAW Looks like someone jumped the gun changing the name of this topic
I do hope PaulWellr comes back & changes his thread to something more appropiate now that Rovegate is back in play. I'm surprised he changed it to "Rovegate no more" without posting anything a couple of months ago.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I do hope PaulWellr comes back & changes his thread to something more appropiate now that Rovegate is back in play. I'm surprised he changed it to "Rovegate no more" without posting anything a couple of months ago.
you do realize that G-man edited the title by going to the first post that Paul made and changing it.
Whomod was back a few weeks ago. If he had cared to, he could have logged in with his PaulWellr alt and changed it back.
But, anyway...
This is an example of why I no longer refer to the extremists of the part as "the Angry Left," but as "the Angry, Desperate, Left."
Beyond all evidence, they continue to hitch their wagons to these two discredited glory hounds, in the vain hope that somehow they will "get Bush/Rove/Cheney."
Apparently, these two are all the left...have left.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: I do hope PaulWellr comes back & changes his thread to something more appropiate now that Rovegate is back in play. I'm surprised he changed it to "Rovegate no more" without posting anything a couple of months ago.
you do realize that G-man edited the title by going to the first post that Paul made and changing it.
I kind of wondered if that was the case. Not the best use of his Mod powers IMHO. It might even be fair to suggest that it's the actions of somebody who is "angry" & "desperate"
When liberal Larry O'Donnell goes on Keith Olbermann's Countdown and calls your lawsuit 'very weak' and even the Olber-meister himself won't ride to your defense, it's time to fold your tent, toss in your hand, throw in the towel and quietly slink away.
"I think this is a very weak case. . . I think they're going to have a lot of trouble keeping this case in court. I think the [defendants have] a very, very strong case in going for dismissal." Yikes!
Tellingly, Olbermann breathed not a word in support of the suit's bona fides.
In a way, it's almost a shame this case will never see the light of trial. Can you imagine the cross-examination on the issue of damages? If anything ever plucked Wilson-Plame from obscurity and made them Vanity Fair stars and rich to boot, it was the very 'outing' of which they now complain.
When liberal Larry O'Donnell goes on Keith Olbermann's Countdown and calls your lawsuit 'very weak' and even the Olber-meister himself won't ride to your defense, it's time to fold your tent, toss in your hand, throw in the towel and quietly slink away.
"I think this is a very weak case. . . I think they're going to have a lot of trouble keeping this case in court. I think the [defendants have] a very, very strong case in going for dismissal." Yikes!
Tellingly, Olbermann breathed not a word in support of the suit's bona fides.
In a way, it's almost a shame this case will never see the light of trial. Can you imagine the cross-examination on the issue of damages? If anything ever plucked Wilson-Plame from obscurity and made them Vanity Fair stars and rich to boot, it was the very 'outing' of which they now complain.
This whole smear campaign by the Democrats began with their criticism of a column by Robert Novak that allegedly outed Valerie Plame.
Novak made a 14-minute appearance on NBC's Meet the Press yesterday.
Where Novak was very specific about how he first questioned why the CIA would pick such an anti-Bush partisan as Joe Wilson for the Niger/yellow-cake-uranium mission.
How Novak's anonymous source told Novak it was "Wilson's wife" who worked for the CIA, who recommended Wilson for the job.
How Novak only knew it was Wilson's wife, and got her actual name for the column from Wilson's listing in Who's Who In America.
And how various sources close to Plame, before Novak ran the column, had given no indication that Plame was a covert operative.
And for that matter, Novak remains convinced to this day that Plame was never a secret operative.
You can watch Novak at this link. It begins at 33:45 into the 48:00 minute broadcast.
Not sure how Novak was smeared. The CIA asked him not to out Plame but because they didn't get the big boss to make the request he felt it was OK?!? He deserves smearing.
Therefore, you have stated that you believe that Novak "deserves" being "falsely" charged "with malicious intent." As a result you have admitted that you think that false accusations are perfectly acceptable when they conform to your agenda.
Therefore, you have stated that you believe that Novak "deserves" being "falsely" charged "with malicious intent." As a result you have admitted that you think that false accusations are perfectly acceptable when they conform to your agenda.
you are the biggest fucking cunt here. you edited out his point to make him look foolish and contradictory.
No. I posted the two parts of his message that I chose to respond to, with brackets to indicate where I had left out or summarized/paraphrased extraneous information. To my knowledge this is in conformance with standard journalist usage and style (see, eg, Strunk and White) when one is only referencing part of a statement.
There is no disputing that MEM said "Not sure how Novak was smeared." There is similarly no dispute he went on, after criticizing Novak, to conclude "He deserves smearing." Unless MEM himself misstated his initial point, no one here has misapplied what he wrote.
Similarly, no one has made MEM look contradictory. There is nothing at all contradictory about expressing doubt that something occurred, but opining that it would be deserved if it had happened. In fact, its the very opposite of contradictory ("[A] hasn't happened, but I wish it had").
This is not the first time you have failed to understand something as simple as this. This leads me to ask, with all seriousness, is perhaps English NOT your first language? I'm not being disrespectful here, but simply asking because it seems as if you have a tendency to not comprehend certain rules of style or usage that are pretty common in the written word.
We've rehashed the anti-Novak allegations ad nauseaum for several years now, including the ones you've most recently exhumed and dusted off. During which time, I've told you over and over that there was no evidence a crime was committed vis a vis Plame, and you've repeatedly insisted there was.
The Special Prosecutor apparently agrees with me. However, despite that finding, you continue to repeat the same discredited theories as if they were fact.
Now, we have you saying that Novak deserved to be "smeared."
That statement ties directly with your repeated denial of the facts of the case. If that puts you on the defensive, so be it. You wouldn't be there in the first place if you didn't keep posting falsehoods and opinions as fact.
Quote: the G-man said: No. I posted the two parts of his message that I chose to respond to, with brackets to indicate where I had left out or summarized/paraphrased extraneous information.
To my knowledge....Strunk and White...is only...part of .......ME...Not.....smeared." There...he went on....smearing."
no, you cut out the sentence that you didn't want to address. by only putting those two parts you could be sarcastic and an ass.
I wasn't being sarcastic. Nor was I being, at least intentionally, an ass.
MEM expressed doubt that anyone smeared Novak. I explained what I thought constituted a smear against him.
MEM, after describing what he saw as Novak's bad acts, concluded that, in effect, even if Novak hadn't been smeared, he deserved smearing.
I thereafter responded that to "smear" someone means to falsely accuse them and criticized MEM for writing that Novak deserved smearing. This meant, I pointed out, that MEM was saying Novak deserved to be the targe of false allegations.
Say what you will about MEM, but at least he, unlike you, constructs an argument and does so with commonly accepted rules of style and usage. The fact you can't follow his arguments, or mine, is neither of our faults.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: G-man I was talking about Novak ignoring the CIA's request not to disclose Plame's name. You basically changed that to
Quote: I think a colorable argument could be made that its smearing someone to insist they broke the law when every indication is that they didn't.
Novak wasn't being accused of breaking a law, so why were you saying it?
As Novak made clear in the Meet the Press interview, there are many who say to Novak "you can't print that", to try and save their asses from the facts. But Novak, in his own words runs the story anyway.
In the case of running Plame's name, nothing was said to him at the time that she was a covert field agent. If it had been said (in Novak's own words) he would not have run the story. But no one said she was. Then and now, Novak is convinced she is not, and never was, a field agent. And that even if she was, she was outed a long time ago, before his column named her.
Watch the interview, it explains everything you're denying.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: FYI Wonder Boy, the CIA doesn't confirm if an agent is covert or not to reporters. Why would you ever think that was a valid argument?
You're splitting semantic hairs. Novak again covered that in the interview, and did a similar dance with Russert on how to phrase things.
But regardless, the truth is clear.
In Novak's consulting sources prior to running his column, there was no indication of any reason for him not to run his story. And Judge Fitzgerald's ruling confirmed that there was no legal wrong by Novak or Rove.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: FYI Wonder Boy, the CIA doesn't confirm if an agent is covert or not to reporters. Why would you ever think that was a valid argument?
You're splitting semantic hairs. Novak again covered that in the interview, and did a similar dance with Russert on how to phrase things. But regardless, the truth is clear.
In Novak's consulting sources prior to running his column, there was no indication of any reason for him not to run his story. And Judge Fitzgerald's ruling confirmed that there was no legal wrong by Novak or Rove.
It's hardly splitting hairs Wonder Boy. Novak self rationalized something partisan Republicans would have condemned any other reporter for doing. The CIA don't blow their own agent's cover so couldn't do more than what they did. Novak has always been a partisan player, this time it at the very least clouded his judgement.
Novak doing legal wrong was something G-man threw in, not me. If G-man had a basis for saying it, I'll ask again what was the basis for it?
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: It's hardly splitting hairs Wonder Boy. Novak self rationalized something partisan Republicans would have condemned any other reporter for doing. The CIA don't blow their own agent's cover so couldn't do more than what they did. Novak has always been a partisan player, this time it at the very least clouded his judgement.
Novak doing legal wrong was something G-man threw in, not me. If G-man had a basis for saying it, I'll ask again what was the basis for it?
Again, M E M, my Meet the Press link of Novak. It's his story, and he detailed exactly how it was given to him and confirmed by sources:
Quote:
You can watch Novak at this link. It begins at 33:45 into the 48:00 minute broadcast.
Ben Bradlee, former Executive Editor for the Washington Post, expressed certainty that Assistant Sec of State Richard Armitage is the source, not Rove. (Novak would not confirm or deny, saying he is waiting for the unnamed source to reveal themself when they're ready)
Bill Harlow, former then-CIA Spokesman admitted to Novak that Valerie Plame in his words "facilitated" Joe Wilson's selection for the CIA/Niger/yellow-cake uranium mission.
But Novak confirmed, through the Senate Intelligence Committee, that Plame did more than "facilitate" Wilson's selection for the mission, she initiated his selection for the mission, which a Senate Intelligence document confirms, said Novak.
Novak says through confirmation with several sources in the CIA, he verified that Plame was an analyst in the Counter-Proliferation Division [of WMD's] in the CIA.
And that in answer to a Washington Post article Russert presented, from July 27, 2005, that said...
Quote: [Bill Harlow], the former CIA Spokesman... said that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission, and that if he [Novak] did write about it, her name should not be revealed.
Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative.
He said he called Novak back, to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong, and that Plame's name should not be used.
But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover, because that was classified.
... Novak said in response that's what Harlow said to the Washington Post later, but that's not what he said to Novak in their earlier interview.
Again, Novak said he confirmed Plame's status by talking to other sources in the CIA. That Plame was not an undercover operative.
And that through CIA sources, Novak was told that Plame had been outed years ago by traitor/Soviet CIA mole Aldrich Ames. So there was no risk at this point, in running her name.
Novak said that many individuals try to hustle him into not running a story, saying "you can't run that", but he does anyway.
But if he is approached by someone in authority, and if he had been on the Plame story, by Tenet or some other higher up, advised that Plame's life would have been in danger, he would have not run the story, or at least not run the paragraph with her name.
But Novak says he was not approached in such a way, and so he ran the story.
So everything works as long as you take Novak's word over Harlow's & anyone elses. Harlow's motive to lie would be???
Tenet was the head honcho at the CIA at the time & I don't think it's reasonable that Novak somehow expects the head of the CIA to take his valuable time just to emphasize the seriousness of their request not to use Plame's name. If Novak was a partisan liberal columnist, that rationalizing honestly wouldn't fly with me.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: So everything works as long as you take Novak's word over Harlow's & anyone elses.
Novak said he had multiple sources for everything he reported.
Rove came forward and revealed himself as one of Novak's sources. Although not the primary source on Plame. (Who is, again, beleived to be Richard Armitage.)
This gives credibility to what Novak says. Eventually other "Deep Throat" type sources will reveal themselves, and confirm Novak's account.
And again, Novak said the same things in sworn testimony. That doesn't indicate that he lied.
Quote: M E M said: Harlow's motive to lie would be???
He might have said the wrong thing by CIA protocol, or alienated himself from Bush-haters in the CIA. He may be part of a conspiracy to cover for Plame and smear Novak. There are many reasons he might lie.
And Novaks' motive to lie would be...?
Novak gave testimony under oath to the truth of events as he reported them. If he were lying, I think he would admit it, rather than commit a crime by lying under oath.
Quote: M E M said:
Tenet was the head honcho at the CIA at the time & I don't think it's reasonable that Novak somehow expects the head of the CIA to take his valuable time just to emphasize the seriousness of their request not to use Plame's name. If Novak was a partisan liberal columnist, that rationalizing honestly wouldn't fly with me.
Not necessarily expecting Tenet to call him personally. But if Plame were truly an undercover agent and endangered, Novak should have gotten a phone call from someone in a supervisory capacity at the CIA.
That no one felt it important enough to call Novak and halt the story, that just speaks to the bogusness of the allegation her cover was blown.
Novak is a partisan Republican columnist. He's devoted his life making money on protecting the Republican party while writing negatively about Dems. I believe there was a prior incident where he worked with Rove on a previous campaign (anyone remember particulars?)
Now what was Wilson & Plame's motive again?
Quote: Not necessarily expecting Tenet to call him personally. But if Plame were truly an undercover agent and endangered, Novak should have gotten a phone call from someone in a supervisory capacity at the CIA. That no one felt it important enough to call Novak and halt the story, that just speaks to the bogusness of the allegation her cover was blown.
Why do you say no one when Harlow has said he asked Novak repeatedly not to run the story? And did Novak say he was going to run the story to Harlow unless he was asked by somebody higher up not to?
So far we have multiple sources that directly contradict Novak. Unlike Novak's unamed sources, these actually have names attached to them. It really looks to me that Novak basically discounted anything he didn't want to hear & just did what he wanted anyway.
Quote: the G-man said: More on Woodward's role, and who the leaker might have really been, from Newsweek:
One by one last week, a parade of current and former senior officials, including the CIA's George Tenet and national-security adviser Stephen Hadley, denied being the source.
A conspicuous exception was former deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage, whose office would only say, "We're not commenting."
If Armitage was the original leaker, that undercuts the argument that outing Plame was a plot by the hard-liners in the veep's office to "out" Plame. Armitage was, if anything, a foe of the neocons who did not want to go to war in Iraq. He had no motive to discredit Wilson. On "Larry King Live" last month, Woodward was dismissive of the special prosecutor's investigation, suggesting that the original leak was not the result of a "smear campaign" but rather a "kind of gossip, as chatter ... I don't see an underlying crime here."
Renewed speculation centered on Colin Powell's top aide Richard Armitage as the original leaker in the Valerie Plame case yesterday after columnist Robert Novak's latest revelations.
Novak was the first journalist to identify Plame as a CIA staffer and in a column yesterday he gave new information but declined to identify his first source, simply repeating it wasn't "a political gunslinger."
That fits Armitage who, like Powell, was skeptical about the Iraq war and knew that Plame played a role in setting up an Iraq-linked trip for her husband, Joe Wilson.
If Armitage was the source of the leak, it is unlikely his goal was discredit Iraq war critics as Wilson has claimed.
The Post has [also] reported Armitage is the likely source
David Corn and Michael Isikoff have a new book which confirms that Richard Armitage was the original Plame leaker. Close observers had already figured this out; Tom Maguire, for one, zeroed in on Armitage months ago. Maguire's most recent post on the topic, noting Armitage's (vague) association with the McCain campaign team, came just this Tuesday.
They're waiting until Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson put out another press release, ignoring the above facts and spouting off on the same discredited conspiracy theories. Then, they'll link to those stories as if the whole revelation about Armitage never happened.
Seriously. If you look at the posts on this thread, that's pretty much the entire pattern. They post a conspiracy theory from Wilson and Plame. The theory gets shot down. They wait a few months then post the same theory again as if the rest of the thread, discrediting the theory, never existed.
Quote: the G-man said: More on Woodward's role, and who the leaker might have really been, from Newsweek:
One by one last week, a parade of current and former senior officials, including the CIA's George Tenet and national-security adviser Stephen Hadley, denied being the source.
A conspicuous exception was former deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage, whose office would only say, "We're not commenting."
If Armitage was the original leaker, that undercuts the argument that outing Plame was a plot by the hard-liners in the veep's office to "out" Plame. Armitage was, if anything, a foe of the neocons who did not want to go to war in Iraq. He had no motive to discredit Wilson. On "Larry King Live" last month, Woodward was dismissive of the special prosecutor's investigation, suggesting that the original leak was not the result of a "smear campaign" but rather a "kind of gossip, as chatter ... I don't see an underlying crime here."
Renewed speculation centered on Colin Powell's top aide Richard Armitage as the original leaker in the Valerie Plame case yesterday after columnist Robert Novak's latest revelations.
Novak was the first journalist to identify Plame as a CIA staffer and in a column yesterday he gave new information but declined to identify his first source, simply repeating it wasn't "a political gunslinger."
That fits Armitage who, like Powell, was skeptical about the Iraq war and knew that Plame played a role in setting up an Iraq-linked trip for her husband, Joe Wilson.
If Armitage was the source of the leak, it is unlikely his goal was discredit Iraq war critics as Wilson has claimed.
The Post has [also] reported Armitage is the likely source
Quote: the G-man said: David Corn and Michael Isikoff have a new book which confirms that <a href="http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14533384/site/newsweek/" target="blank">Richard Armitage was the original Plame leaker</a>. Close observers had already figured this out; Tom Maguire, for one, zeroed in on Armitage months ago. Maguire's <a href="http://justoneminute.typepad.com/main/2006/08/richard_armitag.html" target="blank">most recent post on the topic</a>, noting Armitage's (vague) association with the McCain campaign team, came just this Tuesday.
Richard L. Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, has acknowledged that he was the person whose conversation with a columnist in 2003 prompted a long, politically laden criminal investigation in what became known as the C.I.A. leak case, a lawyer involved in the case said on Tuesday.
In the accounts by the lawyer and associates, Mr. Armitage disclosed casually to Mr. Novak that Ms. Wilson worked for the C.I.A. at the end of an interview in his State Department office. Mr. Armitage knew that, the accounts continue, because he had seen a written memorandum by Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman.
According to an account in a coming book, “Hubris, the Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War’’ by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, excerpts of which appeared in Newsweek this week, Mr. Armitage told a few State Department colleagues that he might have been the leaker whose identity was being sought.
The book says Mr. Armitage realized that when Mr. Novak published a second column in October 2003 that said his source had been an official who was “not a political gunslinger.’’
The Justice Department was quickly informed, and Mr. Armitage disclosed his talks with Mr. Novak in subsequent interviews with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, even before Mr. Fitzgerald’s appointment.
The book quotes Carl W. Ford Jr., then head of the intelligence and research bureau at the State Department, as saying that Mr. Armitage had told him, “I may be the guy who caused this whole thing,’’ and that he regretted having told the columnist more than he should have.
He was also the source for another journalist about Ms. Wilson, a reporter who did not write about her. The lawyers and associates said Mr. Armitage also told Bob Woodward, assistant managing editor of The Washington Post and a well-known author, of her identity in June 2003.
Mr. Woodward was a late player in the legal drama when he disclosed last November that he had the received the information and testified to a grand jury about it after learning that his source had disclosed the conversation to prosecutors.
So...let's go over it again.
Rove was not the leaker. Libby was not the leaker. Cheney was not the leaker. Bush was not the leaker.
The leaker was a guy who worked for Colin Powell and leaked the name accidentally. He didn't leak it as "payback" for Joe Wilson's report on yellowcake uranium.
Everything I've been trying to tell you guys on the left for the past two years was absol-fucking-lutely correct.
Just a couple of corrections/observations in your rant. Rove & Libby did leak info to reporters about Plame. Just because Armitage also leaked doesn't make their leaking somehow unhappen. Libby is still indicted & Fitzgerald still found a...
Quote: "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Just a couple of corrections/observations in your rant. Rove & Libby did leak info to reporters about Plame. Just because Armitage also leaked doesn't make their leaking somehow unhappen. Libby is still indicted & Fitzgerald still found a...
Quote: "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.
Your thread title "Armitage IS "leaker"!! HAH! Apologize MEM! BOW BEFORE THE G-MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!" is cute though.
Wow, MEM, you sure left out ALOT of that article..... Not least among your omissions was the dateline:
Quote: Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page A01
Not only is the small portion you cited contradicted by what we NOW know 4 and a half months later, but it's also no more than Fitsgerald's opinion. He found no crime. The best he could do was find Libby for a process crime and attemt to do the same with Rove and Cheaney. At best the quote you cited reveals Fitsgerald's bias.
Quote: the G-man said: If you look at the posts on this thread, that's pretty much the entire pattern. They post a conspiracy theory from Wilson and Plame. The theory gets shot down. They wait a few months then post the same theory again as if the rest of the thread, discrediting the theory, never existed.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Just a couple of corrections/observations in your rant. Rove & Libby did leak info to reporters about Plame. Just because Armitage also leaked doesn't make their leaking somehow unhappen. Libby is still indicted & Fitzgerald still found a...
Quote: "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.
Your thread title "Armitage IS "leaker"!! HAH! Apologize MEM! BOW BEFORE THE G-MAN!!!!!!!!!!!!" is cute though.
Wow, MEM, you sure left out ALOT of that article..... Not least among your omissions was the dateline:
Quote: Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page A01
Not only is the small portion you cited contradicted by what we NOW know 4 and a half months later, but it's also no more than Fitsgerald's opinion. He found no crime. The best he could do was find Libby for a process crime and attemt to do the same with Rove and Cheaney. At best the quote you cited reveals Fitsgerald's bias.
As I understand what Novak has said there isn't a contradiction at all. According to Novak, Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald knew who his sources were so Novak had no reason not to try to protect them. So when Fitzgerald spoke of a "concerted effort" he also knew Armitage was also Novak's source. Rove & Libby still scuttled around like cockroaches talking off the record (leaking). Fitzgerald role kind of makes his opinion a bit more important than a couple of spinmeisters.
So if a spiniester is prosecuting people that makes it ok? At least yuou've come to the point of putting the word (leak) in parentheses. I guess that's as close as we can expect to the truth from someone who's invested so much of thier credibility in this story panning out thier way.
Quote: wannabuyamonkey said: So if a spiniester is prosecuting people that makes it ok?
I don't think Fitzgerald is a spinmeister. That is just my opinion of course. Also he's the special prosecutor, he knew about Armitage before even talking to Novak. His information is obviously better than yours or mine.
Quote: At least yuou've come to the point of putting the word (leak) in parentheses. I guess that's as close as we can expect to the truth from someone who's invested so much of thier credibility in this story panning out thier way.
I would be curious what your definition of a leak is? For most people it involves somebody like Rove or Libby meeting with reporters & speaking off the record about things they're not supposed to.
Quote: I would be curious what your definition of a leak is? For most people it involves somebody like Rove or Libby meeting with reporters & speaking off the record about things they're not supposed to.
Quote: I would be curious what your definition of a leak is? For most people it involves somebody like Rove or Libby meeting with reporters & speaking off the record about things they're not supposed to.
Well, then. Lets see teh indictment.
Why? We have several leakers. Apparently an indictment isn't required for both of us to acknowledge that Armitage leaked.
Quote: the G-man said in November 2005:In their zeal to tie Libby to Cheney to Bush to "Bush LIED," these partisans have already begun taking great pains to portray Fitzgerald as an honest, steadfast, "just the facts," prosecutor. And he probably is.
With a New York Times story hinting at the possibility of prosecutorial misconduct in the Valerie Plame case, I'm starting to feel like Fitzgerald is less interested in the facts than feathering his own cap:
An enduring mystery of the C.I.A. leak case has been solved in recent days, but with a new twist: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, knew the identity of the leaker from his very first day in the special counsel's chair, but kept the inquiry open for nearly two more years before indicting I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on obstruction charges.
Now, the question of whether Mr. Fitzgerald properly exercised his prosecutorial discretion in continuing to pursue possible wrongdoing in the case has become the subject of rich debate on editorial pages and in legal and political circles. . . .
Mr. Fitzgerald's defenders point out that the revelation about Mr. Armitage did not rule out a White House effort because officials like Mr. Libby and Karl Rove, the senior white House adviser, had spoken about Ms. Wilson with other journalists. Even so, the Fitzgerald critics say, the prosecutor behaved much as did the independent counsels of the 1980's and 1990's who often failed to bring down their quarry on official misconduct charges but pursued highly nuanced accusations of a cover-up.
The Times suggests that there was a coverup of sorts:
On Oct. 1, 2003, Mr. Armitage was up at 4 a.m. for a predawn workout when he read a second article by Mr. Novak in which he described his primary source for his earlier column about Ms. Wilson as "no partisan gunslinger." Mr. Armitage realized with alarm that that could only be a reference to him, according to people familiar with his role. He waited until Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, an old friend, was awake, then telephoned him. They discussed the matter with the top State Department lawyer, William H. Taft IV.
Mr. Armitage had prepared a resignation letter, his associates said. But he stayed on the job because State Department officials advised that his sudden departure could lead to the disclosure of his role in the leak, the people aware of his actions said.
According to the Times, "Mr. Armitage kept his actions secret, not even telling President Bush because the prosecutor asked him not to divulge it, the people ['who are familiar with his role and actions in the case'] said."
It seems that Fitzgerald and the State Department covered up a noncrime, and the effect was to keep alive the illusion that it was a crime.
Maybe Fitzgerald had pure motives, but the more I hear about the case, the more it looks like the whole thing stinks.
An accurate depiction of what Armitage actually said deepens the irony of his being my source. He was a foremost internal skeptic of the administration's war policy, and I had long opposed military intervention in Iraq. Zealous foes of George W. Bush ...cannot fit Armitage into the left-wing fantasy of a well-crafted White House conspiracy to destroy Joe and Valerie Wilson. The news that he, and not Karl Rove, was the leaker was devastating for the left.
Late in my hour-long interview with Armitage, I asked why the CIA had sent Wilson -- who lacked intelligence experience, nuclear policy expertise or recent contact with Niger -- on the African mission.
He had told me unequivocally that Mrs. Wilson worked in the CIA's Counterproliferation Division and that she had suggested her husband's mission. As for his current implication that he never expected this to be published, he noted that the story of Mrs. Wilson's role fit the style of the old Evans-Novak column -- implying to me that it continued reporting Washington inside information.
Armitage's silence for the next 2 1/2 years caused intense pain for his colleagues in government and enabled partisan Democrats in Congress to falsely accuse Rove of being my primary source. When Armitage now says he was mute because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's request, that does not explain his silent three months between his claimed first realization that he was the source and Fitzgerald's appointment on Dec. 30, 2003. Armitage's tardy self-disclosure is tainted because it is deceptive.
It seems to me that both Plame and Rove ought to be after Armitage.
The judge in the CIA leak case ruled Thursday that if Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald feels that admitting certain classified documents at the upcoming trial of I Lewis "Scooter" Libby can jeopardize national security, Fitzgerald can move to dismiss the perjury charges against Libby.
This could very well mean that the judge is telling Fitzgerald he doesn't have a case, and if he wants to save face, he'd better drop the charges. It could also mean that Fitzgerald may have realized his case is going nowhere and that he can invoke "national security" as a pretext for dropping itl, again to save face.
If Libby is guilty of what he's been indicted for then does Libby need to pony up some loot? Or perhaps the Bush administration owes some money for obviously having somebody unqualified in such a high position in the first place who gets "confused" so easily.
I've mentioned in the past that I have no problem with Libby being suitably punished if found guilty.
But that in no way explains why the investigation even got to Libby if, as reported, Armitage told his superiors, and Fitizgerald knew early on, that Armitage was the leaker.
With withering and methodical dispatch, White House nemesis and prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald yesterday sliced up the first person called to the stand on behalf of the vice president's former chief of staff.
If I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was not afraid of the special counsel before, the former Cheney aide, who will face Fitzgerald in a trial beginning Jan. 11, had ample reason to start quaking after yesterday's Ginsu-like legal performance.
Fitzgerald's target in the witness box was Elizabeth F. Loftus, a professor of criminology and psychology at the University of California at Irvine. For more than an hour of the pretrial hearing, Loftus calmly explained to Judge Reggie B. Walton her three decades of expertise in human memory and witness testimony. Loftus asserted that, after copious scientific research, she has found that many potential jurors do not understand the limits of memory and that Libby should be allowed to call an expert to make that clear to them.
But when Fitzgerald got his chance to cross-examine Loftus about her findings, he had her stuttering to explain her own writings and backpedaling from her earlier assertions. Citing several of her publications, footnotes and the work of her peers, Fitzgerald got Loftus to acknowledge that the methodology she had used at times in her long academic career was not that scientific, that her conclusions about memory were conflicting, and that she had exaggerated a figure and a statement from her survey of D.C. jurors that favored the defense.
Her defense-paid visit to the federal court was crucial because Libby is relying on the "memory defense" against Fitzgerald's charges that he obstructed justice and lied to investigators about his role in the leaking of a CIA operative's identity to the media. Libby's attorneys argue that he did not lie -- that he was just really busy with national security matters and forgot some of his conversations.
...
Quote: Libby Heads to Trial in CIA Leak Case Jan 13, 11:40 AM (ET) By MATT APUZZO and MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN
WASHINGTON (AP) - Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby goes on trial Tuesday over the administration's response to one critic who questioned assertions President Bush made four years ago to justify waging war against Iraq.
Once the right-hand man to Vice President Dick Cheney, Libby faces charges of perjury and obstruction of an investigation into the leak of a CIA officer's identity to reporters.
Libby joins a long list of presidents' men to face charges in the federal courthouse in the nation's capital - Bob Haldeman and John Ehrlichman in Watergate, Adm. John Poindexter and Marine Col. Oliver North in Iran-Contra. ...
Quote: the G-man said: I've mentioned in the past that I have no problem with Libby being suitably punished if found guilty.
But that in no way explains why the investigation even got to Libby if, as reported, Armitage told his superiors, and Fitizgerald knew early on, that Armitage was the leaker.
What was left to investigate?
The Wall St. Journal seems to agree, noting that the case against Libby goes to trial "seemingly weakened by revelations that Mr. Fitzgerald knew early in his CIA-leak probe that the ex-White House official wasn't the original source of news-media disclosures."
Those disclosures, and the search for their source, were the reason Mr. Fitzgerald was ordered to launch an investigation in the first place...
Perjury prosecutions are notably difficult with a high rate of failure. In this case, prosecutors have the added challenge of navigating a minefield of extraneous issues while asking jurors to interpret Mr. Libby's state of mind when he talked to investigators.
Prosecutors suggest Mr. Libby, then Mr. Cheney's chief of staff, lied to investigators to conceal a White House campaign to leak Ms. Plame's identity in retaliation for her husband's criticism of the administration's war plans.
But allegations of a cover-up motivation appear to be undercut by recent news that former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, not Mr. Libby, was the source of the leak of Ms. Plame's name to reporters.
Another problem for Mr. Fitzgerald: At the end of his two-year investigation, during which he fought high-profile battles to get reporters to reveal their secret sources, he didn't bring charges on the leak itself and instead brought the Libby perjury case.
Isn't there like some sort of official-sounding name for the habitual practice of beating dead horses? Some people get their jollies offa really weird shit!
Quote: Captain Sammitch said: Isn't there like some sort of official-sounding name for the habitual practice of beating dead horses? Some people get their jollies offa really weird shit!
The case hasn't even started yet so how is it a "dead horse"?
Quote: Captain Sammitch said: Because it's already been established that apart from you not many people here seem to care about this.
Guess we're pretty different. When I don't care about a thread I just ignore it. It's a big court case with somebody high up in the Bush administration Cap, you may want to avoid TV for a while.
Quote: Video: Leak trial lawyers 'can't find' twelve who like Cheney David Edwards and Ron Brynaert Published: Thursday January 18, 2007
Observers of the CIA leak case trial may be asking themselves one question: 'Are there twelve people in America that don't dislike the Bush Adminstration?'
Because, after reading several media and blogger reports, it seems that "legal eagles" working on the trial for former Bush and Cheney aide I. Lewis Libby are having problems finding them.
According to CNN, after potential jurors were interviewed by lawyers Thursday, "several were disqualified by midday after voicing negative feelings" about the administration. Of 25 potential jurors, CNN reports that "fourteen have been excused." ...
Yes, because fourteen residents of the Washington DC area is a representative sample of "everybody."
No comment on other news stories that have indicated that the special prosecutor is trying to put people on the jury who are biased against Cheney and Republicans?
Okay, you don't want to seriously comment. I will.
According to the Associated Press, Fitzgerald is not content to have in the jury pool seven people who admit to a strong prejudice against the Bush administration but who say they can still adjudge the facts dispassionately.
Fitzgerald and defense attorneys spent more than 15 minutes Thursday morning arguing privately with U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton over whether to dismiss one potential juror, a management consultant. She said her feelings about the administration could spill over into the trial.
"My personal feeling is the Iraq war was a tremendous, terrible mistake. It's quite a horrendous thing," she said. "Whether any one person or the administration is responsible for that is quite a complex question."
The woman was ultimately dismissed but Fitzgerald's fight to keep her was his strongest effort yet during the politically charged hearings
Read that again. This is a woman who acknowledges that she may not be able to look at the facts objectively. But Fitzgerald still wanted to keep this woman in the jury pool. Even in traffic court that would be outrageous.
Quote: PJP said: Oh and they probably would have pardoned Vince Foster if they didn't murder him in his office.
The same can be said of then-DNC-Chairman Ron Brown, who died in a plane crash over Bosnia. Right after he was in danger of being indicted, and said: "If I'm going down, I'm not going down alone."
Quote: the G-man said: Now, now, PJ, that hasn't been proven.
(Of course, the fact that allegations against Republicans are unproven has never stopped MEM)
Pretty much. Although it's not proven in a court of law, it is annoying that Dems hold Republicans to a higher standard than they hold their own to.
Any conspiracy theory about Republicans is always assumed to be fact by liberals.
But if Republicans even mention the possibility that liberals are involved in conspiracies, it's considered malicious and right-wing-whacko.
When I mention these conspiracy theories about Democrats (Vince Foster, Ron Brown, etc.) I at least do it in the context that while I beleive it to be true, it hasn't been proven.
Would that liberals here and elsewhere would do the same, when attacking Republicans.
Instead, they just repeat the allegation, until sheer repetition makes the average person on the street believe it's absolute fact.
Same old same old from the Bush pom pom squad. One minute so rightous about "Republicans do it to" until it's conveniant to trot out "Dems do it to". Plus the usual BS allegations. tsk tsk.
Quote: PJP said: Oh and they probably would have pardoned Vince Foster if they didn't murder him in his office.
The same can be said of then-DNC-Chairman Ron Brown, who died in a plane crash over Bosnia. Right after he was in danger of being indicted, and said: "If I'm going down, I'm not going down alone."
Quote: the G-man said: Now, now, PJ, that hasn't been proven.
(Of course, the fact that allegations against Republicans are unproven has never stopped MEM)
Pretty much. Although it's not proven in a court of law, it is annoying that Dems hold Republicans to a higher standard than they hold their own to.
Any conspiracy theory about Republicans is always assumed to be fact by liberals.
But if Republicans even mention the possibility that liberals are involved in conspiracies, it's considered malicious and right-wing-whacko.
When I mention these conspiracy theories about Democrats (Vince Foster, Ron Brown, etc.) I at least do it in the context that while I beleive it to be true, it hasn't been proven.
Would that liberals here and elsewhere would do the same, when attacking Republicans.
Instead, they just repeat the allegation, until sheer repetition makes the average person on the street believe it's absolute fact.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Same old same old from the Bush pom pom squad. One minute so righteous about "Republicans do it too" until it's convenient to trot out "Dems do it too". Plus the usual BS allegations. tsk tsk.
Maybe you were addressing someone else, MEM, because I never mentioned George W. Bush in my quoted comments. My comments were about Clinton, and the standard of evidence, of both parties, during Clinton's administration.
I simply pointed out that these are allegations against Democrats (the deaths of Ron Brown and Vince Foster, that conveniently prevented the Clintons from being indicted or implicated). I (and other conservatives) made clear the difference between proven and un-proven, allegations, and that while I believe the allegations, I can (and clearly did) acknowledge and make clear that they are not proven.
What you label as "B.S. allegations" are clearly defined by me as allegations (and not proven in court or evidence).
But where you spin it as B.S., I make clear that while the crimes cannot be proven, I don't believe Clinton and his administration are innocent. Just that conclusive evidence of their crimes does not exist.
And I didn't play ambiguous "Republicans/Dems do it too" games.
Both sides do play their dirty tricks.
But I find the Democrat side much more cynical and malicious, in their repeating unprovenallegations about Republicans as if they were fact.
("Bush knew", "blood for oil", "October surprise"...)
And repeating them relentlessly, through sheer repetition of the allegation, to the point that all but the most informed accept these unproven allegations as if they were proven.
To some degree, both sides play the same rhetorical political games.
But the Democrats are far more prone to vicious personal attacks, and smearing their opposition with unproven allegations.
Yeah I was responding to you WB. You had commented earlier in another thread that I use the "Republicans do it to" bit. It's just funny that you or G-man would even have a problem with that because if there is a Republican in some type of scandal or legal trouble, you guys are there to discuss some similar/percieved/made up thing by a Dem. That is fine of course, lots of times it gives perspective. I just point out that you guys do it to
As for the issue of jury selection, isn't the Defense also looking for jurers who would be more sympathetic towards Libby? This jury selection process doesn't seem to be different than any other.
HERE's the post of mine you mention, criticizing the equivalency defense of "well, Republicans do it too".
What I criticize is that Democrats use it to hide that their guy is wrong.
In the same situation, Republicans admit that the offending conservative is a scumbag, as they point out Democrats who did the same thing. That's acknowledgement as well as equivalency.
Whereas Democrats tend to use the equivalency argument to hide that their guy did anything wrong.
And when a Dem is caught (Clinton: perjury, Monica Lewinsky, for example) it's characterized as "picking on" Clinton, and Hilary gets her talking points out that it's part of a "vast right-wing conspiracy".
So even when a Democrat does something wrong, they're absolved of guilt and the Republicans are blamed.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: As for the issue of jury selection, isn't the Defense also looking for jurers who would be more sympathetic towards Libby? This jury selection process doesn't seem to be different than any other.
The prosecution, as an agent of the state, is generally given less leeway in litigation because of the need to safeguard the rights of the accused.
Furthermore, under the code of legal ethics, while a defense attorney is required to advocate for his or her client, a prosecutor is expected to act in the interests of justice even if it means he or she might lose the case.
Quote: Opening statement in Libby trial: 'The defendant lied.' Michael Roston Published: Tuesday January 23, 2007
The opening statements in the trial against former Bush administration official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby kicked off today. Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald revealed that Libby may have destroyed a note written by Vice President Dick Cheney with instructions on how he should deal with federal investigators, while Libby's defense attonrey maintained that he was a "sacrificial lamb."
A broadcast on MSNBC described Fitzgerald's opening statement, in which he challenged Libby's defense against perjury and obstruction of justice, notably that he didn't remember what he had said because he was busy dealing with national security issues:
Fitzgerald alleged that Libby in September 2003 “destroyed” a Cheney note just before Libby's first FBI interview when he said he learned about Wilson from reporters, not the vice president.
I. Lewis Libby is charged with perjury and obstruction. He told investigators he was surprised to learn Wilson’s wife’s identity from NBC News reporter Tim Russert.
But Fitzgerald told jurors that was clearly a lie because Libby had already been discussing the matter inside and outside of the White House. “You can’t learn something on Thursday that you’re giving out on Monday,” Fitzgerald said. ..
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: As for the issue of jury selection, isn't the Defense also looking for jurers who would be more sympathetic towards Libby? This jury selection process doesn't seem to be different than any other.
The prosecution, as an agent of the state, is generally given less leeway in litigation because of the need to safeguard the rights of the accused.
Furthermore, under the code of legal ethics, while a defense attorney is required to advocate for his or her client, a prosecutor is expected to act in the interests of justice even if it means he or she might lose the case.
I think you're confusing prosecuters with daredevil stuntmen. Prosecutors are given a wide range of power, from the Naval battleships to, yes, Ninjas. Any prosecuter who fails to win a case is sent to a farm upstate where the American people are told it is running free, but in reality they are shot in the head and turned into hot dogs.
Quote: ...But the Democrats are far more prone to vicious personal attacks, and smearing their opposition with unproven allegations.
...
Serious question WB, who's to blame for Libby being where he is right now?
Scooter Libby is responsible for the questionable circumstance that led to his being indicted.
But as Robert Novak himself has said (and as Richard Armitage has confirmed), Libby is not the one who outed Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.
In Joseph Wilson's Who's Who listing that Novak used to get her name, it made clear publicly way before the outing that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA agent, and her name.
Wilson as well is responsible for Plame's outing, when he wrote a critical WSJ editorial of the President's belief that Saddam Hussein was pursuing WMD's.
Saddam was pursuing nuclear WMD's, he just didn't have any made, but the David Kay investigation clearly proved Saddam had secret programs employing scientists to develop chemical, biological and nuclear WMD's, and was ready to go into production, as soon as U.N. sanctions would have been lifted from Iraq.
Further, Saddam's own falsified records indicated that he already had thousands of biological and chemical weapons. And uncontested records prove Saddam had previously purchased yellowcake uranium from Niger.
Wilson wrote an editorial critical of the President, asserting he (Wilson) had personally investigated the yellowcake uranium deal in Niger. That required anyone investigating his allegations to verify the details of Mr. Wilson's assertions, and the details of his mission.
And lo and behold, it was his wife, Valerie Plame, who got him selected for the CIA mission to Niger !
The incestuous way Wilson was selected for the mission is suspect.
In addition, Wilson has lied at many points about the details of his mission.
All this required investigation, and independent of Scooter Libby, points a glowing neon arrow at... Valerie Plame.
So I'd say the action of Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame, before, during and after Scooter Libby's remarks, have a lot more to do with Plame's outing than Libby.
And again: Richard Armitage is the one who revealed himself to be the responsible party, in naming Valerie Plame.
So... if there were any true wrongdoing here, wouldn't Richard Armitage be up on charges?
But he's not.
And if he's not, then why is Libby even being tried?
It's all a liberal show, so they can point fingers at Republicans, and make allegations they know to be false.
Both sides do play their dirty tricks.
But I find the Democrat side much more cynical and malicious, in their repeating unproven allegations about Republicans as if they were fact.
("Bush knew", "blood for oil", "October surprise"...)
And repeating them relentlessly, through sheer repetition of the allegation, to the point that all but the most informed accept these unproven allegations as if they were proven.
To some degree, both sides play the same rhetorical political games.
But the Democrats are far more prone to vicious personal attacks, and smearing their opposition with unproven allegations.
Both sides do play their dirty tricks. But I find the Democrat side much more cynical and malicious, in their repeating unproven allegations about Republicans as if they were fact. ("Bush knew", "blood for oil", "October surprise"...) And repeating them relentlessly, through sheer repetition of the allegation, to the point that all but the most informed accept these unproven allegations as if they were proven.
To some degree, both sides play the same rhetorical political games.
But the Democrats are far more prone to vicious personal attacks, and smearing their opposition with unproven allegations.
Swiftboat, Vince Foster, Osama bin Laden wants the Democrats to win, Willie Horton, Creep bugging the Democrats.
Over 250 veterans who served in a squad of swift-boats with John Kerry say Kerry's campaign promotion of his war-veteran status is false.
Only 13, at last count, stand by Kerry's version of events.
Let the record speak for itself.
The doctor who treated one of Kerry's wounds said it was self-inflicted by a grenade that Kerry tossed, and so reported. When Kerry's commanding officer wouldn't recommend him for a Purple Heart medal for the incident, Kerry went behind the officer's back, and asked another officer to submit him for a Purple Heart regarding the injury.
Kerry's received another medal for stabbing a retreating wounded soldier in the back.
Kerry unquestionably turned on his country and his fellow Vietnam veterans when he came home, with extremely inflammatory rhetoric.
And Kerry made such unsubstantaited wild allegations against American soldiers in Vietnam (alleged raping of women, shooting farm animals for sport, etc., that he said for years he saw firsthand and then later admitted he never saw, that it was, at best, just hearsay), to the point that even the V V A W (Vietnam Veterans Against the War) distanced themselves from Kerry and his war-views.
The head of the V V A W at that time described Kerry as an opportunist, who told people what they wanted to hear.
Let the record speak for itself.
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Vince Foster,
I've made very clear that the evidence does not prove this allegation, and have repeatedly mentioned my belief in Clinton's involvement in his death within this context.
There is no assumption of this having been proven, by me or anyone else here.
I always mention this in the full context that while I believe Clinton to be involved in Foster's death, that is not proven, and probably never will be.
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Osama bin Laden wants the Democrats to win,
Osama Bin Ladin flatout said this in one of his released statements to the Al Jazeera arab media.
And Iraqi resistance and other dictators around the world voiced similar elation when Democrats won control of the House and Senate this past November.
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Willie Horton,
The convicted murderer who was released from life imprisonment on furlough in Massachussetts by then-governor Michael Dukakis, who was then enabled by Dukakis' liberal attitude and actions, to murder again.
Please demonstrate to me where mention of this fact in the 1988 presidential campaign was innaccurate or a smear. It is absolute fact.
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Creep bugging the Democrats.
?????
This is not a smear by Republicans of Democrats with false allegations.
It is mention of Republicans clearly committing a crime, hiring five Cuban nationals and ex-CIA agents to bug the DNC offices at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C. in June 1972.
And on this point I think we can agree, these were Republicans guilty of a crime. But the crime was not smear and false allegations.
I'd also add that Republicans in Congress in 1974 joined Democrats in investigating this burglary and related corruption, up to and including voting to impeach a Republican president.
In the same situation in 1998, Democrats stonewalled and prevented a clearly guilty Bill Clinton from paying a price for his crimes. Which makes me laugh contemptuously when Democrats talk about the Republican "culture of corruption", and posture about Mark Foley or whoever.
Republicans hold their own accountable for crimes.
Democrats either look the other way, or blame pursuit of justice against Democrats on Republican "mean-spiritedness".
Despite the clear guilt of their fellow Democrats, Dems pursue the blame-game over true justice.
Quote: Wonder Boy said: Over 250 veterans who served in a squad of swift-boats with John Kerry say Kerry's campaign promotion of his war-veteran status is false.
Only 13, at last count, stand by Kerry's version of events.
Let the record speak for itself.
Of the 3,500 who served on Swiftboats, 250 were on the Swiftboat Veterans list. Of those, most hadn't even served with Kerry. At best then its hearsay.
Quote: The doctor who treated one of Kerry's wounds said it was self-inflicted by a grenade that Kerry tossed, and so reported. When Kerry's commanding officer wouldn't recommend him for a Purple Heart medal for the incident, Kerry went behind the officer's back, and asked another officer to submit him for a Purple Heart regarding the injury.
Isn't the purple heart for injuries? Are you saying John Kerry had an accident with a grenade or purposely injured himself with one (easier ways to hurt yourself)?
Also from the same wikipedia page:
Of those who served in Kerry's boat crew, only Stephen Gardner joined SBVT. He was not present on any of the occasions when Kerry won his medals, including his Purple Hearts. Gardner appeared in two of the group's television advertisements.
Quote: Kerry's received another medal for stabbing a retreating wounded soldier in the back.
From the wikipedia page on the Swift Boat group (you can go there yourself and review the sources).
The ABC television show Nightline traveled to Vietnam and interviewed Vietnamese who were involved in the battle for which Kerry was awarded the Silver Star. These witnesses disputed O'Neill's charge that there "was little or no fire" that day; they said that the fighting was fierce. [16] SBVT supporters question whether these witnesses are reliable because they spoke "in the presence of a Communist official" [17], but their account of enemy fire is substantially the same as that previously given by another former VC to an AP reporter [18], and by the American witnesses, including the only SBVT member who was actually present that day, Larry Clayton Lee [19][20]["Tour of Duty," pp. 290-292] ["John F. Kerry, The Complete Biography" (Boston Globe), pp. 100-103].
Quote: Kerry unquestionably turned on his country and his fellow Vietnam veterans when he came home, with extremely vocal and inflammatory rhetoric.
Unquestionably turned on them? That is your opinion. The right to protest is as old as America itself. No different than the Boston Massacre events or the Boston Tea Party. Kerry served his full tour and came back to protest a war he felt was wrong, a mistake. By the time he got back it was clear the war was a big mess. Even Nixon ran on the platform in 1968 of trying to end the war (though he wanted some sort of token win). Kerry's line "how do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake" is a very noble and compassionate thing to ask. He obviously cared about people dying in Vietnam and wanted them to be pulled out of danger quick and not have their lives played as politics.
I would say he was actually fighting for them, not turning on them.
Quote: And Kerry made such unsubstantaited wild allegations against American soldiers in Vietnam (alleged raping of women, shooting farm animals for sport, etc., that he said for years he saw firsthand and then later admitted he never saw, that it was, at best, just hearsay), to the point that even the VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against the War) distanced themselves from Kerry and his war-views.
The head of the VVAW at that time described Kerry as an opportunist, who told people what they wanted to hear.
Well there were a lot of attrocities over there. Kerry saying he saw them when he didn't was clearly wrong (though I noticed you support the Swiftboat hearsay but not his, whereas I admonished all hearsay. You, my friend, are a flip flopper).
Quote: Let the record speak for itself.
Exactly.....bitch.
Quote: Osama Bin Ladin flatout said this in one of his released statements to the Al Jazeera arab media.
And Solomon wanted them to cut the cow in half? Jeez, do you take him at his word? Has he earned your trust?
Also bin Laden said in an Arabic newspaper that he had nothing to do with 9/11, yet there is a video of him from the U.S. government where he took credit. He also praised Bush for uniting the Arab world to his cause before the election.
The guy likes to fuck with us. Don't take him at his word. I just hope you didn't really believe he could sell you the Brooklyn bridge.
Quote: And Iraqi resistance and other dictators around the world voiced similar elation when Democrats won control of the House and Senate this past November.
Again, I'm dubious. Have you ever considered that Bush has done so much fucking up in Iraq that any challenge to him is welcomed.
Quote:
The convicted murderer who was released from life imprisonment on furlough in Massachussetts by then-governor Michael Dukakis, who was then enabled by Dukakis' liberal attitude and actions, to murder again.
Please demonstrate to me where mention of this fact in the 1988 pesidential campaign was innaccurate or a smear. It is absolute fact.
and Bush executed a retard. Bush Sr. played it up to seem like Dukakis practically helped in the killing.
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Creep bugging the Democrats.
Quote: ?????
Watergate. Commitee to Reelect the President. You do know what office they were breaking into in the Watergate?
Quote: Libby trial prosecutors reveal pre-war battle over Iraq WMDs
David Edwards Published: Wednesday January 24, 2007
Prosecutors in the trial for former White House aide I. Lewis Libby revealed some details on the Bush Administration's "pre-war battle" over Iraq's WMDs, according to MSNBC.
Former Under-Secretary of State Marc Grossman testified that he received a request from Libby at the end of May 2003, asking for information about Ambassador Joseph Wilson's trip to Africa during which he found there was no evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, MSNBC's David Shuster reported.
Grossman testified it was just two weeks later that he had a face-to-face meeting with Libby, then Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff and Assistant to the Vice President for National Security, and told him, in so many words, "look, here's a report on Joe Wilson's trip and, by the way, we've learned that the ambassador's wife, Valerie Wilson, she is undercover at the CIA," Shuster continued.
In the pre-war arguments, many State Department workers had huge problems with the nuclear case that the Bush Administration had made against Iraq. That came up and was significant because at the time the Administration and former Secretary of State Colin Powell were putting up a united front, Shuster added. ...
I thought the issues was whether Libby knowingly lied to the grand jury. After all, as noted ad nauseam, the leaker has been identified, not as Libby, but Richard Armitage.
The fact that Nifong, oops, I mean, Fitzgerald, is bringing in this extraneous information on the prosecution side could be grounds for an appeal.
I don't know how much serious response to give to this long-winded tangent (and I'm as responsible for it as you are, r3x, but I felt a need to respond to the points you raised.
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Quote: Wonder Boy said: Over 250 veterans who served in a squad of swift-boats with John Kerry say Kerry's campaign promotion of his war-veteran status is false.
Only 13, at last count, stand by Kerry's version of events.
Let the record speak for itself.
Of the 3,500 who served on Swiftboats, 250 were on the Swiftboat Veterans list. Of those, most hadn't even served with Kerry. At best then its hearsay.
It seems to me that Wikipedia's listing for this particular entry is liberally biased, and is more of an attempt to discredit the allegations of the Swiftvets and exonerate Kerry, than it is a serious attempt to weigh both sides of the story.
I've fielded this one before. Wikipedia's listing, despite its best effort to trash the Swiftvets and exonerate Kerry, reluctantly displays valid and visibly true arguments of the Swiftvets who signed on to dispute Kerry's "war hero" self-promotion campaign.
The Wikipedia SWIFTVET listing despite its bias, and what you chose to excerpt here, does say that 11 of the 250 Vets who signed the statement against Kerry, had served in combat with Kerry.
Further, these boats served in squads and coordinated together, so even if they didn't serve aboard the same boat as Kerry, they patrolled together, planned and maneuvered together and communicated by radio. It's a cop-out to say they weren't on the same boat with Kerry.
Kerry received three Purple Heart medals for injury in battle, and yet was never even hospitalized.
.
I already said his commanding officer declined to give him a Purple Heart, and Kerry went behind his C.O.'s back, to submit and receive the medal through another officer.
.
The physician who examined Kerry (I linked it in the previous Bush/Kerry military records topic) said he evaluated that the wound was self-inflicted, and did not warrant a Purple Heart.
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Quote: W B said: The doctor who treated one of Kerry's wounds said it was self-inflicted by a grenade that Kerry tossed, and so reported. When Kerry's commanding officer wouldn't recommend him for a Purple Heart medal for the incident, Kerry went behind the officer's back, and asked another officer to submit him for a Purple Heart regarding the injury.
Isn't the purple heart for injuries? Are you saying John Kerry had an accident with a grenade or purposely injured himself with one (easier ways to hurt yourself)?
As I quoted in the earlier Bush/Kerry, military records topic, Kerry threw a grenade, and threw it too close to himself, and thus accidentally injured himself.
But either way (intentional or not) a self-inflicted wound disqualifies him for a Purple Heart.
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Also from the same wikipedia page:
Of those who served in Kerry's boat crew, only Stephen Gardner joined SBVT [in condemning Kerry's receiving medals, questioning his valor].
[Gardner] was not present on any of the occasions when Kerry won his medals, including his Purple Hearts. Gardner appeared in two of the group's television advertisements.
The commanding officers who submit any soldier for a medal generally don't see the awarded incidents firsthand. But they still make a judgement based on evidence whether they deserve an award or not.
Kerry's C.O refused Kerry a Purple Heart for an incident, and Kerry went to another officer to get a Purple Heart anyway.
That's a fact.
A physician, who examined Kerry's battle wound as well, determined it self-inflicted.
That Kerry submitted for the medal anyway, behind their backs, alone makes me question Kerry's worthiness.
Add to that how in 1971 at a protest rally, he pretended to throw away his medals in shame for his Vietnam service, to inspire a lack of patriotism in others, but secretly was, and now still is, in fact proud of his medals and service, and kept those medals.
Is Kerry proud or ashamed of his Vietnam service ?
Is he a proud anti-war demonstrator, or a proud "decorated hero" who was awarded Purple Hearts officers and doctors don't think he deserved, but submitted for anyway, only to pretend to throw away in 1971, and then express pride in later.
War hero, or anti-war demonstrator ?
Which way is the wind blowing ?
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Quote: WB said: Kerry's received another medal for stabbing a retreating wounded soldier in the back.
From the wikipedia page on the Swift Boat group (you can go there yourself and review the sources)
The ABC television show Nightline traveled to Vietnam and interviewed Vietnamese who were involved in the battle for which Kerry was awarded the Silver Star.
These witnesses disputed O'Neill's charge that there "was little or no fire" that day; they said that the fighting was fierce. [16] SBVT supporters question whether these witnesses are reliable because they spoke "in the presence of a Communist official" [17], but their account of enemy fire is substantially the same as that previously given by another former VC to an AP reporter [18], and by the American witnesses, including the only SBVT member who was actually present that day, Larry Clayton Lee [19][20]["Tour of Duty," pp. 290-292] ["John F. Kerry, The Complete Biography" (Boston Globe), pp. 100-103].
I don't consider the word of Vietnamese enemies who hate the United States to be substantiation.
There are too many possible hidden motives for their making such a statement.
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Quote: WB said: Kerry unquestionably turned on his country and his fellow Vietnam veterans when he came home, with extremely vocal and inflammatory rhetoric.
Unquestionably turned on them? That is your opinion.
The right to protest is as old as America itself. No different than the Boston Massacre events or the Boston Tea Party.
Kerry served his full tour and came back to protest a war he felt was wrong, a mistake. By the time he got back it was clear the war was a big mess.
Even Nixon ran on the platform in 1968 of trying to end the war (though he wanted some sort of token win). Kerry's line "how do you ask someone to be the last man to die for a mistake" is a very noble and compassionate thing to ask. He obviously cared about people dying in Vietnam and wanted them to be pulled out of danger quick and not have their lives played as politics.
I would say he was actually fighting for them, not turning on them.
And that is your opinion.
I would argue that despite the losses, the 58,000 who died in Vietnam were not in vain.
For 25 years, the willingness of the United States, through several presidencies, Democrat and Republican, to fight to the bitter end in Vietnam, saved lives, both American and foreign.
The willingness of the United States to oppose communist-backed aggression anywhere in the world at a high cost (specifically, in Vietnam) gave the Soviet Union and China pause in potentially expanding their influence into other conflicts.
The Vietnam war ended in 1975. The last remnants of Kissenger and the anti-communist commitment left in the Nov 1976 election. Carter the Pacifist was elected and inaugurated in Jan 1977.
What happened after?
Laos.
Cambodia.
Iranian revolution
Angola.
The Sandinista revolution in Nicaragua
Idi Amin in Uganda.
The Cuban Mariel boatlift.
Afghanistan
When the communists saw there was a president who would not oppose communist aggression, the aggression expanded with a vengeance.
The 58,000 in Vietnam didn't die just for Vietnam. They died to show American commitment, so other wars would not have to be fought. A president after that just had to voice sustained commitment to the same principles, without military action. The 58,000 had already demonstrated that commitment.
But Carter, with his pacifist rhetoric, dropped the ball.
And communists, seeing the wavering commitment, leaped at the opportunity to expand unopposed.
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Quote: W B said: And Kerry made such unsubstantaited wild allegations against American soldiers in Vietnam (alleged raping of women, shooting farm animals for sport, etc., that he said for years he saw firsthand and then later admitted he never saw, that it was, at best, just hearsay), to the point that even the VVAW (Vietnam Veterans Against the War) distanced themselves from Kerry and his war-views.
The head of the VVAW at that time described Kerry as an opportunist, who told people what they wanted to hear.
Well there were a lot of atrocities over there. Kerry saying he saw them when he didn't was clearly wrong (though I noticed you support the Swiftboat hearsay but not his, whereas I admonished all hearsay. You, my friend, are a flip flopper).
Kerry's hearsay is clearly untrue.
Whereas the Swiftvets' statements... 1) about Kerry's unworthiness to receive medals (the doctor who examined Kerry's wounds, the C.O. who refused to award a Purple Heart for self-inflicted wounds,
and
2)criticizing Kerry's opportunistically pursuing a Purple Heart through another officer behind their backs),
and
3) exposing Kerry's anti-American comments alleging he saw firsthand American soldiers raping women, etc. (Kerry himself later admitted he did not see these things firsthand as he alleged, i.e., he lied)
...are demonstrably true
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Quote: W B said: Let the record speak for itself.
Exactly.....bitch.
Your spiteful remarks just further underscore your pre-formed opinionated rage, and lack of objectivity.
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Quote: W B said: Osama Bin Ladin flatout said this in one of his released statements to the Al Jazeera arab media.
And Solomon wanted them to cut the cow in half? Jeez, do you take him at his word? Has he earned your trust?
Also bin Laden said in an Arabic newspaper that he had nothing to do with 9/11, yet there is a video of him from the U.S. government where he took credit. He also praised Bush for uniting the Arab world to his cause before the election.
The guy likes to fuck with us. Don't take him at his word. I just hope you didn't really believe he could sell you the Brooklyn bridge.
I recall liberals post-9/11 holding this up to protest Al Qaida's innocence, and how morally wrong it would be for us to bomb Afghanistan.
You can look up the RKMB topics from September 2001 here on RKMB, if you want some examples. Perhaps you'll be making that closing payment on Brooklyn bridge, and not me.
It makes so much sense that these statements to Al Jazeera are a smokescreen, because Al Qaida is more afraid of a Democrat president who will treat Al Qaida as a criminal pursuit instead of all-out war.
And it makes so much sense that Al Qaida is terrified that Democrats will make good their threats, for years now, to withdraw U.S. forces from Iraq, and cut off funding from President Bush so he cannot continue the Iraq occupation. And to abandon a weak democracy to overthrow by Iraq insurgents and islamic fundamentalist death-squads, so Iraq can become the new hub of Islamic terrorism, the new equivalent of a Taliban-ruled Afghanistan.
Yeah, Bin Ladin must be terrified. Your argument makes perfect sense
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Quote: W B said: And Iraqi resistance and other dictators around the world voiced similar elation when Democrats won control of the House and Senate this past November.
Again, I'm dubious. Have you ever considered that Bush has done so much fucking up in Iraq that any challenge to him is welcomed.
I'd be more inclined to believe that, if the Iraqis and others were lobbying for peace, and not forming more death squads, pursuing nuclear weapons, threatening their neighbors and preparing for war.
They don't like Bush.
But they're more cautious of Bush than they would be of Clinton, Gore, Kerry, or some other liberal pacifist who would make half-hearted threats of military action and never really act.
That empty rhetoric, without committed action, is what led to 9-11, after a long series of escalating Al Qaida incidents since 1993.
Quote: Karl Hungus said:
Quote: W B said: The convicted murderer who was released from life imprisonment on furlough in Massachussetts by then-governor Michael Dukakis, who was then enabled by Dukakis' liberal attitude and actions, to murder again.
Please demonstrate to me where mention of this fact in the 1988 pesidential campaign was innaccurate or a smear. It is absolute fact.
and Bush executed a retard. Bush Sr. played it up to seem like Dukakis practically helped in the killing.
No, Bush Sr in 1988 presented the Willie Horton incident for exactly what it was: a misguided liberal sympathy for dangerous criminals, that plays dangerous games with people's lives, hurting people with social programs that don't work. And demonstrating that what Dukakis did locally in Massachusetts, would be implemented nationally if he were elected.
A guy who lets murderers out of jail to murder more people is not someone I'd want in command of our military, or concocting similarly misguided social policies on a national level.
Quote: Karl Hungus said: Creep bugging the Democrats.
Quote: ?????
Quote: Karl Hungus said: Watergate. Commitee to Reelect the President. You do know what office they were breaking into in the Watergate?
I just said it above, if you bothered to read it: the rooms used for the Democratic National Committee, at the Watergate Hotel, in Washington D.C.
They were there to bug the rooms, so they could listen in on their political strategy, and presumably outmaneuver them. Which was dumb, because Nixon won by a huge landslide without this illegal activity, and it was clear he would early on.
Again, bugging and listening in is not "smear" and "false allegation". Although, as I said, it is clearly illegal, and Republicans joined in investigating, indicting, and pursuing impeachment of those involved.
In contrast to Democrats in 1998, who ignored crimes of Clinton, clung to their Democrat control of the Presidency despite Clinton's clear guilt, and in general smeared the innocent to protect the guilty, in their abdication of ethics, in their ruthless preservation of Democrat power.
Wonderboy, I think we've both stated our cases (it will take me a bit to read through all of your post, but i will). At this point though it will just get down to personal perspectives on the same information. I don't think John Kerry was the greatest candidate ever, though I do know that he served when he was well off enough to get out of it while Bush (and you can't argue this) played it safe in the National Guard. And the fact is that there were people who actually served with Kerry who respected him as a good soldier, and others who didn't see him that way. Do we know 100% of his personal encounters with them all to know if grudges may have formed? Either way, this has been debated to the point where we'll just have to agree to disagree instead of wasting a few days arguing.
Quote: Cheney's ex-spokeswoman says VP's office was aware of Plame prior to Libby's talks with reporters
John Byrne Published: Thursday January 25, 2007
In a major development today in the I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby perjury and obstruction of justice trial, a former vice presidential spokeswoman raised questions about the defense employed by Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. Cheney's former Press Secretary Cathie Martin took the stand and told the prosectuion she had briefed Libby and the Vice President on the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame as the wife of Iraq war critic Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Martin revealed that she had a conversation with a CIA counterpart who in the course of the discussion said that Plame was Wilson's wife. She immediately informed Cheney and Libby of this fact, on a date she said was prior to July 6th, according to the Associated Press. Libby claims he learned of Plame's identity days later.
The defense will cross-examine Martin on Libby's behalf this afternoon. MSNBC has provided details on Libby's lawyers questioning of memory as a tactic to call witnesses' accounts into doubt during the trial.
Quote: Captain Sammitch said: That's a nice RAW story you got there, DSM!
Sorry that you feel the need to go with personal attacks Cap. Otherwise it was pretty much an update of a big trial. Here's one from Reuters...
Quote: ...Martin is the third government official to testify that they told Libby of Plame's identity up to a month before he says he learned of her from a reporter. The other two officials have admitted under cross-examination to giving conflicting accounts of their conversations with Libby....
So we're up to 3 people who told Libby of Plame's identity that he says he doesn't remember.
...and yet Armitage is still clearly the person who revealed himself to be the leaker to reporter Robert Novak, whose article revealing Plame's name is the focal point of this controversy.
Again:
Richard Armitage is the one who revealed himself to be the responsible party, in naming Valerie Plame.
So... if there were any true wrongdoing here, wouldn't Richard Armitage be up on charges?
But he's not.
And if he's not, then why is Libby even being tried?
It's all a liberal show, so they can point fingers at Republicans, and make allegations they know to be false.
No, I think the point is that Armitage being the leaker tends to show that Libby had no real motive to lie.
Armitage was anti-war, I believe. Therefore, he had no reason to leak Plame's name as revenge for Wilson's anti-war statements.
Since the leaker was not motivated by a desire for revenge and, in fact, probably released her name by accident, why would Libby have lied?
Libby claims his "perjury" was the result of faulty memory. That there seems to be no motive tends to confirm that. Which may create "reasonable doubt."
If there's reasonable doubt, there's no conviction.
Quote: Newsweek: Rove could testify in Libby case as subpoenas delivered
President Bush's top political consultant, Karl Rove, could testify in the much-publicized trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Michael Isikoff reports in a Newsweek web exclusive.
"White House anxiety is mounting over the prospect that top officials--including deputy chief of staff Karl Rove and counselor Dan Bartlett--may be forced to provide potentially awkward testimony in the perjury and obstruction trial" of Libby, writes Isikoff.
Rove and Bartlett have both already received subpoenas from defense lawyers for Libby, Isikoff quotes lawyers related to the case as saying.
The article states that while it's not guaranteed that Rove and Bartlett will be called, chances rose this week after Libby's lawyer "laid out a defense resting on the idea that his client ... had been made a 'scapegoat' to protect Rove."
Isikoff adds, again quoting, that the Vice President is "expected to provide the most crucial testimony" to back up the assertions made by Libby's lawyer.
RAW STORY earlier reported on a New York Times article that suggested Libby's "scapegoat" defense "may not be supportable by any evidence."
Excerpts from the Newsweek article follow...
#
The possibility that Rove could be called to testify would bring his own role into sharper focus--and could prove important to Libby's lawyers for several reasons. Rove has said in secret testimony that, during a chat on July 11, 2003, Libby told him he learned about Plame's employment at the CIA from NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert, a legal source who asked not to be identified talking about grand jury matters told NEWSWEEK...
But the Rove account could cut in other ways. Fitzgerald would likely argue that Libby's comment to Rove merely shows that the vice president's top aide "was even lying inside the White House," according to the legal source. Moreover, Rove is likely not eager to recount the story either. The reason? He would have to acknowledge that shortly after he had the chat with Libby, he went back to his office and had a phone conversation with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper in which he also disclosed the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. The disclosure was potentially illegal since, at the time, Plame was employed in the Directorate of Operations, the agency's covert arm...
...
An equally embarrassing conflict could emerge next week when former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer takes the stand. Fleischer has been one of the most mysterious figures in the case, making virtually no public comments about it since he left the White House in July 2003. In the past he has insisted he wasn't even represented by a lawyer. But it emerged during court arguments this week that Fleischer originally invoked his Fifth Amendment privileges to avoid testifying and then only agreed to do so after he was given an immunity deal by Fitzgerald--an arrangement that normally requires extensive bargaining among attorneys...
...
On its face, Fleischer's account seems to contradict the repeated public assertions of his immediate successor, Scott McClellan, in October 2003 that nobody at the White House was in any way involved in the leak of Plame's identity. It also potentially puts Bartlett, one of the president's senior and most trusted advisers, on the hot seat. If Bartlett backs up Fleischer, it suggests he himself played a role in passing along radioactive information that triggered a criminal investigation that has plagued the White House for more than four years.
Quote: Former White House spokesman says Libby told him about Plame earlier than admitted
RAW STORY Published: Monday January 29, 2007
Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer has confirmed the testimony of other witnesses by stating that he learned Valerie Plame's identify from I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby several days before Libby claimed to have heard about it from a reporter on July 10 or 11, 2003.
Fleischer said Libby had told him at a lunch meeting on July 7 that ex-ambassador Joe Wilson, Plame's husband, was "sent to Niger to investigate reports Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material there by Wilson's wife, not by the vice president, as some news accounts were saying," write Carol D. Leonnig and Amy Goldstein at The Washington Post.
David Shuster of MSNBC remarked on the air during a courtroom break that "the last half an hour of testimony that the jury has heard is by far the most dramatic and compelling testimony they have heard in this trial." ...
Fleischer is the 5th government witness to testify to having earlier conversations with Libby about Plame. I don't see how Libby can seriusly say he couldn't remember any of these.
Quote: Cooper: Libby One of Two Sources to Confirm Plame Identity
By Amy Goldstein and Carol D. Leonnig Washington Post Staff Writers Wednesday, January 31, 2007; 6:22 PM
Former Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper testified today that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was one of two government sources to confirm the identity of an undercover CIA officer for him.
Cooper told the court in Libby's perjury trial that he first learned in a quick and confidential conversation with senior White House adviser Karl Rove in July 2003 that the wife of a prominent war critic worked at the CIA. He said that Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, confirmed the information for him at the end of another telephone call in early July.
Cooper is the eighth government witness to testify that Libby knew about CIA officer Valerie Plame or shared information about her in the weeks before Libby contends he learned her name.
Most news reports this week have highlighted the prosecution's successes. But the prosecutor must prove his case "beyond a reasonable doubt" - and the Libby team has had evident success in casting all kinds of doubt on the testimony of Fitzgerald's witnesses. So things are far muddier in Judge Reggie Walton's courtroom than the reporters covering the trial are letting on.
This is easily seen if you read the observations of the most obsessive followers of the Libby case. They come in two varieties - left-wingers who'd be happy to see Libby face a firing squad and righties who'd now be happy to see Fitzgerald face a firing squad.
Web sites on both sides of the ideological divide provide moment-by-moment transcripts of the courtroom proceedings, and other sites give moment-by-moment analysis.
Reading these sites every day has a vertigo-inducing effect that probably resembles the suffering of those who have bipolar disorder.
it's become the habit of those consumed with this case's details to depersonalize their "enemies" - meaning not only Libby or Fitzgerald, but also their witnesses, fellow lawyers and the like.
Maybe that's because the case against Scooter Libby is so astoundingly petty that arguing over it is like arguing over scraps.
To secure his conviction, Fitzgerald only wants the jury to agree to the following - that Libby, who acknowledges having learned a fact on a Thursday, is lying when he claims he'd already forgotten it four days later.
You'd think that would be a pretty easy case to make. But it turns out it's not - and that, even on Fitzgerald's own extremely narrow terms, he may not be able to establish these plain facts beyond a reasonable doubt.
How many people have testified that they talked to Libby about Plame before he said he heard it from Russert first? At last count it was 8. I would say that makes reasonable doubt for the prosecutor rather easy to overcome.
Quote: Vice President's Shadow Hangs Over Trial Libby Trial Testimony Points Out Cheney's Role in Trying to Dampen Wilson's Criticism
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Carol D. Leonnig Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, February 4, 2007; Page A05
Vice President Cheney's press officer, Cathie Martin, approached his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on Air Force Two on July 12, 2003, to ask how she should respond to journalists' questions about Joseph C. Wilson IV. Libby looked over the reporter's questions and told Martin: "Well, let me go talk to the boss and I'll be back."
On Libby's return, Martin testified in federal court last week, he brought a card with detailed replies dictated by Cheney, including a highly partisan, incomplete summary of Wilson's investigation into Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction program.
Libby subsequently called a reporter, read him the statement, and said -- according to the reporter -- he had "heard" that Wilson's investigation was instigated by his wife, an employee at the CIA, later identified as Valerie Plame. The reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, was one of five people with whom Libby discussed Plame's CIA status during those critical weeks that summer.
After seven days of such courtroom testimony, the unanswered question hanging over Libby's trial is, did the vice president's former chief of staff decide to leak that disparaging information on his own? ...
Washington Post Does anyone think Libby was acting on his own?
Not everyone here is hopelessly mired in a double standard. I actually don't care about that thread either.
Couldn't tell since your post on that thread certainly wasn't a neutral one towards Dems. I do agree that not everyone here is hopelessly mired in a double standard though.
Not everyone here is hopelessly mired in a double standard. I actually don't care about that thread either.
Couldn't tell since your post on that thread certainly wasn't a neutral one towards Dems. I do agree that not everyone here is hopelessly mired in a double standard though.
I'm not "neutral toward Dems". I will tear them a new one given the opportunity. I have also done that given opportunities with Republicans. I simply am called upon to lambast Democrats more often because Republicans tend to draw less fire given their diminishing level of relevance, whereas the Democrats are an active threat because of their current position of power. Plus they almost beg for it sometimes by being FUCKING morons.
Quote: Audiotapes of Libby's Testimony to Be Released By Amy Goldstein and Carol D. Leonnig Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, February 5, 2007; 5:12 PM
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby told a grand jury that he largely "could not recall" several details of conversations he had with Vice President Cheney and others regarding Joseph C. Wilson IV, the war critic who accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq, according to audiotapes played in court this afternoon.
Carefully and deliberately testifying in 2004 as part of the probe that eventually led to criminal charges against him, Libby, who was then Cheney's chief of staff, said he did remember his boss telling him in June 2003 that former ambassador Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. But Cheney said it in "sort of an offhand manner, as a curiosity," Libby said.
The vice president used a tone unlike his regular voice, Libby said, which "was much more matter of fact and straight."
The audiotapes of Libby's own words are being played to a jury that is weighing whether he is guilty of lying to investigators probing the leak of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity to the media.
Libby is charged with two counts of perjury, two counts of making false statements and one count of obstructing the investigation. He has pleaded not guilty to the five felonies, contending that, when he spoke with investigators, he innocently misremembered events surrounding the disclosure of Plame's identity. He is not charged with the leak itself.
Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald alleges that Plame's name was disclosed to the media to discredit her husband. ...
Quote: 'Startling moment' at Libby trial as President Bush is referenced
David Edwards Published: Tuesday February 6, 2007
Last night on MSNBC's Countdown, correspondent David Shuster provided a breakdown of Monday's events at the trial of former White House aide I. Lewis Libby.
One "very startling moment" occurred when a tape of Libby's grand jury testimony included references to President George Bush.
"There was one other very startling moment, referring to President Bush, in Scooter Libby‘s Grand Jury testimony on audiotape. Libby noted on a piece of paper a notation, and prosecutors asked whether the notation shows that President Bush was interested in the Kristof article on the State of the Union," Shuster said. "It was a Kristof article in May of 2003 which first got the White House thinking about Ambassador Wilson, because it talked about an ambassador‘s trip, which essentially undercut the State of the Union speech."
Shuster continued, "Libby was asked about the president‘s interest and he said, yes, that‘s what my notes signals, but Libby then went on to testify he never discussed the president‘s interest with the vice president, nor did Libby speak about it with President Bush. He went on to testify that he only heard about the president‘s interest from a senior staff meeting. Of course, we don‘t know if Libby was telling the truth, but it was certainly a tantalizing bit of testimony." ...
The prosecution in the perjury trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. neared the end of its case Wednesday with a final dramatic flourish — putting Tim Russert of NBC News on the witness stand to deliver what could be a serious blow to Mr. Libby’s defense.
Nevertheless, Mr. Russert, who is accustomed to asking tough questions of his guests on “Meet the Press,” found himself in the clearly uncomfortable role of being the subject of tough questions during a cross-examination by Mr. Libby’s defense lawyer.
Mr. Russert, whose signature technique in interrogating officials on his television program includes confronting them with documents and texts of previous quotes, found the technique used on him. A defense lawyer displayed documents on a large television screen in the courtroom as he challenged Mr. Russert’s recollection of events.
On Wednesday, Mr. Russert testified under a prosecutor’s questioning that, contrary to Mr. Libby’s testimony, he never spoke with him about Valerie Wilson, the C.I.A. officer.
Mr. Russert, the moderator of “Meet the Press,” was unequivocal in his testimony that no such conversation with Mr. Libby occurred. But when Mr. Libby’s chief defense lawyer, Theodore V. Wells Jr., began his efforts to disparage Mr. Russert’s reliability in cross-examination, Mr. Russert’s confident demeanor changed abruptly.
Mr. Russert... stopped speaking in the confident, complete sentences in which he had answered the prosecutor in his direct testimony. Instead, he became more deliberate and halting in his responses, frequently asking Mr. Wells to repeat the question or asking for time to examine the document about which he was being asked. “Say again?” he said frequently.
Testifying for a second day at Libby's perjury trial, Russert said he took no joy in Libby's fate ...But Russert sounded giddy in an audiotape played in court this afternoon of his on-air interview with radio personality Don Imus on the morning of Oct. 28, when charges were expected against Libby.
"It was like Christmas Eve here last night," Russert chortled, as he told Imus about the much-anticipated results of a CIA leak investigation that Fitzgerald was expected to announce later that afternoon. "Santa Claus is coming tomorrow. Surprises! What's going to be under the tree?"
No. There is plenty of evidence that he committed the crimes he's been charged with. Interestingly enough the only motive I can think of for a subordiante like Libby to obstruct an investigation is to protect his bosses. (Bush, Cheney)
Instead of your usual "MEM" post G-man why not say what other motive Libby may have had for obstucting the investigation? Or if you think he's innocent of the charges, why?
Assuming he's guilty, the most common motivation for lying under oath is to save oneself from some unfortunate consequence, be it pecuniary or personal (see, eg, Bill Clinton).
Quote: the G-man said: Most news reports this week have highlighted the prosecution's successes. But the prosecutor must prove his case "beyond a reasonable doubt" - and the Libby team has had evident success in casting all kinds of doubt on the testimony of Fitzgerald's witnesses. So things are far muddier in Judge Reggie Walton's courtroom than the reporters covering the trial are letting on....even on Fitzgerald's own extremely narrow terms, he may not be able to establish these plain facts beyond a reasonable doubt.
However, you are focusing on a relatively minor point in my response.
I had indicated to you that there was little actual evidence that Libby, if guily, was lying to protect Cheney. I explained, in response to a post of yours, that it seemed more plausible that Libby had lied, if at all, to save his own skin, which is the more typical scenario in a perjury case.
Again, I have to ask: do you really read what we post?
Of course I do. I just don't agree with you. Almost a dozen people have testified that they talked to Libby about Plame before he says he "remembers" talking to somebody about it. The person that Libby says he did talk to (Russert) has flatly denied that happened. Outside of Libby admitting he lied I'm not sure what more evidence is needed for reasonable doubt.
Okay, but why not have said that in response earlier? Its not like I changed the subject. You were the one who brought up Libby's motivation as a topic and then abandoned it once I responded.
You answered my question as to what motive you thought Libby may be operating under. I then asked another question. I guess I don't see what the problem is.
And, another thing: you keep claiming that Libby was lying to protect Cheney, not Bush. But you keep retitling this thread "Bushgate" (after your repeated claims that Rove was guilty went down in flames).
So this is all supposition on your part and goes beyond even your current supposition.
Wouldn't that be like me retitling every thread about about Democrat who does something crooked "Pelosigate"?
Bush is the person in charge & was the one to give the go ahead to deal with the Wilson problem. Either he was irresponsable & didn't keep his boys in line or has set this up so he has deniability.
Actually your already doing that with Pelosi with the "snake" thread. You refer to the Sergeant-at-Arms Bill Livingood as Pelosi's subordinate & are holding her accountable for him just doing his job. The same job he did as Hastert's subordinate.
You are either misstating, or ommitting, certain facts.
You are writing as if Pelosi was unaware of the Sergeant At Arms' request. However, it has been reported that she was told in December that a recommendation was being made that she have the much larger plane
House Sergeant at Arms Bill Livingood, who is responsible for the speaker's security, advised Pelosi in December...He suggested Pelosi, who is second in the line of presidential succession, inquire about the use of a military plane.
Furthermore, Pelosi, not Livingood, was the one who first brought up allowing family and friends to use the plane:
Pelosi requested clarification from the Department of Defense about plane size and whether she can have friends and colleagues catch rides on the military aircraft
So, unless and until you can show that Bush was aware of Libby's actions and first suggested at least some of Libby's actions, which is what appears to be the case with Pelosi and the plane request, the fact patterns are different.
Quote: the G-man said: Pelosi, not Livingood, was the one who first brought up allowing family and friends to use the plane...So, unless and until you can show that Bush was aware of Libby's actions and first suggested at least some of Libby's actions, which is what appears to be the case with Pelosi and the plane request, the fact patterns are different.
Not true at all. I said some very nice things about Huckabee just today. I also recently said I liked the idea of a McCain/Lieberman ticket. You on the other hand have minimized Libby's trial here & put Pelosi on trial even though she didn't break a single rule.
One of the jurors who convicted Lewis "Scooter" Libby now wants President Bush to pardon him.
"I don't want him to go to jail," Ann Redington, said.
Redington told MSNBC's "Hardball" yesterday that jurors had to convict Libby based on the evidence - but said she cried when their guilty verdicts were read Tuesday.
Asked if she favored a pardon, she said, "Yeah. It kind of bothers me that there was this whole big crime being investigated and he got caught up in the investigation as opposed to in the actual crime that was supposedly committed."
"I would like him to get" a pardon, she added.
"I didn't want to see him and his wife and say he was guilty of a crime," she said.
Government prosecutors led by Patrick Fitzgerald spent nearly four years investigating the case, but never charged anyone with the leak that identified Valerie Plame, wife of an Iraq war critic, as a CIA operative.
Another juror, Denis Collins, said on ABC's "Good Morning America," "There was a frustration that we were trying someone for telling a lie apparently about an event that never became important enough to file charges anywhere else."
Libby's lawyers are likely to seek a new trial by arguing that judge Reggie Walton made several rulings they consider unfair.
For instance, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was allowed to show jurors newspaper articles that defense lawyers considered inaccurate and inflammatory.
Also, defense attorneys were not permitted to question NBC's Tim Russert or Andrea Mitchell about televised statements on the case they made outside of court.
Not sure I agree with a pardon at this point. There's a strong case to be made for President Bush to let the appeals process run its course before deciding whether or not to pardon Libby.
Sure, it's easy enough for conservatives to say, Bush should pardon Libby this instant, and to hell with what the liberals think. But the reality is that President Bush has very little political capital left, and what little he does have, he needs to spend fighting Democratic efforts to force him to surrender in Iraq.
However justified a pardon may be, the bottom line is that most Americans would see it as President Bush using his power to let Dick Cheney's convicted crony off the hook. The media will make sure that's the case, guaranteed.
Quote: Rich: Why Bush pardoning Libby is a slam dunk RAW STORY Published: Saturday March 10, 2007
According to New York Times columnist Frank Rich, it isn't a question of if President Bush will pardon a former White House aide convicted last Tuesday on charges of lying and making false statements, but when. Rich calls the prospects of a pardon a "slam dunk" proposition, which is a mocking reference to words that former CIA chief George Tenet reportedly used before the invasion of Iraq to describe the existence of WMD that were never found.
"Even by Washington's standards, few debates have been more fatuous or wasted more energy than the frenzied speculation over whether President Bush will or will not pardon Scooter Libby," Rich writes in Sunday's paper. "Of course he will."
As Rich sees it, "A president who tries to void laws he doesn't like by encumbering them with 'signing statements' and who regards the Geneva Conventions as a nonbinding technicality isn't going to start playing by the rules now."
"His assertion last week that he is 'pretty much going to stay out of' the Libby case is as credible as his pre-election vote of confidence in Donald Rumsfeld," Rich adds, " The only real question about the pardon is whether Bush cares enough about his fellow Republicans' political fortunes to delay it until after Election Day 2008." ...
RAW Bush will definitely wait till after the 08 election but will have to pardon Libby no matter how bad it looks. Otherwise he runs the risk of Libby spilling the beans.
It's an opinion piece much like when you post something from the Wall Street Editorial dept or just offer up your own biased opinion. It's entirely up to you if you want to argue the merits of the opinion offered or just give it a pass.
Quote: the G-man already did that when he said: Not sure I agree with a pardon at this point. There's a strong case to be made for President Bush to let the appeals process run its course before deciding whether or not to pardon Libby.
Sure, it's easy enough for conservatives to say, Bush should pardon Libby this instant, and to hell with what the liberals think. But the reality is that President Bush has very little political capital left, and what little he does have, he needs to spend fighting Democratic efforts to force him to surrender in Iraq.
However justified a pardon may be, the bottom line is that most Americans would see it as President Bush using his power to let Dick Cheney's convicted crony off the hook. The media will make sure that's the case, guaranteed.
Quote: Rich: Why Bush pardoning Libby is a slam dunk RAW STORY Published: Saturday March 10, 2007
According to New York Times columnist Frank Rich, it isn't a question of if President Bush will pardon a former White House aide convicted last Tuesday on charges of lying and making false statements, but when. Rich calls the prospects of a pardon a "slam dunk" proposition, which is a mocking reference to words that former CIA chief George Tenet reportedly used before the invasion of Iraq to describe the existence of WMD that were never found.
"Even by Washington's standards, few debates have been more fatuous or wasted more energy than the frenzied speculation over whether President Bush will or will not pardon Scooter Libby," Rich writes in Sunday's paper. "Of course he will."
As Rich sees it, "A president who tries to void laws he doesn't like by encumbering them with 'signing statements' and who regards the Geneva Conventions as a nonbinding technicality isn't going to start playing by the rules now."
"His assertion last week that he is 'pretty much going to stay out of' the Libby case is as credible as his pre-election vote of confidence in Donald Rumsfeld," Rich adds, " The only real question about the pardon is whether Bush cares enough about his fellow Republicans' political fortunes to delay it until after Election Day 2008." ...
RAW Bush will definitely wait till after the 08 election but will have to pardon Libby no matter how bad it looks. Otherwise he runs the risk of Libby spilling the beans.
Oh, I get it now. When I wrote that the media would make a pardon appear unfairly as if "President Bush using his power to let Dick Cheney's convicted crony off the hook," you wanted to demonstrate they were already doing that.
The evidence against Libby makes that scenario unlikely G-man. It seems though that the system of justice is irrelavent to those that think Bush should pardon Libby. Bit of a double standard IMHO.
As noted above, I think a pardon is a bad idea, especially unless and until the appeals process is played out. So I assume you aren't referring to me.
And, since I assume you aren't referring to me, why are you dodging my question, which was about what you would do the conviction was overturned? How is noting that the conviction could be overturned in any way showing irreverence to the rule of law?
Furthermore, far as a double standard, since most of the people calling for a pardon are people who, right or wrong, honestly believe that Libby was treated unfairly--including at least two of his jurors--where's the double standard?
Didn't the two jurors convict Libby because of the evidence?
As for dogging your question, it's a hypothetical. Some convictions are overturned because of a mere technicality. If on the next try Libby can create an arguement that gives jurors reasonable doubt however I would feel that is fair. Bush's pardon won't be.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Didn't the two jurors convict Libby because of the evidence?
Yes, but isn't the point of a pardon to show mercy to someone who was convicted? If the evidence hadn't led to a conviction, there would be no reason for anyone to ever be pardoned would there?
Besides showing mercy? Wouldn't it be a case of Bush doing the pardon to keep Libby from spilling the beans? If this was a democratic President we wouldn't even be having this conservation. I would just be embarrassed for my side when the pardon happens.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Besides showing mercy? Wouldn't it be a case of Bush doing the pardon to keep Libby from spilling the beans?
That's pure speculation on your part. Its never been established that Libby has "beans" to spill.
I will admit that it would look as if Bush was just 'helping out a crony.' However, I've already stated that. Furthermore, helping out a crony is not the same as pardoning one to help keep him from 'spilling the beans.' By that (faulty) logic, Marc Rich and all the people he pardoned had some 'dirt' on Clinton. Something I don't think either of us believe, regardless of our differing opinions on the wisdom of some of the pardons.
Quote: If this was a democratic President we wouldn't even be having this conservation.
That's true. You'd be defending the pardon on every level, whereas I've already spoken against Bush issuing one to Libby.
Quote: Matter-eater Man said: Besides showing mercy? Wouldn't it be a case of Bush doing the pardon to keep Libby from spilling the beans?
That's pure speculation on your part. Its never been established that Libby has "beans" to spill.
I will admit that it would look as if Bush was just 'helping out a crony.' However, I've already stated that. Furthermore, helping out a crony is not the same as pardoning one to help keep him from 'spilling the beans.' By that (faulty) logic, Marc Rich and all the people he pardoned had some 'dirt' on Clinton. Something I don't think either of us believe, regardless of our differing opinions on the wisdom of some of the pardons.
Quote: If this was a democratic President we wouldn't even be having this conservation.
That's true. You'd be defending the pardon on every level, whereas I've already spoken against Bush issuing one to Libby.
My defending the pardon on every level is of course speculation on your part.
From Newsweek, an interesting article that tends to lead one to believe that Bush won't pardon Libby:
Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff does not qualify to even be considered for a presidential pardon under Justice Department guidelines.
From the day he took office, Bush seems to have followed those guidelines religiously. He's taken an exceedingly stingy approach to pardons, granting only 113 in six years, mostly for relatively minor fraud, embezzlement and drug cases dating back more than two decades. Bush’s pardons are “fewer than any president in 100 years,” according to Margaret Love, former pardon attorney at the Justice Department.
Following the furor over President Bill Clinton’s last-minute pardon of fugitive financier Marc Rich (among others), Bush made it clear he wasn’t interested in granting many pardons. “We were basically told [by then White House counsel and now Attorney General Alberto Gonzales] that there weren’t going to be pardons—or if there were, there would be very few,” recalls one former White House lawyer who asked not to be identified talking about internal matters.
The president has since indicated he intended to go by the book in granting what few pardons he’d hand out—considering only requests that had first been reviewed by the Justice Department under a series of publicly available guidelines.
Those regulations, which are discussed on the Justice Department Web site at www.usdoj.gov/pardon, would seem to make a Libby pardon a nonstarter in George W. Bush’s White House. They “require a petitioner to wait a period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement (whichever is later) before filing a pardon application,” according to the Justice Web site.
Of course, there is nothing that requires Bush to follow these guidelines in reviewing a pardon for Libby (whose lawyer, Ted Wells, stated on the courthouse steps Tuesday that he intended to push for a retrial, adding that he has “every confidence that Mr. Libby will be vindicated.”)
Still, Bush himself publicly reaffirmed his determination to stick to the Justice pardon guidelines as recently as last month.
None of this means that, in the last days of his presidency, Bush won’t feel differently about Libby (who ironically once worked as a lawyer for Marc Rich in an earlier effort to win him a pardon). Libby's supporters will argue forcefully that he was unjustly prosecuted and others, like former deputy secretary of State Richard Armitage (who first leaked Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity to columnist Robert Novak) were more culpable and should have been charged. Cheney—who once praised Libby as “one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known”—may well make a personal plea to the president.
But for now, one intriguing clue as to White House thinking came from a well-known Washington lobbyist and White House ally who was steering reporters away from the pardon idea this week. “The guidance I get is Libby doesn’t qualify under the guidelines,” the lobbyist, who asked not to be identified talking about sensitive matters, told a reporter in a TV “green room” this week. The lobbyist wouldn’t say who provided the guidance. But the fine print of the Justice Department guidelines may prove the toughest barrier for Libby to overcome.
Of course, as the article notes, Bush could still pardon Libby. However, he would be unlikely to do so until the end of his presidency, at which point Libby will have had over a year in which to cut a deal against the President. So if the fear for Bush were that Libby will somehow turn "state's evidence" on him or Cheney, then why would he wait?
The irony here, of course, is that MEM is convinced Libby is guilty but seems to actually want Bush to pardon Libby, all to create the inference, right or wrong, that he did so to keep Libby from "spilling the beans."
Just to clarify G-man's take of my posts. I don't want or think Bush should pardon Libby. I think Bush will pardon him after the 08 election to minimize any damage such a pardon would do. I'm speculating that Libby did the dirty work for Bush & Cheney & is willing to wait for his pardon out of loyalty to his boss & party.
But how does pardoning him a year and a half from now minimize the damage? If Libby had damage to do, the time to do it would be now, to cut a deal and avoid potential jail time and thousands in legal fees on the appeal.
Bush pardoning Libby at the end of his term would only make sense if Libby, in fact, had no dirt on the administration.
"The pardon power is a very, very important power that the president has, and it has to be exercised very judiciously and very carefully. You certainly shouldn't speculate about it while a criminal case is still ongoing. It seems to me you let it go through the process."
He added: "It seems to me you let it go through the process."
Mr. Giuliani is a former federal prosecutor who ... briefly ran the pardon office when he served in the Justice Department. "I know more about pardons than anybody needs to know about them," he said.
But he has also been on the other side: Mr. Giuliani prosecuted the commodities broker Marc Rich for tax evasion when Mr. Giuliani was the U.S. attorney for New York's Southern District. President Clinton pardoned Mr. Rich shortly before he left office in 2001, and Mr. Giuliani, then the mayor of New York, was so upset that he canceled a meeting with Senator Clinton weeks after she was sworn in
Quote: the G-man said: But how does pardoning him a year and a half from now minimize the damage? If Libby had damage to do, the time to do it would be now, to cut a deal and avoid potential jail time and thousands in legal fees on the appeal.
Bush pardoning Libby at the end of his term would only make sense if Libby, in fact, had no dirt on the administration.
The damage that would be minimized would concern the 08 elections. A pardon before the election will help Dems & hurt Republicans. I think that's why we're seeing Rudy yapping about a potential Libby pardon. He's covering his ass.
The thrice-married-and-now-single Limbaugh not only commented on Plame's looks, but told his audience he'd have no problem romantically pursuing her if her marital status were different.
"I have to tell you something, folks," Limbaugh said Friday during his nationally broadcast program. "After all is said and done, I, frankly, don't care. This woman is a babe."
"This woman is a babe, and if she weren't married, I don't care what she's done or what her political affiliation is, I'd be throwing my hat in the ring," Limbaugh said
Yet another loser who's been married 3 times. It brings to mind the movie "Borat" where his sister is teasing his cousin saying "you not going to get any of this"
Quote: Fitzgerald says Plame was covert agent; Cheney further scrutinized Published: Tuesday May 29, 2007 Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has asserted in new court filings that Valerie Plame was indeed a covert agent at the time of her outing, according to a Newsweek report filed by Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball.
"In new court filings, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has finally resolved one of the most disputed issues at the core of the long-running CIA leak controversy: Valerie Plame Wilson, he asserts, was a 'covert' CIA officer who repeatedly traveled overseas using a 'cover identity' in order to disguise her relationship with the agency," Newsweek reports.
Wilson's covert status, which is substantiated in an employment report filed by Fitzgerlad, was cited as part of a recommendation to sentence former Cheney aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to up to three years in prison.
According to that report, Plame traveled "sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA."
The report added, "When traveling overseas, Ms. Wilson always traveled under a cover identity...At the time of the initial unauthorized disclosure in the media of Ms. Wilson’s employment relationship with the CIA on 14 July 2003, Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."
The finding severely hampers a key defense by Libby's lawyers and supporters who have claimed that, since Plame was not covert, Libby had commited no "underlying crime" in revealing Plame's identity.
Furthermore, Washington Post columnist Dan Froomkin noted that Fitzgerald's court filing further points to Vice President Cheney's involvement in the outing of Plame.
"Special counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald has made it clearer than ever that he was hot on the trail of a coordinated campaign to out CIA agent Valerie Plame," writes Froomkin, "until that line of investigation was cut off by the repeated lies from Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby."
Froomkin adds that in response to charges that Libby's prosecution was unwarranted, "the special counsel evidently felt obliged to put Libby's crime in context. And that context is Dick Cheney."
Valerie Plame has now given three different versions of her story to three different investigating bodies:
Mrs. Wilson told the CIA Inspector General that she suggested her husband for the trip, she told our committee staff that she could not remember whether she did or her boss did, and told the House committee, emphatically, that she did not suggest him.
I wonder if her testimony to the Senate and House committees was given under oath. If so, maybe she should be in a cell next to Libby.
Perhaps her answers were to three different versions of a question. If she was asked if she sent her husband to Niger & said no emphatically & then was asked from a different investigative body if she suggested sending her husband & said yes, well I don't see the National Review going out of its way to make such distinctions.
Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby left a federal courtroom with his wife Tuesday after being sentenced to 30 months in prison and a $250,000 fine for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation.
Libby, departing in a car without commenting to reporters, didn't begin his prison sentence immediately. Judge Reggie B. Walton said he saw no reason to allow Libby to delay his prison time pending appeal and planned to rule later after reviewing written arguments.
Libby stood calmly before a packed courtroom when his sentencing was announced.
"People who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of nation in their hands, have a special obligation to not do anything that might create a problem," U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said.
Former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby left a federal courtroom with his wife Tuesday after being sentenced to 30 months in prison and a $250,000 fine for lying and obstructing the CIA leak investigation.
Libby, departing in a car without commenting to reporters, didn't begin his prison sentence immediately. Judge Reggie B. Walton said he saw no reason to allow Libby to delay his prison time pending appeal and planned to rule later after reviewing written arguments.
Libby stood calmly before a packed courtroom when his sentencing was announced.
"People who occupy these types of positions, where they have the welfare and security of nation in their hands, have a special obligation to not do anything that might create a problem," U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said.
So much for bringing integrity back to washington. For all that's said about Clinton, no one of his people was ever indicted (or at least never imprisoned) unlike Nixon Reagan and Bush jr.
Um, Ray, you DO realize that a federal court found that CLINTON HIMSELF committed perjury, found him in contempt of court, fined him and disbarred him?
Quote: Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man said: For all that's said about Clinton, no one of his people was ever indicted
Truth:
Clinton Agriculture Secretary Mike Espy was indicted on charges he accepted illegal gifts and lied to investigators. On Oct. 3, 1994, Espy resigned amid charges he accepted gifts and perks barred by federal ethics laws and rules.
Housing and Urban Development Secretary Henry Cisneros was indicted for conspiracy, obstruction of justice, fraud and perjury. Evidence including 40 hours of secretly recorded telephone calls, IRS records and canceled checks suggests to prosecutors that Cisneros committed perjury and conspired with his ex-mistress and others to lie about the hush money.
Clinton Associate Attorney General Webster Hubbell was found guilty of federal mail fraud and tax evasion sentenced to a 21-month sentence
And that's not even counting Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger, who was convicted last year of stealing records from the government archives.
Even assuming that to be the case, aren't you the guy who said he wouldn't object to a convicted Clinton staffer getting a job in a Hillary administration?
You'll note that I didn't say one way or the other about it being right or wrong. I just thought I remembered Bush Jr. giving jobs to some of those that his dad pardoned during the IranContra scandal. I'll have to do some googling though.
It looks like accountability isn't going to be an issue among the GOP candidates...
Quote: Republican candidates leave open possibility of Libby pardon Nick Juliano Published: Tuesday June 5, 2007
Republican frontrunners said at Tuesday night’s debate they would pardon former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was sentenced Tuesday to 30 months in jail for perjury.
Calling Libby’s sentence "grossly excessive," former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani touted the pardons he recommended as a federal prosecutor in the Reagan administration and suggested Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff could be up for a pardon in his administration as well.
"A man’s life is at stake," Giuliani said, arguing that the fact special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald did not convict anyone of an underlying crime in Libby’s case presented a strong case for a pardon.
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney accused Fitzgerald of abusing his prosecutorial discretion in pursuing a case he said was more about politics than justice. Although he didn’t issue a single pardon overseeing his commonwealth, Romney said Libby’s case was worth looking at. ...
Nope, you doing your usual schtick. Here's what I said via Berger...
Quote: #811763 Re: Sandy Berger - Mon Jan 15 2007 11:15 PM OK, I obviously need to say more about Berger. He isn't above the law, he deserved the punishment he got for breaking the law. Considering the findings of the Justice Department I wouldn't have a problem with Berger taking a job with another administration. To be specific, it couldn't be anything of high rank. It's an unwritten rule for either party that the top spots don't go for people to have records no matter the circumstances. I agree with that standard. If there is any evidence that he did more than what the Justice Department found then I would say no future job & that he wasn't punished enough.
and what I thought I remembered than now googled...
Quote: Elliott Abrams, an assistant secretary of state under Reagan, pleaded guilty in 1991 to two counts of withholding evidence from Congress (i.e., lying) over his role in the Iran-Contra affair. Bush I pardoned him; Bush II has appointed him to the National SecurityCouncil as director of its office for democracy, human rights and international operations. The post requires no Senate approval.
President Bush has commuted Scooter Libby's sentence.
I'm sure the partisans will spin this as some sort of corruption of the legal system. However, this is not the same as a pardon. Libby is still guilty. But, politics aside, given Libby's age (57) and lack of prior record this new sentence is not out of line. He will pay a $250,000.00 fine and serve two years probation. If he violates probation he can still go to jail (as proven recently by Paris Hilton). He will remain, for all intents and purposes, a convicted felon.
The only thing that's changed is the jail sentence.
that's pretty lame G.....if that was a dem you'd be upset right now.
I dunno. I never thought Clinton should be in jail, either for when HE lied under oath.
Quote:
personally I never thought what he did deserved jail but a judge did.
Yeah, but judges get overturned. I've seen people who physically injured, or even killed, people get their sentences reduced.
You, yourself, admit that you didn't think he deserved jail. So why is it "lame" to point out that this is not a wholly unreasonable modification of his sentence?
Oh, and by the way:
Originally Posted By: the G-man
President Bush has commuted Scooter Libby's sentence. I'm sure the partisans will spin this ....
it's not the same thing. It's not a reform of laws that can apply to everyone blindly, it's bush using his power to get his friend out of jail and it's almost like a subtle threat that going after his people is futile because he's willing to abuse his power like no other president before him (see also: signing statements).
Libby is still a convicted felon. He's still on probation, meaning that he could end up back in jail if, at any time, he violates his probation. He has to pay a quarter of a million dollar fine. He incurred thousands, if not millions, in personal legal expenses.
I'm not sure how any of the above sends a message of futility or being above the law, except to people who are already convinced that Bush is some sort of neo-Nazi anti-Christ anyway.
Libby is still a convicted felon. He's still on probation, meaning that he could end up back in jail if, at any time, he violates his probation.
Yeah I'm sure he won't be able to get a good job and he'll have to avoid missing curfew for fear of probation.
Quote:
He has to pay a quarter of a million dollar fine. He incurred thousands, if not millions, in personal legal expenses.
Oh, no he has to pay the high priced lawyers he hired to defend him, that's a real tragedy. And you're talking about him buying his way out of jail as if it's a fair punishment.
Quote:
I'm not sure how any of the above sends a message of futility or being above the law, except to people who are already convinced that Bush is some sort of neo-Nazi anti-Christ anyway.
No jail. He broke the law and a friend signed him out of prison. it's favoritism, it's abuse of power, and it's pretty shameful.
Its one thing to argue the president was wrong to grant clemency because it sends a message of favoritism. That's a matter of personal opinion, if not personal bias. However, that's a far cry, given the facts, from establishing that this somehow sends a message to anyone that "going after [Bush's] people" is futile.
Probation is no joke. If someone one probation gets arrested (not even convicted) for even a petit offense they can be found in violation of the probation and sent back to jail for their full sentence. Its not just a curfew.
I don't think Libby should have gotten out, from Bush's commuting his sentence.
But Libby did spend several months in jail up to this point.
A quick comparison:
(crime committed: ) Bill Clinton: Perjury, lied to a grand jury. Scooter Libby: Perjury, lied to a grand jury.
(punishment: ) Bill Clinton: No jail time. Disbarred as lawyer. Scooter Libby: Sentenced, commuted to probation, but could serve jail time if violates probation.
(Democrat opinion: ) Bill Clinton: Despite clear guilt, should not be punished. Scooter Libby: Same crime, but warrants the most severe punishment.
"Nonviolent offenders should not be serving hard time in our prisons. They need to be diverted from our prison system."-Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton
Originally Posted By: Ray Adler
it's not the same thing. It's not a reform of laws that can apply to everyone blindly, it's bush …willing to abuse his power like no other president before him
How can you say its not the same thing, or that Hillary’s position is for “equal” reform, given that President Clinton granted executive clemency to 16 a Puerto Rican terror group that killed four people?
Even the ultraliberal New York Times said it looked politically motivated:
The suspicion is rampant that his motivation was a political effort to please the Puerto Rican community that is crucial to Mrs. Clinton's hopes in the coming Senate race from New York.
Given this, how can you claim that Bush's actions are unprecedented? Or assume that Hillary is somehow more morally or legally consistent?
Or is it simply your position that clemency should be reserved only for politcally connected murderers?
I don't think Libby should have gotten out, from Bush's commuting his sentence.
But Libby did spend several months in jail up to this point.
A quick comparison:
(crime committed: ) Bill Clinton: Perjury, lied to a grand jury. Scooter Libby: Perjury, lied to a grand jury.
(punishment: ) Bill Clinton: No jail time. Disbarred as lawyer. Scooter Libby: Sentenced, served jail time, but not his full sentence.
(Democrat opinion: ) Bill Clinton: Despite clear guilt, should not be punished. Scooter Libby: Same crime, but warrants the most severe punishment.
No partisanship. None at all.
You were making a point about justice, M E M ?
We will never see a president/former president in jail. The whole impeachment was his punishment, he's now one of only two presidents to be impeached. This is bush getting a friend out of prison. Also the lie told matters to people. lying about cheating on his wife is different than leaking the name of a CIA agent (or being involved).
Point of information, as noted in detail on this thread (a thread you have actively participated in and presumably read), Libby was neither convicted nor charged with "leaking the name of a CIA agent."
If we're going to manufacture convictions, WB (or anyone else) might as well dredge up allegations against Clinton involving Whitewater, illegal fundraising and even murder.
Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but let's keep them based on facts not wishful thinking.
Writing over at Slate, liberal columnist Tim Noah explains why Bush was right to commute the prison sentence:
President Bush's commutation of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's 30-month prison sentence will likely prompt many people with politics similar to my own to cry bloody murder.
But Judge Reggie Walton went overboard in sentencing Libby to 30 months. This was about twice as long as the prison term recommended by the court's probation office, and if Libby hadn't been a high-ranking government official, there's a decent chance he would have gotten off with probation, a stiff fine, and likely disbarment. Walton gave Libby 30 months and a $250,000 fine, then further twisted the knife by denying Libby's routine request to delay the sentence while his lawyers appealed it.
It would have been wrong for Bush to pardon Libby, as many Republicans urged him to do. Libby committed a crime, and it wouldn't have been right for Bush to do anything to minimize the attendant disgrace or to lighten Libby's $250,000 burden. "The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged," Bush said. And so it should be. Bush did not intervene to spare Libby further disgrace, as Ford did with the Nixon pardon, and he didn't pre-empt a prosecution that might reveal embarrassing facts about himself, as Bush's father did. He waited until it was all over, and he acted humanely.
Point of information, as noted in detail on this thread (a thread you have actively participated in and presumably read), Libby was neither convicted nor charged with "leaking the name of a CIA agent."
If we're going to manufacture convictions, WB (or anyone else) might as well dredge up allegations against Clinton involving Whitewater, illegal fundraising and even murder.
Everyone's entitled to an opinion, but let's keep them based on facts not wishful thinking.
the perjury stemmed from the leak. so he was lying about his role in ruining a woman's career for political means while Clinton lied about getting a blowjob. I think Clinton deserved to lose his law license but even a lot of republicans felt impeachment went too far. And the thing is that the leak happened, it's not in doubt. What is in doubt is how illegal it was because the white house is trying to use the "if the president does it then it's not illegal" route that worked so well for Nixon. Clinton's allegations were never proven. Starr couldn't prove that he raped a woman, defrauded investors, or threw two kids under a train. Clinton lied in a civil matter, and given that people like Anne Coulter were pushing Jones to hurt Clinton rather than settle I don't really blame the guy.
Actually, as noted elsewhere, its been established that Richard Armitage was the leaker and that he wasn't leaking it as part of any conspiracy. He just had a big mouth.
The White House yesterday ridiculed Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton for complaining about President Bush's decision to keep former vice-presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby Jr. out of jail, saying their criticism smacks of hypocrisy.
"I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it," press secretary Tony Snow said.
The White House also suggested that a slew of pardons granted by Mr. Clinton on his final day in office were never properly investigated and said they ought to be.
"This provides a nice chance to go back and look at the Clinton pardons. ... What is interesting is perhaps it was just because he was on his way out, but while there was a small flurry, there was not much investigation of it," Mr. Snow said.
"If you take a look at news reports — people scurrying about, clutching pieces of paper, running around — I think those final hours were probably not times of long chin-pulling reflection," he said.
The day Mr. Bush took office, Mr. Clinton granted 141 pardons and 36 commutations. Among those given full pardons on Jan. 20, 2001, were fugitive financier Marc Rich, who evaded $48 million in taxes and was charged with having illegal oil transactions with Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis.
Mr. Rich fled to Switzerland in 1983 and his socialite wife, Denise became a large donor to the Democratic Party and the Clinton library during Mr. Clinton's time in office.
It's got to be pretty sad to some conservatives who still remember Bush's pledge to bring back honor & dignity. Now the Bush Whitehouse is basically saying "Hey we're just as bad as Bill Clinton"
I'm not sure how you could take that from what he said, given that Bush simply commuted a sentence, leaving the conviction, the term of probation and the fine intact, whereas Clinton out and out pardoned his donors.
In any event, however, thanks for admitting that Clinton was wrong. Now we're just quibbling over whether Bush is or isn't bad also.
Oh, Bush is just waiting to do the pardon part before he leaves office.
There really isn't much I could say in defense of Clinton's pardons. They were what they looked like. I would argue that Bush's Libbygate is exactly what it looks like also.
By Dan Froomkin Special to washingtonpost.com Friday, July 6, 2007; 12:32 PM
The White House, which has been so adept at distracting the media from critical issues -- "Oh, look! A shiny penny!" as one of my readers puts it -- tossed out the shiniest penny of all yesterday.
Rather than address the most weighty criticism of President Bush's decision to commute former vice presidential chief of staff Scooter Libby's prison sentence -- that it was part and parcel of a longtime cover-up of White House misdeeds -- press secretary Tony Snow lashed out at former President Bill Clinton and his would-be president wife for actions that date back more than six years.
Sen. Hillary Clinton has been among the foremost critics accusing Bush of commuting Libby's sentence in order to avoid further inquiry into his own behavior. The commutation "was clearly an effort to protect the White House," she told the Associated Press earlier this week. "There isn't any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent."
Snow let loose in yesterday morning's gaggle, calling attention to numerous controversial grants of clemency that Bill Clinton issued in the closing hours of his presidency in 2001. "I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it," Snow said. Snow's deputy, Scott Stanzel, took up the cudgel at the televised mid-day briefing: "The hypocrisy demonstrated by Democratic leaders on this issue is rather startling," he said.
It's certainly hard to argue that President Clinton didn't abuse the pardon process. But Bush's pledge back in 2000 was to restore ethics to the White House -- not engage in he-did-it-too defense of his own misconduct.
And furthermore, there is an ethical chasm between Clinton's pardons -- unseemly as they were -- and Bush's decision to grant clemency to someone involved in an investigation of his own White House. (See my Tuesday column, Obstruction of Justice, Continued.)
As it happens, the previous granting of clemency that is most analogous to what Bush did dates back neither to the Clinton or even the Nixon era, but to Bush's father's presidency.
In 1992, on the eve of his last Christmas in the White House, George H.W. Bush pardoned former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger and five others for their conduct related to the Iran-Contra affair, in which he himself was also loosely implicated.
As David Johnston reported in the New York Times at the time, independent prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh was livid. "Mr. Walsh bitterly condemned the President's action, charging that 'the Iran-contra cover-up, which has continued for more than six years, has now been completed.'"
Added Walsh: "In light of President Bush's own misconduct, we are gravely concerned about his decision to pardon others who lied to Congress and obstructed official investigations."
...there is an ethical chasm between Clinton's pardons -- unseemly as they were -- and Bush's decision to grant clemency to someone involved in an investigation of his own White House. ...
Point of information. Clinton did, in fact, grant pardons to persons "involved in an investigation of his own White House."
For example, Clinton's pardons included his former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, as well as Whitewater figures Susan McDougal, Chris Wade, Stephen A. Smith and Robert W. Palmer.
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
This [editorial] summed up my thoughts pretty well.
So, G-man you are going with the "someone else did it so it's ok for Bush to do it" defense? And the editorial was correct in pointing out Bush's pledge in 2000 to be ethical but then has had more serious provable scandals than Nixon.
...there is an ethical chasm between Clinton's pardons -- unseemly as they were -- and Bush's decision to grant clemency to someone involved in an investigation of his own White House. ...
Point of information. Clinton did, in fact, grant pardons to persons "involved in an investigation of his own White House."
For example, Clinton's pardons included his former Housing Secretary Henry Cisneros, as well as Whitewater figures Susan McDougal, Chris Wade, Stephen A. Smith and Robert W. Palmer. ...
I took it as meaning that none of Clinton's pardons were seen as a way to insulate himself from a criminal investigation. Bush doesn't have to worry about Libby being pressured into talking now does he?
Point of information to correct the record: Contrary to MEM's assertion, Susan McDougall was prison for at least in part for refusing to testify in Whitewater. By pardoning her Clinton could easily be seen as trying to insulate himself from further criminal investigation in that matter.
Point of further information, Susan McDougall had served her prison time before getting a pardon. A large chunk of that time was served in solitary confinement. That's 23 hours a day in a windowless room folks. Yeah she had it so much better than Libby who had a quickly paid fine & will probably receive his pardon on Bush's last day in office.
None of which changes the fact that she could have been charged with other crimes, or another round of contempt, if not pardoned by Clinton.
Does that mean, per se, that Clinton was trying to insulate himself from further criminal investigation? Of course not.
At the same time, however, there little evidence that Bush's commuting Libby's sentence was an attempt to insulate himself from further criminal investigation.
Furthermore, to continue your comparison of McDougall and Libby, since McDougall was pardoned, there was no chance she would be charged again or serve more time. Accordingly, there was no threat against her and, as a result, no threat that could pressure her to testify against Clinton.
In contrast, Libby still faces a quarter of a million dollar fine and years of probation. When a person is on probation, they are required by court order to obey certain terms and conditions including, typically, cooperation with probation officers and government officials investigating crimes. As a result, if Libby fails to cooperate in any investigation of Bush he can be found in violation of his probation and resentenced.
And, do you really think that, if Libby violates his probation, the Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald wouldn't act to have him sent to jail?
Accordingly, if anything, Bush's actions increase the chance of Libby having to testify (assuming that he has something to testify to).
What else was there left for Starr to get Susan McDougall on? She served her prison time for everything except for the bit she was aquitted for.
Libby doesn't face a fine, that was paid almost right away. Probation is no problem. Bush can just claim executive privelege as he's done recently when he doesn't want any of his people to testify.
A federal judge yesterday dismissed a lawsuit filed by former CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband against Vice President Cheney and other top administration officials over the Bush administration's disclosure of Plame's name and covert status to the media.
U.S. District Judge John D. Bates said that Cheney and the others could not be held liable for the disclosures in the summer of 2003 in the midst of a White House effort to rebut criticism of the Iraq war by her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. The judge said such efforts were a natural part of the officials' normal job duties and thus the officials were immune from liability.
I certainly hope the timing of this dismissal doesn't hurt any of the Wilson's book and media deals.
But seriously...I doubt they realize it, but the dismissal of the Wilsons' lawsuit against Cheney et al. is probably a gift.
The more time that they spend in courtrooms, where they would presumably have to testify under oath, the more likely they are to get in trouble for their questionable relationship with the truth.
...A federal judge threw out a civil lawsuit former CIA agent Valerie Plame filed against members of the Bush administration, but the dismissal does not close all Plame's legal avenues.
The court dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds without ruling on the constitutional issues brought by Plame.
The wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, Plame had accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to leak her identity in 2003. U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case against defendants Cheney, Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
Plame's name was disclosed by syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July of 2003. The lawsuit contend the exposure of her then-classified role with the CIA was meant as retaliation for a column Joseph Wilson wrote earlier that year exposing misinformation pushed by President Bush relating to Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.
Saying the administration officials' actions "may have been highly unsavory," Bates nonetheless ruled "there can be no serious dispute" that speaking to the press to rebut Wilson's criticism was "within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials."
The court ruled it lacked jurisdiction over Plame's case because she has not exhausted administrative remedies under the Federal Tort Claims Act, which is the "proper, and exclusive, avenue for relief on such a claim."
The act provides a waiver from the government's immunity from being sued in certain situations when its employees act negligently within the context of their jobs. The lawsuit that was dismissed Thursday was aimed at individuals within the Bush administration, rather than the government itself as FTCA actions are required to be.
Plame's lawyers expected the decision to be thrown out anticipate filing an appeal, according to Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, whose executive director is representing Joseph and Valerie Wilson. But the couple does not plan to pursue legal action under the FTCA, a CREW spokeswoman told RAW STORY.
"While we are obviously very disappointed by today’s decision, we have always expected that this case would ultimately be decided by a higher court," said Melanie Sloan, CREW's executive director. "We disagree with the court's holding and intend to pursue this case vigorously to protect all Americans from vindictive government officials who abuse their power for their own political ends."
Bates, who was appointed by President Bush, is the same judge who threw out a case regarding the release of Cheney's Energy Taskforce records, Think Progress notes.
It's still a trumped-up allegation Plame is making against Cheny and others in the Bush administration, of allegedly outing her.
Again, slicing through RAW (and MEM's ) circumnavigation of the truth, if there were any true wrongdoing against Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson, then the true leaker of Plame's name and CIA employment, Richard Armitage, would be on trial.
But he's not, so there's clearly no wrongdoing.
And what we truly have is an elaborate web of empty allegations by Democrats in Washington and their lackeys, to smear Cheney and other Bush officials. When in truth, as I said earlier, a public allegation was made by Wilson in a Wall Street Journal editorial, and that obligated Bush officials to respond and question how legitimate and credible (or not) Wilson's mission was.
And investigating the circumstances of how Wilson was chosen (by Plame) for the Niger mission discussed in his editorial, was fair game. It was Wilson himself who made his covert mission public, and Wilson's action gave Robert Novak and other journalists the right and the obligation to investigate every detail of the mission, how Wilson was selected for it (by Plame), and how thorough and credible (or not) Wilson's Niger investigation was.
Just because Armitage had leaked doesn't preclude that the White House didn't. Fitzgerald ran into a roadblock when Libby lied & obstructed the investigation but we all know where the road was taking us.
It's hardly a stretch though. Libby lied & obstucted for a reason.
By Libby's own account, he didn't lie and obstruct for a reason, he testified falsely because of defective memory. If he were lying, he could have plea-bargained a deal at any point up to and after his conviction if it were otherwise, and avoided jail-time.
And since Bush commuted his sentence (instead of fully pardoning him) there is still leverage over Libby to force him to come clean with the truth about what or who he is hiding. Libby had every reason to plea out and come clean, if he hadn't done so already.
It's hardly a stretch though. Libby lied & obstucted for a reason.
By Libby's own account, he didn't lie and obstruct for a reason, he testified falsely because of defective memory. If he were lying, he could have plea-bargained a deal at any point up to and after his conviction if it were otherwise, and avoided jail-time.
And since Bush commuted his sentence (instead of fully pardoning him) there is still leverage over Libby to force him to come clean with the truth about what or who he is hiding. Libby had every reason to plea out and come clean, if he hadn't done so already.
There was just way to much evidence to the contrary that Libby was intentionally lying & obstucting for his memory defense to be plausable. At one point I think we were up to over 9 people he couldn't "remember" talking to about Plame.
I'm guessing Bush is just going to do the pardon on his way out of the White House. He had to commute the sentence right away or else Libby might have started spilling. Any leverage evaporated once Bush stepped in to shelter his guy from the legal system.
It's hardly a stretch though. Libby lied & obstucted for a reason.
As WB already noted, some would say he "lied" because of a defective memory, not out some need to protect Bush.
However, assuming Libby lied does not mean that the "reason" had anything to do with Bush or Cheney. It could have just as easily been that Libby thought he was a target of the Plame leak probe and was trying to save his own skin.
Sure, you can come up with alternative rationalizations for why Libby lied & obstructed.
Your scenario then has a President protecting someone who wasn't lying to protect him & Cheney but just someone willing to lie & obstruct just to save his own skin. Beyond the GOP's base this casted a shadow on them. I can understand the motivation for Bush protecting his own hide but not the other.
Many people with much more experience in politics than either of us have written extensively on how Bush is loyal to a fault with his inner circle, and how this loyalty damages his credibility.
See, for example, "you're doing a heckuva job, Brownie," the delayed firing of Rumsfeld, the continued support of Gonzales and his foolish attempt to elevate Harriet Miers to the SCotUS.
Each demonstrate that Bush has a great capacity to damage his reputation out of loyalty, not "saving his own skin."
He had no problem dumping Rumsfeld after the election results in '06. He flipped on that so fast he risked whip-lash. Gonzales is doing exactly what Bush wants him to do. As it is now he gets the benefit of Gonzales taking some of the heat for it. (kind of had that with Rumsfeld to) And I believe Brownie feels differently about Bush's "loyalty" these days. Something about being made a scapegoat I believe. Harriet Miers was supported by Bush until he knew he couldn't get her in because his base wouldn't allow it.
He had no problem dumping Rumsfeld after the election results in '06. He flipped on that so fast he risked whip-lash.
Gonzales is doing exactly what Bush wants him to do. As it is now he gets the benefit of Gonzales taking some of the heat for it. (kind of had that with Rumsfeld [too])
And I believe Brownie feels differently about Bush's "loyalty" these days. Something about being made a scapegoat I believe.
Harriet Miers was supported by Bush until he knew he couldn't get her in because his base wouldn't allow it.
And your point is what, MEM ?
It seems to me you're dedicated to believing the absolute worst about Bush and other Republicans, often on total speculation and a complete lack of facts. Whereas in the same situation, you defend Democrats under the same allegations, and attribute Republican pursuit of justice in those cases to petty vindictiveness, no matter how clear and incriminating the evidence.
First off, Bush didn't pardon Libby. Your assumption that he'd pardon Libby, now that Libby's already out of jail, and has paid a 250,000-dollar fine, is pure speculation.
And meanwhile, you conversely ignore that Clinton is the biggest abuser of presidential pardons in the history of the office. With an unprecedented 141 last-minute pardons to wealthy political contributors, federal criminals, and other assorted Friends-of-Bill.
Rumsfeld submitted his resignation to Bush 4 times before the November 2006 election, as Rumsfeld himself said multiple times in front of reporters at press conferences.
Bush finally replaced Rumsfeld with Robert Gates after the Democrats won big in the November 2006 election. I'd call that the minimum action on Bush's part to open the possibility of getting cooperation with Democrats (Democrats who were elected on an anti-war agenda). And at that point, as I recall, Rumsfeld had been the longest-serving Secretary of Defense in the history of that office.
What you say about Gonzales "doing exactly what Bush wants him to", and "taking some of the heat" for Bush is speculation, and could be speculated without evidence about any Bush appointee who is accused of something and stays in office. Frankly, I wish Gonzales would resign, and be replaced by someone who would restore faith in the attorney general's office. As I wished Rumsfeld to resign as well.
However scapegoated Michael Brown might be, he still absolves himself of all reponsibility for what happened with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. As do the Democrat governor of Louisiana, the other elected Democrat Senators and Representatives of Louisiana who neglected funding for stronger dams and levi's, and then blamed it all on Bush, as also did the mayor of New Orleans. All of whom could have done more to prevent the disaster in New Orleans, but were all too happy to heap the entire blame at Bush's doorstep.
While I strongly opposed the Harriet Miers nomination, I think Bush hung onto the nomination as long as he could, up until he saw it was impossible, and saw he'd get no cooperation, even from his fellow Republicans (who stonewalled for a more qualified nominee). But Bush didn't give up on Miers until it was clear she'd never be confirmed.
He had no problem dumping Rumsfeld after the election results in '06. He flipped on that so fast he risked whip-lash.
Gonzales is doing exactly what Bush wants him to do. As it is now he gets the benefit of Gonzales taking some of the heat for it. (kind of had that with Rumsfeld [too])
And I believe Brownie feels differently about Bush's "loyalty" these days. Something about being made a scapegoat I believe.
Harriet Miers was supported by Bush until he knew he couldn't get her in because his base wouldn't allow it.
And your point is what, MEM ?
It seems to me you're dedicated to believing the absolute worst about Bush and other Republicans, often on total speculation and a complete lack of facts. Whereas in the same situation, you defend Democrats under the same allegations, and attribute Republican pursuit of justice in those cases to petty vindictiveness, no matter how clear and incriminating the evidence.
I realize you feel that way but I see you & G-man being guilty of much of what you accuse me of. It pretty much comes down to all of us having some biases when expressing our opinions. There was a post not so long ago where I said the Dem looked guilty. It's just not as simple as what your saying.
Quote:
First off, Bush didn't pardon Libby. Your assumption that he'd pardon Libby, now that Libby's already out of jail, and has paid a 250,000-dollar fine, is pure speculation.
Since I was clear that it was my opinion I'm not sure why you bring it up as if your sorting something out. Do you feel speculation is wrong?
Quote:
And meanwhile, you conversely ignore that Clinton is the biggest abuser of presidential pardons in the history of the office. With an unprecedented 141 last-minute pardons to wealthy political contributors, federal criminals, and other assorted Friends-of-Bill.
Ah the Clinton defense. You know you can always count on it. I didn't ignore it though nor defend them. I did point out how they were different. I also think if Clinton had stepped in the way Bush did with Libby you guys would be yelling.
Quote:
Rumsfeld submitted his resignation to Bush 4 times before the November 2006 election, as Rumsfeld himself said multiple times in front of reporters at press conferences.
Bush finally replaced Rumsfeld with Robert Gates after the Democrats won big in the November 2006 election. I'd call that the minimum action on Bush's part to open the possibility of getting cooperation with Democrats (Democrats who were elected on an anti-war agenda). And at that point, as I recall, Rumsfeld had been the longest-serving Secretary of Defense in the history of that office.
That just makes the case that Rumsfeld was the loyal one. Bush finally accepted his resignation after it became a political liability.
Quote:
What you say about Gonzales "doing exactly what Bush wants him to", "Taking heat for Bush" is speculation, and could be said about any Bush appointee who is accused of something and stays in office. Frankly, I wish he'd resign, and be replaced by someone who would restore faith in the attorney general's office. As I wished Rumsfeld to resign as well.
Why is it a case of wishing they would have resigned? As you pointed out Rumsfeld offered a couple of times. It seems this "Bush is just to loyal" thing is a pretty good deal for him.
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However scapegoated Michael Brown might be, he still absolves himself of all reponsibility for what happened with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. As do the Democrat governor of Louisiana, the other elected Democrat Senators and Representatives of Louisiana who neglected funding for stronger dams and levi's, and then blamed it all on Bush, as also did the mayor of New Orleans. All of whom could have done more to prevent the disaster in New Orleans, but were all too happy to heap the entire blame at Bush's doorstep.
They could have done more & Bush could have done more. And if we're talking about blame at the local level I would be interested in hearing your thoughts how a Mayor could have done a better job protecting his city from a terrorist attack.
Quote:
While I strongly opposed the Harriet Miers nomination, I think Bush hung onto the nomination as long as he could, up until he saw it was impossible, and saw he'd get no cooperation, even from his fellow Republicans. He didn't give up on Miers until it was clear she'd never be confirmed.
Is that really unusual for Presidential nominations?
He had no problem dumping Rumsfeld after the election results in '06. He flipped on that so fast he risked whip-lash.
Gonzales is doing exactly what Bush wants him to do. As it is now he gets the benefit of Gonzales taking some of the heat for it. (kind of had that with Rumsfeld [too])
And I believe Brownie feels differently about Bush's "loyalty" these days. Something about being made a scapegoat I believe.
Harriet Miers was supported by Bush until he knew he couldn't get her in because his base wouldn't allow it.
And your point is what, MEM ?
It seems to me you're dedicated to believing the absolute worst about Bush and other Republicans, often on total speculation and a complete lack of facts. Whereas in the same situation, you defend Democrats under the same allegations, and attribute Republican pursuit of justice in those cases to petty vindictiveness, no matter how clear and incriminating the evidence.
I realize you feel that way but I see you & G-man being guilty of much of what you accuse me of. It pretty much comes down to all of us having some biases when expressing our opinions. There was a post not so long ago where I said the Dem looked guilty. It's just not as simple as what your saying.
I've crossed party lines on a considerable number of occasions as well. And have voiced consistent dissent from Bush on a number of issues.
There's a degree of truth to what you say about all of us having biases in expressing our opinions. But I do feel that G-man and I try to limit ourselves to speculating about what Democrats and Republicans have actually said, rather than speculating wildly about malevolent intent of Democrats when there is no clear evidence. One example is, on the death of Vince Foster, while I do think there was conspiracy and foul play in his death, I'm always very clear that there's not evidence of that, and it's my opinion.
Conversely, in the case of Bush commuting Libby's sentence, you not only speak malevolently about Bush's intent in commuting the sentence, but repeatedly foretell that Bush will, without doubt, and without the slightest statement or action on which to speculate it, will pardon Libby before he leaves office. As if it's already a fact.
Originally Posted By: M E M
Originally Posted By: WB
First off, Bush didn't pardon Libby. Your assumption that he'd pardon Libby, now that Libby's already out of jail, and has paid a 250,000-dollar fine, is pure speculation.
Since I was clear that it was my opinion I'm not sure why you bring it up as if your sorting something out. Do you feel speculation is wrong?
I do feel it's wrong.
And as I said, beyond saying it's your opinion, you state this alleged future occurrence as if it's factual and has already occurred.
Originally Posted By: M E M
Originally Posted By: WB
And meanwhile, you conversely ignore that Clinton is the biggest abuser of presidential pardons in the history of the office. With an unprecedented 141 last-minute pardons to wealthy political contributors, federal criminals, and other assorted Friends-of-Bill.
Ah the Clinton defense. You know you can always count on it. I didn't ignore it though nor defend them. I did point out how they were different. I also think if Clinton had stepped in the way Bush did with Libby you guys would be yelling.
I can count on it because it's true!
Clinton committed crimes and abused his office. And you find inventive ways to rationalize it. Or evade discussing it altogether.
Originally Posted By: M E M
Originally Posted By: WB
Rumsfeld submitted his resignation to Bush 4 times before the November 2006 election, as Rumsfeld himself said multiple times in front of reporters at press conferences.
Bush finally replaced Rumsfeld with Robert Gates after the Democrats won big in the November 2006 election. I'd call that the minimum action on Bush's part to open the possibility of getting cooperation with Democrats (Democrats who were elected on an anti-war agenda). And at that point, as I recall, Rumsfeld had been the longest-serving Secretary of Defense in the history of that office.
That just makes the case that Rumsfeld was the loyal one. Bush finally accepted his resignation after it became a political liability.
That just seems like liberal spin to me. To the point that I can't even follow your train of thought.
I think Rumsfeld and Bush were loyal to each other. Bush held on to Rumsfeld for 4 years despite calls for his resignation. And that Rumsfeld offered his resignation 4 times indicates he was eager to go, at any point he might be relieved. It's hardly as if Bush relieved Rumsfeld against his will. Rumsfeld was glad to go.
Originally Posted By: M E M
Originally Posted By: WB
What you say about Gonzales "doing exactly what Bush wants him to", "Taking heat for Bush" is speculation, and could be said about any Bush appointee who is accused of something and stays in office. Frankly, I wish he'd resign, and be replaced by someone who would restore faith in the attorney general's office. As I wished Rumsfeld to resign as well.
Why is it a case of wishing they would have resigned? As you pointed out Rumsfeld offered a couple of times. It seems this "Bush is just [too] loyal" thing is a pretty good deal for him.
I wished them both to resign because there was widespread loss of faith in their ability to lead, among the military or the attorney general's office, respectively. I do thionk Bush is loyal to his people. But it's a flaw, because he's put personal loyalty to non-performers, over the best interests of the nation, and his oath to preserve, protect and defend our nation.
Originally Posted By: M E M
Originally Posted By: WB
However scapegoated Michael Brown might be, he still absolves himself of all reponsibility for what happened with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. As do the Democrat governor of Louisiana, the other elected Democrat Senators and Representatives of Louisiana who neglected funding for stronger dams and levi's, and then blamed it all on Bush, as also did the mayor of New Orleans. All of whom could have done more to prevent the disaster in New Orleans, but were all too happy to heap the entire blame at Bush's doorstep.
They could have done more & Bush could have done more. And if we're talking about blame at the local level I would be interested in hearing your thoughts how a Mayor could have done a better job protecting his city from a terrorist attack.
That's an obvious partisan jab at Giuliani. There's a huge difference between making partisan jabs at a NY city mayor for attacks using airlines that he could never have seen coming, and the mayor of New Orleans who deals with hurricanes every year, and didn't use school buses and other tools for evacuation of a city located well below sea level, in the face of a category 5 hurricane.
The same can be said of the Democrat governor, Democrat Senators and Democrat representatives, who had YEARS to allocate the resources to prepare for the storm, and have managed to get re-elected by scapegoating the entire blame for their own inaction on Bush, Brown, and FEMA.
Originally Posted By: M E M
Quote:
While I strongly opposed the Harriet Miers nomination, I think Bush hung onto the nomination as long as he could, up until he saw it was impossible, and saw he'd get no cooperation, even from his fellow Republicans. He didn't give up on Miers until it was clear she'd never be confirmed.
Is that really unusual for Presidential nominations?
No, it's not unusual. But your point was alleging that Bush was disloyal. My point was that he had complete loyalty, even in the face of his own opposing Republican party, as long as there was a prayer of her being nominated. Far from you allegation of him dumping her at the first moment she became inconvenient. Any fair observer can see Bush was loyal to her. Bush's nomination of Miers can be criticized for other reasons, but not for Bush's allegedly being opportunistically disloyal.
... I'm guessing Bush is just going to do the pardon on his way out of the White House. He had to commute the sentence right away or else Libby might have started spilling. Any leverage evaporated once Bush stepped in to shelter his guy from the legal system.
Like your Vince Foster speculation I'm pretty clear that it's me guessing that is what Bush will do. At any rate time will tell if I'm right. Personally I feel accusing somebody of cold blooded murder should require far more than you've ever presented.
I owe you more of a reply to the monster post we've created but it will have to wait.
Clinton committed crimes and abused his office. And you find inventive ways to rationalize it. Or evade discussing it altogether.
As I pointed out though I didn't justify Clinton's pardons. I did point out how they differred from what Bush did with Libby. What would have been the conservatives response if he had commutted Mcdougal's sentence before she served any jail time? As it was I remember some outrage when he pardonned her after she served her couple of years in prison, a chunk of it in solitary. I don't believe for a minute that those cheering the Libby commute would have felt the same way.
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That just seems like liberal spin to me. To the point that I can't even follow your train of thought. I think Rumsfeld and Bush were loyal to each other. Bush held on to Rumsfeld for 4 years despite calls for his resignation. And that Rumsfeld offered his resignation 4 times indicates he was eager to go, at any point he might be relieved. It's hardly as if Bush relieved Rumsfeld against his will. Rumsfeld was glad to go.
So where was Bush being loyal by keeping somebody in place that didn't want to be there? I guess my point is that Bush kept him because he agreed with what Rumsfeld was doing.
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I wished them both to resign because there was widespread loss of faith in their ability to lead, among the military or the attorney general's office, respectively. I do thionk Bush is loyal to his people. But it's a flaw, because he's put personal loyalty to non-performers, over the best interests of the nation, and his oath to preserve, protect and defend our nation.
So when Bush supports these guys & doesn't offer any contradictory views it's not that he doesn't have them but it's a case of being loyal? I don't buy that speculation.
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That's an obvious partisan jab at Giuliani. There's a huge difference between making partisan jabs at a NY city mayor for attacks using airlines that he could never have seen coming, and the mayor of New Orleans who deals with hurricanes every year, and didn't use school buses and other tools for evacuation of a city located well below sea level, in the face of a category 5 hurricane. The same can be said of the Democrat governor, Democrat Senators and Democrat representatives, who had YEARS to allocate the resources to prepare for the storm, and have managed to get re-elected by scapegoating the entire blame for their own inaction on Bush, Brown, and FEMA.
Katrina wasn't your average hurricane though & New York had been attacked by terrorist before. There wasn't the assumption that it wouldn't somehow happen again. In fact our intelligence that had been reported predicted we would be attacked again.
At any rate a huge diseaster like that requires good federal response & aid. What happened with Katrina was a poor response at the federal level. While it happened the GOP response was to concentrate on whatever some local Democratic local official didn't do. (apparently there are no Republican in the local governments down there) That's fine holding them accountable but that's where the criticism seems to end.
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No, it's not unusual. But your point was alleging that Bush was disloyal. My point was that he had complete loyalty, even in the face of his own opposing Republican party, as long as there was a prayer of her being nominated. Far from you allegation of him dumping her at the first moment she became inconvenient. Any fair observer can see Bush was loyal to her. Bush's nomination of Miers can be criticized for other reasons, but not for Bush's allegedly
I wouldn't say Bush was disloyal just that this was pretty much the status quo with presidential nominations. As long as any President thinks he can get one through their being what you call loyal.
I guess what it boils down to, MEM, is that your viewpoint is so partisan that its never just a case of "the other side is mistaken." Its always "the other guy is corrupt and/or evil."
The Libby case is just one example. You can have WB and myself saying "well, we think it may have been ill-advised and just one more example of Bush prizing loyalty over competence," but that's not enough for you. It HAS to be, it ALWAYS has to be, that the Republican is corrupt and proceeding with an evil intent.
Conversely, you will bend over backwards to excuse everything a democrat does. Everything. The only criticism of a democrat I can ever recall was your two years later gripe that John Kerry spent too much time windsurfing.
I guess what it boils down to, MEM, is that your viewpoint is so partisan that its never just a case of "the other side is mistaken." Its always "the other guy is corrupt and/or evil."
The Libby case is just one example. You can have WB and myself saying "well, we think it may have been ill-advised and just one more example of Bush prizing loyalty over competence," but that's not enough for you. It HAS to be, it ALWAYS has to be, that the Republican is corrupt and proceeding with an evil intent.
Conversely, you will bend over backwards to excuse everything a democrat does. Everything. The only criticism of a democrat I can ever recall was your two years later gripe that John Kerry spent too much time windsurfing.
Yes you've made it clear that you feel your views are reasonable.
When I say a Democrat looks guilty I can count on you agreeing with me & even giving me credit for being fair. I also know when I dissagree with you I'll get attacked for being so one sided & "Conversely, you will bend over backwards to excuse everything a democrat does". If you want to concentrate the discusion on your exagerated claims, I'm used to it.
I guess what it boils down to, MEM, is that your viewpoint is so partisan that its never just a case of "the other side is mistaken." Its always "the other guy is corrupt and/or evil."
The Libby case is just one example. You can have WB and myself saying "well, we think it may have been ill-advised and just one more example of Bush prizing loyalty over competence," but that's not enough for you. It HAS to be, it ALWAYS has to be, that the Republican is corrupt and proceeding with an evil intent.
Conversely, you will bend over backwards to excuse everything a democrat does. Everything. The only criticism of a democrat I can ever recall was your two years later gripe that John Kerry spent too much time windsurfing.
Yes you've made it clear that you feel your views are reasonable.
When I say a Democrat looks guilty I can count on you agreeing with me & even giving me credit for being fair. I also know when I dissagree with you I'll get attacked for being so one sided & "Conversely, you will bend over backwards to excuse everything a democrat does". If you want to concentrate the discusion on your exagerated claims, I'm used to it.
You're both so partisan neither one of you will ever be willing to see the other's point of view.....and unfortunately much of our country is in this state of mind right now. It will take a great Uniter to bring both parties back to the middle of the spectrum and try and govern for all of America.
You're both so partisan neither one of you will ever be willing to see the other's point of view.....and unfortunately much of our country is in this state of mind right now. It will take a great Uniter to bring both parties back to the middle of the spectrum and try and govern for all of America.
With all due respect, P, constantly claiming "the middle", holding out hope for some sort of imaginary "uniter" and criticising anyone who has beliefs to one side or the other of your own is probably no less bull-headed.
No need for that type of apology G-man. I'm used to you attacking my character all the time with your exagerations & I think it's apparent that you'll keep doing it.
I guess what it boils down to, MEM, is that your viewpoint is so partisan that its never just a case of "the other side is mistaken." Its always "the other guy is corrupt and/or evil."
The Libby case is just one example. You can have WB and myself saying "well, we think it may have been ill-advised and just one more example of Bush prizing loyalty over competence," but that's not enough for you. It HAS to be, it ALWAYS has to be, that the Republican is corrupt and proceeding with an evil intent.
Conversely, you will bend over backwards to excuse everything a democrat does. Everything. The only criticism of a democrat I can ever recall was your two years later gripe that John Kerry spent too much time windsurfing.
Yes you've made it clear that you feel your views are reasonable.
When I say a Democrat looks guilty I can count on you agreeing with me & even giving me credit for being fair. I also know when I dissagree with you I'll get attacked for being so one sided & "Conversely, you will bend over backwards to excuse everything a democrat does". If you want to concentrate the discusion on your exagerated claims, I'm used to it.
You're both so partisan neither one of you will ever be willing to see the other's point of view.....and unfortunately much of our country is in this state of mind right now. It will take a great Uniter to bring both parties back to the middle of the spectrum and try and govern for all of America.
Like your Vince Foster speculation I'm pretty clear that it's me guessing that is what Bush will do. At any rate time will tell if I'm right. Personally I feel accusing somebody of cold blooded murder should require far more than you've ever presented.
Time will tell.
I've made the argument for Clinton conspiracy in the Vince Foster death across a number of topics over the years.
Foster was left handed, the gun was found in his right hand.
His wound would have caused a lot of bleeding, but there was little blood where his body was found, indicating he was moved to the park where he was found, after his death.
Pressure was given to have Foster's death investigated by local police, rather than FBI, who would have been more likely to find additional evidence.
At precisely the time Foster's body was found, files were already being cleared out of Foster's office.
In addition, DNC-chair/Commerce Secretary Ron Brown was under investigation for pending indictment, and he basically said "If I'm going down, I'm not going down alone." A few days later, he went down over Bosnia, in a plane, and was never heard from again.
There are many other allegations against the Clintons. Regarding Whitewater, the McDougals were imprisoned, one died of cancer in jail, the other was pardoned by Clinton when leaving office (indistinguishable from Bush, if Bush pardons Libby as you speculate, before he leaves office).
My point is, in answer to your statement, there is plenty of circumstantial evidence against bill and Hillary, but not enough to convict the Clintons, beyond what has already been proven.
But there is no lack of arguments to assert my belief in their guilt. I also can accept they might not be guilty of these other charges, but there is some considerable basis for my beliefs, in how much Bill Clinton denied, that he was found to be unquestionably guilty of.
I've probably posted this before but here's Snopes Urban Legends site that addresses "The Clinton body count" It boils down to if somebody died who knew Clinton he is then accused of killing him. Here's the section on Vince Foster...
Quote:
2. Vincent Foster - former White House Counsel, found dead of a gunshot wound to the head and ruled a suicide. He had significant knowledge of the Clintons' financial affairs and was a business partner with Hillary. If the Clintons are guilty of the crimes they are accused of by Larry, Vincent Foster would have detailed knowledge of those crimes.
This laundry list of deaths always refers to someone taking his life as "ruled a suicide," thus implying another conclusion of equal likelihood was capriciously dismissed by someone who had the power to do so. From here on, read "ruled a suicide" as "an investigation was carried out, arriving at this as the only reasonable conclusion." White House deputy counsel Vince Foster committed suicide on the night of 20 July 1993 by shooting himself once in the head, a day after he contacted his doctor about his depression. A note in the form of a draft resignation letter was found in the bottom of his briefcase a week after his death. (Note that this letter was not, as is often claimed, a "suicide note." It was Foster's outline for a letter of resignation.) Foster cited negative Wall Street Journal editorials about him. He was also upset about the much-criticized role of the counsel's office in the controversial firing of seven White House travel office workers. On 10 October 1997, special prosecutor Kenneth Starr released his report on the investigation into Foster's death, the third such investigation (after ones conducted by the coroner and Starr's predecessor, Robert B. Fiske) of the matter. The 114-page summary of a three-year investigation concluded that Foster shot himself with the pistol discovered in his right hand. There was no sign of a struggle, nor any evidence he'd been drugged or intoxicated or that his body had been moved. If Foster had been murdered or if unanswered questions about his death remained, Starr would have been the last person to want to conclude the investigation prematurely. Or are we to believe Starr is part of the cover up, too? And if we buy into the conspiracy theory, what are we expected to believe? That a group of professional killers capable of carrying out dozens of murders all over the world shot Vince Foster, then clumsily dumped him in a park (after he had bled out), planted a gun he didn't own in his hand (without bothering to press his fingerprints onto it), amateurishly forged a suicide note (in several different handwritings), then expected the nation would believe it was suicide?
You're both so partisan neither one of you will ever be willing to see the other's point of view.....and unfortunately much of our country is in this state of mind right now. It will take a great Uniter to bring both parties back to the middle of the spectrum and try and govern for all of America.
I've probably posted this before but here's Snopes Urban Legends site that addresses "The Clinton body count" It boils down to if somebody died who knew Clinton he is then accused of killing him. Here's the section on Vince Foster...
It really boils down to: If Bill Clinton lied, and was proven beyond the slightest doubt to have lied and been guilty of some crimes, then chances are he's guilty of the other things he was accused of, and there just isn't another semen-stained dress to prove it.
It boils down to inconsistencies (in the Vince Foster case, with the McDougals, in the Paula Jones case, and in a number of other circumstances) that cannot be fully explained, and indicate Clinton's guilt.
I've probably posted this before but here's Snopes Urban Legends site that addresses "The Clinton body count" It boils down to if somebody died who knew Clinton he is then accused of killing him. Here's the section on Vince Foster...
It really boils down to: If Bill Clinton lied, and was proven beyond the slightest doubt to have lied and been guilty of some crimes, then chances are he's guilty of the other things he was accused of, and there just isn't another semen-stained dress to prove it.
It boils down to inconsistencies (in the Vince Foster case, with the McDougals, in the Paula Jones case, and in a number of other circumstances) that cannot be fully explained, and indicate Clinton's guilt.
so if he lied about getting a blow job and cheating on his wife he must also be guilty of murder?
It really boils down to: If Bill Clinton lied, and was proven beyond the slightest doubt to have lied and been guilty of some crimes, then chances are he's guilty of the other things he was accused of, and there just isn't another semen-stained dress to prove it.
It boils down to inconsistencies (in the Vince Foster case, with the McDougals, in the Paula Jones case, and in a number of other circumstances) that cannot be fully explained, and indicate Clinton's guilt.
Originally Posted By: Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man
so if he lied about getting a blow job and cheating on his wife he must also be guilty of murder?
The charges were perjury before a grand jury, and obstructing justice.
For which Clinton was disbarred as a lawyer, fined, and was censured by the Congress and Senate.
Out of disdain for Clinton's actions, the Supreme Court also did not attend Clinton's subsequent State of the Union address. So obviously the highest authorities on law and justice in our country see the significance of Clinton's actions as considerably more severe than you dismissively try to minimize them. While you partisanly hold a much higher and disproportionate standard for Republicans, I might add.
Again: in Watergate, Republicans crossed over and supported impeachment, which finally compelled Nixon to resign. I'm proud that Republicans put justice and the best interests of the nation above party loyalty. Likewise, in the recent Harriet Myers nomination, in the crushed immigration bill, and in social security reform, among others. (A higher concern for the national interest over political loyalty that George W. Bush and members of his administration do not share with more mainstream ideological Republicans.)
In the same situation, while unable to dismiss the charges, Democrats did everything they could to keep an unquestionably corrupt Bill Clinton in office, to selfishly preserve their own political dominance, despite Clinton's proven and undeniable guilt.
uh huh. Nixon covered up a burglary, Bush abused his power to free a man who lied about an act which ruined a career, and Clinton lied about screwing around with some intern in his office. You have look at the gravity of the act. and the motives behind it.
Originally Posted By: Friendly Neighborhood Ray-man
Bush abused his power to free a man who lied...
Other than the fact that you, personally, disagree with his action, do you have any legal other competent authority to argue that he "abused his power", considering that the law provides him unfettered discretion to grant clemency?
I checked your sites WB that you feel seem to trump all the official investigations including Starr's 3 year investigation that all concluded Foster committed suicide. The second one starts out declaring "This is the story that nobody dares touch. " and then uses Rush Limbaugh & Matt Drudge as examples.
For the harder claims I suggest this site that debunks much of the right wing conspiracy theorists and exposes some of the behind the scenes antics. Moldea: Vincent Foster committed suicide
There's at least as much evidence that Vince Foster was murdered as there that Bush caused 9-11.
Let's face it: what probably happened to Foster was that he finally saw the Hildebeast without any makeup. That would kill any man. Having no way to explain this, the Clintonistas concocted the suicide.
I checked your sites WB that you feel seem to trump all the official investigations including Starr's 3 year investigation that all concluded Foster committed suicide. The second one starts out declaring "This is the story that nobody dares touch. " and then uses Rush Limbaugh & Matt Drudge as examples.
For the harder claims I suggest this site that debunks much of the right wing conspiracy theorists and exposes some of the behind the scenes antics. Moldea: Vincent Foster committed suicide
I just read the whole page you linked, MEM, thanks for taking the time to post it.
Even before you posted your link, I looked at Michael Rivero's site as more of a "raw data" link than the other site I posted. And by that I mean that I think he posted what some of the basic controversial discrepancies were/are in the Foster suicide case. I don't take as absolute fact what he says, but I do accept that he outlines what the basic points of controversy are, and I recognized immediately on reading Rivero's site that he isn't a journalist. That doesn't mean Rivero is absolutely wrong on any or all points from the outset, but I do recognize his site is written with a strong opinion.
Modea, in defending his book against Rivero's attacks, doesn't dispute the basic points of controversy, he only disputes Rivero's accusation that he glossed over the major inconsistencies of the Vince Foster suicide investigation. And in his explanations in answer to Rivero's comments, Modea certainly satisfies any doubt on my part that he (Modea) glossed over any of the points. Modea acknowledges all the inconsistencies, but still comes to the conclusion that Vince Foster committed suicide and was not murdered.
I still have my suspicions about those points of controversy in Foster's suicide, and while I don't say with absolute certainty that Foster was murdered, there are some noteworthy inconsistencies.
Like John F. Kennedy's assassination, I've seen (and discussed in previous topics here) that forensics have proven that Oswald could have killed Kennedy alone. And all Oswald's actions described in the Warren report have been duplicated, and shown that Oswald could have done them in the timeframe of the assassination. But I could also accept that there was a second gunman on the grassy knoll. But at this point I still think Oswald did it alone.
Likewise, I could believe Foster committed suicide or was murdered. But in Foster's case, I lean more toward believing in foul play.
If not murder, I still believe (1)that Foster's body was moved for some reason after his death. And (2) that pressure was given to have park police investigate, rather than the far more competent FBI, whose investigation would have likely yielded more results. And (3)I find it highly suspect that at the precise time Foster's body was found, the Clintons were having the files taken from Foster's office. And (4) while Foster owned many guns, it's not clear that the gun that killed him was one he owned.
These things could all have been ass-covering after the fact by the Clintons, upon hearing of Foster's suicide. But they are suspect.
I'm moved to believe that a special prosecutor found Foster's death to be a suicide. And also persuaded that Modea, an experienced crime investigator and reporter, also saw the inconsistencies, and still ruled Foster's death a suicide. But I still am open to the possibility of conspiracy in Foster's death. There are still unanswered questions.
And like the JFK assassination, we'll probably never have all the answers, to our complete satisfaction. It would be great if Carlos the Jackal came out of the woodwork and , Deep-Throat-like, gave us the full record on his deathbed.
What an amazingly refreshing and grown up admission from a former member of the Bush Administration. When shown a clip of Valerie Plame Wilson castigating him for revealing her identity to Robert Novak by Wolf Blitzer, former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage has really only one thing to say: She’s right.
I still don't buy that he didn't know she was a covert agent though.
In the second clip, Wolf asks Armitage about his work with the CSIS Commission on “Smart Power.” Armitage’s response to the way that Bush & Co. have prosecuted the “War on Terror” sounds amazingly like a progressive position:
Quote:
BLITZER: Are you suggesting that the “War on Terror” is not the central component of U.S. policy right now?
ARMITAGE: There’s two different things. I’m suggesting that it perhaps shouldn’t be. The fact that we make a war on “terror”–which I think is a bit of a misnomer—perhaps it should be a war on extremism, certainly Islamic extremism right now—is keeping us from focusing on other issues, both domestic and international. Look, these terrorists want to hurt us; they’re a real and growing threat. But absent the availability of WMDs to them, they don’t pose an existential threat to us. This is not like fascism during the second world war or communism. The threat they pose to us is whether we in response to their activities will actually do harm to ourselves by changing our way of life, by suspending writs of habeas corpus and by engaging in such activities as torture.
Well to be fair to Armitage didn't expect that a covert agent would be named in a memo circulated by the White House.
Quote:
"Amitage had been sent a key memo about Wilson's trip that referred to his wife and her CIA connection, and this memo had been written, according to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, at the request of I. Lewis Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. ... The memo included information on Valerie Wilson's role in a meeting at the CIA that led to her husband's trip. This critical memo was ... based on notes that were not accurate."
Although I guess Armitage also described himself as "a terrible gossip" during the Iran-contra scandal & was accused of providing false testimony by Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh.
"The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.
There was one problem. It was not true.
I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the president himself." - [Former White House press secretary] Scott McClellan
WASHINGTON (AP) — Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.
In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.
"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."
Bush's chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card.
The excerpt, posted on the Web site of publisher PublicAffairs, renews questions about what went on in the West Wing and how much Bush and Cheney knew about the leak. For years, it was McClellan's job to field — and often duck — those types of questions.
Now that he's spurring them, answers are equally hard to come by.
White House press secretary Dana Perino said it wasn't clear what McClellan meant in the excerpt. "The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass on false information," she said.
McClellan turned down interview requests Tuesday.
Plame maintains the White House quietly outed her to reporters. Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, said the leak was retribution for his public criticism of the Iraq war. The accusation dogged the administration and made Plame a cause celebre among many Democrats.
McClellan's book, "What Happened," isn't due out until April, and the excerpt released Monday was merely a teaser. It doesn't get into detail about how Bush and Cheney were involved or reveal what happened behind the scenes.
Yet the teaser provided enough fodder for administration critics.
"Just when you think the credibility of this White House can't get any lower, another shoe drops," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "If the Bush administration won't even tell the truth to its official spokesman, how can the American people expect to be told the truth either?"
In the fall of 2003, after authorities began investigating the leak, McClellan told reporters that he'd personally spoken to Rove, who was Bush's top political adviser, and Libby, who was Cheney's chief of staff.
"They're good individuals, they're important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved," McClellan said at the time.
Both men, however, were involved. Rove was one of the original sources for the newspaper column that identified Plame. Libby also spoke to reporters about the CIA officer and was convicted of lying about those discussions. He is the only person to be charged in the case.
Since that news conference, however, the official White House stance has shifted and it has been difficult to get a clear picture of what happened behind closed doors around the time of the leak.
McClellan's flat denials gave way to a steady drumbeat of "no comment." And Bush's original pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak became a promise to fire anyone who "committed a crime."
In a CNN interview earlier this year, McClellan made no suggestion that Bush knew either Libby or Rove was involved in the leak. McClellan said his statements to reporters were what he and the president "believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given."
Bush most recently addressed the issue in July after commuting Libby's 30-month prison term. He acknowledged that some in the White House were involved in the leak. Then, after repeatedly declining to discuss the ongoing investigation, he said the case was closed and it was time to move on.
Associated Press writer Jennifer Loven contributed to this report.
Tonight on Countdown, Keith Olbermann talked to MSNBC’s David Shuster about revelations from former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan’s new book, that President Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove were directly involved in deceiving the American people about their roles in outing covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame. Anyone paying attention knew these allegations to be true all along, but as you would expect, Olbermann and Shuster nail it.
Keith also spoke with John Dean (video below) about the resurrected scandal and brought up some more than interesting points. The Plame leak investigation is still ongoing, Patrick Fitzgerald never formally closed it. Dean suggests that there is a real possibility that these allegations open the door to a possible conspiracy to defraud the government charge and if Fitzgerald found enough evidence to proceed with his investigation, he could do so at any time. We can only hope…
Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan does not believe President Bush lied to him about the role of White House aides I. Lewis Scooter Libby or Karl Rove in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, according to McClellan's publisher.
Peter Osnos, the founder and editor-in-chief of Public Affairs Books, which is publishing McClellan's book in April, tells NBC from his Connecticut home that McCLellan, "Did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him."
Osnos says when McClellan went before the White House press corps in 2003 to publicly exonerate Libby and Rove, the problem was that his statement was not true. Osnos said the president told McClellan what "he thought to be the case." But, he says, McClellan believes, "the president didn't know it was not true."
Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan does not believe President Bush lied to him about the role of White House aides I. Lewis Scooter Libby or Karl Rove in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, according to McClellan's publisher.
Peter Osnos, the founder and editor-in-chief of Public Affairs Books, which is publishing McClellan's book in April, tells NBC from his Connecticut home that McCLellan, "Did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him."
Osnos says when McClellan went before the White House press corps in 2003 to publicly exonerate Libby and Rove, the problem was that his statement was not true. Osnos said the president told McClellan what "he thought to be the case." But, he says, McClellan believes, "the president didn't know it was not true."
Well that's all well and good but the larger point still stands. Where does the buck stop in this White House? How can a President, if this is in fact so, surround himself with people who deliberately mislead him? Into war even.
Let Jack Cafferty set you straight. (transcript provided for the YouTube impaired)
Quote:
Jack Cafferty: Well, a couple of things occur to me. The first one is, whoever is doing the PR for McClellan’s book ought to get a raise, because he’s doing a masterful of creating buzz and interest in a book that won’t even be out until next April. The second thing is, it doesn’t really seem to me like it’s breaking news that the administration, the White House, may have misled one of their own about something. After all, they’ve been lying to the rest of the country about a whole bunch of stuff for the better part of six and a half years. You remember when the story broke about the CIA agent and President Bush said I will fire anybody in the White House who was involved in compromising the identity of a CIA agent? Well, that was a lie wasn’t it? Because Karl Rove and Scooter Libby and some of those folks, they were up to their armpits in the compromising of Valerie Plame’s identity. so the President changed and he said I will fire anybody who is convicted of committing a crime in conjunction with the outing of a C… So I mean that place has turned into an oil slick a long time ago and I don’t believe a whole bunch of anything that comes out of there these days. … [snip]
Suzanne Malveaux: Gloria, how’s this going to be perceived by the White House? Who’s the potential fall guy in all of this?
Gloria Borger: Well, they are not happy obviously because nobody wants to see the President accused of lying and I think the key word to look at here which everybody seems to be throwing around is “knowingly.” I did not “knowingly” tell somebody a falsehood. If the President actually told Scott McClellan that nobody in the White House had leaked Valerie Plame’s name, that is probably what the Vice President, what the President was told. I agree with John. The question is who told the President that? Was it the Vice President? And we know how close the vice President was to Scooter Libby. And did Karl Rove technically leak Valerie Plame’s name or did he say to the Time correspondent when the Time correspondent raised it, said Yeah, I heard that.’ Is that technically leaking her name? Maybe not. I think this whole thing is a bunch of technicalities right now and by the way, I agree with you Jack this is a big publicity stunt because really nobody cares anymore.
Cafferty: Well I care, and I’ll tell you why I care. George Bush is the President of the United States and this idea that he was somehow victimized by his own people, he didn’t know what was going on. He’s the President. This was a huge story at the time.
Borger: But what if he’s lied to Jack? What if somebody lied to the President?
Cafferty: Excuse me. Excuse me. The buck stops at the oval office. He’s in charge. It’s up to him to find out who’s telling the truth and who isn’t. It’s up to him to tell the American people what went on in his White House. It’s his, it’s his White House. It’s his White House.
Borger: I think we’ll hear that in his memoir. I think when he writes his memoir, when he writes his memoir maybe we’ll get to the bottom of it. ( )
Cafferty: I’d like to hear it now. No, I’d like to hear it now. There might still be time to impeach him.
Borger: I would to. I’d like to hear it.
Malveaux: Should we wait for the memoirs? Does anybody believe the President should jump in now, or the next 15 months?
Cafferty: No. How about the American public be told what the chief executive office of the United States government is up to? How about if we were told the truth? Wouldn’t that be a switch?
Thank God for Jack Cafferty. Wait for Bush's memoirs. Because they've been so truthful and forthcoming about so many other things.
President Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,” and has engaged in “self-deception” to justify his political ends, Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, writes in a critical new memoir about his years in the West Wing.
In addition, Mr. McClellan writes, the decision to invade Iraq was a “serious strategic blunder,” and yet, in his view, it was not the biggest mistake the Bush White House made. That, he says, was “a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed." ...
Mr. McClellan writes that top White House officials deceived him about the administration’s involvement in the leaking of the identity of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson. He says he did not know for almost two years that his statements from the press room that Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby Jr. were not involved in the leak were a lie.
“Neither, I believe, did President Bush,” Mr. McClellan writes. “He too had been deceived, and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me. But the top White House officials who knew the truth — including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney — allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie.”
To quote Morpheus in the Matrix. Welcome to the real world, Scott. A shame we'll probably not know until this White House is gone, just how much damage the bush Administration did as as far as Iran's nuclear program is concerned. Contrary to the right wing lie, Plame wasn't just a secretary, she was the head of a CIA dummy corporation which was investigating Iran's nuclear program. The one all the right wingers are suddenly so worried about. Funny how it wasn't that big a deal when it was about getting Joe Wilson via his wife for not repeating the Iraq lie.
You know, if the right wasn't always so busy trying to repeat and defend lies and liars, we'd probably actually be a lot safer than we are today.
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence.
Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” (Public Affairs, $27.95):
• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.
• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.
• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”
• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.
• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.
A few reporters were offered advance copies of the book, with the restriction that their stories not appear until Sunday, the day before the official publication date. Politico declined and purchased “What Happened” at a Washington bookstore.
The eagerly awaited book, while recounting many fond memories of Bush and describing him as “authentic” and “sincere,” is harsher than reporters and White House officials had expected.
McClellan was one of the president’s earliest and most loyal political aides, and most of his friends had expected him to take a few swipes at his former colleague in order to sell books but also to paint a largely affectionate portrait.
Instead, McClellan’s tone is often harsh. He writes, for example, that after Hurricane Katrina, the White House “spent most of the first week in a state of denial,” and he blames Rove for suggesting the photo of the president comfortably observing the disaster during an Air Force One flyover. McClellan says he and counselor to the president Dan Bartlett had opposed the idea and thought it had been scrapped.
But he writes that he later was told that “Karl was convinced we needed to do it — and the president agreed.”
“One of the worst disasters in our nation’s history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush’s presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush’s second term,” he writes. “And the perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath.”
McClellan, who turned 40 in February, was press secretary from July 2003 to April 2006. An Austin native from a political family, he began working as a gubernatorial spokesman for then-Gov. Bush in early 1999, was traveling press secretary for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign and was chief deputy to Press Secretary Ari Fleischer at the beginning of Bush’s first term.
“I still like and admire President Bush,” McClellan writes. “But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war. … In this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security.”
In a small sign of how thoroughly McClellan has adopted the outsider’s role, he refers at times to his former boss as “Bush,” when he is universally referred to by insiders as “the president.”
McClellan lost some of his friends in the administration last November when his publisher released an excerpt from the book that appeared to accuse Bush of participating in the cover-up of the Plame leak. The book, however, makes clear that McClellan believes Bush was also a victim of misinformation.
The book begins with McClellan’s statement to the press that he had talked with Rove and Libby and that they had assured him they “were not involved in … the leaking of classified information.”
At Libby’s trial, testimony showed the two had talked with reporters about the officer, however elliptically.
“I had allowed myself to be deceived into unknowingly passing along a falsehood,” McClellan writes. “It would ultimately prove fatal to my ability to serve the president effectively. I didn’t learn that what I’d said was untrue until the media began to figure it out almost two years later.
“Neither, I believe, did President Bush. He, too, had been deceived and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me. But the top White House officials who knew the truth — including Rove, Libby and possibly Vice President Cheney — allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie.”
McClellan also suggests that Libby and Rove secretly colluded to get their stories straight at a time when federal investigators were hot on the Plame case.
“There is only one moment during the leak episode that I am reluctant to discuss,” he writes. “It was in 2005, during a time when attention was focusing on Rove and Libby, and it sticks vividly in my mind. … Following [a meeting in Chief of Staff Andy Card’s office], … Scooter Libby was walking to the entryway as he prepared to depart when Karl turned to get his attention. ‘You have time to visit?’ Karl asked. ‘Yeah,’ replied Libby.
“I have no idea what they discussed, but it seemed suspicious for these two, whom I had never noticed spending any one-on-one time together, to go behind closed doors and visit privately. … At least one of them, Rove, it was publicly known at the time, had at best misled me by not sharing relevant information, and credible rumors were spreading that the other, Libby, had done at least as much. …
“The confidential meeting also occurred at a moment when I was being battered by the press for publicly vouching for the two by claiming they were not involved in leaking Plame’s identity, when recently revealed information was now indicating otherwise. … I don’t know what they discussed, but what would any knowledgeable person reasonably and logically conclude was the topic? Like the whole truth of people’s involvement, we will likely never know with any degree of confidence.”
McClellan repeatedly embraces the rhetoric of Bush's liberal critics and even charges: “If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.
“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”
Decrying the Bush administration’s “excessive embrace of the permanent campaign approach to governance,” McClellan recommends that future presidents appoint a “deputy chief of staff for governing” who “would be responsible for making sure the president is continually and consistently committed to a high level of openness and forthrightness and transcending partisanship to achieve unity.
“I frequently stumbled along the way,” McClellan acknowledges in the book’s preface. “My own story, however, is of small importance in the broad historical picture. More significant is the larger story in which I played a minor role: the story of how the presidency of George W. Bush veered terribly off course.”
Even some of the chapter titles are brutal: “The Permanent Campaign,” “Deniability,” “Triumph and Illusion,” “Revelation and Humiliation” and “Out of Touch.”
“I think the concern about liberal bias helps to explain the tendency of the Bush team to build walls against the media,” McClellan writes in a chapter in which he says he dealt “happily enough” with liberal reporters. “Unfortunately, the press secretary at times found himself outside those walls as well.”
The book’s center has eight slick pages with 19 photos, eight of them depicting McClellan with the president. Those making cameos include Cheney, Rove, Bartlett, Mark Knoller of CBS News, former Assistant Press Secretary Reed Dickens and, aboard Air Force One, former press office official Peter Watkins and former White House stenographer Greg North.
In the acknowledgments, McClellan thanks each member of his former staff by name.
Among other notable passages:
• Steve Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, said about the erroneous assertion about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium, included in the State of the Union address of 2003: “Signing off on these facts is my responsibility. … And in this case, I blew it. I think the only solution is for me to resign.” The offer “was rejected almost out of hand by others present,” McClellan writes.
• Bush was “clearly irritated, … steamed,” when McClellan informed him that chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey had told The Wall Street Journal that a possible war in Iraq could cost from $100 billion to $200 billion: “‘It’s unacceptable,’ Bush continued, his voice rising. ‘He shouldn’t be talking about that.’”
• “As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided.”
• “History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”
• McClellan describes his preparation for briefing reporters during the Plame frenzy: “I could feel the adrenaline flowing as I gave the go-ahead for Josh Deckard, one of my hard-working, underpaid press office staff, … to give the two-minute warning so the networks could prepare to switch to live coverage the moment I stepped into the briefing room.”
• “‘Matrix’ was the code name the Secret Service used for the White House press secretary."
McClellan is on the lecture circuit and remains in the Washington area with his wife, Jill.
Wait for it... here's where another bush loyalist who comes clean gets attacked mercilessly by the right in order to keep their stack of cards from collapsing even further.
President Bush “convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment,” and has engaged in “self-deception” to justify his political ends, Scott McClellan, the former White House press secretary, writes in a critical new memoir about his years in the West Wing.
In addition, Mr. McClellan writes, the decision to invade Iraq was a “serious strategic blunder,” and yet, in his view, it was not the biggest mistake the Bush White House made. That, he says, was “a decision to turn away from candor and honesty when those qualities were most needed." ...
Mr. McClellan writes that top White House officials deceived him about the administration’s involvement in the leaking of the identity of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson. He says he did not know for almost two years that his statements from the press room that Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby Jr. were not involved in the leak were a lie.
“Neither, I believe, did President Bush,” Mr. McClellan writes. “He too had been deceived, and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me. But the top White House officials who knew the truth — including Rove, Libby, and possibly Vice President Cheney — allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie.”
To quote Morpheus in the Matrix. Welcome to the real world, Scott. A shame we'll probably not know until this White House is gone, just how much damage the bush Administration did as as far as Iran's nuclear program is concerned. Contrary to the right wing lie, Plame wasn't just a secretary, she was the head of a CIA dummy corporation which was investigating Iran's nuclear program. The one all the right wingers are suddenly so worried about. Funny how it wasn't that big a deal when it was about getting Joe Wilson via his wife for not repeating the Iraq lie.
You know, if the right wasn't always so busy trying to repeat and defend lies and liars, we'd probably actually be a lot safer than we are today.
Former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan writes in a surprisingly scathing memoir to be published next week that President Bush “veered terribly off course,” was not “open and forthright on Iraq,” and took a “permanent campaign approach” to governing at the expense of candor and competence.
Among the most explosive revelations in the 341-page book, titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception” (Public Affairs, $27.95):
• McClellan charges that Bush relied on “propaganda” to sell the war.
• He says the White House press corps was too easy on the administration during the run-up to the war.
• He admits that some of his own assertions from the briefing room podium turned out to be “badly misguided.”
• The longtime Bush loyalist also suggests that two top aides held a secret West Wing meeting to get their story straight about the CIA leak case at a time when federal prosecutors were after them — and McClellan was continuing to defend them despite mounting evidence they had not given him all the facts.
• McClellan asserts that the aides — Karl Rove, the president’s senior adviser, and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff — “had at best misled” him about their role in the disclosure of former CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity.
A few reporters were offered advance copies of the book, with the restriction that their stories not appear until Sunday, the day before the official publication date. Politico declined and purchased “What Happened” at a Washington bookstore.
The eagerly awaited book, while recounting many fond memories of Bush and describing him as “authentic” and “sincere,” is harsher than reporters and White House officials had expected.
McClellan was one of the president’s earliest and most loyal political aides, and most of his friends had expected him to take a few swipes at his former colleague in order to sell books but also to paint a largely affectionate portrait.
Instead, McClellan’s tone is often harsh. He writes, for example, that after Hurricane Katrina, the White House “spent most of the first week in a state of denial,” and he blames Rove for suggesting the photo of the president comfortably observing the disaster during an Air Force One flyover. McClellan says he and counselor to the president Dan Bartlett had opposed the idea and thought it had been scrapped.
But he writes that he later was told that “Karl was convinced we needed to do it — and the president agreed.”
“One of the worst disasters in our nation’s history became one of the biggest disasters in Bush’s presidency. Katrina and the botched federal response to it would largely come to define Bush’s second term,” he writes. “And the perception of this catastrophe was made worse by previous decisions President Bush had made, including, first and foremost, the failure to be open and forthright on Iraq and rushing to war with inadequate planning and preparation for its aftermath.”
McClellan, who turned 40 in February, was press secretary from July 2003 to April 2006. An Austin native from a political family, he began working as a gubernatorial spokesman for then-Gov. Bush in early 1999, was traveling press secretary for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign and was chief deputy to Press Secretary Ari Fleischer at the beginning of Bush’s first term.
“I still like and admire President Bush,” McClellan writes. “But he and his advisers confused the propaganda campaign with the high level of candor and honesty so fundamentally needed to build and then sustain public support during a time of war. … In this regard, he was terribly ill-served by his top advisers, especially those involved directly in national security.”
In a small sign of how thoroughly McClellan has adopted the outsider’s role, he refers at times to his former boss as “Bush,” when he is universally referred to by insiders as “the president.”
McClellan lost some of his friends in the administration last November when his publisher released an excerpt from the book that appeared to accuse Bush of participating in the cover-up of the Plame leak. The book, however, makes clear that McClellan believes Bush was also a victim of misinformation.
The book begins with McClellan’s statement to the press that he had talked with Rove and Libby and that they had assured him they “were not involved in … the leaking of classified information.”
At Libby’s trial, testimony showed the two had talked with reporters about the officer, however elliptically.
“I had allowed myself to be deceived into unknowingly passing along a falsehood,” McClellan writes. “It would ultimately prove fatal to my ability to serve the president effectively. I didn’t learn that what I’d said was untrue until the media began to figure it out almost two years later.
“Neither, I believe, did President Bush. He, too, had been deceived and therefore became unwittingly involved in deceiving me. But the top White House officials who knew the truth — including Rove, Libby and possibly Vice President Cheney — allowed me, even encouraged me, to repeat a lie.”
McClellan also suggests that Libby and Rove secretly colluded to get their stories straight at a time when federal investigators were hot on the Plame case.
“There is only one moment during the leak episode that I am reluctant to discuss,” he writes. “It was in 2005, during a time when attention was focusing on Rove and Libby, and it sticks vividly in my mind. … Following [a meeting in Chief of Staff Andy Card’s office], … Scooter Libby was walking to the entryway as he prepared to depart when Karl turned to get his attention. ‘You have time to visit?’ Karl asked. ‘Yeah,’ replied Libby.
“I have no idea what they discussed, but it seemed suspicious for these two, whom I had never noticed spending any one-on-one time together, to go behind closed doors and visit privately. … At least one of them, Rove, it was publicly known at the time, had at best misled me by not sharing relevant information, and credible rumors were spreading that the other, Libby, had done at least as much. …
“The confidential meeting also occurred at a moment when I was being battered by the press for publicly vouching for the two by claiming they were not involved in leaking Plame’s identity, when recently revealed information was now indicating otherwise. … I don’t know what they discussed, but what would any knowledgeable person reasonably and logically conclude was the topic? Like the whole truth of people’s involvement, we will likely never know with any degree of confidence.”
McClellan repeatedly embraces the rhetoric of Bush's liberal critics and even charges: “If anything, the national press corps was probably too deferential to the White House and to the administration in regard to the most important decision facing the nation during my years in Washington, the choice over whether to go to war in Iraq.
“The collapse of the administration’s rationales for war, which became apparent months after our invasion, should never have come as such a surprise. … In this case, the ‘liberal media’ didn’t live up to its reputation. If it had, the country would have been better served.”
Decrying the Bush administration’s “excessive embrace of the permanent campaign approach to governance,” McClellan recommends that future presidents appoint a “deputy chief of staff for governing” who “would be responsible for making sure the president is continually and consistently committed to a high level of openness and forthrightness and transcending partisanship to achieve unity.
“I frequently stumbled along the way,” McClellan acknowledges in the book’s preface. “My own story, however, is of small importance in the broad historical picture. More significant is the larger story in which I played a minor role: the story of how the presidency of George W. Bush veered terribly off course.”
Even some of the chapter titles are brutal: “The Permanent Campaign,” “Deniability,” “Triumph and Illusion,” “Revelation and Humiliation” and “Out of Touch.”
“I think the concern about liberal bias helps to explain the tendency of the Bush team to build walls against the media,” McClellan writes in a chapter in which he says he dealt “happily enough” with liberal reporters. “Unfortunately, the press secretary at times found himself outside those walls as well.”
The book’s center has eight slick pages with 19 photos, eight of them depicting McClellan with the president. Those making cameos include Cheney, Rove, Bartlett, Mark Knoller of CBS News, former Assistant Press Secretary Reed Dickens and, aboard Air Force One, former press office official Peter Watkins and former White House stenographer Greg North.
In the acknowledgments, McClellan thanks each member of his former staff by name.
Among other notable passages:
• Steve Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, said about the erroneous assertion about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium, included in the State of the Union address of 2003: “Signing off on these facts is my responsibility. … And in this case, I blew it. I think the only solution is for me to resign.” The offer “was rejected almost out of hand by others present,” McClellan writes.
• Bush was “clearly irritated, … steamed,” when McClellan informed him that chief economic adviser Larry Lindsey had told The Wall Street Journal that a possible war in Iraq could cost from $100 billion to $200 billion: “‘It’s unacceptable,’ Bush continued, his voice rising. ‘He shouldn’t be talking about that.’”
• “As press secretary, I spent countless hours defending the administration from the podium in the White House briefing room. Although the things I said then were sincere, I have since come to realize that some of them were badly misguided.”
• “History appears poised to confirm what most Americans today have decided: that the decision to invade Iraq was a serious strategic blunder. No one, including me, can know with absolute certainty how the war will be viewed decades from now when we can more fully understand its impact. What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary.”
• McClellan describes his preparation for briefing reporters during the Plame frenzy: “I could feel the adrenaline flowing as I gave the go-ahead for Josh Deckard, one of my hard-working, underpaid press office staff, … to give the two-minute warning so the networks could prepare to switch to live coverage the moment I stepped into the briefing room.”
• “‘Matrix’ was the code name the Secret Service used for the White House press secretary."
McClellan is on the lecture circuit and remains in the Washington area with his wife, Jill.
Wait for it... here's where another bush loyalist who comes clean gets attacked mercilessly by the right in order to keep their stack of cards from collapsing even further.
Gullible assholes.
Instad of making that post you could have been reading your daughter a bed time story.
Actually, at the time he made that post, it was approximately 7:20 am, California time. He could have been fixing her a nice breakfast and playing with her before school (or nursery school).
Actually, whomod, if what is being reported turns out to be accurate, I think the Bush administration deserves a roasting for this.
I will note however, that McClellan, rather than blame Bush, seems to think that Bush was misled too.
Regardless, this would only exonerate him to the extent that it proves he's not unethical, simply incompetent.
A roasting? If this is accurate, this deserves more than a roasting.
As far as Bush being 'misled', McLellan, in his cocaine story details Bush's capacity for self deception and ultimately believing his own lies.
But it's cute how you'd rather see Bush as an incompetent leader rather than a liar and mass murderer. Either one is pretty bad and either one gets thousands of Americans killed just the same.
McLellan is critical of Bush himself for his inability to "change and grow" in the role of president.
Bush seemed unconcerned when the rationale for the war in Iraq — that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction — was shown to be fallacious, he writes.
Bush "convinces himself to believe what suits his needs at the moment," McClellan writes.
Any way you slice it, this is damning stuff indeed. Criminal stuff actually.
Nobody cares what a reductive fuck like you thinks. If we need to know how to get to sesame street or the best way to rape barnyard animals then we'll ask you first.
I knew Whomod would be ejaculating in his pants at the release of McLellan's new book.
McLellan lacks any documentation to back up his allegations. It may be true, but at this point it's just more hearsay for the Whomods of the world to gloat about. Nothing much that hasn't already been said for 5 years now.
Also, the timing of the book reveals it to be about maximizing sales, rather than about revealing any truth. He wants to get it out while Bush still has any relevance. Come January 20th, 2009, his book will be in the 50-cent bin.
Also, the timing of the book reveals it to be about maximizing sales, rather than about revealing any truth. He wants to get it out while Bush still has any relevance. Come January 20th, 2009, his book will be in the 50-cent bin.
You mean he wants to make money? Damn those evil capitalists!
I would explain that to you but I know you're too retarded to listen. Go ahead and keep living your lie. Remember to throw away your vote in this election as well.
even Rob outing whomod alts.... good times....good times.
whomod is too much of a dishonest pussy to ever acknowledge that...he will just hide behind some YouTube clips and some really big font!
And Mr.JLA is too much of a retard to ever have any actual "Deep thought". Rather, he'll forever be relegated to cheering on (like a little bitch) some other asshole who gets offended by my dissing his murderous asshole of a President.
Don't worry though, I ain't going anywhere. The disintegration of the Republican Party under the weight of it's lies and incompetence is too much fun to not rub your face further in.
Wait...is whomod saying that people die in wars? Why hasn't anyone told me that yet? Why hasn't this been on the news at all?
Seriously whomod, I'm challenging you to a fight. Pieces of shit like you need to be beaten down. You need an introduction to reality and the only way you will face it is with a good old fashioned ass kicking.
Come here and find out. I'll kick your pansy ass. Lets see how good you are at copying and pasting when your fingers are broken.
I believe you. I've seen your pics. You do look like a disturbed dangerous loner. The kind unable to form any permanent relationships. The kind you see on Dateline. Don't worry though, the authorities are aware of you and the penchant here for threatening my daughter.
Ha! Did you really call the police on me? Over a fucking alt id? I don't even know her age or how old she is. You're a fucking loon. You belong is a home. People like you should not be part of society.
And about kicking your ass, instead of that I'll do the next best thing. I'll kick the ass of the next homeless person I see. You all shout the same Anti-American bullshit.
McClellan's book bashes Bush, but it's McCain who has some explaining to do. May 30, 2008
The biggest bombshell in former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan's new tell-all is something that should have been abundantly clear to everybody by 2004 at the latest: The Bush administration deceived the American people with a misleading sales pitch for its war in Iraq. In the book, appropriately titled “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deception,” McClellan concludes, "What I do know is that war should only be waged when necessary, and the Iraq war was not necessary."
White House officials said McClellan never voiced such moral qualms while serving as Bush's spokesman from 2003 to 2006. They were reportedly puzzled and angry at the betrayal by a Texan of Bush’s inner circle. We're puzzled too, but over something else: Why has it taken McClellan so long to admit he was duped? It is also remarkable that McClellan faults the White House press corps for being too soft on Bush in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, when McClellan himself was a champion stonewaller and enforcer of the White House's "message discipline." Nevertheless, we salute McClellan's courage in admitting not only that he allowed himself to be misled but that he helped orchestrate a propaganda campaign. Such honesty, however belated, is a prerequisite for political change.
That is why the person who needs to respond to McClellan's charges is not George W. Bush but John McCain. The presumptive Republican presidential nominee has consistently said that he agreed with the decision to invade Iraq, even while faulting the inept conduct of the prewar planning and the occupation. As McClellan's disclosures make clear, that's no longer good enough. McCain's ideas on how and when to end the war matter more now than his vote to give the president the power to wage it. But voters should know whether he believes the invasion was a strategic mistake.
If McCain wants to be taken seriously as a more honest, competent and moderate Republican than Bush, he's going to have to answer some of the questions he has avoided.
To wit: Does he believe the administration "spun" the public to justify the overthrow of Saddam Hussein? Does he agree with McClellan that it was "a political propaganda campaign?" And, more important, how would he run his White House to ensure that dissenters and those with moral qualms do not wait years to speak out? That's a question McCain's rivals should ponder as well.
whomod is too much of a dishonest pussy to ever acknowledge that...he will just hide behind some YouTube clips and some really big font!
You have to be kidding me. I don't know how many times someone called you out on your bullshit, and instead of answering them, you went straight to your usual routine of highlighting text in a ten-page cut and paste, or merely threw up a parody image of Bush or some YouTube clips.
Matter of fact, that's exactly what you did right here.
Well, here's how I see it, McLellan is "glad' to testify before Congress over any questions they may have over Iraq and the Plame investigation. With The Administration, it's been obfuscation, stonewalling, ignoring subpoenas, refusing to swear under oath and invoking national security and Executive Privilege every chance they can.
So while Scott looks like a man lifting a great weight off his shoulders and is unhesitant about saying he'll testify before Congress, the Administration has been lying and covering up for years.
it is endearing that you and your buddies are among the 28 people left in America who still believe these crooks.
I'll be here though to provide YouTube clips when the testimony gets under way. cheers!:)
Quote:
Earlier Friday, McClellan said he would be willing to comply with a possible congressional subpoena to discuss the administration's handling of prewar intelligence, telling CNN's Wolf Blitzer he'd be "glad" to share his views if asked to testify.
Rep. Robert Wexler, D-Florida, said Friday that McClellan, who left the White House in 2006, would be able to provide valuable insight into a number of issues under investigation by the House Judiciary Committee.
The committee is looking into the use of prewar intelligence, whether politics was behind the firing of eight U.S. attorneys in 2006 and the leaking of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity, Wexler, a senior member of the Judiciary Committee, said.
In the book, McClellan says President Bush told him he had authorized the leaking of Plame's identity to the press.
Originally Posted By: MisterJLA
You have to be kidding me. I don't know how many times someone called you out on your bullshit, and instead of answering them, you went straight to your usual routine of highlighting text in a ten-page cut and paste, or merely threw up a parody image of Bush or some YouTube clips.
Matter of fact, that's exactly what you did right here.
Nope. It's not "my bullshit" BTW. It's what every one except perhaps FOX News and the Limbaugh's of thE world acknowledge as FACT. We were misled into war. An unnecessary war. And all I get from you is a "WAAAAAAAAAAA!!! IT'S NOT TRUE!!! IT'S NOT TRUE!!!!!!! WAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!
It's funny how you call me mean names and all considering that i've always felt that you guys on the right are the biggest bunch of cowards to allow yourselves to be scared into letting go of reason and become afraid and angry enough to accept any lie anytime someone uses the name 'al Queda' in a sentence.
yes, yes, Chris Matthews has gone over to the far left. Amazingly enough though, more and more Americans are starting to realize that what some call the far left is actually a little place called "reality".
yes, yes, Chris Matthews has gone over to the far left. Amazingly enough though, more and more Americans are starting to realize that what some call the far left is actually a little place called "reality".
Hey Rex. Theres 4084 US war casualties so far. I bet it pisses you off that I acknowledge it, eh?
A federal appeals court said Tuesday it would not resurrect a lawsuit that former CIA operative Valerie Plame brought against members of the Bush administration.
Plame accused Vice President Dick Cheney and several former high-ranking administration officials of revealing her identity to reporters in 2003. She and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, say that violated their constitutional rights.
It was an unusual case and even some on Plame's legal team acknowledged the case was an uphill fight from the start.
A federal judge dismissed the case last year and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld that ruling Tuesday.
The lawsuit named former presidential adviser Karl Rove; Cheney's former top aide, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
Armitage was the original source for a 2003 newspaper column identifying Plame as a CIA officer. At the time, her husband was criticizing the Bush administration's prewar intelligence on Iraq and had become a thorn in the side of the White House. Rove also discussed Plame's employment with reporters.
The leak touched off a lengthy investigation that led to Libby's conviction on charges of obstruction and lying to investigators. Jurors found that, when questioned by the FBI and a federal grand jury investigating the leak, he lied about his conversations with reporters.
Nobody was ever charged with the leak itself and Plame's lawsuit is one of the last remaining legal issues associated with the case.
I'm sure all the lefties who were having a nervous breakdown about Valerie plame are going to be coming along any minute now to blast the Obama administration for this.
Since I don't see the righties acting like they did back than I suggest the two are not comparable. The ATF agent isn't being attacked by conservatives like Plame was for example.
Since I don't see the righties acting like they did back than I suggest the two are not comparable. The ATF agent isn't being attacked by conservatives like Plame was for example.
Hair splitting.
The Plame incident was allegedly about the abuse of power by the government in leaking confidential information to punish an employee.
The ATF incident is allegedly about the abuse of power by the government in leaking confidential information to punish an employee.
In neither case is/was the alleged abuse committed by private citizens exercising their first amendment rights in criticizing a government employee.
To be intellectually consistent, if you outraged by the Plame matter, you should be outraged by the latest incident.
If everythings supposed to be the same than shouldn't the right be consistent too? Where's the defense for the government or the attacks on the ATF agent? Answer that and than I think you answer your first question.
Ahh, the old "Republicans do bad things too" moral equivalency defense, railing on the Plame controversy to mask or somehow excuse the massive scandals under Obama, beginning with "Fast and Furious", and now including the IRS singling out "Tea Party", "Patriot" and other conservative, Baptist, and pro-Israel groups, along with rising evidence of Obama negligence and cover-up in the Benghazi attack, and the authoritarian intimidation by the Dept of Justice in seizing Associated Press records.
Wow, all that Obama abuse is just exactly equalled by mentioning Valerie Plame, isn't it?
The whole thing with outing Plame as a CIA agent is completely bogus. Columnist Robert Novak (R.I.P. now) called an anonymous source to verify a source and answered a yes or no question about Joe Wilson and who sent him on the mission to Niger, and that single yese or no question inadvertantly led to revealing Wilson's wife (who selected him to go to Niger) was an agent for the CIA. That is vastly different from maliciously and deliberately outing Plame. And that unrevealed source was endlessly used by Democrats to slander Scooter libby, Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney. Before the anonymous source, Richard Armitage, finally revealed himself to be the one who spoke to Novak, and who inadvertantly answered the yes or no question without malicious intent.
But because of the viciousness and deliberate misinformation of Democrats and the liberal media, the slander has been repeated so prevalently that it has become "truth" in the public mind.
None of which diminishes or excuses the massive corruption by the Obama administration. Quite the opposite, the malice of Obama and his thugs represents a consistent pattern of abuse of their power.
But there is a consistent pattern of harassment, intimidation, and abuse of power by Obama and his thugs, in ways more consistent with the tactics of Mao or Hugo Chavez (who, coincidentally many of Obama's staff openly praise) than with ways of a western democracy. A pattern that the latest Benghazi, DOJ/AP, and IRS harassment are not an exception to, but a consistent part of.
It's still a trumped-up allegation Plame is making against Cheney and others in the Bush administration, of allegedly outing her.
Again, slicing through RAW (and MEM's ) circumnavigation of the truth, if there were any true wrongdoing against Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson, then the true leaker of Plame's name and CIA employment, Richard Armitage, would be on trial.
But he's not, so there's clearly no wrongdoing.
And what we truly have is an elaborate web of empty allegations by Democrats in Washington and their lackeys, to smear Cheney and other Bush officials. When in truth, as I said earlier, a public allegation was made by Wilson in a Wall Street Journal editorial, and that obligated Bush officials to respond and question how legitimate and credible (or not) Wilson's mission was.
And investigating the circumstances of how Wilson was chosen (by Plame) for the Niger mission discussed in his editorial, was fair game. It was Wilson himself who made his covert mission public, and Wilson's action gave Robert Novak and other journalists the right and the obligation to investigate every detail of the mission, how Wilson was selected for it (by Plame), and how thorough and credible (or not) Wilson's Niger investigation was.
Since I don't see the righties acting like they did back than I suggest the two are not comparable. The ATF agent isn't being attacked by conservatives like Plame was for example.
Hair splitting.
The Plame incident was allegedly about the abuse of power by the government in leaking confidential information to punish an employee.
The ATF incident is allegedly about the abuse of power by the government in leaking confidential information to punish an employee.
In neither case is/was the alleged abuse committed by private citizens exercising their first amendment rights in criticizing a government employee.
To be intellectually consistent, if you [are] outraged by the Plame matter, you should be outraged by the latest incident.
The other part that M E M gets wrong is that the ATF guy is a whistle-blower, exposing corruption and flaws in the system to correct them. But is spun by Obama's people (and M E M) as a traitor betraying secrets for personal gain, or for mercenary criminal sale of information.
But the ACTUAL traitors in Obama's administration (revealing information about the Bin Ladin raid and Seal Team 6, and revealing Israel's plan to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities from secret airfields in Aizerbaijan. Obama National Security staff spilling top-secret information so often that Defense Secretary Gates finally told them to "shut the fuck up!") are not punished, only the whistle-blowers who are PORTRAYED as traitors.
Ahh, the old "Republicans do bad things too" moral equivalency defense, ...
It's not a defense WB. G-man brought up the comparison with his post. As you may have noticed he's saying the two deals with the agents are pretty much the same. Read a couple of posts above this and you can see it wasn't me that brought up the comparison.
I'm sure all the lefties who were having a nervous breakdown about Valerie plame are going to be coming along any minute now to blast the Obama administration for this.
Your response:
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
Since I don't see the righties acting like they did back than I suggest the two are not comparable. The ATF agent isn't being attacked by conservatives like Plame was for example.
A moral equivalency argument.
And by the way, Democrats have been doing everything in their power to discredit the "Fast and Furious" whistleblower, to ruin his reputation so he wouldn't be believed. By leaking information.
At least in the case of Valerie Plame (as I detailed above) it was an error by Richard Armitage, answering open-ended questions in a phone interview by columnist Robert Novak. And not a deliberate and malicious attempt to betray or discredit someone. From what I've read, Armitage never imagined his answers to open-ended questions could have revealed Plame's identity. Not that it endangered Plame, who was not a field agent (although it conceivably could have revealed other covert agents and informants connected to Plame).
You have repeatedly labelled Bush officials traitorous for revealing Plame's identity, despite the source and nature of that questionable leak being fully revealed.
And yet don't hold the Obama administration to the same standard, even when they deliberately --treasonously--- revealed top-secret details of the Bin Ladin raid and Seal Team 6. And how Obama's White House security staff (if not Obama himself) deliberately revealed --and pre-emptively ruined-- a top-secret Israeli attack plan on Iran from airfields in Aizerbaijan.
And by the way, the Obama administration's DOJ (which you reflexively fully defend) did call James Rosen a "co-conspirator" (i.e., a traitor) for simply doing his job as an investigative reporter.
I trust Fox News (while investigating and uncovering top secret operations worldwide) not to reveal them in an irresponsible way. That said, it is Rosen's job to uncover news that the Obama administration (or any administration) doesn't want revealed, and hold them accountable. James Rosen is not an appointed government official who is sworn to defend our nation's secrets. His sources are, and Rosen should not be indicted as a co-conspirator for simply doing his job as an investigative reporter.
I'm sure all the lefties who were having a nervous breakdown about Valerie plame are going to be coming along any minute now to blast the Obama administration for this.
Your response:
Originally Posted By: Matter-eater Man
Since I don't see the righties acting like they did back than I suggest the two are not comparable. The ATF agent isn't being attacked by conservatives like Plame was for example.
A moral equivalency argument.
....
So? G-man expects "lefties" to act like they did back when Rove was continously altering his sworn testimony and Liddy was obstructing justice. If the two scenarios are indeed that much the same you need to explain why the right isn't acting like it did back than. The only constant I see is the same partisans conservatives hating the other side.
The CIA’s top officer in Kabul was exposed Saturday by the White House when his name was inadvertently included on a list provided to news organizations of senior U.S. officials participating in President Obama’s surprise visit with U.S. troops.
The White House recognized the mistake and quickly issued a revised list that did not include the individual, who had been identified on the initial release as the “Chief of Station” in Kabul, a designation used by the CIA for its highest-ranking spy in a country.
The CIA’s top officer in Kabul was exposed Saturday by the White House when his name was inadvertently included on a list provided to news organizations of senior U.S. officials participating in President Obama’s surprise visit with U.S. troops.
The White House recognized the mistake and quickly issued a revised list that did not include the individual, who had been identified on the initial release as the “Chief of Station” in Kabul, a designation used by the CIA for its highest-ranking spy in a country.
This is the single closest situation to the Valerie Plame outing. And is yet another example of selective liberal outrage, and minimal reporting, when it is a Democrat administration who did the leaking, and arguably put a lot more people at risk.
Karl Rove Whitewashes His Role In Outing CIA Agent Blog ››› 6 hours and 53 minutes ago ››› ERIC HANANOKI 68 Print Email
Fox News contributor Karl Rove exploited the Obama administration's accidental exposure of a CIA operative's identity to absolve his own culpability in deliberately leaking former CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity during the Bush administration.
Over the weekend, the name of the CIA's top officer in Kabul, Afghanistan, was "inadvertently included on a list provided to news organizations of senior U.S. officials participating in President Obama's surprise visit with U.S. troops. The White House recognized the mistake and quickly issued a revised list."
During the May 27 broadcast of Fox News Radio's Kilmeade & Friends, host Brian Kilmeade discussed the story and remarked: "You think Valerie Plame's a big deal, fine. She's at the -- she's at a desk job in the CIA. What about a guy in one of the most dangerous jobs in the world?"
Plame is a former CIA operative whose identify was leaked by Karl Rove and others in the Bush administration as payback for an opinion piece that her husband, Joe Wilson, wrote rebutting Bush's case for invading Iraq.
Rove -- who was a senior adviser and deputy chief of staff to President Bush -- responded on Kilmeade's show by claiming Plame "was not an active agent" and that he "didn't know her name. All I'd heard was the rumor that Wilson's wife had, at the CIA, had helped send him to Niger":
ROVE: Right. Well look, one point. Valerie Plame was not covered by the statue that you bring up. She was not an active agent. She was legally outside the law, and that's why there was no action taken by the special prosecutor against anybody who had mentioned her name. And I, for example, didn't know her name. All I'd heard was the rumor that Wilson's wife had, at the CIA, had helped send him to Niger. But you're right.
Rove's claim that Plame "was not an active agent" and Kilmeade's description of Plame as just having "a desk job" are false. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who lead the Plame leaks investigation, concluded that she traveled "overseas on official business" and "was a covert employee for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States." Plame herself testified in 2007 to the House Government and Oversight Committee: "In the run-up to the war with Iraq, I worked in the Counterproliferation Division of the CIA, still as a covert officer whose affiliation with the CIA was classified."
Rove's excuse that he "didn't know" Plame's "name" is also a dishonest -- and frequently used -- dodge of his. Rove leaked to the press that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and thus exposed her covert identity. Specifically, Rove was one of two sources for the late Robert Novak's 2003 column outing Plame. Former Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper also named Rove as the source who identified Wilson's wife as a CIA agent during a telephone conversation.
Rove has regularly attempted to offer a dishonest accounting of the Plame scandal. Former Newsweek reporter Michael Isikoff noted that Rove wrote a "highly selective (and at times blatantly distorted) version of the events that got him into trouble" in his ironically titled 2010 book Courage and Consequence.
Fox & Friends -- co-hosted by Kilmeade -- similarly used the Obama administration's serious, but accidental, recent release of the CIA Chief of Station's name to draw a false equivalence to the Bush administration's purposeful leak of Plame's identify.
Former intelligence officials are speaking out about the disastrous mistake by the White House Press Office to publish the name of a CIA operative in Afghanistan.
"It looks like a rookie mistake, but it's in year six of the administration," retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden and former CIA director told Newsmax, after Obama’s press team inadvertently listed the spy on Obama’s itinerary for his four hour trip to Afghanistan on Sunday.
"This is not the president's first trip overseas," former House Intelligence Chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) added.
"He's now nearly six years into his presidency, and for an 'experienced' staff to be making these kinds of mistakes is pretty inexcusable."
Valerie Plame, the ex-CIA operative outed by the W. Bush administration, also chimed in.
“Astonishing: White House mistakenly identifies CIA chief in Afghanistan,” she tweeted in a sardonic message on Monday.
The name of the CIA’s chief of station in Kabul, the agency’s top spy in Afghanistan, was listed among the 15 officials briefing Obama upon his arrival at Bagram Air Base.
The White House only caught the error when Washington Post reporter Scott Wilson alerted the press office, after Obama’s schedule was included in an email that was circulated to as many as 6,000 members of the media.
With little recourse after the sensitive information was already out in the open, the press office issued a revised schedule without the officer’s name.
The White House has not yet commented on the mistake but requested that news agencies not publish the individual’s name.
if he is working in a diplomatic function they could persona-non-grata him and force the US to send him home. that's about the worst of it, though. the movies aren't very realistic when it comes to how the lives of real-life intelligence officers are pretty near identical to any other desk job.
Former intelligence officials are speaking out about the disastrous mistake by the White House Press Office to publish the name of a CIA operative in Afghanistan.
"It looks like a rookie mistake, but it's in year six of the administration," retired Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden and former CIA director told Newsmax, after Obama’s press team inadvertently listed the spy on Obama’s itinerary for his four hour trip to Afghanistan on Sunday.
"This is not the president's first trip overseas," former House Intelligence Chairman Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.) added.
"He's now nearly six years into his presidency, and for an 'experienced' staff to be making these kinds of mistakes is pretty inexcusable."
Valerie Plame, the ex-CIA operative outed by the W. Bush administration, also chimed in.
“Astonishing: White House mistakenly identifies CIA chief in Afghanistan,” she tweeted in a sardonic message on Monday.
Novak confirms Rove was one of his sources in outing Plame Updated 7/13/2006 4:58 AM ET E-mail | Print |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Now that Karl Rove won't be indicted, now that the president won't fire him, now that it really doesn't matter anymore, more details of the Valerie Plame leak investigation trickle out.
In his latest syndicated column released Wednesday, columnist Robert Novak revealed his side of the story in the Plame affair, saying Rove was a confirming source for Novak's story outing the CIA officer, underscoring Rove's role in a leak President Bush once promised to punish. ...
By MIKE ALLEN & MICHAEL CALDERONE | 11/20/07 1:05 PM EST Updated: 11/21/07 7:34 AM EST
Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan names names in a caustic passage from a forthcoming memoir that accuses President Bush, Karl Rove and Vice President Cheney of being "involved" in his giving the press false information about the CIA leak case.
McClellan’s publisher released three paragraphs from the book “WHAT HAPPENED: Inside the Bush White House and What’s Wrong With Washington.”
The excerpts give no details about the alleged involvement of the president or vice president.
But McClellan lists five top officials as having allowed him inadvertently to mislead the public.
“I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the seniormost aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby,” McClellan wrote.
“There was one problem. It was not true.”
McClellan then absolves himself and makes an inflammatory — and potentially lucrative for his publisher — charge.
“I had unknowingly passed along false information,” McClellan wrote. See Also
“And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself."
McClellan says he was in that position because he trusted the president: "The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.”
Shortly after news of the McClellan excerpt broke, Politico caught up with Judith Miller and Matthew Cooper, two reporters who received information about Valerie Plame’s identity and were caught up in the subsequent legal proceedings.
“You’re only as good as your sources,” Miller, who was a reporter at the New York Times when the imbroglio broke, said with a mischievous laugh.
Miller, now an adjunct fellow at the Manhattan Institute, spent 85 days in jail by not revealing her source. “Nothing surprises me about Washington during this administration anymore,” she said.
Cooper, who was a White House correspondent for Time magazine and is now the Washington bureau chief of Portfolio magazine, said he “was always frustrated that Rove and Libby misled McClellan.”
“I’m glad McClellan is, too,” Cooper said.
McClellan, who is still writing the book, declined to comment further.
In recent conversations and in his many public speaking engagements, McClellan has made it clear he retains great affection for the president.
But White House sources have long said that Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the vice president’s chief of staff, allowed McClellan to suggest day after day that they had no involvement in the publication of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
So Obama should vow to fire anybody involved with the leaking just like Bush?
Originally Posted By: the G -man
Saying "a republican did it first" now could be problematic if you've already said its a crime
It's equally problematic to excuse Obama's actions by saying "Bush did it too" if you're on record saying what Bush did was wrong and Bush was a bad president.
intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than 15 years, or both..
The disclosure — that is, the publishing of the name — was intentional. The name was placed right there next to the title of the post in Afghanistan. Name, post. What the law does not require is malice, evil intention, desire to harm, or the effect of actual harm. Just the intent to disclose, which exists. And the rest of the statute was obviously violated, since the Chief was covert, he or she was taking measures to stay covert, and the press who received the disclosure was not authorized to receive it.
Note that while there are defenses for disclosing — some of which were used in the Plame affair — none of them apply here. And while you read them over, notice that “we’re incompetent” is not a valid defense to the charge.
You need to be consistent. if you believed that disclosing the identity of a covert agent (who wasn't even in the field) was worth a special counsel then, it is now (when the agent actually was in the field),
I think it's fairly obvious that the intent wasn't to blow somebody's covert status. However if there's some counterpart to the Obama's administration like Rove who ran around to multiple reporters talking about a covert agent I do think they should be held legally accountable.
The disclosure — that is, the publishing of the name — was intentional. The name was placed right there next to the title of the post in Afghanistan. Name, post. What the law does not require is malice, evil intention, desire to harm, or the effect of actual harm. Just the intent to disclose, which exists. And the rest of the statute was obviously violated, since the Chief was covert, he or she was taking measures to stay covert, and the press who received the disclosure was not authorized to receive it.
If you want to say that you think the law should be rewritten so the above does not apply, that's a reasonable position. But you can't rewrite the law in your own mind just to excuse it when someone in a democrat administration breaks it.
You might also consider attempting to explain why if Rove is guilty of something he was not only never convicted but never even prosecuted.
Otherwise you're just blowing smoke to try and excuse Obama's latest bungle
I don't think a change in the law would be reasonable. If somebody knowingly outed a CIA agent than they deserve to be punished. Did that happen in this case though?
The disclosure — that is, the publishing of the name — was intentional. The name was placed right there next to the title of the post in Afghanistan. Name, post. What the law does not require is malice, evil intention, desire to harm, or the effect of actual harm. Just the intent to disclose, which exists. And the rest of the statute was obviously violated, since the Chief was covert, he or she was taking measures to stay covert, and the press who received the disclosure was not authorized to receive it.
That could have still happened by accident though. The person that included the name messed up but I doubt they intended to blow somebody's cover. If the investigation turns up something though it should be investigated deeper.
Again, you are redefining the word to suit your agenda. Right or wrong it means what I said it meant. If you don't like that definition the remedy is a change in the law.
Novak confirms Rove was one of his sources in outing Plame Updated 7/13/2006 4:58 AM ET E-mail | Print |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Now that Karl Rove won't be indicted, now that the president won't fire him, now that it really doesn't matter anymore, more details of the Valerie Plame leak investigation trickle out.
In his latest syndicated column released Wednesday, columnist Robert Novak revealed his side of the story in the Plame affair, saying Rove was a confirming source for Novak's story outing the CIA officer, underscoring Rove's role in a leak President Bush once promised to punish. ...
Rove's total involvement was Novak having an informal phone conversation with Rove, and mentioning rumors that Ambassador Wilson was selected for the Niger yellow-cake investigation by his wife, and Rove saying "yeah, I heard that too".
That's saying "yep" to gossip, not Rove offering sources or naming names. It's really vile the lengths that you and others on the Left go to smear Rove and other Republicans. Especially coupled with the way you give a free pass to far more blatantly treasonous actions by the Democrats you fly cover for.
On July 2, 2005, Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove spoke to Time reporter Matt Cooper "three or four days" before Plame's identity was first revealed in print by commentator Robert Novak. Cooper's article in Time, citing unnamed and anonymous "government officials," confirmed Plame to be a "CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." Cooper's article appeared three days after Novak's column was published. Rove's lawyer asserted that Rove "never knowingly disclosed classified information" and that "he did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA."[73][74][75] Luskin also has said that his client did not initiate conversations with reporters about Plame and did not encourage reporters to write about her.[76]
Initially, Rove failed to tell the grand jury about his conversations with Cooper. According to Rove, he only remembered he had spoken to Cooper after discovering a July 11, 2003, White House e-mail that Rove had written to then-deputy National Security advisor Stephen J. Hadley in which Rove said he had spoken to Cooper about the Niger controversy. Luskin also testified before the grand jury. He told prosecutors that Time reporter Viveca Novak had told him prior to Rove's first grand jury appearance that she had heard from colleagues at Time that Rove was one of the sources for Cooper's story about Plame. Luskin in turn said that he told Rove about this, though Rove still did not disclose to the grand jury that he had ever spoken to Cooper about Plame. Viveca Novak testified she couldn't recall when she spoke to Luskin. Rove testified a total of five times before the federal grand jury investigating the leak. After Rove's last appearance, Luskin released a statement that read in part: "In connection with this appearance, the special counsel has advised Mr. Rove that he is not a target of the investigation. Mr. Fitzgerald has affirmed that he has made no decision concerning charges."[69][77]
On February 12, 2007, Novak testified in Libby's trial. As Michael J. Sniffen of the Associated Press reports: "Novak testified he got confirmation from White House political adviser Karl Rove, who replied to him: 'Oh, you've heard that, too.' "[79]
Novak confirms Rove was one of his sources in outing Plame Updated 7/13/2006 4:58 AM ET E-mail | Print |
WASHINGTON (AP) — Now that Karl Rove won't be indicted, now that the president won't fire him, now that it really doesn't matter anymore, more details of the Valerie Plame leak investigation trickle out.
In his latest syndicated column released Wednesday, columnist Robert Novak revealed his side of the story in the Plame affair, saying Rove was a confirming source for Novak's story outing the CIA officer, underscoring Rove's role in a leak President Bush once promised to punish. ...
Rove's total involvement was Novak having an informal phone conversation with Rove, and mentioning rumors that Ambassador Wilson was selected for the Niger yellow-cake investigation by his wife, and Rove saying "yeah, I heard that too".
That's saying "yep" to gossip, not Rove offering sources or naming names. It's really vile the lengths that you and others on the Left go to smear Rove and other Republicans. Especially coupled with the way you give a free pass to far more blatantly treasonous actions by the Democrats you fly cover for.
It's not a smear if it's true WB. Even Bush's former press secretary claims Rove lied to him about his involvement. Another reporter Matt Cooper had this to say...
Quote:
Appearing on Meet The Press today, Matthew Cooper, one of the reporters to whom Rove spoke about Plame, said Rove’s version of the story was hard to believe. “I think he was dissembling to put it charitably,” said Cooper. “To imply that he didn’t know about [Plame's identity], or that he heard it in some rumor out in the hallways, is nonsense.”
Cooper also contradicted Rove’s characterization of their conversation, describing the “essence” of it as much more than just an attempt to wave him off the story:
Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame’s identity on July 11, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson [Plame's husband] was in the news that week. I didn’t know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD.
I'm fine with you trying to polish a turd WB but it's still a turd when your done.
That's an insulting characterization, with nothing to back it up, M E M. Special prosecutor Fitzgerald (who I think was a clear partisan who pursued Scooter Libby even when he knew it was Armitage and not Libby who inadvertantly outed Plame, and roped Libby with a lesser perjury charge, during his witch hunt) DIDN'T pursue Rove as a leaker. Robert Novak likewise didn't name Rove as the leaker, and made clear the circumstances that Rove very open-endedly just said "Yeah, I heard that too."
It wasn't a matter of Rove knowing Valerie Plame was a CIA agent and outing her, it was whether Rove acted to out her. If what you deceitfully try to imply were true, Fitzgerald would have bent over backwards to prosecute Rove. As he did Libby.
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