Eww.

You touched the LA Times, you got LATimes all over you.

Better get some calamine.

You might even call it a 'third-rate' leak.

that's always the way.

The offense isn't just the leak itself, but the idea that the administration used the leak to punish a critic of the president.

The CIA leaks aren't comparable in that regard.

Right, the question asked "who put this guy Wilson in charge of a mission to Niger?"

Answer "His wife did."

Thats how they "used the leak to punish a critic of the president."

weak.

I'm not saying it's true. I'm saying that's why anyone gives a shit.

From what I understand, Rove mentioned the connection between Plame and Wilson's trip to Niger to the Time magazine reporter (forget his name) not in order to destroy Plame's career out of spite, but merely to point out that Wilson is not telling the whole story about how and why he was sent to Niger, and to impeach his credibility.

Wilson came into the public light after he said that a justification Bush used to invade Iraq, that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, was not true. He knew, because he was the guy sent, and he found nothing. He claimed the VP sent him, which was not true. If Rove discussed these matters with reporters, it was probably to alert them to the possibility Wilson's full of shit.

It all got blown out of proportion after that, with Democrats and Bush haters hysterically accusing Rove of treason, violating national security, and blowing Plame's deep undercover status that ruined her career and could get people killed, which is utter nonsense. It's clearly now just an avenue of attack to damage the president and besmirch him with a scandal that will hopefully trivialize what Clinton was impeached for. This is why the Democrats and lefty media types are so obsessed with this matter. They sure as hell don't care about national security or the CIA.

Once more with feelings:

"used the leak to punish a critic of the president"

"that's why anyone gives a shit. "

except:

Joe Wilson's wife got him the job.

Joe Wilson gave a verbal report of what he found.

Joe Wilson's wife was in an administrative position.

Joe Wilson wrote an article for the NYT's.

In that article Joe Wilson said things that weren't true.

People wondered who put this shit head in charge of a "mission" like that.

Joe Wilson said that Dick Cheney ordered his assignment.

On background, someone informed someone else that Joe Wilson got his job on the recommendation of his wife.

This act was an attack on Joe Wilson's credibility.

Attacking one's credibility is not "punishment"

Joe Wilson's wife was not harmed by this, at least not in the sense administration critics claim.

The reason why anyone gives a shit is because Joe Wilson claimed his wife was essentially Jane Bond, and was put in harm's way by this "leak."

Lefty reporters repeated that claim without critical thought functions for 2 years.

Tubbino sprouted from the ground, shed his exoskeleton and started typing "plame was a NOC" on his keyboards.

The CIA leaks aren't comparable in that regard.

They are worse. They were made to undermine the administration the CIA answers to in an effort to change foreign policy. And administration punishing critics? I doubt this one did, but the prior administration was insatiable about it. Bad but not dangerous. A rogue intelligence agency taking it upon itself to undermine our policies instead of carrying them out? THAT should bother a whole lot of people who are apparently too consumed with BDS to notice.

I've had it up to my ears with the media and professional President haters call Valerie Plame a "covert operative" as if she was Jason Bourne in a skirt and giant sunglasses. She worked at a desk in Langley, a place she quite overtly commuted to every day. I'm no DC insider or intelligence hotshot, but I do know the chick from "Alias" never does that. Valerie Plame was a liberal, CIA bureaucrat married to a liberal, narcissistic State Department bureaucrat. She sent him on a mission he had no business going on, and he got caught as a self-aggrandizing liar. This story should have died a natural death long ago.

Or... maybe, just maybe the reason why intelligent people are really looking at this and taking it seriously is because there was wrongdoing by the administration?

I mean they are completely squeeky clean and Bush is superior in judgement:

His oil companies (with links to the Bin Laden family)....

The increasing poverty in America.....

I mean these guys are perfect and none of the above is going on...

Oh yeah and Cheney's stock in Halliburton hasn't risen from $300k to $8 mil.

Look at the information people. You can sit here and spin along with the spinners in office but more and more things are coming from all different angles.

Oh yeah. More evidence on Brown, former FEMA director, and his incompetence have risen up. But I guess Bush isn't responsible for the people he appoints to IMPORTANT NATIONAL SECURITY POSITIONS.

When are you people going to get a brain and wake up.

I personally don't give a shit if a Republican is President or a Democrat is President. I don't give a shit of a Left or a right is President.

What I do give a shit about is the fact President Bush and his administration and cronies are all corrupt, uncaring, thoughtless SOBs.

Our troops are committing war crimes in Iraq, there is EVIDENCE, and when Congress ( NOT ONLY DEMOCRATS BUT REPUBLICANS) passed a bill that eliminates the torturing (which is against the Geneva convention) President Bush is VETOING this!

President Bush, the Righteous, God following man supports torture? So you guys are going to tell me now that God believes that his followers should be aloud to torture?!

People, these guys are getting investigated for a reason. I'm sick of this Left/Right, me vs. you attitude of everyone. Its tearing our country apart.

I'm asking you for a moment to set aside the left vs. right mentality for a moment. Take a good, long, hard focus from an objective mind on these matters. Review everything and then THINK FOR YOURSELF.

So, Alan, care to explain why any of those things you just simpered about have anything to do with this case what so ever, or are you, you know, just spinning?

It's hard to pass yourself off as moderate when you can't even frame an issue correctly, let alone fairly.

So you guys are going to tell me now that God believes that his followers should be aloud to torture?!--AlanB

Of course not. That's linguistically impossible. If you accursed 'progressives' could spell you would know that the statement should read as " God believes that his followers should be allowed to torture ".

I think half of your logical fallacies could be overcome if only you could learn how to communicate in correct English.

PS: Here's a helpful hint, because you're a stupid asshole:

Cheney's stock options? NOTHING to do with this case. ZERO. NADA.

It should be self evident that the person I'm calling a stupid asshole is Alan, but I remain unconvinced that Alan would figure that out on his own without someone holding his hand.

Alan, the stupid asshole, is right -- let's be rational and stop tearing the country apart. In the meantime, let's accuse our military men and women of war crimes so we can start the healing.

Sortelli is right. Asshole!

Just like tubesteak, a lot of half assed points about nothing.

Basically, the Plame Myth is now the catch all grievance mechanism for the woefully informed. Maybe the more appropriate term is comically overinformed.

How about this, stick to the point of the orginal post. No crime was committed. So, unless someone did something stupid like lie about a meeting or other perjurous act, there are going to be a lot of sad hippies soon.

As I said in another post, the only people who seem to be willing to blatantly lie about the Bush Whitehouse are journalists, they do it everyday. So, maybe a few reporters will be visiting the clink soon.

You've got a point, Bart. I'm going to send Andrew Sullivan an e-mail asking why we don't just change our uniforms to leather straps and black executioner hoods.

Odds are he will post it, or be strangely aroused.

Maybe we are insane for even responding to these people.

"Plame was a NOC"

"uh, no, she was an administrator"

"No, the Huffington Post said she was like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible."

"Are you f**** serious????"

"What, did my insight scare your teeny right wing mind?"

But, still lets look at the war crimes, who is fighting from Mosques and graveyards; kidnapping and beheading people; using car bombs against civilians; forcing people to be suicide bombers; has an ultimate goal of the establishment of an Islamic Caliphate; mutilation of bodies?

Screw 'em.

See, the difference between the sane and comically overinformed is that every example I have cited actually happened.

Alan,

I'm in the military. Do me a favor, next time you see me or one of my fellow soldiers in uniform, please accuse us of war crimes. To our face, directly.

Thanks.

Maj. E.

So you guys are going to tell me now that God believes that his followers should be aloud [sic] to torture?!

Absolutely.

Feel free to take up any objection you have regarding God's beliefs with God Himself.

.

Dodge, dodge and..... dodge.

lame.

how about that Halliburton Bin Laden connection?

Yes, AlanB - You're the lone one-eyed person in the Land of the Blind. Watch as we blind-types cudgel you with our white tipped canes.

What I do give a shit about is the fact President Bush and his administration and cronies are all corrupt, uncaring, thoughtless SOBs.

Indeed.

Our troops are committing war crimes in Iraq, there is EVIDENCE, and when Congress ( NOT ONLY DEMOCRATS BUT REPUBLICANS) passed a bill that eliminates the torturing (which is against the Geneva convention) President Bush is VETOING this!

Indeed. War Crimes. Yes. Indeed.

President Bush, the Righteous, God following man supports torture? So you guys are going to tell me now that God believes that his followers should be aloud to torture?!

Addressed previously. Absolutely, God is on record as being in favor of torture. Consult Job, Samson, St. Paul, St. Peter, Isaac, Adam, Jesus, Parents of First Born Sons in Egypt, for examples of God either causing torture or allowing torture.

People, these guys are getting investigated for a reason. I'm sick of this Left/Right, me vs. you attitude of everyone. Its tearing our country apart.

So you say.

I'm asking you for a moment to set aside the left vs. right mentality for a moment. Take a good, long, hard focus from an objective mind on these matters. Review everything and then THINK FOR YOURSELF.

Done. And Done.

The War in Iraq was not only justified, but will be viewed as a phenomenal success.

The objections, protests and other namby-pambyness will be viewed, rightly, as both a sign of the strength of US democracy to tolerate dissention in time of war and as the death knell of the Democratic Party.

But it'll be another four or five years before that realization sinks in to a herd thinker such as yourself.

Cheers.

Since I cannot why don't any of you that can post this as a topic?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/20/AR2005102001606_pf.html

... what did Bush say to Brown ON TV WHERE ALL COULD SEE?

"You are doing a good job Brownie"

Leftist Playbook

Play #2:

Change Subject

Kinda interesting... muslims consider us thet terrorists.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=politicsNews&storyID=2005-10-21T073952Z_01_MOR125931_RTRUKOC_0_US-INDONESIA-USA.xml

That is kind of interesting, Alan.
So what?

Now that we have derailed this thread, Alan, I'm going to give you something to chew on. Read my question carefully and try to answer it with a complete and coherent sentence.

Alan, do you believe the U.S. is creating more terrorists because of the Iraq invasion?

I'll give our idiot troll another one:

If we pull out (as the St. Mother Sheehan commands) and iraq devolves back into the baathist thug kleptocracy it was before -- will it make you happy?

Alan, you stupid asshole, you have failed to demonstrate how any of your points and this additional remark about Bush and FEMA have anything to do with the Plame investigation.

Is it because I called you a stupid asshole? Too hard to type through the tears?

Or are you just that stupid, asshole?

Here's another hint for you, because I am feeling generous: FEMA's recent performance has NOTHING to do with the Valerie Plame investigation. If you could open your mind and think for yourself, that would be both painfully obvious and deeply humiliating to you given your past few posts.

Your argument that Bush administration officials must have commited a crime and will be found guilty of something because... you think they are corrupt SOBs or something... is a crime against logic. You should be ashamed.

Bumperstickerist:

So you are saying that torture isn't a war crime under the Geneva Convention which we formed?

"The War in Iraq was not only justified, but will be viewed as a phenomenal success.

The objections, protests and other namby-pambyness will be viewed, rightly, as both a sign of the strength of US democracy to tolerate dissention in time of war and as the death knell of the Democratic Party.

But it'll be another four or five years before that realization sinks in to a herd thinker such as yourself.
" - Bumperstickerist

From the perspective of oil companies who have contracts for the Iraqi Oil?

Or do you mean from the perspective of the Iraqi people who are having many things in their country privatized?

Or do you mean from the perspective of our country where we are losing jobs to overseas countries?

Where poverty is increasing? The middle class is disappearing?

Or do you mean from the perspective of the rich who continue to get richer from things such as the Katrina Disaster and the Iraqi War?

You think that'll be my perspective now that I'm going to have to pay higher premiums on everything when I have barely enough income trying to stay afloat?

Or... from Cheney's perspective of having his stocks increase from $300k to $8 million primarily due to the war in Iraq?

Because taxcuts for me equaled a few hundred whereas for the rich it equals millions many people, including I, would have that perspective? I mean that whole couple hundred paid for rent and also food for one week and I ended up having to pay mine back at the end of the year. Yeah!

You know. If in five years things improve for ALL Americans I'll be the first to admit I was wrong and say President Bush and his administration really did have a plan that benefited "AMERICA" and not just the rich.

But... greatfully, I'm NOT a herd thinker anymore, everything that this administration is doing is pointing to disaster for the poor and middle-class Americans.

Ironically, in 2000, and hearing about TAXCUTs I thought that it may benefit my family. Unffortunately, I was a herd thinker then and voted for Bush. Later I found out that he, President Bush, Mr I'm Tough and a Fighter for Democracy dodged the draft and serving his country... try and ponder that for a moment.

Bumperstickerist:

So you are saying that torture isn't a war crime under the Geneva Convention which we formed?

"The War in Iraq was not only justified, but will be viewed as a phenomenal success.

The objections, protests and other namby-pambyness will be viewed, rightly, as both a sign of the strength of US democracy to tolerate dissention in time of war and as the death knell of the Democratic Party.

But it'll be another four or five years before that realization sinks in to a herd thinker such as yourself.
" - Bumperstickerist

From the perspective of oil companies who have contracts for the Iraqi Oil?

Or do you mean from the perspective of the Iraqi people who are having many things in their country privatized?

Or do you mean from the perspective of our country where we are losing jobs to overseas countries?

Where poverty is increasing? The middle class is disappearing?

Or do you mean from the perspective of the rich who continue to get richer from things such as the Katrina Disaster and the Iraqi War?

You think that'll be my perspective now that I'm going to have to pay higher premiums on everything when I have barely enough income trying to stay afloat?

Or... from Cheney's perspective of having his stocks increase from $300k to $8 million primarily due to the war in Iraq?

Because taxcuts for me equaled a few hundred whereas for the rich it equals millions many people, including I, would have that perspective? I mean that whole couple hundred paid for rent and also food for one week and I ended up having to pay mine back at the end of the year. Yeah!

You know. If in five years things improve for ALL Americans I'll be the first to admit I was wrong and say President Bush and his administration really did have a plan that benefited "AMERICA" and not just the rich.

But... greatfully, I'm NOT a herd thinker anymore, everything that this administration is doing is pointing to disaster for the poor and middle-class Americans.

Ironically, in 2000, and hearing about TAXCUTs I thought that it may benefit my family. Unffortunately, I was a herd thinker then and voted for Bush. Later I found out that he, President Bush, Mr I'm Tough and a Fighter for Democracy dodged the draft and serving his country... try and ponder that for a moment.

Alan, who writes your material? Suggest that they strike out all the stuff about being a herd thinker, especially when they complain about privitisation in Iraq. Kinda comes off funny, and it makes you look like a sheep.

IRONY!

PS: Still waiting for you to tie in your objections with the Bush Administration to the Valerie Plame investigation. Stupid asshole.

"Because taxcuts for me equaled a few hundred"

Yeah, me too. I was glad to get to keep it. And?

Also, be honest Alan, in five years Bush won't be president anymore and you'll be sucking the cock of his successor, D or R, if things are going better. Because you're not a herd thinker.

Damn skippy he's not a herd thinker. In fact, I doubt he thinks at all, what with people like Kos and Michael Moore to do his thinking for him.

Grr... sorry about the double post above. Internet problems... but answering some questions:

"Alan, do you believe the U.S. is creating more terrorists because of the Iraq invasion?" - Bart

Maybe. But in all honesty no one can say either way. One thing though, I strongly feel lied to and misled into a war in Iraq. Also, I watched C-SPAN and I watched the briefings held with the Generals about the what Iraqi forces were ready to fight and what not and how things didn't add up to Bush's claims.

Now. We are talking about a part of the world thats been at war for thousands of years. Its always about *invaders*.

Put that into perspective and think about how Halliburton and other oil companies secured oil contracts in Iraq BEFORE the war started. Who they secure the contracts with? Iraq's current government didn't exist then. Saddam? They secretly met with the people?

Maybe... just maybe... these *Iraqi* people might just be doing the whole *insurgence* thing because of other reasons that Bush isn't telling us?

I do not support terrorism. I do believe however that using the army to fight the *War on Terrorism* is abusing your power. Before 9/11, how many terrorist attacks were there?

Who comes into office and 1 year later, under his watch, has 3,000 people killed under now *questionable circumstances*?

"If we pull out (as the St. Mother Sheehan commands) and iraq devolves back into the baathist thug kleptocracy it was before -- will it make you happy?" - Maj E.

1. I'm not a supporter of Cindy Sheehan. She has abused her fame and I get the impression she has the "look at me" syndrome going.

2. Now to answer your question. We are in a war because of lies. We are now caught in a mess that we created and one that we must find a solution and fix. First, Halliburton and other companies need to get their asses out of there. There should be no damn contracts or privatization of anything in Iraq. Thats up to the people there on how they want to run their economy, who gets contracts, what goes where. ITs complete and utter bullshit that these companies get contracts to profit off of 2,000 dead soldiers. You think that is right?!

But... on the flipside of things. I cannot sit here and say we should pull out our military presence. We created a mess that we are responsible for. So its up to leadership to put together a plan and present it to the Iraqi people AND US instead of this *it may take years*. We, the people (middle-class and lower class) are suffering more and more because of this war and other things this administration is doing.

Now Bush is focusing on reasons to invade Iran and Syria (couldn't have anything to do with 50 billion+ barrels of oil in those countries could it?). Can we, the people (middle-class and lower class) afford war with another country, let alone two, with the whole Katrina, Rita and possibly Wilma disasters lingering?

Its clear to me that we'll always have some sort of military presence in Iraq and at this present time we cannot simply pull out because we are responsible for them now.

I want you guys to note something. I don't care if it is a Republican or Democrat administration that takes over but I think this administration needs to be removed and an administration that is competent, makes sure that our country (even the lowerclass, poor, poverty, homeless?!?!?? in America) are taken care of FIRST AND FOREMOST and puts qualified, experienced, competent people into important positions (FEMA for example).

With that said. Think about these:

Al Qaeda can convince people intelligent enough to fly planes and coordinate them into buildings (not to mention knowingly comment suicide in the process) but the followers continously mishandle letters that President Bush heroically proclaims to have found? I guess they'll commit suicide but they won't burn or even eat a letter to prevent it from falling into the hands of their enemy.

U.S accuses Syria of not protecting its borders from terrorist coming in YET how many illegal immigrants enter the US every year even with the whole Homeland Security.

Why has Cheney's stock options gone from $300k to $8 million? I'd really love some constructive thoughts and comments on that one.

Bush companies have connections to the Bin Laden family and also some had failed. Yet he is a great President and knows how to make an economy work? He couldn't keep those companies afloat but he could surely run the country and appoint competent people in important positions?

Why comments along the lines of this "You are doing a great job Brownie..." when this is what was occuring:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/20/AR2005102001606_pf.html

Interesting... cross-reference that with what Brown said about the whole disaster in New Orleans. Note: Fault is at ALL LEVELS OF GOVERNMENT. Also note: FEMA, note FEMA, was using buses to send people to the Silverdome.

So who appointed Brown? President Bush. He isn't responsible for the appointing of an incompetent FEMA director?

What about the lowering of wages in the Gulf Coast? The no bid contracts?

There are so many other things you cannot ignore. Any intelligent person can see that President Bush and his administration are inept as leaders of this country and leading any sort of war.

"Alan, who writes your material? Suggest that they strike out all the stuff about being a herd thinker, especially when they complain about privitisation in Iraq. Kinda comes off funny, and it makes you look like a sheep." - Sortelli

So... who has the contracts for oil and various other things? The Iraqi people?

If it is Iraqi people who have the ownership then who dictates who gets ownership? Think about it for a second.

Which of these two you think it is and which of these two you think is right?

A. Companies outside of Iraq are reaping the benefits of this war through contracts and privatization or..

B. Iraqi people are gaining ownership and privatization of the country?

I think its a little of both but there is a catch.

A is wrong because no one, no matter how wealthy, has a right to come in and claim your land.

But if you think about B and how it probably would have come about then you'll realize why it could have been wrong. Perhaps the reason why we have insurgence is because our leaders favored only those who supported everything told to them? So the ones who didn't support or only partially supported the US received nothing?

Sortelli, you act like you're smart, how about you start being smart?

Sortelli, if I could, I'd post a topic but of course it'd get deleted or I'd get banned or something for having my own perspective of things.

OUr leaders favored only those who supported everything told to them...

should be...

Our leaders favored those groups who supported everything our leaders told them.

"Perhaps the reason why we have insurgence is because our leaders favored only those who supported everything told to them? So the ones who didn't support or only partially supported the US received nothing?"

Are you aware that Iraq had been a fascist, hyper-militarized one-party state for 35 years, and a one-man, Stalin/Mao/Il-style leader-cult state for 24?

And that, despite what some would have you believe, there's a big difference between the political culture of a democracy - even one that doesn't work perfectly, like ours (or, for that manner, every other democracy that exists in the real world and not in Isaac Kramnick's head) - and chauvinist totalitarianism?

That you can't really successfully engage in Western parliamentarian let's-make-a-deal glad-handing with those who have spent too much time in too high or too brutal a position in such a regime?

And you certainly can't extrapolate from your position as a citizen of the West into how these guys are going to view the world and try to shape it?

Do you think the remnants of such a party structure are going to accept this loss of power? Even if they're offered a grudging slice of the pie? Even if they're offered a *fair* slice of the pie?

No, me neither. Political discontent is one thing, but even a completely fair deal isn't going to account for the tens of thousands of people with so much blood on their hands they have no prospects left for them in the new Iraq.

*

"our leaders favored only those who supported everything told to them"

What do 'our leaders' have to do with it? Policy decisions have shifted almost entirely to the hands of the (interim) elected assembly.

I assure you, the people who end up winning elections in Iraq are *not* going to be running on a shrink-the-state, laissez-faire, privatize-oil Steve Forbes platform. That shit doesn't fly anywhere except Red State America and a few Central and Eastern European countries.

They will win votes as all modern politicians do - by offering citizens "free" stuff. And the brightest of the Shi'ite politicians will figure out, if they haven't already, that they can get a leg up on their *Shia* competitors by rounding up Sunni votes as well.

Why? To get elected. That's why elections and the frequent habit thereof are so important - instead of the strongest and most willful and sociopathically brutal man, it's the man (or woman) willing to grease the most palms, and put chickens in the most pots, tthat gets to govern or represent the district.

If you support democracy, you should support the Iraqi assembly against the insurgency. If you believe democracy is just a word, or a Western concept that is only suitable for Westerners (and India, and Eastern Europe, and South America, and ...), and that Shi'ites are just too darn mean and selfish to be allowed to govern as a democratic majority in a country where they are just that ... your conclusions might be different.

*

Look, I see what you're saying in your quote above, and you could be right. In some sense, you probably are right. The Shi'a and Kurds are feeling none too happy about their compatriots right now, and I'm sure the Sunni members of parliament are getting snubbed in the cafeteria. And cut out of the big juicy contracts. And so on.

That's politics. Our two parties are frozen almost (but not quite) 50-50 and the loser is constantly complaining - truthfully, for all I know - about the winner's heavy-handed parliamentary tactics.

What's it going to be like when the loser represents less than a quarter of the population - and they've been (not collectively, not all of them, but such nuances don't matter when it comes to ethnic oppression. See also, the American South) keeping the other three-quarters in the gimp suit for decades?

Right. The majority's going to get theirs.
But the factor you identify, I'm going to venture out on a ledge here and flat-out assert, is a drop in the bucket. A fly on the scales.

Lots of Sunnis might be worried the K +Shi's aren't going to give them health insturance, but the people blowing themselves up, etc., etc., are either motivated by religious reasons, mercenaries, or former professional torturers.

The Viet Cong, which is the model a lot of BLINKERED boomers in love with their own youth seem to be applying here, only grew out of a decades-long ideological awakening (or indoctrination program, if you want to see it that way).

What ideological movement could this "insurgency" be coming from? Oh, right. Ba'athism. We're back at square one.

*

If there are elements of the population whose response to losing elections is to blow themselves and others up ... kill schoolteachers ... you know the whole litany ...

... well, we used to have certain words for that. We used to call it fascism, terrrorism, even nihilism.

Now we call it "insurgency," or, in French media, "la resistance."

*

What's my point?

My point is that you need to get real.

You can choose to think this insurgency is undefeatable, either by the coalition or the nascent Iraqi government. You might be right. I both think and hope (and pray, which doesn't come naturally to me) that you're wrong, but what do I know?

What you *cannot* do is pretend this is all about who gets to write the zoning laws - or even the oil contracts.

They are very explicit in their messages to the outside world, yet apparently you won't take them at their word.

This is about honor, expelling a foreign presence, keeping the Shi'a down, re-establishing an Islamised Ba'athism (contrary to popular opinion, this process started during the 1990-1 war, NOT after 9/11, certainly not after Spring 2003.).

The money is only secondary.

*

Read the chapter on Chomsky (blanking on the chapter title, but the book only has five or six chapters anyway) of "Terror and Liberalism," by Paul Berman, a good old New Leftie.

He identifies Chomsky's Achilles heel: the guy is brilliant but for whatever reason he sees the world working *solely* in terms of land, money and resources. He discounts the role of religion, culture, ideology, as motivating factors, entirely. He think's he's being a "realist," but he's actually incredibly naive and blinkered.

Sometimes people engage in violence because they're being oppressed or disenfranchised, as you speculate. And sometimes they engage in violence because they're sadistic bullies. Not because they were born evil, but because they were carefully trained by a totalitarian state to *become* sadistic bullies.

See the SS. See the Red Guard. See the NKVD. See the Klan.

See?

Hey, you fat stupid asshole, you know my name. I love it when someone gets so wound up that they start off more than one paragraph in a row with my name. The witless redundancy is charming. I can hear the gears in your head turning as you grasp for words.

By the way, all that stuff about Iraqi privitisation? Just gently ribbing you for how you need some soft-skulled socialist feed you your talking points (that makes you a "herd thinker"). Hey! Look out behind you! IT'S A CORPORATION! THEY'RE GOING TO DO BUSINESS WITH YOU!!!!

BOO! Ha ha! Kidding. Happy Halloween!

Hey, do you know that there IS a way for you to post topics for discussion? It's called GETABLOG. Or are you able to scrape up just barely enough common sense to know that you'd get no traffic and no readers? Is that why you so afraid of ace and the others being able to say whatever they want, because they are more interesting and well-thought out than you? THAT IS PRETTY SAD.

You have dribbled up an awful lot of nonsense from FEMA to SHEEHAN in this thread, and you have been unable to tie a single thing into the Valerie Plame investigation. The most I can get out of you is the admission that you'd like to talk about other things. Is that fair?

Then fess up and admit, before God and all of us, that you don't know jack shit about "Plamegate" and are totally incapable of forming an opinion on it or thinking about the implications because you're too busy hating the Bush Administration.

"no prospects in the new Iraq" should be "few" prospects. For most of them.

But some - hundreds? thousands? - have no prospects at all. Short of plastic surgery and a new identity, they're marked men.

Think about it. If you were a notorious enough thug, and you survived invasion, what are you going to do?

You're going to recruit naive or fanatical or just plain broke young men, and try to take power back.

Well, in the interest of clarification... "need some soft-skulled socialist feed you your talking points" should be "need some soft-skulled socialist TO feed you your talking points"... but I really think this is all going over Alan's head.

Remember, Alan, if your position is "the reason why intelligent people are really looking at this and taking it seriously is because there was wrongdoing by the administration", you need to actually point at some relevant wrongdoings of the administration.

If all you can dredge up is "OMG HALLIBURTON" you've totally failed to engage the argument. Halliburton, FEMA, Michael Brown, the economy... NONE of those are reasons intelligent people are discussing Valerie Plame. Not honestly, anyway.

Lots of people are trying to vent their anger at everything Bush does everywhere through this investigation, which is incredibly foolish in both the short and long run. Especially given Joseph Wilson's current credibility.

christ, Ace, I'm sorry. This is your blog, and spewing like that is a comment foul.

I'm gonna waddle over to the tip jar now ...

Come on - Wilson rocks.

How else could a mindless heel rocking foggy bottom troglodyte like him land a babe like that?

Damn, come back from a rare Fri night on the town and everyone is all pissed off.

Thanks for all the links Alan. I guess we can give up on Iraq. Boy are they gonna be pissed when we leave. On the other hand, the Vietnamese boat people who made the trip turned out fine.

In any case, the Valerie Plame "leak" still was not covered by any law. Nor, should it have been.

Take a moment to read this. Though its from the Dem side it has alot of truth to the administration's claims of Iraq seeking uranium.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"September 15, 2005

United States Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald

Justice Department

950 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.

Washington, D.C. 20530

Re: Request To Expand Investigation

Dear United States Attorney Fitzgerald:

We hereby request that you expand your investigation regarding who in the Bush Administration revealed to the press that Valerie Wilson, the wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was an undercover agent for the Central Intelligence Agency (C.I.A.). We believe that expansion should include investigating the Administration's false and fraudulent claims in January 2003 that Iraq had sought uranium for a nuclear weapon, which the Administration offered as one of the key grounds to justify the war against Iraq.

President Bush made two uranium claims, one in his State of the Union Address to Congress and another in a report that he submitted to Congress concerning Iraq, and National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld made three other uranium claims. We request that you investigate whether such claims violated two criminal statutes, 18 U.S.C., Sec. 1001 and 18 U.S.C., Sec. 371, that prohibit making false and fraudulent statements to Congress and obstructing the functions of Congress.

You have broad discretion to conduct this investigation. The issues we raise are directly related to your current investigation and clearly fall under your authority. The desire to discredit the information provided by Ambassador Wilson regarding the lack of evidence to support the Administration's contention that Iraq sought uranium from Niger is the nearly-universally accepted motive behind the leak of Mrs. Wilson's identity. In order to fully investigate the disclosure of an undercover CIA agent's identity, it is clear that you should fully investigate the reasons for that disclosure.

As we outline below, we believe that members of the Administration may have violated laws governing communications with Congress with respect to assertions about Iraq's nuclear capabilities. Ambassador Wilson's efforts to publicly contradict these assertions seem to be the reason for the uncovering of Mrs. Wilson's identity. It is very likely that you would encounter these assertions during the course of your investigation, and thus their legality should be the subject of your investigation.

The Administration's Claims About Iraq Seeking Uranium Were False And Fraudulent

The uranium claims of the Administration in January 2003 that Iraq had sought uranium for a nuclear weapon were shown to be false because, after intensive post war investigations, the Iraq Survey Group found no evidence that Iraq had sought the uranium. In the months prior to the war, weapons inspectors of the United Nations (U.N.) conducted extensive inspections in Iraq and found no evidence that Iraq had revived its nuclear weapons program. The Administration has never produced any legitimate actual evidence that Iraq had sought the uranium.

The uranium claims were also fraudulent because although some in the American intelligence community (including the C.I.A.) may have agreed at the time with the British opinion that Iraq had sought uranium, numerous people within the Administration did not tell the whole truth consisting of the contrary views held by the best informed U.S. intelligence officials. C.I.A. Director George Tenet told the White House in October 2002 that C.I.A. analysts believed the reporting on the uranium claim was "weak" and thus the Director told the White House that it should not make the claim. Later that same day, the C.I.A.'s Associate Deputy Director for Intelligence sent a fax to the White House stating that the "evidence [on the uranium claim] is weak." The National Security Council (N.S.C.) believed in January 2003 that the nuclear case against Iraq was weak. Secretary of State Powell was told during meetings at the C.I.A. to vet his U.N. speech of February 5, 2003 that there were doubts about the uranium claim and he therefore kept it out of his speech for that reason. The U.S. government told the U.N. on February 4, 2003 that it could not confirm the uranium reports.

Furthermore, the original draft of the State of the Union Address stated that "we know that [Hussein] has recently sought to buy uranium in Africa," but after the White House consulted with the C.I.A., the White House changed the speech to refer to the British view rather than the American view. The final draft stated that the "British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." The parties involved stated that they had no discussions about the credibility of the reporting and the reason for the switch was to identify the source for the uranium claim.

However, in response to the uproar over the op-ed article by Ambassador Wilson, C.I.A. Director Tenet issued a statement in which he admitted that C.I.A. officials who reviewed the draft of the State of the Union Address containing the remarks on the Niger-Iraqi uranium deal "raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence with [White House] National Security Council colleagues" and "[s]ome of the language was changed." Tenet stated that "[f]rom what we know now, Agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct - i.e. that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa."

What this tells us is that although Administration officials, informed by the highest ranking members of our own intelligence operation, knew that the claim of Niger uranium going to Iraq was "weak" and could not be confirmed, they were still determined to use it in the president's address to Congress and fell back on the dubious language of the British report. The Administration clearly sought to cover up their own officials' doubts about Iraq's nuclear capabilities and hide those doubts from the Congress and the U.S. public.

Motive

A motive for making such false and fraudulent uranium claims would have been to thwart Congressional and U.N. efforts to delay the start of the war. Pending at the time that the Administration made its uranium claims in January 2003 was a Congressional resolution, H.Con.Res.2, submitted by five members of Congress on January 7, 2003, which expressed the sense of Congress that it should repeal its earlier war resolution to allow more time for U.N. weapons inspectors to finish their work. On January 24, 2003, a few days prior to the State of the Union Address, 130 members of Congress wrote to the president encouraging him to consider any request by the U.N. for additional time for weapons inspections. On February 5, 2003, 30 members of Congress submitted another resolution, H.J.Res.20, to actually repeal the war resolution.

Had it not been for the uranium claims in the State of the Union Address, which sought to squelch congressional concern over the impetus for the pending war, the number of sponsors for H.J. Res. 20 would have been far greater. The influence of the uranium claims can be seen in the fact that 130 members of Congress signed the letter before the State of the Union Address, but only 30 sponsored H.J. Res. 20, which was introduced after the speech. The Administration's uranium claims thwarted the congressional efforts to delay the start of the war since the Administration used the claims to allege that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program -- despite the failure of the U.N. inspectors to find such a program -- and thus falsely assert that Iraq posed an immediate threat that needed to be nullified without further delay.

Concerning the importance of the uranium claims, the report Iraq On The Record, produced by the Minority Staff of the House Committee on Government Reform, states: "Another significant component of the Administration's nuclear claims was the assertion that Iraq had sought to import uranium from Africa. As one of few new pieces of intelligence, this claim was repeated multiple times by Administration officials as proof that Iraq had reconstituted its nuclear weapons program." A nuclear-armed Iraq was a key reason, if not the most important reason, used by the Administration to justify the need for a preemptive war against Iraq. Rather than allow the U.N. inspectors to finish their inspections, the results of which might have fueled further congressional efforts and resolutions to stop the war, the Administration commenced the war in March 2003.

The Administration's False And Fraudulent Uranium Claims Arguably Violated Criminal Laws Concerning Communications With Congress.

The criminal statute, 18 U.S.C., Sec. 1001, prohibits knowingly and willfully making false and fraudulent statements to Congress in documents required by law. The two uranium claims in the State of the Union Address and the report to Congress concerning Iraq were false and fraudulent, and are in documents that the White House submitted to Congress. See House Document 108-1 and House Document 108-23. The law required the president to give such reports. Article II, Section 3 of the constitution requires presidents to give State of the Union Addresses. Section 4 of Public Law 107-243, which is the Congressional resolution authorizing the war against Iraq, requires the president to give reports to Congress relevant to the war resolution and the president submitted said report on Iraq pursuant to that law. Thus 18 U.S.C., Sec. 1001 was evidently violated.

The criminal statute, 18 U.S.C., Sec. 371, prohibits conspiring to defraud the United States and is applicable since the Supreme Court in the case of Hammerschmidt v. United States, 265 U.S. 182, 188 (1924) held that to "conspire to defraud the United States means primarily to cheat the government out of property or money, but it also means to interfere with or obstruct one of its lawful governmental functions by deceit, craft or trickery, or at least by means that are dishonest." Senior Administration officials arguably violated Section 371 because their uranium claims had the effect of obstructing or interfering with the function of Congress to reconsider its war resolution and to allow further time for U.N. weapons inspections. If the whole truth had been told, Congress may well have withdrawn the war resolution or delayed the start of the war to allow further U.N. weapons inspections, which would have shown what we now know; that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction and had not sought the uranium. However, it should be noted that Section 371 does not require proof that the conspiracy was successful.

Additionally, the Downing Street memos should be part of the investigation as to whether one of the several ways in which the Administration deliberately "fixed" the facts and intelligence on uranium included its switch of the language in the State of the Union Address to justify the war. These documents provide valuable insight into the mindset of the Administration the summer preceding the Iraq invasion.

Conclusion

The above matters are clearly related to your current investigation. Ambassador Wilson's op-ed article focused on the uranium claim made in the 2003 State of the Union Address and he concluded that "intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." You are investigating whether any laws were violated when Administration officials - in order to discredit Wilson's claim and/or to retaliate against him - leaked to the press the fact that his wife was a CIA agent. As set forth in this letter, Wilson's original charge that the Administration "twisted" the evidence concerns matters that are just as criminal as the Administration's attempts to discredit Wilson and his charge by revealing the identity of Mrs. Wilson as a CIA operative.

Justice Department officials in Washington certainly have the same type of conflict of interest in this matter as they did in the CIA leak case, which resulted in current your assignment. (See 28 CFR, Sec. 45.2(a) prohibiting Department employees from matters in which they have a conflict of interest).

Thank you for your attention to this request. We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Maurice Hinchey (and 40 colleagues mentioned in the release)"

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Now even if Iraq was seeking uranium to create WMD what gives us the right to tell them they cannot do that?

We better stop building WMD ourselves before we start DICTATING to other countries on what they can and cannot do.

Same goes with Iran. Who are we to tell them they cannot develop nuclear power?
Especially if they agree to U.N inspectors.

Now even if Iraq was seeking uranium to create WMD what gives us the right to tell them they cannot do that?

Sales of uranium to Iraq were forbidden under UN sanctions.

Same goes with Iran. Who are we to tell them they cannot develop nuclear power?

The issue is described in Wikipedia:

Iran has signed the NPT, but as of 2004 is under suspicion from the United States of having violated the treaty through an active program to develop nuclear weapons. The International Atomic Energy Agency is investigating. Iran says it merely wants to develop nuclear power.

1) Learn to link something, shit for brains.

2) The CIA asked for this investigation to start. Curiously, they did not torpedo the White House's claims regarding Iraq seeking uranium that Congressman Hinchey is complaining about. Think about that. The CIA didn't have a problem with our WMD intelligence here. It was their intelligence.

It's one thing for a Democrat to posture and claim the intellegence was cooked, but this is between the White House and THE GUYS WHO GATHER THE INTELLEGENCE IN THE FIRST PLACE. The CIA believed Iraq was looking to buy uranium in Niger. They told Bush this and he believed them. I'm repeating this, hoping it sticks.

Even further into the matter, Joseph Wilson's own report actually gave the CIA more reason to think Iraq was looking to buy uranium, even though Wilson himself said otherwise. Here's a more important thing to remember: Wilson lied about his trip. He lied about who sent him and he lied about what he found.

The CIA wants to punish whoever embarassed them by pointing out that Wilson went on a throwaway assignment at the suggestion of his own wife. Are you feeling a little more up to speed as to what is going on here?

No matter how wrong our WMD intellegence regarding Iraq was in the end, in THIS case it's the anti-war side who actually lied and misrepresented the data they had for political gain and in THIS case it's the White House telling the truth. If you're hanging hopes on this investigation, you're doing it for the wrong reasons over the wrong evidence.

3) "Now even if Iraq was seeking uranium to create WMD what gives us the right to tell them they cannot do that?"

... You are such a fucking idiot. Seriously.

I hope you never end up locked in a room with a serial killer and a gun. Because you're going to let him have the gun. And then you're not only going to be a monumental dumbfuck, you'll be dead, too, and then there will be some armed maniac out there.

But hey, keep talking. Because every time you suggest that it would have been fine for Saddam to have WMD, people remember why they voted for Bush.

My God, it just blows my fucking mind when someone starts trotting out this "we shouldn't tell people not to have WMD because we have them" line of logic. It's fucking insane. Fess up, Alan, you're really in junior high or high school, parroting bullshit you hear in class, aren't you?

We figured out that what was wrong line of logic in first fucking grade during the Cold War, and I grew up at the end of it. How old ARE you?

"Had it not been for the uranium claims in the State of the Union Address, which sought to squelch congressional concern over the impetus for the pending war, the number of sponsors for H.J. Res. 20 would have been far greater. The influence of the uranium claims can be seen in the fact that 130 members of Congress signed the letter before the State of the Union Address, but only 30 sponsored H.J. Res. 20, which was introduced after the speech."

(a)
post hoc, ergo propter hoc

(b)
I remember that speech. The uranium claim was, as we all know by now, 16 words out of several thousand. Any reason to think this sentence was the only factor responsible for this change?

*

"We better stop building WMD ourselves before we start DICTATING to other countries on what they can and cannot do."

Why? So that we don't look hypocritical?
News flash: relations between states are not the same as relations between individuals.

You shouldn't be worried about whether they like you, or whether Iran thinks China is dreamy, but Europe and America are giant doody heads.

I'll put this question to you: is there any country on earth that you think *should* be prevented from researching and developing nonconventional weapons? Besides Israel, of course.

Er, this post is about Scooter, Plame, etc. right?

Here's my question. Even I'm too dumb to know that most of what you rightwingers claim has been debunked here and here, and I buy your version of Joe Wilson, how do you explain Judy Miller and her relationship to Scooter? Isn't it clear that your explanation via Wilson just can't account for all the stuff coming out now???

Hey, tubino. What I'm quoting below, from your link (not all of which was stupid, but this leapt out at me), is kind of funny.

If you think about it for a second, this isn't CLAIM versus FACT - it's CLAIM versus CLAIM.

Right?

"CLAIM – FITZGERALD IS A “RUNAWAY PROSECUTOR”: “I think it shows the danger of runaway prosecutors…you have is a system that essentially creates a crime in the search of a nonexistent crime. And that looks unjust to me.” [Charles Krauthammer, Fox News Sunday, 10/9/05]

FACT – BUSH SAID FITZGERALD WAS CONDUCTING A “VERY DIGNIFIED INVESTIGATION”: “The special prosecutor is conducting a very serious investigation - he’s doing it in a very dignified way.” [President Bush"

At least Tubby mostly stays on topic.

Isn't it clear that your explanation via Wilson just can't account for all the stuff coming out now???

Tell us what is unexplained.

Knemon, I don't even bother clicking on links to any place with "progress" or any other communist euphemism in the name, or to a place bought and paid for by George Soros.

SD, well, every once in a while you turn up an acorn.

But most of the time, yeah.

Sue remains proudly ignorant of the enormous discrepancies and falsehoods in her own claims, then demands an education: "Tell us what is unexplained."

Why did Judith Miller spend 85 days in jail. What does her testimony have to do with anything. Why do you cite a mere columnist (Kristof), then ignore the later news story that declares Plame was a NOC?

How can you say no crime was committed, ignoring that Pres. Bush said, "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. "

How do you explain the forged documents? Where did they come from?

How do you explain the fact that Wilson's claims about Iraq and uranium have been confirmed?

How do you explain that the CIA referred the case to Justice, when that means the CIA perceived a crime was committed?

I could go on, or you could see for yourself that your claims about Wilson don't hold water.
----------------------------
Knemon points out: If you think about it for a second, this isn't CLAIM versus FACT - it's CLAIM versus CLAIM."

I agree with you. A more factual assertion would have been to point out that Fitzgerald was appointed by Bush, was recommended by a Republican, and is currently pursuing an investigation of Daley, a Democrat. He also has led prosecutions of the Gambino family, and Al Qaeda, BTW.

"How can you say no crime was committed, ignoring that Pres. Bush said,"

I don't know whether a crime was committed. I do know that Bush doesn't know, either. And I double-dog-know that *you* don't. Nor David Brock.

Wait and see. If Rove, Cheney, Libby, Bolton and a cast of dozens are indicted next week for treason, conspiracy to obstruct justice, perjury, unclean living, what have you, then we'll be having a much more informed conversation, and your victory dances will no longer be - or will be less - premature.

If Libby, or even Rove, is indicted on some weak-water charge, I don't think it's going to make much of a dent. How many people have been indicted - hell, convicted! - of more serious things in the last three administrations? Truckloads.

I understand you're excited, tubino, and I would be too in your position. We shall see what we shall see.

"I don't know whether a crime was committed. I do know that Bush doesn't know, either. And I double-dog-know that *you* don't. Nor David Brock."

Yup, I don't. Never said I KNEW a crime was committed. I've just questioned the basis for those saying they know no crime was committed. Can't be known yet.

But you can learn how the MSM has kept repeating falsehoods about Wilson etc., usually to suggest no crime was committed, or to smear Wilson -- both WH talking points.

— and this is a serious charge, by the way. We’re talking about a criminal action,

It's pretty clear that Bush is talking about the substance of the charge being a criminal action. He's not saying anything about the actual crime.

How do you explain the forged documents? Where did they come from?

I thought the Financial Times and the Telegraph reported that Italian businessman Rocco Martino forged them and sold them to the French. Was there an update that I missed?

How do you explain the fact that Wilson's claims about Iraq and uranium have been confirmed?

Wilson said there was no evidence that Iraq sought uranium from Niger. We know from the Senate Intelligence investigation that he lied, and we know that the British still stand by their original statement. I don't think you can say that Wilson's claims have been confirmed.

tubino, I've paddled around in the Media Matters soup bowl for a few minutes.

Meh. Sounds more or less like your typical administration ink-cloud approach to an investigation. Familiar from Clinton - but also from his predecessors. Fair and balanced.

It's difficult to tell who's telling the truth here - too many unnamed sources. That's what Fitzergald's for.

He seems to have no personal axe to grind, so I'm waiting for his report. Pre-emptive spin from both sides is already approaching critical mass - depending which way things go next week (or will it be later than that?), *someone's* gonna have egg on their faces.

*

It is odd how you and I seem to agree on some things - even when we end up in radically different positions (support v. non-support of the war, e.g., whatever the limited significance of such stances for internet shmoes like us) - I think we still understand how the other gets to where they are, starting from the principles they do.

I think this means I'm a RINO. Hmm. Well, I *have* always liked Brie - as long as it's on someone else's dime.

(But what does it say about you, compared to the site's other "hostile" visitors? No true believer you - you just don't have the fire in the rhetorical belly. The real true believers would never waste their times witnessing to Rethuglikkkans. At least, none of my Berkeley peeps.)

Knemon wants to spar with someone he can rely on taking the other side! It's kinda like Weasel being disappointed that I don't predictably take the most conspiratorial leftist view, or something... it's less entertaining for all.

Okay, try this on. It makes the claim that Judith Miller was a 'charter member' (rhetorical) of the WHIG group -- and her editors at the NYT were in on the whole thing, which explains Judy's many many stories about WMD, all anonymous source, all fabricated and disproven.
-------------------------------------
geoff: agreed with you about Bush's statement. Can be read as about the crime, not THIS PARTICULAR crime. But he sure didn't say that that crime didn't fit the facts... which is the current talking point.

geoff said, "I thought the Financial Times and the Telegraph reported that Italian businessman Rocco Martino forged them and sold them to the French."

It could well be me who is behind on this question, but what was the motivation here? How does this fit in to the big picture? What was in it for him, and if it was so obvious that they were forgeries, how did they have any success in fooling people who should know better?

I keep saying that I think the big story under the Plame investigation is the WH (WHIG) manipulation of the media, which appears to include planting a lot of stories.

So far, I'm seeing more and more to confirm rather than toss that idea.

"Knemon wants to spar with someone he can rely on taking the other side!"

?

No, chucklehead, I want to spar with someone I can rely on to listen and respond, and respond not with spittle but with reasoned arguments and links. Preferably interesting ones. Your last one doesn't qualify, as it contains 0% new information and 100% premature triumphal crowing.

I want, in other words, debate. Sometimes we get there. I think we achieved it for a while yesterday and the day before.

As a special treat, here's Juan Cole's description of the doings. If I had only read this one piece of Juan Cole's, after comparing it to the Financial Times and Telegraph accounts, I would never trust his writing again.

I've paddled around in the Media Matters soup bowl for a few minutes.

I wouldn't mind going through the Media Matters analysis point-by-point and seeing if their claims hold up. It would be more rigorous and more entertaining if someone would take the side of Media Matters. Any interest?

geoff, go for it. I was on the verge of doing the same - but it's much more fun to just talk out of my ass all day.

Knemon,

I don't think any country, not even us, have the right to research WMD. I support the development of defensive measures (this does not include WMD).

Why don't we invest our money into developing technology for detection, interception, and in general protecting our land here?

No wonder other countries fear us because of how we slaughtered the Native Americans, Hawaiians and also are the ONLY country in the world to actually use a Nuclear Bomb on another country. Oh yes and it was CIVILIANS that were targeted.

Knemon:

Gotta pack up the kids and head out to TGIFs for the nonce, but I'll try to do a little Media Matters blood-letting tonight or tomorrow.

"No wonder other countries fear us because of how we slaughtered the Native Americans"

Karl Rove has the easiest job ever.

Well, I had a couple of minutes, so here's the first dig. Media Matters' first point is that, contrary to RNC claims, Wilson never said that Cheney had sent him to Niger.

From the NYT op-ed dated 5/6/03:

I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger.

Then from Wilson's NYT op-ed dated 6/3/03:

The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.

So in this hasty review, we have a muddled answer. Media Matters appears correct in stating that Wilson never said that Cheney sent him. It does appear, however, that Wilson is consistently trying to tie Cheney to the trip and its conclusions, things that Cheney was completely unaware of.

So I'd give Media Matters a win on this point, with the caveat that their interpretation is less than honest.

"things that Cheney was completely unaware of."

???? Isn't it a bit early to say that?

There are much more complete answers to the bit about Cheney's role and Wilson's claims... I'm off for Halloween events, but I know Geoff can find stuff better than I anyway.

So I'd give Media Matters a win on this point, with the caveat that their interpretation is less than honest.

So why give them a win at all? You're right, Wilson's big deal was to try and tie Cheney into his trip even if he did it indirectly.

Just because we've beaten back the "Cheney sent Wilson" meme doesn't mean we should give them points for pointing out that it wasn't true in the first place.

The fact that Wilson was trying to get people to think he went off on the request of the VP instead of his wife is pretty central to this mess.

The fact that Wilson was trying to get people to think he went off on the request of the VP instead of his wife is pretty central to this mess."

Laughable. So Valerie Plame was, all at the same time, a nobody, a CIA desk worker, NOT an NOC, and yet also someone with authority to dispatch someone on an international mission. Yeah, that works.

But I found the answer to my question to geoff at the same time. Cheney made the request, CIA made the assignment, Cheney was unaware that WILSON made the trip. That's consistent with what is known. From link above:
-----------
WILSON: Well, look, it's absolutely true that neither the vice president nor Dr. [then-national security adviser Condoleezza] Rice nor even [then-CIA Director] George Tenet knew that I was traveling to Niger.

What they did, what the office of the vice president did, and, in fact, I believe now from Mr. Libby's statement, it was probably the vice president himself --

BLITZER: [I. Lewis] "Scooter" Libby is the chief of staff for the vice president.

WILSON: Scooter Libby. They asked essentially that we follow up on this report -- that the agency follow up on the report. So it was a question that went to the CIA briefer from the Office of the Vice President. The CIA, at the operational level, made a determination that the best way to answer this serious question was to send somebody out there who knew something about both the uranium business and those Niger officials that were in office at the time these reported documents were executed.

The Senate Intelligence Commitee's account, presented in its 2004 review of prewar weapons intelligence on Iraq, matches Wilson's. "Officials from the CIA's DO Counterproliferation Division told committee staff that in response to questions from the Vice President's Office and the Departments of State and Defense on the alleged Niger-uranium deal, CPD officials discussed ways to obtain additional information. ... CPD decided to contact a former ambassador to Gabon [Wilson] who had a posting early in his career in Niger," the report stated.

Sortelli displays mental illness: "The fact that Wilson was trying to get people to think he went off on the request of the VP instead of his wife is pretty central to this mess."

Laughable. So Valerie Plame was, all at the same time, a nobody, a CIA desk worker, NOT an NOC, and yet also someone with authority to dispatch someone on an international mission. Yeah, that works.

But I found the answer to my question to geoff at the same time. Cheney made the request, CIA made the assignment, Cheney was unaware that WILSON made the trip. That's consistent with what is known. From link above:
-----------
WILSON: Well, look, it's absolutely true that neither the vice president nor Dr. [then-national security adviser Condoleezza] Rice nor even [then-CIA Director] George Tenet knew that I was traveling to Niger.

What they did, what the office of the vice president did, and, in fact, I believe now from Mr. Libby's statement, it was probably the vice president himself --

BLITZER: [I. Lewis] "Scooter" Libby is the chief of staff for the vice president.

WILSON: Scooter Libby. They asked essentially that we follow up on this report -- that the agency follow up on the report. So it was a question that went to the CIA briefer from the Office of the Vice President. The CIA, at the operational level, made a determination that the best way to answer this serious question was to send somebody out there who knew something about both the uranium business and those Niger officials that were in office at the time these reported documents were executed.

The Senate Intelligence Commitee's account, presented in its 2004 review of prewar weapons intelligence on Iraq, matches Wilson's. "Officials from the CIA's DO Counterproliferation Division told committee staff that in response to questions from the Vice President's Office and the Departments of State and Defense on the alleged Niger-uranium deal, CPD officials discussed ways to obtain additional information. ... CPD decided to contact a former ambassador to Gabon [Wilson] who had a posting early in his career in Niger," the report stated.

WILSON: Scooter Libby. They asked essentially that we follow up on this report -- that the agency follow up on the report. So it was a question that went to the CIA briefer from the Office of the Vice President. The CIA, at the operational level, made a determination that the best way to answer this serious question was to send somebody out there who knew something about both the uranium business and those Niger officials that were in office at the time these reported documents were executed.

Raise your hand if you can spot Wilson's timeline problem. Why is he treated as if he were even a little credible?

Laughable. So Valerie Plame was, all at the same time, a nobody, a CIA desk worker, NOT an NOC, and yet also someone with authority to dispatch someone on an international mission. Yeah, that works.

I'm not understanding why she would need to be undercover in order to be able to suggest her hubby takes a trip.

Cheney made the request, CIA made the assignment, Cheney was unaware that WILSON made the trip. That's consistent with what is known.

So why did Wilson and his wife feel the need to lie about her involvement in getting that assignment for him? You DO remember that they flatly denied that, right?

And you DO realize the problem that Agent is pointing out above is that those reported documents didn't come up until long after Wilson had been sent on his trip?

Ace: " Joe Wilson's wife got him the job."

Sortelli 1: "The fact that Wilson was trying to get people to think he went off on the request of the VP instead of his wife is pretty central to this mess."

Sortelli 2: "I'm not understanding why she would need to be undercover in order to be able to suggest her hubby takes a trip."

Sortelli 3: "So why did Wilson and his wife feel the need to lie about her involvement in getting that assignment for him? You DO remember that they flatly denied that, right?"

She arranged it, she requested it, she suggested it, no wait she GOT him the assignment...

Or maybe it's just one thing instead of 3 or 4. Cheney requested info, CIA CPD asked Plame to write up why Wilson would be good for it, then CIA sent him.

In which case it would only be honest to deny that she GOT him the assignment.

Think about the status of the person who is authorized to send a citizen on a sensitive international mission. Desk clerk? Ordinary field agent? Or someone about a level or two higher than who the agent reports to?

Again, I don't claim to know what happened -- but I sure can't understand the certainty of those who claim to know the detailed workings of the CIA, especially when the claims are self-contradictory.

You're slow, tubby. Short bus slow. Ace linked this piece days ago and you blew over it then. Here is the relevant exceprt:

Analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency wrote a report using the new information entitled "Niamey signed an agreement to sell 500 tons of uranium a year to Baghdad." It was published internally on February 12, 2002, and included in the daily intelligence briefing prepared for Vice President Dick Cheney. Cheney asked his CIA briefer for more information, including the CIA's analysis of the report. The CIA filed a perfunctory response to the vice president's request, noting some concerns about the report and promising to follow up. It is unclear whether Cheney saw this response.

The promised CIA follow-up came quickly. That same day officials at the agency's Counterproliferation Division discussed how they might investigate further. An employee of the division, Valerie Wilson, suggested the agency send her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador to Gabon with experience in Niger, to Africa to make inquiries. In a memo to the deputy director of the Counterproliferation Division, she wrote: "My husband has good relations with the PM [prime minister of Niger] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." Mrs. Wilson would later say she asked her husband, on behalf of the CIA, if he would investigate "this crazy report" on a uranium deal between Iraq and Niger. Wilson agreed to go.

My emphasis. Valerie Plame picked her husband as the man to go.

By using the words "this crazy report", she gave a pretty good idea of the spin they wanted to hear.

Wilson goes, comes back, makes a report.

Later, he goes to the media and lies about the content and implications of his report, and when Plame got thrown into this mess he and she both denied that she had any involvement in picking him to take the trip.

There's lots of things you can claim to not know, clever boy, but understanding how it can be that the VP's office asked the CIA to check on the Niger deal AND Valerie Plame picked her husband to go do it can BOTH be true is no longer one of them.

Go forth and prosper. Perhaps soon you can figure out the complicated issue of getting coupons in the Sunday paper to use at a local grocery store.

Second paragraph should be italicized too.

And furthermore, Sortelli forgot to dot an I and cross a T.
Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, the evidence is overwhelming against the defendants. I rest my case, your honor.

Fuck.

Sortelli,

My prediction is that a lot of what the right is spewing out now will hold up as well as the WH spew about Iraq's WMD.

In time it will all look like crap, and most of it does NOW.

Citing a chronic partisan-hack liar like Stephen Hayes?

Too idiotic for words. Completely faith-based on your part.

Interesting how Hayes has to leave out so many points to keep it a Wilson smear. No coherent story about Miller's time in jail etc., Fitzgerald's role, all points I made above. What IS the story that Hayes thinks he is telling??? And of course, where is the evidence for it.

But hey, keep digging yourself into further lack of credibility. Time will tell.

To be clear, all of your citing and referencing and sourcing amounts to partisan hackery. But my sources, like mediamatters.wishfulthinking.liar.spin.org, are top notch and beyond reproach.

Haha losers!
Time will tell. Meantime, I will keep beating this dead horse and lay the groundwork for the cover-up/corruption angle when no indictments are issued.

What, specifically, is wrong with what I gave you? Have you got anything more for me than an attack on Hayes just because? What is he leaving out? Did Plame suggest her husband go or not?

Speaking of things that didn't hold up in retrospect, can you name anything that Joe Wilson said that turned out to be true?

My prediction is that you will win your bet with Weasel. Someone's going to be indicted.

Then they're going to be acquited and you will take that as further proof of the CONSPIRACY.

keep digging yourself into further lack of credibility.

Where Wilson is concerned it seems to work for you. Don't be so fickled.

geoff says he wouldn't trust Juan Cole, but doesn't say why. Juan Cole cites the Financial Times, and even provides the answer to my question about motivation. Where's the problem?

Meanwhile, you can see how Media Matters dissects Hayes' appearance on Hardball. It looks as though Hayes has spun a careful web with very selective cherry-picking, exclusion, and misleading about time, and has the same spiel on TV as in his article.

Hayes has a lengthy history of making outlandish cases based on dishonest selective sourcing. He did it with Iraq and WMD, and of course his countless articles and statements in public on the topic have largely been discredited. He simply makes the strongest case he can argue by picking bits and pieces, and giving it a neutral scholarly appearance. He is just another hack-whore who dresses up his crap better than most.

Parody toobeano says, "But my sources ... are top notch and beyond reproach."

Translation: I can't actually take exception with any of your actual sources, so I'll make up a straw man, as usual.

A few days ago I remarked on some thread that the more wrong a pundit was about Iraq, the more credibility that pundit has today with the right. Bizarro world.

Stephen Hayes is a case in point. Thanks, Ace. Great timing.

Is it possible for a right wing hack to lose credibility with the right by being consistently wrong, deceptive, dishonest?

ANY examples???

geoff says he wouldn't trust Juan Cole, but doesn't say why. Juan Cole cites the Financial Times, and even provides the answer to my question about motivation. Where's the problem?

I knew you'd lap that up, though I was saddened at the thought that you'd be so uncritically accepting of Cole's spin and speculation.

More fuel for the fire:

Letter Shows Authority to Expand CIA Leak Probe Was Given in '04

Excerpt: "The fact that he [Fitzgerald] asked for authority that he probably already had, but wanted spelled out, makes it arguable that he had run into something rather quickly," Washington lawyer Plato Cacheris said yesterday.

More on the Tim Russert kabuki dance around his involvement in the Plame case.

geoff, speculation as speculation is what bloggers do. Problem?

Tubino,

Excitable Andy for one.

*Hello?

*Hello. Is this microphone on? Can anyone hear me? Hello?

In case anyone has missed my important announcements, I will now repeat them for the 18th time.

Hello?

*Is this thing on?

Time to get down to cases on the Media Matters "debunking" article. This is the list of falsehoods that they "debunked."

1. It is legally significant whether the leakers disclosed Plame's name in their conversations with reporters.

I think we'd all agree that this, as stated, is false. But I think the apparent ignorance of the name casts a little doubt on the knowledge of her covert status. Media Matters places great store in a WH memo that had a paragraph with her name marked "Secret," though her covert status wasn't explicitly stated. As the many people here who work with classified information know, if there was anything else in the paragraph that was secret, the entire paragraph would have been marked, so it's not clear that the memo revealed her status to the White House staff.

2. Wilson said that Cheney sent him to Niger

Discussed above - literally true, but ignores Wilson's attempts to attach this story to the highest adminstration levels.

3. Plame suggested Wilson for the trip to Niger

Some dispute here - the Senate Intelligence report says it is true, but anonymous sources in the CIA still say that it's not. Since the CIA sources are anonymous, and since they have strong motivations to cover their behinds, I'm going with the Senate report.

4. Wilson was not qualified to investigate the Niger claims

I think the CIA was not qualified to investigate the Niger claims, but that's another story. This is a weak point on either side - Wilson wasn't particularly qualified, but his entire 'investigation' was stupid. Bottom line - Media Matters did show that these criticisms were not true.

5. Plame's CIA employment was widely known

MM bases their debunking here on comments from her acquaintances and neighbors. This does nothing to disprove claims that her status was widely known among journalists and Washington social circles, and it certainly does nothing to show that the intelligence community didn't know her status. MM could have done a much better job here, but didn't

6. Fitzgerald must prove that Plame's covert status was leaked

Same as point 1.

7. Fitzgerald's investigation was originally limited to possible violation of 1982 law

I generally agree that this should be false, though MM's DOJ link undermines their debunking.

8. Leak investigation is the result of partisan motivations

Most of their references here are weak. I think it's more correct to say that for most conservatives this is a strawman. The leak investigation is supported by the President and most conservatives. Democrats are wetting their pants over the possible outcome and floating outlandish theories in the interim. Business as usual.

9. Leaks go on all the time in Washington

This one I'd give to Media Matters.

Overall, Media Matters defined the questions so that, strictly read, they would be debunkable. They ignored many other, much more important, questions, and often used very weak sourcing material. Here's the final tally ('true' means MM succeeded in their debunking):

1. Strictly true, but . . .
2. Strictly true, but . . .
3. Untrue
4. Untrue
5. Untrue
6. Strictly true, but . . .
7. True
8. True, but a strawman
9. True

The sad thing is that the supposedly non-partisan Factcheck.org pretty much hands the mike over to Media Matters on this topic.

David Gergen gets it:
But I don't think that the press has over-dramatized this story. This is a major important story in American political life. After all, the investigation we know is focusing on the two men who are closest to the president and the vice president of the United States. That's point one. And secondly, rapidly, if there are indictments, this story is also becoming an indictment over the way the Bush administration led us into war. Those are two important, dramatic stories.

How quicklyl the Repubs change their story about lying. What will we tell the children?

geoff said, "The leak investigation is supported by the President and most conservatives."

Uh... if by 'support' you mean they may well have conspired, lied and perjured to conceal the truth, then yeah, okay, I guess you are right.

You are one strange fella, geoff.

"Discussed above - literally true, but ignores Wilson's attempts to attach this story to the highest adminstration levels."

Yes, Wilson has done this very thing.

In a few days Fitzgerald may issue indictments to explain why. What we DO know already from Matt Cooper's discussions with Rove, and Judy's conversations with Libby, is that Wilson appears to be right.

Has anyone commented on the fact that Fitz launched a website for the investigation documents? I'm guessing that by putting out the actual documents (including indictments?), his material will be less susceptible to spun versions.

But forget all that, here's the next big scandal.

"Is it possible for a right wing hack to lose credibility with the right by being consistently wrong, deceptive, dishonest?"

I'd put someone like Sean Hannity into this category - whatever he says that's useful sure isn't originial to him, and the rest is sound and fury.

It's interesting that your go-to guy here is David Brock.

Being a partisan hack, then switching sides, recanting your previous hackery, and becoming .... a partisan hack, just for the other side ...

What is that, super-duper-hackeyr?

And if that scandal doesn't stick, I got loads more.

The next, next scandal: Karl Rove is a fucking alien -- Of the same aliens who built the pyramids and created the Hitler-bot.

Stay tuned, MoveOn hasn't finished concocting the story, yet.

"And if that scandal doesn't stick, I got loads more."

Well, *I* don't, but it appears that the Republican party does indeed have loads more.

Previous scandal link is that well-known partisan rag, TIME magazine. It's a hell of a story. Basically it's about the EXPANSION of the Abramoff-Norquist-Reed deal. Seems that the lobbyist gang figured out a way to pressure groups into coughing up lobbyist and campaign $$$ as a sort of "protection" racket -- mob style.

Gotta love those repubs. Don't need alien stories to get lots of jaw-dropping reading. Hey, alien strawmen! That's a new one for me.

"that well-known partisan rag"

Pretty much.

At least it's not Newsweek (sorry, NEWSWEEK).

Donate to NPR once - one time! - and you will never stop getting NEWSWEEK. It's like ideological herpes.