He told a high-level aid that CIA agent Plame was married to the guy she appointed to investigate any uranium trade between Niger and Iraq?

WHOA.

EXPLOSIVE.

HEADS MUST ROLL

Weasel:

Did I not tell you this was going to happen?

Boom.

It's not so simple anymore. It's not about just a crime.

It's the assurance over 2+ years that Bush would get to the bottom, that his admin would cooperate, and that he knew (McClellan's words) that Rove et al were not involved.

So either Bush was misled by his own VP, and Rove, and Libby (and maybe Bolton, Fleitz, etc.) or Bush was lying and knew it all along.

Not sure how to respond to charges of perjury? Here's a handy clip-n-save piece.

-----------

Sen. Frist: "There is no serious question that perjury and obstruction of justice are high crimes and misdemeanors...Indeed, our own Senate precedent establishes that perjury is a high crime and misdemeanor...The crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice are public crimes threatening the administration of justice." [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Sen. Kyl: "...there can be no doubt that perjurious, false, and misleading statements made under oath in federal court proceedings are indeed impeachable offenses...John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the United States, said `there is no crime more extensively pernicious to society' than perjury, precisely because it `discolors and poisons the streams of justice.'" [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Sen. DeWine: "Obstruction of justice and perjury strike at the very heart of our system of justice...Perjury is also a very serious crime...The judiciary is designed to be a mechanism for finding the truth-so that justice can be done. Perjury perverts the judiciary, turning it into a mechanism that accepts lies-so that injustice may prevail." [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Sen. Talent: "Nobody else in a position of trust, not a CEO, not a labor union leader, not a principal of a school could do half of what the president has done and stay in office. I mean, who would have said a year ago that a president could perjure himself and obstruct justice and tamper with witnesses... and stay in office." [CNBC, "Hardball," 12/19/98]

Sen. McConnell: "I am completely and utterly perplexed by those who argue that perjury and obstruction of justice are not high crimes and misdemeanors...Perjury and obstruction hammer away at the twin pillars of our legal system: truth and justice." [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Sen. Voinovich: "As constitutional scholar Charles Cooper said, `The crimes of perjury and obstruction of justice, like the crimes of treason and bribery, are quintessentially offenses against our system of government, visiting injury immediately on society itself.'" [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Sen. Hutchison: "The reason that I voted to remove him from office is because I think the overridding issue here is that truth will remain the standard for perjury and obstruction of justice in our criminal justice system and it must not be gray. It must not be muddy." [AP, 2/12/99]

Sen. Craig: "There is no question in my mind that perjury and obstruction of justice are the kind of public crimes that the Founders had in mind, and the House managers have demonstrated these crimes were committed by the president. As for the excuses being desperately sought by some to allow President Clinton to escape accountability, it seems to me that creating such loopholes would require tearing holes in the Constitution-something that cannot be justified to protect this president, or any president." [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Sen. Brownback: "Perjury and obstruction of justice are crimes against the state. Perjury goes directly against the truth-finding function of the judicial branch of government." [Congressional Record, 2/12/99]

Tubby,

Give me a break. How easy do you think it would be for me to come up with quotes from the entire Democratic party that a little bit of perjury and obstruction was no big deal?

The fact of the matter is there is no underlying crime here. At least that's how it appears.

See, we're both aware of the change in position we may be taking in the coming months.

Unlike you, however, I'm embarassed by such hypocrisy, and not eager to dive right into it.

But you have no shame about making broad pronouncements about how important a charge perjury is.

So, you're predicting Fund will pull a Morris?

yeahp.

So, Condi's gonna be VP? Karl Rove, you magnificent bastard.

So who's leaking all this grand jury stuff?

I'm SURE we'll get to investgating that next, Laddy. There's no way the moral paragons of dissent would sleep well at night knowing that there are other leaks going unpunished at this very moment.

Man, it's always the cover up. And I so fuckin hate that cliche, but now I may have to hear weeks (months) of somber newsies repeating it like they're goddamn genuiues. Fuck.

Anyway, no hypocrisy: if someone lied under oath they gotta go, they gotta be prosecuted. That simple. Still, the underlying 'leak' still seems super-bullshitty, the sort of thing that happens 500 times a week and would close up every paper's DC bureau if were they all pursued with a GJ.

if someone lied under oath they gotta go, they gotta be prosecuted

Absolutely.

ace,
The perjury, and don't forget we may be talking obstruction of justice, conspiracy, and who knows, maybe a little witness tampering would sure appear to be to conceal how classified information was revealed, and by whom.

All the focus on the Espionage Act and CIA status may be off the mark -- but there could still very well be a crime to be concealed. The prosecutorial threat might be a little like in the Franklin/AIPAC case...

But when blowjobs are outlawed, all bets are off.

Seriously, I think lying about consensual sex is just not gonna provide the useful analogy here -- except for the hypocrisy aspect. So no, I don't think you can come up with a batch of Dem quotes defending a right to perjure -- about a CRIME.

Oh, on the bet with Weasel -- no matter how it turns out, I am not going to say the prosecutor could have done more. Fitzgerald sure appears to be 100% hard-working serious prosecutor, cutting no slack anywhere.

So no, I don't think you can come up with a batch of Dem quotes defending a right to perjure -- about a CRIME.

Now I get it. It's okay to commit perjury about some things, but others, not so much.

"Now I get it. It's okay to commit perjury about some things, but others, not so much."

No one gets prosecuted for lying about things irrelevant to a crime. People lie about sex rather a lot, but if it's not relevant to a crime, it's ignored in court. At least that's what the lawyers tell me. Of course it's also strange to ask QUESTIONS not related to a crime, but as we know, strange things can happen.

So bring on the quotes defending perjury --about a CRIME. I'll defend your right to lie about blowjobs till they're illegal.

Well apparantly Tubs just gave the ok on perjury in all civil cases. Good to know. Green light everyone.

Perjury is perjury. If the prosecutor can prove it under the statute, it's a crime. The point isn't that lying about sex under oath isn't a crime, because it clearly is.
The point is that what Libby, etc. lied to cover up is infinitely more serious that lying about sex. The Vice President of the United States and other high ranking administration officials compromised a CIA NOC (or former NOC- we don't know) to punish her husband. And why? Because he threatened to reveal, at least in part, that the administration was speading misinormation to start an unnecessary war.
The real result of their actions is that national security was compromised at a time of war (and don't even start that Plame had a desk job. Revealing her name also revealed an unknown number of agents in the field that could be traced to her.) Republicans who apologize for this are the worst kind of hypocrites. Especially because it now seems obvious that the president knew all along and lied to the American people that the administration was cooperating.

It's not clear whether Cheney and Libby knew Wilson's wife's name was Valery Plame is it? Perhaps they knew Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and Libby learned her name from the press. I think Libby supposedly testified that he learned the name from the press, but I could be wrong. Just a thought. Isn't Libby a lawyer that should know better anyway?

I kind of think you're not suppose to lie about sex in a sexual harassment lawsuit. At least, not to a federal judge, while under oath. Other than that, it's OK.

Still, the big question is if Rove/Libby/Chenney knew Plame was covert. I've seen nothing that shows that. Talking about a non-covert CIA agent is little worse than gossip.

Isn't there a materiality requirement to perjury? There is a good case that oral sex between consenting adults was not material to an investigation into Whitewater.

Also, evasive answers do not a perjuror make. Clinton was right in that the infamous "depends what the meaning of 'is' is" technically spared him from outright perjury. You have to be very careful about verb tense when asking questions to a hostile witness.

That's not to say that you can't violate the spirit of honest testimony while observing the letter: Clinton was disbarred for just this reason, as he should have been. He could not have been, however, convicted because of it.

We'll have to see how Rove et al's verb tense plays out. That still doesn't make the "I'll fire anyone invovled with the leak" play any better for W, but he doesn't have anymore elections to worry about, so he can just pardon them all and damn the opinion polls.

Sorry PeggyM you'll have to do better than that around here. Most here will agree that if you do the crime you do the time. But don't bring that insipid Joe Wilson was an angel meme in here. We all know he was less than honest and had his own agenda. The 911 Commission found him to be almost entirely untruthful.

" There is a good case that oral sex between consenting adults was not material to an investigation into Whitewater."

Clinton was being questioned in a civil sexual harassment lawsuit, when he perjured himself. It had nothing, zip, nada, to do with Whitewater.

But you bring up a good point about materiality. Plame commuted to Langley. Anybody who waved to her in the CIA parking lot could be accused of outing her.

There is a good case that oral sex between consenting adults was not material to an investigation into Whitewater.

But it seems it would be relevant to, say, a sexual harrassment suit, brought by, say, Paula Jones, which a prosecutor on a separate matter might have folded into his jurisdiction. But I'm just talkin off the top of my head here. Just supposin.

And why? Because he threatened to reveal, at least in part, that the administration was speading misinormation to start an unnecessary war.

Actually, no, because Wilson lied. You're not going to cover yourself in glory by pretending otherwise.

Whether or not Wilson told the truth is immaterial to the leak case, but please, do trouble yourself to remember that Joseph Wilson lied, because that is very, very, important to the context. He had nothing to reveal.

The leak was not to punish Wilson and Plame, unless getting in the pages of Vanity Fair is cruel and unusual punishment (I'm open to be convinced it is), the leak was to put light on the matter of Wilson's trip and why he went. He was never the important figure he pretended to be, and, oh yeah, he lied about what he found in Niger and about who sent him.

Wilson lied?

"Especially because it now seems obvious that the president knew all along and lied to the American people that the administration was cooperating."

Since they got this information from Whitehouse notes, somebody there must have been cooperating. We also have no idea what the GJ testimony even is. Someone is leaking this stuff and if it's coming from Fitzgerald's office, that's pretty sad.

That said, if any of these guys actually lied to cover-up then off with their heads, so to speak.

If they did, they should have resigned long ago and spared us the drama.

Speaking of lying, Jane has an interesting argument that Cheney lied. Conjecture, of course, but damn that woman knows the details of this case.

Hey Sortelli -- your desperate spin about Wilson gets sillier every day. Are you saying that his famous op-ed was wrong in any way about Bush's use of debunked intelligence?

I didn't think so.

Let me guess ... Stephen Hayes? Heh.

Wilson lied?

I've heard that, yes, in fact, he did. The truth would be to say that Wilson did not tell the truth, because he was a liar.

OOPS. It should read, Jane has an interesting argument that Cheney lied UNDER OATH (= perjury).

Let's see now. Here's the NYT headline:

"Cheney Told Aide of C.I.A. Officer, Notes Show"

Has the NYT actually SEEN thes notes?
No, according to the article, it says:
"Lawyers involved in the case, who described the notes to The New York Times, said they showed that Mr. Cheney knew that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A...."

So, the headline for the article is FALSE.
It should read:
"Anonymous source claims that Libby's notes tell of VP Cheney informing Libby that Wilson's wife works for CIA."

Not quite as astounding a headline.
And if we're worried about leaks, I think that leaking grand jury information is a much bigger potential crime than identifying a non-operative former clandestine CIA agent.

Does Jane know it's ok to lie under oath in a civil case?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV ... was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

Whoa, he lied?

He has said that his trip to Niger should have laid to rest any notion that Iraq sought uranium there and has said his findings were ignored by the White House.

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

OH SHIT CAUGHT IN A LIE

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

Uh oh, sounds bad, but...

"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said.

He lied about that too! Crikey!! Speaking of wrong dates, we didn't have those documents at the time of Wilson's trip as he claimed.

I FEEL MYSELF GETTING SILLIER.

Sortelli, are you saying that lying is... BAD?

Are you saying that George Bush heaped praise on a LIAR?!?

Have you ever bothered to learn who you're dissing?
-----------------
In 1991, President George Bush introduced Joseph Wilson to his war Cabinet, calling the veteran diplomat "a true American hero." By any standard, Wilson deserved such praise. As the senior U.S. diplomat in Iraq during Operation Desert Shield, the massive U.S. military buildup in Saudi Arabia after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, Wilson was responsible for freeing 150 American hostages seized by the Iraqi dictator. Indeed, he was the last U.S. diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein, in August 1990, following Saddam's notorious July 25 meeting with U.S. ambassador April Glaspie, who failed to warn Saddam not to invade Kuwait. Wilson advocated a muscular response to Saddam's aggression, and though he sought a diplomatic solution, supported Operation Desert Storm. During his highly decorated 23-year career, Wilson also held the position of political advisor to the commander in chief of the U.S. Armed Forces in Europe and was ambassador to Gabon.

Wilson lied?

Wilson did indeed lie. First, he represented the results of his trip as definitive evidence that the adminstration ignored in its rush to war. Realize, that in addition to an investigation confined to merely "sipping mint tea" and chatting about uranium purchases, he was not even allowed to interview active Nigerien officials. [The US embassy in Niger was responsible for interviewing current officials.]

His entire report was dismissed by the CIA as inconsequential, with one exception:

DIA and CIA analysts said that when they saw the intelligence report they did not believe that it supplied much new information and did not think that it clarified the story on the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal. They did not find Nigerien denials that they had discussed uranium sales with Iraq as very surprising because they had no expectation that Niger would admit to such an agreement if it did exist. The analysts did, however, find it interesting that the former Nigerien Prime Minister said [to Wilson] an Iraqi delegation had visited Niger [in 1999] for what [the prime minister] believed was to discuss uranium sales.

The single facet of his report that the intelligence community found interesting was strangely omitted from his diatribes against the administration. So his argument that he had definitely shown that the uranium purchases were never solicited, and that the Bush administration had deliberately ignored his report, was a grand lie.

The issues with those forged documents just keep surfacing. Mark my words, there's going to be more coming out. Geoff might have to apologize to Juan Cole. :) That could be after he explains how the Bush admin supported the Plame investigation.

-----------------
Oh, and if you're ever asked about blowjobs in a civil case? And you're under oath?

No big deal. Go ahead and lie. Tell 'em I said it was okay.

Tubby, I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Are you trying to convince us that GW1 praised Wilson before he, you know, lied to us all?

CASE CLOSED. WAY TO GO, TUBBURINO!

Wilson before telling lies = not a liar
Wilson after telling lies = liar

I get it now.

Tubino, you have changed the subject to blowjobs and documents we know are forged, why is that?

Is it because you're having a hard time refuting that Wilson lied?

I feel positively giddy! Silly, even! Hey, I heard from someone (I forget who, they were highly uninteresting) that George Bush praised Wilson in 1991. Isn't it tragic to learn now that Wilson is willing to lie for personal gain?

Logic would seem to indicate that telling lies would be the prerequisite for being a liar. Wilson fits the bill!

Good thing he only lied to the press and the American public instead of in court, in which case he would have had to lie about blowjobs in order to get away with being a liar.

He was ambassador to Gabon, praised by Presidents and now he's just a fucking liar.

Sad really, except for the kinky role playing sex with the ex-secret agent.

He was ambassador to Gabon, praised by Presidents and now he's just a fucking liar.

It's okay, MoN, tubby still digs him. He's got a fan!

It's good to keep in mind that ever-so-credulous GEOFF is the same fella who wrote in a "fact-checking" post just two days ago, relying on his assertion that the Bush administration was supporting the investigation.

I kid you not.

He's the same guy who can read a report saying that $8.8 billion cannot be properly accounted for, and then tell you somehow he knows it reached its claimed destination -- without proof or receipts. Just a claim is good enough for geoff.

You might keep that in mind when geoff tells you how to interpret documents.

The SSCI is not the last word on all, geoff. Go read Wilson's accomplishments, and see if you can add it all up with your version.

Mayday! Mayday! Tubby's going down! He didn't even manage a link! He can't bring himself to mention Wilson! OH NOES!!!

Will Geoff be able to rebound from such a flimsy attack against his credibility? Signs point to yes!

ALSO:

Things to keep in mind when tubino tells you how to interpret documents:

He can't handle the truth (that Wilson lied!)

He thinks the New York Times shills for Bush.

When cornered on anything, he changes the subject and spins like a meth addicted gerbil.

ALL IS NOT LOST, TUBINO. I'm pretty certain that George H W Bush thinks even more highly of his own son's administration than he does of Joe Wilson and his accomplishments! By your own logic, this means EVERYTHING IS HONKY DORY.

Will Geoff be able to rebound from such a flimsy attack against his credibility? Signs point to yes!

Well my hands are somewhat tied, since I joined Monty and Bart in a vow of abstinence this very day. But let me just say this about that:

Little Tube's entire argument boils down to: people embezzle, so if you can't find evidence that the CPA delivered the money to the Iraqi Ministries, then they probably embezzled it. This despite the fact that all the investigations made no mention of any discrepancies with the deliveries of funds to the Ministries.

So I went a step further and dug up a KPMG audit for 2004, showing that they were able to track every penny from the CPA into the accounts of the ministries (for 2004). After posting this, I never heard back from Tubino on the subject.

As far as support for the investigation, I actually said "the President and most conservatives" supported the investigation, since Bush instructed his staff to cooperate fully with the investigators. I didn't say anything about the "Bush administration"per se, but not because I thought they were guilty. As usual, Tubino has convicted them before they've been charged.

Why, it's almost as if tubino is a complete waste of time.

But not for me! I'm silly.

"The fact of the matter is there is no underlying crime here. At least that's how it appears."

The was no proven crime in the Clinton sexual harrassment trial either. But he was impeached nonetheless for lying under oath.

Perjury is perjury, isn't it? Shouldn't it be for the "rule of law" party?

If Libby lied under oath for whatever reason, he deserves jail time. What happens to Vice President Cheney may not be under legal consequences, but it's becoming quite clear he hasn't been honest or forthright whatsoever regarding this whole issue, especially after the President expressed his concern that people in his administration needed to "fess up" in so few words.

Hardline GOP people need to wake the hell up and hold their elected officials accontable for a change. The rest of us are getting sick and tired of making excuses.

You won the election, however thin a margin with regard to the executive branch. Do the other half of the country a favor and start acting like adults and make sure the people who represent you act like responsible leaders.

Cripes.

The was no proven crime in the Clinton sexual harrassment trial either. But he was impeached nonetheless for lying under oath.

Um, the "lying under oath" part was the crime.

Unless you ask tubino, that is.

The original comment I quoted was trying imply that there was some underlying crime in the sexual harassment lawsuit brought against Clinton, seemingly juxtaposed to this case, where the fact that Cheney and Libby discuss matters that require security clearance would not be against the law. The truth is that there was no proven crime in the Clinton case, however, Clinton got tagged for perjury during the trial itself.

That would be a direct parallel to the Libby predicament. No underlying crime, but he seems to have lied under oath.

Now re-read what I wrote while taking your head out of your ass.

but he seems to have lied under oath.

And we all know Republicans are innocent until accused of something!

You folks unable to read the Espionage Act of 1917, that says that revealing or conspiring to reveal defense information to a person not cleared to receive it is a felony? Do you not understand that Martha Stewart served 14 months for fibbing to a Federal investigator - not even under oath? Are you unaware of the 8 sealed pages in the Court of Appeals opinion on keeping Judy Miller in prison? Do you not yet understand that the CIA may have provided Fitzgerald with the names of agents/assets who were killed as a result of Brewster Jennings being blown? Do you know there are death penalty provisions in the '17 Act for such an event?

"So bring on the quotes defending perjury --about a CRIME. "

Except that all the "experts" agree that there will be no indictment for the so-called "crime," and if that happens there will be no disputing that no crime took place. Thanks for playing though. And again, Clinton made a plea deal that let him off with the law and his wife was only not indicted for perjury based on a prosecutor's discretion.

I think Robert Lewis is getting closer to the heart of the matter.

Everyone seems to be fighting over "who lied about what," but the fact remains that The POTUS endorsed this investigation and it was kicked off AT THE CIA's behest.

This investigation *is not* being driven by partisanship. It *is not* about Wilson lying. This investigation is about who decided to tell the world about a certain CIA agent.

For F**ks sake, stop debating about Wilson.

P.S. If anyone gets indicted for perjury, it'll be their own goddamn fault.

Furthermore, the CIA is most likely not going to just sigh and say "oh well" if Fitzgerald decides not to indict anyone.

who here seriously thinks that the CIA doesn't have their own fact finding mission going on? Keep your hand raised if you also think that the CIA won't do whatever is necessary to make sure this won't happen again.

For F**ks sake, stop debating about Wilson.

Hey, maybe we *like* debating about Wilson. Plus, Wilson lying supports the angle that the administration just wanted to set the record straight, while Wilson being a legitimate whistle-blower supports the revenge theory. Certainly salient to the original investigation, though not to perjury and obstruction charges.

Joe Wilson is an honorable public servant.

The worst I've seen is that he misspoke in a statement where he referred to the forged documents being seen earlier than they actually were, a misstatement he acknowledged and corrected. Nothing else important I'm aware of - but many, many right-wing lies about him.

How about, for example, the ones they're still telling, such as claiming that Wilson lied when he said that Dick Cheney had selected him for the mission - only problem is that Wilson never said that. But many right-wingers lied and said he did say it.

Attack the attacker, the right-wing preferred action - unethical, dishonest - scummy.

Whoah.

Spend a few hours off-line and all hell breaks loose.

Screw you Sortelli:

Take these links and shove them down YOUR lying, traitor abiding throat. I can't wait to see you roaches squirm away from the light of truth and justice.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200510210008

or

http://www.thinkprogress.org/leak-rebuttal

Hopefully you can get to that url, before the "retarding chip" that seems to be implanted in many conservatives, kicks in, divirting you away to watch some NASCAR, don a cowboy hat and boots, yell "GET ER DUN!", and whack-off to Faith Hill

Yeah, and before the mullet-headed motor-heads chime in, let me preempt.

NASCAR is to CAR RACING
what
RACE WALKING is to MARATHON RUNNING

OH! On one final note, I was absolutly astonished at the number of high ranking GOP officials criminally indicted in the last few months. Its large..and famous...and is likely only to grow by leaps and bounds over the next two weeks.
Q:
How many indicted GOP leaders does it take to change a light bulb?
A:
I haven't the foggiest, but by god between the 20 of 'em they should be able to figure it out.

GreenGiant said: "I can't wait to see you roaches squirm away from the light of truth and justice."

This one line made the parody great.

Sortelli, since you're pushing this so hard, please tell me the answers to a few questions:

Why would Wilson lie, and if he did lie why was he essentially backed up by the CIA in the case referral?

What is his motivation, and why would so many in a position to call him on it not do so a LONG time ago?

If Cheney tells the SSCI that he never saw the report, but has concealed the truth (=lied) the whole time on this, why would you take his word for it?

In short, let's hear YOUR version of events. Because what you toss out, through an achronological reading of selected pieces, is just a continuation of the whole point of the case: the Bush Administration sought to smear Joe Wilson.

That's the origin of the case. Wilson has a stellar track record, but that doesn't keep you from reiterating the WH case: keep smearing Joe Wilson.

Meanwhile, a career non-partisan prosecutor has managed to flip (apparently) some WH folks on this whole case, and what do you do?

Keep smearing Joe Wilson.

"On one final note, I was absolutly astonished at the number of high ranking GOP officials criminally indicted in the last few months. Its large..and famous...and is likely only to grow by leaps and bounds over the next two weeks."

Yes, ONE is a very big number.

As far as support for the investigation, I actually said "the President and most conservatives" supported the investigation, since Bush instructed his staff to cooperate fully with the investigators.
----------------

Geoff geoff geoff.... So you're going to take a few words in a photo op to say that Bush supported the investigation. And facts etc. be damned, eh?

I haven't said anyone is guilty, although I'm letting myself say it sure as hell LOOKS like Cheney lied, doesn't it???

But hey, Bush supported the investigation, because he SAID SO.
------------------

As far as your accounting in Iraq... you claimed that the money was paid on the basis of Iraqi ministry budgets -- even though in many cases, the amounts transferred EXCEEDED the budgets, when there WERE budgets. You never explained Bremer's incredible haste in transferring the funds, or why it had to happen pre-transfer of soveriegnty. Or why the transfers took place when reliable accounting was almost impossible.

In short, you completely dodged your own contradictions, or any meaningful explanation.

And to top it off, you still won't recognize that.

Sad, sad, sad. I call it "selective gullibility."

Michael: get back to me when something has, in fact, happened. All we got right now is more of the same leaks and speculation we've had all along. In short, we got dick.

I'm not saying I'm going to win my bet (it looks grim for me, don't it?). I'm just saying I haven't lost it yet.

Fucking CNN.

Even the NYTimes reported the passage of the Iraq constitution straight.

But could Ted Turner's retarded fuckwits do that?

Nope.

Valerie Plame was a narc?

This changes everything!

So my cable-modem shits the bed last night and I miss this dust-up. I have sworn never to post directly to Bean-O again: talking to him is like yelling at a concrete post. No point to it at all. Still, there's lots of other nattering going on in this thread that I wish I had time to respond to.

But this is still the most petty boring goddam nothing of a "scandal" I've ever heard of. Barone posted a good piece on TownHall yesterday, and like him I'm hoping that the 28th comes and goes with a no-file, because I just can't see any actual crime here. Lots of stupid people doing stupid stuff for stupid reasons, yes; but no crime.

Bah.

Wait a minute, are you boys saying that Joe Wilson lied?

The next thing you wingnutters will be telling us fine, upstanding, progressive, freethinking smarty peoples is that Judith Miller didn't stay in jail to protect Scooter Libby.

oh come on Sue. You know they had to drag that waiver out of Libby a year ago. Of course Miller had to protect him and make sure he really really really meant it was ok, pinkie promise!

Plus Valerie Plame was a narc. open your eyes.

After failing in their predictions of a quagmire in Afghanistan, the Afghan winter, million dead refugees, 10,000 American dead, Stalingrad in Baghdad, Kerry victory, terrorists attack in US, Rumsfeld resignation, bloody Iraq vote, no Iraq constitution, 5.00 gallon gas, tax cut recession, energy recession, deficit recession, war recession, , housing bust recession (eventually we will have a recession and they will claim they predicted it) I am comforted that they are predicting these multiple indictments.

Speculation can be fun if you don't take it too seriously, but a whole lot of people here know very well that you don't know much until all the facts are on the table. Like most, I don't see the elements of any crime in disclosing Plame's name, but perjury would certainly be a crime. I see nothing yet to show that this happened.

Indictment just uses a probable cause standard. As the Delay business shows, it doesn't mean much. The facts will come out in their own time. If they show a crime was committed, punishment should follow.

The Dem hypocrisy about this is pretty funny to see (especially the resurrection of the notorious "BJ defense"), but I wouldn't let their partisan moonbattery drive me to hypocrisy in return. Let them spool up on their own. Every other time they's done this with the Bush administration they have crashed in flames. And we all know that's even funnier.

After failing in their predictions of a quagmire in Afghanistan, the Afghan winter, million dead refugees, 10,000 American dead, Stalingrad in Baghdad, Kerry victory, terrorists attack in US, Rumsfeld resignation, bloody Iraq vote, no Iraq constitution, 5.00 gallon gas, tax cut recession, energy recession, deficit recession, war recession, , housing bust recession...

Roulette wheel operators love to see people like these coming towards their tables. "Look, it hasn't hit black for the past ten spins! IT'S OVERDUE! BET THE FARM ON BLACK!"

Judith Miller takes great notes, but she done mis-remembered who she wuz talkin to.

As usual, and has become incredibly tiresome, Tubino ignores what I've written earlier (where I addressed all his fantastical points), and moves the goal posts. I explained the budget discrepancy, I explained the large fund transfers just before Iraq took over the DFI fund (and the KPMG verified that every penny was transferred to Iraq), and finally, I explained repeatedly that the accounting on the CPA side was completely reliable - it was the use of the funds on the Iraqi side that was unverifiable.

So this is the second time in this thread that Tubino has basically lied about what I have and haven't said. He probably had an exemplary diplomatic career before this, but now he's a liar, and I'm sick of it.

Take these links and shove them down YOUR lying, traitor abiding throat. I can't wait to see you roaches squirm away from the light of truth and justice.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200510210008

I took the trouble to go through the Media Matters "debunking" a couple of days ago, finding that it was not very impressive. Three of the points were not debunked at all, three were debunked, and three were debunked but really missed the point. Overall, the piece overlooked the more serious criticisms of Wilson, and did nothing to affirm his credibility.

O.T. (b/c it's not bashing Miers, ace's favorite subject)

Galloway is married to the niece of Arafish? He's also taken 600k in bribes under the food for oil program.

Do the other half of the country a favor and start acting like adults and make sure the people who represent you act like responsible leaders.

Indeed. Responsible leaders who get blowjobs from interns young enough to be their daughters?

It tickles me to no end to be lectured by all these leftist retards about morality, responsiblity, and values. All these fucks carried Boy Clinton's water for 8 years and they presume to lecture me? Two words, fucknuts: Marc Rich.

That said, if someone committed perjury then there must be a prosecution. I won't make excuses for law breaking like the hypocrites on the left.

I hate to gloat, but I seem to remember warning you off that troll, geoff. Not only is he tedious and a liar, but he's never funny. For the lack of funny alone I would have kicked him if I were our host, but then if that were the criteria I would have been booted after my second child was born. It's hard to be funny after 3 hours of sleep.

I'm pretty sure Tubby isn't our lovable Seedy, as well. Tubby gives sloppy Lewinskis to Soros. Seedy would never polish a Hungarian neo-Bolshevik Jew knob, he would only gobble on brave Aryan heroes like Buchanan.

"Light perjury" talking about a judicial investigation? What the hell is' light perjury', something alike "Yes, Mom I have been stealing cookies from the jar'? Come on, grow up!

Hmmm. Could it be that it might have been a mistake that the bar for impeachment is failling into a perjury trap?

No doubt Ace is on record outraged at this strategy being used against Clinton.

Of course, the difference in Clinton's case was that there was no underlying crime. Unlike Martha Stewart, there wasn't even the whiff of a crime involved. Martha didn't do anything illegal other than lie to an investigator.

Now I dunno, but I don't care how you figure the classification stuff, but even if it inconveniences Richard Cohen, isn't it illegal to give out classified information? Isn't it illegal to out NOCs?

I mean, if we're making a little spectral diagram here, doesn't Clinton show way, way farther over on the "didn't do anything" chart, Martha closer to the line that should sedn you jail, Libby (as far we know at the moment) is at least farther over on the go-to-jail side than Martha is.

But reason and Ace don't spend a whole of time in the same room.

Hmmm. Could it be that it might have been a mistake that the bar for impeachment is failling into a perjury trap?

No doubt Ace is on record outraged at this strategy being used against Clinton.

Of course, the difference in Clinton's case was that there was no underlying crime. Unlike Martha Stewart, there wasn't even the whiff of a crime involved. Martha didn't do anything illegal other than lie to an investigator.

Now I dunno, but I don't care how you figure the classification stuff, but even if it inconveniences Richard Cohen, isn't it illegal to give out classified information? Isn't it illegal to out NOCs?

I mean, if we're making a little spectral diagram here, doesn't Clinton show way, way farther over on the "didn't do anything" chart, Martha closer to the line that should send you jail, Libby (as far we know at the moment) is at least farther over on the go-to-jail side than Martha is.

But reason and Ace don't spend a whole of time in the same room.

If you perjure yourself before a grand jury in an investigation of something that was not a crime, then you deserve to go to jail for perjury and PURE STUPID. I don't know Libby, but Rove ain't stupid, and Cheney surely ain't stupid, and Bush didn't testify. That's what I'm hanging my wager on, anyhow.

Why would anybody want to impeach the Vice President, anyhow?

What makes this story so interesting is that it puts a lie to four different pubic statements by this Administration:

1) Libby claiming that he heard the name Valerie Plame from reporters.

2) Cheney saying publicly (to Tim Russert)that he didn't know Wilson or how this name got out there (this was said after these notes were taken).

3) The White House spokesman statement that neither Libby nor Rove knew or did anything (this was said after these notes were taken).

4) Bush's public statements that he wanted his staff to get to the bottom of things (this was said after these notes were taken), when his staff already clearly knew what was going on and it is hard to imagine no one told Bush.

We don't know yet that this is "just" perjury: my bet is that it will be more than that. We do know that:

1) After Wilson's article in the NYT (though not necesarily because of), the Administration pulled claims about Niger uranium which had been used in the State of the Union speech.

2) Plame's cover was blown, which probably constitutes a crime.

Here's a question for the people reading this blog: how would/will your opinion change if it comes out that blowing Plame's cover resulted in the death of one or more covert agents? Is THAT treason then?

Here's a question for the people reading this blog: how would/will your opinion change if it comes out that blowing Plame's cover resulted in the death of one or more covert agents? Is THAT treason then?

Hell, as long as we're telling fantastical fairy tales here, wouldn't it be cool if there really were flying unicorns that could transport you to a happy land with singing trees and rivers of chocolate and candy?

Here's a question for the people reading this blog: how would/will your opinion change if it comes out that blowing Plame's cover resulted in the death of one or more covert agents? Is THAT treason then?

Yes. And if it comes out the blowing Plames cover resulted in the stomping death of a litter of kittens, that will be animal cruelty. They're equally likely, under the circumstances.

The woman who help draft the statute says that Plame doesn't qualify. It's a non-starter, guys. She drove a desk for six years. It's going to be perjury or obstruction, or nothing.

And if it's nothing, will you be convinced at last no crime was committed?

This thread has now hit the 24 hour mark. Incredibly, the conversation has been continuous, without even the usual 3 a.m. lull. Even more incredibly, it is not about something interesting like shagging squeekholes or bbeck's knockers, but is in fact one of the most boring threads ever.

This has got to be some kind of record at AOSHQ. Congrats to all!

It is bogging down a bit, isn't it?

Let's turn it into an undeclared flame war thread.

Well, it is a this week only kind of thing.

Weasel -
If Fitzgerald issues no indictments (and that is somewhere in the land of unicorns), yes, no provable crime was committed.
As for Plame being just a desk jockey, that is a charge long refuted by the CIA and anyone who knows anything about intelligence gathering. When they blew her cover, they blew the cover of anyone else who used her cover company, and anyone whoever met with that cover company's "employees" is now suspect. I won't lecture you, but "non-official cover" is the most difficult and expensive to construct and blowing it is hugely damaging. The likelihood that blowing that cover led to death is not nearly as low as unicorns and fairy-tales, as one poster said. It is unfotrunately far from unlikely and the poster did not answer the question. Is the seriousness of this event made any more clear if someone is killed as a result?

Just noticed tubby (I usually just skim past these days) from the top:

It's not so simple anymore. It's not about just a crime.

Are we looking at a back door for keeping the tin foil hat stuff alive if there are no indictments? Why, yes. I do believe we are. My joy is complete.

Worm:

the difference in Clinton's case was that there was no underlying crime

Uhh, no. The difference is that so far there is no underlying cause of any kind in the present case at all. Clinton's perjury was a sitting president committing a felony to deny a citizen her day in court.

In this case -- what? No perjury shown (unlike Clinton), no underlying case - criminal or civil - so far, and the guy you contemplate as a possible perjurer sits in an appointed administrative position - a bureaucrat.

The pull between mouth and shoe may seem powerful right now, but it's best to wait for the facts. If somebody actually committed perjury, or any underlying crime, the right will pretty much disown the guy. It's our M.O.

isn't it illegal to give out classified information? Isn't it illegal to out NOCs?

Not in itself. There is a mens rea that has to accompany the act before it becomes even arguably criminal.

What's funny is that it is illegal to leak grand jury info - which has reportedly been a significant source of material for this story. No worries about that, though. No, siree!

It is unfotrunately far from unlikely and the poster did not answer the question. Is the seriousness of this event made any more clear if someone is killed as a result?

Well, "the poster" didn't answer your question because it has absolutely no basis in reality. Plame was not a covert agent.

However, if someone did commit a crime, they should be persecuted.

Loose crap...

I meant "prosecuted."

I won't lecture you, but "non-official cover" is the most difficult and expensive to construct and blowing it is hugely damaging.

Peter, let me ask you a question. Did this story anger you as much as the one involving Plame and Wilson?

As for Plame being just a desk jockey, that is a charge long refuted by the CIA and anyone who knows anything about intelligence gathering. When they blew her cover, they blew the cover of anyone else who used her cover company, and anyone whoever met with that cover company's "employees" is now suspect. I won't lecture you, but "non-official cover" is the most difficult and expensive to construct and blowing it is hugely damaging.

That's a new one on me: the difficult-to-construct non-secret secret agent, who drives to work at CIA headquarters, gets her name in her husband's Who's Who, her face in Vanity Fair, her status bruited about cocktail parties for years, but suddenly turns into deep cover when her name is uttered by a righty. Neat trick, that.

Incidentally, is there any procedural reason Fitzgerald would wait until the very last minute to bring indictments?

Here's a question for the people reading this blog: how would/will your opinion change if it comes out that blowing Plame's cover resulted in the death of one or more covert agents? Is THAT treason then?

Here's a question for YOU, pal. If it comes out that Bill Clinton pardoned a criminal who once illegally traded oil with Iran, a state sponsor of terrorism, and then turned around and helped cause the deaths of thousands of Iraqi children by stuffing his pockets in the oil for food scandal, is that treason?

'Cause unlike your little jackoff fantasy, we don't have to speculate on that one.

Spongeworthy sez:

I hate to gloat, but I seem to remember warning you off that troll, geoff.

And I agreed with you at the time, but then Little Tube started gloating about the $8.8 billion again, even with all of his arguments thoroughly discredited. And then I couldn't hold myself back. This time for sure.

"Still, the big question is if Rove/Libby/Chenney knew Plame was covert. I've seen nothing that shows that. Talking about a non-covert CIA agent is little worse than gossip."

Oh, so if they thought it was little worse than gossip, why did they put themselves in legal jeopardy of FELONY offenses of Perjury, Obstruction of Justice, conspiracy etc?

Kind of doesn't make sense does it, unless, of course, there was a very serious underlying crime.

But perhaps or they simply thought they didn’t need to tell the truth and lying was just something to pass the time, along with the conspiracy and obstruction thing.

Valerie Plame/Wilson could not possibly have been undercover when she sent her husband to Africa.

Plame's involvement in sending her husband on the CIA mission to Africa meant that when Wilson went public about it, foreign intelligence services would investigate all of his family members for possible CIA connections. Those intelligence services would not simply assume that he went on the mission because he was a former diplomat. They would investigate his wife. And that would inevitably lead to unraveling the facts about Valerie Wilson, or Valerie Plame, and her involvement with the CIA. Plame's role in arranging the mission for her husband is solid proof that she was not concerned about having her "cover" blown because she was not truly under cover.

What's funny is that it is illegal to leak grand jury info - which has reportedly been a significant source of material for this story. No worries about that, though. No, siree!

Don't worry about that, VRWC Agent. The leaks will stop once testimony about the CIA's incompetence and attempted diversionary torpedoing of the Bush administration begins.

I for one am willing to watch Scooter swing if it gets the whole story out in the open. An aide like Libby is a small price to pay to expose leftist elements and anti-Americanism in the CIA.

I wonder if the opposition is quite ready for the fallout.

It's quite simple:

1) It's a matter of public record that Wilson *never* claimed Cheney sent him.

But if Wilson *had* said that, all Cheney would have to do is say "I never sent him. I don't know what the hell he's talking about."

Revealing Wilson's wife's cover has no logical connection to this statement that Wilson never made in the first place.

2) the CIA is vigilantly pursuing the blowing of Valerie Plame's cover. They would not do this if Valerie Plame had no cover to be blown. If nothing else, there simply would be no case in court to pursue.

3) Novak, Miller, Cooper, et al are not supposed to have access to classified information. Therefore someone who does, had to reveal Valerie Plame's status as a CIA agent to them.

4) To reveal an agent's classified status is against the law.

5) To lie about breaking the law, is itself against the law.

6) Novak claimed, and other reporters seem to bear out, that there were at least 2 'senior White House officials' who blew Plame's cover. Two people doing the same thing at the same time to the same person is a plan. Therefore it is almost statistically certain that more people in the White House are involved.

It looks like Bush is worse than Nixon, and it looks hopeful that he's going to get it worse than Nixon - and he deserves it, because he's done worse things to this country than Nixon could in his wildest dreams.

You know what? This fucking thread should just end.

These lefties have their minds made up, and all the information in the world about Plame's CIA job, Wilson's trip and the extremely political nature of the CIA isn't going to affect their worldviews at all.

Fuckit.

"I'm not sure what point you're trying to make. Are you trying to convince us that GW1 praised Wilson before he, you know, lied to us all?"

I'll see you one Free Republic distorted RNC talking point and raise you:

"Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.

Remarks By George Bush
41st President of the United States,
At the Dedication Ceremony for the George Bush Center for Intelligence

April 26, 1999

Stick that in your tinfoil hats.

Don't let it get you down, Murrow. I agree that running up against the same bullshit claims again and again is depressing, but this particular assault and moonbattery is finite. We won't know if global warming is true for a hundred years; we'll know if Fitzmas is coming on Friday.

Oooohhh, X. You really got us with that one.

I don't know how we'll recover from your rhetorical riposte.

Fuckwit.

Wow, this thread really drew the trolls out.

"NASCAR is to CAR RACING
what
RACE WALKING is to MARATHON RUNNING"

>GASP!
I am mortally wounded, sir.

Ok, no, not really.

People, I had a dream.
I dreamt that one day, the sons and daughters of beer-bellied mullet-headed rednecks would stand in a great circle and hold hands with the sons and daughters of Earth-shoe wearing, dope smoking Chomskyites. Singing in peace and harmony or something.

But when I woke up I remembered that the Chomskyites have aborted all those kids.

Thanks for the stem cells, guys! I hear the ones that aren't good enough for disease research make awesome cosmetics.

What were we talking about?

Oh yeah, Geoff; are you really gonna be a good boy now?
I assure you it is liberating to merely ignore it. Though I love how you crush its nads time and again and yet it continues to gloat and crow victory.

I don't care who you are, that's funny. GIT 'R' DONE !!!

Wish I could say that I'm sorry, that the facts don't go your way, 'Ed R. Murrow'.

But, like the budget, like the economy, like Iraq, like Al Qaeda - you can keep wishing Bush is doing good, but the real world facts say different - and you won't be able to change the facts until you first face them.

But, like the budget, like the economy, like Iraq, like Al Qaeda - you can keep wishing Bush is doing good, but the real world facts say different - and you won't be able to change the facts until you first face them.

Budget - sucks, you're right. We're spending too much money.

Economy - What, 18 straight months of economic growth not "good" to you?

Iraq - Yup, democracy and free people really are a pisser, huh?

Al Qaeda - Haven't hit us in the US since, oh, 2001. Yeah, Bush is doing a shitty job.

Before accusing others of not facing facts, you should maybe bring some to the table.

"I don't know how we'll recover from your rhetorical riposte.

Fuckwit."

Yeah, it's tough having to hear one words from one president words that may eventually screw another.

"...In the United States Code the penalty ranges from "shall suffer death" to "shall be imprisoned not less than five years and fined under this title but not less than $10,000; and shall be incapable of holding any office under the United States."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treason

Yeah, it's tough having to hear one words from one president words that may eventually screw another.

So now we're prosecuting presidents based on the words of other presidents?

To some degree you have to engage trolls if you aren't going to ban them. Particularly when they post their patented, heavily sourced screeds. It's a long, boring slog to answer it with a similarly heavily sourced screed, as it's a lot of damn work with no acknowledgement from the troll, but at the very least you must poke fun. Not only does "ignore them and they go away" not work, but your silence convinces them they're scoring points on you big time. I know; I used to troll the other side before my spleen went dodgy.

More to the point, it probably looks like they're scoring points to observers. Blogs are like iceburgs. Or cockroaches. For every self-important idiot who drops pearls in the comments section, there are a hundred readers who don't.

I keep hearing how Wilson is a serial liar, but only one provable falsehood has been established, that he saw documents when he didn't really see them (which he owned up to immediately.) All of the other lies that have been talked about are actually lies told by the administration about Wilson, which are provably false. If we really have to go over old ground, we can debunk the Vanity Fair (happened after her cover was blown) and Who's Who (Wilson having a wife was never the secret) nonsense. Wilson didn't claim that he was sent by Cheney. And the Republican Senate report, which was written in as vague a manner as possible by the Republican staff, didn't contradict anything he said.

I guess the new standard for covert operatives is for the CIA to give someone covert status, which is then reviewed by a bunch of bloggers to determine if they really mean it. Great way to run national security.

And by the way, please raise your hand if you were ever at a DC cocktail party in which it was discussed that Plame worked for the CIA.

Clinton was accused of lying under oath in a civil suit that was arranged as a trap, with Ken Starr advising Paula Jones's defense team. And by the way, if memory serves he was acquitted at trial. A Republican controlled congress can impeach a ham sandwich.

It's interesting to see people saying "perjury is perjury" in one breath, but downplaying the seriousness of the crime on the other. Plame could have had "I'm CIA" tatooed on her forehead, as long as she had covert status, it was a crime to reveal it. And I'm sorry, it just doesn't wash that there's no difference beytween committing perjury in a civil suit and committing perjury in a criminal investigation about national security issues. No matter how many times you say it.

I wrote the previous post. My info was wiped out when I went to preview. Just so we don't have to read ridiculous comments about posting anonymously.

Oh yeah, Geoff; are you really gonna be a good boy now?

lauraw - I'm a weak man, a slave to impulses beyond my control (plus I can't stop responding to flagrant misstatements). I'm admitting that I'm powerless over my addiction. Maybe a haiku or limerick thread would help with the withdrawal symptoms.

Plame could have had "I'm CIA" tatooed on her forehead, as long as she had covert status, it was a crime to reveal it.

Do you mean the "Intelligence Identities Protection Act?"

That law only applies to people who purposefully reveal the name of covert agents serving abroad or who have served abroad in the last five years. So far, nothing suggests that Plame fits those criteria.

Trolls infest the threat
Spouting long-debunked nonsense
Geoff's fingers tremble

Ooops - should be "thread" not "threat."

Well, S. Weasel made a good point there; but I still don't really care about what other onlookers think.

All that's important is that I'm not up til 1 am, engaged in a fruitless activity with somebody who actually believes he's fighting nazis here.

You Republicans are so deluded. Fitzgerald has the whole ball of wax sewn up, from Cheney using a known forgery to justify an unjustified war, to exposing a covert CIA operative, to lying about it to investigators. I predict that Bush will have fired Fitzgerald by the end of the week. If not, He's toast either way. Delish with butter and jam. Choke on it.

Well, Randy, it's refreshing to see you guys get behind a proposition that will happen or not within three days. You may be nutjobs, but you're apparently sincere nutjobs.

Of course, like other propositions with deadlines (think back to November), this one may not come out the way nutjobs expect. And damn if that doesn't ouch like a bastard, eh?

I find the flames in this thread to be weak and lacking in style. The insults are not creative enough, the umbrage is not righteous enough, and nobody has posted a really devastating flame-haiku. I am gravely disappointed.

geoff: Try dropping a nuke on that turd Randy, just to flex your flame-muscles for the next good flame-thread. You will be graded on both content and style. You may begin...now!

Look, when you lose four straight (midterm & presidential)
and are in charge of nothing,

and have no helpful ideas or alternatives
(except to abandon victory and run away),

and your policies have failed to help anybody though they were in vogue for fifty years,

all you can do is snipe.
I understand this.

I have a great big heart for these losers.

Ohhhh...now a Nixon reference!

Quiz: Who was the last president to be caught illegally gathering confidential FBI files on his political enemies?

Ans: Bill Clinton.

Sanctimony from a group of people who spent 8 years defining deviancy down. Wheeeeeee!!!!

I agree, Monty, I demand more self righteousness from the party of Sandy "Socks" Berger. I demand a three page lecture about national security from the party that sold away our technology to the Chinese in exchange for campaign contributions. I demand a finger pointing tirade about honesty from the party of "I did not have sex with that woman."

Spin, lefties, spin!!!!

Monty:

Geez, I'm just not that good at the righteous flame. The considered, researched response is more my style. Admittedly that style is completely wasted on the voracious fecal parasites that have fouled this thread with their preening, microcephalic mimickry of reason. I floccipaucinihilipilificate those vile creatures - particularly that illiterate, Randy.

[Panting heavily] I think I better go lie down. Maybe I can take some lessons somewhere . . .

jim:

1) It's a matter of public record that Wilson *never* claimed Cheney sent him.

From Joe Wilson's op-ed in the NYT, July 6, 2003:

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. [...] Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). [...] Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer.

Wow, you're right, he never connected his trip to Cheney. It's like he never mentioned Cheney at all. Good thing, too, because a casual reading of something like that (you know, like someone reading a morning newspaper or something) would falsely tie Cheney to Wilson's assignment to Africa.

Whew, it's a good thing Joe made sure that NYT readers weren't misled.

But if Wilson *had* said that, all Cheney would have to do is say "I never sent him. I don't know what the hell he's talking about."

Vice President Dick Cheney - NBC's Meet The Press, September 14, 2003:

I don’t know Joe Wilson. I’ve never met Joe Wilson. … And Joe Wilson - I don’t [know] who sent Joe Wilson. He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back.

You really dug down deep to come up with your dumb ass bullshit, didn't you jim? You went to Kos and maybe even TalkLeft! Two whole lefty sites! Way to go, champ!

You probably got caught cheating in school when you copied the answers off of the "special" student's test paper.

Before accusing others of not facing facts, you should maybe bring some to the table.

OK. I'll start by letting my statements re: Wilson and Plame stand. Feel free to try to you refute them, by bringing facts of your own.

URL's below to refute your statements.

Budget - sucks, you're right. We're spending too much money.

Thanks for facing that. I also note that this is what Gore in 2000 said would happen - and was, in some amazing Rovian jui-jitsui, accused of 'fuzzy math'.

Economy - What, 18 straight months of economic growth not "good" to you?

Four straight years of economic decline for the poor? Outsourcing of jobs overseas, resulting in McJobs here for the middle class? People unemployed so long that they run out of employment insurance, and thus are no longer counted as unemployed?

Less and less Americans being able to save, and more and more going under?

http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=1014071

Just because the companies are making more money, and keeping more of it, does not mean the country as a whole is doing better.

Iraq - Yup, democracy and free people really are a pisser, huh?

Sure was worth 2,000 American lives, from 30,000 to 200,000 dead Iraqi civilians, and $200 Billion, to find no WMD's - to have a shaky government that's on the verge of falling into a Civil War.

Oh, and that Iraqi oil's gonna pay for the occupation in no time.

And we sure are doing right by our soldiers, with the continuos stop-loss orders holding them there.

But at least there as well paid for the same work as Halliburton - oh, woops.

Meanwhile our military gets stretched thinner and thinner, so that if there is a real danger or threat, our ability to respond is compromised.

Good thing we at least got the guy responsible for 9/11 - oh, woops.

Al Qaeda - Haven't hit us in the US since, oh, 2001. Yeah, Bush is doing a shitty job.

Worldwide terrorism has increased, funding for terrorism has increased, and Al Qaeda itself has increased.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/26/AR2005042601623.html

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1063717,00.html

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/lawless-iraq-spawns-new-training-ground-for-alqaeda-says-un/2005/09/20/1126982062509.html

Why would they strike in the US again? We're doing such a great job of recruiting for them. If Al Qaeda attacked the US again directly, we might actually go after them.

Look, man, everything is *not* just great. That's reality. Your boy Bush is messing up the country, and he's got 3 years to go. You thought he'd be good, and you were wrong. Don't feel bad. A lot of people fell for it with you.

But the only way we're going to make things right is to pay attention to the facts. Facts aren't partisan. We both know that if Clinton was in charge of this mess, you'd rightfully be yelling for his head. If you wouldn't let Clinton get away with it, why do you let Bush?

from 30,000 to 200,000 dead Iraqi civilians

Even I can safely ignore any moron who's still quoting the Lancet study.

geoff, shhhh.
You had me at 'voracious fecal parasites.'

You had me at voracious fecal parasites.

The reason you don't feed it is because if it turns out there are no indictments or Fitzgerald ends up prosecuting just Libby for perjury or some shit, it won't be back to eat it's crow.

von Kreedon is a delusional lefty, but he's not a pussy. See the difference?

Even I can safely ignore any moron who's still quoting the Lancet study.

Oops. Good point.

No, it won't be back, Sponge. But you'll know it's hurt. It's hurt real bad. And you'll only know just how much if you draw it into revealing its full expectations beforehand.

That's a real good point. It's pretty obvious nothing less than impeachment will satisfy these trolls, so I guess we can have a good laugh at their expense if it's anything short.

I wonder why they are trying to revise history re: Wilson. John Kerry gave him the boot, de-linked him, basically airbrushed him out of the picture when he got caught lying. How can trolls pretend that didn't happen?

Voracious fecal parasites

Well...I'll give it a B+. Not quite the "send the lefty home crying hot tears of shame" flame I was looking for, but not bad. (Of course in real-life you might have followed up with a rabbit-punch to the kidneys, which would have bumped your grade to an A.)

From your own quote:

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office...

- and there you have it.

Cheney's **office**. Wilson states that the CIA told him that, basically, Cheney asked for more info; his inferiors jumped to it, it went down the chain of command, and Wilson was put on it.

Furthermore, the presence or absence of those four documents Wilson mentions, would prove or disprove Wilson's story. The White House has yet to bring *any one* of those forward to dispute Wilson - and they also do not deny their existence.

Furthermore, the whole *question* of who asked Wilson to go, is irrelevant to the substance of Wilson's argument - that the White House had information that the yellowcake info was fake, but used it anyway, to scare the public into supporting the Iraq invasion.

So, in the future, try reading closely. People will be able to deceive you less often.

http://mediamatters.org/items/200507190001?is_gsa=1&final=1

I know, you'll say it's a liberal website. You know what? Refute it. You successfully refute that website, or even that article on that website, and you will be on your way to a great career in conservative punditry.

As for the quote you show, of Cheney disavowing personally sending Wilson, you prove my own point.

Even *if* Wilson was lying about Cheney personally sending him - which is not what Wilson said - Once Cheney said he didn't personally send Wilson, what need is there for the White House to go after Wilson's wife?

Why, absolutely none.

Therefore, because that whole angle of Cheney correcting Wilson's story falls apart.

And the only other possible motivation to a reasonable adult, is to smear Wilson and attack his wife, in retaliation for embarassing the White House.

Thank you for playing. Please try again when your reading comprehension improves.

OK. Have fun, guys. By all means, keep supporting the GOP. If we were all stem cells or foetuses, we would all be safe.

By the way, here's the minimum body count I'm referring to -

http://www.iraqbodycount.net/

So, refute them, or any of the other facts or websites I quoted, or I'll just count them all as correct.

And I'll just continue to wonder to myself, why you must continue to resist facts like this.

But you'll be back Friday night, Jim? Or Saturday morning, come what may? I want to see how Fitzmas turned out for you.

There's a heaping helping of crow being served 'round these parts, and I'm not convinced I'll be eating it myself. Shame for it to go to waste.

I'll be back. It's a deal.

What I would like to see happen aside, I have no idea how it's going to play out. It seems that, from all counts, Fitzgerald is a real non-partisan bulldog of a prosecutor. And the CIA is definitely hopping mad about this, and pursuing it very seriously.

So, I'm certain there's going to be *some* indictments. I predict at least one person at Rove's level or lower will be indicited, and one other person, for a minimum of two indictments.

Also it seems very likely that Libby perjured himself. If Cheney or Bush are involved, I would expect Libby to fall on his sword; the question is, would Fitz buy it, and stop there?

But we'll all just have to see how it plays out on the stand.

Aren't they cute? You show them they're wrong, and they just state the same shit over again and tell you that you've proved nothing. We need to find a way to make armor out of their skulls, none of our guys would ever need to worry about IEDs again.

The Bushies Who Stole Fitzmas, coming to DVD this November.

More Bad News for Bush. This could put George in a world of shit: Espionage Act of '17 says:

Whoever harbors or conceals any person who he knows, or has reasonable grounds to believe or suspect, has committed, or is about to commit, an offense under sections 793 or 794 of this title, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

If George knew that Karl leaked, and he failed to tell Fitzgerald, Dubbya should be breaking rocks at Leavenworth.

If there are indictments, the most likely possibility is Libby and perjury or obstruction -- but I say that because it's the hottest area of speculation, not because I see evidence. And I'll take that as a full loss for me. But I'm confident there will either be no indictments, or there's a whole lot of new and interesting information to justify the indictments that come. Because what I know right now doesn't make any damn sense.

In today's Corner, Andy McCarthy has a longish comment about Fitzgerald, who is apparently a personal friend. The gist is:

Let me just say this. Pat is at least as apolitical as his press clippings suggest. And just because Senator Schumer says something doesn’t make it wrong. Pat Fitzgerald is the best prosecutor I have ever seen. By a mile. He is also the straightest shooter I have ever seen – by at least that much. And most importantly, he is a good man.

And he was on this for 22 months. Well. Que sera sera.

p.s. Robert Lewis? You're too balls-out crazy to play with.

I love how these people are such original thinkers.

Seriously, if Soros and his minions were taken by the mothership one night, there would be no trolls to talk to here.

POISON OAK
Tubino and Jim
Showing off their fall color
Bush Derangement Red

You see this

And the CIA is definitely hopping mad about this, and pursuing it very seriously.

repeated endlessly but you never see any evidence of it. If Tenet was the guy who told Cheney who actually did send Wilson to Africa (it was his wife, even though he denied it) then it seems like the rank-and-file at CIA would be after his scalp. I haven't heard a single thing to the effect the CIA has done anything but initially refer what evidence they have to Fitzgerald.

Awaiting indictments.
Rove, Libby, Cheney packing?
better count the silverware.

5-7-5, Dipshit
Jimmy's poetry
Just about the same loose shit
You see in his posts

Four straight years of economic decline for the poor?

The hell with the poor. I want my oil.

indictments on still water

robert holds his breath
imagines Bush breaking rocks
'life is goooood' he moans

angry critic whines
'you used the wrong rhyming scheme'
but votes for dummies like Bush

http://poetry-magazine.com/poetry/poetry-009/08page.htm

"According to researchers of ancient Japanese poetry, the Katauta is recognized as their "basic unit of poetry." It incorporates a 5-7-7 onji format, or a total of 19 syllables. It has a specific rhythm and takes the form of either posing a question or giving an answer."

jim backs up his words
with facts and sarcasm in
five syllables too.

The Coming Silence

Bushies frogmarching
Never come to fruition
Trolls not seen again

But at least there as well paid for the same work as Halliburton - oh, woops.

Ah, shit, Jim.

There we were, having a moonbat-free discussion and you have to go mention Halliburton.

Sorry, pal. That's like a moron lefty litmus test, and you flunked it.

Go back to the warm, friendly waters of DU and have fun now.

Wisdom of the Ages

Visit Soros site
Hungarian Fuhrer says:
"Flood wingnuts with crap"

There we were, having a moonbat-free discussion and you have to go mention Halliburton.

I'm sorry, is there's something I said about Halliburton that's innaccurate?

Or do you actually think that Halliburton employees should be paid thousands more than our volunteer soldiers, using our tax dollars, for the same jobs?

If so, please either refute my facts, or state why you think Halliburton employees deserve better than our soldiers for doing the exact same work.

Hey moonbats, don't you have a party to go to?

U.S. military death toll in Iraq reaches 2,000

Implausible Undeniability

IT'S HALLIBURTON!
Screams the moonbat troll brigade
YOU CAN'T PROVE ME WRONG!

"If we were all stem cells or foetuses [sic], we would all be safe."

OK, so we've established that Jim (fuck you, you're not e.e. cummings) is a foreigner and thus easily ignored. But hey, I hope you're getting a lot of hits over there at coprophiliac.com.

better count the silverware

More projection from the immoral left.

Anyone remember the Clinton's stealing White House furniture on the way out the door?

Knemon doesn't like
Libby (and Cheney?) lying -
but moonbats still grate.

Crazy, wanna talk crazy? The CIA knows that revenge is a dish best served cold. CIA has provided Fitzgerald with a list of agents/assets that were compromised (killed) following outing of Flame and Brewster Jennings. [See, the 8 page sealed portions of Fitzgerald brief to and the opinion of the Court of Appeals keeping Judy Milller behind bars.] If this happened, the death penalty provisions of the Espionage Act of 1917 come into play. With or without a blindfold, Mr. Vice-president?

Futility of Ctrl-V

"Why won't wingnuts see?
Master Soros enlightens!
Repeat talking points!"

"[See, the 8 page sealed portions of Fitzgerald brief "

How can we see it if it's sealed?

More to the point, how could you, or your "source," have seen it? Is it like the trick with the sealed envelope that Carson used to do?

Hallfifurton! Watch the silverwares Cheney and his lesbian daughter are going down and so are the Jesus lovers who are criminals and Karl Roooooooooove!

Dammit, I mentioned Halliburton.

Why aren't they shrieking and running away like vampires with a cross?

Jimmy, just for you...
http://www.toyomasu.com/haiku/#whatishaiku

Now then...

Nothing Up My Sleeve
Typical Lefty
A link for each argument
Always about him

u RIGHT WINGERS cant explain Halfurburton or 16billion in missing money thats probobly were all that tresure that got looted when Bush didn't protect the musems and where is Bin Laden ha ha ha ha ha! now theres indictments and Tom "The Extreminator" Delay is going down and so is the right wing and there lies about WMDs and corrupition and getting soliders killed when they couldve helped with Katirna but BUSH DIDN'T CARE cause he was on vaction pretending to be a cowboy

Leftard, you forgot to mention the Joooooooooos! How could you?

By the way, Jimmy, you'll see that I stayed true to the nature of Haiku by going with the seasons in the first poem...

POISON OAK
Tubino and Jim
Showing off their fall color
Bush Derangement Red

Yeah, dummies like Bush...
Coward, too, as he shirked his duty. Ask Dan, he's got memos.

Funny Sprouts

Lefttard does it well
I can't stop the giggling
Belly laughs follow

Watergate was fun
Launched lots of peoples' * careers -
Just might work again ...

(* notably, Hillary Rodham - and our own Brit Hume! See "The Boys on the Bus" for more on Hume)

I see noone can repsond to why Haleybarborburton is getting all the oil conrtacts? Is it becuase your too busy preying and talking about Intelligence Design?

Sue

I'm sorry, but your post about Wilson claiming Cheney sent him has to be about the most ridiculous point I've seen on this thread, and that's saying something. Wilson very accurately points out the chain that ended up with him going to Niger, and you claim he's misleading people because some readers will only look at every other word? Please. President Bush said : "I like barbecue. I'm sure we'll catch Osama bin Laden."

"Ooh, I was only skimming the article, but I'm pretty sure Bush said he likes Osama bin Laden."

Gee, how awful of Bush to mislead people that way. Wilson was explicit in what he said, and absolutely correct. Wishing him to be wrong doesn't make it so.

And I like the built-in debate rules here. If you mention Haliburton, it shows you're a moonbat and anything you say is automatically discredited. I guess that's a whole lot easier than making points and citing sources, isn't it? I notice that with few exceptions, most of the response to a liberal post on this board have nothing to do with the points that are made, and everything to do with name-calling. It's pretty cheap to respond with "you're using talking points" rather than actually coming up with an argument. Everybody uses talking points. After months of debating an issue, it's pretty hard to come up with a brand new way to say the same argument. Is it talking pooints whewn you say "Wilson's a liar?" Of course it is. How is mentioning Halliburton any different than mentioning Soros?

And spongeworthy, "I haven't heard a single thing to the effect the CIA has done anything but initially refer what evidence they have to Fitzgerald."

Then you haven't been listening. The CIA first filed the complaint, before Fitz was ever on the scene. Then they kept banging the drum for some action, when Ashcroft was dragging his feet. I'd say that's evidence that they were a little upset.

And to the Warden "Quiz: Who was the last president to be caught illegally gathering confidential FBI files on his political enemies?

Ans: Bill Clinton."

Gee, that would be news to Robert Ray, who's final report on the matter said "there was no substantial and credible evidence that any senior White House official, or First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, was involved in seeking confidential Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") background reports of former White House staff from the prior administrations of President Bush and President Reagan." But wait, it must be true! The right wing blogs I depend on for all of my news said so!

Just one slight problem, Valerie Plame was outed as Joe Wilson's wife in 1999 in Who's Who in America. Not exactly the lowest of profiles. Of course we can't ruin Fitzmas with details.

e. e. cummings, no;
also yet to be refuted.
facts are fun; try them. ;)

Winter contracts

with Ha11iburton,
full value for your money,
just the kick I'm on

Just one slight problem, Valerie Plame was outed as Joe Wilson's wife in 1999 in Who's Who in America. Not exactly the lowest of profiles. Of course we can't ruin Fitzmas with details.

And that Who's Who entry said "Valerie Plame, CIA analyst on WMD," is that right?

And of course Wilson, the ex-ambassador to Gabon, is such an internationally famous household name, the mere mention of which brings the spotlight to anyone around him.

Come on.

Jimmy, just for you...
http://www.toyomasu.com/haiku/#whatishaiku

God, you guys make it so easy, when the references you quote undermine your own arguments.

From the URL you posted:

"How to write Haiku

In japanese, the rules for how to write Haiku are clear, and will not be discussed here. In foreign languages, there exist NO consensus in how to write Haiku-poems. "

I can't believe we have to keep plowing the same ground over and over. Joe Wilson was an ambassador. That's not a secret. Joe Wilson's wife was Valerie Plame. That's not a secret. That's all that was in Who's Who. Anyone reading it would learn the shocking news that the Ambassodor to Gabon was married *gasp*. The secret was that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA. That wasn't revealed publicly until the White House leaked it to reporters. Boy, you guys cry about talking points, then you keep bringing up the ridiculous Who's Who argument. Do you even think about these things before you post?

Gee, that would be news to Robert Ray, who's final report on the matter said "there was no substantial and credible evidence that any senior White House official, or First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton, was involved in seeking confidential Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") background reports of former White House staff from the prior administrations of President Bush and President Reagan."

Geepers, Robert Ray couldn't find any fingerprints of Bill and Hillary on those files, so I guess there's nothing at all suspicious about a former Democratic operative getting his mitts on hundreds of FBI files, almost all of them ones kept on Republicans, after being given a security position that he was not qualified to fill.

But if a conviction is your standard of proof, then I fully expect you, Chris, to relinquish all claims of wrongdoing in the Wilson/Plame affair unless there is a trial and conviction. I won't be holding my breath.

Ya Cris is right and you wingers are wrong. Plame was undercover and you can tell because she wore a scarf and sunglasses on that magazine pictuur!

Go watch nascar with DEAR LEADER you sheeple.

The problem is that all someone would have to say is
"Oh Wilson's wife got him the job". Then anyone could go and look up the name. Just because you work at the CIA doesn't mean you're under cover. You see Goss and Tennet slinking around back alleys lately? You have to intentionally blow someone's cover for it to be a crime. That means you have to know the person is an agent in the first place. I have yet to see any evidence that anyone involved in this case, other than Wilson himself, knew that Plame was anything but a mid-level manager/desk jockey at the CIA.
And that's why Fitzmas ain't gonna happen.

However, even the much vaunted 9/11 commission found that Wilson lied. When's he getting prosecuted hmm?

Gee, Jimmy, you don't even TRY to stay true to Haiku form, and instead find a Haiku format that suits your crappy poem/lack of Haiku discipline.
Indeed, your first 'effort' is 6-7-7, so even if you try and claim a little culture/language barrier, you missed the mark with your excuse when you posted "According to researchers of ancient Japanese poetry, the Katauta is recognized as their "basic unit of poetry." It incorporates a 5-7-7 onji format, or a total of 19 syllables.
Get your story...er, many stories, straight, Jimmy.
Or will you find some convenient link-excuse for this too?

Iblis, he didn't lie! He "mispoke", also, he has a stellar track record.

And I can't think of a single reason why someone would lie about the Bush Administration for personal and political gain... so therefore we can ignore how his words and the facts don't match up!

The left has shown me the light!

Uncle Jefe, what are you talking about? Rules and standards don't apply to leftists. They just make it up as they go along; every day history begins anew.

A Haiku is 6-7-7. Haikus have always been 6-7-7.

Perjury is an outrage. They've always been outraged over perjury.

Unilateral military action is wrong. They've always been against unilateral military action.

Tom Delay's alleged campaign contribution violations are serious. They've always been serious about prosecuting those who violate campaign finance laws.

Thank you Senor Warden, for enlightening me.
Comrade Jim will surely be most benevolent when his party produces their next Dear Leader, and I will only be sent to 're-education' camp for indoctrination.
Let me get a head start where I should, at the beginning of this whole sordid American saga...
"Columbus was a genocidal slave trader who sailed west only to kill or enslave indigenous peoples, and to enrich white, heterosexual men."
Thank Gaia I said that!!
I feel like a weight has been lifted from my shoulders!

Never fear, Uncle Jefe, I'll try and find you guys nice bunks in the Barbara Streisand Re-Education camp.

My apologies in advance, tho; the cafeteria only serves tofu and sprouts.

Hillary Rexa!

Ah, now you're coming around Jim.
Make with the funny.
Really, though, I was hoping for the Jane Fonda wing.
She's got so much more experience in helping with the accommodations for Americans in need of learning the errors of their criminal ways...

Gee, Jimmy, you don't even TRY to stay true to Haiku form, and instead find a Haiku format that suits your crappy poem/lack of Haiku discipline.

Wow, you guys are so
sensitive and loyal to
Japan's traditions.

Who would have thought that
right-wingers are so multi
culturally keen?

Mea culpa for
posting a haiku that's not
5-7-7.

Youa culpa for
electing, re-electing
dumb, dangerous fool.

youa culpa

das funnay

you're arguments still suck. but at least you're funny

Youa culpa for
electing, re-electing
dumb, dangerous fool.

Who's dumber, a guy who knows how to fly a technologically sophisticated fighter jet or a guy who can't count to seven?

And it's Hillary Regina...
Uh.
Nevermind.
No, NO, IT'S NOT.

I'm pretty sure that was a trap.
*shaking fist*

Seriously though, I'd vote for Hillary.

Specifically I'd vote her Most Likely to Be Tragically Disillusioned During Primary Season.

George Bush does not care
about black people. And they
don't care about him either.

Now back to your regularly scheduled programming:

I think the reason "light perjury during the cover-up" is mentioned by Ace was merely to setup GreenGiant for this beautiful Haiku:

I can't wait to see
you roaches squirm away from
the light of truth and justice.

I applaud GreenGiant for coming up with this brilliant Haiku, almost 9 hours before geoff even had the idea.

Typical, Jim.
The ability of anyone other than a lefty to appreciate another culture is somehow surprising to lefties. As if you lefties have cornered the market on 'culture', and appreciation of the arts. Kinda like how you think you own the concept of 'peace'.
Showing off your peace symbols means only lefties believe in peace, have a right to speak of peace.
If we just all held hands and sang Kumbaya, flew rainbow flags, frolicked with unicorns...
Ah, but back to Japan.
Why not have an appreciation for an ally who was once an enemy, one that had to be conquered and occupied, then given a chance to form it's own democracy, rebuild, and find it's own way into a leadership position in the world?

Yes, Jefe, more stereotyping from the openminded left.

My father is multilingual, has traveled all o
ver the world, lived with families from other cultures, taught college courses in Mexico, and is conservative as they come. He knows more about foreign cultures than Jim and all his lefty buddies put together, I can guarantee you that.

My wife speaks french, loves to travel, works closely with a number of Latin American immigrants, and also is a conservative.

My contention is that if left-wingers got out of their liberal enclaves and visited other countries once in awhile, then they'd develop a greater appreciation for their own. Anyone who screams about American poverty, inequality and injustice has probably never been out of the country and experienced the real thing.

Indeed, Warden.
I lived in Spain and Italy, and speak both (though my Italian is getting rusty, what with Espanol all day at work...)
My years in Spain were post-fascist, fully socialist, pre-Aznar. Well into double-digit unemployment, multi-generations in the same home not for familial, but rather economical reasons.
Ah, hell, why start. I'm preaching to the choir!
The leftists know not what they long for...
This is the best country in the history of this planet, and I'm not afraid to say it. There are alternatives that fit the left's world view; why don't they move there?

Warden:

If Fitz doesn't return any indictments, I won't "relinquish all claims of wrongdoing in the Wilson/Plame affair." But I also won't say "Cheney was caught" outing an agent. I may believe that he did it, but the fact will be he wasn't caught. Unlike you claiming Clinton was caught doing something, even though an exhaustive investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing.

Chris, agreed. I'll amend:

Who was the last president to have suspiciously unqualified staff members caught illegally gathering confidential FBI files on his political enemies?

Ans: Bill Clinton

Just because you work at the CIA doesn't mean you're under cover.

OK. So her cover for her covert work with the CIA was that she was actually working for the CIA not so covertly and by revealing she worked for the CIA, her cover was blown.

Oh, yeah: Bushchimphitlerbloodforoilhalliberton.

Got it.

So her cover for her covert work with the CIA was that she was actually working for the CIA not so covertly and by revealing she worked for the CIA, her cover was blown.

With theories like this, no wonder they think Karl Rove is a genius to stay a step ahead of them.

I'd bet a dollar that a typical day at the office for Rove is spent on nothing more than scarfing Bugles and crank calling Howard Dean.

Never fear, Uncle Jefe, I'll try and find you guys nice bunks in the Barbara Streisand Re-Education camp.

Does it include sing-alongs? Because if so, I'll do anything to stay away.

My apologies in advance, tho; the cafeteria only serves tofu and sprouts.

Which are both good, if you cover them in lots of salad dressing.

I'd bet a dollar that a typical day at the office for Rove is spent on nothing more than scarfing Bugles and crank calling Howard Dean.

That and trying to convince the Sunday morning shows to please give Dean just one more appearance. No bet, dude.

Instead of status reports, Karl just sends in a video tape of last week's Real Time with Bill Maher.

Bet he got a raise out of that time Maher had Ward Churchill on. Don't get too bored with minesweeper at the office, Karl!!

Sheesh, you all seem like a bunch of kool-aid drinking whackos. Potty mouth and all.

If you can't even rationally argue anything what's the point of being here.

It seems the best RW response is something on the order of "Fuck off you douchebag shithead, fuckwad, ah... [thinks of more vulgarities] TAMPON"

Sheesh...

One would hear more reasoned and cool discussion in the teen-age boys locker-room.

Enjoy. I suspect you'll all get a dose of reality before the weeks out.

Cheers!

Is that you, Karl? C'mon, fess up. We're all friends here. You don't need to pull the sanctimonious liberal asshole shtick with us, we got plenty of the real thing already.

Is that you, Karl?

Man has to do something to kill all that time. Probably has half a dozen DU characters he's doing tonight, too.

"you have to intentionally blow a CIA agent's cover for it to be a crime"

This is a well-placed Republican meme; the problem is, it's not true. While it is true that under the Intelligence Identfication Protection Act of 1982 you have to have knowledge, under the Espionage Act of 1917 you only need to transmit "defense information" to someone not cleared to have it. Even negligent transmittal is a felony. And Cheney, Rove and Libby are, quite simply, guilty.

Sooooo...if the 1917 law were stronger than the 1982 law, why did they bother to write the 1982 law?

You can read the act here. It specifically mentions quite a lot of military hardware and real estate, which is the kind of thing it was getting at. Then the Sedition Act got added to it in 1918 -- a pack of howlingly unconstitutional law, essentially making it illegal to speak against the government. Then a good deal of both acts got stricken down for obvious reasons. So, some of the Espionage Act is still in force, but if you're hanging your hat on it, you're going to have a Very Dirty Hat.

"Sheesh, you all seem like a bunch of kool-aid drinking whackos. Potty mouth and all."

Fuck you and your whore of a mother.

Just playing to the crowd...

Still waiting for that evidence the CIA is seething for revenge. Haven't seen it, don't expect to see it, don't believe it exists.

And as for the cocksucker who claimed that stars were added to the CIA wall after Plame's name came to light, I just want to say that is about the lowest argument I have ever seen in years of Web-bickering. An absolute falsehood citing a ficticious death for advantage on a message board? What the fuck won't you people say? Is there any limit at all?

The 1917 Act is not "stronger " than the 1982 Act, merely more easily enforceable. That's why it was used just recently against Larry Franklin - one of Dougie Fieth's boys who leaked info to Israelis - who plead to the charges. With respect to the stars on the CIA wall, the fact is, there was an unidentified star added in the relevant time period - and the traitorous assholes in the White House - Cheney, Rove and Libby - were the ones who blew Plame and Brewster Jennings cover.

Conflicting Brain Farts

Bush lied people died!
We must kill Bush and Cheney!
Hail pacifism!

The 1917 Act is not "stronger " than the 1982 Act, merely more easily enforceable.

Again -- then why did they need the 1982 law? Why create a law with a high threshold of applicability when you have another with an easy threshold already on the books that covers the same territory? Answer: they don't cover the same territory.

Another star? I call bullshit. What's more, you are a scumbag for even trying that. Don't you have a speck of self-respect? Attributing an actual death without any evidence whatever?

What's worse, CIA guys get capped these days fighting against Wahaabi scumbags all over the world--no way you could know a new star would have a damn thing to do with Plame. But I do recognize the sickness that would cause you to hope that were the case.

The most likely scenario for any new star would be in a heroic battle against scumbags who'd like to kill us, but you'd rather take such a tragedy and pin it on your political opponents. Reprehensible--you have lost any moral compass your parents tried to instill in you. If I were you, I'd shoot myself.

You are the lowest cocksucker I have ever encountered, and that's saying something.

The death of heroes cheers them up, sponge.

Lefties of all stripes only like Americans when we're dying.
Gives them a warm happy feeling inside.

Spongeworthy:

I'm not sure I get your point. Maybe you're just too sublte for me. Are you agreeing or disagreeing with the "star" allegation?

The cocksucker has made several references to new stars being added on this thread. He has offered no evidence any stars were added and has no way of knowing what caused the deaths if there even were any at the time. The cocksucker has claimed the CIA has turned over a list of agents killed because of the Plame disclosure!

He's a lying cocksucker, and what's worse, should any CIA agent, whether in the Horn of Africa or Afghanistan, have perished and a star added to that wall, the cocksucker has stolen that death so he could pin it on Rove et al.

I hope you're not considering defending that shit.

What the fuck won't you people say? Is there any limit at all?

no limit I can see? you are right though, it isn't just an opinion, it's a mental illness.

spongeworthy - a name you richly deserve, implying as it does how you soak up all that is vile, but are, after all only a chickenshit little sponge with multiple oozing orifices. byt he way, the pertinent star is listed for 2003, right between Helge Boes and William Francis Carlson. You know - if you're so fucking tough, why aren't you over in Iraq being showered with flowers by a greatful populace?

So Robert, do you have a single credible link that attributes the appearance of that star to Valerie Plame? Because if you don't then what you've said is every bit as malignant and grotesque as Spongeworthy has said. That sort of nonsense is even worse than the Vince Foster conspiracy fluff of the Clinton days.

Guess that answers the question about what they're willing to say.

What an asshole.

Just Googled Robert's story. Holy shit.

This guy is your source?

Wayne Madsen?

Kos is all over it, of course. They call this death their "ace in the hole." How classy is that?

Puh-f-ing-thetic.

Who's dumber, a guy who knows how to fly a technologically sophisticated fighter jet or a guy who can't count to seven?

Which one did you vote for?

That one's dumber. :)

Sorry for the multiple postings, but I just had to ask...was Greg Palast busy?

That's just sad. And despicably irresponsible. Unfortunately petty slackwits like Robert are all too willing to peddle this loathsome drivel to their gullible peers. Hard to believe he can criticize the administration when every shred of moral fiber he once possessed has been consumed by his blind hatred.

This is really good, actually. This gives us the chance to explore some core stuff.

The ability of anyone other than a lefty to appreciate another culture is somehow surprising to lefties. As if you lefties have cornered the market on 'culture'...

Well, I'll tell you where that perception comes from, on the part of 'lefties'. It's because every other time we hear some conservative, be it Coulter, Limbaugh, Santorum, Coburn, or what-have-you, they're bitchin' about the horrible terror of multiculturalism 'watering down' the country.

And I fully admit that there a lot of serious issues involved in illegal immigration, that need serious examination. Nevertheless, there seems to be more than a touch of racism and xenophobia in the conservative reaction. As if everyone in this country isn't descended from immigrants, and as if each wave of immigration hasn't brought great value to this country.

Showing off your peace symbols means only lefties believe in peace, have a right to speak of peace.

Kind of like conservative Christians are always waving crosses around, as if conservatives are the only people who believe in God, or have any right to speak about family and morality?

If we just all held hands and sang Kumbaya, flew rainbow flags, frolicked with unicorns...

If we all just got crewcuts, changed into high-waters and poodle skirts, put a flag on everything that moves, and trusted our leaders faithfully as long as they're Republican....

Ah, but back to Japan.
Why not have an appreciation for an ally who was once an enemy, one that had to be conquered and occupied, then given a chance to form it's own democracy, rebuild, and find it's own way into a leadership position in the world?

Hey, that's a great idea. By the way, the Marshall plan, by which we reconstructed the nations and economies of our conquered foes, and then proceeded to turn them in to our allies - that was a liberal and progressive plan. It was also smart, and it also worked. It's what we should be doing in Afghanistan and Iraq.

My father...knows more about foreign cultures than Jim and all his lefty buddies put together, I can guarantee you that.

Maybe true, maybe not.

You might ask your Dad to ask his friends, in all those foreign cultures, how they feel about what your gang in the White House is doing.

My contention is that if left-wingers got out of their liberal enclaves and visited other countries once in awhile, then they'd develop a greater appreciation for their own.

My contention is that all Americans should go out and see more.

My contention is also that the only people who you see strutting around in the media, with all sorts of fear and anger against non-American cultures, influences, languages, are conservatives.

Maybe that's the 'liberal media' bias - but when is that last time you ever heard Rush, O'Reilly, Coulter, et al say "You know, other countries and other cultures, they're just great."

Ah, hell, why start. I'm preaching to the choir! The leftists know not what they long for...

I'll tell you what I long for: competence in government.

We had eight years of peace and prosperity under Bill Clinton.

Bill Clinton is smarter and more competent and more able than George Bush in every single way. If it hadn't been for term limits, he would have creamed Bush Jr. and have a 3rd term.

And we'd be far better off for it.

Now that's my opinion and I can't prove it. But I'll tell you this: you conservatives took a gamble. It seems you said to yourselves, "Bush thinks like we do. Now, he's not too bright, but he's got a good team behind him, so if we get him and keep him, he can remake this country in a way that we like."

And now he is. He's remaking the country - but he's not competent. He doesn't have the wit of his father, or the diplomacy of Reagan.

I think that conservatives are starting to see that competence is vitally important. It hurts to see that you were wrong. But it's not us Leftists' fault. We've been telling you all along, for years, what a disastrous dangerous incompetent this president is. But you didn't want to believe us.

This is the best country in the history of this planet, and I'm not afraid to say it. There are alternatives that fit the left's world view; why don't they move there?

It's funny: I don't remember conservatives spouting this 'love it or leave it' line, when Clinton and the Democrats were in charge. I'm sure all of you conservatives just sat back and let Clinton run the country, right? After all, he was elected by the will of the people. Why wasn't that enough? Why do you hate America?

Look: we love this country too. I don't understand why it is so hard for conservatives to believe that. You're absolutely right: this is the best country, ever.

Bush and his gang are taking this country into the toilet. Now, if you love something, and someone's ruining it, what do you do? Walk away, or stand and fight?

I thought so.

Who's dumber, a guy who knows how to fly a technologically sophisticated fighter jet or a guy who can't count to seven?

Also, and more importantly, Bush wasn't hired to fly a plane, any more than my job hired me to write politically satirical haikus on a conservative blog.

(not that it isn't a lot of fun. :) )

Bush was hired to do a competent job leading this country.

Flying a plane doesn't necessarily make him a good leader, any more than it would make him a good surgeon, a good electrician, or anything else important that you hire someone to do.

You're going to have to be more specific than "taking the country into the toilet," jim. I'm not a great fan of Bush, but my issues with him are à la carte.

Nor will I buy that Clinton gave us eight years of peace and prosperity without having some concrete examples of the things that he did which brought them about (because, frankly, I think he what he gave us was an economic bubble and a foreign policy timebomb, both of which were bound to go off in the lap of the next guy. I could almost wish it had been Gore).

I'm not asking for a long list of complaints, because this is not a good format for that kind of exchange. But my experience has been that people who disagree with each other broadly can't have broad conversations; we need to break it to little, specific issues and argue those. Generally, I find we don't agree what the facts are, so we can't possibly agree on the interpretation.

Or we could just yell at each other. That's good, too.

Lefty trolls never see the irony in calling someone else a coward from behind their keyboards.

I for one am always up for meeting new people through the Internet, and living in one of the most populous cities in the country makes such a meeting simply a matter of statistics. Follow me, fuckbag?

You're going to have to be more specific than "taking the country into the toilet," jim. I'm not a great fan of Bush, but my issues with him are à la carte.

OK, sounds good. I'm at work, so my apologies for piecemeal entries.

Not that yelling isn't fun, too. But actually I'm finding the haikus good for that. They too put a good flavor of humor on the yellin'.

Jim, the left does not love this country.
It is in love with a fantasy that it thinks this country should be. It hates this country for (in their opinion) not living up to the high ideals set for it by the Founding Fathers.
Don't try to sell me on everything the left says and does as being reactions to conservatives.
Bullshit.
The left has tried to dictate what is culturally acceptable, politically correct, and what the meaning of 'is' is for the last 40 years.
The fallout from Clinton is where we found ourselves in 2001. Live with it.
The difference between then and now is just how clear the division is between those of us who love our country as it is, and those who profess to love it, but want it to be something other than what it is.
For this I say 'go'. Go live somewhere that already has what you think you want in THIS country.
Move to France, North Korea, Cuba.
If you're too lazy to learn another language, move to Canada, as so many claimed they would after the last election.
Just go, it's out there for you.
We'll see how much you appreciate America after you've found how much you've lost.

And, incidentally, I realize you've been specific in some of your comments. I was just making the point that left and right tend to scream past each other with bumper sticker generalities, when we each arrived at our broader positions via a series of smaller issues. And it usually turns out we totally don't agree on the little issues, or the even littler facts that comprise the little issues, so we're just wasting our breath flinging the big issues at each other.

Those of us who hang around with our own political kind exclusively tend to take too many arguments as completely settled. I like to hear the other side, not least so I'm better prepared to argue the merits if my own beliefs.

But, filthy haiku trumps all.

Flying a plane doesn't necessarily make him a good leader, any more than it would make him a good surgeon

Don't change the subject. You questioned his intelligence in your original post and you questioned it again later. No, I correct that. You didn't question; you asserted that he's "dumb."

This immature nonsense is more indicative of your own intelligence than an indictment of anyone else's. That you honestly believe anyone could learn to fly fighter jets and also attain the most powerful office on the planet without having at least average intelligence tells me that the biggest dumbfuck in the room is you. And your attempt to change the subject to his "ability to lead" this country shows you to be a dishonest dumbfuck at that.

ha ha ha ha. you people are so funny, running around in circles of non-logic trying to defend your boys and ignore what's going to slap you in the face tomorrow. thanks for the good laugh. it's been a long time comin' kids, and your lying crew is about it get it hard. tee hee, "rule of law" anyone?

ha ha ha ha. you people are so funny, running around in circles of non-logic trying to defend your boys and ignore what's going to slap you in the face tomorrow. thanks for the good laugh. it's been a long time comin' kids, and your lying crew is about it get it hard. tee hee, "rule of law" anyone?

Hm. I knew schools should never have allowed seventh graders access to free laptops.

Yeah. Straight guys say "tee hee" allllll the time.

You be sure and come back Friday now, won't you? I'd hate for you to miss your opportunity to gloat when we finally get ours, and I'll surely notice who comes back and who doesn't. It'll tell me a lot about your grownupsmanship.

Jim, the left does not love this country.
It is in love with a fantasy that it thinks this country should be. It hates this country for (in their opinion) not living up to the high ideals set for it by the Founding Fathers.

So, you're God, and you can read minds? You can see inside my head, and every liberal in the country, and know that we really hate America?

Guess what. Unless your real name is J. Hovah, come off it, man. Come back to reality.

The left has tried to dictate what is culturally acceptable, politically correct, and what the meaning of 'is' is for the last 40 years.
The fallout from Clinton is where we found ourselves in 2001. Live with it.

So...everything bad about where we are now, is Clinton's fault.

While the GOP has a lock on all 3 branches, for the first time in the country's history.

Did Clinton make Bush imbalance the budget? Make Bush ignore Powell, his own advisor, about the problems the US would face in a conquered Iraq? Make Bush appoint an incompetent crony to FEMA? Fight a two-front war? Not capture Bin Laden when he was in our grasp?

Did Clinton magically reach through space and time to let Halliburton overcharge us $9 BILLION dollars, while soldiers don't have enough armor? Did Clinton force Bush's employees to LIE to his fellow Republicans about the cost of the Medicare budget, to the tune of tens of billions?

That would make Clinton the most powerful man in human history, to still be running the country 5 years after he left office.

I thought that conservatives were supposed to be the party of personal accountability.

If that's really the case, you'll stop making excuses for incompetence. I know Bush is a Republican, so it hurts to admit. My sympathy. But he really, really is a lousy President.

The difference between then and now is just how clear the division is between those of us who love our country as it is, and those who profess to love it, but want it to be something other than what it is.

And which one are you?

You want it to be that everything with the direction of this country under Bush, is just awesome.

That is not how it is.

Wake up.

For this I say 'go'. Go live somewhere that already has what you think you want in THIS country.

That's here, dude. I'm American, this is my place. This has everything I want in it. It's great, it's free, people have daring and ingenuity, and people do things and get things done. I love it and I want it to do well.

I'm happy to share it with you, but you apparently just can't stand that someone can call shots differently than you. So, sorry, but that's America. If you don't like it, you can go somewhere else.

Go somewhere where a President and his party can ignore budget figures, negative WMD reports, global warming, their own EPA laws on the books, evolution, a Social Security system that works, and anything else they don't find convenient - and still have a country that's solvent, secure, and has the best possible education and future for all our children.

That would be fantasyland.

We'll see how much you appreciate America after you've found how much you've lost.

We'll see how much you appreciate America, if the GOP continues to have their way with it - and with you.

You've had it your way for about 5 years now. You can't blame the liberals for the problems any more. Your guys got voted in, and they blew it, and they're continuing to blow it.

If you really love this country, face reality. Its' good for you, your country, and even for those liberals you are determined to think hate it

Well, I guess you slack-jawed assholes will find out when the indictments issue. Care to make any bets on how many and who?

As for "liberals";

in 1776, liberals revolted against the King of England. Conservatives supported the crown.

In 1860, liberals were abolitionists; conservatives supported slavery.

In 1920, liberals voted for women's suffrage; conservatives fought against women voting.

In 1940, liberals supported England; conservatives (including the Bush family) supported the Nazis.

In 1960, liberals voted for civil rights; conservatives were racist assholes.

In 2003, liberals fought against the war in Iraq; conservatives lead us into an unwinnable war based on lies and deceit.

Fuck you conservative assholes, you've never been right once.

It's because every other time we hear some conservative, be it Coulter, Limbaugh, Santorum, Coburn, or what-have-you, they're bitchin' about the horrible terror of multiculturalism 'watering down' the country.

And I fully admit that there a lot of serious issues involved in illegal immigration, that need serious examination. Nevertheless, there seems to be more than a touch of racism and xenophobia in the conservative reaction

Typical leftist tactic to just sort of casually toss out the racism charge that way. So this is how you justify presuming that conservatives don't know about other cultures, by presuming that they are racists?

Sure, Robert. If you define conservatives as "the guys who don't want anything to change, ever" and liberals as "they guys who do" and think Republicans always represent the first while Democrats represent the second.

Oh.

Wait.

That's not really how you define the situation, is it?

I'm an atheist, Jim.
I'm also a democrat, from a long line of 'em...
I like hockey, not nascar.
My hair is shoulder-length, not buzz-cut.
Surprise, I don't fit all your generalizations.
Facts-
The economy was already headed into recession when Bush took office, Jimmy.
Make Bush appoint an incompetent crony to FEMA?
FEMA is not the first responder.
The democrat mayor of NO and the democrat governor of LA are the incompetents you need to ask for accountability here.
Not capture Bin Laden when he was in our grasp?
Your boy clinton rejected Sudan's offer to hand Osama over to him.
Halliburton
Moonbat.
Dude
Dude, Where's My Country? Answer: fwance
Swim there with concrete shoes on, Jimmy.
You don't deserve this great nation, or the folks keeping it free so you can run your partisan moonbat mouth. Hide behind our flag and your keyboard, with COURAGE a la Dan Rather.

Don't change the subject. You questioned his intelligence in your original post and you questioned it again later. No, I correct that. You didn't question; you asserted that he's "dumb."

You asserted that I can't count to seven, because I posted a rushed Haiku. That is a ridiculous statement, so I took it as humor, and responded with humor.

But if you want to get all technical about it instead, let's go.

You also asked, "who's dumber?" Well, I can't fly a fighter jet, I never trained for it. Can Bush write a haiku? On the spot, and have it be funny?

Show me a haiku Bush has written. In fact, show me anything Bush has written, on the spot, entirely by himself, that has wit and humor. Can you?

The guy can't even pronounce 'nuclear'. He constantly makes the most embarassing and ridiculous verbal gaffes. He confuses 'dissemble' with 'disassemble'; when he's unscripted, he doesn't even talk in complete sentences. His command of English makes him sound, quite frankly, like a dumbass.

Put me in front of a podium, unscripted, and I will sound more intelligent than George Bush. Furthermore, so will you. So will anyone on this blog.

On a further level, this argument is even more ridiculous - because the choice for president isn't between some guy who can fly a jet, and some guy who's posting haikus with debatable poetic value on a blog.

Both sets of skills are completely irrelevant to being a good president.

This immature nonsense is more indicative of your own intelligence than an indictment of anyone else's. That you honestly believe anyone could learn to fly fighter jets and also attain the most powerful office on the planet without having at least average intelligence tells me that the biggest dumbfuck in the room is you.

That you honestly believe Bush would have gotten into office with Rove behind him, and his entire Daddy's staff of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Powell, shows volumes about your grasp of reality.

Do you honestly think that Bush would have made it into the White House *without* his Daddy's connections?

If being a fighter pilot automatically made for great leaders, why isn't Chuck Yeager in the White House?

In 1960, liberals voted for civil rights; conservatives were racist assholes.

Learn your history, idiot. God, what a bunch of weak trolls.

Of the 420 members who voted, 290 supported the civil rights bill and 130 opposed it. Republicans favored the bill 138 to 34; Democrats supported it 152-96. The Republican Party was not so badly split as the Democrats by the civil rights issue. Only one Republican senator participated in the filibuster against the bill.

In fact, since 1933, Republicans had a more positive record on civil rights than the Democrats. In the twenty-six major civil rights votes since 1933, a majority of Democrats opposed civil rights legislation in over 80 % of the votes. By contrast, the Republican majority favored civil rights in over 96 % of the votes.

I'm an atheist, Jim.

Fine. I'm not a pacifist. Nevertheless, we're talking about liberals and conservatives. So, you call out peace signs, i call out crosses.

Surprise, I don't fit all your generalizations.

And I don't fit yours. Deal.

The economy was already headed into recession when Bush took office, Jimmy.

Yep. And Bush dug us in worse, while his tax cuts didn't do squat, and he increased the budget - thus squandering the surplus and digging us deeper into debt than we've ever been. Allowing China to buy our dollars - which now means that a Communist country has our economy by the balls.

Conservatives still support Bush, why?

Make Bush appoint an incompetent crony to FEMA?
FEMA is not the first responder.

Whole separate argument.

Brown was an inexperienced incompetent. Bush put him in. He failed in a whole host of ways that have nothing to do with Blanco or Nagin.

Does accountability apply to Republicans, too, or not?

The democrat mayor of NO and the democrat governor of LA are the incompetents you need to ask for accountability here.

Hey, fine. Let's investigate all of them, now. And let the chips fall where they may. Investigate the whole chain of command, all the way from the Mayor to the President.

How about it?

Not capture Bin Laden when he was in our grasp?
Your boy clinton rejected Sudan's offer to hand Osama over to him.

Dude, don't even try it. Did Clinton do that after Bin Laden *helped kill 3000 citizens*, and when *we had already invaded Afhganistan to get Osama*, and when *Osama was within range of our soldiers*?

Halliburton
Moonbat.

Wingnut.

Now that we've gotten that out of the way - come back here to reality and refute me with facts.

the rest of your post is unworthy of comment.

Start facing reality.

If being a fighter pilot automatically made for great leaders, why isn't Chuck Yeager in the White House?

God, you are too stupid for words. No one said that flying a plane makes you a good president. The fighter jet comment was in reference to Bush's intelligence.

Let me say it slowly. Stupid people aren't generally capable of learning complex tasks (like flying fighter jets). Bush has shown an ability to master complex tasks, therefore I can reason that he is not unintelligent.

"Clinton was caught doing something, even though an exhaustive investigation found no evidence of wrongdoing."

For which he was disbarred. It's a real syndrome. Spontaneous Acausal Disbarrment. Happens all the time.

PS - Robert Lewis, it's worth noting that the "conservatives" you mention for 1860, 1920 and 1960 were Democrats. Or maybe it's not worth noting.

*

"You might ask your Dad to ask his friends, in all those foreign cultures, how they feel about what your gang in the White House is doing."

Did you know that Bush's approval numbers are higher in India than they are here? That's a lotta people.
We've been outnumbered before. Better fewer, but better.

The CIA requested this investigation. It is not up to individuals to decide what information should or should not be kept secret.

In this case the activity was more subversive to our system than that of the left. At least people like Ellsburg claimed they did so for the national good.

Now we have radicals arguing that it is perfectly alriht to reveal confidential interests for personal motives and that they and their friends should be the judge of whether or not it's important.

This is a slippery slope and counter to our traditions.

Furthermore it is now argued that if one has decided that an investigation is not warranted it is perfectly fine to lie to the investigaters.

The party I vote for has now achieved the criminal mindstate. "I don;t have to obey this law because I don't like it and it's alright for me to lie to the authorities because if I didn't I might get in trouble."

So much for moral values.

Of the 420 members who voted, 290 supported the civil rights bill and 130 opposed it. Republicans favored the bill 138 to 34; Democrats supported it 152-96. The Republican Party was not so badly split as the Democrats by the civil rights issue. Only one Republican senator participated in the filibuster against the bill.

This comes from conflating Democrats with Liberals and Republicans with Conservatives. While they're pretty much in step now, this is actually a relatively recent occurrence.

It used to be that a great deal of Southern Democrats were conservative. They opposed civil rights specifically.

LBJ's support of Civil Rights caused a lot of these Democrats to leave the Democratic party forever, and become Republican.

"
Surprise, I don't fit all your generalizations.

And I don't fit yours. Deal."

Ace HQ: not just about boobies and 10-sided die ... we foster dialogue and mutual okayness!

God, you are too stupid for words.

Oh, go fuck yourself. Really.

Did you read this part of my post? Or skip it because you didn't like it? Read it again:

You asserted that I can't count to seven, because I posted a rushed Haiku. That is a ridiculous statement, so I took it as humor, and responded with humor.

Now take a deep breath.

Let me say it slowly. Stupid people aren't generally capable of learning complex tasks (like flying fighter jets). Bush has shown an ability to master complex tasks, therefore I can reason that he is not unintelligent.

I understood that. Now listen to me, as I say this slowly:

What you either didn't understand, or avoided dealing with, was Bush's intelligence as evidenced in his ABILITY TO SPEAK.

Your original question was, who's dumber?

My response was, I can't fly a plane, but Bush can't speak his way out of a paper bag without a teleprompter in there with him.

By that definition, we're at least equal, since we each can do something the other cant'.

Furthermore, I can be trained to fly a plane, and feel I have a reasonable chance of succeeding; whereas Bush has been going to the best in schools all his life, and he still talks like a complete idiot.

LBJ's support of Civil Rights caused a lot of these Democrats to leave the Democratic party forever, and become Republican.

More historical revisionism from a party that should be ashamed of its past.

Name more than a handful of former Civil Rights era Democrats who became Republicans.

Bad bad habit of changing the argument and avoiding the truth, Jimmy.
Go back to KOS or DU or whatever smelly crap you like to roll around in, and call that yours.
This is Ace's place, and you don't own it, any more than you own the US.

Bad bad habit of changing the argument and avoiding the truth, Jimmy.

Really?

That's funny, because I'm thinking the same of a lot of the posters here.

I'm thinking that, because I have yet to see anyone here refute the facts of anything that I've said.

Show me where I'm wrong.

By that definition, we're at least equal, since we each can do something the other cant'.

I think you might be retarded. Seriously.

If I am a theoretical physicists specializing in quantum mechanics, but can't iron a shirt properly, does that make my maid at least equal in intelligence to me?

What it is with you leftists and your juvenile obsession with proving that Republican presidents are "dumb?"

Name more than a handful of former Civil Rights era Democrats who became Republicans.

I do so, below.

It's like this: the whole voting makeup of the country changed due to the Civil Rights movement and it's aftermaths.

This is history.

And understand what I'm saying here: I'm admitting that the Democratic Party has some very shameful periods in it. The resistance within the Democratic party to civil rights is one of them.

What I'm saying is, all liberals weren't always Democrats, and all conservatives weren't always Republicans.

http://texaspolitics.laits.utexas.edu/html/part/print_part.html

" The civil rights movement widened a long-standing division between tense allies in the national Democratic Party. On one side of this split were white, conservative, mostly southern Democrats, the mainstay of traditional Democratic power in the South since the Civil War. On the other side were liberal, mostly northern Democrats, as well as African Americans and ethnic minorities. These diverse groups had gathered in the Democratic Party during Franklin Roosevelt's presidency, but the civil rights movement raised a fundamental contradiction inside the Democratic Party. In many areas, political control by local Democratic officials and their supporters rested on an electorate that excluded African Americans by using a variety of legal and extralegal means to keep them off the voting rolls.

Civil rights legislation promised to disrupt these arrangements, along with the post-reconstruction social segregation upon which they rested. Conservative white disaffection in the South reached critical mass when President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Many southern Democrats, convinced that the Democratic Party was pandering to African Americans and ethnic groups, voted either for George Wallace's third party candidacy or for Richard Nixon in the 1968 presidential election, and never returned to voting for Democratic presidential candidates afterward. They joined a growing number of new Republicans and independents already attracted to the Republican Party's platform calling for low taxes and reversing or limiting the growth of the government services. "

Now, from your experience, what is there, that you think is inaccurate?

What it is with you leftists and your juvenile obsession with proving that Republican presidents are "dumb?"

We look at his results. And we can't understand why so many conservatives think that what he's doing with the country is smart.

He can't add (cut taxes, increase spending), he can't talk or write his own words, he alienates allies we've had for 60 years, he can't bear to hear a negative report, and he can't even tell when someone else is qualified for a job. Add to all this, that he can't admit his own mistakes,

But whatever. You're determined to think Bush isn't dumb, and it's fair to say I am certain that he is.

Good thing you have it all figured out, Jim.

Funny thing is, I don't think Bush is a very good president, but he does seem to understand that being nice to Al Quaeda won't make them stop ramming planes into our buildings, which I guess makes him smarter than any Democrats running for president that I know of.

Refute anything you say? Why would we bother, it's idiotic claptrap? Just half-wit talking points. You dipshits know next to nothing about the economy but want us to believe it's in the tank. By what measure?

Debt is higher than it's ever been? Total crap. By any realistic measure it's not even close. And how do you figure the Chinese have us by the balls? Read it on Kos? If they're holding our bonds, it's us that has them by the balls.

But you don't know fuck-all about this stuff so your version of the facts will continue to litter websites just as if the truth hadn't hit you upside the head. So why bother?

Hey, if you notice, I didn't say Republicans and Democrats, I said liberals and conservatives. In 1960 there were liberal republicans. I grew up a liberal republican, supporting Dwight D. Eisenhower. My aunt was a Wendell Wilkie delegate to the Republican convention in 1940. (sidebar: How was Wilkie, a reigstered Democrat in 1939, able to gain the nomination from the Republican party in 1940? Simple - he was the ONLY Republican candidiate who was anti-Nazi. So learn your history, you dimwits. Meanwhile, at the same time Prescott Bush and George Herbert Walker were busy selling war bonds for a Nazi-owned bank in New York City]

After LBJ passed the civil rights bills, all the asshole conservative Democrats joined the Republican party as part of Nixon's "southern strategy - which is why the Republican party sucks so bad now. Me - I've never been a Democrat - always either a REpublican or an independent.

Well, spongeworthy, if I'm so clearly wrong as you say, it would be next to no trouble at all to refute me with facts.

US debt -
http://www.financialsense.com/editorials/hodges/2005/0412.html

China's ownership -
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/FA23Dj01.html

And that would be a much more valuable discussion. For instance, in researching these URL's, I find that last year's deficit was the record, and this year is somewhat less - altho of course shortfalls for Katrina, Rita et al have yet to come in.

See? You shortchanged yourself for a chance to prove me wrong, and maybe even learn something.

But, whatever. I'll be back when I feel like it, to back up my opinions with facts, and maybe learn as well.

I hope you're not considering defending that shit.

Spongeworthy:

Dude, I was joking!

The economy was already headed into recession when Bush took office, Jimmy.

Yep.

Damn, you're on it now, Jimmy! Just one more step...9/11. A catastrophic event in terms of human life lost, as well as in terms of what it did to the economy. Think it through. Financial nerve center, commerce down for days, individual and business investment dries up due to the shock and uncertainty...and all due to the previous 8 years of failure to wake up and fight back from
*1993 World Trade Center bombing
*Bombings of our embassies in Kenya and Tanzania
*Bombings of the Khobar Towers housing US military personnel
*Bombing of the USS Cole
ETC ETC
While you're on the subject of China, how about what your treasonous buddy did in terms of allowing sales of our technology to the Chinese? How about all of the illegal funding of bill and al by the People's Army?
Your willingness to overlook the facts, and to lie about them, tells all there is to know about you.
The snake oil ain't sellin', DUDE.
the rest of your post is unworthy of comment
and
I'll be back when I feel like it
pretty much show the lofty opinion most lefties hold of themselves, and their disdain for dissenters. If you're tiring of trying to be King of the Keyboard, don't do us any favors by coming back.
You haven't met a fact you've liked yet, and there's not much doubt that will change.
Conversing with you is like trying to tie the shoelaces of a spoiled little brat.
Better to let you walk around with them untied, tripping over them all day, until you learn to tie them yourself.
But then, you've probably moved into Birkenstocks long ago...

Nah, why would America cared that they lied us into a war.

They're just a bunch of dumb stupid animals that deserve what they get.

You just keep bringing up your talking points, Uncle Jefe, and I'll just keep smacking 'em down with facts.

I'm sure we're so different in opinion about Bush's responsibility for 9/11, that I won't even go into it. Rather I'll just cut your argument off one step above that -

http://www.epinet.org/content.cfm/webfeatures_viewpoints_9_11_economy

"Don’t get me wrong. There can be no doubt that the economy was thrown for a loop by the attacks on September 11. But it was a short-lived loop. Retail sales, travel, and the financial markets were put on hold for a number of days. Within a couple of months, however, retail sales had moved back on the strong growth trend that had preceded September 11. The stock market was closed for a period and took an immediate dive after reopening. Within a couple of months, however, the major indexes all soared past their September 10 levels."

Companies and the economy did well.

Workers, of course, took it on the chins. But why should Bush care?

As for China, exactly what the Hell does unproved allegations of Clinton selling secrets to China, that are now 7 + years old, make Bush a good President?

And you throw in an accusation of *me* lying, yet have no proof. Find a lie. Go ahead.

Or do you just want to think it's a lie, because it contradicts what you believe?

Sorry if you feel that relying on facts, citations, and logic is 'loftiness'. But that's just how I roll.

Been fun, guys. Seriously; nothing like a good joust. See you around.

~j : )

Companies and the economy did well. Workers, of course, took it on the chins. But why should Bush care?

Ummm...I'm a worker and I did just fine. You do realize most workers in this country work for -- wait for it -- companies? So when you say, "companies and the economy did well" I think "woohoo! Christmas bonus!" (And, indeed, I am getting one this year. We don't always. It's pegged to company performance).

Democrats have such a Village People definition of workers. You have to assume they are grossly overrepresented by unionized professions, government workers and academia. And indians. If you guys ever wonder why the message you tailored for the blue collar guys isn't catching fire in the same way with the middle classes, it's because you apparently have no fucking clue who we are and what we do for a living.

Seriously; nothing like a good joust.

Brave Sir Jimmy.
Go back to King Kos's Kourt and tell of your noble deeds! How you dared to enter the cave of the evil right wing dragons...

Knight of the Brown Drawers
Brave, Brave Sir Jimmy
Fights dragons with his keyboard
Craps pants, runs away

On a completely irrelevant note, since we all like to write at least somewhat, or we wouldn't be posting on blogs, here's a good thing to check out.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

It's a challenge, every year in November, to write a novel from start to finish in one month. I did it last year; I utterly recommend it. Free to join, and no prizes except the chance to write a novel in one month's time. Which, really, is kind of priceless.

I am also in no way affiliated with the site or the contest, besides entering it last year, and this year too.

Pace.

On a completely irrelevant note, since we all like to write at least somewhat, or we wouldn't be posting on blogs, here's a good thing to check out.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

It's a challenge, every year in November, to write a novel from start to finish in one month. I did it last year; I utterly recommend it. It's awesome. It's also free to join, and no prizes except the chance to write a novel in one month's time. Which, really, is kind of priceless.

I am also in no way affiliated with the site or the contest, besides entering it last year, and this year too.

This is just something everyone can do, and it's really freeing to realize it.

Anyway, pace.

Ah, not for me, jim. I write a fabulous one-word response, a damn good sentence, a pretty defensible paragraph, an okay short essay, but I couldn't write a proper chapter if my life depended. That thing inside me clawing to get out is so not a novel.

I blame IRC.

Well, a collection of essays is acceptable too, by the rules. All it really has to be is 50,000 words +, total, and from scratch; it can be planned out ahead of time, but all the actual text has to be made that month.

Never argue with
Any Republican nitwit
Their low quality lies, suck.

Despite the clear truth
Their lies soldier on and on
Always quoted never right

A range of emotions hits me when I see a quote like the following one penned? today. Mostly sadness at the natural ignorance of the human condition, but also a deep uneasiness when I realize that the people running the country are the ones concocting those lies.

"Valerie Plame/Wilson could not possibly have been undercover when she sent her husband to Africa" -Sue

Ouch!
No Really, OUCH!
I mean, jeez. The sending to Africa part was the very first lie of this whole mess. That one is like 3 years old.

Robin: "Aren't you even going to try and get loose?"

Batman: "What's the cube root of pi, Robin?"