I'MMA LET YOU FINISH
When you don't have case, change the subject. Something the wingers are always doing.
--- sound of crickets ---
Can someone explain why *outing* Plame was a good thing?
Because it smears Bush's enemies, which defends our Preznit, who is the embodiment of Murika.
Er...it was a good thing because it really showed Wilson (and anyone else) what would happen if they opened their big trap about Bush?
Because she was looking into some Halliburton shenanigans that implicated Cheney?
OT: Howard Dean is kicking butt in an ACLU debate over the Patriot Act on C-Span right now.
Retaliation for Wilson debunking the yellow-cake uranium fairytale.
Because its alright to injure our national security to out the President's enemies. If you want more proof, Im willing to throw in the phase "constitutionally alright."
"Preznit, who is the embodiment of Murika."
LOL Ntodd, but one of the right answers.
"(and anyone else) what would happen if they opened their big trap about Bush?"
This is another one-I'd almost forgot about it Dominion, thanks for the reminder.
Cranial implosions aside dear leader would never do anything that god wouldn't want him to do. But I think that Dominion has the correct answer.
Librarian...thanks for the heads up with Dean on c-span.
What Yossarian said
'Cause it really showed that Joe Wilson. Haven't heard from him since, have we?
Have we?
... Psst! Karl! Unca Dick! It ain't workin'! What should we do!?
Can someone explain why *outing* Plame was a good thing?
Because it has convinced most Americans that Bush cannot be trusted.
It wasn't good, at all.
It really shows how desperate they were.
If they really had the evidence to back up their claim...why not trot it out?
Because they didn't.
Why not call Wilson in the office, and have a chat with him, show him the evidence, and have him write a retraction?
Because no such evidence existed.
Once she was outed, the coverup needed to continue. Too many higher-ups were implicated.
Bush could have solved it in an hour with a few phone calls. Why didn't he?
Because he is in on it, either with foreknowledge or after the fact.
Look at Chris Matthews...he knows who outed Plame...and he has pretty much abandoned ship from the Bushies...it would be interesting to do an analysis of his slant from pro-Bush to anti-Bush and when it changed...I think it probably changed shortly after the Wilson affair got a lot of press.
In other words...the reporters know who outed her. They know it was illegal, and they know there is an investigation underway.
Bush is in deep shit if this guy indicts people around him. They could indict HIM, himself, the President, on grounds of Treason, obstruction of justice, accessory after the fact, etc.
Tenet quits unexpectedly the day Bush hires a lawyer in the Plame case? Tell me the two are not related.
There is a lot here, and it ALL points to the case that they were lying about WMD, they knew it, and they didn't care what they had to do to cover it up.
THAT is a big deal.
Can you imagine if Clinton had done this?
Hecate- I have always liked to think about that. Exchange the names in any story over the last 4 years and add Can you imagine. Unfucking believable.
I find myself growing more angry at the fourth estate enablers than the craven right wing theocratic pod people that have highjacked the Republican party.
Jesus Christ if the Clenis ever did this we'd never hear the end of it.
Somebody enlighten me here.
Wilson says that his wife did not recommend him for the trip.
When the request from Cheney for info on the Iraq/Yellow cake connections came across Plames desk, she advises her bosses that her husband knows a lot of the names of people that could be helpful in sorting this out.
The CIA (without Plame) invites Wilson in for a meeting, quizzes him, then they ask him if he would be willing to make this trip to Niger since he seems well qualified to do the due diligence on getting to the bottom of this.
So, did Wilson lie? His wife did not recommend him for the trip. She did recommend they should talk to him as he could provide names/contacts.
The only thing I see re Wilson is maybe he could have been more forthcoming in saying the above. He answered the question truthfully in that she did not recommend him for the trip. But she did recommend her boss' talk to Wilson.
Again, if I am missing something, let me know.
Don't ask us, ask Plame's intelligence contacts overseas who are now completely fucked since her cover was blown. Of course, they're probably dead now, so it really won't matter.
Jones wrote, "When you don't have case [sic], change the subject. Something the wingers are always doing."
Kinda like what this post does?
And ST: the yellow-cake uranium story is hardly a fairytale. Sweet dreams.
One thing I've thought about, even if she bent over backwards to get him to do it, couldn't it be quite possible she lied to him about it and said she didn't? Wouldn't that actually kind of be a requirement for a NOC?
Palme was outed to keep the CIA quiet.
This worked for a short time. The military and intelligence communities were quiet during the run up to the Iraq invasion.
Based on the flow of books and information coming out of the military and intelligence communities, it didn't work in the long term.
Interestingly, a potentially devastating October Surprise could come from these communities.
It wouldn't necessarily favor Mr. Bush.
Oat, answer the question I asked.
They thought that the administration was more important than the country &emdash; sounds like treason to me.
Wow, Pie was right! The troll named Oat didn't want to address any of the REAL questions about Plame's outing!
That was pretty spectacular--right on cue.
That &emdash; is supposed to look kind of like this --
Cheney Haloscan!
Palme was outed to keep the CIA quiet.
This worked for a short time. The military and intelligence communities were quiet during the run up to the Iraq invasion.
Based on the flow of books and information coming out of the military and intelligence communities, it didn't work in the long term.
Interestingly, a potentially devastating October Surprise could come from these communities.
It wouldn't necessarily favor Mr. Bush.
Come on, Oat. We're all eager to hear you defend Bush administration toadies for outing a covert CIA agent, in a "time of war" no less.
Please, we're waiting with baited breath.
(crickets chirping)
Pie,
Outing Plame was a a bad thing. It was malicious and should have never happened. And I do not buy the "winger's" excuse that it was justifiable as an attempt to descredit a source (Wilson) expressing views seemingly unfavorable to Bush.
But having said that, seeking yellow-cake uranium trumps Plame every time.
The most damning point is the one Monkey mentioned--that, after vowing to track down bin Laden as he hid amid thousands of square miles of trackless wasteland, Bush threw up his hands about the Plame matter and said there was no way to tell who leaked it.
Bullshit. He could have found out in five minutes.
So when they do catch the leaker, Dubya better have that lawyer nearby, and they better have ALL their stories straight.
Don't worry, Oat. We'll be there to hold your hand the day they perp-walk Dubya out of the White House.
Heh.
Can you imagine if Clinton had done this?
Hecate
The right would be in fever pitch. Of course, this works both ways.
Message to Oat: Not addressing the question posed is conceding you have no answer. Or at least not one you are comfortable with.
Outing Plame was "malicious"?
Wow.
Talk about your understatements.
Sorry folks, OT:
Bill Owens is making himself out to be a complete ass on c-span. Should I have suspected something else Coloradoans (?)?
Is Kerry Ditching Wilson?
The RestoreHonesty.com Web site, which promotes Niger junketeer and Kerry foreign-policy adviser Joe Wilson and is "paid for by John Kerry for President, Inc.," has a series of links at the bottom of the page, all of which go to the official Kerry campaign Web site. But not all of them work. The following links take you to an error page:
"Kerry Calls for Special Counsel in Wilson Investigation"
"What I Didn't Find in Africa - By Joe Wilson (The New York Times)"
"Bush Administration Is Focus of Inquiry"
After the formation of the Kedwards ticket, both the Kerry and Edwards Web sites were stripped of material left over from the primaries in which the then-opponents savaged each other. Is John Kerry now distancing himself from Wilson, the erstwhile publicity glutton who has disappeared from public view since a Senate committee report raised serious questions about his credibilty?
Monkey man - you got the mother fucker dead nuts on.
I haven't seen as apt an analysis of Plamegate (sorry for the cliche).
I don't think the indictments will start at the top - most likely folks like Scooter Libby, et. al. Here's hoping one of these assholes flips.
seeking yellow-cake uranium trumps Plame every time.
The discredited fact that Iraq sought yellowcake trumpts the Bush administration's treason? Why do you hate America, Oat?
But having said that, seeking yellow-cake uranium trumps Plame every time.
There are people here who can address this claim much better than I. Actually I read something yesterday that totally discredited that assertion of yellow-cake seeking.
Help me out here, everyone.
Oat, I'm happy to heat that you thought the outing was a bad thing.
It was.
Monkey, I believe that Cheney is involved in this, as is GW himself, but neither of them can be indicted at the present time. They would have to be "unindicted co-conspirators" or "unindicted accessories after the fact" (the latter is what I think Bush is, for sure; Cheney might be one of the actors in this one), because the Constitution says that the President and Vice President can only be impeached while they're in office, not indicted.
That is the biggest reason, I believe, why Cheney is staying put as VP, because it's protective cover.
What I would like to see is the reaction of the Republican-dominated Congress if the Fitzgerald grand jury does name either Cheney or Bush or both. Will they have the balls to start impeachment? Will the Democrats stand up and demand it?
Oh, and the "seeking yellowcake" story does NOT make up for outing a covert CIA operative in time of war. The latter is a felony, regardless of the rationale for doing it.
hear, dammit it.
Wow, ANOTHER troll that proves Pie's point! Is Pie a simple blogger, or Nostradamus?
Amazing how the trolls avoid the REAL questions.
Excellent call, Pie.
Oat, do you need to change your hearing aid batteries or what? The bullshit about the "yellowcake" came from Chalabi's brother. You remember Chalabi - the Iraqi National Congress guy who was pictured clapping maniacally behind Laura Bush at the State of the Union address? He's now out of favor with the current administration after having his shit ransacked by the CIA.
Save your feigned shock and outrage about this issue for all the innocent people working with the US to fight terrorism who got tortured and killed because Plame was outed.
And next time, do a little research before you embarass yourself in a public forum.
Dumbshit.
Hey IS -
Fuck you. There's a Grand Jury looking at the evidence. It doesn't matter who distances hisself from Wilson. A Grand Jury, my brother. Do you understand the significance?
Let's not forget that Valerie Plame's former front company was Brewster, Jennings & Associates which was associated with Saudi-owned Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO). ARAMCO is the largest oil group in the world with ties to the Bush Administration from Condi Rice (Chevron-Texaco), to Dick Cheney's Haliburton, to the Saudi Royal Family. Now if it is true that the Saudi oil reserves have peaked in production and are now on decline then the Saudi's leverage over the U.S. to cover over the 9/11 disaster for them would diminish greatly. Remember that the POTUS is indebted to the Saudi Royal family going all the way back to the bail out he received while at Harken Energy. So if Valerie Plame's network was on the verge of outing this important fact then both Bush and the Saudi Royal Family had huge stakes in destroying the CIA's intelligence network in Saudi Arabia. So from die-hard supporters of the Bush family and administration it was quite valuable to get Plame and her network outed from Saudi Arabia and to buy themselves several years before the CIA could get back in. For the rest of the U.S. this activity is nothing short of treasonous and hugely dangerous to our strategic decision making for the future. Chew on that.
You think you'd learn. You lionized Wilson for his Bush lied BS, and it turned out he lied. Plame wasn't outed. The investigation is going to come up with the conclusion that is obvious to anyone not looking at it one-sided. The CIA admitted to Novak that she worked there. The CIA does not acknowledge the existence of people who are covert, much less that they work there. Therefore she was not covert, and all anyone did was confirm to Novak when he was doing his background checks that Plame was CIA.
You're going to get embarassed again people. One not familiar with the desperate spinning here would think you'd learn.
"You remember Chalabi - the Iraqi National Congress guy who was pictured clapping maniacally behind Laura Bush at the State of the Union address?"
Chalabi, Chalabi--doesn't ring a bell. I might have met in a rope line once, next to that Lay fella.
Anonymous, talk about spin. Holy cow.
Answer the question. Why was outing her a good thing?
Im with Monkey,this is serious-Nothing,nothing has come out in the press about Valerie Plame,everyone is playing this real close to the vest.Can you smell the fear?After the beating the Bush mandarins gave the CIA over pre 911 intelligence and Iraq WMD,I dont think think it will tolerate exposure of one of its agents.The chimperoo should check his pants,he's waist deep in shit.
Sadly the good thing, for the administration, is that the reporters to whom they leaked have not come forward. As much as I would normally agree with confidentiality of sources, particularly if innocent lives were at risk or if breaching of confidence compromised the truth, in this instance there is no justification for the reporters to have kept quiet about their participation in what was a criminal disclosure of secure information.
It's a win for bush over the press.
aProgressive: Yes, following the oil would be a good idea for the Palme case.
Looking at where the US bases are being built would be another good idea.
I am puzzled by the wingnuts pleasure in taking a partisian report by repuks on the intel committee and ditto for the Britt's admitted false inquriy and making a huge, false claim that Wilson lied.
For crying out loud! Iraq never got the fucking Yellowcake! What a screaming joke. The WH outed a spy and, like everything else they do, refuses responsibility for the crime and the slime.
"Plame wasn't outed."
Okay, that made me laugh.
Slim, check your closest etymological dictionary: "Malicious" comes from the Latin "malus," meaning "evil." I meant the word according to its strongest meaning.
And no doubt, outing a CIA agent is a felony (responsible parties should be punished for this), but Saddam with nuclear capabilities?...Priceless.
Let's not forget that Valerie Plame's former front company was Brewster, Jennings & Associates which was associated with Saudi-owned Arabian American Oil Company (ARAMCO). ARAMCO is the largest oil group in the world with ties to the Bush Administration from Condi Rice (Chevron-Texaco), to Dick Cheney's Haliburton, to the Saudi Royal Family. Now if it is true that the Saudi oil reserves have peaked in production and are now on decline then the Saudi's leverage over the U.S. to cover over the 9/11 disaster for them would diminish greatly. Remember that the POTUS is indebted to the Saudi Royal family going all the way back to the bail out he received while at Harken Energy. So if Valerie Plame's network was on the verge of outing this important fact then both Bush and the Saudi Royal Family had huge stakes in destroying the CIA's intelligence network in Saudi Arabia. So from die-hard supporters of the Bush family and administration it was quite valuable to get Plame and her network outed from Saudi Arabia and to buy themselves several years before the CIA could get back in. For the rest of the U.S. this activity is nothing short of treasonous and hugely dangerous to our strategic decision making for the future. Chew on that.
Interesting to see how desperate some people can get to avoid the facts. There's a grand jury looking at this information. Ashcroft wouldn't have sent the matter out to a prosecutor outside the Justice Department if there weren't a strong likelihood that someone had in fact leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative to Novak.
Still, it is entertaining to see the lengths to which people will go. When the indictments come down, those people will, I'm sure, find a way to spin them, too.
I promise to get more worked up about this if you can convince me that 1) Plame was actually a covert agent at any time in the recent past and 2) that the CIA itself ---never mind those mysterious "senior Administration officials"--- made any sort of effort to conceal her identity. Is it not true that it was the CIA who confirmed to Joshua Marshall that Plame was an employee with the Company? Why would they do that if they believed she had any sort of cover left to be blown?
Wilson outed himself by going public with his little op-ed. When you invite scrutiny as he did, it isn't going to take long for people to connect the dots.
Slim, check your closest etymological dictionary: "Malicious" comes from the Latin "malus," meaning "evil." I meant the word according to its strongest meaning.
"Malicious" is when you say something catty about somebody else's haircut.
We're talking about treason here. TREASON--look that up in your dictionary.
And Saddam had nukes?
No kidding! Where are they?
So, just to get this clear, the current RNC talking point is that Valerie Plame wasn't a covert operative at all, and that the CIA told Novak that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA operative. Oh, and that Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador, "outed" his wife by doing an investigation at Dick Cheney's request, and publishing an op-ed in which he didn't mention his wife's name or job.
As I said, they're getting desperate.
but Saddam with nuclear capabilities?...Priceless.
Ah, an American Express commercial.
Nuclear capabilities.
I have nuclear capabilities. So do you. Did you read the story about that American kid who, several years ago, tried to build a nuclear reactor in his parents' garage?
Nuclear capabilities.
This talking point that the CIA confirmation absolves Novak needs to be squished, it's been popping up all over in the last 48 hours.
1. It's clear that Novak had extraordinary access, and probably didn't go through normal CIA channels. If Sr. Admin officials told him, there's no doubt they had someone friendly at CIA to help Novak out.
2. Before someone at CIA supposedly answered Novak's question, the person who disclosed to Novak was guilty of a crime- even if this point were to exculpate Novak it wouldn't help the sr. admin officials.
Outing her was a "good thing" in the mind of the WH political operatives. They were desperate to discredit Wilson who was/is a major thorn in the side of Dick/Bush.
Unfortunately the operatives were either 1) too fucking stupid to know that outing a covert CIA agent is illegal; 2) were cocky enough to assume that their leak would never point back in their direction
... or both.
And isn't "good thing" a trademarked Marth Stewart phrase?
It's a good thing because it will be the end of W and indictments of several cabinet level officers. I want every indictable member of this misadministration treated to a little prison time, and not at Allenwood.
A good thing for who?
You, me, BushCo, the national interest, Novak, George Tenet, Karl Rove, the Vichy Democrats, who?
It's clearly been a good thing for the trolls and the Republithugs.
Or is this a more general sort of good? As in opposed to bad?
What interests me most is what Lou Wolf over at CovertAction Quarterly thinks of the whole mess. After all, the Protection of Agent Identities law was written specifically with him in mind. But so far, Lou hasn't said.
"You're going to get embarassed again people. One not familiar with the desperate spinning here would think you'd learn."
Anonymous
By all means, the embarassment of Bush's failed leadership is yours. Enjoy.
Toby is working off of some out of date talking points.
Well, you can't blame them, Nora. None of the old spins worked. Hell, might as well try this one, as retarded as it makes them sound.
The indictments will be juicy:
They do the walk
Do the walk of perps
Yeah, they do the walk of perps
And after all the violence and double-talk
There's justice in the trouble and the strife
They do the walk
Do the walk of perps
Yeah, they do the walk of perps
bryguy, your second point is the important one. It didn't matter if someone else confirmed it (and I have no reason to believe that anyone in the CIA did; where's the evidence of that, with a cite?). The Senior Administration Official who told Novak who she was committed a crime the moment he (or she, but I'm thinking it was a he) told Novak that information. Period. The film stops there, and whatever happens afterward is irrelevant.
Iraq had their own yellow cake. Piles of it. Also they could mine the ore right in iraq.
Iraqi offials were contacting many countries about making deals for goods and services around the UN. And it was working.
From someone who knows: Outing Plame was treason. It's illegal. Period. About the yellow cake Saddam himself said when captured: If I had them (WMDs) don't you think I would have used them? He didn't use them why? Because he's a nice guy? He was worried about how it would affect his people/country? I thought he was a murderous dictator. Tony Blair said Saddam could deliver the weapons in 45 minutes. Didn't the British give us our intelligence on this? Oh wait, it was the Russians. If that's true why would Putin vote against a resolution to go to war? Either Putin lied or wanted us to be destroyed. But he's our "good friend". Next.
Im with Monkey,this is serious-Nothing,nothing has come out in the press about Valerie Plame,everyone is playing this real close to the vest.Can you smell the fear?After the beating the Bush mandarins gave the CIA over pre 911 intelligence and Iraq WMD,I dont think think it will tolerate exposure of one of its agents.The chimperoo should check his pants,he's waist deep in shit.
Nora:
Ashcroft wouldn't have sent the matter out to a prosecutor outside the Justice Department if there weren't a strong likelihood that someone had in fact leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative to Novak.
Ahh, this would be one of the times when Ashcroft becomes competent and principled. Thanks for the update.
shawk,
We're building bases in Iraq, and the Caucasus', and Africa. So are you insinuating that the strategic objective here is to colonize *all* major oil reserves globally over the next decade to assure U.S. financial dominance over our only major economic competitors for the next quarter century? I haven't really pulled this all together yet. But it certainly seems to appear that this is going to be the game for this crowd.
Ahh, this would be one of the times when Ashcroft becomes competent and principled. Thanks for the update.
Not quite, Toby. It's the one time the seriousness of the situation and the ensuing general outrage required Crisco Johnny to do what he should have done on his own.
Big difference.
I don't believe I ever said that Ashcroft was either competent or principled. You quoted my exact words, but to make it clearer, he tried to hedge and keep this in-house as long as he possibly could, but finally even Ashcroft realized that he wasn't going to keep the lid on this. He did the referral last December, if I recall correctly; you could look it up and see what the rationale was.
Ahh, this would be one of the times when Ashcroft becomes competent and principled. Thanks for the update.
No... he just knows how to read tea leaves and wasn't going to get sucked into the coverup.
And no doubt, outing a CIA agent is a felony (responsible parties should be punished for this), but Saddam with nuclear capabilities?...Priceless.
Saddam? Oh yeah, I remember him. The guy who had weapons of mass destruction program-related activities. A few pieces of metal buried under a rose bush. Uranium under IAEA seal. Sanctions. No Fly Zones. And no fucking WMD that we've been able to find.
Well worth destroying the cover of a covert agent who was, oddly enough, responsible for dealing with WMD proliferation.
I promise to get more worked up about this if you can convince me that 1) Plame was actually a covert agent at any time in the recent past
You mean all the stuff in the public record isn't proof enough? Then you are a putz, Toby.
Wilson outed himself by going public with his little op-ed.
Huh, turns out he wasn't the covert op, so he didn't "out himself". Sharp as a frog's tooth, that Toby.
Crisco Johnny is pretty smart though, diverting those 300 agents to find hookers in New Orleans while those terrorists plotted and eventually crashed planes into those towers.
Pretty crafty guy, our Crisco Johnny.
besides irag already had 500 tons of yellowcake on hand
Plames' outing was payback for the Niger forgery sting. Developing.
I have nuclear capabilities.
So do I? Just go to How Stuff Works. God bless the Internet. Please don't tell Asscroft that I have a working nuclear munition in my basement--I had to scrape the luminous material off 10,000,000,000 watch faces to get the critical mass, just like Oliver Wendell Jones in Bloom County.
We should really really blame the Dem senators on the Intel Committee for the current flap over Wilson. The polemic that the repub senators have come up with was not from the full committee report. Three repub senators (Roberts, Hatch and someone else) put out an appendix accusing Wilson and his wife.
If the Dems were smart, they could have done the same thing - put out an appendix rebutting the other appendix.
That would have ended the matter. But now Wilson has to play catch up to defend himself. This is not substance, just PR. But in Washington that's what counts. Rockefeller messed up on this.
"besides irag already had 500 tons of yellowcake on hand
flurdman"
Yeah wasn't that the stuff we didn't guard after we took over the place. where when we qctually checked it out found that the empty barrels were being used by iraqis for a number of thing including water collection.
that yellocake?
Have you seen Joe Wilson's letter to the editor in today's Washingtonpost.com?
sorry!
http://tinyurl.com/582d4
Pie,
If I have nuclear capabilities and you do too, then I guess al Qaeda has nuclear capabilities as well. What's holding them back? Their civility and love for humanity?
Perhaps, I should have said weaponized nuclear capabilities (it seems context really poses challenges for some folks around here). Point being: maybe acquiring nuclear capabilities isn't as easy as your post suggests.
I remember when the CIA was not thought to be a good entity. That would make it a good thing to expose them.
http://tinyurl.com/47erc
"This page isn't about how naughty it is to expose spies. A spy is someone who deceives friends and enemies alike, and breaks the laws of other nations, in order to further the interests of those who are already too powerful. These powerful people are elitist politicians, and the corporations and financial interests behind them. U.S. spies have a sordid history of overthrowing governments, including democratic governments such as Greece in 1967 and Chile in 1973. Many of the non-democratic governments they've overthrown, or tried to overthrow, were doing a better job of providing for their people than the governments preferred by the CIA. Our media's spin machine -- itself guilty of too cozy a relationship with intelligence agencies -- would have us believe that spies put their lives in danger for the rest of us. That's not true. Being a U.S. spy is safer than working in a coal mine.* They need secrecy because this is how they avoid accountability. Speaking of feeling safe, everyone in the world would sleep easier at night if we dismantled the CIA entirely."
"But having said that, seeking yellow-cake uranium trumps Plame every time."
Pretty damned childish statement, Oat.
Breaking a law trumps not breaking a law every time....
Let's get this straight: Plame wasn't outed to stop the purchase of yellowcake to Iraq... So outing her didn't "trump" yellowcake.
the issue of the yellowcake is not related to the illegal outing of Plame.
A.
Nora:
Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador, "outed" his wife by doing an investigation at Dick Cheney's request.
This is from the Washington Post, 12 June 2003 (emphases mine):
The CIA's decision to send an emissary to Niger was triggered by questions raised by an aide to Vice President Cheney during an agency briefing on intelligence circulating about the purported Iraqi efforts to acquire the uranium, according to the senior officials. Cheney's staff was not told at the time that its concerns had been the impetus for a CIA mission and did not learn it occurred or its specific results.
Cheney and his staff continued to get intelligence on the matter, but the vice president, unlike other senior administration officials, never mentioned it in a public speech. He and his staff did not learn of its role in spurring the mission until it was disclosed by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof on May 6, according to an administration official.
I don't know if this information is still valid, but the point is that Cheney did not request such a trip and certainly didn't request it from Wilson personally.
Again, if the press was able to confirm Plame's employment with the CIA, just how important was it to them to conceal her identity?
1. It's clear that Novak had extraordinary access, and probably didn't go through normal CIA channels. If Sr. Admin officials told him, there's no doubt they had someone friendly at CIA to help Novak out.
2. Before someone at CIA supposedly answered Novak's question, the person who disclosed to Novak was guilty of a crime- even if this point were to exculpate Novak it wouldn't help the sr. admin officials.
I am a little confused. If Valerie Plame wasn't a covert operative at the time of her outing is there still a crime involved? I reread the posts with this point in mind and am not seeing a clear answer. Is it AT ALL possible the Bushies will succeed in wiggling out of this or is the Plame Affair certain to result in convictions? At least judging by the troll backlash on Wilson the answer is clear: end of this admin.
Toby
You forgot to say Abra Cadabra at the end again.
La Lurka, is that John Kerry you're quoting? He once vowed to gut the CIA. And spent his whole Senatorial career trying to do it.
Perhaps, I should have said weaponized nuclear capabilities
Where's Ian Fleming?
And Bond. James Bond.
Just like a troll to concentrate on one detail and miss the point.
There is no logical way to say that Wilson's going on that trip was an act of "outing" his wife.
Re: Yellowcake
I have a 3000 lb. block of iron and a welder.
I'm going to build a Maserati in my garage.
It'll be so f'n kool.
Cheney tried to Cheney the wrong people. Novak used to be my bitch but I can't control him from the grave.
"Perhaps, I should have said weaponized nuclear capabilities (it seems context really poses challenges for some folks around here). Point being: maybe acquiring nuclear capabilities isn't as easy as your post suggests."
Where are they, Oat? Where are Saddam's nukes?
Valerie Plame wasn't a covert operative at all. - and Patrick J. Fitzgerald isn't the United States attorney in Chicago, who didn't interview VP Cheney about said events, and for which Pres. Bush didn't hire James Sharp, the same attorney Kenny-Boy Lay didn't hire for his non-crimes. Sounds like the full employment act for "Trial Lawyers" is being put in effect by the BushCo. Do they really hate them lawyers when they're all "lawyered up"?
Of the CIA, Joe Klein wrote on June 26:
"...there is intense anger over the White House's revealing the identity of Plame, who may have been active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components."
http://www.time.com/time/
columni...,658285,00.html
Haven't there been reports recently of a US company supplying nuclear components to someone that the US is on record as not wanting to have them? Maybe the company involved would reflect poorly on the administration.
Anyway, the fallout from blowing her cover has no visible upside for the bushies other than the *continuing* smoke-and-mirrors attempt to discredit a critic.
By the way, it's as stupid as Joe Wilson is to suppose that his wife had nothing to do with sending him on an intelligence investigation mission to Niger. Are you people that much in the tank for Wilson (who is, as far as I know, still an advisor on Kerry's staff) that you believe that nonsense?
Of course his wife got him the assignment! Pull your heads out of your Ted Kennedys for half a minute and think.
It's helpful to channel what the enemy has been thinking.
Last July, whoever outed Plame was looking to discredit Wilson AND the CIA. To a sexist mind, showing that the CIA had used Wilson's wife to recommend him for the job was not only demeaning to Wilson, but to the CIA. It showed how (insert feminine pejorative here)-like the CIA had become. How is it unpatriotic to out a CIA agent when the agency is not operating in the national interest in helping the Office Of Special Plans justify the war?
Let's channel how they are thinking now.
He once vowed to gut the CIA. And spent his whole Senatorial career trying to do it.
Link, please. Actual quoted words, not taken out of context, which he said in the last five years.
maybe acquiring nuclear capabilities isn't as easy as your post suggests.
And maybe Iraq's acquiring nuclear capabilities isn't as easy as BushCo suggested.
Fitzgerald spent SEVENTY minutes with Bush alone.
Seventy minutes with the POTUS, who's locked in a desperate battle for re-election.
But I guess it's nothing serious. I guess that proves Plame wasn't really "outed."
Heh.
Mebbe it's time for a TPM flashback. Scroll past the first post about the boy king's 2005 budget, then take yourself back to the week during which AG Savonarola recused himself from the Plame investigation.
Hey pie
I think what goes unnoticed by many is how mysoginistic the Bushies are. Despite surrounding himself with strong women (Hughes and Rice) Bush has never demurred at striking out at women outside traditional roles. If Wilson was such a loser, why not go after him directly ala Scott Ritter. the 411 is that the SSCI will enable Fitzgerald not to file criminal charges despite Plame being outed.
And don't forget the interesting coincidence of timing, which Monkey referred to upstream: Tenet testified before the grand jury and then resigned, apparently unexpectedly, and immediately Bush hired a private criminal defense attorney.
Of course his wife got him the assignment! Pull your heads out of your Ted Kennedys for half a minute and think.
Wow, that's amazing that a NOC has the power to make the decision to send a career diplomat at the request of the Vice President of the United States. Pull your head out of your Bush for half a femtosecond and think.
Again, Pie is right. Toby and the other trolls are focused on the "Wilson's wife recommended him" line of crap.
BushCo outed a CIA agent. Bush's own father called this the most egregious offense he could think of.
And they're quibbling over what "recommended" means.
Why do these trolls hate America?
But, Nora, you still haven't answered the question: why did the CIA itself confirm to several different reporters that Plame was an employee? They're going to out their own spooks? Doesn't sound very responsible.
...it's as stupid as Joe Wilson is to suppose that his wife had nothing to do with sending him on an intelligence investigation mission to Niger.
Toby, my darling, even if that were true, what does it have to do with the price of eggs?
What was outing Plame a good thing?
Fitzgerald has nothing better to do. He was bored and just happened to have access to Pinocchio and Gepeto.
Why. Damn.
Why was outing Plame a good thing?
Femtosecond? Cool. I shouldn't have let my subscription to Scientific American run out.
aProgressive: Peak Oil is the driving force behind current events.
As energy supplies are exhausted, an authoritarian approach will become necessary to maintain some form of civil society. This may account for some of the current authoritarian domestic policies.
By positioning military forces in the Middle Eastern oil fields, the US can ensure that oil flows to the US at the expense of other countries. This may account for some of the current authoritarian military policies.
It is useful to consider who could benefit from selective international economic failure.
It is also useful to observe the actions of those who could benefit.
Thanks, monicanyc, for the link; brought it all back.
I'm sure it seemed like a good idea at the time, sorta like the horse's head in the bed in The Godfather playbook.
"Because it smears Bush's enemies, which defends our Preznit, who is the embodiment of Murika."
NTodd
That is really what pisses me off. People who think that the President is the embodiment of America really have no clue about America do they?
I have friends who are Vets like me, and the other day I was arguing with one of them. I reminded him that the oath we swore was to the constitution, NOT THE PRESIDENT. He said, yeah, but within reason. WTF does that mean?
I'm so tired of all the cult of personality shit around the President.
Sure the President is due a certain amount of respect, but when they go around lying to Congress, starting wars, and commiting treason to cover it up, there is no respect due. I just don't get why otherwise intelligent people can't see what's right in front of their faces.
There is simply NO EXCUSE for the pResident to commit treason, either directly or through omission. And that's exactly what this is about.
Cheers 
The Senate report was suppose to do two things.
1 - Provide a bipartisan cover to make the buck stop with the CIA concerning the intellince that led up to the war.
2 - Muddy up the waters for the upcoming indictments in the Plame affair by trashing Wilson AS WELL as muck up the "sixteen words in the state of the union" issue. It was 3 GOP senators who were responsible for that and they are using the "bipartisan" image of the report as a cover.
Pie, if Plame was no longer a NOC, then what difference does it make whether she was "outed"?
How many dozens of former CIA NOCs have you seen in documentaries and news items over the years? At some point, apparently, the degree of secrecy is lessened.
the 411 is that the SSCI will enable Fitzgerald not to file criminal charges despite Plame being outed.
How so?
Seems that Ms. Plame WAS outed, else no one would be investigating the outing of an NOC, enough to summon a grand jury.
DUH. Why go to all that trouble for someone who wasn't NOC?
Sheesh, I have an IQ of 68, and I can puzzle that one out.
*sigh* Hopefully when the Boss gets back he'll clean up this place a little... it sure is starting to stink.
Please.
Don't feed the trolls.
Toby, who asked the Justice Dept. for the investigation into the outing?
Why was Ashcroft kicked aside and Fitzgerald appointed?
I am a little confused. If Valerie Plame wasn't a covert operative at the time of her outing is there still a crime involved? I reread the posts with this point in mind and am not seeing a clear answer. Is it AT ALL possible the Bushies will succeed in wiggling out of this or is the Plame Affair certain to result in convictions? At least judging by the troll backlash on Wilson the answer is clear: end of this admin.
The 2000 election was a far right coup. CIA folks know one when they see one. Some of these folks don't like it at all. Not at all. Not in our house.
MIster X, we're making some progress here. Join in.
The 411 is that people who use that term have little credibility.
Developing...
Pie, if Plame was no longer a NOC, then what difference does it make whether she was "outed"?
Man, they really can't answer you, Pie.
Also, they're pretty dumb.
With both houses in Washington being controlled by the Republicans there isn't anyone to bring charges of treason about.
And with Democrats being nothing more than a watered down version of todays Republicans do we really expect any of them will call another on crimes of indescretion.
[Kerry] once vowed to gut the CIA. And spent his whole Senatorial career trying to do it.
Link, please. Actual quoted words, not taken out of context, which he said in the last five years.
Pie, go check out the most recent post at the Kerry Spot at the National Review Online. Or, you can check out my latest blog entry.
It's not an original document, of course, but NRO has a good reputation among Rethuglikkkans.
if Plame
IF.
Pie, go check out the most recent post at the Kerry Spot at the National Review Online. Or, you can check out my latest blog entry.
Sweetie, I need a better source than that. Sorry.
Find me the quote from an objective source. You know how word games are played.
The point is that it's not an IF. The whole thing would have been laughed out of any court within two seconds if Plame hadn't been NOC. Period. So, logically, she was an NOC.
Now why was it a good thing to out her? How did it better our national security interests to out her?
We're still waiting for an answer.
One more thing, since some of us seem to be obsessed with yellowcake. On McGlauglin Group tonight, Johnny makes the point that of the 3 axis of evil Iraq was the only one who didn't have nukes. In fact it was Iran purchased 500 tons of yellowcake recently not Iraq. They also make the point that every US move in the Gulf has made Irn stronger, especially with the removal of secular Saddam and a Shi'a lead Iraq...
Petzoid - Sure, someretired, no longer active, intelligence agents give interviews and no longer keep their actual past profession a secret. The operative words in that sentence about operatives are "retired," and "no longer active." Plame was active and employed. Her outing was not voluntary. Do I need to go slower and break down into simpler sentences for you?
Can someone explain why *outing* Plame was a good thing?
Wasn't the CIA "confirmation" of Plame in the form of Novak seeking confirmation and being asked not to write the story. This sounds like an organization trying to protect a covert agent (after all - any type of press speculation blows her coverage). The current right wing talking point makes it sound as if they were out shopping her name to the press.
I am de-lighted to see that the Atrios subbers, as lifeless and fabulously idiotic as they are, have finally taken note of the "trolls" in the posts.
The winds of change are a-blowin' . . .
I am a little confused. If Valerie Plame wasn't a covert operative at the time of her outing is there still a crime involved? I reread the posts with this point in mind and am not seeing a clear answer.
Well, IS she an operative? I guess it depends on what your meaning of the word "is" is.
Thank god it's only national security, and no one got a blow job.
Can someone explain why *outing* Plame was a good thing?
The Bushist answer is... and it has to be... that the Iraq war was such an incredibly brilliant strategic move, and Wilson posed such a threat to it coming off, that the outing of Plame was justified by the degree to which it damaged Wilson's crediblity and thus the threat he posed to the Iraq policy.
The real answer is: because it will be the coup de grace that will finish off the Bushists.
Pie, I commend you. You finally found the "soundbite" (for all the people who can't think beyond them) that can keep attention focused on this horrible, treasonous act.
Why was it a good thing to out an NOC? WHY?
I am a little confused. If Valerie Plame wasn't a covert operative at the time of her outing is there still a crime involved?
Yes.
A covert operative does not suddenly stop being covert at any point. Think about it. It's not like a spy comes home and then all of a sudden sticks her tongue out at the people she was spying on and says "neener-neener, fooled you!" The cover needs to be maintained, not least so whatever contacts she had aren't compromised.
Anyhoo, she was outed, there is simply no question about it. What we do not know is if enough evidence exists to bring indictments against any particular indivudual(s). (The occurence of a crime does not mean that someone can go to jail for it. Someone has to be caught. What we will find out is if the stonewall was successful: that's it.)
(No snideness aimed at gg, BTW, who asks a reasonable question. Toby Petzold should suck tailpipe, though, 'cuz he's a dick.)
I am a little confused. If Valerie Plame wasn't a covert operative at the time of her outing is there still a crime involved? I reread the posts with this point in mind and am not seeing a clear answer. Is it AT ALL possible the Bushies will succeed in wiggling out of this or is the Plame Affair certain to result in convictions? At least judging by the troll backlash on Wilson the answer is clear: end of this admin.
gg, the answer is NO. if you really expected that any of your cohorts was capable of iterating this simple word in response to your question then you must be new to this place. any fact that doesn't fit the script has to be discarded, overlooked, not mentioned, distorted, whatever...it is only important to answer a direct question if the question is asked of a troll by a leftkook, otherwise direct answers to direct questions are forbidden here. i hope i have been of service.
...have finally taken note of the "trolls" in the posts.
Answer the question, David.
I'm going to play that 'it's five years later' game. Assume we have the story right. People actually get sentenced for this. Novak is relieved of all pundit duties, print and broadcast. Valerie has recovered with a teaching job at GWU.
With the benefit of hindsight, what are we going to say about the decision that led to Plame being outed? Did [insert favorite suspect] not know she was covert? Or did they know, but think they'd get away with it?
I ask this because this is the most blatant presidential howler I've ever witnessed. It boggles the mind. We've all moved on to the next step, catching the fish now that it's out of the water, without knowing why it jumped in the first place.
"Toby Petzold should suck tailpipe, though, 'cuz he's a dick."
Truer words have never been spoken. Glad (but not surprised) to see that our side can keep fact and snark in abundant measure.
Answer the question, election thief.
I'll say it again--the trolls' presence in here is a GREAT thing. Their activity is positively correlated to their anxiety level. Clearly the Plame outing terrifies them--as does the fact that none of their ridiculous "spins" on the outing will fly in here.
So I welcome you, dear David Patterson, dear Toby, dear Thug, and others. Thank you, thank you, thank you. You encourage us to keep fighting the good fight.
The winds of change are a-blowin' . . .
David Patterson is a-blowin'. Goats, typically.
I want an answer: How did it serve our national security interests to out an NOC, during a time of WAR, no less? How? Explain it.
Pie, to demand someone answer whether outing Plame was a good thing when she was never outed in my opinion or until it has been proven to my satisfaction that she was outed is a specious question. By the way, all it would take to prove this to my satisfaction is the report of the ongoing investigation saying she was. It won't, but if it does, then my opinion will be altered accordingly. I can wait until it's proven one way or the other whether she was outed. You should wait until then before asking your fool's question. It took a year and finally Wilson was shown to have lied to his country and governement about what he heard in Niger. That is no small thing. Why not let the investigation into the Plame matter work through before assuming the answer?
Some other person above says in effect, that since Ashcroft called for an investigation into the charges, they must be true. Not in this country. Investigations are to determine whether there was wrongdoing and culpability if it is shown that there was.
Another person vehemently declares:
"From someone who knows: Outing Plame was treason. It's illegal. Period."
Again the assumption that she was outed. Most of the background for the accusation that the White House outed her comes from the assertions of Joe Wilson. Joe is himself now outed as a liar who deceived his country (publically at least) on what he learned in Africa and if his story had been believed could have by a very thin stretch put his country in danger. Novak confirmed what he was told. Wilson is the one who then pointed his finger at the White House and made the accusation.
Very clearly and slowly - Wilson lied from start to finish in this affair. The accusation that the White House outed his wife is interwoven closely with the rest of his story. Assuming that this one last question awaiting firm closure one way or the other will show that, in this one instance, he told the truth, is assinine.
Pie, find another windmill to tilt against. This one is going to fall right over on you. I do take back the part about you or any of the other usual suspects here being embarrassed over this eventually. You'll just forget all about it, claim that the investigation that shows no outing was to be had actually shows differently, or claim that the investigation was a fraud. However you bury or explain it away, you'll move on to some new fool's bait.
"Sen. John Kerry on Friday faulted President Bush for intelligence failures in Iraq, called for doubling the size of the CIA's clandestine service and said that as president he would hit terrorists pre-emptively depending on the ``legitimacy and sufficiency'' of the threat."
http://tinyurl.com/5ww7k
????? Is he trying to get me to swing to Nader?
Slim:
I'll say it again--the trolls' presence in here is a GREAT thing. Their activity is positively correlated to their anxiety level.
Well, in my case, it's more a matter of my boredom level.
Sure better than anything on the TV.
...demand someone answer whether outing Plame was a good thing when she was never outed in my opinion
In YOUR OPINION?
Unfuckingbelievable.
You twit.
Dear God, please delete this message instantly if you exist. (Thanks in advance) Otherwise, anyone reading this message may be assured that there is no God.
There, I defused the theocratic pod people, your government should return to normal momentarily...
direct answers to direct questions are forbidden here.
Gee, stupid, and I answered "yes."
Now fuck off Mishit, or you Mishit wannabee.
I abjure thee.
"Wilson lied from start to finish in this affair."
Once again, you attempt to distort the arguement by attacking personalities. Yes, just like Anita Hill. We remember, fuck face.
It's all coming down to who tells the truth and who doesn't, and we remember. Unlike with Anita Hill, though, you assholes have a body count to answer for now.
You're fucked.
Wilson lied from start to finish in this affair. The accusation that the White House outed his wife is interwoven closely with the rest of his story.
Uh... I think he's trying to say the outing might never have happened at all, actually! And we know this because we can't believe Wilson!
That Novak article? Never happened, old sport! See how simple it is now?
Pie:
Toby, who asked the Justice Dept. for the investigation into the outing?
I don't know.
Why was Ashcroft kicked aside and Fitzgerald appointed?
I thought A$kkkrapft recused himself.
Answer the question, election thief.
What, are you channeling Corrine Brown?
Nice try, Anonymous.
If Plame weren't an outed NOC, the legal machinery wouldn't have been fired up at all. What would be the point? You know this, and all your slick dancing to the contrary cannot negate it.
Why is it a good thing to out an NOC in time of war? Answer the question.
Well, in my case, it's more a matter of my boredom level.
hahahhahaahhaahhaa
Shorter Toby: "I troll because I ain't gettin' any."
Anonymous:
I do take back the part about you or any of the other usual suspects here being embarrassed over this eventually. You'll just forget all about it, claim that the investigation that shows no outing was to be had actually shows differently, or claim that the investigation was a fraud.
True dat.
Part of Novak's explanation:
In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives'...
Plame, as best we can tell from Wilson's writing on the matter, was a CIA employee whose anonymity and undercover identity was at the very heart of her job.
If confidentiality and stealth were so vital to her work then why would she help her husband, a high-ranking former senior Clinton administration official, obtain a very public investigatory role on a matter that is in her domain at the CIA (both in terms of subject matter and region or country), the results of which were certain to become public in due course?
How could either of them have a reasonable expectation that such provocative professional and private intersections would remain “top secret”?
If Wilson didn’t want anyone to know what his wife did, if her life hung on a thread of extreme secrecy, he was insane to have sought or accepted a public investigatory assignment. And his wife was crazy to have let him do it.
It also bears reminding over and over that the U.K. stands by its earlier findings that there were individuals in Niger seeking at least information on uranium on behalf of Iraq; this is entirely reasonable since Iraq had prior relationships with the country on the same matters dating back at least 20 years.
Answer the question, election thief.
pie
no, i don't think it was a good thing.
gov officials that play like that are scum and they are everywhere on both sides unfortunately. however, i still don't think bush lied to get us into the war. he pressed his case as vigorously as possible with what he had and thought was true. i was glad to see hussein go and obviously cut bush a lot more slack than you guys but so what? i wish iraq had more support but i supported it at the time so i won't cry now that it is not a shining success. in 5yrs time i hope we see things differently. i believe it is possible that the iraqis will build themselves a strong country and lord knows they deserve it.
"What, are you channeling Corrine Brown?"
What, are you channeling the Richard Nixon/Ollie North/Ronald Reagan/George HW Bush/George W Bush?
(I'll let you have Ford and Eisenhower, BTW - decent men though I disagreed with them.)
It is amazing how so many on the right cannot answer a simple question. Their answers seem to follow the Chewbacca defense from South Park. Instead of getting a straight answer, we get unsubstantiated accusations of "Wilson lied", "Iraq had nuclear capabilities", "the CIA outed her", and the new one "Plame wasn't covert". If Plame was not covert, why is there an investigation into who outed a COVERT agent.
Forget the spin, why was outing Plame a good thing?
It took a year and finally Wilson was shown to have lied to his country and governement about what he heard in Niger. That is no small thing.
No, that is no true thing. The veracity of his actual report has not been called into question.
You really have not the slightest idea what you are talking about...
Dumbass.
Let's see
I own the media. I control all three branches of government. The congress is cowed and silent. The American people are busy watching American Idol. Who Dat?
Monica
One analysis of the dust up over whether Wilson was not entirely correct when he said his wife played no role in his assignment. Whoever outed her did so only as a point of information and not to deliberately blow her cover.Apparently the law says the person has o knowingly disclose. As others have noted here it is only to muddy the waters.
Pie.
It was a good thing because it opened the door to questionig pre war assertions by an administration that was desperate enough to do this.
Toby, who asked the Justice Dept. for the investigation into the outing?
I don't know.
Why was Ashcroft kicked aside and Fitzgerald appointed?
I thought A$kkkrapft recused himself.
Answer the question, election thief.
What, are you channeling Corrine Brown?
Jeebus, research the answers to the first two questions (you were right about #2, but why did Asscroft recuse himself?).
As for election thief, he's a poster. Didn't know that?
What happened?
Did weirdville break down again?
def:
Shorter Toby: "I troll because I ain't gettin' any."
Right. I often engage strangers in political discussions to sate my sexual urges.
What a fuckin' perv.
anyone arguing that plame wasnt "covert" might want to take a quick gander at the relevant statute.
The term ''covert agent'' means -
(A)
a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency -
(i)
whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii)
who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States;
anyone arguing that plame wasnt "covert" might want to take a quick gander at the relevant statute.
The term ''covert agent'' means -
(A)
a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency -
(i)
whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii)
who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States;
Oh. I thought you were calling me an election thief.
Uh, Ashcroft recused himself to be above any appearance of bias. Can't imagine how much worse it could be if he hadn't.
And the answer to the first question might be the President. But I'll have to go look.
What a fuckin' perv.'
True. We should all be paragons of Republican viture, like Jack Ryan. LOL!
The term ''covert agent'' means -
(A)
a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency -
(i)
whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii)
who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States;
simple question: are these things true of valerie plame?
Patterson is a moron.
There are far too many distortions in his last post to list.
For starters, though, why doesn't he check out who appointed Wilson to Iraq.
How could either of them have a reasonable expectation that such provocative professional and private intersections would remain “top secret”?
Because, you fucking idiot, this was supposed to be a purely internal governmental matter. This was not, and should not, have been politically controversial at all. Had the president not made the idiotic decision to rely exclusively upon a foreign intelligence service's claim based on evidence he had not seen as a cause for war (and who could ever have conceived of such a ludicrous scenario?), this would never have fucking came up at all.
Now go blow a goat, dipshit.
Wilson, the erstwhile publicity glutton who has disappeared from public view
i believe he'll be appearing on the NewsHour on Monday. Nice try, though.
Oh, who am I kidding; it wasn't a nice try.
simple question: are these things true of valerie plame?
Yes.
electionthief, wow, thank you for that answer.
That's the first real thing I've ever seen you post.
anyone arguing that plame wasnt "covert" might want to take a quick gander at the relevant statute.
I'm sure the prosecutor who promted Junior to retain Ken Lay's attorney is familiar with the law.
I'm wondering when Joe Wilson surrendered his rights to speak up as an American citizen when he believed something to be wrong. He didn't cede that right, no matter who his wife is.
So why was outing a covert operative a good thing?
That little bitch Novak knew excactly what he meant when he referred to the no doubt lovely and patriotic Ms. Plame as an operative. I schooled him on this. Were do you think he got the teeth? But what really chaps my corpse is that now Dick god help us Cheney is his pimp. The sclerotic hag. And they used to call me the Blond Ghost. Good luck my babies.
"We will fuck him. Do you hear me? We will fuck him. We will ruin him. Like no one has ever fucked him!"
Yeah, boy.
Frogmarch.
Now go blow a goat, dipshit.
Thersites
emblematic of the level of discourse on this blog. sad.
Are we feeding trolls now?
So why was outing a covert operative a good thing?
Because you think her husband is a dick? Because he's "with you or against you"? Because you think no one should speak ill of the "president"? Because.....
electionthief, you're to blame for your treatment on this blog.
Toby, pie
The referral to the Justice Department was done as a matter of procedure by the CIA, presumably Geo. Tenet. They supposedly encounter this several times a year, one of the most infamous ones being the naming Mike Spann after his death in Afghanistan. Someone obviously has made the calculation that outing CIA coverts for political reasons is a good thing
electionthief, you're mostly to blame, I should say.
Your choice of names is hardly endearing...
First 'Anonymous' says (A):
"I can wait until it's proven one way or the other whether she was outed."
Then he says (B):
"Pie, find another windmill to tilt against. This one is going to fall right over on you."
And now I'm kinda confused. Are you going to wait, as in (A) above, or are you going to form your conclusions early, as in (B)?
On a completely unrelated matter, the question of who recommended Joe Wilson is about as important to me--and to the case--as whether he reported what color boxers he packed for the trip.
Are we feeding trolls now?
Only on this thread.
This might actually be similar to the "Fly-Paper" theory in Iraq: Put up one troll bait thread that directly challenges them and hopefully they get stuck there for the duration of their time at Eschaton.
electionthief, wow, thank you for that answer.
That's the first real thing I've ever seen you post.
pie
well, i saw so many posters like thersites that i tried my best to fit into that. it can be fun in a mindless way. truth is, i identify a little more with the republicans but don't really feel the need to defend them. so bush is the least qualified president in the country's history? i won't make the mistake of voting for him again. however, i can't see myself voting for kerry. i won't totally discount it and if bush put condi on the ticket i would vote for bush. otherwise i may vote nader just to piss you guys off.
Bill Owens is our current joke
We ask "Where's Bill?" at least 3 times a week
because he is never here in COlorado
minding his business
he's running for something but we don't know what yet
We can't get Bush or Cheney till they lose the election, but I'm starting a pool now:
When Rove is perp-walked out of the White House for outing Plame, will he:
A. Be crying like a baby
B. Have his silver Member's Only jacket pulled over his face, to hide his loathesome identity
C. Shit in his pants
D. All of the above
Make your choices now, before the good ones are gone!
According to this article from the Harvard Crimson, John Kerry is quoted from an interview he gave to them on 13 February 1970, when he was running for Congress, as saying:
"I’m an internationalist," Kerry told The Crimson in 1970. "I’d like to see our troops dispersed through the world only at the directive of the United Nations."
Kerry said he wanted "to almost eliminate CIA activity. The CIA is fighting its own war in Laos and nobody seems to care.
Thank goodness that what was said in 1970 is no longer relevant.
When Rove is perp-walked out of the White House for outing Plame, will he:
E) Be pardoned on January 20, 2005 by the exiting President.
Jeezus Toby... still fighting the Vietnam war, are we? You obviously were sperm and an egg back then.
Thanks, Goat. So it was Tenet who requested DOJ to look into it. As a routine matter. Okay.
It's amazing the amount of fog that's been generated. Whether Wilson lied or not is completely immaterial. If someone lies about his job, do you get to steal his car? Legally, he has NOTHING TO DO WITH THIS CASE.
Second, there is no confusion about whether leaking this information was illegal, if she was "still a covert operative" or "not practicing" or other crap. Information is classified or it is not. If you have a clearance, you don't get to decide whether something's really, truly classified or not. It's written in big red letters on every damn page of the document you're reading. You know it's classified. You know the rules for dissemination.
Somebody deliberately leaked highly classified information about NOC identity to Bob Novak. This is a criminal offense. We just need to know who. What's so difficult to understand?
Thank goodness that what was said [by Kerry] in 1970 is no longer relevant.
What was said by GWB in 1970? "uuuurgghh,, show me your tits!...yes dear, have an abortion...Dad, help!...Officer I only had two beers (to be fair, GWB's DUI was in '76).
But having said that, seeking yellow-cake uranium trumps Plame every time.
Oat
Nope. Thanks for playing.
For the last time- Iraq already had tons of their own yellow cake and their own mine. They didn't need to buy it from Niger. What they didn't have was the capability to refine it.
That doesn't trump burning a NOC and each and every operative or contact that she touched in the past 20 years.
BTW, many of those operatives are likely dead. But who cares? certainly not the traitors in the WH who are more worried about chimpy being embarrassed than our national security or the proliferation of WMDs.
Our man in Iraq
http://iraqwar.mirror-world.ru/
t...articleId=15262
Toby, man, it's about the vicious outing of Plame, baby. Not what Kerry said in 1970.
Get hip with the program, cat.
According to this article from the Harvard Crimson,.....
WTF does that have to do with The Outing Of A CIA Agent That Specialized In Weapons Of Mass Destruction Proliferation?
Wow. A quote from nearly a quarter century ago, concerning a highly illegal engagement that was hidden from the American people until it got too big to cover anymore. That's your evidence that Kerry's tried to gut the CIA his entire career? Man, you might as well have linked that photo of Kerry "sharing" a stage with Jane Fonda. Yeesh.
def:
Jeezus Toby... still fighting the Vietnam war, are we? You obviously were sperm and an egg back then.
Old enough to have drawn helicopters and explosions on the flyleaves of my folks' encyclopaedias.
And with crayons!
Toby, man, your head's in a bad place. Focus on the brass ring, baby--somebody in the White House outed a CIA agent, man.
Ain't very groovy at all, cat.
Eyes on the prize everyone...indictments soon!! Let the trolls wallow in the excrement under the bridge.
BTW, many of those operatives are likely dead. But who cares?
fourlegsgood
noone on this blog i'm sure.
Aaaah yes, the crimson. Natty little mag that:
Former HBS Prof Blasts Bush
Business scholar says president was 'shallow,' 'flippant' in 1970s class
http://www.thecrimson.com/articl...aspx?
ref=503181
def:
This might actually be similar to the "Fly-Paper" theory in Iraq: Put up one troll bait thread that directly challenges them and hopefully they get stuck there for the duration of their time at Eschaton.
Right. That way, y'alls circle-jerks elsewhere can go unabated.
The real answer is that this thread is of some dire import to certain somebodies.
emblematic of the level of discourse on this blog. sad.
Emblematic of the fact that you're an asshole troll: the "now I'll pretend to be the reasonable one" is in fact basic troll. You've just admitted to deliberate trolling and now you want to act like you're Saint Prissypuss Civilitypants of Happy Discourseland. Standard: you've just been fucked up on the facts, and now you scramble for any sort of toehold on not being a pratt. Mishit-level dipshit trolling.
I repeat: go blow a goat.
Now we're talkin'. Gut the CIA? Why not? The Senate's emasculated, the House has gone bat-shit crazy, and SCOTUS? Please. Let's see if maybe somebody can't start to fix some of this democracy that's so unbalanced it's shaking itself to pieces...and it ain't George.
"Former HBS Prof Blasts Bush"
How many "C" students get into Harvard Business School, anyway? I thought it was a highly competitive program.
Just curious.
Candyman, the Company itself did the deed. When are you going to acknowledge that?
Treason is treason.
Toby, man, your head's in a bad place. Focus on the brass ring, baby--somebody in the White House outed a CIA agent, man.
Ain't very groovy at all, cat.
Sammy Davis Jr. | Email | Homepage | 07.17.04 - 11:17 pm | #M
Keep it comin', man. Not only is it on point, I'm gettin' the visual, too (even with my one glass eye).
LMAO!
Holy shit: wingers are still claiming that Plame was not a NOC, nobody outed her, and Wilson is a liar? Trolls, thy name is cognitive dissonance.
Holy shit: wingers are still claiming that Plame was not a NOC, nobody outed her, and Wilson is a liar?
Care for a game of Calvinball?
The score is 6,243,756 to Q.
Cheney "Hey, Mr Wilson, we need a good report on that yellowcake stuff, otherwise there could be serious implications, you know what I mean."
Wilson "Fuck off, I will not be another liar for this cabinet."
Wilson leaves.
Cheney phone call...."Karl, we need to put some pressure.....etc"
noone on this blog i'm sure.
It's spelled no one, not noone.
Dumb comment.
Vote for whomever you want. But be sure you have a damn good reason for your choice.
S in Mich:
(to be fair, GWB's DUI was in '76).
Whew! I thought for a moment there that you were just going to be a chickenshit.
The real answer is that this thread is of some dire import to certain somebodies.
No... this thread is still a circle jerk, but this time we invited the riff-raff.
Unfortunately it seems the only people to whom the Plame/Niger affair is of "dire import" are the players themselves. The average american couldn't give a shit. And that is too bad since this issue is emblematic of the complete and total sewage level hypocrisy of this adminsitration and their "useful idiots".
Reading the trolls trying to debate is like that Point-Counterpoint piece from the Onion:
"Trust me, it's all going to work out perfect. Nothing bad is going to happen. It's all under control. Why do you keep saying these things? I can tell when there's trouble looming, and I really don't sense that right now. We're in control of this situation, and we know what we're doing. So stop being so pessimistic. Look, you've been proven wrong, so stop talking. You've had your say already. Be quiet, okay? Everything's fine. You're wrong."
Emblematic of the fact that you're an asshole troll: the "now I'll pretend to be the reasonable one" is in fact basic troll. You've just admitted to deliberate trolling and now you want to act like you're Saint Prissypuss Civilitypants of Happy Discourseland. Standard: you've just been fucked up on the facts, and now you scramble for any sort of toehold on not being a pratt. Mishit-level dipshit trolling.
I repeat: go blow a goat.
Thersites
ROTFLMFAO!!!
Toby, my brother, I'm starting to pick up some bad vibes from you. And I'm a sensitive cat, you know, very open to that kind of energy.
I'm gonna hip you one more time before I throw this glass eye at you--it's The White House, man.
Somebody in Georgie's outfit left the lady out to dry--dig?
Whoops, forgot the clips:
Tsurumi said he particularly recalls Bush’s right-wing extremism at the time, which he said was reflected in off-hand comments equating the New Deal of the 1930s with socialism and the corporation-regulating Securities and Exchange Commission with “an enemy of capitalism.”
...
Tsurumi said that the younger Bush boasted that his father’s political string-pulling had gotten him to the top of the waiting list for the Texas National Guard instead of serving in Vietnam.
http://www.thecrimson.com/articl...aspx?
ref=503181
I thought the 20 year drunk did him in. But, sounds like there wasn't much there from the start.
Did I mention that GWB was cited for driving drunk in 1976? Back when John Kerry was busy being a prosecutor. Did I mention that?
You know, law and order, hard work, and stuff like that?
I was never quite sure what Wilson had to do with anything anymore.
The Senate report seems to indicate he lied, but if you read the fine print and pay attention to the "additional material," that conclusion is not conclusive at all.
And the Financial Times reporting has been pretty finely diced by Josh Marshall, among others, and really hasn't shown any legs.
The issue is not Wilson's credibility anyway, since the WH has admitted the mention of the Niger yellowcake never should have been in the SOTU.
Plame's outing is a separate issue. And I'm not sure any trolls have conflated the two.
But just what their point was re: Wilson, was never clear, anyway.
The average american couldn't give a shit.
Totally not true. After the story broke into the mainstream media (when CIA referred it to Justice), a WaPo poll showed a large majority of the public thought it was an important matter and were following it closely.
If the Bushists think they can just slip by on this one, they are going to be very surprised.
Once again, Jeffers comes in and clears out the smoke and mirrors.
All right, dammit...I thought the hipster patoit was my bag Now I've seen two cats snagging my trip. Y'all better check yourselves or I may have to do something drastic.
ROTFLMFAO!!!
Uh, you're gonna hurt the goat if you roll around so much with its shlong in your mouth.
It's spelled no one, not noone.
Dumb comment.
Vote for whomever you want. But be sure you have a damn good reason for your choice.
pie
c'mon pie, there is no real debate going on here and therefore no need for reasons. everyone here will defend what they believe to be at this moment to the death because they are the good guys and the other side is the bad guys. that's why trolling has any entertainment value at all. it is so easy to get people to transform into raving maniacs which basically makes everybody, trolls and non-trolls, indistinguishable. that and the belief that trolls are paid by the RNC. i get a kick out of that one to no end.
But just what their point was re: Wilson, was never clear, anyway.
Think that their intentions were very clear. They *must* discredit him for one reason or another.
My guess is that it has everything to do with the fact that the Fitzgerald Grand Jury has sniffed too close to the top. And let's not forget the story that Josh Marshall assures us will shake the tectonic plates. My guess is that they will name the forgers of the Yellow Cake documents.
This entire recent dust-up strikes me as pro-active ass-covering.
c'mon pie, there is no real debate going on here...
Ahhhhh...., electionthief, the voice of reason.
Why can't we all just get along?
And let's not forget the story that Josh Marshall assures us will shake the tectonic plates. My guess is that they will name the forgers of the Yellow Cake documents. This entire recent dust-up strikes me as pro-active ass-covering.
Yup.
From the NYT article:
There may be more revelations to come. The British and American reports contained still-classified information about Iraq's dealings with Niger. Beyond that, Patrick Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor examining the leak of Ms. Plame's identity, is expected to announce in a matter of weeks whether he will prosecute anyone.
"And let's not forget the story that Josh Marshall assures us will shake the tectonic plates."
Mr. Marshall is kinda on my tits with that already. If you got something, let go with it. If you don't, STFU, unless and until you do.
Butler Report on WMD was Watered Down to Protect Blair
Warning: Murdoch Empire journalism
there is no real debate going on here...
There is debate, here, about debatable issues. I was going to do a post about immigration policies, in light of the Bush administration's latest smackdown, because we need debate about that.
But there is no debate about what's wrong. And this issue is definitely wrong.
Mr. Marshall is kinda on my tits with that already. If you got something, let go with it. If you don't, STFU, unless and until you do.
Josh was leaving on vaca when he dangled that one out there. it's likely that the story is going through massive vetting, or is being held back for timing reasons.
OT: kinda on my tits with that
I grew up in Detroit and never heard that phrase but your Michigan jargon has me laughing silly... or maybe its the Jim Beam.
Here's a link to the full text of the Telegraph article.
Login: bugmenot@mailinator.com
Pass: foobar
kinda on my tits with that
UK jargon?
From Time
"The spooks seem to believe that outgoing CIA Director George Tenet was strong-armed by Cheney and Rumsfeld into overassessing Iraq's WMD capacity. This may or may not be true, but it is the conventional wisdom in the intelligence community. Furthermore, there is intense anger over the White House's revealing the identity of Plame, who may have been active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components. Plame was outed in a White House attempt to discredit the finding of her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, that there was no evidence that Iraq tried to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger. "Only a very high-ranking official could have had access to the knowledge that Plame was on the payroll" of the CIA, an intelligence source told me."
--if Plame was involved in a sting operation, wouldn't it be at least reckless to the point of endangering this nation's security to disrupt such a sting by outing someone involved in it?
--Although Ken Starr's Grand Jury leaked like a syphilitic old hypocrite, information has not been forthcoming from Fitzgerald's investigation, so who knows what that sting operation was or if that sting operation involved financial interests of anyone within the Bush administration, right?
--Does anyone here know about the timing of the fine to Riggs Bank over their recent money laundering for Saudi Arabia and other issues in this case? What about that cache of weapons that was found in a plane...where was that?
With the Bush junta, don't you always have to follow the money and the illegal weapons sales?
Since Uncle Jonathan was in Riggs, I wonder about this. A sting might have been about funding of WMD, or the procurement of them by various groups and financed in various ways.
--then again, maybe they were, once again, recklessly incompetent, as in other areas of the "invasion of Iraq." They've never seemed to concerned with reality when they want something...as the examples of Generals Shinseki and Zinni show.
Lt. Col Karen Kwiatkowski wrote a really good series of articles about the way in which Rummy, Wolfie, Wurmser, Feith, Luti, et al made sure they never had to deal with reality in planning the invasion, including making claims to justify it.
yeesh. how to I retroactively turn off the bold?
"Toby, man, it's about the vicious outing of Plame, baby. Not what Kerry said in 1970.
Get hip with the program, cat."
Sammy Davis Jr.
Wow, that's that Candyland thing, huh, Sammy?! Hey everybody, WE CAN EVEN EAT THE DISHES!
I grew up in Detroit and never heard that phrase but your Michigan jargon has me laughing silly... or maybe its the Jim Beam.
Well, I can't claim credit for "on my tits". That's a nice turn of phrase I picked up from a boyfriend hailing from Manchester, England. But, it's cool to run into other folks from the D.
Detroit - our indispensable "Arsenal of Democracy" - is still a special place. You should come back and visit sometime. You would be amazed.
Amidst all the nitpicking over what Plame did or didn't do w/r/t Wilson's trip, there's one big issue I haven't seen addressed:
What on earth does it matter if Plame *did* suggest that her husband go on the trip?
It's not like it was some big prize, and he was not compensated for two weeks away from his business and any resulting loss of income. If he had been, talk of nepotism would be easier to swallow.
As it stands, it's merely a case of fortuitous networking to get the best man in place for the job of investigating Niger. I just can't see why it matters how he got there.
"When Rove is perp-walked out of the White House for outing Plame, will he: E) Be pardoned on January 20, 2005 by the exiting President."
The problem with that scenario is that he would have to be indicted soon, like before the election, for W to be able to pardon him before he gets kicked to the curb on Jan 20th. But if they delay the indictment till after the election, so W won't get hurt by it, it'll be too late for him to pardon Karl.
What to do, what to do?
As it stands, it's merely a case of fortuitous networking to get the best man in place for the job of investigating Niger. I just can't see why it matters how he got there.
It's a red herring. The rightwing specializes in these bullshit tactics.
With the Bush junta, don't you always have to follow the money and the illegal weapons sales?
Not always. Two other motivators come to mind. You mentioned incompetence, but don't forget the incredibly narcissistic egotism that pervades that cabal.
I with you S in Mich. Josh should just bring it on.
WTF does that have to do with The Outing Of A CIA Agent That Specialized In Weapons Of Mass Destruction Proliferation?
That's just GOP SOP for when the argument goes against you. Change the subject, attack someone, be agressive and assertive and reasonable people will stop arguing with you, or will take up your new bait.
It usually works, too.
It's called "trolling" around here, though.
On-Topic, however:
Whether Wilson was recommended by his wife is immaterial and completely irrelevant to what he confirmed on his mission -- it would have been IMPOSSIBLE for the documents to have been real, since the people whose signatures were on them were not in government at the time in question, etc. Not to mention that of the two uraniam mines in Niger, one was FLOODED and the other was in French control.
So the issue isn't whether or not she recommeneded him, unless the right winger nutjobs are claiming she KNEW in advance that the story was false, and sent him as part of her nefarious plan. Which they're not claiming. They're simply claiming that "Wilson Lied!" so anything that happened to his wife is...ok, I guess.
As for whether or not she was covert, etc. It's a straw man. If she wasn't covert, and if it wasn't a crime to have outed her, do you really think they would have let it get to the point where a Grand Jury was convened, and the Attorney General of the US had to recuse himself after claiming he would not?
If she wasn't covert, they would have blamed it on a scapegoat lower level over-zealous staffer by now.
The problem is, they can't.
At least 5 REPORTERS know the truth. If this winds up with no indictments, then those guys (and gal?) are free to sing. If they sing, they will say that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby and maybe even Dick Cheney himself outed a CIA agent (covert or not, it doesn't matter in the court of public opinion) as petty political revenge.
Not only did they do it, but they hid behind lawyers for over a year, wasting probably a million dollars of the US taxpayers money on an investigation they could have ended with a phone call and press conference.
Now, they are acting guilty as hell.
The question is, why?
Because Bush is involved. Otherwise, people would have been hung out to dry by now.
Bush either knew about this beforehand or he found out afterwards. In any case, for four months he knew someone on his staff had comitted an act that could very well be a serious crime.
If it was a crime, he is fucked.
If it wasn't a crime, he is still fucked, because he hedged his bets, not taking a strong stance (beyond lip service) about what they clearly thought MIGHT have been a serious crime.
In other words, they're acting pretty guilty about this issue.
When the President takes a lawyer to meet with a prosecutor about an issue Bush can solve with a simple staff meeting, you KNOW they think a crime was comitted here.
That is what is driving the pro-Bush t
But if they delay the indictment till after the election, so W won't get hurt by it, it'll be too late for him to pardon Karl. What to do, what to do?
Perp walk the bastard who did it ASAP. The court of public opinion just as important as a court of law.
...don't forget the incredibly narcissistic egotism that pervades that cabal.
Ding ding ding!
We've got a winner folks.
You should come back and visit sometime. You would be amazed.
It's been a while. The last time I was there i was cooking for Jimmy Schmidt at the Rattlesnake Club.
Why would I be amazed? Has that much changed in the past decade? (Aside from casinos)
New post or an open thread?
The RW is trying TOO hard to discredit Wilson. Something's up with that.
it'll be too late for him to pardon Karl
Gerald Ford set the precedent that you can pardon someone before they are indicted.
It doesn't matter if they discredit Wilson. Wilson is parenthetical to the whole thing.
Wilson could have gone to Cuba and spent his per-diem on whores and cheap rum and it wouldn't change a damn thing.
THEY outed a CIA agent. THEY blew the cover on an operation that was deemed important enough to national security for the CIA to have spent millions of dollars on. THEY are hiding behind lawyers rather than coming clean about who said what to who.
THAT is the question.
Trolls, answer me this:
Why does it matter if Plame recommended her husband to go to Niger?
Damn, Def, I forgot about Ford doing that! OK, I give up, I can't think of any upside to outing Plame
Plame Game and Wilson....
We know that the recent WaPo article has attempted to discredit Wilson. We also know that the well-regarded Bob Sommersby of "Daily Howler" fame has blasted Wilson on details within his version of events.
But some thing are known to be very clear:
1, the Niger document is a forgery;
2, The Niger document bamboozled the French, the British, the CIA, and IAEA too;
3, we know Chimpy hedged his claims about uranium from Africa to include Somalia and Congo;
4, we know that the Somalia and Congo claims are highly tenuous, and stories about this supposed attempt by Saddam to purchase uranium from those countries are primarily British in origin.
5, we know for a fact that the source of the forgery is also the likely author of the forgery, however claims that seem to implicate the Italians and the Berlusconi government have circulated in the British press as well, notably the Guardian;
6, we know that outing Plame set back the counter-terrorism community seriously, years of work and contacts were destroyed in a blind instant of political pique;
7, we now know that the continued attempts to either silence Mr. Wilson and/or render him no concern to the Bush administration shows this writer that Wilson is still clearly considered a serious threat to the administration. I think this deliberate smearing of former Ambassador Wilson is actually drawing more attention than otherwise would be good sense for a troubled administration in the midst of a failing war in Iraq, and failure in Afghanistan as well.
Atrios, the Wilson matter keeps adding up to 3....when 2+2 usually equals 4. Something's amiss in this afffair!
Try Shakespeare's Richard III. A story of a family that illegitmately clings to power until eventually the dumbest, meanest, and ugliest of the clan takes control and runs the country into the ground via a series of Wars.
My Kingdom, my Kingdom for a Wedge Issue!
"Why would I be amazed? Has that much changed in the past decade?"
Some things have changed, some things haven't. The starkest change is that the J.L. Hudson building has been demolished, historically the fixed point in Detroit's downtown. I have mixed feelings about it. That's where I saw Santa Claus every year (ad nauseum), but the new build (Compuware HQ) seems to work with the surrounding environs.
Detroit is crazy as ever, and the only effect the casinos have had is to drive corrupt land deals. Former Mayor Archer wanted all the casinos in Rivertown, and the City bought out every business in Rivertown to clear the land (which was peculiar, like there was no vacant land here), and then not a single casino was built in Rivertown. Imagine! (But, a few people who knew the mayor got rich.)
But, coming from Detroit, I'm sure this doesn't surprise you. To make a short story long, nothing has changed, but everything has, at the same time. It's just different. Come see for yourself.
I saw something, I don't remember where, that speculated that as many as 70 people had already died because of the Plame outing. And she can no longer travel out of the country.
From NYT
Mr. Bush's re-election prospects rest to some degree on whether he is perceived to have led the nation into the war on the basis of flawed or false intelligence. And the White House remains to some degree at risk from a federal criminal investigation into whether administration officials leaked to a newspaper columnist the fact that Mr. Wilson's wife is a covert C.I.A. officer.
The reports did not affect the criminal inquiry into whether anyone at the White House violated a law that makes it a crime to disclose the name of an undercover officer.
But Mr. Wilson has been left on the defensive by the Senate Intelligence Committee's report, which found that, contrary to what he has said, his wife, Valerie Plame, appeared to have had a role in the decision to send him to Niger.
In a letter this week to the chairman and the vice chairman of the intelligence committee, Mr. Wilson disputed the assertion that the plan to send him to Niger was suggested by his wife. Mr. Wilson said the comments she made about his background in a letter to her boss a week before he visited the C.I.A. to discuss the trip were intended to establish his bona fides and did not constitute a recommendation. Mr. Wilson also cited news accounts last year quoting unidentified intelligence officials as saying that Ms. Plame had not proposed Mr. Wilson for the trip. And he took exception to criticism by the committee's chairman, Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas, and other Republicans, who said he had gone on a media blitz to convince the world that Mr. Bush had lied.
There may be more revelations to come. The British and American reports contained still-classified information about Iraq's dealings with Niger. Beyond that, Patrick Fitzgerald, the federal prosecutor examining the leak of Ms. Plame's identity, is expected to announce in a matter of weeks whether he will prosecute anyone
Can someone explain why *outing* Plame was a good thing?
Vengeance is a dish best served cold.
-old Klingon proverb
The problem with that scenario is that he would have to be indicted soon, like before the election, for W to be able to pardon him
Nope. Ford pardoned Nixon before he was even hit with any indictments. I expect Bush to do the same for Rove, Cheney, Rumsfeld and half of his administration. Indeed, given his own possible involvement in the Plame affair and the war crimes at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, it wouldn't surprise me if he was having his lawyers look into whether it would be possibile for him to pardon himself.
This is simple. They are all over Wilson RIGHT NOW because they are scared shitless.
Wilson could have gone to Cuba and spent his per-diem on whores and cheap rum and it wouldn't change a damn thing.
Um, could I do that?
Richard,
Ya know, despite the parallels between the Bush and Nixon administrations, I wonder about any pre-emptive pardons coming down the pike. It doesn't fit into the "we're never wrong" pathology the Bush malAdministration seems to be wallowing in. I was thinking about this today. I know folks like O'Neil and Whitman have resigned, some with bad feelings left behind, but has anyone in the Bush cabinet actually been fired?
...on whores and cheap rum...
Howzabout "Cheap whores and rum?"
Works better for me.
To Monkey:
Because this opens a chink in Wilson's version of events creating doubt as to the honesty of the story.
This has been seized upon by both press minders like Bob Sommersby, who's agenda I generally trust, and "Team Smirk," which deserves careful scrutiny!
The continuing wrangle over the uranium claims and the recent ham-handed treatment of Wilson in the Senate whitewash of the Iraq Intelligence has opened a wound quite needlessly. Wilson, who is bright and articulate, is now speaking again, and this can't be good news for Bushies.
I wonder if this was a sort of ploy, to get Wilson speaking again in order to remind people of the degree of Bush's monomanical fixation on Saddam?
Even if (IF) Wilson was recommended by Plame to travel to Niger I don't really see what the problem is given his background (Former Amb. to Niger, former director of Africa policy for the NSC, and had met with Hussein in 1990 before Gulf War I). Could you think of someone better?
joe mcgee: I saw something, I don't remember where, that speculated that as many as 70 people had already died because of the Plame outing. And she can no longer travel out of the country.
Here's a reference. I'm not certain about its credibility.
Traitorgate from Zeppcommentaries.com.
But in late August, word went around that the revelation of Plame’s career had resulted in the "liquidation of seventy of her assets," a statement I take to mean that 70 of her sources were killed.
Because nobody messes with the Bushes.
(He who has the gold, rules.
He who has the black gold, rules the corporate world.)
;@Þ
New thread if any of the guest bloggers are still awake, please.
The surprising thing about this thread is the relative lack of moronic brownshirt fuck response.
They know they're screwed...
It doesn't affect his credibility at all.
In any way.
There is a chain of command at CIA. Plame did NOT make the decision to send him, someone in the COC did. THEY have responsibility.
He went to Niger. Did his job. Reported back what appears to be the truth as far as he was tasked to suss it.
He waited until AFTER the war was declared over by Bush before he spoke out about his trip.
Then his wife's career is ruined and a serious crime is comitted by TWO senior administration officials.
Wilson could be the biggest liar in the world and it wouldn't change the facts of the crime. It is IRRELEVANT.
Remember...this just didn't wreck his wire's career, it wrecked the whole mechanism they had cooked up as cover for her operation. That can never be used again. The company that she worked for now is in the uncomfortable position of having its employees be viewed as CIA by bad actors in the world.
Companies LIKE that company now are at greater risk of attack or whatnot simply because of this petty political bullshit.
Again, the fact that they outed her rather than simply call Wilson a liar means he was telling the truth.
If they were adults they would have simply called him into the White House and chatted with him, explained that they knew more than he did, and left it at that. Maybe asked him to consider writing a retraction.
But they went nuclear on him and his wife, and they quite frankly picked the wrong guy to fuck with.
BTW, if you want to see a scared little moronic brownshirt fuck crapping in his pants...
What's the point? Right after Wilson's allegations came out, all the droolers and nitwits had convinced themselves (or were ordered to believe) that Wilson was somehow "lying" about what he did.
And now they have a whitewash, courtesy of a few Republican senators, to bolster their delusion.
They were in denial before, so why shouldn't they be now? They don't care about the truth. They only care about protecting Nero from any and all criticism.
"Can someone explain why *outing* Plame was a good thing?"
Can someone explain why the Watergate break-in was a good thing?
Can someone explain why the Watergate break-in was a good thing?
It prevented theft of hotel towels.
Cheap whores and rum?
Would you settle for warm beer and cold women? How about fast women and slow horses?
Can someone explain why the Watergate break-in was a good thing?
Because now we can refer to any political scandal simply by adding "gate" to the end of any word.
'Can someone explain why the Watergate break-in was a good thing?'
It gave us the autobiography of a man who admitted to killing and eating rats. I look forward to similar revelations about this crew.
BTW, if you want to see a scared little moronic brownshirt fuck crapping in his pants...
Rove is as predictable as a game of fucking tic-tac-toe. Can anyone tell me if there's anyone left who still fears this fat ball of Nazi Play-Doh?
Fucking Jeebus...
Too many fucking trolls multi-posting RNC crap.
Thoughts? No. (just jack-hammer bullshit posting w/o backing)
Links? (Nah! These fucks just attach their ass to a scanner, shit on it, and let it all fly.)
Fuck you Patterson.
Fuck you Toby.
Sorry...no more feeding from me.
Hehe, the trolls haven't yet seen Wilson's letter debunking Rove's accusations that he lied. Probably because Rush and Hannity haven't linked to it.
Try to keep up please, this week's Anti-Amurkan smear victim is Whoopi. You lost the Wilson one, that was last week's lame attempt.
karin,
Nope.
dave,
"In order to be intellectually honest*, then (the Democratic presidential team) has got to say if Bush is wrong for believing these things, Kerry is equally wrong for believing them as well.''
*Projection.
BTW, anyone else remember when removing the "W" keys from a few White House computer keyboards had everybody het up about "scandal" and "irresponsibility"?
The outgoing Clintonistas were accused of "vandalizing" the White House for run-of-the-mill pranks ... but the Bush crowd has vandalized America itself.
"My yellowcake brings neo-cons to the yard.
My yellowcake is better than yours!
That's Right (wing)!
My yellowcake brings Rummy to the yard.
My yellowcake is better than Coors!"
That's Right!!"
one question
how come when a democratic president is being investigated by an independent counsel
every day there are anoynomus sources telling us exactly what is going on.
yes there is NOTHING coming from Plame grand jury -
OT, but via Roger Ailes, the Times reviews the Ozzfest reunion of the original Black Sabbath:
...For 60 minutes at the end of the night, Sabbath played a few of its ultra-refined riff songs from 1969 to 1972, with solos in the exact same places, played more or less the same ways.
"War Pigs," the opener, was the best song of the set and the entire day. To double the force of the music, the giant screens next to the stage showed pictures of President Bush juxtaposed with pictures of Hitler.
That's gotta trigger one bad trip...
And in case you've forgotten:
Generals gathered in their masses
Just like witches at black masses
Evil minds that plot destruction
Sorcerers of death's construction
In the fields the bodies burning
As the war machine keeps turning
Death and hatred to mankind
Poisoning their brainwashed minds, oh lord yeah!
Politicians hide themselves away
They only started the war
Why should they go out to fight?
They leave that role to the poor
Yeah!
Time will tell on their power minds
Making war just for fun
Treating people just like pawns in chess
Wait 'till their judgement day comes
Yeah!
(Bridge)
Now in darkness, world stops turning
Ashes where their bodies burning
No more war pigs of the power
Hand of God has sturck the hour
Day of judgement, God is calling
On their knees, the war pigs crawling
Begging mercy for their sins
Satan laughing, spreads his wings
OH LORD YEAH!
My yellowcake is better than Coors!"
My yellow piss is better than Coors.
Seriously.
Fuck Adolph and his "Pure Rocky Mountain Spring Water."
(Not to discredit you, GR.)
I've often wondered are rethugs so uptight because they are not getting any or are they not getting any because they are so uptight?
BTW, anyone else remember when removing the "W" keys from a few White House computer keyboards had everybody het up about "scandal" and "irresponsibility"?
Yep.
And of course, the incident never actually happened.
"Why was the Watergate break-in a good thing?"-The break-in was not a good thing, however the uncovering of the cover-up was a good thing in that it showed the nation just how far a dishonest president would go to protect his position. The greater American public has been fairly skeptical of administrations since then, and the veracity of this admin. to protect itself at ALL costs is painfully apparent. Another good thing about Watergate is that it was relatively mild compared to Iran-Contra, and that was nothing compared to the total amount of Illegal, immoral, screw-the-public-what-they-don't-know-because we won't allow the press to do their real job that this misAdministration has pulled off repeatedly.
WORST. ADMINISTRATION. EVER.
I've often wondered are rethugs so uptight because they are not getting any or are they not getting any because they are so uptight?
Yes.
the uncovering of the cover-up was a good thing in that it showed the nation just how far a dishonest president would go to protect his position. The greater American public has been fairly skeptical of administrations since then
True. Another thing about Watergate -- at least for the older generation that was raised on Edward Murrow and Walter Cronkite -- was it proved to people they could trust the press and mass media, at least back when the news organizations gave a damn about hardnosed investigative journalism.
I don't think that holds true for my generation anymore. I don't trust the media or the politicians at all.
If you really want to know the wingnut mind, you MUST go to Crackpot Central Clearinghouse, the WSJ editorial page, where you will find the following justification for outing Plame:
But very little of what Mr. Wilson has said has turned out to be true. For starters, his wife did recommend him for that trip. The Senate report quotes from a February 12, 2002, memo from Ms. Plame: "my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity."
This matters a lot. There's a big difference both legally and ethically between revealing an agent's identity for the revenge purpose of ruining her career, and citing nepotism (truthfully!) to explain to a puzzled reporter why an undistinguished and obviously partisan former ambassador had been sent to investigate this "crazy report" (his wife's words to the Senate). We'd argue that once her husband broke his own cover to become a partisan actor, Ms. Plame's own motives in recommending her husband deserved to become part of the public debate. She had herself become political.
OT, and 303 comments and I'm too lazy to scroll . . .
40 in Pa. GOP See 'Fahrenheit 9/11' Free
LEWISBURG, Pa. (AP) - Maurice Brubaker probably wouldn't have gone to see "Fahrenheit 9/11" on his own, but free admission helped change the Republican's mind.
Brubaker, chairman of the Bush/Cheney campaign team in Union County, was among at least 40 people who went to the Campus Theatre on Saturday to take advantage of a free showing for card-carrying GOP members.
. . . .
Eric Faden, executive director of the nonprofit theater, offered the free showing to encourage an informed discussion of the movie between conservatives and liberals. Fewer than 50 seats in the 500-seat theater were filled, but Faden, down $280, said he was happy with the turnout.
I don't think that holds true for my generation anymore. I don't trust the media or the politicians at all.
That came out wrong. I meant to say that my generation, barring Generation Dean, which is a small minority, is terrifyingly apathetic. Like, The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire apathetic.
Bread, circuses and Hilary Duff.
Just to state the obvious, the WSJ editorial argument is breathtakingly simple. Politics is more important than national security. Indeed, it's a principle that practically defines the Bush WH.
And what could possibly be wrong with such an idea?
I saw something, I don't remember where, that speculated that as many as 70 people had already died because of the Plame outing. And she can no longer travel out of the country.
joe mcgee
Ray McGovern, former CIA guy said that. Look, all the speculation over whether she was a NOC or not should stop. The CIA referred the matter to justice asking for an investigation because they believed a crime had been committed.
Let me repeat for those of you (trolls) too stupid to get it the first time. The CIA thought a crime had been committed. They wouldn't have bothered if she'd have been an analyst.
End of story. She was outed. It was illegal. Someone's traitorous ass needs to fry. The whole Wilson business is peripheral, which is why the RNC is pushing it so hard.
Anything to distract from the fact that someone at the WHITE HOUSE OUTED A CIA AGENT.
Now, why are you guys bothering to argue with a bunch of dumbfuck college kids with shit for brains who can't possibly think for themselves?
Eric Faden, executive director of the nonprofit theater, offered the free showing to encourage an informed discussion of the movie between conservatives and liberals.
Good for him! It's hard to find small-d democrats this day in age. Seriously, I applaud this gesture.
obviously partisan
Code words for "we don't have to explain why he's not credible; you should just assume that he is and expect no actual evidence to back it up."
Also, the WSJ editorial does not offer anything resembling a legal defense for the crime that was committed.
The law that covers this does not make allowances for half-assed attempts at political CYA.
Old hat:
Watergate wasn't a very good example of media responsibility either.
The Wash Post was ALONE for a very long time in reporting the Watergate stuff. Actually if the Dems hadn't been in control in Congress and opened investigations based on the WP info, it might never have been pursued.
The New York Times, in particular, was very late to the game.
Moral of story:
Sometimes a courageous media group can make a difference in responsible reporting, but it is very easy for the Congress to cover up for presidential wrongdoing if they choose.
We have a new factor working today: Internet blogs are playing a major role in keeping issues alive, and bringing facts to the public, the Congress and the media.
Maybe (but only maybe) some parts of the media will realize they are being watched. Some are clearly hopeless, like Faux News.
Watergate wasn't a very good example of media responsibility either. The Wash Post was ALONE for a very long time in reporting the Watergate stuff.
Fuck. Burst my bubble.
Many who profess to be "serious" posters here complain copiously about the lack of seriousness on the part of trolls, otherwise known as people who have not drunk the Kool-Aid.
I note that my rebuttal to "pie" went completely unchallenged. Not one "serious" leftie took me up.
It's really quite pathetic that you should complain on the one hand, and yet do nothing on the other.
Telling, I think most reasonably observant people would say.
Eric Faden, executive director of the nonprofit theater, offered the free showing to encourage an informed discussion of the movie between conservatives and liberals. Fewer than 50 seats in the 500-seat theater were filled, but Faden, down $280, said he was happy with the turnout.
And they told two friends, and they told two friends, and so on, and so on...
Why is it that Republicans never understand value.
NYC will be decorated for the Republican convention:
Antiwar Displays To Hang in New York
Also, the WSJ editorial does not offer anything resembling a legal defense for the crime that was committed.
I do wonder what the real point is of this wingnut rationalization -- as you say, it's hardly an argument that could ever hold up in court.
On the other hand, I might likewise have thought that about some of the arguments that came up in Bush vs. Gore, so I wonder.
My own guess is that the rationalization is meant to serve a political, not legal purpose. Namely, there is going to be a gap between any Plame indictments and an actual trial. The indictments will occur BEFORE the election, the trial AFTER. This rationalization may muddy things enough politically before the trials that less shit will attach to Bush, excusing the behavior of those senior administration officials in the eyes of some people. Of course, once their convicted, they'll be cast out for dead by all but the most delusional of the wingnuts.
I note that my rebuttal to "pie" went completely unchallenged. Not one "serious" leftie took me up.
You are a fatuous rightwing pig? Does that work?
Maybe (but only maybe) some parts of the media will realize they are being watched. Some are clearly hopeless, like Faux News.
I'd say most are clearly hopeless. Witness Leslie "wolffie" blizter on the Daily Show this week who was clearly amused at the fact that they got nearly EVERYTHING wrong about the iraq business and brushed the whole thing off with a "haven't you ever made a mistake?" throwaway line.
They should be horrified but they're not.
"'I've often wondered are rethugs so uptight because they are not getting any or are they not getting any because they are so uptight?'
"Yes."
Central Scrutinizer 07.18.04 - 1:11 am
More likely due to sexual identity confusion.
Telling, I think most reasonably observant people would say.
Hey fuckface, do you mind if you knock that bullshit T.S. Eliot Oxford English Dictionary patois bit off? Because it doesn't make you sound intelligent.
Thank you.
Does that work?
Works for me!
I sure wish I had some Ice Cream.....
Old hat, don't feel bad about your generation- mine wasn't anymore involved or aware at your age.
Of course when I was 20 the fucking end of civilization wasn't staring me in the face either.
On second thought, tell your friends to wake the fuck up unless they want to live in a second dark age.
Has anyone posted this from The American Prospect Feb 2004?
The two administration officials questioned by the FBI characterized Novak's statements as untrue and misleading, according to a government official and an attorney official familiar with the FBI interviews.
One of the sources also asserted that the credibility of the administration officials who spoke to the FBI is enhanced by the fact that the officials made their statement to the federal law enforcement authorities. If the officials were found to be lying to the FBI, they could be potentially prosecuted for making false statements to federal investigators the sources pointed out.
Novak declined to be interviewed for this article.
The two officials say Novak was told, as one source put it, that Plame's work for the CIA "went much further than her being an analyst," and that publishing her name would be "hurtful" and could stymie ongoing intelligence operations and jeopardize her overseas sources.
"When [Novak] says that he was not told that he was 'endangering' someone, that statement might be technically true," this source says. "Nobody directly told him that she was going to be physically hurt. But that was implicit in that he was told what she did for a living."
"At best, he is parsing words," said the other official. "At worst, he is lying to his readers and the public. Journalists should not lie, I would think." These new accounts, provided by two sources familiar to the investigation, contradict Novak's attempts to downplay his own knowledge about the potential harm to Plame.
Moreover, one of the government officials who has told federal investigators that Novak's account is false has also turned over to investigators contemporaneous notes he made of at least one conversation with Novak. Those notes, according to sources, appear to corroborate the official's version of events.
I sure wish I had some Ice Cream.....
I do and I think I'll go eat some now.
Y'all clean up the troll guts when you get through playing, you hear?
A real down to earth guy afterall...
At the Republican National Convention in 1988, [Bush] was asked by a Hartford Courant reporter about what he and his father talked about when they weren't talking about politics.
"Pussy," Bush replied.
salon.com - link below
Is this really the rebuttal you imagine we can't answer?
If confidentiality and stealth were so vital to her work then why would she help her husband, a high-ranking former senior Clinton administration official, obtain a very public investigatory role on a matter that is in her domain at the CIA (both in terms of subject matter and region or country), the results of which were certain to become public in due course? How could either of them have a reasonable expectation that such provocative professional and private intersections would remain “top secret”? If Wilson didn’t want anyone to know what his wife did, if her life hung on a thread of extreme secrecy, he was insane to have sought or accepted a public investigatory assignment. And his wife was crazy to have let him do it.
Look, Plame worked for years as an undercover operative while her husband played these very public roles, as ambassador etc. Indeed, it may have been the very implausibility of such a man's wife ALSO be an undercover operative that might have made that cover effective.
I simply ask, how would ANYONE know that Plame was involved with WMD at the CIA unless it was leaked? If you're a Nigerien official, say, why would you even begin to suspect this, if you had the former ambassador to your country show up on your doorstep asking questions about Iraq and uranium? Wouldn't he be a perfectly natural choice for the US government anyway?
Your "rebuttal" is really just crackpot -- it doesn't make a particle of sense.
You are a fatuous rightwing pig? Does that work?
Great work, Old Hat. These assholes wanna act like Rambo for the Republic or something. Know what? They lost me at Fallujah.
Fuck you guys. You have driven up our deficits to a point so absurd, Reagan would be appalled. Except now, you have no Democratic Congress to blame.
We had the world at our disposal on 9/12/01, willing to do whatever we thought best, because they felt a commonality and trust with us. You perverted that trust (and that amount of good will never happened before, and most likely never will again).
You have made us less safe, and caused our name to laughed at and disparaged throughout the world.
Thanks for your help and everything. But, we'll take it from here.
Grand Jury.
The Most Powerful (and Stupid)person in the world hires a private attorney.
Vice-president also.
Testimonies have been given.
Media is mum.
Limbaugh is attacking a tangential non-republican target.
Theres some serious shit going on here folks. Iran-Contra style shit, where some Rethug will get sentenced, pardoned, and host a War Show on Faux kinda deal.
One can only hope it will affect the election. Thats about all we could possibly get out of it. Things aren't gonna change, were still gonna be at war, protecting the oil and usurping more.
But we might get another tarnish on the GOP, but thats all we will get. Americans are too fucking stupid and lazy to actually try to understand whats going on, develop an actual conscience and vote with it.
He are too curious...
Bush at War (Woodward) (p. 186): "Bush aide Nick Calio declares his intention to vitiate a congressional filibuster. Bush says, 'Nicky, what the fuck are you talking about, vitiate?'"
Wow, how Bush is not up a creek is un-effin'-believeable! By now, you would think some sort of accountability would have landed on his friggin' door. In spite of the facts, I'm losing hope that this admin will ever be accountable...
And the people that believe him no matter what...there's a frigging' pink elephant in the middle of the political landscape, and only half (or so) of the nation can (or will) see it.
I'm rereading this thread...
OT: How sweet--Bushes send letter of support to Ken Lay after indictment.
So let's play along with Cornfed hick: Just suppose that Scooter, and Rove are frog-marched out the White House and Scooter valiantly falls on his sword, takes the fall, is pardoned by Bush on Jan. 20, 2005. My little question is how many Felony convictions will come out of the misAdmin. ? Compared to Clinton's 8 years and what, no felony convictions? Probably the worst part is even if we had a conviction before Nov. 2, millions of people will still vote for this crook. I've said this before, if you line up all of the misdeeds this admin. has done, capital lettering, single spaced, filling up multiple pages, most Americans would glaze over after the first ten or so, and go "It can't all be true!" "Could it?" By continually committing illegal acts, improper dealings, this admin. hopes, I believe, to simply overwhelm those who don't care, or simply are not interested. *sigh*
Wow, troll hating makes people stupid, really stupid. But you know that right?
Exactly a year ago, Dr Kelly went for his fateful walk in the woods. Mr Blair is finding it impossible to draw a line under the events that his death set in train.
Write a review for "My Pet Goat" on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/exec/obido...ustomer-
reviews
dumass librul-
Basically, yea. Americans are too effing stupid to know whats going on. Take a look at the past 50 years worth of US imperialism, which has become overtly manifest as the War on Terror. All we really give a shit about is Martha Stewart and the price of gas. Thanks MIC.
Blah. So much to say.
In my wildest dreams, this case would bust open the whole corrupt affair -- by which I mean the powers (BFEE and associates) that have bombed us through 50 years of hegemony. But that shit aint gonna happen.
Like I said, its gonna end up with some low-level Rethug being sentenced and pardoned.
The only thing we can really hope for is that it helps boot Bush. But thats not solving the problem, not even close. Its just a step in a direction that isn't wrong.
the dishonored nofax and his ilk continue to disgrace our country's
hallowed rights and protections...to call this ugly little traitor a journalist is too smear the memories
and traditions of the real heros of our historic past...Thomas Paine and
Benjamin Franklin are spinning in their graves...the smirking toad nofax
needs a wake up call and should be held responsible to the families of the people he endangered with his
phoney "news reporting"...there must be recourse for clearing this up...
criminals such as nofax must be brought to justice...
Ya know, despite the parallels between the Bush and Nixon administrations, I wonder about any pre-emptive pardons coming down the pike. It doesn't fit into the "we're never wrong" pathology the Bush malAdministration seems to be wallowing in. I was thinking about this today. I know folks like O'Neil and Whitman have resigned, some with bad feelings left behind, but has anyone in the Bush cabinet actually been fired?
By being "loyal" to his underlings, Bush buys their silence. Pardoning them en masse would be the ultimate expression of that. After all, you've got to figure that, if someone does get indicted, the odds are pretty good that they'll rat on their old boss if means possibly getting a lighter sentence. Bush would want to avoid that at all possible cost and that desire would almost certainly trump any reluctance about possibly admitting an error. Indeed, I think that "we're never wrong" stand is just a facade anyway. Bush does it because Rove tells him it plays well with his base. If he loses the election, Bush doesn't have to worry about conning his base anymore.
Backslider:
I thought I remembered this...Bush does fire people that disagree if there's no trail back to his office???
It was over money though, not war...or was it finding the money to keep his war...yeah, they needed to justify his conservative economics..
Yeah, that's the ticket.
Kelly, wasn't he the guy that Clinton murdered in Hillary's apartment?
Hmmm, for $40 million over 8 years, I wish Starr had gotten something better than a blow job that had nothing to do with Whitewater. But, a tangential blow job was all there was.
Nothing like when Laura Bush actually killed someone.
Fuck you.
There you go focusing on the outing of Plame, when we have been trying to change the subject all along to focus upon relative inconsequential details and thus shift the terms of the debate.
Why do you insist an asking the question about Plame, when we're trying to shift the debate to who really asked Wilson to go to Niger and whether he told the truth about it.
Gosh, you're trying to spoil our efforts at distracting the media and the public from what we'd rather not talk about.
And to top it all off, why do you hate America?
The people who believe and standby Bush "no matter what" are entirely given over to EVIL, whether they realize this or not.
In a just world, they'd all be institutionalized or executed by now.
The people who believe and standby Bush "no matter what" are entirely given over to EVIL, whether they realize this or not.
In a just world, they'd all be institutionalized or executed by now.
The people who believe and standby Bush "no matter what" are entirely given over to EVIL, whether they realize this or not.
In a just world, they'd all be institutionalized or executed by now.
I killed my ex-boyfriend in a car crash (oopsy!), and my daughters are drunken cunts with multi-arrests (just like their Daddy!).
But, tsk tsk, we are paragons of Chrisitan moral virtue, and don't forget Clinton got a blow job.
Jesus loves you!
I never really understood what they hoped to gain. If you take all of the GOP talking points as true, Plame recommended her husband be sent to Niger to invesigate. Since he went on his own dime, the "nepotism" couldn't have been about money. The only alternative is the CIA was bending over backwards to convince the White House that Iraq didn't pose a nuclear threat, which we all knew was true by the time they leaked the name. I just don't understand the motive.
"Americans are too fucking stupid and lazy to actually try to understand whats going on, develop an actual conscience and vote with it."
--Is this another way of saying that Americans are a bunch of goddamned assholes who deserve to get their asses kicked by fate, by terrorists, by God, by their "enemies," or by whoever else there is to do it?
--Cause if it is, I wholeheartedly agree.
--Fuck Americans. The majority of them are a bunch of overprivileged, self-centered, complacent, arrogant, and fat-fuck , ethnocentric and racist rednecks, who are a cancer upon the planet.
Today, Schwarzenegger once again raised the bar of political discourse, calling his opponents "girly men" and offering to "announce" his supporters "terminators" (whatever that means) on November 2.
And the Austrian gov't issued Schwarzenegger stamps today.
On the other hand, Spain honored some real heroes today, celebrating the risks and sacrifices of the Spanish Republicans in the fight against fascism. We should take a lesson from these people.
Wow, long thread, lot's of Those-Who-Must-Not-Be-Fed out these days. Well, it's been just over a year since a certain traitor printed her name, and so far, no indictments. [/whoring]
I never really understood what they hoped to gain.
Crush all enemies!
Not one small effort. Just name-calling, and jejune profanity, and -- the speciality of the house -- rank homophobia.
The disgusting prejudices, which belie the supposed tolerance of Atrios, continue without moderation, I see, and I expect they will soon be abetted by racism and other sundry bigotry.
I await being called a nigger bear, or a spic bumhole. What can you all "think" up? (Come on, and try, try.)
For those insipid little monsters who celebrated the notion of presidential assassination but a few threads back, this shouldn't be much of a task . . .
Hey Dave...I'll ask again, since you never seem to answer and I'm a glutton for punishment: do you lecture the folks at FreeRepublic.com or Little Green Footballs or lucianne.com on "civility"? You ever crawl up Charles Johnson's nose for the whole "Rachel Corrie pancake" thing? You ever get after Misha for calling for genocide in the Middle East?
Just curious.
Wow. Someone who has spent a whole thread trying to defend treason by changing the focus to a non-related issue is now whining about "insipid little monsters who celebrated the notion of presidential assassination..." (hint: though perhaps not in the best of taste, not a crime like outing an undercover agent).
Remember that study a few years ago that concluded that incompetent/stupid people don't recognize that they're incompetent/stupid, because the very same skills required for competence are also required in order to be able to recognize it? I think we're seeing ancedotal support of the study all through this thread.
It was intimidation, it failed, like most of the GOPs plans. Expect the coporate media to downplay this.
Presidental Curse
Look what happens when a President gets elected in a year that is a multiple of 20.
* 1840: William Hendry Harrison -- died in office
* 1860: Abraham Lincoln -- assassinated
* 1880: James A. Garfield -- assassinated
* 1900: William McKinley -- assassinated
* 1920: Warren G. Harding -- died in office
* 1940: Franklin D. Roosevelt -- died in office
* 1960: John F. Kennedy -- assassinated
* 1980: Ronald Reagan -- survived assassination attempt
* 2000: George W. Bush -- ?
"W" for woctober wurprise?
And now for some unwanted C.T.
Bush Sr. had his grubby cia fingers all over the JFK thing (why he became an untouchable and then by default his openly lying "i make no mistakes" son dubya) and there is speculation that the reason Nixon really broke into the offices was to get rid of damming photographic evidence of his cronies caught in the round-up at Deley Plaza.
That pretzel was trying to fulfill destiny....
What can you all "think" up?
We'll just stick to the truth.
Pretentious right-wing jackass...
I believe 9 out of 10 educated people would
agree.
The other 1 would likely say,"deluded GOP tool."
Morons would probably say, "one of us!"
BTW, how long did you labor over that sentence? I can recommend some good writing books. You obviously could use some help.
the speciality of the house -- rank homophobia.
I have noticed this and am a little reticent to post because of it.
I have no truck with FreeRepublic; they are barbarians and potentially violent and appear to be grossly stunted emotionally. I admire LGF's muscular defense of Israel and its generally clear-eyed view of the nature of military action and the value of global security (as in, the U.S. is global security, and the world forgets it at its peril). Many times LGF's posters are repugnant, but I admit I've never told them so. I have never visited Lucianne, but can't imagine enjoying it; she seems less than intelligent.
I deeply enjoy Andrew Sullivan, TPM, and Instapundit, chiefly because they can all say they are wrong from time to time -- and are smarter than I (a considerable accomplishment), and I spend a lot of time on the Iraq-based sites (hopefully, but you can never be entirely sure) and those that deal in military and defense-strategy issues.
I have seen all the Rachel Corrie pix, saw them soon after they were first posted, and I shared many people's outrage over the incident. It is hard to believe that she couldn't have been seen by the operator, but I also find it equally hard to fathom him having seen her and proceeding to crush her. It seems to have been a very dangerous game of chicken that went terribly awry, but the bulk of the blame lies with the IDF driver, because he was trained, a professional and backed by plenty of force.
If one good thing has emerged from this tragedy, it is that Israel has dramatically modified its use of bulldozers around civilians to ensure that a similar incident does not recur.
The emotional punch of the photos, however, is difficult to shake, and the idea of someone making light of her death is repugnant.
I doubt anything I could say to someone who described her as being a "pancake" would have any appreciable effect. Although it may be worth a try. Have they ever actually killed anyone?
Can someone explain why *outing* Plame was a good thing?
No.
How "good" are your writing books?
By the way, lover of all men "Weblackey" does us all a fine service here at Atrios. With his list of death.
And the pregnant question mark hanging at the end of the last entry.
Will an Atrios visitor fill in the blank -- and wipe away that mark? I've heard many a man's -- or woman's? -- hope spring eternal . . .
the speciality of the house -- rank homophobia.
I have noticed this and am a little reticent to post because of it.
I've noticed that a lot of people do use some base language or homoerotic language to put others off. I wouldn't know how much of it is homophobia since I can't read their intent. I may be wrong, but usually it's a disruptive troll that can't argue points well...or a blogger that is dissing an insecure troll because they sense a weak spot.
At any rate, when people here really discuss homosexual issues, generally the posts are very comfortable. The ones that aren't. are regrettable.
I predicted that there would be an increase in "homosexual hate speech" after the senate example this last week. I think we've seen it all over.
David, check the other thread. I'm calling you out because I'm bored.
David Patterson. I blame you for screwing the margins of this Haloscan thread.
Oh God. The GOP in the senate is responsible for an almost uninterrupted stream of anti-gay invective at Atrios -- a stream which has been spewing its bile for months and months? Without Santorum, a real cock-sucker to be sure, there would be no ill use of the term "fag" on these threads?
That. Is. Hard. To. Believe.
Still waiting, David.
So Mr. Patterson feels compelled to come here and lecture US about civility, yet he doesn't raise a peep when far worse spews over at LGF and etc.
I'm trying to figure out why he would harp on us like an uptight old biddy, but won't say anything to those twisted punks.
Mr. Patterson, could it be that you are so damned AFRAID of their lunacy, while knowing that we, although we might get a little raucous, would be too polite to hurt you or sic a hacker on you? Do you feel SAFER here?
Is it possible, too, that you hold Atrios to a different standard than you hold LGF or any other site?
And if you think that speaking up won't change them, why do you think anything would be different here? What--people here don't have as strong of convictions as the people of LGF? At least most of us here can change our minds, IF the facts dictate it. Present some, and perhaps someone might listen to you.
And, oh, how horrible it is that a few people here make a few off-color remarks about homosexuals. I don't like it either, but it's a very few making it. Far fewer than takes place over at LGF or the like in the course of a normal thread.
I call bullshit on you. You cannot make cogent arguments here, so you resort to the very things you whine most often about here.
A more comprehensive list of death...sorry.
1. George Washington, 1789-1797
2. John Adams, 1797-1801
3. Thomas Jefferson, 1801-1809
4. James Madison, 1809-1817
5. James Monroe, 1817-1825
6. John Quincy Adams, 1825-1829
7. Andrew Jackson, 1829-1837
8. Martin Van Buren, 1837-1841
9. William Henry Harrison, 1841
10. John Tyler, 1841-1845
11. James Knox Polk, 1845-1849
12. Zachary Taylor, 1849-1850
13. Millard Fillmore, 1850-1853
14. Franklin Pierce, 1853-1857
15. James Buchanan, 1857-1861
16. Abraham Lincoln, 1861-1865
17. Andrew Johnson, 1865-1869
18. Ulysses Simpson Grant, 1869-1877
19. Rutherford Birchard Hayes, 1877-1881
20. James Abram Garfield, 1881
21. Chester Alan Arthur, 1881-1885
22. Grover Cleveland, 1885-1889
23. Benjamin Harrison, 1889-1893
24. Grover Cleveland, 1893-1897
25. William McKinley, 1897-1901
26. Theodore Roosevelt, 1901-1909
27. William Howard Taft, 1909-1913
28. Woodrow Wilson, 1913-1921
29. Warren Gamaliel Harding, 1921-1923
30. Calvin Coolidge, 1923-1929
31. Herbert Clark Hoover, 1929-1933
32. Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 1933-1945
33. Harry S. Truman, 1945-1953
34. Dwight David Eisenhower 1953-1961
35. John Fitzgerald Kennedy, 1961-1963
36. Lyndon Baines Johnson, 1963-1969
37. Richard Milhous Nixon, 1969-1974
40. Ronald Wilson Reagan, 1981-1989
Ronald Regan is DEAD? How did that slip past me?
This just in...
is somebody checking the stake in Reagan's heart every day to make sure he's still dead? i worry about that alot.
And to the subject of the now regularly appearing trolls. I don't understand what trolls are. Conservatism has an important place in democratic governance. Trolls are not Conservatives.
No true believer in conservatism would tolerate, by anyone, a treasonous outing of an undercover agent of the US government.
What philosophy is this?
Are trolls really trolls or paid shills? Since the end of the fairness act in the mid-80's, the right has had the airwaves to itself to fill with propaganda so that dittoheads never have to hear the other side of the story except when it's being referred to as a theory out there on the fringes of the radical left.
Blogs run counter to that. The people who run the left wing blogs will not accept the orwellian b.s. that is both what the press gives to us as news, and the RNC party line.
>What philosophy is this?
Its not. The GOP, Bush, et al are just a marriage of convience for political gain. The GOP is about as conservative as Lenin nowadays and its main functions are to give in to the wants of big business, big religion, the status quo, the military contractors, etc.
I don't know what the GOP is, but I can tell you what it isnt: conservative.
No true believer in conservatism would tolerate, by anyone, a treasonous outing of an undercover agent of the US government.
So true...and BC04 are not conservative by my definition. They may have situational ethics for conservative values...they are not conservative in their economics or their foreign policy.
In order to cover their radical spend-all-to -bully-all policies, they have to change the subject every day for their base.
And...true conservatives are alienated as "leftist liberals" or some other over applied slur like "socialist", "communist", well, you've all hear them.
That's why I'm here. Before these jokers, I would have been considered moderate, if not a little conservative on some issues.
Oh, presidential posts are all sarcasm...I don't believe in superstition, and coincidence is just mathematical probablility being recognized in trends.
>Is it possible, too, that you hold Atrios to a different standard than you hold LGF or any other site?
Of course, the right is always held to a lower standard than anyone else. Watch or read any corporate media product, its been obvious for quite some time.
The poster in question probably has learned these habits from the media and thinks they are acceptible methods of discourse.
I saw part of the jib jab cartoon on CNN today. They shared a hearty laugh, but one of the guys on the panel (I hesitate to call him a journalist) seemed very threatened by the quality of the work and tried to take a shot at blogs. - "Who's got time to do this? Do they do it for free? Who are these people?" He went a bit further the exact words I don't know, he was interrupted by a plug that it could be downloaded for $2.99 - he was oddly annoyed and blustery -
Blogs are a wild card.
>And...true conservatives are alienated as "leftist liberals"
No way. Conservatives could easily select a, *gasp* conservative to run. The GOP chose Bush over McCain in 2000. They prefered name recognition over values. They prefered the easy votes from the "Jeebus people." They prefered all the corporate connections and easy fund raising.
Conservatives like Bush. They love him. They're his inner thug, their inner spoiled trust fund kiddie.
The conservative philosophy, at least its social aspect, is based on some of the worst traditions known to man: bigotry, hate, intolerance, distrust of progress, distrust of science, distrust of critical thinking, etc.
Its no wonder that this mentality has spilled over to the economic end, or that the economic conservatives don't care as long as they get to deregulate something.
divide:
Yes, I understand about the differing standards. The question is if Patterson does. I want to see his answer.
You're very right to point out that conservatives have cherished some of the worst traditions. I sort of want to say that it may be part in parcel to the "conservative thought process"
Well, if conservatives are all about not changing much or too quick or in a costly manner, then the horrible institutions that are in place will not change, and may even be considered a "Value"... I will say though, the worst possibilites of the human race, some of which were just listed in an earlier post, are not limited to conservatives.
Although, traditionally it's the liberal (by definition the one that upturns society because it's corrupt or defunct) that points out and seeks to change the injustice.
Now for the moderate, with conservative values... The Bush administration is making sure any soccer mom that has a fleeting doubt about his methods feels like a "leftist traitor" (With the help of the media, of course.)
I don't know about youse guys, but I don't believe I can change a single mind online, I come looking for the news, links to things I would never find myself, and a sense of cameraderie becuase sometimes, the SCLM makes me feel like I'm losing my mind
If I'm directed to news that seems important and it's not being reported I write all the news guys mails - If it's something insane like torture or treason I put pen to paper.
Feeding seems to get in the way of all that.
I haven't found any interesting arguments defining smartly what realpolitic should be at the beginning of the 21st century. Just covering for a bunchof guys who could care less about them.
"...the haves and the have mores. Some people call you the elite, I call you my base."
Well, again, as I think I made clear above, the radical, crazy right is not my cup of tea. I don't even know how to speak their language, and they do seem quite unbending -- a little rigid. Plus many of them are evangelical, which poses another barrier for me. Although I believe in God. I do like Him.
It's certainly true: Many of the posters at Atrios are insane, and their extremism marks them as a little young (I know people hate this remark, but I think it's probably true). They often have a wildly skewed notion of reality and what makes the world go 'round, and are too often inclined to paranoia and conspiracy theories. Lately they have made a concerted effort to radically dehumanize anyone even mildly conservative, or who believed in the goodness of removing Saddam and/or the Taliban from power. Before this, it was Milosevic.
For this, and other reasons that alas must go unremarked upon at 5 a.m., I choose to post here.
concerted effort to radically dehumanize anyone even mildly conservative
That's just what we (maybe I) were (maybe was) saying about Bush...we have common ground.
"now, watch this drive."
Here's a bit of news:
American torture results in the release of a 9/11 suspect.
If this ain't a reason to clean up our act, what is?
Weblacky, the 20 year curse for presidents is for ELECTED presidents, as such appointed President Bush doesn't fit into the curse profile. But then, that's not too much of a surprise, given his expunged records: Driving License history, TANG Military records, sealed records of his administration as Texas Governor.... Did I leave any out? Since this is a presidency that will have as many of its records sealed for as long as possible, the possibility of the 20 year curse seems very unlikely. Besides, we would need to wait for Cheney to "Resign" so we don't have the ultimately scary proposition of Cheney as the real president. I know I'm not supposed to feed the trolls, but David Patterson, you are proving you are truly the one who is insane.... Insanity: Doing the same thing over and over and over again, expecting to achieve different results... Just go back to LGF or wherever you really fit in, please.
Patterson:
You are the most dim-witted college-educated person I've ever encountered, and that's saying a lot.
You are patently unaware of the fact that most of us are NOT young. I, for instance, am 42. I would say that's close to the average here. Your perception is far off the mark, but that doesn't surprise me.
And insane? Dehumanizing? You can call this place either after visiting LGF? I dare to ask what your standard is for insanity, because I can assure you it's not the definition in the DSM-IV.
You have willfully ignored repeated posts that have made it clear that most people here believe that getting rid of Saddam and the Taliban are good things, in and of themselves. I can't think of anyone who has said that taking care of the Taliban and Afghanistan deserved to be one of America's highest priorities after 9/11. Name anyone here who has. You know you can't.
As for Saddam, what we argue is why it had to be done last year. Perhaps your refusal to see the truth is why you missed how many of us old-timers were asking DURING THE REAGAN YEARS why we were supporting Saddam. Nobody cared then, except liberals. We have pointed out that, while he was a horrible man, we had him contained. He was relatively powerless. Other dictators were in need of our attention (North Korea). Other situations needed our attention. And, ultimately, liberals knew what it would take to remove someone like Saddam from power. We believed it would come at far too high a price. And we were right.
And don't even mention Milosevic. It was liberals who pleaded with our government to help remove him from power, and Republicans crying wag the dog in attempts to shut down efforts to rein in that horror. No, the blood of Milosevic is firmly on the Republicans' hands. PERIOD.
And don't even mention Milosevic. It was liberals who pleaded with our government to help remove him from power.
Bull-fucking-shit.
Who's the man?
Yeah, that's right.
And don't even mention Milosevic. It was liberals who pleaded with our government to help remove him from power.
Yeah, I was pretty much completely wrong on that whole we-should-stop-the-Serbs-from-slaughtering-the-
Bosnians-because-I'm-a-kneejerk-leftist thing.
And don't even mention Milosevic. It was liberals who pleaded with our government to help remove him from power.
I'm always suspicious of stopping an ongoing genocide whenever the United States is the principle actor, because the United States is inherently bad.
And don't even mention Milosevic. It was liberals who pleaded with our government to help remove him from power.
Even if I am not able to come up with some tired, overcooked Marxist theory that I will attempt pass off as "anarcho-syndicalist" theory to counter this admitedly particular and strikingingly unusual example of forethought and essential decency, the United States is always a stupid ass piece of shit that has never, ever done anything good ever and every American foreign policy ever is a horrible, horrible abomination, always.
The Iraqi nuclear ministry was left to the looters-there was no nuclear program at all. Given this, why would Iraq attempt to buy Uranium from anyone?
"But having said that, seeking yellow-cake uranium trumps Plame every time.
Oat | Email | Homepage | 07.17.04 - 9:23 pm | #"
So if the Iraqis were seeking yellowcake (they weren't) then outing Plame was justified? Even though you said in the previous sentence that it was bad?
Are you insane or just stupid?
" ...Plame wasn't outed.
[...]
Anonymous | Email | Homepage | 07.17.04 - 9:34 pm | #"
Only if your definition of "outed" doesn't include "secret identity/occupation involuntarily exposed"
is this Anonymous insane or merely stupid? You decide.
"Again, if the press was able to confirm Plame's employment with the CIA, just how important was it to them to conceal her identity?
Toby Petzold | Email | Homepage | 07.17.04 - 10:06 pm"
Pretzoid, you don't seem to have even rudimentary acquaintance with the facts of this story.
"But, Nora, you still haven't answered the question: why did the CIA itself confirm to several different reporters that Plame was an employee? They're going to out their own spooks? Doesn't sound very responsible.
Toby Petzold | Email | Homepage | 07.17.04 - 10:17 pm | #"
Pretzoid - the CIA did not confirm Plame's employment.
"For those insipid little monsters who celebrated the notion of presidential assassination but a few threads back, this shouldn't be much of a task . . .
David Patterson | Email | Homepage | 07.18.04 - 3:28 am | #"
The way I remember it, Dave, you were the only one suggesting that someone shoot Bush.
Valerie Plame was obviously a liberal mole in the CIA, outing her was an act of patriotism.
The media, the party hacks, and you lemmings will all clam up about this once the results of the investigation are out. There will be no more public acknowledgement about cooperating in your own deception than there has been about the rush to embrace Wilson's success in duping you.
To all the idiots above who try to spin black into white - Wilson has been shown to be at the minimum incompetent, and at the maximum a traitor. What he has been definitively shown to be is the liar he has vociferously claimed others to be.
Novak is not anywhere near the core of the story. That is whether or not as Wilson claimed White House officials revealed that Plame was CIA while knowing or believing that she was covert - that a crime was commited with the sole purpose of discrediting Wilson. The knowledge that Plame was CIA was well known in Washington. Plame was not covert by her own actions and admissions. Wilson discredited himself.
Keep running with this if you think it'll keep it's legs, but Pie's challenge 'Can someone explain why *outing* Plame was a good thing?' remains an assinine question good for nothing more than to rev up the resident village idiots. And it worked as it always does.
The basic premise for interpreting every remotely relevant event is focused evil from the current administration on this site. Pie is a perfect example of this and a poster child for the stuttering left.
Valerie Plame was obviously a liberal mole in the CIA, outing her was an act of patriotism.
Thug, it's too bad you don't understand that Plame is an American whose job it was to search for and find those who tried to obtain WMDs.
Apparently, you wouldn't mind if dangerous people might now have some because she was outed. You support the fact that this was done for revenge by an administration that loves to tell us how dangerous the terrorists are.
What that says about you is not pretty. What that says about them is even worse.
Anonymous, another rethug asshole apologist. STFU, you moron. You represent what's bad about this country.
UGLY American.
"BTW, anyone else remember when removing the "W" keys from a few White House computer keyboards had everybody het up about "scandal" and "irresponsibility"?
The outgoing Clintonistas were accused of "vandalizing" the White House for run-of-the-mill pranks ... but the Bush crowd has vandalized America itself."
I also remember that there was nothing to it... the "vandalism" never in fact happened but was amongst the first lies of the Bush staff...
A.
*shakes head sadly*
Well folks, I'm back, and all I have to say is.... wow. What concentrated stupidity there is in this one thread.
I'll just address my comments to David Patterson, and the rest of you trolls can sit and watch, because it's really not worth attempting to break down all the individual idiocy.
You affect pretensions of intelligence, so I'll reply to you in a similar affection. I presume you are aware of the human mind's inherent tendancy to seek pattern within data. This is in part because of the very binary nature of the brains biological structure (nerves are on or they are off) but mostly it is due to the usefulness of patterned data to human survival. I refer you to this article as a good illustration of the need for pattern recognition, (as well as it's failings):
http://www.csicop.org/si/9505/be...505/
belief.html
Where is this relevant to today's Troll Menagerie? Well, let me illustrate with an example:
Let us hypothesis a geographical area in which the known laws of experience were suspended, and observed behaviour in humans within that area followed a pattern specific only to that individual area. In other words, humans within it are freed from societal and other influences and make their patterns anew.
Now within this area, over time, we come to notice an increased element of what could be termed 'anti social' behaviour within normal human conditions. In the abscence of powerful suppressents, we see elements of outright aggression, malignancy, dishonesty, deceit, hostility towards the peer group... elements of behaviour which outside of this area, normal human constructs like Law or Peer Pressure would constrict somewhat. Inside this area however, they are able to run rampant. More importantly, certain types of behaviour which can only exist within this specific area are exhibited. Identity theft. Claiming knowledge of facts contradictory to the known observable world because known laws do not seem to apply within the area. Claiming talents otherwise not possessed. Acting with non identifiable reasons, usually malicious ones. You claim intelligence, so I shall not labour the point any further. We call this hypothetical area the Internet of course, and the pattern to which I am alluding is known as The Troll. It is an oft observed pattern, and one that is truthfully and usefully recognized.
And into this area, comes a new individual. His first statements are antagonistic towards the group, indeed it quickly becomes apparent that this is the only stance he seems to take. He also makes occasional statements, refuses to debate them, then accuses the Peer Group of being unresponsive to debate. His only justification of this is given by a curious appeal to the logical fallacy that he refuses to attack one group of peers for a quaility they do possess, but won't recognise, but attacks another group for a quality they don't possess, but he demands they recognise as doing so all the same. Al
And into this area, comes a new individual. His first statements are antagonistic towards the group, indeed it quickly becomes apparent that this is the only stance he seems to take. He also makes occasional statements, refuses to debate them, then accuses the Peer Group of being unresponsive to debate. His only justification of this is given by a curious appeal to the logical fallacy that he refuses to attack one group of peers for a quaility they do possess, but won't recognise, but attacks another group for a quality they don't possess, but he demands they recognise as doing so all the same. All of which fit the definition of a classic Troll within this particular environment: It is not therefore suprisising for an intelligent normal human mind to label him as a Troll, which if he had any self awareness he would recognise.
But then... in what defies both the logic of the general and universal locational rules, he posts his own personal details, thus collapsing the seperation between action in one and consequence in another. It's almost as if this individual goes beyond these patterns and actively seeks self flagellation, self destruction. Considering the name stealing and harrasment the normal trolls here indulge in, and the claimed malice Patterson believes he see's here, no intelligent mind could help but boggle at the insanity or delusional need behind posting information which would allow that to escape the confines of our little glass house here. Would it not be more reasonable to assume he's either a troll, or someone is trying to discredit him, just as in other repetitions of said pattern before (name stealing, fake blogs, telephone harrasment, claims of personal knowledge not held etc)? Why should anyone give David Patterson any credit at all for so clearly failing to match any pattern of observable intelligent behaviour under any environment in which he seems to operate?
Either someone is paying David Patterson to disrupt things, or (worse yet) he sees it as part of his partisan duty. Either way, he has demonstrated that his mind works in a deeply irrational way. There is no convincing him (them?) and so the best thing to do is let his posts sit as a mute testament for future generations who wonder at how close we came to reviving national socialism.
The is no possible way to justify leaking Plame's identity. It was racketeering by Rove and his right wing allies in the media, the action of bullies used to getting their way without fear of penalty. Frankly, they've done much worse with no one raising a finger, and that's the reason Joe Wilson is now the permament target of their wrath.
Eric Faden, executive director of the nonprofit theater, offered the free showing to encourage an informed discussion of the movie between conservatives and liberals. Fewer than 50 seats in the 500-seat theater were filled, but Faden, down $280, said he was happy with the turnout.
Eric Faden is an awesome guy. Not only is he pretty much the entire Film Studies department at Bucknell University, he's been consistently willing to take a financial hit to expose Lewisburg to new ideas. This is the first time he's done it with a political film, but whenever The Campus Theatre shows a film festival or a niche title, admission is typically free to the University community (faculty, staff and students), if not everybody who walks in the door. I'm glad to see he's getting recognition outside of the college paper.
Personally, I think trolls can be a good thing. It looks to me like they've given it their best shot to try to explain why outing Palme was good. It just doesn't fly. In fact their reasons get crazier and crazier as the thread goes on.
Of course, it might fly with the talking heads on Sunday morning, but not with ordinary people who follow politics in this country.
For anyone who wants to know why the story that Saddam was trying to acquire yellowcake from Africa is probably false, here are some hints:
1. The major weakness of the Senate and especially the Butler reports is that the sources of key intelligence could easily be Ahmed Chalabi or generic equivalent. We are given no reason to have any confidence that most of the reported material has any validity. Josh Marshall believes that *all* claims of Iraq seeking uranium trace to the forged documents; he believes the intel services may not have seen them until recently, but that they were the basis of earlier verbal reports.
2. Iraq was partially occupied and under severe sanctions. It had openly hostile regimes on four of its six borders, and its sole seaport was under the eyes of the US. On the surface, even the thought of a contract to deliver ore, much less the shipping of tons of it, seems ludicrous.
3. Iraq had internal sources of uranium at the Akashat phosphate deposit (http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/world/iraq/
akashat.htm)as well as uranium that was under UN control until 1998, when we withdrew inspectors.
4. The French supposedly have physical control of the African mines. There are abandoned mines, from which there is scavenging, but this is slow and difficult work and would hardly need a government contract.
5. There is no evidence that Iraq had obtained, or was seeking to obtain, any means of refining ore. Uranium ore, without means of purification, is simply a liability.
In Joseph Wilson's report, he says that the Iraqi representative said he was seeking commercial contacts with Niger. It is purely inference that the Iraqis wanted uranium. While it's true that Niger's major export is uranium, it's just as likely Iraq wanted to trade weapons for cash.
Ahhh, but those pregnant question marks, they are so "jejune", are they not?
Ugly American? Pie, this site is full of people with minds (as such) so fixed on unreasonable and fatuous hatred for the president that they give ugly a new dimension. Your post and your 'question' was nothing more than a transparent ploy to bring that ugliness up once again.
Lady, you have a mind and personality so ugly with hatred you'd make a great goblin.
Jejune is the gayest word ever. There can really be no question about that.
Anon is right: the facts clearly have an anti-Bush bias.
the facts clearly have an anti-Bush bias
True. And why might that be?
Because the facts hate America.
Patz and Putzold, sitting in a tree, k-i-s-s-i-n-g...
Can someone explain why *outing* Plame was a good thing?
Easy - because Plame was working to stop WMD proliferation. If her mission was successful, there would be no reason to engage in preventive wars to end WMD proliferation. Plame's mission was hence "un-American" because it would have hurt the military-industrial complex.
Seriously but also with a touch of the old tinfoil hat - do we know whether thge Plame outing really had anything to do with Wilson? Perhaps Plame's mission was somehow gonna bring down or hurt at least the finances of someone powerful? She was working on WMD proliferation - maybe she was about to uncover something about some of our favorite companies and pass the info on the FBI or something? Maybe the Rethugs are actually not as against "the wall" in this regard as all the smoke they blow about it makes it seem?
It wouldn't be the first time Rethugs blow smoke about being against something to hide their real reasons for supporting it - consider the Rethugs on China - "reviled" by the "religious" right, but their real threat to international security is ignored by Rethugs because of people out to make a buck there.
the speciality of the house -- rank homophobia.
On the contrary, I see a lot of people assuming that anyone supporting a rightwing viewpoint suffers from rank homophobia and therefore they use gay-bashing remarks or gay come-ons to scare them away. That is using sarcasm to make a point - not homophobia on the part of the poster.
One thing that we haven't really discussed here is the Bush administration role in this whole business, once it became clear the Novak had outed Valerie Plame. George W. Bush did not take the lead in trying to find out who leaked this information; in fact, he made a public statement to the effect that "we may never know" who did it. Plainly he had no intention of telling the American people who in his Administration thought it was a good idea to tell reporters that Joseph Wilson's wife was an undercover CIA operative. Is there anyone who believes that Bush, if he didn't know about the revelation beforehand, couldn't have found out which person or persons did the leak? If he'd wanted to, he could have given us a name immediately.
Instead, it's more than a year later, and we still don't know who revealed this information illegally. A grand jury has been convened, and Cheney and Bush himself have been questioned, as well as many other members of the administration and the press.
Any way you look at it, Bush has been, at least, negligent in this matter, if not actively covering up a crime.
Outing Plame was a good thing because otherwise Americans would hear that Iraq has 87 TONS of yellowcake already, Niger has none to sell, neither does any of the other countries Wilson frequented, and the heavy-duty stuff at Tuwaitha, the strontium, the cesium, was left UNGUARDED for a full month after the invasion.
Al Qaeda, in the country in the guise of old uncles and gnarled grandmothers, didn't even take advantage of the 'Free Terrorism Supplies' signs. Or did they? Who knows, Bushliarco wouldn't let the IAEA count up the stores when security was reestablished.
And let's hear about all the high-level nukes laying around in the snow in Russia that Bushliarco has cleaned up.
Bottom line: Terrorism is good business, so shut your yaps!
--
"A grand jury has been convened"
Now unconvened, while we await the indictments. Could it be that none are coming? Could it be that Grand Jury jurors are being threatened by felons in the Justice dept? Could it be that we are in DEEP SHIT, and holding our hats and asking politely ain't gonna work?
"Any way you look at it, Bush has been, at least, negligent in this matter, if not actively covering up a crime.--Nora "
Or flaunting it, depending on His Whim.
Death to traitors.
--
Nora:
Ashcroft wouldn't have sent the matter out to a prosecutor outside the Justice Department if there weren't a strong likelihood that someone had in fact leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative to Novak.
Ahh, this would be one of the times when Ashcroft becomes competent and principled. Thanks for the update.
Toby Petzold
-No, this just shows that if it has nothing to do with covering naked statues of women, Asscroft wants nothing to do with it.
"hatred for the president that they give ugly a new dimension. ...ugliness up once again...ugly with hatred you'd make a great goblin.--Anonymous"
Goblins? You want goblins, you got it. Just wait until the souls of the 40,000+ Bush just murdered come after your ass in the afterlife.
900 dead US GIs, more than 4,000 men with lost arms and legs, 20,000+ casualties, and NOT A SINGLE WEAPON.
What's not to hate? Death to traitors. And then death to you traitor-supporting right wingers in death. Jesus is going to wash his hands of you, and that's going to be hilarious.
But, but, Jesus, I've got all my Pat Robertson donation receipts right here in my bloody back pocket....
==
"Tenet quits unexpectedly the day Bush hires a lawyer in the Plame case? Tell me the two are not related ... There is a lot here, and it ALL points to the case that they were lying about WMD, they knew it, and they didn't care what they had to do to cover it up."
Bravo Monkey.
Two days ago one of the major nightly news shows spent around 45 seconds on the Plame matter, and their re-hash-accounting of the issue was so glossed over that it was entirely unclear that it's the outing that is the crux of the matter.
Right-the fuck-on pie, monkey, old hat.
Fucking useless, waste of space trolls. Skip right over em.
Anonymous | Email | Homepage | 07.18.04 - 1:21 pm | #
Lots of name-calling, but not one actual fact to rebut the evidence.
It must suck to be you. It must suck to be so blinded, that you can't see the truth when it stares you in the face.
You poor, stupid, little man. Are you going to be able to function once Bush is defeated in November?
I hope so, for your sake.
I have my tinf-OIL hat on. I agree it is all about oil, both potential future shortages of and current control over. And not only did Plame get outed but now a whole front company, Brewster, Jennings & Associates, has been exposed. Republicans should be outraged that corporations have been outed.
Folks, you're all ignoring the really important news; Iraq had yellow cake! That's why we dropped all those bombs on them, we can't take the risk of them having yellow cake! And no, it turns out it wasn't yellow cake uranium, just plain old yellow cake, and a limited supply of chocolate icing, but when Saddam Hussein is involved, you never can be too careful!
No wonder we accidently bombed so many wedding and birthday parties.
I've also yet to hear Bush criticize Bob Novack for being so irresponsible as to publish this informaiton. I've yet to see the Bush administration cut him off like the traitor that he is. Regardless of whether or not what Novak did was illegal, it was immoral and moral people should shun him. But not Bush.
I'm angry! Spent some time yesterday w/ a friend of mine who's a nurse at Walter Reed and is caring for a young man just back from Iraq. Under her care, he's moved from a vegetative state to being able to open his eyes, and say "Mom." Her story about the first time he said it to his mom would make the covered-up statues at DoJ cry. Why was he injured like this? Why is my friend working herself to the bone to help him regain some semblance of a life? So Haliburton would have a good quarter? So suburbanites can drive SUVs into the city instead of taking public transportation?
They are just trying to turn Wilson into Andrew Gilligan. Gilligan got it right, all his points were substanciated by the Butler report.
See Pie, that's where you and I will never see eye to eye.
I am willing to wait for the facts to come out. If they support that Plame was outed, I will change my opinion as I said far up this thread. I don't see that they do or will support that she was outed at this point, but am open to the idea that there are facts that I don't yet know.
You on the other hand, are totally convinced as you've been time and again that any accusation or event that can be spun to support your seething hatred of Bush is a FACT, because you NEED it to be.
In this case you present nothing but an accusation that never had legs enough to warrant any immediate ofical reaction, but was shouted out shrilly enough and the charge fronted so vorciferously by a proven liar that it does warrant a careful investigation that has yet to be completed.
Time and time again you've been shown to be an utter jackass doing this sort of thing. And you talk about facts like you have even a passing familiarity with them.
It must really suck to be you. It has to suck to be so full of hatred you can't think straight and have to hang out here where hatred is the norm. It must suck to be most of the people here who see a rainy day as proof of Bush's perfidy. It'll suck even worse for you folks when your hatred proves beyond any hope of satisfaction after the November elections.
Like I also said way up thread, you'd think you people would learn.
Why was outing Plame a good thing? Because the CIA is and has been, since its creation, a ridiculous, criminal organization that has fixed elections, assassinated leaders but otherwise failed to get much of anything write. Because whatever Plame did in her "covert" job she undoubtedly violated international law. Don't cry for Valerie Plame; now she can get a decent job.
slightly O.T.
Has that thing got a Hemi?
Sweet....
(I hate Dodges - I own a Duramax Diesel)
Iraq had yellow cake!
Saddam was also developing several wind up rubber band drone planes to deliver the thermonuclear devices that he was going to blow up Texas with Good thing we took care of that. It's amazing what tortured bullshit people can get themselves to believe, as long as they are able to ignore elementary logic and common sense.
From my dKos entry (with many threaded links)
The wheels are coming off...
http://lestatdelc.dailykos.com/s...7/17/3122/
19831
How do I know this... because Downing Street forced into the open on discredited spies.
This is the great undoing of the last shred of substance to the false claims about WMD intel claims by Bush and company, specifically to the false and patently absurd claims about African uranium purchases. This is what actually led to the first and fatal explosion which will, with any justice, be the greatest scandal in our nations history. All of which were sparked by the Niger claims.
Diaries :: Lestatdelc's diary ::
The Niger documents, in fact the entire construct that Iraq was seeking yellow-cake is absurd. Iraq had over 500 tons of the stuff in country since 1998. Iraq had no need for yellow-cake through black-market channels from 1998 onward, when the IAEA inspectors that had been monitoring the stock-pile got pulled in advance of
Operation Desert Fox.
So we know that the entire yellow-cake snipe hunt was bogus from the outset.
Even the CIA didn't pursue it past Cheney's offices' request to run down the bogus claims which were sparked by the Niger forgeries, that prompted Wilson's trip. This is confirmed in the Senate Iraqi Intel report. The CIA was busy trying to make hay with the aluminum tubes (which ended up being pure bunk, but that only required selective and willful ignoring of the atomic agency experts, not bogus documents) and didn't put any resources into the yellow-cake (except for the said Wilson trip at Cheney's behest) because it made zero sense that Iraq would be seeking more yellow-cake at the time.
The INR knew that the yellow-cake was dubious at best.
So why was Plame outed and Wilson smeared...?
Most assume Plame was outed to discredit Wilson, while that is an added benefit to why it occurred, that was entirely the wrong question.
The correct question is was Plame outed because of her work in counter-proliferation and now Wilson is suddenly lobbing "grenades" at the administration?
Remember what we know Plame was, a covert operative handling NOCs (no offical cover operatives, i.e. undercover operatives) for the CIA counter-proliferation Department (CPD). Joe Klien in his June 26, 2004 Time magazine article hinted that Plame "may have been active in a sting operation involving the trafficking of WMD components".
Now... scroll back to the mid to late 80s... Libya was a sanctioned country for its known sponsorship of terrorist groups, and we know for a fact that Halliburton sold them duel-use technology (Neutron generators) which could be used as nuclear detonators. This is not even a matter of speculation, because in 1995, Halliburton finally plead guilty and paid over $2 million in fines. Now I don't think Libya had as much to do with the Plame leaking but rather the more troubling (and recent) activities of Halliburton under the Cheney hel
cont.
Now... scroll back to the mid to late 80s... Libya was a sanctioned country for its known sponsorship of terrorist groups, and we know for a fact that Halliburton sold them duel-use technology (Neutron generators) which could be used as nuclear detonators. This is not even a matter of speculation, because in 1995, Halliburton finally plead guilty and paid over $2 million in fines. Now I don't think Libya had as much to do with the Plame leaking but rather the more troubling (and recent) activities of Halliburton under the Cheney helm in regards to Iran and Iraq. Though Libya's sudden shift to become our newest friend and held aloft as a shining example of the Bush administrations "success" in the GWOT, is mightily bizarre given the administrations ties with the country (not to mention the "diplomacy" was said to be mainly spear-headed by the British).
This is worth remembering because of the underground markets that Halliburton et al were dealing in to Syria, Iran, Libya and significantly Iraq... this is why we didn't pull the trigger on Iraq in 1991. I gave a broader overview of the history of it all in an earlier diary entry.
Because when we were tearing up the Republican Guard on the "highway of death" we had to turn south not north in the Euphrates river valley because at that time BushCo. (Sr.) didn't honestly know what WMD we faced, not to mention the pandemonium within the coalition (especially those in the region) such a move would create. We hesitated because we sold Iraq the WMD components, and the intel to use them because at the time when they were sold, Iraq was using them on Iran in their 8 year war.
This is also why BushCo. had to scare the shit out of their partners in Saudi Arabia, whose internal security had long been supplied by Carlyle trained and equipped personal via their BDM and Vinnell subsidiaries (since sold off to TRW) with fake intel about Saddam's intentions to move on Saudi Arabia as Desert Shield was being set-up.
This was why the WMD measures in the cease-fire and the no-fly zones for fixed wing aircraft were a must. BushCo. had to de-fang the Ba'athist regime of WMD before we could really move on them.
This is why they (the neo-cons) went positively ape-shit when Bush Sr, tanked in the polls, Perot split the vote and Clinton got in. This is why the Arkansas Project and a non-stop hunting for anything to take Clinton down is begun.
But the salient point here is that Haliburton, via its off-shore, end-run subsidiaries have been getting around sanctions and dealing with Iraq and Iran for some time now. Cheney even went so far as to defend Haliburton's practice while he was CEO, of using off-shore subsidiaries to circumvent sanctions in 2000.
cont.
cont.
See Rep. Henry Waxmans, letter to Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Defense, April 30, 2003 (PDF)
Halliburton certainly could have been dealing in some Libyan style materials with either or both Iran and Iraq prior to 9/11, and thus those tentacles had to be severed, in a scorched earth manner after the terrorist attacks occured. I am convinced that Plame was outed for her CPD operations, rather than as "revenge" against Wilson.
Wilson suddenly lobbing "grenades" at the administration in public over the hyperbolic and totally cooked claims about African uranium scared the crap out of Cheney, because both he and Lewis "Scooter" Libby knew who his wife was, what her function was, and what direction her work was digging since they had been camped out at Langely for some time. What did she work in... WMD counterprolferation. Furthermore we know the IAEA is investigating, and has already stated publically that it is looking into 20 companies, some US based (and lets not forget the subsidiaries in Europe and the front companies in the Caymans that are tied to Halliburton) over illicit deals.
Wilson going public about the Niger claims was a catalyst, and Cheney knew the danger his wife posed, hence their being prepped and willing to "pull-the-trigger" on Plame.
It was a classic BushCo. style twofer which this administration, via Rove, have always tried to angle towards. But in this case, the emphasis and how it is being played out in the media and public mind is backwards. Wilson was not the target of "revenge", rather Plame was cut off at the knees because Wilson's blindsiding suddenly made it conceivable that Plame had some goods on Cheney/Halliburton (i.e. the cartel) and was, like her husband, a loose canon (from their view) and had some real ordinance with which to fire on them.
This also certainly adds some Crazy-Glu™ to the perma-bonding of the Bush/Cheney ticket despite the political/electoral lead balloon that is Cheney on said ticket. They are in a death embrace and either sink or swim together as the CIA is about to destroy them for what Cheney and crew have done to them, to the nations security... and thus by extension we the public.
I am willing to wait for the facts to come out. If they support that Plame was outed, I will change my opinion as I said far up this thread.
How convenient that you ignore the fact the the CIA asked for this investigation and got it.
And Ashcroft had to recuse himself.
And a separate prosecutor had to be named.
How convenient that you ignore the fact that the minutes of the Cheney energy meetings have yet to come to light.
How convenient that Bush got to appoint the 9/11 commission.
How convenient that he appointed the panel to investigate the White House's influence re prewar intelligence, but nothing will come out until after November. Has this panel even met? Just once? Even McCain has squawked.
Don't make me laugh. Fool me once...
What's your excuse?
GET A CLUE. How dare you criticize me because I am unhappy and angry about the continual stonewalling of a powerful and corrupt administration.
Bah!
Like I also said way up thread, you'd think you people would learn.
Yeah, you think you'd learn.
I want answers, and I want them now.
You seem to be willing to give Bush all the time in the world.
If he had the truth on his side, he certainly would have shared it with us by now.
Lies. That's all he has.
Or would you like me to wait until November for him to come clean?
'Lies. That's all he has.'
Not yet by any evidence acceptable to a middle schooler. Not once by any proof that any middle schooler wouldn't scoff at. Middle schoolers exceed your level of critical thinking?
Every loon like yourself who keeps pointing at something and squawking out 'Lie' ends up looking like a fool from Moore to the media to the DNC to Kerry himself.
They have no issues except the ones they manufacture. They have no ideas other than the retreads that have proven to be junk. And this is what assures you that you're going to win in November.
Bush is campaigning as a side issue as a sitting president must and Kerry is going full bore and can't generate more than passing interest or break even. Bush will bury the clown. He'll be a footnote like Dukakis. Perhaps you'll be lucky and Hillary will grab the nomination. At least she can formulate an original thought and defend it.
You got nothing but your hate Pie, and that doesn't buy you anything but pity and not much of that.
Thanks, anonymous, for ignoring every single point I made.
It's a waste of time trying to have a discussion with you. You offer no defense, because you haven't one.
I don't *hate* Bush. I have no confidence in him, nor do I respect him. I've never seen anyone aso ill-suited to be president. What a divisive bastard. Look what he's done to you and me.
In November, you will finally realize what the majority of American voters think of him. But you should feel better knowing that we may finally be able to return to some sort of normalcy, a bit more optimism, about the future with him gone.
I can't wait.
>I< hate Bushliar, and I'd be perfectly happy to serve as executioner if he gets a fair trial first.
Knowing he is a lying sack of shit, he threatened to NUKE Bagdad. He has killed tens of thousands of completely innocent persons, and 1,000 good troops. I believe he killed Sen. Wellstone, and I believe he was complicit in 11 Sep 01, which has to rate as the most horrific case of treason in the history of the United States.
I was RAISED to hate traitors. He has raped our country long enough. Anonymous spew is not going to save him. Anonymity is not going to save you. The guilt for these actions is all over you racist wingers, and I say you should fry for it.
--
Can someone explain why *outing* Plame was a good thing?
Pie, it wasn't about it being a good thing for the American people. It was retaliation on Bush's part for Joseph Wilson's scathing editorial about Niger after Bush made his SOTU address. Bush set his attack dog Robert Novak on the Wilsons then, and now Novak is after them again.
It was revenge then. It's deflection now.
It worked, I can hyperlink, woohoo!
Crap, hard to celebrate on a 3 week old thread.
Frist!
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