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Local Rebel
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0 posted 2007-03-07 06:44 AM


quote:

My prediction about Dick Cheney is one step closer to coming true. My clock gives it three weeks before his resignation letter lands on Bush's desk. What does your clock say?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ari-emanuel/the-clock-is-ticking-on-c_b_42802.html




Emanuel's blog entry is in reference to the conviction of Skeuter Libby on 4 of 5 counts of obstruction and purjury.  He contends that before the administration is done Cheney will be out and Rice will be veep.

However farfetched that may be -- what do you think the implications of the Libby trial are for Cheney?  The remainder of the Bush administration?  Should Libby be pardoned as the National Review calls for?  Do you think Bush will make an 11th hour pardon the way Clinton did?  Do you agree with the jury's contention that other members of the administration should have been on trial?

© Copyright 2007 Local Rebel - All Rights Reserved
rwood
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1 posted 2007-03-07 10:54 AM


Whoa, Nelly. This sort of amused me in a twisted way.

quote:
By: Noodle on March 06, 2007 at 04:33pm.
Makes sense to me. Cheney resigns, Bush replaces him with Condoleeza Rice, she wins the 2008 republican nomination for president, thus guaranteeing that Hillary Clinton wins the election.


Yes, farfetched, but very employable tactics. Now if this comes to pass: I can really make a "prediction."

See Dick go. See two women run without. See how far they get before another Dick wins.

Pardon my sense of humor, please. I hope they prove me wrong. I think.

"However farfetched that may be -- what do you think the implications of the Libby trial are for Cheney?"

Libby won't be invited to Cheney's annual Christmas party ever again.

I feel that anything that goes down at the White House will not include Bush or "The remainder of the Bush administration?" With a period. If they fall down we all fall down, especially those soldiers now deployed on foreign soil. I think we know who or what is holding them up, in a number of ways.

"Do you think Bush will make an 11th hour pardon the way Clinton did?"

Bush needs to beg pardon for a lot of things, but a man gone wrong will usually justify, justify, justify, while he throws down the gavel with all the power given him, especially that which makes him afraideth it be taken away.

"Do you agree with the jury's contention that other members of the administration should have been on trial?"

Sure, but they got an excused absence, and probably two milks and all the Twinkies they could eat, which explains the shelf life of Congress and the condoning of the "Twinkie defense," with many things going on inside the White House.

Alicat
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since 1999-05-23
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2 posted 2007-03-07 11:19 AM


It all depends on who you ask.  The ubercons want President Bush to sidestep the Articles in the Constitution which created Seperation of Powers and directly prosecute or bring charges of Treason against select Democrats and Liberals for leaking or destroying classified documents.  On the other side,  uberlibs cheer the verdict and work towards Regime Change on one side of the mouth and state the trial and verdicts were not politically motivated out the other side.  When asked what they spoke about in brief conversations several days ago, the usually response is 'I'm not before a Grand Jury.' Nice duck n weave action.

But they never directly answer the question, since the answer is invariably, 'I don't recall exactly.'

The real interesting thing was this entire trial was NOT about 'who outted Valerie Plame', as the Prosecution had known about Armitage for many years.  It was about whether or not there had been perjury during the investigation where the Prosecution already had their catch, but were casting their nets for other fish.  Armitage was never charged.  Armitage helped the Prosecution.  Armitage was not permitted to go public for several years.  However, all over the AP line, it's 'Libby Convicted in CIA Leak Case' or 'Libby Verdict Indictment on Iraq War'.  Yet those same reporters are quick to say the trial was apolitical.

Wilson is recommended and sent by his string pulling wife to Niger for a 'yellow-cake' story.  Wilson comes back and submits his findings that Saddam had not actually gotten any.  White House says that Saddam tried though and would eventually succeed if unchecked.  Wilson didn't like that answer, so he releases his unauthorized report to media outlets and writes an Op-Ed citing Cheney as the one who sent him, when it was his wife.  In an interview with Novak a few days later, Armitage mentions who actually sent Wilson to Niger: 'his wife, yanno the one that works in the CIA'.  Novak knew who that was.  Most reporters in DC worth their salt knew who that was.  So Wilson, Plame and the Anti-War crowd cry Foul! and immediately implicate the White House, even though Armitage worked for the State Department.

Was Armitage brought to trial? No. Nice guy, powerlifter, raised about 50 adoptive kids, worked in the State Department.  Novak? Nope.  Berger?  Sorry, different crime and political affilation...over 700 days since he said he'd take a polygraph and counting.  What the Special Prosecution wanted was someone in the current White House and they tripped up Libby.

As Jurist Collins stated, they didn't want Libby, but Rove.  Interesting that during his 15-Minutes of Fame speech, Collins plugged himself as an author and reporter.  I don't think he's a current author, but I'm sure that will be rectified soon...and there would be some serious legal issues if was a newspaper reporter AND a jurist.  I could be wrong, but I think that's a disqualifier.  Unless he wasn't straight about his profession, in which case that would be a mistrail.

Balladeer
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3 posted 2007-03-07 01:07 PM


Convicted of perjury in lying to a grand jury...wow. Reminds me of another politician in the not-so-distant past in a much higher office. He should have just stuffed secret documents down his shorts and he would have been ok  

I was wondering where you all have been during the recent threads on Pelosi, Hillary and the like. I figured it wouldn't take long for this to show up....thanks for the predictability.

Mistletoe Angel
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4 posted 2007-03-07 01:29 PM


All I will say for now is that this president would benefit more politically pardoning Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean, rather than Lewis Libby.

Who knows when that will happen?

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

Local Rebel
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5 posted 2007-03-07 07:04 PM


I admit I haven't been listening to the right wing nuts lately so I guess, from reading Cat's and Deer's responses, that they're banging on Sandy Berger again trying to assuage any stinging sensation amongst the Conservative ranks over the conviction of Libby.  This, however, is not a partisan thread but, since there are misrepresentations, misunderstandings, and factual inaccuracies let's review the final outcome of the Berger case briefly;

quote:

On July 19, 2004, it was revealed that the U.S. Justice Department was investigating Berger for unlawfully mishandling classified documents in October 2003, by removing them from a National Archives reading room prior to testifying before the 9/11 Commission. The documents were commissioned from Richard Clarke covering internal assessments of the Clinton administration's handling of the unsuccessful 2000 millennium attack plots.

When initially questioned by reporters, Berger claimed that the removal of top-secret documents in his attache-case and handwritten notes in his jacket and pants pockets was accidental. He later, in a guilty plea, admitted to deliberately removing materials and then cutting them up with scissors.[13]

Berger eventually pled guilty to a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized removal and retention of classified material on April 1, 2005. Under a plea agreement, U.S. attorneys recommended a fine of $10,000 and a loss of security clearance for three years. However, on September 8, U.S. Magistrate Judge Deborah Robinson increased the fine to $50,000 at Berger's sentencing. Robinson stated, "The court finds the fine [recommended by government prosecutors] is inadequate because it doesn't reflect the seriousness of the offense."[14] Berger was also ordered to serve two years of probation and to perform 100 hours of community service.[15]

Critics believe Berger's motives were more sinister than a mere mishandling of classified documents. They suggest he destroyed primary evidence revealing anti-terrorism policies and actions, and that his motive was to permanently erase Clinton administration pre-9/11 mistakes from the public record. Public statements to this effect have been made by talk-radio host Rush Limbaugh,[16] former Clinton campaign advisor Dick Morris,[17] USA Today reporter Jack Kelley,[18] multiple times by Fox News correspondent John Gibson (the last as recently as December 2006[19]), and former House Speaker Dennis Hastert (Republican-Illinois), who said: "What information could be so embarrassing that a man with decades of experience in handling classified documents would risk being caught pilfering our nation's most sensitive secrets?"[20]

After a long investigation, the lead prosecutor Noel Hillman, chief of the Justice Department's public integrity section, stated that Berger only removed classified copies of data stored on hard drives stored in the National Archives, and that no original material was destroyed.[21] His and the FBI's opinion of the case initially led The Wall Street Journal to editorialize against the allegations, stating in part:

“ Justice says the picture that emerged is of a man who knowingly and recklessly violated the law in handling classified documents, but who was not trying to hide any evidence. Prosecutors believe Mr. Berger genuinely wanted to prepare for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission but felt he was somehow above having to spend numerous hours in the Archives as the rules required, and that he didn't exactly know how to return the documents once he'd taken them out... We called Justice Department Public Integrity chief prosecutor Noel Hillman, who assured us that Mr. Berger did not deny any documents to history. 'There is no evidence that he intended to destroy originals,' said Mr. Hillman. 'There is no evidence that he did destroy originals. We have objectively and affirmatively confirmed that the contents of all the five documents at issue exist today and were made available to the 9/11 Commission.'[22] ”

Despite prosecutors' statements, some critics continued to make unsubstantiated allegations. This led The Wall Street Journal to reiterate its position, stating "Some people won't let a bad conspiracy theory go". The paper went on to say: "The confusion seems to stem from the mistaken idea that there were handwritten notes by various Clinton Administration officials in the margins of these documents, which Mr. Berger may have been able to destroy. But that's simply an 'urban myth,' prosecutor Hillman tells us, based on a leak last July that was 'so inaccurate as to be laughable.' In fact, the five iterations of the anti-terror 'after-action' report at issue in the case were printed out from a hard drive at the Archives and have no notations at all."[23]

On December 20, 2006, more than a year after Berger plead guilty and was sentenced, a report issued by the archives inspector detailed how Berger had perpetrated the crime. Inspector General Paul Brachfeld reported that Berger took a break to go outside without an escort. "In total, during this visit, he removed four documents ... Mr. Berger said he placed the documents under a trailer in an accessible construction area outside Archives 1 (the main Archives building)." Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office.[24][25]

The report also stated "There were not any handwritten notes on the documents Mr. Berger removed from the archives. Mr. Berger did not believe there was unique information in the three documents he destroyed. Mr. Berger never made any copies of these documents." In the end, according to the report, "[Mr. Berger] substituted his sense of sensitivity instead of thinking of classification" in deciding to remove the documents.[26]

In January 2007, departing Republican staff of The United States House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform released a report titled Sandy Berger's Theft of Classified Documents: Unanswered Questions. It states that the FBI or the Department of Justice never questioned Berger about two earlier visits he made on May 30, 2002 and July 18 2003, when he reviewed White House working papers not yet inventoried by the National Archives, and speculates that, had Berger previously been entirely successful in actions at which he was later caught, "nobody would know they were gone." It also contains the FBI's statement as to why they concluded there was no exposure on those dates: "Berger was under constant supervision".[27][15] Despite senior Bush Administration officials giving the report's authors highly unusual access to internal information about an ongoing DOJ investigation,[28] the report contains no new facts that the career prosecutors handling the case overlooked.

The report did, however, cause the Wall Street Journal to, in January 2007, retract their initial opinion of the case, saying there are substantial questions concerning the truth of Berger's statements and that other documents may have been removed. They now argue that Berger's taking of multiple copies of the same document contradict his statement that he took them only for his personal research, since they note that he could have simply kept his copy. However neither they, nor the committee report, detail an alternate theory in which multiple thefts of the same document are key.[29][30] Mr. Berger continues to insist that he took the copies of the same document for personal convenience, and thought them overclassified (i.e. the information they contained was not actually sensitive to national security).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandy_Berger#Convicted_of_mishandling_classified_terror_documents




I'm not really sure how, although I think I may understand why, anyone still thinks there are any teeth to the Sandy Berger docugate drama -- especially after the Conservative newspaper the Wall Street Journal issued this op-ed on April 8, 2005;

quote:

Some people won't let a bad conspiracy theory go. We're referring to those who loudly assert that former NSC adviser Sandy Berger was trying to protect the Clinton Administration when he illegally removed copies of sensitive documents from the National Archives in late 2003.

On Wednesday, we quoted Justice Department prosecutor Noel Hillman that no original documents were destroyed, and that the contents of all five at issue still exist and were made available to the 9/11 Commission. But that point didn't register with some readers, who continue to suggest a vast, well, apparently a vast left- and right-wing conspiracy. The Washington Times, the Rocky Mountain News and former Clintonite Dick Morris have also been peddling dark suspicions based on misinformation.

The confusion seems to stem from the mistaken idea that there were handwritten notes by various Clinton Administration officials in the margins of these documents, which Mr. Berger may have been able to destroy. But that's simply an "urban myth," prosecutor Hillman tells us, based on a leak last July that was "so inaccurate as to be laughable." In fact, the five iterations of the anti-terror "after-action" report at issue in the case were printed out from a hard drive at the Archives and have no notations at all.

--conservatives don't do themselves any credit when they are as impervious to facts as the loony left.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006534




quote:

I was wondering where you all have been during the recent threads on Pelosi, Hillary and the like.



I can't speak for anyone but myself, and even that would be hard to say since - I haven't really noticed any threads lately besides the Gay-Rights Activists bashing one -- but, it's possible I was shoveling snow, playing guitar, building guitars,  having my truck totaled by a moron who thought he could do anything because he had an SUV with all-wheel-drive, spending time with my kids,  or doing something else that actually interested me.

Regina

quote:

and writes an Op-Ed citing Cheney as the one who sent him, when it was his wife



three CIA officials testified that Wilson's trip was in fact in direct response to Cheney's inquiry as stated by Wilson.

quote:

Most reporters in DC worth their salt knew who that was. So Wilson, Plame and the Anti-War crowd cry Foul! and immediately implicate the White House, even though Armitage worked for the State Department.




From the facts of this case we know that Rove and, of course, Libby, two White House officials -- were in fact spreading the word too -- the fact that Armitage leaked to Novak and that he was the first to take the bait does nothing to exonerate the White House -- in fact --it was the jury's contention that Cheney directed Libby to do the leaking.

I didn't think there was anyone left who was still trying to cast doubt on the covert status of Plame.

Denise
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6 posted 2007-03-07 10:04 PM


http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=19720

I think Ann sums it up well.

Local Rebel
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7 posted 2007-03-07 10:09 PM


Her summary is completely fatuous and inaccurate.
Not A Poet
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8 posted 2007-03-08 12:53 PM


Well, of course you would say that. True, she hyperbolized it a bit but where is it inacurate?

Brad
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9 posted 2007-03-08 01:14 AM


It's illegal to be a Republican?
Mistletoe Angel
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10 posted 2007-03-08 01:28 AM


Sanding aside from the more political aspect of the pardon debate here, it seems it could be argued that Libby currently doesn't even qualify for a presidential pardon under Justice Department guidelins as they are currently written:

United States Department of Justice: Office of the Pardon Attorney

Pardon Attorney Roger C. Adams

"The Office of the Pardon Attorney, in consultation with the Attorney General or his designee, assists the President in the exercise of executive clemency as authorized under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution. Under the Constitution, the President's clemency power extends only to federal criminal offenses. All requests for executive clemency for federal offenses are directed to the Pardon Attorney for investigation and review. The Pardon Attorney prepares the Department's recommendation to the President for final disposition of each application. Executive clemency may take several forms, including pardon, commutation of sentence, remission of fine or restitution, and reprieve."


*

Newsweek: March 7, 2007

As a new Newsweek commentary also explains, according to those very guidelines:

*

"They 'require a petitioner to wait a period of at least five years after conviction or release from confinement (whichever is later) before filing a pardon application,'  according to the Justice Web site."

*

Now, of course the president has every right to waive those rules if he wishes to, but as is also pointed out:

*

"From the day he took office, Bush seems to have followed those guidelines religiously. He's taken an exceedingly stingy approach to pardons, granting only 113 in six years, mostly for relatively minor fraud, embezzlement and drug cases dating back more than two decades. Bush’s pardons are 'fewer than any president in 100 years,' according to Margaret Love, former pardon attorney at the Justice Department."

*

Thus, would it be fair to say, setting aside personal feelings for Mr. Libby, the Iraq war and the politics of the trial itself here for a moment, that such a pardon in the more immediate future would feel rather awkward when considering how the president has approached these particular guidelines intensely?

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

Balladeer
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11 posted 2007-03-08 09:03 AM


Berger claimed that the removal of top-secret documents in his attache-case and handwritten notes in his jacket and pants pockets was accidental. (Somehow it is failed to mention his socks and underwear). He later, in a guilty plea, admitted to deliberately removing materials and then cutting them up with scissors.

Mr. Berger said he placed the documents under a trailer in an accessible construction area outside Archives 1 (the main Archives building)." Berger acknowledged that he later retrieved the documents from the construction area and returned with them to his office
  (would you care to come up with any scenario that would cause him to place them in a construction area and then retrieve them....me, neither)
"I'm not really sure how, although I think I may understand why, anyone still thinks there are any teeth to the Sandy Berger docugate drama" - LR

REALLY? (Ron didn't buy all of the swampland I have for sale down here, There are a few acres left if you're interested )

You may not have written this as a partisan thread but the fact remains.....had Berger been a Republican, he would have been crucified. Had Libby been a Democrat he would have skated......such is life in the 5th Estate....and occasionally in Alleys.

rwood
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Tennessee
12 posted 2007-03-08 03:24 PM


quote:
As a result, Democrats have run wild, accepting bribes, destroying classified information, lying under oath, molesting interns, driving under the influence, obstructing justice and engaging in sex with underage girls, among other things.


WHAT? You're kidding Me!

Bunch of Hooligans!!

I'm appalled.

quote:
Criminal prosecution is a surrogate for political warfare, but in this war, Republicans are gutless appeasers.


She said it. I didn't. So is that the Democrat's fault?

Maybe the Republicans need to pay more attention to who is funding them. It could be a conspiracy. Get what you pay for. Set up a  shoo-in. Strike when he's in office...sound crazy?

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/16/terror/main2488520.shtml

We'd better be equally concerned about who's underneath the platforms.


Balladeer
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13 posted 2007-03-08 04:48 PM


Hey, rwood....may as well look at both sides, no? Unfortunately, both sides could use a little more diligence..

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2002/12/31/135301.shtml  

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

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2001/2/21/181251.shtml

This one is the best, with an excerpt below....   http://prorev.com/wwstats.htm

CAMPAIGN FINANCE INVESTIGATION
- As of June 2000, the Justice Department listed 25 people indicted and 19 convicted because of the 1996 Clinton-Gore fundraising scandals.
- According to the House Committee on Government Reform in September 2000, 79 House and Senate witnesses asserted the Fifth Amendment in the course of investigations into Gore's last fundraising campaign. [These figures are included in the larger figures elsewhere].
-James Riady entered a plea agreement to pay an $8.5 million fine for campaign finance crimes. This was a record under campaign finance laws.


- Number of times John Huang took the 5th Amendment in answer to questions during a Judicial Watch deposition: 1,000
- Visits made to the White House by investigation subjects Johnny Chung, James Riady, John Huang, and Charlie Trie. 160
- Number of campaign contributors who got overnights at the White House in the two years before the 1996 election: 577
- Number of members of Thomas Boggs's law firm who have held top positions in the Clinton administration. 18
- Number of times John Huang was briefed by CIA: 37
- Number of calls Huang made from Commerce Department to Lippo banks: 261
- Number of intelligence reports Huang read while at Commerce: 500

[This message has been edited by Ron (03-08-2007 05:42 PM).]

rwood
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14 posted 2007-03-08 05:00 PM


Yep. It's all ugly money. Dirty, scammin', and shameful.

Democratic, Republican, no matter, tho the one I listed was most recent, I think.

I'm glad you brought those back up, Mike. Maybe people will take a look at how much Hillary Knew about it, participated in it, and now she's ridin' a new wave of it. Maybe that's why Gore is comfy outside the White House, in a convenient sort of way.


Local Rebel
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15 posted 2007-03-08 06:08 PM


quote:

You may not have written this as a partisan thread but the fact remains.....had Berger been a Republican, he would have been crucified. Had Libby been a Democrat he would have skated......such is life in the 5th Estate....and occasionally in Alleys.  



Your recollection of the definition of the word 'fact' has apparently gotten a little foggy -- maybe you can get Essorant to look it up for you.

Let's see -- did anybody skate here?  Berger committed a crime, lied about it, got caught in the lie, confessed to the crime, was tried and convicted in a plea-bargain.

Libby had the opportunity to cooperate but instead chose to plead innocent -- was tried, found guilty.

The Republicans were in control of the Justice Department for both incidents.  (Notice the word 'Department' -- take note of what it is a department of.)

If you think Berger got away with something you need to write a letter to GW and complain about it.

If you think Libby was persecuted -- you need to write a letter to the CIA and ask them why they referred the matter to the Justice Department to begin with if you, indeed, think Valerie Plame wasn't a covert agent -- since the CIA obviously confirms that she was.  

If you think Fitzgerald was biased you need to write a letter and complain to the Justice Department and complain about them recusing themselves and appointing a Republican prosecutor.

[edit instead of submitting back-to-back posts]

quote:

Well, of course you would say that. True, she hyperbolized it a bit but where is it inacurate?



That's a fair and honest question Pete -- but, I don't think the heavy lifting belongs to me -- I think it belongs to anyone who wants to assert that Coulter's statements are accurate:

quote:

Lewis Libby has now been found guilty of perjury and obstruction of justice for lies that had absolutely no legal consequence.



I'm going to bet that it wouldn't be a hard search to find Coulter calling for Clinton's impeachment and removal of office for perjury charges that she thought were imperative at the time.

Of course -- she's copping the same argument that Hillary used -- vast, right-wing conspiracy -- if you changed the names -- you'd be hard pressed to tell the difference.

I'll give you a leg-up though, or, whomever wants to try to prove Ann right -- start with the Grand Jury Indictment and findings of fact:
http://files.findlaw.com/news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/plame/usvlibby102805ind.pdf

or try wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_plame

I'm not even going to address the rest of her nonsense as it has absolutely no bearing on this thread.

Balladeer
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16 posted 2007-03-08 07:26 PM


If you think Berger got away with something you need to write...
If you think Libby was persecuted -- you need to write.....
If you think Fitzgerald was biased you need to write....


You have an interesting way of expressing my needs, LR

if you, indeed, think Valerie Plame wasn't a covert agent

Of course she had been. Do you really think that's important in the Libby case?

.... or doing something else that actually interested me.

Exactly my point. The topics on Hillary, Pelosi or the Democratic Senate are uninteresting to you but let a Republican item come up, and....viola!  Anyway, good to see you back, even if it takes a partisan thought to do it.......or HAD you initiated an Alley thread on Berger when it happened, too, and I just missed it?


Local Rebel
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17 posted 2007-03-08 07:51 PM


I'm really not sure what you think you would gain by trying to paint me as a partisan Mike -- but it must be awfully important for some reason.

So, since you've picked this time, this place to attempt it (again) -- elaborate for us -- what do you get?

If you want to look around there's plenty of evidence that I don't like Bush, I don't like Hillary.  I'm not swayed by tunagate Mike.

quote:

Of course she had been. Do you really think that's important in the Libby case?



I think it is important to the nation and the world Mike -- and it is the central crime that was under investigation when Libby perpetrated his crimes for which he's been convicted -- which doesn't mean that he and others are not guilty of the central crime any more than Al Capone wasn't a ganster because he was convicted only of Tax Evasion.

There will be no further responses from the thread author on Sandy Berger -- if you want one -- make it yourself -- or resurrect the one Cat beat me to.

If you can come up with something interesting -- I'll participate Mike.

Not A Poet
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18 posted 2007-03-08 11:59 PM


To the contrary Reb. I think we all remember most of these facts Ann Coulter mentioned, at least superficially. There is plenty evidence there so that you don't get off by claiming it all lies and then cleim it is her responsibility to prove it. If she were the only one making those claims then I could accept your disclaimer without evidence. But to just deny it all as lies is pretty weak. That's more of a John Kerry tactic. Be serious. Unless your head has been somewhere, like buried in the sand, for the last year or two, you've heard all that many times before. You just flushed your credibility right down the tubes if you expect to get away with that.

Local Rebel
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19 posted 2007-03-09 12:09 PM


Not at all Pete -- I gave you plenty of evidence -- follow the links -- read for yourself.

I'm not going to point out the pertinant parts to you.  Not my job.

I don't have to retry the case -- read the Grand Jury indictment, read the Wikipedia pages, listen to the jurors -- read a newspaper.

I'm not going to spend hours creating posts in response to people who make sideswipes at threads with single sentence potshots -- you put some time in -- I'll put time in.

iliana
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20 posted 2007-03-09 01:38 AM


Ann Coulter is the queen of spin.  I can't believe this thread has come down to someone defending her...in my book she is a self-aggrandizing know-it-all and I have no respect for her opinion on anything.  I like her less than I like Hiliary Clinton (if that is possible).  

Reb, as far as Libby goes...I've heard there's quite a large pool building on whether or not Bush will pardon him.  I think I will vote with a "no."  No pardon...that is unless Cheney resigns, and then....I'll change that to a "yes."  The chances of Cheney resigning are slim though, I think.  The implications of the verdict do suggest he should.  

The way Mike would play things on this thread, you would think that nothing wrong was done.  It's the whole thing here that troubles me in that it appears to me that the war in Iraq was premised on faulty or manufactured intelligence and when the Plames would not cooperate with producing what was desired, Valerie was outted.  Tell me that outting a CIA agent doesn't intimidate the heck out of the whole agency.  Libby's lie was certainly a very important one and done for some very important reason or reasons.  I am glad someone made a big deal out of this case and took it to trial.  

We'll have to wait and see what comes out when Plame testifies in front of the House of Representatives on the 16th.  Should be interesting.  

I find it fascinating how people who would like to turn this thread into a partisan brawl don't have much to say about the real matter at hand; e.g., the possibility of impeachment.  

Oh, and ah....I have a pretty bad case of the flu so this just might end up being a drive by.  At least, you got two cents.  

rwood
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since 2000-02-29
Posts 3793
Tennessee
21 posted 2007-03-09 06:53 AM


quote:
It's the whole thing here that troubles me in that it appears to me that the war in Iraq was premised on faulty or manufactured intelligence and when the Plames would not cooperate with producing what was desired, Valerie was outted.


Bingo! They couldn't produce what wasn't there.

It's the old "Kansas City Shuffle" of information.

Valerie is definitely out. Libby is out. Who's next?

"when Plame testifies in front of the House of Representatives on the 16th."

We'll have to see, but I'll bet 1 clean dollar it will be Nobody, under these particular charges. Maybe under something else that eventually gets outted, but not from anything to do with the trip to Africa.

They'll crucify her first.

Alicat
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Posts 4094
Coastal Texas
22 posted 2007-03-09 10:45 AM


Testifing before the Senate?  That should indeed be fun.

Question?  Classified.  Clarify?  Plead 5th.
Question?  Classified.  Clarify?  Plead 5th.

Plus, since it's a bunch of self-righteous windbags on both sides of the aisle instead of, say, a Grand Jury, Plame could tell them lies and they couldn't do a thing to her.  Nor does she have to answer the summons.  Nor does she have to say anything.  Odds are though, she'll be very 'cooperative' up to a point, so long as the point is anti-war and anti-Bush.  After that, it'll be 'classified' and 5th.

Back to the case, how odd that despite the pleadings of the Special Prosecutor before the Media jury that the verdict was NOT about Iraq and was NOT about Plame but about Perjury that it still became about Iraq and Plame.  Well, that's not really odd come to think of it, that's just the Media.  Like a terrier, once they latch on to an idea, like every-conflict-is-Vietnam-unless-a-Democrat-does-it, they don't let go.  They just worry and shake that notion all over the place no matter how threadbare and nonsensicle it is.  Afterall, proclaim a lie often enough and folks will make it truth, with the onus of disproving the lies on those who call it such.

Balladeer
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23 posted 2007-03-09 06:30 PM


and it is the central crime that was under investigation when Libby perpetrated his crimes for which he's been convicted --

Sorry but what was the central crime involving Libby and what crime was he convicted of? Lying to a grand jury or something, wasn't it? About what crime? Or was it lying to a grand jury about a non-crime? Has anyone been accused of an actual crime here? Will the real criminal please stand up...or, at least, the real crime?

Local Rebel
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since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
24 posted 2007-03-09 06:53 PM


Jo,
quote:

Reb, as far as Libby goes...I've heard there's quite a large pool building on whether or not Bush will pardon him.  I think I will vote with a "no."  No pardon...that is unless Cheney resigns, and then....I'll change that to a "yes."  The chances of Cheney resigning are slim though, I think.  The implications of the verdict do suggest he should.  



Do you think Bush's response was interestingly phrased?  He said he respected the decision of the jury -- then he praised Libby's public service and expressed sympathy for him and his family -- he's yet to express sympathy or an apology to Joe and Valerie for the conduct of his administration though.  I think my best guess based on that is a pardon is coming -- I'm not sure if it's sooner or later though -- I think that if a judge orders Libby into custody while his appeal is pending the pardon will come sooner -- if he allows Libby to stay out until the appeal can happen then I think the pardon will probably come at the last minute possible.  Experts don't think there were any mistakes that would merit an appeal though and don't think that it's going to get any traction -- so, it may be coming sooner.

I agree though -- I don't think it's likely that Cheney will resign.

Hope you feel better soon.  

Reg;
quote:

We'll have to see, but I'll bet 1 clean dollar it will be Nobody, under these particular charges. Maybe under something else that eventually gets outted, but not from anything to do with the trip to Africa.

They'll crucify her first.



There is probably enough evidence from the Grand Jury investigation and Libby's trial for the Congress to charge the Vice-President -- but, I'm not hearing any rumblings in the machine that indicate anything like that is going to happen.

I'm curious about your comment re: 'crucify her' -- can you clarify your thoughts on that?  Are you thinking the Republicans on the committee will try to skewer her the way the Dems did Clarence Thomas (and the Republicans weren't in power then and the Dems were)?  If so -- I don't think the Dems are going to let Plame twist in the wind.

Cat:
What would Plame need to plead the 5th for?  The committe has appropriate security clearance to review classified information -- so I don't think that's going to be an issue.

Lying to Congress is just as much a crime as perjury -- failing to appear can get a Contempt of Congress charge http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contempt_of_Congress.

quote:

They just worry and shake that notion all over the place no matter how threadbare and nonsensicle it is.  Afterall, proclaim a lie often enough and folks will make it truth, with the onus of disproving the lies on those who call it such.



What lie Cat?  What notion is threadbare -- Fitzgerald and the Grand Jury laid out the details in the Indictment.  Who is lying here (besides Libby)?

Local Rebel
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25 posted 2007-03-09 06:55 PM


quote:

Sorry but what was the central crime involving Libby and what crime was he convicted of? Lying to a grand jury or something, wasn't it? About what crime? Or was it lying to a grand jury about a non-crime? Has anyone been accused of an actual crime here? Will the real criminal please stand up...or, at least, the real crime?



Read the indictment Mike.

Alicat
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since 1999-05-23
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26 posted 2007-03-09 07:46 PM


What lie? Hrm...so many to choose from.  I'll go with the LIE that Wilson claimed he was sent by Cheney's office to Niger to investigate the yellow cake story when he was actually sent by the State Department after some string pulling by his spook wife, who just so happened to not qualify for the 'covert' flag at the time of the sending or the years prior or since.  How about another one for a pair: Cheney's office orchestrated a smear campaign to destroy Plame's career when it was WILSON himself who first outted his own wife several years before and then Armitage of the State Department in a Novak interview.  Though it's hard to say with Wilson....his story keeps changing.  There was the version a few years prior to being sent, then another version of who outted his wife after his Op-Ed piece, then yet another version in his book about how his wife got outted, and yet another version during interviews about said book.  It's a good thing for Wilson that he was never brought before a Grand Jury, eh?
Local Rebel
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27 posted 2007-03-09 07:52 PM


Well Cat, either you're the one repeating lies hoping to make them true -- or you're just listening to what you want to hear and are ignoring the source material.

Read the Grand Jury indictment.

Not A Poet
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since 1999-11-03
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Oklahoma, USA
28 posted 2007-03-09 10:00 PM


Reb, you're getting to be kind of a one trick pony here. "Go read the indictment." Yep, he was indicted for testifying that he couldn't remember who told him something. Something that it turns out was not a criminal disclosure in the first place, which the prosecutor knew all along. It's pretty obvious who the criminals are here.

Whether he was actually guilty of perjury or not is really of little consequence. The other, unpunished, crimes pointed out in this thread are far more significant. The uneven application of the law is what we should all be alarmed about.

Local Rebel
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Southern Abstentia
29 posted 2007-03-09 11:28 PM


Obviously because no one has read the indictment.  If you had read it -- you would know that that is not what it says.
Alicat
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since 1999-05-23
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30 posted 2007-03-10 10:00 AM


Ok, Reb.

1. e
Several points here.  Cheney asks for info on Iraq-Niger connection.  CIA sends Wilson.  Why they sent Wilson, I have no idea since he lacked the credentials for the job.  The last time he had officially been in Niger was as a General Services Officer between 1976 and 1978.  Yet in 2002, he was hand selected by the Central Intelligence Agency to perform a fact-finding mission in Niger, though he had not worked for the Government since 1998.

The references to Joe Wilson being an 'ambassador' stem from the brief stint he served as one in Gabon and Sao Tamo and Principe (two small island-nations off the coast of Gabon) between 1992 and 1995.  He was never an ambassador to Niger.

See also item 15, in which Wilson reasserts several times that he was sent by the CIA, not the Office of the Vice President.  However, in later interviews he changed tact, citing the Vice President as his employer and never sought to correct those to 'misrepresented' his actual employer.  That should satisfy the first 'lie' I mentioned in an earlier post.

Denise
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31 posted 2007-03-10 10:12 AM


What makes no sense to me (and I have read the Grand Jury indictment) is why the Special Prosecutor went forward with an investigation at all when he knew who the "leaker" was from the beginning. He knew that it was Armitage who 'outed' Valerie Plame, which was no crime anyway, according to what I understand, because the law in question concerned 'covert' operatives, not 'classified' employees and she was 'classified', not 'covert'. Shouldn't that have been the end of the story? So why instigate an investigation when there was no crime to investigate in the first place?
Alicat
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32 posted 2007-03-10 10:21 AM


That's been my thought this entire time, not to mention some of the dismissive sources regarding Berger's behavior...that since there were other copies of the destroyed documents, there was no felony committed.  By the same logic, I should be able to go to a car dealership and steal a car, since obviously there are others on the property and at worst get community service for grand theft auto.
Not A Poet
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since 1999-11-03
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Oklahoma, USA
33 posted 2007-03-10 11:46 AM


Sure but now we are to accept on plain faith that all of that is just lies? None of this was political and the prosecutor was not just inflating his income, as well as his visibility?

Alicat
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since 1999-05-23
Posts 4094
Coastal Texas
34 posted 2007-03-10 01:25 PM


Exactly.  I'm sure the jurors were merely musing aloud when they bemoaned the fact that a scapegoat had been offered up instead of Carl Rove or the Grand Poobah himself, Cheney.

Politically motivated? Naaaah...must've just been yet another right-wing conspiracy.

Balladeer
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35 posted 2007-03-10 05:57 PM


It is obvious why this whole fiasco received so much importance and press coverage. So what's new?
Alicat
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since 1999-05-23
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36 posted 2007-03-10 06:17 PM


Gotta love the timing though.  The indictment is dated Oct, 31, 2003.  Of special interest is Item 25, in regards to classified documents leaked on or about Sep 26, 2003, but no mention is made of the Wilson articles in the NYT and Washington Post a year prior which clearly leaked 'classified' material.  I mean, if Wilson actually was employed by the CIA under the behest of the VPA about nuclear activity by Iraq...I'm pretty sure that such material would be classified in 2003 even though he was in no way qualified for the position or posting sans string-pulling.

And who would pull strings within the CIA?

HRM....dunno.

Local Rebel
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Southern Abstentia
37 posted 2007-03-10 07:27 PM


quote:

1999
June: (According to a 2002 conversation between Joseph C. Wilson and former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Assane Mayaki) An Iraqi businessman approached Mayaki and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein and Niger. Mayaki interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales, but steered the conversation away from trade because of UN sanctions against Iraq.[5] In a 2004 conversation with Wilson, Wilson's "Nigerien source" (presumably, Mayaki), told Wilson that the "Iraqi businessman" he had met in June 1999 was Mohammed Saeed al-Sahaf, the former Iraqi Information Minster, sometimes referred to in the U.S. press as "Baghdad Bob."[6]

[edit] 2001
New Years 2001: Over the holiday, a gang of burglars break into the Nigerian embassy in Rome and steal some letterhead and official stamps.[7]

[edit] Late 2001 - Early 2002
According to CIA Director George Tenet: "There was fragmentary intelligence gathered in late 2001 and early 2002 on the allegations of Saddam's efforts to obtain additional raw uranium from Africa, beyond the 550 metric tons already in Iraq. In an effort to inquire about certain reports involving Niger, CIA's counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region to make a visit to see what he could learn. He reported back to us that one of the former Nigerien officials he met stated that he was unaware of any contract being signed between Niger and rogue states for the sale of uranium during his tenure in office."[8]

[edit] February 2002
12 February 2002: Valerie E. Wilson (aka Valerie Plame), a C.I.A. analyst working in its Counterproliferation Division, sends a memo to the deputy chief of the C.I.A.'s Directorate of Operations stating that her husband has good contact with the former Prime Minister and Director of Mines in Niger as well as other contacts who might prove useful in shedding light on the supposed Niger-Iraq uranium contract.[9]
13 February 2002: An operations official cables an overseas officer seeking approval of Joe Wilson investigation.[10]
26 February 2002: Joseph C. Wilson travels to Niger at the request of the CIA. Joe Wilson meets with the former minister of mines, Mai Manga, who said he knew of no sales of uranium between Niger and rogue states. He states the mines are closely monitored from mining to transport loading making it at least very difficult if not impossible for a rogue state to obtain uranium through this channel.[11]
Joe Wilson indicates that in his conversation with former Niger Primer Minister, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, the pm indicated that he was not aware of any sales contract with Iraq but that in June of 1999 he was approached by a businessman, asking that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss expanding commercial relations. (Note: Niger's two largest exports are uranium and livestock [182]). Wilson indicated he thought the meeting took place but that Mayaki, who was aware of the illegality of such activities, let the matter drop due to the sanctions on Iraq.[12]

According to the report of the U.S. Senate Select Intelligence Committee, (July 2004, pages 43-46), former Nigerien prime minister Mayaki told Wilson in Niger that Mayaki interpreted the June 1999 proposal of a businessman for "expanding commercial relations" as an offer to buy uranium yellowcake. However, this was only an interpretation. The Iraqi did not mention the word "uranium" or "yellowcake."
The Senate report's exact words on Mayaki's suspicions of Iraq's interest in uranium:
Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999, [A few words blacked out] businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations' between Niger and Iraq. The [CIA] intelligence report [on Wilson's trip] said that Mayaki interpreted 'expanding commercial relations" to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the U.N. sanctions on Iraq."

The United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence faulted the C.I.A. for not fully investigating Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Niger, citing reports from both a foreign service and the United States Navy about uranium from Niger destined for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin, a country located between Niger and Togo.

[edit] March 2002
5 March 2002:Wilson is debriefed by two C.I.A. officials at his home. He never files a written report.[13]
Wilson says he reported to the CIA that Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium from Niger are unlikely. Any deal about uranium could not possibly have taken place. Nobody at the State Department African Bureau had ever believed in the Niger story. Two other reports supported his views. Some CIA officials told the United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that Wilson's information was neutral, others said Wilson's information lent support to the contention Iraqi sought uranium from Niger.

[edit] September 2002
9 September 2002: According to Italian newspaper La Repubblica, the head of Italy's military intelligence agency (SISMI), Nicolo Pollari, meets secretly with Stephen Hadley, then Bush's Deputy National Security Adviser; the purpose of the meeting, as reported by La Repubblica, was to bypass a skeptical CIA and get documents purporting to detail an Iraqi attempt to purchase Niger uranium directly to the White House.[14] Hadley and others who attended this meeting say they have little memory of the details of what was discussed, and in a press conference Hadley characterized the meeting as a "courtesy call" that lasted less than 15 minutes.[15] According to the Italian Prime Minister's office, the meeting was between the then National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice, and Nicolo Pollari, in the presence of an Italian and US delegation that included Stephen Hadley.[16]

[edit] October 2002
6 October 2002: The National Security Council sent a sixth draft of a speech President Bush was to give in Cincinnati to the CIA. The draft contained the statement about Iraq "having been caught attempting to purchase up to 500 metric tons of uranium oxide.[17] Tenet and other CIA officials directed the text be removed from the speech as the certainty regarding the accuracy of the claim was weak.[citation needed]
7 October 2002: George W. Bush gives a speech in Cincinnati in which he, for the first time, lays out in detail the case for disarming Iraq. In that speech he asserts, "If the Iraqi regime is able to produce, buy, or steal an amount of highly enriched uranium a little larger than a single softball, it could have a nuclear weapon in less than a year."[18] It is later revealed (in July 2003) that George Tenet had intervened to remove language from that speech referencing Iraq's alleged pursuit of Niger uranium. More specifically, Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley was reported to be a main target of Tenet's entreaties.[19]
9 October 2002: Elisabetta Burba, an Italian journalist for Panorama magazine, part of the media empire of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, contacts the U.S. Embassy in Rome, requesting authentication of some documents of interest that she has. These documents allegedly represent a contract by Iraq to purchase uranium "yellowcake" from Niger. The owner, not Elisabetta Burba, reportedly wants 15,000 euros for them. Panorama refuses to pay that amount unless they are first verified as authentic.[20]
15 October 2002: The embassy in Rome faxes the documents to the State Department's Bureau of Nonproliferation in Washington which in turn provided copies to the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). The INR's nuclear analyst will later decide they are a hoax in January 2003.
During an inter-agency meeting the next day, analysts from the Defense Intelligence Agency, the U.S. Department of Energy, the National Security Agency, and the CIA all obtain copies of the documents. None of the four CIA analysts in attendance remembers taking a copy which later would show up in a CIA vault during a postmortem search.[21]

[edit] December 2002
19 December 2002: By this date the uranium claim, which George Tenet had removed from Bush's speech in Cincinnati, Ohio, in October 2002, had found its way back into a State Department "fact sheet." Following that, the Pentagon requests an authoritative judgement from the National Intelligence Council as to whether or not Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.[22]

[edit] January 2003
January 2003: The National Intelligence Council, responding to the Pentagon's request, drafts a memo addressing the Niger uranium story in which they conclude the story is baseless. The memo arrives at the White House prior to the State of the Union address given later that month.[23]
6 January 2003: The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) asks the United States for any information related to the claim that Iraq had purchased yellowcake uranium from Niger.[24]
13 January 2003: The INR's nuclear analyst sends email to colleagues providing rationale on why the Yellowcake document is a hoax. The CIA's nuclear analyst does not have the documents in question and requests a copy.[25]
16 January 2003: CIA received copies of the original foreign language documents on the Niger-Iraq contract.[26]
27 January 2003: During a National Security Council meeting at the White House, someone hands George Tenet a hardcopy of President Bush's State of the Union address. Tenet is too busy to read it and hands it to an aide who passes it to a top official in the CIA intelligence directorate who was also too busy to read it.[27]
28 January 2003: President George W. Bush gives his State of the Union speech. Toward the end Bush states, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."[28] The sentence becomes known as the "16 words." In his State of the Union speech, Bush also declares, "The International Atomic Energy Agency confirmed in the 1990s that Saddam Hussein had an advanced nuclear weapons development program, had a design for a nuclear weapon and was working on five different methods of enriching uranium for a bomb."

[edit] February 2003
4 February 2003: The United States provides electronic copy of the Niger documents to Jacques Bute, then head of IAEA's Iraq Nuclear Verification Office, who was in New York, and sends a copy to the IAEA offices in Vienna as well.[29]

[edit] March 2003
3 March 2003: The IAEA tells the U.S. Mission in Vienna the Niger documents were obvious fakes.[30] Among errors reportedly identified in the documents is a reference to a Nigerian constitution in 1965.[citation needed]

[edit] June 2003
12 June 2003: During a telephone call, Cheney told Libby that Wilson's wife worked in Counter Proliferation.[31]

[edit] July 2003
6 July 2003: Joe Wilson's Opinion Editorial "What I Didn't Find in Africa" is published in The New York Times.[32]

7 July 2003: Colin Powell receives a copy of a 10 June memo naming Valerie Wilson as Joe Wilson's wife and as a CIA officer, taking it with him on a trip on Air Force One with President Bush. The paragraph identifying Mrs. Wilson is marked "(S-NF)," signfying its information is classified "Secret, Noforn."[33] Noforn is a code word indicating that the information is not to be shared with foreign nationals.[34] Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell, Ari Fleischer, Walter H. Kansteiner, III, and Andrew Card are on the trip, among others.
Sometime before 8 July 2003 Robert Novak has a conversation with Richard Armitage (Deputy Assistant Secretary of State). In that conversation he is told for the first time that Wilson's wife works for the C.I.A. [Armitage didn't tell Novak her name; subsequently, after his August 2006 public disclosure that he was the "inadvertent" leak, Armitage has asserted that he did not know her name at the time.] Novak uses an edition of Joseph C. Wilson's biography in Who's Who to identify by her maiden name Valerie Plame. According to the reporters Isikoff and Corn, Armitage's leak was "inadvertent, and the Intelligence Identities Act hadn't been violated."[35]

8 July 2003: Robert Novak has a phone conversation with Karl Rove in which C.I.A. agent Plame is discussed, according to an unnamed source who had been told not to talk about the case. Novak is reported to have told Rove the name of the agent as "Valerie Plame" and her role in Wilson's mission to Africa. Rove is reported to have told Novak something to the effect of, "I heard that, too." or "Oh, so you already know about it." Rove reportedly told the grand jury that at this time he had already heard about Wilson's wife working for the CIA from another journalist, but is unable to remember who that was.[36]
8 July 2003: Lewis Libby meets with Judith Miller and tells her about Plame's work at the CIA. According to Libby's later grand jury testimony, he told Miller at this meeting that the Niger uranium claim had been a "key judgement" of the October 2002 NIE (still classified at that time), and that Cheney had instructed him to do so. This was false; the Niger claim was not in fact one of the "key judgements" headlined, bolded, and bulleted in the first pages of the intelligence estimate.[37] Later, after testifying to a Federal grand jury in October 2005, Miller will write in the New York Times that on this date (and four days later, on 12 July 2003), Libby "played down the importance of Mr. Wilson's mission and questioned his performance."[citation needed]
circa 10 July 2003-11 July 2003: Novak called Bill Harlow, then CIA spokesman, to confirm information regarding Plame and Wilson. According to Novak, Harlow denied that Plame "suggested" that Wilson be selected for the trip, and Harlow stated instead that CIA "counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him."[38] According to Harlow, he "warned Novak in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information," that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if Novak did write about it, her name should not be revealed. Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. According to Harlow, however, he did not tell Novak directly that Plame was undercover because that information was classified.[39] According to Novak, not only did Harlow not tell Novak that Plame was undercover, he actually told Novak that "she probably never again would be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties.'" Novak states that if he had been told that disclosure of Plame's name would endanger her or anyone else, he would not have disclosed the name.[40]

11 July 2003: According to one source, Novak's regular syndicated column was allegedly distributed by Creators Syndicate on the newswire AP on this date.[41]

11 July 2003: Matt Cooper's internal Time e-mail message bearing the time 11:07 a.m. is sent to his bureau chief, stating: "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation. . . ." Cooper writes that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." According to Cooper, Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCI"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD issues who authorized the trip." Rove also told Cooper that, "there's still plenty to implicate Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger".[42] Cooper would later tell the investigating grand jury that Rove concluded the conversation by saying "I've already said too much."[43]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair_timeline



quote:

(1) The term “classified information” means information or material designated and clearly marked or clearly represented, pursuant to the provisions of a statute or Executive order (or a regulation or order issued pursuant to a statute or Executive order), as requiring a specific degree of protection against unauthorized disclosure for reasons of national security.
(4) 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; or
(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and—
(i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or
(ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or
(C) an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose past or present intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information and who is a present or former agent of, or a present or former informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Intelligence_Identities_Protection_Act



quote:

Much of the media attention has focused on whether one or more senior officials violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (50 USC 421-426). (See Intelligence Identities Protection Act for the full text of this act.) However, proving a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act involves several elements which may be difficult to establish in this case. Some legal pundits felt that Rove was unlikely to have been in violation of the narrowly-worded Intelligence Identities Protection Act &mdash.

In order to violate the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, one must expose the identity of a "covert agent." A covert agent is one who is "serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States" (§ 426[4][a][ii]).[4] Whereas, prior to July 14, 2003, when Novak's column outing her as a "CIA operative" was published, Plame had not been posted or stationed overseas in the preceding five years, during that period, she had '"served" overseas.

Further information: Valerie Plame#Career
In his book The Politics of Truth, Joseph C. Wilson states that he and Valerie Plame, then his future wife, both returned from their respective overseas assignments in June 1997, and that, after June 1997, neither he nor Plame was stationed overseas. But this information still allows the possibility that Mrs. Wilson served overseas after June 1997, which she did when she traveled on behalf of the CIA to investigate matters relating to weapons of mass destruction. After the publication of Novak's column, neither Wilson nor his wife has commented on any details pertaining to her CIA service, but Wilson responded to a reporter's question that "the CIA obviously believes there was reason to believe a crime had been committed" because it referred the case to the Justice Department.[5] That action implies that she may have traveled overseas undercover.

On July 14, 2005, in an interview with Wolf Blitzer, broadcast on CNN, Wilson stated:

“ My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.[6]


When Blitzer asked, "But she hadn't been a clandestine officer for some time before that?", Wilson responded:

“ That's not anything that I can talk about. And, indeed, I'll go back to what I said earlier, the CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and that's why they referred it to the Justice Department.


Wilson later claimed to the Associated Press what he had meant was something different than the way the comment was later covered in the press:

“ In an interview Friday, Wilson said his comment was meant to reflect that his wife lost her ability to be a covert agent because of the leak, not that she had stopped working for the CIA beforehand. His wife's 'ability to do the job she's been doing for close to 20 years ceased from the minute Novak's article appeared; she ceased being a clandestine officer,' he said.[7]


In December 2004, over a year after Novak blew her cover, pictures of Joe Wilson and his wife appeared in Vanity Fair.

Further information: Joseph C. Wilson
Further information: Valerie Plame
Many former CIA agents and other former government officials argue that regardless of whether she went overseas in the required time period, her "outing" as an intelligence official did harm national security by compromising her front company and every other CIA employee using that front.[citations needed] Moreover, the disclosure sends a message to potential CIA agents and assets around the globe that the CIA could not guarantee that their identity would be protected if they chose to work undercover for the Agency or in cooperation with it.[citations needed]

In order for one to be protected by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, it must be a fact that the U.S. government "is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States."[citation needed] In debating this issue, some spokespeople for the Republican Party argue that if Plame worked at CIA's headquarters it could show that the CIA was not taking the required "affirmative measures."[citations needed] Yet, in their letter presented to the U.S. Senate investigating the Plame affair, former CIA officer Larry C. Johnson, joined by ten other former CIA and DIA officers and analysts, strongly disagree:

“ These comments reveal an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence community and the role of cover. The fact is that there are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who 'work at a desk' in the Washington, D.C. area every day who are undercover. Some have official cover, and some have non-official cover. Both classes of cover must and should be protected."[8]


From their perspective, the fact that Plame worked for a CIA front corporation created and maintained at taxpayer's expense constitutes an affirmative measure to conceal her covert employment.

Johnson argues further that the debate over the legality of the leak functions as a red herring, distracting the public from the direct harms to national security caused by the leak:

“ What is so despicable about all of this is that the conservative movement is now serving as apologists for political operatives who have destroyed an intelligence network and at least one case officer's distinguished career. The new standard for the Republican National Committee--Karl Rove didn't commit a crime. Boy, there's a slogan to run on, "At Least I Wasn't Indicted."[9]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair_legal_questions



quote:

There are some major legal issues surrounding the allegations of illegality by administration officials in the Plame affair, including the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the Espionage Act, Title 18 Section 641, conspiracy to impede or injure officers, the Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement, other laws and precedents, perjury, conspiracy, obstruction of justice, and compelling the media to testify.

Possible consequences of the public disclosure of Plame's CIA identity
There has been debate over what kinds of damage may have resulted from the public disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA operative in Novak's column and its fallout, how far and into what areas of national security and foreign intelligence that damage might extend, particularly vis-à-vis Plame's work with her cover company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, and also how the Plame affair and Plamegate may have affected the power, privileges, and functioning of the press media in America.

On October 3, 2004 The Washington Post quotes a former diplomat predicting immediate damage:

“ . . . [E]very foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities. . . . That's why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name.[100]


In contrast, in an October 27, 2005 appearance on Larry King Live, Bob Woodward commented:

“ They did a damage assessment within the CIA, looking at what this did that [former ambassador] Joe Wilson's wife [Plame] was outed. And turned out it was quite minimal damage. They did not have to pull anyone out undercover abroad. They didn't have to resettle anyone. There was no physical danger to anyone, and there was just some embarrassment.[101]


In an appearance the next night, October 28, 2005, on Hardball, Andrea Mitchell was quoted as saying:

“ I happen to have been told that the actual damage assessment as to whether people were put in jeopardy on this case did not indicate that there was real damage in this specific instance.[102]


Following Mitchell's appearance on Hardball, on October 29, 2006, The Washington Post's Dafna Linzer reported that no formal damage assessment had yet been conducted by the CIA "as is routinely done in cases of espionage and after any legal proceedings have been exhausted." Linzer writes:

“ There is no indication, according to current and former intelligence officials, that the most dire of consequences –– the risk of anyone's life –– resulted from her outing. But after Plame's name appeared in Robert D. Novak's column, the CIA informed the Justice Department in a simple questionnaire that the damage was serious enough to warrant an investigation, officials said.[103]


Mark Lowenthal, who retired from a senior management position at the CIA in March 2005 reportedly told Linzer:

“ You can only speculate that if she had foreign contacts, those contacts might be nervous and their relationships with her put them at risk. It also makes it harder for other CIA officers to recruit sources.


Another intelligence official who spoke anonymously to Linzer cited the CIA's interest in protecting the agency and its work:

“ You'll never get a straight answer [from the Agency] about how valuable she was or how valuable her sources were.[103]


In August 2005, Newsweek journalist Michael Isikoff reported that a "former government official who requested anonymity because of the confidential material involved" told him that the CIA's initial "crimes report" to the Justice Department requesting the leak probe never mentioned the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.[104]

On October 28, 2005, the Office of Special Counsel issued a press release regarding Libby's indictment. The following is stated regarding Plame:

“ Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson’s employment status was classified. Prior to that date, her affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community. Disclosure of classified information about an individual’s employment by the CIA has the potential to damage the national security in ways that range from preventing that individual’s future use in a covert capacity, to compromising intelligence-gathering methods and operations, and endangering the safety of CIA employees and those who deal with them, the indictment states.[105]


In a November 3, 2005 online live discussion, in response to a question about the Fitzgerald investigation, The Washington Post's Dana Priest, a Pulitzer Prize- winning journalist specializing in matters of national security, opined:

“ I don't actually think the Plame leak compromised national security, from what I've been able to learn about her position."[106]


In a January 9, 2006 letter addressed to "Scooter" Libby's defense team, Patrick Fitzgerald responded to a discovery request by Libby's lawyers for both classified and unclassified documents. In the letter, Fitzgerald writes:

“ A formal assessment has not been done of the damage caused by the disclosure of Valerie Wilson’s status as a CIA employee, and thus we possess no such document. (Italics added).


He continues:

“ In any event, we would not view an assessment of the damage caused by the disclosure as relevant to the issue of whether or not Mr. Libby intentionally lied when he made the statements and gave the grand jury testimony which the grand jury alleged was false.[107]


During Libby's trial, Judge Reggie Walton told the jury "No evidence will be presented to you with regard to Valerie Plame Wilson’s status. That is because what her actual status was, or whether any damage would result from disclosure of her status, are totally irrelevant to your decision of guilt or innocence. You must not consider these matters in your deliberations or speculate or guess about them." During court proceedings, when the jury wasn't present, Walton told the court "I don’t know, based on what has been presented to me in this case, what her status was...It’s totally irrelevant to this case...I to this day don’t know what her actual status was."[108]

Larisa Alexandrovna of The Raw Story reports that three intelligence officials, who spoke under condition of anonymity, told her that

“ While Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss has not submitted a formal damage assessment to Congressional oversight committees, the CIA's Directorate of Operations did conduct a serious and aggressive investigation. ”

According to her sources,

“ the damage assessment . . . called a "counter intelligence assessment to agency operations" was conducted on the orders of the CIA's then-Deputy Director of the Directorate of Operations, James Pavitt. . . . [and showed] "significant damage to operational equities."


Alexandrovna also reports that while Plame was undercover she was involved in an operation identifying and tracking weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran, suggesting that her outing "significantly hampered the CIA's ability to monitor nuclear proliferation." Her sources also stated that the outing of Plame also compromised the identity of other covert operatives who had been working, like Plame, under non-official cover status. These anonymous officials said that in their judgement, the CIA's work on WMDs has been set back "ten years" as a result of the compromise.[109]

MSNBC correspondent David Shuster reported on Hardball later, on May 1, 2006, that MSNBC had learned "new information" about the potential consequences of the leaks:

“ Intelligence sources say Valerie Wilson was part of an operation three years ago tracking the proliferation of nuclear weapons material into Iran. And the sources allege that when Mrs. Wilson's cover was blown, the Administration's ability to track Iran's nuclear ambitions was damaged as well. The White House considers Iran to be one of America's biggest threats.[110]


On September 6, 2006, David Corn published an article for The Nation entitled "What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA" in which Corn reports that Plame was placed in charge of the operations group within the Joint Task Force on Iraq in the spring of 2001 and that, "when the Novak column ran," in July 2003:

“ Valerie Wilson was in the process of changing her clandestine status from NOC to official cover, as she prepared for a new job in personnel management. Her aim, she told colleagues, was to put in time as an administrator--to rise up a notch or two--and then return to secret operations. But with her cover blown, she could never be undercover again.[111]


According to Vanity Fair:

“ In fact, in the spring [of 2003], Plame was in the process of moving from NOC status to State Department cover. [Joe] Wilson speculates that "if more people knew than should have, then somebody over at the White House talked earlier than they should have been talking."[112]


In July 2006, according to CNN, Valerie E. Wilson and Joseph C. Wilson

“ filed a civil lawsuit alleging a conspiracy that "was motivated by an invidiously discriminatory animus towards those who had publicly criticized the administration's stated justifications for going to war with Iraq" and culminated with the disclosure that Plame worked at the CIA. This revelation destroyed Plame's career with the agency, according to the suit.


The scenario described by the sources familiar with Armitage's role, however, appears to contradict those arguments.
But the Wilsons' attorney, Melanie Sloan of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, said the revelation that Armitage was the original source for the leak did not undercut the charge that Vice President Dick Cheney, Cheney's former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby and White House adviser Karl Rove acted to retaliate against Wilson by engaging in a "whispering campaign" about his wife.
The couple plans to proceed with the lawsuit, Sloan said.


"Mr. Armitage's conduct does not change the facts of what Libby, Cheney and Rove did," Sloan told CNN. "The case is about the abuse of government power."[113] ”

On September 13, 2006, Joseph and Valerie Wilson amended their original lawsuit, adding Armitage as a fourth defendant.[114] Unlike their charges against Rove, Cheney, and Libby, "claiming that they had violated her constitutional rights and discredited her by disclosing that she was an undercover CIA operative," the Wilsons are suing Armitage "for violating the 'Wilsons' constitutional right to privacy, Mrs. Wilson's constitutional right to property, and for committing the tort of publication of private facts.'"[115]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair#Legal_issues_relating_to_the_Plame_affair




Local Rebel
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38 posted 2007-03-10 07:50 PM


quote:

[edit] Alleging wider knowledge of Plame's CIA job
On November 4, 2005 Fox News analyst and retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely claimed that Plame's husband, Joseph C. Wilson had spoken to him about his wife's role with the CIA while they were waiting together in the green room before appearing on FOX News. He initially said this occurred on three to five occasions, first in February or March of 2002, more than a year before Novak's column was published. Vallely also said Wilson was proud to routinely introduce his wife as a CIA employee at cocktail parties. [9]

Wilson has since demanded that Vallely retract these allegations, calling them "patently false." Wilson wrote to his attorney, as quoted in electronic correspondence included in his demand for a retraction posted on the blog World Net Daily:

“ This is slanderous. I never appeared on TV before at least July 2002 and only saw him maybe twice in the green room at FOX. Vallely is a retired general and this is a bald faced lie.... I never laid eyes on [Vallely] till several months after he alleges I spoke to him about my wife.[10]


Indeed, Wilson and Vallely could have been together in the green room at most four times beginning in August, 2002.[11] But a compendium of the times that Wilson and Vallely appeared on Fox News has revealed that there is only one possible date, September 12, 2002, during which the two would have been in the green room within hours of each other.[12]

In response, Brit Hume, managing editor of Fox News, reported:

“ Liberal Websites say they have proof Vallely is lying, saying research service LexisNexis shows Vallely and Wilson never appeared on FOX on the same day. But in fact, Vallely and Wilson appeared on the same day nine times in 2002, and on the same show twice — on September 8 and September 12, when both men appeared within 15 minutes of one another.[13]


Hume's unit of measure "on the same day" differs from the comparison's unit of measure "within hours," according to Jeralyn Merritt, who went through the FOX transcripts to compile this information; she notes that on September 12:

“ Wilson's segment was over 15 minutes before Vallely's began. The Fox green room in New York is very small and contains an even smaller makeup room that only has one guest chair. Guests are by themselves in the makeup room. I assume Wilson would have been having his makeup done before his segment, so Vallely wouldn't have been with him then. Even if they did overlap in the green room for a couple of minutes, it strains credulity to think the topic of Wilson's wife's employment with the CIA would have come up. There likely would have only time for mere pleasantries."[14]


On November 7, 2005, Vallely appeared on ABC Radio Networks' The Sean Hannity Show; on this occasion he stated that Wilson had disclosed Plame's employment while in the green room only once, but could not remember the precise date:

“ . . . we got to talk about our families, past assignments, and so on and so forth. And only on one occasion do I recall, you know, "My wife's at the agency."


. . . .
. . . it was 2002, and ––
. . . .


Probably was in that summer, early fall timeframe that it happened. ”

On November 8, WorldNetDaily posted that

“ Since speaking with WND late Friday, Vallely has clarified the number of occasions Wilson mentioned his wife's status and when the conversation occurred. After recalling further over the weekend his contacts with Wilson, Vallely says now it was on just one occasion.[15]


Media Matters for America notes:

“ Vallely's allegations have come nearly two years after the beginning of Fitzgerald's high-profile investigation. Despite widespread reporting about the seriousness of Fitzgerald's investigation, Vallely apparently did not feel compelled to share his story until more than a week after Libby's indictment. In an interview on the November 8 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, co-host Alan Colmes asked Vallely: "Did you talk to the FBI, or do you plan to talk to the FBI?" Vallely responded, "Well, no, I haven't talked to them."[16]


On The Sean Hannity Show of November 7, Vallely stated further: "I was asked, 'Why didn't you say this before?' Well, I figured Joe Wilson would self-destruct at some point in time."[citation needed]

According to ABC Radio Networks' John Batchelor on November 6, touting McInerney's scheduled appearance on Batchelor's show the next day, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney, who has coauthored with Vallely a book about the war on terrorism, alleged that Wilson had also told him about his wife's job with the CIA while in the green room at FOX News studios:

“ Lt. General Tom McInerney, USAF (ret), West Point '59, will join his colleague Maj. General Paul Vallely, USA (ret), West Point '61, on my show Monday 7 November . . . to repeat and expand upon Vallely's memory that Joe Wilson more than once in 2002 in the green room at Fox New [sic] Channel in Washington D.C. boasted about his wife the "CIA desk officer." McInerney has the same memory and more, since both he and Vallely were on FNC between 150 and 200 times in 2002 each.[17]


But when McInerney actually appeared on the November 7 show, he did not mention any direct "memories" of any similar incident and limited his comments to very general support of Vallely:

“ But to your knowledge, Paul Vallely has revealed nothing but the truth. Is that correct, General?

Absolutely.[18]


Former CIA officer Larry C. Johnson questions the credibility of these retired generals:

“ I too was a Fox News Contributor in 2002 and spent a lot of time in the Green Room with both Vallely and McInerney. I saw them but never saw Joe Wilson. What is really curious is that I know I spent more time with Vallely and McInerney than Joe Wilson ever did and the subject of my wife (or their wives) never came up. . . . What is so pathetic is that both Vallely and McInerney present themselves as military experts on special operations when neither has held any position of any importance with those forces. In fact, neither has ever held compartmented clearances required to know about those special programs. Given their track record of getting military facts wrong there is no doubt they are wrong about Joe Wilson.[19]


Batchelor also suggested on November 6 that Hoover Institution senior fellow and National Review contributor Victor Davis Hanson had also reported being similarly informed of Plame's employment by Wilson:

“ Also, I have written my regular correspondent Victor Davis Hanson to ask after his reported memories of Wilson boasting to him in a green room meeting that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA.[20].


On November 8 WorldNetDaily stated:

“ . . . contrary to a report, Hanson said Wilson did not disclose his wife's CIA employment.


Instead Hanson merely described Wilson as very "indiscreet" and "unguarded" with personal information, rambling in a "stream of consciousness" manner.[21] These claims have been disputed by Wilson and his lawyer.

See also: Joseph C. Wilson#Wilson's_response_to_the_claims
Fitzgerald concludes his indictment against Libby:

“ Prior to July 14 2003, Valerie Wilson’s affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community.


Libby's defense team has countered in court hearings that they have five witnesses from outside the intelligence community who will testify that Wilson told them before the Novak article was published that his wife worked at the CIA.[22] Libby's legal team rested their case on February 14, 2007. There was no testimony from any witness that Wilson disclosed his wife's status prior to the Novak article.

According to a June 2006 ruling by United States District Judge Reggie Walton, Libby's defense team also sought "any notes from the September 2003 meeting in the Situation Room at which Colin Powell is reported to have said that (a) everyone knows that Mr. Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and that (b) it was Mr. Wilson’s wife who suggested that the CIA send her husband on a mission to Niger."

Walton ruled against Libby regarding this request.[23]
Questioning the covert nature of Plame's CIA status
There are various disputes concerning the covert nature of Plame's status with the CIA. This issue is complicated somewhat by a variety of definitions of covert. While it appears to be clear that Plame's employment status was formally classified by the CIA as "secret" and not for disclosure to foreign nationals, and that her employment was therefore "undercover," and/or "classified," and that she had been classified as a NOC, or non-official cover agent of the CIA, various commentators have argued that on July 14, 2003, when Novak's column appeared, Plame did not fit the legal definition of "covert" as defined in the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.[citations needed]

The USA Today stated on July 14, 2005 that Mrs. Plame hadn't been outside the United States as a NOC since 1997, when she returned from her last assignment, and married Joe Wilson and had her twins.[citation needed] The following day, in an article published in the Washington Times, Stephen Dinan and Joseph Curl cite Fred Rustmann, a former CIA covert agent who claimed that he supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career, took issue with her identification as an "undercover agent," and said that she worked for more than five years at the agency's headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee: "She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat."[24]

Joe Wilson, Plame's husband, in a July 14, 2005 interview with Wolf Blitzer, broadcast on CNN on July 14, 2005, stated: "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity."[25] This comment has been misinterpreted, but Wilson later explained his meaning to Associated Press, which issued a retraction: "In an interview Friday, Wilson said his comment was meant to reflect that his wife lost her ability to be a covert agent because of the leak, not that she had stopped working for the CIA beforehand. His wife's 'ability to do the job she's been doing for close to 20 years ceased from the minute Novak's article appeared; she ceased being a clandestine officer,' he said."[26]

Reflecting some of the press commentaries cited above, conservative columnist Max Boot has called Joseph Wilson a "liar," also claiming that Plame's status was not "covert" at the time of her outing in the Novak column because she had been working in Virginia for more than five years.[27]

Although he left the CIA in 1993, Larry C. Johnson attempted to clear up the confusion surrounding Plame's status in a column responding to Boot: "The law actually requires that a covered person 'served' overseas in the last five years. Served does not mean lived. In the case of Valerie Wilson, energy consultant for Brewster-Jennings, she traveled overseas in 2003, 2002, and 2001, as part of her cover job. She met with folks who worked in the nuclear industry, cultivated sources, and managed spies. She was a national security asset until exposed by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby."[28]

Plame worked for the CIA for 20 years, and her status, according to the New York Times, was "non-official cover." (5 October 2003). U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that Plame was working undercover shortly after it had been revealed by Robert Novak.[29] Senator Charles Schumer asked the FBI to investigate the leak because the CIA had identified Plame's status as covert.[30] John Crewdson of the Chicago Tribune interviewed several unnamed former and current CIA employees who doubt that Plame had NOC status in the CIA at the time her cover was blown by Novak.[31]

A variety of arguments regarding Ms. Plame's status as "covert" have arisen as a result of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's investigation. In the Grand Jury indictment of Libby and his press conference on the Libby indictment, broadcast on October 28, 2005, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald would not state explicitly whether or not Plame was "covert."[32].

Nevertheless, in a 5 February 2005 concurring opinion, Circuit Judge David S. Tatel made two references to Plame's covert status: (1) on page 28 of the opinion, Judge Tatel refers to Plame as an "alleged covert agent"; (2) on page 38, Judge Tatel states that because Fitzgerald had allegedly referred to Plame as a CIA agent "who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years," in footnote 15 of a recent affidavit, Judge Tatel inferred that Mr. Fitzgerald must have at least "some support" for that conclusion.[33] Judge Tatel appears to have inferred from Special Counsel Fitzgerald's affidavit, which says that he is investigating whether or not Libby could have "intentionally" and "willfully" exposed the identity of "a covert agent" (italics added),[34] that Fitzgerald had already concluded that Plame was an agent who had carried out covert work within the last five years.[35][36]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_theories_regarding_the_Plame_affair



Local Rebel
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39 posted 2007-03-10 07:58 PM


quote:

[edit] Selected press commentary and Wilson's responses
Susan Schmidt opens her article on the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report in the Washington Post by stating that it challenges some of the statements made by Wilson and suggests that Wilson's wife was more involved in his selection for the mission than Wilson has repeatedly asserted:

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly."[37]

This introduction does not, however, take into account wide differences of interpretation relating to Wilson's comments on the matter both in print and in media interviews that she reports throughout the body of her article. Schmidt highlights the following:

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her 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." The next day, according to the report, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson.[37]

But high-ranking CIA officials told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that they disputed the claim that Plame was involved in the final decision to send Wilson and indicated that the operations official who made it was not present at the meeting where Wilson was chosen. As reported by Knut Royce and Tim Phelps in Newsday on 22 July 2003:

A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. "They (the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story) were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising," he said. "There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason," he said. "I can’t figure out what it could be." "We paid his (Wilson’s) airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you’d have to pay big bucks to go there," the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses.[38]

Wilson states in "Sixteen Words," the first chapter of The Politics of Truth:

Apart from being the conduit of a message from a colleague in her office asking if I would be willing to have a conversation about Niger's uranium industry, Valerie had had nothing to do with the matter. Though she worked on weapons of mass destruction issues, she was not at the meeting I attended where the subject of Niger's uranium was discussed, when the possibility of my actually traveling to the country was broached. She definitely had not proposed that I make this trip. (5)[39]

Schmidt renders the quotation from Wilson in a misleading way, however, omitting any sign of her editorial ellipsis:

Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger. "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year [The Politics of Truth (2004)]. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."

Wilson stood by his assertion in an interview yesterday [July 9, 2003], saying Plame was not the person who made the decision to send him. Of her memo [of Feb. 12, 2002 sent to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both the (Nigerian) 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"], he said: "I don't see it as a recommendation to send me."[37]

Wilson's responses to this article, published in The Politics of Truth, point out significant errors of fact and interpretation in Susan Schmidt's account of the Committee's report:

Her article was replete with factual errors that could have been avoided had she bothered to read the text of the report or even done some basic research, such as looking up the CIA statement made the previous year in the Newsday article about Valerie's lack of involvement in the trip. But she did not. Indeed, her reporting was so sloppy that from the lead sentence she conflated what the three Republican senators––and not even a majority of their own party's representation on the committee––asserted with what the actual report concluded. She even confused Iraq with Iran, a significant error of fact. She also quoted a phrase from this book that Valerie "had nothing to do with the matter" without the qualifying phrase in the beginning of the sentence: "other than serve as a conduit." Schmidt asserted that my report, rather than debunking intelligence about the purported uranium sales to Iraq, had bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. She went further, noting that "contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address."

Both of these assertions were patently false, and even a cursory reading of the body of the report dedicated to the Niger case would have borne that out. (lix)

Wilson's reply particularly to Senators Roberts, Bond, and Hatch was published online as "Joseph Wilson's Letter to the Senate": "The Former Ambassador Responds to Allegations by Republican Members of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report Challenging His Credibility" on AlterNet on July 19, 2004.[40]

In a "statement [submitted] to the Congress," former CIA officer Larry C. Johnson further refutes the "allegation" cited most often in the media:

Another false claim is that Valerie sent her husband on the mission to Niger. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee Report issued in July 2004, it is clear that the Vice President himself requested that the CIA provide its views on a Defense Intelligence Agency report that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger. The Vice President's request was relayed through the CIA bureaucracy to the Director of the Counter Proliferation Division at the CIA. Valerie worked for a branch in that Division. The Senate Intelligence Report is frequently cited by Republican partisans as "proof" that Valerie sent her husband to Niger because she sent a memo describing her husband's qualifications to the Deputy Division Chief. Several news personalities, such as Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly, continue to repeat this nonsense as proof. What the Senate Intelligence Committee does not include in the report is the fact that Valerie's boss had asked her to write a memo outlining her husband's qualifications for the job. She did what any good employee does; she gave her boss what he asked for.[41]

Accounts of Valerie Plame's involvement in her husband's selection appear to differ markedly, but the main difference may be semantic. Wilson claims that his wife simply contacted him on the agency's behalf at its behest, responded to her supervisor's request for information, and escorted her husband to the meeting before leaving it, prior to any decision being made; whereas some press accounts whose reliability does appear at times indeed questionable claim that Plame may also have "recommended" her husband by virtue of her writing a summary of his qualifications when he was already being considered. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee's report, "Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [ Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip" (italics added).[42] Nevertheless, as Schmidt clearly states, "Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger," and the Senate Intelligence Committee Report in no way contradicts or even counters that assertion (italics added).

Schmidt states in her July 10, 2003 article in the Washington Post: that the Senate Intelligence Committee Report points to inconsistencies in Wilson's retrospective accounts of his trip to Niger (which Wilson disputes):

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.[37]

Nevertheless, Schmidt concludes:

Still, it was the CIA that bore the brunt of the criticism of the Niger intelligence. The panel found that the CIA has not fully investigated possible efforts by Iraq to buy uranium in Niger to this day, citing reports from a foreign service and the U.S. Navy about uranium from Niger destined for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin.

The agency did not examine forged documents that have been widely cited as a reason to dismiss the purported effort by Iraq until months after it obtained them. The panel said it still has "not published an assessment to clarify or correct its position on whether or not Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa."[37]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C._Wilson#Selected_press_commentary_and_Wilson.27s_responses


Balladeer
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40 posted 2007-03-10 07:59 PM


Thanks for such a detailed account, Reb

The crime was what again?

Local Rebel
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41 posted 2007-03-10 08:12 PM


quote:

Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the Espionage Act, Title 18 Section 641, conspiracy to impede or injure officers, the Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement, other laws and precedents, perjury, conspiracy, obstruction of justice,

/pip/Forum6/HTML/001502-2.html#37

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42 posted 2007-03-10 08:19 PM


quote:

In September 2003, the CIA requested that the Justice Department investigate the possible unauthorized disclosure of a CIA officer’s classified identity. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself and named Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, to be "acting attorney general" for the case. Comey in turn named U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald to the case on December 30, 2003.[21] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_leak_grand_jury_investigation



quote:

An editorial in the Washington Post reads:

The special counsel was principally investigating whether any official violated a law that makes it a crime to knowingly disclose the identity of an undercover agent. The public record offers no indication that Mr. Libby or any other official deliberately exposed Ms. Plame to punish her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Rather, Mr. Libby and other officials, including Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff, apparently were seeking to combat the sensational allegations of a critic. They may have believed that Ms. Plame's involvement was an important part of their story of why Mr. Wilson was sent to investigate claims that Iraq sought uranium ore from Niger, and why his subsequent -- and mostly erroneous -- allegations that the administration twisted that small part of the case against Saddam Hussein should not be credited. To criminalize such discussions between officials and reporters would run counter to the public interest. . . . That said, the charges Mr. Fitzgerald brought against Mr. Libby are not technicalities. According to the indictment, Mr. Libby lied to both the FBI and a grand jury. No responsible prosecutor would overlook a pattern of deceit like that alleged by Mr. Fitzgerald. The prosecutor was asked to investigate a serious question, and such obstructions are, as he said yesterday, like throwing sand in the umpire's face. In this case, they seem to have contributed to Mr. Fitzgerald's distressing decision to force a number of journalists to testify about conversations with a confidential source. Both Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove appear to have allowed the White House spokesman to put out false information about their involvement.[55]

John W. Dean, the former counsel to Richard Nixon, writes in an open letter to Patrick Fitzgerald:

In your post as Special Counsel, you now have nothing less than authority of the Attorney General of the United States, for purposes of the investigation and prosecution of "the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity." (The employee, of course, is Valerie Plame Wilson, a CIA employee with classified status, and the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson.) On December 30, 2003, you received a letter from the Deputy Attorney General regarding your powers. On February 6, 2004 you received a letter of further clarification, stating without reservation, that in this matter your powers are "plenary." In effect, then, you act with the power of the Attorney General of the United States.

In light of your broad powers, the limits and narrow focus of your investigation are surprising. On October 28 of this year, your office released a press statement in which you stated that "A major focus of the grand jury investigation was to determine which government officials had disclosed to the media prior to July 14, 2003, information concerning Valerie Wilson's CIA affiliation, and the nature, timing, extent, and purpose of such disclosures, as well as whether any official made such a disclosure knowing that Valerie Wilson's employment by the CIA was classified information."

Troubling, from an historical point of view, is the fact that the narrowness of your investigation, which apparently is focusing on the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (making it a crime to uncover the covert status of a CIA agent), plays right into the hands of perpetrators in the Administration.

Indeed, this is exactly the plan that was employed during Watergate by those who sought to conceal the Nixon Administration's crimes, and keep criminals in office.

The plan was to keep the investigation focused on the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters - and away from the atmosphere in which such an action was undertaken. Toward this end, I was directed by superiors to get the Department of Justice to keep its focus on the break-in, and nothing else.

That was done. And had Congress not undertaken its own investigation (since it was a Democratically-controlled Congress with a Republican President) it is very likely that Watergate would have ended with the conviction of those caught in the bungled burglary and wiretapping attempt at the Democratic headquarters.[56] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_Affair_criminal_investigation#Libby_Indictment


Local Rebel
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since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
43 posted 2007-03-10 08:34 PM


quote:

Espionage Act
There is precedent for prosecuting a leak under the Espionage Act. In United States v. Morison, Samuel Loring Morison was convicted of espionage for leaking classified surveillance photos of a Soviet aircraft carrier to Jane's Defense Weekly. The court specifically found that there is no need under this law to show any "evil purpose." Morison unsuccessfully argued that he was trying to help the media avoid incorrect reporting on an alleged Soviet military buildup.[12]

In 2003, Sandy Berger, former Clinton administration National Security Advisor, removed classified documents from a National Archives reading room to prepare for his testimony before the 9/11 Commission.[citations needed] Even though no classified information leaked as a result, he pled guilty to violating the Espionage Act in mishandling the documents and his security clearance was suspended for 3 years.[citations needed]

Title 18 of the United States Code, 18 USC 794 states:

“ Whoever, in time of war, with intent that the same shall be communicated to the enemy, collects, records, publishes, or communicates, or attempts to elicit any information with respect to the movement, numbers, description, condition, or disposition of any of the Armed Forces, ships, aircraft, or war materials of the United States, or with respect to the plans or conduct, or supposed plans or conduct of any naval or military operations, or with respect to any works or measures undertaken for or connected with, or intended for the fortification or defense of any place, or any other information relating to the public defense, which might be useful to the enemy, shall be punished by death or by imprisonment for any term of years or for life.[13]


On October 28, 2005, Lewis Libby resigned from his position in the White House. This followed immediately after he was indicted on five criminal felony charges including obstruction of justice, making false statements and perjury. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald indicated that he considered the charges grave, as they represented a fundamental attack on the legal system. Also mentioned in the indictment, but not charged was "Libby was obligated by applicable laws and regulations, including Title 18, United States Code, Section 793," which is the Espionage Act.[14][15]

In his news conference on the indictiment of Lewis Libby, Fitzgerald further emphasized the presumption of Libby's innocence pending his (January 2007) court trial and explained the parameters of the Grand Jury investigation into the leak:

“ FITZGERALD: I will say this: Mr. Libby is presumed innocent. He would not be guilty unless and until a jury of 12 people came back and returned a verdict saying so.
But if what we allege in the indictment is true, then what is charged is a very, very serious crime that will vindicate the public interest in finding out what happened here.

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, do you have evidence that the vice president of the United States, one of Mr. Libby's original sources for this information, encouraged him to leak it or encouraged him to lie about leaking?

FITZGERALD: I'm not making allegations about anyone not charged in the indictment.

Now, let me back up, because I know what that sounds like to people if they're sitting at home.

We don't talk about people that are not charged with a crime in the indictment.

FITZGERALD: I would say that about anyone in this room who has nothing to do with the offenses.

We make no allegation that the vice president committed any criminal act. We make no allegation that any other people who provided or discussed with Mr. Libby committed any criminal act.

But as to any person you asked me a question about other than Mr. Libby, I'm not going to comment on anything.

Please don't take that as any indication that someone has done something wrong. That's a standard practice. If you followed me in Chicago, I say that a thousand times a year. And we just don't comment on people because we could start telling, "Well, this person did nothing wrong, this person did nothing wrong," and then if we stop commenting, then you'll start jumping to conclusions. So please take no more.

QUESTION: For all the sand thrown in your eyes, it sounds like you do know the identity of the leaker. There's a reference to a senior official at the White House, Official A [later (in Sept. 2006) revealed publicly as Richard Armitage, former Deputy Assistant Secretary of State] who had a discussion with Robert Novak about Joe Wilson's wife.

QUESTION: Can you explain why that official was not charged?

FITZGERALD: I'll explain this: I know that people want to know whatever it is that we know, and they're probably sitting at home with the TV thinking, "[I want] to jump through the TV, grab him by his collar and tell him to tell us everything they figured out over the last two years."

We just can't do that. It's not because we enjoy holding back information from you; that's the law.

And one of the things we do with a grand jury is we gather information. And the explicit requirement is if we're not going to charge someone with a crime; if we decide that a person did not commit a crime, we cannot prove a crime, doesn't merit prosecution, we do not stand up and say, "We gathered all this information on the commitment that we're going to follow the rules of grand jury secrecy, which say we don't talk about people not charged with a crime, and then at the end say, well, it's a little inconvenient not to give answers out, so I'll give it out anyway."

FITZGERALD: I can't give you answers on what we know and don't know, other than what's charged in the indictment.

It's not because I enjoy being in that position. It's because the law is that way. I actually think the law should be that way.
We can't talk about information not contained in the four corners of the indictment. (Italics added)[16]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plame_affair_legal_questions



quote:

Fitzgerald was named by Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey on December 30, 2003 to conduct the investigation into the Plame affair after then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the case due to conflicts of interest.[11] Fitzgerald was granted the full plenary power of the Attorney General in the Libby case, as clarified by Comey in letters of February 6, 2004, and August 12, 2005.[12][13]

Verdict
The jury rendered its verdict at noon on March 6, 2007.[42] It convicted Libby on four of the five counts against him—two counts of perjury, one count of obstructing justice in a grand jury investigation, and one of the two counts of making false statements to federal investigators—and acquitted him on one count of making false statements.[43] Given current federal sentencing guidelines, which are not mandatory, the convictions could result in a sentence ranging from no imprisonment to imprisonment of up to 25 years and a fine of one million US dollars.[2] Given those non-binding guidelines, according to lawyer, author, New Yorker staff writer, and CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin on Anderson Cooper 360°, such a sentence could likely be between "one and a half to three years."[44] Sentencing is scheduled to occur in June 2007.[43][45] News media reported that his lawyers have announced their intention to appeal Libby's conviction.[2][4]


[edit] Comment on the verdict by a juror
As reported in CNN Newsroom, and subsequently on Larry King Live on CNN and by various other television networks, including MSNBC (on Scarborough Country), one juror––"Denis Collins, a Washington resident and self-described registered Democrat," who is a former reporter for The Washington Post and author of a book on espionage––"said he and fellow jurors found that passing judgment on Libby was 'unpleasant.' But in the final analysis, he said jurors found Libby's story just too hard to believe.... 'We're not saying we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of, but it seemed like ... he was the fall guy'.... Collins said the jury believed Libby was 'tasked by the vice president to go and talk to reporters.'"[2][46][47][48] Collins offers a day-by-day account of his experience as Juror #9 at the Libby trial in an "Exclusive" at The Huffington Post.[49]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Libby#Verdict




Local Rebel
Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
44 posted 2007-03-10 09:08 PM


quote:

The uneven application of the law is what we should all be alarmed about.



No worries Pete.  I doubt seriously we're going to start throwing all the poor black Democrats in prison on the street to make room for rich white Republicans.

quote:

What makes no sense to me (and I have read the Grand Jury indictment) is why the Special Prosecutor went forward with an investigation at all when he knew who the "leaker" was from the beginning. He knew that it was Armitage who 'outed' Valerie Plame, which was no crime anyway, according to what I understand, because the law in question concerned 'covert' operatives, not 'classified' employees and she was 'classified', not 'covert'. Shouldn't that have been the end of the story? So why instigate an investigation when there was no crime to investigate in the first place?



Because, there was more than just one crime being investigated here -- and, as with any crime -- investigations don't stop at just the guy on the street who buys the meth -- but to seek out and destroy the meth lab and bring it's perpetrators to justice.

quote:

That's been my thought this entire time, not to mention some of the dismissive sources regarding Berger's behavior...that since there were other copies of the destroyed documents, there was no felony committed.  By the same logic, I should be able to go to a car dealership and steal a car, since obviously there are others on the property and at worst get community service for grand theft auto.



When you can hit print on your computer Cat and print out a picture of a Porsche and drive that to work -- then your comparison will be accurate.

quote:

Sure but now we are to accept on plain faith that all of that is just lies? None of this was political and the prosecutor was not just inflating his income, as well as his visibility?



Politics is inevitibly involved wherever Politicians and Power is concerned. The CIA called for the investigation -- that's not political.  What would politics of this investigation and prosecution been if not for Ashcroft's recusal, due ostensibly to the large sums of money that Rove had contributed to his past campaigns?  

As a Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald was still empowered by the JD -- still working for the big guy -- so -- if there are politics in question -- John Dean's concerns bear considerable weight.

Alicat
Member Elite
since 1999-05-23
Posts 4094
Coastal Texas
45 posted 2007-03-10 09:22 PM


Yet I've never heard you outspoken about the myriad CIA leaks to the mass media.  Regardless, the 'spokesman' for the jury sums it up nicely.  They didn't think Libby was guilty but convicted him anyhow.  How marvelous.

I was a juror a few months ago in a drunk driving case, and am allowed to discuss.  Didn't like the defendant, thought he was guilty of public intoxication and drunk driving, but the proof and evidence offered was insufficient to proove he was guilty of the crimes listed.  It boils down to proof the jurors are allowed to see/hear.  Did you know Russert was not allowed to be cross-examined?  Reason given is the presiding judge was very upset that Libby was supposed to take the stand, but didn't.  And for some reason, you seem quite content to leave off the murmuring of the jury in this particular case lamenting Rove or Cheney not being the defendant.  And yet you give forth the premise that this entire judicial farce was apolitical.  Astounding.

Not A Poet
Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885
Oklahoma, USA
46 posted 2007-03-10 11:38 PM


well, everyone, of course, is still allowed to have his own opinion, regardless of how baseless it might be. As long as it is only an opinion, it really is pretty insignificant and useless to anyone not of "like mind." Yes it's just too easy to find "an example" and proclaim that as "proving the corruption of the system," whatever that might be. It takes more "open eyes" to survey the overall situation, again, whatever that might be.

Local Rebel
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since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
47 posted 2007-03-11 11:24 AM


Sure Pete -- you're absolutely free to join OJ in his search for the real killers if you want.    

quote:

Regardless, the 'spokesman' for the jury sums it up nicely.  They didn't think Libby was guilty but convicted him anyhow.  How marvelous.

And for some reason, you seem quite content to leave off the murmuring of the jury in this particular case lamenting Rove or Cheney not being the defendant.  And yet you give forth the premise that this entire judicial farce was apolitical.  Astounding.



Wrong on both counts Cat.  Here's what I posted;

quote:

Comment on the verdict by a juror
As reported in CNN Newsroom, and subsequently on Larry King Live on CNN and by various other television networks, including MSNBC (on Scarborough Country), one juror––"Denis Collins, a Washington resident and self-described registered Democrat," who is a former reporter for The Washington Post and author of a book on espionage––"said he and fellow jurors found that passing judgment on Libby was 'unpleasant.' But in the final analysis, he said jurors found Libby's story just too hard to believe.... 'We're not saying we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of, but it seemed like ... he was the fall guy'.... Collins said the jury believed Libby was 'tasked by the vice president to go and talk to reporters.'"[2][46][47][48] Collins offers a day-by-day account of his experience as Juror #9 at the Libby trial in an "Exclusive" at The Huffington Post.[49]
/pip/Forum6/HTML/001502-2.html#43



The jury didn't think Libby wasn't guilty -- they said they think he's the fall guy -- and they, like you and Denise and Pete, are confused about why the core crimes in this case weren't being prosecuted -- and would like to see it done.

quote:

I was a juror a few months ago in a drunk driving case, and am allowed to discuss.  Didn't like the defendant, thought he was guilty of public intoxication and drunk driving, but the proof and evidence offered was insufficient to proove he was guilty of the crimes listed.  It boils down to proof the jurors are allowed to see/hear.



Bingo!  Here's the very poorly written Intelligence Identities Protection Act:

quote:

421. Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources
(a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent
Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.
(b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert agents as result of having access to classified information
Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
(c) Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents
Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States, discloses any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such individual and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such individual’s classified intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both.
http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Intelligence_Identities_Protection_Act



Which would call for proof in this case about what a defendent 'believed'.  A very difficult task.  Because Armitage's disclosure doesn't appear to be 'intentional' it wouldn't necessarilly qualify under the technical description of violation of this particular code.  Although Rove's, Libby's, and Fliescher's role appears to be the 'pattern' mentioned in (c) -- there it could be argued that they didn't disclose the information to impede the intelligence gathering capabilities of the U.S. --but for the political purpose of smearing a person who posed a threat to them.

Fitzgerald proceded with what he could -- Obstruction, Perjury, making false statements, but he wrote the indictment, and the Grand Jury signed off in it -- so that we could see what was really going on.

quote:

And yet you give forth the premise that this entire judicial farce was apolitical.  Astounding.



quote:

By the authority vested in the Attorney General by law, including 28 U. S .C. §§ 509, 510, and 515, and in my capacity as Acting Attorney General pursuant to 28 U.S.C. § 508, I hereby delegate to you all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department's investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity, and I direct you to exercise that authority as Special Counsel independent of the supervision or control of any officer of the Department.

/s/ James B. Comey

James B. Comey


Acting Attorney General http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Letter_of_Deputy_Attorney_General_a   ppointing_Patrick_Fitzgerald_Special_Counsel



So then you're saying that Ashcroft, and his deputy, Comey -- both appointees of Bush -- were intent on bringing down the Bush Presidency?  That is astounding.

But on the contrary -- Comey very narrowly focused Fitzgerald's powers to investigate only the disclosure of Plame's identity -- he was in a box. As a man of integrity -- he kept the sand in the box -- but he wrote a message to us in that sand.

Local Rebel
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since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
48 posted 2007-03-11 11:57 AM


I'm sorry, I forgot to mention this prevarication:

quote:

Did you know Russert was not allowed to be cross-examined?  Reason given is the presiding judge was very upset that Libby was supposed to take the stand, but didn't.



I don't know where you get these lies from Cat.

quote:

Given that news climate, defense attorney Theodore Wells was skeptical about Russert's account.

"You have the chief of staff of the vice president of the United States on the telephone, and you don't ask him one question about it?" Wells asked. He followed up moments later with, "As a newsperson who's known for being aggressive and going after the facts, you wouldn't have asked him about the biggest stories in the world that week?"

"What happened is exactly what I told you," Russert replied.

Russert originally told the FBI that he couldn't rule out discussing Wilson with Libby but had no recollection of it, according to an FBI report Wells read in court. Russert said Wednesday he did not believe he said that.

Wells spent a considerable amount of time in cross-examination Wednesday undermining Russert's general recollection of past events, reports CBSNews.com's Jennifer Hoar.

Wells seized upon a 2004 interview that Russert had granted to a Washington Post reporter in which he failed to mention a phone call he had made to a different reporter, from Russert's hometown paper, The Buffalo News. Russert was later lambasted for not remembering the call in an article titled, "Tim, Don't You Remember?"

Russert was also grilled about whether or not he had told the NBC News President Neal Shapiro that he had discussed his 2003 phone call with Libby with an FBI agent. Russert said he didn't recall if he had mentioned that to Shapiro, Hoar reports. Wells appeared troubled by this as Russert indicated that he and Shapiro were close.

Russert will be back on the stand on Thursday; Wells says he has about two more hours with his cross-examination.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/07/politics/main2443275.shtml


Alicat
Member Elite
since 1999-05-23
Posts 4094
Coastal Texas
49 posted 2007-03-11 02:34 PM


Thank you for calling me on that one, Reb, as I had posted what I had understood from print and media without knowing the full story.  I could've sworn I had a non-neocon source for that, but almost all the google hits now have anti-Bush buttons, slogans and sundry.  Since I can't find it, I have to concede the error as it cannot be substantiated.
Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648

50 posted 2007-03-11 05:14 PM


Pete said:
The uneven application of the law is what we should all be alarmed about.

L.R. said:
No worries Pete.  I doubt seriously we're going to start throwing all the poor black Democrats in prison on the street to make room for rich white Republicans.

That seems to be a deliberate curve-ball answer, L.R. You know that Pete was talking about the disparate treatment of politicians accused of wrong doing depending upon their party affiliation. Why do the majority of Democrats skate for more serious accusations, even when caught red-handed ($90,000. in a freezer in Tupeprware containers, for instance) while the majority of Republicans are nailed to the wall for less serious accusations? You must see that happening.

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act deals with current overseas covert agents, which Valerie Plame was not for at least 5 years preceding the disclosure by Armitage, therefore the Act was not violated by him or anybody else.  Given that, what crime was purported to have been committed prior to the launch of the investigation? The perjury was alleged to have taken place during the investigation. If it were not for the unwarranted investigation no alleged perjury could have taken place. So what crimes were committed that necessitated the investigation in the first place?

Local Rebel
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since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
51 posted 2007-03-11 05:34 PM


quote:

That seems to be a deliberate curve-ball answer, L.R. You know that Pete was talking about the disparate treatment of politicians accused of wrong doing depending upon their party affiliation. Why do the majority of Democrats skate for more serious accusations, even when caught red-handed ($90,000. in a freezer in Tupeprware containers, for instance) while the majority of Republicans are nailed to the wall for less serious accusations? You must see that happening.



No, I don't.  I saw William Jefferson Clinton face impeachement in the Congress of the United States -- for the exact charges Libby was tried and convicted for.  So, then, what you're saying is perjury is only an important charge if sex is involved.

If it was important then -- why isn't it important now Denise?  Or do you have a let-the-Republicans-skate policy?

Berger, investigated, plead guilty, convicted, sentenced.

William J. Jefferson -- I can't comment on an ongoing investigation but are you suggesting the Bush Justice Department has a let-Democrats-skate policy?

quote:

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act deals with current overseas covert agents, which Valerie Plame was not for at least 5 years preceding the disclosure by Armitage, therefore the Act was not violated by him or anybody else.  Given that, what crime was purported to have been committed prior to the launch of the investigation? The perjury was alleged to have taken place during the investigation. If it were not for the unwarranted investigation no alleged perjury could have taken place. So what crimes were committed that necessitated the investigation in the first place?



Why do I sound like a broken record?  Because you keep hitting the replay button.  Read the source material Denise -- it's all spelled out for you in blue and blue right here on the forums.

Brad
Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea
52 posted 2007-03-11 06:57 PM


From Andrew Sullivan's 'Daily Dish':

quote:
A reader sends in a brilliant email:

What makes the whole Libby thing different is that the Republicans did it to themselves. This is not the Democrats going after Nixon. This is not the Republicans going after Clinton.

No. The right hand man of the most powerful Republican Vice President in history was done in by a lot of other Republicans. The John Ashcroft Justice Dept agreed with the CIA request to investigate the Valerie Plame leak. Ashcroft’s Republican assistant, James Comey, appointed one of his own, Patrick Fitzgerald, perhaps the only Republican in Chicago. When Libby lied to Fitzgerald, and in so doing, made Fitzgerald's leak investigation meaningless, Fitzgerald sought to expand his investigation, probably by going to the same sort of Republican three-judge panel that agreed to expand Kenneth Starr's investigation some years earlier.

Then, after years of Republican complaints that the press had too much immunity under the First Amendment, Fitzgerald basically had the law completely reinterpreted, and forced a lot of very rich, very well-backed reporters to testify. In fact, the only person who saw, who is likely to see, jail time in this whole enterprise was a reporter for the Republican bete noir, the New York Times.

In the end, a Republican prosecutor got Republican judges to get Democratic reporters to testify against Republican politicians.


Sullivan: That just about gets it right. But, wait, there's more!

quote:
Similarly, just like all the leading players on both sides of the issue in the U.S. attorney firings are Republicans. Most of these U.S. attorneys were appointed by John Ashcroft, a former Republican elected official, with the support of Republican senators and congressmen. Just like a new Republican Secretary of Defense is forcing the generals feet to the fire in the Walter Reed scandal.

But to hear the right-wing media tell it, Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorneys, and Secretary Gates are all bleeding heart liberals trying to bring good conservatives down. But that's not true. This is just another vast right-wing conspiracy. Only this time, they are purging themselves.


And there you have it. What can you do when you control all three branches of government?

You begin to attack each other. Anybody seen 'Blade 2' or 'Reign of Fire'(Both bad, I admit)?

If I can find the time, I'll post Sullivan's Krugman quote. Republicans have been going after democrats, but they've been doing it at the local level where it doesn't get the attention.

Brad
Member Ascendant
since 1999-08-20
Posts 5705
Jejudo, South Korea
53 posted 2007-03-11 07:30 PM


This is also from Sullivan's blog, Mar. 9. He's quoting Krugman.

quote:
Donald Shields and John Cragan, two professors of communication, have compiled a database of investigations and/or indictments of candidates and elected officials by U.S. attorneys since the Bush administration came to power. Of the 375 cases they identified, 10 involved independents, 67 involved Republicans, and 298 involved Democrats. The main source of this partisan tilt was a huge disparity in investigations of local politicians, in which Democrats were seven times as likely as Republicans to face Justice Department scrutiny.

How can this have been happening without a national uproar? The authors explain: "We believe that this tremendous disparity is politically motivated and it occurs because the local (non-statewide and non-Congressional) investigations occur under the radar of a diligent national press. Each instance is treated by a local beat reporter as an isolated case that is only of local interest."

And let's not forget that Karl Rove's candidates have a history of benefiting from conveniently timed federal investigations. Last year Molly Ivins reminded her readers of a curious pattern during Mr. Rove's time in Texas: 'In election years, there always seemed to be an F.B.I. investigation of some sitting Democrat either announced or leaked to the press. After the election was over, the allegations often vanished.'


So, are the republicans weak? Or are they corrupt?

Admittedly, this doesn't have much to do with the Libby case, but since Ann brought it up.

rwood
Member Elite
since 2000-02-29
Posts 3793
Tennessee
54 posted 2007-03-11 09:46 PM


Libby found guilty info here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030600400.html


Allegations against Cheney here: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/03/06/AR2007030600400_2.html

quote:
Testimony and evidence revealed that the vice president dictated precise talking points he wanted Libby and other aides to use to rebut Wilson's accusations against the White House, helped select which journalists would be contacted and worked with Bush to declassify secret intelligence reports on Iraqi weapons that he believed would contradict Wilson's claims.



Wilson’s Claims= Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, was sent by the CIA on a mission to Niger in 2002 to assess reports that Iraq had sought to buy nuclear materials there. He concluded the reports were false. In early July, 2003, Wilson published a rebuke of the White House, accusing the administration of distorting his findings to exaggerate the danger posed by Iraq and justify the war to the American people. Same source as above, just go to the first page.


Creative Fact Presentation is allowed the same way as Creative Financing. One deals with War, the other--your nest egg. Both hit home with me. I guess I’m going to sound a lot like Reb here. It pays to read the fine print.

What’s Libby’s part in all this? Chicken Little? Decoy Duck? We know who the rotten eggs are, but I’ll not be so quick to defend Libby. He got the shaft? Yeah, but I guess I look at little harder at the matter than most. I expect people in the White House to be more intelligent with information than the common businessperson, especially with info that screws you and others out of a job! Then he wants to do a very bad James Brown impersonation with the details? The audience, like the rest of us, wasn’t impressed or convinced he’s a one man show.

As I see it, I imagine the only ones able to leak info about the C.I.A. is the C.I.A. They’ve been arranging leaks since conception. They have a system, just like every other office of security and intelligence. Did the Prez and his good-fuddy-buddy cohorts alter that? Seems like they did, because now the C.I.A. is scrambling for damage control, and I think they’re trying to figure out how to diplomatically apply the charges. Damage has been done. They can’t disclose to the public how much damage, because they’re the C.I. friggin’ A!  Things are still in progress, though I bet some of their work sounded off about like needles being ripped off records, if anyone remembers what that sounds like.

The fact remains: Plame was in the C.I.A. Out her and there’s a domino effect. All other agents involved with her as well as any past or current operations are outted. Guess where our tax dollars go with them? Years worth are out the window and down the drain. We demand security and pay for it. In essence, I feel the Bush Admn stole from the damn offering plate to help fund a war and dissed a system to gain the support of the American people. Sounds typical and they all need to go down. Will they? Probably not. That doesn’t seem to be the way things work, because we don’t demand justice, we demand security. The truth would scare the hell outta most people and there’d be complete chaos, so we remain placated, at best.


quote:
I'm curious about your comment re: 'crucify her' -- can you clarify your thoughts on that?  Are you thinking the Republicans on the committee will try to skewer her the way the Dems did Clarence Thomas (and the Republicans weren't in power then and the Dems were)?


Valerie: I hope, since she was C.I.A. that she might have enough connections to make her completely aware of everything they could possibly use against her. I’d like to laugh about that, but it’s not funny. She’s out. The distinguished career that many of us would love to be able to qualify for is gone. I don’t find that funny because I wouldn’t like it if I lost my job. So yeah, she has a civil suit, but she’ll suffer more. My predictions: The word is out: Nepotism. She’ll be used like a dousing rod for Both parties, while the real issues fall off as scribbles in a margin on a legal pad, because every one of them is probably guilty of pulling some strings for family members. They’ll seek to either manipulate the implications as rag material, or discredit her the old fashioned way: with dirt. Cheney will do everything possibly imaginable to stall any implications involving the Prez, which could include a new pair of fish-net stockings? Who knows.

Let’s watch and see.

Not A Poet
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55 posted 2007-03-11 11:58 PM


Sure he knew what I meant. He just didn't have a valid answer so resorted to some flip remark. No Denise, when LR has no legitimate support for his argument, that's just how he tries to work it, transparent though it may be.

Local Rebel
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56 posted 2007-03-12 12:04 PM


Pete.

Pete.

Pete.

There's documented legitimate support for everything I've said -- on the other hand -- what do we have from you?

Balladeer
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57 posted 2007-03-12 02:24 PM


hmmmm, looks like you been found out, reb...I thought I was the only one who noticed that trait of yours.
Denise
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58 posted 2007-03-12 08:05 PM


No I don't have a let-the-Republicans skate policy L.R. If Libby committed perjury, then he has to face the music. But Clinton got off easy. Was what he did not as bad as what Nixon did? Nixon resigned before impeachment. Clinton remained even after impeachment. What did he get, a censure from Congress? Oh my. I guess they showed him! And, unlike Libby, Clinton committed a crime, perjury, prior to an investigation. There was a legitimate reason for an investigation. But I'm sure Libby will get more than a censure. DeLay resigns amidst allegations of possible wrong-doing and then the prosecutor can't get a Grand Jury to indict him on anything. He gives back the Abramoff campaign contribution, but Harry Reid, who received far more than DeLay did, from the same guy, refuses to give his back. Jefferson is caught on tape taking a bribe and the hard cold cash is found in his freezer and he refuses to resign, refuses to explain himself, and Nancy Pelosi, little miss 'let's clean up all the corruption', nominates him to serve on a committee!  I guess she only meant that the Republican corruption had to be swept away.

You haven't shown me what supposed crime was committed prior to the investigation that warranted the investigation in the first place. And I have read the material. It doesn't answer my question.

Brad, I'd be interested in seeing how those investigations and indictments pan out, the percentage of Republican and Democrat convictions and sentences. If the local level mirrors the Halls of Congress, the majority of the Democrats will get a pass or a slap on the wrist and the Republicans will lose their jobs and do time.

Are the Republicans weak or corrupt? Too many are both. Too many of the Democrats are conniving and corrupt.

Local Rebel
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59 posted 2007-03-12 09:48 PM


quote:

In September 2003, the CIA requested that the Justice Department investigate the possible unauthorized disclosure of a CIA officer’s classified identity. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself and named Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, to be "acting attorney general" for the case. Comey in turn named U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald to the case on December 30, 2003.[21] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_leak_grand_jury_investigation
/pip/Forum6/HTML/001502-2.html#42



quote:


Intelligence Identities Protection Act, the Espionage Act, Title 18 Section 641, conspiracy to impede or injure officers, the Classified Information Nondisclosure Agreement, other laws and precedents, perjury, conspiracy, obstruction of justice,
/pip/Forum6/HTML/001502-2.html#37


Denise
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60 posted 2007-03-13 08:20 PM


The only thing that could possibly apply to Libby who was convicted of obstructing justice were the charges stemming from after the investigation was begun, not prior to the investigation. There was no violation of the Indentities Act or the Espionage Act because Plame was back in the U.S. for at least 6 years prior to her supposed 'outing'. There was no legitimate reason for the investigation in the first place.
Local Rebel
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61 posted 2007-03-13 10:24 PM


quote:

Although he left the CIA in 1993, Larry C. Johnson attempted to clear up the confusion surrounding Plame's status in a column responding to Boot: "The law actually requires that a covered person 'served' overseas in the last five years. Served does not mean lived. In the case of Valerie Wilson, energy consultant for Brewster-Jennings, she traveled overseas in 2003, 2002, and 2001, as part of her cover job. She met with folks who worked in the nuclear industry, cultivated sources, and managed spies. She was a national security asset until exposed by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby."[28]

Plame worked for the CIA for 20 years, and her status, according to the New York Times, was "non-official cover." (5 October 2003). U.S. intelligence officials confirmed that Plame was working undercover shortly after it had been revealed by Robert Novak.[29] Senator Charles Schumer asked the FBI to investigate the leak because the CIA had identified Plame's status as covert.[30] John Crewdson of the Chicago Tribune interviewed several unnamed former and current CIA employees who doubt that Plame had NOC status in the CIA at the time her cover was blown by Novak.[31]

A variety of arguments regarding Ms. Plame's status as "covert" have arisen as a result of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's investigation. In the Grand Jury indictment of Libby and his press conference on the Libby indictment, broadcast on October 28, 2005, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald would not state explicitly whether or not Plame was "covert."[32].

Nevertheless, in a 5 February 2005 concurring opinion, Circuit Judge David S. Tatel made two references to Plame's covert status: (1) on page 28 of the opinion, Judge Tatel refers to Plame as an "alleged covert agent"; (2) on page 38, Judge Tatel states that because Fitzgerald had allegedly referred to Plame as a CIA agent "who had carried out covert work overseas within the last 5 years," in footnote 15 of a recent affidavit, Judge Tatel inferred that Mr. Fitzgerald must have at least "some support" for that conclusion.[33] Judge Tatel appears to have inferred from Special Counsel Fitzgerald's affidavit, which says that he is investigating whether or not Libby could have "intentionally" and "willfully" exposed the identity of "a covert agent" (italics added),[34] that Fitzgerald had already concluded that Plame was an agent who had carried out covert work within the last five years.[35][36] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternate_theories_regarding_the_Plame_affair
/pip/Forum6/HTML/001502-2.html#38




quote:

In September 2003, the CIA requested that the Justice Department investigate the possible unauthorized disclosure of a CIA officer’s classified identity. Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself and named Deputy Attorney General James B. Comey, to be "acting attorney general" for the case. Comey in turn named U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois Patrick Fitzgerald to the case on December 30, 2003.[21] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_leak_grand_jury_investigation

(above)



The CIA disagrees with you Denise.

But, there's also Title 18 and the non-disclosure agreement.  Libby was in violation of all three.

Assuming though -- your premise is correct -- perjury, false statements, and obstruction are still criminal offenses.

Your logic would, if applied universally, say that Ken Starr had no business investigating the Paula Jones scandal since he was investigating Whitewater -- which never led to an indictment of the President on those charges.  All of the Right's arguments in defense of Libby have been hypocritically reminiscent of Left's defense of Clinton.  From my vantage point it makes me think that ideologues don't even care about ideology -- just about winning.

Denise
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62 posted 2007-03-14 08:26 PM


Larry C. Johnson doesn't seem to have much regard for the idea of "innocent until proven guilty" does he? Or did I miss the indictment and trial of Karl Rove? Also, his interpretation of the law seems to be a unique interpretation. And if Fitzgerald had "some support" for Plame actually being a covert agent I guess it wasn't quite strong enough to actually prosecute anyone for it.

I'd also be curious to know when Fitzgerald threw in the Title 18 & Non-Disclosure charges, prior to the start of the investigation or at some point afterwards when he realized he didn't have enough to actually make a charge under the Identities Act. Or maybe it's a game of throwing in every conceivable charge possible hoping that something may actually stick to somebody.

My opinion of Starr is the same as my opinion of Fitzgerald. They and the politicians deserve each other.

Local Rebel
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63 posted 2007-03-14 10:43 PM


Excuse me officer, you only stopped me for speeding.  Therefore -- you can't arrest me for the 20 kilo's of cocaine you found in my car.
Denise
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64 posted 2007-03-15 05:23 AM


...or $90,000 in the freezer.


Local Rebel
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65 posted 2007-03-15 05:35 PM


That's a great example -- 'Dollar Bill' Jefferson, by an extention of your logic in the Libby case a) hasn't been charged with a crime and b) the only evidence that might be used to charge him with a crime was generated in a 'Sting' that could easily be called entrapment.  You should be defending him and questioning his investigation.

quote:

Jefferson has been under investigation by the FBI for suspected corruption since March 2005. Since that time, he has been named in the guilty pleas of two associates. On 15 May 2006, Jefferson called a press conference at which he announced that he did not intend to resign, despite expecting to be indicted on corruption charges. On 20 May 2006, Jefferson's Congressional offices were searched by the FBI, "believed to be the first-ever FBI raid on a Congressional office,"[5] raising concerns that it could "set a dangerous precedent that could be used by future administrations to intimidate or harass a supposedly coequal branch of the government."[6] See below.

An investigation of Jefferson by various agencies began in mid-2005, after an investor came to authorities. Jefferson is alleged to have received over $400,000 in bribes through a company maintained in the name of his spouse and children. The money came from a tech company named iGate, Inc. of Louisville, Kentucky, and in return, it is alleged, Jefferson would help iGate's business. Jefferson was to persuade the U.S. Army to test iGate's broadband two-way technology and other iGate products; use his efforts to influence, possibly through bribery, high-ranking officials in Nigeria, Ghana, and Cameroon; and meet with personnel of the Export-Import Bank of the United States, in order to facilitate potential financing for iGate business deals in those countries.[7]


[edit] FBI investigation of bribery and fraud
On 30 July 2005, Jefferson was videotaped by the FBI receiving $100,000 worth of $100 bills in a leather briefcase at the Ritz-Carlton hotel in Arlington, Virginia.[8] Jefferson told an investor, Lori Mody, who was wearing a wire, that he would need to give Nigerian Vice President Atiku Abubakar $500,000 "as a motivating factor" to make sure they obtained contracts for iGate and Mody's company in Nigeria.[9] A few days later, on 3 August 2005, FBI agents raided Jefferson's home in Northeast Washington and, as noted in an 83-page affidavit filed to support a subsequent raid on his Congressional office, "found $90,000 of the cash in the freezer, in $10,000 increments wrapped in aluminum foil and stuffed inside frozen-food containers." Serial numbers found on the currency in the freezer matched serial numbers of funds given by the FBI to their informant.

Late in the night of 20 May 2006, FBI agents executed a search warrant[10] at Jefferson's office in the Rayburn House Office Building.

The affidavit used to support these raids included, among other allegations:

The FBI videotaped Jefferson receiving a stock certificate from Mody for a company set up in Nigeria to promote iGate's technology. Jefferson predicted the deal would generate $200 million annually after five years.
Jefferson told Mody that he wanted a similar financial stake in the business in Ghana.
Jefferson sought $10 million in financing from Mody to take over iGate and install "confidants" on the new board. In two payments, Mody wired $89,225 to the ANJ Group LLC, a company controlled by Jefferson's family.
Jefferson lent $4,800 of the money Mody gave him to an unnamed congressional aide. Another $4,900 was given back to the FBI by one of Jefferson's attorneys.
The FBI claims it has uncovered "at least seven other schemes in which Jefferson sought things of value in return for his official acts."[11]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J._Jefferson




Investigations begin (or should) because of 'probable cause' Denise.  The CIA obviously considered the Plame leak to be criminal or they wouldn't have referred it to the FBI for investigation.  Certainly the CIA knew whether or not Valerie Wilson was a 'Covert' agent or not.

But in addition to the leaking of a covert agent's identity -- it was also the unauthorized disclosure of classified information (unless of course -- the President had selectively 'declassified' it for political purposes the way he's selectively declassified other information) so both crimes were under investigation.  

The knowledge of Armitage as Novak's source though was no reason to stop investigating -- since other reporters were leaked to by other sources and the question of how the classified information came into the possession of those leakers and Armitage is all part of the question to answered in an investigation.

You, like Johnson -- are perfectly at liberty to accuse Jefferson, and even entitled to think he's guilty.  Only a court of law has to presume innocence.

If you want to keep this up though -- you too will at some point have to join OJ in his search for the real killers -- since he was acquited in a criminal trial -- but found responsible in a civil trial.

As in that case -- this one will be interesting again when the Wilson's civil case reaches court.

Balladeer
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66 posted 2007-03-15 06:19 PM


You, like Johnson -- are perfectly at liberty to accuse Jefferson

...along with any person level-headed enough to view the evidence.

But it was entrapment! They tricked him! what a sneaky thing to do, for sure. We should all side with him for for being so deceived that he actually got caught. They actually searched his office! Is there no justice left???

They didn't just wake up one morning and say, "Let's go entrap a senator today." There had been lengthy investigations and plenty or reason to believe the man was dirty. Are you against sting operations then....foul play, perhaps?

Interesting that, with the Democrats being so gung-ho about justice being done on so many fronts, they have no problem with this one dragging out. Had it been a Republican caught with almost a hundred grand of bribe money in the freezer, they would be applauding the sting operation results and demanding the evil-doer be in jail immediately. Instead we get "innocent until proven guilty" and charges of entrapment and boot out Gonzales for not doing his job. Well, I agree there. If Gonzales had done his job, this meathead would have gone up the river long ago.

Huan Yi
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67 posted 2007-03-15 10:15 PM


.


Oh Yah
We would be so much better
With Hilary at the helm


.

Denise
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68 posted 2007-03-16 06:36 AM


And yet no one was charged for violating the Identities Act law and no one was convicted for revealing Classified Information, the supposed reasons for the investigation in the first place.

I already said that if Libby committed perjury then he has to face the music. My main problem with all of this is that Democratic politicians are held to a different standard of justice.

iliana
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69 posted 2007-03-16 01:15 PM


According to Plame's testimony before Congress today, she was covert at the time of her outting.  That should settle that.
Alicat
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since 1999-05-23
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70 posted 2007-03-16 02:52 PM


Good thing she never ever never told a lie then.  But where was her paper trail?  Oooooh.  Forgot.  She don't need one.  Surely, her word is good enough.  Afterall, she never had an occupation were telling lies with a straight face is a requirement.

Besides which, had she been Covert then Fitzgerald would have put Armitage in prison for violating the protection acts for covert agents.  She might have been 'Classified', but that is not 'Covert'.  As far as I know, unless there are secret Bush prisons for CIA outters, noone has been tried, noone has been taken to court, noone has been before a judge receiving sentencing who has broken that Act in this instance.  Libby was for perjury during the investigation, not for leaking classified information.  That's the job of certain political outlets, like the New York Times, Boston Globe, LA Times, Time Magazine and the Associated Press.

Balladeer
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71 posted 2007-03-16 07:13 PM


Well, Iliana, if "that settles that" and someone simply stating something makes it a true fact, you must feel the same about statements from everyone, even GW. Why do I doubt that is so?
Local Rebel
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72 posted 2007-03-16 07:58 PM


quote:

And yet no one was charged for violating the Identities Act law and no one was convicted for revealing Classified Information, the supposed reasons for the investigation in the first place.



And Al Capone was never indicted for murder, larceny, conspiracy, racketeering -- and OJ wasn't convicted of murder Denise.

Your point is pointless.

quote:

...along with any person level-headed enough to view the evidence.



Although my inclinations would be with your specific intent Mike -- I have to take issue with this philosophy.  Reasonable persons can disagree and if we ever come to the point where we start believing that everyone who disagrees with us is unreasonable (or not level-headed) that will be a sure sign that we are being unreasonable.

quote:

They didn't just wake up one morning and say, "Let's go entrap a senator today." There had been lengthy investigations and plenty or reason to believe the man was dirty. Are you against sting operations then....foul play, perhaps?



Mike -- I'm only extending Denise's (unbiased ) logic regarding the Libby case to the Jefferson case.  I'm not defending Jefferson in the least.

quote:

Interesting that, with the Democrats being so gung-ho about justice being done on so many fronts, they have no problem with this one dragging out. Had it been a Republican caught with almost a hundred grand of bribe money in the freezer, they would be applauding the sting operation results and demanding the evil-doer be in jail immediately. Instead we get "innocent until proven guilty" and charges of entrapment and boot out Gonzales for not doing his job. Well, I agree there. If Gonzales had done his job, this meathead would have gone up the river long ago.



What Democrat has said anything about entrapment or tried to defend Jefferson?  Show me.  Pretend I'm from Misssouri.

The Plame/Libby investigation trial started in 2003 Mike.  It's 2007.  Jefferson's investigation began in 2005.  The only people who are dragging their feet, as you point out, is the JD, if they are indeed dragging their feet.

The firings of the 8 Federal Prosecutors is a different issue entirely -- and worthy of a thread -- perhaps you should start one -- but it is germane to this thread to remind everyone that those prosecutors (including Fitzgerald) serve at the pleasure of the President and the President only.  I'm sure the Jefferson prosecutor will be sure to drag him back into the spotlight in time for the 2008 elections.  Aren't you?    

quote:

Good thing she never ever never told a lie then.  But where was her paper trail?  Oooooh.  Forgot.  She don't need one.  Surely, her word is good enough.  Afterall, she never had an occupation were telling lies with a straight face is a requirement.



Her testimony was made under oath and is impeachable by none other than the CIA -- the same CIA that won't let her publish a book about herself because she's classified.

iliana
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73 posted 2007-03-16 09:21 PM


Mike, even The Donald is not afraid to face the truth about GW.  I am really surprised that you would think that Ms. Plame would lie under oath in these circumstances especially.  
Denise
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74 posted 2007-03-16 09:50 PM


There are two understandings of the use of the word covert according to one of the authors of the Identities Protection Act who was on O'Reilly tonight. One usage is an informal usage and the other one is as defined under the Act. She explained that CIA folks often use covert, undercover, and classified status interchangably. She said that Plame may consider herself to have been covert in the more informal usage, thereby not lying when she says she was covert, but that she definitely was not covert as defined under the law in question.

My point is not pointless L.R. My contention is that no one violated the laws in question, and therefore no one was able to be prosecuted for violating them, unlike in the Capone situation.

Alicat
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75 posted 2007-03-16 11:35 PM


Which was 70 years ago.
Not counting Capone's secret stash as documented by that hyperemotional nimrod: Gerraldo.

And yeah, the FBI went after him with everything they had which would stick, as there was no CIA at the time, and I daresay the political dynamics were substantially different.

Elliot Nash needed a lot more to get Al Capone, unlike the federal and state lawmen who gunned down Bonnie and Clyde in an ambush on a rural dirt road.

Balladeer
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76 posted 2007-03-16 11:42 PM


if we ever come to the point where we start believing that everyone who disagrees with us is unreasonable (or not level-headed) that will be a sure sign that we are being unreasonable.

I agree with that, LR, but in the area of beliefs or opinions. When people refuse to recognize facts, it is they who are unreasonable. The tapes were facts. The money in the freezer was a fact. The evidence against him was factual. To call anyone who cannot accept these points as fact unreasonable is....reasonable.  

What Democrat has said anything about entrapment or tried to defend Jefferson?  Show me.  Pretend I'm from Misssouri.

Well, since I AM from Missouri, I'll try. There was a great cry from Democrats about the search of his office, demanding that evidence thrown out. Entrapment? You yourself began a comment in this thread concerning that.... " the only evidence that might be used to charge him with a crime was generated in a 'Sting' that could easily be called entrapment.  You should be defending him and questioning his investigation." are your words. No, they have not tried to defend him but can you show me where any Democrat is calling for justice? This is a congressman who took bribes and committed felonies. Where is their call for action? Do you feel they would be so silent over it if the congressman were Republican? They have no problem screaming for the removal of Rice, Hastert, Bush, Gonzales.......where has any Democrat called for action against Jefferson? Nowhere is the correct answer.

The firings of the 8 Federal Prosecutors is a different issue entirely -- and worthy of a thread -- perhaps you should start one

Another criminal investigation of a non-criminal act? No, thanks.


I am really surprised that you would think that Ms. Plame would lie under oath in these circumstances especially. Really, Iliana? Hey, if a sitting president like Billy can lie under oath why is it so far-fetched to think a CIA gal couldn't? Besides, they don't actually "lie" - they erroniously misrepresent.  

By the way, Iliana, this is what she actually did say....

Plame repeatedly described herself as a covert operative, a term that has multiple meanings. Plame said she worked undercover and traveled abroad on secret missions for the CIA.

But the word "covert" also has a legal definition requiring recent foreign service by the person and active efforts to keep his or her identity secret. Critics of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation said Plame did not meet that definition for several reasons and that was why nobody was charged with the leak.

"No process can be adopted to protect classified information that no one knows is classified. This looks to me more like a CIA problem than a White House problem," Davis said.

Plame said she wasn't a lawyer and didn't know her legal status, but said it shouldn't have mattered to the officials who learned her identity.

iliana
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77 posted 2007-03-17 03:38 AM


"Plame, the daughter of an Air Force colonel and an elementary school teacher, was recruited by the CIA at 22, shortly after graduation from Pennsylvania State University. She was in the 1985-86 class of CIA officers trained at "The Farm" near Williamsburg, where the curriculum included learning to drive under fire, blowing up cars and handling an AK-47.

Her career postings are classified, but she was one of the elite clandestine spies -- an officer with nonofficial cover who works overseas in business or other jobs and has no diplomatic protection if detected or arrested."
. . . . Washingtonn Post "Valerie Plame, The Spy Who Got Shoved Out Into the Cold" by Richard Leiby, October 29, 2005

Now to me, "nonofficial cover" and "no diplomatic protection" mean that she was a REAL, HONEST TO GOODNESS SPY.  "Nonofficial" means the government can plausibly deny knowing her in case there's a problem, which to me means she did some pretty heavy-duty covert action.    

This whole case makes me very, very sad.  Basically, it says you can lay your life on the line for this country, but when push comes to shove, we will leave you lying on the battle field.  Of course, I guess that comes with the turf when you're an off-the-record, nonofficial spy.  It says to me that there's retaliation if you don't support false intelligence and are bold enough to say so outloud like her husband did.  

I still say that this must send the shivers up the backs of other covert operatives or even potential operatives.  Additionally, GW promised to launch a full investigation into this matter a long while back and never did.  He promised to fire the person responsible for the leak (I did not say leaking a covert spy name, I said "the leak").  Security folks at the White House deny that any action was ever taken by the White House to investigate the leak, according to testimony provided to Congress yesterday.

Only 2 of the 17 Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (the investigating committee) showed up to hear the testimony on Friday, the 16th (oh....it was a Friday...long weekend...I've heard about that 3-day work week).   Instead, the Republicans would like to continue making this a partisan issue; their response is to play it down, ignore it, manipulate definitions of words, and let the "in-house" media monsters and their talking heads do the work for them.  Yes, Balladeer, redefining words was a trick that Billy used....it's politics.  Whether you like it or not, Ms. Plame was a soldier who got left out, or in this case allegedly put out, in the cold -- an occurrence that seems to be on the rise with this administration.

Mike, for the record, here is what Ms. Plame really said:    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8k3GuVTfWLw&mode=related&search= - Part I
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dxhBWOYTuNQ&mode=related&search= - Part II
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s0K-pSNw_O4 - Part III

[This message has been edited by iliana (03-17-2007 05:47 AM).]

rwood
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78 posted 2007-03-17 07:41 AM


Yep.

It ain't over.

Plame; is by name "Radioactive."

If she was just a bimbo who looked good in Ray-Bans, why is she banned from writing a book?

Why is her future with the C.I.A destroyed?

Why is she being shunned by those she was once employed with?

Why are her contacts and family members in jeopardy?

Why can't she qualify for full benefits in her retirement?

Not our problem? Alright, sure. It still sucks out loud. And you know what the sad thing is? She was serving her country, regardless of all the p*ssin' contests between the Dems/Reps, she was performing whatever duty was asked of her.

Crap needs to prove a new law to me.

It should roll all the way up to Capitol Hill.

Denise
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79 posted 2007-03-17 11:15 AM


Here is an article that gives some insight into the origins of the Wilson/Plame situation.  Some of this I had forgotten, some I had never heard before.
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=54590

Alicat
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since 1999-05-23
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80 posted 2007-03-17 02:18 PM


Very interesting, but be prepared for it to be dismissed out of hand.  Afterall, there is advertising on that site which contain Christianity, Israel and American Conservatives.  By the American Left logic, it is lies, lies and more lies...oh, and Bush is to blame.  And Cheney.  And Coulter....did I leave out Bush?  Better add Bush again for good measure.

Funny though, as in Reb's initial post where he quotes a BLOG I happened to notice a LOT of ads and posts slamming American Conservatives, Christians, Israel and President Bush.  However, somehow all that is moot and the source inscrutible.  So expect the same response as your Coulter article got.

Balladeer
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81 posted 2007-03-17 06:18 PM


Yes, Balladeer, redefining words was a trick that Billy used....it's politics.  

I see. When Billy does it, it's politics. News flash for ya, Iliana. It's not politics....it's a felony and I repeat - if the President of the United States can engage in it during an investigation, why is it so incredible to believe a CIA agent can't? Yet you will take her version and words without question.


- Only 2 of the 17 Republicans on the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform (the investigating committee) showed up to hear the testimony on Friday, the 16th

- their response is to play it down, ignore it, manipulate definitions of words, and let the "in-house" media monsters and their talking heads do the work for them.

- an occurrence that seems to be on the rise with this administration.

-  the Republicans would like to continue making this a partisan issue;


looks to me like the Republicans aren't the only ones making it a partisan issue. You're doing a pretty good job of it yourself  


Nice try, Denise, but if it doesn't come from the Washington Post or some such clone, it just ain't worthy of consideration  

iliana
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82 posted 2007-03-17 08:24 PM


Balladeer, I do not disagree it is a felony to lie before Congress -- no arguement there.  However, we were not talking about that, or at least that is not how I interpreted what I had responded to as meaning that.  I responded to the idea of redefining words or giving words multiple meanings.  If you don't think that is politics, then I guess I don't have any more argument to convince you...lol.  

Once again, I am an independent voice here viewing the situation objectively.  I am still a registered republican, knowledgeable about my party politics but I do not let my party affiliation blind me...and when I say I believe the Republicans intend to keep this a partisan battle, I truely believe I am correct.  I believe the Democrats (a majority of them and even some stray Republicans) would like to see the Congress come together and get the balance of power straightened out and that this is an avenue to start that process.  It might ultimately end up with Cheney's resignation when all the sorting out is done and that is what Reb's thread is ultimately about.  

Balladeer
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83 posted 2007-03-17 08:30 PM


No, what I was referring to was your surprise that I would consider the possibility that she would give an untrue statement. As I pointed out, there have been precedents set there, including Slick Willie's. Simply because someone says something doesn't make it true

Sorry for the confusion...

iliana
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84 posted 2007-03-17 08:33 PM


Additionally, Mike, there was testimony by the head of CIA that she was indeed a covert agent.  If you need the specific reference, I will look it up.  I do not believe she lied.  I won't argue that it isn't possible for anyone to lie, but in this case, the CIA supports her claim.
iliana
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85 posted 2007-03-17 08:47 PM


"The current director of the CIA, Gen. Michael Hayden, told Waxman so."  http://www.nypost.com/seven/03172007/news/columnists      /panel_fails_to_blow_real_culprits_cover_columnists_john_podhoretz.htm
(Though I disagree with the tone of this article, in general, it does confirm her status.)

The only real question, Mike, is whether or not the White House leakers knew she was covert.  Now that is the Republican's talking point and defense.  How could they not know?  News anchor Chris Matthews testified that he was told that Valerie Plame was fair game by Karl Rove.  

Denise
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86 posted 2007-03-17 08:52 PM


But what neither she nor the head of the CIA will say is that she was covert as defined by the Identities Protection Act.
iliana
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87 posted 2007-03-17 08:57 PM


Denise...lol...have you ever considered that the CIA does not want to violate their own policies by exposing secret agents?  They have not denied what she claims, have they?
Denise
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88 posted 2007-03-17 09:13 PM


She is already 'outed' Iliana. There would be no harm done now if they were to offer proof that she qualified as covert under the Identities Protection Act definition. And she and the CIA would if they could. But they can't because she wasn't.
iliana
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since 2003-12-05
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89 posted 2007-03-17 09:41 PM


It would still be a violation of their confidentiality agreements and their policies to identify her any further.  You are on the losing side of this battle and it is no use to argue it.  The White House retaliated; yes! she was outted.  That is the issue here.  Did they or did they not know; did they intentially retaliate because they were upset with Joe Wilson or not?  That is the issue.  There has been a pattern of this type of behavior from this administration and perhaps in other administrations, too.  But we are dealing with THIS ONE at this time.  
Local Rebel
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since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
90 posted 2007-03-17 11:24 PM


Wow -- this guy is good;

quote:

A few weeks back I received an e-mail from a scientist affiliated with a major university's nuclear program. In the e-mail, he casually referred to the "1.77 tons of enriched uranium" the U.S. found in Iraq.

More than a little skeptical, I e-mailed the scientist back, "Tell me how we know about the 1.77 tons." He referred me to a fascinating article from BBC News online dated July 7, 2004.

Titled "U.S. reveals Iraq nuclear operation," the article details how 20 experts from the U.S. Energy Department's secret laboratories packaged and removed 1.77 tons of enriched uranium and then flew the material out of Iraq aboard a military plane.

The article quotes a smiling Spencer Abraham, secretary of energy, saying, "This operation was a major achievement." And just as suddenly as the story appeared, it disappeared. Not a word was heard of it from the major networks. The only American media to follow up on it was WorldNetDaily.




Hmmm... guess we should tell him about google huh?
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32195-2004Jul6.html
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200407/s1148445.htm

even the venerated fair and balanced Fox forgot to make a big deal out of it:
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,124924,00.html

how do you guys find anything WND publishes credible?

The only insight here Denise is that your source remains completely myopic, self-promoting, and has little regard for the intellect of it's readers -- or it might check some facts every once in a great while.

quote:

Very interesting, but be prepared for it to be dismissed out of hand.  Afterall, there is advertising on that site which contain Christianity, Israel and American Conservatives.  By the American Left logic, it is lies, lies and more lies



Left or Right Cat, a  lie as easily exposed as a lie has nothing to do with ideology.

quote:

Funny though, as in Reb's initial post where he quotes a BLOG I happened to notice a LOT of ads and posts slamming American Conservatives, Christians, Israel and President Bush.  However, somehow all that is moot and the source inscrutible.



Context Cat?  In what context do I quote Emanuuel?  Do I use him as a source?  Am I using 'facts' based on his blog entry?  Or did I merely post his opinion and ask yours?  Did I find his opinion credible?  Or did I find it 'far-fetched'?

Still -- I've looked for those anti-Christian ads you're referring to and -- all I couldn't find any -- perhaps they're blocked on my computer?


quote:

I agree with that, LR, but in the area of beliefs or opinions. When people refuse to recognize facts, it is they who are unreasonable. The tapes were facts. The money in the freezer was a fact. The evidence against him was factual. To call anyone who cannot accept these points as fact unreasonable is....reasonable.



I like to believe what I see with my own eyes Mike -- but, it is a matter of perspective -- most of the time we just see what we expect.

Like the man who rounded the corner at the supermarket only to see one of the customers laying on the floor struggling as a large black man was beating him.  He went to call the police -- but would find out that the PARAMEDICS were on the way to assist the man who'd had a heart attack and was receiving CPR from another customer.

It won't take MUCH to convince me that Jefferson is guilty -- but isn't it a shame the jury pool is so tainted?  

quote:

You yourself began a comment in this thread concerning that....



Context Mike?  What context?  

quote:

where has any Democrat called for action against Jefferson? Nowhere is the correct answer.



Not really - the CBC defended him -- that is true -- but the majority of the Dems in Congress pushed him off the Ways and Means Committee instantly.  I doubt that I would want him on the Homeland Security committee either -- but, Katrina did hit his home district -- where all those people voted him back into the Congress.  If you keep him on the bench it seems that a whole lot of people aren't in the game.

quote:

Another criminal investigation of a non-criminal act? No, thanks.



I don't think there's a criminal investigation Mike.  And it's true that administrations can replace US Attorneys for any reason or no reason.  But, if politicos were pressuring those U.S. Attorneys to prosecute where there was no merit or to lay off prosecution where there was merit - then that is a criminal matter Mike -- don't you think so?

quote:

Plame repeatedly described herself as a covert operative, a term that has multiple meanings. Plame said she worked undercover and traveled abroad on secret missions for the CIA.

But the word "covert" also has a legal definition requiring recent foreign service by the person and active efforts to keep his or her identity secret. Critics of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation said Plame did not meet that definition for several reasons and that was why nobody was charged with the leak.

"No process can be adopted to protect classified information that no one knows is classified. This looks to me more like a CIA problem than a White House problem," Davis said.

Plame said she wasn't a lawyer and didn't know her legal status, but said it shouldn't have mattered to the officials who learned her identity.  



I've already posted the entire text of the Identities Protection Act here -- and it clearly says 'served' not lived, and the CIA was actively keeping her identity secret as was indicated in the indictment and the simple fact that the CIA created and maintained Brewster Jennings and Associates http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brewster_Jennings_%26_Associates  in order for her to work (covertly) on WMD issues -- a vital asset to our nation in a war on terror.

Gathering enough evidence to prosecute such a violation does require that one be able to prove what the perpetrators believed -- something that is not easy to do.

But, Denise has already stipulated that Plame was 'classified'.  That's a Title 18 violation and a violation of non-disclosures right there -- You don't even need the IPA.

Here's the question for you though Mike, and Denise and Cat and Pete -- do you think it was a MORAL thing for Libby, Rove, Armitage, and Fliescher to reveal Valerie Wilson's identity?

Alicat
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Posts 4094
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91 posted 2007-03-17 11:44 PM


**Removed by self**
Local Rebel
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since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
92 posted 2007-03-17 11:50 PM


My daughter used to throw her spoon on the floor.  I'd pick it up, wipe it off, throw it in the sink and get her a new spoon.  She'd repeat the process.

So here's an idea Cat -- research those questions (you can find some of the answers right here on this thread) and get back to us with the documentation.

My replay button isn't working anymore.  

rwood
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since 2000-02-29
Posts 3793
Tennessee
93 posted 2007-03-18 10:05 AM


sighs...

Is it possible for a person, downwind from Oak Ridge, to suffer from the affects of radioactive wastes? No one will say.

I'm worried, seriously. Why have those people been seen taking soil samples all around the area in full Hazmat suits?

Why are the streams I used to swim and fish  in as a child now off limits to even wading?

What have WE done?

radioactivity seems to be a common occurrence, in everything. In everyone. The levels are what matters, yes?

Denise
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94 posted 2007-03-18 10:05 AM


The CIA can reveal that she was covert, but they can't reveal that she was covert as defined under the Identities Act? That makes no sense at all Iliana. And it has not been proven that she was outed by the White House nor for the purpose of retaliation, Iliana. That is an assumption made by Plame, Wilson, and the CIA that was not able to be proven. And yet it is still treated as gospel fact by the left. What is a fact is that she was outed by Armitage (who is no fan of the White House Administration) and her name confirmed by someone in the CIA to Novak.

I will email the author of the article, L.R., to inform him of his error that no other media source folliowed up on the enriched uranium removal story other than WND. I don't see that that error negates the story though.

Balladeer
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95 posted 2007-03-18 10:05 AM


I like to believe what I see with my own eyes Mike -- but, it is a matter of perspective -- most of the time we just see what we expect.

I see. So we expected to see videotapes of  bribe-taking and cash in the freezer and VIOLA! There they were! Amazing how that works, no? If you want to speak of things out of context, your example given sets the bar. I like to see with my own eyes, too, LR, but I was busy the night OJ went berzerk or when Dahlmer went on his feeding frenzy. Sometimes we have to rely on facts in evidence and common sense, which is becoming increasingly less common. Speaking of OJ, what was that about tainted juries again? Yes, the jury pool would be probably be tainted......with evidence The tapes with Jefferson in the lead role could indeed make a juror suspicious, as could pictures of the frozen ninety grand.....but, then, no one actually saw him put it in there, did they? Who's to say someone else didn't break into his office and stash the cash or maybe, like the tooth fairy, there's a Frigidaire Fairy, who leaves money when one loses a tv dinner?

Not really - the CBC defended him -- that is true -- but the majority of the Dems in Congress pushed him off the Ways and Means Committee instantly.  I doubt that I would want him on the Homeland Security committee either -- but, Katrina did hit his home district -- where all those people voted him back into the Congress.  If you keep him on the bench it seems that a whole lot of people aren't in the game.

Apparently you didn't understand the question so let me repeat it...where has any Democrat called for action against Jefferson?  You speak of taking him off a committee and keeping him on the bench? Where is the call to have him tried for felonies?? Where is the call to action and venom-spewing that would have occured had Jefferson been a Republican? You make it sound like kicking a child molester out of the PTA or banning him from the Friday night poker game would show that you were serious about this man paying for his crimes. Maybe they should just take away his freezer????

But, if politicos were pressuring those U.S. Attorneys to prosecute where there was no merit or to lay off prosecution where there was merit - then that is a criminal matter Mike -- don't you think so?

Is it? I really don't know, LR. If  your boss says, "Know that I can fire you for any reason at any time I want" and then fires you for a reason other than the one he gives you, is that against what he said to you, since ANY reason is within his power?  I agree with you that it would be a bad day for law enforcement and the country should that happen.......but did it? The Democrats make the claim that lawyers were fired for going after Republicans. I read in the paper that, in at least two cases, fired attorneys had been targeting and prosecuting Democrats. What then? I know.....let's have an INVESTIGATION! That's the only thing this is all about......another investigation on the front pages concerning this blasted administration. That has been the Democrat game plan for a few years now alnog with help from the press. Investigate Cheney, investigate Gitmo, investigate Haliburtin, investigate surveillance tactics, investigate Hastert, investigate Bush's military service record,,,,,,,,,,,it doesn't matter if the investigation reveals nothing. They get days or weeks of headlines out of it and the average citizen on the street thinking "Sure seem to be a lot of investigations going on." That's what they care about - nothing to do with Truth, Justice and the American Way. They have an "investigation of the day" game plan with eyes squinted open on the lookout for anything that could provoke the next one.

Hillary, in one of her brilliant speeches, said the other day "Our standing and reputation in the world matters!" Oh, really?  They flood world news with accusations and investigations against the administration, give the impression that the country is run by corruption and lawlessness and then speak of our "reputation". I'll tell you what our reputation is. I read a blog the other day about the towelhead who confessed to mastermining 9-11 and the overwhelming responses from Europeans ran along the lines of...."Who can believe the Americans? Everybody knows that they torture and beat the prisoners at Guantanamo. Anybody would say anything to get them to stop." That's our reputation in the world. Did anything come out of the Democrat investigation of gitmo? Nope...so what? They accomplished their mission. If it hurt the country, so what? What is bad for a Bush-led America is good for them. They could care less about how the country is viewed by the eyes of the world. Checks and balances are good. Dissent with policies is also good. One does it, though, in the proper way. You sit down with the other side and say "We disagree with you and want to discuss our difference." The Democrat way, however, is to call the newspapers and get their dissent across the front pages first. They ran investigation after investigation to get Senate control. Now that they have it, they are still running invrestigation after investigation to set the tone for the next elections. We are seeing the only reason they wanted to win......they are, and have been, out to get Bush with more investigations after investigations. Their hatred of the little rooster who dismisses them is too overwhelming to stop. If they were to put one tenth of the effort they put into going after Bush into actually doing something beneficial for the country, things would get accomplished. Calling for unending investigations serves the purpose of camouflaging the fact that they are NOT doing anything beneficial for the country.

By all means, have another investigation........what else have they got to do?


Ron
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96 posted 2007-03-18 10:54 AM


Let's see if I've got this right, Mike. Your contention is that good Americans, duly elected to represent the majority of good Americans in their geographical area, hate one man so much they are willing to destroy the country they serve? So, basically, what you're saying is that in spite of all his promises in both elections, Bush's greatest claim to fame is that he has polarized this nation as no other President before him?

Wow. I don't much like Bush, but that's probably a stronger condemnation of the man than I would ever have offered.

Sigh. Sadly, adversarial systems, such as we have in the courts and in our government, stop working when people hate each other more than they love the goals they pursue. In a time more dangerous than most, I honestly hope the partisans in Washington are less full of vitriol than those in these forums. Else this country is surely doomed.



Local Rebel
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Southern Abstentia
97 posted 2007-03-18 10:56 AM


quote:

I see. So we expected to see videotapes of  bribe-taking and cash in the freezer and VIOLA! There they were! Amazing how that works, no? If you want to speak of things out of context, your example given sets the bar.



You mean, in your expectations, I've beaten Ron?  Thanks Mike!     

Our expectations relate to how we interpret what we see Mike.  That's where our perspective comes in.  Which is why you try so hard to paint me as a Democrat.  It unsettles you that someone who tries as hard as I do to be unbiased finds fault in things Republicans do.  You would feel better if I was a Democrat -- that way you could just convince yourself that it's all just politics.

quote:

Did anything come out of the Democrat investigation of gitmo?



There has been a 'Democrat' investigation of gitmo?  I must have missed that -- could you show it to me please?

I'm not following your logic at all Mike.  The way we can reduce the crime rate in America is to stop pursuing criminals?  

quote:

I will email the author of the article, L.R., to inform him of his error that no other media source folliowed up on the enriched uranium removal story other than WND. I don't see that that error negates the story though.



It isn't a story Denise.  It's a completely unresearched and undocumented op-ed disguised as a story.  


Juju
Member Elite
since 2003-12-29
Posts 3429
In your dreams
98 posted 2007-03-18 01:41 PM


You poeple listen to Ann?  Well I take her to good humor, but she is the micheal more of the republican party. Oh well.  Did you know that both bushes and clinton are part of skull and bones.  In fact alot of our leaders are.  ITs WIERD>  

Anyways my point is bad people back both parties.  To call "republicans" or "demacrates" evil is wrong.  Everyone of you are adult enough to know better, really.  

As a conservative, this all confuses me.  The wife in the cia was not undercover.  she worked in the office.  right now she has a book out she is trying to sell.  apparently she told everyone she was in the cia and it was no great secrete.  

It bothers me when people want to see someone appeached.  personally I don't wish that. It bothers me when poeple say america will fall in the next five years, and it bothers me when I hear poeple wish(not predict)that we will lose in iraq.  

I hope Iraq is a lesson that US is too immature to play the war games. And I hope everyone sees the difference between Iraq and viatnam.    

-Juju

-"So you found a girl
Who thinks really deep thougts
What's so amazing about really deep thoughts " Silent all these Years, Tori Amos

Denise
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99 posted 2007-03-18 01:43 PM


I was talking of the enriched uranium find, L.R., that story. But was there any other statement in his article that you found to be inaccurate, particulary regarding Wilson, other than his erroneous claim that WND was the only news source that followed up on the story (hmmm...maybe that wasn't an error at all, maybe he meant subsequent coverage of it after the initial article)?

And would it unsettle you to learn that those who disagree with your veiwpoints were not Republicans?  I think a more appropriate distinction is Liberal and Conservative rather than Democrat and Republican. I think most of us see ourselves as attempting to be unbiased. But I think that is a subjective estimation rather than an objective one. I think we are all biased to some degree, despite our efforts not to be.

Local Rebel
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Southern Abstentia
100 posted 2007-03-18 03:55 PM


Just start with the first paragraph Denise -- here's a reprint of his NYT article that started the onslaught;

quote:

Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?

Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council.

It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? That's me.

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.

After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government.
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm



Where is the lie Denise? Jack says:

quote:

Anyone who has followed the Scooter Libby trial closely knows that Patrick Fitzgerald tried the wrong man. Among other things, Wilson has lied conspicuously about who sent him to Niger, who did not send him, what he found, what he did not find, and how he reported his findings.




from the indictment;

quote:

e. Joseph Wilson ("Wilson") was a former career State Department official who had held a variety of posts, including United States Ambassador. In 2002, after an inquiry to the CIA by the Vice President concerning certain intelligence reporting, the CIA decided on its own initiative to send Wilson to the country of Niger to investigate allegations involving Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium yellowcake, a processed form of uranium ore. Wilson orally reported his findings to the CIA upon his return.

f. Joseph Wilson was married to Valerie Plame Wilson ("Valerie Wilson"). At all relevant times from January 1, 2002 through July 2003, Valerie Wilson was employed by the CIA, and her employment status was classified. Prior to July 14, 2003, Valerie Wilson's affiliation with the CIA was not common knowledge outside the intelligence community.

[edit] Events Leading up to July 2003
2. On or about January 28, 2003, President George W. Bush delivered his State of the Union address which included sixteen words asserting that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

3. On May 6, 2003, the New York Times published a column by Nicholas Kristof which disputed the accuracy of the "sixteen words" in the State of the Union address. The column reported that, following a request from the Vice President's office for an investigation of allegations that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger, an unnamed former ambassador was sent on a trip to Niger in 2002 to investigate the allegations. According to the column, the ambassador reported back to the CIA and State Department in early 2002 that the allegations were unequivocally wrong and based on forged documents. http://en.wikisource.org/wiki/USDOJ_OSC_Federal_indictment_of_Lewis_Libby



quote:

And would it unsettle you to learn that those who disagree with your veiwpoints were not Republicans?



Why would it Denise?

Balladeer
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101 posted 2007-03-18 04:04 PM


Let's see if I've got this right, Mike. Your contention is that good Americans, duly elected to represent the majority of good Americans in their geographical area, hate one man so much they are willing to destroy the country they serve? So, basically, what you're saying is that in spite of all his promises in both elections, Bush's greatest claim to fame is that he has polarized this nation as no other President before him?

Wow...applause!! Chubby Checker only invented the twist....you have perfected it!

Sigh. Sadly, adversarial systems, such as we have in the courts and in our government, stop working when people hate each other more than they love the goals they pursue.

I agree totally, Ron, and that's exactly where we have been for several years, thanks to the Democratic leadership. That's why you don't see the hundreds of good things that are happening in Iraq. That's why soldiers are shocked when they return home to read what the papers have to say. That's why, when the economy has reached it's highest peak in many years, when unemployment is at a record low, you won't hear one Democrat (those of the "It's the economy, stupid" generation), have one good thing to say about it. Sadly, the Democrats HAVE reached that level you describe. What good has happened under a Republican administration is to be ignored and whatever they can dig up or create to cast a disfavorable stone is to be exploited. Look at the fiasco they tried to make of the Dubai port purchase. can you honestly tell me you believe they did that in good faith....or was it to stir up the populace? What about the surveillance program they got so much mileage out of? Most claimed they weren't saying anything was illegal and they weren't saying it was something they would not have approved but but but.....front page stuff. Impeach Bush!  Kick out Rice!  Boot Hastert!  Crucify Gonzales!  It goes on and on.......No, they cannot destroy the country. They only want it to look as pathetic as possible under Republican control......therefore the only thing to do is to get the Democrats in there to save the day. Would they be happy to see it wounded if it meant some kind of victory for them? In a hearbeat. Exactly what goals do the Democrats pursue that you refer to? I've seen no goals with the exception of their "Get Bush" policy. That is certainly all that is occupying their time and energy. Hillary is gung-ho on health care and the liberal press won't even remind her she was in charge of it for eight years and did nothing. Yes, I state that their ambition is much more important to them than the good of the country.

You mean, in your expectations, I've beaten Ron?  Thanks Mike!

Yes, you SHOULD feel  honored, LR. That is not an easy accomplishment.  

There has been a 'Democrat' investigation of gitmo?  I must have missed that -- could you show it to me please?

That must have been happening when you were watching tv or playing with the kids. I'll be happy to when I have more time. For your information, it lost it's steam when Kennedy went down as part of this investigation you never heard of and could find nothing to report.

  It unsettles you that someone who tries as hard as I do to be unbiased finds fault in things Republicans do.

No, to be truthful, it unsettle me when these are the only times you show up......there are three or four of you with that trait. You claim unbias but mysteriously have other things to do when threads concerning Democratic shenanigans show up. There was a thread on Hillary and her past, including the missing FBI files, travel office, stealing the silverware upon her departure from the White House, among other things....where were you? I can point out several threads involving Democrats where your input, along with the Wizard's, would have added to the discussion, but they all must have occured during your "busy" times. No problem there. No one is required to respond anywhere they don't want to........it's curious, though, that when something like Libby shows up, there you are, initiating the discussion and talking now about how hard you try to be unbiased. Your actions belie that statement, good sir. Others must have your same schedule also because those are the only times THEY show up.  Funny how that works.....   THAT is the only thing I take issue with....but that's my problem, not yours.

Local Rebel
Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
102 posted 2007-03-18 05:13 PM


Well Mike -- if you're referring to the Senate Armed Services committee investigation of Gitmo; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/13/AR2005071302380.html

these all occured under Republican control of the House and Senate -- so, one of us may be confused about the 'Decomcrat investigation' and about whether or not they 'found' anything.

quote:

it's curious, though, that when something like Libby shows up, there you are, initiating the discussion and talking now about how hard you try to be unbiased. Your actions belie that statement, good sir.



Well, lets see... where is the Walter Reed Thread I started Mike?  The FBI abused the Patriot Act thread?  The Justice Department/US Attorney firing scandal thread
? The Gays in the Military/General Pace thread?  The Mark Foley thread?  Conrad Burns? Duke Cunningham?

It seems like I've missed a lot of opportunities Mike.  But, thanks again for calling me a liar.  


quote:

(hmmm...maybe that wasn't an error at all, maybe he meant subsequent coverage of it after the initial article)



Is this your own personal equivocation on Jack's behalf Denise?  

Either way -- the follow-ups were of the critical variety
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/09/iraq/main628378.shtml
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35404-2004Jul7.html


iliana
Member Patricius
since 2003-12-05
Posts 13434
USA
103 posted 2007-03-18 06:07 PM


quote:

The CIA can reveal that she was covert, but they can't reveal that she was covert as defined under the Identities Act? That makes no sense at all Iliana.



Libby was convicted on two counts of perjury, one count of obstruction of justice and one count of making false statements to federal investigators. These charges were not made under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. So why, Denise, do you believe it is necessary for the CIA to divulge any more than it already has?  I think the material you must be using for your sourcing is older than the current facts to the case.  To further that presumption on my part, I refer to your belief that Armitage alone outted Plame.  If you watched the YouTube video links I posted earlier, you will see that there were charts made and used as evidence based on evidence used at Libby's trial which were used in the hearings that indicated several tiers of how the leak(s) occurred, traveled and origins...Armitage was only one of them. It is known that it was a highly coordinated effort involving many people.  What is not known is who ordered Cheney and Rove, if anyone, to let the leak out.  

[This message has been edited by iliana (03-18-2007 06:47 PM).]

Not A Poet
Member Elite
since 1999-11-03
Posts 3885
Oklahoma, USA
104 posted 2007-03-18 06:14 PM


quote:
It unsettles you that someone who tries as hard as I do to be unbiased finds fault in things Republicans do.

OMG, I must have somehow missed that little winkie-smilie thingy after that statement. Man, I sure hope lightning doesn't strike in your area even.


iliana
Member Patricius
since 2003-12-05
Posts 13434
USA
105 posted 2007-03-18 06:27 PM


Denise -- here's the chart:   http://www.bradblog.com/?p=4283
Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505
Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA
106 posted 2007-03-18 08:10 PM


I'd never call you a liar, LR, believe me. I said something like Libby shows up and you're there initiating a thread. I did not say that you covered every one....you DID cover Libby, which validates the point. You also did NOT respond to many dealing with Democrats, which further validates it. You may not be or consider yourself biased against the administration but, believe me, that is not the impression you give others, based on the selectivity and direction of your responses. No biggie...I was just responding to you "sensitivity' comment.

WASHINGTON - The Senate Judiciary Committee chairman said Sunday he intends to subpoena White House officials involved in ousting federal prosecutors and is dismissing anything short of their testimony in public.


"I want testimony under oath. I am sick and tired of getting half-truths on this," Leahy said. "I do not believe in this, we'll have a private briefing for you where we'll tell you everything, and they don't.


Ok, here we go again....

Local Rebel
Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
107 posted 2007-03-18 08:57 PM


Mike!

I'm completely biased against this administration.  It wasn't always so though was it?  Prior to the war the Bush Administration had my support -- didn't it?  Wasn't I the guy who kept saying that we don't have access to the intelligence that the administration does and that we had to give them the benefit of the doubt?  Wasn't that me on percussion when the drums of war were beating?  My bias is a learned bias.  Prior to that I hated everybody equally.

What I am completely deviod of though -- is partisan bias.  I do have opinions, but I form them as much as possible based on objective evidence -- that I share freely for everyone to review as well.

I notice that no one will answer my question though -- doesn't anyone want to give it a shot?

Denise
Moderator
Member Seraphic
since 1999-08-22
Posts 22648

108 posted 2007-03-19 08:59 PM


I never said it was Armitage alone, Iliana. I said Armitage was the one who 'leaked' to Novak.  But your chart is interesting. I assume that most of those people were subject to the investigation, at least, if not brought before the grand jury. Why were none of them, especially the primary 'leakers' in the CIA and State Department, without whom no subsequent
'leak' could have happend in the first place, not charged with anything if Plame were covert under the Identities Act or even given her classified status?

L.R., Jack said to google "1.77 tons" and see how woefully lacking follow-up coverage was by the MSM.

And I believe his point was that by comparing Wilson's first op-ed piece with his latest is where you will find the measure of the man.

Moral politicians?! Isn't that an oxymoron?!   

Well truth be told, I was aware of one but he was voted out this past election. A great loss to the Senate.        


iliana
Member Patricius
since 2003-12-05
Posts 13434
USA
109 posted 2007-03-19 10:11 PM


Denise, I really don't know the answer to your question, but maybe it is because they did not commit perjury or try to obstruct justice.???  Just a thought.
iliana
Member Patricius
since 2003-12-05
Posts 13434
USA
110 posted 2007-03-19 11:22 PM


Denise, also, I do not know the sequence of the leaks.  This chart was based on Libby's testimony in his criminal trial.  Who knows, there may be further prosecution.  Does anyone know about that yet?

Oh, and please...it is not my chart; just a reference.  

Local Rebel
Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
111 posted 2007-03-20 07:06 PM


quote:

[quote]
L.R., Jack said to google "1.77 tons" and see how woefully lacking follow-up coverage was by the MSM.



So then he admits that he's both a liar and not a very good researcher.  

Tell him to google "iraq+uranium+radioactive+materials", assuming that he hasn't -- he might be surprised --however his opinion "woefully inadequate" is quite different from his published 'fact' -- "Not a word was heard of it from the major networks."  Of course -- if he's willing to begin his column with an entire paragraph of bald-faced lies then -- why not equivocate over the rest of it?

My guess is, that he's perfectly aware of the coverage and found that it didn't support his unique position as a conspiracy theorist (aka propagandist).

quote:

May 19, 2003 issue - From the very start, one of the top U.S. priorities in Iraq has been the search for weapons of mass destruction. Weren¡¯t WMDs supposed to be what the war was about? Even so, no one has yet produced conclusive evidence that Iraq was maintaining a nuclear, biological or chemical (NBC) arsenal.

Two very suspicious trailer rigs turned up last week in Mosul. The Pentagon called them mobile bio-labs. Maybe, but although they ¡°looked like a duck and walked like a duck,¡± as one U.S. officer put it, they didn¡¯t quack. The first of the huge, truck-drawn labs, intercepted at a roadblock, had been swabbed clean. The other, discovered Friday, was stripped by looters before U.S. troops found it. So far there¡¯s a lot more belli than casus.

Looters outran the WMD hunters almost every time. ¡°Once a site has been hit with a 2,000-pound bomb, then looted, there¡¯s not a lot left,¡± says Maj. Paul Haldeman, the 101st Airborne Division¡¯s top NBC officer. In the rush to Baghdad, Coalition forces raced past most suspected WMD sites, and looters took over. After Saddam¡¯s fall, there were too few U.S. troops to secure the facilities. Roughly 900 possible WMD sites appeared on the initial target lists. So far, V Corps officers say, fewer than 150 have been searched. ¡°There aren¡¯t enough troops in the whole Army,¡± says Col. Tim Madere, the overseer of V Corps¡¯s sensitive-site teams. ¡°There just aren¡¯t enough experts to do everything.¡±

¡®THIS SITE IS OUT OF CONTROL¡¯

Some of the lapses are frightening. The well-known Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center, about 12 miles south of Baghdad, had nearly two tons of partially enriched uranium, along with significant quantities of highly radioactive medical and industrial isotopes, when International Atomic Energy Agency officials made their last visit in January. By the time U.S. troops arrived in early April, armed guards were holding off looters¡ªbut the Americans only disarmed the guards, Al Tuwaitha department heads told NEWSWEEK. ¡°We told them, ¡®This site is out of control. You have to take care of it¡¯,¡± says Munther Ibrahim, Al Tuwaitha¡¯s head of plasma physics. ¡°The soldiers said, ¡®We are a small group. We cannot take control of this site¡¯.¡± As soon as the Americans left, looters broke in. The staff fled; when they returned, the containment vaults¡¯ seals had been broken, and radioactive material was everywhere.

U.S. officers say the center had already been ransacked before their troops arrived. They didn¡¯t try to stop the looting, says Colonel Madere, because ¡°there was no directive that said do not allow anyone in and out of this place.¡± Last week American troops finally went back to secure the site. Al Tuwaitha¡¯s scientists still can¡¯t fully assess the damage; some areas are too badly contaminated to inspect. ¡°I saw empty uranium-oxide barrels lying around, and children playing with them,¡± says Fadil Mohsen Abed, head of the medical-isotopes department. Stainless-steel uranium canisters had been stolen. Some were later found in local markets and in villagers¡¯ homes. ¡°We saw people using them for milking cows and carrying drinking water,¡± says Ibrahim. The looted materials could not make a nuclear bomb, but IAEA officials worry that terrorists could build plenty of dirty bombs with some of the isotopes that may have gone missing. Last week NEWSWEEK visited a total of eight sites on U.N. weapons-inspection lists. Two were guarded by U.S. troops. Armed looters were swarming through two others. Another was evidently destroyed many years ago. American forces had not yet searched the remaining three.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3068560/



quote:

BAGHDAD, 21 September 2004 (IRIN) - While the Coalition has not found any weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has lots of radioactive pollution, especially at a known nuclear research site, a new survey conducted by the Ministry of Environment shows.

Tuwaitha, some 18 km south of the capital, Baghdad, is a site of previous nuclear weapons research and experiments. It appears to have the highest ambient radiation in the country, Bushra Ali Ahmed, author of the radiation survey, told IRIN.

Residents of the area looted containers holding radioactive materials in the days immediately following the US-led invasion of Iraq in April 2003. They dumped the radioactive contents on the ground at the site and used the containers to carry water, milk and other household materials and foodstuffs.

US troops and nuclear organisation workers paid about 4,500 dinars (US $3) per container to buy them back in May. Officials at the time said they were not sure they had managed to get all of the containers back.

"This site was polluted by looting and destroying research materials," Ahmed wrote in the survey. "We found a number of containers which had traces of radiation. We also found it in houses and villages nearby."

At least four surrounding villages are contaminated, the report said. Ministry officials took 190 samples at Tuwaitha: 70 for soil, 50 for water, 50 for dairy milk and 20 for other environmental items.
http://www.irinnews.org/report.aspx?reportid=23936



quote:

Dr. Al-Bahli: "I have been working at the Nuclear Authority since 1968, when the doors opened to the use of atomic [energy] for peaceful purposes in Iraq. We activated the first atomic reactor in Iraq in 1968, and within four days we transferred radioactive isotopes to hospitals to treat various illnesses. Since then, and up to 1990, we continued this type of work which was absolutely for peaceful and humanitarian purposes..."

"As for nuclear weapons, Al-Tawitha, the main area that we will be talking about, is free of weapons of mass destruction and as far as I know, nothing was done there in this respect..."

"What happened in Iraq did not happen before anywhere else in the whole world, and I hope will never happen again; there was anarchy. After hearing that radioactive components were stolen, the employees of the Nuclear Authority started informing people that the materials that were stolen were indeed radioactive and should be returned. A person who has dirty radioactive components is in danger. How is he going to behave? He may behave in a way that would harm Iraq¡¯s ecology and even [cause harm] outside Iraq..."

"Tons of uranium known as yellow cakes were stored in barrels. This was a phase in the production of uranium from crude components. There were also other by-products from processing these materials. There were tens of tons of radioactive waste. They were stored in barrels and their radioactivity was not high as long as they were under supervision."

"When order was disrupted, simple citizens - sorry to say - did not have containers to store drinking water, so they stole those barrels, each one containing 400 kilos of radioactive uranium. Some of them dumped the powder on the ground in very large quantities, and others took the contaminated barrels to their homes, and the barrels appeared in various areas. They stored water in them, and had every intention of drinking from them or [using] the barrels to sell milk."

"I visited some homes and measured radioactivity; I saw with my own eyes in one of the homes a contaminated barrel used to store tomatoes for eating. In other barrels they stored cooking utensils and other household utensils for everyday use, not knowing that some of them were contaminated. When they realized that these components were radioactive, they dumped some of them in the river or the sewer system. We found radioactive materials in homes, in beds, and in clothing. I saw a ten-year old girl, who had a yellow cake [disc] hanging from the button of her shirt."
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3275.htm



quote:

U.S. transferred uranium from Iraq without U.N. authorization
UNITED NATIONS (AP) ¡ª The United States didn't have authorization from the U.N. nuclear watchdog when it secretly shipped from Iraq uranium and highly radioactive material that could be used in so-called "dirty bombs," U.N. officials said Wednesday.
The nearly 2 tons of low-enriched uranium and approximately 1,000 highly radioactive items transferred from Iraq to the United States last month had been placed under seal by the International Atomic Energy Agency at the sprawling Tuwaitha nuclear complex, 12 miles south of Baghdad, the officials said.

"The American authorities just informed us of their intention to remove the materials, but they never sought authorization from us," said Gustavo Zlauvinen, head of the IAEA's New York office.

U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham disclosed the secret airlift from Iraq on Tuesday as "a major achievement" in an attempt to "keep potentially dangerous nuclear material out of the hands of terrorists." The material was taken to an undisclosed U.S. Energy Department laboratory for further analysis.

The airlift ended on June 23, five days before the United States transferred sovereignty to Iraq's new interim government.

IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei said in a letter to the Security Council circulated Wednesday that Washington informed the agency on June 19 that "due to security concerns" it intended to transfer some nuclear material stored at Tuwaitha to the United States.

The agency took note of the U.S. intention to remove the nuclear material "from agency verification," he said.

According to the letter, the United States informed the IAEA on June 30 that approximately 1.8 tons of uranium, enriched to a level of 2.6%, another 6.6 pounds of low-enriched uranium, and approximately 1,000 highly radioactive sources had been transferred on June 23.

A U.N. official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was some concern about the legality of the U.S. transfer because the nuclear material belonged to Iraq and was under the control and supervision of the IAEA.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-07-07-iraq-uranium_x.htm



quote:

What happened to looted Iraqi nuclear material?
By Brett Wagner
The release Thursday of chief U.S. weapons inspector David Kay's report detailing America's six-month search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq has reinflamed the debate over whether anyone will ever uncover that country's alleged stockpiles of biological, chemical and nuclear weapons.
A great irony, however, seems to have gotten lost in that debate: As a direct result of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq without sufficient forces to secure and protect its nuclear research and storage facilities from rampant looting, enough radioactive material to build scores of dirty bombs now is missing and may be on its way to the international black market.

It didn't have to turn out this way. In the weeks before the invasion, the U.S. military repeatedly warned the White House that its war plans did not include sufficient ground forces, air and naval operations and logistical support to guarantee a successful mission. Those warnings were discounted ¡ª even mocked ¡ª by administration officials who professed to know more about war fighting than the war fighters themselves
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2003-10-05-wagner_x.htm



quote:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A small team of U.N. nuclear experts returned to Baghdad to check the safety of Iraq's largest nuclear site, which was looted by villagers after the fall of Saddam Hussein.

The team of scientists from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was allowed to travel to the badly damaged Al Tuwaitha nuclear plant by the United States Friday.

But the experts' operation is limited to the nuclear site and does not include work on the search for weapons of mass destruction. The Pentagon has also limited the team to seven members and given it only two weeks to carry out its work.

Thousands of villagers raided the nuclear site, which contains low-grade or natural uranium, immediately after the fall of Saddam's regime.

Local scientists warn the site, outside Baghdad, is badly damaged, with looters having spilled radioactive material and leaving behind piles of uranium, The Associated Press said.

The uranium was concreted over to prevent leakage or further exposure to people living in the area.

Team leader Brian Rens told AP the IAEA's mission is to "determine what has been lost and any other material which is in an unsafe condition, to repack it to the extent possible, secure it, verify it and seal the building."

Villagers were able to raid the plant after it was left unguarded by U.S. troops following its abandonment by Iraqi guards in the early days of the war.

No reports have been recorded of anyone falling ill after being exposed to the material, which is highly toxic if ingested but gives off only low levels of radioactivity.

Washington tried to keep the IAEA out of post-war Iraq despite pressure from the arms-control community. But after three months on the ground, U.S. military commanders acknowledged they were unequipped to handle the nuclear site.

Lt. Gen. David McKiernan, commander of U.S. ground forces in Iraq, told AP: "I know the Tuwaitha facility is larger than the assets we have in the country now to deal with it."

CNN's Jane Arraf said the materials in the plant, although radioactive, were not enough to make a bomb. But experts say it could make a "dirty bomb." The locals wanted the barrels to store water in, she added.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/06/06/iaea.iraq.tuwaitha/index.html



quote:

On the broad question of WMDs in Iraq, one need go no further than the Administration¡¯s own more recent comments. On 10/7/2004, President Bush said ¡°Iraq did not have the weapons that our intelligence believed were there.¡± (http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/10/20041007-6.html) Bush has affirmed the findings of both the Kay and Duelfer reports that Saddam did not have an active WMD program at the time of the invasion.

As to some of the specific questions, basically, it sounds as if this guy basically read the misleading, right-wing book ¡°Disinformation¡± and sent these reports to Ford asking him to dispute them. Well, OK!

From Amazon.com Review of David Miniter¡¯s Book ¡®Disinformation¡¯: OK book, but major correction is necessary, December 14, 2005

This wasn¡¯t a bad book by any means, and parts concerning the history of Bin Laden were quite informative.

However, I was surprised Miniter mentioned that WMD¡¯s had actually been found in Iraq, and had largely gone unreported. In fact, he is quite incorrect, and is (hopefully unintentionally) being quite misleading. Since I know a bit about this, I thought I¡¯d clear this up for Mr. Miniter, and anyone reading this who would be otherwise quite misinformed.

Miniter claims that in Iraq we:

- Found: 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium
- Found: 1,500 gallons of chemical weapons
- Found: Roadside bomb loaded with sarin gas
- Found: 1,000 radioactive materials¨Cideal for radioactive dirty bombs
- Found: 17 chemical warheads¨Csome containing cyclosarin, a nerve agent five times more powerful than sarin

Now for the facts:

The 1.77 Tons of Enriched Uranium
The Energy Department announced in July 2004 that it had removed from Iraq ¡°radiological and nuclear materials that could potentially be used in a radiological dispersal device or diverted to support a nuclear weapons program.¡± This included the ¡°1.77 metric tons of LOW-enriched uranium.¡± The reason the Administration is not now touting this as evidence of WMD is because they would be laughed at by anyone with more expertise than David Miniter. Low-enriched uranium cannot be used in an atomic weapon-only as reactor fuel, a purpose which Iraq was entirely free to pursue under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and UN-imposed WMD restrictions.

The 1000 Radioactive Materials
Pointing to the applicability of nuclear materials in a ¡°radiological dispersal device¡± is utterly disingenuous-these materials exist, legally, in nearly every country on earth. One might as well point to cutlery in someone¡¯s kitchen to ¡°prove¡± he is plotting murder. In fact, the hideous irony is that in the chaos of the 2003 invasion, nuclear facilities were plundered and much nuclear material was indiscriminately released-resulting in a real radiological hazard for local Iraqis (as we reported at the time). Leave it to Bush to actually create the very danger he uses to justify his military adventure.

The 1500 Gallons of Chemical Weapons
Then, there¡¯s the supposed ¡°chemical weapons.¡± Oops! Turns out when you actually read the original source (Washington Post, Aug. 14, 2005) it wasn¡¯t ¡°1,500 gallons of chemical weapons,¡± but just ¡°1,500 gallons of chemicals.¡± These were potential ¡°precursor agents¡± for chemical weapons, the Pentagon boasted upon the discovery-but the fact that the Administration is no longer touting these claims is evidence the supposed weapons program didn¡¯t get very far, if it existed at all.

The Roadside Sarin Bomb
The two roadside sarin shells were of an ancient vintage, dating from the 1980¡¯s, prior to the first Gulf War. It is of particular note that other than the two isolated shells found, no more have turned up, leading to the obvious conclusion that these two stragglers were simply the last rusting vestiges of a long-abandoned program. We KNOW that Saddam had a chemical program prior to the first Gulf War, but we can also safely conclude that he had nothing after the Gulf War. This was confirmed by the Bush-appointed Duelfer Report.

The 17 Chemical Warheads
Even Fox News had to admit that the cyclosarin warheads found by Polish troops in July 2004 ¡°date back to Saddam Hussein¡¯s war with Iran in the 1980s.¡± The BBC added that ¡°the US military said the agent was so deteriorated it posed no threat.¡±

I hope that Mr. Miniter corrects future editions of this book so as not to mislead his readers. I assume that his misunderstanding of these issues was merely ignorance, and not willful disinformation.

As to the assertion that ¡°vast quantities of WMDs that the coalition was ¡®expecting¡¯ to find had been moved to Syria in the run-up to Operation Iraqi Freedom¡±, that is just an editorialist assertion given by a single Iraqi war general. Even Bush won¡¯t touch that one ¨C there¡¯s no facts to back it up, no sources, nothing.

May 2004 ¨C Roadside bomb containing sarin found in Iraq
Even the Fox News story admits that this ¡°bomb¡± (filled with gas that had been noted by a weapons search team to be ¡°ineffective¡±) pre-dated the 1991 Gulf War, therefore not lending any credence to the Administration¡¯s justification for going to war based on Saddam¡¯s supposed stockpile of WMDs. Also, two former weapons inspectors ¡ª Hans Blix and David Kay ¡ª said the shell was likely a stray weapon that had been scavenged by militants and did not signify that Iraq had large stockpiles of such weapons (see http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4997808/).

1.77 Tons of uranium removed from Iraq
Richard Miniter claims that the U.S. ¡°discovered¡± 1.77 metric tons of enriched uranium in Iraq. Richard Miniter is wrong. Those things were already tagged and under seal by UN inspectors.

See:

¡°A joint Pentagon-Energy Department operation has removed 1.77 metric tons of low-enriched uranium from a former nuclear research site in Iraq. The material had been sealed off after the Gulf War.¡± ¨C CBS NEWS 7/7/04

¡°Several tons of uranium have been under seal at al-Tuwaitha since the previous round of inspections ended in 1998.¡± - U.N. inspects new Iraqi military factory CNN 12/12/02

¡°A second diplomatic official expressed puzzlement as to why the United States was considering moving the material, after the material has been presumably secured and resealed. Except for the incident immediately after the invasion, the official said, ¡°this stuff has been there, secure, quiet, not a problem to anyone, since 1991.¡± - U.S. Announces It Intends to Move Tons of Uranium From Baghdad NYT 5/22/04 (from http://www.americandaughter.com/index.html?http://frontpage.americandaughter.com/?p=42)

The Energy Department announced in July 2004 that it had removed from Iraq ¡°radiological and nuclear materials that could potentially be used in a radiological dispersal device or diverted to support a nuclear weapons program.‿ This included the ¡°1.77 metric tons of LOW-enriched uranium.‿ The reason the Administration never touted this as evidence of WMD is because they would be laughed at by anyone with a passing expertise. Low-enriched uranium cannot be used in an atomic weapon-only as reactor fuel, a purpose which Iraq was entirely free to pursue under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and UN-imposed WMD restrictions.

Further, ¡°The International Atomic Energy Agency kept Iraq¡¯s uranium under seal in storage facilities for more than a decade before the U.S. invasion in March, 2003.‿ (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A35404-2004Jul7.html)

It¡¯s been locked and monitored since 1991, and it was largely useless anyway.
That 1.77 tons of enriched uranium ¡°had been under IAEA seal since 1991. It was last visited by IAEA inspectors in February 2003¡å.

¡°It was Low-enriched uranium¡± and uranium¡¯s, ¡°extremely low radioactivity is harmless compared with high-radiation materials¡±. Peter Zimmerman, ¡°co-author of an expert analysis of dirty bombs for the U.S. National Defense University¡± said ¡°you cannot make a radiological dispersal device with uranium. There is just no significant radiation hazard.¡± (from http://www.qando.net/details.aspx?Entry=2955)
http://www.startribune.com/blogs/bigquestion/?page_id=38



quote:

And I believe his point was that by comparing Wilson's first op-ed piece with his latest is where you will find the measure of the man.



I'd like to read Wilson's first column -- he's quite proud of it and says that he sent copies to Bush Sr. and Scowcroft when it came out and they agreed with him.  

quote:

Mr. Wilson said he so respects the former president's international approach to foreign policy that when he wrote his first article questioning the current administration's developing Iraq strategy, which was published in The San Jose Mercury News in October 2002, he sent a copy to the former president. The senior Mr. Bush wrote him a brief reply, Mr. Wilson said. He refused to share the contents but said Mr. Bush's note had been "very positive."
http://www.nytimes.com/2 003/10/05/national/05WILS.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5007&ex=1380686400&en=508c529421889625&partner=USERLAND



He certainly doesn't seem to find any shame in that article -- nor see it as anything that impeaches his statements.  And, frankly, from what Cashill gives us -- it doesn't -- it's perfectly logical to assume that Wilson was under the same impression as everyone (who didn't have access to all the intelligence) that Saddam did, indeed, have WMD's -- but Wilson's trip only failed to verify that Saddam had sought Uranium recently from Niger -- but somehow that bit of faulty intelligence made it into a State of the Union speech.

This is, however, all a red herring Denise -- because the issue isn't Joseph Wilson -- but Valerie Wilson.  

Let's just assume that Joe is a bald-faced liar.  That is not liscnce to disclose classified information or expose a CIA operative.

Denise
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112 posted 2007-03-23 10:09 PM


Maybe I should have phrased my question differently, Iliana. If Valerie Plame was indeed a covert agent as defined under the Identities Protection Act, then why were none of the people on that chart, or anyone else who was questioned during the investigation who admitted to disclosing her name & occupation to anyone else, charged with that crime, disclosing her identity nor charged with revealing classified information?

L.R., I don't think that those pieces qualify as substantive investigative reports on the uranium that was found. They are articles merely attempting to downplay the find, in my opinion.

No, it is no red herring. Joe Wilson is probably the main issue in this whole affair. His contention that the White House outed his wife, in retalition for his op-ed piece (in which he himself revealed still-classified information), or for any other reason, has not been proven. I believe that it was his attempt (along with Valerie Plame and others in the CIA, assisted by some left wing media types) to create a scandal for the administration and to put himself in the spotlight, just as the Democrats are now trying to do with the Federal Prosecutor firings. Joe Wilson is the one whom I would love to see put under oath. I'd love to see how many versions of events he can recall and keep straight. Maybe he could start with whether or not he revealed to anyone that his wife worked at the CIA prior to Novak reporting it. I don't think that he would evade a perjury charge himself.

iliana
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113 posted 2007-03-23 11:17 PM


Denise, perhaps you did not read the first part of my earlier response....it was, "I really don't know..."  Sorry, I cannot give you the answer you want.
iliana
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114 posted 2007-03-23 11:36 PM


Denise, perhaps the below and the article in which it is contained will be an answer for you:
quote:
... a new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged ... from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case. They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush administration officials. Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government information about his wife. To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.


I don't know the timetable for grand jury investigations or bringing criminal action, but perhaps, Fitzgerald just plain ran out of time before he had enough evidence.  You can read the whole article here:   http://blogcritics.org/archives/2005/10/02/120347.php

As far as I know, retaliation alone is not a criminal charge.  I believe that is why Reb asked you whether you believed it was morally wrong.

Balladeer
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115 posted 2007-03-24 10:54 AM


The Democrat congress is filled with "not criminal" charges and no one who supported Clinton or did not call for his head can believe anything is "morally wrong".
iliana
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116 posted 2007-03-24 11:51 AM


Mike, what?  If you will check every thread in the Alley, you will find I have never supported Clinton.  I think what he did was totally stupid and deplorable.  That is an old story, Mike.  This is the current one (sort of, anyway).  

The difference here was the manner in which someone was screwed.  

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117 posted 2007-03-24 01:15 PM


hehe...nice choice of words, Iliana , but I wasn't referring to Billy's sexual escapades. Nor was I referring to you. My little Clinton quip had to do with the 900 missing FBI files, the White House Travel Bureau scandal, the 19 convicted because of the 1996 Clinton-Gore fundraising scandals, the President with  greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions and the greatest amount of illegal campaign contributions from abroad, the fifty times Hillary Clinton said "I don't recall" or its equivalent in a statement to a House investigating committee,  the 271  times Bill Clinton said "I don't recall" or its equivalent in the released portions of the his testimony on Paula Jones, the 10 journalists covering Whitewater who have been fired, transferred off the beat, resigned or otherwise gotten into trouble because of their work on the scandals, etc etc.  Heard anyone willing to discuss the "morality" of these issues or any Democrat congressman eaising a fussover them or demanding investigation after investigation?

Wanna talk about attorney generals and how they relate to the Gonzales case?  How about Janet Reno and Reno's unprecedented decision to fire all 93 U.S. Attorneys? How about Reno stopping the FBI from asking White House and DNC officials, including Clinton and Gore, about their roles in the fundraising scandals? How about the fact that Reno reportedly told Senators in a closed-door meeting she was unaware of Los Angeles businessman Ted Sioeng's contributions to the DNC and his possible links to China when in fact, she knew about them? http://www.mediaresearch.org/realitycheck/1997/fax19971203.asp

Face it, people. This is all nothing more than another ridiculous attempt by Democrats to go after the administration wherever they can. The following article says it all....

The March 13 Washington Post erupted on the front page with the revelation that the White House played a role in the dismissal of eight U.S. Attorneys. “Firings Had Genesis In White House,” screamed the headline. Documents showed that back in 2005, White House counsel Harriet Miers recommended the idea to the Justice Department that all 93 U.S. Attorneys be replaced. Instead, the Bush team dismissed only eight.

But something quite amazing was omitted by those hard-charging Post reporters Dan Eggen and John Solomon digging through White House E-mails for their scandalized front-page bombshell. Didn’t Bill Clinton’s brand new Attorney General Janet Reno demand resignations from all 93 U.S. attorneys on March 24, 1993? Wouldn’t that fact be relevant to the story? Wouldn’t it have the effect of lessening the oh-my-God hyperbole on the front page if the reader was shown that what Bush did was one-tenth as dramatic as what Team Clinton did? Yes, and yes.

Bush’s attorney general fired eight. Clinton’s fired 93. The media think the eight dismissals were a scandal so massive some have begun calling on Attorney General Alberto Gonzales to resign. But they thought the 93 Clinton firings were not worth investigating for the length of a cigarette break. Can a liberal double standard be any more obvious?

The Washington Post was by no means alone. The March 13 New York Times also hyped the story of the White House looking into dismissing U.S. attorneys on page one – and reporters David Johnston and Eric Lipton also completely skipped the fact of Janet Reno’s “March Massacre.” ABC’s “Good Morning America” on March 13 carried a story from Justice Department correspondent Pierre Thomas, and he also completely skipped the Clinton-Reno firings. Worse yet, in the middle of this episode of amnesia, ABC brought on George Stephanopoulos – who defended the Clinton firings as the White House spokesman in 1993 – to describe this as an urgent matter putting pressure on Karl Rove to testify before Congress and for Gonzales to resign!

But surely the media gave the Reno order equal, if not ten-fold coverage back in ‘93, right? Think again. ABC never reported it. The New York Times front-page headline yawned: “Attorney General Seeks Resignations from Prosecutors.” (At least an editorial the next day blasted Reno’s move as “an odd first step in the wrong direction.”)

The Washington Post demonstrated a much richer double standard. While the Post has filed six heavy-breathing front-page stories on their newest Bush scandal, back in 1993, the story was over within a day or two. They reported Janet Reno’s purge on the front page, utterly without suspicion: “The Clinton administration yesterday requested that the nation's 93 U.S. attorneys submit their resignations, a move that likely will mean the quick departure of two figures who have played prominent roles in the politics of the District and Virginia.”

The headline was simply “Washington Area to Lose 2 High-Profile Prosecutors; All U.S. Attorneys Told to Tender Resignations.” They then added helpfully that Reno said it was routine.

http://www.mediaresearch.org/BozellColumns/newscolumn/2007/col20070314.asp

Where was the Democrat indignation and "moral" issues there?  They are payasos.

iliana
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118 posted 2007-03-24 04:00 PM


No question about it, Mike.  Clinton did change out the Justice Department and line it up with his politics.  Not an usual thing to do either.  That was early on in his administration, wasn't it?  What is unusual about this ... and I think this all should be a separate thread if you want to talk about the Gonzalez issue ... is that it occurred during the middle of Bush's second term, a very unusual precedent, which draws attention and suspicion in and of itself.   Additionally, Pres. Bush, himself admitted mistakes were made in this instance.  


"[Gonzales is] right; mistakes were made, and I'm frankly not happy about them because there is a lot of confusion over what really has been a customary practice by the president," Bush said.

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/03/14/fired.attorneys/index.html

Not A Poet
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119 posted 2007-03-24 04:36 PM


OMG, how deep must one reach into the political sewer to find some lame excuse making this firing of 8 so much more dastardly than the previous firing of 93. Oh wait, I forgot, that's old history. Oh wait again, I also forgot, that was a democrat. Give us all a break.


iliana
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120 posted 2007-03-24 05:09 PM


Not A Poet, I have no idea what sewer you are talking about, nor do I follow your logic at all.  I was not the one who did the dredging...that was Mike.  You just throw out an attack with no basis.  I'm not sure what you are trying to say.

Citizens need to pay attention to the actions of their civil servants, including the White House, whether they are Democratic, Republican, Independent, Green or whatever.  Everyone is entitled to observe and have their own feelings and write their congresspeople and senators to express their views.  This is OUR government.  Why do some of you only want to see down party lines and then change the argument rather than address the real issue?  

Ron
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121 posted 2007-03-24 05:39 PM


Actually, there are some pretty significant differences between what past President's have done and what the current administration has recently done.

Yes, other Presidents, including Clinton, have removed U.S. Attorneys en masse. They've also traditionally appointed their own Cabinets. I think it's a shame that politicians get help in elections by promising jobs in return for favors, but that's the way it is.

Gonzales didn't clean house. His firings were very selective, very targeted, which raises obvious questions as to WHY these individual were selected. Job performance? The evidence seems to suggest otherwise. The questions, so far, remain unanswered.

We obviously can't have a situation where the Executive branch can tell the Justice Department to aggressively go after one political party and passively ignore the other party. Democrat, Republican, it makes no difference. Some parts of the government must remain nonpartisan. While not yet quite on a par with the Nixon administration, the Bush people have a history of political retribution. I think that makes this a fair question to explore.

If people were fired because they refused to follow a partisan mandate, either spoken or unspoken, then we've got a huge problem. When Justice plays favorites there can be no justice. Personally, it doesn't matter to me in the least whether this is just political maneuvering (which it well may be). I don't care their motivations as long as the hard questions continue to get asked. That's our adversarial system at work, this is exactly where it works very well.



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122 posted 2007-03-24 07:27 PM


I've chosen to keep quiet on this particular issue until more details were revealed, but I have to say one thing, and that is I'm not surprised many want several White House aides under oath when Alberto Gonsales can't even keep his own story straight:

Here's what Alberto Gonzales said almost two weeks ago...

Transcript of Media Availability with Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales: March 13, 2007 - 2:20 P.M.

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: What I know is that there began a process of evaluating strong performers, not-as-strong performers, and weak performers. And so far as I knew my chief of staff was involved in the process of determining who were the weak performers. Where were the districts around the country where we could do better for the people in that district, and that's what I knew. But again, with respect to this whole process, like every CEO, I am ultimately accountable and responsible for what happens within the department. But that is in essence what I knew about the process; was not involved in seeing any memos, was not involved in any discussions about what was going on. That's basically what I knew as the Attorney General.

QUESTION: Were there any discussions between you and the White House regarding you stepping down or Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty stepping down, and with regard to the Chief of Staff Kyle Sampson, is he still here at the Justice Department working?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Kyle Sampson has resigned. I accepted his resignation yesterday as chief of staff. As a technical matter he is still at the department as he transitions out and looks for other employment.

With respect to the first part of your question, I work for the American people. I serve with the pleasure of the President of the United States. I will say in doing my job it is easier to have the confidence of members of the Congress and I will continue to do the very best that I can to maintain that confidence and that's what I intend to do: continue to do my job on behalf of the American people, ascertain what happened here, and assess accountability and take corrective actions.

Obviously I am concerned about the fact that information, incomplete information, was communicated or may have been communicated to the Congress. I believe very strongly in our obligation to ensure that when we provide information to the Congress, it is accurate and that it is complete and I am very dismayed that that may not have occurred here.

QUESTION: How could your chief of staff be working closely with the President on which U.S. attorneys to be let go and you not know the specifics?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Well, again, as -- I accept responsibility for everything that happens here within this department. But when you have 110,000 people working in the department obviously there are going to be decisions that I'm not aware of in real time. Many decisions are delegated. We have people who were confirmed by the Senate who, by statute, have been delegated authority to make decisions.

Mr. Sampson was charged with directing the process to ascertain who were weak performers, where we could do better in districts around the country. That is a responsibility that he had during the transition. We worked with respect to U.S. attorneys and presidential personnel at the White House. That was the role that he had when he was in the counsel's office. That was the role that he had when he was at the Department of Justice under General Ashcroft and so naturally when questions came up with respect to the evaluation of performances of U.S. Attorneys it would be Kyle Sampson who would drive that effort.

Yes, ma'am?

QUESTION: With all due respect, your -- the sense of being a CEO sounds a little bit like Ken Lay, that he was so detached from the day to day operations. How can you make that statement given the fact that you spend an enormous time at the White House and your chief of staff reports to you and spends, you know, all day with you?

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: Again, I accept responsibility for what happened here and I regret the fact that information was inadequately shared with individuals within the department of Justice and that consequently information was shared with the Congress that was incomplete. But the charge for the chief of staff here was to drive this process and the mistake that occurred here was that information that he had was not shared with individuals within the department who was then going to be providing testimony and information to the Congress.

QUESTION: (Off mic.)

ATTORNEY GENERAL GONZALES: I just described for Pete the extent of my -- of the knowledge that I had about the process. I never saw documents. We never had a discussion about where things stood. What I knew was that there was ongoing effort that was led by Mr. Sampson, vetted through the Department of Justice, to ascertain where we could make improvements in U.S. attorney performances around the country."


*

Yet, we learn today of the following:

*

MSNBC: March 24, 2007

"President Bush is standing firmly behind his embattled attorney general despite Justice Department documents that show Alberto Gonzales was more involved in the decisions to fire U.S. attorneys than he previously indicated.

Gonzales said last week he was not involved in any discussions about the impending dismissals of federal prosecutors. On Friday night, however, the department disclosed Gonzales’ participation in a Nov. 27 meeting where such plans were discussed."


*

"At that session, Gonzales signed off on the plan, which was crafted by his chief of staff, Kyle Sampson. Sampson resigned last week."


*

So what I will say for the time being is with seeming contradictions such as this, it shouldn't surprise the White House why many want these particular individuals under oath, as we've already seen several times before differing results when an official speaks under oath comapred to when one doesn't speak under oath.

No one is arguing here that other presidents have resorted to wide, abrupt firings of attorney generals. But I admit it's curious to me why, in contrast to many firings traditionally being done so at the very beginning of a presidential term, here we have far more meticulous, random firings conducted in the middle of a presidential term, especially when some of them shared some of the highest job performance grades.

I believe the central issues of this inquiry are: 1) whether any of the eight fired U.S. attorneys were asked to step down for political intents; 2) if political aides in the White House played some role in the firings or were connected somehow, 3) whether replacing independent-minded prosecutors was a way of influencing ongoing or future investigations for whatever reason, and in the more generic sense, 4) whether this adminsitration has illegitimately politicized the justice system.

In regards to the latter point, it certainly appears a strong majority of Americans believe the firings were politically-motivated, as the polls reflect, and I think regardless of whoever from whichever party is in power, the public is rightfully concerned about this sort of thing.

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

Ron
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123 posted 2007-03-24 07:43 PM


quote:
So what I will say for the time being is with seeming contradictions such as this, it shouldn't surprise the White House why many want these particular individuals under oath ...

And neither Congress nor the American people should be surprised when the President fights that and ultimately, I believe, wins the fight.

You cannot get honest advice from people when everything they say is said in public. And that's exactly what a Congressional subpoena does -- it potentially opens everything you've ever said or done to public scrutiny. There is a fine line between secrecy and confidentiality. Presidential (and legislative!) aides need to be guaranteed the latter if they are to be effective.



Balladeer
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124 posted 2007-03-24 08:47 PM


Iliana, I think Pete was referring to your pointing out that the Clinton firings occurred during the beginning of his administration while Bush's occured during his second term and things like that that came across as some small justification for taking one seriously and ignoring the other.

Ron, yes, bi-partisonship is a must somewhere in the government but you are too intelligent of a man not to believe that it is exactly that causing this assault by the Democrats in congress. As far as selective firings are concerned, it was on the news somewhere that at least two of the firings occurred due to the attorneys targeting Democrats. What, then, would that do to the argument? Can you honestly tell me that the Democrats are conducting this witch hunt out of sincere concern for the country...or would you say that the motive was not important but rather the results of the investigation?....but, oh no, you would then be saying that the ends justify the means, wouldn't you?

Noah, since you want to key in on the Attorney General, I refer you to my previous points concerning Janet Reno. Please spend as much of your time on her as you did on Gonzales. You may be surprised at all you find out. Yes, you may call it simple finger-pointing to get away from the current topic but they actually relate to the same subject......the witch hunt going on. Then ask yourself why the Democrats and liberal press would be content to give her free passes with no publicity while making Gonzales Freddy Kreuger's brother, at the least.

I am now firmly convinced that certain key Democrats are all direct descendants of Salem residents.

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125 posted 2007-03-24 11:20 PM


quote:
Noah, since you want to key in on the Attorney General, I refer you to my previous points concerning Janet Reno. Please spend as much of your time on her as you did on Gonzales. You may be surprised at all you find out. Yes, you may call it simple finger-pointing to get away from the current topic but they actually relate to the same subject......the witch hunt going on. Then ask yourself why the Democrats and liberal press would be content to give her free passes with no publicity while making Gonzales Freddy Kreuger's brother, at the least.

I am now firmly convinced that certain key Democrats are all direct descendants of Salem residents.


Sure, I've read about Janet Reno and I absolutely agree that Janet Reno made many decisions that were blatantly politically-motivated, especially the firing of all 93 Attorney Generals once she assumed the role of Attorney General in 1993. In fact, I believe she was the single greatest embarassing figure in the Clinton Administration and that she too should have been fired especially after her horrid decision-making in that Branch-Davidian standoff incident in Waco, which because of the tear-gas offensive as many as 80 of the Davidians (22 of which were children) were incapacitated to death. I thought Reno also didn't hire enough independent counsels herself.

I hope you can see we're not that far apart in identifying and seeing the Clinton Administration's closet skeletons, my friend, and you are correct that it does tie in with the same issue at hand; the politicization of the Justice Department primarily.

Having said that, I continue to question why, whenever something here even merely questions the decisions or motives of this current administration, you seem to compulsively respond by saying, "Yeah, well, Clinton did that..." and use it as an excuse for free passing and/or pardoning any of the Bush Administration's own questionable acts, making Gonzales or Rumsfeld or anyone that has anything to do with the administration like Stanley Zbornak from "The Golden Girls", Spence Olchin from "The King of Queens" or any other archetypal, harmless lovable loser on television.

I hope you can see that with any administration there will be those familiar characters right out of any quintessential sitcom; the protagonist, the antagonist, the self-actualized wise man, the quirky neighbor, the fool, the wisecracker, the one always lurking behind the fencepost and the one that got away just to name a few. I don't believe we are that far apart in understanding the injustices the clowns that make up the cast of every administration perform. I just hope you can put aside your instant partisan force-field manuevering and acknowledge that officials under this administration and the current GOP act up too, which frankly I don't see you spending nearly as much of your time on as you would to anything related to the Democrats.

I was only ten when the Waco incident happened, and I wasn't politically-conscious them, but I've read about her and absolutely believe she should never have been hired to begin with and it's embarrassing how tenacious Clinton was in keeping her around. We're in total agreement there. Now I hope you can cultivate your ability to live in the present and accept that Gonzales himself has made decisions which are questionable and even unconstitutional in their own regard, particularly trying to redefine Article III of the Geneva Conventions and his involvement shaping the Military Commissions Act.

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

Ron
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126 posted 2007-03-25 12:43 PM


quote:
... but, oh no, you would then be saying that the ends justify the means, wouldn't you?

Say again?

The ends, Mike, would be to insure that partisan politics aren't allowed to influence justice. If I was to suggest we should shoot Gonzales that would be an example of inappropriate means that didn't justify the end. It would be an example of doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. Bringing a searchlight to bear on a poorly handled situation is the right thing to do -- even if it's done for the wrong reasons. The concept of the end being used to justify the means has nothing to do with motive.

Adversarial systems, such as we have in the court rooms and in Washington, are specifically designed to eliminate motive as an issue. Prosecuting attorneys don't have to hate the defendant (though they might), don't have to despise the crime (though they might), and don't have to have wings sprouting from there backside (though they ... nah). We don't care why they do their jobs. We just care that they do them.

Balladeer
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127 posted 2007-03-25 01:29 AM


Bringing a searchlight to bear on a poorly handled situation is the right thing to do -- even if it's done for the wrong reasons.

Ah, Ron, that is a major contradiction of yours. I don't really care to but, if you would like, I'll find and bring up the thread where you said the exact opposite. It was in reference to a friend telling you a lie in the spirit of friendship to ultimately help you and your response was that you would never consider that person trustworthy again, regardless. Then you felt that lying to you or deceiving you was the ultimate issue and not the objective the deception was geared to produce. Apparently you don't feel that way any longer. Interesting, also, how you refer to a "poorly handled" situation. That's very generous of you....wonder why. I doubt they consider it poorly handled.....it's handled just the way they want - loudly, publicly, media-backed, and antagonistic.

Noah, I certainly WILL bring up similarities from  the past when the cast of characters are basically the same. Maybe I have a problem with the "Do what I say and not what I do" motherly demands   My point is not that Gonzales has done nothing wrong. My point is that the Democrats and liberal media are going bonkers over it when they have a record of doing absolutely nothing when a member of their party was on the firing line.   There are no 'let bygones be bygones" here. They are posturing about doing "what's good for the country" when they themselves have a record for ignoring the very things they are complaining about. It is, as I said, nothing more than a witch hunt that they conduct as loudly as possible with complete disregard over what harm it can do to the image of the country or anything else. They are, as I have said many times, despicable.

Brad
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128 posted 2007-03-25 04:43 AM


Mike,

I don't see the contradiction there. Both comments have the same goal in mind -- to find the truth or shed light or whatever. Not that Ron hasn't contradicted himself over the years, I'm sure he has, I know you have, I know I have, but I'm not sure it's that important. We all have the 'right' to change our minds.

Janet Reno?

The investigation, I guess, is about alleged partisanship by partisans investigated by partisans and the defense is the accusation of partisanship?

I throw up my hands and say so what.

"Hey, you do it too." Doesn't that argument just get boring after a while.

If you were really concerned about all this stuff, wouldn't you have at least commented on the disproportionate number of Dems being investigated by the justice department?

Of course not. Nor would you expect me to jump on the  bandwagon when it comes to dems committing crimes (go to jail, of course, but no cheerleading on this end.)

Why? Because we are partisan.


Balladeer
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129 posted 2007-03-25 10:06 AM


Both comments have the same goal in mind -- to find the truth or shed light or whatever

Sorry, Brad, I must have explained it badly for you to get that impression. Ron has stated in the past that the results of finding the truth is valid ONLY when it is done correctly and, if not,  the results are secondary or, at best, tainted. Geez, he's gonna deny this now and I'm going to have to go archive digging but I will, if necessary. I can say holding a gun to a terrorist's head and threatening to blow it off (as a bluff) would be "poorly done" but if it got information which averted an attack on an American soldier camp, would this be condoned? Ron has claimed no.....and he is not alone. That was the actual scenario of the army soldier in Iraq who was relieved of duty and sent back to face charges. The terrorist had not been harmed but I guess he had been "scared" and lied to. Go figure...(the attack on the camp was averted, if that matters)

"Hey, you do it too." Doesn't that argument just get boring after a while.

Afraid you missed my point, Brad. I will concede that, no, it doesn't get old. The Democrat congress is remindful of the boy convicted for killing his parents who tells the judge to go easy on him because he's an orphan. That is not the case here, however. It's not "Hey, you do it, too". It's "Hey, you DON'T do it when it's one of yours".  If your brother picked a flower from the garden and gave it to your mother, who gave him a kiss and the next day you did the same and your mother slapped you for messing up the garden, you would have the right to say "What's going on here???"  When the Democrat Attorney General, arguably the worst in history, was given free passes by the Democrat party and the press for her many questionable activities and yet these same people and organizations go after the Republican Attorney General with such vigor and publicity, armed with glaring headlines and brass bands, one has the right to ask "What's going on here?", too. The question, of course, is unnecessary. We know what's going on.....another chapter in the "Get Bush and the Administration" handbook. There is no "..doing for the good of the country' noble cause here. The vigilantes are at it again....plain and simple.

Are Gonzales and Bush guilty of the accusations? Actually, I have no idea. I DO know that the President had the right to do it due to executive privilege without breaking the law. I haven't read the part of the constitution that gives him that right but, unless it is concluded with a ".....except in the case of" or some such conditional phrase, it is not a criminal activity. The Democrats, knowing this, have now resorted to the "...but is it moral?" defense. I don't recall them asking if it was moral for Clinton to misappropriate 900 FBI files to set up a Republican hit list. It's not a "you do it, too" issue, Brad. It's a "you only do it when it benefits you" issue.

All of the headlines...all of the hype, the news coverage, the interviews, the subpoenas, the calls for investigations......all for a non-criminal activity. When's the last time you saw that  (with the exception of the Bush surveillance investigation fiasco a few months ago)?

THAT is what gets boring, Brad....

Local Rebel
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130 posted 2007-03-25 12:34 PM


quote:


L.R., I don't think that those pieces qualify as substantive investigative reports on the uranium that was found. They are articles merely attempting to downplay the find, in my opinion.




After re-reading Jack's commentary in WND, the BBC story,  and then re-reading you -- I'm beginning to see why you're reacting this way -- and why he wrote his commentary the way he did -- which is a pass for you, but, not for him.

From my perspective -- I read Jack's column and the BBC article with the knowledge that the Nuclear Facility at Tuwaitha was old news.  It's hardly a "find" at all.  It was bombed by the Israelis in 1981 and bombed again by us in 1991 and was kept under lock and key by the IAEA.

U.S. Marines found the facility in 2003 after the invasion and , in ignorance, broke the IAEA seals -- which made the site susceptible to looting -- which is what most of the stories that I've referenced are referring to.  This was obviously embarrassing to the Administration -- so making a press release about taking the material out of the research facility was necessary to quell the kerfuffle in the media about the bungled handling of nuclear materials.

So, it was actually the removal of the material that was used to try to downplay a botched military operation Denise -- not the other way around.  
The BBC column, because of it's title, "US reveals Iraq nuclear operation" gives the impression that this was a nuclear site that was previously unknown.  This is rather revealing about Jack because he chose this very poorly written story instead of a source such as Fox that correctly reported that the 'secret' here wasn't the facility or the material -- but the secret operation removing the material.

Jack further continues to mislead by merely referring to 'enriched uranium' instead of
'low-enriched uranium' which can't be used to make a nuclear device but is, instead, only applicable for nuclear fuel.

The bottom line here is that the IAEA had this site and this material under control and that we had Saddam in a 'box'.  He wasn't going to do anything with this stuff.  However -- if he had, indeed, been able to procure new yellowcake shipments from Niger and had found a way to build a centrifuge capable of making highly enriched uranium -- that would have indicated that he was on the verge of nuclear weapons -- which is why the yellowcake story and aluminum tube story were important to the Bush Whitehouse.

quote:


No, it is no red herring. Joe Wilson is probably the main issue in this whole affair. His contention that the White House outed his wife, in retalition for his op-ed piece (in which he himself revealed still-classified information), or for any other reason, has not been proven. I believe that it was his attempt (along with Valerie Plame and others in the CIA, assisted by some left wing media types) to create a scandal for the administration and to put himself in the spotlight, just as the Democrats are now trying to do with the Federal Prosecutor firings. Joe Wilson is the one whom I would love to see put under oath. I'd love to see how many versions of events he can recall and keep straight. Maybe he could start with whether or not he revealed to anyone that his wife worked at the CIA prior to Novak reporting it. I don't think that he would evade a perjury charge himself.




If your reaction to all evidence Denise is going to be 'did-not', then I'm not sure what the profit in this exercise is for anyone.

Ron
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131 posted 2007-03-25 12:41 PM


quote:
I can say holding a gun to a terrorist's head and threatening to blow it off (as a bluff) would be "poorly done" but if it got information which averted an attack on an American soldier camp, would this be condoned? Ron has claimed no.....and he is not alone.

Again, Mike, you're talking about doing the wrong thing for the right reasons. And, yea, I have a problem with that. I have much less of a problem with someone doing the right thing for the wrong reasons.

quote:
... and yet these same people and organizations go after the Republican Attorney General with such vigor and publicity, armed with glaring headlines and brass bands, one has the right to ask "What's going on here?", too.

Absolutely. When a suspected meth dealer turns in his bud for grand theft auto, there's certainly going to be cause to look at both motive and situation with a skeptical eye. At the end of the day, though, you're going to lock away the guy with a car that doesn't belong to him. Even if his accuser is less than squeaky clean.

Let's go after the meth dealer. Right after we get John Q. Public's Chevy back to him.

quote:
There is no "..doing for the good of the country' noble cause here.

I hope you're right, Mike.

There is nothing more dangerous than good men so convinced they are in the right that they'll lie, cheat, and victimize anyone who disagrees with them. There is nothing more dangerous than good men willing to do the wrong things even if in the name of the right reasons. Save me, please, from good men with noble causes and delusions of godhood.

We've already had more than enough of that.

Not A Poet
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132 posted 2007-03-25 02:52 PM


quote:
There is nothing more dangerous than good men so convinced they are in the right that they'll lie, cheat, and victimize anyone who disagrees with them.

That is, of course, exactly what the democrat loud mouths are doing except they know they are wrong and are doing it for the wrong reasons. They know but they just don't give a damn. That's the dispicable part of this whole sordid afair.

Ron
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133 posted 2007-03-25 03:41 PM


So, you don't think there's anything dangerous with politicizing our justice system, Pete? You think people who want to prevent that are wrong to try?
Local Rebel
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134 posted 2007-03-25 03:51 PM


quote:

The March 13 Washington Post erupted on the front page with the revelation that the White House played a role in the dismissal of eight U.S. Attorneys. “Firings Had Genesis In White House,” screamed the headline. Documents showed that back in 2005, White House counsel Harriet Miers recommended the idea to the Justice Department that all 93 U.S. Attorneys be replaced. Instead, the Bush team dismissed only eight.


But something quite amazing was omitted by those hard-charging Post reporters Dan Eggen and John Solomon digging through White House E-mails for their scandalized front-page bombshell. Didn’t Bill Clinton’s brand new Attorney General Janet Reno demand resignations from all 93 U.S. attorneys on March 24, 1993? Wouldn’t that fact be relevant to the story? Wouldn’t it have the effect of lessening the oh-my-God hyperbole on the front page if the reader was shown that what Bush did was one-tenth as dramatic as what Team Clinton did? Yes, and yes.




My curiosity is now peaked at how these people become pundits with absolutley no understanding of our government.

Here's the scoop -- Reagan did it, Clinton did it, GW did it -- fire all 93 U.S. Attorneys that is -- and replace them with his own team.  That's what happens when new Presidents come into power -- particularly if they have taken the seat from the opposing party.  

What is unusual is firing Attorneys in the mid-terms -- and in particular -- with the Patriot act -- Senate confirmation was removed from the process of hiring new U.S. Attorneys for the purpose of rebuilding a decimated government in the event of a catastrophic terrorist attack.

Selective firing of U.S. Attorneys is certainly legal, sometimes done -- but these were fired for supposed 'performance' issues -- whereas most of these fired US Atts were actually among the highest in conviction rates.

The appointment of the Prosecutors is political -- but after they are in office a 'hands-off' approach is expected in order to facilitate an impartial justice system.  This is why the 'Saturday Night Massacre' during Watergate was a big issue and why the Independent Counsel position was created by Congress -- but allowed to lapse after Ken Starr.

Further -- Gonzales has apparently lied to-- I mean misled -- the Senate.

If this is merely a partisan assault -- why are Senators Specter, Hagel, and Graham calling for Gonzales to resign?

Brad
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135 posted 2007-03-25 04:50 PM


Through all the partisanship, it is often forgotten that there is another problem here. This administration claims an unprecedented amount of and seeks to increase executive power over the other two branches.

Now, if you agree with the expansion, well, I suppose it makes sense to blame everything on dems and ignore all the complaints coming from the paleo-conservative and libertarian crowd.

If you don't, well we have seen and I suspect will see more unlikely partnerships in the future.

Not A Poet
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136 posted 2007-03-25 06:25 PM


quote:
So, you don't think there's anything dangerous with politicizing our justice system, Pete? You think people who want to prevent that are wrong to try?

Wrong. I think it is terribly dangerous. I also can see that is exactly what those outspoken democrats are trying to do.

Local Rebel
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137 posted 2007-03-25 06:28 PM


and what is the game of the outspoken Republicans?
Ron
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138 posted 2007-03-25 07:56 PM


quote:
I also can see that is exactly what those outspoken democrats are trying to do.

Pete, outspoken Democrats don't get to appoint U.S. Attorneys. Or fire them for political retribution. The only influence on the justice system they have . . . is to be outspoken.

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139 posted 2007-03-25 08:17 PM


outspoken Democrats don't get to appoint U.S. Attorneys.

They do when they have a Democrat in the oval office and, should their appointed Attorney General be a nogoodnik, suddenly they are not outspoken but come down with laryngitus, or would that be lockjaw?

When a suspected meth dealer turns in his bud for grand theft auto, there's certainly going to be cause to look at both motive and situation with a skeptical eye.

Interesting comparison, Ron....drug dealing and grand theft auto used. Glad you used restraint in your examples

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140 posted 2007-03-25 08:29 PM


Thanks for taking the time in trying to explain this all to me, L.R. I appreciate it. I'm still not sure I understand it all, but thanks for trying anyway.

I think I did read though that even the low-enriched uranium could be used in dirty bombs if terrorists got their hands on it, couldn't it? And didn't this all come from France to Iraq originally, and didn't Wilson have French clients whose interests in Iraq would have been disrupted by war, and didn't he try to have the French cut in on the reconstruction contracts?

I think I also read that the Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that the "16 words" in Bush's speech were in fact true, and that according to oral testimony by Wilson before the Committee, it was concluded by the Committee that Wilson was sent to Niger at the behest of his wife and the CIA and not the Vice President's office as he had contended. I also think I heard on Fox News that the email that she sent to her superiors inquiring about sending him to Niger was sent by her on February 12th, but that the Vice President's meeting in which he inquired about investigating the claim via the CIA didn't even happen until February 13th.

So I would still like to see Valerie and Joe questioned extensively and under oath, as well as others at the CIA.  

Not A Poet
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141 posted 2007-03-25 10:53 PM


Then the questions still remains. Why were they notoriously not outsoken when Reno did the same dirty deed, times ten? Oh wait, she was part of a democrat administration. It was all right in that case. Besides, that was then and this is now. Vacuous argument. This is nothing but political hanky-panky, to clean up the language a bit.

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142 posted 2007-03-26 12:07 PM


Forget it, Pete. Neither you or I will get the acknowledgements that we consider obvious and logical. After the transparency of the Dubai port purchase outrage, complete with bold headlines that meant nothing, after the call for rolling heads concerning the surveillance programs which fizzled into nothing, after the calls for the firings of a large part of the administrative staff, to incluse the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense, Attorney General, Speaker of the House, and the impeachment of Bush....after years of the constant Democrat attacks, aided by the media with complete silence about the strength of the economy or even one single good thing that has happened in either the United States or Iraq.....after all of these things and more which you would think that any level-headed or reasonable mind would be able to recognized as personal and biased attacks, orchestrated by the Democrat congressional elite, still you are not going to get one person to concede that which is obvious to millions of people.....that it is all personal, biased rhetoric aimed at bringing down the rooster Bush and having nothing to do with the good of the country.

We may as well leave it at that.....


Ron
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143 posted 2007-03-26 12:18 PM


quote:
They do when they have a Democrat in the oval office ...

Uh, they don't currently have a Democrat in the oval office, Mike.

quote:
Interesting comparison, Ron....drug dealing and grand theft auto used.

The interesting part, Mike, is that you want to deify one and demonize the other. Yet, from where I sit, it's increasingly hard to tell the difference. Both, I think, still require very careful review.

quote:
Why were they notoriously not outsoken when Reno did the same dirty deed, times ten?

It's questionable whether Reno did the same dirty deed, Pete. Remember, the problem isn't with firing Attorneys but rather with exacting political vengeance on them.

Still, even if you're convinced Reno did something horribly wrong, it's not necessarily the role of the Democrats to blow the whistle. Not in an adversarial system. That role falls to the opposing party. So, if wrongs were indeed committed, the question you should be asking is why the Republicans didn't do their jobs.

I honestly don't see the big deal, guys. We're talking about scrutinizing the actions of politicians to insure they are within acceptable parameters. When did that become a conspiracy? If they don't pass scrutiny, we'll have strengthened our country by making sure it doesn't continue. If they do pass scrutiny, if no fault is found, then no harm is done.

I repeat: No harm is done. That is, unless you really think everyone in this country except you is stupid?



iliana
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144 posted 2007-03-26 02:13 AM


Thought I was through in here, but I just have to add one thing so the debate which has shifted to the so-called "political firings" of 8 U.S. attorneys, is based on a little fact.  According to the following article from "Time" those fired were Republican, not Democratic.  So if it isn't about party affiliation and it isn't about job performance as initially claimed, then there is definitely something worth investigating here and that is probably all I will say on the matter.   http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,1597085,00.html

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145 posted 2007-03-26 02:51 AM


quote:
I honestly don't see the big deal, guys. We're talking about scrutinizing the actions of politicians to insure they are within acceptable parameters. When did that become a conspiracy? If they don't pass scrutiny, we'll have strengthened our country by making sure it doesn't continue. If they do pass scrutiny, if no fault is found, then no harm is done.?


Absolutely agree.

Look, there are many Attorney Generals in recent history who have been caught up in notorious or at least questionable situations. Under the Reagan Era, Edwin Meese was highly involved in the Iran-Contra Affair and his legacy remains tainted by that episode. Under the Nixon Era, John Newton Mitchell became the first US Attorney General ever to be convicted and imprisoned due to his role in the Watergate break-in and cover-up. And under the Clinton Era, as has already been noted, Janet Reno and her poor leadership in the Waco incident.

Certainly I think we'd all like to keep those like Meese and Mitchell and Reno from again pervading these institutions and making a mockery of the judicial and executive power structures for political or superficial means. And I defend my belief that Gonzales has abused his power as well in heart, but I certainly believe he should be offered fair scrutiny organized in a bi-partisan manner.

*

quote:
Through all the partisanship, it is often forgotten that there is another problem here. This administration claims an unprecedented amount of and seeks to increase executive power over the other two branches.

Now, if you agree with the expansion, well, I suppose it makes sense to blame everything on dems and ignore all the complaints coming from the paleo-conservative and libertarian crowd.


I haven't forgotten, Brad, and that is exactly what's humming flourescently in my head when I started several particular posts in the past here around warrantless wiretapping, the John Yoo memo and the mass readings of e-mail and other personal information in particular.

I certainly agree some concerns of civil liberty erosions are exaggerated and propagandized just like threats of terrorism are sometimes, and as I've stated constantly before I believe neither of the two parties that make up our duopoly are divorced of those kind of propagandized scare tactics. However, I believe when most Americans do believe we are heading in the wrong direction, and do believe the scope of executive power is being exceeded and taken too far, Americans have the right to be upset and question our liberties are under attack.

June 15, 2006 Department of Defense Letter (In Response To January 5, 2006 FOIA Request)

*

One such example where I believe there is right to be concern is, as previously noted, revealed in this transcript of a letter from the Department of Defense as requested under a Freedom of Information Act response, and according to this transcript, the DOD appeared to admit to some degree that they have monitored a much wider spectrum of student organizations than was earlier acknowledged. Their admissions included conducting surveillance of groups protesting the military's Don't Ask, Don't Tell policy for gays and lesbians in the armed forces, as well as students protesting the war at State University of New York at Albany, William Paterson University in New Jersey, Southern Connecticut State University and the University of California at Berkeley (the birthplace of the Free Speech Movement), despite NONE of the reports in the documentation indicating any terrorist activity by the students who were monitored.

What you just brought up also hummed in my head (and, as you said, the heads of many traditional conservatives and libertarians as well) the Military Commissions Act of last year, which basically argues that: "The president has the authority for the United States to interpret the meaning and application of the Geneva Conventions."

To put it another way, the central question of what CIA interrogators may do to suspects who might be innocent would be determined not by law but by the president himself, and that the president would have to release publicly those executive orders when he issues them. And though the final deal explicitly states the definition of torture as "severe physical or mental pain and suffering", it also seems to leave open the door ajar on alternative interrogation techniques such as waterboarding.

So the upshoot of that deal is that torture is not prohibited, and really leaves the president with a wide scope of executive power. Jonathan Turley, a constitutional law professor from George Washington University I thought gave a great analogy, where this is like "telling a teenager that I don‘t want you driving at 90 miles an hour" and then he thinks "Gosh, I can live with that, I‘d go to 89!"

This also gives an earlier torture memo some legitimacy, where Alberto Gonzales said in that memo that that they could do anything short of organ failure or death. And when you bundle it all up with that John Yoo memo following the September 11th attacks that basically suggested that the president could do anything he wants as long as he's fighting terrorism, it leaves our international law and treaties vulnerable to grave violations and moral cavities.

Moreover, in this case, the Geneva Convention cannot be cited in a federal case or trial. In terms of democracy, it basically tells everyone, "You can look, but you can't touch and you can't play!"  You also can't cite international sources in foreign cases under this.

It's exactly bills like that that reiterate why we have become so unpopular in the international community recently, and why again I speak out when I learn of such things. The bottom line is, I don't care who is in office, or what party the person in office is affliated with, or what shoe size that person has, or what that person's Junior League batting average was. I feel in heart when any such individual is attempting any such power grab or expansion of executive powet that undermines our checks and balances and democratic cornerstones, I have an obligatory conscience to speak out, and while it may seem I'm particularly tough toward this current administration in that I didn't start participating in discussions here until shortly after the war in Iraq began in March of 2003, I assure others here I would do just likewise should a Democratic president be elected in 2008 or any year in the near future when he/she attempts just that same sort of thing, or any form of immense corruption as I have already denounced of William Jefferson and his frozen chump change, or Jack Murtha and his Abscam days, or Alsea Hastings and his history of corruption, etc.

Cox Washington: July 30, 2006

The American Chronicle: March 21, 2007

Others can scoff at these concerns as "constant Democrat attacks" or "personal, biased rhetoric" as they wish, but I cannot betray my conscience when it feels that something is wrong with the picture, and I know I'm certainly not alone when I hear from conservatives and libertarians like Bruce Fein, John Dean, William Buckley, David Keene, Richard Viguerie and Ron Paul among many others have spoken out arguably even more audibly than I have on the exact same sort of thing; denouncing any sort of presidential power grab.

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

Mistletoe Angel
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146 posted 2007-03-26 03:10 AM


I want to highlight the "Freedom Pledge" here, organized by the conservative group American Freedom Agenda, which I hinted on in my previous response:

*

The American Chronicle: March 21, 2007


Freedom Pledge


I, (candidate), hereby pledge that if elected President of the United States I will undertake the following to restore the Constitution's checks and balances, to honor fundamental protections against injustice, and to eschew usurpations oflegislative or judicial power.These are keystones of national security and individual freedom:

1. No Military Commissions Except on the Battlefield. I will not employ military commissions to prosecute offenses against the laws of war except in places where active hostilities are ongoing and a battlefield tribunal is necessary to obtain fresh testimony and to prevent local anarchy or chaos.

2. No Evidence Extracted by Torture or Coercion. I will not permit the use of evidence obtained by torture or coercion to be admissible in a military commission or other tribunal.

3. No Detaining Citizens as Unlawful Enemy Combatants. I will not detain any American citizen as an unlawful enemy combatant. Citizens accused of terrorism-linked crimes will be prosecuted in federal civilian courts.

4. RestoringHabeas Corpus for Suspected Alien Enemy Combatants. I will detain non-citizens as enemy combatants only if they have actively participated in actual hostilities against the United States. I will urge Congress to amend the Military Commissions Act of 2006 to permit any individual detained under the custody or control of the United States government to file a petition for a writ of habeas corpus in federal courts.

5. Prohibiting Warrantless Spying bythe National Security Agency in Violation of Law. I will prohibit the National Security Agency from gathering foreign intelligence except in conformity with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978, and end the NSA's domestic surveillance program that targets American citizens on American soil for warrantless electronic surveillance.

6. Renouncing Presidential Signing Statements. I will not issue presidential signing statements declaring the intent to disregard provisions of a bill that I have signed into law because I believe they are unconstitutional. Instead, I will veto any bill that I believe contains an unconstitutional provision and ask Congress to delete it and re-pass the legislation.

7. Ending Secret Government by Invoking State Secrets Privilege. I will not invoke the state secrets privilege to deny remedies to individuals victimized by constitutional violations perpetrated by government officials or agents. I will not assert executive privilege to deny Congress information relevant to oversight or legislation unless supreme state secrets are involved. In that case, I will submit the privilege claim to a legislative-executive committee for definitive resolution.

8. Stopping Extraordinary Renditions. I will order the cessation of extraordinary renditions except where the purpose of the capture and transportation of the suspected criminal is for prosecution according to internationally accepted standards of fairness and due process.

9. Stopping Threats to Prosecuting Journalists under the Espionage Act. I will urge Congress to amend the Espionage Act to create a journalistic exception for reporting on matters relating to the national defense. As a matter of prosecutorial discretion, until such an amendment is enacted I will not prosecute journalists for alleged Espionage Act violations except for the intentional disclosure of information that threatens immediate physical harm to American troops or citizens at home or abroad.

10. Ending the Listing of Individuals or Organizations as Terrorists Based on Secret Evidence. I will not list individuals or organizations as foreign terrorists or foreign terrorist organizations for purposes of United States or international law based on secret evidence.

I will issue a public report annually elaborating on how the actions enumerated in paragraphs 1-10 have strengthened the ability of the United States to defeat international terrorism, secure fundamental freedoms, and preserve the nation's democratic dispensation.

___________________________

(Candidate)

Date: ______________________

Presented by Bill haymin, 2007


*

*

So, indeed, it's traditional conservatives and libertarians that are equally as upset and angry with this executive power grab as liberals and progressives are, perhaps even moreso and rightfully so.

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

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147 posted 2007-03-26 02:01 PM


I honestly don't see the big deal, guys. We're talking about scrutinizing the actions of politicians to insure they are within acceptable parameters. When did that become a conspiracy? If they don't pass scrutiny, we'll have strengthened our country by making sure it doesn't continue. If they do pass scrutiny, if no fault is found, then no harm is done.
I repeat: No harm is done. That is, unless you really think everyone in this country except you is stupid?


That's a very interesting statement, Ron, and I find it quite short-sighted, with all due respect. Hey, guys! I have an idea. Let's all get together and thrown mud at Ron Carnell's house! As long as no windows get broken there's no damage done and, besides, the next rain will wash it off so what the heck??

Your statement is right out of the Democrat playbook. The Democratic actions over the past couple of years have two facets. First, the charges themselves. They went bonkers over the Dubai port deal. They screamed about the dangers of foreign ownership of our ports at a time when they knew that over 60% of our ports are foreign-owned. Did that strengthen our country? Did that endear Dubai, a strong ally and supporter of ours in the Middle East, to us? Tell me again about the no harm done point you raise. What about the Bush surveillance actions they condemned and screamed for investigations over  at the same time they were saying that they were NOT saying that the actions were necessarily wrong? How exactly did that strengthen our country again? What about Bush's military service record they raised such a big stink about....this coming from a party who had just had a President for eight years who had left the country and made anti-American speeches in Europe while avoiding military service altogether. You claim that if they don't pass scrutiny, our country is strengthened. What if they DO pass scrutiny? What happens then? What happens is that the Democrats drop it and hope people will forget about it quickly without even the courtesy of an acknowledgement.

The second facet is their procedures. This is much more despicable. What would you do, Ron, if you felt a fellow worker was procedurally out of line? Would you ask for an explanation or would you run through the office screaming "Tom is out of line! He's doing things the wrong way!!!" Would you then stand on your desk and let everyone know within earshot that Tom is a jerk, disrespectful of the rules of the office and completely oblivious to how the work should be done? Would you post signs on the office bulletin boards demanding Tom be fired for such incredible behavior? If you would, then you would be following the same procedures the Democrats employ. They don't just see something they consider may be wrong and try to investigate it with the parties concerned. They make it glaring headlines the next morning. They line up to make speeches on prime time news condemning it before even knowing whether or not it is worthy of condemnation. They make no attempt to reconcile it first. They want the publicity, the hoopla. They want to publicly shout out their disdain. They want to scream CRIMINAL!, even when no criminal action has been committed.  No harm done, Ron? Well, I suppose not if you don't consider trying to tear the country apart as harmful or if you don't feel that the world opinion of the United States going downhill while watching these constant attacks on the administration is harmful. I guess it's just boys will be boys, right?

I understand what you're saying, Ron, and I don't disagree under normal conditions. In a perfect, or even  reasonable, atmosphere, you make sense. It's good to be vigilant and question and run checks and balances. If wrongdoing is found, it can be corrected and prevented in the future. If it is not found, the accuser or questioner can simply say, "Thank you . It was my duty to question and I appreciate your response and explanation."  We do not have that here. We have members of a political party on constant feeding frenzies, using whatever ammo they can find in the loudest possible way to meet their objective, which is NOT the good of the country or it's reputation, but to get Bush and the administration. When a point is satisfied, there is no "thank you", there is simply a walk away and a search for the next point they can bring up to continue the assault.....and, if you can't see that, I understand that laser surgery works great on short-sighted vision.

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148 posted 2007-03-26 02:07 PM


Noah, you are going to claim that is the thinking of all, or even a majority, of traditional conservatives just because one organization came up with it? Please....

Iliana, yes, there should indeed be an investigation....over why there is an investigation!

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149 posted 2007-03-26 02:35 PM


Still, even if you're convinced Reno did something horribly wrong, it's not necessarily the role of the Democrats to blow the whistle. Not in an adversarial system. That role falls to the opposing party. So, if wrongs were indeed committed, the question you should be asking is why the Republicans didn't do their jobs.

I see. So basically you are saying that members of Congress are not required to speak out  against any wrongdoing if committed by a member of their own party. What does that say about "doing what's good for the country? Do you teach that brand of philosophy in your classes, Ron? Would you raise your children to grow up with those guidelines?

They say golf is the sport with the most integrity because the players call fouls on themselves. I'll assume then that politicians do not play the sport

Juju
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150 posted 2007-03-26 03:07 PM


I think I was misunderstood.  When I made the comment, I wasn't saying people shouldn't disagree with me.  

I am saying, from living in a very liberal school,  It is sad when I here someone say they want Bush to be impeached.  They want the US to fall (Like another country take us over).  Unfortunately I have come across this way to often.  

I do not mean if Bush did something wrong don't impeach him. If he really did something so terribly wrong impeach him, but no one should want the embarrassment of impeaching our president.  This impeach bush thing has been going on since 9 months after 9/11.  You can say what you want, but I am sick of hearing about this.  I am really sick being around the majority of the factious, liberal socialists at my school.  I swear its almost like anarchy.  

-Juju

-"So you found a girl
Who thinks really deep thougts
What's so amazing about really deep thoughts " Silent all these Years, Tori Amos

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151 posted 2007-03-26 03:20 PM


quote:
Noah, you are going to claim that is the thinking of all, or even a majority, of traditional conservatives just because one organization came up with it? Please....


I never suggested that. Had I made the sweeping generalization fallacy in claiming that ALL traditional conservatives shared the same uniform view of the American Freedom Agenda, I would have placed the word "all", "most" or "majority" in front of the words "traditional conservatives and libertarians".

The point is, while you've went off spinning all the issues listed in that conservative group's pledge solely as "personal and biased attacks, orchestrated by the Democrat congressional elite." that's "aimed at bringing down the rooster Bush and having nothing to do with the good of the country.", the fact is there are a considerable number of traditional conservatives and libertarians who are just as outraged over all of this as these usual suspects you frequently point to are, which include Richard Viguerie, considered the "founding father" of all modern conservative strategy, David Keene, the chairman of the American Conservative Union, and Bruce Fein, former Associate Deputy Attorney General during the Reagan Era, certainly among plenty of others beyond this group.

You can choose to dismiss what Ron said yesterday as "right out of the Democrat playbook", but with all due respect, I feel so much of what you've been saying are regurgitated GOP apologist talking points taken from their playbook. Even when the GOP held the trifecta for six years and the Democrats were in the minority in every fashion, apparently it wasn't enough for you to continue focusing almost 100% of your energy upon them, while your cognitive dissidence greeted everything the other party did with a halo effect.

I say this with good intentions, as I believe you to be a good friend and a warm and compassionate person as I have seen from all your wonderful poems and anecdotes that have truly inspired me, and certainly we all hold our own beliefs and ideologies that thus inspire biases in each of us. But I do also believe you have a tendency to act like a GOP apologist, where whenever anyone even merely questions the decision-making of the president or the GOP leadership, you instantly conjure up a defensive reaction and retreat into your 1992-1999 carapace. I certainly admire that you stand by your beliefs and don't leave the past behind, but I also question how you hold certain grudges, make sweeping generalizations out of them and allow yourself to see this duopoly landscape entirely in black and white, rather than in lighter and darker shades of grays.

As you know all too well, I'm not satisfied with this administration, and also am one dissatisfied with this administration who also strongly opposes any organized impeachment effort on Bush and if I were alive during the Lyndon B. Johnson, I'd be speaking up just as loudly over his terrible leadership bogging us down in the Vietnam War, or under Franklin D. Roosevelt when he insisted that Executive Order 9066 was necessary to save American lives and ultimately imprisoned 110,000 Americans under his watch, or under Woodrow Wilson when he insisted that the Espionage Act was necessary to save American lives, which ultimately prosecuted 2,000 Americans as "Hyphenated Americans", who were charged simply for advocating for peace as war went on, all of whom were Democratic presidents.

Although I lean Democratic overall on most issues (I am more alligned with the Republicans on immigration, prayer in public schools and the absolute right of gun ownership), I am an Independent because I have seen how both parties have made a mockery of our democratic institutions over these many years; turning the House of Representatives, first founded to represent the public in contrast to the Senate representing elite interests, into a two-year hybrid of the Senate, as well as kowtowing with special interest groups from MoveOn and organized labor on the left to Focus on the Family and big oil on the right, having individuals represent just those interests on both sides, from Howard Dean and Al Sharpton on the left to name a couple to James Inhofe and Pat Robertson on the right to name a couple, and, finally, getting swamped in political correctness.

I think it's obscene from both ends, and though it may seem I'm particularly outspoken towards this administration, it is because I believe it is just that soiled with cronyism and ideals that are barely conservative at all, and riddled by neoconservatism. I believe it's just that bad. Even so, especially if Hillary Clinton is elected in 2008, having known her history of unethical tricks and deeds, you're going to see me openly criticize this Democratic president quite often I'm sure, or any president who engages in these same sorts of frauds, intimidations, cronyism or executive power grabs in particular.

I believe you absolutely mean well, my friend, but only wish you could stop scurrying to that carapace of cognitive dissidence and consider these sorts of questions and issues beyond party lines.

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

Mistletoe Angel
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152 posted 2007-03-26 03:34 PM


quote:

I am saying, from living in a very liberal school,  It is sad when I here someone say they want Bush to be impeached.  They want the US to fall (Like another country take us over).  Unfortunately I have come across this way to often.  

I do not mean if Bush did something wrong don't impeach him. If he really did something so terribly wrong impeach him, but no one should want the embarrassment of impeaching our president.  This impeach bush thing has been going on since 9 months after 9/11.  You can say what you want, but I am sick of hearing about this.  I am really sick being around the majority of the factious, liberal socialists at my school.  I swear its almost like anarchy.


You're absolutely right. It IS sad when you hear anyone saying they want to impeach the president more than any other thing.

You won't believe how much I have to put up with others at KBOO Community Radio saying "Impeach this!" and "Impeach that!". It's quite irritating. Whenever I produce the KBOO Evening News on Wednesdays, whenever someone puts together a story on fourteen cities in Vermont passing legislation calling for Bush's impeachment, yada yada yada, I never run it, and sometimes even compose a reader of my own citing communities that have declined legislation calling for his impeachment. Most Americans polled REJECT this sort of organized impeachment, and some others at the station who go on and off about it don't speak for me.

I myself am opposed to any organized impeachment effort, even as much as I am embarrassed by this administration, and prefer general oversight and deep investigations into the Iraq war intelligence and motivations, the warrantless wiretapping program, the John Yoo memo, etc., and I'll explain why.

The nation's top priorities would be echeloned should the Democrats, or anyone in that manner dedicate their reserve of energy into such an offensive manuever. I understand Dennis Kucinich, Cynthia McKinney (thank God she's out of Congress now) and Cindy Sheehan are just three personalities who are adamant for Bush's impeachment, and I find that most disheartening.

There are many priorities that the American public deem decisively more important and essential than the consideration for grounds of impeachment; getting the government to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices for seniors, increasing America's minimum wage from $5.15 an hour, funding renewable energy, investigating government contracts in Iraq, enacting the recommendations set by the 9/11 commission, dealing with rising tuition costs for college students, crafting policies that would allow more uninsured people to get access to health insurance, allowing prayer in public schools again, penalizing companies that hire illegal immigrants; those sorts of items which serve the wide interest of the American public beyond party lines.

I still hold that disheartening memory during President Clinton's final two years (and I'm certainly no fan of Clinton either, particularly regarding Bosnia, the Telecommunications Act and Welfare Reform, Janet Reno, etc.) when the Republicans rallied to impeach him, preferring to go after him above all else. I believe it was wrong then and I believe it is wrong now.

Cindy Sheehan certainly doesn't speak for me when she says: "We want to see the issue of impeachment" nor do I weld with the "boat-load of Americans who want impeachment on the table" coterie, as I believe there are ways in which we can hold this administration accountable in the truest, most serious sense of the word without resorting to further polarization of this nation.

The bottom line is, we have all endured heartache and loss in these recent years, and I myself continue to be emotionally affected deeply by the loss of my dearest cousin, Jeremy Shank, a corporal who died September 6th in Balad, Iraq on a dismounted security patrol when he encountered enemy forces using small arms.  I've thought about her family every day since hearing the tragic news, and it especially breaks my heart imagining how his mother Debbie copes emotionally with the loss, especially when she has continued to go through heavily emotional highs and lows since her ugly car accident eight years ago which has psychologically affected her ever since. ;crying:

Jeremy, himself, personally expressed his frustrations with the war to his friends and family, and his father Jim too has publicly continued to express his condemnations of the war in Iraq since his loss. He is just as upset as Sheehan is here, but he also has said he doesn't believe impeachment is the right direction to go, believing instead in more oversight, adding that Bush should not be spared from accountability in any form.

The Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra once said, "The worst reconciliation is better than the best divorce." I believe much of the American public does demand oversight and accountability, and this must happen, but most of all I believe the American public desires reconciliation; to mend all that has been divided over the past six years through both our vital checks and balances system and bi-partisanship, and doesn't want this country to continue to divorce itself.

Impeachment is one of the worst ways in going about restoring accountability to this nation, I believe, and will only stall many other top priorities in Congress that can ultimately benefit our nation.

Any of the rest of you have every right to debate the issue with me here, but that's my opinion and I'm sticking to it.

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

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153 posted 2007-03-26 05:14 PM


I never suggested that.

True, Noah. What you said was "So, indeed, it's traditional conservatives and libertarians that are equally as upset and angry..."  You didn't say a few...you didn't say a lot....a very safe way to go. Then you add to it in your next reply with "the fact is there are a considerable number of traditional conservatives". Hwow many zeroes are there in "considerable", sir?

Even when the GOP held the trifecta for six years and the Democrats were in the minority in every fashion, apparently it wasn't enough for you to continue focusing almost 100% of your energy upon them, while your cognitive dissidence greeted everything the other party did with a halo effect.

Noah, you can believe it or not but I focus my energy where I feel it should be directed and I do not fit Ron's example of someone who will not turn on a member of my party if I see wrongdoing. The Democrats being in the minority simply made them MORE vicious and more determined to bring Bush down. Now that they are in the majority, they are after revenge. Majority/minority, it doesn't matter. Their goal is the same...and so are their tactics.

whenever anyone even merely questions the decision-making of the president or the GOP leadership, you instantly conjure up a defensive reaction ...

That's my point, Noah. They DON'T merely question....they attack with full vigor, their press leading the charge. I would applaud a mere question if they ever had the class to ask....they don't.

and allow yourself to see this duopoly landscape entirely in black and white, rather than in lighter and darker shades of grays.

LOL! You have me there, Noah. It's  residue from my Ayn Rand days, who proclaimed that "Black is black and white is white but gray is evil". Neither she or I would make good politicians

only wish you could stop scurrying to that carapace of cognitive dissidence

That does it! If you are going to switch from English to another language, I'm not talkin' any more!

Noah, you have been a friend and you will always be a friend. I admire your passion for what you believe in even when I don't agree with it. To me and I firmly believe that to many, the Democrats have left a very visible trail of continual attacks on Bush and the  administration for years.....attacks that they abandoned as soon as they saw the American people weren't fooled or swayed by them. The attacks were not meant to be for the "good of the country".....they were meant to get Bush out of there. They have not even been good at disguising it. They want to "clean the swamp"....what a shallow and ridiculous way for a senior congressperson to speak.

Be well....

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154 posted 2007-03-26 06:43 PM


quote:
True, Noah. What you said was "So, indeed, it's traditional conservatives and libertarians that are equally as upset and angry..."  You didn't say a few...you didn't say a lot....a very safe way to go. Then you add to it in your next reply with "the fact is there are a considerable number of traditional conservatives". Hwow many zeroes are there in "considerable", sir?


I stand by my clarification in that a considerable number of traditional conservatives and libertarians are upset on these fronts.

CATO: January 1, 2007

In fact, I believe that it was independents and libertarians especially who swung the 2006 mid-term elections toward the Democrats' favor. The latter has traditionally been a reliable, staunch Republican-leaning bloc of voters, but as this analytical article shows, compared to the previous mid-term election in 2002, libertarians have made a 24 percentage point swing to the Democratic Party within the past four years, voting for Republican congressional candidates by a margin of 47 percentage points in 2002, with the gap closed in half in 2006 by a 23-point margin.

In addition, one Zogby poll result illustrated in that analysis shows nearly half of libertarians identifying themselves under a conservative ideology. Unless for some reason all the libertarians who identified themselves as liberal or moderate happened to vote Democratic this past election and all who identified themselves as conservative voted Republican this past election, surely there's great reason to believe there was disenchantment among a chunk of the conservative bloc that's indeed "considerable" as to swing key Senate and House races.

So yes, I absolutely stand by my belief that a considerable number of both traditional conservatives and libertarians are upset. If they weren't, George Allen, Conrad Burns and Jim Talent would still be in the Senate, and I even dare say the GOP would also still have the majority in the House of Representatives.

And I can indeed see why there's a growing disenchantment with these voting blocs towards the GOP; they, along with moderate and paleoconservative Republicans, who are anything but GOP apologists that behave by their establishment's playbook, have become unfortunate victims over these past two decades and very much so over these past four years in that they are being squeezed further out of the party and replaced by those representing special interest groups like Focus On The Family and the American Family Association, those attached to corporate lobbyists from big oil and government contractors, and neoconservative hawks.

I've stated repeatedly that I believe there are many fair and independently-minded conservatives out there, and I have some conservative friends who are stationed at Fort Carson in Colorado Springs who I regularly communicate with who disagree with me on certain things but also are gravely upset with how this war is being managed and led and the executive power overreach among other things, including Randy Meador and Weston Wells.

Frankly, I'm not sure what it is that has put you in denial that any libertarian or traditional conservative is upset over these exact same constitutional issues, unless you actually believe that George Soros strapped Richard Viguerie, David Keene, Bruce Fein and other such conservative intellectuals and activists into sedon chairs and performed some sort of hypnosis on them or some other conspiracy to believe what is also believed among many liberals, moderates, Democrats and independents. But I for one believe these conservative voices are sincere in their beliefs, and I have great admiration and sympathy for them.

It is in my sincerest belief that, just like with the Democratic Party, there doesn't seem to be room for moderates and traditionalists in the GOP like there used to, and they have been in some fashions ostracized from the party. I sympathize with them to a great degree, and until the GOP establishment and its leaders return to their roots, they'll all but certainly remain in the minority for a while.

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

Brad
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155 posted 2007-03-26 06:45 PM


Novak

And still more GOPer dissent:

quote:
Republicans in Congress do not trust their president to protect them. That alone is sufficient reason to withhold statements of support for Gonzales, because such a gesture could be quickly followed by his resignation under pressure. Rep. Adam Putnam (Fla.), the highly regarded young chairman of the House Republican Conference, praised Donald Rumsfeld in November only to see him sacked shortly thereafter.

But not many Republican lawmakers would speak up for Gonzales even if they were sure Bush would stick with him. He is the least popular Cabinet member on Capitol Hill, even more disliked than Rumsfeld was. The word most often used by Republicans to describe the management of the Justice Department under Gonzales is "incompetent."



And still they avoid the issue:

quote:
The saving grace that some Republicans find in the dispute over U.S. attorneys is that, at least temporarily, it draws attention away from debate over an unpopular war. But the overriding feeling in the Republican cloakroom is that the Justice Department and the White House could not have been more inept in dealing with the president's unquestioned right to appoint -- and replace -- federal prosecutors.

The I-word (incompetence) is also used by Republicans in describing the Bush administration generally. Several of them I talked to cited a trifecta of incompetence: the Walter Reed hospital scandal, the FBI's misuse of the USA Patriot Act and the U.S. attorneys firing fiasco. "We always have claimed that we were the party of better management," one House leader told me. "How can we claim that anymore?"


I don't know. But then again I never thought the GOP was the better manager.




Aurelian
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156 posted 2007-03-26 09:30 PM


I think I'm voting Whig.
Balladeer
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157 posted 2007-03-27 01:02 AM


Frankly, I'm not sure what it is that has put you in denial that any libertarian or traditional conservative is upset over these exact same constitutional issues,

You will not be able to find anywhere here where  I said any such thing, Noah. I'm questioning your superlatives and diminuitives.  You claim a "considerable" number. I simply asked how you came up with that. You also state here that I don't think ANY conservative or libertarian is upset. I'd like to know where you came up with that, too.

Somehow you seem to believe that I am standing up for Bush, no matter what. Believe me, that's not the case. I have become more disillusioned with the current administration than you may know, ranging from the situation in Iraq to the immigration issues to other things. I think Bush has become much less than he can be, and should be, in several areas.....and, as Brad pointed out, other conservatives seem to feel the same way.

That has nothing to do with anything I have said in this thread. Regardless of Bush, I consider the tactics of the Democrat leadership to be shoddy, deplorable, untruthful and a detriment to the United States. Their actions are despicable, made even more so by their incessant drive to bring down the President of the country in the loudest, most public way they can manage, aided by a liberal press more than willing to support them. They try to instill fear and mistrust in the American people to serve their own purposes. They call for investigations of non-illegal activities. They try to put mistrust in the minds of citizens by innuendos. Foreign ownership of ports? Just think of that, Joe Sixpack! How do you know Bush's surveillance tactics are not listening to YOUR phone calls, Molly Homemaker? I have never felt more disdain for one group of individuals more than i do for the Democrat leadership....for their tactics and for their complete disregard for how their actions affect the reputation and good of the country.

My arguments are not FOR Bush....they are against this sub-human group of individuals and their methods.

Ron
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158 posted 2007-03-27 02:37 PM


quote:
In a perfect, or even  reasonable, atmosphere, you make sense. It's good to be vigilant and question and run checks and balances. If wrongdoing is found, it can be corrected and prevented in the future. If it is not found, the accuser or questioner can simply say, "Thank you . It was my duty to question and I appreciate your response and explanation." We do not have that here.

LOL. So your only real complaint, Mike, is that they're not polite enough?

quote:
So basically you are saying that members of Congress are not required to speak out  against any wrongdoing if committed by a member of their own party. What does that say about "doing what's good for the country?

There are so many things "wrong" with those questions, Mike, and I really don't want to wander off-topic again, but ...

No one is ever "required" to speak out against anything. When was the last time you jumped on your cell phone and called the police because you saw someone on the freeway exceeding the speed limit? And I think instead of trying to explain what's wrong with "doing what's good for the country," I'll save some time and direct you to an author who built a whole philosophy around the concept of intelligent self-interest. Her name was Ayn Rand? :-)

Back on-topic.

I suspect if any member of Congress saw one of their own breaking the law, they would probably step up to the plate (or the tee, perhaps, if you prefer your golfing metaphors?). But that's not what we're talking about, Mike, when we talk about adversarial systems. We're not talking about wrongdoing, but rather the potential for wrongdoing.

It's a Democrat's job to turn over Republican rocks and see what's hiding behind them. And, of course, vice versa.

Here's the situation as I see it, Mike. We've hired two known thieves to guard our house while we sleep. The only way we can protect ourselves is to make sure each thief has a darn good reason (remember self interest?) to rat out his counterpart at the earliest opportunity. It's an adversarial system. We need it. Why? Because God help us if the thieves ever learn to like each other enough to cooperate.



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159 posted 2007-03-27 03:21 PM


quote:
You will not be able to find anywhere here where  I said any such thing, Noah. I'm questioning your superlatives and diminuitives.  You claim a "considerable" number. I simply asked how you came up with that. You also state here that I don't think ANY conservative or libertarian is upset. I'd like to know where you came up with that, too.



Perhaps I wasn't specific enough with my selection of words, but I figured you got the general idea. And I can't imagine how a 24-point swing from one mid-term election to another is NOT considerable in any case.

quote:
Somehow you seem to believe that I am standing up for Bush, no matter what. Believe me, that's not the case. I have become more disillusioned with the current administration than you may know, ranging from the situation in Iraq to the immigration issues to other things. I think Bush has become much less than he can be, and should be, in several areas.....and, as Brad pointed out, other conservatives seem to feel the same way.


I certainly don't doubt your sincerity here, my friend. I simply question why it is whenever seemingly anything sprouts up that questions a motive of the administration, or puts the Administration in a defensive position, you seem to automatically dismiss it faster than I can snap my fingers as some propagandized, partisan phalanx solely organized by MoveOn and the Democratic leadership.

I'm certainly not saying whatsoever many Democrats exploit these situations to satisfy their own political means, I believe there to be Democrats in both the House, Senate and their national committee who do just that, with just some names that come to mind including Russell Feingold, Joe Biden, Harry Reid, Dennis Kucinich and Al Sharpton among others, who try and twist the rhetoric as though it legitimizes grounds for censure and impeachment among other things. I do absolutely agree that's wrong also and largely why I refuse becoming a registered Democrat in terms of principle.

However, I also believe that as much as I'd always like to believe our president and our administration are doing nothing but serving the best interests of our country every minute of every day, that is simply a naive way of thinking, and when we hear of things like warrantless wiretapping and the re-interpretation of the Geneva Conventions among other things and of any government's motives being suspect in regard to it, I believe it is our duty to investigate such matters and seek the truth, and that we can certainly do so while also dodging the artificiality politicians from both sides inject into the situation.

Gauging by the patterns of questionable motives and actions that have been commonplace during these last six years, I certainly admit I have an unfavorable view of this administration and I sharply criticize the lack of oversight the GOP-led Congress placed on the administration these past six years as well. But I don't share that bloodthirst for ultimate retaliation like those particular Democrats that make up their leadership you speak of. I just want these matters to be investigated thoroughly and for oversight to be returned so that future administrations don't try and exploit our vital checks and balances system.

USA Today: March 26, 2007

Fearmongering and slime politics aside, it is in the general interest of the American public to investigate such matters as this. This new USA Today poll reveals on questions #14-#16 that almost three-fourths of Americans believe Congress should investigate the involvement of White House officials on this matter, with over two-thirds believing the claim of executive privilege should not be invoked and that they should answer all questions being asked, and finally over two-thirds being subpoenas should be offered to White House officials to testify under oath in this particular case.

I too hope that neither party tries to unilateralize the investigations, nor inject rhetorical and slimeball questions into it. But I absolutely believe this scandal must be investigated, so that by the end of it we can either rest assured and breathe easily it was much ado about nothing, or that justice was served and we can hope others in future administrations won't try and sidestep around or make a mockery of our democratic cornerstones.

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

rwood
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160 posted 2007-03-27 05:29 PM



quote:
We've hired two known thieves to guard our house while we sleep. The only way we can protect ourselves is to make sure each thief has a darn good reason (remember self interest?) to rat out his counterpart at the earliest opportunity. It's an adversarial system. We need it. Why? Because God help us if the thieves ever learn to like each other enough to cooperate.



That about sums it up for me!


Thanks Ron!

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161 posted 2007-03-27 06:23 PM


LOL. So your only real complaint, Mike, is that they're not polite enough?

No, Ron,my real complaint is they are not professional enough. If you wil re-read the example I gave about a co-worker (instead of dismissing it?) you will see what my real complaint is. There are right ways and wrong ways to handle things. Democrats are not interested in the right way...only the loudest way....and their points don't even have to be valid. Ok, fellow Ayn Rand reader , you tell me. What was the valid point over the squawk over the Dubai port deal? I'd like to see some justification there, if you please. That example is indicative of the majority of their rabble-rousing.....microscopic on substance, overwhelming with volume. Keep throwing mud and hope that something sticks. You call that a valid use of our checks and balances? I call it kindergarten recess. It would only be mildly irritating if there were not other things going on....but while we are fighting on multiple fronts? While these hissy fits lower us even further in the eyes of the world? Don Corleone had it right with his advice to Sonny. You keep differences in the family. You work them out but you put on a  united front to the world.

No one is ever required to speak out against anything...

Really now? True, I don't jump on my cell-phone to report speeders but a cop's duty is. One would think that a congressman's duty would be the same. Aren't they the ones we elect to safeguard the Constitution? That;s supposed to be their job....and not only when the wrongdoing they see is committed by the opposing party. Your comparison of average citizens to them is a little off the mark, I would say.

C'mon, gentlemen, you know darn well that the Democrats have been deliberately taking cheap potshots at the administration for years. If you don't want to admit it publicly, that's fine, but trying to portray it as a noble quest on their part is not something that many will swallow. It's not that they're impolite, Ron....it's that they have no class or regard for what their tactics do to the country, nor do they care.



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162 posted 2007-03-27 07:55 PM


With all due respect, Balladeer, as long as you keep mentioning the Dubai deal, didn't not only many Republican Senators and Congressmen, but even YOU, openly criticize the deal as well?

As I recall, it was unanimously agreed that it was unfortunate this became a major, publicized issue to begin with in that it made us appear as though we were bigoted toward Arabs because we rejected their business interests while allowing others historically (though that's of course not the reason we rejected it) but we also unanimously agreed the deal wasn't a good idea because it would put the management and maintenance of OUR ports in the hands of international interests, thus that's why there was unanimous dissent toward that deal.

In my memory, there was bi-partisan dissent from the beginning on that deal in Congress. Dennis Hastert and Bill Frist, who were two of the most loyal Bush supporters on record, even publicly questioned the deal. In fact, that may have been the first time the New York Times and Sean Hannity ever agreed on anything!

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

Mother Teresa

Local Rebel
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163 posted 2007-03-27 11:27 PM


I'm not sure what all the fuss is about Janet Reno..  she was one of the few Clinton Cabinet members that I thought actually perfomed well.

She actually caught Sheik Omar Abdel Rahmen, prosectued him, and got a conviction -- and didn't even have to invade a country that had nothing to do with the WTC bombings to do it.

Got the Unabomber

Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols

Eric Rudolph

and... most importantly

MICROSOFT


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164 posted 2007-03-28 10:30 AM


but we also unanimously agreed the deal wasn't a good idea because it would put the management and maintenance of OUR ports in the hands of international interests

Wake up and smell the olive oil, Noah.   the majority of the management and maintenance of OUR ports IS in the hands of international interests, which the Democrats knew full well.

LR, yeah but she didn't get Wal-Mart so I can't believe you think she did a good job

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165 posted 2007-03-28 02:24 PM


quote:
Wake up and smell the olive oil, Noah.    the majority of the management and maintenance of OUR ports IS in the hands of international interests, which the Democrats knew full well.


Yes, I understand that, and if you had read the rest of my previous reply closely, you would see I clearly also said "we rejected their business interests while allowing others historically."

I do remember the discussions on the Dubai Ports World deal we had in two previous threads; one which you started titled "Guess Who Is NOT Coming To Dinner" and one Lee started titled "Would Anyone Care To Comment?". You were surely consistent in your views in Lee's thread arguing that when previous presidents made similar deals with international companies and contractors and Congress and the press didn't speak up, yet this time around Congress and the press spoke up, that something suspicious and opportunistic was there beneath the surface of deciding to speak up (although you also admitted that, along with me, you didn't previously know about the British owning some of our ports already).

However, in your thread, which was started after we began digressing into other issues in Lee's thread, you said this in your opening response:

*

PipTalk Alley Flashback: Guess Who Is NOT Coming To Dinner

"So the Dubai port deal is history. I confess that I have no bad feeling about that, having fallen into the same mindset that the majority of Americans share where, forsaking  logic and reason, we come up with the formula  Arabs + ports = uneasiness. Democrats and Republicans alike, the ones who tell our security agencies that there can be no racial profiling whatsoever in dealing with airport security, are applauding themselves for saving our security from a country whose major crime seems to be that it is filled with Arabs."

*

In the rest of your opening response in that thread, you refer to "Congress", rather than simply "Democrats" or "Republicans", to validate that the dissent was bi-partisan from the beginning.

Now, as the thread goes on, beginning particularly with your next response in Response #12, you acknowledge that it was the Democrats who continued making it an issue and wouldn't drop it and actually celebrated the victory after the deal was discarded, which I strongly agreed with you in saying in Response #14 that while they had a right to make a point about increasing port security, they shouldn't use the Dubai issue to push it and should let go as the Republicans did since the deal was dead anyway.

So, as you can see, we're in absolute agreement that the Democrats were acting immature and opportunistically AFTER the Dubai deal was dead and gone to try and craft a political template to make them appear tougher on foreign policy than the Republicans with that issue. That's not what I'm questioning here.

The Washington Post: February 22, 2006

What I'm questioning is how you now are spinning the Dubai controversy INITIALLY as something that merely Democrats dissented on and made a big deal about, disregarding your previous "Democrats and Republicans alike..." and "Congress" collectively language and pretending as though the Democrats alone made it an issue, when in fact many Republicans spoke up and manuevered to halt the deal as well, with Bill Frist and Dennis Hastert in fact being two of the most fiercest voices against the deal.

That's what I mean when I questioned earlier in this thread that sometimes you just seem to speak like a GOP apologist, even while I do believe you're more fair-minded than that. That seemingly every time anything puts the administration in a defensive positioning or places a questionable aura around it, you immediately not only assume, but seem certain, that every time George Soros or MoveOn was responsible for it, and because of that you stand like some Buckingham Palace guard in front of the White House and defend them based on your instincts, or even assumptions.

There are colleagues of mine at KBOO Community Radio who do the exact same thing who I question and debate just as much as I do here; who always argue when progressives or Cindy Sheehan or (gulp) Cynthia McKinney are placed in a defensive position or negative light that Karl Rove or Dick Cheney are behind it every time, and stand like unapologetic statues in front of those like McKinney, which I too often shake my head over.

The bottom line is, some traditional conservatives and libertarians like Richard Viguerie, Bruce Fein and David Keene among plenty of others are just as outraged over the suspension of habeas corpus for suspects, warrantless wiretapping, signing statements and secret evidence in listing individuals as terrorists as many Democrats and liberals are. Not only George Soros, but over two-thirds of Americans support investigating these dismissals and having aides speak under oath without executive privilege. And YOU acknowledged yourself that "Democrats and Republicans alike..." applauded the halting of the Dubai deal.  

I'm somewhat impartial to olive oil, but you bet I've smelled the red palm oil today. I cook quite a South Pacific stir-fry with it!

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

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166 posted 2007-03-28 03:50 PM


Yep, in that thread you highlighted, Noah, I DID refer to "Congress".

Do you feel that the Democrats jumped on this because of security concerns for the country? Or is it because they saw an opportunity, a platform, to use to bolster their image on national security, which is viewed as a very weak point of theirs. The Republicans jumped on it because (1) the Democrats were getting coverage with it and (2) they were irritated that they learned of it from the news media instead of the White House.....all politics. Even as late as yesterday, after the matter had been resolved, the Democrats were calling for a vote on it, for no other reason than to show THEY were responsible for stopping it....all sleazy politics and on both sides.

The Republicans, in their CYA mode, did pipe up on the issue, as a RESPONSE to the Democrat hysteria and even Bush buckled, which I have never excused him for. The fact still remains that it shouldn't have been an issue at all and would not have been, had the 'crats not seen another way of going after the admin. Howard Dean called the reversal a "great victory in our war against terror." I certainly did admit that the deal did give me an immediate gut reaction, just by virtue of the fact of having the words "Muslims" and "ports" in the same sentence but that's a far cry from the frenzy Dean and other went into. I repeat, the Republicans and Bush not shutting them down was not their finest hour.

In that thread, even Ron called it (gasp!) "SILLY"!! Need we say more???

Me? A Buckingham Palace guard, Noah? Are those the guys who are so well-known for never speaking?  NOT LIKELY!!!

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167 posted 2007-03-28 05:33 PM


Fair enough on that Buckingham rebuttal!

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


"If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other"

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168 posted 2007-03-28 08:06 PM


But she did dispatch that illegal immigrant Elian Gonzales????
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169 posted 2007-07-03 10:53 PM


And, alas, dear Skewtear serves less jail time than Paris Hilton, or Martha Stewart.


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170 posted 2007-07-04 01:52 AM


You sure you want to go there, reb? a cutesy remark worth it?
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171 posted 2007-07-04 09:01 AM


What can you possibly have to offer in defense Mike?  Unless you want to point the finger at somebody else.  Not a defense.

Of course here's the not-so-cute remarks;

Less jail time than Judith Miller.

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172 posted 2007-07-04 11:07 AM


I'm sure this isn't the first time in these forums, but were we right? Or were we right?


the rest is still yet to unfold.

stay tuned for the next segment of

As America Turns.


Happy Independence Day!!

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173 posted 2007-07-04 02:56 PM


Being Canadian I read these forums with interest as Americans have real "spunk" when it comes to their politics, and I enjoy all the inter-action and exchange of your political ideas.  We don't have the same jest for that up here as you do down there I am afraid.

My first trip to the USA, and every subsequent one, has been in and around the 4th of July.  I love this day down there as this to me anyway, what America stands for.  You all sure proudly show it off on this particular day for the world to witness, and it's wonderful to see all the flags, and fireworks displayed with pride.  

So if I may, along with Reggie, I wanted to  wish you all a very wonderful Independence Day.  I also made a wish that your troops get the heck out of there as soon as possible.

p.s. If I tell you that I am a die-hard Liberal - don't shoot me!


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174 posted 2007-07-04 03:55 PM




Hey Sharon! I am absolutely glad you've shared your thoughts here as well, as I too absolutely agree this day epitomizes exactly how treasured our right to speak our thoughts and minds openly is here, a right I actually believe is universal yet sadly is thwarted in many developing countries worldwide, including Nepal, Uzbekistan and Uganda just to name several.

I believe, also, we all share your prayer for getting our troops out of Iraq; all of us here are merely divided over how we go about doing so. I am in favor of a more immediate phased withdrawal to be completed by the end of this year, as I have opposed this war from the beginning and believe this war is already lost and is a total disaster personally, whereas several others here believe in either staying there until the al-Maliki government proves it can function on its own or, more generically and more bluntly, "staying the course" or staying there until the "job is done".

And no, no one here's going to shoot you in that you happen to be a die-hard liberal, LOL, nor if anyone here declared oneself to be a die-hard neo-conservative, for as much as I disagree, and frankly condemn, the foreign policy ideals and philosophies of the neo-cons, I also believe beyond the opinions and ideals of each individual, whether it's Dennis Kucinich or Richard Perle, there is that human being we often overlook or take for granted when speaking our minds aloud, and that deep down I believe we have much more in common than we have differences; we all desire nothing but the best for our children at heart, we all here appreciate the grandness of the written word and poetic spirit, we all here will love a little bit of country and a little bit of rock and roll, etc. (smiles) So, essentially, I believe it's important we celebrate both our commonalities and differences, as that's what makes us a community after all.

By the way, I've been celebrating our country's right to speak our minds openly by writing a new tongue-in-cheek poem about the whole Libby commutation ordeal titled "Scooter & The Commuter", which I won't post in Open as I prefer to post only lighter fare during the summer, but will probably post here!

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


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175 posted 2007-07-05 12:12 PM


Well, reb, sometimes things just happen that make one smile....in this case, guffaw. It's so heartening when chickens come home to roost (or when Democratic leaders have to shoot themselves in the foot once again because they have no other choice.

Here's Hillary and the gang, talking about presidential pardoning being abusive and destroying the constitution. Here's Jesse Jr. talking about how perjury is a jailable offense and perjurers MUST go to jail. Man, this is saturday night material. Here's Hillary trying to do damage control...

KEOKUK, Iowa (AP) — Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton drew a distinction between President Bush's decision to commute the sentence of White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby — which she has harshly criticized — and her husband's 140 pardons in his closing hours in office.

As she campaigns with her husband for Iowa's leadoff precinct caucuses, Clinton has joined other Democrats in ripping Bush's decision. In the interview, she said it was "one more example" of the Bush administration thinking "it is above the rule of law."
Her husband's pardons, issued in the closing hours of his presidency, were simply routine exercise in the use of the pardon power, and none were aimed at protecting the Clinton presidency or legacy, she said.


It ain't finger pointing, reb. It's goose and gander stuff. They want to choke the goose while they gander elsewhere when their own heroes are involved. By all means, ignore the fact that Libby was nothing more than a scapegoat (which you are certainly intelligent enough to know and smart enough not to admit). These Democratic "swamp cleaners" simply can't avoid going after Bush for the same conduct their boy handled with nary a peep outta them. I'm sure they know how ridiculous they sound but, being Democrats on their never-ending mission to get Bush at any possible opportunity, they just can't help themselves. They certainly chose the right animal to portray themselves.

Noah, that's great! I have an idea....take that poem and write 140 more covering Clinton's pardons and make a full-length book, maybe entitled "Pardon Me, Mr. President". You'll have some juicy material, pardoned terrorists caught making bombs on hidden video, a Democratic senator caught siphoning off millions from the postal service, another telling bribers on hidden tape that he wouldn't take their bribes this time but stay in touch becuase he might when he gets to know them better, felon friends from all walks of life....tell me you wouldn't have a best seller!!!!

Oh, you're only interested in Libby? That's sad - but not surprising.

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176 posted 2007-07-05 04:29 AM


quote:
Noah, that's great! I have an idea....take that poem and write 140 more covering Clinton's pardons and make a full-length book, maybe entitled "Pardon Me, Mr. President".  You'll have some juicy material, pardoned terrorists caught making bombs on hidden video, a Democratic senator caught siphoning off millions from the postal service, another telling bribers on hidden tape that he wouldn't take their bribes this time but stay in touch becuase he might when he gets to know them better, felon friends from all walks of life....tell me you wouldn't have a best seller!!!!

Oh, you're only interested in Libby? That's sad - but not surprising.


See what I mean, Sharon? LOL! Yes, this national day of independence we just celebrated also epitomizes our right to make premature, hasty generalizations or assumptions about each other before we have even completed or posted poems or have come to ultimate conclusions!

Look, inconsistency is clearly a definitive synonym in Washington now, and has been for further than any of us can remember I'm sure. These past several days have reinforced that reality, where 1) you have the same right-wing water-carriers who rallied to impeach President Clinton for perjury and obstruction of justice (which while I denounce the witch-hunt intent behind the campaign I nonetheless believe Clinton deserved to be punished for lying under oath) acting completely defensive and apologetic toward Lewis Libby, guilty of the exact same charges including lying to the Grand Jury and trying to impede the investigation, and 2) you have the same left-wing water-carriers who acted apologetically toward Clinton's perjury and obstruction of justice offenses behaving oppositely toward Libby's. The hypocrisy is astounding from both ends.

I'll tell you right now that come the real 2008 election season, around the time the primaries kick into high gear, you'll be seeing quite a few satirical verses coming from me on so many of the candidates who embody that inconsistency, which Hillary Clinton is one of the worst offenders along with Mitt Romney. With many of my thematic verses, in fact, the writing process begins weeks, even months before the poem's ever posted or structured, beginning with interesting soundbytes or thoughts I pick up on, leading then to how I can cohesively link them together and make a verse out of them. The whole Libby crisis has been just that way with me, where a lot of thoughts already came to my head, then by the time his sentence was commuted last week, a most representative title struck me, and now the writing has kicked into high gear.

I'm calling the major ones as I'm seeing them, and you can bet with another Clinton presidency it will provide much more fertile ground for great satire, which it'll be my pleasure to provide a slice of it with you.

Until then, to tide over that insatiable appetite, you can write a hit off of Jesse Ray Harvey.......unless that is your credentials and/or specialties are limited to the Clinton name.

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


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177 posted 2007-07-05 06:45 AM


quote:

Oh, you're only interested in Libby? That's sad - but not surprising.



Mike,

Unless you think that an accused murderer's valid defense is that 'OJ did it too' then there is no way that you can really think you've acquited Libby, Cheney, or Bush.

So I guess the question is -- who do you think you're foolin?  

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178 posted 2007-07-05 07:44 AM


That dog won't hunt at all, reb. If that same OJ jury were presented with the same facts in the same type of case a year later, only this time with a white defendant, and found him guilty, then I'd agree. That's basically what we have here. Substitute Democratic leaders for jury and democrat/republican for black/white, and you have the current scenario. BTW, Libby wasn't pardoned like the 140 Clinton cronies. Quarter of a million dollar fine, 2 years probation, certainly a loss of his right to practice law...pretty serious stuff for simply being a Democrat scapegoat. He will serve as much time for perjury as Clinton did for perjury...so the system is fine.

The only circus act is the democrat outrage and foaming at the mouth and then the backtracking and attempt at damage control when it dawned on them how hypocritical they are coming off. Change "housewives" for "Dem leaders" and we have a new "Desperate" tv series!

Noah, fair enough. When I see your satire hit both sides of the fence, I'll tip my hat to you. It's a great idea. Look at all the things that rhyme with Hillary....pillary, tomfillary, the possibilities are endless!
Hope you had a great 4th, sir.

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179 posted 2007-07-05 02:02 PM


quote:
That dog won't hunt at all, reb. If that same OJ jury were presented with the same facts in the same type of case a year later, only this time with a white defendant, and found him guilty, then I'd agree. That's basically what we have here. Substitute Democratic leaders for jury and democrat/republican for black/white, and you have the current scenario. BTW, Libby wasn't pardoned like the 140 Clinton cronies. Quarter of a million dollar fine, 2 years probation, certainly a loss of his right to practice law...pretty serious stuff for simply being a Democrat scapegoat. He will serve as much time for perjury as Clinton did for perjury...so the system is fine.


You're right; the system is fine in this particular case, and mind you I'm well aware it isn't a pardon (though I expect the president to pardon him by the time he leaves office) and rather a consummation of his sentence.

I also agree Libby is very much the "fall guy" here and the greater scandal stretches to Richard Armitage in particular and the Vice President's office. I've heard frequently that on a personal level Lewis Libby is quite a decent man, and I truly understand how scandals and punishments like this can hurt their families emotionally very much, I truly do.

United States Sentencing Commission: 2006 Federal Sentencing Guidelines: Offenses Involving the Administration of Justice

United States Sentencing Commission: 2006 Federal Sentencing Table

But I also don't buy at all that lame argument that Libby's sentence is "excessive" either. According to the United States Sentencing Commission, the base level for an Obstruction of Justice crime is 14, where three points could be added if "the offense resulted in substantial interference with the administration of justice.". Perjury is also a level 14 crime, but "If the perjury, subornation of perjury, or witness bribery resulted in substantial interference with the administration of justice, increase by 3 levels."

2006 Federal Sentencing Guidelines: Offenses Involving the Administration of Justice

Of course there's also the False Statement guideline, then the grouping rules have to be considered because Libby was charged on more than one count. But the gist of it here is that once the final offense level is computed, and cross-referenced with the criminal history table (Libby has no prior convictions) you refer to the sentencing table, find the appropriate range, and when one does so, the sentence sounds just about right; 18-21 months on the low end and 24-30 on the high end. And since he was a high level government official and a lawyer who obstructed justice, surely it's sensible that he would get a sentencing in the higher applicable range.

You may note I indeed feel particularly strongly about this case, and you're right, I absolutely do, and it's because 1) this whole scandal goes to the heart of the big lie behind Bush and Blair's justifications for going to war in Iraq, a war whose "reasons" I didn't buy to begin with, that Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction, where in his 2003 State of the Union speech, Bush said that "the British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" and Rice took it to the next step that Saddam was trying to turn "a smoking gun into a mushroom cloud".

Yet, regardless of all the other heinous acts Saddam committed on the Iraqi population, that yellowcake "intelligence" was doubted months, even years in advance by a wide number of sources and agencies, including Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei, Director General of the International Atomic Energy Agency, CIA Director George Tenet, who argued the Africa-uranium claim not be included in the speech because it was based on only one source, the CIA agency in particular and the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, who in January 2003 expressed publicly convincing concerns that the Iraq-Niger documents were forgeries.

So Joseph Wilson had the temerity to share those conclusions with the public, the very man who was sent to investigate alleged sales of yellowcake uranium to Iraq in the first place. Administration officials resent what he's doing, so what do they do? Organize a campaign to discredit him, to smear any dissent or healthy questioning against the war within the circle, which all but certainly gravitates especially around the Vice President's office, and Libby, who happens to be Cheney's chief of staff, was willing to lie to the Grand Jury with the sole intent of protecting his own boss.

And this whole consummation stunt is nothing but a cynical political ploy that sinews the fact that protecting the secrets of his inner circle and mollifying the eroding slice of right-wing water-carriers left in his political base are a higher priority to the president than preserving our right of law and ideals, as well as reveal how soft on crime this president can truly be often despite his tough record as a governor. It's a slap in the face to me, a slap in the face to the rule of law, a slap in the face to our young men and women in uniform who bravely and courageously continue serving on the torrid streets of Baghdad and beyond, left coping for themselves as both parties continue to offer the President a blank check on a failed foreign policy that has taken 3,586 lives, a slap in the face to their families who await and pray for their safe and healthy return and, frankly, it should feel like a slap in the face to every American right now I believe.

This is far from the only time such a scandal has gotten to me emotionally, certainly, and in the decades ahead I expect to write verses on them gravitating around both parties. Frankly, I'm outraged about both the scandal and the consummation, along with 40% of Republicans in a new Pew Research Center poll, and it is beyond me why the other 60% in the survey aren't equally as outraged.

quote:
The only circus act is the democrat outrage and foaming at the mouth and then the backtracking and attempt at damage control when it dawned on them how hypocritical they are coming off. Change "housewives" for "Dem leaders" and we have a new "Desperate" tv series!


And this is where you're absolutely correct, my friend, as all the Democrats who have called for Libby's head but defended Clinton on the same crime are just as heinously hypocritical these past several days as the Republicans are for vice-versa.

Yahoo: July 3, 2007

Why, Hillary Clinton had said at a debate on June 9th, when asked what her opinion was about a Libby pardon, refused to answer and said that the question was too personal and the night was anout the audience. Yet, on Tuesday, she comes out and says: "This (the Libby decision) was clearly an effort to protect the White House. ... There isn't any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent."

She's a hypocrite to the umpteenth degree and personifies among many others the grim promise of maintaining the status quo of inconsistency in Washington for years to come. Heck, spin-offs of the "Desperate Housewives" have been airing long before "Desperate Housewives" even aired its pilot episode. If only now we had a spin-off of "Nanny 911" named "Indy 911".

*

Okay, goosfraba.......goosfraba.......LOL! I indeed had a wonderful Fourth of July and hope you did too, sir!

Sincerely,
Noah Eaton


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180 posted 2007-07-05 05:40 PM


quote:

That dog won't hunt at all, reb. If that same OJ jury were presented with the same facts in the same type of case a year later, only this time with a white defendant, and found him guilty, then I'd agree. That's basically what we have here. Substitute Democratic leaders for jury and democrat/republican for black/white, and you have the current scenario.



No Mike.  What you're trying to do is use evidence against OJ to convict Jeffery Dahmer, or rather, get Jeffery Dahmer off because OJ got off.

quote:

Libby wasn't pardoned like the 140 Clinton cronies.



Once again, like clockwork, you resort to overly generalized mis-information to try to make a point that's somewhere nearly 180 degrees off the dart-board.

But let's take a look at the controversial Clinton pardons:
http://www.usdoj.gov/pardon/clintonpardon_grants.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bill_Clinton_pardons_controversy

Note that almost everyone on the list, with the exception of Mark Rich, either served some or ALL of thier sentences -- and very few could fall into the 'crony' category -- if at all.

quote:

Libby wasn't pardoned like the 140 Clinton cronies. Quarter of a million dollar fine, 2 years probation, certainly a loss of his right to practice law...pretty serious stuff for simply being a Democrat scapegoat. He will serve as much time for perjury as Clinton did for perjury...so the system is fine.



You're right -- he hasn't been pardoned -- which means that his case is still up for appeal -- which means that he can't testify in any further investigations by Congress or by the DOJ.  Pretty slick eh?  

Not only that -- by commuting Libby's sentence he's in effect excusing someone for actions that were taken under his direction -- something more similar to Nixon's Saturday Night Massacre -- something the principal framer of the Constitution, James Madison, said would be a gross missuse of Presidential Clemency power and should be rightfully impeachable.

So, if the Congress decides to impeach Bush and Cheney -- and they can withstand the courts and the Congress as Clinton did, THEN, and only then, will the system be fine.

Of course -- Bush and Cheney could have the temerity to simply do the right thing for the Nation like Nixon did, and simply resign.

But then -- that would leave your 'Desperate Housewife' in charge.  (Way to slide a masogynistic analogy in there.)

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181 posted 2007-07-05 05:49 PM


quote:

Noah, fair enough. When I see your satire hit both sides of the fence, I'll tip my hat to you. It's a great idea. Look at all the things that rhyme with Hillary....pillary, tomfillary, the possibilities are endless!



Does this mean then, that you approve of the Clinton pardons Mike?  That you're criticizing the Libby decision?  That you agree Bush is no better than Clinton and failed to fulfill his campaign promise of restoring integrity to the White House?  Is what's good for Noah good for you?

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182 posted 2007-07-06 02:05 AM


No Mike. What you're trying to do is use evidence against OJ to convict Jeffery Dahmer, or rather, get Jeffery Dahmer off because OJ got off.
No, reb, what I'm saying is that, if OJ had been convicted of double homicide and was given probation and later a pardon and later your son was convicted of double homicide and given life, it would be reasonable for you to say, "What gives here?" and if the judge answered, "Double homicide is a life sentence" then there's a chance you would say, "And what about OJ?"  That's what we are saying here and you don't want to hear it...

Of course -- Bush and Cheney could have the temerity to simply do the right thing for the Nation like Nixon did, and simply resign.
The right thing in YOUR opinion, of course. The Democrats would rather see him drawn and quartered, picked apart by vultures who ate his genitals inch by inch. Just maybe that would satisfy them and square the board for making them feel unimportant and dismissed....and, then again, maybe not.

and very few could fall into the 'crony' category -- if at all.
How many is a "very few"? More than one? Then they outnumber Libby.....but let's take a look.

FALN pardons....President Clinton cited executive privilege for his refusal to turn over some documents to Congress related to his decision to offer clemency to members of the FALN terrorist group.

In March 2000, Bill Clinton pardoned Edgar and Vonna Jo Gregory, owners of the carnival company United Shows International, for charges of bank fraud from a 1982 conviction. First Lady Hillary Clinton's youngest brother, Tony Rodham, was an acquaintance of the Gregorys, and had lobbied Clinton on their behalf
Almon Glenn Braswell was pardoned of his mail fraud and perjury convictions, even while a federal investigation was underway regarding additional money laundering and tax evasion charges.[12] Braswell and Carlos Vignali each paid approximately $200,000 to Hillary Clinton's brother, Hugh Rodham, to represent their respective cases for clemency. Hugh Rodham returned the payments after they were disclosed to the public.

Mark Rich.....Denise Rich, Marc's former wife, was a close friend of the Clintons and had made substantial donations to both Clinton's library and Hillary's Senate campaign.

Roger Clinton, the president's half-brother, on drug charges after having served the entire sentence more than a decade before. Roger Clinton would be charged with drunk driving and disorderly conduct in an unrelated incident within a year of the pardon.[15] He was also briefly alleged to have been utilized in lobbying for the Braswell pardon, among others.
These are just from the small handful of pardonees your second link contained. Funny how some Clinton had received money from several of these individuals.....coincidence, I asume?

Does this mean then, that you approve of the Clinton pardons Mike?
You got me there, reb. I have NO idea how you come up with that one. Attempting to twist it into something it's not won't fly.

They are all still trying to do damage control.

Bill Clinton today...I think there are guidelines for what happens when somebody is convicted," Clinton told a radio interviewer Tuesday. "You've got to understand, this is consistent with their philosophy; they believe that they should be able to do what they want to do, and that the law is a minor obstacle."   Huh?

Al Gore.....Former Vice President Al Gore said he found the Bush decision "disappointing" and said he did not think it was comparable to Clinton's pardons.

Scott Stanzel, a White House deputy press secretary, said that, "When you think about the previous administration and the 11th-hour, fire-sale pardons ... it's really startling that they have the gall to criticize what we believe is a very considered, a very deliberate approach to a very unique case."
"I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it," presidential spokesman Tony Snow said.

Amen, brother.


Local Rebel
Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
183 posted 2007-07-06 06:18 PM


quote:

No, reb, what I'm saying is that, if OJ had been convicted of double homicide and was given probation and later a pardon and later your son was convicted of double homicide and given life, it would be reasonable for you to say, "What gives here?" and if the judge answered, "Double homicide is a life sentence" then there's a chance you would say, "And what about OJ?"  That's what we are saying here and you don't want to hear it...



Do you have a mouse in your pocket?  Is that the imperial 'we'?  Or are you the official water-carrier for the Bush Whitehouse? (I always suspected the latter)

Actually -- that's exactly what I like to hear -- but, that's not what you were saying previously.

If you look at the actual average sentences for Mr. Libby's crimes he's well within the 'sentencing guidelines' that Republicans, and the Bush Whitehouse in particular, are so adamant about:

False Statement, 18 U.S.C. §1001(a)(2)
Average prison sentence: 11.82 months

Obstruction of Justice, 18 U.S.C. §1503
Average prison sentence: 46.33 months

Perjury, 18 U.S.C. §1623
Average prison sentence: 28.50 months

look them up yourself http://fjsrc.urban.org/analysis/t_sec/stat.cfm?stat=5

So then, by your own statements -- you want to know 'what gives' regarding the Libby prison sentence commutation?

quote:

How many is a "very few"? More than one? Then they outnumber Libby.....but let's take a look.



Actually if the definition of 'crony' is someone who is acting at the President's bidding -- then... the answer is NONE.

Unless you're alleging that Clinton was directing the FALN terrorists.... I don't know why he pardoned them -- and I'm not supportive of that decision.  But -- so what?

It has nothing to do with the sleaziness of the Bush Administration.

The Gregorys served their time Mike. I think there is a pretty strong argument that Hillary's brother was brokering pardons.  

But -- so what? It has nothing to do with the sleaziness of the Bush Administration.

Mark Rich I'm still confused about... all I know is that the Israeli government requested his pardon.  Do you know why?  

But -- so what? It has nothing to do with the sleaziness of the Bush Administration.

quote:

You got me there, reb. I have NO idea how you come up with that one. Attempting to twist it into something it's not won't fly.



I'm just trying to figure out where you're coming down Mike.  You want to suggest that Noah can't criticize the Libby commutation unless he's going to criticize Clinton.  So, by induction -- does that mean that since you're criticizing Clinton that you don't support the Libby sentence commutation?

quote:

Bill Clinton today...I think there are guidelines for what happens when somebody is convicted," Clinton told a radio interviewer Tuesday. "You've got to understand, this is consistent with their philosophy; they believe that they should be able to do what they want to do, and that the law is a minor obstacle."   Huh?



No big question Mike.  Even liars, like broken watches, sometimes tell the truth.

quote:

Al Gore.....Former Vice President Al Gore said he found the Bush decision "disappointing" and said he did not think it was comparable to Clinton's pardons.



It is disappointing, to me, but probably not to Al.  He probably just sees lunch.  But, he's right -- it isn't comparable to Clinton's pardons -- look at the list -- then look at who Bush has pardoned, and failed to pardon (even at the request of the Pope and Pat Robertson).

quote:

Scott Stanzel, a White House deputy press secretary, said that, "When you think about the previous administration and the 11th-hour, fire-sale pardons ... it's really startling that they have the gall to criticize what we believe is a very considered, a very deliberate approach to a very unique case."
"I don't know what Arkansan is for chutzpah, but this is a gigantic case of it," presidential spokesman Tony Snow said.



What's real chutzpah is to make a statement like that when the 'considerations' that the President made, Libby's work history, his service to the public, the effect on his family -- are all the things that he and his administration say judges can't take into consideration when passing sentence.

[This message has been edited by Local Rebel (07-06-2007 08:15 PM).]

Local Rebel
Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
184 posted 2007-07-06 06:42 PM


quote:

Today, Tony Snow said that President Bush decided to commute Scooter Libby's 30 month prison sentence for perjury and obstruction of justice because it was 'excessive.'
Yet, last year, the Bush administration filed a friend-of-the-court brief with the Supreme Court in an attempt to uphold a lower court's ruling that a 33 month prison sentence for Victor Rita, who was convicted of perjury and obstruction of justice, was 'reasonable.'

The questions we should all be asking ourselves today are: Why is the President flip-flopping? Why does Scooter Libby get special treatment?
--
Senator Joe Biden
http://www.usdoj.gov/osg/briefs/2006/3mer/2mer/2006-5754.mer.aa.pdf



quote:

"I don’t believe my role is to replace the verdict of a jury with my own, unless there are new facts or evidence of which a jury was unaware, or evidence that the trial was somehow unfair."

-- George W. Bush from his autobiography, A Charge to Keep.



FLIP/FLOP


Local Rebel
Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
185 posted 2007-07-06 07:27 PM


quote:

During hearings after Rich's pardon, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who had represented Rich from 1985 until the spring of 2000, denied that Rich had violated the tax laws, but criticized him for trading with Iran at a time when that country was holding U.S. hostages. In his letter to the New York Times, Bill Clinton explained why he pardoned Rich, noting that U.S. tax professors Bernard Wolfman of Harvard Law School and Martin Ginsburg of Georgetown University Law Center concluded that no crime was committed, and that the companies' tax reporting position was reasonable. [New York Times, February 18, 2001][2]. In the same letter Clinton listed Libby as one of three "distinguished Republican lawyers" who supported Rich's pardon.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marc_Rich



Bizzaroworld.....     


Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505
Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA
186 posted 2007-07-07 07:46 AM


My OJ comparison does not pertain to Bush's sentence reduction of Libby. It relates to the time Libbly will spend in jail for perjury compared to the time Clinton spent in jail for perjury.

No cronies of Clinton, you say? Well, I guess you have to define crony. Money to brother Tony? Money to brother Hugh? Donations to the Clinton library? Substantial donations to Hillary's senate campaign? Refusal to disclose the reason for FALN (you KNOW they have money!)? We're talking about the couple that turned the Lincoln bedroom into a Motel Six, the couple who stole the silverware, furniture and paintings from the White House when they left (to the point where the FBI had to go take it away from them). I would say Clinton would refer to any individual that slipped cash into their hands as "cronies".

You want to talk sleazy?

No, it has nothing to do with the Bush administration except that Mr. and Mrs. Sleaze, along with their usual suspects are now doing the rock-throwing from their saran-wrap house while condemning he who would destroy the Constitution. You got the sleaze part right, reb, but the finger is pointing the wrong way.

rwood
Member Elite
since 2000-02-29
Posts 3793
Tennessee
187 posted 2007-07-07 08:55 AM


Yall are getting sleazy?

I found this, and it's quite a short read, but there are many of the same words/themes in this thread. Almost eerie, but this proves that many are doing a lot of thinking on the subjects.

there's a clock, a prediction, exploits, Scooty has cooties, etc. and this:

quote:
Our representatives -- and to a great degree we as a culture -- are completely buffaloed by shamelessness. .



Newshoggers


That's a powerful quote.
Oh yeah, and the word "cronies," too. How ironic, or not.

[This message has been edited by rwood (07-07-2007 11:50 AM).]

Local Rebel
Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
188 posted 2007-07-07 09:03 PM


quote:

My OJ comparison does not pertain to Bush's sentence reduction of Libby. It relates to the time Libbly will spend in jail for perjury compared to the time Clinton spent in jail for perjury.




Haven't we already been here?  round the mulberry bush again?  I agree this was your original argument -- but it's not what you said in your last post...

Oh well.. don't really mind repeating myself --just a cut and past i'nt it?

quote:

Unless you think that an accused murderer's valid defense is that 'OJ did it too' then there is no way that you can really think you've acquited Libby, Cheney, or Bush.

So I guess the question is -- who do you think you're foolin?  



Let's just recall that in the Clinton and OJ trials there was something markedly different from Libby's -- the absence of a guilty verdict.

I'm not sure what the average prison sentence is for persons found 'not guilty' Mike -- there seems to be no data available.  (but I suppose we could consider Judith Miller to be a standard?)

Of course -- had the Republican Senate found Mr. Clinton guilty he wouldn't have been 'sentenced' -- he would merely have been removed from office.

But there was still that other thing needed to convict him.. oh, yeah... an indictment -- Ken Starr never indicted him -- did he?

So, all you had was an activist judge taking it upon herself to find Mr. Bill to be in contempt of court.  Those drated dastardly activist judges! ( Oh No Mr. Bill!) <-Kids won't get that

I thought, I did define cronyism -- for our purposes here -- but if you want to open it up to the broader definition then we'd have to get into Enron, Haliburton, Jack Abramhoff, Saudi Princes, oh my God the list just goes on and on... who wants to open up that can of day-old asparagus?

quote:

You got the sleaze part right, reb, but the finger is pointing the wrong way.



So, then you're saying it's ok for Noah to only be irate about the Libby pardon. Cool.

Local Rebel
Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
189 posted 2007-07-07 09:15 PM


Interesting read Reggie -- I think the conclusion is compelling (even though I don't think the theme of 'shame' was fleshed out adequately from a writing standpoint):

quote:

We have long since past the point where a healthy popular-political-media system's immune system would have been activated. The Bush administration has used the fear of calling out shame as a rapier to tatter our internal mores, values and cohesion while knowing that there are not sixty seven votes to convict. However the lack of votes should not matter. Principles are important even if a victory is not guaranteed in the defense of those principles.



And, I agree, and disagree.  I'm not sure that I see the point just for the points sake -- I would, rather -- if energy was spent on impeachment proceedings -- see the reccomendation of Reagan's National Security Advisor, General Odom carried out -- to impeach over the war itself and the abuse of power.


rwood
Member Elite
since 2000-02-29
Posts 3793
Tennessee
190 posted 2007-07-09 07:46 AM


I'll probably be slapped around for this, but you know what I'm feeling the most shame for right now, as an American?


My elders are ashamed of our current government. The strong men and women of my family who went through several crises, wars, the Great Depression, etc. I see fear and anger in their eyes. Not of other countries. Of their own America. They feel everyone is being sucked in by the implosion of corruption within the network of our government, and anyone who "appears" to escape it or rise above as a leader? Must be protected by something even more diabolical.

Sorry, I know that's subjective and emotionally rendered, but that's what came to me when you spoke of "fleshing out."

and all the blood beneath, you know?



Local Rebel
Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
191 posted 2007-07-09 06:14 PM


My backhand is in the shop -- so, you're safe!  
Balladeer
Administrator
Member Empyrean
since 1999-06-05
Posts 25505
Ft. Lauderdale, Fl USA
192 posted 2007-07-09 06:29 PM


Aha,,,I was sure you had loaned it to Federer for Wimbledon.
rwood
Member Elite
since 2000-02-29
Posts 3793
Tennessee
193 posted 2007-07-09 10:30 PM


Ah, good. My ouch is broke. Yall can get back to being sleazy now. You both have some good points btw.

Local Rebel
Member Ascendant
since 1999-12-21
Posts 5767
Southern Abstentia
194 posted 2007-07-10 06:31 PM


Just think of it as tough love Mike!  

Reg; I thought I had my hair parted so they don't show?

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