Charles Dharapak/Associated Press
President Bush said in the fall of 2003 that no one wanted to get to the bottom of the C.I.A. leak case more than he did.
What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the sunset.
---Crowfoot
While thinking about the future, and about tomorrow's livelihood, if you don't let go of wordly affairs, if you don't practice the Way, and if you pass your days and nights in vain, you'll regret it. You should rouse your mind, and determine that even if there is no livelihood for tomorrow, and you might freeze, or starve, or even die---still today, you should hear the Way, and follow Buddha's intention. If you do this, you will certainly achieve practice in the way.
---Dogen
If you have the idea of superiority and are proud of your ability, this is a disaster.
---Yuan-Wu
The Sunday New York Times used to hit the streets in Manhattan at about 10:00 Saturday night. I'll bet it still does because it's a great tradition. If I was downtown, I loved to buy it at a newsstand. The subway ride up to The Bronx, where I lived, took about 45 minutes...and the Entertainment section, or The Magazine, or News Of The Week In Review made great company and possibly a diversion from the dramas unfolding in the car around me.
If I were home in the apartment a block off Grand Concourse, I probably was up listening to jazz DJs on the radio at 11:00 on Saturday nights, when the paper became available at newsstands up there. I liked going out at that hour to buy The Times. Maybe I could have afforded to have it delivered, but finding it on Saturday nights was more exciting...and for me very much a part of enjoying New York. Besides, it was great to have it already on the breakfast table when I got up Sunday morning.
These memories were revived this morning when I came down to the computer and found that my wife already had posted an amazing article in this morning's Times to me and her list. My online edition (the actual paper costs many dollars this far out in the Midwest) arrived in my emailbox at 3:00 AM, but Dana had sent this out at 11:30 last night, the old Bronx time for such discoveries. Like many husbands I like finding stuff first, but in this case I really appreciate the scoop!
It's another article by Frank Rich. This guy has really been cranking up the heat lately. He started at The New York Times in 1980, when he was the theater critic. But another of his interests is politics, and so gradually he has evolved into a journalist who writes a "weekly 1500-word essay on the intersection of culture and news," as his columnist biography reads. Now, if you're a president who nominates somebody to the Supreme Court on TV primetime AND a week before you said you were going to, you're asking for one of his reviews. In this case, he's also wondering why another certain somebody, who read for the part, didn't get it.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The New York Times
July 24, 2005
Eight Days in July
By FRANK RICH
PRESIDENT BUSH'S new Supreme Court nominee was a historic first after all: the first to be announced on TV dead center in prime time, smack in the cross hairs of "I Want to Be a Hilton." It was also one of the hastiest court announcements in memory, abruptly sprung a week ahead of the White House's original timetable. The agenda of this rushed showmanship - to change the subject in Washington - could not have been more naked. But the president would have had to nominate Bill Clinton to change this subject.
When a conspiracy is unraveling, and it's every liar and his lawyer for themselves, the story takes on a momentum of its own. When the conspiracy is, at its heart, about the White House's twisting of the intelligence used to sell the American people a war - and its desperate efforts to cover up that flimflam once the W.M.D. cupboard proved bare and the war went south - the story will not end until the war really is in its "last throes."
Only 36 hours after the John Roberts unveiling, The Washington Post nudged him aside to second position on its front page. Leading the paper instead was a scoop concerning a State Department memo circulated the week before the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife, the C.I.A. officer Valerie Plame, in literally the loftiest reaches of the Bush administration - on Air Force One. The memo, The Post reported http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/20/AR2005072002517.html , marked the paragraph containing information about Ms. Plame with an S for secret. So much for the cover story that no one knew that her identity was covert.
But the scandal has metastasized so much at this point that the forgotten man Mr. Bush did not nominate to the Supreme Court is as much a window into the White House's panic and stonewalling as its haste to put forward the man he did. When the president decided not to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a woman, why did he pick a white guy and not nominate the first Hispanic justice, his friend Alberto Gonzales? Mr. Bush was surely not scared off by Gonzales critics on the right (who find him soft on abortion) or left (who find him soft on the Geneva Conventions). It's Mr. Gonzales's proximity to this scandal that inspires real fear.
As White House counsel, he was the one first notified that the Justice Department, at the request of the C.I.A., had opened an investigation into the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife. That notification came at 8:30 p.m. on Sept. 29, 2003, but it took Mr. Gonzales 12 more hours to inform the White House staff that it must "preserve all materials" relevant to the investigation. This 12-hour delay, he has said, was sanctioned by the Justice Department, but since the department was then run by John Ashcroft, a Bush loyalist who refused to recuse himself from the Plame case, inquiring Senate Democrats would examine this 12-hour delay as closely as an 18½-minute tape gap. "Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence," said Senator Charles Schumer, correctly, back when the missing 12 hours was first revealed almost two years ago. A new Gonzales confirmation process now would have quickly devolved into a neo-Watergate hearing. Mr. Gonzales was in the thick of the Plame investigation, all told, for 16 months.
Thus is Mr. Gonzales's Supreme Court aspiration the first White House casualty of this affair. It won't be the last. When you look at the early timeline of this case, rather than the latest investigatory scraps, two damning story lines emerge and both have legs.
The first: for half a year White House hands made the fatal mistake of thinking they could get away with trashing the Wilsons scot-free. They thought so because for nearly three months after the July 6, 2003, publication of Mr. Wilson's New York Times Op-Ed article http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html?ei=5070&en=e21423b05b9d4a47&ex=1122350400&pagewanted=all&position= and the outing of his wife in a Robert Novak column, there was no investigation at all. Once the unthreatening Ashcroft-controlled investigation began, there was another comfy three months.
Only after that did Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel, take over and put the heat on. Only after that did investigators hustle to seek Air Force One phone logs and did Mr. Bush feel compelled to hire a private lawyer. But by then the conspirators, drunk with the hubris characteristic of this administration, had already been quite careless.
It was during that pre-Fitzgerald honeymoon that Scott McClellan declared that both Karl Rove and Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, had personally told him they were "not involved in this" - neither leaking any classified information nor even telling any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the C.I.A. Matt Cooper has now written in Time that it was through his "conversation with Rove" that he "learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A." Maybe it all depends on what the meaning of "telling," "involved" or "this" is. If these people were similarly cute with F.B.I. agents and the grand jury, they've got an obstruction-of-justice problem possibly more grave than the hard-to-prosecute original charge of knowingly outing a covert agent.
Most fertile - and apparently ground zero for Mr. Fitzgerald's investigation - is the period at the very outset when those plotting against Mr. Wilson felt safest of all: those eight days in July 2003 between the Wilson Op-Ed, which so infuriated the administration, and the retaliatory Novak column. It was during that long week, on a presidential trip to Africa, that Colin Powell was seen on Air Force One brandishing the classified State Department memo mentioning Valerie Plame, as first reported by The New York Times.
That memo may have been the genesis of an orchestrated assault on the Wilsons. That the administration was then cocky enough and enraged enough to go after its presumed enemies so systematically can be found in a similar, now forgotten attack that was hatched on July 15, the day after the publication of Mr. Novak's column portraying Mr. Wilson as a girlie man dependent on his wife for employment.
On that evening's broadcast of ABC's "World News Tonight," American soldiers in Falluja spoke angrily of how their tour of duty had been extended yet again, only a week after Donald Rumsfeld told them they were going home. Soon the Drudge Report announced that ABC's correspondent, Jeffrey Kofman, was gay. Matt Drudge told Lloyd Grove of The Washington Post http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A8158-2003Jul17 at the time that "someone from the White House communications shop" had given him that information.
Mr. McClellan denied White House involvement with any Kofman revelation, a denial now worth as much as his denials of White House involvement with the trashing of the Wilsons. Identifying someone as gay isn't a crime in any event, but the "outing" of Mr. Kofman (who turned out to be openly gay) almost simultaneously with the outing of Ms. Plame points to a pervasive culture of revenge in the White House and offers a clue as to who might be driving it. As Joshua Green reported in detail in The Atlantic Monthly last year http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/prem/200411/green , a recurring feature of Mr. Rove's political campaigns throughout his career has been the questioning of an "opponent's sexual orientation."
THE second narrative to be unearthed in the scandal's early timeline is the motive for this reckless vindictiveness against anyone questioning the war. On May 1, 2003, Mr. Bush celebrated "Mission Accomplished." On May 29, Mr. Bush announced that "we found the weapons of mass destruction." On July 2, as attacks increased on American troops, Mr. Bush dared the insurgents to "bring 'em on." But the mission was not accomplished, the weapons were not found and the enemy kept bringing 'em on. It was against this backdrop of mounting desperation on July 6 that Mr. Wilson went public with his incriminating claim that the most potent argument for the war in the first place, the administration's repeated intimations of nuclear Armageddon, involved twisted intelligence.
Mr. Wilson's charge had such force that just three days after its publication, Mr. Bush radically revised his language about W.M.D.'s. Saddam no longer had W.M.D.'s; he had a W.M.D. "program." Right after that George Tenet suddenly decided to release a Friday-evening statement saying that the 16 errant words about African uranium "should never have been included" in the January 2003 State of the Union address - even though those 16 words could and should have been retracted months earlier. By the next State of the Union, in January 2004, Mr. Bush would retreat completely, talking not about finding W.M.D.'s or even W.M.D. programs, but about "weapons of mass destruction-related program activities."
In July 2005, there are still no W.M.D.'s, and we're still waiting to hear the full story of how, in the words of the Downing Street memo, the intelligence was fixed to foretell all those imminent mushroom clouds in the run-up to war in Iraq. The two official investigations into America's prewar intelligence have both found that our intelligence was wrong, but neither has answered the question of how the administration used that wrong intelligence in selling the war. That issue was pointedly kept out of the charter of the Silberman-Robb commission; the Senate Intelligence Committee promised to get to it after the election but conspicuously has not.
The real crime here remains the sending of American men and women to Iraq on fictitious grounds. Without it, there wouldn't have been a third-rate smear campaign against an obscure diplomat, a bungled cover-up and a scandal that - like the war itself - has no exit strategy that will not inflict pain.
Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/opinion/24rich.html?th=&emc=th&pagewanted=all
6 comments:
Dana sent out another why-didn't-I-think-of-that last night. This one is from the American Prospect, which is a magazine to which we subscribe. But this article, so far, only is available online. We all remember the memos about Niger's selling the critical WMD material to Iraq turned out to be labeled forgeries. This article ponders the question, "Then who forged them?"
Follow the Documents
By Matthew Yglesias
Web Exclusive: 07.19.05
As intriguing as the prospect of seeing Karl Rove sent to the pokey is, I must admit that on one level I don't really care who the guilty parties in the Plame leak case are. Whoever did the deed ought to be found out and punished, because that's what you do, but it will make little difference. My opinion that Rove is a scumbag won't be altered by his possible vindication, nor appreciably strengthened by his possible conviction. The basic case for scumbaggery, grounded in the public record, is simply far too strong to be altered one way or another by anything related to this matter. At the same time, I doubt that removing the wrongdoers from office will do any good. There are a lot of scumbags out there, and as recent coverage of the College Republicans' annual conference has made clear, the right churns them out assembly-line style. President Bush will have no trouble replacing anyone he may lose with someone just as bad.
Lurking in the neighborhood of this case, however, is something I would genuinely like to know. Joseph Wilson went to Niger to investigate reports that Iraq had made significant progress toward acquiring uranium yellowcake there -- reports grounded in a memo indicating that such a deal had gone down several years previously. This memo was a forgery.
The GOP and its hack reporter friends have attempted to obscure this reality by citing the report undertaken by Lord Butler at Tony Blair's request, which found that British assertions of Iraqi efforts to acquire Nigerian uranium were well-founded. This theory ignores several inconvenient facts. First and foremost, it's now clear that whatever Iraq may or may not have tried to do in 1999, it didn't actually get anywhere near building a nuclear bomb. Second, given the actual state of Iraq's nuclear program at the time, there's no reason to think uranium yellowcake would have been useful for doing anything, as Iraq had no capacity to transform it into a usable weapon. Third, the Iraq Survey Group, appointed by the president to review Iraq's weapons-of-mass-destruction programs stated http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/iraq_wmd_2004/chap4.html#sect4 last year that it had "not found evidence to show that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991 or renewed indigenous production of such material." Fourth, the International Atomic Energy Agency responded to the Butler report by asking http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/politics/article47569.ece the British government to provide it with the non-forgery-based evidence for the story, which the Brits have failed to do. Indeed, it http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/000930.html that the only British sources were the forgery, and reports from other intelligence services that were, in turn, based on the same forgery.
All that aside, no officials anywhere, including the authors of the Butler report, deny the basic point that the Niger uranium memo was forged. What's more, the forgery was not especially hard to detect because there was not one forgery but two, the second of which was especially crude. As the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's (SSCI) report http://www.nytimes.com/packages/html/politics/20040709iraqreport2.pdf concluded:
"The INR Iraq nuclear analyst told Committee staff that the thing that stood out immediately about the documents was that a companion document -- a document included with the Niger documents that did not relate to uranium -- mentioned some type of military campaign against major world powers. The members of the alleged military campaign included both Iraq and Iran, and was according to the documents, being orchestrated through the Nigerian Embassy in Rome, which all struck the analyst as being 'completely implausible.' Because the stamp on this document matched the stamp on the uranium document, the analyst though that all of the documents were likely suspect."
Upon further examination, those suspicions proved well-founded. The uranium document was not properly formatted as a Nigerian government document, and there were inconsistencies regarding names and dates. It's worth underscoring, moreover, exactly how absurd this second document http://cryptome.org/niger-docs2.htm was. It reads, in part:
"Le groupement dirigé par les Ambassadeur de Niger, Soudan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libye, Iran ont décidé que le 'Global Support' qui est composé de spécialistes provenant de différents corps militaires des pays alliés sera actif dans l'immédiat. Nous sommes convençus que l'haute profession des militaires appartenants au 'Global Support' soient dotes d'expériences considérables et très diversifiés dans le secteur de la défense et de la sécurité et sans aucun doute ils sont résponsables des charges qui seront leur assignées."
Suggestively, this is not grammatical French. Moreover, as a rough translation shows, it's completely ridiculous:
"The group directed by the ambassadors of Niger, Sudan, Iraq, Pakistan, Libya, Iran have [plural in original] decided that 'Global Support' which is composed of specialists belonging to different military corps of the allied countries will be active immediately. We are convinçed [sic] that the high profession of the military belonging to 'Global Support' are [subjunctive plural in original] qualified with considerable experiences and very diversified in the sectors of defense and security and without a doubt they are responsible for the tasks assigned to them."
That something so absurd could have formed the basis for an important line in a presidential speech says a lot about the degree of unseriousness with which the Bush administration went about building its case for war. That aside, it raises a couple of pretty obvious questions: Who produced these documents, and why? I don't even have a "gotcha" speculation to offer -- I'd genuinely like to know. What we do know is that according to a footnote in the SSCI report, "in March 2003, the Vice Chairman of the Committee, Senator [Jay] Rockefeller, requested that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) investigate the source of the documents, [clause redacted], the motivation of those responsible for the forgeries, and the extent to which the forgeries were part of a disinformation campaign. Because of the FBI's investigation into this matter, the Committee did not examine these issues."
The FBI, so far, seems to have come up with, well, with nothing. What we do know about the documents is that they were brought to the U.S. Embassy in Rome by Elizabetta Burba, an Italian journalist. According to European press reports, she got the documents from Rocco Martino, a former Italian military-intelligence official turned businessman with some kind of ties to French intelligence services. Martino has been to the United States at least twice since being publicly identified as the source of the documents, and the FBI didn't bother to interview him http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/14/172732/082 .
It seems clear that some powerful elements in Washington don't want to know the truth, which should raise suspicions. This, after all, would seem to be an important matter. Somebody went to some lengths to do this. He ore she must have had some purpose in mind, and it's hard to see how that purpose could have been anything but nefarious. Republicans don't seem interested in finding out, perhaps because further scrutiny of the matter would simply reveal how willfully gullible the White House was, or perhaps for some deeper reason. Democrats' reticence to ask what happened to the FBI investigation is more puzzling, but someone ought to get on the case. That there's a partisan payoff at the end of this particular rainbow is far from clear, but unlike in the Plame case, knowing the truth might actually change how we think about a thing or two.
Matthew Yglesias is a Prospect staff writer.
Copyright © 2005 by The American Prospect, Inc.
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10015
Finally this morning allow me to post the entire article by Joseph Wilson IV from 2 years ago that is being referred to again and again these days~~~
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The New York Times
July 6, 2003
OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
What I Didn't Find in Africa
By JOSEPH C. WILSON 4th
WASHINGTON -- 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.
In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90's. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible.
The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq — and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.
I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.
Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.
(As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors — they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government — and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)
Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip.
Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure.
I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life. (I did take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict containment regime backed by the threat of force was preferable to an invasion.) In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a "white paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country.
Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.
The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case.
Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.
The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses. (It's worth remembering that in his March "Meet the Press" appearance, Mr. Cheney said that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons.") At a minimum, Congress, which authorized the use of military force at the president's behest, should want to know if the assertions about Iraq were warranted.
I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program — all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed.
But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons.
Joseph C. Wilson 4th, United States ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995, is an international business consultant.
Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company
http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/06/opinion/06WILS.html?ei=5070&en=e21423b05b9d4a47&ex=1122350400&pagewanted=all&position=
The talking heads on the Sunday shows followed the Frank Rich lead yesterday. McCain, Gergen, and Gonzales himself (about that 12 hour delay) appeared. David Gergen, who has advised 4 presidents (mostly Republican), thinks the President eventually will be implicated. The Brad Blog seems to be following better than anyone I've found so far.
http://www.bradblog.com/
07.25.2005 Arianna Huffington
Covert Operative: Sen. Roberts Uses the Cover of the Senate to Flame Plame
Sometimes it’s not the crime or the cover-up http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/24/gonzales-raises-questions-for-andy-card-to-answer that does you in. Sometimes it’s the counter-attack.
Plamegate (aka the Rove-Libby-Gonzalez-Card scandal) is truly opening a window on the soul of the Republican Party… and it’s not a pretty view. We've seen the GOP attack machine in action many times before. But this time, the targets of the smears are intertwined with national security concerns -- putting the attackers in the tricky position of having to choose which comes first, their country or their party.
Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas has clearly chosen the latter. No longer is the smear campaign confined to the surrogates on the margins, now Roberts has opted to use the Senate to do his dirty work. The chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee has decided to hold hearings http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/25/politics/25leak.html on whether the CIA’s definition of undercover is too broad. Hmm... I wonder why he’s doing that?
Speaking about the Plame case on CNN, Roberts said “I must say from a common-sense standpoint, driving back and forth to work to the CIA headquarters, I don’t know if that really qualifies as being, you know, covert. But, generically speaking, it is a very serious matter.” But not so serious that the Roberts’ committee will be taking testimony on the Plame leaks… just on the question of how, you know, secret a secret agent has to be before, generically speaking, outing that agent should be considered a bad thing.
Josh Marshall http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_24.php#006153 nails it when he says that Roberts “is a shame to the office, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the White House political operation.” If you've come to a place in your political career where you can look at the Plame case and decide that the real culprit in the matter is the C.I.A.'s definition of covert -- and that the best course of action for is you is to attack Valerie Plame -- you really need to rethink why it is you went into politics in the first place and whether this is really what you want to be doing with your life.
My guess is that one person who won't be testifying at Senator Roberts' hearings is Larry Johnson, the former CIA analyst who has spoken out http://www.democracycellproject.net/blog/archives/2005/07/larry_johnson_g.html on Plame’s behalf. Too bad, because it turns out he's got a very solid grasp of the concept of “undercover” and might be able to enlighten chairman Roberts. You know, generically speaking…
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/arianna-huffington/covert-operative-sen-ro_4692.html
I'm very impressed this morning to come upon Jessica Fisher's editing of the blogosphere for the Cincinnati Enquirer Tuesday night~~~
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Wednesday, August 3, 2005
Tracking the blogs
Jessica Fisher
The Enquirer
Jessica Fisher will be watching the blogosphere all night as bloggers cover the 2nd Congressional District election. Check back for her updates.
Wow!
Posted by Drew Vogel at 11:18 PM
http://terminus.powerblogs.com/archives/archive_2005_07_31-2005_08_06.shtml#1123039125
"The political blogosphere has been obsessed with the Ohio Second for ages now, and the special election was held today. The district is overwhelmingly Republican, and no Democrat has hit 30% for the last several election cycles. But today, Democrat Paul Hackett lost a squeaker to Republican Jean Schmidt 52-48. It's an incredible achievement.
The question is, does this bode well for Democratic chances in next year's midterm elections? It might, but I'm reluctant to be too confident. Democrats won some key special elections in the lead up to the 2002 elections, if I remember correctly (I might be thinking of 2004 actually, I'm not sure) and it didn't end up helping them very much. One thing I can say about this White House, they did a masterful job of handling the 2002 midterms by scheduling a vote on Iraq in Fall 2002, when they had already decided that the invasion would begin in March 2003. That one move made the entire election about Iraq, and the Republicans won it on that basis. I don't know what they have planned for 2006, but they've definitely got something up their sleeves. So we'll just wait and see.
In the meantime, congratulations to Paul Hackett, his staff and supporters, and everyone who contributed time and money to turn what should have been an unwinnable election into a really tight race."
A New Wind is Blowing- Comment
Posted by DBJ at 11:04 PM
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2005/8/2/23437/81594/12?mode=alone;showrate=1#12
"Thank you Hackett.
Take that Lieberman. Take that Harold Ford Jr. Take that Kerry. Take that DLC.
4%. With a guy who calls Bush an SOB, who calls people "chickenhawks." Who defines what he stands for and contrasts it clearly with the other candidate. Who isn't forced into apologies by other weak-kneed Democratic "leaders."
Thank you Paul Hackett - for running, for showing the way.
Thank you netroots. Thanks Swing State Project, Kos, Atrios. You've given a wake up call to the folks in DC who like to go along and get along and believe in blurring the differences - and who believe that standing up for what you believe in is a losing strategy.
Howard Dean. Your 50 state strategy awaits. OH-2 shows the way."
A New Wind is Blowing- Comment
Posted by crazymoloch at 11:18 PM
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2005/8/2/23437/81594/137?mode=alone;showrate=1#137
"Hopefully this can set up a tough re-election run for Jean Schmidt. She almost turned this race into a complete embarassment for the administration. A 4% margin isn't huge, but it does dramatically alter what tomorrow's headlines will be and the where the media narrative wil go.
Clearly Jean Schmidt has no real base of support. Without the NRCC she would've been creamed. I'll bet many Republicans aren't happy that she didn't 'bury' a Bush bashing Democrat in a conservative district. Jean Schmidt has one year to make of lot of new wealthy friends.
Paul made the case that Jean Schmidt is rubber stamp. This will be even more the case in a year. She owes the NRCC - big time! She's gonna have to screw over the people in her district to make the moolah necessary to run again. We'll be there to let everyone know."
A New Wind is Blowing- Comment
Posted by Above the Clouds at 11:08 PM
"What a choice...
In what insane world is there even a close race between Hackett and Schmidt? With a guy who calls Bush a son-of-a-bitch, calls him out for the "bring 'em on" BS, calls other leaders "chickenhawks" and who defines what he stands for and contrasts it clearly with the other candidate (have you seen the debate video?) I honestly can't believe what the people want is another ass-reaming by the GOP--I guess people really want more death, debt, war, lies, Rove, and now Schmidt. God save us all."
A New Wind Is Blowing
Posted by Armando at Daily Kos at 11:04 PM
"New Ohio Democratic superstar Paul Hackett went into the lion's den of pure Red Southern Ohio and scared the pants off of the GOP losing by less than 4 points in the face of a NRCC promise to "bury him."
No spin - the GOP is on the run.
Congratulations to Southern Ohio Democrats, the Lefty blogs, especially Swing State Project, and Dems everywhere. We have delivered a lesson - Fighting Dems will win the day.
On to 2006, when we take back the Congress."
Governor Schweitzer, Give That Man a Call
Posted by granny at 8:24 PM
"Win or lose, Paul Hackett has run an admirable fight in a place the Republicans didn't think they needed to defend.
It just goes to show you that people do hunger for hardworking people with integrity to step up to the plate. We want it and we want it bad.
I disagree with the person who says to scream fraud, which at this point is something we can only guess. Something along the lines of burn me once...
A rational call for a recount should be sufficient for accounting purposes, and if the non politico-junkies get to meet Mr. Hacket in the interlude, that's even better."
Tin Foil Hat Time
Posted by The Ticked Off Ohioan at 10:49 PM
"Why is Clermont county taking so long to verify its results?
Could it be because they are voting on ES&S optical scanners and someone is busy fixiing the results?"
Ever Heard of Clermont County Ohio ?
Posted by Robert on Permalink
http://rjwaldmann.blogspot.com/2005/08/ever-heard-of-clermont-county-ohio.html
"Probably not if you are not paranoid. I was not paranoid until about 5 minutes ago.
Clermont county is in the 2nd congressional district of Ohio. This is a very very Republican district...This is amazing. Another odd thing is that with over a third of precints in the district reporting 0 precincts in Clermont county have reported results. That is zero. Hmmmm now where have I heard that name before ? Here , here or here ?"
OH-02: Results Open Thread (Part 5)
Posted by JamesB3 at 10:55 PM
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2005/8/2/222650/4208/193?mode=alone;showrate=1#193
"One thing we need to keep in mind w/ Schit
I highly doubt that this woman is going to win her 2006 primary. So Hackett, if he runs again, will need to run as good or even better a campaign as he has run so far, because I don't think Schit's name will be on the 2006 ballot, unless she goes around saving choking babies and curing cancer after she gets to Congress."
OH-02: Election Results
"In response to Schmidt's victory, Bob Brigham posted on wsingstateprojefct.com at 10:50
http://www.swingstateproject.com/:
"CULTURE
OF
CORRUPTION""
Something's Fishy in Clermont County
Posted by Anna on Out Loud at 10:35 PM
http://annatopia.com/archives/001328.html
"wait a minute. something is fishy, folks. clermont county hasn't sent in a vote total in over an hour. it was going heavily for schmidt at first but then hackett started closing the gap. then the results stopped being reported. the entire clermont website is offline right now with a "service unavailable" message.
also, weird reports coming in from clermont county. reports of schmidt campaign workers supervising ballot counting. the current excuse for the late reporting is that it's "humid" in ohio right now and the ballots are sticking together. WTF?
10:35pm est: current vote totals:
US HOUSE Ohio 2nd Dist
662 precincts of 753 reporting
JEAN SCHMIDT 49,681 50%
PAUL HACKETT 48,811 50%
only clermont precincts are left to count. local ohio news reporting "voting irregularities" in clermont county. they're also reporting that the ballots have to be hand counted.
we are not going to stand for voting fraud AGAIN in ohio. the hackett campaign is engaged. folks, get ready for a fight.
Deepak Chopra & Ohio's 2nd Congressional District, and how the *refresh* button is my friend
Posted by Petyrin at 10:02 PM
http://www.livejournal.com/users/petyrin/9617.html
"Paul Hackett... running in a district who's Base Democratic Turnout is somewhere in the ballpark of 30%, and apparently voted 75% for Bush in '04... well tonight is sort of like a chance to get a little payback... I'm hoping for a win... I'd like to believe the $50.01 I chipped in, did some good... unfortunately it's looking like it'll be a squeaker if it does happen. I don't care how it happens as long as it does happen... I really don't want to jinx this but man... it'd be so nice... have some people wake up and smell the coffee and push DC on notice that all is not well in this kingdom of theirs... so I sit here and I keep hitting the "refresh" button on my browser every ten minutes... waiting for the new tallies to appear. The election board is updating every 10 minutes, but I've had some issues getting into their site so... refresh... refresh... refresh..."
Ohio 2nd Results Thread III
Posted by Jerome Armstrong at 10:18 PM
Turnout is much higher than expected. From listening to those on the ground near the campaign, the thinking was around 50K total would vote. With about half the precincts reporting, it's already surpassed 50K, and we are on our way to over 100K voting in this special election.
Paul Hackett Election Results Coming In
Posted by jclifford at 10:03 PM
Even if Schmidt barely wins over Hackett, it's a victory for Hackett, who was told that a Democrat could never win in southwest Ohio. It's a scary forshadowing for 2006 - if you're a Republican. Even solid Republican congressional districts will be up for grabs in 2006, with Americans finally getting wise to the widespread corruption of the Republican government. It's time for a change, and the time is coming soon when the Republicans will be held accountable for their abuse of public office.
1806
Posted by Mathew Gross at 9:37 PM
That's the number that goes unremarked tonight, as all eyes in the blogosphere turn to the Ohio-2 Special Election, which pits Democratic Marine (and Iraq war veteran) Paul Hackett up against Republican Jean Schmidt.
The current results feel eerily like Election Night 2004, with an early victory evaporating before our eyes. WCPO reports at 9:38:
580 precincts of 753 reporting
JEAN SCHMIDT 45,134 52%
PAUL HACKETT 42,342 48%
But the real number of concern is near the bottom of the page :
Six Marines Based In Ohio, Killed In Iraq
Funny how 52% of the people voting in that election today, who will know doubt eulogize the Marines, chose to vote against one of their kind today.
1806.
Paul Hackett Wins OH-02
Posted by Matt, of Antonio, TX, quoting Greg Wythe on Just Another Blog at 9:35 PM
http://justanothermatt.blogspot.com/2005/08/paul-hackett-wins-oh-2.html
"Paul Hackett is hereby granted "Temporary Texan" status from now and election day in the Ohio 2nd (August 2). I'm pretty sure I have no legal standing whatsoever to convey Texan-ship, but who am I to let that stop me?"
Daily Kos
Posted by Joe Willy on Daily Kos at 9:18
http://www.dailykos.com/comments/2005/8/2/212348/5361/3?mode=alone;showrate=1#3
"As if anybody wants to talk about anything except OH-02. I noticed the rate of new diaries come to a screeching halt as soon as the polls closed. Though I can't blame anyone for having their hopes up with the early returns, I remain cautiously optimistic while also noting that has been my mood in the last two presidential races."
Paul Hackett: Fraud
Posted by Aaron, Lifelike Pundits, at 8:45 PM
"Thank you for your service. I appreciate that you want to help the Iraqis who, if you were president, would have left them to starvation, rape, torture and murder. How noble."
donkey o.d.
Posted by Jenny, donkey o.d., at 8:45 PM
http://donkeyod.blogspot.com/2005/08/veterans-for-hackett-getting-out-vote.html
"That's Master Sergeant Butch Davis, of Brown County in Ohio's 2nd Congressional District. He's been driving since before 7 AM today, getting out the vote among veterans and other voters here in Southern Ohio.
Butch is a 30-year veteran of the Marines, the Army and the Air Force. He didn't know Paul Hackett before this race, but when he saw a Marine running he decided to do something.
There won't be any exit polls in this race today, but I asked Butch what he thought -- he said he called 300 veterans he knows in the district over the last 48 hours. He managed to get in contact with 100 of them. According to Butch, only three of that 100 were voting for Hackett's opponent."
National Politics: Schmidt Proves Ruthless to the End
Posted by the editor of blog.oh02.com at 9:51 AM
http://www.deanofcincinnati.com/
"Well, I've gotten word from my hosting provider that my site http://blog.oh02.com has gotten so much traffic today that it will be moved to another server. That means that I am down until the DNS issues are resolved.
Looks like Schmidt's latest slime against Hackett was the final straw resulting in a net backlash that fried my server.
This has been a great run.
Editor
blog.oh02.com"
New absentee ballots
Posted by numedian on Daily Kos at 8:45 PM
(none / 0 )
"A total of 10,000 more absentee ballots have just been discovered! . . . according to reliable sources (The Onion)."
THATS IT. I DECLARE ELECTION OVER.
Russ Feingold posting on Daily Kos at 8:43 PM
(4.00 / 2 )
I forbid the counting of anymore ballots.
Russ Feingold for President!
I'm Sam Loomis with DKOS!
Response posted by Sam Loomis at 8:45 PM
(4.00 / 6 )
And I am here TO STOP THE COUNT!
--Liberate your radio
OH-02: Election Results
Posted by Bob Brigham on swingstateproject at 8:40 PM
http://www.swinstateproject.com/
"There are about 100 volunteers and a fuckton of press at the Hackett Election Night event. The volunteers are hot and sweaty, but everyone seems really happy -- not anxious. I'm the only one in the room with results, but nobody is rushing up to ask me. People seem really satisfied with putting up a good fight, they know they did a helluva a great job."
A question for some Democrats
Posted by JWM, John in Carolina, at 12:51 PM
"Do Democrats like Hackett and party chairman Howard Dean, who's called Bush "the enemy,"realize they sound an awful lot like some of the people who were attacking President Kennedy just before Dallas?"
Noon Heat in Ohio-02
Posted by Josh Orton at 12:46
Turnout here is key; high turnout favors Paul. And in a special election in the middle of the summer with nothing else on the ballot, turnout is also a challange. Back before both sides dumped a bunch of money into the race, turnout was expected at about 12%..which would have killed Paul. Now, 15% is seen as the baseline...anything above that is good news. 20% would be a gift.
Bush: Ideology Trumps Science
Posted by J.A. Baker, JABbering Stooge, at 7:45
"Hopefully, Paul Hackett will be elected and will serve as a sign that America is mad as hell about this misadministration that has declared war on half the country, and we're not gonna take it anymore. Maybe then we can finally do something about the train wreck this country has become."
A Liberal Marine's Progressive Perspective
Posted by Marineliberal1775 at 2:27 in Southwestern, USA
"Leadership and the lack of it now takes me the hottest race in the country right now, the special election in Ohio's 2nd Congressional District between Marine Major and Democrat Paul Hackett and GOP mouthpiece, rubberstamp and shill Jean Schmidt. Although in the American Southwest, I'm behind Paul Hackett 110%!!! Yes, it's going to be a tough race since this district in question is strong GOP territory and since a Democrat hasn't won in this district since John J. Gilligan... Let's all hope and pray that Paul Hackett will win this day in the OH-2 race and today will be recognized as the day America returned to its liberal heritage and declared before itself and the whole world that we want our leadership back...leadership that knows what it's doing and leadership that has intelligence, good sense and a vision for a better tomorrow for all. Semper Fidelis."
the Veteran versus the Witch
Christopher has labled this race "the Veteran versus the Witch" on ARTICHOKEblog at 1:49 PM
Paul Hackett: Say Anything
Posted by Mary, Angel Dressed in Black at 5:13 PM
"Hackett reminds me of Vietnam vet John Kerry.
He wants to benefit from his status as a veteran while simultaneously recklessly bashing the current war effort and the Commander-in-Chief."
Hackett
Posted by Dr. Tom More at moquo at 1:14 PM
"However this turns out today, Hackett's campaign has given 2006 Democrats an effective blueprint--anti-war, anti-corruption, anti-stupid; pro individual freedom, pro shared responsibility, pro smart, strong defense; and maybe most important, strong netroots support ( the DCCC didn't even know this race was going on until the blogs got excited about it ) . If Hackett comes within five points of Schmidt, it's a proven blueprint. If he wins in the OH-2, it's the Holy Grail."
2nd Congressional District (OH): Odds and Ends from the Recently Discovered Center of the Political Universe
Posted by TBlumer on at 5:51 PM
"I don’t think I’ve ever seen a local election generate so much heat on election day, and it’s not just the 95-plus-degree weather.
All of a sudden the world can’t get enough of Ohio’s Second Congressional District: Rush talked about the race today, apparently at length and has posted the first Hackett video on his site. I didn’t listen (I thought the local guy Bill Cunningham would talk about it on his afternoon program–basically, no for the 20% or so that I caught). I’m waiting for Rush’s roughly 6PM site update to read what he really said, as left blogs are leveling some pretty serious charges.
Cable news guys (I’ve seen the names Ron Brownstein of the LA Times and MSNBC’s Shout-em-Down O’Donnell mentioned) are setting an expectation for Hackett of 45%, saying that much or more is a moral victory and an indication of Bush weakness (in…your…dreams). I think this is what is known as “lowering the bar.” Apparently the traffic has taken down the OH02 blog. I’m rooting for a revival there by 7:30 PM."
Today is Special Election Day in Ohio (OH-2)
Posted by Mark Nickolas on bluegrassreport.org at 11:59 AM
"On Sunday, I posted how national Republicans have threatened to "bury" Hackett for his criticism of President Bush's handling of the war Hackett just fought and returned from. A Hackett victory would be astounding in a district where Bush beat Kerry by 50 points, but Democrats have been organized and energized, and Hackett has been well funded."
What to look for tonight
"What to look for tonight" by Christ Bowers at 2:37 p.m.
From: http://www.mydd.com
"Even if he [Hackett] loses, which remains the most likely outcome, the Hackett campaign has turned a corner of Ohio a little more purple, which in turn turns the state and the nation a little more blue. We have drained money from Republicans nationally, spread our message to one of the reddest parts of the country, and identified numerous activists to help keep up the fight in the future. That is a huge success. That is called building a party from the ground up. That is a fifty-state strategy . That is ending the scourge of the uncontested . Stuart Rothenberg may think I am clueless for supporting and encouraging stuff like this , and if he were the one talking to the grassroots about political strategy instead of bloggers, maybe the Paul Hackett phenomenon would never have happened. That, I think, would be a tragedy. If someone can't see the importance and the already achieved success of the Paul Hackett campaign, then they are the truly clueless.
Of course, if Hackett actually wins, then the flood-gates are open. Every Ohio Republican would be vulnerable. The long-awaited reversal of 1994 might finally be upon us. "
Comment on "Balloon Juice"
Comment on "Balloon Juice" at 5:19 by demimondian
"I’ll eat one of my (smallest) hats if Hackett wins, or even comes within five points of winning. If Schmidt doesn’t take it by at least 15 points, though, look for the Rethugs to do some serious soul-searching. OH-2 should be an absolute cakewalk, even for damaged goods like Schmidt, and if it isn’t…"
More Canvassing and lots of dogs
From: http://crazycatwoman.blogspot.com/2005/07/more-canvassing-and-lots-of-dogs.html
Posted July 31 by Destined to be the "crazy cat woman"
"After dinner and another round of diaper changing, we set out on foot to canvass the houses in our immediate neighborhood. Baby H, the unofficial president of the "Babies for Hackett" group was a smashing hit in her Hackett for Congress hat that we made. (She later tore up and ate the sticker, so I do not have a picture)"
Candidate Called Bush an SOB
From: http://politakid.blogspot.com/2005/08/candidate-called-bush-sob.html
Posted at 1:17 PM by 17-year-old from Delaware
"I admire Hackett for his service to our country and for having courage to speak his mind. That said, he chose the wrong way to voice his opinion. If he thinks our policy on Iraq needs to be changed, he should find a civil way to express that view.
The hateful rhetoric that this guy spews is worse than that of Ted Kennedy. No one who calls the President an SOB and compares him to a terrorist should hold any office in this country.
So, if you live in Ohio, get out there and vote today for Republican Jean Schmidt , who has several years experience in politics."
www.red-state.com
From: www.red-state.com
Aug. 1 2005
"I have made a detailed analysis of the likely voting patterns for the district. In this analysis, I assume a turnout tomorrow of only 60,000 voters, roughly the same turnout as at the primary election (little more than 15% of registered voters)...While I was a little surprised at the extent of the national media coverage of the race (including stories in USA Today and The New York Times ), the underlying profile of the district and the dynamics of the race have not changed significantly since June. It will be extremely difficult for Hackett to defeat Schmidt. Schmidt's negatives are not all that high to prevent the overwhelmingly GOP-leaning district from sending her to Congress.
I have made a detailed analysis of the likely voting patterns for the district. In this analysis, I assume a turnout tomorrow of only 60,000 voters, roughly the same turnout as at the primary election (little more than 15% of registered voters)... The results? Schmidt wins by 9,000 votes, picking up 57% of the total vote against Hackett's 43%. Is it possible for Hackett to win? Of course, anything is possible."
Paul Hackett Day
From: http://phlipsrants.blogspot.com/2005/08/paul-hackett-day.html
11:41 AM
"Today is the day. OH-02 Democrats, get out and vote. The Hackett campaign is reporting that they have around 800 volunteers in the district. That's simply amazing for a house race. For more on what's going today check out Tracy Joan's diary on KOS"
OH-2: Cook Political Analysis
From: Daily Kos (www.dailykos.com)
7:57:26 PDT
http://randymi.dailykos.com/story/2005/8/2/104648/2260
"Bottom line: Schmidt, the Republican, is still favored to win the election, but don't rule out the possibility of an upset, given the vagaries of August special election voter turnout and the problems unique to Ohio this year. But even assuming a GOP win tonight, the margin of victory can give us some insight into just how radioactive the governor's troubles and the "time for a change" sentiment in the state will be for other Republicans in the Buckeye State next
year. If Schmidt's victory margin is in double digits, this tells us that there is not much of an anti-GOP wind in Ohio right now. If the margin is say six to nine points for Schmidt, then there is a wind, but certainly no hurricane. A Schmidt win of less than five points should be a very serious warning sign for Ohio Republicans that something is very, very wrong, while a Hackett victorywould be a devastating blow to the Ohio GOP."
Can Hackett Hack It?
From: Wonkette (http://www.wonkette.com)
5:10 p.m.
"Ohio? Anyone? What kind of bell-weather election can it be if no one's leaking exit polls? We've been following some of the Right's coverage of the race between Paul Hackett (handsome Iraq War vet Democrat) versus Jean Schmidt (sort of scary marathon-running lady Republican). Rush Limbaugh in particular has said that Dems pinning their hopes on this race just shows they don't learn from their mistakes: You know, like from the last time they ran a veteran critical of the unpopular war he was in. So, really, the best part about Hackett winning in Ohio would be proving it really was John Kerry's fault that John Kerry lost."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Copyright 2005, The Enquirer
http://news.enquirer.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20050803/NEWS01/308020016
Murray Waas has been tracking the Plame case doggedly, but he seems to specialize in leaks out of the Fitzgerald office. However, if this report proves credible, obviously we are at the top of the White House food chain.
The Meeting
Scooter Libby and Judy Miller met on July 8, 2003, two days after Joe Wilson published his column. And Patrick Fitzgerald is very interested.
By Murray Waas
Web Exclusive: 08.06.05
I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has told federal investigators that he met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Libby's account.
The meeting between Libby and Miller has been a central focus of the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald as to whether any Bush administration official broke the law by unmasking Plame's identity or relied on classified information to discredit former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, according to sources close to the case as well as documents filed in federal court by Fitzgerald.
The meeting took place in Washington, D.C., six days before columnist Robert Novak wrote his now-infamous column unmasking Plame as a "CIA operative." Although little noticed at the time, Novak's column would cause the appointment of a special prosecutor, ultimately place in potential legal jeopardy senior advisers to the president of the United States, and lead to the jailing of a New York Times reporter.
The meeting between Libby and Miller also occurred during a week of intense activity by Libby and White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove aimed at discrediting Plame's husband, Wilson, who on July 6, 2003, had gone public in a New York Times opinion piece with allegations that the Bush administration was misrepresenting intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq.
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10077
Post a Comment