Jeff Gannon-fake journalist- back in the news

Jeff Gannon-fake journalist-back in the news

At Salon, Tim Grieve has some very interesting comments about Jeff Gannon, at whom I have long pointed a questioning finger. As I've stated before, Gannon [aka Guckert] came into the picture at a curious time - just when a trashing of Joseph Wilson was "required" by the scum within the White House who were scrambling to cover political lies. Bob "Douchebag" Novak (nickname credit goes to Jon Stewart) has pulled false information out of an old Jeff Gannon article and is boldly using it as part of his ongoing and pathetic excuse-factory. Who does he think he's going to convince? I happen to think this has all been part of the M.O. of the "trash-Joe Wilson" group - to use Gannon's shite-bag "journalism" to lend credibility to the scummy lies of those who have been willing agents of the destruction of Joseph Wilson's reputation. And what a tangled web they've weaved. Patrick Fitzgerald certainly has his work cut out for him - but I happen to believe he sees through the tangled web, just as so many of us have. Point by point, bloggers are working together to dismantle the lies that have come off the "trash-Joe Wilson" conspirators' production line. If we can do it, I'm sure Fitzgerald and his team can do it. Recycling trash is what good conservationists do. Bob Novak is a committed recycler of Gannon trash. It’s clear that Bob Novak happens to want to conserve Gannon’s lies - along with his own tail.

As Bernard Weiner has recently written, in a satirical piece where he is the voice behind Karl Rove's diary:

"...we definitely don't want Fitz probing into Jeff-Gannon, how and why he was given key interviews and scoops, his Plame-story connection, and who supplied him overnight passes into the White House. Any one of those, especially the passes, could be more than just embarrassing; if provable allegations along those lines were thrown into this scandal soup, we'd really be done for, as the religious types would abandon us in droves."

See Peter Daou's report.

CSPAN showcases John Edwards this weekend

CSPAN showcases John Edwards this weekend

This Sunday, the CSPAN network will showcase former Sen. John Edwards, North Carolina Democrat, on his recent sojourn to New Hampshire to attend a birthday party for Democratic state Sen. Lou D'Allesandro - and two pig roasts. It's part of CSPAN's "Road to the White House" program. [WT]

Steven Vincent Had Hope

Steven Vincent Had Hope
..in his memory, we can speak to power - the promise has not been honestly fulfilled.

People in the blogosphere are making what they wish of a journalist's death - injecting their opinions into the reason that Steven Vincent was cut down in cold blood. Bottom line, there is no reason. He was an American - it was all the thugs needed to know. Some murderous fuck took a beautiful soul out of this world, and we know that sort of task is God's job - and God's job alone. Steven would probably have never have listened to someone like me, who would have cautioned him about his hawkish idealism. He didn't care much for anyone who wasn't "all for the cause" - a look at his In The Red Zone blog and his blogroll shows that he had put his interest and trust in the right side of the blogosphere. Many who are searching for reasons for his senseless murder are neglecting to mention that Basra is less secure than it has ever been. Steven was obviously a gentleman of conviction - brave, bold, and he probably always knew this was a possibility. In life, I know I would have genuinely liked him. I 'm so sorry for what happened to him. My heart goes out to his wife - his family. I cannot imagine that Steven would have been satisfied with the fact that there are plans for U.S. troops to pull out - with no clear "victory". God knows what's going to happen to the people we leave behind in Iraq. What have we done? What have we done? Will Steven's dream ever be realized? All we've seen is an unnecessary political war - accompanied by an endless string of lies and dirty political tricks played upon American citizens by their government. Steven's name is added to a list of at least 1800 other Americans who have died for a cause with which we strive to categorize as death for some higher purpose - but that higher purpose is not at all clear.

Update: See Timothy Phelps' Newsday column about Steven Vincent.

BTC News has a rather sinister suspicion about the death of Steven Vincent. A theory about wrong place/wrong time/ wrong target/wrong people to have pissed off.

Bill O'Goebbels

Read what the jerky Bill O'Goebbels is saying now...or watch.

The Fitzgerald Focus

The Fitzgerald Focus

One particular sentence which David Johnston has written for the NYT shouldn't surprise me, yet it seems rather news-y. I was under the impression that all we officially knew was that Patrick Fitzgerald was focusing on the outing of Valerie Plame and who may have been responsible. Johnston writes:

Mr. Fitzgerald has focused on whether in the identification of the officer, Valerie Wilson, there was a deliberate effort to retaliate against her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his criticism of the Bush administration's policy on Iraq.

Is the focus is on the conspiracy to do political damage to Mr. Wilson? If so, what will be the legal charges brought about with any potential indictments? This is getting more interesting - and intriguing - by the day.

Jean Schmidt insults Vets;Exaggerates About Humble Beginnings

Jean Schmidt insults Vets;
Exaggerates About Humble Beginnings

Exaggerating about your humble beginnings can be politically dangerous when a GOP candidate does it and an American Street writer happens to have grown up with the truth-stretcher. Check out Barbara O'Brien's down-home tale about Ohio candidate Jean Schmidt, who says she doesn't think that American vets from the Iraq war are qualified to serve in public office! (Hear THAT one, vets?)

Schmidt's opponent, Iraq war vet Paul Hackett, is still accepting donations here.

A note about the results of the Ohio special election: It had been 15 years since a Democratic candidate for Congress received more than 30 percent of the vote in Ohio's 2nd District and decades since a Democrat held the seat. Paul Hackett received 48% of the vote. That speaks volumes about Schmidt's ignorant comment about vets. A hell of a lot of District 2 voters disagreed with Schmidt's view that being an American vet from the Iraq war is the "wrong kind of experience" for a member of Congress. 14 Marines (from Ohio, they're saying) were KILLED today - I wonder what Jean Schmidt and other Republicans would have said about them if they'd come home in one piece and run for office as Democrats?

I'm sick of Republicans pretending they are in awe of vets - putting yellow-ribbon magnets on their ATV bumpers - then, like Jeckyl v Hyde, donning Purple Heart stickers on their cheeks to mock veterans who don't happen to belong to the Republican party. And saying the vets have no place in Congress. What a bunch of pukes.

The only cover "Who's Who" displays is its own cover

The only cover "Who's Who" displays is its own cover

Novak blew Valerie's Plame's cover with his column. Someone (with a human voice) told him about her and her status with the CIA. He now claims he found her name in the book of "Who's Who" - and he may have, but the point is oh-so-moot.

"Who's Who" didn't blow Valerie's cover. It merely supplied a name. "Who's Who" is not a political thug or a traitor to the U.S. The only cover exposed by "Who's Who" is its own book cover.

Douchebag Novak blew Valerie Plame's cover (wherever he got the info from - we still don't know), and "Who's Who" cannot possibly be responsible for the felony or the treason that comes with the territory.

I know this sounds harsh, but I think you have to be, sometimes. I think you'd have to be a complete jackass to accept Novak's latest excuse-making as anything close to truth or honesty. I'll never again believe a fake word that comes out of his fake teeth.

Bottom line, we don't give a shite why Novak identified her as "Valerie Plame" in exposing her link to the C.I.A. in July 2003 when she had also been known in her personal life by her married name, Valerie Wilson.

What we are concerned about was that the snake-like Novak BLEW HER COVER.

Related:
Josh Marshall
Rodger Payne
Baltimore Sun
Larry Johnson - Lame Bob Novak

Iran - Ten Years Away

Iran - Ten Years Away
What will we do with those ten years?

Today's WaPo tells us that Iran has been judged to be at least ten years from having a nuclear bomb [NIE estimate - the first major review since 2001 of what is known and what is unknown about Iran].

The question remains - should the U.S. be openly promoting the idea of democracy in Iran? I think we should... with honor, good faith, and the utmost respect for human rights and the rule of law...not by gunning for their present regime.

Neocon Michael Ledeen is going to be marginalizing this new NIE information - and the people who supplied it to us. I guarantee it. Ledeen is so hot for Iran's regime that he's been glowing brighter than a freshly-nuked bomb-victim in his animated determination to overthrow them.

You may say, "Jude, why are you worried? No one is talking about going to pre-emptive war with Iran." That is simply not true. People ARE talking about it - quite openly. Here's a quote from Ledeen himself - and remember this - he's still a valued member of the PNAC crowd that our own VP supports wholeheartedly:

"First and foremost, we must bring down the terror regimes, beginning with the Big Three: Iran, Iraq, and Syria. And then we have to come to grips with Saudi Arabia. … Once the tyrants in Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Saudi Arabia have been brought down, we will remain engaged. …We have to ensure the fulfillment of the democratic revolution. … Stability is an unworthy American mission, and a misleading concept to boot. We do not want stability in Iran, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, and even Saudi Arabia; we want things to change. The real issue is not whether, but how to destabilize."

It's the NeoCon creed. You can look at up on Google if you don't believe it's true.

This new NIE report is going to send Ledeen and the neocons reeling. It drowns their false droning on and on about the immediacy and urgency of the Iranian situation and tacks on five more years with which America can do something productive, positive, and creative to win Iranian hearts and minds.

NeoCons showed us how NOT to support human rights and democracy in Iraq. They provided President Bush with the perfect blueprint (a blueprint he had willingly accepted as "righteous") for what NEVER to do again! Yet, Bush has never been one to accept reality. Instead, Bush chooses to create his own reality, and his re-election in 2004 set a stage for dangerous political dynamics that our kids will be contending over the course of the next ten years - as Iran comes closer to having a nuclear bomb. The neocons have not changed their tune, and the Bush administration has clearly shown that they would have rather destroyed a good American man who told us the truth about Niger (and destroyed his family/out a CIA agent) than to recognize the mistaken avenue down which the neocons have taken us.

Listen to the reasoning of Nobel Peace Prize winner Shirin Ebadi of Iran (quoted below-see LINK). It's time for Americans to rely on our own sense and use our own freedom to speak out now...before we enter into another damned disaster.

"Iranian Nobel Peace Prize laureate Shirin Ebadi has said that while she, too, opposes nuclear weapons, the West would do more good by focusing not on Tehran's nuclear programme but on promoting democracy in the Islamic Republic.

"In a country or a society where people supervise decisions and everything else, like a democratic country, the existence of an atomic bomb cannot be dangerous," Ms Ebadi said."

Bolton booed

Bolton booed

Recess-appointed John Bolton's been booed - it happened on Monday afternoon - - in New York - on the sidewalk outside the United States Mission. I'm sure it won't be the last time.

It's very likely that the President has picked tastier selections from his nose than the well-documented bastard he picked for UN ambassador.

Judith Miller in the Spotlight

Judith Miller in the Spotlight

We think of jailed journalist Judy Miller - and many of her fellow journalists who are currently rallying around her solely because of the fact that she's in jail and not taking into consideration her unusual [incriminating?] entanglement in this case. James Moore isn't particularly sympathetic to Judy's plight - and he tells it like it he sees it.

Word from some sources is that Judy was about to be canned and this jail-time may have the hidden bonus value of salvaging her job with the Times.

Richard Cohen doesn't necessarily agree with those who would "politically indict" Miller with their "denunciation" of her. After all, in his words:

"The Constitution applies even to Nazis."

(And that should make us want to make it our priority to stand up and rally 'round Judy Miller's defense?)

Mr. Cohen asks us to try to separate politics from principle in Millers case. Politics and principle were incestuous when it came to Judith Miller's WMD reporting, and the offspring that has been produced is an ugly little liar-baby. Richard Cohen says that Miller wasn't the only gullible journalist, and while that may be true, Judith Miller's activities stuck out like a (colossal) sore thumb. I suspect, as many do, that Judy crossed the line from "gullible" to "all-too-willing"...and I think it was an example of a character flaw, at best.

Miller may have been all too willing to involve herself in the White House plot against Joe Wilson - but WHY - WHY- WHY? What did it have to do with good or ethical journalism?

Update: There are some VERY public doubts arising about Judith Miller's conscience (and ethics) regarding this prison sentence and the investigation from which it has sprung.

BlogHercon Gets Rolling

BlogHercon Gets Rolling

I am sorry that I cannot be with the ladies at BlogHercon this weekend. I am especially thinking of them and I hope they have a productive and memorable time. It looks like great fun so far. [Beth's Blog].

If women hold up half the sky, why are they not heard? [asks Katherine at PingV.com]

The BlogHercon site is here.

A special shout out to Jay Rosen, who so kindly mentioned my inability to be there. A family commitment has put me on the opposite coast. I am with all of you in spirit. Have a blast!

- Jude

US Military Evicted from Uzbekistan Airbase

US Military Evicted from Uzbekistan Airbase

Indepundit is reporting that the U.S. Military has been evicted from an airbase in the ex-Soviet state of Uzbekistan. Joe Gandelman has a report as well. The airbase was important to the support of our operations in Afghanistan. [see Reuters] The government in Uzbekistan is said to be one of the most authoritarian in the Islamic world. The Bush adminstration gave Uzbekistan $500 million to secure basing rights in the country -- and much of that money was siphoned into the private accounts of President Karimov and his allies. Senior officials in the Bush administration are saying that if they'd turned a blind eye to the Uzbek refugee/human rights problems, the Military could have managed to stay.

When was the last time you heard about the Bush administration accepting the loss of a fairly critical Military base while we were at war - based on the crappy human rights record of the nation in which they are based? [see Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, et al - - all with abominable human rights records]. We Americans know the Bush administration better than that. Bush has a BIG bully pulpit - and he knows how to use it. Oil and gas interests and access to strategic military facilities in Central Asia have been primary motivators for the Bush Administration. How can the Bush administration expect us to believe they're just as glad to lose this important military base? Is this proof that we're losing ground for the spread of democracy in Central Asia? The Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Richard Myers has said:

"Central Asia is important to the United States for lots of reasons, not just for operations in Afghanistan... Security and stability in Central Asia is an important concept, and those that can bring security and stability ought to be welcomed in Central Asia. Uzbekistan is a very important country over there."

What will we do about the Uzbekistan problem now? Karimov is the kind of leader that Saddam Hussein was a couple of decades ago. Do you see a failure of a pattern emerging? Sanctions that will result in the sure starvation of the babies and the elderly? Ignoring the UN and any meaningful role they might play? I wouldn't put it past neocon Michael Ledeen to suggest that we should attack Uzbekistan in order to "deliver" democracy. That's the neocon M.O., isn't it?

Bolton Makes Quite a "Mistake"

Bolton Makes Quite a "Mistake"

John Bolton, President Bush's nominee for U.N. ambassador, "mistakenly" told our Congress that he had not been interviewed or testified in any investigation over the past five years, the State Department has said. According to reports from MSNBC, John Bolton has testified to the grand jury investigating the outing of CIA operative Valerie Plame

Some might call that omission a lie.

As usual, the Bush administration, who "leaves no pal behind," does not care about the lie omission.

Character counts, unless you are a friend of Dubya Bush.


Update - 7/30 - TPM Cafe has a copy of a letter which Senate Dems have sent to the President about the Bolton fib.

Tony Blair Says Nothing We Didn't Already Know

Tony Blair Says Nothing We Didn't Already Know

I thought that Tony Blair may have forgotten what "symbolism" meant when I read that he'd said:

"If it is concern for Iraq then why are they driving a car bomb into the middle of a group of children and killing them?"

But then I read his next line:

I am not saying any of these things don't affect their warped reasoning and warped logic

..and I thought, to myself, that this was nothing we didn't already know.

It certainly means that Mr. Blair recognizes that Iraq is a part of the warped reason that terrorists are striking innocent people in his nation.

When Mr. Blair says much of the world had dropped its guard to the threat of terrorism after the "wake-up call" of the 9/11 attacks of 2001, he may be right in some ways. Over 3000 people dead in one attack in America is certainly a candidate for a new Western-based consciousness (*the people of the Middle East and Europe have gone through these troubles with terrorism for years).

New York City's wake-up call came years before, however, when the World Trade Center was bombed in 1993. To many jaded New Yorkers, 9/11 was expected (although no one expected the towers to fall - which is still a much-talked about mystery).

If world leaders used the "wake-up" call of 9/11 to unecessarily remove precious liberties from freedom-loving people, then it can safely be said that those freedom-loving people got a "wake-up" call after 9/11 as well. The alarm screamed "Hold fast to your freedoms lest they be stolen away by radical rightwing interests in the name of fear and terror!"

We, the people, must all be careful in this new age. If life is no good without freedom, then terrorists win by killing our spirits with the willing aide of leaders who employ fear. The terrorist wields fear and the leaders employ fear. The only person with secure and robust employment these days is 'old Mr. Fear.'

Do not read this as a voice against good government. Above all, do not consider this to be a support of any kind of violence against our fellow man. Take your politics out of it and hear the voice of freedom telling you to be cautious of that which you choose to rally around.

Mr. Blair's complicitous involvement in the Iraq war planning, which we learned about in the leaked Downing Street memos, has sent up a caution sign about anything he may say to defend his leadership on Iraq and the terror that has followed in London.

I'd like to put these misspent and sorrowful days in Iraq behind us and move on, with governments we can trust and who are willing to work with each other to end poverty, genocide, unjust wars, and disease. We need to end the bitter division between right and left. "Iraq" is not a fitting reason for killing innocent people in London, just as sure as "imminent threat" was not a fitting reason for the damage we've caused to the nation and the people of Iraq.

I think, with the greatest sorrow, of mothers and fathers who have lost sons and daughters in Iraq. If I could tell them anything, I would tell them that their children were honorable soldiers who were loyal to the ideals of their nation. Even as I talk about the ones who, in shadows, found a way to convince their nations to go to a war that was not necessary, I will never diminish or demean the lives of the men and women who, like so many Americans, trusted in the good faith of their leaders.

Now they are looking for a way to pull out of the awful mess they led us into. I am very angry - and I can imagine that those families must feel the confusion and anger far deeper than I do.

Only ONE set of Niger documents from ONE source

Only ONE set of Niger documents -
from ONE source

The Left Coaster has posted some observations which raise a 'whole slew of additional questions about who knew what and when.' These questions were unfortunately neither raised nor answered within the whitewash Senate Report. Go to THIS LINK to find a detailed analysis of the Senate Report on the topic of the forged Niger documents and evidence that there was only ONE set of forged Niger documents relating to the “uranium from Africa” claim – and no other sources.

Excerpt:
A. The Senate (SSCI) Report inadvertently offers the evidence one needs to prove that there was only one set of Niger uranium documents, that those documents were forged, that those documents were the basis of the original reports that sent Wilson to Niger (only he didn't know it for sure although I think he made a good guess at one time that they probably were), even though they publicly surfaced several months after the Wilson trip.

B. One of the sources of the first set of reports (late 2001/early 2002) on the alleged Iraq-Niger deal must have been aware that the documents were forged and the evidence suggests strongly that he or she made some effort to mask this fact, until the documents surfaced.

C. The Senate (SSCI) Report, using ambiguous wording regarding the source of the first three intelligence reports received by the CIA (two of which were the basis of Wilson's Niger trip and the third having appeared shortly after Wilson's trip), failed to make it clear that those reports were obviously based on extracts from the forged documents.

D. Based on the finding that the original set of Niger reports were based entirely on extracts from the forged documents, serious discrepancies are evident in the CIA's/Bush administration's claims about how and when they first became aware that the Niger documents were forged and on how they decided that the Niger intelligence was not credible. This raises serious questions about the extent of the Bush administration's manipulation of the truth about the "uranium from Africa" claim, their knowledge of the forged Niger documents, and their motives for attacking Joseph Wilson and exposing Valerie Plame's covert CIA identity.

* even though former Ambassador Joseph Wilson did not know it at the time he was sent to Niger, the alleged claims of an Iraq-Niger uranium deal that led to Wilson's trip to Niger in early 2002, were in fact based on extracts of information passed on to the CIA from the very same forged documents that surfaced publicly later in 2002.

Bolton Recess Appointment?

Bolton Recess Appointment?

It's been speculated that John Bolton is one of jailed New York Times reporter Judith Miller's major sources for WMD and national security issues. Bolton has testified on the Plame case [on what terms, we are not clear] and he may be a key figure in the plot to out CIA agent Valerie Plame [see Justin Raimondo's column]. Bolton's office had promulgated the Niger/Uranium 'story' inside the State Department, put him close to "the activities." Two of Bolton's assistants, David Wurmser and John Hannah, worked in Dick Cheney's office, and there is a likely possibility of a Bolton to Wurmser and Hannah, to Cheney (and/or Libby) to Rove connection on this cover-up. If Bolton is recess-appointed to the UN by Bush, will that give him some form of diplomatic immunity on the legal matter surrounding Plame's outing and internal administration matters? I'm not an attorney, but I would be curious to learn the answer.

Plamegate: The Point Where Tenet Got Off the Liars' Boat

Plamegate: The Point Where Tenet Got Off the Liars' Boat

Josh Marshall points to what he calls a very important piece on Plamegate by Walter Pincus (with Jim VandeHei) in today's Washington Post. I'm glad they wrote it - and I'm glad Josh is pointing out the most important point. As I blogged about in these past few weeks, this investigation surrounds the cover-up as well as the outing itself. More importantly, George Tenet has, in a key way, separated himself from those who wished the 16 words had never been made an issue (and would stoop to the lowest political depths to protect themselves). [See my coverage from July 12, 2005].

By July 10, 2003, Rove, Libby, and WHIG knew they would have to take drastic measures to cover the major hole that Joseph Wilson had popped in the side of their "Liars' Boat".

Perhaps, by his resignation, which many of us saw as Tenet being used as a scapegoat, Tenet was actually jumping off a sinking ship.

Hear a Talking Douchebag for Just Under $600!

Hear a Talking Douchebag
for Just Under $600!

Thoreau Quote

"Our truest life is when we are in our dreams awake."
- Henry David Thoreau

Suspicions & Reservations About Sen Pat Roberts

Roberts has delivered Karate chop after Karate chop to the light of day on White House intelligence manipulation. Soon we'll witness his Charlie kick to the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation.

Suspicions & Reservations About Sen Pat Roberts

I lost faith and trust in Sen Pat Roberts' ability to lead fair Senate Intelligence Committee investigations long ago. At first, I thought it was just typical partisanship that caused him to act as he has acted. We are involved in a war on "terror" - a seemingly endless and delicate war. These times are dangerous and call for our Senate to work together to do what's best to protect America. There is something suspicious about Roberts' willingness to throw national security over for not only partisan gain, but suspect covering up of a White House leak.

Roberts has participated in helping the White House to cover its ass in the past. I have blogged, in the past, about my suspicion that he (or other GOP Senate Intelligence Committee members) leaked information to the fake journalist Jeff Gannon (aka Jeff Guckert) who mysteriously came along at a time when Joe Wilson was being systematically torn down and Democratic computer files were being violated and pilfered for the Senate Intelligence Committee's benefit. It's all too questionable for me to say nothing. See this from a Washington Post article, from back in Nov, 2003:

"Angry about a leaked Democratic memo, the Republican leadership of the Senate yesterday took the unusual step of canceling all business of the committee investigating prewar intelligence on Iraq. Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) called on the author of the memo -- which laid out a possible Democratic strategy to extend the investigation to include the White House and executive branch -- to 'identify himself or herself . . . disavow this partisan attack in its entirety' and deliver 'a personal apology' to Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Select Committee on Intelligence. Only if those steps are taken, Frist said, "will it be possible for the committee to resume its work in an effective and bipartisan manner -- a manner deserving of the confidence of other members of the Senate and the executive branch."

Roberts followed Frist on the floor and said that unless the Democratic members "properly" address the issue, "I am afraid that it will be impossible to return to 'business as usual' in the committee."

After discussions with Roberts, the majority leader said that "the committee's review is nearly complete" and "we have jointly determined the committee can and will complete its review this year."

"They can't do that," Rockefeller said, noting that hundreds of pages of requested documents have recently been promised by the State Department and Pentagon and more interviews have been scheduled.

In addition, he noted that the final report from David Kay, who heads the CIA's search for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, has not been completed. "What can we say about prewar intelligence without Kay's report?" Rockefeller asked."

See my corresponding post from 2003, about Bill Frist and Pat Roberts working together to cover up the White House lies.

I smell one big rotten rat, I've smelled it for a long time, and I am sorry - I do not trust Sen Pat Roberts. Look at what he's doing now to cover the White House CIA leak [see Josh Marshall's commentary - also being discussed at TPM Cafe].

I think Pat Roberts should be investigated by a Senate Ethics Committee. In my opinion, his past actions have caused me to believe he's not trustworthy to head this type of Committee at this delicate time in our democracy's history. How can we protect America when our Representatives, who deal with oversight of Intelligence, are participating in blatant and dangerous partisan cover-up games? We were screwed once by the Bush administration's many manipulators of Intelligence (see "Iraq War}. We must not allow these games to be able to continue. Sen Pat Roberts is a symptom of our weakness, poor protection, and divisiveness - not the cure. I'd love to see his keister kicked off the Committee altogether. He has proven, to me, that he doesn't belong in that position.

___

This cover-up has been so blatant - and so obvious [linked: my post of Nov 2003]. Why hasn't the press picked up on this long ago?

See my July 9, 2004 post about Roberts' willingness to let the most important part of the investigation - which was the manipulation of the intelligence by the White House - SLIDE.

Related Daily Kos posting - "GOP to investigate Fitzgerald" (*Investigating the investigation? PLEASE!)

See Larry C. Johnson's statement on Roberts. [at "No Quarter"]

The Daily Howler is doing a lot of apologizing for Roberts (along with a good share of Josh Marshall-bashing). A curious exercise - with Somerby accusing those who point out the obvious fact that Sen Roberts is a partisan tribalist as being ......partisan tribalists (wow - I could've had a V8). Marshall, a journalist, has nowhere near Robert's power as head of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Somerby seems to have been struck down with the curse of evenhandedness, which will not get him far when it comes to speaking to power and getting anyplace close to the truth.

At Interesting Times, Chris Andersen wonders if Roberts is trying to use the subpoena power of his committee to determine what is going on within the Fitzgerald investigation.

"Might he pull an Ollie North and use congressional immunity to get damaging testimony about Plamegate out into the open so that that testimony cannot then be used by Fitzgerald in his investigation?"

The Show Goes On

The Show Goes On

The Cat's Dream has a post about the mistake in London that left a perfectly innocent fellow dead. Related - London Blasts: Don't Let Them Win by Gabriele Zamparini.

Tom Friedman is Dead Wrong About His "Excuse Makers"

Tom Friedman is Dead Wrong About His "Excuse Makers"

Tom Friedman said:

When you live in an open society like London, where anyone with a grievance can publish an article, run for office or start a political movement, the notion that blowing up a busload of innocent civilians in response to Iraq is somehow “understandable” is outrageous.

That's true on its face, but then you must consider that that people who decide that life is less worth living than having the ability to make a political and/or religious point may be acting out some form of frustration with "power" in their society - and how they perceive that power. People don't make a decision to commit suicide lightly. I know - I am a suicide counselor myself. People don't act in a vacuum!

I am deeply disturbed, as much as the next person, that terrorist tactics are being culturalized. We are NOT going to put a stop to it by pointing our fingers at one another in a free society and calling one another despicable for what we see as symptoms of sickness in the culture that breeds terror. Are imperialism, colonialism, and Zionism symptoms of cultural sickness? Of course they are! Has the Iraq war caused an increase in recruitment of terrorism? Of course it has!

Tom Friedman started his latest column with such a great idea. He recommended that hate speech should be pointed out whenever it is seen.

Hey, Tom Friedman! I just saw some hate speech - and it's right there in your column. It says:

"...excuse makers are just one notch less despicable than the terrorists."

To Tom Friedman, people are "despicable" when they tie possible reasons for terrorist behavior with things that have actually occurred in history. (As if it's a murderous act, in and of itself - shame on Tom Friedman!)

"...imperialism, Zionism, colonialism or Iraq.."

These are not excuses - they are discussion about why and how these murderers come to make such heinous decisions. Tom Freidman acts as if THINKING and DISCUSSING is "despicable" in a free and open society. Think about that! Friedman is telling you to shut up and fall in line.

I would classify that as hate speech. Tom Friedman should stick to writing about business, because he's very good at it. His "flat world" concept is brilliant, in my opinion.

He becomes an insulting boor (and bore) when he sticks his nose into politics. I'm sick and tired of Mr. Friedman libeling people who only wish to comment on the reality of the society in which we live. He was dead-wrong about the Iraq war - and he's dead-wrong now in denying that the culture of the "flat world" and that the history that has led up to it has bred terrorism among us.

And it was such a good article at its start....Friedman ruined it with his "good dog/bad dog" vibe. When he lectures to us about how "words matter", he'd better look in a mirror.

Plamegate Updates

Plamegate Updates

Raw Story has ledes from WaPo and LA Times, both indicating that no decision has been made by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, but perjury/obstruction of justice charges may be under consideration for Rove and Libby.

Steve Clemons at The Washington Note says he has just learned from a highly placed source -- and in the right place to know -- that John Bolton was a regular source for Judith Miller's New York Times WMD and national security reports. Hmmm...

It seems as if those secret pages in the Court's hands are probably part of an after-the-leak CIA "damage assessment". This is probably how the Justices determined the extent of damage to national security and whether or not to place journalists Cooper and Miller in prison for their refusal to cooperate.

Ideas floating in the blogosphere

1. Maybe Mossad fabricated information and used a number of sources including Chalabi to disseminate the information. Suspected spies Michael Maloof and Larry Franklin working for Bill Luti and suspected spy Douglas J. Feith would then "stovepipe" the information to the White House. The same information would be disseminated by Miller on the pages of the New York Times to make the disinformation look real. When you have Defense Department intelligence corroborated by the New York Times it looks very convincing especially when our ally Israel was confirming the stories. Susan

2. Miller saw Wilson's op-ed as very threatening to herself...and who knows how she may have involved herself? Jonah

3. The Last Throes of Credibility

Kos Has a Message for DLC

Kos Has a Message for DLC

Kos has a message for Sens Evan Bayh and Hillary Clinton, and Gov. Tom Vilsack:

"Keep chasing the "vital center", and you'll prevent the Democratic Party from standing for core principles."

I couldn't agree more. See David Sirota's comments.

Jeff Gannon, INR Memo, Republicans on Sen. Intelligence Committee - TIED?

Jeff Gannon, INR Memo, Republicans on Sen. Intelligence Committee - TIED?

I keep repeating myself, but I have to say, once again, that Jeff Gannon (aka James Guckert) came into focus at a most interesting time - right around the time of the Rove/Libby/Hadley cooperative effort to "CYA" on the 16 words and the Niger story.

See my old posting once again.

I repeat two pertinent questions I had asked last February:

How did Gannon get this information from the INR report?
Why did no other reporter have access to it?

I will also repeat:

I would hate to even suspect that any of the fine Senators on the Intelligence Committee (listed at bottom of original post) would have cooperated in any activity, intentional or unintentional, which involved slipping internal information to Jeff Gannon/JD Guckert for the purpose of partisan gain.

Sometimes people get carried away, and although I would hope it would not be true, I just don't know these days. We know now that we can't trust the White House - but what about the partisans in the House and Senate? We know there are plenty. How can we avoid suspicion that they may havce been ill-used by the White House, at best?

McCain Choosing Party Over Country on Plamegate

"Rove/Libby have made sure that we are going to lose the "war" on terrorism by outing a CIA agent to further an agenda to go to war and then covering it up. Agents around the world are never going to trust us again at the very time when we need thier info the most."

- Oopsie the Clown, an unlikely name for such a serious and true comment

McCain Choosing Party Over Country on Plamegate?

At Americablog, readers are extremely disappointed in comments made by Sen. John McCain about Plamegate. They expected something less partisan, less divisive, and directed toward America's security interests. Read the comments at this link.

McCain appeared on MSNBCs Hardball last night - and another comment has been made at TPM Cafe by "Olden Golden Decoy" about the ridiculous thing McCain had said on the show:

When Matthews hit McCain with the fact that Rove most likely directed some really slimy dirty tricks against him and his family back during the primaries - McCain rolled over and literally turned into a proverbial pile of gutlessness by waving and blubbering it all off to "politics are like that" and "we (McCains election team) did some real dirty things too.

Capitol Hill Hearing on Plame - CIA Leaks

Capitol Hill Joint Session Hearing on Plame - CIA on the Leaks
A Brief Summary
Note: Partial Transcripts are available at democrats.reform.house.
WaPo - Ex-CIA Officers Rip Bush Over Rove Leak

This morning, Sen. Chuck Schumer called on Andrew Card for a new offical White House investigation into the outing of Valerie Plame (since the first one didn't turn out so truthful) and said that Rove and Libby should have their security clearance pulled, in light of the latest developments in the NYT.


Rep. Henry Waxman claims he was misled on reasons the President was giving for his vote on the Iraq resolution. Waxman says the Republicans in Congress have refused to allow an investigation in Congress, and that's why the meeting is taking place where it is today, with Democrats alone. He said, in order to make war in Iraq, the truth was sacrificed by the White House, and American troops are being sacrificed, and America's security is sacrificed. (Who wins when there is no love of country or support for troops or intent to protect America? You've got it - Republicans win].

Rep. John Conyers said that the President should require that deputy chief of staff Rove should either come forward immediately and explain his role in the Plame outing - or resign.

Rush Holt proclaimed that "Nobody died at Watergate, but over 1700 sons and daughters of America have died on the sands of Iraq." Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson deserved better from the President and his administration. They took on "the wrong fellow" when they took on Joseph Wilson. The President owes America three things: 1. No excuses, 2. Candor and truth 3. He owes all covert operatives his assertive command to find who's responsible and punish them. The President is hiding behind this investigation. America deserves better.

Col. Patrick Lang was the first witness. He said he feels strongly about this case because of the structural assult on the ability of the clandestine services of the United States. You must have intelligence to prevent terror attacks. Why would anyone in the White House do anything to compromise this almost sacramental trust? (As a Catholic, Lang says he understands the fullness of the meaning of what he's saying here). Betrayal of identity has effected the CIA "like a rock on water" - it ripples out - CIA recruitment, especially overseas, is affected negatively because the recruits no longer believe their superiors will fight, and be able to fight effectively, to protect their identities. The KGB never gave up an agent - they would work forever because they knew, if word got out about a betrayal, recruitment would fall because of lack of trust. No one should give anyone up in this line of work. Trust is everything. It takes forever to get trust back once you've lost it.

Larry Johnson [ see entire testimony at DC Media Girl ]said that President Bush failed to follow his oath to uphold the Constitution when he failed to put a stop to these attacks upon Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson. The fact that Bush allows these attacks to continue to this day - and it's a "group of bullies" doing it - is not presidential. Valerie Plame and Larry Johnson were classmates in the CIA trainee program - and they were undercover from that day forward. When Plame's name was released he was taken by surprise - even internally, he'd only know her as "Valerie P." No one had asked him to come and defend Valerie Plame today. He wanted to do it. Regardless of the fact that Plame had gone from official cover to non-official cover status in the CIA, your name is always promised to remain under cover. The RNC and government representatives such as Peter King/Roy Blount/Orrin Hatch are perpetuating mistruths about how this outing of Valerie Plame is not relevant....and he will not stand for the misleading. It's reprehensible. "Desk jockey" is a term that he sees as gross ignorance, on their part, in their talking points, and he can't believe that they can't understand how "the system" works. Cover is cover. About Plame "sending her husbad to Niger": He's MYSTIFIED as to how a to low-level officer could discern what the White House wanted so she could devise a scheme, all on her own, to embarrass the administration a year and a half later. It's a preposterous premise - not at all a credible story and certainly not an excuse. In truth, Plame had received a request to ask about her husband's availability to go. She fired back a memo in reply, and that's the only one that has gotten negative attention in teh press. Johnson had voted for Bush Sr. in 1992. He'd hoped he would bring new ethical standards to Washington. Now, we see Rove and Libby being involved in savaging the good reputations of Joe and Valerie in the younger Bush's administration, and the current President Bush refuses to put a stop to any of it. That speaks volumes. Now, Johnson says he expects a parsing of what the meaning of "leak" is. The White House should forward the example of the idea that, while at war with Jidhadists, for truth's sake, our expectation should certainly be that we would not attempt to savage OUR OWN.

Attorney James Marcinkowsi asked: CAN YOU EVER RECOVER FROM THE LOSS OF TRUST? That is at the heart of this issue. What is undisputed is this fact: this leak has irreparably damaged the CIA's ability to collect intelligence, thus the ability to protect the American people. THIS IS NOT PARTISAN POLITICS. The White House has played hide and seek with the truth. Exposure of "cover", in and of itself, is destructive, regardless of an agent's status in the CIA. The American people understand that fact, regardless of the sad truth that that partisans are calling Valerie Plame a "desk jockey". Regardless of the degree of their cover status, cover is used to protect innocent CIA people and CIA methodologies. Cover is safety. When you betray it, you lose that person working for you, and future recruits, and the credibility of case officers overseas, and the safety you may have been able to guarantee the cover agent. An agent asks their trusted superiors, "Can you protect me if I do this for you?" - all legal aspects aside. Their lives are on the line while discharging their duty and trust is key to safety and success. Overseas, people know about this story and our chances for recruiting someone overseas is diminished because that recruit asks himself if he will be the next one to be betrayed. White House non-responsibilty says "we don't care," which leads to loss of agents, which leads to loss of information, which leads to loss of protection for the American people..it that simple.

Robert Baer was a new witness who had offered his testimony. His name wasn't on the letter to Congress signed by the other eleven witnesses.


Note - there was plenty of live-blogging going on at Daily Kos this morning.

Rove/Libby Stories Don't Jibe with Reporters' Versions

Rove/Libby Stories Don't Jibe with Reporters' Versions

Richard Keil at Bloomberg has been doing some commendable work on Plamegate reporting. This is what he has for us today - from unnamed sources; people familiar with the case:

- Karl Rove told Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Bob Novak. Novak, has given a different version to Fitzgerald. There also is a discrepancy between accounts given by Rove and Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper.

- "Scooter" Libby told Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of Plame's identity. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of Plame's identity.

____________

This is not been reprted before, so I wanted to point it out. Apparently, Libby and Rove were trying very hard to cover the administration's misleading 16 words after Joe Wilson's column came out on July 6. There was e-mail between Libby and Rove regarding George Tenet's proposed draft to explain how the 16 words got into the SOTU address. Allegedly, they were coordinating with Stephen J. Hadley to come up with the official White House storyline [and deciding how best to destroy Joe Wilson's family, if you ask me].

This is from today's NY Times. David Johnston writes:

People who have been briefed on the case said the White House officials, Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby, were helping prepare what became the administration's primary response to criticism that a flawed phrase about the nuclear materials in Africa had been in Mr. Bush's State of the Union address six months earlier.
They had exchanged e-mail correspondence and drafts of a proposed statement by George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, to explain how the disputed wording had gotten into the address. Mr. Rove, the president's political strategist, and Mr. Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, coordinated their efforts with Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, who was in turn consulting with Mr. Tenet...The work done by Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby on the Tenet statement during this intense period has not been previously disclosed...

John Edwards on the Roberts Nomination

John Edwards on the Roberts Nomination

I know very little about President Bush's nominee John Roberts, and I won't pretend that I do. Frankly, I'd never heard of him before Tuesday night. John Edwards has a statement about the nominee at the One America website.

CSPAN to Broadcast Hearing on Public Disclosure of Covert Agents

CSPAN to Broadcast Hearing on Public Disclosure of Covert Agents

Ex-CIA Larry Johnson has written a memo about the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame. Ray McGovern and others, all related to CIA, have signed on. (Thanks to Josh Marshall for posting it).

See Light Up the Darkness for information on a joint hearing on Friday, with the U.S. Senate Democratic Policy Committee (DPC) and the U.S. House Government Reform Committee Minority, to “to examine the national security implications of disclosing the identity of a covert intelligence officer”. The hearing will be co-chaired by Senate DPC Chairman Byron Dorgan (D-ND), and U.S. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-CA). Former intelligence officers and analysts will discuss the impact of such disclosures.

WHEN: 10:00 AM, Friday, July 22, 2005
WHERE: Room 138 - Dirksen Senate Office Building, United States Senate, Washington, D.C.

At Kos, they've been appealing to CSPAN (politely) to cover the hearing.

CSPAN has responded positively, scheduling the airing of the live meeting on CSPAN3.

This will be the link for the LIVE broadcast online. Thanks to CSPAN for listening.

SEE BOSTON GLOBE - Ex-CIA officers rap Plame leak


OTHER PLAMEGATE UPDATES AROUND THE BLOGS:

Conservative media who lie for a hoped-for effect (see Donald Lambro's latest willing cooperation with RNC) are, in reality, sheltering a party and an ideology - national security be damned. I think we should be exposing these liars at every turn. Don't allow to lie and crawl back under their rocks. Expose them to the light of day - send your tips to MEDIA MATTERS.

John Fund, Ken Mehlman, Mark Steyn, and others have falsely claimed that Wilson said his wife was not a clandestine agent, and the effects are showing in rightwing "news" made by either gullible sorts or partisans who just don't care what's true anymore.


Joe Gandelman has a blogpost that means a lot, because Joe has been a professional journalist for many years. He talks about an interesting Editor and Publisher article having to do, in part, with Judith Miller and her "source". Bottom line, Sam Smith, a professor of Journalism at St Bomaventure University says:

From where I sit, Miller went to jail not to protect the name of a source, but to protect the name of a former source who may be a felon. I share the concerns of journalists across the country. The press is under attack, and it's a war that must be won. But this isn't very good terrain from which to launch a counter-attack.

John Aravosis reports that the White House press corps went for McLellan hard today. He has a partial transcript.

Cottage Industry: "Homegrown Terror Suspects"

Cottage Industry: "Homegrown Terror Suspects"

I heard a newsperson on CNN using the term "homegrown suspects" in connection with this morning's latest London terrorist bombings. Terror is a cottage industry now, apparently. Hate is manufactured by world leaders who create bogus reasons for war; for occupying foreign nations; risking a soldier's life for profit. Hate is distributed by world leaders as the most necessary product to keep the cottage industry's main product, known as "Fear", alive in the hearts of those who forget that fearless freedom and honest democracy is the only way to compete with such a dreadful venture.

This is my initial feeling about the most recent London bombings.


The London suicide bombers from the first string of London bombings

They didn't occur in a vacuum.

Cal Thomas would tell us to retaliate by killing all of them.

Quote: "I want to kill them before they kill me...Wake up, America and Britain! The jihadists are after us."

(You go ahead and decide who "all of them" should be - I think Cal Thomas has succumbed to fear. Not only that - he's terribly conflicted about Blair.)

Tom Tancredo would tell you to bomb Mecca in a cry for revenge. He sounds like a frightened child.

Tony Blair may have contributed to the worst lie ever told to the people of the world in order to begin the most unfortunate pre-emptive and immoral attack ever made upon a people, yet he is trying - I hear him trying - to remain calm and brave in the face of the cottage industry he realizes he has helped to be a BOOMING success. (pun intended)

It's speculation only, but I happen to think he's sorry for the part he played in the Iraq War. Great Britain's leader may be taking the coveted spot of "Leader of the Free World", in the absence of any honest leadership from George W. Bush. Mr. Bush has lost his crown by playing directly into the "Cottage Industry" - he has helped to produce "homegrown suspects." The Bush administration has employed the deliberately misleading and destructive rhetoric which produce the by-products most favored by Osama bin Laden: Fear and Terror. Worse, President George W.Bush has never once indicated that he has any plan to change his course, which can only mean that he wants to continue in this wrong-minded way, which was begun by a tangled web of lies.

Bush won't learn. Tony Blair might. Not because he was "cowed" by the homegrown terrorists of the new "cottage industry", but because he's learned from his mistakes, and his rhetoric shows it.

Our only way out of this has to be found TOGETHER, as a world community. Trust will be required. Humility will be required of world leaders in the 21st Century. Fearless freedom and honest democracy should be the new "big business" that kicks the ass of the wicked Cottage Industry in which the radicals of rightwing America have studied and participated.

I don't love terror. I do not revel in its black effect upon my fellow man. I invite all people in this world to understand that we have been made front-line soldiers in a war for our own personal freedom and security. If we want true freedom and democracy, we must call upon our governments for openness, honesty, and cooperation with us - we must take the reins and become responsible for our own freedom. Regardless of what you think of NY Times columnist Tom Friedman, he is absolutely correct in telling you that "the world is flat." We shall never revisit the 20th Century. As business and technology has changed, making the world the smallest it's ever been - - making your fellow man in India "your next-door neighbor" -- methods of making war have changed. More than ever before, we are more responsible, as individuals, for our own destiny. This includes our personal freedom and security.

The 21st Century demands us to act on our own behalf. If we want a better society, we must individually act to make it happen. (Note - I'm not advocating any form of anarchist behavior by saying this).

In this new "flat" world, we must expect (and ensure) that our leaders will respond to our needs. When we see "Support the Troops" ribbons on the bumpers of vehicles, we must think about it a new way. WE are troops now, along with the classic military soldiers. We are not in possession of heavy artillery. To defend our individual freedoms, we only have weapons of positive mass production from which to choose. Our lives have been put on the line by both the terrorists and our leaders. In America, this is particularly concerning, because our leaders are supposed to be speaking FOR us - not against us.

In 2005, we must decide: Are we going to take responsibility for our own freedom, or are we going to leave it in the hands of leaders who are speaking for us with hate and misleading? If elected leaders cannot learn from their dreadful mistakes, and if they give an appearance of wanting to continue down the same unsuccessful path, they must be discounted as real leaders.


Note - Joe Gandelman has a lot of good links on the most recent bombings at the Moderate Voice.

Plamegate is Front Page News Today

Plamegate is Front Page News Today

The front page of the Washington Post is adorned with a story about the State memo, which was being passed around top-level White House players on Air Force One like a bag of chips in July 2003.

Not only was the memo marked "S" for "secret", it included Valerie's last name - Plame.

From WaPo:

A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.

Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.

How did Powell wind up with the memo?

The memo was drafted June 10, 2003, for Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, who asked to be brought up to date on INR's opposition to the White House view that Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Africa.

The description of Wilson's wife and her role in the Feb. 19, 2002, meeting at the CIA was considered "a footnote" in a background paragraph in the memo, according to an official who was aware of the process.

It records that the INR analyst at the meeting opposed Wilson's trip to Niger because the State Department, through other inquiries, already had disproved the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. Attached to the INR memo were the notes taken by the senior INR analyst who attended the 2002 meeting at the CIA.

On July 6, 2003, shortly after Wilson went public on NBC's "Meet the Press" and in The Post and the New York Times discussing his trip to Niger, the INR director at the time, Carl W. Ford Jr., was asked to explain Wilson's statements for Powell, according to sources familiar with the events. [Ford] went back and reprinted the June 10 memo but changed the addressee from Grossman to Powell.

Background for those who may not have followed this closely:

..on July 6, 2003, Wilson wrote an op-ed for the New York Times entitled "What I Didn't Find in Africa." He asserted, "Some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons programs was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Wilson also appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" to elaborate on the yellowcake dispute.

Later that day, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L.
Armitage called Carl W. Ford Jr., the assistant secretary for intelligence and research, at home and asked him to send a copy of the June 10 memo to Secretary of State Colin Powell, according to a former State Department official interviewed by the New York Times.

Since Powell was preparing to leave with Bush on a trip to Africa, Ford sent the memo to the White House for delivery to Powell, the former official told the Times.
[NYT, July 16, 2005]

The next day, when Bush left for Africa, Powell was carrying the memo containing the information about Plame's work for the CIA and other details about the yellowcake dispute, the Washington Post reported.

A day later, on July 8, 2003, right-wing columnist Robert Novak told Rove that he (Novak) had heard that Plame had sent Wilson on the mission to Niger..

link - Robert Parry: Rove-Bush Conspiracy Noose Tightens

I don't know who's leaking all this information to the WaPo, but I think we can safely say it isn't State-hater Joel Mowbray or God-hog Pat Robertson, who wanted to nuke Foggy Bottom (home of the State Department).

Kos thinks it's CIA. He says:

"It's the CIA. Funny how those guys don't like their covers blown."

I've made a similar observation in the past. I'd wager that Kos is right.

I'm quoting Billmon, partly because of his "diseased carcass" reference to Novak, which gave me a stomach ache from so much friggen laughter:

This leaves open the question of how the diseased carcass of Robert Novak learned Valerie Wilson's maiden name. But if Rove and company really did get their dirt from the memo, it would also seem to reduce the odds that any of them will be prosecuted under the Agee law. If Fitzgerald is going to indict anybody in the White House for the original leak (as opposed to the cover up) it seems more likely it will be a count related to the unauthorized disclosure of classified information -- up to and including espionage.

Another good tidbit from Billmon:

Patrick Fitzgerald is driving this story, not the media, and certainly not the blogosphere. If Fitzgerald has something to say (and you know all of us on the left are hoping he'll say it with indictments) he'll do it on his own time schedule. Meanwhile, the various parties involved will either keep feeding little tidbits to the press or they won't. Nothing the blogosphere does or says will affect the timing of those leaks.

Plamegate

Plamegate

Oh, what a tangled web. It seems that Karl Rove Lied to the FBI in 2003.
link - American Prospect Online

Eric Boehlert talks about how "Scooter" Libby could have first become aware of Valerie Plame.

Bush apologist Carl Cameron reminds me of that kid on the playground you wanted to smack around for being smug while saying something stupid. He has made a doozy of an excuse for Bush on his backpedaling on firing Karl Rove. It amounts to this: When you say "losing your job," it doesn't mean getting "fired".

Billmon shows us how CNN's John King got egg on his face by Bloomberg News reporting the truth about the White House trying to get the spotlight off Karl Rove by pushing up the nomination of John Roberts by a good number of days. (Billmon gives props to Atrios and Kos). Howard Kurtz winds up looking foolish, too (see Media Matters).

Josh Marshall points us to a reader blog at TPM Cafe, which in turn, leads us to this press gaggle from 2003. Condi Rice enters the picture. Her involvement, at such an early stage, and her odd mention of Joseph Wilson at this gaggle, makes it seem (and I'm only speculating) that this may have been a distributed high-level talking point intended to be used for full-scale damage control.

Q Dr. Rice, when did you all find out that the documents were forged?
DR. RICE: Sometime in March, I believe. Is that right?
MR. FLEISCHER: The IAEA reported it.
DR. RICE: The IAEA reported it I believe in March. But I will tell you that, for instance, on Ambassador Wilson's going out to Niger, I learned of that when I was sitting on whatever TV show it was, because that mission was not known to anybody in the White House. And you should ask the Agency at what level it was known in the Agency.
Q When was that TV show, when you learned about it?
DR. RICE: A month ago, about a month ago.
Q Can I ask you about something else?
DR. RICE: Yes. Are you sure you're through with this?

Note: This is highly questionable. It was known, by the White House, that Wilson took the trip by early June. Wilson didn't mention the trip on TV until July 6th, 2003, the same day his column came out. The White House was well aware of Wilson's trip by early June. See WaPo


Matthew Yglesias has an excellent column asking about those forged Niger documents.

"...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..

...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.

It seems clear that some powerful elements in Washington don't want to know the truth, which should raise suspicions."

Laura Rozen had the definitive blogpost about the Niger documents, Ghorbanifar, the neocon Michael Ledeen and SISMI.

Oh, this is a tangled web, people.

When you're done with the Laura Rozen blogpost, move on to Juan Cole's post about the Larry Franklin espionage story.

"The Niger forgeries also try to implicate Iran. Indeed, the idea of a joint Iraq/Iran nuclear plot was so far-fetched that it is what initially made the Intelligence and Research division of the US State Department suspicious of the forgeries, even before the discrepancies of dates and officials in Niger were noticed."

This whole Valerie Plame outing REEKS of a major conspiracy.

Karen Kwiatkowski asked the FBI, in 2004, why stop at Larry?

"Why is Larry the result of FBI investigational success instead of the names of the Pentagon senior operatives who shared classified information with Ahmad Chalabi regarding American success in reading coded Tehran communications, specifically now as neoconservatives rage for war in Iran? Or instead of the names of senior White House operatives who revealed and destroyed the U.S. security mission of Valerie Plame?

Plamegate Quote of the Day

Plamegate Quote of the Day

"Remember in history, it's never the crime, it's always the cover-up."

- Joseph Wilson


See Georgie Anne Geyer's column: PLAME IS THE GEAR THAT WON'T ENGAGE IN NIGER SAGA

When one element of any case, or story, or diplomatic or political event makes no sense, that is generally the place to start to look for the truth. When some piece of the puzzle is jarringly out of place, that's the spot to begin. So it is here. Since Valerie's name, or even position, made no sense in the story itself, the people who "outed" her could only have been doing it to damage her husband....The real scandal is about the ongoing struggle over an unjust and unnecessary war, and this diplomatic couple happened to provide a negative piece of the puzzle that is still tormenting the administration.

Democracy Now, July 19, 2005: The NOC Program: A Look at Valerie Plame's "Nonofficial Cover" as a CIA Operative
June 3, 2004:Controlling Global Oil

Breaking News!

Breaking News!




Karl Rove is still a traitor.



See this Daily Kos post revealing Bush's startling hypocrisy. Bush will not trust Congress with intelligence information - he says he doesn't trust them - he thinks they're leakers - this, coming from the West Wing traitor-leakers extraordinaire.

Next - a WSJ article:

Memo Underscored Issue of Shielding Plame's Identity By ANNE MARIE SQUEO and JOHN D. MCKINNON Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL July 19, 2005; Page A3

A classified State Department memo that may be pivotal to the CIA leak case made clear that information identifying an agent and her role in her husband's intelligence-gathering mission was sensitive and shouldn't be shared, according to a person familiar with the document....The paragraph in the memo discussing Ms. Wilson's involvement in her husband's trip is marked at the beginning with a letter designation in brackets to indicate the information shouldn't be shared, according to the person familiar with the memo. Such a designation would indicate to a reader that the information was sensitive.....Who received the memo, which was prepared for Marc Grossman, then the under secretary of state for political affairs, and how widely it was circulated are issues as Mr. Fitzgerald tries to pinpoint the origin of the leak of Ms. Wilson's identity. According to the person familiar with the document, it didn't include a distribution list. It isn't known if President Bush has seen the memo.....Mr. Novak attempted to reach Ari Fleischer, then the White House press secretary, in the days before his column appeared. However, Mr. Fleischer didn't respond to Mr. Novak's inquiries, according to a person familiar with his account.

There is one part of the WSJ article that I have a real problem with. It seems to me to be a false statement - a revision of history. The writer, Mr. McKinnon, says:

White House officials had been warning reporters off the notion that the trip to Niger was ordered by Vice President Dick Cheney, as Mr. Wilson had suggested. Emails and a first-person account published this week of his grand-jury testimony by Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper support this notion.

On Charlie Rose this week, I heard Matt Cooper aver, several times, that he surmised this Rove leak was a war on Joseph Wilson and that it seemed very "odd" to him. He used the word "odd" again and again..too many times to discount it. Another point: Joseph Wilson NEVER tried to say that Dick Cheney sent him directly. I have followed this story far too long to let an untruth like this one slide by. I think this is either sloppy journalism or bias - it is not my place to say which.

Tancredo: Is he retarded?

Tancredo: Is he retarded?

Tancredo said: "You could take out their holy sites." Radio Host Campbell said, "You're talking about bombing Mecca." Tancredo replied, "Yeah."

I just had to post my 14-year old son's first reaction, upon hearing about Tom Tancredo's statement about bombing Mecca (when it was replayed on MSNBC):

"What?!?? Bomb the Black Stone?
Is he THAT retarded?"

Okay - he could have said that in a politically correct way, but I ask you - how many politically correct 14-year olds do YOU know?

The point is this:
Even a young boy understands that a civil society would never target a world religion's most sacred site for revenge against bin Ladenists.

I just read that Tancredo won't back down. He said, on MSNBC, that we shouldn't "get uptight".

We shouldn't get uptight about his drooling desire to bomb the most Holy site of Islam?! He's acting like a terrorist.

How could it be that we elect such total damned idiots to Congress? He should be taken to task by his own party for this monstrous talk.


Face it - Yentl may have come close to being constituted as torture, but blowing up Mecca? Well, that just might screw up a lot more things for America, Mr. Bernie Goldberg.

Mamsy-pamsy Bernard Goldberg is worried about Barbara Streisand screwing up America...while this jerk Tancredo talks, very seriously, about America needing to destroy sacred sites?!!?

Give me a break, already!

Apologize, Tancredo.

Hurricane Edith Coming?

Hurricane Edith Coming?
It's blowing in at 9pm TONIGHT!

Scared of Hurricane Emily?
FUGGEDABOUDDIT!
Be afraid of Hurricane Edith!
There are two Ediths who are in the eye of the storm which will surely be blowing out of your Cable News Television sets soon...perhaps as soon as today.
*There has to be a diversion from the CIA-outing snakes crawling around the West Wing.

One Edith stands out as more radically conservative than the other. Neither are going to give proper balance to the SCOTUS.

Democrats already say that Edith Hollan Jones is unacceptable because she has shown an activist's defiance - she has a record of flaunting her defiance of the US Supreme Court on the issue of a standard set by the Supreme Court for establishing a condemned convict's retardation - and we can expect a major battle if she is nominated by Bush. (Why would Bush do such a stupid thing, knowing the country is so divided? I'll tell you why - because he is Bush.)

An Edith Hollan Jones nomination would spell "I-N-S-T-A-N-T - - F-I-L-I-B-U-S-T-E-R" for Democrats.

I heard a Houston journalist, who knows her well, say that she wrote a revealing minority opinion on a case involving a woman's right to choose, proclaiming that Roe v Wade was "bad law" and that sometimes, regardless of standing law, an overturning should be considered.

From McCorvey v Hill, 5th Circuit Court of Appeals, Sept 2004 [FindLaw.com]:

Edith Jones opinion:

I agree that Ms McCorvey's Rule 60(b) case is now moot. A judicial decision in her favor cannot turn back Texas' legislative clock to reinstate the laws, no longer effective, that criminalized abortion.

It is ironic that the doctrine of mootness bars further litigation of this case. Mootness confines the judicial branch to its appropriate constitutional role of deciding actual. live cases of controversies. Yet, this case was born in an exception to mootness and brought forth, instead of a confined decision, an "exercise of raw judicial power." [..] Even more ironic is that, although mootness dictates that Ms. McCovery has no "live" legal controversy, the serious and substantial evidence she offered could have generated an important debate over factual premises that underlay Roe.

McCorvey presented evidence that goes to the heart of the evidence Roe struck between the choice of a mother and the life of her unborn child. First, there are about a thousand affadavits of women who have had abortions and claim to have suffered long-term emotional damage and impaired relationships from their decision.

Studies by scientists, offered by McCorvey, suggested that women may be affected emotionally and physically for years afterward and may be more prone to engage in high-risk, self-destructive conduct as a result of having had abortions. Second, Roe's assumption that the decision to abort a baby will be made in close consultation with a woman's private physician is called into question by affadavits from workers at abortion clinics, where most abortions are now performed.

According to the affadavits, women are often herded through their procedures with little or no medical or emotional counseling. [...}

If the courts would delve into the facts underlying Roe's balancing scheme with "present-day knowlege", they might conclude that the woman's "choice" is far more risky and less beneficial and the child's sentience far more advanced than the Roe court knew.[..]

The problem inherent in the Court's decision to constitutionalize abortion policy is that, unless it creates another exception to the mootness doctrine, the court will never be able to examine its factual assumptions on a record made in court.

Read one (pasty) white conservative male's opinion on Jones and/or Clement (or any other ultra-Conservative female judicial nominee):

"If that sense of things is right, then it could make a notable difference if the decision that upholds the law on partial-birth abortion — and the decision turning the law on abortion onto a different axis — were written and announced by a woman."

- Hadley Arkes

Makes you all warm inside, knowing that pasty white men are propping up the ladies in order to take away our freedom of conscience, doesn't it, gals?


My problem with Edith "Joy" Brown Clement is that she is a conservative with an apparently paperless record on her Roe v Wade opinion. Senate - approach Joy Clement with great caution! She has not left much of a paper trail.

Corporate America would favor Clement because she was once a private practitioner who represented business interests -- experience that the big business community says the Rehnquist court now lacks. Clement might be friendly to corporate America, but she may not be as "friendly" to the women of this nation. If women held more CEO seats, knowing she's a conservative in the Federalist Society mold (and not knowing what she might do with our right to choose), I wonder if the enthusiasm for Joy Clement would be as great.

We are left to wonder if "Joy" Clement will try to overturn Roe v Wade. You can't blame us. We trust Bush as far as we can throw him. I think that the Senate would have a hard time filibustering Joy Clement, though...and I don't yet see a solid reason why they would. She really hasn't been involved in any terriibly controversial decisions. She'd definitely be a better choice over Edith Hollan Jones.

John Edwards - Democrats: Stand Strong for Principles

John Edwards - Democrats: Stand Strong for Principles

Raleigh News & Obeserver
POINT OF VIEW
Published: Jul 16, 2005
Finding a justice with bipartisan support
By JOHN EDWARDS

Note: If Bush nominates someone like Edith Hollan Jones, we should be seeing one of the biggest Senate battles in American history. If Bush decides to follow the ugly path of division and non-consensus, which he has been treading for five years now, my instincts tell me that he will nominate Jones. I hope I'm wrong.