The Meaning of the Armitage Leak in the Plame Case

posted by David Corn on 08/27/2006 @ 10:22am

One mystery solved.

It was Richard Armitage, when he was deputy secretary of state in July 2003, who first disclosed to conservative columnist Robert Novak that the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson was a CIA employee.

A Newsweek article--based on the new book I cowrote with Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War--discloses that Armitage passed this classified information to Novak during a July 8, 2003 interview. Though Armitage's role as Novak's primary source has been a subject of speculation, the case is now closed. Our sources for this are three government officials who spoke to us confidentially and who had direct knowledge of Armitage's conversation with Novak. Carl Ford Jr., who was head of the State Department's intelligence branch at the time, told us--on the record--that after Armitage testified before the grand jury investigating the leak case, he told Ford, "I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused the whole thing."

Ford recalls Armitage said he had "slipped up" and had told Novak more that he should have. According to Ford, Armitage was upset that "he was the guy that fucked up."

The unnamed government sources also told us about what happened three months later when Novak wrote a column noting that his original source was "no partisan gunslinger." After reading that October 1 column, Armitage called his boss and long-time friend, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and acknowledged he was Novak's source. Powell, Armitage and William Taft IV, the State Department's top lawyer, frantically conferred about what to do. As Taft told us (on the record), "We decided we were going to tell [the investigators] what we thought had happened." Taft notified the criminal division of the Justice Department--which was then handling the investigation--and FBI agents interviewed Armitage the next day. In that interview, Armitage admitted he had told Novak about Wilson's wife and her employment at the CIA. The Newsweek piece lays all this out.

Colleagues of Armitage told us that Armitage--who is known to be an inveterate gossip--was only conveying a hot tidbit, not aiming to do Joe Wilson harm. Ford says, "My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat." (When Armitage testified before the Iran-contra grand jury many years earlier, he had described himself as "a terrible gossip." Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh subsequently accused him of providing "false testimony" to investigators but said that he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Armitage's misstatements had been "deliberate.")

The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence. The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework. He and Powell were not the leading advocates of war in the administration (even though Powell became the chief pitchman for the case for war when he delivered a high-profile speech at the UN). They were not the political hitmen of the Bush gang. Armitage might have mentioned Wilson's wife merely as gossip. But--as Hubris notes--he also had a bureaucratic interest in passing this information to Novak.

On July 6--two days before Armitage's meeting with Novak--Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times on July 6, 2003, that revealed that he had been sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate the charge that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium in that impoverished African nation. Wilson wrote that his mission had been triggered by an inquiry to the CIA from Vice President Dick Cheney, who had read an intelligence report about the Niger allegation, and that he (Wilson) had reported back to the CIA that the charge was highly unlikely. Noting that President George W. Bush had referred to this allegation in his 2003 State of the Union speech, Wilson maintained that the administration had used a phoney claim to lead the country to war. His article ignited a firestorm. That meant that the State Department had good reason (political reason, that is) to distance itself from Wilson, a former State Department official. Armitage may well have referred to Wilson's wife and her CIA connection to make the point that State officials--already suspected by the White House of not being team players--had nothing to do with Wilson and his trip.

Whether he had purposefully mentioned this information to Novak or had slipped up, Armitage got the ball rolling--and abetted a White House campaign under way to undermine Wilson. At the time, top White House aides--including Karl Rove and Scooter Libby--were trying to do in Wilson. And they saw his wife's position at the CIA as a piece of ammunition. As John Dickerson wrote in Slate, senior White House aides that week were encouraging him to investigate who had sent Joe Wilson on his trip. They did not tell him they believed Wilson's wife had been involved. But they clearly were trying to push him toward that information.

Shortly after Novak spoke with Armitage, he told Rove that he had heard that Valerie Wilson had been behind her husband's trip to Niger, and Rove said that he knew that, too. So a leak from Armitage (a war skeptic not bent on revenge against Wilson) was confirmed by Rove (a Bush defender trying to take down Wilson). And days later--before the Novak column came out--Rove told Time magazine's Matt Cooper that Wilson's wife was a CIA employee and involved in his trip.

Bush critics have long depicted the Plame leak as a sign of White House thuggery. I happened to be the first journalist to report that the leak in the Novak column might be evidence of a White House crime--a violation of the little-known Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime for a government official to disclose information about an undercover CIA officer (if that government official knew the covert officer was undercover and had obtained information about the officer through official channels). Two days after the leak appeared, I wrote:

Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?

And I stated,

Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counter-proliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score.

The Armitage leak was not directly a part of the White House's fierce anti-Wilson crusade. But as Hubris notes, it was, in a way, linked to the White House effort, for Amitage had been sent a key memo about Wilson's trip that referred to his wife and her CIA connection, and this memo had been written, according to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, at the request of I. Lewis Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. Libby had asked for the memo because he was looking to protect his boss from the mounting criticism that Bush and Cheney had misrepresented the WMD intelligence to garner public support for the invasion of Iraq.

The memo included information on Valerie Wilson's role in a meeting at the CIA that led to her husband's trip. This critical memo was--as Hubris discloses--based on notes that were not accurate. (You're going to have to read the book for more on this.) But because of Libby's request, a memo did circulate among State Department officials, including Armitage, that briefly mentioned Wilson's wife.

Armitage's role aside, the public record is without question: senior White House aides wanted to use Valerie Wilson's CIA employment against her husband. Rove leaked the information to Cooper, and Libby confirmed Rove's leak to Cooper. Libby also disclosed information on Wilson's wife to New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

As Hubris also reveals--and is reported in the Newsweek story--Armitage was also the source who told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward in mid-June 2003 that Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Woodward did not reveal he had learned about Wilson's wife until last November, when he released a statement recounting a conversation with a source (whom he did not name). Woodward acknowledged at that time that he had not told his editors about this interview--and that he had recently given a deposition to Fitzgerald about this conversation.

Speculation regarding Woodward's source quickly focused on Armitage. Last week, the Associated Press disclosed State Department records indicating that Woodward had met with Armitage at the State Department on June 13, 2003. In pegging Armitage as Woodward's source, Hubris cites five confidential sources--including government officials and an Armitage confidant.

Woodward came in for some harsh criticism when he and the Post revealed that he had been the first reporter told about Wilson's wife by a Bush administration official. During Fitzgerald's investigation, Woodward had repeatedly appeared on television and radio talk shows and dismissed the CIA leak probe without noting that he had a keen personal interest in the matter: his good source, Richard Armitage, was likely a target of Fitzgerald. Woodward was under no obligation to disclose a confidential source and what that source had told him. But he also was under no obligation to go on television and criticize an investigation while withholding relevant information about his involvement in the affair.

Fitzgerald, as Hubris notes, investigated Armitage twice--once for the Novak leak; then again for not initially telling investigators about his conversation with Woodward. Each time, Fitzgerald decided not to prosecute Armitage. Abiding by the rules governing grand jury investigations, Fitzgerald said nothing publicly about Armitage's role in the leak.

The outing of Armitage does change the contours of the leak case. The initial leaker was not plotting vengeance. He and Powell had not been gung-ho supporters of the war. Yet Bush backers cannot claim the leak was merely an innocent slip. Rove confirmed the classified information to Novak and then leaked it himself as part of an effort to undermine a White House critic. Afterward, the White House falsely insisted that neither Rove nor Libby had been involved in the leak and vowed that anyone who had participated in it would be bounced from the administration. Yet when Isikoff and Newsweek in July 2005 revealed a Matt Cooper email showing that Rove had leaked to Cooper, the White House refused to acknowledge this damning evidence, declined to comment on the case, and did not dismiss Rove. To date, the president has not addressed Rove's role in the leak. It remains a story of ugly and unethical politics, stonewalling, and lies.

A NOTE OF SELF-PROMOTION: Hubris covers much more than the leak case. It reveals behind-the-scene battles at the White House, the CIA, the State Department, and Capitol Hill that occurred in the year before the invasion of Iraq. It discloses secrets about the CIA's prewar plans for Iraq. It chronicles how Bush and Cheney reacted to the failure to find WMDs in Iraq. It details how Bush and other aides neglected serious planning for the post-invasion period. It recounts how the unproven theories of a little-known academic who was convinced Saddam Hussein was behind all acts of terrorism throughout the world influenced Bush administration officials. It reports what went wrong inside The New York Times regarding its prewar coverage of Iraq's WMDs. It shows precisely how the intelligence agencies screwed up and how the Bush administration misused the faulty and flimsy (and fraudulent) intelligence. The book, a narrative of insider intrigue, also relates episodes in which intelligence analysts and experts made the right calls about Iraq's WMDs but lost the turf battles.

And there's more, including:

* how and why the CIA blew the call on the Niger forgeries

* why US intelligence officials suspected Iranian intelligence was trying to influence US decisionmaking through the Iraqi National Congress

* why members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who doubted the case for war were afraid to challenge the prewar intelligence

* how Cheney and his aides sifted through raw intelligence desperately trying to find evidence to justify the Iraq invasion

* how Karl Rove barely managed to escape indictment with a shaky argument.

And there's more beyond that. In other words, this is not a book on the leak case. It includes the leak episode because the leak came about partly due to the White House need to keep its disingenuous sales campaign going after the invasion. Feel free to see for yourself. The book goes on sale September 8. Its Amazon.com page can be found here.

This was posted at my blog at www.davidcorn.com.

Comments (233)

  1. If you want to understand the NeoCons, you have to go to the source, Leo Strauss. He believed in lying to the people, to control them. He taught Wolfowitz and had secret society of how to manipulate politically through lies, and religion. Welcome to the NeoCon reality, where your constitution means nothing, but the politicians create the reality. Strauss is best written about by Shadia Drury.

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

    http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Leo_Strauss

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

    Critics of Strauss also accuse him of elitism and anti-democratic sentiment. Shadia Drury, author of 1999's Leo Strauss and the American Right, argues that Strauss taught different things to different students, and inculcated an elitist strain in American political leaders that is linked to imperialist militarism and Christian fundamentalism. Drury accuses Strauss of teaching that "perpetual deception of the citizens by those in power is critical because they need to be led, and they need strong rulers to tell them what's good for them." Drury adds, "The Weimar Republic was his model of liberal democracy... liberalism in Weimar, in Strauss's view, led ultimately to the Nazi Holocaust against the Jews."

    Leo Strauss' Philosophy of Deception

    By Jim Lobe, AlterNet. Posted May 19, 2003.

    Many neoconservatives like Paul Wolfowitz are disciples of a philosopher who believed that the elite should use deception, religious fervor and perpetual war to control the ignorant masses.

    http://www.alternet.org/story/15935/

    By: spiritquest on August 26, 2006 at 11:13pm

    Posted by plunger at 08/27/2006 @ 11:49am

  2. FEAR:

    Fear has (in the minds of many Americans) legitimated the invasion of Iraq. "Don"t forget 9-11!!" "Can you see the mushroom cloud on the horizon!!" "There may be anthrax in your mail!!" "The Evil one lurks!!" It doesn"t matter to the tale-spinners that none of their claims has any basis in reality. We have been manipulated ... again. A fantasy woven of whole cloth. What's new? And for what purpose? For whose purpose?

    Fear has given us zero tolerance, three strikes, and truth in sentencing. Fear has filled our prisons, militarized our police and razor-wired our borders. Fear has us buying SUVs, passing concealed-carry laws, living in gated communities, and installing redundant alarm systems. Surveillance cameras, facial recognition software, retinal scanners, DNA cataloging ... Fear is an industry.

    Herman Goerring knew the coercive power of fear, and so does Karl Rove. Fear is a well-worn tool, a tool whose use has been perfected through the millennia. Fear is the essential tool of power-cravers and ego maniacs of every stripe. It has been the tool used to maintain (or enhance) the status quo power structure, in every age.

    But fearmongering has much deeper implications. It is the foundation upon which our entire culture and civilization is built. It is the essence of patriarchy. It is at the core of our monotheism. Fear is the quintessential ingredient of the debilitating dependence that rules our lives.

    What is it but fear that drives us to ask for protection? What is it but that request, that empowers the patriarch? This is a basic and bitter circle of codependency. It's a pathology that leads to ever-greater fear, ever-greater dependence and ever-greater protectors. From chiefs to fiefs, from shamans to popes, kings and pharaohs, presidents and prime ministers, serving you, protecting you, defending you. You asked for it.

    Fear cedes power to the authorities. Fear authorizes brutality and legitimizes genocide. Fear devises the illusions we maintain that protect us from the reality of our own brutal, destructive behavior. Fear creates the myths that are our commonly perceived history. Fear places a layer of 'authority' between us and the implementers of our will -- a layer of deniability. Fear mines the coal, refines the oil, bioengineers the food, wields the whip, butchers the animals, and wages the wars.

    If we were to acknowledge the fear, acknowledge the brutality, acknowledge our own cowardly behavior, we could not go on as we do.

    I look forward to the coming age of fearlessness, when we throw off the illusions, and disempower the manipulators. I look forward to the age when we deny dependence, when we again become self-reliant, free beings. I look forward to the time when fearless strong young men and women don't assault their fellow citizens, but turn their guns instead on the manipulators and despoilers of our world.

    http://www.unknownnews.net/031204a-gh.html

    Posted by plunger at 08/27/2006 @ 11:49am

  3. "As people do better, they start voting like Republicans - unless they have too much education and vote Democratic, which proves there can be too much of a good thing."

    Karl Rove.

    http://graphics8.nytimes.com/packages/html/nyregion/20050812_WTC_GRAPHIC /met_WTC_histories_full_01.html

    9/11 First Responders

    The oral histories of dispatch transmissions are transcribed verbatim. They have have not been edited to omit coarse language.

    Are you aware of the large data dump of First-Responder oral histories made public last year by the New York Times? Here are some samples;

    "we heard . . . what sounded like a loud explosion and looked up and I saw tower two start coming down" - Sudnick.

    "I heard three explosions, and then . . . tower two started to come down" - Darnowski.

    "it almost sounded like bombs going off, like boom, boom, boom, like seven or eight" - Turilli.

    "heard explosions coming from . . . the south tower. . . . There were about ten explosions. . . . We then realized the building started to come down" - Carlsen.

    "it looked like the building was blowing out on all four sides. We actually heard the pops" - Meola.

    "It was a frigging noise. At first I thought it was---do you ever see professional demolition where they set the charges on certain floors and then you hear 'Pop, pop, pop, pop, pop'? . . . I thought it was that." - Rivera.

    "the building popped, lower than the fire. . . . I was going oh, my god, there is a secondary device because the way the building popped. I thought it was an explosion" - Burke.

    "It actually gave at a lower floor, not the floor where the plane hit. . . . [W]e originally had thought there was like an internal detonation, explosives, because it went in succession, boom, boom, boom, boom, and then the tower came down" - Cachia.

    Posted by plunger at 08/27/2006 @ 11:50am

  4. http://www.team8plus.org/the-movement/radar/Radar.htm

    These are absolute facts that cannot be ignored:

    * Within the area that the hijackings took place, there are two areas with no primary radar coverage that stretch up towards Canada.

    * Flight 11 switched off its transponder right next to an area with no primary radar coverage.

    * Flight 77 switched off its transponder right next to an area with no primary radar coverage.

    * Flight 93 switched off its transponder right next to an area with no primary radar coverage.

    * United Flight 175 switched off its transponder next to United Flight 93.

    * We have two incidences where a hijacked plane came very close to a non-hijacked plane. (What are the odds?) Flight 11(hijacked) meets Flight 175 (not hijacked). Flight 175 (hijacked) meets Flight 93 (Not Hijacked)

    Question 1: How did the "hijackers" know exactly where these huge breaches in air defence were located?

    Question 2: Why go to all that trouble when you can take off from nearby airports (Dulles/Newark), hijack the plane and crash it straight away?

    http://www.lookingglassnews.org/viewstory.php?storyid=3907

    9-11: Animation showing military precision of flight paths

    Posted by plunger at 08/27/2006 @ 11:52am

  5. http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/3528

    Poll: Americans Favor Bush's Impeachment If He Lied about Iraq Submitted by davidswanson on Tue, 2005-10-11 16:46. Media

    For Immediate Release: October 11, 2005

    Poll: Americans Favor Bush's Impeachment If He Lied about Iraq

    By a margin of 50% to 44%, Americans want Congress to consider impeaching President Bush if he lied about the war in Iraq, according to a new poll commissioned by AfterDowningStreet.org, a grassroots coalition that supports a Congressional investigation of President Bush's decision to invade Iraq in 2003.

    The poll was conducted by Ipsos Public Affairs, the highly-regarded non-partisan polling company. The poll interviewed 1,001 U.S. adults on October 6-9.

    The poll found that 50% agreed with the statement:

    "If President Bush did not tell the truth about his reasons for going to war with Iraq, Congress should consider holding him accountable by impeaching him."

    44% disagreed, and 6% said they didn't know or declined to answer. The poll has a +/- 3.1% margin of error.

    Among those who felt strongly either way, 39% strongly agreed, while 30% strongly disagreed.

    "The results of this poll are truly astonishing," said AfterDowningStreet.org co-founder Bob Fertik. "Bush's record-low approval ratings tell just half of the story, which is how much Americans oppose Bush's policies on Iraq and other issues. But this poll tells the other half of the story - that a solid plurality of Americans want Congress to consider removing Bush from the White House."

    Impeachment Supported by Majorities of Many Groups

    Responses varied by political party affiliation: 72% of Democrats favored impeachment, compared to 56% of Independents and 20% of Republicans.

    Responses also varied by age and income. Solid majorities of those under age 55 (54%), as well as those with household incomes below $50,000 (57%), support impeachment.

    Majorities favored impeachment in the Northeast (53%), West (51%), and even the South (50%).

    Support for Impeachment Surged Since June

    The Ipsos poll shows a dramatic transformation in support for Bush's impeachment since late June. (This is only the second poll that has asked Americans about their support for impeaching Bush in 2005, despite his record-low approval ratings.) The Zogby poll conducted June 27-29 of 905 likely voters found that 42% agreed and 50% disagreed with a statement virtually identical to the one used by Ipsos Public Affairs. (see footnote below)

    READ THIS:

    http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/

    Posted by plunger at 08/27/2006 @ 11:53am

  6. Plame leak:

    Leaked by

    Richard Armitage to

    Karl Rove

    Confirmed by

    Bill Harlow

    For the purpose of discrediting Wilson AND destroying WMD intelligence.

    If the secondary portion of the foregoing was not intentional, it's irrelevant.

    The leaking of Plame's identity destroyed the undercover Brewster Jennings WMD surveillance operation – and quite likely resulted in the death of dozens of covert operatives, about whom you will never hear.

    Brewster Jennings likely had proof that the Pentagon was arranging delivery of WMD into Iraq for the invading US forces to "discover."

    Additionally, Brewster Jennings likely had evidence of the Administration's complicity in the events of 9/11.

    TREASON

    IMPEACH

    Posted by plunger at 08/27/2006 @ 11:59am

  7. Karl Rove INVENTED the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) for one purpose. TOTAL MESSAGE CONTROL.

    Rove is a genious...an evil genious.

    He can only be effective when he knows literally everything. He is the REALITY CREATION ARCHITECT.

    At any given time he can take a set of actual facts and use each of them to stitch together a totally false reality.

    Rove knew that the truth was the enemy of their conspiracy to conquer the Middle East (the PNAC plan). His job, every single day, is to convince you, me and the rest of the world that you didn't just see and hear what you just saw and heard...or if you did, it doesn't mean what your logical mind is attempting to tell you - because "we're in a post-9/11 world now" and black is white.

    Karl Rove is the single most destructive force in the US Government...the enabler of the entire evil scheme...THE ARCHITECT.

    The scheme includes 9/11 as the essential pretext. "9/11" ... how clever, Karl! Only someone with American sensibilities would select the number we have all memorized to call in the event of life threatening emergency as the date for this evil....

    KARL ROVE.

    The war plan to invade Iraq was written BEFORE 9/11. The Secret Energy Task Force meetings that Cheney had with Ken Lay and the other OIL HOGS during which they all decided how to divide up the oil fields of the Middle East...all of that was BEFORE 9/11.

    Now you see why Cheney insisted the substance of those talks remain SECRET.

    All of their schemes and conspiracies REQUIRED 9/11 as the essential trigger.

    Cheney outsourced the implementation of the FALSE FLAG OPERATION to Mossad...the FALSE FLAG experts. This explains why over 200 Mossad agents were operating in the United States prior to 9/11. This explains why five of them were arrested, having been observed filming the planes hitting the towers and their subsequent collapse - celebrating our worst nightmare.

    9/11 was not a bad day for those involved in the Conspiracy. It was their shining moment...their PRETEXT.

    One of them washed out...couldn't cope with the guilt. Ari Fleisher had to be replaced, and disappeared. Not dead, but out of sight.

    The outing of Plame was designed to destroy the best WMD intelligence the US had at its disposal regarding Iraq. Plame knew for a FACT that Iraq had no WMD. It was HER JOB to know. Therefore Rove perceived Plame (the truth) as his WORST ENEMY, and conceived of a plan to silence her. Rove is the individual who insisted that Wilson be sent to Niger.

    GUARANTEED.

    This was the only way to launch a smear program which appeared to be aimed at Wilson, but was intended solely to shut down the entire Brewster Jennings operation and bury their WMD evidence.

    THAT IS ALL ROVE.

    He invented WHIG:

    The group's members included Rove, Bush advisor Karen Hughes, Senior Advisor to the Vice President Mary Matalin, Deputy Director of Communications James Wilkinson, Assistant to the President and Legislative Liaison Nicholas Calio, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

    Every single one of these individuals is a co-conspirator in a concerted effort to defraud America into committing its troops and its treasure to invade a foreign country to the sole benefit of BIG OIL AND ISRAEL.

    The pending invasion of Iran is the next phase of the very same conspiracy. Karen Kwiatkowski let us know that Larry Franklin had set up an IRAN desk in the midst of the Pentagon's IRAQ planners. Larry Franklin has pled guilty for passing Top Secret Iranian Intelligence to AIPAC (Israel). Israeli Generals were free to come and go from the Cheney/Rumsfeld Office Of Middle East Invasion whenever they pleased, without need to sign the guest register.

    IT'S ALL THE SAME CONSPIRACY.

    9/11 - Afghanistan - Iraq - Iran - Syria.

    READ THE PNAC.

    A "New Pearl Harbor" was a REQUIREMENT for its implementation.

    Rove is running the entire PsyOps Machine to enable it.

    Hang them for TREASON.

    http://dailydocket.blogspot.com/2006/01/propaganda.html

    But whereas Hitler was a true master of propaganda, and his minister a far less talented functionary, today the situation is reversed: our propaganda minister is the master, and our leader his functionary. Karl Rove is so confident of his strategy that he now announces it to the public! In January of this year,

    Rove noted that we face "a ruthless enemy" and "need a commander in chief and a Congress who understand the nature of the threat and the gravity of the moment America finds itself in."

    Here's more:

    "[T]he people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."

    -- Karl Rove (oops!) Hermann Goering

    Posted by plunger at 08/27/2006 @ 12:09pm

  8. OH. Should we now go after him(Armitage) or just give Wilson a medal? Maybe a Playboy layout for Val? or what?...this is a dead issue.The Wilsons have had their book, pictures on magazines covers, lecture tours, MSM orgasmic interviews, lawyer fee beg-a-thons, and more than their share of 15 min fame moments..whats left ? Mt. Rushmore? Waste of time....alomost makes one want to go into the spy business..or Hollywood..is the movie coming out soon?

    Move on.

    Posted by john maasch at 08/27/2006 @ 12:22pm

  9. Sounds like a good name for a website, John. Move on, indeed. Move on with the continued destruction of BushCo's image with the public, as the facts continue to come out and the failures pile up.

    Heck, on Tim Russert's this show this morning the National Review was trying to portray itself as a war skeptic. Now that's what I call moving on. Maybe people will actually wake up from this little dream and realize they can't vote for these kind of people any more.

    Posted by MyParadigm at 08/27/2006 @ 12:33pm

  10. Move on.

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 08/27/2006 @ 12:22am

    you sound frantic Maasch.

    and this is such a fun subject to talk about. So what do you think about chimpy saying he was going to get to the bottom of this and then when state told alberto they had some information about the leak...

    alberto (chimpy's legal council) didn't want to know.

    sure sounds like conservatives at the highest levels can't tell the truth.

    I can't remember. Did chimpy wave his finger at the camera when he said he would get to the bottom of the leak?

    Posted by Will C. at 08/27/2006 @ 12:34pm

  11. Cool.

    The left accuses the bush admin. of deliberately leaking Plame info to Novak.

    Then, they investgate, find a lower level of complicity then they had implyed.

    Then they publish the results, retracting their previous contentions.

    Handled.

    The righties yell WMDs, mushroom clouds, eminant threat.

    Then they invade, find no WMDs or eminant threat.

    So where's the retraction from bushco? Where's the,"Well we were wrong, but those guys sucked anyway."? Conservative are never wrong.

    That is the difference between liberal thinking and conservative thinking.

    One thinks in abosolutes, propoganda and dogma. The other toys with any rational concept, willing to discard, that which does not work.

    This also explains, that when a conservative calls a liberal a 'flip-flopper', it shouldn't be construed as an insult. With no room for alternate ideas, or admitting you were wrong, a thinking mans mind must appear abnormal.

    Eric

    Posted by Malcontent at 08/27/2006 @ 2:52pm

  12. THE CASE FOR IMPEACHMENT:

    The Legal Argument for Removing President George W. Bush from Office

    http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/id16.html

    Contents

    I Why Impeachment?

    II An Agenda of Deceit and a Case of Overreaching

    III The Origins of Impeachment

    IV Impeachment, Trial and Removal

    V Deadly Lies and an Illegal War

    VI Dark Questions About a Dark Day

    VII Taking Liberties

    VIII Vengeance and Betrayal

    IX Breaking Things: Bush's Way of War

    X Abuse of Power, Criminal Negligence, and Other Crimes

    XI Impeaching Other Bush Administration Officials

    Epilogue

    Appendices: Downing Street Memo, Niger Forgeries, Taguba Report, International Committee of the Red Cross Report, FBI Memo Regarding Torture at Guantanamo, Gonzales Memo on Torture,Federal Indictment of Libby, Rumsfeld Memo on Torture

    Preface

    We are not writing this book under any illusion that the House Republicans will pass a bill of impeachment, or even, probably, that the current Congress will see a bill of impeachment filed by a House Democrat. The Republican majority in the lower house is committed to protecting the president from impeachment, even though some of its own members have condemned his actions as unconstitutional. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party leadership, both at the top of the party and in the Congress, is so timid (and often so complicit in some of the president's worst crimes such as the war, the domestic spying, and undermining of civil liberties), that little action can be expected from that quarter either. We do believe, however, that the American public is way ahead of the Congress. We the People have become increasingly angry at Bush's imperious and unconstitutional behavior. As of the Ides of March 2006, a scant one-third of us still backed Bush, while other polls showed a majority of us thinking he should be removed from office both for his spying authorization and for his lying the nation into war.

    The authors believe that just as the president's many impeachable crimes are political in nature, they demand a political response. What is required is that the public rise up this November, throw off years of lethargy and cynicism, and elect to Congress representatives who are committed to standing up for the Constitution, for the tradition of three co-equal branches of government, and for the civil liberties that hundreds of thousands of Americans have died defending...

    Chapter V: Deadly Lies and an Illegal War

    Within hours of the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, the Bush administration began behind-the-scenes planning to launch a war against Iraq. Their true objective had nothing to do with tracking down and killing the terrorists responsible for the attacks; instead it was aimed at "regime change"--the overthrow of dictator Saddam Hussein.

    ...As despicable and devious as Bush's lying was before the war, and as terrible as have been the consequences of those lies, this was not the only, or perhaps even the most egregious, of the presidential crimes relating to the Iraq War. The very act of invading Iraq itself takes that honor. For in deciding to invade Iraq in March 2003, the president may well have engaged in a constitutional abuse of power and a violation of the War Powers Act of 1993.

    Chapter VI: Dark Questions About a Dark Day

    The mounting doubts and growing questions about the veracity of administration explanations concerning what was known and what was done leading up to, during, and after the 9/11 attacks on the United States, and the growing disenchantment with the wars started in retaliation for those attacks, have created a new crisis of legitimacy for the American government. This kind of crisis, which resembles the one that followed the Kennedy assassination and the subsequent Warren Commission Report (another commission whose conclusions were widely disputed, disbelieved and discredited), breeds a cynicism about American government that is itself dangerous to democracy.

    ....The proper solution is an aggressive demand for honest answers from the White House and key federal agencies--the kind of demand that could probably only be made by a House Judiciary Committee impeachment inquiry. For this reason, the president should be impeached on charges of obstruction of justice, violation of his oath of office, and jeopardizing national security in relation to the 9/11 attacks and the administration's response to those attacks.

    Chapter VII: Taking Liberties

    Combine the government's unconstitutional and draconian treatment of Arab and other Islamic immigrants and the president's assertion of both a right to spy at will on anyone, and to declare anyone to be an "enemy combatant." Now strip away all constitutional rights so that someone so accused has no recourse to the courts, and you get a terrifying picture of government run amok. This is a constitutional crisis crying out for the remedy of impeachment. Anyone who believes he or she is immune from such treatment has little understanding of history. Imagine this nightmare: An overeager NSA Internet monitor detects an unsolicited e-mail to your computer from a suspected terrorist-linked organization. This is reported to the FBI. Agents have you declared an "enemy combatant" and you're packed off, without your family's knowledge, to a military base in a remote state, or perhaps to Guantanamo. You're not permitted to call your lawyer. You're not even allowed your "one phone call." There you could sit indefinitely, without knowledge of the charge against you, while you are subjected to presidentially approved "extreme methods" of interrogation aimed at finding out who you know and how you're linked to international terror organizations.

    Chapter VIII: Vengeance and Betrayal

    As for President Bush, it is difficult to imagine that he is telling the truth about what he knew at the time of the [Plame] outing, and what he knows now. Novak himself, the reporter who blew Plame's cover, has said that he believes Bush knew the identity of Novak's "two senior administration official" sources from the beginning, despite the president's feigning of ignorance. "I'm confident the president knows who the source is," he told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh, North Carolina, "so I say, `Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.'"

    It is important to note here that Bush, in early June 2004, acknowledged that he had consulted with a criminal attorney in the Plame outing case, saying, "This is a criminal matter, it's a serious matter."

    Chapter IX: Breaking Things: Bush's Way of War

    As we will see, the policy permitting torture was soon instituted in Afghanistan. Evidence of this came in a memo to the president from his White House legal counsel, Alberto Gonzales, who warned his boss that the American treatment of detainees captured in that conflict might be criminally prosecutable under the War Crimes Act, a measure passed in 1996, which made violation of the Third Geneva Convention punishable as a violation not just of international law, but of U.S. law. At that point, the president had two options: he could have ordered all mistreatment and torture of captured fighters to cease, or he could ignore the law and the abuses. Bush chose the latter option, attempting to keep the policy quiet, and issuing an executive order on torture (See Appendix E--FBI Report.) This secret document "opted the U.S. out" of the Geneva Conventions, in hopes of shielding American soldiers (and, Gonzales hoped, the president himself) from prosecution, and simultaneously authorized the continued use of internationally banned tactics. Indeed, in a memo to the president in January 2002, Gonzales actually adviced the president that "high officials," the president included, could eventually be prosecuted for war crimes, and suggested that by declaring torture victims not to be POWs, he might insulate himself and subordinates from such an eventuality.

    Chapter X: Abuse of Power, Criminal Negligence, and Other Crimes

    It is one of the more bizarre peculiarities of the Bush-Cheney administration that as aggressive as it has been at seeking to expand the power of the executive branch and the president, at the expense of the other branches of the federal government, the president himself has displayed a stunning contempt for the actual job of governing--as have many of his appointees to top administrative posts. Even as the Bush administration tries to expropriate or usurp, it has repeatedly failed to make use of executive powers it clearly does have when the health, safety, and welfare of the public are at stake. On the one hand, President Bush has declared it his unfettered prerogative to strip Americans of their citizenship rights at his own whim, to declare war at a time and place of his own choosing, to violate international laws banning torture, and even to interpret acts of Congress as he sees fit. On the other hand, this self-styled imperial leader has allowed American soldiers to go to war inadequately armed and whout body armor. He ignored the plight of a storm-hammered city for many critical days--in fact, even after he had been informed the New Orleans levees had broken he went golfing--resulting in needless death and suffering, and the near loss of a great metropolis. Perhaps most inexcusably of all, the president has failed to take any significant action to combat the threat to life on the planet posed by accelerating global warming, despite near unanimity among the scientific commmunity that it is almost too late. Indeed, he and his administration have actively obstructed efforts domestically and globally to combat climate change.

    Chapter XI: Impeaching Other Bush Administration Officials

    The president of the United States is the only person who is protected, while in office, from being indicted and arrested in a criminal case, so bringing a president to justice requires the arduous and politically challenging process of impeachment. Other officers, such as the vice president and members of the president's cabinet have no such protection and can simply be indicted for crimes while in office--as happened most recently to Nixon's vice president, Spiro Agnew.

    Nonetheless, the Constitution also pointedly extends the process of impeachment to "all civil officials," and over the course of history, the process has been used--primarily against federal judges. The reason to have impeachment available for government officials other than the president is that assaults on the Constitution are often not crimes as is commonly understood, and might never meet the standard for a criminal indictment. Many offenses are purely political, such as lying to the American people or abuse of power. For that reason, we need also to consider the impeachable acts of others in the Bush administration, notably Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, National Security Adviser and later Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and White House Counsel and subsequently Attorney General Alberto Gonzales.

    Epilogue: The Case for Impeachment

    The Bush administration, to a degree that is unprecedented and frightening, is asserting a right to unfettered presidential power. As we have seen, Bush is claiming the authority to decide upon setting the country at war...He is claiming the right to take the basic constitutional rights of citizenship away from an American on his own authority...He is claiming the right to ignore the laws passed by the Congress, the right to decide on his own what those laws mean and to act according to his own interpretation, and even the right to ignore court orders. He is claiming that as commander in chief he has powers that are outside the normal constraints of the Constitution: the power to spy on Americans without a court order, the power to ignore international law and treaties approved by Congress and signed by former presidents, the power to ignore requests from Congress for information about government activities.

    The president makes these outrageous assertions based upon the self-serving argument that the nation is at war and that he is therefore not just president, but commander in chief...but this "war" he is referring to is not really a war. The so-called "War on Terror" is a police action against stateless terrorists--and as such it has no beginning and no end. If we were to accept the president's claim that it is a war, and that this justifies making him a de-facto dictator...we are permanently revoking the Constitution and all the rights and the checks and balances that the Founders so carefully put in place.

    The president is dead wrong.

    The Constitution was not conceived as a document for the good times. It was meant to guide the nation through times of conflict, trouble, and stress as well.

    Posted by plunger at 08/27/2006 @ 3:14pm

  13. Maasch, I actually think Wilson should get a medal. he was one of the first to speak out. Bush only gives medals for catastrophic failure, such as 9/11 and Hurricane Katrina.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 08/27/2006 @ 4:26pm

  14. Freiheit, I think it is important not to overstate that threat. let's look at the region starting with Israel, they got nukes, then going east Pakistan, they got nukes, and spread the technology to other countries. India, also got nukes. India and Pakistan have been at each other's throats for 60 years with I believe two wars fought. now, which is the most dangerous here?

    Posted by johannesrolf at 08/27/2006 @ 7:47pm

  15. Well, Johanesrolf, I think that recent war between India and Pakistan was averted because of globalization. India realized that pushing it with Pakistan would jeapordize its emerging tech economy. Pressure from the multinationals chilled the situation. India backed down.

    Posted by FREIHEIT 08/27/2006 @ 10:25pm

    and Pakistan has nukes

    Posted by Will C. at 08/27/2006 @ 10:37pm

  16. Apologies ahead of time for the long post, a little off topic, but I started this on Corn's previous thread and only now had the time to focus on it and complete as it is--

    Below are the reasons for my conclusions. I researched the number of our dead US troops per the war and occupation of Iraq-- because I saw a pattern. I am a visual artist and professor with tons of experience studying design, thus became interested in what was the cause behind the relationship in the pattern I saw as it effected a greater number of other deaths. Death here is in itself of great importance as it's currently being subjected to corrupt corporate/hsuB admin manipulation for the lowest of reasons-- greed.

    Ok, too much preamble. The results:

    The first three months of the war on Iraq caused 174 US dead, but the consequent 18 months had 971. The middle five months, 465-- per election. However, the last 18 months created an estimated 1122 more US deaths. Thus, if anyone needed verifiable proof that everything was going to shit in a hand basket-- this is it in the simplest terms possible--more of our troops are dying than ever before--even though we're being told it's decreasing. It's all in the way one perceives the information. Artificial ‘quarterly manipulated' patterns show only temporary information. Given that most US soldiers are probably being regulated to support roles and highly reserved--I'd say this is very telling. (The pattern is: the 1st 3 month total, the next 18 month total, mid-5 month total and-- finally the last 18 months. Thus one can clearly see the symmetry, compare the first 18 months (971) to the last 18 months in the pattern (1122); the before and after results of a failed hsuB admin BS ad ploy. It's clearly getting worse.

    Ok then, as for the Iraqi death totals-- unfortunately, I cannot make a definitive statement on any research as all the documented evidence is conflicting, tainted and most probably-- purposefully so. But you can see what I came up with below. It's severely tragic. After the November 2004 election the numbers of iraq dead increase astronomically. If Iraqbodycount can be trusted at least this far: as many Iraqi died during the pre-war bombing and first 3 monthas as did the follow 18 months(about 6000). Then the following 5 months about 9000. But tragically, even with what I think are purposefully low numbers-- the last 18 months records, more than 21,000 have died, that's 3.5 more than the previously noted 18 months in the pattern. Again, this is a failure of very 'speakable', explanable proportions and one that has to stop ASAP.

    Average (per month) Death Rate in Iraq

    Period_________Date______ US military ___Iraqi military___civilians

    first 3 months, (March-May'03)___58_________?????_____2033*

    next 4 months, (June-Sept'03)___36_________?????______267

    next 4 months, (Oct'03-Jan'04)___53_________?????______179

    next 5 months, (Feb-June'04)____62_________?????______319

    next 5 months, (July-Oct'04)_____61_________?????______549

    next 5 months, (Nov'04-Mar'05)__81_________?????_____1843**

    next 6 months, (April-Sept'05)___66__________262______1411

    next 6 months, (Oct'05-Mar'06)__66__________187______1252

    next 6 months, (April-Sept'06)___55__________169_______950***

    *First months includes prewar bombing up to May'03 via ‘Iraq Body Count', but not including the estimated 37,000, first dead estimate up to Oct'03 via Aljazeera so reported count may be much much higher…

    ** Estimated via remaining totals (40833 to 45399) as all other dates counted and split the difference between the two totals.

    *** Very questionable as reports from Coroner from Baghdad reported over 3000 civilian dead in just July 2006, NY Times.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/15/world/middleeast/15cnd-iraq.html?ei=50 88&en=791fbf910f54ab2f&ex=1313294400&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss&pagewanted=a ll

    Other sources:

    http://www.iraqbodycount.org/

    http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11861155/site/newsweek/

    http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/attack/2003/0402toll.ht m

    http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/66E32EAF-0E4E-4765-9339-594C323A7 77F.htm

    *Detailed figures

    Al-Ubaidi, a UK-based physiology professor, provided a detailed breakdown of the 37,000 civilian deaths for each governorate (excluding the Kurdish areas) relating to the period between March and October 2003:

    Baghdad: 6103

    Mosul: 2009

    Basra: 6734

    Nasiriya: 3581

    Diwania: 1567

    Wasit: 2494

    Babil: 3552

    Karbala and Najaf: 2263

    Muthana: 659

    Misan: 2741

    Anbar: 2172

    Kirkuk: 861

    Salah al-Din: 1797.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/27/2006 @ 11:55pm

  17. ...that's 3.5 'times' more...

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/28/2006 @ 12:35am

  18. Frei, Pakistan is a breath away from an islamist revolution, and a Taleban gov't. India has a militant Hindu party, which could come to power/ the issue of Kashmir is unresolved. feel better about nukes there? whom has Iran attacked? even the war with Iraq was defensive, as Saddam attacked them. I don't whitewash Iran's theocratic regime. but we must be careful not to fall for the Bush fear mongering.they were wrong about Iraq, and I have no confidence whatsoever that they would be right about Iran. one more thing about Pakistan. who do you think has been harboring BIn Laden? and I don't for a minute buy that he is hiding in a cave.

    and finally about the only country that dropped nukes on a civilian population. did you know that Truman claimed that Hiroshima was selected because it was a military target and few civilians would be killed? to me that says it all. I don't believe that dropping the nukes saved lives. I also believe that the nuke attacks must be seen in the context of the carpet bombing of civilian populations in Japan and Germany. it is now recognized that instead of breaking the will of these populations, it accomplished the opposite. in Europe the war against Hitler's germany was mostly won by the red army, and not by the "strategic" bombing campaigns.

    you said before that November will be interesting. I think it will be tragic, for both parties, as the killing and dying of american troops and Iraqis will continue. the right in this country learned nothing from Vietnam. negotiations with the enemy are seen as a sign of weakness, instead of wisdom. I expect you to give these points some thought, I do not expect you to a agree. I look forward to the result of any possible thunks.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 08/28/2006 @ 12:43am

  19. libert, right wing ideologues don't have books out? Ann coulter spouts her nonsense in order NOT to sell books?

    in our country of supine media, it is the books released, many by former Bush supporters, that have lifted the curtain of incompetence and ignorance of this administration. it will likely be a long and cold winter for you after election day. your halcyon days are numbered.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 08/28/2006 @ 12:45am

  20. So again,,,YAWN...

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 08/28/2006 @ 12:37am

    you know the funny thing is that chimpy could have subverted Mr Corns book "promotion" and a couple years of media speculation if he had simply done what he said what he was going to do... find the source of the leaks and then remove them from his administration.

    but he didn't (no shit). So now you have to live with it

    Posted by Will C. at 08/28/2006 @ 12:50am

  21. or go to sleep forvever

    Posted by Will C. at 08/28/2006 @ 12:50am

  22. Posted by JOHANNESROLF 08/28/2006 @ 12:43am

    Have you ever read Speers book? He makes a point of noting that german industry was capable of quickly getting back on line after US and British raids

    Posted by Will C. at 08/28/2006 @ 01:01am

  23. And that's why he didn't want to do the old trash and burn?

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/28/2006 @ 01:21am

  24. Posted by JOHANNESROLF 08/28/2006 @ 12:45am

    I think old LuvLying just goes along with the hsuB line of being anti-inquisitive-- thus always bored w/out a prescript... is in need of yet another vacation.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/28/2006 @ 01:31am

  25. I still think that the msm should have played this lighter on the intricat detail and heavier on the S.King's Dead Zone angle. But alas, no pic of hsuB holding Valerie up to save himself.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/28/2006 @ 01:56am

  26. ...intricat'e'...

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/28/2006 @ 01:57am

  27. The copter awaits another drop to bed destination. Night all.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/28/2006 @ 02:01am

  28. Hey David, You own plunger now, screen capped for future reference. Gotta love it.

    Posted by Rooster50 at 08/28/2006 @ 03:51am

  29. Actually, you may soon compete with Koskids comment, How about "Cornkids?"

    Posted by Rooster50 at 08/28/2006 @ 03:54am

  30. Just a little cynicism...I know, strange coming from me, but...

    Seriously, if you had spent over a year and a half working on a book about "Plame-gate", and three months before its release, Patrick Fitzgerald had come up essentially empty-handed (Libby was small potatoes as "Hyman Roth" might say, and not a headline grabber like Rove would have been)...

    Wouldn't you and your writing partner be looking for ANYTHING to keep it "alive" as the publication date got closer, even to the point of hyping it up again on your left-of-center magazine (where it really needs no further explanation, given ALL of the left-of-center readers ALREADY "know" that Rove is guilty)...or in "Newsweek" to try to capture a few "undecideds"?

    People who buy Coulter or Limbaugh books aren't going to buy this....but the people who buy Mr Corn's books aren't going to rush out to buy it, unless "fever" for it keeps getting ginned up and people in the middle aren't, unless there's a big splashy article in Newsweek with "shocking revelations!".

    Posted by Mask at 08/28/2006 @ 08:59am

  31. Also...curious about THIS line from Mr Corn-

    "The initial leaker was not plotting vengeance."?!?!?

    Wait a minute, so the person who "started it all" WASN'T trying to "get Joe and Valerie"? "That came later"?

    If Armitage wasn't "out to destroy the Wilsons", and the info was being spread by Novak....how does it LATER "get used for vengence" after the cat is out of the bag?!?!?

    Posted by Mask at 08/28/2006 @ 10:02am

  32. RE: So what?

    Posted by woodyee at 08/28/2006 @ 10:06am

  33. Ok, so lets say you borrow a gun from a friend you say for target practice and then go shoot someone with it. Is it you or your friend that's liable? No, it's only you-- per intent. If your friend had knowledge of your intent then yes he's liable too, otherwise perhaps just negligent.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/28/2006 @ 10:39am

  34. Something doesn't add up in this whole ordeal.

    If Richard Armitage was the cause of the leak, why didn't the Bush Administration bury Richard? Do you think the beads of sweat that formed on Karl Rove's fat forehead would have done so if he had a scapegoat to take the fall for him?

    And besides, GWB has to know he has a credibility gap with the vast majority of Americans (all but the apologist segment) and when he makes these ridiculous sweeping statements of "I want to know who it was and I want the leaker punished" and then does absolutely nothing he looks like a complete dork. So why didn't Bush find out it was Armitage and make himself look like someone in actual control.

    Is Armitage beyond prosecution and doing someone a favor by distracting the heat?

    Posted by freedomplease at 08/28/2006 @ 10:46am

  35. Fitz knew early that it was Armitage and knew that Val Plame wasn't a covert agent. Why did he go after Libby?? I doubt we'll ever know. The old independent counsels were required by law to release a report on their investigation but the law was changed. Fitzgerald has no obligation to explain his actions to anyone.

    Posted by woodyee at 08/28/2006 @ 2:17pm

  36. I know almost everybody has these guys on "Ignore"...but they are often good for a laugh (and of course, are invariably attracted to any new David Corn piece...?!?!)

    "I agree with the first poster"----Posted by RESE 08/27/2006 @ 3:46pm

    GUESS WHO is the "first poster"?

    Posted by Mask at 08/28/2006 @ 3:47pm

  37. Geeze it's getting so a guy just can't take a 'single' vacation, much less a few hundred...

    Newsweek Poll conducted by Princeton Survey Research Associates International. Aug. 24-25, 2006. N=1,002 adults nationwide. MoE ± 3.

    ". . . Do you approve or disapprove of the way Bush is handling terrorism and homeland security?"

    __________Approve____Disapprove___Unsure

    8/24-25/06_____49________45________6

    8/10-11/06_____55________40________5

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/28/2006 @ 3:55pm

  38. Posted by HSUBFOOLS 08/28/2006 @ 3:55pm

    Boy, I tells ya, HSUB....

    really starting to doubt he'll win that third term!

    Posted by Mask at 08/28/2006 @ 4:15pm

  39. WOODYEE:

    Perhaps he went after Scooter because he knew he could nail the little fish for related crimes, and he needed someone he could leverage in order to get at the bigger fish. Prosecutors do that all the time.

    Posted by jorcheim at 08/28/2006 @ 6:07pm

  40. Here we are back on the Plame case. 1. She was a covert agent 2. All her contacts, and cultivated sources (read spies) were compromised.!!! 3. Whoever took over her position was immediately placed in harms way. 4. She probably took over a position of oversite over those WMD Middle East operations. The CIA does promote. 5. Our medal of freedom winner, the former DCIA would not have requested an investigation if her outing did not bring serious or great harm to the CIA. 6. With the exception of Armitage, Rove Libby Cheney et al had to discredit Wilson. Any who say her outing did not hurt the CIA and our security are ignorant fecal eating stupid cretins.

    Posted by was at 08/28/2006 @ 6:54pm

  41. Here we are back on the Plame case. 1. She was a covert agent 2. All her contacts, and cultivated sources (read spies) were compromised.!!! 3. Whoever took over her position was immediately placed in harms way. 4. She probably took over a position of oversite over those WMD Middle East operations. The CIA does promote. 5. Our medal of freedom winner, the former DCIA would not have requested an investigation if her outing did not bring serious or great harm to the CIA. 6. With the exception of Armitage, Rove Libby Cheney et al had to discredit Wilson. Any who say her outing did not hurt the CIA and our security are ignorant fecal eating stupid cretins.

    Posted by was at 08/28/2006 @ 7:03pm

  42. Upon further reading and discussion it appears that the whole Bush/Cheney/Rovian cabal to punish wilson and his wife is evporating in from of Corns eyes. Armitage screws up with the Plame/Wilson fiasco as an accident and a gossip mouth...and all the conspiracy theorys flush down the toilet like royalties off a book...maybe Corn can re edit the book and sell it as a fiction/action story. Throw in some sex and violence, sell the movie rights and use the money to help restore the reputations of some innocents who had their names dragged through the mud of one lefty conspiracy theory to another, all the while enduring legals fees...

    Posted by john maasch at 08/28/2006 @ 7:06pm

  43. With David Corn's usual deceit, he leads on his loyal Nation bloggers, omitting some key information solely for the purpose of promoting his book (not that there is any thing wrong with self-promotion, a guy has to make a living). But to suggest sinister conclusions that are not found in the book reveals Corn's deceitful ways.

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 08/28/2006 @ 6:49pm

    Luvvy… once again you're a flipping idiot. First of all David posted that link in both this article and in the

    "Armitage Was the Original Leaker in Plame Case" thread

    So he wasn't deceitful at all

    And second, Powell didn't didn't cover up anything. Taft offered to tell Alberto the details... he didn't want to know.

    and I notices you pretty much gave up on getting your links to work

    (three college degrees eh, baby)

    Ha Ha Ha Ha

    Posted by Will C. at 08/28/2006 @ 9:12pm

  44. woodye managed to slip a lie into his post--in fact, plame was a covert agent. this is well established.

    Posted by pretzel at 08/28/2006 @ 9:14pm

  45. Posted by MASK 08/28/2006 @ 4:15pm

    As hsuB goes so goes all new cons; he'll drag them down with him-- he's definitely a clinger.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/28/2006 @ 10:24pm

  46. Posted by PRETZEL 08/28/2006 @ 9:14pm

    woodye managed to slip a lie into his post--in fact, plame was a covert agent. this is well established.

    Well established - by whom?

    Posted by pontificus at 08/29/2006 @ 12:28am

  47. Posted by JOHN MAASCH 08/28/2006 @ 7:06bm

    "Feebliness", JMsch, you've just inspired a new word! Good work-- keep it up.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/29/2006 @ 01:24am

  48. Bushfools,

    Very good, now go get yourself a cookie...you deserve it.. we are all so proud..If only I had a son like you....brings tears to ones eyes..

    Posted by john maasch at 08/29/2006 @ 02:13am

  49. UN officials on Tuesday expressed worry at the slow pace of the cleanup, hampered by Israeli bombardment and blockades for a month while oil continued to seep out into the Mediterranean.

    "There have been hostilities in the area, and the environmental side of Lebanon's problems unfortunately couldn't be addressed until now," said Nick Nuttall, spokesman for the UN Environment Program ...

    Posted by ZERO 08/27/2006 @ 2:04pm

    Imagine the frantic screaming that would be going on if Hezbollah had been responsible for this.

    Posted by fromredbird at 08/29/2006 @ 03:58am

  50. Well established - by whom?

    Posted by PONTIFICUS 08/29/2006 @ 12:28am

    The CIA

    Posted by Will C. at 08/29/2006 @ 09:06am

  51. PRETZEL - She wasn't a covert at the time.

    Posted by woodyee at 08/29/2006 @ 09:08am

  52. "Feebliness", JMsch, you've just inspired a new word! Good work-- keep it up.

    Posted by HSUBFOOLS 08/29/2006 @ 01:24am

    I'll posit he just misspelled "Fee Blindness"...

    Something you average hamster pays big bucks to the Republican Party to obtain

    Posted by Will C. at 08/29/2006 @ 09:08am

  53. PRETZEL - She wasn't a covert at the time.

    Posted by WOODYEE 08/29/2006 @ 09:08am

    she was NOC

    Posted by Will C. at 08/29/2006 @ 09:09am

  54. To David Corn - Why didn't you or Isikoff contact or interview Rove or Libby? Also, why does most of your information in the book come from Joe Wilson? Remember, you're the one who started the urban legend that Val Plame was a covert.

    Posted by woodyee at 08/29/2006 @ 09:13am

  55. David,

    Why not ask the big question..what is the problem with Fitzgerald? If I were Rove I'd sue Fitzgerald...if you are writing a book on the plan set up to destroy Plame and Wilson by government officails with enough "info and facts" to actually fill a book...then how could you miss the biggest fact of all? The fact there was no effort to do exactly what your book claims to have been planned?

    You missed the biggest fact of all, that Fitz KNEW the source of the leak and went after Cheneys guy for not remembering speaking to a reporters? that should be a book...

    or this book title..

    "How to write a book about someone you hate enough to write a book while missing all the facts exonerating your source of hate."

    Lastly....if I am accused of commiting an act by, say, a procesutor and he comes accross evidence that I had nothing to do with his directive in searching for a crime and he goes after me anyway without bringing up the evidence he found clearing me...and in the process he sues me for not shoveling my drive way..can I sue him? Can I sue people who author books about my crimes and the miss the biggets fact of all clearing my name? Can I have the authors pay my legal bills?

    Corn, your hate and political beliefs got in the way of your research..you cost many people much pain , money and hardship...shame on you in this case. You are(were) a pro and more is expected from you. You screwed many reputations. Enjoy your book..I for one will pass it by on the close out sale table...even at 80% off.... which is a good description of your research..if you call it that.

    Posted by john maasch at 08/29/2006 @ 09:29am

  56. Hubris...that should be your new pen name....

    Posted by john maasch at 08/29/2006 @ 09:32am

  57. Heard Michael Isikoff on MSNBC yesterday...and heard the same thing from him...

    "Armitage was a 'moderate'", opposed to the war in Iraq, AND to Bush and Cheney.

    But,but,but..."outing Plame was to get revenge on Wilson for not supporting the 'yellow-cake story', so that we could invade Iraq"!?!??

    Why would Armitage who opposed going into Iraq..."go after" the Wilsons by outing Valerie....if he AGREED with them?!?!?

    Hmmm...something doesn't add up...and I have an idea what it is!

    Posted by Mask at 08/29/2006 @ 09:33am

  58. Well atleast we now the the real reason for Corn's zeal to ignore the facts and push this story..... pure capitalism. I guess there is a little conservitive in him after all. Actually it just further confirms his place among the the liberal elitist "do what I say not what I do" crowd.

    Does David report in his book that he is the first to name Plame as a CIA operative in the public forum? (a tip from Wilson himself no doubt)

    it must be nice to have a public forum to promote a book under the guise of "reporting," even nicer to have a legion of misinformed lackeys hanging on every word (sale).

    Posted by MJ Procko at 08/29/2006 @ 10:07am

  59. Armitage should probably go into the Wilsons lawsuit now. He apparently let this info by mistake. But Rove etc went with it and turned it into a campaign. Why did Libby lie to the FBI if he had nothing to hide? Why did Rove have to go before a Grand Jury FIVE times if he didn't do anything? Why did theCIA ask Justice to investigate if there was nothing here? What's with the secret indictment, still sealed?

    There is much here yet to be told. As with Iraq, you neo-cons better not count your poultry yet.

    Posted by crabwalk at 08/29/2006 @ 11:56am

  60. Corn, your hate and political beliefs got in the way of your research..you cost many people much pain , money and hardship...shame on you in this case

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 08/29/2006 @ 09:29am '

    I would make this case against Novak as well, with even more evidence. What was he doing? He damaged our national security and you guys blame Wilson and Corn? Oh, that's right, Saddam was "reconstituting his nuclear capabilities" with his aluminum tubes. That is the important issue.

    Posted by crabwalk at 08/29/2006 @ 12:05pm

  61. Quick football pool--

    Given Byron York in NRO, how soon until Mr Corn produces an article explaining why neither he nor Mr Isikoff spoke with Rove or Libby?

    (Side-bet...how many "AIPAC mind control laser" posts will it engender from RESE and PLUNGER?...hehe!)

    Posted by Mask at 08/29/2006 @ 12:51pm

  62. So David Corn is "Revealing the Truth" again, huh? Hmmm. I remember when he did that a couple months ago concerning the "upcoming" Rove indictment. I guess Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald didn't have a chance to read Corns articles.

    CT

    Posted by CHIP THORNTON at 08/29/2006 @ 1:02pm

  63. way to keep the lies going mask. fitzgerald explicity said she was covert. she was in fact an operative. she did not have to be out of the country to be an operative. no matter how many times these right wing lies are repeated, they are still lies. i dont know whether you are a traitor or, more likely, just another "useful idiot" for the extremists that have taken over the republican party.

    Posted by pretzel at 08/29/2006 @ 1:15pm

  64. Feb. 13, 2006 issue - Newly released court papers could put holes in the defense of Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, in the Valerie Plame leak case. Lawyers for Libby, and White House allies, have repeatedly questioned whether Plame, the wife of White House critic Joe Wilson, really had covert status when she was outed to the media in July 2003. But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done "covert work overseas" on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA "was making specific efforts to conceal" her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion. (A CIA spokesman at the time is quoted as saying Plame was "unlikely" to take further trips overseas, though.) Fitzgerald concluded he could not charge Libby for violating a 1982 law banning the outing of a covert CIA agent; apparently he lacked proof Libby was aware of her covert status when he talked about her three times with New York Times reporter Judith Miller. Fitzgerald did consider charging Libby with violating the so-called Espionage Act, which prohibits the disclosure of "national defense information," the papers show; he ended up indicting Libby for lying about when and from whom he learned about Plame.

    i did a quick google search and found this from Newsweek feb 16 this year. you seem more like the useful idiot type than a traitor. if you take the trouble to look into the issue and not just get your information from freeperland you could become one of a growing number of patriotic republicans (like James Webb in Virginia, or Paul Craig Roberts) that are appalled at the extremists that have hijacked their party.

    Posted by pretzel at 08/29/2006 @ 1:36pm

  65. PRETZEL - She was not covert. If you really believe that she was covert, and I know you don't, then you'd be posting rants against Armitage/Novak(sp?) for blowing her cover/ending her career/unwanted publicity/ruining her life/etc and posting rants against Fitz for not indicting Armitage. You and the other 'outraged'-er's aren't. This whole thing was meant to drive down the President's poll numbers. This was going to be part of the impeachment proceedings when the Dems take back the House, remember? Corn hoped that this would make him his generation's Woodward/Bernstein and that he'd have bragging rights for bringing down a President.

    Posted by woodyee at 08/29/2006 @ 1:59pm

  66. Posted by PRETZEL 08/29/2006 @ 1:15pm

    As noted, that was MARYBRET, not me...but curious...

    What IS your view of the fact that now the "reason" for the "outing" of Valerie Plame, that was given for over two years (i.e. "revenge on Joe Wilson for the Nigeria trip and NY Times editorial")...

    has NOW been "given up on", since Richard Armitage would have been SYMPATHETIC to Wilson, and noted his dislike of both the idea of invading Iraq AND his dislike of Bush and Cheney?

    Posted by Mask at 08/29/2006 @ 3:01pm

  67. MARYBRETBRAD 08/29/2006 @ 1:10pm

    Darin, I think the low volume of discussion is because we're sort of down to debating how many angels can dance on the head of pin. Valerie Plame's exact classification is a moot point now that it is clear how adroit a leaker Karl Rove is.

    The only thing I learned today was on NRO where I discovered that davidcorn.com is also aliased as bushlies.com. Handy for the subtle character assassination that NRO specializes in. If this book sells, Corn will be as big a bogeyman as Paul Krugman.

    Posted by MyParadigm at 08/29/2006 @ 3:07pm

  68. now that it is clear how adroit a leaker Karl Rove is.

    Posted by MYPARADIGM 08/29/2006 @ 3:07pm

    Again, am I missing something here (opening for easy putdown, MY)?

    I thought ...Richard Armitage was the leaker???

    Posted by Mask at 08/29/2006 @ 3:42pm

  69. Kind of exactly my point. The words came out of one man's mouth and another man (and an ideologically aligned journalist) found a way to make use of it. You could argue forever about who did the damage, who crossed a line. At some point it stops serving any purpose because it just makes everybody look bad.

    Posted by MyParadigm at 08/29/2006 @ 4:15pm

  70. Posted by MYPARADIGM 08/29/2006 @ 4:15pm |

    But MYPARA, for two years now the argument has been...

    "Rove outed Plame to hurt Wilson, because Wilson used his Niger trip and subsequent NY Times essay as an attack on Bush and invading Iraq".

    Now...it's "Armitage outed Plame first and Rove confirmed it to Novak". Okay, but what happened to "hurting Wilson because he opposed the war"?

    Armitage opposed the war...and made clear his dislike of Bush and Cheney for pushing it. So why did HE "out Plame" if he was sympathetic to Wilson's view?

    And what happened to the "revenge or intimidation factor" that was given as THE primary reason for this event....if the guy who started it, was in the same camp with Joe Wilson???

    Posted by Mask at 08/29/2006 @ 4:23pm

  71. All I can say there is, you didn't hear it from me. I will confess to having posted my wishes that someone from BushCo would be sent to jail before 2008, hopefully over this mess. But I saw early on that the evidence of some big smear-Wilson campaign was weak. Hell, the loudmouth pretty much did himself in. If he were a more disciplined person, maybe Rove/Cheney/Libby/Novak would have had to work harder and there would be more to it.

    Posted by MyParadigm at 08/29/2006 @ 4:34pm

  72. Hell, the loudmouth pretty much did himself in. If he were a more disciplined person, maybe Rove/Cheney/Libby/Novak would have had to work harder and there would be more to it.

    Posted by MYPARADIGM 08/29/2006 @ 4:34pm

    Just so I'm clear....WHO are you referring to here?

    Posted by Mask at 08/29/2006 @ 4:44pm

  73. Joe Wilson

    Posted by MyParadigm at 08/29/2006 @ 4:52pm

  74. It's just so funny thinking back when all you Treasonous Bush Haters were salivating....."Indictments expected any day" "Rove Rove Rove"...Ha haa haaa

    It's so refreshing to see your stupidity revealed...I wouldn't have cared if Rove did leak the information Maliciously....It seems you Left Leaning Dhimmi wannabes only like it when you are maliciously spreading lies....

    one more is just gotta say HAAHAHAHAAAHAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Posted by jzimm at 08/29/2006 @ 8:10pm

  75. It's just so funny thinking back when all you Treasonous Bush Haters were salivating....."Indictments expected any day" "Rove Rove Rove"...Ha haa haaa

    It's so refreshing to see your stupidity revealed...I wouldn't have cared if Rove did leak the information Maliciously....It seems you Left Leaning Dhimmi wannabes only like it when you are maliciously spreading lies....

    one more is just gotta say HAAHAHAHAAAHAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Posted by jzimm at 08/29/2006 @ 8:10pm

  76. Isn't it great how the hamsters will always stand up and defend trashing our national security?

    Nothing like destroying a whole career of work done by a smart and talented woman who went under cover to root out weapons of mass destruction.

    Let's here it for the ever expanding commie conservative fringe

    clap clap clap clap...

    (with just a dash of evangelic thrown in for good measure)

    Posted by Will C. at 08/29/2006 @ 9:39pm

  77. "Feebliness", JMsch, you've just inspired a new word! Good work-- keep it up.

    Posted by HSUBFOOLS 08/29/2006 @ 01:24am

    I'll posit he just misspelled "Fee Blindness"...

    Something you average hamster pays big bucks to the Republican Party to obtain

    Posted by WILL C. 08/29/2006 @ 09:08am | ignore this person

    Ha, good one. But had little time to comment. Meant to play off of Mmaaaasch's feeble post.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/30/2006 @ 12:16am

  78. has anyone noticed that the bush administration blew valerie plames cover?

    what a bunch of retards

    Posted by Will C. at 08/30/2006 @ 12:21am

  79. Ha, good one. But had little time to comment. Meant to play off of Mmaaaasch's feeble post.

    Posted by HSUBFOOLS 08/30/2006 @ 12:16am

    in maasch's case it's hysterical fee blindness

    (caused by flopping out his mantits at the office)

    Posted by Will C. at 08/30/2006 @ 12:26am

  80. it brings down the house

    Posted by Will C. at 08/30/2006 @ 12:26am

  81. Looks like the repub new con posters have gotten their hysterical and frantic marching orders as herr leader hsuB's numbers are free falling again and as his fall so too the rest of the new con clingers. Another month and wow, what can a pres do with a 20% approval poll? Do his buds burn hsuB at the stake to get re-elected? Watch for more and more new con mia culpas as Oct arrives.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 08/30/2006 @ 12:28am

  82. Great news! One of our agents working on wmd proliferation had her (covert/clasified/secret) cover blown! A Bush appointee blew it by gossiping. Rove followed up on it and confirmed it. A conservative hack published it. cheney tried to spin it like Wilsons wife sent him. . Libby lied to the FBI about what he knew and when he knew it. Bush tried to claim Iraw had nukes and took us to war.

    YES! Great news indeed for the neo-cons. Nobody here did anything morally, legally or ethically wrong. Credibilty is restored to the WH.

    You guys are wacked!!!

    Posted by crabwalk at 08/30/2006 @ 08:41am

  83. A day after Wilson's column was published, the White House acknowledged that the infamous "16 words" that appeared in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address about Iraq's interest in uranium from Africa should not have been cited because the intelligence was unreliable.

    but let's focus our attention on Wilson and his wife!

    Wacked!

    Posted by crabwalk at 08/30/2006 @ 08:52am

  84. Have you ever seen the Monty Python sketch in Holy Grail about the Black Knight?

    Reality: The battle is won. May God have mercy on Will C's soul.

    Posted by MARYBRETBRAD 08/30/2006 @ 07:51am

    I'd personaly say that destroying a body of work of WMD is more than a flesh wound.

    but if you see that as a victory...

    Posted by Will C. at 08/30/2006 @ 09:08am

  85. Reality: David Corn admits that it was a person at State who hated Bush!

    Posted by MARYBRETBRAD 08/30/2006 @ 07:51am

    Hmmmmm...which administration is state part of?

    Posted by Will C. at 08/30/2006 @ 09:09am

  86. and when was self loathing not a core component of the conservative agenda

    Posted by Will C. at 08/30/2006 @ 09:10am

  87. Will C: No he didn't. He was talking about welfare reform.

    Reality: The trumped up story has had it legs cut off. The story's got no legs!

    Posted by MARYBRETBRAD 08/30/2006 @ 07:51am

    plame isn't an undercover welfare agent

    Posted by Will C. at 08/30/2006 @ 09:13am

  88. Oh, I forgot:

    Reality: You're a loon!

    Posted byMARYBRETBRAD 08/30/2006 @ 07:57am

    isn't it great that conservatives are right there in the front defending the trashing of our national security?

    :)

    Posted by Will C. at 08/30/2006 @ 09:15am

  89. Posted by WILL C. 08/30/2006 @ 09:15am

    Uh, WILL, any reason NOT to have these last FIVE posts combined into ONE, non-spamming post?

    Posted by Mask at 08/30/2006 @ 10:24am

  90. Mask,

    No one would read it..

    Posted by john maasch at 08/30/2006 @ 10:45am

  91. because there is nothing new there

    Posted by john maasch at 08/30/2006 @ 10:45am

  92. only one line nonsense and his hamster lines

    Posted by john maasch at 08/30/2006 @ 10:46am

  93. which he thinks is clever

    Posted by john maasch at 08/30/2006 @ 10:46am

  94. and this way one sentence is read

    Posted by john maasch at 08/30/2006 @ 10:46am

  95. and to him, appears as a long thought out thread

    Posted by john maasch at 08/30/2006 @ 10:47am

  96. which as we all know and have grown weary

    Posted by john maasch at 08/30/2006 @ 10:47am

  97. Posted by RESE 08/30/2006 @ 10:25am

    RESE, a question, and I'll momentarily do an "Un-Ignore" if you'll answer...

    What's your "Plan B" for posting on "impeaching X, Y, Z", if the Democrats DON'T take the House this fall? In other words, what will you post if impeachment becomes impossible?

    Posted by Mask at 08/30/2006 @ 10:47am

  98. contains nothing of substance.

    Posted by john maasch at 08/30/2006 @ 10:47am

  99. ever.

    Posted by john maasch at 08/30/2006 @ 10:48am

  100. Posted by JOHN MAASCH 08/30/2006 @ 10:47am

    What's sad is...he HAS the capacity for rational, detailed arguments (a post over on PETER ROTHBERG's thread), but he rarely makes use of it.

    Posted by Mask at 08/30/2006 @ 10:48am

  101. Posted by FREIHEIT 08/30/2006 @ 11:24am |

    Let me throw yet another compliment to WILL....

    Unlike ZERO and his "Nahhh-nahhh! I'm not listening! I'm not listening!" ever growing "Ignore" List...atleast WILL isn't afraid to SEE an opposing view!

    Posted by Mask at 08/30/2006 @ 11:29am

  102. The Real good News of the Week is the capture of Warren Jeffs, leader of the American Taliban, aka Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. One of the FBI's Ten Most Wanted, Jeffs has ruled over almost 10,000 FLDS cult members since 02. This group marries children to old men, collects millions of your tax dollars via welfare (MAASCH!!), practices polygamy (one man/one woman folks!!) and holds whole towns hostage to their particularly disgusting view of Christianity.

    He was caught like Mcveigh, by chance basically. but the tropper did his job, noticed much was amiss and got the bugger. Kudos to him! Lets see if we get to have another Waco wacko standoff with Gen Boynton charging in and the right decrying the out of control Justice Dept as rapists gun down ATF agents.

    If you are interested in this cult I recommend "Under the Banner of Heaven" by John Krakauer. A well written disturbing look under the robes of the faithful obedient masses.

    Posted by crabwalk at 08/30/2006 @ 12:38pm

  103. Posted by CRABWALK 08/30/2006 @ 12:38am

    Little hyperbolic, huh, CRAB? "Taliban"?, "McVeigh"?, "Waco"?

    Jeffs was a nut and cult leader, but don't think he RAN A COUNTRY...or blew any Federal building up, did he?

    Posted by Mask at 08/30/2006 @ 12:54pm

  104. Mask, read "Under the Banner of Heaven" and you'll go a little hyperbolic too. There's precious little distinction between the values and behavior of these people and, say, Hezbollah. And in the early days, they damn near had their own country. It's a fascinating story, one you'd be sure was fiction if it weren't actually true.

    Posted by MyParadigm at 08/30/2006 @ 1:30pm

  105. PS There's a world of difference between the mainstream Mormon church and the "Fundamentalist" offshoot that Jeffs runs.

    Posted by MyParadigm at 08/30/2006 @ 1:33pm

  106. Crabwalk,

    I am glad they found him..they need to liquidate his entire compound and give the money he stole in fraudulent welfare claims back to the treasury....and place him in a jail of OUR choice...along with ,what is it that goes well with crab,,,BUTTER!!!!!!! His ass needs to sitting in jail..forever. Maybe he can get some of the other crabs in there..

    Posted by john maasch at 08/30/2006 @ 1:38pm

  107. Any one curious at the deafening silence from Dave Corn now that his "white paper/ novel/ fiction/and now comic book status book" in view of the current revelations that have come out...and the truth?

    Or was Corn in a conspiracy to prove a conspirsacy that never existed.and he knew it? Maybe we need a special prosecutor to investigate journalists who take liberties with other people reputations and lives...using lies...

    Posted by john maasch at 08/30/2006 @ 1:41pm

  108. Freiheit,

    " Will is like Zero in that they are bright guys, with encumbering chips on their shoulders.

    "

    Dr. Mengele was very bright too, but he got a lot of people killed believing his own views of how the world works and should work....intelligence in the wrong people is more dangerous than idiots out on parade..:)..:) ;) ;)

    My best post ever.

    Posted by john maasch at 08/30/2006 @ 1:44pm

  109. Posted by MYPARADIGM 08/30/2006 @ 1:30pm

    Watch that talk, running down Hezbollah, MYPARA.

    FROMREDBIRD will tear you a new one.

    My point on Jeffs was...he's barely a "Jim Jones", much less the leader of some MASS movement ("Taliban"), and as far as I know, he hasn't blown any buildings up ("McVeigh") and there's no stand-off at his compound ("Waco").

    Just seemed CRAB getting a bit "over-worked" about one nutcase and his couple dozen followers.

    Posted by Mask at 08/30/2006 @ 1:45pm

  110. BTW, back on topic....

    Mr Corn once said ""The Wilson smear was a thuggish act".

    Yet he seems to leave HIMSELF out of this statement--

    "The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence."

    "The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework."

    Speaking of "third party" "Bush administration critics".

    Or is this a mea culpa...and it's just SO subtle it takes a lot of dechipering to get it?!?!?

    Posted by Mask at 08/30/2006 @ 4:36pm

  111. Hezbollah WAS RESPONSIBLE, by their own admission.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 08/30/2006 @ 5:21pm

  112. Posted by JOHANNESROLF 08/30/2006 @ 5:21pm

    For outing Valerie Plame?!?!??....hehe

    (like I warned MYPARA, JOHANN...don't bring up Hezbollah "responsibility" with FROMRED...'less you want a fight!)

    Posted by Mask at 08/30/2006 @ 5:40pm

  113. mask, I ain't scared. the Hezzi guy admitted that he inadvertently started this for the region big war. I am also aware that Israel and the US had been planning this for some time. see I can see both sides, something Redbird, and many other are incapable of. I won't say that about you however.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 08/30/2006 @ 5:55pm

  114. Posted by JOHANNESROLF 08/30/2006 @ 5:55pm

    "both sides" of the Israel-Palestinian conflict?...sure, I can.

    Israel had its "Ehud Barak" and the 1999 attempt at Oslo...

    Palestine had Arafat and no counter-offer to Barak and he died letting things go as they had for 45 years, and thereby allowed Hamas and Hezbollah to continue recruiting.

    When Barak was rebuked, the Israeli Right took over.

    And now, the UN has failed...Lebanon has failed...Iran has won....Hezbollah is now more prestigious....and Israel isn't likely to be influenced by us, since there is a rift in the Democrats here in the US between (believe it or not) a "hard line Israel supporter"...Howard Dean (ref: "anti-Semite" comment about Al Maliki of Iraq)...

    and, as Ari Berman of "The Nation" called them, the "reflexively anti-Israel Left"....and a 99% allied with Israel GOP.

    Posted by Mask at 08/30/2006 @ 6:04pm

  115. the salient point of the Plame issue is Bush lying blithely about firing anyone who leaked, when the whole sordid affair came from him. sure it;s a footnote, but not one that reflects well on the administration.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 08/30/2006 @ 6:28pm

  116. mask, can you read? I stated that I felt you COULD see both sides of an issue.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 08/30/2006 @ 6:53pm

  117. Oh yes, this has been a PR triumph for the mis-administration.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 08/30/2006 @ 7:40pm

  118. Uh, WILL, any reason NOT to have these last FIVE posts combined into ONE, non-spamming post?

    Posted by MASK 08/30/2006 @ 10:24am

    yup, it's still a free country

    Posted by Will C. at 08/30/2006 @ 9:27pm

  119. My best post ever.

    Posted by JOHN MAASCH 08/30/2006 @ 1:44pm

    mengela killed those people whom you say he got killed

    And I hope this was your best post ever

    Ha Ha Ha Ha

    Posted by Will C. at 08/30/2006 @ 9:30pm

  120. isn't it great how the hamsters use mengela to justify their trashing of our national security

    (I think it's a little hero worship)

    Posted by Will C. at 08/30/2006 @ 9:31pm

  121. Mask, if you think dissing a large (4 communities spread over 3 countries numbering at least 10,000+) group of people that rape young girls, subject their followers to virtual sefdom, toss women around as power pawns, control all levels of local government, including police and judges that sometimes ignore US and state laws in favor of church doctrine, and bleed millions from the nations coffers is hyperbolic, why are we fighting the Taliban so fiercely? (yet somewhat ineffectually) All under the watchful gaze of Orin Hatch too, I will add.

    The FBI had him as one of The Ten. He was found with $54,000, weapons, a dozen cell phones. Had he been Arab his face would have been plastered all over Fox. His capture is damn good news that is getting small play in the MSM. Koresh and Jones were only small fucknuts too, just before they went off the real deep end. I will not be suprised if some of his followers rise up in violence before it is all done. Some have already killed, justified by their insane belief system. We need not traipse the world over to find wrongs needing righting. We can start here first.

    Posted by crabwalk at 08/30/2006 @ 11:28pm

  122. CRAB...first off...

    Jeffs was a nut and cult leader---Posted by MASK 08/30/2006 @ 12:54am

    But read your last post, it's all SUPPOSITION about things that Jeffs and his crew MIGHT have done. ("I will not be suprised if some of his followers rise up in violence before it is all done.")

    Key word?..."IF some of his followers".

    Jeffs is a wacko, but hyperventilating about it...or thinking he represents some mass movement among Christian/Mormans....is like RIO and LVLIB thinking "all Muslims are terrorists".

    Posted by Mask at 08/31/2006 @ 07:17am

  123. Careful Mask. Some folks will invade a country over that kind of immenent threa...i mean SUPPOSITION.

    Posted by Malcontent at 08/31/2006 @ 07:53am

  124. Posted by MALCONTENT 08/31/2006 @ 07:53am

    You're comparing CRAB and Dubya?!??!?

    Posted by Mask at 08/31/2006 @ 09:20am

  125. Thanks Eric.

    Funny how he misses the connections. THEIR religious wackos need to be bombed, WE ignore ours till it is too late.

    Posted by crabwalk at 08/31/2006 @ 11:50am

  126. or thinking he represents some mass movement among Christian/Mormans..

    Typical Mask. I never said that or implied that. Once again you miss the obvious and go for the obtuse.

    Posted by crabwalk at 08/31/2006 @ 11:53am

  127. Posted by CRABWALK 08/31/2006 @ 11:50am

    I GOT the "connection", CRAB...did you?

    Eric in cracking his little joke, was in fact (unconsciously, I'm sure) pointing out that, like Dubya and Saddam's "threat"....YOU TOO were claiming Jeffs posed some "imminent threat".

    Posted by Mask at 08/31/2006 @ 12:14pm

  128. Back on topic again....

    I noticed that Melanie Sloan of CREW announced that she and the Wilsons will NOT be suing Richard Armitage.

    The reason? He wasn't "malevolent" when he 'outed' Valerie first.

    Posted by Mask at 08/31/2006 @ 3:27pm

  129. Bush has LOST the American public. Everyone seems to know instinctively that he's a liar, who lied us into a war. Rumsfeld and Bush are eager to frame the debate around PATRIOTISM, implying that those who are fed up with the lies about the QUAGMIRE WHICH THEY CREATED BY CHOICE are unpatriotic Nazis and Fascists, just for holding and voicing their opinions. The founders of this Republic insisted that the electorate remain vocal, the press remain free and that the right to dissent be held high, as an ESSENTIAL FREEDOM.

    To be clear, the law provides that those who commit the crime of TREASON are themselves subject to certain remedies, one of which includes: "Hanging by the neck until they are dead."

    That those who have COMMITTED TREASON are now stepping forward to call those who oppose them TRAITORS, is the height of arrogance and hubris.

    The ARCHITECT OF THE QUAGMIRE IS DONALD RUMSFELD. The enablers of the architect are George Bush and Dick Cheney. The talking points being fashioned for all three of these known liars is the work of Karl Rove. The LAWBENDER responsible for attempting to establish a legal basis to commit HIGH TREASON is Alberto Gonzales.

    LYING TO START A WAR IS TREASON.

    Bush's continuing effort to conflate the war in Iraq with 9/11 needs to be seen for what it is. The entire world knows that Saddam had nothing to do with 9/11. The brainwashed US troops haven't gotten that message yet, but they will.

    9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB.

    BIN LADEN HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH IT.

    CHENEY DID 9/11 AND MINETA WITNESSED THE ACT.

    BIN LADEN DOES NOT EXIST – AND NO ONE READING THIS CAN PROVE THAT HE DOES.

    ARREST – IMPEACH – CONVICT – HANG.

    THE AMERICAN PEOPLE ARE FIGURING IT OUT…

    According to an AOL Poll:

    Do Bush's policies make you feel more or less safe?

    Less 65% More 35% Total Votes: 225,263

    Will his policies help or hurt Republicans in the midterm elections?

    Hurt 65% Help 21% Neither 13% Total Votes: 222,757

    How would you rate Bush's overall job performance?

    Poor 56% Good 19% Excellent 17% Fair 7% Total Votes: 499,401

    How would you rate Bush's performance on foreign affairs?

    Poor 59% Excellent 20% Good 15% Fair 6% Total Votes: 482,959

    How would you rate Bush's performance on domestic affairs?

    Poor 57% Good 18% Excellent 16% Fair 9% Total Votes: 495,804

    Is the country headed in the right direction?

    No 65% Yes 35% Total Votes: 480,971

    Posted by plunger at 09/01/2006 @ 06:02am

  130. No answer, RESE

    With no Dem Congress, no impeachment...so what will you Cut & Paste if that happens?

    Posted by Mask at 09/01/2006 @ 07:25am

  131. .

    "FEAR & ROVING"

    Karl Rove is setting the stage for the next Domestic Terror Attack.

    Rove has seen the handwriting on the wall, and knows that inertia was building among the dissenters to the point that the accusations of "Fascism" and "Nazism" were about to gain mass acceptance as adjectives to describe the tactics of the Bush Administration.

    As such, he chose this time for a full frontal assault against the American People, most of whom fall into the category of "Dissenter." Rove stole the label that is most well suited to those at the top of this Administration, and had them attach it to their "enemies" instead. Note that the "enemies" of the administration are not the same as the "enemies" of America - though Rove would have you believe that the Administration IS America.

    Rove is setting the table for the next 9/11 by insisting that those who dare to dissent will themselves be responsible for emboldening the "terrorists" - thereby expediting the "NEXT ATTACK."

    They will speak in terms of its inevitability because the Dissenters are inviting the attack.

    Then Cheney will order the final attack on America that results in the declaration of Martial Law, and the only voices you will hear will be those accusing you and blaming your lack of Patriotism for the attack.

    These are some seriously twisted bastards who need to be in leg irons ASAP.

    Either arrest Cheney in the next month or suffer another 9/11.

    Make the choice, or live with the consequences.

    CODE ORANGE SECURITY THREAT...

    DICK CHENEY REMAINS FREE.

    .

    Posted by plunger at 09/01/2006 @ 07:47am

  132. No answer, RESE

    With no Dem Congress, no impeachment...so what will you Cut & Paste if that happens?

    Posted by MASK 09/01/2006 @ 07:25am

    If there is an attack on US soil in the next two months - which this administration uses as a pretext to cancel the elections, what will you say then?

    Coincidence...right?

    .

    Posted by plunger at 09/01/2006 @ 07:49am

  133. as Ari Berman of "The Nation" called them, the "reflexively anti-Israel Left"....and a 99% allied with Israel GOP.

    Posted by MASK 08/30/2006 @ 6:04pm

    When the GOP and Israel conspired to take down Iraq, and the American public subsequently figured out that the entire campaign was based on a False Flag Attack (9/11) and a wilfull campaign of lies and deceit, is it any wonder that the American people would turn against those found to be guilty of the BIG LIE?

    That Israel and the GOP opted to enter into a criminal conspiracy was their own doing.

    Revealing the truth of it is PATRIOTIC.

    TREASON is punishable by death.

    Why is the GOP fighting so hard to save Lieberman's bacon?

    Because he is an Israeli/GOP mole within the Democratic party, and a coconspirator in the coup.

    The evidence is too abundant to ignore.

    Choose sides.

    I'm with the AMERICANS.

    .

    Posted by plunger at 09/01/2006 @ 07:58am

  134. Mr Corn,

    I leave you with an exerp fromthe Eashington Post, no conservative friend at all,

    "Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously."...

    Comments? Or is this blog going to disapper today?? What about all the left conspiracy loons here who posted MILES of prove and orgasisms of Rove frog walking..no apologys? No..oops, we were so fucking off base here? Right...crickets...

    good work mr. Corn....you have proved your critics right...you are an ideolog with a huge bias and as a journalist you failed the elementry qualification test...find the truth, not your vision, but the actual truth...maybe you should open an oil chaging store or something...because truthful journalism is not your thing...

    Posted by john maasch at 09/01/2006 @ 09:29am

  135. Correction,...Washington Post..(see how easy it is to make a correction?) It starts with an admission...

    Posted by john maasch at 09/01/2006 @ 09:30am

  136. Posted by JOHN MAASCH 09/01/2006 @ 09:30am

    Actually, JOHN, veerrrrryy subtlely, Mr Corn has "eaten" everything about "Plame-gate" that he's said for the last two years....

    "The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence."

    "The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework."

    In other words, all that talk about "It was a 'smear' against Wilson orchestrated by Rove and Cheney"...wasn't EXACTLY right, since Armitage (categorized as "innocent" by both Mr Corn and Michael Isikoff AND Melanie Sloan of CREW, the Wilson's lawyer) started it and once it was out, it makes it hard to make the case that Rove "did it to hurt the Wilsons", if the info was already circulating in D.C.

    Posted by Mask at 09/01/2006 @ 09:35am

  137. Well, well, well.

    From today's Washington Post:

    "It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue."

    Can you believe this nonsense went on for so long?

    Look, if the Left really wants to go after Bush, they should stick to making movies in which he gets shot.

    Posted by Beausoleil at 09/01/2006 @ 09:51am

  138. Mask,

    But as a credible journalist worth his salt, he knew 2 years ago that his conspiracy theory was WRONG and he pursued it anyway..kinda like the "charges are serious enough to warrant an investigation even tho there is no evidence to support it"(Remember Bush 1 and the secret flight to Tehran and the hostage deals?)nothing but trashing from a dem speaker and house...and nothing, as all knew, just horseshit...and if he (CORN)wasn't aware of the story on Armitage, which it now appears everyone else did, then he should turn in his "writers card and secret decoder ring" as he missed a big one here...

    Mask, this is HIS column here..where is he?

    Posted by john maasch at 09/01/2006 @ 09:55am

  139. It is worth repeating...

    FROM TODAYS WASHINGTON POST..

    "Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously."...

    I can hear the crickets...they are getting louder....the sounds of silence from the kook section...

    Posted by john maasch at 09/01/2006 @ 09:59am

  140. Posted by JOHN MAASCH 09/01/2006 @ 09:55am

    Interestingly, Michael Isikoff has been making the rounds...but only the "softball question" ones. Air America, MSNBC.

    It will be interesting the next time Mr Corn or Mr Isikoff shows up on a more OPEN forum, such as Mr Corn's appearances on NPR's "Diane Rehm Show", where he can be asked some tougher questions, by callers and by conservative co-guest.

    Posted by Mask at 09/01/2006 @ 10:11am

  141. But, his wife did not send him, as Cheney claimed , nor did Saddam have a relationship with Niger, nor did chimpy live up to his claim to fire anybody that leaked. Plames name was not floating around DC until Novak printed it, after confirming her status with Rove, BTW. Will Fitz drop his charges against the VP's chief of staff? No.

    you guys are funny. Any shelter in a storm. We still lost a source of intel on Iran and all you can do is chirp victory. Sad.

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/01/2006 @ 10:37am

  142. Posted by CRABWALK 09/01/2006 @ 10:37am

    "chirp victory"? ...So you admit somebody was "defeated"? And not just "our ability to get intell from Iran"?

    Point is, CRAB, that the "massive conspiracy to destroy the Wilsons" CHIRPED about for two years, especially by Mr Corn...just fell apart.

    He, Mr Isikoff, and Melanie Sloan of CREW, the Wilsons' lawyers, have all given Armitage a pass (especially since he TOO opposed the war and disliked Bush and Cheney)...but in doing so, they are then forced to admit that the leak of Valerie Plame's name as a CIA agent was NOT part of a "conspiracy to destroy her and Joe".

    NOW the spin is..."Oh, but Rove WAS trying to destroy the Wilsons by ...CONFIRMING IT"!?!??!

    The "Plame-gate" thing has been a disaster. No "Fitzmas", Libby indicted (NOT for leaking, but for stupidly lying about when he confirmed what Armitage had already said). No "Rove doing the perp walk". No "Cheney possibly indicted too". No "Could be the lynchpin for starting Bush's impeachment"

    And now, even the civil suit is going to be tough to pull off, since the premise of it has just been undercut by DAVID CORN HIMSELF in the line I quoted above. (not to mention today's WashPost).

    Posted by Mask at 09/01/2006 @ 10:48am

  143. "Novak has been peddling the phony Stone story for more than a decade now. When I appeared on CNN's Crossfire with him fourteen years ago, he raised it in order to smear my work and my reputation (Stone was my friend and journalistic mentor during his last decade). Following the show, I wrote a letter to then-CNN president Tom Johnson asking for the record to be corrected but received no response. I've tried a few more times to force the issue with Novak, but he has run away from every appearance. And the slander continues. When John Edwards spoke of Stone's Trial of Socrates during the 2004 presidential campaign, Novak fulminated on CNN that this was an outrage, as "Stone received secret payments from the Kremlin." Again, CNN did not bother with a rebuttal, much less a correction.

    Since we now know that Novak is willing to blow the cover of a CIA agent and potentially endanger the lives and operations of those she was involved with, the smear campaign against Stone is thick with irony. This is, after all, exactly the crime of which Communist spies--both real and alleged--were accused. But not even Novak's undeniable guilt in the matter has affected his status as an insider in good standing." Eric Alterman in All Governments (and Some Journalists) Lie, The nation.

    hmm, Novak a liar and partisan hack? Nah. He has credibility

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/01/2006 @ 10:56am

  144. "chirp victory"? ...So you admit somebody was "defeated"?

    No.

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/01/2006 @ 11:01am

  145. Armitage should face punishment too.

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/01/2006 @ 11:01am

  146. woo hooo, I GOT A QUESTION ASKED ON DIANNE REHM!!!

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/01/2006 @ 11:06am

  147. Mr. Corn,

    This fantasy non-scandal of yours has finally been exposed for what it is: an instance of Bush hatred trumping professionalism and good sense.

    Please, please, please, learn to move on. The last shreds of your reputation are at stake.

    Posted by Beausoleil at 09/01/2006 @ 11:07am

  148. Richard Armitage, the former deputy Secretary of State, may be syndicated columnist Robert Novak's primary source who told him on July 8, 2003, that Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA. But that doesn't change the fact that Karl Rove told former Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper the same thing three days later - and then subsequently failed to tell federal investigators about it for a year.

    Cooper summed up Rove's role in the leak succinctly in a first-person account he wrote for Time magazine last year following his grand jury testimony.

    "Was it through my conversation with Rove that I learned for the first time that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and may have been responsible for sending him? Yes," wrote Cooper, who at the time of the leak was Time magazine's Washington correspondent. "Did Rove say that she worked at the 'agency' on 'WMD?' Yes,"

    Rove also told Novak that Plame worked for the CIA and that she was married to Wilson the same day the columnist spoke to Armitage. And Scooter Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff who was indicted in the case on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, first told former New York Times reporter Judith Miller about Plame's CIA status a couple of weeks earlier, and reminded the reporter again that Plame was a CIA officer on July 8, 2003 - the same day Novak spoke to Armitage.

    "Mr. Libby told me that Mr. Wilson's wife may have worked on unconventional weapons at the CIA," a few weeks before Novak's column was published, Miller wrote in a lengthy account of her grand jury testimony.

    Keep in mind that Rove and Libby disseminated information about Plame to these reporters a week before Novak published his column identifying her. Since the Armitage reports surfaced last weekend, the media have seemingly ignored these facts and have tried to rewrite history by removing Rove and Libby's culpability in the matter." -Leopold

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/01/2006 @ 11:08am

  149. Posted by CRABWALK 09/01/2006 @ 11:06am

    What was it?

    as to the rest...so if Novak had published his column and Rove and Libby said nothing....Novak would have been "involved in the 'smear' of Joe Wilson", but given Armitage was his source and DAVID CORN, MICHAEL ISIKOFF, and THE WILSONS' LAWYER have all exonerated Armitage...that's where it would have ended, right?

    Posted by Mask at 09/01/2006 @ 11:21am

  150. osted by MASK 09/01/2006 @ 11:21am

    Can't answer that, cuz I don't have your crystal ball. It did not play out that way, so it don't matter.

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/01/2006 @ 11:25am

  151. Wilson, a former republican and Bush41 appointee (twice) , is a loud mouth that plays loose with the facts. This put him in good company in Washington. But without him chimpy would not have reprised his "16 words", based on unreliable intel. Or "faulty intelligence". that is what a WAR was started upon, "faulty intelligence". That you guys bought hook line and sinker.

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/01/2006 @ 11:30am

  152. Can't answer that---Posted by CRABWALK 09/01/2006 @ 11:25am

    No...but you DID say:

    Armitage should face punishment too.---Posted by CRABWALK 09/01/2006 @ 11:01am

    So, why are David Corn, Michael Isikoff, and THE WILSONS' LAWYER letting him off the hook? Are they stupid?

    Posted by Mask at 09/01/2006 @ 11:55am

  153. Mary, what an absurdity. in your scenario we should arrest anyone who ever THOUGHT about committing a crime or other antisocial act. the prisons, and we have more folks in'em than anyone else, would not be big enough. completely idiotic.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/01/2006 @ 1:43pm

  154. in George Orwell's 1984 this was known as a thought crime.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/01/2006 @ 1:46pm

  155. I can stand in a public square and shout: I wanna kill all ....mofus.and I will not have committed a crime, and no judge will convict me of anything.

    Saddam actually did not announce any threatening intentions. and he let inspectors in, Bush pulled them, because they might find the truth, no WMD, and that would have interfered with his war plans.

    when Saddam invaded a neighboring country, with the tacit encouragement of the US, international outcry forced the US to act and kick him out of Kuwait. had Bush SR. "removed" Saddam then, perhaps we would have been occupying Iraq since '91, with the same tragic results.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/01/2006 @ 2:42pm

  156. we could use reason to help him understand why the random murder of American citizens isn't ethical;

    this is also something that DIDN'T happen.

    Posted by johannesrolf at 09/01/2006 @ 2:49pm

  157. when Saddam invaded a neighboring country, with the tacit encouragement of the US---Posted by JOHANNESROLF 09/01/2006 @ 2:42pm

    Interesting, so who's FAULT was it, his for invading, or ours for "tacitly encouraging" him? (I'm betting you're not going to let US off the hook for "shouting in the public square", are you?)

    Posted by Mask at 09/01/2006 @ 3:16pm

  158. .

    Imagine being told first hand, by someone in a direct position to know the truth, that the entire Iraqi campaign was designed and implemented to become precisely what it has become.

    I was told directly less than one year after the war began that chaos was in fact the goal.

    Not "victory."

    Chaos.

    The only way to truly "control" the people of Iraq is to lay the ground work for all of them to kill each other - with as much help as that goal requires.

    The money for "reconstruction" was never intened for that purpose. There is no money for reconstruction. There is no goal to "reconstruct" anything.

    The ONLY useful purpose for Iraq is its oil, and that can be extracted once the inhabitants are all dead.

    The Generals all knew prior to the start of the war that the only way to "secure" Iraq was to "turn the sand to glass."

    There was no exit strategy because their is no intention to exit...ever.

    The only way to avoid the need to exit is to ensure that there is never a defined "victory."

    Victory was never the goal. Occupation and depopulation has always been the goal.

    You need to think with the brain of a criminal, and the morals of a Dictator, to comprehend reality.

    It only appears to be a deteriorating situation if you perceive success with your moral mind.

    The GOP/Israel cabal will NEVER exit Iraq, and will go to any lengths necessary to succeed by failing.

    .

    Posted by plunger at 09/01/2006 @ 6:17pm

  159. isn't it great.

    now the hamsters are blaming joe wilson for the bush administration blowing the cover of his NOC wife

    joe... you should have known you were dealing with retards that can't keep their mouths shut

    Posted by Will C. at 09/01/2006 @ 8:26pm

  160. From The Washington Post

    excerpts for you: "It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage's identity been known three years ago."

    Why didn't Armitage go public? Well, we can't know for sure but we can speculate -- we can assume -- that he loved seeing administration officials twist in the wind, as did Secretary Powell. They were not big fans of this administration, and I'm sure they enjoyed every moment of this. Of course that idiot Joe Wilson, thinking that this is never going to become known; the truth is never going to become known, just goes out there and makes an absolute hapless fool of himself. Yet you libs treat him like a hero and a patriot. Thanks for misleading our country during a time of war for the sole purpose of damagiong the presient, You fucks make me sick "But nevertheless," the Washington Post concludes today, "it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is [her husband!] Mr. Wilson.

    "Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate," concludes the Post, "that so many people took him seriously."

    And you F--cks pretend to get all pissed off when we question your patriotism. Screw you losers.

    Posted by jzimm at 09/01/2006 @ 11:10pm

  161. Will seems to have a fondness for Hamsters...Gerbils perhaps?

    Posted by jzimm at 09/01/2006 @ 11:11pm

  162. Posted by WILL C. 09/01/2006 @ 8:26pm

    WILL, the WASHINGTON POST blames Joe Wilson....but wait, let met guess...they're "controlled by Karl Rove", right?

    Posted by Mask at 09/01/2006 @ 11:16pm

  163. JISM, it gives me great pleasure to make you sick.

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/01/2006 @ 11:25pm

  164. Will seems to have a fondness for Hamsters...Gerbils perhaps?

    Posted by JZIMM 09/01/2006 @ 11:11pm

    how many do you have?

    Posted by Will C. at 09/01/2006 @ 11:27pm

  165. WILL, the WASHINGTON POST blames Joe Wilson....but wait, let met guess...they're "controlled by Karl Rove", right?

    Posted by MASK 09/01/2006 @ 11:16pm

    why would you think they were controlled by karl rove? are you retarded?

    Posted by Will C. at 09/01/2006 @ 11:29pm

  166. And you F--cks pretend to get all pissed off when we question your patriotism. Screw you losers.

    Posted by JZIMM 09/01/2006 @ 11:10pm

    isn't it great how you hamsters blame joe wilson for the bush administration blowing his wife's non operational cover.

    Posted by Will C. at 09/01/2006 @ 11:32pm

  167. mmmmm. Gerbil with santorum sauce.

    Tasty.

    Sashimi or deep fried?

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/01/2006 @ 11:34pm

  168. Or hamster cooked to a golden crisp in the voting booth?

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/01/2006 @ 11:37pm

  169. isn't it great how you hamsters blame joe wilson for the bush administration blowing his wife's non operational cover.

    Posted by WILL C. 09/01/2006 @ 11:32pm

    And the media, peaceniks and ex-marines for the failure of the neat little war.

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/01/2006 @ 11:41pm

  170. Posted by CRABWALK 09/01/2006 @ 11:41pm

    Personal responsibility is a Hamsterland taking point that was only ever intended for campaigns.

    Now that an election is fast approaching, it won't be long before the hamsters are telling us all about it again

    Except this time… the country laughs at them.

    Posted by Will C. at 09/01/2006 @ 11:51pm

  171. would you think they were controlled by karl rove? are you retarded?

    Posted by WILL C. 09/01/2006 @ 11:29pm

    No...just trying to come up with the "retarded" reason for why YOU call those who are saying Joe Wilson screwed up "hamsters".

    IS the Washington Post run by "hamsters"???

    Posted by Mask at 09/02/2006 @ 08:06am

  172. Posted by MASK 09/02/2006 @ 08:06am

    Uuhhnmmmm. Faux News, Hamster News, Washington Post, Hamster Post!

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/02/2006 @ 12:00pm

  173. Ooouuuch that hurts just thinking of what the new cons are going to do with that one. Apologies. Really.

    Posted by hsuBfools at 09/02/2006 @ 12:02pm

  174. Behind the whole debacle is the evil influence of none other than the notorious:

    JOE BUSH a.k.a. The Monstrous Morph [joebush.cf.huffingtonpost.com]

    -click on the link to see the evil evidence. . .

    Tell Everyone the TRUTH!

    (This message not endorsed by Joe Lieberman, George W. Bush, the Republican Party, their supporters or donors. Any similarity to persons living or dead is entirely intentional.)

    Blog On

    Posted by tfnewkirk at 09/02/2006 @ 3:14pm

  175. No...just trying to come up with the "retarded" reason for why YOU call those who are saying Joe Wilson screwed up "hamsters".

    IS the Washington Post run by "hamsters"???

    Posted by MASK 09/02/2006 @ 08:06am

    I don't know the people who run the washington post. But the people who are blaming Joe Wilson for the bush administration blowing his wifes cover are hamster conservatives...

    which I lovingly call hamsters.

    oh and retard... I asked you two questions which you didn't answer

    1. Why would you think they were controlled by the Karl Rove?

    2. Are you a retard?

    Posted by Will C. at 09/02/2006 @ 8:19pm

  176. the washington post has been a cheerleader for the bush war in iraq from day one. all these idiots are claiming that the paper's editorial section is left wing, but they obviously dont read it. the facts havent changed. valerie plame being cia was classified. the bush admin outed her as payback for wilson exposing some of their propaganda justifying the invasion of iraq. outing her hurt national security. they used a number of people to do this, including rove, armitage, and libby. conspiracy can be hard to prove, thus so far only libby has been indicted. the investigation isnt over yet.

    Posted by pretzel at 09/03/2006 @ 03:38am

  177. Rese:

    Check out this Armitage link:

    http://belldaere.blogspot.com/2006/08/remember-this-asshole-updated.html

    Posted by plunger at 09/03/2006 @ 09:15am

  178. Posted by HSUBFOOLS 09/02/2006 @ 12:00am

    Only news HSUB trusts is....the "Granma"

    Posted by Mask at 09/03/2006 @ 09:49am

  179. Posted by WILL C. 09/02/2006 @ 8:19pm

    WILL, I know the concept of humor, real humor not just name-calling, is strange and alien to you, but...

    I was mocking YOU and your idea that the Washington Post were "hamsters" because they had taken the logical step to conclude that Joe Wilson did more to create "Plame-gate" than Rove, Libby, or even Armitage, by claiming some "conspiracy" to "get him and Val"....when it was Armitage (whom they exonerate) talking to Novak.

    And the fact that you either DON'T get it...or continue to think THIS stuff is funny....shows the likelihood of some oxygen deprivation on your part during partuition....hehe!

    Posted by Mask at 09/03/2006 @ 09:53am

  180. And the fact that you either DON'T get it...or continue to think THIS stuff is funny....shows the likelihood of some oxygen deprivation on your part during partuition....hehe!

    Posted by MASK 09/03/2006 @ 09:53am

    dude you the one going "hehe". and how do I not get it?(question one) the bush administration blew valerie plames cover (a qualifier of question one)? The wilsons did a wonderful job at keeping her heroism a secret from friends and family alike(a further qualifier of question one).

    are you suggesting that the bush administration didn't blow valerie plames cover? (question two)

    Posted by Will C. at 09/03/2006 @ 12:22pm

  181. oh and the fact that you are being saracastic about the bush administration blowing the non operational cover of a heroic CIA agent is wonderful.

    don't you think?

    (it really brings out your inner hamster)

    Posted by Will C. at 09/03/2006 @ 12:22pm

  182. 1. Why hasn't Fitzgerald charged Armitage if a crime actually took place? Maybe because Plame was not covert (the correct answer)

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/03/2006 @ 1:51pm

    luvvy

    if she wasn't covert why did the CIA contact justice and suggest the possibility of a crime being commited?

    you're allowed to talk about CIA agents that are overt

    Posted by Will C. at 09/03/2006 @ 1:58pm

  183. but if you want to keep dodging me luvvy that's ok

    your inability to stand is just the physical manifestation of your lack of spine

    Posted by Will C. at 09/03/2006 @ 2:00pm

  184. 2. Why did Fitzgerald go through such a lengthy investigation and hound Libby if he already knew who the leaker was?

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/03/2006 @ 1:51pm

    libby was lying to him.

    (you know that;s illegal right)

    Posted by Will C. at 09/03/2006 @ 2:01pm

  185. 3. Bets on how many weeks will pass before the Wilsons drop their lawsuit before the Judge throws it out?

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/03/2006 @ 1:51pm

    this doesn't belong after the colon dummy

    Posted by Will C. at 09/03/2006 @ 2:03pm

  186. 4. Number of leftists here who will admit that they were wrong about this case? My bet is zero (and Zero will surely not admit either)

    Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/03/2006 @ 1:51pm

    also deosn't belong after the colon dummy. and what were e wrong about again... the bush administration blowing the non operational cover of a patriotic american?

    it wasn't the bush administration...who did it?

    (inquiring minds want to know)

    Posted by Will C. at 09/03/2006 @ 2:06pm

  187. WILL...

    "the Bush Administration" DID "blow Val's cover"...in the form of Richard Armitage, whom the WILSON'S LAWYER (Melanie Sloan) has EXONERATED from guilty because he "didn't do it in a 'mean' way".

    Posted by Mask at 09/03/2006 @ 10:33pm

  188. At least on former CIA agent disagrees wih the cons. But they are commies, so who cares, right? Larry Johnson must hate America. Along with Ray McGovern and the dems. They are more dangerous than the soviet union.

    http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/090206Y.shtml

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/03/2006 @ 10:38pm

  189. WILL...

    "the Bush Administration" DID "blow Val's cover"...in the form of Richard Armitage, whom the WILSON'S LAWYER (Melanie Sloan) has EXONERATED from guilty because he "didn't do it in a 'mean' way".

    Posted by MASK 09/03/2006 @ 10:33pm

    Sorry mask, lawyers don't exonerate people... juries do. Lawyers simply bring cases based on law and evidence. And it appears that blowing the non operational cover of a CIA agent by being a gossip with top secret information... is perfectly legal in this country.

    My only question is why the bush administration produced a paper that even mentioned Valerie Plames name and her association with the Wilson trip to Niger, and there wasn't a classification stamped right on the top of it. Even a secret stamp would have meant Armitage couldn't talk about it to anyone outside of those with a need to know in the state department.

    But there was no classification on it at all. It's almost like the Chimps wanted people to talk about it.

    Posted by Will C. at 09/04/2006 @ 12:29am

  190. Isn't it great that the conservative sleaze media is blaming Joe Wilson for the bush administration blowing the cover of his undercover CIA wife.

    And now they are also blaming Sen. Chuck Schumer for the bush administration blowing the non operational cover of Valerie Wilson.

    Excellent

    Posted by Will C. at 09/04/2006 @ 02:36am

  191. And from your post rio, levin seems like a real whiner. Which anymore is a prerequisite to being a hamster conservative.

    Posted by Will C. at 09/04/2006 @ 02:58am

  192. rio, Johnson says.."Why is this relevant? Today the Bush administration is once again trying to manufacture a case for war. They are calling critics of its policies on Iran and Iraq "appeasers" and decrying the lack of intelligence on Iran. It is déja vu all over again, to quote Yogi Berra. They whine about a lack of intelligence on Iran but refuse to accept responsibility for their own role in destroying Valerie Plame's undercover work, which was focused on monitoring the flow of nuclear technology to Iran. They may not have fully understood what Val was doing because of her cover status. But that's the point. They don't think these things through. Their only goal is political survival.'

    give it a read.

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/04/2006 @ 08:54am

  193. rio, why do you hate America?

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/04/2006 @ 08:55am

  194. He also believes a special investigation should be conducted into why the special prosecutor, knowing no crime was committed, feverishly worked to indict members of the Bush administration.Posted by RIO BRAVO 09/04/2006 @ 01:26am

    Fitz went to his boss and asked if he could pursue other crimes in the process of looking into the leak, which he was asked to do by the CIA, not the Wilsons. Maybe you should be asking why Libby lied to the FBI.

    Why do you hate America soooo much? why do you want iran to have a nuke and pass it on to Al Qaida?

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/04/2006 @ 08:58am

  195. RESE

    You bringing Bill Moyers!?!??! into the "Kennedy Assassination Conspiracy"!??!?

    "former Johnson cronies like Bill Moyers"

    You're going to lose EVEN MORE of the Left. Don't you know how much they LOVE Moyers???

    Posted by Mask at 09/04/2006 @ 09:28am

  196. Posted by WILL C. 09/04/2006 @ 12:29am

    Yeah, WILL, in THIS case...it IS the lawyers who exonerate people, because Melanie Sloan has stated that Armitage WILL NOT be part of the Wilsons' civil suit against Rove, Cheney, et al.

    Ergo, they have just said that, despite the fact that Armitage was the first to "out" Valerie....they don't care so much about that, as "if it was done in a 'vindictive' way".

    Which means (if they don't go after Armitage as well) any sane judge is going to throw out their case in a heartbeat for being a blatent political stunt!

    Posted by Mask at 09/04/2006 @ 09:30am

  197. Now you've got the picture! Reguardless of the source conservative or liberal the whole thing was, is, and will ever be a non-issue exploitable by either side depending on the most recent revelation. Enjoying Carpentry in Oregon, or a growing family in Oklahoma is of more importance.

    Posted by RIO BRAVO 09/04/2006 @ 11:43am

    rio

    If the bush administration destroying the career of a non operational cover agent in the CIA, working on weapons mass destruction Intel at a time when our nation went to war over weapons of mass destruction isn't an issue, ( even though they played games with her top secret status)...

    Then why do you hamsters get all fired up and thirsting for blood when there are other leaks of classified information that say, make the chimps look positively authoritarian.

    Is it because this leak made somebody else look bad… for a while

    :)

    Posted by Will C. at 09/04/2006 @ 1:01pm

  198. Yeah, WILL, in THIS case...it IS the lawyers who exonerate people, because Melanie Sloan has stated that Armitage WILL NOT be part of the Wilsons' civil suit against Rove, Cheney, et al.

    Posted by MASK 09/04/2006 @ 09:30am

    Ha Ha Ha Ha

    You know mask, I'm not a big fan of repeating myself but since I'm talking to you (and you ain't too bright) I'll do it once again.

    Lawyers don't exonerate people... juries do. Lawyers simply bring cases based on law and evidence. And it appears that blowing the non operational cover of a CIA agent by being a gossip with top secret information... is perfectly legal in this country.

    Now having said that, Armitage came forward and was honest on day one. Even though the guys a hamster, you have to respect that. libby on the other had is indicted for lying. rove... not indicted, but he spun his way through, what was it, five grand jury appearances? And we have paper that cheney was giving orders about "dealing" with Wilson

    Considering the Wilson's lawsuit is civil and that the people who are named in it aren't the most honest of fellers... I'm guessing that any sane judge is going to let a jury do the convicting... or the exonerating

    Just like I said

    Posted by Will C. at 09/04/2006 @ 1:14pm

  199. WILL...

    to exonerate (third-person singular simple present exonerates, present participle exonerating, simple past exonerated, past participle exonerated)

    To free from accusation or blame.

    To free from an obligation, responsibility or task.

    (no mention of "juries"...is there?)

    Sloan "lets Armitage off the hook" (better?)...thereby showing that it's NOT "the leak" that matters, but "the intent" of those that "leaked" it AFTER it was leaked.

    Either at the first judge, or on appeal, this thing is going nowhere....and Sloan and the Wilsons probably know it now, but want to keep the spotlight for a few more minutes!

    Posted by Mask at 09/05/2006 @ 09:35am

  200. So lets see, the State Dept is undermining the president, the CIA is undermining the president, the media is undermining the president, former generals are undermining the president, the special prosecutor is undermining the president and the majority of the people think the president is doing a piss poor job.

    do I have it about right Darin? That would normally make me wonder what the president is doing so wrong. Your president LIED in his State of the Union speech. And his wife sat next to a convicted felon, liar and probable Iranian agent!!

    As to lies in the NYT, have you heard of Judith Miller, or read their latest on Plame?

    Another good read, for those that can read and don't just follow Mehlmans lead:

    http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/090206.html

    Posted by crabwalk at 09/05/2006 @ 11:02am

  201. corrected version of Liberty's first link [factcheck.org]

    That article can be filed under "damned by faint praise." It still amazes me that such he-said-they-said-who-knows nonsense was used to justify this useless war.

    and here's the second link [opinionjournal.com]

    An exceedingly defensive defense. Well-written, however. Perhaps it is true that I have latched onto an attractive lie that prevents me from seeing the truth. But I just don't feel that gnawing in my gut, sorry.

    Posted by MyParadigm at 09/05/2006 @ 1:53pm

  202. Don't like the article, take it up with the author - just passing along thought-provokers for friends.

    Why the Media Can't Stop Smearing Joe Wilson

    By Robert Parry, Consortium News. Posted September 4, 2006.

    Media outlets like the Washington Post are pulling out all the stops to rewrite the history of the Valerie Plame affair.

    In the movie "Shawshank Redemption," the wrongly convicted Andy Dufrense (Tim Robbins) gets frustrated when the corrupt prison warden blocks Dufrense's chance to prove his innocence. "How can you be so obtuse?" Dufrense asks.

    The same question could be addressed today to Washington journalists who are falling over themselves to absolve George W. Bush's White House of any serious wrongdoing in the three-year-old assault on former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson and the outing of his CIA officer wife, Valerie Plame.

    This new backlash against those who challenged the White House on the Plame case follows disclosure that one of the sources for Robert Novak's July 14, 2003, column, which blew Plame's cover, was Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who was not considered a close White House ally.

    In a Sept. 2 front-page story, the New York Times reacted to this news by suggesting that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald had been overzealous in pursuing the Plame investigation for more than two years, since Armitage had testified early on that he apparently was Novak's principal source on Plame. [NYT, Sept. 2, 2006]

    The Times article came on the heels of a scathing editorial by the Washington Post putting the primary blame for the exposure of Plame on her husband, Joseph Wilson, because in July 2003, he went public with the findings of his 2002 CIA-organized trip to Niger which helped debunk the false pre-Iraq War claim that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium from Africa.

    "He [Wilson] ought to have expected that both those [Bush administration] officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife," the Post editorial said.

    The Post also argued that since Armitage was a reluctant supporter of the Iraq War, "it follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House – that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity – is untrue." [Washington Post, Sept. 1, 2006]

    How Obtuse?

    But – as with the corrupt prison warden in "Shawshank Redemption" – it's hard to believe that national journalists could be this obtuse.

    As we explain below, the evidence is overwhelming that the White House assault on Wilson was planned weeks before he published an Op-Ed on July 6, 2003, accusing Bush of twisting the yellowcake claim – and that Bush's operatives responded by pointing journalists toward Plame's identity.

    Indeed, the available evidence doesn't even fully support the contention that Novak first learned about Plame from his interview with Armitage on July 8, 2003. According to the Times' own reporting, Novak apparently had been primed to ask a question on this topic.

    The Times buries this crucial point in its Sept. 2 story that questions whether Fitzgerald "properly exercised his prosecutorial discretion." In the last sentence of the 17th paragraph, the Times reports that Armitage disclosed Plame's possible role in arranging Wilson's Niger trip "in reply to a question."

    In other words, Armitage didn't just toss out Plame's CIA connection as "gossip," as the Post editorial assumes. He apparently mentioned it in response to Novak's question about how the Niger trip had been arranged, which begs the additional question of who might have suggested that Novak ask that.

    The distinction is important because other evidence indicates that Bush's aides were pushing reporters to ask about the circumstances behind the Niger trip, knowing that line of questioning would lead to Plame's identity.

    For instance, Time magazine correspondent John Dickerson, who accompanied a presidential trip to Africa shortly after Wilson's article was published, said he was twice urged to pursue the seemingly insignificant question of who had been involved in arranging Wilson's trip.

    Revenge

    As the President toured Africa in July 2003, questions about Wilson's article dominated the trip, prompting White House spokesman Ari Fleischer to finally concede that the yellowcake allegation was "incorrect" and should not have been included in the State of the Union speech in January 2003.

    The mistake represented one of the first times the Bush administration had retreated on any national security issue. Administration officials were embarrassed, livid and determined to punish Wilson.

    On July 11, 2003, CIA Director George Tenet took the fall for the State of the Union screw-up, apologizing for not better vetting the speech. "This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches," Tenet said.

    That same day, however, as Bush was finishing a meeting with the president of Uganda, Dickerson said he was chatting with a "senior administration official" who was tearing down Wilson and disparaging Wilson's Niger investigation.

    The message to Dickerson was that "some low-level person at the CIA was responsible for the mission" and that Dickerson "should go ask the CIA who sent Wilson."

    Later, Dickerson discussed Wilson with a second "senior administration official" and got the same advice: "This official also pointed out a few times that Wilson had been sent by a low-level CIA employee and encouraged me to follow that angle," Dickerson recalled.

    "At the end of the two conversations I wrote down in my notebook: ‘look who sent.' … What struck me was how hard both officials were working to knock down Wilson. Discrediting your opposition is a standard tactic in Washington, but the Bush team usually played the game differently. At that stage in the first term, Bush aides usually blew off their critics. Or, they continued to assert their set of facts in the hope of overcoming criticism by force of repetition." " [See Dickerson's article, "Where's My Subpoena?" for Slate, Feb. 7, 2006]

    Back in Washington on July 11, 2003, Dickerson's Time colleague, Matthew Cooper, was getting a similar earful from Bush's political adviser Karl Rove, who tried to steer Cooper away from Wilson's information and added that the Niger trip was authorized by "Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency [CIA] on WMD issues," according to Cooper's notes of the interview. [See Newsweek, July 18, 2005, issue]

    Cooper later got the information about Wilson's wife confirmed by Cheney's chief of staff Lewis Libby, who had been peddling the information even before Cooper's phone call. Libby had been brought into the get-Wilson cabal in June 2003 when the White House got wind that Wilson might present a problem.

    Posted by New Dawn at 09/05/2006 @ 2:57pm

  203. Counterattack

    By spring 2003, Wilson had begun talking privately to journalists about his Niger findings and criticizing the administration for hyping the WMD intelligence. Behind the scenes, the White House began to hit back, collecting information about Wilson and his fact-finding trip.

    In his memoir, The Politics of Truth, Wilson cited sources as saying that a meeting in the Vice President's office led to a decision "to produce a workup" to discredit Wilson.

    Libby then asked Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman, a neoconservative ally in the State Department, to prepare a memo on Wilson. Dated June 10, 2003, the memo referred to "Valerie Plame" as Wilson's wife. [NYT, July 16, 2005]

    CIA Director George Tenet also divulged to Cheney that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and had a hand in arranging Wilson's trip to Niger – information that Cheney then passed on to Libby in a conversation on June 12, 2003, according to Libby's notes as described by lawyers in the case. [NYT, Oct. 25, 2005]

    Those two facts – Plame's work for the CIA and her minor role in Wilson's Niger trip (which was approved and arranged at higher levels of the CIA) – were transformed into key attack points against Wilson.

    On June 23, 2003, still two weeks before Wilson's Op-Ed, Libby briefed New York Times reporter Judith Miller about Wilson and may then have passed on the tip that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. But the anti-Wilson campaign gained new urgency when the ex-ambassador penned his Op-Ed piece in the New York Times on July 6, 2003.

    As Cheney read Wilson's article, "What I Didn't Find in Africa," the Vice President scribbled down questions he wanted pursued. "Have they [CIA officials] done this sort of thing before?" Cheney wrote. "Send an Amb[assador] to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?"

    Though Cheney did not write down Plame's name, his questions indicated that he was aware that she worked for the CIA and was in a position (dealing with WMD issues) to have a hand in her husband's assignment to check out the Niger reports. [Cheney's notations were disclosed in a May 12, 2006, court filing by special prosecutor Fitzgerald.]

    On that morning of July 6, 2003, Wilson appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" to elaborate on the yellowcake dispute. Later that day, Deputy Secretary of State Armitage called Carl W. Ford Jr., the assistant secretary for intelligence and research, at home and asked him to send a copy of Grossman's 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 the state visit to Africa, Ford forwarded Grossman's 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.

    Pressing the Press

    On July 8, 2003, two days after Wilson's article, Libby gave Judith Miller more details about the Wilsons. Cheney's chief of staff said Wilson's wife worked at a CIA unit responsible for weapons intelligence and non-proliferation. It was in the context of that interview, that Miller wrote down the words "Valerie Flame," an apparent misspelling of Mrs. Wilson's maiden name. [NYT, Oct. 16, 2005]

    On that same day, Novak elicited information from Armitage about the role of Wilson's wife in arranging the Niger trip. According to the Sept. 2, 2006, story in the New York Times, "Armitage said in reply to a question that Ms. Wilson might have had a role in arranging her husband's trip to Niger."

    On July 12, 2003, in a telephone conversation, Miller and Libby returned to the Wilson topic. Miller's notes contain a reference to a "Victoria Wilson," another misspelled reference to Wilson's wife. [NYT, Oct. 16, 2005]

    Two days later, on July 14, 2003, Novak – having gotten confirmation about Plame's identity from Karl Rove – published a column, citing two administration sources outing Plame as a CIA officer and portraying Wilson's Niger trip as a case of nepotism.

    But the White House counterattack had only just begun. On July 20, 2003, NBC's correspondent Andrea Mitchell told Wilson that "senior White House sources" had called her to stress "the real story here is not the 16 words [from Bush's State of the Union speech] but Wilson and his wife."

    The next day, Wilson said he was told by MSNBC's Chris Matthews that "I just got off the phone with Karl Rove. He says and I quote, ‘Wilson's wife is fair game.'"

    When Newsday spoke with Novak – before he decided to clam up – Novak said he had been approached by the sources with the information about Plame. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," Novak said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it." [Newsday, July 22, 2003]

    That account from Novak clashes with the version cited by the Washington Post editorial of Sept. 1, 2006, which describes the Plame disclosure as reportedly passed along "in an offhand manner, virtually as gossip." Novak's account to Newsday only a week after his infamous column would seem to fit better with a scenario in which Bush's aides had prepped Novak on what to ask Armitage or in which Armitage was part of the anti-Wilson cabal.

    Cover-up

    On July 22, 2003, the White House began shifting into cover-up mode. Bush's spokesman Scott McClellan denied any White House role in the Plame leak. "I'm telling you flatly that that is not the way this White House operates," McClellan told reporters.

    Privately, however, some administration officials acknowledged that the Plame disclosure was an act of retaliation against Wilson for being one of the first mainstream public figures to challenge Bush on the WMD intelligence.

    In September 2003, a White House official told the Washington Post that at least six reporters had been informed about Plame before Novak's column. The official said the disclosure was "purely and simply out of revenge."

    Novak's article indeed did destroy Plame's career as a CIA officer and exposed her network of operatives who had been investigating Iran's nuclear program. A CIA complaint to the Justice Department prompted an inquiry into the illegal exposure of a CIA officer.

    Initially, when the investigation was still under the direct control of Attorney General John Ashcroft, Bush and other White House officials continued to deny any knowledge about the leak. Bush said he wanted to get to the bottom of the matter.

    "If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is," Bush said on Sept. 30, 2003. "I want to know the truth. If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true."

    Yet, even as Bush was professing his curiosity and calling for anyone with information to step forward, he was withholding the fact that he had authorized the declassification of some secrets about the Niger uranium issue and had ordered Cheney to slip those selected secrets to reporters to undercut Wilson.

    In other words, though Bush knew a great deal about how the anti-Wilson scheme got started – since he was involved in starting it – he uttered misleading public statements to conceal the White House role and possibly to signal to others that they should follow suit in denying knowledge.

    Partial Exposure

    The cover-up might have worked, except in late 2003, Ashcroft recused himself because of a conflict of interest, and Fitzgerald – the U.S. Attorney in Chicago – was named as the special prosecutor. Fitzgerald pursued the investigation far more aggressively, even coercing journalists to testify about the White House leaks.

    On Oct. 28, 2005, Fitzgerald indicted Libby on five counts of perjury, lying to investigators and obstruction of justice. In a court filing on April 5, 2006, Fitzgerald added that his investigation had uncovered government documents that "could be characterized as reflecting a plan to discredit, punish, or seek revenge against Mr. Wilson" because of his criticism of the administration's handling of the Niger evidence.

    Beyond the Plame leak, the White House also oversaw a public-relations strategy to denigrate Wilson. The Republican National Committee put out talking points ridiculing Wilson, and the Republican-run Senate Intelligence Committee made misleading claims about his honesty in a WMD report.

    Rather than thank Wilson for undertaking a difficult fact-finding trip to Niger for no pay – and for reporting accurately about the dubious Iraq-Niger claims – the Bush administration sought to smear the former ambassador.

    The Republican National Committee even posted an article entitled "Joe Wilson's Top Ten Worst Inaccuracies and Misstatements," which itself used glaring inaccuracies and misstatements to discredit Wilson. [For details, see Consortiumnews.com's "Novak Recycles Gannon on ‘Plame-gate.'"] Meanwhile, with her undercover work destroyed, Plame quit the CIA.

    Now, based on a new report about Armitage's role in leaking Plame's identity, the New York Times, the Washington Post and other leading U.S. news organizations are joining in a new campaign to disparage those who harbored suspicions about the Bush administration's actions – from special prosecutor Fitzgerald to former Ambassador Wilson.

    For these national journalists who act as if they are oblivious to all the evidence of a long-running White House smear campaign and cover-up, it might be time to pose the "Shawshank Redemption" question: "How can you be so obtuse?"

    Of course, in the movie, the warden really wasn't "obtuse." He just wanted to keep benefiting from Dufrense's financial skills and, most importantly, to protect his corrupt schemes. The motives of the Washington news media may be more of a mystery.

    Posted by New Dawn at 09/05/2006 @ 2:57pm

  204. .

    BEFORE 9/11...

    VALERIE PLAME LED THE "JOINT TASK FORCE ON IRAQ"

    IN THE SPRING OF 2001 - SHE RECEIVED WORD TO "RAMP IT UP!"

    SOMETHING WAS COMING - A PRETEXT - THAT WOULD LEAD TO AN INVASION OF IRAQ

    THIS WAS KNOWN TO PLAME IN THE SPRING OF 2001

    WHEN 9/11 HAPPENED - SHE KNEW THAT THE GENERALS HAD ADVANCED KNOWLEDGE OF IT - AS THIS WAS INSTANTLY REVEALED TO BE THE PRETEXT FOR THE INVASION OF THE MIDDLE EAST.

    VALARIE PLAME KNOWS FOR A FACT THAT 9/11 WAS AN INSIDE JOB.

    DICK CHENEY DID IT.

    http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060918/corn

    .

    .

    Kay Griggs, Former Marine Colonel's Wife, Talks Again About Military Assassin Squads, Drug Running, Illegal Weapon Deals And Sexual Perversion Deep Within The Highest Levels Of U.S. Military And Government

    2005 07 26

    http://www.red-ice.net/specialreports/2005/07jul/kgriggs.html

    "I know that there was a war game going on via Tampa, I think it was called Bright Star, which was being run on 9/11 by a weird and insecure USMC General who was in charge while the Army head was conveniently away in the Near East.

    Sept. 1-10 2001 - In an exercise, called Operation "Swift Sword" and planned for four years, 23,000 British troops are steaming toward Oman. Although the 9-11 attacks caused a hiccup in the deployment, the massive operation was implemented as planned. At the same time two U.S. carrier battle groups arrive on station in the Gulf of Arabia just off the Pakistani coast. Also at the same time, some 17,000 U.S. troops join more than 23,000 NATO troops in Egypt for Operation "Bright Star." All of these forces are in place before the first plane hits the WTC. [Sources: The Guardian; CNN; Fox; The Observer; International Law Professor Francis Boyle, the University of Illinois.]

    http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/02_11_02_lucy.html

    Sept. 11, 2001 - Gen. Mahmud of the ISI (see #16), friend of Mohammed Atta, is visiting Washington on behalf of the Taliban. He is meeting with the Chairmen of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees, Rep. Porter Goss, R-Fla., and Sen. Bob Graham, D-Fla., [Source: MSNBC, Oct. 7, 2001; The New York Times, Feb. 17, 2002]

    Sept. 11, 2001 - Employees of Odigo, Inc. in Israel, one of the world's largest instant messaging companies with offices in New York, receive threat warnings of an imminent attack on the WTC less than two hours before the first plane hits. Law enforcement authorities have gone silent about any investigation of this. The Odigo research and development offices in Israel are located in the city of Herzliyya, a ritzy suburb of Tel Aviv that is the same location as the Institute for Counter Terrorism, which eight days later reports details of insider trading on 9-11. [Source: CNN's Daniel Sieberg, Sept. 28, 2001; MSNBC Newsbytes, Brian McWilliams, Sept. 27, 2001; Ha'aretz, Sept. 26, 2001]

    Sept. 11-12, 2001 - Nearly a month before the first reported outbreak, White House officials start taking the powerful antibiotic Cipro to treat anthrax. By the end of the year it will be known that the Ames strain of anthrax used in the attacks against Sens. Leahy and Daschle was produced by CIA programs coordinated through Fort Detrick, the Batelle Memorial Institute and the Dugway Proving Ground. [Source: NBC; CNN; www.tetrahedron.org, www.judicialwatch.org]

    Oct. 10, 2001 - The Pakistani newspaper The Frontier Post reports that U.S. Ambassador Wendy Chamberlain has paid a call on the Pakistani oil minister. A previously abandoned Unocal gas pipeline project from Turkmenistan, across Afghanistan, to Pakistan is now back on the table "in view of recent geopolitical developments."

    Nov. 25, 2001 - The Observer runs a story headlined "Victorious Warlords Set To Open the Opium Floodgates." It states that farmers are being encouraged by warlords allied with the victorious Americans are "being encouraged to plant as much opium as possible."

    June 14, 2002 - Common Dreams website publishes an account from a former member of the 1/118th Infantry Battalion of the South Carolina National Guard: "My unit reported for drill in July 2001 and we were suddenly and unexpectedly informed that all activities planned for the next two months would be suspended in order to prepare for a mobilization exercise to be held on Sept. 14, 2001. We worked diligently for two weekends and even came in on an unscheduled day in August to prepare for the exercise. By the end of August all we needed was a phone call, which we were to expect, and we could hop into a fully prepared convoy with our bags and equipment packed." [Source: Common Dreams, http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0614-02.htm

    .

    Posted by plunger at 09/05/2006 @ 2:58pm

  205. Posted by NEW DAWN 09/05/2006 @ 2:57pm

    I gotta say, it will come as surprise to Rupert Murdoch or Reverand Moon to find out they own the...

    Washington Post, that bastion of far right extremism that just called the "Plame-gate" "conspiracy" dead wrong.

    Speaking of "being obtuse", how long can Mr Corn and Mr Isikoff and the Wilsons and C.R.E.W.'s Melanie Sloan....continue to make a "conspiracy" out of the "outing" of Valerie, when they give a pass to the guy who FIRST DID IT....Richard Armitage?!?!?

    Posted by Mask at 09/05/2006 @ 4:03pm

  206. read corn's latest article, you right wing traitors. no crime indeed.

    Posted by pretzel at 09/05/2006 @ 5:29pm

  207. she was not only undercover, she was deep under cover. you people can't face facts, and you can't reason. this makes you ideal targets for republican lies.

    Posted by pretzel at 09/05/2006 @ 5:30pm

  208. Posted by PRETZEL 09/05/2006 @ 5:30pm

    Then why isn't Fitzgerald going after Armitage?

    Why aren't the Wilsons suing Armitage?

    Posted by Mask at 09/05/2006 @ 6:42pm

  209. Posted by LVLIBERTY1 09/05/2006 @ 4:06pm

    Everyone knows what I think of your opinions, and I won't take your bait.

    Take up any problems you have with the article with the author, and don't ever address me again, if you can help it.

    Posted by MASK 09/05/2006 @ 4:03pm

    Give your quotes key a rest.

    Posted by New Dawn at 09/05/2006 @ 6:46pm

  210. All this hesaid/shesaid bullshit, obscures the fact that there was already public debate about the veracity of the claims, to aquire yellowcake and the uses for the aluminum tubes...Right after they were said and before we went to war.

    Eric

    Posted by Malcontent at 09/05/2006 @ 7:13pm

  211. ....and at the time he said it, about the aluminum tubes.

    Posted by Malcontent at 09/05/2006 @ 7:14pm

  212. fitzgerald didnt think he could prove armitage knew about plames undercover status--i think that was in one of the corn articles, or the newsweek excerpt.. the plames want mainly want to get the truth out--i think they know the plan to reveal her identity didn't start with armitage, and didn't start with libby.

    Posted by pretzel at 09/05/2006 @ 11:02pm

  213. Posted by MARYBRETBRAD 09/05/2006 @ 09:38am

    Isn't it great that the "strong on security" (Ha Ha Ha Ha) evengelic conservatives blew the cover of the NOC agent (valerie Wilson) that was placed in charge of the Joint Task Force on Iraq?

    Ha Ha Ha Ha

    luvvy... go ahead tell me that from all the trips that little dick took over to the CIA to spin the war that he had know idea who that drop dead blond running the Joint Task Force on Iraq was.

    Mask.. things suddenly aren't looking good for the three stooges facing wilsons civil law suit

    Mary Mary... how does it feels that you guys killed the career of the woman that was actually correct about the status of Saddams WMD.

    You fart boys are probably happy that you beat her down

    you sick bastards

    Posted by Will C. at 09/05/2006 @ 11:46pm

  214. no wait!

    you conservatives

    Posted by Will C. at 09/05/2006 @ 11:46pm

  215. .

    LIEBERMAN FUNDED BY ROVE AND GOP.

    GUILTY OF ACCEPTING BRIBES

    http://www.insightmag.com/Media/MediaManager/Lieberman2.htm

    Issue Date: www.insightmag.com - Sept. 5-11, 2006, Posted On: 9/5/2006

    GOP secretly channeled millions to Lieberman

    "FIFTH COLUMN MOVEMENTS"

    In the context of the United States, the term "Fifth Column" does not apply to traitors within the government - it applies to those attempting to expose the traitors within the government and bring them to justice. That is representative of just how infiltrated our government has become. A foreign power ALREADY CONTROLS IT - therefore the "Fifth Column Movements" that Lindsey Graham warned Alberto Gonzalez about refers to those who oppose AIPAC, Lieberman, and the nest of spies and traitors who inhabit the halls of Congress and other institutions of government.

    B R I B E R Y

    Lieberman's acceptance of Rove's money is in fact BRIBERY. Rove's use of the White House as a base for GOP operations is ILLEGAL. That Rove is nothing more than a POLITICAL OPERATIVE necessitates that his security clearance be revoked and that he be removed from OUR PUBLIC PROPERTY.

    JOE LIEBERMAN IS A SPY FOR ISRAEL.

    Lieberman is not just a spy for the GOP, he is a spy for the AIPAC CRIME SYNDICATE - which itself controls the GOP through both bribery and blackmail.

    Lieberman has been funded by many with no ties to Connecticut. He accepted $2,000 from a known Mossad Agent.

    Jacob "Kobi" Alexander, the Israeli founder of Comverse Technology, one of the leading Mossad companies involved in the terror attacks has fled justice in the United States and escaped to Israel with at least $57 million of ill-gotten gains.

    Kobi Alexander should be arrested and interrogated about his knowledge of the events of 9/11. His company acquired the other Mossad firm, Odigo, shortly after it was revealed that Odigo employees had been forewarned of the attacks on the World Trade Center.

    This is the tip of the Israeli criminal mafia who is behind the terror attacks on 9/11. Kobi Alexander is a fugitive:

    http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=68985

    http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=91721

    Sleuthing the trail of a fugitive CEO EX-COMVERSE HEAD, SOUGHT IN SCANDAL, DROPS FROM SIGHT

    http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/business/15368320.htm

    LIEBERMAN'S SPYING:

    Lieberman works directly for AIPAC as an AGENT of Israel. Remember the Lewinski scandal? Clinton was SET UP and Lieberman was right in the midst of it. Lewinski was not in her job by accident, she was PLACED there. Lewinski was a Mossad Agent - a "Swallow" - whose job was to compromise the President of the United States to enable Sexual Blackmail to the benefit of Israel.

    It worked.

    Kobi Alexander's systems had been used to wiretap Clinton's phone sex with Lewinski. Television evangelist Jerry Falwell couldn't resist bragging and finally admitting the truth: he and former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin "Bibi" Netanyahu did conspire--at a critical time--to trip up President Bill Clinton and specifically use the pressure of the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal to force Clinton to abandon pressure on Israel to withdraw from the occupied West Bank.

    http://www.iamthewitness.com/by_MichaelCollinsPiper3.htm

    Israel BLACKMAILED Clinton - which serves to explain Clinton's pardon of Marc Rich upon his departure from office.

    Lieberman rushed to the Senate Floor to heap scourn on Clinton for accepting the advances of a MOSSAD AGENT whom Lieberman had helped to place in her job.

    THE CONDIT AFFAIR:

    Chandra Levy was yet another MOSSAD AGENT "SWALLOW" who looked incredibly similar in many respects to Lewinski. When Levy disappeared, it was revealed that Congressman Condit had been having an affair with her.

    July 22, 2001 Posted: 6:07 PM EDT (2207 GMT)

    Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Connecticut, said it wouldn't be productive to focus on Condit's conduct. In 1998, Lieberman was the first prominent Democrat to criticize Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky.

    Lieberman said the two matters are different and he declined to say whether Condit should resign, as two Republican lawmakers have said.

    "The Chandra Levy case is a missing persons case. And I think we all ought to let the law-enforcement authorities focus on finding Chandra Levy and relieving the terrible trauma and nightmare that her family and friends have gone through," Lieberman told Fox News Sunday. "And when that is over, politicians can begin to speak out."

    Saturday, a spokeswoman for Vice President Dick Cheney, said Cheney met with Condit around the same time Levy was logging off her computer in her apartment May 1.

    http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/07/21/missing.intern/index.html

    THE SMOKING GUN OF 9/11 FOREKNOWLEDGE:

    Condit was on the Intelligence Committee, and he and his intern, Levy, had access to classified information.

    In the spring of 2001, with the planning for 9/11 in its final stages, Levy likely stumbled upon information that showed the government's role in planning 9/11. Levy phoned her parents to inform them of the BIG NEWS that she had uncovered, which she said she would reveal to them when she flew home to visit. The call was wiretapped, and she was killed shortly thereafter.

    WHO ORDERED THE HIT ON CHANDRA LEVY?

    DICK CHENEY DID.

    What are the odds that at the very moment Chandra Levy was logging off of her computer for the last time prior to her death, at that very moment, Gary Condit would have an iron-clad alibi - not just any alibi - but a meeting in the office of Vice President Cheney? Note that Condit was Cheney's alibi too.

    Cheney was at that time overseeing all of the planning to implement the attack of 9/11, and the entire operation would have been compromised by Levy had she talked.

    Remember, Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta testified before the 9/11 Commission that he personally witnessed Cheney instruct a subordinate to allow the plane to strike the Pentagon on 9/11. Cheney was running the purported "DRILL" that morning, which was actually just cover for the 9/11 attacks.

    http://newsmine.org/archive/9-11/norad-faa-response/cheney-stand-do

    http://www.9-11commission.gov/archive/hearing2/9-11Commission_Heari

    LIEBERMAN RUSHES TO CONDIT'S DEFENSE:

    "Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Connecticut, said it wouldn't be productive to focus on Condit's conduct. In 1998, Lieberman was the first prominent Democrat to criticize Clinton for his affair with Monica Lewinsky."

    Who is this Lieberman character and why is he always out front when matters pertaining to espionage come to the fore?

    REMEMBER JACK ABRAMOFF?

    Abramoff was right in the middle of the AIPAC CRIME SYNDICATE which included Mossad's drug running operations in Florida – in concert with the BUSH CRIME FAMILY.

    http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/10/326565.shtml

    Bush 41 is still effectively running the CIA – which just happens to be the WORLD'S LARGEST DRUG DEALER, with government owned private jets flying tons of drugs into Florida all the time – all under the cover of Secret Service security.

    THE SHEER SIZE OF THE CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY ENSURES ITS SUCCESS

    Literally everyone is tainted – they are ALL GUILTY of receiving bribes. ALL OF THEM.

    I wrote the following a year ago, before Lieberman's recent political fortunes had changed, but I suspect most of it is still relevant even today:

    With every passing day, it becomes more clear that Lieberman works for Israel - as does Michael Chertoff, and most of the Neocons who worked within Cheney's "Office Of Special Lies", and about 2/3 of all Congressman and Senators – whom are either being bribed, blackmailed or both.

    Think back.

    Did Israel benefit from the downfall of the Clintons? Remember when Hillary mentioned the "Vast Right Wing Conspiracy?" It was Chertoff who ran the Whitewater Investigation. Who was Monica ("The Swallow") working for? And Linda Tripp? And Lucianne Goldberg?

    Who tapped the phones at the White House?

    Hillary said "Right Wing," but meant "Zionist."

    http://antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=3497

    Neocon = Zionist.

    AIPAC = Kingmaker.

    Conversely, they will destroy all who oppose them.

    Lieberman has clearly been selected by those in positions of REAL POWER (above the President's pay grade) to move into THE power position. McCain is clearly part of the strategy too...in the role of the "Useful Idiot" - a.k.a. "Gentile."

    Through whatever means are required, Lieberman will ultimately be appointed President Of The United States, and unless AIPAC is stopped from conducting its dishonest business on US shores, there's not a damn thing we can do to prevent it.

    If they use useful-idiot McCain as cover to put Lieberman in as VP, it just means that President McCain's security detail will have their work cut out for them - as useful idiots are disposable.

    Hillary will be selected as the useful idiot to lose to them in the faux-election. All of the money spent on advertising the purported candidates in the faux election will go into the hands of those who own the mainstream media, who in turn are tools of the Zionists.

    The whole Republican vs. Democrat thing is a smoke screen. Stop falling into their trap.

    No Democrat can fix this problem. A coup has already occurred in the United States. A foreign power controls America.

    http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/01/10/Sharon3.html

    Occupied Jerusalem: 3 October, 2001 (IAP) -- According to Israel radio (in Hebrew) Kol Yisrael, [Shimon] Peres warned [Ariel] Sharon Wednesday that refusing to heed incessant American requests for a cease-fire with the Palestinians would endanger Israeli interests and "turn the US against us."

    At this point, a furious Sharon reportedly turned toward Peres, saying "every time we do something you tell me Americans will do this and will do that. I want to tell you something very clear, don't worry about American pressure on Israel, we, the Jewish people control America, and the Americans know it."

    The radio said Peres and other cabinet ministers warned Sharon against saying what he said in public because "it would cause us a public relations disaster."

    http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7545.htm

    http://antiwar.com/israeli-files.php

    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/fiveisraelis.html

    On the day of the 9-11 attacks, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was asked what the attack would mean for US-Israeli relations. His quick reply was: "It's very good…….Well, it's not good, but it will generate immediate sympathy (for Israel)"

    Climb aboard the Way-Back Machine, to the days just prior to September 11, 2001:

    http://www.alternet.org/story/11427

    http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/goldstein.html

    JOE LIEBERMAN IS A SPY AND A TRAITOR.

    ALL OF THEM ARE

    THE BIG LIE IS REVEALED.

    .

    Posted by plunger at 09/06/2006 @ 07:06am

  216. .

    Lieberman's defense of the Iraqi campaign and the forthcoming conquest of Iran serves The Crown, Israel, and BP - not the United States:

    The Oil Monarchs: George W. Bush and his Royal Kin By Christopher Bollyn - American Free Press

    There are basically two schools of thought among those who do not accept the official reasoning for war against Iraq. The first is that the conquest of Iraq's oil resources is an agenda being pushed by the major oil companies and their agents in the British and U.S. governments. The second is that Israel and its supporters, seeking to further the Zionist agenda, are the true architects behind the war of aggression being planned against the most populous Arab state.

    While these two theories are usually presented as being mutually exclusive, the secret networks that exist between the government leaders in the United States and Britain, "Big Oil" and Israel indicate they are connected and appear to be part of a master plan.

    While Blair's intimate relationship with the Anglo-American oil giant British Petroleum (BP) should be a matter of discussion in the context of his war policy against Iraq, it is seldom mentioned in the main steam British press.

    Blair's "New Labor" policies are now more closely connected to both Big Oil, particularly BP, and Israel, than they are with the British working class. The close links between BP, which was originally known as the Anglo-Persian Oil Co. having been founded to exploit Iranian oil reserves, and Blair's politics have led to the company being dubbed "Blair Petroleum."

    During his first term, Blair appointed then chairman of BP, Lord Simon, to be trade minister in May 1997. A controversy surfaced when it emerged that Simon still owned a considerable shareholding in the company.

    BP's current chief executive Lord John Browne, whose mother was an "Auschwitz survivor," is also said to be "close to the prime minister." Blair added a peerage to Browne's knighthood after he helped end fuel protests in Britain.

    Anji Hunter, Blair's former secretary and close friend, was said to "be among New Labor friends" when she left government to take the position as director of communications at BP in November 2001. Hunter went to school with Blair and has worked with him continuously since 1986.

    "There is a bit of a revolving door," says Norman Baker, a Liberal Democrat member of parliament who has looked into the ties between BP and the Blair government. The connections are probably more extensive than with any other UK company, Baker said.

    One of Blair's closest allies is Lord Michael Levy. Levy serves as one of the most important fundraisers for the Labor Party and Blair's unofficial envoy to the Middle East, according to Red Star Research of London, which investigates the ties of Blair's New Labor to Big Oil - and Israel.

    Asked if the support of the European royals for Bush's war policy could be attributed to the fact that these families are heavily invested in the leading oil companies, Brooks-Baker said, "That's an interesting question. Indeed, Royal Dutch Shell petroleum made Queen Beatrix of Holland one of the richest women in the world. She owns more land in New York and the United States than any other foreigner."

    Queen Beatrix, the matriarch of the secretive Bilderberg group, is like Queen Elisabeth of Britain and is not allowed to play a public role in political matters. Behind the scenes, however, these monarchs continue to exercise political influence.

    Asked if he thought that kinship with the European royals was the reason for their support of Bush's war policy, Brooks-Baker said: "I don't think there is any question about it. These people are obsessed with supporting relations. It has a great deal to do with it. They all work together as one family."

    http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/print.asp?ID=553

    History of BP and middle east oil:

    http://petropulse.com/category/bp/

    note:

    The Author of this and many other articles was brutally attacked in his own front yard by agents of Chertoff's DHS.

    .

    Posted by plunger at 09/06/2006 @ 07:15am

  217. Posted by PRETZEL 09/05/2006 @ 11:02pm |

    The Wilsons "know" what was in the mind of Armitage....and Rove???

    Posted by Mask at 09/06/2006 @ 07:22am

  218. Hey Rese:

    Learn all you can about Lord Michael Levy (any relation to Chandra?).

    Michael Abraham Levy, Baron Levy (born 11 July 1944) is a Labour member of the British House of Lords and the major fundraiser for the UK Labour Party party and several Jewish and Israeli charities. A long-standing friend of the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, Lord Levy has acted as his special envoy to the Middle East since 2002. Levy was arrested and questioned in connection with the "Cash for Peerages" inquiry by the Metropolitan Police on 12 July 2006. After six hours of questioning he was released on police bail.

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

    http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/00/06/STimes250600.html

    Posted by plunger at 09/06/2006 @ 07:27am

  219. The Wilsons "know" what was in the mind of Armitage....and Rove???

    Posted by MASK 09/06/2006 @ 07:22am

    nope.. but they know little dick knew who she was. Which means rove knows who she was and libby knows who she was...

    the only guy who didn't was Armitage (the honest one. Weird isn't it) which then takes us back to the memo that the chimps were circulating with Valery's name on it but no classification

    this going to be a fun lawsuit

    Posted by Will C. at 09/06/2006 @ 08:59am

  220. Posted by WILL C. 09/06/2006 @ 08:59am

    Uh, WILL...how do you (or they) KNOW that "the only guy who didn't was Armitage"?

    Who said that was true?

    Posted by Mask at 09/06/2006 @ 09:00am

  221. Posted by MASK 09/06/2006 @ 09:00am

    armitage said he didn't know what valery's classidfication was.

    but little dick did... which means rove did and libby did...

    (and chimpy did)

    Posted by Will C. at 09/06/2006 @ 09:10am

  222. so when does the Wilson lawsuit go to court again?

    Posted by Will C. at 09/06/2006 @ 09:10am

  223. WILL....so "Armitage said so"...ergo it's true, huh?

    Same principle apply to the other guys when they SAID they didn't "out Plame"?

    This thing is lost as a "conspiracy", Mr Corn knows it....he even ADMITS it....how else do you translate this?--

    "The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence."

    "The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework."

    Posted by Mask at 09/06/2006 @ 09:51am

  224. go to www.davidcorn.com and read a little, he admits no such thing

    Posted by MyParadigm at 09/06/2006 @ 12:44pm

  225. Posted by MYPARADIGM 09/06/2006 @ 12:44am

    You're right....should have said "unconsciously admits it".

    The whole "story" of "Plame-gate" for two years has been it was "a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence".

    Hence, Rove's involvement, "treasonous reveling of a CIA operative as revenge", etc., etc.

    NOW...that Armitage (a Bush/Cheney critic) is revealed as the first to "leak" it...it's "doesn't fit that framework".

    Let me ask you...if we had found out that ROVE had leaked it first to Novak, and claimed he knew nothing of Plame's classification....would the same principle apply to him as Armitage?

    Of course not, THAT would fit the "conspiracy" charge.

    But since Armitage was first...all that's left is..."Oh, Rove leaked it later...but he did it in a 'mean way', so it's worse!"

    And if the Wilsons and their lawyers were honest, they'd go after Richard Armitage too....IF "the leak" (and the "destruction of Valerie's career, that would have resulted from Novak printing ONLY Armitage's revelation)....and not the "intent of the secondary 'leaks'" was the real issue.

    Posted by Mask at 09/06/2006 @ 1:17pm

  226. Posted by MASK 09/06/2006 @ 09:51am

    WILL....so "Armitage said so"...ergo it's true, huh?

    Yup. He voluntarily came forward and didn't immediately pull a mask

    Same principle apply to the other guys when they SAID they didn't "out Plame"?

    Nope... they pulled a mask

    This thing is lost as a "conspiracy", Mr Corn knows it....he even ADMITS it....how else do you translate this?--

    little dick, rove and libby passed around an unclassified memo that contained classified information about Valerie Wilson knowing somebody would talk about it to the press (the memo wasn't classified or anything you know)... so they could get back at Joe

    "The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence."

    And they were correct

    "The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework."

    Sure it does, he was the first guy that blabbed information from the little dick, rove, libby memo (left unclassified accidentally on purpose) to the press

    Posted by Will C. at 09/06/2006 @ 10:57pm

  227. You're right....should have said "unconsciously admits it".

    Posted by MASK 09/06/2006 @ 1:17pm

    we have just witnessed the common beginning of all hamster lies

    you hamsters are truly pathetic

    Posted by Will C. at 09/06/2006 @ 11:00pm

  228. "The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework."

    "Sure it does..."

    Posted by WILL C. 09/06/2006 @ 10:57pm

    Then David Corn is wrong...right?

    Posted by Mask at 09/07/2006 @ 09:04am

  229. (Okay, THIS is going to make for an awkward moment the next time David Corn runs into David Broder)--

    By David S. Broder Thursday, September 7, 2006; A27

    Conspiracy theories flourish in politics, and most of them have no more basis than spring training hopes for the Chicago Cubs.

    Whenever things turn dicey for Republicans, they complain about the "liberal media" sabotaging them. And when Democrats get in a jam, they take up Hillary Clinton's warnings about a "vast right-wing conspiracy."

    For much of the past five years, dark suspicions have been voiced about the Bush White House undermining its critics, and Karl Rove has been fingered as the chief culprit in this supposed plot to suppress the opposition.

    Now at least one count in that indictment has been substantially weakened -- the charge that Rove masterminded a conspiracy to discredit Iraq intelligence critic Joseph Wilson by "outing" his CIA-operative wife, Valerie Plame.

    I have written almost nothing about the Wilson-Plame case, because it seemed overblown to me from the start. Wilson's claim in a New York Times op-ed about his memo on the supposed Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger; the Robert D. Novak column naming Plame as the person who had recommended Wilson to check up on the reported sale; the call for a special prosecutor and the lengthy interrogation that led to the jailing of Judith Miller of the New York Times and the deposition of several other reporters; and, finally, the indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff -- all of this struck me as being a tempest in a teapot.

    No one behaved well in the whole mess -- not Wilson, not Libby, not special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and not the reporters involved.

    The only time I commented on the case was to caution reporters who offered bold First Amendment defenses for keeping their sources' names secret that they had better examine the motivations of the people leaking the information to be sure they deserve protection.

    But caution has been notably lacking in some of the press treatment of this subject -- especially when it comes to Karl Rove. And it behooves us in the media to examine that behavior, not just sweep it under the rug.

    Sidney Blumenthal, a former aide to President Bill Clinton and now a columnist for several publications, has just published a book titled, "How Bush Rules: Chronicles of a Radical Regime." It is a collection of his columns for Salon, including one originally published on July 14, 2005, titled "Rove's War."

    It was occasioned by the disclosure of a memo from Time magazine's Matt Cooper, saying that Rove had confirmed to him the identity of Valerie Plame. To Blumenthal, that was proof that this "was political payback against Wilson by a White House that wanted to shift the public focus from the Iraq War to Wilson's motives."

    Then Blumenthal went off on a rant: "While the White House stonewalls, Rove has license to run his own damage control operation. His surrogates argue that if Rove did anything, it wasn't a crime. . . . Rove is fighting his war as though it will be settled in a court of Washington pundits. Brandishing his formidable political weapons, he seeks to demonstrate his prowess once again. His corps of agents raises a din in which their voices drown out individual dissidents. His frantic massing of forces dominates the capital by winning the communications battle. Indeed, Rove may succeed momentarily in quelling the storm. But the stillness may be illusory. Before the prosecutor, Rove's arsenal is useless."

    In fact, the prosecutor concluded that there was no crime; hence, no indictment. And we now know that the original "leak," in casual conversations with reporters Novak and Bob Woodward, came not from the conspiracy theorists' target in the White House but from the deputy secretary of state at the time, Richard Armitage, an esteemed member of the Washington establishment and no pal of Rove or President Bush.

    Blumenthal's example is far from unique. Newsweek, in a July 25, 2005, cover story on Rove, after dutifully noting that Rove's lawyer said the prosecutor had told him that Rove was not a target of the investigation, added: "But this isn't just about the Facts, it's about what Rove's foes regard as a higher Truth: That he is a one-man epicenter of a narrative of Evil."

    And in the American Prospect's cover story for August 2005, Joe Conason wrote that Rove "is a powerful bully. Fear of retribution has stifled those who might have revealed his secrets. He has enjoyed the impunity of a malefactor who could always claim, however implausibly, deniability -- until now."

    These and other publications owe Karl Rove an apology. And all of journalism needs to relearn the lesson: Can the conspiracy theories and stick to the facts.

    Posted by Mask at 09/07/2006 @ 1:55pm

  230. Then David Corn is wrong...right?

    Posted by MASK 09/07/2006 @ 09:04am

    Mr. Corn is looking at the players from his perspective. He has never laid out the scenario like I have. He sees armitage as an unwitting player that doesn't neatly fit into the underhanded little dick, rove, libby mold because he wasn't behaving in an underhanded manor.

    I see armitage as an unwitting player that that simply triggered the underhanded plan that little dick, Rove and libby put into motion.

    We are both correct. Corn is commenting at the framework making up the character of the players.

    I'm commenting on the framework of the plan itself .

    Posted by Will C. at 09/07/2006 @ 9:09pm

  231. Are you slipping mask, or is subtly really not your bag?

    Posted by Will C. at 09/07/2006 @ 9:09pm

  232. We are both correct.

    Posted by WILL C. 09/07/2006 @ 9:09pm

    WOW!...How did I know THAT was coming?

    Did I REALLY expect that you would say you were wrong....or David Corn was wrong....for saying two completely opposite things about Armitage?

    No of course not....somehow "you both are right"! ROFL!

    Posted by Mask at 09/07/2006 @ 10:29pm

  233. Did I REALLY expect that you would say you were wrong....or David Corn was wrong....for saying two completely opposite things about Armitage?

    Posted by MASK 09/07/2006 @ 10:29pm

    I've been forth right in my explanations. You are the other hand continue to make an assertion without any explanation.

    perhaps you'd like to explain your assertion in detail so I can pick it apart and make you look foolish

    Ha Ha Ha Ha

    Posted by Will C. at 09/08/2006 @ 09:08am

David Corn David Corn

Washington--a city of denials, spin, and political calculations. They may speak English there, but most citizens still need an interpreter to understand its ways and meanings. DAVID CORN, the Washington editor of The Nation magazine, has spent years analyzing the policies and pursuing the lies that spew out of the nation's capital. He is a novelist, biographer, and television and radio commentator who is able to both decipher and scrutinize Washington.

In his dispatches, he takes on the day-by-day political and policy battles under way in the Capitol, the White House, the think tanks, and the television studios. With an informed, unconventional perspective, he holds the politicians, policymakers and pundits accountable and reports the important facts and views that go uncovered elsewhere.

Check out David Corn's latest book, (co-written with Michael Isikoff and now available in paperback), Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (Crown Publishers). For information, visit his personal blog at davidcorn.com.

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How to Counterbalance Focus on the Family on Superbowl Sunday | Give to help low income girls and women.
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» Altercation

Slacker Friday | James O'Keefe and Alter-reviews.
Eric Alterman