Novak/Plame - Page 5

You do realize you're arguing with NaplesX lite right? These guys worship Bush and the Rep party while at the same time denying it and weakly trying to seem "objective". Read dmz's posts since the beginning of the thread.

Would they be reacting the same way if Rove were a Democrat?

We all know the answer to that.

"Two senior admin. officials" plus Rove calling at least six reporters.....plus the people who told those "senior admin. officials". That's a lot of people working towards the same goal.

Mr. RNC Melman tells T. Russert that, "Rove has been vindicated..." Wow, what a jokester!

Wierdness check:

Do we have another Rathergate on our hands?

More from here. (scroll down)

I think they must be laying the ground work for Vigorous Indignation when the indictments start rolling in.

The Republican smear machine is designed to influence public opinion and the general tone of the punditry. That makes political sense, but it really doesn't have any bearing on the outcome of legal proceedings (except insofar as controlling the political process allows you to keep a heavy foot on what sorts of things actually get investigated, and how independent that investigation turns out to be-- see also 9/11, spurious WOMD data, voting irregularities, etc.).

But once matters have moved on to an actual prosecutor, all the usual slander and misdirection are pretty much beside the point.

If indictments seem to be in the cards, look for a shift in tone away from Joe Wilson's imagined shortcomings to talk of "prosecutorial misconduct" and "partisan witch-hunts" (already in play, of course, but only at the default level). The idea here would be to create a climate in which presidential pardons could be proffered as somehow serving justice (hey, I think my gag reflex finally quit for good!).

The Republican response to the DeLay investigation makes it clear that attacking the prosecutor need not make any sense at all to be taken up with gusto by the ditto heads, but then that's the depressing thing isn't it?

None of it ever has to make any sense any more. It's a Republican attack machine world, we just live in it.

Liar.

WASHINGTON, July 18 - President Bush changed his stance today on his close adviser Karl Rove, stopping well short of promising that anyone in his administration who helped to unmask a C.I.A. officer would be fired.

C.I.A. Inquiry May Hinge on What the Leaker Knew (July 18, 2005) "If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration," Mr. Bush said in response to a question, after declaring, "I don't know all the facts; I want to know all the facts."

For months, Mr. Bush and his spokesmen have said that anyone involved in the disclosure of the C.I.A. officer's identity would be dismissed. The president's apparent raising of the bar for dismissal today, to specific criminal conduct, comes amid mounting evidence that, at the very least, Mr. Rove provided backhanded confirmation of the C.I.A. officer's identity.

-------

Bob Scheiffer:

Instead, this White House did what it usually does when challenged: It went into attack mode, called charges that the White House had leaked the name ridiculous, and allowed the controversy to boil until a special prosecutor had to be appointed. Now two years and millions of tax dollars later, the president's trusted friend and strategist Karl Rove has emerged as the top suspect, and we're left to wonder: Can anything said from the White House podium be taken at face value, or does the White House just deny automatically anything that reflects badly on it?

You said it brother!

The GOP partisans, their water carriers like DMZ, refuse to hold their party accountable. Rather, they join in the rationalizations and embolden their leaders to stay the course regardless of the consequences to our national security. No crime against America is bad enough for these guys. They applaud and cheer from the sidelines, as though America and their party is somehow well served by such shenanigans. It's rather revolting, really.

The Republican party continues to rot from within.

That disconnect can only help hasten their downfall. The big question is how much damage they will inflict on the nation's national security before the American public finally awakens from their slumber and throws these assholes out on their ear.

Sure. To protect the ample back side of one of the most horrifyingly cynical political hatchet men in recent history, it is necessary to attack the entire edifice of the free press in the United States. Maybe we can figure out a way to go after the judiciary while we're at it. Good for you, DMZ. It's so refreshing to hear from a man of character and integrity. Of course, you don't really give a shit what kind of smoking ruin America becomes in pursuit of right wing infallibility, because you're all in on the apocalypse, no?

Last time I checked, what the Times et al may or may not consider a crime doesn't have any bearing on a criminal investigation.

How in the world, when 36 news organizations file an amici curie saying there's has been no crime committed, can you spin this the other way?

How do you justify this?

This is no Memogate. This is Watergate:

". . . Fitzgerald [a Republican], both young (44) and ambitious, has no record of Starr- or Ashcroft-style partisanship (his contempt for the press notwithstanding) or known proclivity for committing career suicide. What's most likely is that Mr. Novak, more of a common coward than the prince of darkness he fashions himself to be, found a way to spill some beans and avoid Judy Miller's fate. That the investigation has dragged on so long anyway is another indication of the expanded reach of the prosecutorial web.

"Apparently this is finally beginning to dawn on Mr. Bush's fiercest defenders and on Mr. Bush himself. Hence, last week's erection of the stonewall manned by the almost poignantly clownish Mr. McClellan, who abruptly rendered inoperative his previous statements that any suspicions about Mr. Rove are "totally ridiculous." The morning after Mr. McClellan went mano a mano with his tormentors in the White House press room - "We've secretly replaced the White House press corps with actual reporters," observed Jon Stewart - the ardently pro-Bush New York Post ran only five paragraphs of a wire-service story on Page 12. That conspicuous burial of what was front-page news beyond Murdochland speaks loudly about the rising anxiety on the right. Since then, White House surrogates have been desperately babbling talking points attacking Joseph Wilson as a partisan and a liar.

These attacks, too, are red herrings. Let me reiterate: This case is not about Joseph Wilson. He is, in Alfred Hitchcock's parlance, a MacGuffin . . . This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit - the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes - is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. . . . The plot that matters starts a month later, in March, and its omniscient author is Dick Cheney. It was Mr. Cheney (on CNN) who planted the idea that Saddam was "actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time." The vice president went on to repeat this charge in May on "Meet the Press," in three speeches in August and on "Meet the Press" yet again in September. Along the way the frightening word "uranium" was thrown into the mix."

Taken from this article.

Good link Northgate. I agree with most of it.

The history books will not care much about the Wilsons. The big picture is a war that was dreamt by neocons before Bush became President and then started when 9/11 and a campaign of fear-mongering prepared the soil for invasion. I have no idea how Iraq will end, but I sure hope that we remember how we got into this mess for a long time to come.

Poor DMZ, lost in a postmodern relativist world where there are no intrinsic truths and "winning" depends on who has the better "spin".

I don't have to spin anything because I'm not obliged to clutch at straws to defend the indefensible.

The efforts of news organizations to protect their own doesn't have any bearing on the criminal case at hand.

The self serving remarks of Rove's lawyer don't have any bearing on the criminal case at hand.

Quoting Joe Wilson out of context to make it appear he said something he didn't doesn't have any bearing on the criminal case at hand.

Are you under the impression that immediately linking to each odd little caveat that the right wing can torture out of whatever they can get their hands on somehow bolsters some case you think you're making (other than the reflexive "it's all to complicated to understand, best to look away)?

Doesn't it strike you that the velocity with which these "points" pop up and are subsequently dropped suggests that they arise from the very definition of desperation? Of a coordinated effort to find something, anything that will stick long enough to change the subject?

I can just imagine the sweaty little wingnut bloggers searching for something to turn this into another "Rathergate", as you somewhat plaintively dream of.
And then of course from their lips to your ear, you and a legion of willing swill bearers just like you.

Doesn't it kind of make you feel dirty?

-Ahem-

That should read "a secular postmodern relativist world.."

Optional adjectives include "godless" and "heathen."

What a big stink over nothing. There is nothing there and nothing will come of it. This is no more than the Bush-haters taking a swing at the administration. They will miss. Nothing will come of any of this.

The crime in question in your case is whether the reporter's who refused to testify committed a crime.

We know. It is important to also realize that even if it wasn't a crime, a significant misdeed was done on behalf of the president's war.

Dammit COG, I was gonna post something simular...

If Rove is found to be guilty, and I believe he IS, he HAS to face serious consequences. As a veteran whom took some bad wounds from shrapnel and killed in the name of my country, I want him to hang, if not literally, then figuratively.

I'm not happy with the Democratic party. Especially when two of it's big names, ie, Clinton and Lieberman, are wasting their freaken time over a video game!!!

However, the Republicans are in the drivers seat at the moment. The fact that one of their policy "architects" is on the hot seat for possible TREASON speaks volumes on this administration's "core values"... Pahetic.

e..., I'm glad to see that you are willing to consider the "other" POV.

I was so pissed at Pres. Clinton for all of his BS. Yet he's in the minor leagues compared to what's come out of this White House...

Now, Moe, put down the Skittles and riddle me this: how do "Bush haters" manage to contrive to have a Republican appointed Republican prosecutor, acting on a referral of criminal wrong doing from our very own Central Intelligence Agency, apparently find enough evidence of same to pursue a lengthy investigation, taking the time along the way to duly impanel a Grand Jury, subpoena the testimony of dozens of players and be instrumental in having a reporter jailed for what amounts to obstruction of justice?

Unless......no! Everybody's a Bush hater? Oh, the humanity!

Iffin' yew ain't FER us, then yew's AGIN' us - purty simple, ain't it?

Let the Grand Jury do its work. They will probably find no criminal activity. This is just dirty politics. Part of Rove's job is to deflect and punish those who attack the administration. Dirty and sleezy, yes. Illegal/? Probably not.

remember everyone - blowing a CIA agent's cover is "just dirty politics"

unless of course a Democrat does it - THEN it's treason....

And he didn't know it was a baby - some liberal told him it was a special type of wingless turkey called an "infant!"

So there was no crime committed, but there really was? Help me out here. Miller is in Jail for something worth hiding but the same organizations filing this brief wont breathe a word of it in print, nor will they even TRY to mention all of this EXCEPT in the landscape of "Bush lied and zillions died" context.

This thing is getting weirder by the day, and no one is trying to make sense of this. I'm perfectly willing to see anyone who broke the law get their pee-pee's wacked, and that could be anyone, really -- or it could have been a pro-political hit that took common knowledge and spread it around; or a little bait-and-switch, etc.

But addabox, you can't separate yourself from demonizing the administration --- just try to step back and try to run this thing both ways.

please?
**sniff**
for me??

(and yes, if this is rathergate II, or anything along the lines of the "gulag" fiasco, then the pee-pee's that get wacked will have to be the leftist press)

The left bringing up killing babies! Amazing!

Back to topic. The Democrats and their loyalists (most of the media) know that they have little chance to retake the White House with Rove coordinating the Republican attack. They feel that their only hope is to take Rove out.

No

No

and

No.

from the brief:

And:

And:

And:

And:

that's coming from the same media trying to hornswoggle (derservedly or not) Rove for being a bad boy.

Crazy stuff

But, it's all just sooo complicated! Its just too much for anyone to understand! There's leaking and covers and background whatsits and books and apparently some kind of a WAR and some people who aren't even elected and oh my god it's so hard! I can't understand it!

God I love this strategy. Now watch the Bush-sucker press try to muddy the waters. Whatshisname had the temerity to try to argue that Novak didn't out Plame, David Corn did! In a piece written AFTER Novak's! You see, Plame wasn't outed until people reported that Novak had outed her! Karl Rove was trying to help reporters! There is no global warming!

even you midnwinter, must admitt that that brief, considering the source, seems nearly inconceivable -- screen door on a submarine inconceivalbe.

That's because several people are lying.

I don't get why that's so inconceivable dmz. They were trying to defend their people. The same way the Republicans are now trying to defend theirs. That's inconceivable? It's about as inconceivable as a lawyer defending his client, i.e., if it didn't happen it would be inconceivable.

Welcome back from your oddly-synchronous-with-terror-bombing travels, Midwinter.

Thanks. London was a little terrorism-y for my tastes.

Waitaminute. You tryin' to imply somethin'?

It's not inconceivable and he (?) knows it. His claims about its complexity/nonsensicalness are just part of the Republican machine, which depends upon a) saying it's complex often enough that the plebes pick it up and b) the plebes saying it all the time. And when they just prattle on about how complex it is, people will start to just say "Shit, I can't follow this. Let's watch Friends!"

And then it goes away.

What's so sad is that most of the conservative plebes don't even realize that they are a crucial element of the RNC PR machine.

I dunno, I just expected something different, if Miller or Cooper were leaking names you'd think they'd be getting keel hauled as well in the news, but the coverage is "fixed about" the administration being little political devils, and not all those involved.


weird.

We won't know if there is sufficient evidence for indictments until that announcement is made. It is very clear that a covert CIA agent was casually named as part of systematic political payback for telling the truth about one of the Bush administrations WOMD claims. I honestly can't imagine what part of this is unclear to you, at this point.


Miller is in jail for refusing to divulge her sources after a court ordered her to do so. You'd have to ask her why she thinks it's worth it. Most of the reporting I've seen about outing Valerie Plame has been in the typical MSM mold of "he said/she said", not remotely "Bush lied, zillions died". There has been a shocking amount of credulous repetition of Republican talking points (such as the misrepresentation of the relevant statute that it requires one to actually name the agent to be in violation).


No it's not. Certainly, irrelevant flak is being thrown into the mix all the time, and it's easy to see why.


Yes they are, most significantly, Fitzgerald.


AKA, I'd like to see justice done, but monkeys can fly and fish are walking and bees get in your head and it's all so crazy, what's the use of even trying?


Some things don't run both ways. That's the great lie of Republican spin land--that the whole world is made of tit-for-tat and every crime is somehow negated by a reciprocal crime from the "other side". AKA "Being non-partisan".


I said no, you sniveling bastard!


If leaking the name of a CIA operative for political payback for telling the truth about just one of the many lies that were told in the run-up to this meat-grinder of a pointless "war" somehow becomes a scandal of the "liberal" press, we will be well and truly lost.

Oh, heavens no. Just......stay.......on.......line.......for...... .a........few.......more.....seconds....

Got you.

I mean, good to see you!

touché

It's weird that the media are allowed to report?