If outrage was oil, the Calpundit would be OPEC. Not to pick on Kevin twice in one day, but his post just goes to show what a no win situation the President is in with when it comes to hyper-partisan Democrats. Apparently, Kevin has a real problem with this statement from Bush:
“I don’t know if we’re going to find out the senior administration official,” Bush said. “I don’t have any idea. I’d like to. I want to know the truth.”
But, Bush said, “This is a large administration and there’s a lot of senior officials.”
Sayeth Kevin:
Noted without comment. It just takes your breath away, doesn’t it?
Yes, it just leaves me breathless. Well, not at all. I guess this is the second Act in the Valerie Plame Opera- the immensely popular first Act was titled “Bush Doesn’t Care.” I guess we can name the second Act “I’m so Stunned I’m Speechless, with the popular arais called “Breathtaking” and “Unbelievable.”
In all seriousness, though, the reason it is amusing watching Kevin and other’s faux fumings is because there is NOTHING Bush can say that they wouldn’t raise a hissy fit about. For example, what if the President had stated:
“I have complete faith that Attorney General Ashcroft and the DOJ will find out who is behind this leak.”
Here would be the possible reactions Kevin would have:
1.) “He knows who leaked and isn’t telling us. Remember, parsing words is everything with Bush- he is telling us that he knows and it is up to Ashcroft to find out, and he isn’t goingto help him.”
2.) “He is a figurehead who doesn’t even read the newspapers and he has no control of his administration. The neocons are running the show. He really doesn’t know who leaked this.”
3.) “He is shifting the topic to caring about the leak, and not addressing that a FELONY has been committed because a CIA agent has been outed.” (Oops- they have already stated this one).
4.) “He is so smug and confident because he knows that Ashcroft is going to do the cover-up for him- we need a special prosecutor.”
I could go on and on- but I don’t have to. I’ll just save my time and wait for the next Plame update from Kevin on the West Coast. You can almost guarantee there will be some pretty damning anti-Bush tea-leave reading within the next 6-8 hours. The newest one makes me giggle– they are outraged the White House Counsel is going to make sure no National Security secrets are accidentally released in the document turnover- HOW OUTRAGEOUS. Mark Kleiman states:
All those documents concerning the Wilson trip and conversations about it that White House staff has been ordered to come up with by tomorrow at 5 p.m. will not be going to the Justice Department. No, they’re going to White House Counsel — that is, to the lawyers for the President, who must be considered a likely suspect, at least as a co-conspirator or accessory.
Co-Conspirators! Accessories! In order for them to be co-consipirators, then Bush would have to have been the leak or have known who was leaking ahead of time or given the go-ahead. But in the world of Mark Kleiman, charges precede evidence. And to soud no-partisan, he puts in this laugher:
Note that I am not accusing Alberto Gonzales of any unethical conduct here.
Nothing unethical- just a co-conspirator to a felony, as well as felony obstruction of justice. But nothing unethical. Snicker.
Ricky
I’ll be blunt: too many are giving a party flak who gave up any sense or rationality months ago too much attention.
HH
“This is about national security… how dare they try to protect national security in investigating it?”
Kimmitt
Wait, you really think that delaying the dissemination of documents to the Department of Justice for two weeks (and therefore enjoying the opportunity to conveniently lose or misfile a few particularly incriminating documents) constitutes investigation? You said that it was out of the President’s hands, now. The President has taken the investigation back into his hands. He now has the tools to ferret out the son of a bitch who compromised our national security.
He will use them to cover up the truth.
Aakash
Partisan, partisan, partisan…
For some, everything is “partisan.”
While they may be partially write about many of these claims, that really doesn’t necessarily impact the charges or claims of the partisans. And in many cases, people not affiliated with that party are also making the same claims as the partisan accusers.
I think that it seems that a lot of the people who are crying “partisan” are themselves being very partisan.
But parties and partisanship aside, we have been royally screwed by our government, and by our leaders. This has happened many times before – especially during the last administration.
But because a better man heads the Executive Branch of our government does not mean that these things have stopped happening.
It seems that no matter which party is in office, the same old B.S. is pulled. And then, we must spend countless billions of our taxdollars, and endless amounts of time in investigations, to sort things out, and figure out just how badly we’ve been screwed.
Well, I guess that’s the way things work. At least, until someone has the courage and willingness to do something about it.
For now though, we must attempt to force our representatives and leaders to do the right thing.
It is time for heads to roll.
Andrew Lazarus
Say what? Charges often precede discovery of much of the evidence!
Harry
The real story beginning to emerge; is the Wilson story. Rep. Peter King of NY is starting to ask why Wilson was allowed to comment in the NYT on a matter of national security which was and supposedly still is classified, also whether Wilson had signed a confidentiality agreement that all CIA operatives a required to sign, and if not, why not? Who selected Wilson at the CIA to go on this mission (Tenet has said he did not select Wilson and has no idea who did, as of yet no one has taken responsibility for choosing Wilson). Wilson paid for much of the trip with his own money, why? How did someone so adamantly opposed the the Bush administration and American foreign policy get selected for CIA field work? Then just go on what amoundted to a vacation in Niger, get debriefed by his wife, of all people, in Paris at CIA expense (conflict of interests anyone?), and then have no written report to back up his findings.
It would seem that Wilson had absolutely no oversight of his mission, why?
There needs to be an investigation of the leak and there sure as hell needs to be an investigation in the CIA/Wilson affair.
I think George Bush would get more respect from the CIA and State department communities if he put George Tenet’s scrotum and testicles in a jar of formaldehyde and kept them on his desk. Tenet has got to go.
I’d take those files, show them to Sen. Hilary Clinton when she was a little drunk, redact whatever the hell I wanted to out of them, tell the DoJ that I lost them, then have someone find them on a counter at DC Waffle House with Sen. Clinton’s fingerprints all over them. Heh heh.
Steve-O
The story remains Plame.
1. Valerie Plame was a highly specialized covert operative for the CIA.
2. Someone in the administration blew her cover.
3. If it was intentional, that’s a felony.
Got it?
Director_Mitch
Yeah, I also notice this about Drumm: No matter WHAT is stated by Bush, he will bash it – even it is something Drumm previously stated it is something Bush should say. If Bush were to pull all troops out of Iraq tomorrow and hand it to the UN, Drumm would blame Bush for handing over an important part of the world to a corrupt, inept organization. With hyper-partisans like him, it isn’t about policy, it is about frothing at the mouth personal hate.
He also is selective about his facts. The above commenter is correct – if there was a true leak, let’s find and punish the person. The problem is that there are 2000 – you got that – 2,000 -people just on the White House staff. It doesn’t occur to Drumm that maybe – just maybe – Bush doesn’t know every iota of what each one of those 2000 people do each day. Never mind the possibility that the leak may have come from State or the CIA itself, which would add another few thousand people to the mix.
Steve-O
And Harry’s narrative of how things went down with Wilson is a little off.
1)Wilson went to Niger before he was an outspoken critic of the administration. He was on the NSC as an African specialist in the 1990s, and his report was corroborated by 2 independent experts dispatched by the DOD and State.
2) Wilson, by all accounts, neither was debriefed by his wife, nor set up with the mission by his wife.
As for putting Tenet’s balls in a jar of formaldehyde, I would think that far from showing the CIA and State who’s boss, Bush would have a lot of nasty secrets come out about how we got into this mess in Iraq. I don’t think he wants that to happen!
Joe Betsin
Seconding Steve-O above:
The story remains Plame.
1. Valerie Plame was a highly specialized covert operative for the CIA. Why is what her husband did or did not do, or was qualified or not qualified to do, at all relevant?
2. Someone in the administration blew her cover.
3. If it was intentional, that’s a felony.
If it is true, and knowledgeable people agree that it is, then the someone(s) who started it betrayed the national security of the United States. Did anyone see Jim Marcinowski on Paula Zahn’s show on CNN last night? The ripple effects are huge.
gb
Thirding Steve-O:
3) Wilson was correct in his claims that Irak haven’t tried to by uran from Niger; White House was wrong. Who was more competent?
Steve-O
Just to make this clear – Bush’s SOTU address never specified Niger. But both Condi and a State Department report did prior to SOTU, which led Wilson to start clamoring anonymously in the press, and ultimately to his Op-Ed.
JadeGold
Jack O’Toole does a rather nice job of slicing and dicing Cole.
JadeGold1
GB: Not only was Wilson’s assessment correct–the WH and NSC have acknowledged it was.
You have to wonder about the conservatives when they’re willing to betray US intelligence operatives and compare Max Cleland, a man who lost 3 limbs in service to this country, to bin Laden and Saddam.
David Perron
Still trolling, Mac Diva? I’d think you’d have better things to do.
JadeGold
Still hacking away, Norm Augustine?
David Perron
Yep. Just waiting for you to spew some more noxious racist filth so I can bookmark it. You?
JadeGold
And what CLIN of what Lockheed Martin contract pays you to post idiotic bleatings to extremist forums, Dave?
Harry
Ah Steve-o Wilson was debriefed by his wife in Paris, this is a fact, he has said as much. No one has said his wife selected him. He was already a critic of Bush’s policy toward Iraq, pretty much holding to career foreign service personell beliefs in the state department. He is a contributor to, and supporter of, the Kerry campaign. He has stated publically that it is his aim to bring down the Bush adminstration and Christian fundamentalists he believes (tin foil hat alert) are running the government. He did, by his own admission, absolutely no investigation of any kind other than interview people while sitting by a pool drinking sweet mint tea. He has NO WRITTEN REPORT about his findings at the hotel pool. He was not qualified or trained to surreptitiously acquire intelligence. So why the hell was Joe Wilson in Niger, other than catching up with old friends and vacationing? And after the so-called Niger mission is all said and done with the only evidence we really have to go on is Joe Wilson’s “word”. I guess when it comes to the Joe Wilson affair you can call me a cynic.
From what I can tell by statements made by the Bush administration have concerned Africa as a whole. Joe Wilson’s piece in the NYT refutes the administration claim that Saddam’s agents were trying to by uranium ore from countries in “Africa” by claiming he found no evidence of Iraqis purchasing uranium, while sipping sweet mint tea by the hotel pool, in “Niger”. Hmmm. The administration may have agreed that Iraqis did not buy uranium in Niger. But I don’t believe they have ruled out that Saddam “attempted” to purchase uranium in Africa. Wilson either misunderstood what his mission was or purposely chose to mismanage the mission for reasons of his own,
The leak outing Plame does need investigating and heads need to roll. However, the CIA/Wilson affair does bear investigating. And if George Tenet did not realize he had this problem in the CIA, tough shit that’s his job and he fucked it up AGAIN. Tenet has got to go.
Please when you have an opportunity address the confidentiality agreement that Wilson signed or should have signed and why he broke it. Also your opinion on the other points in my post would be of interest, too.
And I have never heard so much acrimony and whining out of one group of socialist on one blog it must surely mean the end is nigh.
David Perron
This is an extremist forum? John, you never told me! Bastard…
David Perron
Oh, and to answer the question, it’s one of those line items we put in the standard contract to fund our going after obscure shrieking moonbats. It’s your turn. We’re the government, and we’re here to help.
What the hell am I doing still at work, anyway?
JadeGold
Just wondering, Dave–I thought all our tax dollars ought to be going to Halliburton so Cheney can get his
payoffdeferred compensation.But what the hell, I guess Lockheed Martin Orlando helps keep riffraff like you off the streets.
Asa Dotzler
I’ll bet I know what words from Bush KD wouldn’t criticize:
“I’ve called in each of the dozen or so of my _senior_ staff and asked then, point blank, ‘did you out Mrs. Plame?’ I am convinced that none of my _senior_ staff were in any way involved in this breach of national security. Since I am now convinced that none of my _senior_ staff were responsible for this unconscionable act of treason, it must be a low-level staffer and I’ve directed all of my staff to help the DOJ root out the criminals.”
or
“I’ve called in each of the dozen or so of my _senior_ staff and asked then, point blank, ‘did you out Mrs. Plame?’ and the three that have admitted involvement ahve been fired and turned over to Justice for prosecution.”
See, the claim isn’t that some random White House staffer committed this crime. The claim is that _senior_ white house officials outted Mrs. Plame. Even on its most generous terms, the _senior_ staff couldn’t be more than a couple dozen people. I’ve managed staff of 40 people and I can tell you, it’s not that hard to call 40 people individually into one’s office and say “did you do this?” Bush’s not doing so, or not telling us that he’s done so (and telling his press flunkie to tell us that he’s not going to do so) is simply reckless. There may very well be treasonous _senior_ white house officials running around committing more crimes. Even Bush has admitted that this is a most serious crime. You’d think he’d care enough to actually ask a dozen or two of his _senior_ staff whether or not they’ve jeopardized national security.
I’ll bet a dollar that Kevin wouldn’t criticize a statement from Bush like one of those I suggested above. Any takers?
–Asa
Chris Lawrence
Nah, Kevin would just say that the senior staff wasn’t telling the truth. Or that whoever was fired was just the fall guy for Rove/Gonzalez/Estrada/Charles Pickering/whoever. (Oh, sorry, I’m mixing up my scandalous figures here…)
David Perron
Ah, deprived of logic as well as any scrap of human decency, eh MacDiva? Cheney gets paid even if Halliburton files bankruptcy today. He gets paid the same amount if Halliburton trips and falls into billions of dollars in profits. But I don’t expect a few minor facts to get in between you and your closely held delusions.
Oh, crap. I’m talking to a troll. Well, there’s one way to rectify that.