I am now beginning to worry that absent indictments in the Plame affair, our friends on the left are going to do bodily damage to themselves our of rage/agony.
Over at the dKos, they are celebrating an anticipatory ‘Fitzmas,’ while the defense lawyers at Talk Left have already tried, plea-bargained, convicted, and passed on the possible sentences. You will not be surprised to learn that some who list to the port side of this Carnival Cruise called life think that life in prison is a possibility.
In other news, I have been forwarded rumors that Cheney is going to resign, that 22 indictments are a possibility (including Matalin- will Carville come to her trial?), and who knows what else.
Meanwhile, Jacob Weisberg at Slate just became an enemy of the Democratic state for this paragraph:
But in the hands of a relentless and ambitious prosecutor like Fitzgerald, the absence of evidence that you’ve broken a law just becomes an invitation to develop a case based on other possible crimes, especially those committed in the course of defending yourself, like obstruction of justice and making false statements. Call witnesses back enough times and you can usually come up with something. Special prosecutors never give up, because saying no crime was committed, after investing years and tens of millions of public dollars, counts as abject failure. And if gleanings from the grand jury room are to be believed, Fitzgerald may go beyond the Ken Starr-style foolishness to bring more creative crap charges of his own devising.
It will be fun to see the reactions to that.
Me- I am sticking to my very original statement, made in July 2003:
If some ‘senior officials’ compromised CIA agents, heads need to roll and someone needs to go to jail or have his/her career ruined.
That is all it really boils down to, isn’t it?
salvage
I am in total wait and see mode. We don’t know nothing about anything until Fitz says what’s what.
Has anything out of Washington been predictable in the last six years?
Steve
Only a life sentence? Surely you can find plenty of lefties to point out that the penalty for treason is death.
The notion that one should not do anything about lies told by a suspect in the course of an investigation was dead and buried during the Clinton years, I think.
One side is definitely going to be heartbroken when the results are in (my money is on the “Joe Wilson is the real leaker” camp). But if you’re trying to handicap, the most reliable touchstone is the four federal judges, one on the trial bench and three on the appellate court, who wrote lengthy opinions on the issue of whether Judy Miller should be held in contempt. Those judges, having seen any amount of evidence that we are not yet privy too, did not dispute the proposition that a serious crime implicating national security appears to have been committed here.
In the end, that doesn’t prove anything, but it suggests where the smart money should come to rest.
Mr Furious
Steve makes sense. Every time there has been a chance to put the brakes on Fitzgerald (ie: the judges) he has gone ahead full steam. I have to believe if there was nothing to this, somebody would have said, “Whoa!”
Like everybody else, I’m waiting to see what happens, and hoping for the best. That is, the worst, for the White House.
I put a quickie up about the Cheney rumor, just because it’s fun to speculate, but I can’ say I give it much creedence.
JC
Actually, the joyous vapours at Kos, Billmon, others, are amusing.
Myself, I’m too cynical to think any big deal will happen because of this, but I’m hoping to be proven wrong.
CaseyL
So… perjury and obstruction are now just things one can do in the course of their own defense? They’re not, y’know, crimes anymore? or is it that they’re just not really important ones, like Richard Cohen suggests?
Wow.
Hey, it’s too bad the GOP didn’t think perjury was no big deal when they were impeaching Clinton for committing it, huh.
‘Course, that was for committing perjury about sex. Not about outing covert agents or anything trivial like that.
Bernard Yomtov
But we already know they did. The only question remaining is whether the way they did it actually violated some fairly narrowly worded statutes, or whether they obstructed the investigation in some way.
Is it your position that “heads should roll” only if there are convictions? Do you consider anything short of committing a felony acceptable behavior?
Juan Gewanfri
A year is a lifetime in politics and some may get five to ten. The Maalox is flowing in the Whitehouse like lies from a Limbaugh and every Bushiter would gladly change places with any d-kosser right now. Have a nice day ;)
ppGaz
Your 2003 blurb is adequate, if not exactly inspiring.
I guess “restoring honor and integrity to the White House” can mean almost anything, as long as you don’t get convicted.
Okay, that was a cheap shot, I know. But the things the White House has done are all the cheapest of cheap shots, no? I’m not the president. If I were, hot rod Mustangs would get a tax break at the gas pump. (Little campaigning there. Sorry).
searp
I guess I am too dumb to understand the spin, but I don’t minimize unauthorized disclosure of classified information or government officials lying under oath.
Anyone who holds a clearance signs a paper acknowledging that the classified info they receive is not to be disclosed, and violations can be prosecuted under the Espionage Act.
Whoever did this did real damage to our security. It made the job of being an intelligence person much less attractive (never mind the bad guys, you have to worry about your own side) and the job of being a source for our intel agencies very unattractive.
Usually, criminals lie about criminal conduct. My brother is a prosecutor, he expects it from criminals. If government officials lie under oath, they don’t belong in government. If government officials lie as part of a coverup, they ALL should be out of government.
For the lying, I personally don’t care about jail. They will just end up resurrected on talk shows anyway. But they definitely do not belong in government. We should expect our officials to uphold the law.
So I ask you all: why aren’t we thinking about standards of behavior that we have every right to expect from our public officials? Is it too much to ask that they tell the truth under oath, the whole truth and nothing but the truth?
Bush should have cleaned house years ago, and the fact that he didn’t tells me a lot.
Harley
C’mon, ‘Fitzmas?’ — that’s damn good. And don’t worry about anyone’s heads exploding, John. After all, we’ve still got the civil suit and attendant discovery process. Which will afford the Wilsons the opportunity to depose every single damn one of them. And that will be hella fun.
Wonder what Harriet thinks of that SCOTUS decision?
Kimmitt
Weisberg’s been wanking about this for years. I’m just ignoring him.
KC
Kimmitt, Slate’s been wanking a lot of stuff for years. I still enjoy reading it, but its uber contrarian take on everything gets annoying. As for the Plame thing, I’m going with John.
Mike S
I’m looking forward to the heads of your buddies over at RedState exploding. Those fools make the biggest idiots over at dKos look like genius’ by comparrison. And that is no easy fete.
neil
Nobody really believes that anybody will get life in prison. However, I do believe it is quite possible that sometime in the next couple of weeks, we will read newspaper articles explaining that some Bush administration officials are “facing life in prison,” because that will the maximum punishment for the crimes under which they will have been indicted. It happened to Tom DeLay and it will happen to whomever is indicted from the Bush administration.
Meanwhile, as Atrios points out, it’s not the point that the rumors about Cheney resigning are true. The point is that _it’s true that there are rumors_. Among people who don’t post on DemocraticUnderground, that is.
neil
By the way, I don’t know what your family was like, but I don’t associate Christmas with rage and agony.
DougJ
I take it you aren’t Irish-Catholic.
p.lukasiak
I personally can’t imagine why Fitzpatrick’s spokesperson would say he was going to make an announcement in Washington DC (where the grand jury is) rather than in Chicago (where he is based) unless there were indictments being handed down.
Ancient Purple
Not to mention the deranged individuals at Free Republic who insist that Joe Wilson will be indicted by Fitzgerald for outing his own wife as a CIA agent. And if not Wilson, then Hillary Clinton.
Maybe in an alternate universe.
croatoan
Valerie Plame was a covert agentL
STRATFOR analysis (at Steve Gilliard’s News Blog) on the implications of revealing the identity of a covert agent:
Mike S
Krista
Or French-Catholic. The only difference, methinks, is the nature of the fuel added to the fire. In our family, the fuel is Cabernet Sauvignon.
guyermo
If you want to see how the administration is taking this, watch the video of Scot McClellan’s briefing today. He looked like shit. He looked alot paler than normal (at least on the White House video) and was stumbling through his statements worse than President Bush during his video conference.
Krista
Sorry, my post didn’t make sense…I meant to block quote DougJ’s mention about being Irish Catholic.
In regards to the Plame affair, I’m just in a wait and see mode. I really do hope that justice is properly served, but have become very cynical about politics in my short time on this earth.
Slide
In anticipation of Fitzmas I have decorated an Aspen tree with confetti made up of shredded copies of the New York Times.
Mike S
rayabacus
You have my support 100%. But don’t you think we should wait and see if someone has lied under oath? My take is that if someone has lied under oath, then that person has done so to cover up some “other bad act” or is protecting someone else who is vulnerable to prosecution. So, if you lie under oath, you have committed perjury and should suffer the consequences of your act.
That being said, those same people should be able to proclaim their innocence and present a defense to charges against them. They are innocent until they either plead guilty or are convicted.
Slide
Question: What actors will play the major roles in the movie version of PlameGate?
Karl Rove =
Judy Miller =
“Scooter” =
Fitz =
Dick (big time) Cheney =
Joe (revenge is a dish best served cold) Wilson =
Mike S
Karl Rove = Danny DeVito
Judy Miller = That skinny chick who played Olive Oile
“Scooter” = John Malcovitch
Fitz = ?
Dick (big time) Cheney = Drew Carry
Joe (revenge is a dish best served cold) Wilson = Robert Redford
Krista
Karl Rove = Philip Seymour Hoffman
Judy Miller = Mindy Sterling
“Scooter” = James Spader with serious makeup
Fitz = Kevin Spacey
Dick (big time) Cheney = Richard Dreyfuss, if he gains some weight for the role…I think he’d be perfect.
Joe (revenge is a dish best served cold) Wilson = William Hurt
Slide
Karl Rove = Jason Alexander
Judy Miller = Glen Close
“Scooter” = Ed Harris (with toupee)
Fitz = Kevin Costner
Dick (big time) Cheney = Tom Arnold
Joe (revenge is a dish best served cold) Wilson = Pierce Brosnan
srv
The best thing for the country would be if this drags out for years.
Krista
srv – if nothing else, it’s entertaining, in a grotesque kind of way.
DougJ
Joe Wilson = Jeff Bridges
Karl Rove = Ned Beatty
Ari Fleichser = Jeremy Piven
Judy Miller = Mia Farrow
Scooter Libby = Sam Waterston
Fitzgerald = Sam Rockwell
Krista
Ooo..that’s a good one.
Fitz is a tough one, I find. Rockwell seems a bit young, but he does have the chops.
danelectro
i’m with john here. if they administration outed a covert agent, then those persons need to pay. period. full stop.
Slartibartfast
Yes, John, to be completely convincing you have to squirt rhetorical liquid out of your head like some sort of textual cartoon-Nancy.
DougJ
Dick Cheney = Brian Dennehy.
DougJ
That’s a good one.
And screw it, Sam Waterston as Fitz. It’s a no-brainer. Maybe that’s just because I’m watching Law & Order.
Zifnab
I liked the little Daily Show snipe. “The White House” has to be the premiere show of our time. Lost? Desperate Housewives? Pfff. They don’t have the flair or the panash or the excellent scripting of a White House press briefing.
If it wasn’t milking my tax dollars, fucking my environment, killing my citizens, defaming my country’s national reputation, and generally pissing on my sense of decency, I’d never want them to cancel it.
melanie
“It was their sworn duty, undertaken when they accepted their security clearance, to build a “bodyguard of lies.”
Why did the CIA confirm her employment to Novak? They must have known that her husband’s leaks to journalists and subsequent NYT editorial could have jeopordized her status? Why didn’t the CIA have a bodyguard of lies set to go when the journalist(s) started making inquiries? Why not deny, deny, deny or threaten and coerce?
(They flashed photograph of Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson on the television news tonight that I had not seen before. It looked like it may have dated 7 years back. She was stunningly attractive.)
kl
You didn’t get the memo?
Mr Furious
Ari Fleichser = Jeremy Piven
That’s the best one.
Geek, Esq.
John Hannah can be played by the guy who played the brother on The Mummy.
Oh,Boy.Stupidity!
Yeah, Plame was a fantastic covert CIA operative. Just look at that spread she posed for in Vanity Fair. Don’t all covert ops do that?
Last week Fitzgerald said that the case was moving away from the original charges.
And hey, keep on counting those Ohio votes, too…..
Mike S
The idiot’s name says it all.
Oh,Boy.Stupidity!
Oh, and I loved the Larry Johnson bit. The same Larry Johnson who wrote an op-ed weeks before 911 claiming that the Islamic Terrorism was as illusory as Ted Kennedy’s morning workout routine? That Larry Johnson?
Well, I expect nothing less that sheer gullibility from the political side of the spectrum that is still waiting for Socialism to hit that big home run.
Oh,Boy.Stupidity!
Attacking my name because you got nothing else to go on. Tsk, tsk. Loser!!
Oh,Boy.Stupidity!
So tell me, Mike S, when is the CIA’s covert 2006 picto-calendar coming out? They’ll make great Fitmas presents!
Plame was behind a desk since 1997 raising 2 kids, by her own admission, and covert status runs out after 5 years. Shall I supply the calculator?
John O'Brien
Boy.Stupid:
Your calculator is likely useless, unless it can add incompetence to idiocy and return indictment.
Valerie Plame was most certainly a CIA officer under non-operational cover at the time of the leak. That is what this entire business has been about the past two-and-a-half years.
Please gently unclench your anal sphincter so you may carefully extract your head from within. And then wipe your face.
Slide
More of Stupid’s comments:
You really have no clue as to what a NOC (non-official cover) covert agent is do you stupid? Let me try to explain it to you nice and slow. She had a fake job for a fake company. A CIA cover company. As part of her fake job, she would go overseas in her fake capacity as a fake employee. Once there she would develop foreign agents to give her information about their respective country’s WMD programs. They were spying for her. They were committing very serious crimes against their countries. Plame was committing very serious crimes against their countries. Dangerous stuff this spying thing.
Now, she didn’t LIVE overseas. She periodically went overseas to meet with her agents that she had developed over the some 20 YEARS she had been doing this as well as develop new agents. Now when she was in the states she would be at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley. This is NOT UNUSUAL for NOC covert agents. There would be no reason she would be under scrutiny in the USA if her cover weren’t blown. She was just an employee for a US company that did business in several foreign nations. She wasn’t being followed around town by soviet KGB agents moron. For example, I’m a cop. We have lots of NARCS, (undercover narcotics officers) that report to HQ all the time, long hair, beards and all. The fact that they work in HQ does not mean they are no longer undercover. Same with Ms. Plame.
Now, when she is in the USA her agents are still gathering information for the USA. she is still in contact with them. She is STILL a NOC agent. As far as the law is concerned, it discusses that she had to be “stationed” overseas in the last five years for the law to apply. Many, much more familiar with such things, say that her having her agents overseas and periodically going there is sufficient. She did not have to LIVE overseas for her network to be considered overseas.
Much is made of the fact that she must have lived in the US because of Wilson’s book talking about their raising their children etc. etc. During this time how often did she go overseas to conduct official CIA business. Do you know? Does anybody know? Don’t’ think so, you see… its a FUCKING SECRET. No one KNOWS what she had been doing in her NOC capacity since it was a FUCKING SECRET. That is until the treasonous scumbag Novak doing the administration’s bidding blew all that… and threatened the very lives of all of those agents she had developed over the last 20 years that were STILL SPYING for the USA.
Damage to US interests? Huge. Her network of spys blown. Her agents endangered. The CIA cover company useless. US credibility to protect those that may cooperate with us against their own countries shattered. Likelihood other agents would work with us? reduced.
The scumbags that did this, for purely political reasons, need to put behind bars as the traitors they are.
Shygetz
So let’s see, the CIA, several federal judges, and an independent prosecutor all believe that a serious crime (or crimes) was committed. But fortunately, an anonymous commenter who refers to himself as Stupidity reveals that no crime at all took place! I’m sure that the country will sleep better now that you have cleared things up.
Check the date on that Vanity Fair article. Oh, it was after her covert status was blown by someone in the administration! So either your stupid or dishonest. Wait, you’ve already identified yourself as stupid, so I guess that answers that question. Sorry.
Oh, and speaking of gullability…where are those WMDs again? And Bush must be awfully tired by now–he said he wasn’t going to rest until he got bin Laden, and it’s been years. Oh wait, that’s right, he’s not worried about bin Laden any more. Maybe you should change your name to Oh,Boy.Stupidity.And,Gullibility.All.Rolled.Up.Into.One!
pleasewakeupy'all
Nice synopsis, Slide. I’ve borrowed it to pass on to a few friends too thick to understand how serious this all is.
And to think our president hasn’t acted internally on this without a special prosecutor’s foot up his ass speaks volumes, doesn’t it?
Tim F
Republicans have no right to complain about bullshit charges stemming from an overzealous prosecutor. Any highminded complaints about that integrity of the presidency that comes out of these clowns is about as compelling as the crap that comes out of my Honda’s tailpipe.
About these delays, when I’m tempted to get frustrated over Fitzgerald’s determination to take his time and do things right, which is often, I think about how insane he must be driving the potential indictees and I feel better.
Tim F
The delays also seem to be driving Stupidity slowly over the brink. Take your time, Pat.
Pug
Yeah, Plame was a fantastic covert CIA operative. Just look at that spread she posed for in Vanity Fair. Don’t all covert ops do that?
A completely pathetic right-wing talk radio talking point. I first heard it from Laura Ingraham. The Vanity Fair article was done after she had been outed by Karl and Scooter, no? At that point I think covert was inoperative.
And to think our president hasn’t acted internally on this without a special prosecutor’s foot up his ass speaks volumes, doesn’t it?
Strange that Congress has been so incurious abouth this matter, too, isn’t it? After all, they had the time to conduct the longest hearings in Congressional history over the notorious Whitewater affair. You know, a $30,000 real estate deal that was 15 years old. They don’t have five minutes for outing undercover CIA agents?
Rusty Shackleford
It’s the hypocrisy, stupid!
scs
It seems to me there are two levels of crimes here possible by Rove and Libby. One is the divulging of the covert status. I heard that may be hard to prove because you have to prove intent and knowledge of the ‘covertness’. The less specific one is divulging of ‘classified’ information. Probably easier to prove, but we are talking about a politician talking privately to reputable reporters. Not politicians talking to North Korean moles for example. I am sure that politicians in Washington are divulging classified information in confidence to trusted reporters practically all the time. To prosecute for this leak of classified info, if they even knew it was classified, when all others aren’t, is a little bit of a political witch hunt. To show otherwise, they would have to show that this leak was done specifically to harm Wilson and not just to give background to a reporter about a story.
wendy
Sadly, when I see the country I love degraded, bankrupted, deceived and generally trashed by BushCo for the past 5 years, I do see their downfall as something like Christmas. For the good of the country, it is time for them to go and if it takes indictments to do it, I will celebrate like its 1999!
scs
By the way, there is still the missing link here. Novak said he heard the Plame name FIRST not from Rove but from another former, non-partisan, Administration source. Judy Miller said she thinks she also heard it first from another source before she heard it from Libby. Who is this other source?? My money is still on my first wild guess, Richard Clarke.
Tim F
LOL.
Funny, the freepers think it was Joe Wilson. Hope springs eternal doesn’t it?.
Tim F
On second thought scs, I’ll take your money. Let’s say $50 even odds, with my money on John Bolton. Deal?
Barry
Why the f*ck would it be Clarke? Especially as there are numerous other people in the administration who should be suspected (Rove, Rice, and their flunkies) **and** Miller was known administration propaganda outlet.
rs
Neither Clarke nor Wilson were the source of the leak-it was Hillary Clinton.
DougJ
More and more I think the best we can hope for is a made for t.v. movie, which makes casting a lot tougher.
Judy Miller = Sela Ward
We can still have Drew Carey as Karl Rove and Sam Waterston as Fitz.
I’m thinking the guy who played Frazier’s dad as Dick Cheney.
Joe Wilson = Dylan McDermott
Tim F
Barry,
Quiet down – he might still take the bet.
DougJ
Late today, Newsmax will report that it was a Clinton, but not Hillary. It was Chelsea.
DougJ
Can I get a piece of the action, too? I’ll take Ahmed Chalabi.
Tim F
DougJ, you have better bullshit detectors than anybody. Doat do you think, for real?
Tim F
I’ll take Ahmed Chalabi.
Hmm, I had a hard time choosing between Chalabi and Bolton in the first place, so I may well lose that bet. Hannah is also a good choice because he operated in the VPOTUS’s office on loan from Bolton’s staff with feet in both the WHIG and INC shenanigans. I wouldn’t bet against any of those three, but scs might take you up on it.
Tim F
Formatting > me. Off to teach…
DougJ
I really think it might be someone associated with Chalabi. That or somebody associated with Bolton, like John “Flipper” Hannah.
DougJ
BTW, what is up with the last line of the NYT article today, where they suddenly mention John Hannah, for no apparent reason? I know what is up — they’re trying to tell us Hannah flipped — but that’s a strange way of signaling that.
I guess, based on this, that if I had to go with one person as the leaker, I’d go with Hannah. The trouble with Chalabi is that it was just as likely one of his associates as it was him, if it came from his camp. He’s got a thousand pathological liar cousins, nephews, etc. And I don’t think that SCS will pay up unless we name the exact leaker and not the “camp” from which he came.
So I will go with Hannah.
slide
scs nonsense:
and what did they expect the reporters to do with the information? Report it right? For the whole world to see the identity of our covert CIA agent. Dont’ need fuckin moles when its on the front pages of the Washington Post and New York Times Einstein.
scs continues to amaze:
I think the ramificiations of the release of classified information has to play some role here don’t you think? Releasing information that is classified solely for the purpose of hiding government missconduct is quite different than classified information that compromises intelligence networks and endangers those foreign agents that put their trust in us, isn’t it? Are they not dissimiliar? But hey, don’t you remember when the administration was planning on charging Paul O’Neil with releasing classified information when his book came out that was uncomplimentry to the white house? Convenient when the administration wants these laws enforced and when they don’t.
And finally:
No. Real damage was done to the United States of America by the actions of these traitors in the White House. There are eight pages of redacted information regarding the damages these revelations did the UNITED STATES INTERESTS in the Appeals Court opinion. Not a witch hunt. This is a witch hunt: Ken Starr investigating a land deal in Arkasas comes up with absolutely nothing but ends up investigating consentural sex of the President. See the difference? EXTREME DAGAGE TO US INTERESTS…. VS….. CONSENTUAL SEX.
HH
Weisberg points out something that has been missed among all the claims about Republican leaders abandoning conservative principles. Democrats and their base have all but abandoned “liberal” principles… as long as they can get Bush that is all that matters, principles be damned.
slide
Care to elaborate? What principles have liberals abandoned?
HH
Somerby nails it again:
slide
This from the New York Daily News is interesting:
hmmmm… interesting. So Bush DID know that Rove talked to reporters. That leaves some questions doesn’t it? Did Bush tell Fitzgerald when he was interviewed that he knew Rove talked to reporters? Did Bush tell Scotty to tell the press that Rove and Libby had “nothing” to do with the leak? When did Bush know, before or after he made the statement that anyone leaking classified information “will be taken care of”. hmmmmm….. interesting ain’t it?
HH
And of course there are the problems with “pseudo-libs” described almost daily by Somebry, just for starters.
slide
huh? no liberal I know believes that it is right or proper to “out” CIA agents in the pursuit of the “public’s right to know”. Generally, the principle of protecting sources is to provide whistleblowers the means for disclosing improper government behavior. What we have here is the government subverting that principle to attack a whistleblower and thereby send a message to all other whistleblowers to keep their mouths shut. There is no violation of principle here on behalf of liberals, despite whatever your hero Somebry might say.
What we are learning through the Judy Miller side of this story is how the government is subverting journalism. Armstrong Williams, fake News Reports, scripted “discussions” with military personnel, propoganda in other words. Judy Miller, it is increasingly becoming clear, was acting as if she were on teh payroll of the adminstration (perhaps we might find out that she actually was someday). Good LIBERAL principles to expose and condemn that unholy alliance.
Ancient Purple
Is the Kool-Aid cherry, grape, lime, or fruit punch there, rs?
Pug
Weisberg points out something that has been missed among all the claims about Republican leaders abandoning conservative principles. Democrats and their base have all but abandoned “liberal” principles… as long as they can get Bush that is all that matters, principles be damned.
The principles of Democrats have nothing to do with the Plame story. Many will try to spin this as just an attempt by Democrats to “get” Bush or Rove or Cheney.
In fact, it was the CIA who requessted the investigation of the leak of a CIA agents name. Democrats had nothing to do with it. It was G.W. Bush who appointed Fitzgerald. Again, Democrats had nothing to do with it. Weisberg is full of crap.
Davebo
Shorter Perfessor Cole.
If some ‘senior officials’ compromised CIA agents, heads need to roll and someone needs to go to jail or have his/her career ruined. Unless of course those officials work in the White House or even run it because I found an article on Slate that says Fitzgerald is full of it because he refuses to violate the law and leak details of his findings like Starr did.
Davebo
Evidence hasn’t emerged because Patrick Fitzgerald hasn’t made any charges public or revealed what evidence he may or may not have to support those charges. It would convenient for us in the commentariat if he’d been running a sloppy investigation full of grand jury leaks giving us more juicy nuggets to chew over, but the Ken Starr precedent aside that’s not what prosecutors are supposed to do. If Fitzgerald’s charges, when they emerge, prove to be trumped-up, overblown, or unsupported by the evidence then naturally it would make sense to start condemning him. But concluding that his case is bogus before we see his evidence because we haven’t seen his evidence would be bizarre.
http://yglesias.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/18/23404/204
DougJ
I feel like this is a classic example of the nuts on the right out doing the nuts on the left. I thought the Kossacks were crazy when they started talking about life in prison. But then I realized they couldn’t hold a candle to the freepers who think that Hillary or Richard Clarke was a source and that Wilson himself will be indicted.
pleasewakeupy'all
Embryos nails it:
Hold the
schadenfreudedoom-and-gloom,bluered-staters. Rooting for Rove’sindictmentexoneration in this case isn’t justunseemlydelightful, it’sunthinkingdelightful and ultimatelyself-destructivereally delightful. Anyone whocares aboutdespises civil liberties, freedom of information, or even just fair play should have been skeptical about Fitzgerald’s investigation from the start.ClaimingShitting on a fewconservative scalpsliberal heads might be satisfying,but they’ll come at a cost toit will also strengthen principlesliberalsconservative’s hold dear: the press’s right to find out nothing, the government’s ability to disclose nothing, and the public’s right to know nothing.DougJ
We have a 15 yard penalty for excessive use of strikes.
slide
Lots and lots of speculation going on. A testment to the professiona investigation conducted by Fitzgerald. No leaks at all from him or his investigators. The only snippets of information we get is from those that testified and their attorneys. Trying to judge what is going on by those individual pieces is like the old story of three blind men touching different parts of an elephant in trying to determine what animal it is.
Most intriguing speculation that I heard comes from Larry Johnson suggesting their are 22 “files” of individuals that may be indicted. TWENTY-TWO? That is hard to believe. Twenty-two indictments perhaps with lesser included offenses maybe but twenty-two individuals? If that does happen it would be a nuclear explosion in DC. Fun to speculate though isn’t it?
http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/10/a_new_tidbit_on.html
DougJ
Twenty-two indictments seems excessive. One thing just occurred to me, though: if all the leaking is coming from defense attorneys, people are probably in worse shape than we’re being told.
I really wonder if Rove will get indicted. It isn’t clear to me that he will. I’ve got to think Libby will be, though.
slide
I think Rove the MOST likely to get indicted. He told the FBI and the Grand Jury on two occassions that he never talked to Matt Cooper about Wilson. An email showed up disproving that along with Wilson’s testimony. They Rove said he forgot because the coversation was mainly about Welfare (or something). Cooper’s notes and recollections are that it was ONLY about Wilson.
Rove is toast. His story is not very credible at all. He maintains that he heard about Plame’s CIA connection from a reporter but he can’t remember who. I don’t believe that there has been a reporter that has said that he/she told Rove about Plame. Jesus, the man has been before the GJ 4 times. That tells you the jurors are having a lot of problems with his testimony.
rs
I thought the ridiculous nature of my remark about Hillary Clinton was obvious-I guess it’s hard to get more ridiculous than business as usual with Limbaugh,Drudge,and Fox.No Kool Aid for me,Ancient Purple,coffee and alcohol work just fine,thank you.
Sojourner
Maybe. But if Fitz can get some of the lesser charged people to flip, it may make it possible to go after the big guns.
DougJ
Libby seems the most vulnerable to me. I don’t think indicting him for obstruction after that letter to Judy would be an especially aggressive move. No prosecutor is going to stand for witness tampering. I just don’t see how Libby beats the rap at this point.
Rove may be able to squirm off the hook because the case on him is a little on the “he said she said” side of things. I admit the four appearances before the grand jury don’t bode well for him.
I don’t know, maybe I’ve gone soft here, but I don’t think Rove’s perjury is so awful. Witnesses lie all the time. But tampering and coordinating testimony seems pretty bad to me.
slide
huh? the he said she said are both Rove though. There is NO disputing that Rove talked to Cooper about the Wilson matter. There is an email from Rove to Hadley discussing it. Copper has contemporaneous notes about the phone call. Cooper has testified about the phone call. Rove now admits to the phone call. There is not he said she said here at all. His only defense is that he didnt’ remember it. But that is REALLY hard to belive since the firestorm about the outing of Plame happend RIGHT AFTER the phone call, in a matter of a week or two. He forgot? Please, there isn’t a jury in the world that is going to believe that.
slide
oh… I see that the questions that I raised regarding the Daily News article about Bush being upset with Rove is now being reported EVERYWHERE. Scotty got hammered at the press conference regarding seeming inconsistancies. Did bush know that Rove talked to reporters or not? Liar, liar, pants on fire.
DougJ
Slide, maybe you’re right. But I think Libby is the one who is most clearly a goner here.
Jon H
“Has anything out of Washington been predictable in the last six years?”
Yes. I predicted that Bush would be a terrible president, and he has done nothing to prove me wrong.
The Bush administration can be counted on to screw things up.
Jon H
DougJ writes: “Rove may be able to squirm off the hook because the case on him is a little on the “he said she said” side of things. ”
Only as far as current public knowledge goes, and that public knowledge has generally come from biased sources.
We don’t know what Fitzgerald has up his sleeve, especially if he got someone involved to flip.
DougJ
We know he has Libby, IMHO. We don’t *know* whether he has Rove.
slide
not disputing you, he does have problems. Perjury as well, he said that Tim Russett told him about Wilson’s wife but ole’ Timmy categorically denied that. He denied talking to Judy in June. He denied mentioning Wilson’s wife to her, etc. etc. The obstruction of justice charge with the Aspens turning in clusters letter seems to me to be a hard thing to prove but who the hell knows.
scs
Hmmmm. Don’t know if I want to bet $50 on a wild guess. But I’ll bet $50 figuratively. My wild guess is that it’s Richard Clarke is based on the following. Novak said his first source was a non-partisan, FORMER, senior administration official. Chalabi and Bolton don’t fit those criteria. Judy Miller would have had a close relationship with Clarke as he did the terrorism aspect in the WH and she was the terrorism reporter in the NYT. Clarke was also closely involved in the WMD story. She might go to jail to not have to blow him as a source, since she already had a waiver from Libby anyway. But, hey, it’s just a guess. Could also be Ari Fleischer too. If I win, I should get more than $50, as I am the only one who came up with this one.
Don Surber
The hypocrisy of the left and the NYT knows no bounds. I forgive those under 50 for not knowing about the publication of the classified Pentagon Papers.
But come on, surely they heard of Watergate.
The NYT’s call to investigate the leaks ranks among the dumbest moves in journalism.
At some point partisanship is not worth principle. Somewhere LBJ and Nixon are laughing at the hypocrisy of their sveerest critics.
Only WaPo has been smart enough to rise above the fray
Tim F
Depending on the timing of Novak’s comment (which I don’t know offhand) Bolton may have already left for his stint at the UN. Also, given what we know about this administration and their fondness for ridiculous sourcing, I don’t think it is safe to take Novak’s comment at face value.
HH
And slide wins the “complete and total failure to comprehend basic English award” for the day. Links are there for a reason, try clicking next time.
Otto Man
I remember both of those, but I don’t have a clue what you’re getting at.
Care to explain?
Kimmitt
Surber is equating the publication of the Pentagon Papers in the interest of revealing government lies with the outing of a covert agent for petty political gain. It’s another “United States = Republican Party” argument.