October 2005 Archives

Special Counsel Fitzgerald's investigation and ongoing legal proceedings are serious, and now the proceedings -- the process moves into a new phase. In our system, each individual is presumed innocent and entitled to due process and a fair trial.....George W. Bush

In our system of government an accused person is presumed innocent until a contrary finding is made by a jury after an opportunity to answer the charges and a full airing of the facts. Mr. Libby is entitled to that opportunity...Dick Cheney    

       

José Padilla was arrested by federal agents at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on May 8, 2002, and held as material witness on the warrant issued in New York State about the 2001 9/11 attacks. On June 9, 2002, President Bush issued an order to Secretary Rumsfeld to detain Padilla as an "enemy combatant". He is currently being detained without charge in a South Carolina military prison under orders of President George W. Bush.

Well, well, well. Another Right Wing Talking Point^tm bites the dust.

Time Reporter Says He Learned Agent's Identity From Rove

One of the reporters at the center of the investigation into the leak of the identity of an undercover CIA officer, says he first learned the agent's name from President Bush's top political advisor, Karl Rove.

Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper also said today in an interview with "Good Morning America," that the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, confirmed to him that Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA operative.

So, let's recap here: Libby/Rove outed a covert CIA operative. This comes straight from the horses mouth (i.e. Rove) - so to speak.

So, it seems to me that a lot of the blowhards on the right are going to have to start walking back their bold assertions that no crime was committed, or that Valerie Wilson wasn't a covert CIA agent, or that Scooter didn't know that Valerie wasn't as covert CIA agent.

Wait a minute! What the hell am I thinking?

Still, going to be damn sweet to see all the virtual egg on a lot of faces, even if they don't even bother to wipe it off.

h/t Jane @ Firedoglake

No surprise here.

So, watching Meet The Press, there was a solid consensus amongst the five "balanced" journalists: Fitzgerald found no proof of the outing of a covert agent. Which seems kind of hard to believe, given Fitz's baseball analogy. Pretty clearly, Fitz was saying that - in his words - the batter was "hit on the head with the ball". The problem was that someone "threw sand in the umpire's eye", and he couldn't clearly tell what the intent of the "pitcher" was.

Now, baseball analogies aside, it's hard for me to understand how these journalists came away with the impression that Fitz didn't find anything other than some lies which were told during the investigation. According to the universe in which these journalists live in, Fitz saying the notion that "somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge" is wrong, .... "Compromising national security information is a very serious matter." actually means that he found no evidence of compromised national security information - i.e. Valerie Wilson's covert status being compromised.

It's quite bizarre to see bias so prominently displayed. Luckily, this really isn't something that is going to be decided by force of argument between bloggers, journalists and spin-meisters. This is something that is pretty much completely under the control of a very talented and apparently laser focused federal prosecutor. I guess we can all thank our lucky stars that we're not dependent on getting the truth from the pack of journalists and commentators that we're seeing - Woodard (Judy and Bob), Broder, Brooks, DiGenova (AKA, the Pig), etc, etc.

Everyone seems to be believing that they can just speak it and the facts magically fall into place. Brooks and Safire were the worst offenders in this respect. Before watching this I read David Brooks' descent into madness entitled The Prosecutor's Diagnosis: No Cancer Found.

But he did not find evidence to prove that there was a broad conspiracy to out a covert agent for political gain. He did not find evidence of wide-ranging criminal behavior. He did not even indict the media's ordained villain, Karl Rove. And as the former prosecutors Robert Ray and Richard Ben-Veniste said on "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," he gave little indication he was going to do that in the future.

Really? Brooks has looked into Fitz's soul and based on the the word of former prosecutors, he has determined that Fitz isn't going to do anything in the future? Cagey, this Brooks. Cagey.

Still, others on the right side of the aisle are starting to think the crystal ball isn't so clear. The unfortunately named Andy McCarthy has been pouring over the indictment (unlike, say, Brooks and Kristof) and has found something puzzling about count five of the indictment.

The indictment strongly implies – but I don’t believe it says explicitly anyplace – that Libby knew Plame’s employment status with the CIA was classified. However, the above exchange is alleged to be perjury. That only makes sense to me if the government is claiming Libby absolutely knew about the classified nature of Plame’s employment status, and that when he said he didn’t, he was lying.

Myself, I think the rightwing is extremely hampered in their analysis at this point. With precious few exceptions, they seem to have universally bought into the story that last Friday's press conference by Patrick Fitzgerald was the climax of this whole affair.

Again, luckily, this isn't a battle that will be determined by bloggers and journalists. This is a court battle waged by the rules of evidence and precedent to be determined by a judge (and maybe a jury). And if Gadfly of the Booman Tribune is right about Fitz’s Knuckle Ball, then we're all going to have the singular pleasure of watching all these right wing pundits and journalists walk back their current positions when Fitz finally steps up to bat.

No, the real reason to lay out as much factual detail as he did was for Fitz to show the world (and in particular, the world within the White House) that he has the goods, and that he won't hesitate to drop the dime on some additional malefactors, particularly, Cheney. Let's face it: Libby is only the consigliere to Cheney's don. Even though the threat of spending 30 years in the pokey will be a powerful incentive for Libby to cut some kind of deal that might include turning on his boss, the possibility of the additional charges of revealing classified information, particularly against Cheney, is even more powerful since, presumably, Cheney does't appear to be at risk of a truth-telling-related indictment.

Let's agree on something else right now: Libby's case will never get to trial, primarily because Bush and Cheney will never allow such a trial to become precisely the kind of exposé of the administration's motives and actions in the run-up to the war they were worried the indictments would constitute. It would be their worst nightmare to have their war machinations presented to a jury of 12 ordinary citizens in the District of Columbia (read: predominantly African Americans) who would be sitting as proxies for the families of 2,000 plus military fatalities in Iraq and the plurality of the country that opposes the war. The risk there is not just exposure to the possibility of conviction in Washington, D.C., but a subsequent prosecution in The Hague as well.

Yes, my friends, Fitz is about to grab the pine tar rag, choose another, very special, piece of lumber and step back into the on-deck circle for the home run that is sure to follow. Batter up!

Oh wait! Do I have a smile on my face? Lordy, what will Kristof think of me now?

Kristof lives up to his nick name in Sunday's column.

Time for the Vice President to Explain Himself

I owe Patrick Fitzgerald an apology.

Over the last year, I've referred to him nastily a couple of times as "Inspector Javert," after the merciless and inflexible character in Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables." In my last column, I fretted aloud that he might pursue overzealous or technical indictments.

But Mr. Fitzgerald didn't do that. The indictments of Lewis Libby are not for memory lapses or debatable offenses, but for repeatedly telling a fairy tale under oath.

Moreover, Mr. Fitzgerald was wise not to push onto mushier ground. It appears he was tempted to indict Karl Rove, but he's right to refrain unless the evidence against Mr. Rove is similarly strong. If it's a borderline call, as it seems, Mr. Rove should walk.

But of course, Kristof can't help but give a backhand to those nasty, nasty democrats

First, Democrats should wipe the smiles off their faces. This is a humiliation for the entire country, and their glee is unseemly. Moreover, the situation is not that neocons are all crooks, but that one vice-presidential aide must be presumed innocent of trying to cover up conduct that may not have been illegal in the first place.

Well, your patronizing, holier than thou attitude has been unseemly for - oh, I don't know - FOREVER. Geez, Louiz. Yes, it's a stain on our country. It pretty much will show that these jokers, who led us into a disastrous war of choice, did so based on falsified evidence and blatant lies. It will show that in order to cover up for those lies, they were willing to burn an undercover agent - to send a message to the CIA as much as to Joe Wilson. And if I can recall correctly, all you did during this time was wag your finger at the nasty democrats.

Oh, and let's not play the "it might not even be a crime" card, Kristof. Didn't you listen to Fitz's news conference? Geez.

Still, it's interesting to note that the pulpit is being spun about and the wagging finger of Nicholas D. Kristof is now wagging directly at Dick Cheney

It's not that there's a lick of evidence that Mr. Cheney is a criminal. There isn't. But the standard of the office should be higher than that: the White House should symbolize integrity, not legalistic refusals to discuss criminal cover-ups. I didn't want technical indictments of White House officials because they inflame partisanship and impede government; for just the same reason, it's unsavory when a vice president resorts to technical defenses and clams up.

At the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in August 2000, Mr. Cheney won adoring applause when he suggested that Bill Clinton's deceit had besmirched the White House. Mr. Cheney then pledged that Mr. Bush would be different: "On the first hour of the first day, he will restore decency and integrity to the Oval Office."

Mr. Cheney added of the Democrats: "They will offer more lectures, and legalisms, and carefully worded denials. We offer another way, a better way, and a stiff dose of truth."

You were right, Mr. Cheney, in your insistence that the White House be beyond reproach. Now it's time for you to give the nation "a stiff dose of truth." Otherwise, you sully this country with your own legalisms.

Hmmmm. Seems as if Kristof has finally reached his limit with these guys. Maybe, just maybe, he'll start unleashing the condescension he normally reserves for democrats on this administration.

Naw. We haven't entered bizarro world just yet. Maybe this is just a warning wag of Kristof's. Kind of a "don't make me stop this car" kind of remark you know your dad says when he knows very well that he won't stop the car.

Still, it's an interesting indication the wind might be changing direction...

______________

P.S. Isn't it so very interesting that Kristof can call a federal prosecutor names, besmirch his investigation and do all sorts of things, but woe unto the democrat who dares to smirk.... Man oh man. Is this guy a study in a certain psychological make up or what?

What a wanker.

P.P.S. Oh, and by the way, did anyone notice that the Holy One^tm has still failed to wag his finger at the New York Times? Hello? Judy Miller? Yea, I thought there'd be a blind eye and a deaf ear turned to that issue. But the democrats! Damn their smirks!

Dean Baker provides us with a little thought experiment that everyone on the right, and most of those in the news media should be performing to see if the story line that they're spinning really holds up under examination. It's a familiar technique to anyone who claims to still have their soul in their possession (I don't, of course, but I still can remember what the game rules were when I still had one).

Okay, now let’s change the hats. Suppose that some peacenik troublemaker types were upset about U.S. plans for a military action against some random country – say Iran. Now, suppose that one of these peacenik types wrote an article for some radical rag in which they reported on planning for this military action. Suppose further that the article relied almost entirely on publicly available information, although the author did also speak with a disgruntled military planner who had helped explain the operation. For the last step, let’s hypothesize that the author identified the head of the operation under the belief that this person’s name was already widely known and that there was no special security associated with this particular operation. After the article appears, the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Public Radio all run big pieces on the operation (hey, this is all imaginary), and it has to be abandoned because of widespread outrage.

In this case, our peacenik troublemaker author has inadvertently outed an undercover agent. This was not their intention. Their intention was to publicly expose planning that was already in principle knowable and known to the enemies of the U.S. government.

But hey, we all know that it's okay if you're a Republican.

Obviously, I think there's much more going on in this case than just a simple misstep or an innocent smear campaign gone awry. But it is fun to note that were the roles reversed, the very people spinning blame away would be calling for the perpetrators to be locked up in Gitmo without trial or counsel in a New York minute.

Seems like things are still chaotic in the blogospheric interpretation of what went down on the first day of Fitzmas today. Myself, I'm still of the opinion that there are, in fact, twelve days of Fitzmas, and all we saw today was the warm up pitch - the Partridge in a Pear Tree, if you wish. And what a Partridge it was, eh? Scooter Libby up on 30 years worth of felony counts doesn't exactly strike me as a let down, even if there only turns out to be one day of Fitzmas.

Still, you got to look around at all the gloating on the right side of the aisle and wonder if, indeed, the administration dodged a bullet and Libby is the only one who'll be playing the harmonica in federal prison for what may be the rest of his life.

But there is that mysterious "Official A", isn't there. And then there's all the last minute interactions with Rove right up to the wire. I dunno. Seems like Libby is under an awful lot of pressure to deal now, seeing as how Fitz has the required two witnesses needed to prove perjury. The charges against Libby seem like they're pretty trivial to prove even if Joe Wilson eats live babies for breakfast every morning. And while a baby eating Joe Wilson may be just the thing for a beleaguered administration reeling from this latest blow, it seems like it's cold comfort for poor old Scooter while he sits in his shared cell over the next ten to twenty years.

Like most everyone, I pretty much assumed that Libby was the person who was the one Fitz was trying to pin the IIPA rap on and that his reference to "sand in the eye" was Libby obstructing Fitz's view of his own crime. Maybe. Maybe. Libby certainly seems to have broken the IIPA when he talked to reporters - certainly seems like it when he talked to Ms. Run Amok. But maybe not. Maybe he walked that razor thin line and Fitz is unable to hang his head on a pike over this issue.

And then there's Rove.

There still is the whole issue of Novakula to resolve. He's still silent. Everyone assumes that he squealed. So we have to assume that Fitz knows who was Novakula's source. I guess if that source isn't someone in the administration or the government - say, Challabi - there's going to be damn little Fitz can do. Of course, there is that little problem about how someone outside the government came to know about Valerie Wilson's covert status, but perhaps things are messy and difficult to prove.

But then again, perhaps they aren't. There is still a rather funky smell about this whole affair, and Fitz really hasn't told us the whole thing is over. No fat lady has sung, after all.

And so I'm going to sleep tonight with visions of sugar plums dancing in my head. There's more coming down the pike, and there's likely a lot of nervous people. Libby is looking at some long hard time, and it's going to take a Festivus Miracle to get him off that hook. Yep, seems like Libby is ripe for flipping, don't it?

This whole affair is like an Advent Calendar - you can only open one tiny little box at a time, and even then, you only get a tiny piece of the puzzle.

Update: Speaking of Advent Calendars, Mark Kleiman raises a rather good point everyone seems to have missed in all the excitement.

A question for experts in federal criminal procedure:

If a grand jury hands up a sealed indictment, when does the fact of the indictment, as opposed to its content, become public?

In particular, do we know for certain that Libby was the only person indicted by the Special Grand Jury last week?

I can hardly wait for Boxing Day!

I, Azael, am a loyal Republican. And I'd really like to vote for a Republican someday. But how can I, with the current batch of greedy, stupid Republicans? They are not at all like the real Republicans with whom I grew up -- men like John Lindsay and "Fightin' Bob" La Follette.

Today, I consider myself a Nelson Mandela Republican. By which I mean, until the Republican party returns to its roots and embraces abortion rights, national health insurance, legalization of drugs, gay marriage, and doubling the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts, I will by God vote for the Democrats, difficult as that is for an old GOP loyalist such as myself.*
________________

*Shamelessly lifted from a most excellent blog post by Roy Edroso of Alicublog regarding That Famous Democrat^tm Orson Scott Card

So I'm listening to Wolf Blitzer letting Joeseph Digenova spew probably the most laughable spin point I've ever heard. He's claiming it's "pretty bad trade craft" to allow Joe Wilson to a) marry a spy b) write an op ed. Now, the problem, of course, with this complete break down of logic that Digenova is having is that until Novakula spilled the beans, NO ONE KNEW SHE WAS A SPY. Get that Joe? No one had a clue. That means it was PERFECTLY FINE "trade craft".

Oh, and the other reporters seem to be morons as well - chief among them Wolf Blitzer. This spin of Digenova is transparent bullshit and should be laughed out of the newsroom the moment it was spewed. But Wolf and the rest of the people listening to it are just wide eyed does, unable to put a logical argument together in their heads.

Lord, if this is the best these jokers have, they are toast.

Update: Okay. I love the right wing talking points focusing on the Niger yellow cake. Given what we're hearing out of Italy regarding this issue, and given the rumor (and some facts) that Fitzgerald is looking into this as well... well, all I got to say to the right wing spin meisters is: BRING IT ON. Keep trying to draw attention to it. Bring it up constantly in the media. Make it a household subject discussed around Midwestern dinner tables. Go on. We'll help.

Well, my laid up wife (who's long suffering in the hospital right now) allowed me a heaping helping of slack (that I'll no doubt have to repay in triplicate) and granted me some time to spend with the collection of Bay Area Bloggers on our one year anniversary of getting drunk and making blatant fools of ourselves.

So, I finally met The Editors, the proprietor of The Poor Man Institute for Freedom and Democracy and All The Ponies You Can Eat. He looked exactly as I pictured him - right down to the T-shirt under the button down shirt. He's an engineer right down to the core, and it's part of his DNA. Quite frankly, it's a damn cool meme-style and it was doubly honorable to meet his girlfriend finance wife. Quite a duo and let us hope that they grow into our expectations we have for them and they spawn a super race which will deliver us from this insanity in which we find our species mired in. Hey - Atlas shrugged and all that :) I did my very best to attempt to spill a beer on Atrios, Jr. but I think I only got an ounce or two on his pants - I'll have to try better in a drunken frenzy next month.

I also met Swopa of NeedleNose fame. Swopa (unlike The Editors) has lately given me a nice dose of traffic for my Greek tragedy post regarding Fitzpatrick and the janitorial job that he has before him. In fact, I met two people from NeedleNose - quite the night. Had a great conversation for a half hour or so with Green Boy - someone who's merely one year younger than I am. So that was kind of cool.

Of course there was the usual crowd - Generik, the "King" of Zembla, Scaramouche, Ange. A crowd of thousands of fantastically nice people :)

Anyways, I had a fantastic time hanging out with people who don't treat me like an alien from planet nine when I start spouting off about politics. People who know the true meaning of Fitzmas...

It's refreshing.

Jeff Danziger answers the burning question.

I know there's quite a contingent on the left representing the "Careful What You Wish For" conventional wisdom on the Miers fiasco. But this whole pile of crap just makes the President - and the Republicans in general - look damn weak. The President loses major face - especially since he was so adamant that he wasn't going to withdraw her nomination. Additionally, the whole thing has the stink of right wing extremists - represented by Danziger as Rush and Bork. Add to this the rather interesting fact that the republicans - as a whole - favored Miers' nomination by a pretty wide margin, this shows that the "elite" of the beltway Republicans are quite a bit out of step with their main street colleagues.

So, can the Democrats take advantage of this? Who knows? One thing I do know, however, is that you never get a chance unless things like this happen. If the Democrats blow it, then that's life. But without wide open, gaping, inviting smack downs like this, we're never going to have a chance.

Don't fear the reaper. Playing a conservative game at this point is sheer madness. Time to throw the long bomb and bet the house. What have we got to lose?

Chances like this don't show up every day. With Rove n' Libby on the ropes, the VP permanently holed up in his undisclosed location - not to mention the disarray of the right punditry focused on indicting Joe Wilson - and the fact that the president is stuck at or below 40 percent in approval (and let's not forget 9 out of 10 polled think the administration did something illegal in PlameGate)... well, one would think that the iron is never going to get any hotter waiting for the strike.

All this political hand wringing and worrying about what a wounded, beaten dog of an administration is going to do (ooh! He's going to nominate Brown!) is not only counterproductive, it's projecting that the Democrats are even weaker than Bush is at this point.

Stand up straight, brace yourselves and go for the frickin' throat.

Update: And make sure you don't miss Peggy Noonan's precious chicken little imitation in the Wall Street Journal today: The Wheels Are Coming Off, Everything is Unraveling, We're All Going to Die. Priceless!

That throat is just glistening, ain't it?

Best blog post EVER: What It's Like. Of course, I really didn't need this visual

Mr. Bush would do well to augment his current staff, a C-Team if ever there was one, with some stronger characters. But to read the Bush-Miers correspondence is to gain a disturbing insight into Mr. Bush's personality: he likes having his ass kissed. Ms. Miers' cards and letters to the then-Governor of Texas belong in the Brown-Nosers Hall of Fame. You can be sure the younger and less experienced Bush White House aides are even more obsequious. The last thing this President wants is the first thing he needs: someone to slap his spoiled, pampered, trust-funded, plutocratic, never-worked-a-day-in-his-life cheek and make him face the reality of his foul-ups.

Thanks Paul. Now I have to bleach my eyeballs again.

This is hilarious.

Enrontastic!

Schwarzenegger Street. So educational.

Yesterday Mr. Maguire was the darling of the right leaning when he suggested a theory which portrayed Rove n' Libby playing the press fiddle like virtuosos. Basically, the idea being that they told Fitz the truth, Fitz doesn't care because it isn't a crime, and Libby n' Karl warp what they said when relaying their testimony to the press. Laughter erupts as Fitz folds up his tent and the joke is on the left with the media holding the bag.

Back in reality, we find that Fitz has been covering the neighborhood of the Wilsons in his last bit of buttoning down and zipping up every single escape hatch these rats on the right may think of using in the next few days.

The flurry of last-minute questioning struck some observers as a way for the prosecutor to test arguments that defense lawyers may have raised in the waning hours of the investigation to fend off charges.

Some of the questioning indicated that Fitzgerald may still be considering indictments on charges that some have viewed as too difficult to pursue, including a prosecution under a federal law that makes it a felony to reveal the name of a covert agent.

On Monday, two FBI agents, dressed in black, combed the northwest Washington neighborhood where Wilson and Plame live, flashing their badges and questioning neighbors about whether they knew about her affiliation with the CIA before she was exposed in an article by Novak in July 2003.

Critics of the leak investigation have argued that it was an open secret that Plame worked for the CIA; if many people knew that she worked for the agency, it would make prosecution under the 1982 law protecting covert agents impossible.

But neighbors contacted by The Times said they told the FBI agents that they had no idea of her agency life, and that they knew her only as a mother of twins who worked as an energy consultant.

Oh, the humanity! It's going to be oh so very sweet to see the collective faces on the right when Fitz pulls out charges for revealing an undercover agent in addition to the charges of perjury and obstruction of justice. The right has relying on the "fact" that "everyone knew" Valerie's employer as the fig leaf under which they can hide their colleague's treason.

All I got to say is that it's going to be bitter sweet to see justice done. Sweet to see a bunch of political hitmen get what's coming to them. Bitter to realize that these jackals really have done untold damage to our country's national security just to make a political hit.

Know it's been making the rounds even before now, but it's really becoming the foundation defense the defenders of the administration seem to be relying upon:

Neither Cheneny nor Libby--not even, presumably Tenet--apparently had any idea that Valerie Plame Wilson's status as a CIA agent was supposed to be a secret. If so, none of them committed the crime which was the purpose of the Fitzgerald investigation. At very worst, Libby apparently tried to hide a perfectly legal conversation with his boss from the investigators. Most likely, he was worried they might leak it to the New York Times who would make a big deal out of it.

Yea. I'm sure that Judith Miller was chomping at the bit to spill the beans here. Wait a minute! Wasn't Judith Miller involved in this up to her wrinkled neck? And didn't she not only decide to not pursue the story, not only did her editor tell her not to write the story, didn't Judy say she felt like she was scooped by Novakula? Oh, yea, baby! So the asinine defense that James Joyner throws in at the end there (by reflex, no doubt) doesn't even make sense in the bizarro world that he seems to inhabit. My lord. It's a sad, sad day when they can't even be internally consistent in their own fantasy worlds.

But back to the "Hapless Boob Defense" that seems so fashionable right now. I'm sure this will get the full treatment by those much more capable than I, but it seems like we know that the "Hapless Boob Defense" simply doesn't make sense.

Consider that we already know that there was a memo - a memo written on June 10th - which clearly marked Valerie Wilson's (using her married name) status as secret.

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

Now, the date of this memo seems to be important. Why? Because from the latest in the NY Times regarding this sordid affair, we learn that Libby learned about Valerie Wilson's identity from the VP on June 12th.

I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday. Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby's testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.

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

So, on June 10th, 2003, a memo is written by an analyst in the State Department which marks Valerie Wilson's status as "Secret". On June 12th, Cheney tells Libby all about her. Now, what are the chances that Cheney was told about Wilson without being told (in some fashion) that her status was secret? Given the time line, even the State Department knew her status was secret before Cheney had his discussion with Libby. Are we to believe that Tenet, Cheney and Libby are so clueless and so incompetent in their jobs that they wouldn't have known that Valerie Wilson's status was secret?

Apparently, the true believers on the right think so.

On the plus side, though, one thing that is really nice about the use of such a transparently false defense is that these jokers get on the record that - if really bad things really did happen - then they should go down. "Bad things" being defined as excluding such impeachable offenses as perjury and obstruction of justice - 'natch.

Wouldn't want to be seen as using the same yardstick as we all were subjected to in the Clinton years, of course.

Like just about everyone who pays even slight attention to such things, I'm waiting with a big fat worm on my tongue to hear what Patrick Fitzgerald's expert estimate on what it is going to take to clean up the Aegean stable of American politics - AKA the Bush Administration.

From the very beginning, I've had the non-unique viewpoint that this is going to be a big one. Something that's going to split this rotting pumpkin and what spills out is going to be U G L Y. When you have Ed Gillespie, the just recent head of the RNC, saying that this is worse than Watergate, it seems to me that the prudent thing to do is to pull out the plastic trash bags and large pieces of plastic and get prepared for the political equivalent of Gallagher's sledge-o-matic - one thing is for certain, and that is there is going to be one very, very big mess. Everyone in the first ten rows is going to get Libby and Rove splatter all over them. Lucky one's may have bits of Cheney running down their cheeks.

The sheer breadth and scope of the fallout - even if it's only a small, tiny portion of the most paranoid, whacked out, scrotal sack inflating, far left wing activist's fantasy wet dream - is stunning. It cuts across every single frikin' stinking piece of this mess. The stakes are almost astronomical.

After Miller's piece in the NY Times on Sunday, I'm beginning to think that we should give Judy the nickname "The Naked Singularity".

I can't wait to find out exactly why, but Judy seems to be the collapsing black hole around which everything seems to revolve. This makes sense from a lot of different points of view. For example, she was the natural puppet from the administration's POV. She's a paranoid - well versed in the wacky world of unconventional weapons - chemical, biological and nuclear. Even knowing a tenth of what Judy does about that crap will make you wear tinfoil hats full time.

Icing on the cake, of course, is Judy's relationship with arch-paranoid and Saddam Hussein fluffer, Dr. Laurie Mylroie. It's like Judy's entire life has been leading up to this point - honing and shaping her to become the perfect tool in the hands of the black elves that power this administration's warping of reality.

Myself, I think when all the dust clears, I think we're going to be stunned by the implications. I think we have lived through the closest thing that comes to a coup in our democracy without flat out driving tanks down the streets of middle America. I know that's kind of harsh and considered by some to be rather paranoid. But hey. Compared to someone who thinks believes that Saddam was responsible for everything from Oklahoma City to 9/11, I think I'm a fucking amateur.

I think that the least of what we'll find out is that there was a concerted, conscious and supremely well organized effort to eviscerate what we used to call the Constitution of the United States ("for our own good", 'natch). I think that in the end we'll find that these bastards simply believed that they had to destroy the village in order to save it. Things like holding US citizens without charges, to state sanctioned torture to highly sophisticated campaigns consisting entirely of lies designed to get the US population to go to war against its collective will - all the paranoid fantasies of the left - will turn out to pale in comparison to the true scope and depth of what's going on.

There's just simply too many things converging here to not be explosive beyond anyone's wildest paranoid fantasies. Too much pure bullshit concentrated in too small of a space to not collapse in a catastrophic tearing of local space-time as it folds in upon itself.

Well, either that or Fitzgerald is going to slap someone on the wrist and it's going to be the left wing equivalent to the whole lack of WMD fiasco in Iraq - as one reporter put it, "the biggest hoax in history".

Myself, I don't think there's going to be any middle ground when Fitz reveals his cards. He is either playing the biggest bluff in history, or this administration's going down. And - I gather - a large sector of the Right Wing of American Politics is going down with them. There's too much filth accumulated over the last 10 years (let's remember Delay, Frist, the whole Dobbson/Miers debacle, and probably thousands of other "issues" that we mere mortals don't even have a clue about yet).

It's going to take a river to clear all this crap out. The shit has been piling up for far too long.

The feeding frenzy alone from the unleashing of all the rabid factions on the right as they consume themselves trying to simultaneously blame each other for this disaster of biblical proportions while trying to lash out viciously at the left wing as they go under for the third time is going to be breathtaking to behold.

Going to be a something to tell the kids. That's for sure.

Well, I'm still holding my breath. I think the best commentary has come from Christopher, who - through no coincidence - happens also to be in Iraq.

I dunno. I hope that the Sunnis don't lose by a gnat's whisker - that really would be a worst case scenario. I happen to agree that the best case scenario would likely be a resounding defeat for this sad document that they scribbled together on the back of a napkin in some smoky den. I mean, has anyone actually read the Iraqi constitution? Oh that's right! They didn't even circulate the actual document because the ink wasn't even dry when they all went to the polls.

I know democracy isn't pretty. But really now. It should not be an ugly Vogon stepchild.

Finger's crossed.

Can you believe William Kristol's latest excretion? It's stunning in its scope, breath taking in its inanity.

Criminalizing Conservatives

We don't pretend to have all the answers, or a solid answer even to one of these questions. But it's a reasonable bet that the fall of 2005 will be remembered as a time when it became clear that a comprehensive strategy of criminalization had been implemented to inflict defeat on conservatives who seek to govern as conservatives. And it is clear that thinking through a response to this challenge is a task conservatives can no longer postpone.

Shorter Bill Kristol:

KHHAAAAAAAAAANNNNN!

Every time I think I have these weasels on the right figured out, they rip off the human mask again and reveal a depth of pure and utter stupidity that I dared not guess existed on this planet.

Mark Kleiman has been on the Plame case for quite some time, but I think he must be getting punch drunk...

Why "Out" a CIA Officer?

My preference is for the Keystone Kops theory. It's not that I doubt that Karl Rove is capable of profound evil -- this is the man who used John McCain's adoption of a Sri Lankan orphan to spread the word in South Carolina that McCain was the father of an biracial bastard -- but I couldn't see how he could have justified outing a CIA officer to himself or his friends. No matter how they look to you and me, the folks in the White House think that they're patriots, and deliberately revealing the identity of a NOC would have been a grossly and obviously unpatriotic thing to do.

So -- putting aside the possibility that the White House shared the pathological hatred of the CIA as an institution that characterized the extreme parts of Red Blogistan -- it seems to me that the Keystone Kops theory is the least hypothesis: a hideous mistake in the course of petty political infighting, compounded by a cover-up.

Sorry, but I just don't buy it.

Raw Story sums it up best.

“The story confidentially given to Matt Cooper and Judith Miller was the assertion (an assertion we now know was highly misleading at best) that Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger was his wife’s doing. Don’t listen to him – his wife sent him!” is logically parallel to defending against a charge of grand theft auto by saying, “but the car was blue!” And of course there is the otherworldly experience of seeing the most inbred, nepotistic crew in memory arguing that getting a job through family connections is inherently problematic – as if the employment agency that placed Michael Brown and nominated Harriet Miers is above distributing jobs based on connections.

Hey, I'll bow to Mark's superior mind on such matters (heck, read his bio - I'm a mere flea speck in comparison).

But really. Either they are complete and blithering idiots who believe the kitchen sponge they are waving at Joe Wilson in a threatening fashion really is an Arcturian death ray capable of disintegrating the entire planet if they so wish... or something else was going on.

Really. These political jugernaughts relying on the claim that Wilson was a girly boy relying on his wifey-wife to put food on their table would do all the damage they needed to Wilson is a theory that is simply beyond my capability of belief. Yea, it could be true - I suppose. But then there's a non-zero probability that all the air in the room I'm currently in will suddenly cluster around one corner, leaving me gasping for air as I struggle to finish this post. It's simply impossibly improbable.

Lot's of people who "consider themselves patriots" do simply despicable things. Horrible things. It's called rationalization.

Look. These guys rationalized LYING to everyone in the country - citizens they have SWORN to tell the truth to - in order to lead this country into one of the most disastrous and expensive wars we have ever fought. It's not beyond reason to think they'd be willing to do even worse things... People do it all the frickin' time. I don't see why Rove n' company would be exempt from all the rules that apply to the rest of us. Especially given the astronomically high stakes involved with one of the biggest campaign of lies this country has ever seen.

Sorry Mark. But in order for this theory to be true, there has to be some plausible rationale behind the use of Plame in all of this. Smearing him with nepotism is literally unbelievable.

And let's not forget. These jokers were going after Plame, not just Wilson. Or have we forgotten that Rove/Libby said that Wilson's wife was now "fair game."

She was being attacked. To hurt him. To protect themselves.

They knew. They just simply didn't care.

Roger Ailes has forever destroyed my optic nerves by pointing out this oh so hilarious right wing cartoonist. This is from September 30th. Who knew that the First Lady, Laura Bush, was captured so perfectly by this dweeb?

See? Instant irony.

Well, if nothing else. The last five years have shown that the PoMo right wing really is populated entirely by those who seem to trace their genetic ancestry from the otter through the rat to the lemming.

Not really sure of what to think about the whole NYC subway threat myself. As many have pointed out, it's a vast system that millions literally rely upon every day. And there's the timing. Right when Bush gives his big uggabugga speech. Right when Bush's favorable ratings drop below 40%.

But let's just say this thing is real and there's no political motive behind the revelation.

That means that perhaps we're now seeing the first fruits of the Terrorist University we've been running in Iraq. Now that they've finished their training, quite possibly they're now being reassigned back here in the US of A.

All I got to say about the brilliant strategy of the right wing: BRAVO!

Subway threat originated in Iraq

The threat to New York's subway system originated in Iraq and involved the use of explosives hidden in bags or baby strollers, officials familiar with the investigation told CNN.

A previously reliable source tipped authorities to a terror plot involving 15 to 20 people, one official said.

The source of the information had trained at a terrorist camp in Afghanistan and passed parts of a polygraph test, the official said.

The threat mentioned Friday and Sunday as possible dates, the official added.

The tipster in Iraq failed some sections of the polygraph test, but passed the section pertaining to the information about the New York threat, the official said.

That information, sources said, led to a military operation Wednesday night in Musayyib, about 45 miles south of Baghdad, where, military officials said, three al Qaeda suspects were arrested.

Update: Turns out this was all a HOAX.

The subway terrorist threat that gripped New York last weekend was a hoax stemming from false intelligence provided by a normally reliable informant, US law enforcement officials were quoted as saying.

According to newspaper and television reports, the unidentified officials said the informant -- believed to be from Pakistan -- had admitted leading investigators astray about a plot to bomb the New York subway system.

The threat, which was unusually specific as to time and place, was taken very seriously by city officials who issued a high alert and flooded the subway network with extra police and National Guard troops.

The informant had fingered three men in Iraq as being behind the plot, but their subsequent capture and interrogation revealed no links to any plan or any known terrorist group, CNN quoted law enforcement sources as saying.

Souuuuuueeeeeeeee! Pig, pig, pig!

This is another picture from the top of Mauna Kea taken at sunset. What's kind of cool here is that you're looking at the shadow that Mauna Kea cast on the clouds behind the mountain. If you look really, really, REALLY close at the picture in the original resolution, you can see my shadow at the very, very top.

Just kidding.

Anyways, this really isn't an instance of glory or the broken spectre, but I figure the brilliant display around the shadow is glory enough for me. It's stunning none the less.

It really is truly amazing to see all the - by now - rampant speculation as to what His Nibs Fitz is going to do WRT L'Affair Plame.

But as Digby points out, there is not just a dotted line, not just a nebulous connection, not just a shadowy connection here. Nope. There's about six or seven gallons of spunky semen splattered across the evil visage of Robert Novak.

This whole incident is literally the equivalent of a bukake party of Administration leaks. He's the the receiving end of a smear that makes Japanese porn look like kindergarten curriculum.

Novak has the DNA of whomever splattered Plame's name worked deep into his epidermis - he's marked. Heck, it's like a tattoo - it's worked its way through not one, not two but THREE layers of epidermis on the man.

He is literally marked by the incident.

So, whatever the side shows are, there is one undeniable fact that is quietly refusing to be spinned.

Novak knows.

And Novakula hasn't pulled a Judy. Novakula has been running about town like a wanton hussy while Judy has been wallowing in prison waiting for Scooter's love poem.

Novak knows.

And Novak doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who'd rather have bamboo shoots driven under his finger nails before he'd give up a source.

Nope.

He seems like the soft, doughy sort of personality that would squeal at the first indication that his pampered existence might be threatened.

He spilled everything. Count on it.

He's a dead man.

Okay. Lost is getting pretty damn cool. I must say that this second season is shaping up most excellent.

Oh, and by the way. If you're ever a prisoner and someone who you don't know is thrown into the same cell with you? Don't assume that they're in the same boat as you. It's like the oldest trick in the book. Donuts'll get you dollars that they are a plant who is there to gain your trust and suck information from you.

One other thing. I think perhaps the most frightening thing in the world is thinking that all that stands between us and destruction is a dead man's switch in the form of a blinking CP/M prompt.

4 8 15 16 23 42

Dude.

So many possibilities, so little time to fantasize about them all.

US officials brace for decisions in CIA leak case

The federal prosecutor investigating who leaked the identity of a CIA operative is expected to signal within days whether he intends to bring indictments in the case, legal sources close to the investigation said on Wednesday.

As a first step, prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was expected to notify officials by letter if they have become targets, said the lawyers, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.

Fitzgerald could announce plea agreements, bring indictments, or conclude that no crime was committed. By the end of this month he is expected to wrap up his nearly two-year-old investigation into who leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

The inquiry has ensnared President George W. Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby. The White House had long maintained that Rove and Libby had nothing to do with the leak but reporters have since named them as sources.

Rove's attorney, Robert Luskin, declined to say whether his client had been contacted by Fitzgerald. In the past, Luskin has said that Rove was assured that he was not a target.

Libby's lawyer was not immediately available to comment.

I expect the right wing bloggersphere's collective high pitch squeal tomorrow will be heard only by animals but the energy of which will shatter every mirror on earth.

This is going to be SWEET.

US car theft rings probed for ties to Iraq bombings

The FBI's counterterrorism unit has launched a broad investigation of US-based theft rings after discovering that some of the vehicles used in deadly car bombings in Iraq, including attacks that killed US troops and Iraqi civilians, were probably stolen in the United States, according to senior government officials.

Inspector John E. Lewis, deputy assistant director of the FBI for counterterrorism, told the Globe that the investigation hasn't yielded any evidence that the vehicles were stolen specifically for car bombings. But there is evidence, he said, that the cars were smuggled from the United States as part of a widespread criminal network that includes terrorists and insurgents.

And then there's this weird one as well

Apparent suicide bomb kills one outside Oklahoma University stadium

One person was killed in an explosion in a traffic circle about 100 yards from a packed football stadium at the University of Oklahoma on Saturday night in what authorities were calling a suicide.

"We are apparently dealing with an individual suicide, which is under full investigation," OU President David Boren said in a statement.