Just look at Willy's feeble presentation to see the abject silliness of what seems to pass for intellectual argument on the part of the radical Left.
Not to mention his eagerness to present falsehoods as fact. But more about that later...
He seems to think that a visit to Niger is not, cannot, would not, possibly be suspect if the agent also visited three or four other countries. Wow. So convincing. I'll bet Willy got a real good deal on a Rolex for only $19.99, and is looking for a good place to put that bridge he just bought.
Now, Intelligence 101 would indicate that a visit only to the target country would attract more attention than a visit to the target country sandwiched in among visits to other countries. But the transparency of this gambit seems to have eluded Willy and whoever wrote his cut and paste litany of neorad talking points. No, they find it absolutely compelling that if a man visits four countries, with the stated intent of promoting tourism, then it is completely impossible to believe that tourism might not be the true goal, and than three of these countries might be cover for the true reason for visiting the fourth. (But....But....But that would be LYING!!! And we all know that only the Bush administration lies---certainly not anyone representing Sadamm Hussein! Iraq has always been the very picture of honesty and virtue!)
Which is just another reason we simply cannot risk having such naivete in our intelligence analysis, much less such ideology-driven determined naivete. The Jar-Jar-Binksian silliness of those such as Willy must be tolerated, but certainly not given any power or authority.
As for the falsehoods----Libby was indicted based on the assertion that he should have remembered exactly when he discussed Plame with Novak. Libby said he had not found the Plame affair of particular interest or importance----he wondered who had been responsible for sending a nincompoop like Wilson to Niger (I paraphrase here...) and checked into it as far as learning of Plame's involvement. He set the record straight, a very minor detail, and as he did not know there was going to be a quiz on this later, did not find it of such import that the details stuck in his mind.
It was Fitzgerald who determined that it was, in fact, very important to Libby----and based on that, that Libby really did remember accurately but lied about it.
Take away the neorad claim of knowledge of the heart and mind of Libby---their silly claim that he acted out of "revenge" and wanted to "get even" with Wilson by "destroying" Plame---and you have nothing. You have the truth, which is that this was a trivial event, one of no real importance other than being a minor annoyance. Without the invented and then assigned "motive" there was no story.
And without the invented degree of importance which was then attributed to Libby, over his protests, there would be no basis for saying he lied.
Libby did NOT "lie about his role". He merely had a different recollection of the time line of the references to Plame. He said it was because he never thought the matter of great importance so never made a point of registering the time frame. Fitz said he did too think it was important, and he did too remember. So the indictment is really based on an opinion of Fitzgerald about how he thought Libby SHOULD have felt.
The whole Plame "scandal" depended on the lavish use of a crystal ball to determine hidden motives and feelings, and a passion for attacking anyone in the Bush Administration, no matter how feeble the excuse.
And no one had to "discredit" Wilson regarding his lies in the NYT. He discredited himself. The only reason for bringing up Plame's name at all was to make it clear that Wilson had not been sent by Cheney. While Wilson had not made that claim in his NYT piece, it was widely circulated, and never denied by Wilson. The press was all agog over the possibility of "dissent within the White House" and full of speculation about how Bush would react to the "disloyalty" of the VP as shown by his choice of Wilson to go to Niger. All Wilson had to do was make it clear that Cheney had not chosen him. When he did not, the lies had to be exposed, and that is the only reason it was necessary to point out Plame's role in choosing Wilson.
Plame's identity had nothing whatsoever to do with Wilson's mischaracterization of what he had really told the CIA about what he had learned. Nothing. It was all about who had sent him in the first place. Wilson let it be thought that Cheney had chosen him, because this was politically advantageous. And then the goofball Left tried to make him and Plame victims.
Don't any lefties want to touch this one?
Interesting update, Mark. I recall Fitzy making some statement about sand being thrown in his face, his metaphor for obstruction of justice. Now that we know that he knew who the leaker (to the extent this term is justified) was before he dragged Libby and Rove through the coals, it appears that his metaphorical statement was itself not very well justified.
isn't it great the way our government works (both the right and left. Instead of concentrating on the important issues they waste time and taxpayer money on these witch hunts
It's a lot like Ken Starr's investigation of Whitewater. Of course it's ok when our side does it, isn't it?
So, Hitchens is still peddling this garbage? It has been debunked
Zahawi not only went to Niger in his early '99 trip to Africa, but also to Burkina Faso, Benin and Congo-Brazzaville, none of which are uranium producers. Iraq intended to try and weaken the U.N. sanctions by urging other countries to visit Iraq. The fact that Iraq was trying for a long time to break the back of the U.N. sanctions was well known.
Regarding specific allegations of uranium pursuits from Niger, Ja’far claims that after 1998 Iraq had only two contacts with Niamey—neither of which involved uranium. Ja’far acknowledged that Iraq’s Ambassador to the Holy See traveled to Niamey to invite the President of Niger to visit Iraq. He indicated that Baghdad hoped that the Nigerian President would agree to the visit as he had visited Libya despite sanctions being levied on Tripoli. Former Iraqi Ambassador to the Holy See Wissam Zahawie has publicly provided a similar account.
Regarding the Plame-leak: Armitage was not the original source for Cooper: Rove was, and Libby confirmed it. Armitage was not the original source for Judith Miller: Libby was.
Libby lied about his role so he was indicted for perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements to the FBI.
How did Armitage receive the information that Plame was Wilson's wife and worked for the CIA? A memo that had been written at the request of Libby when he was Cheney's chief of staf, and was circulated among State Department officials, including Armitage.
That memo is a clear indication that there was a concerted effort by the Administration to discredit Wilson by using Plame, outing her in the process. For them, politics was apparently more important than national security.
so it is indeed a Merry Fitsmas after all!!!!!
Only it is for the Republicans. Like we didn't know that 2 years ago.
I'm sure the media will spend MONTHS with this new information just as they spent MONTHS tearing down the Bush administration for all of these charges.
When is Joe Wilson apologizing?
When is Howard the Duck Dean apologizing? Remember he said Rove should be frog marched out in handcuffs.
What a complete dink he and many of the lefties are.
Their silence on this issue and the fact the mainstream media is hardly touching this is truly telling.
The Wall Street Journal has a great piece on this today...where is the NY Times, WAPO, CNN, etc following suit?
Wrong William...Rove was NOT the original source on this story which was broke by Novak. In fact Novak said as much to the Grand Jury that Rove was not.
Please, get caught up on facts.
This Wall Street Journal story today is wonderful at cutting through the crap on this entire nonsense.
FESS UP, MR. ARMITAGE
ms plame's occupation was public anyway.
It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury;
Signifying nothing.
ATTRIBUTION: William Shakespeare (1564–1616), British dramatist, poet. Macbeth, in Macbeth, act 5, sc. 5.
Oh WillemVonMoonbat,
Now you are recycling your moonbat rants from a previous thread.
When are ya gonna send your address. I got a cuddly little frog for you to curl up with. you can even name him Karl!!! HaHaHaHa...you libs are Fnng hysterical.
"Wrong William...Rove was NOT the original source on this story which was broke by Novak. In fact Novak said as much to the Grand Jury that Rove was not.
Please, get caught up on facts." War
War, where does William make that claim? Maybe you should brush up on the facts?
As the WSJ article says at the end, I hope President Bush pardons Libby. And I hope that those that lied by omission (ie knew and did not say) realize the damage they have done to a good man.
In case you haven't noticed, this ‘story’ has revealed to be much bigger than "who told Novak".
How could Armitage stay silent while Scooter Libby's life was destroyed?
I think Willem and "alert" are the same kook--let's call them "Wilhelm van orange alert."
For the annual White House Halloween party, Karl should dress up in a Kermit the Frog suit, don a pair of stormtrooper boots, and march around the media pool all night. They can invite Joe and Val to the bash so's Joe can finally get his "frog march." Then, at the end of the evening, the President can issue a pre-pardon to Scooter, and whisk Joe and Val down to Git'mo, where they can live happily ever after for causing all this mess over much ado about nothing.
What do you think, Wilhelm van Orange Alert?
The fact is there were two acts of this play going on at the same time. Armitage (who loves to gossip) was leaking Plame's name. At the same time Rove and Rumsfeld were active in stroking that flame.
We must take this seriously, not cynically. It could come back to bite us in November.
ifonly, you are trying desperately to compare the Starr investigation with the Rove witch hunt, and succeed only in bringing up the highly embarrassing aspects of the two investigations. Emabarrassing to the Dems, that is.
Starr was appointed to take over an investigation into a firmly established matter of corruption and law-breaking. There were no doubts that the Whitewater affair was rotten to the core. There were no doubts that the Clintons had been deeply involved in Whitewater from the very beginning. They helped start Whitewater as founding partners. Therefore, in a situation in which a business has been proven to be breaking the law, an investigation into the respective roles of its partners is far from a "witch hunt".
And when the investigation was launched, the Clintons did everything in their extensive power to stall the investigation, thwart it, and derail it. They refused to testify. They refused to present subpoenaed documents. They, and they alone, draggged it out interminably---while whining and moaning about the cost, as if they were not solely responsible for the mounting expenses. (Though they did prove themselves to know their base well, as so many still piously refer to the cost as if it were the fault of the investigator and not the investigated.)
And many indictments and CONVICTIONS followed the investigation. As a matter of fact, the only participants in Whitewater who got off scot free were---surprise, surprise---the Clintons.
But the true witch hunt of Libby and Rove was based on no crime whatsoever. As a matter of fact, the "investigator" freely admitted that he had not even bothered to ask about the covert status of Ms. Plame, which was the only basis for any claim of any crime having been committed. It was the equivalent of going after someone for bank robbery without even bothering to pick up the phone to ask if the bank had, in fact, been robbed.
No, the pursuit of Rove, and then of Libby, was not even grounded in a criminal action being committed by SOMEONE and therefore an effort to find out who did it. It was just a weird, wild, excess of prosecutorial malfeasance, going after two men with claims that they did something wrong, somewhere, somehow---and then ending up with no more than a bogus indictment for not remembering precise details of a conversation which was not important to the man having it.
But the investigated cooperated fully, and without any stalling or obstruction. The claim that Libby obstructed justice was based on the assertion that he had to have been lying about his recollection of a time line---based on an assertion that the subject was too important to forget. ?????? When Libby said it was not important to him, he was informed of his true mental state, as determined by a stranger years after the fact, with absolutely nothing to back it up---and then indcited based on the acceptance of the attributed mental state as fact.
So a bogus motive was invented to support a bogus claim, and then a bogus leap was made from one point to another based on a bogus assignment of importance which defied the facts.
Again, going back to the bank robbery analogy, it is as if the "investigator" accused a man of robbing a bank, without bothering to find out if the bank had even been robbed, and then indicted the man for perjury for not remembering accurately where he was when the bank was not being robbed---because the "investigator" determined that the accused SHOULD have remembered.
And Niger officials told Wilson, as he said in his debriefing at the CIA, that they had been approached by agents wanting to buy uranium, and THEY believed these agents to be acting for Iraq.
CWC - you have no proof of your slander whatsoever. No dates, no names, nothing.
Just look at Willy's feeble presentation to see the abject silliness of what seems to pass for intellectual argument on the part of the radical Left.
Not to mention his eagerness to present falsehoods as fact. But more about that later...
He seems to think that a visit to Niger is not, cannot, would not, possibly be suspect if the agent also visited three or four other countries. Wow. So convincing. I'll bet Willy got a real good deal on a Rolex for only $19.99, and is looking for a good place to put that bridge he just bought.
Now, Intelligence 101 would indicate that a visit only to the target country would attract more attention than a visit to the target country sandwiched in among visits to other countries. But the transparency of this gambit seems to have eluded Willy and whoever wrote his cut and paste litany of neorad talking points. No, they find it absolutely compelling that if a man visits four countries, with the stated intent of promoting tourism, then it is completely impossible to believe that tourism might not be the true goal, and than three of these countries might be cover for the true reason for visiting the fourth. (But....But....But that would be LYING!!! And we all know that only the Bush administration lies---certainly not anyone representing Sadamm Hussein! Iraq has always been the very picture of honesty and virtue!)
Which is just another reason we simply cannot risk having such naivete in our intelligence analysis, much less such ideology-driven determined naivete. The Jar-Jar-Binksian silliness of those such as Willy must be tolerated, but certainly not given any power or authority.
As for the falsehoods----Libby was indicted based on the assertion that he should have remembered exactly when he discussed Plame with Novak. Libby said he had not found the Plame affair of particular interest or importance----he wondered who had been responsible for sending a nincompoop like Wilson to Niger (I paraphrase here...) and checked into it as far as learning of Plame's involvement. He set the record straight, a very minor detail, and as he did not know there was going to be a quiz on this later, did not find it of such import that the details stuck in his mind.
It was Fitzgerald who determined that it was, in fact, very important to Libby----and based on that, that Libby really did remember accurately but lied about it.
Take away the neorad claim of knowledge of the heart and mind of Libby---their silly claim that he acted out of "revenge" and wanted to "get even" with Wilson by "destroying" Plame---and you have nothing. You have the truth, which is that this was a trivial event, one of no real importance other than being a minor annoyance. Without the invented and then assigned "motive" there was no story.
And without the invented degree of importance which was then attributed to Libby, over his protests, there would be no basis for saying he lied.
Libby did NOT "lie about his role". He merely had a different recollection of the time line of the references to Plame. He said it was because he never thought the matter of great importance so never made a point of registering the time frame. Fitz said he did too think it was important, and he did too remember. So the indictment is really based on an opinion of Fitzgerald about how he thought Libby SHOULD have felt.
The whole Plame "scandal" depended on the lavish use of a crystal ball to determine hidden motives and feelings, and a passion for attacking anyone in the Bush Administration, no matter how feeble the excuse.
And no one had to "discredit" Wilson regarding his lies in the NYT. He discredited himself. The only reason for bringing up Plame's name at all was to make it clear that Wilson had not been sent by Cheney. While Wilson had not made that claim in his NYT piece, it was widely circulated, and never denied by Wilson. The press was all agog over the possibility of "dissent within the White House" and full of speculation about how Bush would react to the "disloyalty" of the VP as shown by his choice of Wilson to go to Niger. All Wilson had to do was make it clear that Cheney had not chosen him. When he did not, the lies had to be exposed, and that is the only reason it was necessary to point out Plame's role in choosing Wilson.
Plame's identity had nothing whatsoever to do with Wilson's mischaracterization of what he had really told the CIA about what he had learned. Nothing. It was all about who had sent him in the first place. Wilson let it be thought that Cheney had chosen him, because this was politically advantageous. And then the goofball Left tried to make him and Plame victims.
Based upon this information, it is likely that Fitzgerald committed ethics violations and prosecutorial misconduct.
"Jar-Jar-Binksian silliness"-by Almiranta
Heh. Ouch!
:)
We must take this seriously, not cynically. It could come back to bite us in November.
Puhleeze, get real. We as Republicans have more than this to worry about. The DBM and the left got what they wanted out of this.
And you should really change your screenname--you're about as conservative as Jimmuh Cahtah...
Almiranta,
Re Niger. It isn't only me who believes that that '99 invitation from the Iraqi ambassador to the Holy See was very flimsy evidence for the claim that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. The Administration has admitted that the SOTU-claim was "a mistake" as well.
Four (!) years is not "recently" and an invitation is not "sought significant quantities of uranium".
The fact that the Administration admitted its mistake immediately after Wilsons op-ed appeared makes clear that Niger was "Africa".
Re Libby. Get your facts straight. It wasn't the timeline about "when he discussed Plame with Novak". In my recollection, Libby did not have any conversation with Novak, you have evidence to the contrary? Libby lied and held back crucial information. From Scooters entry in wikipedia:
Thanks, Wilhelm ban OrangeAlert, for the input. Go back to the hash house and smoke a few more. Bush is not gonna have to pardon Scooter--the charges will be dropped...