<p>Obstruction of justice + Perjury + False Statements = We Can’t Tell What Else This S.O.B. Did Because We Can’t Get To The Truth.</p>
<p>And now Cheney has replaced Libby with two guys, one of whom wrote legal memos in support of torture of U.S. prisoners held outside the U.S. and the other of whom was the major agent in spreading Chalabi-provided disinformation about WMD provided by the Iraqi National Congress.</p>
<p>Col. Wilkerson has it right: a small cabal hijacking foreign policy.</p>
<p>The problem in discussing this issue is that certain folks–including opinion-molders such as Dionne and Oliphant–have constructed an alternative, fantasy reality for themselves from which they will not be extricated, regardless of the dispositive strength of literally all evidence. This fantasy produces the serial confusion of Liz and Hazmat, and accounts for TheDad’s naked, drooling rage. I hope that someone, somehow, convinces these poor folks that they need to return to reality. I think Christopher Hitchens put it perfectly, below: “I know some apparently sensible people who are prepared to believe, still, that a Machiavellian cabal in the White House wanted to punish Joseph Wilson by exposing his wife to embarrassment and even to danger.” The problem with the current meme–that “Fitz” had them dead to rights, but couldn’t nail them because Libby lied, and therefore he just charged Libby with the lying crimes doesn’t even rise to the level of speciousness—it’s fatuous, pure and simple. “Fitz” ended up getting all of the correct answers to the questions he was investigating. And still found no underlying crime. I’m sorry you’re taking the fizzled Fitzmas so hard, but as long as Howard Dean leads your party, you can still hope for an Easter Bunny investigation of some kind in the future.</p>
<p>
<a href=“http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007479[/url]”>http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110007479</a></p>
<p>driver, I have no idea what you are trying to say, what you are actually saying, what you are quoting and why. Can you give me an executive summary in your own words please? </p>
<p>On a similar topic, I am amazed at all the spin. I read the indictment, and then I read an article about the indictment in the NYT and I cannot for the life of me figure out how they leaped to their conclusions by reading the same document that I just read. </p>
<p>My favorite line from another newspaper, an experienced former prosecuter said that White House “Official A” was either Karl Rove or Billy the Kid.</p>
<p>Summary:
The notion that Fitzgerald’s investigation failed to produce more indictments due to Libby’s apparent false statements is a fantasy. Why? Because Libby is accused of lying about where he first learned of Plame’s identity. Why is Libby accused of lying? Because Fitzgerald got the correct answers from multiple other witnesses. Now, equipped as he was with the correct answers that Libby allegedly withheld, Fitzgerald still concluded that he had no evidence that an underlying crime had been committed. Q.E.D.
References were to articles in today’s WP and BGLobe by EJ Dionne and Thomas Oliphant, respectively, who are trying to pimp this meme.</p>
<p>Njres,
Can you clarify what you mean by spin?</p>
<p>Official A has been confirmed by three different sources to be Karl Rove. </p>
<p>Driver, your defense is weak - it is a critique of Wilson and his intent as usual as well as the intent of Fitz - a foolish thing to do.</p>
<p>NJres,
I’m not sure if you were implying that there is spin on both sides, but there is a lot of information out there regarding the war, specifically the Niger forgeries that are tied into this investigation. There are reporters trying to get at the truth. The Libby indictment is not the only source that people are drawing conclusions from - there is a lot of background info that has not been reported in the mainstream media. The Bush administration is so closed and the Republican congress so protective that finding the truth is quite a feat.</p>
<p>Driver,</p>
<p>I have found Hitchens’ (a former columnist of the left-of-Left “The Nation”–can’t remember the name of his weekly column but it was always two-doors-down from Alexander Cockburn’s Marxist apologetics) take on the political shenanigans of those gone faint from the sound of their own doom saying to be some of the clearest and most damning available. It seems he has cut through some of the fog-O-Fitzgerald as well.</p>
<p>Hitchens was a guest on Bill Mahr’s HBO show a while back and took the air right out of Mahr’s flatulent “comedy,” which, where flatulence is concerned, is a public service.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>driver, thanks for the clarrification. I think if you are conducting an investigation, and a witness or a suspect deliberately lies to you then you must indict that person to protect the integrity of your investigation and future investigations. Particularly when the lies relate so directly to the crime you are investigating. </p></li>
<li><p>Sorry, my post was also unclear. I was complaining about the “spin” that I detected in a NYT article that I did not identify. Just a general gripe that the article I read seemed to be based on an entirely different document than the indictment I read. Then, I mentioned the “Official A = Karl Rove” comment not as an example of spin. Sorry for the confusion. Totally unrelated comment. When I read the indictment I assumed that “Official A” was Karl Rove, but later I second guessed myself a bit, because I really don’t know who is who in the White House staff, but was reassured when I read the comment from an observer who said it was either Karl Rove or Billy the Kid. I just thought that was a funny comment, not spin at all.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>“that argument is just a rehash of Republican talking points.”
That may or may not be true since I generally don’t read republican talking points - but the reality is that it is true and it only takes a bit of common sense and removal of blinders to see it. There is NO evidence of anything other than potential lies. To try to take the scraps that Fitzgerald threw you and to try to weave it into a conspiracy makes for great fiction but not one that is in touch with reality. </p>
<p>If you truly wanted to be objective about it (I know it’s hard, but just try!), ask yourself this: Fitzgerald knows the source of Novak’s column which got this whole thing started. His knowledge of this is completely untainted by any lies that Libby may have spun. Yet, even with this knowledge, he did not indict anyone. Why not? Fitzgerald now knows the truth about Libby’s source of the information and when he knew it, yet he still has no evidence of an underlying crime? Why not? </p>
<p>“If you read the indictments, it is REALLY obvious that Libby lied.”
I am not saying that he didn’t lie.</p>
<p>Well, FF try imagining Libby did lie and very deliberately. What is your rationale for why he might have? </p>
<p>Maybe in proving first that Libby lied, Fitz will get closer to the question of why he lied which may in turn lead him to the deeper question of intent or motive. Why lie about something if you didn’t do anything wrong? </p>
<p>And as I said in my follow up post, some of the conclusions Bush opponents are coming to are based on the information in the indictment and other information coming out regarding the forged documents from Niger. It is known that Cheney and Rove lied about their involvement with the Plame case to the press secretary who in turn relayed that to the American people. We now know from the indictment that they were involved. We also know that the Niger documents were used as evidence of WMD build up in Iraq, announced to the whole world in Bush’s state of the Union, even though the White House had been told by the CIA NOT to use that information as fact. Seems like a lot of dishonesty to me at many levels. </p>
<p>I may have blinders on but I don’t have party blinders that require me to spin facts and pledge allegiance to my party no matter what they do.
I consider myself a moderate who in the climate of politics under the Bush reign may appear to be liberal.</p>
<p>Driver,
As proof that your opinion is nothing but that, here is the whole quote of what Fitzgerald said about Plame’s status. Your columnist conveniently left out the rest of the paragraph to prove his point.</p>
<p>Fitzgerald, "let me say two things. Number one, I am not speaking to whether or not Valerie Wilson was covert. And anything I say is not intended to say anything beyond this : that she was a CIA officer from January 1st, 2002, forward.</p>
<p>I will confirm that her association with the CIA was classified at that time through July 2003. And all I’ll say is that, look, we have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally outed a covert agent. "</p>
<p>He says it again in other words and more explicitly throughout the press conference. This argument that she is not covert is as lame as they come and has been around for two freaking years - find something new to argue about!</p>
<p>Well Liz, again I say, you are serially confused. You continue to unwittingly make the point that there was no underlying crime that was covered up…but you still don’t realize it, for some reason.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Well, actually, you don’t know that because it is not true. The supporting evidence for the 16 words in the SOU address was NOT the forged document, but rather British intelligence. The British looked into this as part of their investigation about what went wrong with their intelligence assessments (the Butler report)and re-affirmed that they still stand behind their intelligence. They did not use the forged documents to come up with their assessment. </p>
<p>Likewise, the real Wilson report (not the one that he alleges to have made in his NYT’s op/ed) also gives credance to an Iraq attempt at obtaining yellow cake . If you want to know the truth, you need to stop listening to Howard Dean, et al.</p>
<p>I don’t listen to Howard Dean… I read from various sources - usually news or opinion grounded in fact. Josh Marshall is the blogger I get much of my information from outside of the news and he’s quite reputable and cautious. He strikes me like Fitzgerald as someone who is more concerned about finding the facts and the truth than supporting a party line. </p>
<p>Where is the source on your “real Wilson report”?</p>
<p>
Roughly 10% of the bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Iraq deals with debunking Wilson. I assume that’s what FF was referring to. Every single senator on the committee, from both parties, signed it. Off to quartet rehearsal for us.</p>
<p>Yes, the Senate Report, unanimously approved, provides a lot of detail about Wilson and his report. Needless to say it is at odds with what Wilson and the Democrats would have you believe. Here is one quote from the report which characterizes what the CIA gleaned from Wilson’s report:
</p>
<p>There never was a good reason to attack Iraq. The evidence is clear, there were no weapons of mass destruction. Our exit plan was non existent or extremely faulty.</p>
<p>Republicans don’t like to have people examining their lies, their selfish motives or their on going deceptions. Since they have no logical response the call names
</p>
<p>LOL…bring on the drool, it makes more sense than these poor attempts at spin to protect the traitors in the white house.</p>
<p>FundingFather: could you please provide a link to the report from which you are quoting?</p>
<p>Thank you.</p>
<p>This is one of the easiest-to-use versions, in html format. When you’re done reading this sub-section entitled “former ambassador,” click on the “table of contents” button at the bottom, and you can easily navigate through the whole thing. Jeez, I’d just assumed you opinionated folks had already heard about this. This explains a lot. Heck, maybe we can actually get somewhere now. <a href=“http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/2004_rpt/iraq-wmd-intell_chapter2-b.htm[/url]”>http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/2004_rpt/iraq-wmd-intell_chapter2-b.htm</a></p>
<p>That report was considered to be a white wash that did not deal with some of the difficult questions. </p>
<p>I think some Dems signed reluctantly or maybe didn’t sign at all. Don’t remember exact details but I will find them. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, Tom Oliphant is also supporting the theory that the lies helped delay the investigation long enough to get George elected.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/”>http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/</a>
11/01/the<em>coverup</em>worked/
excerpt:</p>
<p>NO NO ONE really noticed, but Patrick Fitzgerald made an unassailable point last week about the timing of the indictment that his CIA leak investigation has produced so far.</p>
<p>''I would have wanted nothing better," he said, ''that when the subpoenas were issued in August of 2004, witnesses testified then, and we would have been here in October of 2004 instead of October of 2005."</p>
<p>Give or take a nuance and some garbled syntax, the prosecutor was in effect showing that the quixotic pursuit of a nonexistent right or privilege by some news organizations is one reason President Bush was reelected last year."</p>
<hr>
<p>And go Harry Reid for kicking some Republican butt.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/1/144647/999[/url]”>http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/11/1/144647/999</a></p>