| Author | Message | ||
     Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1529 Registered: 4-2006 |
Great news for the movie rights ! Now Val and Ambassador Joe can maybe get Brad and Angelina to play them. I see it more as a Jim Carrey and Jenny McCarthy vehicle however. | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 5675 Registered: 5-2001 |
Typical. A couple of really smart people devote their careers to public service, and you trash them because they don't conform to the radical right agenda of King George. News Flash: Ambassador George was right. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1531 Registered: 4-2006 |
Yes tom, modern civilization as we know it will collapse over this. You don't think there is any shred of opportunism here? Wanna buy a bridge? | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 2394 Registered: 8-2003  |
Opportunism? There's a lot more opportunity to land a cushy job if you're willing to shill for the Bushies, not criticize them. | ||
| Foj Citizen Username: Foger Post Number: 1768 Registered: 9-2004 |
Since Powell and his buddies have been speaking bad about Bush it may be a little pay back.. going after Armitage.. though.. Powell and Armitage probably stopped a war 'tween Pakistan & India. ANd way back when .. when Armitage was part of Operation Phoenix... Armitage organized a flotilla of Vietnamese, he saved probably.. 20k lives, got them all to the Manilla. Knowing they would be hunted down by the Commies. Ahh cjc. its been about 24 hrs, wheres your story? Non-existant? And although you are one of the brighter MOLers, get your head out of your rear, Bush, Fitz, CIA & the DOJ all said Plame was a "secret agent". Thats how this got started. SO either get off the drugs, or get better drugs. Which brings me back to Brewster Jennings.. they were working in Iran, they had agents in Iran, now we dont have anyone in Iran. What horrible timing, we could really use a secret agent or 2 in Iran. Unless we dont need them, because reall intell is not in the best interest of the Bush Crime Family. | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 5676 Registered: 5-2001 |
More and more the Bush plan seems to boil down to tax cuts for the well-to-do, and big contracts for connected corporations. Is it worth it? | ||
| Southerner Citizen Username: Southerner Post Number: 1480 Registered: 2-2004 |
Yes. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 5835 Registered: 8-2003 |
tom -- no one said Iraq got yellowcake from Niger. What they said was Iraq met with and investigated getting yellowcake from Niger. Which was true, contrary to what Wilson told the press, versus what he told the Senate, versus what he put in is report back to the CIA and whatever else he spewed when he signed up as a foreign policy advisor to the Kerry campaign and then....miraculously....disappeared from after the Senate Intelligence Committee issued it's report which brought to light for all to see that Wilson was a liar. Is Wilson still touring? He'd make a buck if he came to Maplewood. | ||
| notehead Supporter Username: Notehead Post Number: 3783 Registered: 5-2001  |
Has anybody else noticed how scary-looking Armitage is? I mean, for all I know he's a sweetheart, but he looks like he eats puppies. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 5836 Registered: 8-2003 |
Foj -- where's your story? There is no definitive statement by Fitzgerald as to whether Plame was a covert agent. He specifically dodged the question when asked by the press. Even the "S" classified State Dept memo which denotes sensitive material doesn't address whether Plame was a covert agent. | ||
| Nohero Supporter Username: Nohero Post Number: 5771 Registered: 10-1999  |
Not exactly correct - Transcript of Special Counsel Fitzgerald's Press Conference, October 28, 2005 (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102801340_ pf.html) | ||
| Dave Supporter Username: Dave  Post Number: 10649 Registered: 4-1997  |
You really have to wonder if cjc actually believes the stuff he posts. I tend to think he's not that ignorant, but sometimes I wonder if he has a serious look on his face while he posts that crap. | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 5690 Registered: 5-2001 |
But I'll bet you in a week or two he tries to blow the same smoke up our a**es. | ||
| GOP Man Citizen Username: Headsup Post Number: 444 Registered: 5-2005  |
who cares what Fitzgerald said? I still don't believe Plame was covert. Why should I believe Fitzgerald? | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 5692 Registered: 5-2001 |
And even if he did say it, that doesn't mean it was a definitive statement  | ||
| GOP Man Citizen Username: Headsup Post Number: 445 Registered: 5-2005 |
everyone knows Fitzgerald is a partisan hack Bush-hater. his statements, definitive or not, have no credibility with any thinking person. | ||
| Innisowen Citizen Username: Innisowen Post Number: 2352 Registered: 3-2004 |
GOP Man: You go, girl, as 43 would say. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 5839 Registered: 8-2003 |
Mr. Fritzgerald: "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. 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. We have not charged that. And so I'm not making that assertion." I've tended in the past to think Dave wasn't ignorant, so Dave and I have something in common. I think he's blinded by Bush hatred when he swallows some of the crap on this board. | ||
| Factvsfiction Citizen Username: Factvsfiction Post Number: 1541 Registered: 4-2006 |
Will Jenny McCarthy do Val Plame in a valley girl voice in the movie? | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 5696 Registered: 5-2001 |
So Plame was going about certain actions, working for a CIA front company, and her association with the CIA was classified. And somehow that is not covert? You're slicing the salami pretty thin here. Dictionary.com defines "covert" as "concealed; secret; disguised." And revealing classified information is a crime; otherwise why would it be classified? | ||
| Nohero Supporter Username: Nohero Post Number: 5774 Registered: 10-1999 |
It's not "crap" to point out that Mr. Fitzgerald indicted Libby for revealing classified information, and then lying about it. The quote Cjc provides was in response to a question about which statute was being used to indict Libby, and was not a "dodge". Unfortunately for Mr. Fitzgerald, by doing his job he has become yet another target for undeserved insults and unfounded accusations by the Administration and its supporters. | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 985 Registered: 1-2006 |
Did Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald Lie? INVESTOR'S BUSINESS DAILY Posted 8/29/2006 Plamegate: Patrick Fitzgerald's three-year manhunt to track down who blew Valerie Plame's CIA "cover" has been exposed as a costly sham. He apparently knew all along that his man was not Scooter Libby. When Fitzgerald, U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Illinois, was assigned the Plame case, he was hailed as a paragon of integrity. He'd helped convict Mafia boss John Gotti, the 1993 World Trade Center bombers and former Illinois Republican Gov. George Ryan, who'll be sentenced next month on 22 counts of bribery and racketeering. But it's hard to see anything but politics as the motivation for Fitzgerald's handling of the Plame affair. The facts indicate that Fitzgerald knew early on that the original leaker was State Department official Richard Armitage. So why did Fitzgerald let a cloud hang over White House adviser Karl Rove's head for so long? And why is Fitzgerald continuing to hound Libby, the former vice presidential chief of staff? The answer seems to be that Armitage, who is charged with nothing and brags that he hasn't even consulted a lawyer, was former Secretary of State Colin Powell's right-hand man and a critic of pre-emptive war in Iraq. Libby, on the other hand, was an architect of that war strategy. Do doves get a pass in Fitzgerald's book, while hawks get an indictment? The latest revelations raise a question of far more gravity: Did Fitzgerald publicly lie? Let's look at the facts: • The indictment of Libby that Fitzgerald extracted from the grand jury states that "on or about June 23, 2003, Libby met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller. . . . In discussing the CIA's handling of Wilson's trip to Niger, Libby informed her that Wilson's wife might work at a bureau of the CIA." • In the Oct. 28 press conference announcing Libby's indictment, Fitzgerald claimed that "in fact, Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson." • That assertion is apparently false. A soon-to-be-released book, "Hubris," by Newsweek's Michael Isikoff and The Nation magazine's David Corn, finds that Armitage revealed Plame's identity in a meeting with The Washington Post's Bob Woodward a week before the Libby-Miller meeting in June 2003. In a Newsweek preview of the book, Isikoff cites "three government officials, a lawyer familiar with the case and an Armitage confidant" as sources for when the Armitage-Woodward conversation took place. • Armitage is also clearly columnist Robert Novak's primary source for his July 2003 column, which was the first piece to identify Plame. On Sunday's "Meet the Press," Novak complained that "the time has way passed for my source to identify himself." • Isikoff notes that "Armitage himself was aggressively investigated" by Fitzgerald. So Armitage fessed up at the outset. Fitzgerald long ago knew whom Armitage talked to and when. And he knew it was Armitage, not Libby, who was responsible for outing Plame (whose status as a secret CIA operative was dubious at best). • Fitzgerald's contention in October that Libby was "the first official known to have told a reporter . . . about Valerie Wilson" may therefore have been a lie. Fitzgerald knew in the early days of his politicized witch hunt that no crime was committed. No one intentionally revealed the identity of a truly covert agent. Yet he made a reporter, Miller, spend nearly 90 days in jail for refusing to reveal her source. Meanwhile, Fitzgerald refused to reveal to the public the true source. From top to bottom, this has been one of the most disgraceful abuses of prosecutorial power in this country's history. That it's taking place at a time of war only magnifies its sordidness. We wouldn't be surprised if Fitzgerald ran for high elective office in the next few years — likely as a Democrat. The Plame case proves he can bend the truth with the proficiency of the slickest of pols. | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 5697 Registered: 5-2001 |
Duelling quotes. Novak had multiple sources. Armitage being the first does not automatically get the other "confirming" sources off the hook. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 5841 Registered: 8-2003 |
Notehead and others -- for pete's sake, Libby has not been indicted for disclosing the identity of a covert agent. No one has been indicted for revealing the identity of a covert agent. No one has identified Plame AS a covert agent. THAT'S WHAT I'VE BEEN SAYING. No one has indicted Libby for revealing classified information either. And they sure as hell won't indict the person who did reveal classified information, and that would be Armitage. Libby is going to walk, and deservedly so. Not that that really matters, because the damage to Bush has been done which is the reason this was salivated over. It certainly wasn't over the #1 issue of Democrats which is(n't) national security. | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 5701 Registered: 5-2001 |
Libby was indicted, as I recall, for perjury. That was also the charge, as I recall, that was so very very important to Republicans in 1998. The fate of the Union hung by the very thread of telling the truth while under oath. You don't really mean to tell me it's not just as important now, do you? What pray tell would be different about Libby's case to make it that way? | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 5843 Registered: 8-2003 |
I'll take that as an admission on the point I was making. I'm out for tonight. | ||
| Nohero Supporter Username: Nohero Post Number: 5776 Registered: 10-1999 |
I wrote here, earlier today: "Unfortunately for Mr. Fitzgerald, by doing his job he has become yet another target for undeserved insults and unfounded accusations by the Administration and its supporters." Mr. Dranove was kind enough to demonstrate my point. | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 5702 Registered: 5-2001 |
Are you saying that Plame was not a covert agent, or that Libby was not indicted for revealing a covert agent. They are two different and not mutually exclusive things. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 5848 Registered: 8-2003 |
An enduring mystery of the C.I.A. leak case has been solved in recent days, but with a new twist: Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the prosecutor, knew the identity of the leaker from his very first day in the special counsel’s chair, but kept the inquiry open for nearly two more years before indicting I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff, on obstruction charges........ .....Mr. Armitage had prepared a resignation letter, his associates said. But he stayed on the job because State Department officials advised that his sudden departure could lead to the disclosure of his role in the leak, the people aware of his actions said. http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/02/washington/02leak.html?_r=1&ei=5094&en=012af30 d606f9608&hp=&ex=1157169600&partner=homepage&pagewanted=print&oref=slogin Lovely. | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 5722 Registered: 5-2001 |
Novak had multiple sources; each may be separately culpable. Why would Libby risk a perjury rap and losing his job if no one in his area was responsible? If no one in his area was responsible, how could he have committed perjury? What's with his "aspens" note to Miller? I'm so amused that all of a sudden perjury is such a trivial matter. Seems back in '98, if Clinton said he had two eggs for breakfast but he really had three there would have been another article of impeachment. I wish the 1998 archives were still available here, some of the anti-Clinton posts were sooooooo high-minded! Wednesday I asked, "What pray tell would be different about Libby's case?" Still waiting for an answer; until then here's another hint: "He's Republican." | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 5849 Registered: 8-2003 |
To put what Libby did on the same level as Clinton lying in a sexual harassment case which he had to settle or in a Whitewater investigation which indicted and convicted a Federal Associate Attorney General on two felony counts as well as the sitting governor of Arkansas (among other people) is remarkable and sadly predictable. That being said, sure -- you can't get away with lying to a Federal Prosecutor who's investigating something. You can lie to a cop though. Or your local DA. Never understood that myself, but there it is. Fitzgerald was charged with finding the the person who leaked Plame's information to the press. He found it. Day one. And he gets a panicked, frantic Libby on testimony into a crime that didn't happen. Sure...legally you could string Libby up on that. Perjury is perjury. Most people think people commit perjury to cover up a crime. That didn't happen here. | ||
| joel dranove Citizen Username: Jdranove Post Number: 1003 Registered: 1-2006 |
Let's wait for the Libby case to play out. Most of you don't have any idea of the power of a United States Attorney, including the power to subpoena, seize documents, interrogate, promise freedom to criminals for what they want to hear, the power to interpret laws written by our brilliant congressmen and congresswomen to their benefit, the power to operate in secret, well aware most of you will never feel the sting and venom of a prosecutor bent on finding a needle in a haystack, or, creating a needle in a courtroom. Do you think plame-lite, her lying hubby, will be indicted? Or plame, for sending him on a critical mission, a mission for which he was only qualified in bed? jd | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 5724 Registered: 5-2001 |
Joel, I recited those very same arguments right here on this board in 1998. After a United States Attorney, bent, as you say, on finding a needle in a haystack or creating a needle in a courtroom, chased Bill Clinton for years to finally settle for nabbing him on a perjury rap. The Whitewater incident was certainly a crime, and crimes have victims. The Clintons lost $20,000 in the deal. Were they victims or perpetrators? Doesn't matter, does it, when they're Democrats. Starr spent millions of taxpayer dollars to get to the bottom of Whitewater, long after the first independent prosecutor found nothing. And when he finally got Clinton, he gets him (in cjc's words) "on testimony into a crime that didn't happen." That's right -- consentual sex between Bill and Monica was not a crime. "Most people think people commit perjury to cover up a crime. That didn't happen here." But be that as it may, the right wingers were so bent on getting Clinton for anything that they threw away all reason and common sense and dragged the country through the mud of a sex scandal purely to get their political jollies. And now all of a sudden you've got scruples and a sense of proportion. Tough luck. You've set the table, now eat your crow. | ||
| Bob K Supporter Username: Bobk Post Number: 12555 Registered: 5-2001 |
I rather expect this isn't over. While the initial leaker turns out to be one of the people generally thought of as a "good guy" by both the right and the left, I suspect that during Mr. Libby's trial there is going to be testimony about just who declassified covert status, which automatically had because she was an officer in the operations side of the agency. Hint. When VP Dick did his "mia culpa" on Fox News with Britt Hume after shooting his hunting companion, he, out of the blue, revealed he had authority to classify and declassify information. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 5851 Registered: 8-2003 |
tom -- Put some ice on it, as one of your heroes said. You are willfully offtrack in your Clinton analogy. He wasn't prosecuted for having sex with Monica and you know it. He was prosecuted for lying in a deposition about his sexual history with past employees or people he met in an official capacity in a sexual harassment suit filed by Paula Jones. He had to settle that case because he would have incurred a guilty verdict. Not a guilty verdict for lying -- he got that anyway -- but a guilty verdict for sexual harassment which IS a crime. Well, it's a crime unless you're a feminst and it's 1998. | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 5852 Registered: 8-2003 |
BobK -- what official of what agency has said Plame had covert status? | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 2422 Registered: 8-2003 |
if we're going to bring in the events of the Clinton era, we should at least get our facts straight. Initially, the judge in the case threw out Paula Jones's entire case on summary judgement. That is, even if the facts she alleged were proven to be true, Bill Clinton did not commit sexual harassment as it is defined by law. So he did not lie to cover up a crime, he lied to cover up a political embarrassment. It was only after he perjured himself in the deposition that he decided to settle with Jones instead of fighting her appeal of the original verdict. Why did he settle if there was no crime? I don't know, but at that point it's likely he was cutting his political losses. With regard to the Libby case, I don't understand why so many people are being dense about what Armitage's revelation means to it. (OK, I do understand why they're being obtuse...) Regardless, the fact that Armitage was the first to reveal the information to Novak doesn't let Libby or Rove off the hook for serving as confirming witnesses for Novak, or revealing the information to other reporters like Miller and Cooper. Was an actual crime committed? I don't know, but there was certainly enough evidence for an investigation to be carried out. And if Libby lied and obstructed justice, we'll never know for sure whether a crime was committed or not. I've probably posted this ten times at this point, but just because a crime wasn't committed doesn't mean Armitage, Rove, and Libby didn't do anything wrong. Plame's status was classified (yes it was. the State Department circulated a memo that said her identity was classified.) and those guys were blabbing about it to reporters. That's enough that they could have been fired, but should have resigned, and certainly should have had their security clearance yanked. | ||
| Dr. Winston O'Boogie Citizen Username: Casey Post Number: 2423 Registered: 8-2003 |
From the original dismissal of Jones's charges against Clinton:
http://www.courttv.com/archive/legaldocs/government/jones/ruling.html | ||
| cjc Citizen Username: Cjc Post Number: 5853 Registered: 8-2003 |
If Jones appeal was denied, Clinton didn't cover up a crime. We'll never know which is a pitty because his case at least to people on MOL seemed so strong. So strong, in fact, that he settled. Why settle over "political embarrassment" when his approval ratings were reported to be skyrocketing with each and every reported grope? Every time the story was told, he was closer to a 3rd term. That makes no sense. | ||
| tom Citizen Username: Tom Post Number: 5725 Registered: 5-2001 |
How did Jones come up with the resources to take her case so far? Seems to me it must be an expensive proposition to hire a legal team good enough to go after a sitting President, and keep the case running for some six years. Hm. Interesting question. Care to bite? The answer might speak to the question of why Clinton settled instead of, say, flipping her the bird. |
