TomatoPie wrote:What did I say that was more partisan than those with the opposite POV?

Libby was railroaded, period. The entire investigation was a farce, it was partisan, it was pure payback for the prosecution of Clinton. Plame was not covert, even the WaPo called Joe a liar, from the very beginning Fitzy knew that Armitage was the leaker, yet he pressed on. He's no better than Nifong. Armitage was charged with nothing, Libby was prosecuted because Tim Russert had a different version of a converstation than Libby did. Ridiculous.

TomatoPie wrote: how can you call for impeachment based on this turn of events? Is it an impeachable offense to piss off partisan Democrats?

dajafi wrote:And as for "Plame was not covert"... dear god. How many times must you be proven wrong on this before you concede the point?

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18924679/

March 22, 2007
Was Valerie Covert?
By Robert Novak

WASHINGTON -- Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra could hardly believe what he heard last Friday on television as he watched a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing. Rep. Henry Waxman, the Democratic committee chairman, said his statement had been approved by the CIA director, Gen. Michael Hayden. That included the assertion that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA operative when her identity was revealed.

... Hayden, in a conference with Hoekstra Wednesday, still did not answer whether Plame was covert under the terms of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.

The former CIA employee's status is critical to the attempted political rehabilitation of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. The Democratic target always has been Karl Rove, President Bush's principal adviser. The purpose of last week's hearing was to blame Rove for "outing" Plame, in preparation for revoking his security clearance.

Claims of a White House plot became so discredited that Wilson was cut out of John Kerry's presidential campaign by the summer of 2004. Last week's hearing attempted to revive a dormant issue. The glamorous Mrs. Wilson was depicted as the victim of White House machinations that aborted her career in secret intelligence.

Waxman and Democratic colleagues did not ask these pertinent questions: Had not Plame been outed years ago by a Soviet agent? Was she not on an administrative, not operational, track at Langley? How could she be covert if, in public view, she drove to work each day at Langley? What about comments to me by then CIA spokesman Bill Harlow that Plame never would be given another foreign assignment? What about testimony to the FBI that her CIA employment was common knowledge in Washington?

Instead of posing such questions, Waxman said flatly that Plame was covert, and cited Hayden as proof. The DCI's endorsement of Waxman's statement astounded Republicans whose queries about her had been rebuffed by the Agency. That confirmed Republican suspicions that Hayden is too close to Democrats.

...
Toensing testified that Plame was not a covert operative as defined by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (which she had helped draft as a Senate staffer in 1982) if only because she was not stationed overseas for the CIA the past five years. Waxman hectored Toensing, menacingly warning that her sworn testimony would be scrutinized for misstatements.

Waxman relied on his support from Gen. Hayden. When the DCI's role was pointed out to one of the president's most important aides, there was no response. The White House from the start has treated the Plame leak as a criminal case not to be commented on. The Democrats still consider it a political blunderbuss, aimed at Karl Rove and his boss.

drsmooth wrote:

TomatoPie wrote: how can you call for impeachment based on this turn of events? Is it an impeachable offense to piss off partisan Democrats?

How about "Stupidity Unbecoming A POTUS"?

Regardless how rabid your political biases, even you can certainly see how titanically moronic Dumbya's (Puppet Dumbya's; this was Cheney's call, not the current top officeholder's) timing is.

Trial in Error
If You're Going to Charge Scooter, Then What About These Guys?

By Victoria Toensing
Sunday, February 18, 2007; B01

.....

Fitzgerald apparently concluded that a purported cover-up was sufficient motive for Libby to trim his recollections in a criminal way. So when Libby's testimony differed from that of others, it was Libby who got indicted.

There's a reason why responsible prosecutors don't bring perjury cases on mere "he said, he said" evidence. Without an underlying crime or tangible evidence of obstruction (think Martha Stewart trying to destroy phone logs), the trial becomes a mishmash of faulty memories in which witnesses can seem as guilty as the defendant. Any prosecutor knows that memories differ, even vividly, and each party can be convinced that his or her version is the truthful one.

...

So here are my own personal bills of indictment:

* * *

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES PATRICK J. FITZERALD with ignoring the fact that there was no basis for a criminal investigation from the day he was appointed, with handling some witnesses with kid gloves and banging on others with a mallet, with engaging in past contretemps with certain individuals that might have influenced his pursuit of their liberty, and with misleading the public in a news conference because . . . well, just because. To wit:

· On Dec. 30, 2003, the day Fitzgerald was appointed special counsel, he should have known (all he had to do was ask the CIA) that Plame was not covert, knowledge that should have stopped the investigation right there. The law prohibiting disclosure of a covert agent's identity requires that the person have a foreign assignment at the time or have had one within five years of the disclosure, that the government be taking affirmative steps to conceal the government relationship, and for the discloser to have actual knowledge of the covert status.

From FBI interviews conducted after Oct. 1, 2003, Fitzgerald also knew that then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage had identified Plame as a CIA officer to columnist Robert D. Novak, who first published Plame's name on July 14, 2003.

· In January 2001, Libby was the lawyer for millionaire financier Marc Rich, whom President Bill Clinton pardoned shortly before leaving office. Fitzgerald, who was then an assistant U.S. attorney in the southern district of New York, and U.S. Attorney James Comey spearheaded the criminal investigation of that pardon.

....

· Fitzgerald granted immunity to former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer without ever asking what he would testify to; he permitted NBC News bureau chief Tim Russert to be interviewed in a law firm office with his lawyer present, while Novak was forced to testify before the grand jury without counsel present.

· Armitage, like Bush adviser Karl Rove, forgot one conversation with a reporter. Fitzgerald threatened Rove with prosecution; Armitage bragged that he didn't even need a lawyer.

· In violating prosecutorial ethics by discussing facts outside the indictment during his Oct. 28, 2005, news conference, Fitzgerald made one factual assertion that turned out to be flat wrong: Libby was not "the first official" to reveal Plame's identity.

* * *

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES THE CIA for making a boilerplate criminal referral to cover its derrière.

The CIA is well aware of the requirements of the law protecting the identity of covert officers and agents. I know, because in 1982, as chief counsel to the Senate intelligence committee, I negotiated the terms of that legislation between the media and the intelligence community. Even if Plame's status were "classified"--Fitzgerald never introduced one piece of evidence to support such status -- no law would be violated.

....

* * *

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES JOSEPH C. WILSON IV with misleading the public about how he was sent to Niger, about the thrust of his March 2003 oral report of that trip, and about his wife's CIA status, perhaps for the purpose of getting book and movie contracts.

...

· Wilson has claimed repeatedly -- including on MSNBC's "Countdown" on July 22, 2005 and at the National Press Club on Oct. 31, 2005 -- that he was sent to Niger because of his "specific skill set" and not because of his wife. But Senate intelligence committee documents indicate that Plame suggested his name for the trip, as did a State Department report and a CIA official who briefed the vice president's office.

· Although Wilson has repeatedly claimed that neither his trip nor his oral report was classified, the CIA sent documents about the trip marked "classified" to the vice president's office and to date has not released the essence of the oral report. A source later identified as Wilson claimed in a Washington Post article on June 12, 2003, that documents related to an alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal were forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." When Senate intelligence committee staff questioned that, as Wilson had never seen the documents, he responded that he may have "misspoken."

...

Plame was not covert. She worked at CIA headquarters and had not been stationed abroad within five years of the date of Novak's column.

* * *

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES THE MEDIA with hypocrisy in asserting that criminal law was applicable to this "leak" and with misreporting facts to wage a political attack on an increasingly unpopular White House. To wit:

· Notwithstanding the fact that major newspapers have highfalutin', well-paid in-house and outside counsel who can find the disclosure law and even interpret it, the following publications called for a criminal investigation:

· The Atlanta Journal-Constitution ....

· The Boston Globe .....

· The New York Times naively approved the investigation if it "focused on the White House, not on journalists." It later applauded Fitzgerald's appointment, declaring that he must be allowed "to use the full powers of a special counsel."

· The Washington Post ....

As recently as a week ago, the media were displaying their prejudice in this case. On "Meet the Press," journalists lamented that the Libby trial was revealing how government officials can use their relationships with reporters to plant stories that hurt their political enemies. Where was the voice at the table asking, "Didn't Wilson also use the media with his assertions in the New York Times and The Post?"

* * *

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES ARI FLEISCHER because his testimony about conversations differs from reporters' testimony, just as Libby's does. To wit:

· The former White House press secretary testified before the grand jury and at the trial that he had revealed Plame's identity to two reporters -- John Dickerson, then of Time magazine, and NBC News's David Gregory. Dickerson denied it. Gregory won't comment.

· On cross-examination, Fleischer testified that it was "absolutely correct" that he did not tell The Post's Walter Pincus on July 12, 2003, that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. Pincus emphatically contradicted this....

So indict Fleischer. He contradicted Pincus as materially as Libby contradicted Russert or Time's Matthew Cooper, the two witnesses who were the basis for the Libby indictment. Whoops! Can't do that. Fitzgerald gave Fleischer "pig in a poke" immunity. That's an old prosecutor's phrase meaning that Fitzgerald granted Fleischer immunity from prosecution without knowing what Fleischer would say. No problem -- indict Pincus. His testimony differed from Fleischer's and he didn't ask for immunity.

* * *

THIS GRAND JURY CHARGES RICHARD L. ARMITAGE with intentionally keeping silent about being the first person to reveal Plame's identity to reporters and with falsely telling the public that he did so at Fitzgerald's request because he did not want to be publicly embarrassed. To wit:

· Novak testified that Armitage told him on July 8, 2003, that it was Wilson's wife, "Valerie," who sent him on the Niger trip. Not until September 2006 did Armitage release Novak to reveal publicly that he had been the columnist's source.

· The Post's Bob Woodward testified that Armitage told him on June 13, 2003, rather colorfully: Wilson's "wife's a [expletive] analyst at the agency." When the FBI interviewed Armitage on Oct. 2, 2003, he apparently forgot about his taped interview with perhaps the most famous journalist of this generation. In November 2005 Armitage released Woodward from their confidentiality agreement -- but only to tell Fitzgerald, not the rest of us, how he had learned of Plame's identity.

....

....None of this was a profile in courage on the administration’s part, but the true insanity of the situation was withheld from the public until years later, when we learned that, long before the Justice Department had appointed Fitzgerald, it knew who had leaked to Novak. Early in the investigation, deputy secretary of state Richard Armitage informed investigators that he had told Novak about Mrs. Wilson (although he left out the fact that he had also leaked to the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward). But like the savvy bureaucratic infighter that he is, Armitage kept quiet publicly, allowing the vice president’s office to take the heat for something he had done.

So why did Fitzgerald go forward? Maybe someday he’ll tell us, but we’re not betting on it. Reasonable people can conclude that it was only Scooter Libby’s imperfect memory—not willful deception—that gave rise to the charges of lying under oath and obstruction of justice. Among the supporting players—including CIA officials, Bob Novak, Woodward and Walter Pincus of the Washington Post, and Time’s Matthew Cooper—no two participants in any conversation about Valerie Plame had the same recollection.

Whatever his motivations, Fitzgerald adopted the discredited Wilson’s script and focused his three-year investigation on Cheney, Libby, and Rove—and not, inexplicably, on others. Not on Armitage. Not on Ari Fleischer, either. The recent trial revealed that the former White House press secretary was granted immunity from prosecution, and that he admitted to telling two reporters about Plame’s employment. Those reporters were never even questioned. Nor did any charges arise from Fleischer’s faulty memory, even though a third reporter (Pincus) testified that Fleischer had told him too about Plame—something that Fleischer denied under oath.

There should have been no referral, no special counsel, no indictments, and no trial. The “CIA-leak case” has been a travesty. A good man has paid a very heavy price for the Left’s fevers, the media’s scandal-mongering, and President Bush’s failure to unify his own administration. Justice demands that Bush issue a pardon and lower the curtain on an embarrassing drama that shouldn’t have lasted beyond its opening act.

Disco Stu wrote:Beyond the fact that he DID in fact LIE, who really cares if she was covert or not? Even if there was grey area, WHY mention her name? Why at all? If she WASN'T covert, then WHY lie? You just have a web of lies and need to make it more webbier in order to fit your political agenda.

When you lie down at night and think about this stuff, do you feel happy that you'll defend people no matter what because they are high ups in your party? I just want to know how you justify it to yourself.

Warszawa wrote:Keith Olbermann has a special comment on this issue tonight on Countdown. I believe he will ask the Prez to resign.

dajafi wrote:Okay, now I really hate the WSJ OpinionJournal:

Minimum Wage; Jobless Kids

These lying scumbags actually quote me, by name, in the article. They take my work and draw a conclusion with which I entirely disagree.

They do have the germ of a point in one respect: if there's any situation in which a sub-minimum wage is justified, I think it's for publicly subsidized employment for part-time workers who aren't the primary supporters of their families. I believe that there's more total utility in employing, say, 70,000 NYC teenagers at $5 per hour than 41,000 at $7.25 per hour.

But that isn't what they're pushing; it's a return to the (previous) Golden Age of Profit in which workers had no protections and power was entirely on the side of employers.

I wonder if they'll print my letter.