Author: catnip

During the past three days, the US lost 8 more soldiers in the Iraq war. Expect the Bush administration to caution that, now that the campaign has begun for the planned December parliamentary elections, the insurgency will once again escalate. The problem is that it doesn’t seem to have slowed down now for a very long time, regardless of how much Bush would like to convince people otherwise by putting a happy face sticker in the “progress” column. That reality is now being voiced by more and more soldiers.

The old lie that “if you don’t support the war, you don’t support the troops” must be put to rest – for good.

Via AP:

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — More than half of North Carolina military members surveyed in the latest Elon University poll disapprove of President Bush’s handling of the war in Iraq and his overall job performance.

Nearly 53 percent of military members said they strongly disapproved or disapproved of Bush’s handling of his job. And just more than 56 percent of that same group strongly disapproved or disapproved of how he has dealt with the Iraq war.

This is Bush’s war that those soldiers are fighting for him and they have lost confidence in their Commander-in-Chief. Surely, they can’t all be liberal peace freaks as the delusional warmongers would have you believe.

If Fox News Had Been Around Throughout History…

Don’t forget: Daylight Savings Time ends tonite…

During Friday’s press conference, when Patrick Fitzgerald announced the 5 indictments against I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, responding to a reporter’s question about the right-wing talking point that charges like perjury, making false statements and obstruction were just “technicalities”, Fitzgerald replied bluntly, “That talking point won’t fly”. No doubt.

Regardless, the right-wing spin machine is so desperate to Save Scooter(tm) that they continue to use that one and more. The truth hurts – especially when you find out that one of your heroes allegedly lied. So, what do you do when your bubble is burst? You just lie some more!

Note: there is so much crap flying around out there right now that I just couldn’t bring myself to deal with a lot of it without feeling overwhelmingly nauseous, so I’ve just posted some highlights or lowlights, as it were.

Here are more right-wing talking points that just won’t fly:

From the WSJ’s Opinion Journal:

“Libby is charged with lying about a crime that wasn’t committed.”

Valerie Plame’s cover was blown. Libby is charged with lying about his role in that sordid affair.

FITZGERALD: He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly.

“To the extent that the facts alleged in the indictment can be relied upon…”

When you don’t have any other logical defense, attack the facts. That’s kind of ironic actually since Libby lied about his “facts” and was the only one charged with doing so. If someone else perjured themselves, they would have been charged too.

“But he [Fitzgerald] has thrust himself into what was, at bottom, a policy dispute between an elected Administration and critics of the President’s approach to the war on terror, who included parts of the permanent bureaucracy of the State Department and CIA.”

FITZGERALD: … It was known that a CIA officer’s identity was blown, it was known that there was a leak. We needed to figure out how that happened, who did it, why, whether a crime was committed, whether we could prove it, whether we should prove it.

[…]
That brings us to the fall of 2003. When it was clear that Valerie Wilson’s cover had been blown, investigation began.”

“Unless Mr. Fitzgerald can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Mr. Libby was lying, and doing so for some nefarious purpose, this indictment looks like a case of criminalizing politics.”

For some “nefarious” purpose? Lying is lying is lying and when you lie to a grand jury, whether you have “nefarious purposes” or not, you get charged. Apparently, Libby is now going to use the infamous “I can’t recall because I’m such a busy man” defense. That begs the question: why didn’t he (who is a lawyer) and his lawyer just use that defense in the first place? I’ll tell you why: because it’s a crock.

much more on the flip including unbelievable crap in WaPo and the NYT….

Ace of Spades blog:

“And so here we are. No crime was committed BEFORE the investigation, so he indicts someone on five charges (?) for statements made in the course of the investigation.

See above.

This post is actually full of lies including:
“You don’t need to empanel a grand jury to decide if Valerie Plame was a covert agent, or if any of the various national security laws were broken.

Right. Obviously they should have just hired that blogger. Actually, Bush should probably nominate him to the Supreme Court!

and…“This question could have been, and should have been, answered in the first month of legal investigation, using no greater investigative resources than a law library.”

Alrighty then! Who needs courts? Dissolve them all, I say.

Wanker.

“And during those two years he’s had people in jail for contempt and questioned many witnesses before the grand jury.”

“People”? Judith Miller is “people”?

Daily Pundit:

“Joesph [sic] Wilson and his wife should be investigated for “how a CIA employee manipulated the system into sending her obviously unqualified husband on a junket at taxpayer’s expense with the apparent goal of attacking the President in whose administration she ostensibly worked.”

Obviously. Why hasn’t anyone thought of that one before??

The NYT:

“Headline: Novel Strategy Pits Journalists Against Source”

Wrong. Libby gave those reporters permission to testify about their conversations with him.

“Mr. Fitzgerald has gathered documents and other evidence showing that Mr. Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, learned of the identity of a C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, weeks before he talked with the three reporters. But, according to the indictment, Mr. Libby told the grand jury that the information came from Mr. Russert.”

That headline should actually read “Libby’s Lying Strategy Pitted Reporters Against Himself”.

WaPo:

Plame was not a covert agent and this is all Fitzgerald’s fault.

“It is clear that, at least by sometime in January 2004 — and probably much earlier — Fitzgerald knew this law had not been violated. Plame was not a “covert” agent but a bureaucrat working at CIA headquarters.

Yes, that’s in WaPo, folks.

FITZGERALD:“Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified.” And “You need to know at the time that he transmitted the information, he appreciated that it was classified information, that he knew it or acted, in certain statutes, with recklessness.”

More from WaPo:

“Mr. Libby was not Mr. Novak’s source”

How do they know if that’s true?

“The public record offers no indication that Mr. Libby or any other official deliberately exposed Ms. Plame to punish her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV. Rather, Mr. Libby and other officials, including Karl Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff, apparently were seeking to combat the sensational allegations of a critic.”

“seeking to combat” = “punish”…in my books

We’re not stupid. We know exactly how this administration deals with its enemies.

“To criminalize such discussions between officials and reporters would run counter to the public interest.”

No – what’s criminal is administration officials leaking the name of a covert CIA agent to the press. Which part of that don’t you get?

I need dramamine.

__________________

All Fitzgerald quotes are taken from his press conference.

From the indictment:

21. On or about July 10 or July 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke to a senior official in the White House (“Official A”) who advised LIBBY of a conversation Official A had earlier that week with columnist Robert Novak in which Wilson’s wife was discussed as a CIA employee involved in Wilson’s trip. LIBBY was advised by Official A that Novak would be writing a story about Wilson’s wife.

CNN’s Larry King has just announced that sources have revealed that Official A is Karl Rove.

Fitzgerald had been asked about Official A during his press conference today and said he wasn’t sure if he could reveal Official A’s identity – that he would have to check with his colleagues. Apparently, they have decided to make that revelation tonite.

So, it looks like Rove was Novak’s source. I think Rove is in big trouble.

Update [2005-10-28 22:12:9 by catnip]:: John Solomon of AP has more about all of today’s indictment news, including the fact that Official A is Karl Rove.

Crooks and Liars has the video of Fitzgerald’s press conference.

WaPo has the transcript.

Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s press conference on today’s indictments in the Valerie Plame affair will begin at approximately 2:15pm ET.

You can watch or listen live at C-SPAN or CBS News.

Lewis “Scooter” Libby has been indicted on 5 counts:

1 count of obstruction of justice
2 counts of perjury
2 counts of making false statements

Read the official indictments here. (.pdf file)

Mr Libby has resigned.

Today not only marks the announcement of at least one indictment in the Plame affair – that of Lewis “Scooter” Libby for making false statements as has been widely reported even before Patrick Fitzgerald makes the official announcement this afternoon at 2pm ET. It also marks the beginning of what has to be a strong and relentless campaign by the Democrats and others on the left to make the case that it is not only one or two “bad apples” in the White House who are guilty, it’s also the President and the Vice President.

Bush and Cheney cannot be allowed to distance themselves from Libby and Rove by simply forcing Libby to resign or by having Rove take a leave of absence, which he should rightly do while he is still under investigation in this matter.

The president and the vice president know both of these men well. They have known them and worked with them for many, many years. They know their characters. They know their motives and methods. Bush and Cheney will have no credibility in any attempts they may now make to distance themselves from two of their closest allies. They fostered this culture of corruption and deceit and they allowed this to happen under their watch – just as they did in their tacit approval of torture which they blamed on “a few bad apples”. They are as guilty as Libby and Rove and must not be allowed to skirt any blame or guilt.

If Libby is indicted only on the false statements charge, we cannot fall into the right-wing’s trap of minimizing the importance of such an event. Libby has not operated in a vacuum. Neither has Rove. No one in the White House does. They work in concert and their aim in dealing with their opponents has always been focused on complete destruction.

This administration has been one of the most secretive, nasty, deceptive, irresponsible, power-hungry and vindictive in US history. It cannot sustain that release of poison upon its citizens for an extended period of time without experiencing blowback. Now is the time when they are experiencing what rest of us have been for years – the pain of their own attacks.

Make them feel it.

Consider this week, this day as the unofficial kickoff of Campaign 2006; these “very, very dark days for the White House”, as Andrew Card laments. You can bemoan the fact that some of the Democratic leaders have not been as aggressive as you would have liked in the past. You can stay behind if you like. Or, you can hop on the bus and move forward with the rest of us who are seizing this day as a new beginning. Sometimes, you create revolutions. Sometimes, your foes bring them upon themselves. Regardless, this revolution is moving ahead with or without you. Its time has come.

Niranjan Ramakrishnan, writing at Counterpunch, reminds us of a very disturbing reality: the fact that many of us hope that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will finally be the one to finally convince all Americans that the Bush administration lied its way into the Iraq war and that he will tell us all exactly how it happened.

Despite the fact that most Americans are now opposed to the war and President Bush, many still choose not to hold the Bush administration fully accountable for what it has done. If they did, they would be screaming for their representatives to impeach Bush and Cheney for what they’ve perpetuated: the destruction of Iraq and the deaths and injuries of countless soldiers and civilians – all based on lies.

We see it in congresspeople on both sides who, as Meteor Blades reminds us, still call the war a “mistake”. As he tells us: this was not a mistake, this was a deliberate deception by power-hungry warmongers. Surely there can be no greater outrage than knowing that your country’s leaders have sent its sons and daughters to die over lies.

Yet, here we are on the eve of possible indictments in the Plame affair, after more than 2000 US soldiers have perished in Iraq and the people’s best hope for getting to the bottom of the trail of deceit that led there is one lone prosecutor – Patrick Fitzgerald – because those in power and those in the opposition cannot rock the foundations of the administration hard enough to move them out of DC permanently.

As Counterpunch’s Ramakrishnan, concludes:

So why is this riveting the country’s attention? Because the story follows the familiar theme so beloved of Hollywood and John Grisham — the lone hero struggling against a sinister web of evil, where everything comes down to one last battle on the edge of the cliff . Now playing at a TV set near you: Fitzgerald Against the Machine.

But when institutions have been hollowed out, consigning checks on unbridled power to hopes of individual heroism and goodness, we have doubly arrived, to the promised land of the Reagan revolution, and at the doorstep of the third world.

There is something very broken about a system of government that is unable and unwilling to thoroughly account for how it got itself into an illegal war and that refuses to inform its people and the rest of the world about how it will finally get out.

The Wall Street Journal (subscription only) adds its voice in Friday’s edition to those at the NYT and WaPo which have both reported that Libby will likely be indicted for making false statements and that Karl Rove is still in serious legal jeopardy, regardless of the fact that Patrick Fitzgerald’s current grand jury ends its term on Friday. Indictments of others involved in the Plame leak case have not been ruled out.

Mr. Rove’s lawyer has tried in recent weeks to persuade Mr. Fitzgerald not to charge his client, and met with the prosecutor as recently as Tuesday to discuss the case.

The potential indictment of Mr. Rove has been considered a nightmare scenario by members of the Republican party,

Welcome to the nightmare the rest of us have been living ever since Bush and Turdblossom took over the country.

In a WSJ companion piece on the leak investigation, “At Root of Leak Probe
Is Prewar Dispute”, reporter Jay Solomon details the rift between the White House and the CIA with the help of two of our regular contributors: Larry Johnson and Col. Patrick Lang.

WASHINGTON — At the root of the investigation into the leaking of the identity of a CIA operative is a feud between the Central Intelligence Agency and the White House over whether top administration officials politicized intelligence information in the buildup to the Iraq war.

With charges likely to be filed as early as today, the ripple effects of that feud are still being felt. The same tension over prewar intelligence that led to the leaking of a CIA operative’s identity also led to finger-pointing between the agency and the White House and contributed to a decision to reorganize the intelligence community and put the CIA under new White House oversight. Dozens of senior CIA analysts and covert operatives, including the No. 2 at the Directorate of Operations — the agency’s clandestine network — have in recent months left the Langley, Va., offices, often to higher wages in the private sector.

Now some intelligence professionals think indictments might help clear the air by effectively penalizing administration aides for intruding into intelligence matters and prompting the White House to tread more carefully. And that, say current and former intelligence officials, might embolden the CIA to be more forceful in its analysis, without fearing information would be twisted.

Any indictments would be a “huge deal … because they will help restore hope that the system works,” said Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and counterterrorism official at the State Department.

According the article, there is also growing tension as Bush appointee John Negroponte, Director of the Office of National Intelligence, attempts to reorganize the system by “stripping out some units of the CIA and placing them under his direct control” along with “seeking to institute standard procedures across the intelligence community, such as ways to handle clandestine agents”.

Much displeasure has also been aimed at Porter Goss who has been tasked with overseeing the restructuring of the CIA:

Critics say Mr. Goss brought senior-level aides and an aloof management style that didn’t mesh with the CIA’s culture, and failed to restore the confidence of the U.S.’s principal intelligence body.

The article goes on to look at the history of conflicts between the White House, CIA analysts and former CIA Director George Tenet who claimed the CIA had a “slam dunk” case to invade Iraq.

Responding to the White House’s claims that there was no political pressure on intelligence analysts and professionals before the war to fix the intelligence and that the Fitzgerald investigation may finally prove that there was, Col. Patrick Lang tells the WSJ:

“Many people will feel vindicated,” said Patrick Lang, a former head of human intelligence collection at the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, who has regular contact with many active analysts and agents. “There’s a deep sense of satisfaction among those who were pressured [on intelligence issues] but were told not to say they were pressured.”

Just in…

Rove will not be indicted…remains under investigation…grand jury will ask to extend its term…

more as we get it…

Update [2005-10-27 22:45:35 by catnip]:: Here’s the link to the NYT story which reads:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 – Associates of I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, expected an indictment on Friday charging him with making false statements to the grand jury in the C.I.A. leak inquiry, lawyers in the case said Thursday.

Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, will not be charged on Friday, but will remain under investigation, people briefed officially about the case said. As a result, they said, the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, was likely to extend the term of the federal grand jury beyond its scheduled expiration on Friday.

As rumors coursed through the capital, Mr. Fitzgerald gave no public signal of how he intends to proceed, further intensifying the anxiety that has gripped the White House and left partisans on both sides of the political aisle holding their breath.

[…]

Administration officials said that the White House would seek to keep as low a profile as possible if indictments were issued; Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, did not schedule a briefing for Friday, and Mr. Bush plans to leave in the afternoon for a weekend at Camp David.

Note: I heard about this NYT story originally on CNN’s NewsNight show with Aaron Brown who said exactly what I had written: that Libby will be indicted according to the NYT. The NYT article does not actually say as much. I will double-check Brown’s transcript once it’s up. – catnip

[editor’s note, by catnip]: Brown has now read the partial text of the NYT’s article on his show and discussed with WH correspondent John King that the indictment of Libby is “expected”. King says he’s spoken to several collegues of Libby’s tonite and that they too expect him to be indicted but none of them would say for certain.

more updates on the flip side including a statement from Booman, currently on assignment…

Update [2005-10-28 0:40:53 by catnip]:: As Man Eegee points out in the comments from a link to the new WaPo article, “Rove, Libby Assemble Team to Handle Possible CIA Leak Indictments”, Andrew Card is forlorn: “These will be very, very dark days for the White House”. Well, maybe you guys should have thought about that before you created this mess in the first place. I’m just sayin’…

Booman, calling in from an undisclosed location while on double-super-duper-secret assignment has this to say about the WaPo article:

“The NYT makes it sound like Rove will not be indicted. The WP does not make that assumption. All indications are that the announcement will rock the
world. Libby is dreaming if he thinks he is only gonna get hit with false statements.

The WP is cautious, but makes clear that the White House thinks they are fucked. I don’t want to be overly optimistic, and tomorrow may only reveal a little piece of the overall case, but they are getting reamed and they know it.”

The BBC reports that Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants Iran expelled from the UN after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be “wiped off the map”. Probably not a smart move on Iran’s part.

Sharon also said, “A country calling for the destruction of another people cannot be a member of the UN”.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

EU leaders stated, “Calls for violence, and for the destruction of any state, are manifestly inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community”.

Pot. Kettle. Black. on the part of some of those countries too.

Here are some past quotes from George W Bush about Saddam Hussein, the GWOT and the Iraq war:

Our nation is somewhat sad, but we’re angry. There’s a certain level of blood lust, but we won’t let it drive our reaction. We’re steady, clear-eyed and patient, but pretty soon we’ll have to start displaying scalps.

For all who love freedom and peace, the world without Saddam Hussein’s regime is a better and safer place.

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.

All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way — they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.

There’s just something very disgusting about hypocrisy, isn’t there? I don’t recall Sharon and the EU leaders calling for the US to be expelled from the UN.

Surprisingly, or maybe less so since the Bush administration used the same kind of rhetoric in the past, the US is not backing the call for Iran’s expulsion from the UN.

“Iran is a member of the United Nations,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. “What I think we would encourage instead is Iran to start behaving in a responsible manner as a member of the international community.”

Pot. Kettle. Black.