TAP: The Meeting (Libby LEAKED to Miller 2 days afted Wilson column hit)

[johnfunk]

The other shoe drops and drops hard:

The Meeting
Scooter Libby and Judy Miller met on July 8, 2003, two days after Joe Wilson published his column. And Patrick Fitzgerald is very interested.
By Murray Waas
Web Exclusive: 08.06.05

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has told federal investigators that he met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8, 2003, and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame, according to legal sources familiar with Libby's account.

The meeting between Libby and Miller has been a central focus of the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald as to whether any Bush administration official broke the law by unmasking Plame's identity or relied on classified information to discredit former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, according to sources close to the case as well as documents filed in federal court by Fitzgerald.

The meeting took place in Washington, D.C., six days before columnist Robert Novak wrote his now-infamous column unmasking Plame as a "CIA operative." Although little noticed at the time, Novak's column would cause the appointment of a special prosecutor, ultimately place in potential legal jeopardy senior advisers to the president of the United States, and lead to the jailing of a New York Times reporter.

Well, well, well...

ON EDIT: Weird quotation marks fixed.

[Son of California]

1. This story needed a new headline

and here it is!

[xxqqqzme]

2. woweeeee-zoweeee

what a great piece. It us becoming clearer & clearer that they were pre-emptively discrediting Plame because she would have all the hard evidence that there were NO WMDs.

[CantGetFooledAgain]

3. This is a very good article. Recommended (nt)

[fearnobush]

4. Bush gives Libby a big Fuck No on waiver for Miller to testify.

See last paragraph = "And the president of the United States -- at whose pleasure Libby serves and who has vowed to do everything possible to get to the truth of the matter -- does not appear to be likely to direct Libby to grant such a waiver any time soon."


<>

[loudsue]

10. THERE, my friends, is the key: Bush won't make Libby cut Miller free

She could testify if Libby cut her free. But he hasn't. Bush could MAKE Libby cut her free. But he won't.

That gun smokes like a San Francisco hippy in the 60's.

Can you say "obstruction of justice" and "conspiracy"?

:kick::kick::kick:

[Media_Lies_Daily]

12. Bingo! By the way...

...not everyone who smoked in the '60s was a hippy! :-)

[leftchick]

21. lol

or in the 70s... :smoke:

[VegasWolf]

33. or in the 60's and 70's! nt

[Cha]

40. Or the '60's,'70's,'80's..

:)

[Jack Rabbit]

34. Misplaced post

!!

[Jack Rabbit]

35. Take the Frat Boy, for example

!!

[Jack Rabbit]

36. What else does Judy Miller know?

If Libby isn't cutting her free, he must be afraid of what else she could say.

This could lead to some wild speculation. But she could establish that Libby is telling the truth, so on the surface it would seem to his advantage to give her a waiver. Unless he's afraid of her saying more.

Could she implicate higher ups? You can't too much higher up than the Vice President's Chief of Staff.

[warrens]

51. This could be hugh. Series, even

This shows they started the conspiracy immediately, not as a little slip up a couple of weeks later. I like the phrase "met with." Scooter took her to lunch to try to get her to write the story, it looks like. Judy got wined and dined a lot by the White House and DoD.

[otohara]

5. Interview with Waas & Wilson on Democracy Now - Thursday

http://www.democracynow.org/index.pl?issue=20050804

[BamaBecky]

6. drip...drip...drip...drop!

[Gronk Groks]

7. So Judith Miller was protecting Libby, not Rove...

...this means two senior administration officials leaking the same information at the same time...

Conspiracy in fact and not in theory !!!!

[fishnfla]

13. It takes a crowd to make a conspiracy

crowd of rats, nesting

[Media_Lies_Daily]

14. And, if Bush is telling Libby he can't release Miller,......

...what does THAT tell you? :-)

[confludemocrat]

56. It tells me Judy/Libby have worked out this strategy to protect each other

She wants a pardon like Rove does. She's as guilty a war criminal as the rest of this scum.

[Eloriel]

30. Oh, EXCELLENT point -- sends chills down my spine

:toast:

:party:

[Ellipsis]

8. Horse kick!

[karlrschneider]

9. Vewwy vewwy intewesting!

:eyes:

Paint. Corner.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. My first visit to the board today....I think I've been rewarded! :-)

[hang a left]

15. Someone VERY close to the investigation is leaking I suspect.

snip>
And an attorney in private practice who once worked closely with Fitzgerald while both men were federal prosecutors said that the specific nature of Fitzgerald’s request was a "good indication that has specific information ... or perhaps even a witness who saw, or had other information" that Libby "might have brought documents to the meeting with Miller."
snip>

This is very interesting. I wonder if Libby was tailed. Maybe someone strongly suspected that damage control was inevitable. Wouldn't that be wonderful. Witnesses....pictures. :evilgrin:

This information indicates to me someone VERY close to the investigation is responsible for this leak.

snip>
On the following day, July 12, an administration official -- apparently not Rove or Libby -- told Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus that Wilson was sent to Niger on the recommendation of his wife. But Pincus has said that he did not publish a story because he “did not believe it true.”
snip>

Hadley? :shrug:

That is three administration officials....definately a conspiracy. Sounds alot like some perjurous statements were made as well. It also sounds like they are applying pressure for Libby to release Miller. But he may not, especially if he thinks someone testified to him having documents with him, they will need a corroboration. Fitzgerald has already stated that he knows who Miller's source was. Seems like Fitzgerald needs the details.

[Adrian Luca]

16. So much for heroically protecting a source

Does anyone really believe it's important for a reporter to protect a source if the source is the ruling power itself?

Judy Miller can rot.

[Carolab]

17. Right. Miller is only protecting herself in this.

She would talk, if she had that waiver. By not talking, she is playing CYA and NOT caring a damn about national security.

[AtomicKitten]

18. They're All Scum

The lot of them. This is a conspiracy perpetrated by a number of people in this administration. I have no sympathy for Ms. Miller. She should get no legal protection for protecting those who committed a crime. She is no hero. This has NOTHING to do with the first amendment. I'm getting damn sick of people (like Lou Dobbs, for instance) doing a virtual Judy-In-Jail watch. Who gives a crap? After channeling Chalabi's BS to the American sheep, she deserves worse.

[NNN0LHI]

28. Careful

That pumpkin headed racist Lou Dobbs has quite a following around here.

Don

[Eloriel]

31. Yeah, but I don't know of anyone who considers him perfect or

infallible or even remotely liberal.

[Peace Patriot]

38. If you just say, "They're all scum," then you might miss the obvious:

what were they so panicked about in the week of July 7 that they would call at least six reporters to get Plame outed, and involve so many top regime figures--a full court press--putting them all at high risk of exposure and charges of treason?

There is too much risk here, too much urgency, and too many involved for the goal to be mere political punishment of Joe Wilson. That's my read on it. I think the true goal had something to do with this time-line:

5/22/03: David Kelly, Brit chief WMD expert, starts whistleblowing to the BBC after the invasion, about the Blairites' "sexing up" of the Iraq intel docs.

7/7/03: After Kelly is identified and interrogated, Blair is told that Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things"--COULD say, not HAD said. (Hutton report.)

7/8/03: Libby launders Plame's identity through Miller, and thence to have a dozen Washington reporters, to get Plame outed. Lines abuzz all over DC, with top Bush officials and reporters stacked up like bowling pins for a prosecutor to knock over.

7/14/03: Plame outed (by Novak). ("Mission accomplished...")

7/18/03: Kelly found dead, under extremely suspicious circumstances; his office and computers searched.

7/22/03: The bigger Plame outing (by Novak), of the whole CIA front company for WMD non-proliferation, disabling all projects and putting covert agents at great risk.

Wilson published his article on 7/6, but was that really the trigger for the full court press against Plame--or was the trigger what happened the next day, 7/7, when Blair was warned of the "uncomfortable things" that Kelly "could say"?

I read an interview of Wilson in which he said that he'd called Condi Rice to get the regime to disavow the Iraq-Niger nuke claim, and she told him (through intermediaries) that she was not interested in his information, but, if he was so concerned about it, why didn't he publish it?

Sure sounds like she was baiting him. He'd called others as well, so his July 6 article could not have been a surprise to them. If it was just a set up of Wilson--to get him OR Plame--why didn't it run smoothly, with limited exposure of regime figures, and good cover stories? Why call SIX reporters? What was the hurry?

And why be so precipitous, and put so many at risk, if the only thing they feared was the public argument about their exaggerated Iraq WMD claims, which in Kelly's case was an argument about the WORDING of docs (endlessly debatable), and in Wilson's case an item (false Iraq-Niger nuke claim in Bush's SOTU speech) that could be dismissed as a "mistake" (and blamed on the CIA!). They had an iron grip on the news monopolies, with which to argue these points into oblivion. Why the hurry and the very great risk in the way they outed Plame and her network?

My guess: They were moving nukes or other WMDs through an illicit network to Iraq, in order to "find" them in Iraq (March-July 2003)--for the enormous political gain. Kelly stumbled upon this plot, and maybe foiled it--at the least, knew about it. Plame and Brewster Jennings, with their extensive covert WMD contacts around the world, helped foil the plot, or detected it, or were in a prime position to detect it, or confirm it (if Kelly blew the whistle), and thus were the second biggest threat to the Bush Cartel, after Kelly.

They had primed the public to expect a find of WMDs in Iraq. They had Judith Miller running around with the US troops in Iraq "hunting" for the WMDs. Were they just sitting around hoping some would be found, when they all knew there weren't any? Not likely.

Note: There were so many candidates who wanted to stop Bush/Blair, take your pick of who might've foiled such a plot--in addition to Kelly, Plame, B-J/CIA, and other Brits and Americans, France, Germany, Spain, Turkey, Russia, African and south/central American countries that got bullied by the Bushites about the UN vote on the war, middle Euro countries who got bullied into fighting, New Zealand, Japan, China, any given Arab or Muslim country or elements within it, etc. etc. The fear and hatred of Bush/Blair was (is) intense. Probably 90% of the people in the world would have acted to deny them a phony triumph in Iraq via a phony "find" of WMDs. But since it would likely have involved illicit networks, we may never know who spared us that particular set of Bush/Blair triumphal speeches. (And they may well be dead now, after Novak's outing of Brewster Jennings.)

A revelation that they had tried to PLANT WMDs in Iraq would have brought down both governments. It was a high risk gambit that could have gone either way--great gain, great loss. If true, then, when it got foiled, they would likely have been furious, and when exposure was threatened, they could well have gotten panicky and stumbled all over themselves in a rush to cover it up, leaving them all open to prosecution, possibly as high up as Cheney and Bush.

It's a sort of backwards argument--evidence of panic, so, WHAT could they have been panicked about? But it does hold up pretty well as a working hypothesis--that the core event around which the other events swirl was a July 7 call from Blair to Bush (with all the Bushites on board AF-1 on the trip to Africa, passing around the Plame memo): Kelly knows.

[tanyev]

41. And didn't I read that David Kelly had been in contact with Miller

shortly before his death?

[NashVegas]

47. Yes

Which may be one reason she's refusing to testify.

[robertpaulsen]

42. Plame onto BFEE planting WMD before her outing? Like this?

I knew what you were saying sounded familiar. So I looked around and found these articles:

US Unloading WMDs in Iraq


TEHRAN (Mehr News Agency) -- Over the past few days, in the wake of the bombings in Karbala and the ideological disputes that delayed the signing of Iraq's interim constitution, there have been reports that U.S. forces have unloaded a large cargo of parts for constructing long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in the southern ports of Iraq.

A reliable source from the Iraqi Governing Council, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Mehr News Agency that U.S. forces, with the help of British forces stationed in southern Iraq, had made extensive efforts to conceal their actions.

He added that the cargo was unloaded during the night as attention was still focused on the aftermath of the deadly bombings in Karbala and the signing of Iraq's interim constitution.

The source said that in order to avoid suspicion, ordinary cargo ships were used to download the cargo, which consisted of weapons produced in the 1980s and 1990s.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0313-08.htm



Here's more:

New Reports on U.S. Planting WMDs in Iraq


BASRA -– Fifty days after the first reports that the U.S. forces were unloading weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in southern Iraq, new reports about the movement of these weapons have been disclosed.

Sources in Iraq speculate that occupation forces are using the recent unrest in Iraq to divert attention from their surreptitious shipments of WMD into the country.

An Iraqi source close to the Basra Governor’s Office told the MNA that new information shows that a large part of the WMD, which was secretly brought to southern and western Iraq over the past month, are in containers falsely labeled as containers of the Maeresk shipping company and some consignments bearing the labels of organizations such as the Red Cross or the USAID in order to disguise them as relief shipments.

The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, added that Iraqi officials including forces loyal to the Iraqi Governing Council stationed in southern Iraq have been forbidden from inspecting or supervising the transportation of these consignments. He went on to say that the occupation forces have ordered Iraqi officials to forward any questions on the issue to the coalition forces. Even the officials of the international relief organizations have informed the Iraqi officials that they would only accept responsibility for relief shipments which have been registered and managed by their organizations.

more...

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0413-02.htm

[Peace Patriot]

45. Thanks, robertpaulsen! I hadn't seen these two articles, although I'd

seen these others...

A Pentagon debriefer named Nelda Rogers said there was a US op to bring WMDs into Iraq that was "bungled" by the CIA. The WMDs were "lost" when the team that was transporting them met with "friendly fire." (Could it be that this wasn't a "bungling" but rather a foiling?)

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/06/266752.shtml

-----

And the one in the Tehran Times of March 13, 2003--similar to the one in your post (but with less detail--f.i., no mention of Red Cross)--which isn't there any more, but was reposted on the internet at the web site of the Communist Party of Australia.

http://www.agitprop.org.au/nowar/20040324_guard_shipping_them_in.php
http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve04/g1176.html
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=3/13/2004&Cat=4&Num=011

"The Tehran Times reported on March 13 that US forces had unloaded a large cargo of parts for construction of long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction in the southern ports of Iraq.

"The information is said to come from a 'reliable source' in the Iraqi Governing Council..."

-----

The Nelda Rogers story seemed suspect to me because she reportedly got it from debriefing US troops, and I thought it more likely that the Bush Cartel would use an illicit network--not anything so obvious as US troops. I was also wondering about this IGC source as to the US unloading cargo under suspicious circumstances. I was thinking that Turkey might be the semi-friendly border they tried to get it across--not an Iraqi port--although the Red Cross and Maeresk details in your link give it credibility. But who knows at this point? If they could contact six reporters in a scattershot disclosure of top secret info, to get Plame outed, maybe the stupidity and incompetence factors need more consideration. (--and hubris.)

[Peace Patriot]

44. Here's what the Murray Waas article says re: July 7:

"Dated June 10, 2003, the (top secret memo identifying Plame) was written for Marc Grossman, then the undersecretary of state for political affairs. It mentioned Plame, her employment with the CIA, and her possible role in recommending her husband for the Niger mission because he had previously served in the region. The mention of Plame's CIA employment was classified "Secret" and was contained in the second paragraph of the three-page classified paper.

"On July 6, 2003, Wilson published his New York Times op-ed and appeared on Meet the Press. The following day, on July 7, the memo was sent to then-secretary of state Colin L. Powell and other senior Bush administration officials, who were scrambling to respond to the public criticism. At the time, Powell and other senior administration officials were on their way to Africa aboard Air Force One as members of the presidential entourage for a state visit to Africa.

"Rove and Libby apparently were not on that trip, according to press accounts. But a subpoena during the earliest days of the Plame investigation demanded records related to any telephone phone calls to and from Air Force One from July 7 to July 12, during Bush's African visit.

"On July 8, Novak and Rove first spoke about Plame, according to numerous press accounts. That was also the day that Libby and Miller met in Washington, D.C., to discuss Plame."

http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=10077

-------

How does this fit with Kelly dates?

The top secret memo identifying Plame was apparently composed June 10. Kelly had begun whistleblowing anonymously to the BBC May 22. His identity became known (to Brit intel) around June 30. The June 10 memo on Plame therefore indicates intent to out Plame (for whatever reason) apart from anything Kelly might know. They knew someone in England was whistleblowing. They didn't know who (the Brits top WMD expert) until a bit later.

Then things heat up. On the very day that Blair is told that Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things" (beyond "sexed up" intel), July 7, the Plame memo passes to Powell (and possibly other top Bushites including Bush) on AF-1. And the next day, July 8, Libby (not on the Africa trip) meets with Miller (an old friend of Kelly's-see below) to discuss Plame, and the Plame outing begins, involving multiple Bushites and reporters.

Phone calls/faxes to/from AF-1 were subpoenaed, re Libby and others. Any Blair calls to AF-1 would also be of interest (re: Kelly). The Blairites were in such a tither about Kelly, they interrogated him at a safe house, forced him to do a half-recantation before a committee of Parliament, outed his name to the press, and sent him home without surveillance or protection, where he soon turned up dead in circumstances that just about scream "assassination."

Just before he died (7/17), he sent an email to Judith Miller in which he was concerned about the "many dark actors playing games." Aside from that he was upbeat--looking forward to his daughter's wedding and returning to Iraq; and thought the whole controversy around him would blow over in a week. (Had he promised his bosses not to disclose the worst, and thought that was an end of it?)

An email to Judith Miller. Yup, the very same Judith Miller who was playing "Mata Hari" with Libby on July 8. She had cultivated Kelly as a WMD expert, and had used him as a major quoted source in her book "Germs." She failed to disclose his "dark actors" email (his family later disclosed it), nor her other connections to Kelly, in the news article she wrote about Kelly's death, July 21 (NYT). (And I suspect her of putting words in Kelly's mouth, in that article, about US troops not looking hard enough for WMDs in Iraq. Doesn't fit his state of mind at the time--as WMD whistleblower. And that was HER shtick--that they weren't looking hard enough.)

So what we may have here is two intersecting plots--a long time Bushite plot to get the CIA (the Plame memo composed June 10 in anticipation of the Wilson whistleblow), and whatever it was that turned Kelly around about the war in April-May hitting the fan on July 7 (Blair to Bush: Kelly knows); the Plame memo then immediately uploaded to AF-1, circulated and distributed to plan operatives (Libby, Rove, Miller...), and pushed out to multiple reporters at great risk to everybody involved. The laundering through Miller was a raggedy attempt at ass-covering; and soon fell apart. The lame story about Rovian revenge (against Wilson) doesn't quite cut it. (How does that explain the July 22 outing of Brewster Jennings?).

The igniter sure seems to be Kelly (7/7), not the Wilson publication (7/6) which had been planned for. The urgency and acceleration of the Plame/BJ outing--indicated by the porous cover stories and laundering efforts, the involvement of so many reporters, the "top secret" memo right there on AF-1 for many eyes to see (talk about stupid!)--is what got them into trouble. A slower, more considered outing might have gone undetected, and remained in the realm of unprovable skulduggery--if the purpose had been to punish Wilson and the CIA for their dissent about the war. (There are many ways that the Bush Cartel could have done that.) What the urgency was that week, that caused these very glaring blunders, is the question.

[dalaigh lllama]

46. this is a very shrewd piece of deducting

I think you may be right -- the urgency to expose all DOES seem to point to more at stake here than just retaliation.

I sure hope Fitzgerald is about ready to indict. The suspense is killing me.

[DoYouEverWonder]

58. They definitely panicked

It was during the trip to Africa that all of the Plame outing was plotted. There were not that many people along with Bush on this trip, so out pool of suspects is very small and specific. Bush, Rice, Powell (brought the memo), Card, Fleischer and Bartlett. Rove did not go on the trip and was either working in DC or on 'vacation'. Someone from the above group had to call Rove and set the wheels in motion. AF1 is not that big a plane, especially on a long trip. Bush is in this up to his ears and that is the elephant in the room that all these yahoos are trying to protect, aside from themselves of course.

[burythehatchet]

19. Judy will either be a made woman or a dead woman

[Orsino]

24. She's already a made woman.

Been carrying water for the right for years.

[johnfunk]

25. Judith "Patsy" Miller dug her own hole.

She's a lousy journalist. And her Jean d'Arc act does nothing to undo her own sloppy reporting on all those WMDs that weren't there.

She got had == by the Chalabi cadre and the Bush crime family.

Talk about a patsy

[burythehatchet]

29. agreed. but after you earn for the family and do your time, you get your

own trash collection route. that's when you're a made man. don't you watch the sopranos?

[Orsino]

48. Oh, I dunno.

I think she's lazy enough to believe most of what she writes. She's well-paid, and whores accordingly. I don't watch The Sopranos, but if I understand you correctly, she's already got her trash route, so to speak. Therefore she writes from the route-owners' POV.

[wishlist]

20. Excellent article asking why Bush hasn't asked Libby to give her a waiver

This article does a great job showing the timeline of events and hypocrisy of Bush saying that he wants to get to the bottom and that they are cooperating. Bush has failed to insist that Libby give Miller a personal waiver. Why isn't more of our media pointing this out?

Obviously Libby spilled the beans to Miller and is purposely stalling the investigation, as has Bush. If justice is done, Bush and all of his people involved in this matter should get indicted for obstruction of justice and perjury along with other charges related to leak of confidential info.

[johnfunk]

23. George W Bush = Unindicted Co-conspirator

by not waiving Scooter

[confludemocrat]

55. Judith Miller: soon to be indicted co-conspirator

Thinking she could claw her way back by helping attack a debunker of part fo the fictional underpinning of the war, that she played a central role in. Someone was taking a sledgehammer to her project of deception.

She is a behind-the-scene-intriguer insider who hopefully will be tried and sentenced with her rotten pals.

Why do you think Jason Epstein took off on a cruise? He's through with her.

[drduffy]

22. all will be irrelevant

because Bushco appointed their OWN boss for Fitzgerald. How long do ya thing before the investigation becomes an 'investigation'. How long do ya think Fitzgerald will last. The neocons are protecting themselves and their own. They will not give up power without resorting to every possible strategy up to and including a new 'New Pearl Harbor' followed by martial law. They are arrogant with respect to all others and all laws (except their own) and they are disdainful of the people. They believe theirs is the manifest destiny. They are traitors.

[Tippy]

26. I have said all along it was Cheney not Rove....

Ask yourslef how could Bush fire Cheney, and get away with it...

[slaveplanet]

27. Treasongate-related backgrounder

The controlling Law part 2- http://citizenspook.blogspot.com /

[Carolab]

37. Yes, this part nails it.

From the link above (http://citizenspook.blogspot.com/):

{snip}

Don't buy into the mantra that Plame was outed only as a retaliation upon her husband, Joe Wilson. The Bush crime family wouldn't put their necks on the chopping block for Treason just to smear Wilson, especially in light of the fact that they knew Wilson's Niger report was accurate. The risk reward pay off is ridiculously insufficient.

The Bush cabal are not a stupid bunch. You can ridicule Bush, Cheney and the gang all you like, but they're running our country, making billions through Haliburton and the Carlisle group, getting away with torture in open view, and rewriting the Constitution while flipping the middle finger to the main stream media who take that finger, lick it and deposit it in their anatomy on a daily basis...with a smile on their faces.

The only logical reason the intelligent Bush administration would expose themselves to prosecution under the controlling laws of the United States Code by outing Valerie Plame, Brewster Jennings and the CIA, is that they probably had no other choice. It was either expose a major CIA operation to the public at large through co-conspirator, Robert Novak, or allow Plame's CIA division to complete their WMD investigations.

The Bush syndicate must have come to the conclusion that they had a better chance of spinning the outing of Plame to petty retaliation for Wilson's debunking of the Niger document fraud, than they had of surviving an investigation by the CIA of their crimes against the USA and humanity at large, the fixing of intelligence to support a preemptive war and possibly the facilitation of future black op patsies.

{snip}

That link is an EXCELLENT read. Highly recommended!

[Jack Rabbit]

32. This one's been quiet for about a week

We all know it's not bound to stay quiet.

Unfortunately, I still think the focus will be narrow and indictments will go no higher than Rove and Libby. Of course, that's pretty high.

I'm convinced Bush and Cheney were aware of the plot, but that it will be impossible to prove it in court.

[halobeam]

39. Wouldn't it really depend on what charges would be brought to Libby/Rove?

What if they could get very serious time and if they "spill"... they are shown leniency? Just really wondering..

[Jack Rabbit]

52. I don't think they'll sing under any circumstances

Pardon me for thinking that.

[robertpaulsen]

43. Interesting reference about Hadley in the article.

Here it is:

But President Bush had still cited the Niger allegations during his 2003 State of the Union address as evidence that Hussein had an aggressive program to develop weapons of mass destruction.

When Wilson sought out White House officials believing they did not know all the facts, he was rebuffed. He then went public with his criticism of the Bush administration. It was then that senior administration officials began their campaign to discredit Wilson to counter his criticisms of them.

Rove and Libby, and to a lesser extent then-deputy National Security Council (NSC) adviser Stephen J. Hadley (who is currently Bush's NSC adviser), directed these efforts. Both Rove and Libby discussed with Novak, Cooper, and other journalists the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, and that she was responsible for sending him to Niger, in an effort to discredit him.


So Hadley was directing the Wilson smear campaign along with Rove and Libby. And their respective higher-ups were completely in the dark? Riiiight!

[robertpaulsen]

49. Perhaps Hadley is the source for Pincus.

Though I'd love it if Cheney himself did it.

[robertpaulsen]

50. Kick this to the top!

This thread deserves a flame!

:kick:

[halobeam]

53. another swift kick

:kick:

[Gelliebeans]

54. kick

[maxrandb]

57. How Can the President's Apologist Square This???

What I find most fascinating, and what could be most devastating, is the fact that their "moral, strong, integrity filled, compassionate, duty and honour bound hero", is ALLOWING A WOMAN TO GO TO JAIL. He could easily tell Scooter to talk and get this woman out of jail.

Instead, this "man of courage" is allowing a woman to take the fall for him.