"Could it be Bush's Watergate?"

[GreenPartyVoter]

Just as it was not the Watergate break-in per se (but the subsequent cover-up) that brought Nixon down, so it may be that what Rove said and did after the fact will prove his undoing.

At the center of the controversy is an obscure and very restrictive 1982 federal statute designed to protect American spies. The legislation is known as the "Philip Agee" law and was put in place to discourage people such as Agee (a disaffected leftist who had been in the CIA) from "outing" covert CIA operatives stationed abroad. Valerie Plame appears to have fallen under this category of protected names since she had worked undercover for the agency in her overseas posts.

The obstacle to getting a conviction against Rove for leaking her identity to reporters is that he would have had to have known that she was an undercover operative and also known that it was against the law to reveal her identity.

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0822-24.htm

[tom_paine]

1. Only in a Free Nation

And I have my doubts as to whether Amerika is THAT anymore.

[rateyes]

2. IMO, he is guilty, not so much of the "Agee law..."

as he is the Espionage Act. Basically, if anyone shares classified info with anyone not authorized to have it, that person can be prosecuted under the espionage act (normal penalty fine and up to 10 yrs.)---and, if that espionage (sharing classified info) concerns WMD info---which this did--then it can get that person the death penalty. 18 USC 792, 793, and 794.

http://frwebgate4.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/waisgate.cgi?WAISdocID=73512313798+0+0+0&WAISaction=retrieve

[Kelvin Mace]

Nope.

Those things will never happen with the corporate media ever again (unless it is a Dem who screws up).

[turbo_satan]

3. Until we get either the House or the Senate back...

... it won't matter. Bush himself could be caught red-handed carrying a suitcase-nuke into the Times Square subway station and they'd find a way to turn him into a hero.

[charlie]

4. No

This is legal minutiae... zzzzzzzzzzzz...

Nixon finally came undone because the revelation of the tapes came shortly after Dean's outlandish testimony. At last, a he-said-he-said bit of high drama the public could grasp. Dean vs Nixon, who's the devil, who's the angel? Place yer bets.

Dubya isn't going to be nailed on a legal technicality. His polling may suffer a bit, but for a real KO, there needs to be something salacious, something tawdry, so the public will be compelled to leer...

[buzzard]

5. That implies if I don't know it is against the law to murder someone

then I can't be charged. I really am curious as to how this works in reality.

[The Backlash Cometh]

6. Yes. It's a matter of time.

I think that they are testing the waters with the public right now to see how far they can stretch out our Iraq occupation so we can strategically withdraw without leaving a country that will one day stand up to bite us in the ass.

Also, I think that our quasi-allies are getting time right now to fix their affairs because there is going to be a backlash from mainstream America when they catch wind of the drug for arms crap that has been going on.

AND...I believe all this because the first leak in the Sibel Edmonds case came from Vanity Fair and they fingered Dennis Hasteret, who Sibel Edmonds claims, is not even the big story. But I think someone is looking ahead to make sure that once Bush and Cheney get indicted, that Hasteret, who is next on the chain of command, doesn't get the position by default.

[GreenPartyVoter]

7. I thought the same thing about Hastert.

[rateyes]

8. Which is scary, because after Hastert..

the next in line is Ted Stevens of Alaska. YUK!

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. What do you know about him?

[rateyes]

11. President Pro Tempore

of the Senate...from Alaska, wants drilling in ANWR, just about the most RW Senator there is, IMHO--right up there on a par with the Newts and Delays and Santorum's of the world.

Arrogant--can't stand to hear him speak on the floor of the Senate or anywhere else.

[tjdee]

9. If the press would get off their asses, yes.

The key to unraveling Watergate was Woodward and Bernstein, going after this story, god forbid, PAST office hours!

Today we have the crack investigative journalists like.... Wolf Blitzer! Aaron Brown! Paula Zahn! Rita Cosby! :puke: