Comments on: End of the Wilson-Plame Scandal?

By: L-Shuffle

L-Shuffle — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 12:36:00 +0000

McGehee's self-inflating, non-denial denial would make more sense if you replace the words "Bush-bashing" with "pro-American ethics." But, as usual, he's not talking about what's good for America. Like many proponents of the Washington/ Kennebunkport Elite, McGehee offers no substance, just hot air in the guise of a defense. You won't win hearts and minds with that weak parry. No surprise to learn this morning that Bush's attorney in the Plame-Wilson scandal is the same guy who is representing Ken Lay. These Elites know no shame, so outing a CIA operative certainly isn't beyond them. They'll do anything to stay in power and make more money on the backs of the middle class.

By: Atm

Atm — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 05:50:08 +0000

Given the political games that Wilson and his wife were playing, she should have been fired. We can't have CIA agents pursuing their own agendas in gathering (or not gathering) intelligence.

By: McGehee

McGehee — Wed, 14 Jul 2004 02:38:49 +0000

Yet another victory for McGehee's Law. The news is bad for the Bush-bashers, and so they swarm out through the blogosphere hurling accusations of coverup.

By: L-Shuffle

L-Shuffle — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 22:03:14 +0000

Carpeicthus,

You don't really think these guys have the kind of integrity it would take to come clean, do you? Another reason to vote Kerry - to find out who these treasonous cowards are who outed Plame.

Unless you were kidding. Were you kidding?

By: carpeicthus

carpeicthus — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 21:06:46 +0000

Awesome, story over, no legal problem here. I can't seem to find the link where whomever leaked her name has come clean. Weird.

By: ritabob

ritabob — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 20:14:15 +0000

Adaplant,

Thanks. I take those excerpts to mean the CIA isn't ready to correct its earlier report while Bush is still in office, and that we can believe Wilson until someone reputable can prove otherwise. The Wilson-Plame excerpts are classic non-denial denials.

By: adaplant

adaplant — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 20:02:33 +0000

FROM THE REPORT: "Additional Views of Chairman Pat Roberts" "Despite our hard and successful work to deliver a unanimous report, however, there were two issues on which the Republicans and Democrats could not agree: o - 1) whether the Committee should conclude that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's public statements were based on knowledge he actually possessed, and o - 2) whether the Committee should conclude that it was the former ambassador's wife that recommended him for his trip to Niger." And about Saddam seeking to purchase uranium from Africa: "(U) Conclusion 26 To date, the Intelligence Community has not published an assessment to clarify or correct its position on whether or not Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa as stated in the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). Likewise, neither the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) or Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), which published assessments on possible Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium, have ever published assessments outside their agency to correct their previous positions." None of this is settled by the report, one way or another.

By: Ipse Dixit

Ipse Dixit — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 19:44:39 +0000

Pounding The Table Is All He Has Left
Marshall is grasping at a very thin reed in his desperation to keep beating his dead hobby horse.

By: newcal

newcal — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 18:36:03 +0000

James, I don't get you. Outting Plame is/was a significant threat to national security. You know Rove called Matthews and offered the story. You know the leak came from the VP's office. How can you call yourself a journalist and downplay this? Right, left or center, Republican or Democrat, if we don't agree that this type of behavior by the Bush Administration is reprehensible, by God, what have we become?!? The people in Cheney's office committed an act of treason. Please, do your job!

By: Joseph Marshall

Joseph Marshall — Tue, 13 Jul 2004 18:15:23 +0000

Isn't it amazing how the politics of lawbreakers (yes, revealing a CIA agent's name still breaks the law, as far as I have heard) influences how much pursuing such law breakers becomes a "matter of principle" in the minds of so-called "conservatives" firmly committed to "principles and values"? When the last President was in office, a comprehensive and public search for everything down to unpaid jaywalking tickets was institued by these same canting hypocrites in order to find something to impeach him with. Yes, finally, they found something. Hooray! The law was broken. Let the grand jury proceed and the chips fall where they may. Probably sooner or later, some vital piece of evidence will disappear, just like President Bush's National Guard service records have been so fortuitously "destroyed" some time in the oh-so-distant past and nothing, of course, can be done about that. And also, as far as I am concerned, the fatuous twerp--who had the option of not destroying an individual's private career merely to act as the agent of political vengence for his morally corrupt "confidential" sources--can keep his inanely stuffed shirt behind the kevlar vest of "freedom of the press", if he so chooses. Such freedom is a far more important principle (a real principle for once, and not just a piece of grandstanding fustian) than the contemptability and culpability of those who choose to invoke it. After all, isn't preserving the opportunity of ambushing your enemies and shooting them in the back what freedom is really for?