Novak sets up the bomb..... - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

Ustwo · 09-13-2006, 04:01 PM

Quote:

Novak: Real story behind Armitage's role

September 13, 2006

BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST

When Richard Armitage finally acknowledged last week he was my source three years ago in revealing Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA employee, the former deputy secretary of state’s interviews obscured what he really did. I want to set the record straight based on firsthand knowledge.

First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he ‘‘thought’’ might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson.

Second, Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear he considered it especially suited for my column.

An accurate depiction of what Armitage actually said deepens the irony of him being my source. He was a foremost internal skeptic of the administration’s war policy, and I long had opposed military intervention in Iraq. Zealous foes of George W. Bush transformed me improbably into the president’s lapdog. But they cannot fit Armitage into the left-wing fantasy of a well-crafted White House conspiracy to destroy Joe and Valerie Wilson. The news that he and not Karl Rove was the leaker was devastating news for the left.

A peculiar convergence had joined Armitage and me on the same historical path. During his quarter of a century in Washington, I had no contact with Armitage before our fateful interview. I tried to see him in the first 2 years of the Bush administration, but he rebuffed me — summarily and with disdain, I thought.

Then, without explanation, in June 2003, Armitage’s office said the deputy secretary would see me. This was two weeks before Joe Wilson surfaced himself as author of a 2002 report for the CIA debunking Iraqi interest in buying uranium in Africa.

I sat down with Armitage in his State Department office the afternoon of July 8 with tacit rather than explicit ground rules: deep background with nothing said attributed to Armitage or even an anonymous State Department official. Consequently, I refused to identify Armitage as my leaker until his admission was forced by Hubris, a new book by reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn that absolutely identified him.

Late in my hourlong interview with Armitage. I asked why the CIA had sent Wilson — lacking intelligence experience, nuclear policy or recent contact with Niger — on the African mission. He told the Washington Post last week that his answer was: ‘‘I don’t know, but I think his wife worked out there.’’

Neither of us took notes, and nobody else was present. But I recalled our conversation that week in writing a column, while Armitage reconstructed it months later for federal prosecutors. He had told me unequivocally that Mrs. Wilson worked in the CIA’s Counter-Proliferation Division and that she had suggested her husband’s mission.

As for his current implications that he never expected this to be published, he noted that the story of Mrs. Wilson’s role fit the style of the old Evans-Novak column — implying to me it continued reporting Washington inside information.

Mrs. Wilson’s name appeared in my column July 14, 2003, but it was not until Oct. 1 that I heard about it from Armitage. Washington lobbyist Kenneth Duberstein, Armitage’s close friend and political adviser, called me to say the deputy secretary feared he had ‘‘inadvertently’’ (the word Armitage used in last week’s interviews) disclosed Mrs. Wilson’s identity to me in July and was considering resignation. (Duberstein’s phone call was disclosed in the Isikoff-Corn book, which used Duberstein as a source. They reported Duberstein was responsible for arranging my unexpected interview with Armitage.)

Duberstein told me Armitage wanted to know whether he was my source. I did not reply because I was sure that Armitage knew he was the source. I believed he contacted me Oct. 1 because of news the weekend of Sept. 27-28 that the Justice Department was investigating the leak. I cannot credit Armitage’s current claim that he realized he was the source only when my Oct. 1 column revealed that the official who gave me the information was ‘‘no partisan gunslinger.’’

Armitage’s silence the next 2œ years caused intense pain for his colleagues in government and enabled partisan Democrats in Congress to falsely accuse Rove of being my primary source. When Armitage now says he was mute because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s request, that does not explain his silence three months between his claimed first realization that he was the source and Fitzgerald’s appointment on Dec. 30. Armitage’s tardy self-disclosure is tainted because it is deceptive.

Well, well, isn't this interesting?

I was wrong after all. I assumed from the start it would be an offhand mistake by whoever did it, but instead it was a diliberate leak by Armitage. His motivation, as an opponent to an Iraqi invasion seems somewhat unlcear. This of course means trusting Novak here, but I can't think of what he would gain by lying.

Was he hoping to embrass the administration somehow? His silence seems to be golden here as he allowed many to suffer the slings and arrows he deserved. Was he hoping to somehow taint the war effort to prevent it from being launched? Honestly I'm not sure what his motivation would be here.

Elphaba · 09-13-2006, 04:19 PM

Interesting news Ustwo. I would appreciate the source link.

What would his motivation be? I'm equally confused as to why he would point Novak to Plame. If Armitage wanted to embarass the administration regarding the war, that seems an odd way to go about it.

And I agree with you that Novak's credibility is in question at least on my part.

You have presented an interesting puzzle, Ustwo.

roachboy · 09-13-2006, 04:56 PM

it is kinda funny that it took this to put robert novak's credibility into question. i dont know where the assumption could have come from that he had much previously for folk not conservative themselves.

part of the reason the novak piece is confusing is that he wants (typically for novak) to tow the republican party line concerning the storyline they would prefer to have framing the leak itself (pretending that it has already been reduced to a question of motivation such that any deviation from I AM DOING THIS TO DETROY A CRITIC OF THE BUSHWAR counts somehow as falsification of the problems attending the leak---a ludicrous line that has not been defended coherently, either here or anywhere else)----this spin creates something of a false dilemma concerning armitage as the source. that is because in the end all the article really does is loop back onto the question of motive at a slight remove---while at the same time compounding it by making it clear that armitage knew exactly what he was doing when he gave novak this information in the first place.

so let's think about this for a minute: armitage was a signatory to the project for a new american century call for saddam hussein's removal in 1998.
he is well known as a neocon.
it follows that if he opposed bushwar, it was probably because he saw the case the administration was floating for it for what it was--flim flam--and objected to the political damage that it might do.
so there is no reason to imagine that armitage opposed invading iraq--only the way in which the bush people played the game to enable it.

so i am not at all sure where this notion of armitage as an opponent of invading iraq came from--it reads to me like another conservative bit of horse doo doo.

that's right, i said horse doo doo.

let's assume for a minute that armitage opposed how iraq was to be invaded, not the invasion of iraq itself---would that mean somehow that he would cease to also be in the employ of the administration and would therefore be ruled out as someone who could carry a bit of---um----cargo for the administration in an effort to destroy a critic? if anything novak's piece, beneath the regurgitation of the rightwing line of the moment, indicates that armitage was acting in something of an official capacity, doesn't it?

ratbastid · 09-13-2006, 07:38 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

Was he hoping to embrass the administration somehow? His silence seems to be golden here as he allowed many to suffer the slings and arrows he deserved. Was he hoping to somehow taint the war effort to prevent it from being launched? Honestly I'm not sure what his motivation would be here.

Regardless of his intention, he DID embarass the administration. This back-spin is so complicated, the average American won't even hear it. There are too many loose ends to it, it doesn't sound bite well. I bet most Americans are going to end up beliving the Rove is a Wilson-Squashing Jerk version of events. You know, the same way so many believed that Saddam and Osama were bunkmates.

Ustwo · 09-13-2006, 08:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ratbastid

Regardless of his intention, he DID embarass the administration. This back-spin is so complicated, the average American won't even hear it. There are too many loose ends to it, it doesn't sound bite well. I bet most Americans are going to end up beliving the Rove is a Wilson-Squashing Jerk version of events. You know, the same way so many believed that Saddam and Osama were bunkmates.

So in other words the left wing press will no longer cover it because its no longer 'anti-Bush' and they are going to let their earlier unfounded smears and lies stick.

Its just too complex for the American people now.

Typical.

Ch'i · 09-13-2006, 08:14 PM

edit 11:25 pm: i disagree.

Elphaba · 09-13-2006, 10:12 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

So in other words the left wing press will no longer cover it because its no longer 'anti-Bush' and they are going to let their earlier unfounded smears and lies stick.

Its just too complex for the American people now.

Typical.

Still waiting for your link, Ustwo.

A clever bit you are doing here with you OP, no? Not worthy in any sort of honest contribution to Politics, but you tried to set the bait and only got roachboy's logic in response. Then comes the typical u2 leap to "attack the liberals" posture. Your troll was far too obvious, u2. You must really make a better effort than this OP to stir up some antagonism. Why do you continue to try to provoke/inflame those that post here? Don't you have teeth to attend to?

host · 09-14-2006, 12:03 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

So in other words the left wing press will no longer cover it because its no longer 'anti-Bush' and they are going to let their earlier unfounded smears and lies stick.

Its just too complex for the American people now.

Typical.

Here is the link:
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/...t-novak14.html

and here is the link to my response to the last claim posted about the complexity of the Fitzgerald investigation of the Plame CIA leak:
<a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?p=2118609#post2118609">

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo
More of the left wing press dodging the Plame affair now...
Quote:
Matthews: Plame Story Too Complicated to Cover Now

</a>

(Click on any of the text in the preceding quote box to view my linked post.) 
Novak has reported this several ways, in the past. IMO, his POV is contradictory and unreliable, have a look:

Quote:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...102000874.html
Mission To Niger

By Robert D. Novak

Monday, July 14, 2003; Page A21

The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge. Remarkably, this produced a political firestorm that has not yet subsided........

......Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, the State Department and the Pentagon, and not just Vice President Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.

That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." The next year, President George H.W. Bush named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counterproliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me..........

Quote:

http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIP...01/wbr.00.html
CNN WOLF BLITZER REPORTS

Did Rush Limbaugh go to Far? Is CIA Scandal Legit or Just Bush Bashing?

Aired October 1, 2003 - 17:00 ET
.......BLITZER: He's at the center of this storm, the controversy that is raging here in Washington. The naming of the CIA operative appeared in his column back on July 14. That popular columnist syndicated across the country by "The Chicago Sun-Times." And he's well known, of course, to our CNN viewers as the co-host of "CROSSFIRE."

Joining me now for an exclusive conversation, the veteran journalist, is my colleague, Bob Novak. Bob, thanks very much for joining us. Let's talk about this. What made you decide to go out, first of all, and write about former Ambassador Joe Wilson?

ROBERT NOVAK, CO-HOST, "CROSSFIRE": Former Ambassador Wilson broke the secrecy that a retired diplomat, unknown, had gone to Niger in the year 2002 to investigate whether the Iraqis tried to buy yellow cake, uranium from Niger.

BLITZER: You mean when he wrote that op-ed page article in "The New York Times"?

NOVAK: "New York Times." That was on a Sunday morning.

On Monday, I began to report on something that I thought was very curious. Why was it that Ambassador Wilson, who had no particular experience in weapons of mass destruction, and was a sharp critic of the Iraqi policy of President Bush and, also, had been a high-ranking official in the Clinton White House, who had contributed politically to Democrats -- some Republicans, but mostly Democrats -- why was he being selected?

I asked this question to a senior Bush administration official, and he said that he believed that the assignment was suggested by an employee at the CIA in the Counterproliferation Office who happened to be ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame.

I then called another senior official of the Bush administration, and he said, Oh, you know about that? And he confirmed that that was an accurate story. I then called the CIA. They said that, to their knowledge, he did not -- that the mission was not suggested by Ambassador Wilson's wife, but that she had been asked by her colleagues in the Counterproliferation Office, to contact her husband. So she was involved.

BLITZER: Because he was a former ambassador in Gabon, he knew that part of Africa, and that's, presumably, why they wanted to send him on this mission.

NOVAK: I'm not going into motives. I thought it was strange because he is not an expert in counterproliferation. He had not been ambassador to Niger, he had served in Niger at one time.

BLITZER: But he was a senior on African affairs at the NFC under Clinton?

NOVAK: Under Clinton, that's correct.

So that was the story I wrote, was about the details of Ambassador Wilson's mission, which created a great storm. And in the sixth paragraph of a ten-paragraph story I mentioned that two senior administration officials had said it was suggested by his wife, who worked at the CIA......

Did Armitage "tell" Novak, or did Novak ask Armitage about Plame? Novak's first column, excerpted two quote boxes back, gives the impression that even Novak knew that Palme's husband, Wilson was qualified, and was the preceding POTUS's national security advisor on Africa, as recently as 1998, but less than three months later in his excerpted Oct., 2003 interview with Wolf Blitzer, Wolf questioned Novak with the details of Novak's own July column, while Novak spins the notion that Wilson wasn't qualified to be sent by the CIA to Africa, and that he was motivated to question the "senior administration officials" about the "mystery" of who/why Wilson was sent to Niger. The Novak reversal seems ridiculous, since he already described Wilson as a "hero" who defied Saddam when he closed the Baghdad Embassy in 1991, for Bush-41, and then served Clinton as NSC Africa expert, and served in diplomatic posts in Gabon and Niger, before that.

Suddenly, in the Oct., 2003 Blitzer interview, what was obvious to Novak in his July, 2003 writing about why Wilson was qualified to be sent to Niger in 2002 for the CIA, became the "mystery" that caused Novak to ask the "right" question....and not as he reported earlier....that the "senior officials" were eager to tell him that "Wilson's wife who worked for the CIA, sent him to Niger". We know that this "new line" from Novak, was a transparent ruse to make the Bush administration intimidation and payback "Op' against Wilson, by outting his wife at CIA, seem a result of Novak's journalistic "sleuthing", instead of what it really was, as I detailed from John Dickerson's reporting,
here: http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthr...on#post2117020 
or here: <a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2135565/">Time's John Dickerson: "I was told I should go ask the CIA who sent Wilson."</a> or here:
<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2135565/">Time's John Dickerson: "It seemed obvious that the people pushing me to look into who sent Wilson knew exactly the answer I'd find. Yet they were really careful not to let the information slip, which suggested that they knew at the time Plame's identity was radioactive."</a> and here:
<a href="http://www.slate.com/id/2129097/">Time's John Dickerson: "More astonishingly, we learn from the Fitzgerald indictment that Ari Fleischer knew about Plame and didn't tell anyone at all. He walked reporters, including me, up to the fact, suggesting they look into who sent Wilson, but never used her name or talked about her position. Why not? "</a>

Quote:

http://www.informationclearinghouse....rticle4190.htm
Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover

By Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce
WASHINGTON BUREAU; Timothy Phelps is the Washington bureau chief.

July 22, 2003: (Newsday) Washington - The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing "two senior administration officials."....

........ "This might be seen as a smear on me and my reputation," Wilson said, "but what it really is is an attempt to keep anybody else from coming forward" to reveal similar intelligence lapses.

<h3>Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."</h3>

Wilson and others said such a disclosure would be a violation of the law by the officials, not the columnist.

Novak reported that his "two senior administration officials" told him that it was Plame who suggested sending her husband, Wilson, to Niger.

A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger.

But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. "They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising," he said. "There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason," he said. "I can't figure out what it could be."

"We paid his [Wilson's] air fare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there," the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses.

Note in the preceding quote box, that Novak is reported to have said in an interview, that "he didn't dig it up". That was in July, 2003. By October, he was the suspicious columinist/reporter, asking the "right question".
He's still trying to pass off that bullshit, here in the Sept. 13, 2006, OP column:

Quote:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/...t-novak14.html
.......Late in my hourlong interview with Armitage. I asked why the CIA had sent Wilson — lacking intelligence experience, nuclear policy or recent contact with Niger — on the African mission. He told the Washington Post last week that his answer was: ‘‘I don’t know, but I think his wife worked out there.’’...........

Time's John Dickerson reported, since last fall, on the fact that the administration "nepotism Op" was an obsession communicated to reporters:
"Ask us who sent Wilson to Niger." 
It's so fucking simple....and obvious, that this is what happened....and Novak had to shift to the "mantra" that he thought up and asked that question....on his own, after the CIA complained that classifies information about Plame's employment, had been leaked. 
....and these are the idiot misfits, keeping us all safe from terr-herrr....or are they the fucking terrorists? People still back these "frat boys" turned traitors!

IMO, it still seems an uncomplicated story about a US presidential administration behaving as intimidating thugs, too clever by half, intent on conning journalists into asking the officials about classified details about one CIA employee, to provide plausible deniability when they leaked the classified identity of the CIA employee, to the journalists who they conned into asking.
....All intended to set an example of what would happen to any other employee in the US intelligence community who thought about disclosing that the excuses for invading Iraq were known to be disputed, tenuous, or untrue, by officials such as Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Tenet, Wolfowitz, and Perle, at al, when the uttered them to manipulate public support to pressure resistant senators and congressman to vote for the Oct., 2002 authorization to use force, as a last resort, against Iraq.

As far as this last bit of Novak "crap", flung at the wall in the hope of some of it actually "sticking":

Quote:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/...t-novak14.html
..........Armitage’s silence the next 2œ years caused intense pain for his colleagues in government and enabled partisan Democrats in Congress to falsely accuse Rove of being my primary source. When Armitage now says he was mute because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s request, that does not explain his silence three months between his claimed first realization that he was the source and Fitzgerald’s appointment on Dec. 30. Armitage’s tardy self-disclosure is tainted because it is deceptive..............

Re-read Novak's "crap", in the preceding quote box, and consider that Patrick Fitzgerald is much smarter than me, and he successfully prosecuted the 1993 WTC bombers. He's taking all of this bluster "in", to be sure. IMO, the Libby trial, early next year, will only be the beginning. Pat Fitzgerald KNOWS what I've described in this post, he admitted it to Libby's criminal trial judge, in this april, 2006 filing:

Quote:

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/do..._to_compel.pdf
Filed 04/05/2006
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
UNITED STATES OF AMERICA ) ) CR. NO 05-394 (RBW) v. ) ) I. LEWIS LIBBY, ) also known as “Scooter Libby” ) GOVERNMENT’S RESPONSE TO DEFENDANT’S THIRD MOTION TO COMPEL DISCOVERY The UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, by PATRICK J. FITZGERALD, SPECIAL COUNSEL, respectfully submits the following response to the “Third Motion of I. Lewis Libby to Compel Discovery Under Rule 16 and Brady.”

(Begining near Bottom of Page 29: )
.....Defendant also asserts without elaboration that “documents that help establish that no White House-driven plot to punish Mr. Wilson caused the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity also constitute Brady material.” Once again, defendant ignores the fact that he is not charged with participating in any conspiracy, much less one defined as a “White House-driven plot to punish Mr. Wilson.” Thus, putative evidence that such a conspiracy did not exist is not Brady material. Moreover, given that there is evidence that other White House officials with whom defendant spoke prior to July14, 2003 discussed Wilson’s wife’s employment with the press both prior to, and after, July 14, 2003 – which evidence has been shared with defendant – it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to “punish” Wilson.10 Surely, defendant cannot claim that any document on its face that does not reflect a plot is exculpatory....

Bush will be forced to either fire Fitzgerald as special counsel, or pardon more than just Scooter Libby. I think that Armitage and Novak and the "buzz" we've seen from administration sympathizers, will motivate Fitzgerald to work even harder to expose this official thugishness. It amounts to treason during the GWOT, and folks here and in too many other places, defend it, or in the examples in prior posts here, attempt to obscure or belittle the reasoned arguments of accusers who know treasonous acts and cynical lies and manipulation of the working press, when they see it in front of their noses, as we have since Libby first requested an intelligence briefing about Plame and Wilson, at the sirection of Dick Cheney.

Quote:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8600327/...wsweek/page/2/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8600327/...wsweek/page/2/
Rove at War
He rose using tactics his foes are turning against him. But never bet against Karl Rove.
By Howard Fineman Newsweek
Updated: 4:04 p.m. ET July 17, 2005

.........It's unlikely that any White House officials considered that they were doing anything illegal in going after Joe Wilson. Indeed, the line between national security and politics had long since been all but erased by the Bush administration. In the months after 9/11, the Republican National Committee, a part of Rove's empire, had sent out a fund-raising letter that showed the president aboard Air Force One in the hours after the attack. Democrats howled, but that was the Bush Rove was selling in the re-election campaign: commander in chief. Now Wilson was getting in the way of that glorious story, essentially accusing the administration of having blundered or lied the country into war.

How do you publicly counter a guy like that? As "senior adviser," Rove would be involved in finding out. Technically, Rove was in charge of politics, not "communications." But, as he saw it, the two were one and the same—and he used his heavyweight status to push the message machine run by his Texas protegé and friend, Dan Bartlett. Press Secretary Ari Fleischer was sent out to trash the Wilson op-ed. "Zero, nada, nothing new here," he said. Then, on a long Bush trip to Africa, Fleischer and Bartlett prompted clusters of reporters to look into the bureaucratic origins of the Wilson trip...........

ratbastid · 09-14-2006, 05:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ustwo

So in other words the left wing press will no longer cover it because its no longer 'anti-Bush' and they are going to let their earlier unfounded smears and lies stick.

Its just too complex for the American people now.

Typical.

Re "just too complex", yes that's exactly what I'm saying. (Although wake the fuck UP about the alledged "left wing" press).

I imagine the press will do their best to report this, but it's too convoluted at this point. Americans have lost interest in the story, but they haven't lost the bad taste the earlier parts of the story have left. The ambiguity of Armitage's intentions, in particuar, makes this a hard story to report on. News outlets with the opportunity to do deep, nuanced work might be able to handle it, but they don't have nearly the reach of the nighly news--and this piece of news doesn't reduce well into a 90-second package.

Listen: Republican mid-term candidates are distancing themselves from Bush as hard as they can. There's a reason for that. This administration has gone from limping to crawling. We can argue whether that's right or wrong, I guess, but my point is just this: the damage is done.

dc_dux · 09-14-2006, 07:43 AM

I imagine when Scooter Libby goes on trial in Jan '07 for two counts of perjury, two counts of giving false statements to the FBI, and one count of obstruction of justice.....the press will cover it!

I agree the entire "plame affair" is convoluted, but that doesnt make the charges against Libby any less serious.

Read the indictment yourself (pdf file): http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/do...y%20charges%22

Marvelous Marv · 09-14-2006, 04:58 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elphaba

Still waiting for your link, Ustwo.

A clever bit you are doing here with you OP, no? Not worthy in any sort of honest contribution to Politics, but you tried to set the bait and only got roachboy's logic in response. Then comes the typical u2 leap to "attack the liberals" posture. Your troll was far too obvious, u2. You must really make a better effort than this OP to stir up some antagonism. Why do you continue to try to provoke/inflame those that post here? Don't you have teeth to attend to?

Ustwo · 09-14-2006, 06:23 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Elphaba

Still waiting for your link, Ustwo.

A clever bit you are doing here with you OP, no? Not worthy in any sort of honest contribution to Politics, but you tried to set the bait and only got roachboy's logic in response. Then comes the typical u2 leap to "attack the liberals" posture. Your troll was far too obvious, u2. You must really make a better effort than this OP to stir up some antagonism. Why do you continue to try to provoke/inflame those that post here? Don't you have teeth to attend to?

dc_dux · 09-14-2006, 08:03 PM

Ustwo....in the words of your main man...I "misunderestimated" you. You do have a sense of humor.

No substance, but you are good for a laugh.

Elphaba · 09-14-2006, 08:03 PM

Ahh...you and the squad finally noticed. U2, I will take your post as very good advice to anything you post in the future.

09-13-2006, 04:56 PM	#3 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	it is kinda funny that it took this to put robert novak's credibility into question. i dont know where the assumption could have come from that he had much previously for folk not conservative themselves. part of the reason the novak piece is confusing is that he wants (typically for novak) to tow the republican party line concerning the storyline they would prefer to have framing the leak itself (pretending that it has already been reduced to a question of motivation such that any deviation from I AM DOING THIS TO DETROY A CRITIC OF THE BUSHWAR counts somehow as falsification of the problems attending the leak---a ludicrous line that has not been defended coherently, either here or anywhere else)----this spin creates something of a false dilemma concerning armitage as the source. that is because in the end all the article really does is loop back onto the question of motive at a slight remove---while at the same time compounding it by making it clear that armitage knew exactly what he was doing when he gave novak this information in the first place. so let's think about this for a minute: armitage was a signatory to the project for a new american century call for saddam hussein's removal in 1998. he is well known as a neocon. it follows that if he opposed bushwar, it was probably because he saw the case the administration was floating for it for what it was--flim flam--and objected to the political damage that it might do. so there is no reason to imagine that armitage opposed invading iraq--only the way in which the bush people played the game to enable it. so i am not at all sure where this notion of armitage as an opponent of invading iraq came from--it reads to me like another conservative bit of horse doo doo. that's right, i said horse doo doo. let's assume for a minute that armitage opposed how iraq was to be invaded, not the invasion of iraq itself---would that mean somehow that he would cease to also be in the employ of the administration and would therefore be ruled out as someone who could carry a bit of---um----cargo for the administration in an effort to destroy a critic? if anything novak's piece, beneath the regurgitation of the rightwing line of the moment, indicates that armitage was acting in something of an official capacity, doesn't it? __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

09-13-2006, 08:14 PM	#6 (permalink)
Ch'i Artist of Life	edit 11:25 pm: i disagree. Last edited by Ch'i; 09-13-2006 at 10:25 PM..

09-14-2006, 07:43 AM	#10 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	I imagine when Scooter Libby goes on trial in Jan '07 for two counts of perjury, two counts of giving false statements to the FBI, and one count of obstruction of justice.....the press will cover it! I agree the entire "plame affair" is convoluted, but that doesnt make the charges against Libby any less serious. Read the indictment yourself (pdf file): http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/do...y%20charges%22 __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire

09-14-2006, 08:03 PM	#13 (permalink)
dc_dux Location: Washington DC	Ustwo....in the words of your main man...I "misunderestimated" you. You do have a sense of humor. No substance, but you are good for a laugh. __________________ "The perfect is the enemy of the good." ~ Voltaire

09-13-2006, 04:19 PM	#2 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	Interesting news Ustwo. I would appreciate the source link. What would his motivation be? I'm equally confused as to why he would point Novak to Plame. If Armitage wanted to embarass the administration regarding the war, that seems an odd way to go about it. And I agree with you that Novak's credibility is in question at least on my part. You have presented an interesting puzzle, Ustwo.

09-14-2006, 08:03 PM	#14 (permalink)
Elphaba Deja Moo Location: Olympic Peninsula, WA	Ahh...you and the squad finally noticed. U2, I will take your post as very good advice to anything you post in the future.