Wow, its amazing how much shorter that post would have been if McClellan would have just said "I don't know" on most of those questions instead of breaking off into a 3 hour essay about how he didn't know. I also love how most of the questions aren't even close to being answered directly in any way.

you should watch the video. it's even better live, as he was asked many more questions on the matter. the reporters kept trying to find some area where he would open up, but he refused to address the broadest of tangential questions. and then they'd try another angle. and then he'd refuse to answer, etc.

http://www.cspan.org/

the answer to your first question seems to be that the administration did everything in its power to stonewall the investigation while telling the public that whose ever head was responsible would roll...but now that the investigators have rooted enough information out to place Rove as the shitstick, mums the word...

I don't really have a response to your second assertion. I'm curious how you figure Wilson dishonored and discredited his government with lies...is this the guy who was saying Iraq wasn't trying to buy uranium from Niger? This is one of the most blatant examples of conservative projection I've seen...I was under the impression that Bush admin, et al had been using doctored documents to "prove" to the public that Iraq was doing some shady shit...wow...wow...the total reversal of the facts at least partially explains what you've been posting up until now

You've asked "why now" a few times. It has taken two years because of the appeals to the state and federal supreme courts. The decision requiring that the reporters notes be turned over was only recently made. That is why it is NOW moving forward.

moosenose, there you are. I posted the message below to you on July 3, on this thread. You "disappeared", your last TFP post was a half hour later. You re-emerged at TFP, eight days later. You still have not responded to my post.
You seem to have a double standard as to who you suspect and who you reflexively defend...........

http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...2&postcount=19
I am growing more concerned about your participation on this forum and the
veiled but obvious tone of intimidation that I perceive in your posts, especially the ones that you direct toward (at) me. Are you here to threaten, investigate, prosecute, or all three ?

If you are an employee of a federal agency with investigatory, law enforcement, or prosecutorial responsibilities or associations, isn't your very presence here enough to give pause to those of us who disagree with you politically or philosophically? The mods are here to preserve order and a civil discourse. Are you here to discourage our right to express our opinion or our dissent freely and publicly?

Not sure why I'm tilting at windmills here, but I'm willing to go again.

Powerclown,

Is there a difference between giving up a covert operative, and "dishonoring and discrediting his government" (while lying), to you? Yes or no?

Is it morally wrong to point out a covert operative, while technically not breaking the law? Yes or no?


For me, the answer is Yes, and Yes.

To your question, my answer is: I'm asking philosophical questions. I haven't mentioned Rove. But yes, I AM interested in everyone's agendas. As I believe I implied in a previous post:


Lest you think I'm being coy, I want to assure you: I'm not. I haven't mentioned Rove, because WHO did it doesn't matter until we know how we feel about the issue.

It's important to me to not be a hypocrit. If I feel that giving up a covert operative is a crime, then it doesn't matter who did it. That's phase 2.

But it's crystal clear, now, that you hold differnet standards. You can't/won't judge an issue without caring about who the culpret is. Nice to be a team player, i guess.

Personally, I'd think you would be more concerned about the mods or admins than me. After all, if you post something illegal (like, after explaining how you had broken the law as an act of civil disobedience, and then spent six or seven years as a fugitive from justice before being pardoned, and then encouraged others to commit what some would call "acts of civil disobedience" and the rest of us would refer to as "felonies"...) THEY are the ones with an incentive to report you, if for no other reason than to avoid criminal liability for themselves. Take, for example, if somebody repeatedly posted pictures in the EZ of a 30 something year old man having sex with an obviously very underage female. That would obviously be a criminal act, yes? What do you think their response would be? After all, the record of the criminal act would be on their servers, so just deleting the posts without reporting it to the appropriate authorities could be construed as obstruction of justice or various other charges of a similar nature depending on the locality. They obviously couldn't legally leave the posts up, either, lest they become guilty of distribution of child pornography. So what would they do? I haven't spoken with them about such a scenario, but I think it is a virtual given that they would do the right thing and report it to the appropriate authorities.

I'm sure that you are well aware that the First Amendment freedom of speech is not absolute. Certain speech alone can be criminal. The standard example of this is "falsely yelling 'fire' in a crowded theater". As another example that I am certain you are aware of, it's illegal to threaten certain high-ranking governmental officials (not me, I'm not "high ranking"), even in jest, and the enforcement agency of such crimes is both very good at enforcing that law, and not known for it's sense of humor in such matters.

Just out of curiosity, if you had a police officer move in next door to your house, would you assume that he did so as part of a grand governmental plot to inhibit your criminality? If you see an off-duty cop driving on the highway, is it "Tha Man" trying to "keep you down", or is it a guy who works for the government on the way to the grocery store or work or whatever?

My presence here is not part of my job description. I have never, EVER accessed this site from work, because to do so would be a violation of my agency's internet use policy. I'm not a Federal LEO. And I doubt VERY seriously that you live within my jurisdiction. So I'd postulate that I am NOT any more of a "threat" to your dissenting in this forum than any other person with email or a telephone would be, unless you should consider my "personal network" of friends and professional associates to be a "threat" to you, which I don't think a rational person would. In fact, as I discussed above, I'm far less of a "threat" to you than any of the mods or admin are, since they have a very large vested interest in keeping you from posting illegalities here, and I do not.

Whats all this talk about moral this and morally that? Apparantly most think he's evil and his blood is blacker than satan's. So what's this talk about whether what he did was moral or not? If he was evil last week, he's evil now and nothing he does is moral. But you know what? Its not about morals its about the LAW. The question is, did he break the law? We shall see. But give it a rest on this moral crap, the guy's evil, remember?

And how does a post like yours help the creation of a useful dialogue here in TFP? You don't want to raise our standards?

Sorry if talking about right and wrong derails all the partisan bickering.

No one seemed to care any time before this thread started with comments like:

and thats from part of one thread.

and what does that have to do with my comments? if you can't rise above what you don't like, why even be here? and how do you critique if you are doing the same thing?

are you saying that because others say such things, concepts like right and wrong, moral and immoral have no place??

I don't understand. Any chance you'd care to answer the question I posed above with a yes/no?

You have it wrong, IMO, moosenose, about you (your POV and how you convey it here) being "far less of a threat to me", than the "mods or admin" at TFP are. The mindset that it takes to write what you wrote in your last post, combined with your opinion that your point of view is reasonable, or even "American" <b>"then encouraged others to commit what some would call "acts of civil disobedience" and the rest of us would refer to as "felonies"</b>, is indicative of the gulf that exists between you and those of us who have an understanding and an admiration for the words contained in Thomas Jefferson's <a href="http://www.archives.gov/national_archives_experience/charters/declaration_transcript.html">"Declaration of Independence."</a>

If you recall, you responded to my comments and examples as to my opinion:
Is it your opinion, moosenose, that you could draw an analogy between my "crimes", as you label them, and a description of the activities of a child molestor, into an argument that would persuade anyone that your post is
"reasonable"? The only consistancy is that your tone is still threatening and designed to discourage discussion and protest.

You are not "Federal LEO", yet you still intone that you have a "jurisdiction".
You mention your ""personal network" of friends and professional associates",
but you state that it would not be rational of me to view them as a "threat".
Why mention them at all, unless it is to try to "influence me"? Heaven knows
what resources are at their disposal, especailly the "professionals" in your network, to deal with the likes of me, if called upon.

Consider that, in your own words, when you try to shift my focus from you, because of confrontational statements you've directed at me, to those who you perceive as most likely to "inform" on me, you likely demonstrate to more than a few of us here, how removed you are from what we consider being an "American" is; i.e., a non-violent, informed, reasonable, tolerant person.

I would not assume anything untoward about a neighbor who was employed as a policeman, or about another motorist who was an "off-duty cop", to use two examples that you cited, unless one of them directed something like your
post at me:
The tone in your posts is inappropriate here, and in Amercia, from my point of
view. Nothing that I said in the following three quoted posts on this thread,
warranted the following from you. You still do not recognize it, judging by the tone, technique, and content in your last post.
moosenose wrote the preceding post in response to my words in these three posts:
Shoukd We "Move On" or Take to the Streets? http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?t=86476
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...73&postcount=1
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...4&postcount=11
http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showpos...5&postcount=32

I'd like to answer with a yes or no, but I need to use more than three characters in a response.

just in case the illusion was out there that the defenses of rove posted here involved any particular initiative on the part of the conservatives who posted them:

source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...071200093.html

stonewall, ridicule, dodge, hide and wait for the supreme court nomination process to push this off page 1...there you have it folk, the strategy of the o so moral right, the cadre that is o so deeply committed to the ethos of personal responsibility, when it comes to the (servile) defense of one of their own.


=====
stevo: you might consider noting the thread that those quotes you bit came from--they were about that lovely bit of rovethought of a couple weeks ago attacking his favorite hallucination "liberals" in his usual fact-free manner. you obviously went looking in that thread for "confirmation" of the claim, handed you by the right apparatus, of "vendetta" on the part of the "angry left"---as among the folk who feel it their duty to act as though the official rightwing line is in fact a product of their own thinking, it seems about par for the course that you would do that.

the discourse here sounds like the same old thing. trying to obviate an election. rights did it to clinton, lefts try to do it with bush. i wish we'd spend more energy on getting congress cleaned up.

Please, feel free. I don't mean to be limiting. But so far all anyone will do is dodge.

What my preference would be is to see something that starts with a yes or no. I'd LOVE to have more information than that.

It just seems like if we could get everyone saying "yes, that's fucked up", no matter who does it, we could have some of that unity that Pan is talking about on other threads. I'd sure love to see it...

Or if we get a mix of yes and no, we could discuss why that is, without getting into the who did game. But maybe my personal fantasies are too challanging :D

I will rarely offer my opinion in here....but, this is some serious shit.


The man is guilty as far as I am concerned......Bush is not.

All evidence I have been able to gather shows Rove did exactly what he is good at.....manipulated the system to create a desired effect. In my opinion....this time....he has gone too far.

Tecoyah, it is my best guess based upon his lawyers public comments that Rove will not pass the threshhold of the law where "intent and knowing" is necessary to convict him. Who will witness against him other than Novak? His testimony to the grand jury is yet unknown. Guilty of manipulating journalists? Certainly. Did Bush know he was doing this? Possibly in a very broad sense in terms of supporting Rove's strategic moves in partisan gamesmanship.

My considered opinion is that Rove will get off legally, and Bush never drops a friend politically, so he may get by there as well. I also believe that Rove is capable of anything, is a snake, and that this is one of the least of his machinations that should have been brought before the court. But that's just me.

What's sad is Papa Bush was head of the CIA and even in politics Papa Bush should be ashamed of someone in his son's admin. turning over an agent publicly.

Agreed, Pan. But we aren't going to know the whole of it until we hear Novak's testimony. There is the smoking gun, if any are to be found.

Do we know that Novak is going to testify? When??

This thing is so f----d up. Coverups, unknown sources, inter-government rivalries, nepotism, a million people with a million different agendas.

Cooper and Miller both have sources the prosecution wants. He gets Coopers source through his employer (Cooper's wife's father's company..wtf is that??), and Miller goes to jail, which is STILL a mystery, because she's not even directly involved with running the story. Meanwhile, the guy who revealed the agent's name to the public - Novak - remains silent (and free).

We may never know, but I'm sure Papa Bush knows and if he isn't sickened by all this then there's something wrong with the man. Politics is one thing, but watching someone from a secret agency you were head of be exposed for political advancement and to hurt someone is uncalled for and a disgrace.

Papa Bush should be taking whoever to task and ripping them a new ass, and telling W to dump them.

PowerClown, Novak has testified, long ago. Cooper's wife's father hasn't been the head of Time for sometime, but I wonder why this relationship amazes you. Miller chose to go to jail for a reason that I believe served her well. Are you making any effort to follow this case in the news? You seem to be dumbfounded by every aspect including why this isn't "old news."

I hear you, pan.
And there's blame enough here to go around for everyone.

Yeah, thats solid stuff Elphaba. I always appreciate blatant condescension.

For the 1st 3/4 of this thread, I patiently fielded questions from those who hadn't a clue about this case. You included.
Now I ask a question and I get this bullshit.

You don't seem to understand that Novak has a lot of public explaining to do, you don't see the TIME angle, you don't know why Miller went to jail, and you don't see the relevance of the (mis)timing of this whole thing.

Nice talking to you, Elphaba. I'll miss the sarcasm.

powerclown - I am curious about your reference to "nepotism" in this "thing".
What has influenced you that nepotism contributes to "This thing is so f----d up"?

I'm going to further a discussion of how, IMO, "nepotism" fits into this "thing" on a new thread. I think that you will all find it quite interesting.

What do Karl Rove, Bob Novak, Ken Mehlman, Sen. Pat Roberts (KS - R), Jeff Guckert, and....the first poster at TFP Politics to "associate" the Plame "outing" with "nepotism", all have in common?

The answer is on my new TFP Politics thread, here:
<a href="http://www.tfproject.org/tfp/showthread.php?p=1838608#post1838608">Aiding and Abetting a Traitor: Conspiracy to "Save" Rove via Repub's NEPOTISM "Op"</a>

Nepotism here refers to 2 things:

1) Plame sent her anti-war, Clinton Administration husband to report on war-related intelligence. Nobody else seemed to have officially sanctioned the trip.
2) Cooper's father-in-law's company cooperated with the prosecution, but Judith Miller didn't.

Curious, to say the least.

how exactly is it that you, powerclown--and the bush administration as well--have managed to collapse the political fallout from this entirely into the minutae of a legal investigation the parameters of which no-one actually knows about yet?
how did it happen that everyone who supports the administration acts as though what is being debated is a trial?
the strategy seems to be pretend that there is no such thing as the political, cut directly to a nebulous pseudo-legal environment and repeat the same claims oriented toward that environment over and over and over.
within that space, it seems to me that the right makes clinton look like a piker in their ability to collapse registers and thread speculative legal arguments rooted in a definition-narrowing operation that any crackhead would recognize and even admire for its virtuosity....

i remember----as i am sure you do, powerclown-----the same political operatives making up a murder (vince foster) and putting clinton and his wife on trial for it day after day across the medium of right radio when they were in opposition.
so in this case, we are being asked to take seriously the masters of reactionary sleaze a decade ago when they now try to present themselves as the Defenders of Propriety here....
how does that work?

what is interesting in all this is that the critiques of rove are almost across the board far more measured, far less wanton, than any parallel sleaze campaign organized by the right and directed against their Enemies.

you're an intelligent guy, powerclown: why does this not make you feel as though your head is going to explode?

It's the Age of the Internet, baby. Power to the People.

With so much information so readily available - like the actual (assuming) transcripts to Senate Intelligence Hearings, for example - it's much simpler to come to an informed opinion than it was 10 years ago, no? But going by your critique for a moment, if the right is so thorough, so historically adept at organizing a sleaze campaign, how is it that this thing has seen the light of day? Shouldn't the right have been able to bury this? I'm sure you are aware that there are dozens of leaks - dozens of investigations - every MONTH in Washington DC, and 99.99% of them fade away. "Internal Matters." "Not Suitable for Public Consumption." Reporters who cover the DC scene are very rarely asked by a grand jury to reveal their sources. So what makes this different?

You mention a pseudo-legal environment, and I would agree with you to a certain extent, and that's the price to be paid for information transparency, or what passes for today. This case has been an interesting example I think of the power of the web, the power of the free flow of information in shaping public opinion. How deep could the average citizen have dug into the Foster case 10 years ago, for example?

i think that the defenses that are being floated from the right are in fact an attempt to bury the issue. waiting for supreme court nomination to blow up and knock this off the front page. there is nothing more to it than that.

What's funny here is that according to your statements, you did NOT commit an act of civil disobedience when you committed your felony. Why? Because part of an act of "Civil Disobedience" is BEING PUT IN JAIL, and rather than do that, by your own admission, you ran away and hid. Remember Rosa Parks getting arrested and thrown in jail? Remember her being asked to move by the police, her refusal to do so, and her subsequent arrest? Remember MLK in an Alabama jail? Why was he there? Because he thought the law was wrong, stood up and said "This law is Wrong, I have broken it, arrest me." Remember Cassius Clay/Muhammed Ali? Remember his saying "I will not fight in this war"? Remember his trial and conviction? Remember his being in prison? THOSE were acts of civil disobedience. Yours was not.

BTW, by bringing up the Declaration of Independence, I trust that you are NOT calling for people on this board to revolt against the current government, are you?

Actually, Pedophiles have a mental illness which drives their criminality. Your actions were the act of a sane mind, unless you consider what the British called "LMF" in WWII to be a mental illness. So which is worse? A mentally ill person breaching the social contract because of their mental illness, or a person who is sane breaching the social contract "just because"? In my book, the mentally ill person belongs in a mental hospital, while the sane person belongs in prison, because the mentally ill person essentially has a diminished capacity to resist his particular brand of criminality, while the sane person is FAR more criminally culpable, because he or she did not have a mental illness, but instead acted out of personal gain in the form of abrogating their duties as an American to avoid that duty which was imposed upon them by law.

There are many ways to be an employee of the Federal Government other than being a LEO, and there are many ways to be an LEO without being "Federal". Many people have "jurisdictions" that are not "Federal LEOs". I'm sure that on your six or seven year oddessy prior to being pardoned, you found many "friends and professional associates" while tooling around in the underground. I'm sure that some of them were there for more than what you did. Does that make them a threat to me? You speak of "resources at their disposal", to "deal with the likes of you". Have you ever heard the phrase "Duty, Honor, Country"? They use their resources to deal with people who break the law, because that is their duty. They do not misuse their authority (be it Constitutionally or Statutorily provided) because to do so would be a stain upon their collective honor. And they put themselves in harms way to do their jobs because they love their country. They sure as hell don't do it for the money. And I certainly haven't talked with them about you.

So I suppose those of us who don't think as you do are not real "Americans"? Considering the results of the 2004 election, I think you may be in the minority on that...after all, look at all the vitriol directed at the "Red States" after 2004 by the Left...

In my book, people who try and sell the slogan "Treason is Patriotic!" to the American People are misguided. And before you make noises about Rove, please refer to Article 3 § 3 of the US Constitution and try to apply it to what Rove is alleged to have done.

Ah. Now we're back to the Left's favorite Mantra: "Free Speech for Me, But None For Thee!" Remember how "First Amendment Zones" came into existence? That wasn't the RIGHT trying to muzzle the Left....

You have a point of view. So do I. That's the great thing about America....people can and do have different points of view. It's only when a person's point of view crosses the line from being a "point of view" and turns into a "crime" that there is a problem. This happens more frequently than you might think. For example, I heard on NPR yesterday about one of the so-called "Paintball Jihadists". The person in question expressed his "point of view" to his friends. His friends took action based upon his "point of view" as he expressed it to them. They are all in federal prison now, his friends for going to Pakistan and training for Jihad, and him for inciting and encouraging them to break the law by expressing his "point of view" about how they should go to Pakistan and train for Jihad. Basically, he said "Go break the law". They did. And he went to jail for it.

Enough
 

We all have our points of view.......feel free to express them here...but,


When the shit gets personal.....tones change and threads die

Here is a prime example