You are sadly ignorant. Libby wasn’t convicted of being the leak, or even lying about being the leak. He was convicted of lying about conversations. Armitage, a long time Bush critic operating out of the State department was the leak. What’s worse is everyone knows it, the investigation knew it at the beginning, and he’s going to get off scot free. And you know why? Because he did nothing illegal. So Libby goes to jail for lying in an investigation of something that wasn’t a crime.
I don’t know about Cheney’s comments, but the one juror who is speaking to the media is Denis Collins, a journalist himself and author of Spying: The Secret History of History (Hat tip: The Corner). He just told the cameras that he and his colleagues wanted to know “where’s Rove?” Libby was clearly ill-served by his defense counsel’s jury selection.
gahrie…wow, a little touchy, are we? All I was saying is that it will be tough for Libby to defend his pal. It sounds like you’ve done the spin doctoring for him, though.
Seriously, were you just itching to jump on the first “liberal” post you could get your hands on? It sounds like you’ve been rehearsing that speech in front of the mirror.
Scooter Libby is convicted in the Plame leak case. The man who actually did the leaking continues to earn millions of dollars, go out to dinner, and be respectfully quoted by attentive journalists. Scooter Libby is publicly branded an oath-breaker on the basis of diverging recollections. Yet it was the man who set this case in motion, former ambassador Joe Wilson, who was caught in lie after lie by the Senate Intelligence committee. Now we remember why Democrats are so much more eager than Republicans to criminalize politics: Because they know that the ultimate power over the lives and liberties of the contestants is held by juries drawn from the most Democratic jurisdiction in the country. Would Scooter have been convicted - would a prosecutor ever have dared to try him - if the capital of the United States were located in say Indianapolis? It all makes you think: President Bush should have pardoned everybody involved in this case on the day Patrick Fitzgerald sent Judith Miller to jail. But it’s not too late: Pardon Scooter Now.
Libby was scape goated and the real architects behind this (Rove and/or Cheney more than likely) will get away with it. And if you think Armitage was where this really came from, i have a bridge to sell you.
Actually gahrie, Scooter was convicted of lying about the facts of the case. I doubt he would have lied if there were no crimes to protect people from.
As far as Frum and the Republicans attempts to discredit Joe Wilson– give it up jabronies. I guess Wilson lied repeatedly, but he just lucked into being correct about all the findings he said were true. If Americans listened to Joe Wilson instead of George Bush we wouldn’t have wasted 20,000 american lives, 500 billion dollars, and been stuck in a disasterous situation.
Unfortunately than, people may think Bush was a great president instead of how they feel about him today.
So Libby goes to jail for lying in an investigation of something that wasn’t a crime.
Hmm… sounds like what the Democrats said about Clinton (he got impeached for lying under oath in a lawsuit that got thrown out, and his perjury was discovered as part of an investigation by Ken Starr that uncovered no other crimes on his administration’s part). I assume you were singing the same tune back then, gahrie?
David, I thought the Armitage thing was pretty much accepted and admitted by all sides, though I haven’t been following it closely. Can you clear it up for me? On what basis do you say the Armitage angle is obviously wrong?
I’m not saying its wrong that Armitage was involved in the leak, i just don’t think it stops there. Can’t back it up with anything other than my gut feeling that this whole situation smells rotten.
Just for clarification: Clinton was impeached for lying under oath and obstructing justice in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit, which, rightly or wrongly, eventually came under the umbrella of Ken Starr’s original Whitewater investigation. While no crimes were found to have been committed re: Whitewater, Clinton settled with Paula Jones, which is not the same thing as the suit getting “thrown out.” That said, Brendan’s point about consistency between Clinton’s obstruction and Libby’s is well taken. What’s good for the gander and all . . .
Frum is also a wannabe good ol’boy American who was a born in Canada to a famous liberal television reporter, and was educated at Yale and Harvard. I’m guessing the only parts of Indianapoilis he’s ever seen are the insides of the Borders and Barnes & Nobles when he’s on book tours.
Fair enough, David. Marcellus was probably relying on his “gut feeling,” too, when he said “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” So I suppose you’re in good company. :)
For all those morons who claimed there was no “there” there or that it was Joseph Wilson who outed his own wife, it’s time to eat some fucking crow.
The fact is that Cheney orchestrated a smear campaign against a covert CIA agent in a bizarre attempt to save face. Frankly, if Cheney had sat on his hands and done absolutely nothing nobody would be talking about Joseph Wilson today and dumbass Scooter Libby wouldn’t spend one day in jail. Cheney has only himself to blame for this debacle and the Keystone Kops cover-up job he tried to orchestrate after the fact.
As for Joe Wilson, sounds to me like he has a pretty good civil suit to go after Rove and Cheney with. Ah. Let the litigation begin!
I stand corrected. Clinton’s payment to Jones somewhere in the neighborhood of $800K-$900K made the most sense to me in my recollection if the case had still been pending, but my memory didn’t serve me well here. As you say, he evidently wanted her to dump the appeal as well.
So do you feel that Clinton should have been convicted, or Libby found not guilty?
Personally I would have impeached Clinton for violating the Federal sexual harassment law that he put in to place (which he violated) rather than lying under oath.
Joe Mama, my reference to Wilson being a “liar” was sarcasm. The Republicans famous fallback defense is to label people liars when they have no facts to argue, as has been the case for most of their debates the past 5 years.
Wilson is a former ambassador to Iraq, knew more about the facts of the world back then than Cheney, Bush and their advisers do today. Confirmed firsthand that the words in the state of the union about the Yellowcake was fabricated as George Tenet stated directly in meetings with the administrations speech-writers. If he lied about anything it was an attempt to keep an undercover CIA agents identity secret, something that apparently does not matter to a diminishing number of Republicans.
It doesn’t really matter what Brendan thinks. The jury thought Libby was guilty. There weren’t enough votes in the Senate to convict Clinton. End of story.
You do know that even the State department (which has been hostile to every Republican president for 50 years) thinks Wilson was a joke right? He was shuffled off to every low level post they could find for him.
And as for being the ambassador to Iraq, that’s almost true. He was a mid level flunkie in the embassy, who was chosen to be the one left behind when we pulled the real diplomats out of the embassy.
Of course, nobody knows “low level flunkies” like substitute teachers in San Bernardino.
As for Wilson’s title, he was the Deputy Chief of Mission in Iraq during the first Gulf War. Hardly a “low level flunky.” Typically career foreign service officers don’t end up as Ambassadors because those are usually political appointments, though Wilson was an Ambassador in Africa later in his career.
Regarding the State Department, it appears to be anti-asshole, not anti-Republican.
“Wilson’s assertions — both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information — were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.
The panel found that Wilson’s report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson’s assertions and even the government’s previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address. ”
A&A, stick to the ad hominems about what you think people do for a living, that’s more than enough to keep the likes of you busy. Leave the arguments to people who know what they’re talking about. To wit, the Washington Post article cited above clearly illustrates how Libby’s conviction does NOT vindicate Joe Wilson in the least, and no amount of silly triumphalism over today’s story will change that.
So do you feel that Clinton should have been convicted, or Libby found not guilty?
Actually, there is a third option. I could, without being a hypocrite, believe that both Libby and Clinton deserve to be found guilty at criminal trials, but that Clinton did not deserve to be impeached/convicted, because although he committed a crime, it was not a “high crime.” Libby can be guilty without meeting the “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard.
Anyway, I have always the Clinton impeachment was a close call. Did Clinton break the law? Yes. Was it serious enough to warrant impeachment? Maybe. I’ve never quite decided. It’s a close call; I think reasonable people can disagree about it.
Gee, Joe Mama. You are a lawyer, right? I mean, you did blabber on about the “posers” in your office. As for gahrie, your own website says you are a teacher in San Bernardino. Judging by the fact you are 41 and have never been married, it would be easy to assume that you are unable to hold down a steady job.
It’s hardly “ad hominems about what (I) think people do for a living” when you write this shit down yourselves. Thank God you aren’t my lawyer, Joe Mama, if that’s the best you can do.
I can’t get that Op/Ed link from the Washington Post to open, but if Wilson’s report strengthened the argument by the White House, why don’t they use it to defend their position?
“CIA officials warned members of the President’s National Security Council staff the [Niger-Yellowcake] intelligence was not good enough to make the flat statement Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa. The bottom line is the White House knowingly included in a presidential address information its own CIA had explicitly warned might not be true.”
That was in 2003. Of course we now know that Joe Wilson’s findings were correct and not only did Saddam not purchase or attempt to purchase yellowcake he didn’t even have a nuclear program (or bio/chem weapon) program in activity for more than 12 years.
Saying I’m a lawyer is a correct statement, but quite insufficient for knowing what it is I do for a living, as any other lawyer/law student on this blog will tell you. There are many kinds of lawyers, just as there are many kinds of doctors and many kinds of athletes, and obviously not everyone who is a lawyer practices law. You also pretend to know where it is I live and work, which is rather amusing. And while I come across people who pretend to knowledge in the course of my job (and on this blog, including this very thread), I certainly wasn’t referring to anyone I work with, so you’re wrong about that as well. And finally, you don’t have to worry about me being your lawyer . . . I don’t do much pro bono work.
Does Libby’s guilt really point to something fishy in the administration or not? I’m inclined, along with a lot of others to think yes, but I can’t see anything actually coming of this. Thoughts?
This has administration has shown a distinct lack of interest in holding anyone actually accountable for anything other than the occasional scape goat like Libby. Mistake after mistake is made and no one at the top is ever called to task over it, so no, this isn’t going to lead anywhere unless the justice department decides to continue investigation, something i’m not expecting them to do.
Brendan, if Clinton deserved to be impeached (not convicted mind you, just impeached) don’t you think there has been enough behavior in this administration to justify it? I’d rather we let a womanizer stay in office, than an incompetent, yet you even suggest investigating some of the questionable activities of this administration and you are basically told to sit down, shut up, and let King George W. keep fighting those darn terrorists and protecting our “freedom”.
David, I think the “crimes” of this administration have been political in nature, i.e., the sort of thing that reasonable people can disagree about, and thus certainly not “high crimes and misdemeanors.” If you can show me evidence that President Bush has committed perjury, obstructed justice, etc., then we can talk. But if your contention is that Bush should be impeached because his administration likes to engage in rhetorical bullying and propose various measures that you think are too aggressive, um, that’s not really a serious argument, sorry. You can’t be impeached for that.
No, he has actually broken the law through various programs, or may very well have and thus it should be investigated such as the NSA spying. Thats not political in nature, its something that has been confirmed has occured and may have broken the law. Bush apologists claim that its legal, but isn’t the whole poitn of impeachment to try him for possilbe crimes at which point he can either be exonerated or punished?
The question of whether, for example, the NSA spying is legal or not is a question that needs to be settled in the courts, and despite the dogmatic beliefs of many on the left, it is NOT obviously illegal — there are serious arguments by serious legal scholars that it is legal and constitutional. Those arguments may or may not ultimately be accepted, but that’s something the legal process needs to work out. Now, if the Supreme Court comes out tomorrow and says, “This program is illegal and unconstitutional and must be stopped immediately,” and Bush still continued to do it covertly, disobeying the final judgment of the Court, THEN we can talk about impeachment. But there is a huge, huge, HUGE difference between enacting a program/law of debatable legality/constitutionality, on the one hand, and blatantly breaking a law that everyone knows is in place, not subject to interpretation (for example, committing perjury, or committing the various crimes that Nixon committed). Surely you can see the difference, David. On the one hand, you have a question of policy on which there is a massive public, political, legal and scholarly debate. On the other hand, you have simple illegality, not debatable, just plainly illegal. By your logic, FDR should have been impeached for enacting arguably unconstitutional New Deal programs. Or Lincoln, for pushing the limits of executive power during the Civil War.
No, no, no. Impeachment trials are NOT the proper venue for determining the constitutionality/legality of government programs that are subject to serious public/legal/scholarly debate. The federal courts are the proper venue for that. Impeachment is a venue for trying an individual for breaking clearly defined laws. This is a very simple and obvious distintion.
Impeachment trials are about determining whether the president broke the law.
They are NOT about determining what the law is.
In the case of the NSA spying and other similar controversies, the question is whether the Bush Administration’s assertions of executive power exceeded constitutional/statutory limits. That’s a question of what the law is.
You can’t impeach the president for breaking the law when the question of what the law is is still in dispute. Well, you can, but it would be silly and stupid and dangerous, and would lead to the misuse of impeachment as tool of political harassment whenever Congress (or one party in Congress) thinks the president has done something that they consider “unconstitutional.”
That’s just not how our separation/balance of powers works, nor should it. The course of action you’re proposing would lead to absolute disaster.
brendan, i believe we could’ve used that sort of legal jargon in Mr. Aros’s class a few years back. that would’ve thrown him for a loop. and then he would’ve whipped u with his yard stick.
As for Joe Wilson, sounds to me like he has a pretty good civil suit to go after Rove and Cheney with. Ah. Let the litigation begin!
In your dreams, A&A. Putting aside the fact that Wilson is the one person in this whole pathetic tale with less credibility than Scooter Libby, an integral part of winning a civil suit is proving damages. Exactly what damages have the Wilsons suffered from this “scandal” besides enormous profits on book deals, speaking engagements, and now a movie?
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March 6th, 2007 at 12:16:15 pm
In other news…
Water is wet.
March 6th, 2007 at 12:48:18 pm
Don’t be surprised if a pardon is in Libby’s future.
March 6th, 2007 at 1:13:48 pm
This is going to seriously test Cheney’s ability to deny reality…I can’t wait to hear his comments.
March 6th, 2007 at 1:20:10 pm
can you say PARDON
March 6th, 2007 at 1:25:45 pm
DFens:
You are sadly ignorant. Libby wasn’t convicted of being the leak, or even lying about being the leak. He was convicted of lying about conversations. Armitage, a long time Bush critic operating out of the State department was the leak. What’s worse is everyone knows it, the investigation knew it at the beginning, and he’s going to get off scot free. And you know why? Because he did nothing illegal. So Libby goes to jail for lying in an investigation of something that wasn’t a crime.
March 6th, 2007 at 1:31:01 pm
I don’t know about Cheney’s comments, but the one juror who is speaking to the media is Denis Collins, a journalist himself and author of Spying: The Secret History of History (Hat tip: The Corner). He just told the cameras that he and his colleagues wanted to know “where’s Rove?” Libby was clearly ill-served by his defense counsel’s jury selection.
March 6th, 2007 at 1:32:28 pm
gahrie…wow, a little touchy, are we? All I was saying is that it will be tough for Libby to defend his pal. It sounds like you’ve done the spin doctoring for him, though.
Seriously, were you just itching to jump on the first “liberal” post you could get your hands on? It sounds like you’ve been rehearsing that speech in front of the mirror.
March 6th, 2007 at 1:35:23 pm
Former Bush speechwriter David Frum’s take:
March 6th, 2007 at 1:41:36 pm
Libby was scape goated and the real architects behind this (Rove and/or Cheney more than likely) will get away with it. And if you think Armitage was where this really came from, i have a bridge to sell you.
March 6th, 2007 at 1:42:01 pm
Frum’s comments crack me up. First we have activist judges, now activist juries? What’s next, activist bailiffs? Activist stenographers?
March 6th, 2007 at 2:00:07 pm
Actually gahrie, Scooter was convicted of lying about the facts of the case. I doubt he would have lied if there were no crimes to protect people from.
As far as Frum and the Republicans attempts to discredit Joe Wilson– give it up jabronies. I guess Wilson lied repeatedly, but he just lucked into being correct about all the findings he said were true. If Americans listened to Joe Wilson instead of George Bush we wouldn’t have wasted 20,000 american lives, 500 billion dollars, and been stuck in a disasterous situation.
Unfortunately than, people may think Bush was a great president instead of how they feel about him today.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:00:46 pm
So Libby goes to jail for lying in an investigation of something that wasn’t a crime.
Hmm… sounds like what the Democrats said about Clinton (he got impeached for lying under oath in a lawsuit that got thrown out, and his perjury was discovered as part of an investigation by Ken Starr that uncovered no other crimes on his administration’s part). I assume you were singing the same tune back then, gahrie?
David, I thought the Armitage thing was pretty much accepted and admitted by all sides, though I haven’t been following it closely. Can you clear it up for me? On what basis do you say the Armitage angle is obviously wrong?
March 6th, 2007 at 2:05:43 pm
I’m not saying its wrong that Armitage was involved in the leak, i just don’t think it stops there. Can’t back it up with anything other than my gut feeling that this whole situation smells rotten.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:09:21 pm
Just for clarification: Clinton was impeached for lying under oath and obstructing justice in the Paula Jones sexual harassment lawsuit, which, rightly or wrongly, eventually came under the umbrella of Ken Starr’s original Whitewater investigation. While no crimes were found to have been committed re: Whitewater, Clinton settled with Paula Jones, which is not the same thing as the suit getting “thrown out.” That said, Brendan’s point about consistency between Clinton’s obstruction and Libby’s is well taken. What’s good for the gander and all . . .
March 6th, 2007 at 2:09:47 pm
Frum is also a wannabe good ol’boy American who was a born in Canada to a famous liberal television reporter, and was educated at Yale and Harvard. I’m guessing the only parts of Indianapoilis he’s ever seen are the insides of the Borders and Barnes & Nobles when he’s on book tours.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:10:15 pm
Pardon my mispelling of Indianpolis, btw.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:12:21 pm
DFens, your comments about Frum crack me up. Way to keep your eye on the ball.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:15:30 pm
I guess Wilson lied repeatedly, but he just lucked into being correct about all the findings he said were true.
Ah, so we’re back to “fake but accurate”? Sorry, Sandy, but that meme went out with Dan Rather and his fake Bush Nat’l Guard story.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:17:36 pm
Well, Joe Mama, I’m glad we agree on Frum…or do we? At any rate, I’m obviously no fan.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:18:38 pm
Fair enough, David. Marcellus was probably relying on his “gut feeling,” too, when he said “something is rotten in the state of Denmark.” So I suppose you’re in good company. :)
Um, Joe Mama, not to nitpick, but the Paula Jones case was thrown out. The judge ruled that even if the Paula Jones’s accusations were accurate, they did not constitute sexual harassment under Arkansas law. Clinton then settled with Paula Jones prior to her appeal, as I recall.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:22:17 pm
For all those morons who claimed there was no “there” there or that it was Joseph Wilson who outed his own wife, it’s time to eat some fucking crow.
The fact is that Cheney orchestrated a smear campaign against a covert CIA agent in a bizarre attempt to save face. Frankly, if Cheney had sat on his hands and done absolutely nothing nobody would be talking about Joseph Wilson today and dumbass Scooter Libby wouldn’t spend one day in jail. Cheney has only himself to blame for this debacle and the Keystone Kops cover-up job he tried to orchestrate after the fact.
As for Joe Wilson, sounds to me like he has a pretty good civil suit to go after Rove and Cheney with. Ah. Let the litigation begin!
March 6th, 2007 at 2:25:13 pm
Anyone else noticing that this story is getting less play on CNN than Anna Nicole Smith’s death?
March 6th, 2007 at 2:30:23 pm
Brendan,
I stand corrected. Clinton’s payment to Jones somewhere in the neighborhood of $800K-$900K made the most sense to me in my recollection if the case had still been pending, but my memory didn’t serve me well here. As you say, he evidently wanted her to dump the appeal as well.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:33:20 pm
Brendan:
Touche`.
So do you feel that Clinton should have been convicted, or Libby found not guilty?
Personally I would have impeached Clinton for violating the Federal sexual harassment law that he put in to place (which he violated) rather than lying under oath.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:38:49 pm
Joe Mama, my reference to Wilson being a “liar” was sarcasm. The Republicans famous fallback defense is to label people liars when they have no facts to argue, as has been the case for most of their debates the past 5 years.
Wilson is a former ambassador to Iraq, knew more about the facts of the world back then than Cheney, Bush and their advisers do today. Confirmed firsthand that the words in the state of the union about the Yellowcake was fabricated as George Tenet stated directly in meetings with the administrations speech-writers. If he lied about anything it was an attempt to keep an undercover CIA agents identity secret, something that apparently does not matter to a diminishing number of Republicans.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:40:58 pm
gahrie-
It doesn’t really matter what Brendan thinks. The jury thought Libby was guilty. There weren’t enough votes in the Senate to convict Clinton. End of story.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:42:31 pm
Sandy Underpants-
Might I add that Wilson was in the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad during the first Gulf War.
March 6th, 2007 at 2:50:38 pm
Sandy Underpants:
You do know that even the State department (which has been hostile to every Republican president for 50 years) thinks Wilson was a joke right? He was shuffled off to every low level post they could find for him.
And as for being the ambassador to Iraq, that’s almost true. He was a mid level flunkie in the embassy, who was chosen to be the one left behind when we pulled the real diplomats out of the embassy.
March 6th, 2007 at 3:07:34 pm
“If Americans listened to Joe Wilson instead of George Bush we wouldn’t have wasted 20,000 american lives”
Bill Maher is that you?
March 6th, 2007 at 3:10:14 pm
gahrie-
Of course, nobody knows “low level flunkies” like substitute teachers in San Bernardino.
As for Wilson’s title, he was the Deputy Chief of Mission in Iraq during the first Gulf War. Hardly a “low level flunky.” Typically career foreign service officers don’t end up as Ambassadors because those are usually political appointments, though Wilson was an Ambassador in Africa later in his career.
Regarding the State Department, it appears to be anti-asshole, not anti-Republican.
March 6th, 2007 at 3:28:34 pm
Then it looks like Angrier and Angrier won’t be able to quit flipping burgers to go work in the State Department, then.
March 6th, 2007 at 4:14:00 pm
Well not being a substitute teacher in San Bernardino, I wouldn’t know anything about that asshole.
March 6th, 2007 at 4:19:47 pm
“Wilson’s assertions — both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information — were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.
The panel found that Wilson’s report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson’s assertions and even the government’s previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address. ”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html
March 6th, 2007 at 4:33:35 pm
A&A, stick to the ad hominems about what you think people do for a living, that’s more than enough to keep the likes of you busy. Leave the arguments to people who know what they’re talking about. To wit, the Washington Post article cited above clearly illustrates how Libby’s conviction does NOT vindicate Joe Wilson in the least, and no amount of silly triumphalism over today’s story will change that.
March 6th, 2007 at 4:39:59 pm
So do you feel that Clinton should have been convicted, or Libby found not guilty?
Actually, there is a third option. I could, without being a hypocrite, believe that both Libby and Clinton deserve to be found guilty at criminal trials, but that Clinton did not deserve to be impeached/convicted, because although he committed a crime, it was not a “high crime.” Libby can be guilty without meeting the “high crimes and misdemeanors” standard.
Anyway, I have always the Clinton impeachment was a close call. Did Clinton break the law? Yes. Was it serious enough to warrant impeachment? Maybe. I’ve never quite decided. It’s a close call; I think reasonable people can disagree about it.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:00:55 pm
Gee, Joe Mama. You are a lawyer, right? I mean, you did blabber on about the “posers” in your office. As for gahrie, your own website says you are a teacher in San Bernardino. Judging by the fact you are 41 and have never been married, it would be easy to assume that you are unable to hold down a steady job.
It’s hardly “ad hominems about what (I) think people do for a living” when you write this shit down yourselves. Thank God you aren’t my lawyer, Joe Mama, if that’s the best you can do.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:02:53 pm
I can’t get that Op/Ed link from the Washington Post to open, but if Wilson’s report strengthened the argument by the White House, why don’t they use it to defend their position?
“CIA officials warned members of the President’s National Security Council staff the [Niger-Yellowcake] intelligence was not good enough to make the flat statement Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa. The bottom line is the White House knowingly included in a presidential address information its own CIA had explicitly warned might not be true.”
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/07/11/eveningnews/main562741.shtml
That was in 2003. Of course we now know that Joe Wilson’s findings were correct and not only did Saddam not purchase or attempt to purchase yellowcake he didn’t even have a nuclear program (or bio/chem weapon) program in activity for more than 12 years.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:17:22 pm
angrier and angrier:
Just for the hell of it, even though you are a simple minded asshole, I’ll clear a few things up for you.
1)Yes, I live in San Bernardino. In a home that I own.
2)I am single by choice. Believe it or not, I have turned down offers of marriage.
3)While I am a teacher, I do not teach in the City of San Bernardino.
4)You suffer from both the personality of an asshole, and the logic of a child.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:32:18 pm
A&A,
Saying I’m a lawyer is a correct statement, but quite insufficient for knowing what it is I do for a living, as any other lawyer/law student on this blog will tell you. There are many kinds of lawyers, just as there are many kinds of doctors and many kinds of athletes, and obviously not everyone who is a lawyer practices law. You also pretend to know where it is I live and work, which is rather amusing. And while I come across people who pretend to knowledge in the course of my job (and on this blog, including this very thread), I certainly wasn’t referring to anyone I work with, so you’re wrong about that as well. And finally, you don’t have to worry about me being your lawyer . . . I don’t do much pro bono work.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:35:29 pm
Why do you guys even respond to this idiot? He/she is obviously still in grade-school.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:47:50 pm
Now that we have that important matter settled…
Does Libby’s guilt really point to something fishy in the administration or not? I’m inclined, along with a lot of others to think yes, but I can’t see anything actually coming of this. Thoughts?
March 6th, 2007 at 5:56:35 pm
kcatnd,
This has administration has shown a distinct lack of interest in holding anyone actually accountable for anything other than the occasional scape goat like Libby. Mistake after mistake is made and no one at the top is ever called to task over it, so no, this isn’t going to lead anywhere unless the justice department decides to continue investigation, something i’m not expecting them to do.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:58:19 pm
Brendan, if Clinton deserved to be impeached (not convicted mind you, just impeached) don’t you think there has been enough behavior in this administration to justify it? I’d rather we let a womanizer stay in office, than an incompetent, yet you even suggest investigating some of the questionable activities of this administration and you are basically told to sit down, shut up, and let King George W. keep fighting those darn terrorists and protecting our “freedom”.
March 6th, 2007 at 6:06:45 pm
quite a bit of information being left out of the conversation, eh?
March 6th, 2007 at 6:12:11 pm
my bad… here u go:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ZDk4ZWM0N2RiZWZkZjE4NzFmMWEyYzM4ODYzMTQ3Mzc=
March 6th, 2007 at 6:30:18 pm
David, I think the “crimes” of this administration have been political in nature, i.e., the sort of thing that reasonable people can disagree about, and thus certainly not “high crimes and misdemeanors.” If you can show me evidence that President Bush has committed perjury, obstructed justice, etc., then we can talk. But if your contention is that Bush should be impeached because his administration likes to engage in rhetorical bullying and propose various measures that you think are too aggressive, um, that’s not really a serious argument, sorry. You can’t be impeached for that.
March 6th, 2007 at 6:34:37 pm
No, he has actually broken the law through various programs, or may very well have and thus it should be investigated such as the NSA spying. Thats not political in nature, its something that has been confirmed has occured and may have broken the law. Bush apologists claim that its legal, but isn’t the whole poitn of impeachment to try him for possilbe crimes at which point he can either be exonerated or punished?
March 6th, 2007 at 7:03:05 pm
The question of whether, for example, the NSA spying is legal or not is a question that needs to be settled in the courts, and despite the dogmatic beliefs of many on the left, it is NOT obviously illegal — there are serious arguments by serious legal scholars that it is legal and constitutional. Those arguments may or may not ultimately be accepted, but that’s something the legal process needs to work out. Now, if the Supreme Court comes out tomorrow and says, “This program is illegal and unconstitutional and must be stopped immediately,” and Bush still continued to do it covertly, disobeying the final judgment of the Court, THEN we can talk about impeachment. But there is a huge, huge, HUGE difference between enacting a program/law of debatable legality/constitutionality, on the one hand, and blatantly breaking a law that everyone knows is in place, not subject to interpretation (for example, committing perjury, or committing the various crimes that Nixon committed). Surely you can see the difference, David. On the one hand, you have a question of policy on which there is a massive public, political, legal and scholarly debate. On the other hand, you have simple illegality, not debatable, just plainly illegal. By your logic, FDR should have been impeached for enacting arguably unconstitutional New Deal programs. Or Lincoln, for pushing the limits of executive power during the Civil War.
No, no, no. Impeachment trials are NOT the proper venue for determining the constitutionality/legality of government programs that are subject to serious public/legal/scholarly debate. The federal courts are the proper venue for that. Impeachment is a venue for trying an individual for breaking clearly defined laws. This is a very simple and obvious distintion.
March 6th, 2007 at 7:07:10 pm
Brendan, you Bush Apologist ;-)
March 6th, 2007 at 7:07:21 pm
P.S. Let me put it more simply:
Impeachment trials are about determining whether the president broke the law.
They are NOT about determining what the law is.
In the case of the NSA spying and other similar controversies, the question is whether the Bush Administration’s assertions of executive power exceeded constitutional/statutory limits. That’s a question of what the law is.
You can’t impeach the president for breaking the law when the question of what the law is is still in dispute. Well, you can, but it would be silly and stupid and dangerous, and would lead to the misuse of impeachment as tool of political harassment whenever Congress (or one party in Congress) thinks the president has done something that they consider “unconstitutional.”
That’s just not how our separation/balance of powers works, nor should it. The course of action you’re proposing would lead to absolute disaster.
March 6th, 2007 at 7:07:57 pm
Joe Mama, I prefer to be known as an FDR and Lincoln apologist. ;)
March 6th, 2007 at 7:27:46 pm
brendan, i believe we could’ve used that sort of legal jargon in Mr. Aros’s class a few years back. that would’ve thrown him for a loop. and then he would’ve whipped u with his yard stick.
March 6th, 2007 at 7:30:15 pm
Heh.
March 6th, 2007 at 7:30:45 pm
P.S. I believe Mr. Aros would appreciate David’s post about the French. “Feet don’t fail me now!”
March 8th, 2007 at 1:12:29 pm
As for Joe Wilson, sounds to me like he has a pretty good civil suit to go after Rove and Cheney with. Ah. Let the litigation begin!
In your dreams, A&A. Putting aside the fact that Wilson is the one person in this whole pathetic tale with less credibility than Scooter Libby, an integral part of winning a civil suit is proving damages. Exactly what damages have the Wilsons suffered from this “scandal” besides enormous profits on book deals, speaking engagements, and now a movie?