Here's more proof that the petty BS pushers have run out of new ideas for scandal-mongering: they are recycling the Plame issue.
(For background on the Plame fiasco, go here, here, here and here.)
First, we have two raging narcissists—the former covert agent, Valerie Plame, and the former ambassador, Joseph Wilson--married to each other and trying to live out/relive their political intrigue fantasies. The wife sees that the husband’s career is waning, so she uses whatever pull she has to give it a boost. However, because of his inability to tell a story and stick to it, the move backfires on him. And, like narcissists everywhere, he wants to point the finger at everyone but himself.
Particularly galling to the husband is the knowledge that everyone knows that he had to depend on his wife for the plumb position that he got (and fouled up). That’s got to be hard on a man’s self image. So in order to regain his manhood, Wilson has to cast himself as his wife’s protector; he must go on the “crusade” to find out who “put his wife in danger,” even if it reaches the “highest levels of power.”
However, before Wilson goes ballistic, no one can find a mention of his wife’s name in public except in Wilson’s entry of the 2003 version of Who’s Who in America, which was compiled and published in 2002 well before the so-called scandal.
(Click to enlarge.)
Leaving aside all of the other inanities in this waste of time, it’s interesting to note that, had Mr. Wilson not brought all of this attention to himself regarding the yellow-cake controversy, few, if any would know his wife’s name. Going further back, if his wife’s identity was such a well-guarded secret, why even name her in the short biography?
The only thing more pathetic than the Plames Wilsons themselves are the mainstream media types who continually try to pin the crime that didn’t happen on someone, anyone in the Bush Administration. This time, it’s the administration’s most hated and feared member, Karl Rove.
Meanwhile, the hordes are still intent on killing us all.
UPDATE: I wish I would have thought of this title.
OK, let's do this.
1. Just because someone is covert, it doesn't mean the person is in a "hush hush" position. Yes, I know it doesn't make sense, but in the land of government, it's not uncommon.
2. If I recall correctly, he served "with honor" for Dems and Repubs.
3. This dust up is happened because someone dared to criticize the president, so the discredit squad went to work.
Posted by: DarkStar | July 12, 2005 at 01:57 PM
1. Um no, that's not correct. Covert means exactly what its definition implies; so much so that covert agents have an alternate "place of business" so they don't have to say that they work for the CIA or other such agency. It was common knowledge that Plame worked for the CIA as an ANALYST.
2. What does that have to do with this matter?
3. That makes absolutely no sense, in light of the fact that President Bush has been hammered from day one and rarely does he or his staff have a comeback (the TANG memos were a perfect example). Sometimes it's rather annoying that cheek turning thing.
Darkstar, sometimes I think you post stuff merely for the sake of contrariness, so I just let it be most of the time. Not today.
Posted by: baldilocks | July 12, 2005 at 02:30 PM
Don't forget that what Wislon wrote in his article is directly at odds with what he reported back to the CIA after the trip. In fact, his trip added weight to the consensus leading to those 16 words.
Hence the "WH" pointed out that a) wifey sent him to Niger, b) Wilson is a liar one way or another.
Conspiracy for calling a spade a spade? Hardy-har-har!
Posted by: AH·C | July 12, 2005 at 04:01 PM
Re, re #1: I'm correct on this one. Some covert people are hidden, but not all.
Re#2: Although the husband backed Kerry, I don't think the charge of Democrat partisan hack applies.
Re#3: I'll lay this out here plainly.
I don't care whether or not the Bush administration, or any presidential adminstration, has been hammered daily. Unfortunately, that is the state of today's politics and it's definitely not for the better. But be that as it may, there are things about what's happening concerning Iraq and Afghanistan and the U.S. policy in the Middle East that stinks.
I'm not miltary but I'll match my service to this country against most civilians any day of the week.
When professional war fighters tell the suits that what is being planned has problems, and the suits ignore them, something is wrong.
War is impossible to plan. It is a continuous display of adjustments. But the professional war fighters, early on, stated that more men were needed to hold the country after the war. Professional war planners were saying that if they aren't careful, Afghanistan would flare back up.
When the former head of the NSA, along with other retired generals are publically sounding a warning, then something is wrong.
Right now, "right leaning" pundits are making a better case for war than the President. "Right leaning" pundits are presenting information that, to me, the President should be presenting to make his case.
Sorry, but from what I'm seeing, the Bush administration is shooting itself in the foot.
If President Clinton's administration had done all
that the Bush administration is doing now, "right leaning" pundits would be having a field day.
I don't like this. I don't like this one bit.
Posted by: DarkStar | July 12, 2005 at 06:07 PM
Next, I've talked with people who came back from Afghanistan, and they were telling me that the region is flaring back up again before the press mentioned it.
I've talked with people who came back from Iraq and I've gotten conflicting stories. Well, all say the press is unfair. But some say the Iraqis are grateful, others say that the Iraqis want them the heck out of the country. Those told me that they wound up trusting no Iraqis because they, the trouble makers, were sending kids and women to do harm to the war fighters.
IMO, the American public hasn't been leveled with and the American public hasn't been told the truth about what to expect as an outcome in the Middle East.
All of those I spoke with have come back in one piece. One is in a bad financial situation and is digging his way out.
Posted by: DarkStar | July 12, 2005 at 06:18 PM
I look at it like this. Saddam and his Sons simply could not continue in a world like this. The terror attack in London is exactly the kind of thing that Saddam and his sons would be able to do for decades into the future. We were going to have to be leaving Saudi Arabia very soon as things stood after 911 and the kinds of threats and terror the Saudi government was experiencing. Once we pulled out of Saudi Arabia Saddam would have attacked the Kurds as well as the Shia south. With Russia having already signed multi-billion dollar oil-contracts and China looking to do the same Saddam would surely be re-armed. And once Saddam and sons became a political or absolute deterent (nukes) you could expect all manner of suicide missions as Saddam's regime began doing to the whole world as he was already doing to the West Bank and Gaza. Or as his May 15 Organization, or Abu Nidal Organization, practiced terrorism in the 1980s.
All that and the fact that there is just too many countries out there with undefined technologies and materials from various criminal organizations now operating throughout the world to have this Baathist regime playing with billions in oil revenue, doing gross things to his own people, and having the United Nations and so many Israel hating cowardly westerners flattering this tyrant.
Oil-for-food, and the food ration cards that were used to leverage the Iraqi people, if left to itself, really had no end in sight. Too many people were paid and happy in this system of oil distribution you would think that it was going to be the system of the future for those that love the United Nations so much. In a sense the United Nations and Saddam were all a part of a quasi state with Saddam as their general and Al Qaeda as their "special operations branch".
Posted by: Steve | July 12, 2005 at 07:24 PM
DarkStar, I address some of your points in Baldi's "More about the British Memo" post. When you talk to returning vets, it depends on who you're talking to. There's plenty of Majors and Colonels who don't have the "right stuff" as it were in that they don't know, let alone understand the big picture/strategy.
The problem with retired generals is that they and their knowledge is already obsolete by the time they settle into retirement. There's nothing more dangerous than a has been who thinks they know it all on a transformed subject, including Powell.
Likewise, recently retired Franks will be "irrelevant" by year's end, unless he's been retained as a key advisor, simply beause he would no longer have visibility on evolving strategies implementing transforming technologies and lessons learned.
IOW, C+ Guru <> .NET Guru.
Posted by: AH·C | July 12, 2005 at 07:34 PM
For DarkStar:
Was Ms. Plame a covert agent? All evidence points to a 'no' answer.
She was and is an analyst; a desk-driver in a SCIF in the DC area and has been for the better part of ten years.
She had been a covert agent in the past, but was presumed to have been outed by Aldrich Ames in 1994. In cases like that, the CIA doesn't wait for definitive evidence that an agent has been compromised; they merely bring them home.
According to the law that is supposed to have been broken, the covert agent in question must have been active outside of the United States within five years of being outed. 1998 was the cutoff year in Plame's case.
(Aside: I don't mean to be rude, but, who cares about your service except for those who sling the chickenhawk epithet? Did I bring mine up? No. Either what you say makes sense or it doesn't.)
As you may have gathered, I have a few old friends in the business also and, as you say, some professional war-fighters are saying what you claim, others the opposite, still others a mixture of info. And?
I don't know whether Wilson and Plame are Democratic hacks or not; probably, but individuals can differ here. As I said, what they really probably are are a couple of narcissists who think that the world and world events should revolve around them. (They are likely elated just about now; basking in the attention and indifferent to whether they are harming the war effort or not.)
I do know this: the Plame crap is an incredibly childish prank perpetrated in the midst of grown-up business: survival against an enemy who would see us nuked if they could and would have done it four years ago.
[baldilocks says: The law link has been changed.]
Posted by: baldilocks | July 12, 2005 at 07:55 PM
The only thing that really matters to us as citizens is the fact that Saddam was seeking yellow-cake in Niger.
The next thing that matters on the list is why did Wilson lie about that?
The next question is why was the MSM so eager with the story that was a lie and never went on to put in any effort to tell the true story about Saddam and the Niger yellow-cake?
Next question is why is the media getting so worked up over another thing that in reality really is no real matter to us? As well as possibly this being no real matter according to the law since it appears Karl did not say Valerie's name (already out anyway) but only wanted to tell the reporter it wasn't Dick Cheney that sent Wilson to Niger.
Posted by: Steve | July 12, 2005 at 08:31 PM
They have been enormously successful in pushing the London bombings into the background by recycling this story. Now the WoT can be shuffled off to the sidelines and they can attack the administration again for perceived political gain.
"Bombings? What bombings? Oh yeah. Some noise in London, wasn't it? "
It's working.
Miller and the rest could clear this mystery up in a minute, but they won't, they're getting too much mileage out of it.
Posted by: StinKerr | July 12, 2005 at 10:00 PM
Does anyone remember that the "war time president" sold the Iraq invasion on the premise of WMDs? Wilson did the job his government asked him to do and in the process debunked a significant component of that now embarrassing justification. If president War Time made the decision to invade on the basis of actual facts shouldn't this have given him pause? But instead Bush's brain calls up the media and outs Wilson's wife.
1) Outing someone's wife is not the act of someone who is sincerely considering the facts that will determine a preemptive war.
2)Rove thought Plames covert status was bona fide enough or he wouldn’t have bothered to out her as a means to punish her husband.
3) If Rove is innocent why did he even know that she was an agent to begin with? How and why did that information come up as a topic of conversation in the White House with Rove involved? Why did he need to bring her up at all in his discussions with the journalists (Cooper, Novak, etc) at all? Notice how Rove has gone into nuance mode.
What I find really disturbing is how the folks posting here just keep rationalizing these types of immoral acts away. Next I will be hearing how Democrats are unpatriotic and hate America because they expect Bush to do as he said and fire Rove.
Posted by: Bill O... | July 13, 2005 at 04:09 AM
Does anybody remember Joe Wilson's web site www.restorehonesty.com ? Do you remember who sponsored it? Does anybody remember who he was campaigning for? If you don't recall the answers to these questions, just copy the address and paste it into your browser. The question is answered.
I would have made a link but I want you to see exactly what you're doing and that I'm not being tricky.
Any questions?
Posted by: StinKerr | July 13, 2005 at 05:21 AM
Bill O,
Does anyone remember that the "war time president" sold the Iraq invasion on the premise of WMDs? Wilson did the job his government asked him to do and in the process debunked a significant component of that now embarrassing justification.
-----
Does anyone remember the whole context of this issue with Saddam and WMD as reported by the MSM as Saddam and Bill Clinton squared off in the 1990s?
Does anyone remember the vote in the House and Senate on approximately October 9, 2002, does anyone remember the 15 votes of the Security Council on Resolution 1441? Does anyone remember the offer for Saddam to go to Belarus? Does anyone remember the pause after "Shock and Awe" for Saddam to surrender?
Does anyone remember that according to the Senate's report that came out on about July 7 or 9th of 2004 it showed that Joe Wilson's own report showed that Saddam's regime had inquired about yellow-cake in Niger.
Posted by: Steve | July 13, 2005 at 05:53 AM
1) If outing Plame wasn't such a big deal, why did the president himself promise that he would fire anyone associated with the leak?
2) Didn't we establish with the Lewinsky debacle that lying to the public is now grounds to consider impeachment? Gee, I sure hope George fires Rove quickly. I wouldn't want to have to go through all that again.
3) Only in the incredibly partisan world of sites like this would the fact that Wilson supported Kerry discredit his position. Does this mean that all Democrats are born lyers? Maybe we should put them all in camps behind barbed wire for our own protection...
4) All this "Saddam had to go" propoganda is just a refusal to recognize that a) the occupation of Iraq has been the most badly planned $200 billion disaster in history b) Bush lied about his reasons for the invasion (please see earlier point about the Lewinsky impeachment) c) everything i have read from the perspective of troops on the ground indicates that morale is at rock bottom (oh, please try to blame the left for this, rather than IED's and lack of armored vehicles). the army is now telling troops they better re-enlist and get a signing bonus, or else they're be stop-lossed and sent back to Iraq (without the bonus) anyway. this is an unacknowledged draft, and it will only destroy morale further.
5) did Baldilocks really tell Darkstar "who cares about your [military] service"? i find this incredibly offensive. almost sickening, really. i thought we were supposed to honor people who serve their country (that goes for Valerie Plame as well). but i guess conservatives are taking their cues from Bush these days, who has STILL refused to go to any soldiers' funerals, due to political calculations. an absolute disgrace. what a fake patriot. the fact is that the left is doing a better job of supporting the troops these days than the right, which is only paying lip service (while trying to cut veterans benefits at the same time).
6) and to attempt to cover up its self-serving hypocrisy, baldilocks and the right sell us very-ending doses of fear. "the hordes are still intent on killing us." an appeal to cowardice. wasn't it ben franklin who said, "a man who would sacrifice his liberty for security deserves neither liberty nor security"? the right-wing has consistently appealed to people's cowardice and fear rather then their bravery and strength. i'm not scared of the "hordes." i'm scared of Americans who want me to abandon my commmon sense and love of liberty.
stroudDAWG
Posted by: stroudDAWG | July 13, 2005 at 08:12 AM
Baldi, one thing to keep in mind is that as much as you want to blame the media someone may have broken the law. The DOJ is involved at the behest of the CIA because apparently they took Plame's covert status seriously.
Yes Wilson got behind Kerry. I agree with stroudDAWG in that this means absolutely nothing. Wilson donated to Bush I also. Paula Jones was living off of Republican Schaife money while she was waiting for her Clinton check and subsequently posed in porn magazines. Does that mean she wasn't telling the truth?
Anonymous wrote:
"Does anyone remember the whole context of this issue with Saddam and WMD as reported by the MSM as Saddam and Bill Clinton squared off in the 1990s?"
What on earth are you talking about?
Anonymous wrote:
"Does anyone remember the vote in the House and Senate on approximately October 9, 2002"
Which one specifically? I.e. what is it called?
Anonymous wrote:
Does anyone remember the offer for Saddam to go to Belarus? Does anyone remember the pause after "Shock and Awe" for Saddam to surrender?" And your point is what exactly...?
Anonymous wrote:
"does anyone remember the 15 votes of the Security Council on Resolution 1441?"
This I do. It was the vote Colin Powell gave the presentation for which he will regret until his last day because a number of the facts in it were either lies or mistakes -probably both.
http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/14/sprj.irq.documents/
If you go to the link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/UN_Security_Council_Resolution_1441
You will see a brief and precise account of the resolution including the fact that Saddam gave the green light for the weapons inspectors 2 days before the deadline.
Posted by: Bill O... | July 13, 2005 at 10:18 AM
As much a lefties want Karl Rove to be frog marched out of the White House in handcuffs, I'm afraid it won't be happening. Rove is still there precisely because he's not a target of the investigation.
When all is said and done, this will be a case of barking lefty moonbats pulling their hair out because they couldn't get Dr. Evil.
If Dr. Evil breaks no law, Dr. Evil wins. It's as simple as that. Some lefties are stupid enough to keep pissing into the same light socket year after year. It actually gets fun to watch after a while.
I wonder what it will be like when the Moonbats see Plame and Wilson get hauled before the Grand Jury. Oh, and Miller? She's covering for somebody the Times doesn't want revealed-which means she's covering up a Donk. That's right-there's a Dem in the woodwork somewhere, otherwise Judith Miller would have blown her WH source a long time ago. All the WH people signed waivers, including Scooter Libby.
The Times doesn't want to see the Donkey Party embarrassed. There's speculation that the Clintons are somehow involved over at Redstate, but it's early yet.
Posted by: Section9 | July 13, 2005 at 11:03 AM
Let's not get off track here. Even if Wilson is a bold-faced liar, that's not the issue. The issue is whether Rove (or someone else) outed a CIA agent for political gain. It's pretty clear that she was "covert", but whether Rove technically broke the law is not important. What is important is that members of the Bush administration have little regard for our national security or people doing their patriotic duty by working for the government.
One question: is there ANYTHING this administration could do that would bring criticism from convervatives (condoning torture? falling for shoddy intelligence? deliberately understating the costs of medicaid?)? It seems like the answer is no--this just gets more and more absurd every day. (I'll admit that the same question could be asked of liberals but in reverse)
[baldilocks says: You apparently have never seen the conservative's take on GWB's immigration policy. And saying that she was covert over and over again does not make it so. Please read the the definition of 'covert agent' in the law link in my above comment or, as they say where I come from, step off.]
Posted by: Justin | July 13, 2005 at 11:06 AM
[baldilocks says: You apparently have never seen the conservative's take on GWB's immigration policy. And saying that she was covert over and over again does not make it so. Please read the the definition of 'covert agent' in the law link in my above comment or, as they say where I come from, step off.]
Point taken regarding Bush's immigration policy, but I still stand by my amazement at conservatives unwillingness to criticize Bush, even in the face of his big government spending policies etc. But that may be more a testament to conservative's willingness to know what's at stake and maintain a unified front.
As for being a "covert" agent, saying over and over again that she was not a covert agen does not make it so, and I'm not sure how the definition lends any support for your argument. The bottom line is that neither of us know whether she was really covert. But the question I have (and this is a real question, not a rhetorical one) is, if she was not covert, what is the point of the investigation? That is, whether she was covert or not is just a simple matter of fact. If the CIA did not consider her covert, than it is impossible for the law in question to have been violated. So, it AT LEAST must be an open question as to whether she was really covert, and I would guess that she was, or else this investigation is probably the biggest exercise in wastefulness imaginable. The point of the investigation appears to be whether the other parts of the statute have been violated (which I suspect they haven't). In any event, it's still a pretty sleazy thing to do. Imagine if, during Clinton's term, Sid Blumenthal had done the same thing to a critic of the Bosnian internvention. Conservative would probably be even more ina furor than liberals are now.
Posted by: Justin | July 13, 2005 at 12:25 PM
"Is there ANYTHING this administration could do that would bring criticism from convervatives (condoning torture? falling for shoddy intelligence? deliberately understating the costs of medicaid?)?" Plainly not. This has been the most incompetent administration since Herbert Hoover by any reasonable measure. And the only thing baldilocks is willing to come up with is that his immigration policy isn't conservative enough? What about single-handedly turning the largest surplus in US history into the largest deficit in US history? (To add to Justin's excellent list of total administration failures.)
How many Democrats came out after the Lewinsky debacle and said that the president was totally wrong, that they wanted to censure him, that they just didn't think that diddling the intern and then trying to get her a job a Revlon fell under the category of "high crimes and misdemeanors" as defined by the Founding Fathers? Answer: most of the party. I'm not a big fan of the Democratic Party these days, but at least they have SOME consistent sense of morality. Far too many conservatives will defend any kind of immoral, illegal, and idiotic action by the administration because of their partisanship. I hate to use the F word here, but it is all bit fascistic for my taste ("The Leader is always right.")
In this case, the facts are stark and clear: Karl Rove reveals to a reporter that Wilson's wife is a CIA agent working on weapons of mass destruction issues, immediately after her husband publishes a critical op-ed piece pointing out that the administration is using evidence IT ALREADY KNOWS IS PHONY to justify invading Iraq. We all know this is wrong. THAT'S WHY THE PRESIDENT PROMISED TO FIRE ANYONE INVOLVED!! The only defense Rove's team has offered so far is that this was not a "planned" leak (as if any intelligent person could reveal such classified and dangerous information accidentally) and that he didn't say the woman's name, only that she was Wilson's wife (as if Wilson has dozens of wives)? And still many conservatives howl that this is all some liberal conspiracy?? Baldilocks and company: please take a step back and try to rationally look at the actions of this administration. They are clearly unsupportable. If you would rather live with this ridiculous pack of lies than agree with the hated "liberals," you need to get yourself to a propaganda detox center quickly, before your latent fascist urges become manifest. The truth is the truth. Right is right, and wrong is wrong, whether committed by your side or the other. To stop believing this is the first step towards the end of law and democracy.
stroudDAWG
Posted by: stroudDAWG | July 13, 2005 at 01:36 PM
She was and is an analyst; a desk-driver in a SCIF in the DC area and has been for the better part of ten years.
I'll end it, on my part, by saying that SCIF sitters can still be considered covert.
Intent and knowledge are key.
I mentioned service to cut off anyone who wanted to challenge me on that, as seems to be the case if someone has problems with the Bush administration's actions.
Posted by: DarkStar | July 13, 2005 at 05:39 PM
stroudDAWG,
Lying to the public is not a crime yet. Otherwise we'd have more politicians in jail than in office. Lying under oath in a matter before a court and a grand jury is a crime. It's called perjury and obstruction of justice and comes under the high crimes and misdemeanors clause of the impeachment article. Here's a Village Voice article on the outcome. I selected it because the V.V. is hardly a right wing propaganda machine.
I pointed out Wilson's apparent partisanship and deep involvement in the Kerry campaign, his position as an advisor and his Kerry campaign sponsored website, to show that he wasn't playing from the middle of the field. It's been used to dismiss people from the other side of the aisle, why is it invalid when discussing Wilson's motives?
I don't think all Democrats are born liars, I believe however, that it's a trait many have cultivated in their desparation due to their leadership and electoral failures. I've detailed some examples on other threads. --- Oh, I see that you have repeated one of those lies: It's the "cut veterans benefits" lie. That's one of the Dem lies that I'm talking about. Veterans benefits are funded at record levels and have been increased under this President. The Dems however claim that they've been cut. I was outraged at the administration when I heard this but I later found that it was a partisan lie. The whole truth is that benefit increases were reduced but were increased nonetheless, benefits were not cut. Do your own research. I did.
"Saddam must go" was U.S. policy after it was passed by Congress as the "Iraq Liberation Act" on SEPTEMBER 29, 1998 and signed into law by Bill Clinton on NOVEMBER 1, 1998.
You need to read some of the milblogs of the guys (and girls) who are actually there. What you are reading about troop morale is what someone with an agenda wants you to see (and think).
We certainly should honor people who serve their country. Point me to any articles detailing awards ceremonies for any military personnel carried by the MSM. Can you name the recent Medal of Honor recipient or find the story in the MSM? (not his hometown paper, the MSM. If you have to Google it you've proved my point.) Valerie Plame does not rise to that level.
I hope you don't mind if I hoot at your "the fact is that the left is doing a better job of supporting the troops these days than the right". I'm wondering when "these days" begins. It certanly wasn't when "I voted for the 87 billion before I voted against it" statement was made. I'll refer back to the Medal of Honor recipient above.
Either I have given you enough to consider or I've wasted too much bandwidth already, so I'll stop here.
Posted by: StinKerr | July 13, 2005 at 06:37 PM
Oh, I did forget to mention one other thing: Do you really believe that after all the terrorist attacks around the world that the "hordes" are not out to kill us?
I am not afraid of them but I support fighting them and destroying them because they will surely try to destroy us.
Posted by: StinKerr | July 13, 2005 at 06:55 PM
DarkStar: I know a thing or two about SCIFs. All someone has to do is sit outside one and see who goes in. Ms. Plame worked at one in Langley. You're reaching.
I suppose that my other points are unassailable.
Stinkerr: thank you for the back up. I know, however, that the logic and facts did get through for two reasons (to DarkStar's credit, they don't apply to him):
1) The subject got changed; this gets one to start defending the new subject(s), without conceding to the original point(s), and
2) People started writing paragraph-free missives to goad others into joining the misdirection plays.
Sad.
Posted by: baldilocks | July 13, 2005 at 09:23 PM
BTW, stroudDawg, who cares about your offense? It would do you well to check into the reasoning behind what I said to DarkStar about his service. You can do that by reading some of the more recent posts on this blog.
It would also do you well to check into *my* background, before you strut your outrage around here.
Posted by: baldilocks | July 13, 2005 at 09:30 PM
I'm not someone that grew up with computers and I am a little new to the Internet but I've been doing a lot of reading all the same. What I mean to say is that I still do not know how to give anyone here a link any other way than like I have it down below. So click below stroudDAWG and read slowly and carefully twice.
Also, if all this Iraq stuff means so much to you would you read The Iraq War Brief, Why Saddam Hussein Was Toppled by Al J Venter, and The Connection by Stephen F. Hayes, and Bill Clinton's speech at the Pentagon on February 17, 1998, and go to the website of Institute for Science and International Security and do searches using their search box which immediately appears when the site comes up. This should take you a couple of months if you are otherwise busy with other things too and we'll see you then OK? Just relax and read and know that others already have known these things for a long long time now. Its OK though.
Don't forget to click below stroudDAWG.
Posted by: Steve (click stroudDAWG) | July 13, 2005 at 11:21 PM
Steve: Thanks. And here's where I learned all the common html stuff: Basic HTML.
Posted by: baldilocks | July 14, 2005 at 12:47 AM
I suppose that my other points are unassailable.
No, not really, and I still don't agree with the SCIF part, but I'm now bored with the topic and, right now, my temp. it down concerning our war fighters getting screwed by our own people and government.
Posted by: DarkStar | July 14, 2005 at 05:23 AM
In case someone really does go to look for the book by Mr. Venter I've corrected the title I gave above. It just began to bother me that it wasn't right that I had to come back on here to correct it.
The Iraq War Debrief, Why Saddam Hussein Was Toppled by Al J Venter. (Debrief not Brief)
Posted by: Steve | July 14, 2005 at 07:14 AM
"I pointed out Wilson's apparent partisanship and deep involvement in the Kerry campaign, his position as an advisor and his Kerry campaign sponsored website, to show that he wasn't playing from the middle of the field. It's been used to dismiss people from the other side of the aisle, why is it invalid when discussing Wilson's motives?"
This is kind of pathetic, really. Why is it that everyone that criticizes Bush et al deeply partisan? Wilson was a higly respected member of the foreign policy establishment. He was a former ambassador to Iraq, and had extensive experience in Africa. So what if he voted for Al Gore or something. It's deeply troubling that unless someone is 100% loyal to the administration, what they say has no merit and is not credible. Just look at how many insiders have criticized the administration and have been smeared--Clark, the guy who did Bush's faith based progams (can't remember his name, De Lullo?), etc.
I'm not saying that Wilson is telling the truth about everything, and I'm not going to try to defend him any more. But come on, Rove and other administration officials OUTED A CIA AGENT to get even. Even if Wilson is lying about everything, there's no excuse for that.
Posted by: Justin | July 14, 2005 at 09:07 AM
"Oh, I see that you have repeated one of those lies: It's the "cut veterans benefits" lie. That's one of the Dem lies that I'm talking about. Veterans benefits are funded at record levels and have been increased under this President. The Dems however claim that they've been cut. I was outraged at the administration when I heard this but I later found that it was a partisan lie. The whole truth is that benefit increases were reduced but were increased nonetheless, benefits were not cut. Do your own research. I did."
Dude--that's a benefit cut. If you were supposed to receive $1000 next year, but you only receive $900, that's a cut (even if you receive $850 now). But, if you think veterans already receive more than enough benefits, fine, just argue that. The point is that the democrats wanted to give veterans more than republicans.
"We certainly should honor people who serve their country. Point me to any articles detailing awards ceremonies for any military personnel carried by the MSM. Can you name the recent Medal of Honor recipient or find the story in the MSM? (not his hometown paper, the MSM. If you have to Google it you've proved my point.) Valerie Plame does not rise to that level."
New York Times, March 30, 2005--story about Sgt. First Class Paul R. Smith receiving a medal of honor.
It's funny that critics of the MSM (especially the NYT) don't really know anything about the MSM.
"Lying to the public is not a crime yet. Otherwise we'd have more politicians in jail than in office. Lying under oath in a matter before a court and a grand jury is a crime. It's called perjury and obstruction of justice and comes under the high crimes and misdemeanors clause of the impeachment article. Here's a Village Voice article on the outcome. I selected it because the V.V. is hardly a right wing propaganda machine."
That's certainly open to debate, and, you have to admit that the Republicans interpretation of that clause is certainly novel. Aaron Burr was indicted for murder and not impeached, Eisenhower illegally seized steel mills and was not impeached, Lincoln supsended habeous corpus etc.
By the way, when the founding fathers used the word "misdemeanor" they meant "bad action" (like being drunk everyday or something)--there was not the same legal concept of misdemeanor as there is today. I'm not saying Bush should be impeached, but, if it were true that Bush lied to get us to war (I don't like Bush, but I do not think he lied), that is certainly a "misdemeanor" under the original definition of the term.
Sorry for the multiple back to back posts.
Posted by: Justin | July 14, 2005 at 09:45 AM
Baldilocks,
1) Saddam ran a criminal dictatorship. I'd love to get rid of all such bastards. THAT IS NOT WHY BUSH SAID WE WERE GOING TO WAR. His entire justification for the war was a lie. And why aren't we invading Uzbekistan and Pakistan? Oh right, because those repressive dictatorships are our "allies."
2) My point about this "Saddam had to go in the interests of Democracy" propoganda is that it is now being used retroactively to cover-up the most inept post-war occupation in this nation's history (with the possible exception of Reconstruction after Lincoln's assassination). For many Iraqi's, we've simply taken over from the British and then Saddam as occupiers, just like we took over from the French in Vietnam. We'll be dealing with the deadly and unconstructive blow-back for at least thirty years.
3) Are you trying to tell me that morale in Iraq is high?? Whatever...
4) The President PROMISED the public he would fire anyone who identified Plame. So where is the ambiguity? What is there to argue? He's either going to break his oath, or he's going to fire Rove. There aren't any other options.
5) Are you actually in favor of appointing a partisan Independent Prosecutor everytime a president is suspected of adultery (or other common offenses, like lying about invasions or the cost of legislation), having that prosecutor spend hundreds of thousands of dollars digging around, and then having the entire operation of federal government grind to a halt for two years as we conduct impeachment proceedings?? We'd still be working in locked fire-traps for $2/hour and trying to get women the right to vote if the right-wing had that kind of carte blanche throughout the last century.
6) WHY DOES ANYONE WHO MAKES LESS THAN $500,000 PER YEAR VOTE REPUBLICAN?? They find new ways of screwing over the troops, the elderly, the children, the infirm, the poor, the working-class, the middle-class, and future generations of Americans every single day. Billionaires are doing great. Regular people soon won't even be able to get bankrupcty protection when they go broke due to emergency medical costs. There minimum wage jobs will be garnished while they and their kids live in homeless shelters. It's called the new fuedalism. Please pull your heads out of your reactionary butts and wake up.
stroudDAWG
Posted by: stroudDAWG | July 14, 2005 at 11:15 AM
StroudDAWG,
I don't know who you were reading in the months and years leading up to the war but I heard just about all of the justifications you can think of. You are just repeating something that makes it apparent to the rest of us that you have a very limited reading list. Your words are not your own either. We can tell your words come directly from that reading list we here are quite familliar with as it provides a lot of the source material for laughter, dissappointment, and sad wonder here.
Lots of good economic news lately as well about housing, projected deficit, employment, many things.
I'm glad that many of the Vietnamese that survived the shelling by the Vietcong as they deperately tried to board a US Navy ship for the USA were able to make it here. Those that were left behind though got to live and work in the Worker's Paradise. These Vietnamese-Americans just didn't know what they were running from and all they missed out on over there in the following years.
Posted by: Steve | July 14, 2005 at 06:46 PM
Dude,
The benefits cuts came from a program for people like me: Honorable discharge, NO combat, NO service connected disabilities and not a retiree. Now we won't be eligible for free VA medical benefits unless we make less than a certain amount annually. I'm thinking it's 35k, it could be 50k, I'm not sure. There is no reason for us to be using VA benefits. It was a nice thought but totally unnecessary.
In any event benefits were not cut, they were increased.
Okay, you Googled for the news article on Paul Smith, I knew you would.
I note that there's another earlier NYTimes article on the subject...well, not directly on the subject. Here's what I mean:
and the article you found:
I'm sure you see some differences. (I've sort of helped with emphasis.) When they could make political hay they put it on page 1, when the Medal came through it was buried on page 13 and less than half as long.
I know enough about the MSN and especially the NYTimes to check and find those differences.
Here's another one:
The first woman since WW2 to get a Silver Star gets buried on Page 16. But you're right. They're covering some of these awards sometimes. I suppose that there are things they can't ignore.
Do you know what she did to get that award? Don't bother answering me here. You know yourself if you do or not. That's enough for me. I'll tell you this though, I've seen more about her on blogs than I've seen on the MSM.
Attempting to get back on topic:
Has anyone noted the discrepancies between what Wilson officially reported when he got back from Niger and what he wrote in his book and newspaper articles? Not to mention the discrepancies between his report and his testimony to a Senate committee.
Why would he say that Cheney sent him when he knew perfectly well his wife recommended sending him?
Posted by: StinKerr | July 14, 2005 at 10:56 PM
One thing I don't understand. If Plame was not a covert agent, why is there an independent prosecutor?
Wasn't it a pretty easy threshold question to answer before the government put Fitzgerald in place and once in place why didn't he just go home if the answer is that obvious?
Posted by: chancelucky | August 02, 2005 at 01:32 PM