Rove is double-super-secret Plame source

[erik_kosberg]

"Cheney resignation rumors fly"

Be still, my heart.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

drmomentum said

I don't think the president can be sued for actions taken in an official capacity.

Maybe he can be if the actions are seen as outside the scope of his duties? (That's the standard, IIRC, for suing a federal official.)

[erik_kosberg]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006782.php

...the New York Daily News has the scoop of the day on Plame/Fitzgerald: the president knew what Karl Rove had done from the very beginning. So all that mumbojumbo about wanting to get to the bottom of it and fire the bad actors was, to revert to the King's English, crap.

The Daily News piece came up in today's press gaggle with Scott McClellan. That man needs to quit the Whitehouse and go write for The Onion.

[drmomentum[$]]

"Scott, do you have anything to say about Karl Rove's character?"
"I'm not going to comment on that sleazy son-of-a-gun."

poseidon said

In fact, they could take all sorts of cues from Clinton, you know, working on precedent and all.

Quite true.

Dubya said

I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action.

It depends on what the meaning of "know" is.
It depends on what the meaning of "anybody" is.
It depends on what the meaning of "my" is.
It depends on what the meaning of "leaked" is.
It depends on what the meaning of "classified" is.
It depends on what the meaning of "appropriate" is.
It depends on what the meaning of "action" is.

-JP

[drmomentum[$]]

The Importance of the Plame Affair

Friedman said

What we do know is this. In the course of events, reporters contacted two senior officials in the White House -- Rove and Libby. Under the least-damaging scenario we have heard, the reporters already knew that Plame had worked as a NOC. Rove and Libby, at this point, were obligated to say, at the very least, that they could neither confirm nor deny the report. In fact, their duty would have been quite a bit more: Their job was to lie like crazy to mislead the reporters. Rove and Libby had top security clearances and were senior White House officials. It was their sworn duty, undertaken when they accepted their security clearance, to build a "bodyguard of lies" -- in Churchill's phrase -- around the truth concerning U.S. intelligence capabilities.

And that's in the least-damaging scenario, if they didn't reveal the name to reporters.

Whether the special prosecutor indicts or exonerates Rove and Libby legally doesn't matter. Valerie Plame was a soldier in service to the United States, unprotected by uniform or diplomatic immunity. I have no idea whether she served well or poorly, or violated regulations later. But she did serve. And thus, she and all the other NOCs were owed far more -- especially by a conservative administration -- than they got.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

Fitzmas Carols

[mjfrombuffalo[$]]

AuntieEmma said

Fitzmas Carols

OMG too funny

[Stokes Pennwalt]

drmomentum said

The Importance of the Plame Affair

We will grant that they had the right to publish statements concerning Plame's role in U.S. intelligence; we cannot grant that they had an obligation to publish it. There is a huge gap between the right to publish and a requirement to publish. The concept of the public's right to know is a shield that can be used by the press to hide irresponsibility.

I appologize for the minor derailing here, but this statement stood out in my mind as being particularly descriptive of the situation. Not only in this context, but as as generalized statement.

[erik_kosberg]

Diary of a Plamegate Junkie

[AuntieEmma[$]]

erik_kosberg said

Diary of a Plamegate Junkie

Ha ha - very funny!

[drmomentum[$]]

I would have read that link, but I couldn't fit it into my schedule...

[AuntieEmma[$]]

A new site for the Plamegate Junkies to add to their click lists: Fitzgerald's page

Dan Froomkin said

Special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has just launched his own brand-new Web site.

Could it be that he's getting ready to release some new legal documents? Like, maybe, some indictments? It's certainly not the action of an office about to fold up its tents and go home.

Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn minimized the significance of the Web launch in an interview this morning.

"I would strongly caution, Dan, against reading anything into it substantive, one way or the other," he said. "It's really a long overdue effort to get something on the Internet to answer a lot of questions that we get . . . and to put up some of the documents that we have had ongoing and continued interest in having the public be able to access."

OK, OK. But will the Web site be used for future documents as well?

"The possibility exists," Samborn said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...041100879.html

[erik_kosberg]

Will the Grinch Steal Fitzmas?

John Dean -- who knows something about these things -- has some cautionary words for all the little lefties eagerly counting presents (indictments) under the tree: Don't be entirely surprised if "Santa" leaves a lump of coal in your stocking.

Dean's been extremely prescient about the legal issues raised by the Plame scandal so far -- he was, for example, the first to point out the possible applications of the 1917 Espionage Statute. So when he raises the spectre that national security (the last refuge of executive branch scoundrels) might trump whatever evidence of criminality the special prosecutor has gathered, I give him a respectful hearing, even though I don't agree with this analysis.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

NYT management continues to further distance itself from Judith Miller:

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/22/national/22paper.html

And here's Keller's memo:

http://poynter.org/forum/?id=32127

[erik_kosberg]

http://politicalwire.com/archives/20...eak_probe.html

Indictments of top officials (should they come) is bad enough, but unless those charged all plead guilty, their subsequent trials will force a wide ranging inquiry into why we went to war in Iraq. The result could paralyze the Bush administration for the next three years.

Cool.

http://www.jameswolcott.com/

Imagine you're I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

I know, it's not easy.

It's not easy imagining yourself striding manfully down the corridors of power or plotting the overthrow of tyrants while answering to the name of "Scooter."

"Scooter, how's it hangin'?" "Scooter, have to seen the TKA-143 report?" "Scooter, are you going to eat all those fries?" Or, in intimate moments of scalding passion, "Oh, Scooter, Scooter--scooter me like you've never scootered me before!"

But let's pretend.

You're Scooter Libby, and you're being royally, publicly screwed.

[AuntieEmma[$]]

When do you think the announcement's coming? My guess is Wednesday morning.

Gawd, the suspense is killing me.

[erik_kosberg]

When do you think the announcement's coming?

Not soon enough.

But yeah, Wednesday sounds about right.

[drmomentum[$]]

(in a Rick James voise)

"They never should have given you nerds power!"

-JP

[erik_kosberg]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/24/po...rtner=homepage

I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

It just keeps getting better and better...

[erik_kosberg]

FWIW, "Indictments Coming Tomorrow; Targets Received Letters Today"

[drmomentum[$]]

Bush announces:

"I will definitely not stand for any wrongdoing. I will dismiss anyone in my administration who is sentenced to the death penalty. That's where we will draw the line."