A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush CriticThe White House went off the rails some time ago.
... Fitzgerald reported for the first time this week that "multiple officials in the White House"-- not only Libby and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who have previously been identified -- discussed Plame's CIA employment with reporters before and after publication of her name on July 14, 2003, in a column by Robert D. Novak. Fitzgerald said the grand jury has collected so much testimony and so many documents that "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson".
Saturday, April 08, 2006
When government goes mad: Cheney
Emphases mine. The usual liars will continue to tell the usual lies, but basically Cheney, with Bush's support, used fraudulent data to justify the invasion of Iraq, then used the powers of government to attack a critic of his fraud (emphase mine).
It's nice to have a good summary from the other side.
ReplyDeleteI don't think it changes anything. Wilson was right (in retrospect), his wife was undercover (you don't deny it, "yeah right" is not a refutation), Bush and/or Cheney released the report Feith created for Cheney him to further a fraud (which Cheney may or may not have known was a fraud). Bush and or Cheney authorized and supported a campaign to discredit Wilson.
Whether Bush's action is "leaking" or not depends on the whether a "leak" is necessarily an illegal act. Bush had the power to do it legally, but it was covert information released covertly for a malign purpose.
So while your points may be true, (I suspect they are not, but I don't know for sure) they are also irrelevant to the accusations I've made against Cheney and Bush.
Pidgas,
ReplyDeleteI had a hard time finding a web definiton of leak. One I found was "to deliberately give out information before it should have officially been released".
It may well be that neither Cheney nor Bush can be convicted of a crime or of "leaking" since they can define the very meaning of "official". Given their conduct they would likely be impeached if the GOP did not control the government. I'm sure you would, of course, consider Clinton's sexual laxity to have been a much more serious basis for impeachment.
In any case, I just reviewed my original post:
"Cheney, with Bush's support, used fraudulent data to justify the invasion of Iraq, then used the powers of government to attack a critic of his fraud (emphase mine)."
The power Cheney and/or Bush used was the power to declassify information and to distribute secrets. That is truly a power they alone hold.
I have not read a credible source that claims there was anything to the Niger connection. The problem we have is that neither of us trusts the other's source. If it would help I would point out that, to my knowledge, neither The Economist nor the Wall Street Journal news pages have claimed any significant Niger/Saddam connection. (The WSJ Editorial pages I consider to be flaming lunacy, of course you might consider them legitimate.)
The Fitzgerald investigation may end without a judgment if it is determined that Cheney and Bush are immune to prosecution. In that event, we may both review the history books in 20 years -- if we and history are both still around.
Given the above, I think my original statement, though hastily written, holds up remarkably well to your very thorough response. Of course your opinion may vary!
In the absence of a common ruler, measurement is all but impossible.