Guest blogged by Jon Ponder of Pensito Review
Bushies are experts at blowing smoke up their base. They’re doing it now in full lather because George W. Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s sentence on Monday was such a brazen buyout of a partner in crime that even rank and file Republicans can see it for what it is.
In particular, GOP operatives must raise doubts among what’s left of the Bush lovers about Valerie Plame’s covert status at the time Cheney’s boys outed her. If her status was undercover, the leakers could be accused of violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA). The seriousness of this crime may explain why rightwingers have been all over the Internet spreading the thoroughly debunked lie that Wilson was not covert — and why two of them went on separate cable news shows last week to slip this false statement into the record.
Transcripts follow:
Yesterday on CNN’s Lou Dobbs Tonight:
ROBERT ZIMMERMAN: There is no question Richard Armitage should be accounted for leaking Valerie Plame’s name but the issue here is that Scooter Libby in front of the jury of his peers and in fact with a Republican conservative judge upholding the verdict, was found guilty of committing perjury in front of an FBI agent, in front of the grand jury, obstructing justice and by all means, this administration gave this man a get out of jail free card, and that is truly a reprehensible act.
TARANTO: I’m sorry, Robert. I have a softer heart than you do.
ZIMMERMAN: No. I don’t wish that on anyone but I believe this administration should be held accountable to their own words.
End of discussion.
As I mentioned on The BRAD BLOG yesterday, David Rivkin, a Russian-born GOP tool who served in the Bush I Justice Dept. made the same claim on Thursday’s Hardball, with Chris Matthews:
(CROSSTALK)
RIVKIN: She was not a covert — she was not a covert operative.
SLOAN: The CIA says that she was.
RIVKIN: The CIA has never said…
MATTHEWS: Well, we are going to have to find out whether they knew at the time that she was covert.
And we’re also going to have find out whether the battle here wasn’t between the CIA and the hawks in the White House, and that Valerie Wilson was seen by the hawks in the White House as a combatant in this fight, because they were very much at war, in a leaking war, as you know, Melanie, and I know, living in Washington, between the CIA and the White House.
They were leaking back and forth for weeks after we found there was no WMD.
RIVKIN: Right.
MATTHEWS: Everybody was playing the blame game. They saw Hillary—or, rather, Valerie as a combatant on the other side, apparently.
Bob Somerby was watching this too:
Readers, we know what you’re probably thinking: Surely, Matthews knows about Patrick Fitzgerald’s court filing in May, in which he said “it was clear from very early in the investigation that [Plame] qualified under the relevant statute…as a covert agent.” For what it’s worth, we’d guess that Matthews does know about that—although it’s possible that he doesn’t, given the way this press corps works. After all, his class deals in narrative, not fact — and it deals in deference to conservative power.
the evil lying just doesn’t stop with these neo-cons. how mush BS can one take? the reason they are evil is because the are destroying everything that is ‘Right’ in the world, like Truth, Honesty, Integrity, etc. these wingnuts are sick, they actually believe their own lies, they refuse to accept the truth!
They are desperate to focus on Valarie. Don’t take the bait. The outing of Plame was in fact the destruction of Brewster Jennings, and the outing of hundreds of covert agents, as well as the blinding of the WMD spooks who were tasked with keeping us well informed and safe.
The neocons agenda was to shut down Brewster Jennings so as to blind our intelligence services in order to make the Administration’s lies more irrefutable and enable the invasion of a sovereign nation that posed virtually no threat to us.
Forget about Plame.
Focus on Brewster Jennings.
Do you know that Armitage was subsequently knighted by the Queen for his efforts?
look it up.
ARMITAGE KNIGHTED BY THE CROWN:
http://www.btcnews.com/btcnews/1294
4/25/2006
OMG: Meet Richard Armitage, Knight Commander
Richard Armitage, the number two man at Colin Powell’s state department, has been knighted “for services to US-UK relations.†Presumably this is a reference to his diplomatic exertions on behalf of the invasion of Iraq.
Armitage, one of the innumerable Bush administration graduates of the Reagan era Iran-Contra school of murderous skullduggery, was made a Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George (KCMG).
CHENEY’S DAUGHTER WORKED FOR ARMITAGE !!!
ARMITAGE ASSOCIATES?
Story cached here:
http://64.233.187.104/search?q=...clnk&cd=1
Cheney’s daughter offered State Dept. job
By ELI J. LAKE
UPI State Department Correspondent
WASHINGTON, Feb. 28 (UPI) — As Vice President Dick Cheney prepares for his tour of the Arab world next month, the State Department’s Near East Affairs Bureau is wooing his daughter for a high-level post, United Press International has learned.
Earlier this month, the State Department officially offered Elizabeth Cheney-Perry a job as the deputy assistant secretary of state for Near East affairs for regional economic issues, according to State Department and administration officials.
These officials — who spoke on condition of anonymity — tell UPI the new post was created specifically for the vice president’s daughter, adding that she will work primarily on economic development in the Middle East.
Prior to attending law school, Cheney-Perry worked for the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development between 1989 and 1993. After 1993, she took a job at Armitage Associates LLP, the consulting firm founded by the current deputy secretary of state, Richard Armitage. “She is actually an Armitage person, which a lot of people at the department are,” one senior State Department official told UPI on Thursday.
http://www.alternet.org/story/37490
The Other Cheney Behind the Scenes
By Robert Dreyfuss, The American Prospect. Posted June 13, 2006.
Since 2005, Dick Cheney’s daughter Elizabeth has held a powerful position guiding Middle East policy. And like father, like daughter: Liz is a key player in the push for regime change in Iran and Syria.
In a partial or substantail loss of the grasp of reality, the neoCons desperately mix what they want to be with what actually is. No doubt the neoCons are detached from actual reality.
And no wonder, they tout the notion that if you say something over and over enough even if it is not true it will become true.
The old Jon Lovitz character, the President of Liars Anonymous, who, on Saturday Nite Live would always follow his fanciful memory and analysis and conclude with the self-serving notion “Yeah, that’s the ticket”.
He is the neoCon microcosm if ever there was one.
The neoCons want Valerie Plame Wilson to not be a CIA covert agent working to keep Americans safe from WMD.
They want that because reality brands their heros as traitors. And that is too much for them to handle. They can’t handle the truth.
With Libby in jail they would have had nightmares, hence Priest George assuages their discomfort, and gives them freedom from the effects of their sins. In their dreams. Mental damage is sure to occur if they continue with that witches brew.
Their self-worship is their religion and so no surprise that they are detached from reality by their own self-righteous hypocrisy.
It stinks to high heaven.
I seem to remember that Scooter Libby was convicted of purjury. It isn’t about the CIA or about who is an agent. What GWB has done is tell the whole world that the US justice system can be gamed and that he fully supports such activity. This is no different to saying that the rule of law no longer applies — a much bigger problem than the life or death of a few agents. Anyone paying attention already knew that the Bush administration had no respect for the rule of law when they saw constitutional transgressions and the signing statements. However, now everybody knows it, even those who have difficulty rubbing two thoughts together.
For the record, Bill Clinton was let off too lightly as well. We do need to set a high standard for our leaders, especially w.r.t. honesty.
I don’t know if it’s been proven, but there’s a chance it was the Brewster-Jennings CIA front which discovered and/or prevented Bush & Co from transporting nukes into Iraq after we had taken over militarily. Stopping them from ‘finding nukes’ would’ve certainly pissed off the NeoCons who needed justification for the war. If that’s true you can easily understand why they’d want to take down Valerie Plame. If all that’s true it becomes easier to understand the entire story.
Of course, it could just be they didn’t want Brewster-Jennings noticing anything they were going to be doing with regard to nukes in either Iraq or Iran. We have yet to learn whether the efforts of Valerie Plame and Brewster-Jennings have saved us from an horrific war with Iran. Only God knows the answer to that.
Next up would seem to be Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald (appointed by former acting Attorney General Richard Comey) going after a grand jury indictment of the four people (Richard Armitage, former Assistant Secretary of State; Irve “Scooter” Libby, former assistant to Pres. Bush(!) & V.P. Cheney and convicted for perjury and obstruction of justice; Karl Rove, Bush’s Brain & political consultant and Ari Fleischer, former White House press secretary) who allegedly revealed the classified National Intelligence Estimate which contained the classified information about CIA NOC Valerie Plame.
Two Things Come To Mind In This Discussion
One would be that, despite all of the Republican Guard spewing, the OutHouse has opened the door to further scrutiny by previously providing material and witnesses. As in court, I would assume, you can’t provide details of your present ability to commit a crime and then invoke the fifth when asked if you pulled the trigger.
The other would be that Irwin Libby should be facing disbarment proceedings, already, and the Republican Guard is in no hurry to facilitate that, either.
Valerie Plame was an operative covered under Federal Law. That was part of the court record. The CIA spooks would never have gone to this much prosecution effort for a clerical employee.
The Republican Guard feeds it’s sheeple through Cable Infotainment Shows. They don’t bother to consider the source or question their committee.