BUSH and HIS CUP OF WOE RUINNETH OVER

Where is the Presidency Heading

In politics a week they say is a long time. George Bush II must be realising the truth of this cliche' during the course of the past week. First his handpicked nominee for the Supre Court had to withdraw herself from the race as even conservatives were beginning to sak questions about the quality of judicial discretion she possesses. The Democrats quick to draw blood, sought to acquire White House documents during the course of the confirmation hearings. This tactic or ploy is surely unconstitutional but there was very little pritest from the Excecutive Branch. It is stretching the point a bit too much to say that Whiote House i.e. in house madvice given by a counsel should be madfe available to the Judicial hearinngs. It is surely sign of a critically wounded Presidency that George Bush II decided to withdraw his candidate rather than force the issue.

The Karl Rove muck just wont go away. Today CNN's Woolf Blitzer interviewed Ambassador Wilson. I was struck by two points made by Wilson regarging the outing of his wife as a covert CIA operattive. First as a NOC (Non Offivial Cover), Valerie Plam had risked life and limb over two decades of service in order to penetrate the arcane world, a murky one too, of weapons proliferators, suppliers and prospective buyers of WMD. All her hard work was with callous cynical indifference set at rest in order to score a dubious political point. Fritzgerald, the Special Procecutor is right now only looking at the obstruction of justice angle, but he is surely not going to be stonewalled by the White House as American Law has been broken with impunity. Karl Rove may have been more fortunate than Libby, but the matter does not end there. The second point is more serious and pertains to the political use of intelligence assets. Wilson clealy believes that the documents used by the then Secretary of State, Colin Powell, tio make a case for the invasion of Iraq in the United Nations, were forged and the Bush Administration was aware of it. This demonstrates that the intelligence was cooked around the policy and one more proof of the perfidy of the regime occupying the White House.

So we are seeing a mortally wounded Adninistration and with every passing day the approval ratings is going down.
7,994 views 25 replies
Reply #1 Top
I can envisage Mr Bush stepping down after being pushed out by the right of his party like Maggie Thatcher.
Reply #2 Top
The victory dance is premature. Bahu makes it sound like the entire rationale for toppling Saddam was based on a single document "known" to be forged. This is a tactic commonly employed by the left - zeroing in on one thing, to the exclusion of thousands of other facts and circumstances, then cherry-picking factoids to build around it a completely unrepresentative version of history slanted to their biased pre-determined opinion. There are plenty of Americans capable of seeing through the BS and arriving at their own conclusions. Contemporaneous popularity polling is irrelevant - these kinds of popularity swings occur with every presidency and are a natural consequence of the ebb & flow of politics.

It was entirely predictable that if Fitzgerald was unable to indict Rove or Libby for disclosing Plame's identity on the basis of the facts, the left would simply continue to declare them guilty of the offense anyway. In that sense, the Special Prosecutor's investigation was pointless.

Cheers,
Daiwa
Reply #3 Top

The Karl Rove muck just wont go away. Today CNN's Woolf Blitzer interviewed Ambassador Wilson. I was struck by two points made by Wilson regarding the outing of his wife as a covert CIA operative. First as a NOC (Non Official Cover), Valerie Plame had risked life and limb over two decades of service in order to penetrate the arcane world, a murky one too, of weapons proliferations, suppliers and prospective buyers of WMD. All her hard work was with callous cynical indifference set at rest in order to score a dubious political point. Fritzgerald, the Special Prosecutor is right now only looking at the obstruction of justice angle, but he is surely not going to be stonewalled by the White House as American Law has been broken with impunity


Do you have ANY idea what you're talking about? There was NO LAW broken! Plame returned to the US in 1997 (mission completed) and this is out of Wilson's mouth and his book. According to the US statute in question the protection expires after "5 YEARS". Since the story was broken in 2003 that makes it "6 YEARS". Ergo....NO CRIME! This whole BS investigation was done in order to score a dubious political points.
Reply #4 Top
It amazes me how easily some people can be made the pawns of political propagandists.
Reply #5 Top
Well, thank our For Fathers for implementing the Checks and Balancing System, allowing none of the three branches of the Government to have more power over the other.....they also allowed for this system to have continual maintenance throughout the years, and also the ones to come . This system is what allows us to be a free country, by never allowing our government to rule as one person, or one branch, without allowing one of the other branches to have the power to change and correct or reject. Making this system one that will continue to revolve for the betterment of our country as we step into the future. Not even Our current President will be able to destroy what was given to "we the People" Even though he has undermindedly tried to, in my opinion!
Reply #6 Top
It's interesting that if Plame was so "covert" that she had no problem posing for magazine covers.
Reply #7 Top
It's interesting that if Plame was so "covert" that she had no problem posing for magazine covers.


The Novak story came out in July 2003. The Vanity Fair article came out on January 2004. Also...she didn't pose for any magazine covers, Viggo Mortensen was on the cover of Vanity Fair for the issue that the story was in.

Is there some magazine cover that she "posed for" that predates the Novak story?
Reply #8 Top
Do you have ANY idea what you're talking about? There was NO LAW broken! Plame returned to the US in 1997 (mission completed) and this is out of Wilson's mouth and his book. According to the US statute in question the protection expires after "5 YEARS". Since the story was broken in 2003 that makes it "6 YEARS". Ergo....NO CRIME! This whole BS investigation was done in order to score a dubious political points


I am surprised at this post No Law broken.The identity of a CIA officer cannot be revealed and the point of the matter is not whether Valerie returned in 1997 or any other yeatr, but the fact that her identity was revealed in order to settle a political point., and it is here that the perceived illegality lies.
Reply #9 Top
Yes, it was a terrible week for Bush... unless you are actually able to discern fact from fiction.

The only "fact" you brought up that was a downer for Prs. Bush was Harriet Miers pulling her nomination. You're right that that was a blow. On the other hand, any warm fuzzies the left could have possibly enjoyed from it have been rudely quashed by the nomination of Judge Alito (since he if far too Conservative to please them, but far too Constitutional and Qualified to pull enough Republic Senate votes to pull off the "nuclear" option).

I laugh in your face at the attempt to make the Valerie Plame case any bigger than 2 years of investigation could. After 2 years, Plame can't even convince the investigators that she was ever covert, much less that her life was in danger.

Her "news" magazine cover story pretty much proved to me that her face and name could be put together in public and neither she, nor anyone else in the CIA would die. Kind of makes it difficult to make the case that there was ever a danger to her in the first place, now doesn't it.

I'm sure you missed the whole Constitution in Iraq news though, along with the fact that the far left's patron saint Cindy Whatsername was arrested and nobody cared (including the few in the press who acted like they did just a few short weeks ago).

Keep up the entertainment though, if nothing else, you are hilarious!!
Reply #10 Top
her identity was revealed in order to settle a political point., and it is here that the perceived illegality lies.


One - the act and its motive are pure assumptions on your part - neither has been proven, even after 2 years of digging by the special prosecutor.

Two - Things are either legal or illegal - "perceived to be illegal" appears nowhere in any statutes so you can't be "guilty" of it.

Cheers,
Daiwa
Reply #11 Top
laugh in your face at the attempt to make the Valerie Plame case any bigger than 2 years of investigation could. After 2 years, Plame can't even convince the investigators that she was ever covert, much less that her life was in danger.

Her "news" magazine cover story pretty much proved to me that her face and name could be put together in public and neither she, nor anyone else in the CIA would die. Kind of makes it difficult to make the case that there was ever a danger to her in the first place, now doesn't it.


Posing for a mag cover is not the issue, Revealation of her status oas a NOC is. Why do do detract from the major issue under investrigation by throwing out red herrings along the way.

Iraq is hardly peaceful. Last week was the worst week in terms of American casualities.And finally even the US admonistasrtion has confirmed what we have been saying all along that the civillian deathn toll is on the higher side.
Reply #12 Top
Do you have ANY idea what you're talking about? There was NO LAW broken! Plame returned to the US in 1997 (mission completed) and this is out of Wilson's mouth and his book. According to the US statute in question the protection expires after "5 YEARS". Since the story was broken in 2003 that makes it "6 YEARS". Ergo....NO CRIME! This whole BS investigation was done in order to score a dubious political points


I am surprised at this post No Law broken.The identity of a CIA officer cannot be revealed and the point of the matter is not whether Valerie returned in 1997 or any other yeatr, but the fact that her identity was revealed in order to settle a political point., and it is here that the perceived illegality lies.


You had better go read the law in question! Just an fyi....there is a 5 YEAR limit to this! The agent must have been on covert status within 5 years of the leak. WHICH PLAME WAS NOT! Let me repeat Plame was outside the 5 year clause and was NOT covert during that time. Their ID CAN be revealed as long as it does NOT affect national security, hence the 5 year limitation. So point in FACT 1997 is a VERY important date as far as this is concerned. And that is the whole thing right there. "Perceived illegality" has been perceived incorrectly!
Reply #13 Top
Last week was the worst week in terms of American casualities.


LOL - you've been headline skimming again, Bahu. It was the "worst" week since January, not that that's a good thing.

And finally even the US admonistasrtion has confirmed what we have been saying all along that the civillian deathn toll is on the higher side.


After months of the antiwar crowd claiming the civilian death toll was in the hundreds of thousands, and of course all at the hands of the evil Americans, we have an indication that the cumulative civilian casualties are closer to about 26,000, not that that's a good thing, but almost all of them at the hands of the so-called "freedom fighters".

Cheers,
Daiwa
Reply #14 Top
Do you have ANY idea what you're talking about? There was NO LAW broken! Plame returned to the US in 1997 (mission completed) and this is out of Wilson's mouth and his book. According to the US statute in question the protection expires after "5 YEARS". Since the story was broken in 2003 that makes it "6 YEARS". Ergo....NO CRIME! This whole BS investigation was done in order to score a dubious political points


I am surprised at this post No Law broken.The identity of a CIA officer cannot be revealed and the point of the matter is not whether Valerie returned in 1997 or any other yeatr, but the fact that her identity was revealed in order to settle a political point., and it is here that the perceived illegality lies.


You had better go read the law in question! Just an fyi....there is a 5 YEAR limit to this! The agent must have been on covert status within 5 years of the leak. WHICH PLAME WAS NOT! Let me repeat Plame was outside the 5 year clause and was NOT covert during that time. Their ID CAN be revealed as long as it does NOT affect national security, hence the 5 year limitation. So point in FACT 1997 is a VERY important date as far as this is concerned. And that is the whole thing right there. "Perceived illegality" has been perceived incorrectly!


Which is EXACTLY why the prosecutor could NOT get the grand jury indictment on the supposed outing.
Reply #15 Top
After months of the antiwar crowd claiming the civilian death toll was in the hundreds of thousands, and of course all at the hands of the evil Americans, we have an indication that the cumulative civilian casualties are closer to about 26,000, not that that's a good thing, but almost all of them at the hands of the so-called "freedom fighters".


Wasn't it proposed by the U.N. that up to 10,000 people a month were being killed by Saddam before? Where was the liberal outrage then?

Also...she didn't pose for any magazine covers, Viggo Mortensen was on the cover of Vanity Fair for the issue that the story was in.


"she has gone back to work at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., after a leave of absence; she has been photographed for Vanity Fair, snapped at the Tribeca Film Festival;"

http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1083924,00.html
Reply #16 Top
"she has gone back to work at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., after a leave of absence; she has been photographed for Vanity Fair, snapped at the Tribeca Film Festival;"


There is a photo of her, undisguised, in this week's Newsweek.

Cheers,
Daiwa
Reply #17 Top
It's interesting that if Plame was so "covert" that she had no problem posing for magazine covers.


"she has gone back to work at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., after a leave of absence; she has been photographed for Vanity Fair, snapped at the Tribeca Film Festival;"


My point is that no one would classify anything about her as covert now, in 2005.

It appears that you were impying that she considered herself covert at the time of the Vanity Fair article. She had already been identified and the story was already all over the news when that article came out.

Several people have implied that she blew her own identity by doing that Vanity Fair story, but that was long after reporters identified her in print with information they received from White House officials. I'm not going to get into whether that was a crime or not, I'm just pointing out that her identity was already widely known before that article. Therefore you can't use that story as proof to support your assertion that she was never "covert".
Reply #18 Top
It appears that you were impying that she considered herself covert at the time of the Vanity Fair article. She had already been identified and the story was already all over the news when that article came out.


The point is if she was so "covert", even if her name was "outed", posing for pictures for the MSM still isn't a very good idea.
Reply #19 Top
I suppose it is not any one's case that an undercover agent who happened to be married to a mman who stood his ground over the 13 offending words in Bush's state of the Union address should be exposed so that the report of her husband could be discredited. This behaviour on the part of the Bushmen rerveals a facet of the present administration that was long hidden:break the law with impuinity and if caught bluff and bluster your way out. I think it is deplorable that many should side with the offenders and bnot with the victim.
Reply #20 Top
I suppose it is not any one's case that an undercover agent who happened to be married to a mman who stood his ground over the 13 offending words in Bush's state of the Union address should be exposed so that the report of her husband could be discredited. This behaviour on the part of the Bushmen rerveals a facet of the present administration that was long hidden:break the law with impuinity and if caught bluff and bluster your way out. I think it is deplorable that many should side with the offenders and bnot with the victim.


Lets start with it was "16" words, not "13". And what I find deplorable is your inability to understand the plain fact that nobody outed anyone. Had Plame been outed believe me, Rove would have been indicted by the Grand Jury along with Libby. But he has NOT been! So what does that tell you? Tells me there was no crime committed in the first place. And I guess you don't read to well either. Plame was NOT a covert agent! Even her husband admits that much!
Reply #21 Top
It appears that you were impying that she considered herself covert at the time of the Vanity Fair article. She had already been identified and the story was already all over the news when that article came out.


Davad70: I don't know where Valerie Plame learned the laws and regulations concerning classified information, but the security briefings I went through made a few things very clear. One of which was, if you see classified information exposed in a public media, that does not give you the authority to talk openly on the subject... it is still classified.

If Valerie Plame was a covert agent then her name and identity as such could only be declassified (clearing her to openly discuss it) by the authority who classified the information in the first place. Not even covert agents are free to declassify their names or identity.

So, that leaves this fact glaring in our faces. Either the CIA (or the NSA... not sure which one grants such classifications) declassified her identity and cleared her to discuss it openly with Vanity Fair; She spoke with Vanity Fair without knowing the regulations concerning comprimised classified information; or she broke the law by discussing classified information with Vanity Fair (and others).... oh yeah, or the other option... her identity was never "covert" in the first place...
Reply #22 Top
But he has NOT been! So what does that tell you? Tells me there was no crime committed in the first place. And


It should be Not yet indicted. The Jury is still out as far as Karl Rove is concerned. Do not proclaim victiory as yet. It may be a trifler premature.
Reply #23 Top
But he has NOT been! So what does that tell you? Tells me there was no crime committed in the first place. And


It should be Not yet indicted. The Jury is still out as far as Karl Rove is concerned. Do not proclaim victiory as yet. It may be a trifler premature.


You guys never give up do you? What will it take for you to see the light. This investigation has been ongoing for "2 YEARS" and as of yet they are unable to find evidence of the wrong doing that ya'll say Rove did!
Reply #24 Top
I suppose it is not any one's case that an undercover agent who happened to be married to a mman who stood his ground over the 13 offending words in Bush's state of the Union address should be exposed so that the report of her husband could be discredited. This behaviour on the part of the Bushmen rerveals a facet of the present administration that was long hidden:break the law with impuinity and if caught bluff and bluster your way out. I think it is deplorable that many should side with the offenders and bnot with the victim.


Wilson has already been shown to be a fraud. He didn't provide any facts against the Bush administration.
Reply #25 Top
Had this scandal broken out at the time of the Campaign then the result in Nov 2004 may have been different. That is beside tthe point.

The fact is that a bunker mentality has now set in and the neoconmen are drawing the wagons in a circle in order to defend themselves. Scooter Libby, Tom DeLay and the mounting casulities in Iraq and the impending clash with Iran and Syria all show that we can expect more trouble both on the legal and international front.