Bloodless Coup

Scooter Libby has been charged with perjuring himself. He has not been charged with leaking an undercover CIA operatives name. Has Fitzgerald even found a crime here or just Clintonian fibbing?

The article explicitly states that this is not a criminal matter Fitzgerald is pursuing. But I think this goes far beyond "Clintonian fibbing". You have the president of the United States directly involved in approving the outing of a national intelligence asset - apparently as part of a scheme to destroy the credibility of a political opponent. A president who later went on national television and said he'd kick anyone who had any part in this out of the White House.

Last I heard, he wasn't planning on resigning though.

Well, no, you don't actually "have the president of the United States directly involved", not yet. What you do have is somebody who is facing perjury charges stating under oath that the president was involved. He could be telling the truth, or he could be hoping to come off looking like John Dean. It's early days yet.

perjury is a crime, folks, and as such libby is a criminal defendant. sheesh. by the way, clinton's perjury, albeit about a matter that was really none of the country's business, also was a crime.

that bush was knowingly anywhere near the outing of valerie plame, whether criminal or not, makes him an out and out liar before the american public. presidents have to tell certain lies, no doubt, but his statements on the plame matter were gratuitous and he should be held accountable by the electorate and any process properly invoked.

I ditto (if you'll pardon the expression) Moon's 2nd paragraph (and his first too, I guess) and note that if we are now having to doubt the veracity of a man who affected a host of national security policies, was a top member of the president's staff and was CoS to the Vice President of the United States we are in a sad, sad mess - and that's before we even get to the president's nasty role in all this.

Well, the Prez in involved because of his public statements ("I'll get rid of anyone involved" or whatever he said) and these relevations (that Libby is basically directly naming Bush as part of the process). Bush hasn't been named as part of the criminal process.

One of the many, many things that offends me deeply about the Republican Congress (far more than I'm offended by Bush) is their failure to investigate this issue (among others). This is, in the end, a political issue: the question of what happened is more rightly resolved in the political sphere rather than the criminal. Of course, since Congress won't touch it, it ends up in the courts (which further politicizes the legal system).

So Libby is a lying scumbag EXCEPT when he decides to finger the president? I'm confused.

Uh - what I took to be Moon's point (or at least a key implication of his comment) is that it's insanely dangerous for Libby to decide to start lying now. Why would he want to do time for perjury? In office he could usually lie all he liked and not face any consequences. At the moment, there are very serious consequences.

Dangerous how? He's already under indictment for perjury! He's already looking at doing time. He has great incentive to offer testimony casting guilt on Bush (or Cheney, for that matter), whether it's true or not, as long as his story can't be refuted by any hard evidence. (By fingering Bush he gets brownie points for cooperating (and presumably a greatly reduced sentence) and gets to remake himself as a public hero in the John Dean mold, with a lucrative book deal and speaking tour to follow. Even if everyone else in the administration says he's full of shit, he (and legions of guys like you) can scream "Coverup!" and exonerate him in the public arena (preserving that book deal, etc.) if not necessarily in the legal one.

And just to be clear, I understand that he is said to have said this before his indictment. Do we know that he said this before he knew he was a target?

As I understand it, Libby is under indictment for (basically) telling two different stories to Fitzgerald. Since one must be wrong, they indicted him for perjury. This story (today) comes out of released testimony by Libby from around the time that Fitzgerald was taking testimony (years ago, right?). Whether it is true or not is completely up in the air. However, it does create a significant problem for the Right-wing supporters of the Prez: either Libby is a truthful person railroaded by an independent counsel (if this is true, then his statements about Bush are true, and the Prez has a political problem) or Libby is a liar (the Prez is off the hook, but then why was a liar working for Cheney and why did he have so much authority in the decision-making process?). Whichever way they jump, there are more difficult questions ahead.

Baltar: absolutely. It should be a lovely show, especially if the Republicans lose the House in November. I insist, though, that it's not a slam-dunk that Bush was involved just because Libby said so.

all i have to add right now, is i think jacflash's account of the incentives here is inapt. this is not some petty thug, at least not as far as the prosecution tends to be concerned. this is a guy who can deny everything and ultimately get a sweetheart deal for no better reason than that he's a rich, white, upper-middle-class power broker with all the right connections, from a world in which a slap on the wrist and maybe some probation (or, worst case, two years in club fed, followed by a multi-million dollar book deal and think tank engagement) is more or less the norm no matter how vile the conduct (and i fail to see how outing a covert operative, in principle, is any less culpable than attempted murder). moreover, not selling out the president leaves him free to enjoy the lucrative spoils that come to anyone who is a veteran of a presidential administration, while selling him out very likely takes him out of contention for all of the best work (i recognize there are exceptions to all of the above conjectures, but they are few).

i find it entirely improbable that libby made up stuff about the president and vice president; i find it almost laughable, actually. no one hangs out with those cats for that long without manifesting in public and in private utter fealty to the cause. there were free agents, people who wanted the positions but mistakenly thought they would be allowed to think for themselves (o'neill, whitman, even powell), but they've all been whipped into shape or retired by now. libby was there because his allegiance and obeisance was unimpeachable. if he said something ill about the president, it's intrinsically far more reliable than is the stuff he said to protect him or himself. to suggest otherwise is to suggest a degree of political and ethical neutrality that the evidence coming out of this administration -- and especially that pertaining to libby's conduct -- cannot sustain.

and even if we assume the incentive structures are the same, to return to the earlier analogy, to ask us to view the veracity of libby's testimony that is the subject of the perjury charges as equal to the information he's furnished regarding what bush knew and when is like asking us to view as equally valid a drug dealer's initial categorical denials and his later testimony implicating others, once he realizes the trouble he faces. cops and courts and juries recognize that evolving and asymmetrical incentives have a profound affect on the reliability of given testimony or allegations. just as i'm more likely to believe the testimony of a drug dealer fingering his source than i am to believe that dealer's testimony -- assuming as is so often the case that he was caught redhanded -- that somebody must have slipped the contraband into his pocket when he wasn't looking, so am i more likely to believe libby's inculpation of the president than i am to believe his other claims regarding what he knew, what he said, and when.

in sum, whether you view drug dealers, say, as philosophically similar to or distinct from white-collar criminal (i wish the justice system viewed them as the same, frankly; one street thug doesn't do one percent of the harm to the public good that one dirty enron exec does), i simply see no way not to speculate that libby is far more likely to be telling the truth as to the president's involvement than he was telling the truth when, in effect, he maintained that there was no wrongdoing in which anyone could be involved to begin with.

Hey, moon, if he's so loyal how come he fingered the president at all? Shouldn't he be taking one for the team?

that's my point: it doesn't make any sense for him to finger the president out of spite or self-preservation. the only counterincentive that makes any sense is libby's desire to put the law above the president. it's at least plausible that his loyalty doesn't extend to putting the president above the law. all recent evidence suggests this makes him exceptional, but it's a far more plausible explanation than him falsely accusing a law-abiding president just to save his own skin. it's also possible that far more than perjury charges have been dangled over libby's head -- say culpability for the disclosure itself, de facto treason from which even membership in the ruling elite can't save him -- and he's decided to push his luck no further.

it's also possible that far more than perjury charges have been dangled over libby's head -- say culpability for the disclosure itself, de facto treason from which even membership in the ruling elite can't save him -- and he's decided to push his luck no further

by putting the focus and the blame elsewhere?

I say it makes no sense for him to be naming Bush except out of a sense of self-preservation. Jail is a scary place, especially to upper-middle-class white guys. Now, to be clear, that doesn't mean he's lying, but given that he's already under indictment for perjury it's hardly something that can be ruled out just because it doesn't fit the preferred storyline.

Which was my original point.

I think you are both missing something key: unless I'm mistaken, this disclosure comes from testimony that Libby gave years ago, long before he was indicted. Thus, he can't be "bargaining" with this now (to save himself, or whatever), as its already in the record (and has either been legally or illegally leaked).

Wait a day or so, and see what other reports can dig up on this when they go back to their sources based on this information. Then we'll see if this is a big deal or not.

Baltar: True. The question of whether he knew he was a "target" of the investigation at the time of this testimony remains, though.

Josh Marshall's observation here is fairly persuasive in an Occam's Razor sort of way, though I agree with both of you that time is going to tell far more than our conjectures ever could.

"Baltar: True. The question of whether he knew he was a "target" of the investigation at the time of this testimony remains, though."

I'm not sure I follow you. What difference does it make whether Libby knew he was a target? Are you saying he was trying to cast blame on Bush and/or Cheney way back when, in order to protect
himself from indictment?

That argument presupposes any number of things, not least of them that Libby knew from his first conversations with Fitzgerald that he'd be indicted. How could he have known that,when it looked at that point as if Fitzgerald would never even find out about Libby's convos with Cooper and Miller, much less that those convos were about Plame?

Really, the only point I was making (yesterday before many of the facts had come out) was that Armand was jumping to conclusions. There are a lot of games being played here -- Libby's games, the administration's games, the DOJ's games, the games of the various involved media outlets (the NYT, for example), and for that matter Joe Wilson's games. To go from this (carefully selected?) revelation to calls for "censure" is a big leap. As I said way up above somewhere, it's early days yet.

"A lawyer knowledgeable about the case said Saturday that Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Libby be the one to disseminate the information."
I think it's important to remember the context here, that Wilson was misleading the country ("Wilson told the Senate his findings refuted the notion Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. The intelligence report actually confirmed that Iraq had approached Niger for increased trade, which was interpreted by the PM as seeking uranium. Wilson claimed the CIA told him about documents pertaining to an alleged uranium sale to Iraq. The CIA reports officer denied giving Wilson any such information and noted there were no 'documents' circulating at the time"). But the Bush haters who comfort every "whistleblower" leaking classified information that puts Bush in a bad light are the first ones to judge and convict Bush for rebutting the lies of Joe Wilson to this country before hearing any evidence to warrant such a conviction. Libby was perhaps overly enthusiastic, or perhaps he believed as Woodward did that Plame's identity was no secret around Washington. But we have seen as yet no reason to believe Bush told Libby to out Plame, except the obvious self interest of legislators and the media who both profit immensely from the embarassment of the President.

Wiki's the source for the above quote. Why isn't anyone investigating the leak to Wilson of the documents pertaining to an alleged sale of uranium, or is it just too obvious where he got them?

Joe Wilson is a scumbag. That has been patently obvious from day one of this pseudoscandal. But that, in and of itself, doesn't let the administration off the hook for its own scumbaggery.

According to today's Times, the information leaked as a "key judgment" (term of art) was nothing of the sort, and was in fact called seriously into question in the very NIE that Libby selectively leaked. Moreover, the process of declassification, while being explored at the time of the leak, was only just underway, and a week or two away -- at a minimum -- from having been completed.

What do I see in all of this? Well, for one thing, that notwithstanding Bush's order soon after taking office radically increasing his and especially the Vice President's authority to declassify information, he still couldn't be bothered to follow his own procedures. And though procedure may seem a piddling thing to a Bush supporter (and really, if you don't think flouting procedure is de rigeur for the President, then you really can't support Bush, who's shown no more respect for rules than [insert your favorite illegal protester here]. We are a nation of laws, and no person is above them. If Bush directed the leak of classified information -- and whether he cared whether Libby did it or not is wholly irrelevant; a general delegation is enough -- before that information was declassified by his own West Wing and security apparatus, then he broke the law, and that's not even factoring in that in doing so a) he misrepresented the information in the NIE and b) he did so with such haste for purely political purposes (i.e., to get out ahead of the WMD debacle that quickly was undermining his grudge match with Iraq).

I don't care whether Wilson was a scumbag -- and a) the solution to a scumbag is not to out his wife in a way that can expose her and those she deals with to death or worse, and b) I don't take that for the common knowledge that Jacflash suggests it is -- because even if he is Bush directing the release of information that, at the time of release, was classified, is an impeachable offense.

I dunno, Moon, Wilson's scumbaggery seems to be obvious even to those ostensibly on his side.

Also, I've seen nothing to suggest that Plame was actually in the field at the time of the revelation -- or for several years before. Have you?

I agree that the administration has behaved badly. But Wilson is manifestly not a candidate for sainthood, and the left canonizes him at its peril

i don't canonize the mob associate who turns state's evidence, but that doesn't have any effect -- none whatsoever -- on how i perceive the accused. as for whether plame was in the field, i think you're missing a major aspect of why it's dangerous to out covert assets. ours is not the only savvy intelligence service, assuming it is, and when her identity is revealed, everyone who has dealt with her in good faith and at great risk to his or her own personal safety is exposed as someone who was consorting with an american spy. these are assets who deserve better on an individual level, and who, once revealed, will never be useful to the united states again.

but then most MBA's can't don't seem to care much for more than the next fiscal quarter or two, and this president is no different.

i notice you didn't rebut my points about bush breaking the law or in any way acknowledge the gravaman of the Times article vis-a-vis high crimes.

Why do you think I should be defending Bush?

Moon,
The fact that this finding was on page 24 of the NIE report does not take away from the fact that it was the Prime Minister's perspective that Iraq did want to purchase uranium from that nation (forbidden by the terms of the UN resolutions), and Wilson just happened to completely leave out from his editorial what seems to be a rather significant part of his trip, if he indeed was going there to collect intelligence. And if you've looked at enough government reports, you'd know that key findings can be found on page 300, just as they can on page 24. Look at the Duelfer report as an example if you doubt that key findings are located far beyond page one. The analysis in the article you cited appears inept and self serving of a media outlet who benefits tremendously from a Presidential scandal, even when one does not exist.
We were a nation of human beings before we were a nation of laws, and all of our laws have our humanity as their source (or some creator of our humanity as their source, from some perspectives), so why is it again that the laws become more important than the people? If the threat is as real and dire as you claim it to be, we shouldn't be punishing just Libby, we should be shutting down the newspaper that printed the story because they obviously have no concern for the welfare of intelligence agents and those who assist them. Or is it only a crime in your eyes to be a person who is responsible for telling one other person, not a person responsible for broadcasting the words of one person to millions for which the editors would certainly qualify?
He's the President. If someone's deceiving the public regarding matters of national security and emboldening our enemies with misleading tales of our corruption, why does it take weeks before the American people can hear the truth? He's the President. If he can't help our soldiers, who can?

You're doing it again Morris, and it's more than a wee bit tiresome - if there are laws you don't like you simply start saying we should become a vigilante state.

And of course if there's one thing we know about vigilante states, THOSE are the ones that protect where the preciousness of humanity (or whatever it is that you'd write instead of that phrase - I'm not the master of your FEELING wordplay) is most likely to be trampled and chopped into little pieces (sometimes literally).

Either opt into a discussion where the most powerful man in the known universe is supposed to follow the few explicit limitations that our nation has place upon him - or just stop commenting b/c we're coming at this topic from such different places that we'll just talk past each other forever.

And you still haven't really responded to Moon.

And if your argument turns out to be the president isn't much of a reader, well true, but sheesh, that's staggeringly pathetic - we are talking about the #1 document in the world that it's his responsibility to be aware of and understand before committing US blood and treasure to battle).

And if you don't think a presidential already exists - crikey - what does it take for you? Sodomizing 16 kids or something? Me, I think compromising intelilgence assets including the lives and covers of government agents to engage in nasty self-serving retribution is a scandal - as is misleading the country (in giant, bolded, 124 font kinds of ways) into a war it didn't need.

Morris --

"so why is it again that the laws become more important than the people?"

Because the Framers said so. Or isn't the GOP the party of original intent?

You also failed to note that I said nothing about the page number thing, which didn't seem to me a salient detail for precisely the reason I mentioned. Rather, I noted that the leak identified as a "key judgment" something that was not identified in the report as a "key judgment," which, within communities that recognize that term of art as connoting something in which the intelligence services are confident, is a tremendously misleading misrepresentation. The reason it wasn't a "key judgment?" Because the report also expressed grave doubts about the reliability of the information.

It wasn't by mistake that the leak preceded the declassification -- it was so the Bush admin could get some free play out of what was very nearly a lie before formal declassification would reveal the sources' of the intelligence serious reservations about the very assertion the Bush leak trumpeted as a) well established and b) sufficient in itself to rebut the entirely legitimate reservations being expressed by people who actually found flaws in the evidence.

Oh, and by the way, if the Times is so biased and useless, where was the right's disdain for that paper when Judith Miller was trumpeting its lies?

"The analysis in the article you cited appears inept and self serving of a media outlet who benefits tremendously from a Presidential scandal, even when one does not exist."

Whatever. Say it three times while clicking your heels and maybe you'll find yourself at the Bush ranch, clearing brush.

Bro,
You ignore my argument that if intelligence assets are so vulnerable and were so compromised, we should hold the newspapers who spread this information as liable as the first ones to leak it.
Moon,
You're actually arguing that the use of the words "key judgment" which in the tacit sense you suggest, the specific meaning of which would be understood by less than a percent of our population, is misleading to the American people? Do the math.
I'm glad at least that one of the Bush bashers has begun admitting that Bush didn't lie about pre-war Iraq intelligence. I do find it amusing that you forgive Wilson for, how is it you put it, very nearly lying, but Bush goes too far. And we had a foreign head of state telling someone we sent to speak with him that Saddam approached them about what the head of state took to mean as buying uranium. How again is that very near lying? Wilson conveniently left that fact out of his editorial to rally the President's enemies. How is that not "very near lying"? "Powell himself said "There was sufficient evidence floating around at that time that such a statement was not totally outrageous or not to be believed or not to be appropriately used. It's that once we used the statement, and after further analysis, and looking at other estimates we had, and other information that was coming in, it turned out that the basis upon which that statement was made didn't hold up, and we said so, and we've acknowledged it, and we've moved on."

The use of the term "key judgment" wasn't made by anyone to the American public, it was used to the Washington Press Corp., who are paid to know what it means and then spin it into the gold of accessible press copy, which in turn is beamed around the world. Give the press the impression that proposition X is the solid, verified, and reliable Important Focus of the Report and watch them report it as such in every news outlet in the world within a few hours.

So what was that you were saying about Bush leaking something classified that he knew to be classified (evinced by the fact that he was actively declassifying it but hadn't yet done so)? Oh, right, nothing. Forget the lies. I hate him for his lies and I have grave questions about people who continue to support him (not people who don't support Democrats, but people who do support Bush), but I use the I-word only when criminality is the issue.

So, to return to the topic at hand, tell me again how directing the release of still-classified information is not a crime? Hint: Dear Leader said so is no answer at all.)

Morris, as to your response to me - I know we kid and all and make light of each other's intelligence, but are you high? That's like holding the aircraft used to fly cocaine into the US from Colombia responsible for their cargo. They didn't start the spread of the damage. They likely don't know the extent of the harm they might be causing. The people who start this chain of events, who clear are responsible for knowing both what's at stake and the law - are you saying they aren't responsible for their actions? Answer Moon's question.

Bro,
So you're saying then that if someone instigates mob violence, only the instigator should be held responsible for the mob's looting and destruction? If airlines know as the newspaper knew what they were spreading, they are responsible. Libby told maybe a handful of people at most, but the NYT magnified that damage by millions of times when they published that story. They created the damage, they're responsible for it. It's not complicated.
Moon,
Your argument would suggest that when the White House press corps heard what Libby had to say, they suddenly came out supporting the President because they heard the words "key judgment" and ran quickly to a line of telephones which toppled over from their rush to break the story. Of course, this is absolutely not the case, because Wilson's editorial was the one getting all the press, and any time the press reported the White House saying anything it was preceeded by the words "damage control," essentially nullifying its content. If you google "Joe Wilson" and "uranium," you get ten times as many hits as if you google "key judgment." This may give you some idea of how (in)significant these words truly were.
And I don't know how you felt about Antigone, but I thought the king should get a decent burial even if it was against the law. Law doesn't make something right, it just makes something law.

Your analogy is ridiculous and I'd urge you to think long and hard about the word "intent". That should explain to you why it's ridiculous.

As a further example of the inanity of your point, I've never seen a bunch of ink-stained paper take up knives, a club, or machete and attack someone.

You seem to be blaming dynamite for exploding - not the person who actually ignites it.

Finally, I'll simply note that the press frequently covers up all kinds of nastiness that they probably shouldn't. Investigations into the Plame scandal and Abu Ghraib have made that pretty clear.

That the leak preceded the declassification left the press effectively in the dark, forced to report what the White House fed them (because that's their job when the White House Press Secretary tells them something). That "key judgment" got you fewer hits is precisely my point: the Press know that it is a TERM OF ART, and as a TERM OF ART the public by and large doesn't know what it's about. When McLellan said the information in question was something it was not (as described by the intelligence organs who are responsible for gathering, analyzing and passing on the information), and failed to acknowledge the grave doubts of those few ground-level analysts who aren't results-oriented political hacks, he deliberately dissembled (or effectuated the order from his higher-ups to deliberately dissemble) in a way that misled the American public, all in service of damage control.

Approximately 2500 American dead in service of a war instigated knowingly on false predicates is not damage control, it's just damage, and it's a f*&king tragedy. And to say so reveals no less love, admiration, and support for our troops than anyone who would offer up someone else's young child (given the scarcity of decisionmakers whose children have spent any time directly in harm's way overseas) as a sacrifice in the name of a bunch of lies.

The administration didn't have to share its intelligence with the American public. It could have made its case for war based solely on regime change based on oil interests and in the interest of exporting freedom, then the American people could have spoken in favor of or against the military action and inevitable sacrifice in precisely the democratic fashion you're so quick to credit. But democracy is only as good as the information provided the electorate. If you love democracy as much as you claim to, you should be furious that the Bush administration presented a deliberately skewed, if not outright false, account of the situation to rally support for a war that the public, with full information, very likely would have rejected as a misadventure insufficiently connected to the far more imminent war on terrorism.

Bro,
You write: "Your analogy is ridiculous and I'd urge you to think long and hard about the word "intent". That should explain to you why it's ridiculous."
So, the NYT shouldn't be responsible according to your view because they didn't intend to hurt any intelligence agents. The trouble with this anger cloud vented by liberals toward Bush is how completely it distorts your reality, to the point you actually seem to believe that Bush intended to destroy Valerie Plame. Bush risks his life every day, as he will for the rest of his life, because he's wanted all along to protect us, to protect all of us from terrorist attacks. Bush said he wanted our country to know the truth, that Wilson was deceiving our country. He didn't break the law to get political contributions from some Buddhists, or break the law to cover up (among other things) an affair with an intern, he did what he did so that we might have less terrorists take arms against our soldiers in harm's way, something so far from the consideration of Wilson.
The press covers up all kinds of nastiness, and Abu Gharib makes that clear? That makes as much sense as if they'd been covering up when inciting riots where people died because they wanted to publish a story (lies) about our soldiers desecrating the Koran at Gitmo.
Moon,
You're beautiful. This is why I love lawyers. Your argument is that the White House press corps were immediately fished in by this "term of art," but they never made a big deal about the term because they knew the public wouldn't understand it. So, exactly what is this great, mystical power the press have where the people in the world will psychicly know how significant this "term of art" is to them, so that even if they never mention it in their article, it nonetheless has a great effect on the whole wide world? You must be a great lawyer.
As a good lawyer, you're being non-responsive. Even Powell said that at the time we had evidence suggesting the uranium deal was real. And I know you hate it when I bring up what really happened, but given the transcript included in the Duelfer report describing how just before the first Gulf War, Saddam had told his advisors that if the US went past Kuwait, they should load up their jets with the deadliest, longest lasting germs they had and fly them into Israel and Saudi Arabia. Don't you think there is every reason we needed to bring him down before he completed his objective (confirmed by Duelfer) of bribing his way out of sanctions and developing these kinds of weapons again? How in the world do you think Saddam who'd tried to kill former President Bush would not have given these weapons to terrorists once he had them to give? How is that not connected to global terrorism?

Morris - I hereby declare your comments useless wastes of our time.

1) My comment was not an "anger cloud". And it's sooooooo predictable that rather than dealing with my argument you simply laugh off the motivations of the person making the argument and don't address it's validity.

2) If you don't think the Bush/Rove/Cheney action wasn't intended to personally destroy Plame and Wilson you are so poorly informed on this matter that I can't imagine why you bother posting.

3) If Bush wanted to protect us against terrorist attacks why hasn't he hunted down UBL? Why did he choose to invade a country that, as his own government's experts would admit, wasn't anywhere near the top of the list of state-sponsors of terrorism?

4) Bill Clinton isn't president and isn't relevant - and it's beyond pathetic that supporters of this supposedly honorable (ha-ha, as if) president constantly revert to talking about US leaders of the past and bad things they did - as if that somehow excuses egregious behavior now, or the stain that's currently growing deeper on the Oval Office and our national character.

5) And if you don't think the press refrained from covering Abu Ghraib to the fullest extent possible you know next to nothing about either Abu Ghraib or the press coverage of it.

Basically - you don't know shit. Come back when can comment 1) on things you actually know something about and 2) when you are willing to respond to our arguments, not make totally irrelevant (and inaccurate) statements filled with hot air.

He didn't break the law to get political contributions from some Buddhists, or break the law to cover up (among other things) an affair with an intern, he did what he did so that we might have less terrorists take arms against our soldiers in harm's way, something so far from the consideration of Wilson.

"[H]e did what he did"? Oh please, and you accuse me of being evasive? Are you serious? So I guess whether Bush broke the law and compromised national security for political gain and to further a martial agenda the public wouldn't have shared if it had known what he knew depends on what the definition of "is" is? Clinton's misconduct was dealt with, and Gore's alleged misconduct a) was investigated and b) pales by comparison to the undisputed and rampant misappropriation of federal funds to finance politically motivated propaganda of which the highest reaches of the Bush admin are guilty. Although I'd like everyone to abide the law, I'd rather have campaign violations than an undeniable pattern of misinformation aimed not at foreign powers but at We the People. And I'd rather have a President lie about his personal life than have him lie about how he discharges his office, especially when the latter injures tens of thousands of American soldiers.

You're beautiful. This is why I love lawyers.

And we love the likes of you, too, because it's a ball to cross-examine someone so long on conviction and so short on substance. We don't have to give you rope to hang yourself; you come to the stand ready-noosed; all we have to do is cut the floor out from under you.

Your argument is that the White House press corps were immediately fished in by this "term of art," but they never made a big deal about the term because they knew the public wouldn't understand it. So, exactly what is this great, mystical power the press have where the people in the world will psychicly know how significant this "term of art" is to them, so that even if they never mention it in their article, it nonetheless has a great effect on the whole wide world? You must be a great lawyer.

I do alright, thanks. I'm not entirely sure which part of professional-press-daily-translate-abstruse-material-into-terms-readily-accessible-to-its-lay-readership you're professing not to understand, or which part of while-they're-responsible-for-as-much-fact-checking-and-corroborating-as-they-can-manage-when-the-White-House-Press-Secretary-tells-bald-faced-lies-there's-not-much-they-can-do-except-report-it-until-more-info-emerges so baffles you, but I'm pretty sure I neither said nor even vaguely implied that they had any mystical powers. I simply meant to emphasize that garbage in leads to garbage out, and no administration since Nixon has been so committed to feeding the press garbage.

As a good lawyer, you're being non-responsive.

Well then maybe you picked the wrong field.

Even Powell said that at the time we had evidence suggesting the uranium deal was real.

Powell didn't write or research the report, and though I think his reputation too long and distinguished to call him a hack outright, I think his late tenure with the Bush administration, and the information we've been getting from his former staffers and his own comments, reveal a man hopeless compromised between what used to be real ideals and the yes-man mentality demanded of him by his political superiors. You might be the only one left in the western world who hasn't repudiated the bunk testimony Powell gave before the UN, which even as such was insufficient to marshal any sort of international consensus. The point being, adverting to him is a not terribly effective, and utterly transparent, evasion regarding what the people who are paid to actually sift through intelligence data with their own two hands concluded regarding yellowcake -- which is that it was a joke.

So, nothing to say about Democracy? That's about what I figured. Even you have to admit that an electorate denied access to critical information is no electorate at all. Of course, only an electorate misinformed both about Bush and his challenger would have reelected Bush, so I suppose you're caught between a rock and a hard place on that one.

"As a good lawyer, you're being non-responsive." - Well then maybe you picked the wrong field.

Nice one Moon.

:-)

Bro,
You write: "If Bush wanted to protect us against terrorist attacks why hasn't he hunted down UBL? Why did he choose to invade a country that, as his own government's experts would admit, wasn't anywhere near the top of the list of state-sponsors of terrorism?"
I hate to break into your well honed argument, but let us not forget the last time the Democrats were in charge they were offered UBL but didn't take him, and until I see a Democrat more serious about protecting us from terrorists than protecting the rights of terrorists as they continue to oppose the Patriot Act's changes that would have prevented 9/11 had they been in place and allowed us to look at Moussaoui's computer, you can't seriously expect us to trust they'd be going after UBL more aggressively. Let us not forget the matter of John Kerry seeking permission from the UN and probably the World Court too if we ever found Bin Laden. Again, (and I'm accused of being non-responsive?), refer back to the Duelfer report that says Saddam's intention was to develop WMDs once he'd used the Oil for Food bribes to end sanctions. Saddam wasn't as much of a threat because we'd gone in and destroyed most of the WMDs he did have, but once he brought down sanctions, he had assembled the scientists necessary to begin his WMD development program immediately, the delivering missiles he'd already developed according to Duelfer in violation of that treaty. They were much more accurate and capable of delivering WMDs into Israel, as Saddam had intended to do if we'd liberated their capital during Desert Storm. Iraq had the money from Oil for Food, the scientists, and the willpower to return to being an awfully nasty rogue state, and if it weren't for Bush they would have.
Moon,
You write: "...Gore's alleged misconduct a) was investigated..."
Wrong again, barrister boy! Did you forget about all the e-mails that they forgot (right, I'm sure they "forgot") to archive, that proved that Gore and Clinton lied about the event not being a fundraiser.
As a result, they weren't reviewed to determine whether they should have been sent under subpoena to investigators on topics ranging from fund raising to Whitewater and impeachment.
But of course, this was only a single indiscretion, right? Wrong:
"The long-missing messages, provided to the House Government Reform Committee, chaired by Rep. Dan Burton, R-Ind., also show that Gore's office was informed of an offer from a businessman to raise $250,000 if a White House coffee were arranged with President Clinton.
The newly disclosed e-mails further support the assertion of Gore's political opponents that the temple event and the coffees, 21 of which had the vice president as host, were fund-raising events."

But of course, the Buddhist temple was investigated once these e-mails came to light. Or not:
"Atty. Gen. Janet Reno clashed with Senate Republicans Tuesday as she defended her rejections of an outside counsel to investigate whether Vice President Al Gore had knowledge of 1996 Democratic fund-raising abuses."
How in the world were Gore's lies not aimed at "We the people"? Face it, for every corrupt Republican, there's a William Jefferson Democrat out there. And all your attacks don't detract from the fact that Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame did their best to play the system by writing a deceptive article that couldn't be adequately countered without declassifying information. What this means is, he was encouraging and spreading to all the people around the world who hadn't made their mind up about what we were doing in Iraq the idea that we were intentionally deceptive, an idea that is absolutely not proven. Duelfer's report was clear, the threat from a Saddam WMD was absolutely real, it was just in a few years. Democrats may not like to plan for the future when it comes to national security, but I'm glad Bush did. I'm glad he declassified the statement of the Prime Minister to protect our soldiers and refute the ugly political game played by the Wilsons. He may not have dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's legally, but he did the right thing because he found compassion to protect our people in harm's way.
And if you don't recall, we've already had the discussion about how the Duelfer report confirms numerous violations of UN resolutions by Saddam. I'm sure the Democrats were in favor of trusting him after he'd lied to us, then kicked us out so we couldn't figure out he was doing it again. That kind of trust, had Bush not acted, would according to Duelfer have led to a Saddam WMD program well before today.
And if you really hate the republicans so much, where's the alternative? The same party that bashed Bush for not protecting the borders is now saying we should let immigrants in with less checks than Americans get when flying across our own country. There's hypocrisy, and then there's politics.

I'm not wandering to immigration, and if you like the GOP you might wait until they've reached a coherent consensus on what they think on the issue. They haven't the foggiest, and until they do all I can do is discuss individual positions, which isn't all that interesting since they don't control.

"I'm glad he declassified the statement of the Prime Minister to protect our soldiers and refute the ugly political game played by the Wilsons. He may not have dotted all the i's and crossed all the t's legally, but he did the right thing because he found compassion to protect our people in harm's way."

Yes, Dear Leader was very "compassionate" when he broke the f*&king law. So compassionate that the extra week or two was too long to wait to do all that pesky i-dotting and t-crossing (and isn't it inconvenient!?). Whatever, dude. You just defended criminality in the Oval Office and the West Wing. Name me one crime by a democratic President that you condone, and there's a discussion to be had. The truth is, the protection of our people "in harm's way," such as it was, would have been alleviated two weeks later. The political harm of -- gasp! -- dissent from the highest reaches of the intelligence establishment, however, had to run at 6 and 11, and apparently Bush's political fortunes were more important to him than the law. And it's not like this was a single violation -- you can't help but acknowledge the illegal propaganda the Bush admin has serially promulgated with a great deal of taxpayer money, and not that aimed at enemies overseas but at the American people. So apparently, in general, Bush's political fortunes warrant lawlessness.

By the way, you can tout Gore all you want, but at best (granting all your assertions arguendo) all you're doing is showing that you don't approve of illegal conduct in the executive branch . . . except when it's necessary to bolster poll numbers. Oh, and by the way, those poll numbers reflect a disapproving electorate, the democratic will of the people. Sucks when the principle of governance you hold most dear says that YOUR PRESIDENT IS THE MOST DESPISED, MISTRUSTED, AND PERCEIVED AS INCOMPETENT PRESIDENT ANYONE'S SEEN IN OVER TWENTY YEARS. Keep going to bat for him if you must, but just remember that in doing so you're flouting the will of the American people, who want change LIKE NOW.

Even if Gore killed someone in the West Wing, and even if the failure to prosecute him was a crime against the Republic, it doesn't bear one whit, not one iota, on whether the criminal currently in the Oval Office should get a free pass. And when you can explain to me otherwise, without referring to anything other than the President, the law, and exigent circumstances, you simply haven't answered the charge, or explained why your support for Dear Leader isn't tantamount to saying, "Yeah, dude's a murderer, but he coached little league and meant well, so how about we just let him walk."

Bush broke the law, he knew he was breaking the law, and he should be punished for it. It's not i-dotting and t-crossing, as you so glibly style it, but a matter that goes to the heart of our polity.

And by the way, the UN had no big problem with Afghanistan, but they knew what the U.S. intelligence establishment and pretty much everyone else knew all along -- that Iraq was not a serious player in 9/11, or anything so incipient as to warrant preemptive action. Disagree if you like, but Kerry would have been able to prosecute the only war that really mattered in the wake of 9/11 just as freely as Bush, even if he had decided to seek the consent of nations before invading another sovereign state (I know, the very thought is odious, which is precisely why Bush I just couldn't wait to bring it to Saddam and didn't bother vindicating the UN by seeking its approval . . . oh wait. So, just so I know, was Bush and America-hating communist for preferring to work within an international consensus? I don't hear anyone rallying to disown his presidency, notwithstanding his buddying arround with Clinton, the philandering anti-Christ. If nothing else, his approach was way cheaper.)