Outing Valerie Plame aided our enemies
By Bob Ewegen
Denver Post Columnist
Article Last Updated: 07/06/2007 09:57:24 PM MDT

After 44 years in journalism, I don't get angry very often about the dirty tricks that so often besmirch the American political process.

But I am angry about the Valerie Plame affair, a sordid tale that flared anew this week when President George Bush commuted the prison sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

I am not angry at the commutation or the pettifogging partisan exchanges it spawned. I am angry at the underlying event - the fact that an American patriot whose only crime was to serve her country in a dangerous and honorable profession had her mission undercut for partisan political purposes.

I am even angrier that the vicious "outing" of Valerie Plame put her sources at risk - the men and women in foreign countries who had risked their own lives to help America in our war on terror.

In the intelligence trade, such foreign sources are called "assets." I call them heroes. And they are the ones who were put most at risk after columnist Robert Novak revealed Plame's CIA connection as part of a clumsy Bush administration effort to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had become a critic of the Iraq war.

To explain why this case angers me so deeply, let me give you a number: RA68031300. It identifies me as a Vietnam-era veteran of the United States Army. After enlisting, I took basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., where I received orders sending me to Fort Sill, Okla., for training in artillery, after which I expected to be sent to Vietnam.

Because someone in the Pentagon noticed I had worked for United Press International, I was called out on my last day of basic and redirected to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. I ultimately became editor of the post newspaper, the Pointer View.

So in the end, my personal risk in my military career was limited to some really awful haircuts. But the names of 58,000 of my comrades engraved on a wall in Washington, D.C., prove that my story could have ended differently. Those names also explain why I will never forgive anyone who willfully puts the lives of America's military or intelligence personnel or our friends abroad in danger.

And that's exactly what former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage did when he leaked Plame's identity to Novak - and what Novak did when he published the name of a covert CIA agent.

Between Armitage's dishonorable act and Novak's dishonorable act were a string of other dishonorable acts, including an executive order by President Bush empowering Vice President Cheney to declassify classified information, which Cheney did, thus allowing Libby to shop Plame's identity around in hopes of finding a journalist willing to smear Wilson through his wife. With Libby's information confirming Armitage's original tip, Novak willingly blew Plame's cover.

In so doing, he didn't put Plame at personal risk, because she was not overseas at the time. But he did irrevocably damage her mission - and put those human "assets" at risk.

You see, al-Qaeda and its ilk rarely try to kill CIA agents - or anyone else who can fight back. What these cowards do is kill people who have worked with U.S. agents.

You can imagine the conversation: "Hmm, that Valerie Plame who visited here turns out to be a CIA agent. Didn't she hang out at Hamid's coffee shop a lot?"

Next day, Hamid's body turns up, along with the bodies of his wife and family, all of whom were tortured to death before his eyes.

That's the way our enemies play the game. That's why we train brave men and women like Valerie Plame so America can fight back.

The outing of Plame may have been technically legal, as the commutation of Libby's sentence undoubtedly was. But our supreme law, the U.S. Constitution, still defines treason as giving aid and comfort to our enemies in time of war.

And in this aging veteran's eyes, that's exactly what Armitage, Cheney, Libby and Novak did.

Bob Ewegen (bewegen at denverpost dot com) is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post.

I grow incurably pessimistic about this. All we see is talk from the Dems, but they never seem to be able to get anything up and going. As long as the current administration is in place, we are screwed!

This is absolutely the central issue! This treasonous act endangered not only the foreign assets directly in contact with Plame, it included a wider web of assets that were associated with the cover organization that she worked for. This business entity now stands exposed as a CIA front. It is unbelievable how someone like Armitage, who is closely linked to the intelligence establishment, could blow Plame's cover in such a casual manner. Worse, how no one has paid any consequence for this despicable act of treason! Is there a t-shirt available with the word treason engraved over the faces of Cheney, Libby, Rove, Novak and Armitage? Since no one in the government appears to be able to punish these traitors - not Fitzgerald or the DOJ, not the pusillanimous Congress, not the courts - and the media has also given them a pass, perhaps all that concerned and patriotic citizens can now do is to protest silently at the travesty.

i hope bush doesn't kill fitzgerald!

My bet is that Calling Fitz, who would undoubtedly tell the truth, would be interesting. But because Bush and his dark Lord were not under oath, it would amount to little more than hearsay. Which, is not necessarily a bad thing. It would still be useful testimony for, say, crafting Articles of Impeachment, being that an impeachable offense is anything Congress says one is.

The outing of Plame was an act of treason. That the act was done for the utterly venal reasons of mean-spirited vendetta and vengeance makes it, in my estimation, the most despicable example of treason committed in this country's history. It wasn't done for ideology; it wasn't even done for money. The act was intentionally crafted to deliberately make a victim out of an innocent servant, in order to harm another, for no other reason than to cause harm for the sake of causing harm. That the act of treason was knowingly conceived and executed by those who hold the highest office in the land makes the resulting betrayal of the Nation all the more heinous.

If having Fitz testify helps place this high crime further into the public spotlight, I'd say go for it. What would also be good is to nationally televise the hearings.

BaScOmBe @ 2:

Outing Valerie Plame aided our enemies
By Bob Ewegen
Denver Post Columnist
Article Last Updated: 07/06/2007 09:57:24 PM MDT

After 44 years in journalism, I don't get angry very often about the dirty tricks that so often besmirch the American political process.

But I am angry about the Valerie Plame affair, a sordid tale that flared anew this week when President George Bush commuted the prison sentence of Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

I am not angry at the commutation or the pettifogging partisan exchanges it spawned. I am angry at the underlying event - the fact that an American patriot whose only crime was to serve her country in a dangerous and honorable profession had her mission undercut for partisan political purposes.

I am even angrier that the vicious "outing" of Valerie Plame put her sources at risk - the men and women in foreign countries who had risked their own lives to help America in our war on terror.

In the intelligence trade, such foreign sources are called "assets." I call them heroes. And they are the ones who were put most at risk after columnist Robert Novak revealed Plame's CIA connection as part of a clumsy Bush administration effort to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had become a critic of the Iraq war.

To explain why this case angers me so deeply, let me give you a number: RA68031300. It identifies me as a Vietnam-era veteran of the United States Army. After enlisting, I took basic training at Fort Leonard Wood, Mo., where I received orders sending me to Fort Sill, Okla., for training in artillery, after which I expected to be sent to Vietnam.

Because someone in the Pentagon noticed I had worked for United Press International, I was called out on my last day of basic and redirected to the U.S. Military Academy at West Point. I ultimately became editor of the post newspaper, the Pointer View.

So in the end, my personal risk in my military career was limited to some really awful haircuts. But the names of 58,000 of my comrades engraved on a wall in Washington, D.C., prove that my story could have ended differently. Those names also explain why I will never forgive anyone who willfully puts the lives of America's military or intelligence personnel or our friends abroad in danger.

And that's exactly what former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage did when he leaked Plame's identity to Novak - and what Novak did when he published the name of a covert CIA agent.

Between Armitage's dishonorable act and Novak's dishonorable act were a string of other dishonorable acts, including an executive order by President Bush empowering Vice President Cheney to declassify classified information, which Cheney did, thus allowing Libby to shop Plame's identity around in hopes of finding a journalist willing to smear Wilson through his wife. With Libby's information confirming Armitage's original tip, Novak willingly blew Plame's cover.

In so doing, he didn't put Plame at personal risk, because she was not overseas at the time. But he did irrevocably damage her mission - and put those human "assets" at risk.

You see, al-Qaeda and its ilk rarely try to kill CIA agents - or anyone else who can fight back. What these cowards do is kill people who have worked with U.S. agents.

You can imagine the conversation: "Hmm, that Valerie Plame who visited here turns out to be a CIA agent. Didn't she hang out at Hamid's coffee shop a lot?"

Next day, Hamid's body turns up, along with the bodies of his wife and family, all of whom were tortured to death before his eyes.

That's the way our enemies play the game. That's why we train brave men and women like Valerie Plame so America can fight back.

The outing of Plame may have been technically legal, as the commutation of Libby's sentence undoubtedly was. But our supreme law, the U.S. Constitution, still defines treason as giving aid and comfort to our enemies in time of war.

And in this aging veteran's eyes, that's exactly what Armitage, Cheney, Libby and Novak did.

Bob Ewegen (bewegen at denverpost dot com) is deputy editorial page editor of The Denver Post.

foolme1ns @ 1:

THE CANCER REMAINS

Millions of Americans cry out for the impeachment of Dick Cheney and George Bush!!!!

54% of Americans say that Dick Cheney should be impeached and 46% say his sock puppet George Bush should be impeached.

There is a cancer in our country!!!! A thirty year old cancer, and it is growing and infecting and killing America.

Over 30 years ago John Dean told Richard Nixon there was a cancer on the presidency. He was right and he was wrong. Nixon was the cancer, but it was in the body of America.

The small tumor was removed, but the cancer was not destroyed. When Gerald Ford pardoned Nixon, he allowed the cancer to survive. He said that we needed to forget the cancer in order to heal the nation. You don't cure cancer by forgetting it. So the cancer cells were allowed to remain in the body and to matasticize. The cancer is back in the executive branch, but now it has invaded the legislative branch and the judicial branch.

The cancer is killing America, and if America is to be saved, then the cancer must be destroyed.

It must be cut out of the body through impeachment, it must be irradiated through prosecution and it must be eradicated from the body through the chemotherapy of justice.

It will not be easy or fast but it is imperative if America is to be saved.

And then just like cancer survivors, there needs to be regular checkups to make sure the cancer never returns again.

Impeachment must start now and followed through completely to the end.

(Stands and applauds both commenters loudly) Wow! Between the two of you, I think I've just had most of the words stolen out of my mouth.

The only statement I could add is this:

Arrest, Indict, Impeach. No more waiting. Do it now.

Jason B @ 7:

What do you expect the Democrats to do? How are they going to vote for impeachment when they don't have a majority? They have technically a one-person majority, though one Democrat is out due to medical issues and you have the DINO Liebermann, who'll vote against anything that could hurt the Republicans, which makes the total 49-49 in the Senate. Don't get me wrong, I would love to see something done, but they lack the ability to do anything. There's enough of that 'Permanent Republican Majority" Rove worked at to keep the Democrats from being able to enforce anything.

Jason B,

They can use their office to build the consensus and the required majotrity by exercising the leadership option, which they have failed utterly to even attempt. The Speaker of the House can take the argument to the citizens, can use the speakership for the bully pulpit that it is, can go on the road, can order that herings be televised, can do any number of things that would be useful to getting the facts to the People. It is the People who must ultimately demand that their elected representatives bring these criminals to justice. Thus far, no effort has been made at informing and rallying public opinion. Just empty excuse making and impotent hand wringing, as a unilateral declaration that impeachment was pre-emptively taken off the table. The leadership is wholly blameworthy, because they have failed even to try.

But there is another issue. Congress is currently in dereliction of its duty under the constitution. The Constitution ordains that Congress shall impeach the president and other public officials for High Crimes, Bribery and other Misdemeanors. It does not say "may", or "can" or "has the option to" impeach. It says shall which, in legalese, means, "must", it means, "is obliged to perform". It doesn't matter whether the process is politically expedient, or whether the House fails to pass articles of impeachment or whether the Senate subsequently fails to convict. The Constitution says that the process must be carried out. It further doesn't define what high crimes or misdemeanors are, and it is generally agreed that high crimes and misdemeanors are anything that Congress says they are.

Being that the House confers, writes and votes upon articles of impeachment, it is the Speaker’s job to direct the Judiciary Committee to meet, study and if warranted, produce those articles for vote by the full house. As leader of the house, it is the Speakers job to articulate the rationale to the full House and to all the Citizens of the Nation. Using any and all ethically available means and tools, it is her task to enlist the aide of the Citizens (for example: she could initiate a grass roots campaign to inform Blue Dogs that they will be voted out of office by their constituents if they vote on the wrong side of doing right). In that regard, the Speaker is supposed to be the highest servant and guardian of principle, and not a mere facilitator of the expedient or the easy. Nancy Pelosi, has thus far failed to step up to the plate to execute a duty that, however onerous that duty may be, comes with the job she was so eager to take on. And that is blameworthy.

Both Leahy and Arlen Spector said it might be a good idea to call Fitzy forward to answer some questions as well. It was on Late Edition with Wolfy Blitzer.

Unfortunately the cancer goes far deeper than Bush and Cheney -- they are just the latest manifestation of an attitude towards power that is inimicable to our constitutional form of government. They are the embodiment of authoritarianism -- rule by degree and rule by force and fear. At their heart's core, they are despots -- anything else is the thinnest of veneers. Consensus is an anathama to them, debate, a waste of time. If truth is an obstacle to their goals, then truth must be buried, no matter how many lies need to be shoveled on top of it.
This is nothing new -- this is a way people have been organized and governed since there was such a thing. But its origins are from a darker, more violent and tribalisitic time. It has taken centuries of development of social and civil institutions to make it possible for liberal democracy to even be possible. And even then, it's fragile -- authoritarianism and totalitarianism, whether it be under the name of facism, communism or what are being called "radical islamiscits" (not to mention authoritarian market driven econmoies such as China and Russia) -- our sort of social organization will always have its threats (history does not end, Mr. Fukayama). But the greatest threat is internal, from those within a society that is democratcially based, who would are looking to take advantage of any weakness or threat because they themselves don't believe in the ideals of liberty, equality and representative government.
It's not just Bush and Cheney -- it's the whole cabal that surrounds them and the quarter of the population that is absolutely loyal too them and the other quarter or so that canbe persuaded to look the other way or just not see that mindset for the threat it is. Getting rid of Nixon didn't solve the problem -- too many of his proteges were already in significant positions. And if we are to follow the cancer metaphor, it's not just removing a tumor, it's chemotherapy that we need. But it's not so much a cancer as a disease that at best is manageable but not curable -- AIDs as the metaphorical disease, if you would (but I wouldn't push the anaology too far).
In any case, I'm not sure what the real answer is -- blacklisting all the high level officials of this regieme? No constitutional provisions for that, I'm affraid. And the Internet, for all the hope it brings for providing formation, is also just as much a vehicle for propoganda and deception. It does help reduce the monopoly powerful interests have on the dissemination of information -- but the entertainment-news information complex that has developed over the past decades is still an enormously powerful force. Education, one hopes, is part of the answer. Not the teach-to-test mindlessness that the so-called "No Child Left Behind" is all about, of course, but the development of critical thinking skills and the instillment of values that reward intellectual competancy and curriousity. But I don't know how to effect that one.
Rght now I'm cynical about the whole thing, myself. The more I read about ancient civilizations, the more I feel like the duration of any continuous system of government is pretty short -- the Roman Republic was pretty much a bannana republic in its latter days with a succession of various tyrants -- Sulla, Pompey, Ceasar, Ocatavius. A couple of hundred years is actually a pretty good run, by and large.

[...] Crooks & Liars [...]

ShimSham @ 19:

Tuuuurrrlleeeeey! ?

I'm not the only one yelling for Turley every day??? Then I add, "And bring Dean with you!!!"

Impeachment removes the cancer. Prosecution kills it. Incarceration burys it. All three steps must be taken. Resignation is no alternative. Richard Nixon was allowed to resign and then was pardoned on the pretext of "healing the nation". Does this look like being healed to anyone?????

Prosecution MUST follow impeachment and PRISON TIME must follow prosecution!!!!!

In so doing, he didn’t put Plame at personal risk, because she was not overseas at the time. But he did irrevocably damage her mission - and put those human “assets” at risk.

You see, al-Qaeda and its ilk rarely try to kill CIA agents - or anyone else who can fight back. What these cowards do is kill people who have worked with U.S. agents.

You can imagine the conversation: “Hmm, that Valerie Plame who visited here turns out to be a CIA agent. Didn’t she hang out at Hamid’s coffee shop a lot?”

Next day, Hamid’s body turns up, along with the bodies of his wife and family, all of whom were tortured to death before his eyes.

That’s the way our enemies play the game. That’s why we train brave men and women like Valerie Plame so America can fight back.

The outing of Plame may have been technically legal, as the commutation of Libby’s sentence undoubtedly was. But our supreme law, the U.S. Constitution, still defines treason as giving aid and comfort to our enemies in time of war.

And in this aging veteran’s eyes, that’s exactly what Armitage, Cheney, Libby and Novak did.

Outstanding comment. We will never know how many people lost their lives because of the acts of these traitors - Armitage, Cheney, Libby, Novak, Rove and the pres himself - little Bush.

Even if the President and Cheney were not under oath, they could still face legal liability for lying to a federal officer and obstruction of justice. Martha Stewart went to jail even though none of her statements were made under oath.

I don't think these hearings do much, do they? What is the expected outcome, besides making a hapless impotent congress appear as if it's doing something? In any case, it seems to me that Fitzgerald testifying as to what Bush and Cheney testified would be a futile waste of time. Hearsay, not admissable in a court of law. Why do you think they didn't testify under oath and off the record in the first place? They're not dumb.

It seems to me that the big difference between Clinton's pardons versus Bush commutation, is that Bush himself has complicity in Libby's crime, because Libby's lie was undertaken in furtherance of a scheme to protect the President's big lie, namely, that Iraq was a national security threat, a lie that has caused 3500 dead troops and more that $400B wasted. I'd like to see the Democrats a bit more direct on this point when the Clinton-Bush comparisons are being made.

I know we all hope that Fitzgerald is one of the good guys, but it disturbs me that his investigation came to a seemingly complete halt with the Libby indictment (I know it is technically ongoing, but it seems to be ongoing nowhere). This is what concerns me; Fitzgerald himself refers to a "cloud over the vice-presidency" and he seems convinced that Cheney and/or Rove are involved. Given that and the number of individuals other than Scooter Libby who appear to have knowledge of these events, couldn't he have gotten around relying only on Libby's testimony to indict Cheney and/or Rove? Doesn't it seem likely that someone else, someone less likely to be protected by the White House, could have provided enough information to secure an indictment? Maybe not--I don't pretend to understand all the technical aspects of the case, but I am curious to see what the experts on the board think about this.

More tightening of the screws. The only way Bush or Cheney could rebuke Fitz’ testimony is if they testify on their own behalf. I recommend separately.

Midwest Liberal Says: Brilliant move. Take it. In the unfortunate game of chess this move may captue the administrations queen.

Mega-brill!!!!

Well, go Chuck I guess. I'll believe it when I see it I guess. Oh, and "pissed canuck", don't take this the wrong way, as I love Canada, live a half hour away, and have played hockey my whole life - knock it off. Canada voting in the conservative party up there really didn't help things much (granted the Canadien conservatives are probably to the left of a lot of our democrats), but we didn't need any more soundbites along the lines of "the rest of the world agrees with us, look - even Canada voted conservative!".

Canadiens, you lucky bastards =)

If Bush/Cheney lied to a federal officer during the course of an investigation, the fact they were not put under oath is not relevant. Wouldn't they still be held responsible under the false statements statute? I wonder if the grand jury evidence could be unlocked if found by the house to be relevant under an impeachment hearing, thereby putting it in play during a trial in the senate.

EVEN NIXON UNDERSTOOD

That the pardoning of Halderman, Ehrlichman, Mitchell, and the Watergate burglars was Presidential suicide and that it left Nixon open to being accused of using the pardon process as a means of obstructing justice to protect himself, and in essence, committing the crime of bribery if he used the pardoning process to buy the silence of the conspirators or burglars.

Congress gets to interpret what a high crime and misdemeanor is. Had Nixon pardoned the Watergate conspirators and burglars, Congress certainly could have interpreted Nixon's abuse of the pardoning process as an obstruction of justice for Nixon's own personal purposes in order to buy their silence, and as a quid pro quo, which is essentially a bribe. Congress could have found Nixon’s pardoning of these individuals to be grounds for impeachment of Nixon himself.

So even Nixon understood that pardoning the Watergate burglars and conspirators was not an option.

Impeachment serves several purposes:

1. To remove the person from office and it is true that Libby is not part of the administration anymore, so this reason really does not apply.

2. To prevent the President from pardoning persons who might rat him out in exchange for a pardon. Libby should be impeached. Congress should impeach Libby so that Bush cannot use a pardon to buy Libby's silence. That is also what the founding fathers understood, hence the clause in the constitution which allows impeachment to nullify a Presidential pardon. The impeachment clause which nullifies a pardon, prevents the President from using a pardon to obstruct investigations into the President's own wrongdoing. This prevents the President from granting a pardon in exchange for silence, in essence a bribe. What Bush has done, even Nixon didn't dare do, because Nixon was apparently afraid of being accused of abusing the pardon process to obstruct an investigation into Nixon's role in Watergate. Abuse of the pardon process and using the abuse to obstruct an investigation into the President's own wrongdoing, in exchange for the silence of the person who is pardoned, in in essence bribery, and could and should be an impeachable offense. That is also what the founding fathers understood, hence the clause in the constitution which allows impeachment to nullify a Presidential pardon.

3. To prevent the impeached person from ever serving again. If Bush later pardons Libby, Libby will be able to serve in the government again. An impeachment of Libby will stop this. This is what should have happened to the Iran-Contra criminals who were pardoned by Bush, senior. A number of them were permitted to serve in the government again.

Constitutional Sources for these conclusions regarding the purposes of impeachment:

Text from Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution regarding impeachment itself (please note that bribery is listed as an impeachable offense) :

Section 4. The President, Vice President and all civil officers of the United States, shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.

Text of Article II, Section 2, the constitution regarding pardons (please note last 2 clauses where the president is given pardoning power except in cases of impeachment):

Section 2. The President shall be commander in chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, and of the militia of the several states, when called into the actual service of the United States; he may require the opinion, in writing, of the principal officer in each of the executive departments, upon any subject relating to the duties of their respective offices, and he shall have power to grant reprieves and pardons for offenses against the United States, except in cases of impeachment.

As mentioned earlier, when one looks at the text of Section 4, it is also quite clear that a pardon in exchange for silence could very well be a bribe, an impeachable offense. I believe Nixon must have understood this. So, it should be quite obvious that the Libby commutation deserves the scrutiny of Congress.

Regarding the question of whether someone can be impeached when one is no longer in office, I must say that I can not speak with certainty on this, but the argument would be that if any person did not want to be impeached, he could avoid the penalty of "never again serving in office" by simply resigning before the impeachment process was complete. If Congress' purpose of impeachment is to ensure that a certain person who has held office is never able to serve again, Congress must be allowed to go through with impeachment proceedings regardless of whether the person is in office or not. Removal of an officer should not be viewed as a temporary matter. Hence it would seem that a resignation should not be allowed to frustrate the removal process and that a resignation in advance of an impeachment should have no bearing on whether the impeachment should be allowed to go forward.

(David G. Mills is an attorney who has practiced for nearly thirty years).

[...] on the other hand, is apparently more interested in learning more about Fitzgerald’s interviews with President Bush and Vice President Cheney. Watch it: var flvleahyfitz6632024014597 = new [...]

Add my name to the list of Vets who is totally disgusted by this criminal crew that is destroying everything this country stood for. I could rant on and on but everyone here knows what I feel and the total frustration to get certain segments of the population to open their eyes to what Bush Co is all about. We had better impeach those two now and stop worrying about the political fallout from the Bush bots and the liars on Squawk Radio and the Fox propaganda channel. Bush is a liar and a criminal who falsely led us into war and had repeatedly failed in his duties to uphold the Constitution. Either you believe in the rule of law or you don't.

pissed canuck @ 41:

living_abomination @ 40:

Well, go Chuck I guess. I'll believe it when I see it I guess. Oh, and "pissed canuck", don't take this the wrong way, as I love Canada, live a half hour away, and have played hockey my whole life - knock it off. Canada voting in the conservative party up there really didn't help things much (granted the Canadien conservatives are probably to the left of a lot of our democrats), but we didn't need any more soundbites along the lines of "the rest of the world agrees with us, look - even Canada voted conservative!".

Canadiens, you lucky bastards =)

You're right, although a minority conservative government can't do a hell of a lot of damage,
even though Harper has a hard on for Bush.
I think your mafiosa government has more impact on us up here than our own elected idiots.
That's why we hope you can get something done.

"Mafiosa" government? You're too kind. No seriously, you are - if this was just a Mafia style government, we probably would be less screwed, this is well oiled secret-society styled takeover aimed at making as much money as possible for a few people, and to hell with the rest of us. Those who feel they might disagree are lectured by the Limbaughs, Hannitys, and Wieners, and if you still have the balls to disagree - you're labeled a traitor and get a bunch of people asking you why you "hate our firemen" while the NSA listens in on your phone conversations. ugh.

Thats why I'm jealous of Canada. Well, that and the hockey - i've played there quite a few times, and although we got our asses handed to us pretty much every time, the other teams never failed to congratulate us and be anything but good sports. Hear that republicans? It's called class, something our government (and admittedly, most of our sports teams) could do well to learn from.

naschkatze @ 51:

like you, I suspected fitz all along. I hoped he wasn't a loyalist, but he let rove reinterview 4 times with 'better recollections' rather than indict him.

After listening to Turley, now I am sure that F was a loyalist. In retrospect, the MSM played up the 'tough prosecutor' angle the entire time, just a bit too much.

and to think we were all waiting for fitzmas...

[Deleted. You said it best: "Get a life." Take your own advice. It's the only thing clever about your post. Bubbye-Sitemonitor]

miss_kitty @ 53:

Schumer is an opportunistic dick.

And you are a regular Joan Rivers. What a sharp wit you have.

While Chuck Schumer is a mixed blessing as a Senator, in this case his "opportunism" is likely to yield some useful truths.

I am an attorney who has never practiced Constitutional law, but I wonder if anyone has considered the Libby situation from a different angle.
Since President Bush has chosen to commute Scooter Libby's sentence he now has immunity but has has lost some of his Constitutional protections. Specifically, he is protected from double jeopardy as a result of his first trial and now has no 5th Amendment protection for self incrimination. Since he cannot be tried again for the same things, he cannot refuse to talk honestly should Congress subpoena him again and ask direct questions. He has no penal risk for anything he says, so he can be compelled to answer or risk contempt charges-thus putting him in jeopardy of jail time once again.
If he does not answer, he risks jail again. And, if he should answer dishonestly, he risks jail for the new crime of perjury.
Unless I have missed something, I think this could be one of those rare win-win opportunities for the rule of law.

Ira Fertel:

My understanding (not being any sort of lawyer at all) is that Libby retains his 5th amendment rights since he is still appealling his conviction.
If pardoned, he would no longer have the protection of the Fifth, but a commutation means his butt's still covered. (Thus why the president didn't pardon him-- all that fine speachifying about respecting the jury's decision aside.)

Jack Spratt @ 59:

BaScOmBe @ 9:

it's sound-byte shumer!

as soon as the mike is removed, he goes back to doing nothing.

Vote and organize Green! Open your eyes: the two corporate parties just play at mutual oversight while they pick the pockets (and other, less savory metaphors) of the United States, its people, and the world.

JUST KEEP FOLLOWING MY POSTS!
You'll find that my eyes have always been open and we just might be on the same side.

The Real Sporer @ 61:

If Plame was not a confidential agent, which ihas been answered in the affirmative and is no longer a material fact in dispute, what conspiracy is Libby going to conceal? The disclosure of Plame's name was legal.

Moreover, it has also been established both here and in the UK that Wilson's editorial contained multiple factual untruths. Similarly, Plame's denial of any role in sending her Democrat operative husband to Niger was a complete lie when uttered.

The willingness of your crowd to ignore facts to reach these paranoid, hateful and most unproductive conclusions is why the lunatic Michael Savage can describe liberalism as a mental illness.

you just lied three times. run along now.

As to number 1, it sounds like you are speculating. Do you have a citation for your assertion? As to 4, not true. He was not acting as the administration's attorney and therefore the attorney/client privilege does not attach. His "work product" does not exist within your incorrectly created framework.

"Fitsmas" is not over. To be sure, it seems to be gaining momentum. Given the very shrewd decision by the decider to commute rather than pardon, and stated here already, Scootski is still protected by the 5th Amendment and welcomed back into the fold. It's wonderful when the constitution works in your favor and even more wonderful that when it's not it can be ignored with impunity. Wonderful.

I'm no fan of Chuck, but it couldn't hurt. Keeps the story in the news, and you can bet the more rocks they turn over, the more creepy crawlies will be exposed.

Irrelevant if Bush and Cheney were under oath. If subpoenaed and placed under oath Fitz would have to answer questions about what they said to him. There's no prosecutor/witness confidentiality protection. There isn't even a policy "can't talk about ongoing investigations" claim, 'cos the investigation is over. Have at it Chuck. Still, I bet Bush and Cheney were cagey as hell.

I'm probably giving him too much credit, but I'm wondering why no one seems to consider that Fitzgerald might have chosen to wait to pursue the meat of investigation until the Bush administration is out of office, and Rove and Cheney can no longer be pardoned?