Taking a leak into the wind.
I cannot see any eventuality of Fitzgerald’s work stopping the neocon machine.

Posted by: Cloned Poster | Jul 15 2005 20:51 utc | 4

“Fair game.”

Posted by: SteinL | Jul 15 2005 20:54 utc | 6

Billmon wrote:

On the other hand, Murray Waas has reported that Fitzgerald’s team has some serious doubts about the Rovian alibi:

Also of interest to investigators have been a series of telephone contacts between Novak and Rove, and other White House officials, in the days just after press reports first disclosed the existence of a federal criminal investigation as to who leaked Plame’s identity. Investigators have been concerned that Novak and his sources might have conceived or co-ordinated a cover story to disguise the nature of their conversations.

Wass reiterates that emphatically today at TAP ONLINE:

The coverage underscores the secrecy surrounding Fitzgerald’s grand-jury investigation. The few leaks that constitute public knowledge of the investigation’s progress have largely come from one side: the defense attorneys’. And what they have to say is oftentimes self-serving, misleading, and in some cases untrue. Their all-too-willing collaborators have been the nation’s leading newspapers.
In the meantime, however, what has propelled the investigation — and led to the extraordinary jailing of the Times’ Judith Miller — has been the strong belief by federal investigators that Rove, Novak, and others may have misled them and the public, and that one or more of the participants may have devised a cover story with others to avoid public or legal culpability.

Link

Posted by: netro | Jul 15 2005 22:00 utc | 8

Judge Hogan then found, based on Fitzpatrick’s information, that “the subpoenas were not issued in an attempt to harass the [reporters], but rather stem from legitimate needs due to an unanticipated shift in the grand jury’s investigation.” The Judge concluded that because the “subpoenas bear directly on the grand jury investigation and are of a limited time and scope,” Fitzpatrick was entitled to this information.
(more)

Posted by: alabama | Jul 15 2005 22:16 utc | 10

Is it not possible that Rove, Miller and Cooper are figures in some initial topic they know about (namely the outing of Plame), and that Fitzpatrick’s discovery proceedings led him into a zone of which they are truly unaware, and that, beginning last April, he returned to the matter of Plame in order to secure some evidentiary link between the two? If so, then we can have no idea of what’s at stake, and neither can Rove, Miller, Cooper, Plame, Wilson, Novak, or the editorial writers at the NYTimes, the Post, and the WSJ. It’s what we’re waiting for.
(p.s.: the second post above should also be in italics–I’m citing Dean there.)

Posted by: alabama | Jul 15 2005 22:20 utc | 12

A pretty good commentary Billmon, however one thing frustrates me, it is this phrase The real scandal appears everwhere with regard to this scandal.
According to some, the real scandal is the framing of intelligence leading up to the war and the attempt to squelch all dissent related.
To others, the real scandal is the lengths of political depravity of Karl Rove.
And then we have the real scandal as the cesspool of insider Washington journalism and politicos.
Lets face it, there are plenty of scandals to go around here.
However to me, the real scandal is that this is thus far the only truly independent investigation into this administration. And unfortunately, I think the outcome is going to leave everyone concerned unfulfilled. Fitzgerald does care about WMD’s. He doesn’t care about any of this crap, except for the criminal referral and potential crimes he has uncovered. There will likely be a sealed indictment, followed by a sealed criminal complaint, followed by plea agreement. There will be no vindication and whatever the real scandal is will be defined by the classic method of Rove Machine leaks, slimes and smears.

Posted by: Bubb Rubb | Jul 15 2005 22:55 utc | 14

@ClonedPoster
“I cannot see any eventuality of Fitzgerald’s work stopping the neocon machine.”
Maybe not stopping it, but there is the potential to put a new face on it and even bring some of those terrible obstructionists into the machine. The sacrifice of a few of the browner of the brownshirts might just facilitate a truly bipartisan neocon machine makeover.

Posted by: Monolycus | Jul 15 2005 23:16 utc | 16

These leaks change nothing, regarding Rove. To claim that the closest presidential advisor gets key information from press, vs the vast network of active resources inherent in the office is a laughably shallow shield indeed. Its like the president’s claim that he saw the planes hit the towers on the television screen in the hall of the elmentary school he spoke from, when he was clearly notified earlier by his mobile war room staff.
Rove will not be able to hide behind Novak and Miller, and if this is the best Team Luskin can do they need to step down. Until this investigation is complete, Rove’s security clearance must be revoked, and he must leave his post. Team Bush has had since last November to take appropriate measures for this event and has again been caught flat footed, staring at themselves in the mirror. Even the republican backers must be starting to comprehend how bad a choice Team Bush was for a second term. 4 years of national security scandals and corruption charges are a terrible investment for any party. Republican backers should be howling for their money back.

Posted by: patience | Jul 15 2005 23:38 utc | 18

‘they’ not he.
…Always think of the Newly Oldboy Pravda in that royal patriarchical way.

Posted by: RossK | Jul 15 2005 23:47 utc | 20

Um, that link doesn’t seem to be linking. You can find it at Yahoo.com.

Posted by: alabama | Jul 16 2005 0:02 utc | 22

It occurs that the “friday document dump”‘s main purpose isn’t to convince anyone that Turdblossom is innocent, rather it is designed to overwhelm the public with yet more boring and inconsequential ‘facts’ in the hope that the sheeple’s attention span will fall off and everyone will become diverted by the next big thing eg SCOTUS.
The Administration will probably have been taken aback by the vehemence of the Scotty McLelland questioning last week so they have included a little barb in the releases. That the original leaker was a journalist.
They must be hoping that the MSM will touch their forelocks and move on. There is a reasonable chance that they will do so as the reporters profession can be seen to have about the longevity of a Silicon Valley code jockey.
I watched a ‘media insight’ type program this morning on our local TV network. It was yet another take on the everyman as reporter theory that has been done by countless media commentators since the London Massacre. That is all of the camera and vid phones might eventually replace the need for a professional reporter on the spot.
The only argument that the panel of ‘media experts’ (ie a bunch of middle aged former reporters turned public relations consultants) could offer as to why there would still be a need for professional reporters was that the mainstream media was respected for its fact checking. That is these amateurs were alright when they got it right but since they weren’t doing it for a dollar they probably had an ideological motivation and were therefore biased.
I had to laugh because one of the slimier undercurrents of the London Massacre stories has been the readiness of the mainstream media to release any old tale the ‘intelligence’ services ask them to. For example why was it that the nationality and identity of the ethnic Pakistani bombers was released nearly a week before that of the bomber of Jamaican origin? Similarly the story about the French minister claiming the Brits had told him that some of these bombers had been rolled up in a security sweep in 2004 was quickly overwhelmed by the Brit’s denial and yet now we find that the frenchman was correct some of these lunatics had indeed been identified in a Luton counterterrorism operation.
So if the mainstream media is indeed feeling as fragile and mistrusted as these events suggest they will take note of the implicit threat in the latest document dump and assist in distracting sheeple from anything so worrying as a media>whitehouse>media feedback loop.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 16 2005 0:14 utc | 24

Folks, to have some hope of finding out what really have happened, we need to think beyond the obvious.

Rove knows that the left has wanted a piece of his (and the rest of BushCo’s) hide.

Rove knows that the release of Cooper’s notes would be red meat to the left.

Does anyone really think that this guy would have made a mistake that would get him landed in the slammer that easily?

Since Saturday he’s been letting the left gobble down that red meat. Thu out comes the leak that Novak called Rove, etc.

Friday comes the revelation that Novak called him and he e-mailed Stephen Hadley (anyone remember that name, hmm?). Nice little alibi (prepared beforehand no doubt) he has there, eh?

He counsels Bush and Scotti to ride it out for a week or two until it blows away.

In the end he:

1. Rallies the base.
2. Gives the left a big one right in the kisser.
3. All the while deflecting attention from who planned and managed this op (remember that Novak said he got his info from two senior WH officials, one of whom he described as non-partisan (who the heck can work in the Cheney WH and not be a “Drink the KoolAid” Republican?))

It would explain the sh*t eating grin he’s had all week.

Here’s a scenario which goes one level deeper:

1. We assume Karl Rove is the brains behind this op (no reason not too).
2. Cheney’s Office of the VP leaks Plame to Miller (similar to the Ahmed Chalabi / Iraqi WMD leaks leading up to the beginning of the war (that could be the reason for interest in Scooter)).
3. She discusses it with other colleagues, including Novak. Maybe she did this in a “nyah nyah look what I know” kinda way, maybe she was under orders to do so, who knows…
4. Novak runs with it, calls Rove to confirm.
5. Rove confirms; He can deny being the leaker
6. He mails his prepared alibi to Hadley.

We know these guys don’t give a hoot about national security (remember Bush burned a British investigation into some terror suspects right before the 2004 election to boost his status as the “War President”).

I don’t see Cheney having any qualms about this op.

Bush doesn’t have to be in the loop.

Net: all this attention on Rove seems to be obscuring the point that this could lead into Cheney’s office…

Rove isn’t known as a genius for nothing you know…

Maybe that’s why Ms. Miller doesn’t want to testify. Who’d she rather face:

• A special prosecutor and some namby pamby judges.
• Or an administration which has demonstrated that it doesn’t care (because it doesn’t have too?) about National Security and will do anything to achieve it’s objectives?

What Rove is counting on now is for the left to pull it’s usual “we got sucker punched and we’re going to cry about it” routine and be demoralized enough to not push for investigation any deeper than him.

Don’t make his job easy. When the R’s start hooting and hollering about how Rove is still the Man, suck it up and keep going.

This isn’t about politics. This is about an administration which will destroy the security of this country if it suits their agenda.

Gadhdess I hope you’re right about Fiztgerald being a Prosecutorial Terminator and that he lives a long and healthy life.

Also, given all the attn focused on this topic, what are these guys doing that’s not being reported? Wouldn’t like this crowd to let a good opportunity to go to waste.

As always I enjoy your writing. Many kudos.

Posted by: wasn’t going to be this easy | Jul 16 2005 1:48 utc | 26

But these ridiculous word games only underline a point I made in my last post:At no time in this whole sorry affair has Karl Rove–or his boss, for that matter–made much of an effort to do the right thing, as opposed to doing the wrong thing in such a clever way that he could get away with it.
Thus Billlmon @ 6:09 PM in “The Wrong Thing”. It puts me in mind of something which may be unfair, or underinformed, but which I keep thinking about when Bush, Rove, Hughes, Bartlett, and McClellan go about their business–not to mention Tom DeLay, Dick Armey, Ross Perot, John Connolly, LBJ….And it’s this: growing up and living in Texas may actuallyl cause a person to over-cultivate the universally shared defense-mechanism of contempt.

Posted by: alabama | Jul 16 2005 2:17 utc | 28

And if you want to see what it means in terms of socio-political practice, just think of Damaged W. Goods laughing as he talked about putting Carla Faye Tucker to death (along with hundreds of others, innocent of the crimes they died for). Perhaps this has to do with growing up in a place that really doesn’t see itself as one of the fifty states of the Union. Or perhaps not. But of one thing I’m absolutely sure: Rove regards his opponents as pieces of shit, and doesn’t mind letting them know it (his conduct in the Alabama Supreme Court elections of 1994 is a perfect case in point, and, believe it or not, no one in Alabama can bear to discuss it, because it brought such shame on the state as a whole. Not that we lack our own ways of being absolutely awful–begrudgery, I’d say, is Alabama’s equivalent to this Texan contempt.) And the problem with contempt as a mechanism of defense is that makes people fear you, hate you, and plan your total destruction. If Rove doesn’t end up in jail, he’ll end up in Texas for the rest of his natural life. And while it may be a good place to live, in his case it will be the only place that can also tolerate his existence.

Posted by: alabama | Jul 16 2005 2:20 utc | 30

The NYT in on it angle is as interesting as any. Judith the confirmed truth slut. NYT knowing it and protecting her. It’s like the mob protecting itself. RICO is the only way to break the code of silence. But those NYT fuckers running the ship are as filthy as any of the politico junior fascists. Many of them have probably swapped bodily fluids, as that is the age of decay that controls Washington and the media. Little of the evil the American federal government has done over the past five years would have been tolerated but for the NYT shared power approach to American grown fascism.

Posted by: razor | Jul 16 2005 3:18 utc | 32

Swopa at needlenose suggests another motivation for Luskin’s Friday news flurry. First swopa recalls what Murray Waas reported a week ago:

Fitzgerald has asked witnesses to his inquiry — and their attorneys — not to publicly disclose what they have told the FBI, or what they testified to before the federal grand jury. That is because Fitzgerald, like many prosecutors, doesn’t want one witness to know what another has said to his investigators so they can devise a cover story. That is how coverups succeed, and crimes go unpunished.

Then swopa speculates that perhaps Rove and Luskin decided that simply publicizing Rove’s grand jury testimony would be the safest way to ensure that everyone else testifying before the jury gets the details straight for the story of “immaculate disseminaton”. That’s the story where several reporters had magical dreams and awoke with knowledge of Valerie Plame, which they then shared with the administration. By simply publicizing Rove’s testimony, Rove avoids Fitzgerald’s seemingly effective tracking of phone calls and emails, which might point to conspiracy and (gasp!) lying.
On another detail, a commenter at AmericaBlog speculates that Rove might be able to hide legally behind the phrase, “legally in possession” of classified material. This commenter says that, at the time of the Plame leak, Rove did not have the level of security clearance required to have access to identities of covert agents.
This raises another interesting legal avenue to pursue. Rove clearly knew about Valerie Plame. So the critical question would then be: who gave Rove the information? If someone “legally in possession of the information,” Scooter Libbey, for example, shared Plame’s info with Rove, then this Rove source would have violated the espionage law. It then becomes critically important to establish that Rove’s sources were reporters, not other higher ranking administration sources.
Of course, that same espionage law describes individuals “entrusted with” classified information as also being liable under the law. I’m not a lawyer, so I can’t judge how the distinctions parse.
Rather than spend much attention on these details, which Fitzgerald will eventually either sort out or not, we need to keep watching what else the MMachs may attempt while this fog screen is pumping.
Such as that other covert op they may have blown in 2004, when the Brits & Pak briefly had a mole in al Queda, the op where the Brits hurriedly almost swept up a tube bombing plot.
And then there’s that older leaked op involving notice that went out to Islamic charities, via leak to Judith Miller. How many times have they done this?

Posted by: small coke | Jul 16 2005 3:21 utc | 34

I’m conflicted on Razor’s comments on JMiller. I heard someone say she was CIA. does anyone know anything about that? There is some special relationship going on, that’s very unlike the standard journalist-paper one. Her ethics, her lies, her behavior when she was in Iraq pushing everyone around – so I’m waiting for more info to emerge.
She worked/works w/D. Pipes. It seems to me that the NYT (Sulzberger) supported the invasion, as a matter of policy, so however the consent of the masses had to be manufactured it was her job to help get it done. Since they are the Agenda Setting Paper of the Empire, should it then matter to them if she takes what could be called a more active role than that of the standard scribe?
Sid Blumenthal said today on Democracy Now that they’re violating their internal policies in supporting her now. I’m not sure yet. If she did take a more “active role” than that of the standard elite scribe on behalf of elite policy & is willing to go to jail to prevent that from coming out & embarrassing the NYT, Sulzie has to stand behind her.
I may find the policy reprehensible, but I’m up in the air on what particular ratio of villain/hero I would ascribe to her.
But, I’m certainly delighted that she’s in jail now, or anywhere away from continuing to protect this Cabal.

Posted by: jj | Jul 16 2005 3:39 utc | 36

judith miller isn’t cia and the cia isn’t the dirty one this time around. It is the Israeli firsters Muslims are losers We Deserve To Rule Crowd.
the root problem is the NYT left the journalism business long ago for the power arbitrator business, inspired in good part by what passes for a liberal arts education these days. can’t know the truth, but can know who has power and who doesn’t, who is gaining it, who is losing it, at least, if one limits oneself to the same crowd of crowded in fart smellers. that is how the leadership of the NYT has chosen to go. the NYT’s real internal dilemna has nothing to do with journalistic standards. Unnamed senior pentagon official my ass.
the NYT’s real problem is that they are getting split in the power game because in fact they don’t know anymore about reading power than the girl who tries to tag behind the high school in crowd. The leaders are completely posers, and now they are becoming aware they don’t know shit about who will have power and who won’t soon so they don’t know who to suck off and up to. This means that as the best and brightest posers they cannot exercise their professional experience and training and don’t know what to do.

Posted by: razor | Jul 16 2005 4:15 utc | 38

Thanks, Razor I didn’t think she was. And I realize that substantial portions of the CIA have been gutted & are leading the charge this time around. However, institutions are not monlithic, so I wasn’t certain.
@jm, sounds like you’re getting back into Repug party. Yes? I promise not to trash you…would like to discuss…I read interview w/retired Minn. (R) Senator in recent mos. He said in his day, when one wished to enter politics as a Repug. you had to pass muster w/Chamber of Commerce, but now it’s the Theos – of whatever organization.

Posted by: jj | Jul 16 2005 5:25 utc | 40

jj, you’re kidding aren’t you? I’m anti-party. I’ve never belonged to any group in my life.

Posted by: jm | Jul 16 2005 6:12 utc | 42

I found it!
I said, “Being a Republican at this time could be a great, great asset as dissension from within is usually much more powerful than outer conflict.”
You are so right. I am not making myself clear. That was in reference to Fitzgerald and the question of his loyalty. I meant that his being a Rethug could be an asset as the rift in the party could be what brings them down, Fitzgerald being the opposition to the neoconmen.
Ever so sorry. I must be more careful. The thought of being a Rethug sent adrenalin coursing and I don’t scare easily.

Posted by: jm | Jul 16 2005 6:23 utc | 44

razor was talking about the nyt/press and i interpreted his response to mean we , bloggers?

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 16 2005 7:15 utc | 46

how insirational jm, obviously the only way we are going to make change is to stick together and believe in ourselves. i found myself getting involved w/ the last election, my first one and tho exhausting it had it’s rewards, hopefully. who knows what will come of it. i do tend to get my hopes up, fitzgerald is an example , its hard to have the wind knocked out of me. but i think i’ve learned something from being on the internet (only about2 years now), there are a lot of people who think like i do, many of them a hell of alot smarter, whose hearts are in the right place, and there is a certain strength in numbers. if i’m going to get totally screwed over it’s easier to be in the company of friends, w/my eyes and ears open. welcome

Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 16 2005 7:36 utc | 48

Annie!
So well put. About friendship. And getting strong from the hard knocks.
I’m the Typo Queen of all time and probably will not give up my title. I say we go forth with all of our little mistakes and not be embarrassed. I failed college prep typing two times and I am hopeless.
I’m so tolerant now that I breeze right over everyone’s mistakes.
There’s too much to do.
Type away ferociously and fearlessly, everyone!!! Typos won’t hurt me!

Posted by: jm | Jul 16 2005 8:54 utc | 50

I find one thing wrong with this entire mess and all the opining. A lack of common sense. Instead of the Plame Game, it should be called the Blame Game, as usual.
Common sense says that if you are married to a operative that needs cover, you don’t write op-eds and then proceed to put your face in front of any camera that will stand still. But darn, don’t let a little thing like common sense stand in the way……after all you can always BLAME someone else and just possibly stir such a stink that some of it might stick.
One person is really responsible and had to work darn hard to get someone to really notice him. Maybe he could have screamed “my wife is a covert agent” louder.

Posted by: watcher | Jul 17 2005 2:55 utc | 52