The notion that Fitzgerald is dreaming up "new" legal theories to take the espionage statute where it has never been before is just typical White House disinformation.
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October 7, 2005
WB: I Spy
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Shouldn’t former Attorney General John Ashcroft be held to account or charged, since he was a close personal and political friend of Rove and continued to receive regular briefings about the inquiry, despite the fact that Karl Rove bacame subject of the probe?
Posted by: Uncle $cam | Oct 7 2005 18:40 utc | 1
Delicious as it is to imagine Rove hung by the Reaganian petards, this reminder that the new pravda has such selective recall and analysis, almost has me depressed in advance that Scotty and his minions are just going to blow it off and most bobbleheads will follow the bouncing ball. I attribute my malaise in part to Josh Marshall’s scolding and warning about “schadenfreude toxicity” , a word he seems excessively fond of, or perhaps the only one he remembers from his doctoral language studies. I prefer to try to remain optimistic, without undue glee, that even once in a while the bad guys get their comeuppance, however short of the full legal and practical consequences that may be. Meanwhile, we wait.
Posted by: DonS | Oct 7 2005 18:45 utc | 2
Now, maybe I haven’t been paying enough attention to the intricacies of grand juries and blah blah blah, but could it be that we’re getting way too excited about the Fitzgerald probe? I mean, the indictments always seem to be just around the corner. A light at the end of the tunnel. Etc.
Posted by: Rowan | Oct 7 2005 18:47 utc | 3
Grand jury goes out of business at the end of the month – whatever Fitzgerald’s going to do, he’s going to do it soon. There may not be light at the end of the tunnel, but the tunnel IS going to come to an end, and soon.
Posted by: Billmon | Oct 7 2005 18:51 utc | 4
Does this mean that Libby, Rove, Cheney, et al (and by “Al” I mean “George”) would be eligible for long — perhaps indeterminate — stays at Gitmo? ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Posted by: Bob Munck | Oct 7 2005 19:35 utc | 5
Ah. Let’s hope the light at the end of the tunnel isn’t New Jersey. Well, then I hope that the indictments do half as much damage as the left side of the internet seems to believe. That would be a fine day.
Posted by: Rowan | Oct 7 2005 20:05 utc | 6
Billmon:
It’s interesting that the New Pravda doesn’t remember this, since in its previous incarnation as the New York Times, it was one of a number of media organizations that filed an amici curiae brief in support of Morrison. I guess Keller and Pinch had that episode erased along with the rest of the old Times’s institutional memory.
People in a position to change the policies of the present regime probably don’t read Billmon and even if they did they would be unlikely to reconsider their actions having read him.
But the NYTimes people probably do read Billmon, and there might be some people of integrity left there, not in management positions certainly but reporters, maybe even editors.
Given an unflattering but truthful mirror of their actions they might do what they can to change.
Personally though I’ve written off the NYTimes. I can’t imagine its ever becoming a respectable paper again.
Posted by: John Francis Lee | Oct 8 2005 5:17 utc | 7
(Having met more than a few of them, I can assure you that many, if not most, would not have felt out of place in Monty Python’s upper class twit of the year contest.)
…and if they all shoot themselves by the end of the year, that would be fine by me.
Posted by: Night Owl | Oct 8 2005 9:37 utc | 8
With Billmon catching the NYTimes pulling a McClellan/Novak, I’m convinced that somewhere in heaven (or hell, if you believe God does answer the prayers of Republicans once in a while), the soul of Mike Royko is pondering the Republican meme of them being part of the “vast left-wing media” and laughing his ass off. I discovered the NYTimes lost all sense of perspective of journalistic integrity after my cockatiel would hiss and snap at me for days after lining his cage with a copy of the sonofbitch.
There are so many things tied together in the putative Fitzgerald indictements it is very difficult to imagine what will finally emerge. My guess is either very little, a few rolling heads and business as usual, as Rowan intimated. Or a lot.
But not inbetween.
Plame outing – Joe Wilson – Nigeria – yellowcake – Elisabetta Burba – SISMI – The 16 words – Judith Miller – David Kelly – Rove – Ledeen (who was a consultant for SISMI and friends with Pazienza) – and much more. Even little fish like Gannon!
Then there are rumors of other grand juries…
As I just saw Elvis Presley flying over the Auberge out my window, the song that pops into my head is
Its Now or Never
Come hold me tight
Source Watch on Ledeen
Posted by: Noisette | Oct 8 2005 12:06 utc | 10
I’ve posted about the yellowcake docs before so I may be repeating myself.
They were obvious, amateurish fakes, that nevertheless seemed to be produced with serious intent – a whiff of hyped up teen-type atmosphere wafts from the pages.
El Baradei must have taken 3 minutes to say they were fakes. (Great he got the Peace Prize, btw.) 30 seconds to make the judgment, and the rest to think of the implications.
So these documents were an oddity, and their importance rested in not the material itself, but in who was willing to take them seriously, either to stand by them and tout them about, or to hum and haw and say (as Ari Fleischer did) that they were not attested to but unsurprising and showed that Saddam was evil anyway (don’t remember exact words.)
So the CIA didn’t like this one bit….one supposes including Plame, through esprit de corps…Wilson, for his own reasons, neither. Tenet took the fall.
Those docs were produced by several people, discussing and going along. This is obvious – a mix of language skills is displayed. The people who wrote them had very good French, but there was no Frenchman or Nigerian amongst them, and there was no-one who was really familiar with bureaucratic flowery African French. Some of them spoke English, but most likely as a ‘second’ language. You can be sure that many Secret Services know what kind of person(s) produced them.
I can see the forgers working at it. Two of them smoked.
Weird to think these jokers might bring down the US Gvmt.
Posted by: Noisette | Oct 8 2005 12:33 utc | 11