I have to say that of the many funny word juxtapositions, Scooter Iscariot has to be one of the funniest.
Beaver Peter and St. Wally of the Cleavers. Buffy of Cleves…none of these come close…
And yes, in that great Karmic tradition, isn’t it wonderful that the new entry in the betrayal story coincides with Bush saying he is Lord of the U.S.? Of course, the gospel of Judas can be the equivalent of “Wasn’t me!”
What’s interesting about that finding, to me, is that maybe it will inform fundies that the “bible” was composed after much internicine fighting between various factions of Christianity…and that during the years when Rome was “Christianized,” more Christians were murdered by the state than when Rome was pagan.
As far as the legality of Bush’s actions, call me Doubting Thomas of Blogistan.

Posted by: fauxreal | Apr 7 2006 14:26 utc | 4

link to pdf translations in Coptic and English.

Posted by: beq | Apr 7 2006 15:06 utc | 6

wow, i must admit the similarities never occured to me after reading both the pdf/nyt and all the latest libby news yesterday. brilliant. thanks b.

Posted by: annie | Apr 7 2006 17:23 utc | 8

Hmmm – Scooter visited his Jesus just recently.
Gaggle

QUESTION: Scott, on March the 30th, I believe, last Thursday, Mr. Libby was spotted at the White House Mess. It just seems unusual that he would be coming back to the White House in this situation. Any ideas why he —
Scott McClellan: I don’t know anything about that. I don’t think so.
QUESTION: You don’t think what?
Scott McClellan: I don’t think he was here.
QUESTION: What would you do if I —
Scott McClellan: You spotted him?
QUESTION: I have a pretty good source I trust that did.
Scott McClellan: I’ll check into it, John, but I don’t think that’s —
QUESTION: Alan Greenspan was here Thursday, March the 30th.
Scott McClellan: I don’t think so, but I’ll check. I’ll check. I wasn’t camped out at the Mess.

Posted by: b | Apr 7 2006 20:25 utc | 10

Scooter Iscariot – that brought a huge grin to my face. Excellent!
At the top of p. 19 (see link) we learn that Cheney expressed concern to Scooter – might Joe’s junket to Africa have been organised by his wife? (Yes, Fitz uses the word junket – cool.)
Disclosing that fact would have served:
a) to deny that Cheney sent him, which was in the news at the time;
b) to undercut Joe’s credibility, as a recipient of nepotistic favoritism.
On p. 20 we learn that Scooter was, on July 12, 2003 specifically directed by the VP to speak to the press in place of C. M. (then the communications person …) regarding the NIE and Wilson.”
Scooter was instructed to provide what was for him an extremely rare “on the record” statement and to provide … “deep background” statements and to provide information contained in a document defendant understood to be the cable authored by Mr. Wilson.
During the conversations that followed on July 12, defendant discussed Ms. Wilson’s employment with both Matthew Cooper … and Judith Miller…. .
All the above is part, a sub-part, of Fitz’s central argument which is aimed at denying Scooter access to Gvmt. documents concerning the possible de-classification of the NIE – i.e. the October 2002 NIE on ” Iraq’s Continuing Programs for Weapons of Mass Destruction. ”
Fitz basically argues that he has given Scooter a bunch of stuff and such docs. would be irrelevant for elucidating Scooter’s knowledge or state of mind at the time the ‘crime’ (my word) took place.
Fitz argues Scooter is not entitled to rummage (his word) through docs from other agencies, etc. What counts, for Fitz, is Scooter’s conduct and testimony.
Additionally, Fitz writes that the Gvmt has declined to turn over docs. that concern conversations or meetings in which Scooter did not participate directly. Which is legally proper and sensible from a Gvmt. pov.
— I don’t know US law and throughout this post am referring to general principles that generally apply . No doubt much legal wrangling on any of these points could take place. But certainly, things Scooter did not know, hear or see, would generally not be considered germane to his state of mind at the time the violation or ‘crime’ ocurred. That is standard. —
Finally, Fitz hammers that according to Scooter’s own testimony, no one at those other agencies was involved in, or was aware of, the declassification (sic) made known to him by the VP.
——
So it is perfectly plain.
Scooter’s defense is that declassification took place, or he was told it had, and he only transmitted information that had, ‘officially’ (in his own mind) become in some way public; info., moreover, that he was requested, nay urged, to present.
Fitz fighting to deny Scooter access to documents that might prove, show, or hint at the ‘reality’ of declassification undercuts Scooter’s defense badly.
Personally – not that that counts for much – I would judge that the ‘reality’ of the declassification is pertinent to Scooter’s defence:
1) if the declass. is true, Scooter is absolved
2) if the declass. is false, Scooter was lied to, according to his testimony, which apparently right now is not questioned, and is absolved.
——
All that, because I tempestuously posted that Fitz was a Gvmt. shill without backing it up. That is the kind of manouvering I was thinking about. Of course they are all in it together, and much more could be said, but Scooter will carry the can for this one.
And all that is only up to p. 23 of the doc.
text

Posted by: Noisette | Apr 8 2006 16:32 utc | 12

@noisette. i have a hunch that whether the nie was or was not declassified is irrelevant to fitz or his case against libby.
libby’s going on a fishing expedition and using the disclosure of the nie as some kind of ‘proof’ that the focus on discreditng wilson was by the release of the portions of the nie that back the prez and discredit wilsons conclusions , period end of story. whereby fitz is weaving a web that includes the disclosure of plames name as directly linked to the release of the nie, classified or not.
you see libby forgot all about plame, remember. that was why he in fact didn’t lie to fitz about pushing the nepotism story, because he never pushed it. or so he will claim.
the press naturally picked up the aha aspect of the bush via cheney and the hypocrisy of the bush/leak deal, and of course as that bruha is going on w/msm, the real story is ignored. libbys perjury is going to look lightweight once the whole scam is transparent.
i was poking around @susang’s last night at (horrors) kos and ran into a diary about ari fletcher. also, interestingly enough this morning read the list of journalists team lib subpoeanaed and surprise, pincus name is not there, i think because of his connection to ari.

According to Josh Marshall, a key sentence was cut out of the Gellman WaPo piece last night, but is still available on Nexis:
” ‘On July 12, the day Cheney and Libby flew together from Norfolk, the vice president instructed his aide to alert reporters of an attack launched that morning on Wilson’s credibility by Fleischer, according to a well-placed source.’  Libby talked to Miller and Cooper. That same day, another administration official who has not been identified publicly returned a call from Walter Pincus. He ‘veered off the precise matter we were discussing’ and told him that Wilson’s trip was a ‘boondoggle’ set up by Plame, Pincus has written in Nieman Reports. ….Update: Anonymous Liberal suggests that the reason the WaPo pulled the quote is because it inadvertently outs Fleischer as Pincus’s source.“

now, libby had lunch w/ari, i think it was the day before he met w/miller. so this pretty much blows the gig off him separating plame and the nie and he knows fitz knows and we know and its old news.
my guess is fitz is on to bigger and better charges for both team libby/cheney and team rove/bush and thats why they are taking the opportunity to try to fish whenever /however they can.

Posted by: annie | Apr 8 2006 19:04 utc | 14

‘Concerted Effort’ to Discredit Bush Critic

Bluntly and repeatedly, Fitzgerald placed Cheney at the center of that campaign. Citing grand jury testimony from the vice president’s former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Fitzgerald fingered Cheney as the first to voice a line of attack that at least three White House officials would soon deploy against former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.
Cheney, in a conversation with Libby in early July 2003, was said to describe Wilson’s CIA-sponsored trip to Niger the previous year — in which the envoy found no support for charges that Iraq tried to buy uranium there — as “a junket set up by Mr. Wilson’s wife,” CIA case officer Valerie Plame.
Libby is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice for denying under oath that he disclosed Plame’s CIA employment to journalists. There is no public evidence to suggest Libby made any such disclosure with Cheney’s knowledge. But according to Libby’s grand jury testimony, described for the first time in legal papers filed this week, Cheney “specifically directed” Libby in late June or early July 2003 to pass information to reporters from two classified CIA documents: an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate and a March 2002 summary of Wilson’s visit to Niger.
One striking feature of that decision — unremarked until now, in part because Fitzgerald did not mention it — is that the evidence Cheney and Libby selected to share with reporters had been disproved months before.

classified, unclassified, it’s irrelevant

Posted by: annie | Apr 9 2006 7:03 utc | 16

jeez
sorry, here’s the link again

Posted by: annie | Apr 9 2006 7:52 utc | 18