The latest example that Gonzalez and the Bush administration need to be imprisoned

[Lemon law]

Stoneburner asks---Why is the lie that Wilson was sent by his wife still perpetuated?

I ask why does the question of who sent Wilson have any relevance? After all only one question is relevant.

GWB either radically stretched the truth to the entire world in the State of the Union address regarding the Uranium from Niger claim or he told the God Honest truth to the best of his ability. Anyone who believes the latter alternative is quite verifiably out of their mind.

And sorry, its somewhat a reality check when we have to conclude the President of the United States is a lying sack of shit. The lying sack of shit conclusion is a little more believable when we look at and examine the fruit of the lie which is our quagmire in Iraq.

 

[heartsurgeon]

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously

words of wisdom from the Washington POst no less.....

summary

1) Wilson lied about Niger
2) Wilson was sent by his wife
3) Wilson lied about an conspiracy by Bush et. al. to "get" his wife

Armitage has admitted, and Novak has confirmed, he "outed" Valerie Plame.

I know these facts cause many of you great distress...for that I am sorry.

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: heartsurgeon

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously

words of wisdom from the Washington POst no less.....

summary

1) Wilson lied about Niger
2) Wilson was sent by his wife
3) Wilson lied about an conspiracy by Bush et. al. to "get" his wife

Armitage has admitted, and Novak has confirmed, he "outed" Valerie Plame.

I know these facts cause many of you great distress...for that I am sorry.

What facts? If appearances are facts then you must also agree with me that GWB was AWOL from the TANG.

 

[heyheybooboo]

You can tell from the level of BS floating around this thread that we have yet to learn any truth from the WH or DOJ. There is a level of desperation coming from the right-wangers on this one . . . .

Originally posted by: Stoneburner
Hearsurgeon needs to summon a brainsurgeon before he's' allowed to continue ranting.

Amen.

Originally posted by: heartsurgeon
Armitage has admitted, and Novak has confirmed, he "outed" Valerie Plame.

Heartless would have you believe "that is that". But the fact is at least 3 weeks before Armitage was outing Plame to Novak he was also 'outing' to Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward. The administration was also outing to Judith Miller and Mathew Cooper.

And it seems that Mr. Novak and Mr. Armitage are having a slight disagreement on the 'outing'.

In an October 1, 2003 column, Novak said of the leak:

It was an offhand revelation from this [unnamed] official, who is no partisan gunslinger.

In September, 2006, Mr. Novak changed his tune:

First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he "thought" might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson.

Armitage's silence the next 2 1/2 years caused intense pain for his colleagues in government and enabled partisan Democrats in Congress to falsely accuse Rove of being my primary source.

Novak neglects to note that Karl Rove was the source he used to confirm the leak he had received from Armitage--and that Rove also leaked classified information on Valerie Wilson to Matt Cooper of Time magazine before the leak appeared in Novak's column. Nor does Novak mention that Scooter Libby leaked information on Valerie Wilson to Judith Miller of The New York Times weeks before Novak entered Armitage's office--and also confirmed Rove's leak to Cooper.

Dang those pesky facts, eh, Heartless??

And of course our Heartless friend neglected to mention that Richard L. Armitage left the State Department in 2005 for a nice cushy job on the Board of Directors of Conoco Phillips after 'maintaing his silence' on this subterfuge for nearly 2 years before his Novak revelation.

And to bring this matter back full circle to the OP concerning the apparent politicization of the Department of Justice , Bush, Cheney and Rove were proclaiming no knowledge in the outing of Plame as directed by the White House Council, our current Attorney General, Alberto 'Speedy' Gonzales.

Originally posted by: Fern
As I understand it, that claim originally came from British intelligence. I'm also led to believe that after Wilson's assertions the Bristish intel revisited the matter, and still believe that they were correct.

That would be incorrect Der Fern. From the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace Nukular Nonproliferation website:

Niger has two uranium mines, both owned by a French multi-national consortium (COGEMA) that receives all of Niger's ore for processing. With annual yellowcake production around 2,900 tons, Niger has the third-highest uranium production in the world behind Canada and Australia. Almost all of this yellowcake is exported to France, Japan, and Spain (the countries that make up the COGEMA consortium).

To obtain 500 tons of yellowcake as outlined in the NIE, Iraq would have had to: 1) import one-sixth of the uranium that Niger produces in an entire year, and 2) hide these imports from the consortium that tightly controls the mines and pre-sells the uranium to its members before it is even mined. These are not trivial matters. Even on a much smaller scale, French, international or U.S. authorities would certainly have detected such activity-especially after Niger signed a comprehensive safeguards agreement with the IAEA in June 2002.

MI6 is hiding their head - especially since the Downing Street "Memo" came to light noting how the Bush Administration *sexed-up* and cherry-picked intelligence in the run up to the war.

Dang those pesky facts!

 

[Lemon law]

Originally posted by: heartsurgeon

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously

words of wisdom from the Washington POst no less.....

summary

1) Wilson lied about Niger
2) Wilson was sent by his wife
3) Wilson lied about an conspiracy by Bush et. al. to "get" his wife

Armitage has admitted, and Novak has confirmed, he "outed" Valerie Plame.

I know these facts cause many of you great distress...for that I am sorry.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Lets set up two conditionals.

a. My wife works for the CIA
b. I take a public position. Regardless if I advocate that the sky is purple, the earth was created 6163 years ago, that 1+1=2, or that the emperor wears no clothes. Its still a public position that independently stands or fails on its own merits.

One is still left with the fact that there is something deeply unpatriotic and logically inconsistent with saying that I should expect efforts to blunt what I am advocating should extent to outing my wife which has nothing to do with what I am otherwise advocating.

I can understand that simple logic causes you deep distress heartsurgeon, and that you continually demonstrate your lack of any logic. I am sorry that there seems to be little hope for your enlightenment, and both sorrow and pity are my emotions.

The point being, someone could sexually molest little children, fart in church, but still be 100% correct in saying 2+2=4. What the hell are we doing dragging in the employment of the significant other of someone else to further confuse simple truth or falsehood? How does that employment question of the significant other somehow cleanse the outing of a CIA agent?

Bottom line---your logic is that 2+2+0 does not somehow still equal four. Because you have added exactly zero to the argument at hand. And you are just confused on the value of the additive logical value of zero. And are somehow trying to relate the employment of Plame with what Wilson was advocating. As Spock sez---it does not compute.

 

[Pabster]

Lemon, give up defending the liars Wilson and Flame. They both lied through their teeth.

AFAIAC, both of them should have been indicted during Fitzgerald's "Investigation".

 

[jackschmittusa]

That Wilson was sent by his wife seems to be an obvious lie. The department she worked for, and any personal authority she may have had at the CIA, was not connected to the department that sent him. It is known that he had excellent credentials for the task of investigating the documents that brought up the Niger/Iraq question to begin with. I would not doubt that, being aware of her husband's unique qualifications, she might have made a call and mentioned these qualifications. It would have been entirely up to other persons to review his qualifications, his record of honesty, and then ask him to do the job. Some of you seem to think Plame was the head of the CIA.

After Wilson's investigation, which demonstrated that the documents in question were forgeries (deliberately fabricated false intel), no source I have ever heard of still contended that they were real. I have of course heard the "well there was other stuff too, but we can't elaborate on it" line of BS.

My personal take on the whole thing is that Wilson did too good of a job. He was swift and thorough. His evidence against the documents was totally damning, and he found it too quickly for Bush to get any mileage out of it. Bush decided to try to use it anyway, and Wilson blew the whistle on him. Bush and Co. must have been infuriated. They sought revenge and mitigation with their tried and true weapons, dirty tricks and "baffle them with BS".

The crux of the whole issue is that the country asked Wilson for his service and and he performed his task quite well. The Administration found the truth to be inconvenient, and decided to punish him for it. Arguing about anything outside of the last 2 statements is nothing but a smokescreen.

 

[Lemon law]

Originally posted by: Pabster
Lemon, give up defending the liars Wilson and Flame. They both lied through their teeth.

AFAIAC, both of them should have been indicted during Fitzgerald's "Investigation".

Pabster, give up defending liars GWB&co. The point is that a CIA agent was outed, that should been a real serious crime, due a sloppily written law morally bankrupt people escape prosecution, and you still fail to address how the dubious contention of Flame and Wilson being also liars has anything to do with anything about the moral bankruptcy of outing a CIA agent.

Bottom line, Scotter Fibby got nailed, go complain to a card carrying republican in Fitzgerald
if you don't like it. Don't blame me or the democrats for any failures of justice. If a competent dem would have been given the job, we may have gotten to the real truth.

But if you do want to decorate your argument with facts, please explain to me exactly how
Flame and Wilson violated any laws.---other than offending YOUR politically correct? and totally defective view of reality.

2+2 still equals four and your argument still boils down to after the fact sour grapes.

 

[Thump553]

Originally posted by: heartsurgeon
TAB

read the link to the Washington Post - a bastion of leftie political opinions...even they are calling Wilson himself, the main criminal in this entire affair. read it carefully, they are stating Wilson is a liar, and the left stream media was suckered by him.

really bad Presidents tend to have really bad Attorney Generals (Nixon and John Mitchell comes to mind immediately).

hmm...

let's see..
Lyndon Johnson (D) attorney general - Ramsey Clark (went on to represent Saddam Hussein in court, woot!woot!)

and who can forget the memorable Janet Reno!! Attorney Generallisimo to Clinton.
The androgynous giant that sent Elian Gonzales back to Cuba
elian being gently returned to his loving Fidel

or freed the children from the Branch Davidian Compound in Waco texas
Reno frees children

yep, while your quaking in fear of Gonzales (and simultaneously voting him expanded powers in the new Patriot Act), Janet Reno actually did have storm-troopers kick down doors and burn down buildings....

Sorry to burst your bubble "heartsurgeon" but Ramsey Clark was one of the very best Attorney Generals this country has had since the end of WWII. Your criticism of him for performing his duty as a lawyer and officer of the court after he was Attorney General is hopelessly misguided.

Janet Reno wasn't horrible, she was just an example of the Peter Principle. She was much too wrapped up in the details to effectively run the office-similar to Jimmy Carter as President. She was uncompromisingly honest, though-something the Bush administration lacks from top to bottom.

Assuming I am one of the lefties you disparage, I don't quiver in fear of Gonzales. As a legal professional I am disgusted how low he has torn down the DOJ and the American justice system in general, all in the name of political expediency. If you weren't so blinded by your political bias, and some clown like this was in office under a President you don't care for, you'd be screaming bloody murder. Perhaps I'm not as cynical as you, but I still feel that Justice should be more than an abstract label.

 

[heartsurgeon]

That Wilson was sent by his wife seems to be an obvious lie. The department she worked for, and any personal authority she may have had at the CIA, was not connected to the department that sent him. It is known that he had excellent credentials for the task of investigating the documents that brought up the Niger/Iraq question to begin with. I would not doubt that, being aware of her husband's unique qualifications, she might have made a call and mentioned these qualifications. It would have been entirely up to other persons to review his qualifications, his record of honesty, and then ask him to do the job. Some of you seem to think Plame was the head of the CIA.

So your claiming the Washington Post editorial is completely wrong? Did you read it??
They flat out cal Wilson a liar and refute everything you've taken for granted..

Try reading the WaPo editorial/article. It's quite brief and to the point. Wilson made it all up and his wife sent him there to do it..

Oh my, if I found a New York Times article calling wilson a liar, would that help convince you that your hero is really a bum?

 

[heartsurgeon]

Janet Reno wasn't horrible

Janet Reno helping little Elian Gonzales reunite with El Supremo

She was much too wrapped up in the details

Janet Reno personally frees children from the Branch Davidian Compiund

What? Nobody jumping in to proclaim Webb Hubble a great american hero??

Ramsey Clark is a joke..not even worth arguing about. oh ya, he also defended Slobodan Milosevic, and called both Saddam and Slobo "courageous". If he's your idea of a Great American, so be it, he's not on my list.

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: Thump553

Assuming I am one of the lefties you disparage, I don't quiver in fear of Gonzales. As a legal professional I am disgusted how low he has torn down the DOJ and the American justice system in general, all in the name of political expediency. If you weren't so blinded by your political bias, and some clown like this was in office under a President you don't care for, you'd be screaming bloody murder. Perhaps I'm not as cynical as you, but I still feel that Justice should be more than an abstract label.

I think it's not just the "lefties", but the vast majority of the country that feels like you do, I know I do.

It's amusing to see HS bring up the "Clinton did it too" defense. If nothing was going on then why did Libby lie about things in the first place? The best case scenario for his lie is this administration has a "Lie first and ask questions later" policy and the only reason for a policy like that is because they are lying about so many things even they can't keep their lies straight.

 

[Pabster]

Janet Reno was a disgrace. Ramsey Clark should be tried for treason.

And the lefties here will continue to defend Flame and Wilson. Their lies are well documented. Let's start with "I had nothing to do with my husband being sent to Niger..." (when documents show her recommendation as such) and let's not forget Wilson's infamous claim that Dick Cheney himself PERSONALLY sent him to Niger on assignment (also proven false.)

 

[heartsurgeon]

It's amusing to see HS bring up the "Clinton did it too" defense.

the actual facts (don't let that stop you from prevaricating) are that one of your fellow lefties started the entire tangent on other Presidents with this statement:

Gonzalez has done an enormous amount to damage the Justice Department. For some reason, really bad Presidents tend to have really bad Attorney Generals (Nixon and John Mitchell comes to mind immediately).

In reponse to this statement, I brought up the sordid past of Reno, Hubble (what? still no defender's of Bubba's "personal friend"), and the sordid present of Ramsey Clark.

By the way, what would you lefties say if Bush had appointed Jeb Bush as his Attorney General?

I believe the picture of Janet Reno "helping" elian gonzales was on day when she forgot to shave! (see link in above post).

 

[1EZduzit]

Originally posted by: heartsurgeon

It's amusing to see HS bring up the "Clinton did it too" defense.

the actual facts (don't let that stop you from prevaricating) are that one of your fellow lefties started the entire tangent on other Presidents with this statement:

Gonzalez has done an enormous amount to damage the Justice Department. For some reason, really bad Presidents tend to have really bad Attorney Generals (Nixon and John Mitchell comes to mind immediately).

In reponse to this statement, I brought up the sordid past of Reno, Hubble (what? still no defender's of Bubba's "personal friend"), and the sordid present of Ramsey Clark.

By the way, what would you lefties say if Bush had appointed Jeb Bush as his Attorney General?

I believe the picture of Janet Reno "helping" elian gonzales was on day when she forgot to shave! (see link in above post).

LOL, that's funny. Not as funny as trying to use an editorial as fact, though. So tell me, in your opinion was Bush AWOL or not?

You have all these if's and buts yet I don't see you addressing my question of why Scooter felt the need to lie about this in the first place?

 

[Hayabusa Rider]

I'm hoping a Dem president gets elected. Exec privilege? Sure, Bush's supporters wanted Hillary to have that kind of power, but I don't think she'll use it to protect Bush's ass. If it turns out that Bush did half of what I suspect he did, he will have promoted the terrorist agenda considerably and violating the law too boot. That would make him an enemy combatant, and he can be locked up without legal counsel of course. His rights won't have been violated, since no judge has to say so. Wouldn't that be grand?

Well, no. Tear away every obfuscation, throw light into every corner, and if the evidence warrants it, a trial and a good long time in the finest solitary prison we have. We should do no less for our leaders.

 

[Lemon law]

If we are going to bring in Elian Gonzales, let the record state that Reno did the right thing. The fact is that parenthood trumps all other considerations. The mother had died during the act of taking Elian from his father without his knowledge and consent and under every US and international law, Elian had to be returned to the father. Because Elian was in the custody of right wing wacko's who would not honor any court orders for his return, a quick and bloodless raid did at least safely extract Elian. And its also worth noting that Janet Reno had more integrity in her toenails than Alberto Gonzales will ever have.----or we can dredge up the old 7-up ad to describe Alberto Gonzales integrity with never had it and never will.

 

[fskimospy]

You guys are wasting a lot of time arguing with Pabster and heartsurgeon. I mean... just read their posts in this thread and others. They are beyond reason. Do you really think you could possibly change their mind about anything? I'm not even sure these are real people, because their posts read like a scripting program is just posting RNC talking points.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: Tab
Bowfinger and HeartSurgeon is there some book or something I can read that'll explain this whole PlameGate ordeal? Even though it's abit over I'd like to know the truth...

Wikipedia has some really good stuff on this whole thing.

Best thing about it is the ability to read links to the orginial stories as they popped up.

 

[jackschmittusa]

Sorry heartsurgeon, but your referenced material in the Post seems to present a total of zero facts. There are certainly a number of assertions and accusations about his mission, but it makes no mention of evidence. Everything I mentioned has been covered here and elsewhere in great detail.

So, let's sort out where our differences actually are.

Do you believe that Plame independently conceived the mission, choose her husband for it, assigned funding, made arrangements with the Niger government, and made the intel assessment of the results? If not, how can you claim that she created/sent him on this mission?

Do you dispute that there was a collection of documents made available to the CIA about Iraq/Niger collaboration to ship uranium to Sadaam that formed the primary basis for the claim of a reconstituted nuke program in Iraq?

Do you disagree that these documents were proved by Wilson to be forgeries? A number of news agencies even covered some of the specifics of why they were obvious fabrications.

Do you disagree that Wilson was well qualified for the mission with his knowledge of Niger and its uranium operations, and his past association with relevant officials in Niger?

Do you believe that Wilson's report was simply filed away at the CIA and not passed up the chain?

Perhaps you could provide some facts that I am unaware of to convince me that you are correct in your beliefs.

 

[db]

The Presidential oath of office is one sentence in which he solemnly swears to "protect and defend the Constitution of the United States."

That's not happening.

 

[heartsurgeon]

If we are going to bring in Elian Gonzales, let the record state that Reno did the right thing.

Janet Reno "doing the right thing"

She needs to shave more often though....