« October 16, 2005 - October 22, 2005 | Main | October 30, 2005 - November 05, 2005 »

October 28, 2005

Cheney knew

From Josh Marshall:

Go to page 5 of the indictment. Top of the page, item #9. On or about June 12, 2003, LIBBY was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Divison. LIBBY understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA.

This is a crucial piece of information. The Counterproliferation Division (CPD) is part of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, i.e., not the Directorate of Intelligence, the branch of the CIA where 'analysts' come from, but the DO, where the spies, the 'operatives', come from.

Libby's a long time national security hand. He knows exactly what CPD is and where it is. So does Cheney. They both knew. It's right there in the indictment.

05:04 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Little George and George Takei

Little George was pushed in front of a microphone today, where he said:

"we're all saddened by today's news."

No, Bush wasn't talking about George "Mr. Sulu" Takei announcing that he's gay, though doubtless Little George is personally saddened by this fact. He'll never be able to hear Sulu say "engage" again in the same way.

No, Little George was talking about the fact that one of the most powerful men in his administration has been charged with five criminal counts.

Bush doesn't fire this man, oh no. That's what he said he would do. So he's going back on that. Par for the course.

But the point is: Bush going before the nation to express sorrow at Libby's resignation is a sign of how politically weak he has become, and how seemingly ignorant he is of said weakness. It's not a huge surprise that he would be mis-stepping, being that Big Head Karl (and it really is a big head) doubtless has his Big Head wrapped around how he can personally avoid jail time. But it's surprising that no one else is telling Little George he needs to project strength and appear like a decisive leader.

Anyone with a brain knows he's nothing of the sort, but they've been quite good at making him appear like that to the incurious. They should have had him grab his bullhorn and head over to Scooter Libby's house, sleeves rolled up past the elbows, and fire the guy.

But they didn't do that. I predict yet another poll drop into the middle 30s. But more significantly, and as further indictments are issued, I predict that the Congress can't let this administration stay open for business. Bush and Cheney are fast becoming toxic to any Republican in re-election mode for 2006 or 2008. The party is over, and they have to know it. If they want to be invited to the re-opening of governance by grown-ups, they better pick the right side now (and it's not on the right).

Memo to Dick, Little George and friends: Come clean. It feels so much better. Just ask George Takei.

04:46 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

John Conyers wants answers

Rep. John Conyers, one of the bravest men in Congress, has some good questions in the wake of the Scooter indictment:

On page 4 of the indictment, who is the unnamed "Undersecretary of State" who was asked by Libby about Wilson's trip and then responded that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA? On page 7, Libby is said to advise "the then White House Press Secretary" that "Wilson's wife worked at the CIA." What did the Press Secretary do with that information? Who is "Official A" on page 8, who discussed Wilson's wife's occupation with Robert Novak?

Most importantly, the indictment reveals -- as was previously reported -- that Vice President Cheney first told Libby that "Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division." (p.8) What other instructions, if any, did the Vice President give Libby at that time?

Conyers isn't just making rhetorical queries. He's going to get answers:

I believe it is imperative that Congress pursue these questions and determine how these charges fit into the entire web of deception, manipulation and obfuscation laid bare by the Downing Street Minutes and Treasongate. As a result, I have directed my staff to conduct a comprehensive investigation and review of the facts concerning not only alleged efforts to misuse the White House to out a CIA operative, but misinformation concerning the run up to the Iraq War, and all legal violations and breaches of trust by the Administration concerning the War.

Meanwhile, Orrin Hatch and Harry Reid are talking about the seriousness of the charges.

"The" Dick Cheney is not known for his warmth and specialness as a person. It's a good bet that his "allies" in the Senate are feeling a change in the weather in D.C., and they won't exactly be circling the wagons to protect a guy who will so easily throw his best friend/chief of staff on the mercy of the court.

04:38 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Firing vs. Resignation: the message

As devoted viewers of the West Wing know, White House Communications Director Toby Ziegler did a bad thing: he leaked top secret information to a reporter.

The West Wing is a pretend show. And on the pretend show, the President didn't know Toby had done this. The President had, in fact, launched an investigation into who had done it. As had the Senate.

So this past week, Toby confessed to the crime. And he went to the President to tender his resignation. But the President shakes his head and says, "No. I have to fire you."

"I have to fire you."

When Bush was first asked by reporters what he'd do about the leaking of a covert CIA agent's identity, he said he'd fire the person.

Today, Scooter Libby resigned.

The message is clear, and it's one that the Democrats MUST capitalize upon: by allowing Scooter to resign (and for Cheney to express regret AT SCOOTER'S RESIGNATION), BushCo has made it clear that they are on the side of traitors to the nation, on the side of outing CIA agents, on the side of lying. And most importantly, it shows that BUSH IS NOT IN CHARGE and NOT A MAN OF HIS WORD.

Letting Scooter resign weakens the Bush White House even more than the entire Traitorgate investigation has, more than the Iraq war has, more than Harriet Miers has. It's weakness and lying, again and again.

02:08 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

The Walrus and the Wurm

More from the indictment (hat tip to Josh Marshall):

On or about May 29, 2003, in the White House, LIBBY asked an Under Secretary of State (“Under Secretary”) for information concerning the unnamed ambassador’s travel to Niger to investigate claims about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium yellowcake. The Under Secretary thereafter directed the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research to prepare a report concerning the ambassador and his trip. The Under Secretary provided LIBBY with interim oral reports in late May and early June 2003, and advised LIBBY that Wilson was the former ambassador who took the trip.

The Under Secretary? I'm thinking it's a certain horribly-moustachioed current Ambassador to the UN, Mr. John Bolton. And the bagman who provided the interim oral reports, David Wurmser, whom Fitzgerald reportedly flipped. Memo to Cheney: when relying on a guy named Wurmser, think twice.

02:00 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Run, Chickenhawk, run!

The real Presiding boss in D.C.'s number one capo gets charged with five federal crimes and resigns. This same capo is also a National Security Advisor to Little George.

And what does the Boy Emperor do for the day?

After weeks of anxiety about possible indictments in the CIA leak investigation, President Bush showed no signs of strain Friday, smiling and joking with aides as he left to make a speech on terrorism in Norfolk, Va.

"No signs of strain," except for that coke-addled jaw that's been working overtime since well before announcing Harriet Miers.

Try to imagine what Little George would be doing if he weren't his father's biological son. I envision him as a stocker in the Housewares Department at Wal-Mart, bitter and righteous, irked that a "wetback" has been promoted over him to the position of assistant manager he knows rightfully should've been his if it weren't for affirmative action. He's not a coke head, because he just doesn't have the income, but he sure likes his canned beer and cheap whiskey, which he drinks every night as a warm up to yelling at the TV and his wife and his kids in no particular order. He saves his fighting energy for them, because he'd never dare cause a real ruckuss at the local watering hole after getting his butt kicked one too many times as a young loudmouth, adding to his bitterness and feeling that everyone is against him.

We all know this guy. Many of us probably have one somewhere in the family tree. And when we squint our eyes and blur out the presidential seal on the podium, we can see Little George standing in front of that Wal-Mart loader, piled high with towels to be shelved, a meager paycheck at the end of the week, his benefits being curtailed by his corporate bosses (but he still votes Republican because the Democrats are for minorities and queers and women).

We know this little guy.

01:47 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Official A and Other Officials

From the indictment itself:

On or about July 10 or July 11, 2003, LIBBY spoke to a senior official in the White House (“Official A”) who advised LIBBY of a conversation Official A had earlier that week with columnist Robert Novak in which Wilson’s wife was discussed as a CIA employee involved in Wilson’s trip. LIBBY was advised by Official A that Novak would be writing a story about Wilson’s wife.

On or about July 12, 2003, LIBBY flew with the Vice President and others to and from Norfolk, Virginia, on Air Force Two. On his return trip, LIBBY discussed with other officials aboard the plane what LIBBY should say in response to certain pending media inquiries, including questions from Time reporter Matthew Cooper.

Who wants to bet that "Official A" is Turd Blossom? And when the indictment talks about Libby flying to Norfolk with Heart Attack Dick, and then returning to talk to "other officials" about how to spin Joe Wilson...well, it doesn't take a C student from Yale to figure out that Libby's not the end, he's just the beginning. Of what is a grisly blood trail.

01:26 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Bye-bye, Irvin!

Unmitigated, unremitting liar, traitor to his nation, Irvin L. Libby, the grown man named Scooter, is indicted. And not just for perjury and false statements, but also obstruction of justice.

So Scooter's resigning like the loyal lieutenant to his commanding officer "the" Dick Cheney.

1 down, A LOT more to go.

And apparently, more will go. Big Head Karl is next:

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove escaped indictment in the CIA leak case Friday but remained under investigation.

Rove's lawyer said he was told by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's office that investigators had "made no decision about whether or not to bring charges" and would continue their probe into Rove's conduct. Rove is President Bush's closest adviser.

Vegas bookmakers are apparently narrowing the odds on a Cheney heart attack. The outside money says the heart attack will occur in Cheney's knee.

01:17 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

The Onion on Laura Bush

Um. Wow. The Onion.

12:34 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Exxon turns Katrina into record profits

We have a winner! The King of the Katrina Profiteers: Exxon.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Exxon Mobil Corp. on Thursday posted a quarterly profit of $9.9 billion, its biggest ever and one of the largest in U.S. corporate history, as it raked in a bonanza from soaring oil and gas prices.

Full story. Remember this when the mailman delivers your punitively large home heating bills this winter.

08:47 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

October 27, 2005

And the pre-Fitzmas indictments just keep coming

So now we can add Tom Noe to the growing list of power Republicans being indicted, which includes already Tom DeLay and Jack Abramoff and will soon, one hopes, include Irvin L. Libby, Karl Rove, and, getting greedy, Stephen Hadley and "the" Dick Cheney.

Don't remember Tom Noe? He's one of the stars of Ohio's Coingate! E&P gives us a quick refresher on Coingate:

In the Coingate scandal, Noe came under investigation after millions of dollars from an investment by the state's Bureau of Workers Compensation was reported missing. The investment was part of a portfolio of investments controlled by BWC as a hedge fund to protect its investment in stocks.

Coin dealers and two national groups that track state investments said they know of no other state that has invested in rare coins, autographs, or other collectibles.

Editor & Publisher has the news, broken by the Toledo Blade:

The Toledo Blade, which was first onto the so-called “Coingate” scandal in Ohio, broke another related story this afternoon, reporting that a federal grand jury has indicted the central figure in the coin scandal --Tom Noe, the former Maumee coin dealer suspected of laundering money into President Bush's reelection campaign--on three counts.

E&P goes on to quote the prosecutor who nailed Noe:

"The three-count indictment says that beginning in October 2003, Mr. Noe contributed to President Bush’s election campaign 'over and above the limits established by the Federal Election Campaign Act.'

“He did so, according to the indictment, in order to fulfill his pledge to raise $50,000 for a Bush-Cheney fund-raiser held in Columbus, Ohio, on Oct. 30, 2003, Gregory White, the U.S. Attorney for the Northern District of Ohio, announced at an afternoon news conference. The two other counts were for conspiracy and filing false statements.

"Mr. Noe faces the maximum penalty of five years in prison on each count. The conspiracy and false statement counts carry a maximum fine of $250,000 and the campaign finance violation carries a mandatory fine of between $136,200 and $454,000.
The U.S. Attorney’s office said the Bush campaign had no part in Noe’s alleged misdeeds."

Oh, I'm sure the Bush campaign had absolutely no idea such lawlessness was going on! I mean, that would mean they'd be criminalizing politics! And election politics at that!

After the prosecutor's done wiping the floor with Noe, he's got more trouble in store:

State officials have said they plan to sue Noe and seek criminal charges for alleged theft and fraud.

You know, if I were Noe, I might start really thinking hard about doing jail time for Little George. Is Little George really worth half-a-mil in fines and spending 15 years in even a white collar prison?

07:07 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Political Criminals

Murray Waas has yet more on Cheney (and his major-domo, Irvin L. "Scooter" Libby (let's just start calling him by his first name, Irvin. It's fun.)) lying and breaking laws at the same time. This time, "the" Dick and Irvin are lying to Congress!

Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources.

2004...right...something else was happening that year, right? What was it? Oh, yeah, that's it: THE ELECTION.

A former senior administration official familiar with the discussions on whether to turn over the materials said there was a "political element" in the matter. This official said the White House did not want to turn over records during an election year that could used by critics to argue that the administration used incomplete or faulty intelligence to go to war with Iraq. "Nobody wants something like this dissected or coming out in an election year," the former official said.

You've doubtless all heard the phrase spewing forth from the spittle-encrusted mouths of Republicans and Fox News talking heads: "the criminalization of politics."

Yes, politics have been criminalized. BY CRIMINALS. Dick Cheney, Irvin Libby, Karl Rove, Stephen Hadley, Tom DeLay, Bill Frist, even Little George the boy emperor -- these are the guys that have been breaking laws faster than the Barker gang. And why have they been committing crimes? Politics, of course. So see, they're "criminalizing politics." What would Congress have done had they not been lied to? Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan. and Vice Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., weigh in:

"I doubt if the votes would have been there," Roberts said. Rockefeller asserted, "We in Congress would not have authorized that war, in 75 votes, if we knew what we know now."

05:51 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

October 26, 2005

The RepubLIEcan party

It's getting downright exhausting to keep track of the sheer volume of mendacity spewing forth from the mouths of the GOP power elite and their media shills. Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby, Hadley, Condi, Frist, Judy, Pinch, Andrea Mitchell, Tim Russert, the entire Fox News team, and on and on and on.

And, lest we forget, the most ethically-challenged man in the House of Representatives, the bugman, Tom DeLay. This guy lies in the way he poses for his mugshot, and then goes on to tell MSNBC's Rita Cosby that he was filled with "peace and joy" during his perp walk.

Well, more lies coming out of the Ball-Peen Hammer, these dating back to 2000:

Rep. Tom DeLay failed to comply with House requirements that he disclose all contributions to a defense fund that pays his legal bills, the Texas Republican acknowledged to House officials.

He wrote officials that $20,850 contributed in 2000 and 2001 was not reported anywhere. Another $17,300 was included in the defense fund's quarterly report but not in DeLay's 2000 annual financial disclosure report -- a separate requirement.

Other donations were understated as totaling $2,800, when the figure should have been $4,450.

It was during that period that DeLay was the subject of several House ethics investigations.

Read the rest at CNN.

05:46 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Dr. Lie-Enstien fesses up (albeit lamely, of course)

From the Tennessean:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist acknowledged yesterday that he could have been "more precise" two years ago when he told the public in a televised interview that he wasn't sure if he still owned any HCA stock because his holdings had been placed in a blind trust.

Not exactly admitting it, but certainly handing a crow bar to any journalist or opposition party candidate who wants to ask Frist to define the difference between "I could have been more precise" and "I lied." And let's make no mistake, he is a big fat liar:

Yesterday, in an interview with Tennessee newspaper reporters, he said those disclosures didn't really tell him how much stock he owned.

"There's no way I know," Frist said. "I don't know how much, I don't know if 80% of this was sold, or 95% or 90% or 99% was sold, 10 years ago or five years ago or four years ago."

So he admits yesterday that he knew he owned HCA stock, even if it might have only been 1%, right? Sorry, you lying sack of fecal matter, but that just doesn't square with this:

On Jan. 10, 2003, Frist said on CNBC: "For our viewers it should be understood that I put this (HCA stock) into a blind trust. So far as I know, I own no HCA stock."

03:59 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

All roads lead to Dick and Rome.

More confirmation from veteran journalist Richard Sale that Heart-Attack Dick is in Fiztgerald's crosshairs, that the Italian Job is a big piece of the puzzle, and that Fitzgerald is just getting warmed up on Libby and Rove:

That Vice President Cheney is at the center of the controversy comes is no surprise. Last Friday, Fitzgerald investigators were talking to Cheney's attorneys, and detailied questionaires, designed to pin down in meticulous sequence what Cheney knew, when he knew it, and what he told his aides, were delivered to the White House on Monday, these sources said.

The probe is far from being at an end. According to this reporter's sources, Fitzgerald approached the judge in charge of the case and asked that a new grand jury be empaneled. The old grand jury, which has been sitting for two years, will expire on October 28.

Thanks to a letter of February, 2004 which Fitzgerald asked for and obtained expaneed authority, the Special Prosecutor is now in possession of an Italian parliament nvestigationi into the forged Niger documents alleging Iraq's interest in purchasing Niger uranium, sources said.

And, at last, the Dems in Congress are getting involved:

On the Hill, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.) and Sen. Harry Reid (D-Nev.), democratic whip, are asking for public hearings to lay bare the forgeries and how their false allegations ended up in President George Bush's State of the Union speech.

03:46 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Little George vs. Big George

Jane Hamsher has a great piece over at Huff Post about the House of Atreus-like struggle and meta-patricidal behavior of Little George the Boy Emperor in regards to TraitorGate. Jane makes a pretty compelling case not only that Little George has an overamped version of the Oedipus Complex, but that he, of course, knew that his Boy Genius Rove was going right at Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.

As the Patrick Fitzgerald juggernaut proceeds apace, they've tried to argue that this was all Cheney's doing, but I don't buy it. This wasn't the kind of thing Rove needed to "protect" Junior from. It's the kind of dirty, junior high politics that former "loyalty enforcer" Dubya delights in.

I've been arguing a lot on this site that Cheney sat at the head of the White House Iraq Group table and is the spycraft empressario who masterminded the forged-documents-thru-Italy scenario. I stand by that. But Hamsher is absolutely right: the smearing of a man's wife is SOP for Bush and Rove. Especially when the man is a better son than bitter Little George could even dream of being. We know the president knew. But he more than knew, he did something we don't see a lot of: he led.

03:26 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Fitzmas: the gift that keeps on giving

The extremely smart Lawrence O'Donnell has some news at the Huffington Post about the coming indictments and the length of the grand jury:

Experienced federal prosecutors are saying today that they expect Fitzgerald to extend the term of the grand jury even if he obtains indictments this week.

Prosecutors sometimes go back to grand juries a few weeks after indictments to ask them to supercede those idictments with additional counts. This happens when the original indictments put pressure on witnesses to give up more information or when defendents decide to turn on each other and give the prosecutor more information during plea bargaining.

So it's entirely possible that Patrick Fitzgerald will indicte Rove and Libby this week AND extend the grand jury to be able to catch some bigger fish and/or make an even stronger case against Scooter and Turd Blossom.

O'Donnell also refutes a bogus fact coming out of the Washington Post:

The Washington Post is wrong. Today's Post says that the grand jury has to unanimously agree to return indictments. HuffPo readers have known since last week that it takes only a majority of grand jurors to indict--12 of 23.

And as O'Donnell noted last week, the grand jury members inside the beltway are not likely to be part of Bush's base:

A typical Washington, D.C. grand jury is about 75% African American. Fitzgerald’s is slightly more than that. This is not the kind of group Karl Rove feels at home with. He has no professional experience trying to appeal to a group like this. He has been so unsuccessful at it that his boss’s job approval rating with African Americans is now 2%, which, factoring in the margin of error, could actually be zero.

02:46 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

October 25, 2005

Merry Indictment Eve!

The Washington Note is reporting that indictments could be handed down Wednesday. Between 1 and 5 separate indictments -- leaning towards 5.

My wish list:

1. Rove
2. Cheney
3. Scooter
4. Hadley
5. (wildcard) Card or Hughes

Full story.

And for your scorecard, the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) roster:

Karl Rove
Karen Hughes
Mary Matalin
Andrew Card
James R. Wilkinson
Nicholas E. Calio
Condoleezza Rice
Stephen Hadley
Scooter Libby

06:25 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Spycraft 101

Laura Rozen has a tremendous piece in the American Prospect that lays out yet more details about the Italian Job via the Italian paper La Repubblica. It's a real life spy story, but it's not James Bond, it's John Le Carre, replete with "postmen" and codenames and globe-trotting spies in business suits and a very bad ending for ordinary human beings:

Today's exclusive report in La Repubblica reveals that Pollari met secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons.

[snip]

The paper goes on to note the significance of that date, highlighting the appearance of a little-noticed story in Panorama a weekly magazine owned by Italian Prime Minister and Bush ally Silvio Berlusconi, that was published three days after Pollari's meeting with Hadley. The magazine's September 12, 2002, issue claimed that Iraq's intelligence agency, the Mukhabarat, had acquired 500 tons of uranium from Nigeria through a Jordanian intermediary. (While this September 2002 Panorama report mentioned Nigeria, the forgeries another Panorama reporter would be proferred less than a month later purportedly concerned Niger.)

Okay, so let's break it down.
1. The White House Iraq Group, led by Cheney, needs evidence that Saddam has or wants to have WMDs.
2. Condi Rice's #2, Hadley, meets with the top Italian spy and 3 days later, Bushpal/Italian President Berlusconi's paper publishes a story about Saddam getting WMD materials from Africa (And managed to change nations mid-stream...Nigeria, Niger -- let's call the whole thing off).
3. Less than a month later, a writer from the same Presidentially owned newspaper gets the forged Niger documents, and her editor orders her to deliver them to the American Embassy for shipping not to the CIA, but to the White House -- the same place that so desperately needs them to prove their case for invasion.

Serendipity or spycraft? Rozen and La Repubblica have more about Rocco Martino, the guy who delivered the forgeries:

For the Italian middleman Rocco Martino, who acquired the documents from a Sismi mole at the Niger embassy in Rome, the motive described by La Repubblica is primarily mercenary. He wanted to be paid for the forgeries.

According to the Repubblica account, Martino was a former carabinieri officer and later a Sismi operative who by 1999 was making his living based in Luxembourg, selling information to the French intelligence services for a monthly stipend. The story goes on to explain how Martino renewed his contacts with Sismi officer Antonio Nucera, an old friend and former colleague, who was a Sismi vice-captain working in the intelligence agency's eighth directorate, with responsibilities involving weapons of mass destruction and counter-proliferation.

So we've got a guy, Martino, who was never really a big spy, more of a jobber for the real spies. And he's been out for a while, but he's ready to come in from the cold, and they have the perfect job for him.

Precisely how Nucera, Martino, and two employees of the Niger embassy in Rome came together sometime between 1999 and 2000 to hatch the Niger forgeries plan is still somewhat mysterious. The newspaper's reports that Nucera introduced Martino to a longtime Sismi asset at the Niger embassy in Rome, a 60 year-old Italian woman described in La Repubblica only as "La Signora." Sismi chief Pollari, who granted the newspaper an interview (as he tends to do when he fears that breaking news could taint his agency), suggests that Nucera simply wanted to help out Martino, his old friend and colleague.

Ah, gotta love the codename. "There's a woman...her codename is...'The Woman.'" So who is La Signora? Does she even exist? Or did Martino simply fabricate the documents all by his lonesome? No answer on that at this point, but there are, of course, bigger pesce than Martino to fry. Rozen goes on:

But as the Italian reporters suggest, that sounds like a very convenient excuse for the chief of an agency that was engaged in promoting the bogus Niger claims from their inception, all the way to the White House. The picture that emerges of Sismi's relationship with Martino is that the agency used him as a "postman" -- a cut-out to sell the bogus intelligence to allied intelligence services. At the same time, Sismi possessed enough information about Martino to claim that he was simply a rogue agent on the French payroll.

La Repubblica's noirish portrait of Martino as a convenient vehicle for plausible deniability is given further resonance by the recent news that a Roman prosecutor has ended his investigation into Martino's role in the Niger hoax without filing any charges or issuing any report.

So, let's continue breaking this down:

4. Martino was a "postman" for the real players, who had a clear motive for fabricating intelligence: helping their pals at the White House Iraq Group (which included Hadley, Cheney, Libby, Rove and Rice, among others).
5. The real players on the Italian side are no less than the President and the director of the spy agency.
6. The question is did Deputy National Security Advisor Steven Hadley ask/order the Italians to "find" the Niger intelligence, or did they take it upon themselves to do a favor for the USA? Either way, WHIG had managed to put a nice big fat Italian buffer between themselves and their faked intelligence, and they had a "smoking gun" that they could wave about in Congress and all over TV. And off to war we went. By we, of course, I don't mean anyone in WHIG. They're all still alive. Can't say the same for these poor folk.

06:04 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Dr. Lie-enstien Implodes in Washington

Memo to Bill Frist: shut-down the 2008 presidential campaign office.

From the lyin' Leader's home state paper, the Tennessean:

Senate records show Frist had been notified for years that he continued to own HCA stock in his blind trusts, contradicting public statements he made in the past about the distance the trusts put between him and his assets.

"Right now, I don't know if I own HCA because it's a qualified blind trust," Frist told the National Journal in September 2002.

A few months earlier, on May 16, his trustees informed him that one of his trusts had received HCA stock worth as much as $500,000 and another one had gotten HCA stock worth as much as $1 million, Senate records show.

In January 2003, after Frist took over as the top Senate Republican, he told cable news network CNBC the same thing in answering a question about his HCA holdings.

"As far as I know, I own no HCA stock," Frist said then.

Yet in December 2002, after the family partnership was liquidated, Frist had been notified that HCA stock worth $15,000-$50,000 was put into another trust.

"Mr. Frist keeps lying," said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, a liberal watchdog group that has filed a Senate Ethics Committee complaint about Frist's HCA holdings and will submit a revised one today. "He's killing his own political career. Nobody else has to do a thing to him, because he's just imploding."

03:05 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

The Italian Job II: The Dick Is In

An update on the "All roads lead to Dick" post below comes via the most excellent Josh Marshall, in which he appraises us of the explosive news coming out of Italy and its implications about Team Cheney and their involvement in the forged Niger documents. Josh does a great job of laying out the signficant events and their important dates -- and how those dates deliver a damning thesis for Dick and Co.

A must read.

02:45 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Memo to NYT shareholders: sell

Arianna has her usual brilliantly insightful blog today on the continually imploding New York Times and it's internal mad bomber, Arthur "Pinch" Sulzberger. To summarize: Judy Miller is the symptom, Pinch is the disease. Read the whole thing, as you should do every day with Arianna.

But she makes a salient point about the only thing that might put the breaks on Little King Arthur and his decimation of Camelot: MONEY. Because, remember, the NYT is a publically owned company. Here's the money paragraph:

The company's market cap, which was $6 billion in November 2004, dropped below $4 billion last week, its earnings fell by more than half in the last quarter, and there have been widespread layoffs (200 staff positions eliminated in the first half of this year, with an additional 500 cuts announced in September). And now Sulzberger's ham-fisted meddling in the newsroom has put the paper's greatest asset -- its reputation -- at grave risk. (It led to, among other things, Times reporters not being able to freely report on Plamegate until Miller was out of legal jeopardy, which deprived its readers of the kind of headline-grabbing reporting in this morning's paper.)

I used to work for the NYT in their ill-fated TV division, another Pinch-driven venture that eventually went south. I shook the hand of Sulzberger the lesser at a couple of gatherings on the 14th floor of the Gray Lady and he was as unimpressive as one might expect. To be fair, the Times is full of talented people who care about doing good jobs, much like the civil servants in Washington who endure various administrations. But like the D.C. toilers, the Times staff is at the mercy of their overlords.

02:01 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

2,000

2,000.

Yes, we've hit the dreaded marker. 2,000 American lives stolen.

Every one of them was someone's child. Many, many of them were someone's spouse, someone's parent. And they are gone. And the reason, as any rational person knows, is lies fabricated by the White House Iraq Group, abetted by the New York Times and the mainstream media, unresearched and tacitly approved by both parties in Congress.

2,000 human beings.

And those are just the Americans. Multiply that number by 50,000, and we start to get close to the number of dead Iraqis. And of those over 100,000, thousands of civilians, the elderly, women, and, of course, children.

This is precisely what Traitorgate is about. Joe Wilson outed the lie, and he was punished for it. But the real punishment has been meted out to the over 102,000 ordinary folk who have been mowed down to benefit this profit-mad regime.

What human being with any sense of compassion can continue to support this illegal war that has massacred so many?

01:46 PM | Comments (1) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

The Domino effect

Swopa comments at firedoglake are worth consideration:

"If Cheney goes down with Scooter and Karl, I'm not sure how Dubya survives -- it would be tantamount to admitting he's just an empty suit they send out to read the teleprompter while other folks run the country. Granted, they'd need the jaws of life to pry him out of the Oval Office, but Republicans in Congress might realize that he's going to drag them down with him."

Outside the delicious visualization of the jaws-of-life being applied to Little George, she makes a fairly logical point. Republicans in the Senate are behind in their fundraising goals for 2006. Liddy Dole is doing a heckuva bad job finding candidates to run. And Daily Kos has flagged a great bit about a sixteen-year GOPer in Kansas changing his stripes for the next election:

Paul Morrison, Johnson County's Republican district attorney for the last 16 years, is expected to announce today that he is a candidate for Kansas attorney general.

Morrison will switch parties and run as a Democrat, according to a political source who has spoken to Morrison.

In short, any Republican with a brain, a conscience, and a thought toward his or her political future will, post-Fitzmas, do all he or she can to distance themselves from the toxic wasteland that is the Cheney/Bush regime.

Now, there is a big difference between not allaying yourself with the toxic chickenhawks and actually throwing the Chickenhawk in Chief out of his richly-feathered coop.

But remember, it wasn't the Democrats who took Nixon down. It was his own party.

01:23 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Rosa Parks, American hero, passes on

Rosa Parks has died in Detroit at the age of 92. She had more fortitude and courage than the combined personell of the White House and both houses of Congress.

If you have children, tell them who Rosa Parks was and why she mattered. She mattered not only because she was a spark that ignited the great civil rights movement. She mattered because she showed the world that the actions of one person, even one so seemingly "insignificant," can change the path of a nation and the course of history.

May we all embody that spirit and, as Ghandi said, "be the change you wish to see."

02:14 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Oh, you big lying Dick

So Jane Hamsher thinks, based on the NYT article just out (and read it, it's a doozy), that Dick "Big Time" Cheney perjured himself. And who am I to argue with Jane Hamsher?

Well, of course Dick Cheney is the guy behind this. He's an evil genius! Does henchman #2 come up with the evil plans to start an illegal war that will make a lot of bloody profits?! NO! The EVIL GENIUS has those plans! This is Evil Genius 101. And Cheney isn't just a student of Evil Genius 101, he's the PROFESSOR!

02:06 AM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

October 24, 2005

Cheney told Scooter about Plame

Yo, Big Time! Get ready to join Spiro Agnew in the history books.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 24 — I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.

More from the NY Times. Considering the latest news of Fitzgerald's inquiry into the yellowcake claims, this is shaping up to be the biggest (known) scandal in United States political history: the conspiracy for war.

10:41 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By Bob Cesca

Paul Hackett is in.

Paul Hackett is running for Senate in Ohio. This guy is the epitome of a real human being (as opposed to a politician). He's the kind of character you'd see on "The West Wing," a Democrat who is both smart and courageous. Here's some of what he had to say today when announcing his candidacy:

"As someone who has been blessed with a great family, a great career, and a great country, I am running for U.S. Senate not because I have a desire to add another title to my resume or to achieve a lifetime goal, but quite simply, to continue a tradition of service....a tradition of service to this great country that has run through my family since it arrived from Ireland several generations ago."

"Let’s bring back the tradition of the citizen legislator, a concept the founding fathers envisioned, but something that has been lost along the way to the career politicians."

"I make this commitment out of the sincere desire to help my nation that I see in jeopardy. I didn’t take a poll or run a focus group - I made a decision with my wife that just as my country needed me in Iraq, they might need me to take that same fighting spirit to the halls of Washington."

"I’m a democrat and proud of it...we are the party that wants to keep government out of the private lives of Americans and focus the government’s energy and power on creating a strong economy and a balanced budget...I don’t need Washington and its career politicians to tell me how to worship my God or to dictate to my wife the decisions she makes with her doctor anymore that I need Washington to tell my neighbors what they can do in the privacy of their own home or how many and what types of guns I can keep in my gun safe."

"But I do need Washington to wisely manage our military might and our economic budget so that my neighbors and I can safely provide for our families."

I was born in Ohio, and much of my family still lives there. Ohio is a great state that has been horribly sullied by the 2004 election fraud, Coingate, Rep. Ney, Gov. Taft, and Sec. of State Blackwell. The idea of Hackett becoming a Senator gives me chills, not just for Ohioans, but for us all.

Whether you're from Ohio or not, I urge you to go to Paul Hackett's website, sign up for updates, and send him some dough if you can.

07:41 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

All roads lead to Dick.

The White House has to be sweating the latest news, reported by UPI, that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has expanded his investigation into the origin of the Niger yellowcake documents which were the first bit of "evidence" that started our nation on the path to invade a country that hadn't had WMDs for a decade.

NATO sources have confirmed to United Press International that Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government.

Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium. This claim, which made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address in January, 2003, was based on falsified documents from Niger and was later withdrawn by the White House.

This opens the door to what has always been the most serious implication of the CIA leak case, that the Bush administration could face a brutally damaging and public inquiry into the case for war against Iraq being false or artificially exaggerated. This was the same charge that imperiled the government of Bush's closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, after a BBC Radio program claimed Blair's aides has "sexed up" the evidence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

There can be few more serious charges against a government than going to war on false pretences, or having deliberately inflated or suppressed the evidence that justified the war.

The FBI was supposed to investigate the origin of the forged documents, but they "had other priorities" to borrow a phrase from a certain evil mastermind. Josh Marshall wondered why:

A case like that doesn't go uninvestigated by itself. Why did it? Who slowed it down? And which senators were getting briefed on the progress of the investigation over the course of 2003 and 2004?

James Moore goes into great detail on the Italian Job:

Fitzgerald has reportedly asked for a copy of the Italian government’s investigation into the break-in of the Niger embassy in Rome and the source of the forged documents. The blatantly fake papers, which purported to show that Saddam Hussein had cut a deal to get yellowcake uranium from Niger, turned up after a December 2001 meeting in Rome involving neo-con Michael Ledeen, Larry Franklin, Harold Rhodes, and Niccolo Pollari, the head of Italy’s intelligence agency SISMI, and Antonio Martino, the Italian defense minister.

If Fitzgerald is examining the possibility that Ledeen was executing a plan to help his friend Karl Rove build a case for invading Iraq? Ledeen has long ties to Italian intelligence agency operatives and has spanned the globe to bring the world the constant variety of what he calls “creative destruction” to build democracies. He makes the other neo-cons appear passive. He brought the Reagan administration together with the Iranian arms dealer who dragged the country through Iran-Contra and shares with his close friend Karl Rove a personal obsession with Machiavelli. Ledeen, who is almost rabidly anti-Arab, famously told the Washington Post that Karl Rove told him, “Any time you have a good idea, tell me.”

The federal grand jury has to at least consider whether Ledeen called Rove with an idea to use his contacts with the Italian CIA to hatch a plan to create the rationale for war. Ledeen told radio interviewer Ian Masters and his producer Louis Vandenberg, “I have absolutely no connection to the Niger documents, have never even seen them. I did not work on them, never handled them, know virtually nothing about them, don't think I ever wrote or said anything about the subject.” It is strictly coincidence then that some months after he and his neo-con consorts and Italian intelligence officers met in Rome that the Niger embassy was illegally entered and nothing was stolen other than letterhead and seals. And equally coincident that forged papers under those letterheads were slipped to Elisabetta Burba, a writer for an Italian glossy owned by Silvio Berlusconi, Italy’s prime minister, and a backer of the Bush invasion scheme. Unfortunately for the pro-war neo-cons, even an Italian tabloid would not publish the fake documents and turned them over to the CIA and US government in Rome.

The other American attendees at Ledeen’s Roman Holiday are also worthy of scrutiny. Larry Franklin was recently arrested for leaking classified US government information to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. Ledeen sprang quickly to his defense but Franklin faces prosecution next year and is most probably cooperating with prosecutor Fitzgerald. Harold Rhode, the other American actor in this tragicomic affair, worked the Office of Special Plans (OSP) at the Department of Defense for Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Characterized as a “counter-intelligence shop,” OSP simply interpreted intelligence in a manner that fit the need for evidence that Iraq had WMD. If the CIA gathered data that said otherwise, OSP analyzed it differently or ignored the facts and then reported to the vice president precisely what he wanted to hear. Rhode also was the liaison between Ahmed Chalabi, the convicted embezzler the Bush administration was using to feed information to them and Judy Miller about the distortions and lies required to fuel the rush to war.

No great extrapolation is necessary to assume that OSP, sitting inside the CIA, got early word that Joseph Wilson was being dispatched to Niger to investigate the sale of low-grade uranium to Iraq. Rhode needed only to pick up the phone and call the vice president’s chief of staff Scooter Libby, who would tell his boss and Karl Rove. How hard is it for even Republicans to believe, at this point, that Rove is capable of launching a plan to discredit Wilson and punish him by exposing his wife? Rove and his boss were not simply in danger of losing the prime cause for the war; they faced an even graver political wound of being discovered as covert agents who defrauded the government and the public.

It doesn't take a devotee of John Le Carre to do the math here. It's Rove, it's Libby, and of course, it's Cheney. But not just for smearing the Wilson's or for trying to cover it up. For creating fake evidence to lead us into war. It's all the Vice President's Men: Libby, Rove, Ledeen, Franklin, Rhode, Hadley and Ms. Judy Miller. But the one holding the strings, the one cashing in to the tune of $8 million through his Halliburton stock options, is, of course, the bionic VP himself, the living incarnation of a Bond villain, Dick.

Arianna's right: this case makes Watergate look like shoplifting from a candy store. And our Dick makes the Dick of the 70s look almost like a Richard.

UPDATE: Raw Story adds David Wurmser (oh, I love that name) to the list of Friends of Dick who have Traitorgate all over their sticky fingers.

Those close to the investigation say that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been told that David Wurmser, then a Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney on loan from the office of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, met with Cheney and his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in June 2003 and told Libby that Plame set up the Wilson trip. He asserted that it was a boondoggle, the sources said.

Libby then shared the information with Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, the sources said. Wurmser also passed on the same information about Wilson to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, they added.

Love that line: "met with Cheney and his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in June 2003 and told Libby that Plame set up the Wilson trip." And then we're supposed to believe that Scooter just ran off on his own and told Karl while Dick did what? Checked his Halliburton stock options? Dick, please, you're an evil genius. Just take credit for it.

Wurmser's dirty little coatails include professional bad people John Bolton, Doug Feith, Condoleeza Rice, Richard Perle and Ahmed Chalabi. Read it all at Raw Story.

05:37 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer

Georgie joins the Blame Game

Apparently "President" Bush isn't too happy these days. Lots of events making him feel down, I guess. According the the NY Daily News, Bush is a mess:

Presidential advisers and friends say Bush is a mass of contradictions: cheerful and serene, peevish and melancholy, occasionally lapsing into what he once derided as the "blame game." They describe him as beset but unbowed, convinced that history will vindicate the major decisions of his presidency even if they damage him and his party in the 2006 and 2008 elections.

"History will vindicate the major decisions of his presidency." Um, George, get one of your embattled staffers to use the internets and do a Google search for "Nixon presidency" and "history." Or "Third Reich" and "history." It will be like talking to a fortune teller, amigo.

Further comedy from the Daily News piece:

Bush is so dismayed that "the only person escaping blame is the President himself," said a sympathetic official, who delicately termed such self-exoneration "illogical."

You know, he really, really is amazing, isn't he? It's everybody's fault but his.

"This is not some manager at McDonald's chewing out the help," said a source with close ties to the White House when told about these outbursts. "This is the President of the United States, and it's not a pleasant sight."

Right, because a McDonald's manager has to make sure the food is cooked right and delivered on time and that the cash records don't come up short. If he doesn't, he gets fired. But not the "President of the United States." He just gets "re-elected."

05:18 PM | Comments (0) | Posted By John Christian Plummer