Plame Gossip - The conspiracy
Tell me this doesn't indicate to you that Cheney is the ultimate target of Fitzgerald's investigation. (WaPo - tomorrow)
Now, I know that we all already knew that, but now there's direct, concrete evidence of the telling of these lies being printed on the front page of the largest papers in the country. And that's a pretty big deal.
As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.
Fitzgerald has been ratcheting up the pressure over the last few weeks. C'mon, Karl. Take the deal! I just want to see it all laid on the table.
Also: The other key element in the WaPo and NYTimes stories tomorrow appears to be the "revelation" that the information they leaked was known to be disproved when they leaked it(WaPo) or the more diplomatic "in dispute" in the NYTimes.
In other words, the administration was cherry picking and releasing sentences that they knew for a fact to be wrong, and released that information solely for political impact. Short version, they lied to maintain support for the war.Now, I know that we all already knew that, but now there's direct, concrete evidence of the telling of these lies being printed on the front page of the largest papers in the country. And that's a pretty big deal.
posted by mikevotes at
8:57 PM
4 Comments:
The Post does seem to break new ground by citing the existence of the January 2003 memo written by the national intelligence officer in Africa for the National Intelligence Council that unequivocally calls the Niger/uranium story "baseless".
It seems to me that we still have wingnuts appearing on the cable shows and Meet The Press to peddle the story that there remains evidence to prove the Niger/uranium story, either from the Brits or from us.
The Post knocks down both those claims and calls the Niger/uranium story unequivocally "discredited".
Hell, even Tim Russert ought to be able to understand that the next time Stephen Hayes or some other watercarrier says on MTP that the Niger/uranium story has not been totally discredited and may actually be true.
By
Reality-Based Educator, at 9:58 PM
There are still some people who still get booked on these shows that occasionally maintain that Saddam had WMD and that they were smuggled out somehow.
I wrote this in a comment a couple posts down. It's a pundit show tactic to pick a very minor detail and force the argument there rather than on the main point which is that Bush lied.
If you can suck all the conversation in that segment to a debate over the authenticity of the Niger documents, nobody is spending the seven minutes pointing out that the Bush admin was knowingly lying about them.
It's a cheap tactic, but one that works very well on the talk shows.
The example I gave earlier was when Dick Cheney shot a man in the face, the Republicans managed to turn it into a discussion about how many hours before notification was proper, not that the VP, apparently drinking, shot a man in the face.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 10:20 PM
Call me negative, but I still have no sense that the latest news has changed most people's minds about Bush. I'm still waiting for a politician with the ability to communicate the connection between the leak, Plamegate, and the lies that got us into Iraq.
By
JUSIPER, at 11:51 AM
I kind of agree. But it is still a substantial step forward in the coverage of this thing. I mean, how long have we known that the intel was intentionally bad, but if the overall mainstream narrative switches to Bush lied us into war, that's a pretty big deal.
Mike
By
mikevotes, at 1:59 PM
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