America's media whores - what Gene Lyons calls the "beltway courtier pundits" - have become SO CALLOW, SO CRAVEN, SO DISGUSTINGLY INCOMPETENT in their pursuit of brown-nosing the Bush-Cheney administration's talking points (aka regurgitating the Karl Rove morning fax memo; aka reciting the Rush Limbaugh verbal diarrhea du jour) THAT THEY NOW REFUSE TO CONNECT these THREE SIMPLE DOTS:
#1. That NO ONE IN WASHINGTON KNEW the identity of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson before her husband publicly rebuked President Bush's use of the "Niger yellowcake uranium for Iraq's [nonextistant] WMD program" story as an excuse to launch an invasion of that prostate nation, in President Bush's January, 2003 State-of-the-Union speech...
#2. That even AFTER (retired) Ambassador Wilson's July 2003 op-ed column in the New York Times, explaining in detail that President Bush was lying, and knew that he was lying when he included the "Niger yellowcake uranium for Iraq" in his State-of-the-Union speech, the craven Washington press community STILL did not know that Valerie Plame Wilson was an undercover CIA operative...
#3. and, that the Washington Press whore community WOULD ONLY LEARN ABOUT Ms. Plame's secret CIA identity, ONLY AFTER A SYSTEMATIC, CHRONIC EFFORT BY THE VICE PRESIDENT to have his senior officials - including Scooter Libby, Dick Armitage, and Karl Rove - "OUT" Ms. Plame's identity to the DC press corps.
To their credit, several of the DC press figures contacted by Rove, Armitage, Libby, or the Vice President himself REFUSED TO MENTION Ms. PLAME'S NAME or identity in their news columns - including Time's Mathew Cooper and even New York Times administration mouthpiece Judith Miller. It was ONLY when BOB NOVAK WROTE UP Ms. PLAME'S IDENTITY in his insidious CHICAGO SUN-TIMES COLUMN that the DC press corps and world media came to realize that not only was Valerie Plame Wilson an UNDERCOVER "covert operations officer" for the CIA, but that her employer, the Brewster-Jennings Company, WAS A FRONT COMPANY FOR THE CIA AS WELL, a company and "front" that had been carefully constructed and documented for over a decade, to make it appear as if NONE of the employees of the company were actually CIA agents, when in fact ALL of them were!
THAT is the simple 3-item timeline of the Plame CIA-outing scandal - a timeline the WHORE DC press corps and NATIONAL MEDIA REFUSE TO AKNOWLEDGE.
The other night, immediately after Keith Olbermann's landmark "the president and vice president should resign" 4th of July special commentary, MSNBC had a 3 person panel on to discuss the Libby prison sentence commutation by President Bush. The Republican official, a former aide to Attorney General John Ashcroft, bought into the administration's talking points, saying "If the underlying crime was 'outing a CIA agent, why don't the Democrats demand the trial and conviction of Dick Armitage - HE was the FIRST ONE to mention Plame's identity to the media."
This talking point is DISINGINOUS in the exreme, and can be countered with ONE simple question: "HOW did Dick Armitage come to know that Valerie Plame Wilson was an undercover CIA operative, and WHY did he discuss her name with the DC press corps?"
The answer to both questions is simplicity itself - Mr. Armitage knew Valerie Plame's secret identity because Karl Rove and Dick Cheney WANTED HIM TO KNOW IT, and both Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney WERE DETERMINED TO MAKE Ms. Plame's CIA identity KNOWN TO THE AMERICAN PUBLIC, IN VIOLATION of the official secrecy laws of the United States of America - the very law that President George H.W. Bush (Sr.) signed into law!
Novak's latest column on the Libby commutation - springing from the scandal (outing Ms. Plame's CIA identity) that HE was the instrumental party to:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/novak/453241,CST-NWS-novak03.article
VIDEO: (Retired) President George H. W. Bush I(Senior) "I HAVE NOTHING BUT CONTEMPT and anger, for those who BETRAY THE TRUST, by exposing the name of our sources [and undercover CIA operatives/operations].....THEY ARE, in my view, THE MOST INSIDIOUS TRAITORS."
http://www.juancole.com/2007/07/libby-was-small-fish-bush-really.html ============================================
Bush and Cheney walk, too
By Sidney Blumenthal
July 3, 2007
http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2007/07/03/libby/
| In the Plame case, as in nearly every matter, Vice President Dick Cheney controlled and directed the flow of information that shaped the decision making of President George W. Bush. When Nicholas Kristof, the New York Times columnist, published "Missing in Action: Truth," on May 6, 2003, referring to but not mentioning by name former Ambassador Joseph Wilson as one who conducted a mission to Niger, where he found no evidence of Saddam Hussein seeking to purchase yellowcake uranium for nuclear weaponry, Cheney furiously launched the effort to discover Wilson's identity and to discredit him. He ordered I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, his chief of staff, to head the operation. Libby's frenetic activity triggered a secret State Department investigation and memo that identified Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a covert CIA operative.
Cheney aroused President Bush to the danger from Wilson. A handwritten note by Libby that surfaced in his trial revealed that Bush raised his concern about the Kristof column in a subsequent June 9 meeting. The next day, the State Department memo "Niger/Iraq Uranium Story" began circulating within the administration. On June 12, Cheney identified Plame to Libby, and Libby went hard to work. Within three days, he discussed Plame with five officials. On July 6, after Wilson published a New York Times op-ed disclosing that the rationale the president gave for the war was premised on false information, an enraged Cheney ordered Libby into high gear. Cheney also secured Bush's concurrence for Libby to leak selected parts of the still-classified National Intelligence Estimate on Saddam's weapons of mass destruction to New York Times reporter Judith Miller on July 8. Bush, therefore, was deeply involved. But what did the president know, and when did he know it?
Bush's commutation of Libby's 30-month prison sentence for four counts of perjury and obstruction of justice was as politically necessary to hold his remaining hardcore base for the rest of his 18 months in office as it was politically damaging to his legacy and to the possibility of a Republican succession. It was also essential in order to sustain Libby's cover-up protecting Cheney and perhaps Bush himself.
The sole reason that Bush offers for the commutation -- that Judge Reggie Walton's sentence was "excessive" -- is transparently false. Indeed, the sentence meets the normal guidelines for such a crime. "The sentence in this case was imposed pursuant to the laws governing sentencings which occur every day throughout this country," said Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor. "In this case, an experienced federal judge considered extensive argument from the parties and then imposed a sentence consistent with the applicable laws." Nothing is irregular or extraordinary about the length of the sentence, except the person receiving it.
It was not the judge who exceeded the sentencing guidelines; it is the president who ignored federal standards for commutations, by which it is customary that the convicted person serve some time before being eligible. Dishonestly appealing to the letter of the law, Bush's spirit of impunity is masked as benevolence and mercy.
Even as Bush attacked the judgment of Walton, his own appointee to the federal bench, he acknowledged Libby's guilt, declaring: "I respect the jury's verdict." Even as Bush engages in juridical nullification, he does not seek jury nullification. By confessing that Libby was engaged in a cover-up -- after all, that was the verdict -- Bush establishes his own motive. In brief, Bush's act ratifies Libby's cover-up. The "cloud over the vice president" that the prosecutor decried will never be dispelled. Cheney -- and Bush -- walk, too.
Libby had to have understood, without a word ever being passed, that leniency of some sort would be granted. His steadfast cover-up was encouraged by his intimate knowledge of the methods of Cheney and Bush. The fine he must pay -- $250,000 -- is meaningless because he will certainly not be paying it himself. His legal defense fund, supported by the friends of the president and vice president, boasts a treasury of $5 million. He has been well taken care of.
The pardon is the one monarchical power that the framers of the Constitution assigned the presidency. But they placed one restriction, that it could not be exercised for impeachment. In other words, the president could not use his power to pardon himself. Bush is entirely within his narrow right to use the pardon power in the Libby case. But it violates the spirit, if not the letter, of the law governing that power because it is a consummate gesture of self-exoneration, at least if the vice president is an "entity within the executive branch." Bush rewards Libby's cover-up, thwarting the investigation into Cheney's and perhaps his culpability. Bush's commutation is the successful culmination of the obstruction of justice.
Since 1776, on every July Fourth, the Declaration of Independence has been posted in public places, published in newspapers and read aloud. Its bill of particulars contains these two passages defining royal tyranny and justifying revolution:
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary Powers. ... For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments.
Happy Fourth.
No comments:
Post a Comment