Weekly Radio Address: Larry Johnson on Valerie Plame
It isn't often we let a Republican give the weekly Democratic Radio Response, but we thought everyone should hear Larry Johnson's story. You can click here to listen or read the text below.
Good morning. I'm Larry Johnson, an American, a registered Republican, a former intelligence official at the CIA, and a friend of Valerie Plame.I entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985 with Valerie. We were members of the Career Trainee Program. Senator Orin Hatch wrote the letter of recommendation for me which I believe that helped open the doors to me at the CIA.
From the first day we walked into the building, all members of my training class were undercover, including Valerie. In other words, we had to lie to our family and friends about where we worked. We could only tell those who had an absolute need to know where we worked. In my case, I told my wife.
I knew the wife of Ambassador Wilson, Valerie, as Valerie P. Even though all of us in the training class held Top Secret Clearances, we were asked to limit our knowledge of our other classmates to the first initial of their last name.
So, Larry J. knew Val P. rather than Valerie Plame. I really didn't realize what her last name was until her cover was betrayed by the Government officials who gave columnist Robert Novak her true name.
I am stunned that government officials at the highest level have such ignorance about a matter so basic to the national security structure of this nation.
Robert Novak's compromise of Valerie led to scrutiny of CIA officers that worked with her. This not only compromised her “cover” company but potentially every individual overseas who had been in contact with that company or with her.
We must put to bed the lie that she was not undercover. For starters, if she had not been undercover then the CIA would not have referred the matter to the Justice Department.
Val only told those with a need to know about her status in order to safeguard her cover, not compromise it. She was content with being known as an energy consultant married to Ambassador Joe Wilson and the mother of twins.
I voted for George Bush in November of 2000 because I was promised a President who would bring a new tone and a new ethical standard to Washington.
So where are we? The President has flip-flopped on his promise to fire anyone at the White House implicated in a leak. We now know from press reports that at least Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby are implicated in these leaks and may have lied during the investigation.
Instead of a President concerned first and foremost with protecting this country and the intelligence officers who serve it, we are confronted with a President who is willing to sit by while political operatives savage the reputations of good Americans like Valerie and Joe Wilson.
This is wrong and this is shameful.
We deserve people who work in the White House who are committed to protecting classified information, telling the truth to the American people, and living by example the idea that a country at war with Islamic extremists cannot focus its efforts on attacking other American citizens who simply tried to tell the truth.
I am Larry Johnson.
Thank you for listening.
Comments (47) «
"Instead of a President concerned first and foremost with protecting this country and the intelligence officers who serve it..."
to no one's surprise...add to it the lack of body armor in iraq. i'm sure the white-house is overprotected...try accidently flying near or over.
The Sunday shows are sure trying to cover up the depth of disgust the intelligence community has for the president over the Plame leak. Russert and the rest are going for all Roberts all the time, it appears.
The intelligence community and the military generals will not be ignored. Both institutions feel that the politicans are destroying their ability to survive. The Russets of this world may think it's all academic. But it isn't. Democracies are born and die in the trenches.
Judge Roberts only has a bench to sit on, because those like Johnson take risks for that democracy. Why should they continue to do it, if the media ignores them?
The media is going to as it's in place to do which is to spin any story the White House wants turned around a jillion times and that's what's happening with the Rove leak.
The one thing I haven't said in all of this is that Rove is a disgusting human being. First he knew this woman had a husband and secondly this woman has children, but evidently he didn't give a damn. Now if someone carried the same mindthink about his wife and kids I'm pretty sure Rove would come out like a raging bull. but oh no because the administration doesn't like what this woman's husband said about getting in the war then his wife becomes "fair game".
And since everyone from the top down is involved in this episode, lets start digging in with THEIR families. Those Bush twins who will probably never work a day in their lives partake with the alcohol and whatever else available and no one is dragging Cheney's gay daughter through the hoops.
What the White House did and I say White House because I'm not giving this to Rove alone was reprehensible and atrocious. They literally trashed this woman's life, career and family and placed she and those that know her in danger.
Being a woman with a spiritual belief in a higher being, I know there is someone who sits high and looks low and folks one does reap what they sow and it doesn't always come back as one puts it out.
Oh, I don't think the story is going to die. It's just that the DC insiders haven't got the meme, yet.
People are pissed about Plame.
I was up until past 3am last night listening to Larry Johnson at some hearings with John Conyers and others on CspaN.
iT was (and still is) a horrifying thought to me that our country has dove head first into the gutter with this administration!!
I served my country in the 80's and it just mortifies me that we have come to this!!!
Treason at the highest levels and in MY lifetime and from as close to MY generation as I EVER want to come!
Despicable and so "thug like" (to coin THEIR term)
Yea who's the real THUG? Shameful.
Why you must push to have Rove fired is beyond me. There has to be more important things to try to achieve.The President is not can not run again. Why should you waste your time. Maybe it is just a victory you need to feel better about yourselves. The President put up Roberts for supreme court. The guy is squeeky clean yet everyone is asking for donations to fight someone that will be confirmed no matter what. What a waste of time and money. Are we still looking for a victory. Lets pick a good fight.
Treason has been committed, this abuse of power cannot be tolerated.
"Why you must push to have Rove fired is beyond me." Posted by FloridaBob on July 23, 2005 at 05:38 PM
floridabob,
i wouldn't suggest firing. instead, the reporter who's spent 16(?) days in jail be released for good behavior, and rove-libby-novak-etc. then spend 16 days in jail for bad behavior.
New York Times
July 24, 2005
Eight Days in July
By FRANK RICH
PRESIDENT BUSH'S new Supreme Court nominee was a historic first after all: the first to be announced on TV dead center in prime time, smack in the cross hairs of "I Want to Be a Hilton." It was also one of the hastiest court announcements in memory, abruptly sprung a week ahead of the White House's original timetable. The agenda of this rushed showmanship - to change the subject in Washington - could not have been more naked. But the president would have had to nominate Bill Clinton to change this subject.
When a conspiracy is unraveling, and it's every liar and his lawyer for themselves, the story takes on a momentum of its own. When the conspiracy is, at its heart, about the White House's twisting of the intelligence used to sell the American people a war - and its desperate efforts to cover up that flimflam once the W.M.D. cupboard proved bare and the war went south - the story will not end until the war really is in its "last throes."
Only 36 hours after the John Roberts unveiling, The Washington Post nudged him aside to second position on its front page. Leading the paper instead was a scoop concerning a State Department memo circulated the week before the outing of Joseph Wilson's wife, the C.I.A. officer Valerie Plame, in literally the loftiest reaches of the Bush administration - on Air Force One. The memo, The Post reported, marked the paragraph containing information about Ms. Plame with an S for secret. So much for the cover story that no one knew that her identity was covert.
But the scandal has metastasized so much at this point that the forgotten man Mr. Bush did not nominate to the Supreme Court is as much a window into the White House's panic and stonewalling as its haste to put forward the man he did. When the president decided not to replace Sandra Day O'Connor with a woman, why did he pick a white guy and not nominate the first Hispanic justice, his friend Alberto Gonzales? Mr. Bush was surely not scared off by Gonzales critics on the right (who find him soft on abortion) or left (who find him soft on the Geneva Conventions). It's Mr. Gonzales's proximity to this scandal that inspires real fear.
snip~
THE second narrative to be unearthed in the scandal's early timeline is the motive for this reckless vindictiveness against anyone questioning the war. On May 1, 2003, Mr. Bush celebrated "Mission Accomplished." On May 29, Mr. Bush announced that "we found the weapons of mass destruction." On July 2, as attacks increased on American troops, Mr. Bush dared the insurgents to "bring 'em on." But the mission was not accomplished, the weapons were not found and the enemy kept bringing 'em on. It was against this backdrop of mounting desperation on July 6 that Mr. Wilson went public with his incriminating claim that the most potent argument for the war in the first place, the administration's repeated intimations of nuclear Armageddon, involved twisted intelligence.
snip~
In July 2005, there are still no W.M.D.'s, and we're still waiting to hear the full story of how, in the words of the Downing Street memo, the intelligence was fixed to foretell all those imminent mushroom clouds in the run-up to war in Iraq. The two official investigations into America's prewar intelligence have both found that our intelligence was wrong, but neither has answered the question of how the administration used that wrong intelligence in selling the war. That issue was pointedly kept out of the charter of the Silberman-Robb commission; the Senate Intelligence Committee promised to get to it after the election but conspicuously has not.
The real crime here remains the sending of American men and women to Iraq on fictitious grounds. Without it, there wouldn't have been a third-rate smear campaign against an obscure diplomat, a bungled cover-up and a scandal that - like the war itself - has no exit strategy that will not inflict pain.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/opinion/24rich.html?hp=&pagewanted=print
or here~
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/24/opinion/24rich.html?hp
posted really at 3:00PM Hawaii time on the 22nd
The hits will keep on comin'
Everything Rove-Luskin has leaked has been printed in a form most favorable to the Rove defense without a word of leaked input from the prosecutor. When the prosecutor tells his story, don't expect him to accept Rove's currently uncontested claim that he does not recall who told him that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent and don't expect the "old news" spin to work. When the prosecutor has his day, he is going to make new news.
Lawrence O'Donnell: The Rove-Luskin Leaks
I can't think of anything sweeter then having that bald geek Ari Fleicher put in handcuffs for helping to out Wilson's wife.
Actually, there is one thing that would be better...Seeing that Captain Kangaroo looking sissy John Bolton getting thrown in jail for the same thing.
"that Captain Kangaroo looking sissy John Bolton"
collegednc,
john bolton ain't no captain kangaroo. i grew up w/captain and he awed me...bolton nauseates me
I understand that the British are on edge and that thier security people are doing everything they can to keep another attack from happening.
Having said that, this is NO excuse for killing an innocent person.
The British are falling into that same trap they fell into in Northern ireland.
During the 30 year war with the IRA, the British took to killing innocnet Irish Catholics out of frustration that they couldn't make headway against the IRA.
The Brits either personally killed innocent Catholics or they hired Loyalist Terrorists to do it for them.
The result was that the IRA grew stronger and eventually managed to bomb and assassinate the Brits into recognizing that Ireland was not thiers to control.
The Brits are now dealing with a non political terror organization in Al Qaida, which although not quite as skilled as the IRA is every bit as ruthless. The difference is that the IRA were more of a legitimate guerilla organization which was willing to use politics in place of violence if the Brits were willing to negotiate.
Al Qaida is a TRUE terrorist organization that has no real political goals...they just want British and Americans and Christians and Jews (and everyone else who doesen't think like they do) dead.
Britian must fight Al Qaida in the same way we have and in the same way Israel has fought hezbollah and Hamas...with lethal force.
However, they must not do what they did in Northern Ireland or what Israel has done many times in Palestine, namely they must no be so overzealous that they kill or harm innocents in order to protect hier country.
Mr. Johnson and thank you for your truthfulness and standing up to this Administration. Thank you for addressing this issue today.
Thank you for caring about our country and humanity.
Rarely would I suggest letting a troll post stay up, but the troll post at 5:38 is so bluntly revealing of the thought processes of these people, that it absolutely SHOULD stay up so that we can see them for the traitors they truly are.
The post begins
Why you must push to have Rove fired is beyond me.
Uh, why do you think? Maybe to stop someone who is willing to sell out his country-- OUR country-- from having access to more classifed information? DUH.
The post then goes on to describe it purely in partisan political terms. So, the poster is apparently of the same mind as Rove; scoring political points is so important that it is even OK to commit treason during time of war if that will score you a point.
It's a good thing that I'm against the death penalty, because otherwise I would say that Quislings Karl Rove and Scooter Libby deserved to hang at the end of a rope for betraying their country.
Resort To Fear
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9549.htm
By Noam Chomsky
07/23/05 "ZNet" - - The resort to fear by systems of power to discipline the domestic population has left a long and terrible trail of bloodshed and suffering which we ignore at our peril. Recent history provides many shocking illustrations.
(snip)
Such matters are excluded from war crimes tribunals, and largely expunged from history. By now they are hardly known beyond circles of activists and specialists. At the time they were
publicly hailed as a legitimate exercise of self-defence against a vicious enemy that had reached the ultimate level of infamy by bombing US military bases in its Hawaiian and Philippine colonies.
(snip)
Just how secure the rich men must be from fear is revealed graphically by highly-regarded scholarship on the new doctrines of “anticipatory self-defence” crafted by the powerful. The most important contribution with some historical depth is by one of the leading contemporary historians, John Lewis Gaddis of Yale University. He traces the Bush doctrine to his intellectual hero, the grand strategist John Quincy Adams. In the paraphrase of The New York Times, Gaddis “suggests that Bush’s framework for fighting terrorism has its roots in the lofty, idealistic tradition of John Quincy Adams and Woodrow Wilson”.
(snip)
…The rhetorical framework rests on three pillars (Weeks): “the assumption of the unique moral virtue of the United States, the assertion of its mission to redeem the world” by spreading its professed ideals and the ‘American way of life,’ and the faith in the nation’s “divinely ordained destiny”. The theological framework undercuts reasoned debate, and reduces policy issues to a choice between Good and Evil, thus reducing the threat of democracy. Critics can be dismissed as “anti-American,” an interesting concept borrowed from the lexicon of totalitarianism. And the population must huddle under the umbrella of power, in fear that its way of life and destiny are under imminent threat…
Posted really at 10:04PM Hawaii time Sat nite
An Iraqi government newspaper said Saturday that toppled President Saddam Hussein was expected to be sentenced and executed within weeks.
My, this is a sleepy place. Even so, you deserve to know that the Boston Globe has Dean on its magazine cover.
Enjoy
click
We've known. of course, that the torture of foreign captives in American military prisons was implicitly authorized by a Presidential "finding" in February of 2002.
We had hoped that in the interim the present Administration has recognized that the results of the policy decisions were morally wrong.
We are astonished to find this is not the case--that the Administration is threatening to veto the appropriations bill for all our soldiers, airmen, marines and national guard troops if it contains a prohibition against such abuse.
Threatening the well-being of innocent people in order to force others to do one's bidding is the strategy of the terrorist.
Good morning!
Keep those letters coming to the editor of your local newspapers! We have to keep Rove (Doesn't he remind you of the caroon figure, Porky Pig?) in the spotlight.
Great NY Times article today by Frank Rich. Check it out!
hi all,
like to suggest this strand stay about the scandal ...seems like it's turning into an open thread...or am i missin' somethin'? no i'm not the blog monitor!
please all, back to topic...Weekly Radio Address: Larry Johnson on Valerie Plame Posted by Jesse Berney on July 23, 2005 at 12:19 PM
my sunday paper has a large writeup about this on-going controversy including call from republican cia larry, callin' mr bush to do what he said... "i'll deal w/who ever..." but don't expect any action from bush...he'll be busy speaking at all those friendly pre-staged rallies where he arrogantly smirks and his audience claps-cheers-smiles...and not speak at those open news conferences where he's spinnin' and divertin' w/lines like "...on-going investigation" reminds me of his election line..."it's hard work" ... in the meanwhile a reporter sits in jail...17(?) days...again i suggest she be released for good behavior and rove-libby-novak-etc be assigned 17 days for bad behavior...
"Doesn't he remind you of the caroon figure, Porky Pig?"
paulko,
rove is no porky pig. i grewup watching porky and he was kind and gentle. rove's a swindler and meddler.
What the Hell?
That's what a Republican Senator friend of mine had to say when he read my call for a Democrat majority in Congress-- or at least in one of the two Houses-- in 2006. However, I feel, that were he to look at how absolute power corrupts absolutely-- case in point Speaker DeLay-- perhaps we Republicans ought to be more careful in what we wish for, given the blight our wishes brought upon us. After all, before DeLay we had Gingrich. And though he walked out after getting caught without making too much of a fuss, he couldn't resist that "call" inside his brainstem-- more to ego than "to serve" myth-- and is now embarrassing us all bucking for the presidency and introduced on FOX-TV as if he speaks for all of us Republicans.
How I miss the days when the Democrats had one side of the Congress, the Senate, and the Republicans just swept the House right from under Bill (is is) Clinton. In adversity, Bill Clinton showed us that he not only has "cahones" (though a bit overactive) but also a cerebral cortex to more than match his pituitary. He devours writ en words as if they were feminine parts and processes issues as if thinking brought him orgasms.
Clinton was at his best after taking a severe body blow from us Republicans, who for decades were so outraged, for example, by the WELFARE EMPIRE devouring urban America. It was composed of a massive bureaucracy that both kept clients down, insuring sloth on their part and rewarded irresponsible reproduction. One might say its motto was: "WE REWARD REPRODUCERS WHO DON'T PRODUCE WITH CASH." I recall my outrage upon learning, however, that the welfare clients were not the problem; for example, in New York, they got only 17 cents out of every welfare dollar while the bureaucracy ate up the other 83 cents. Ron Reagan tried to dent the bureaucracy of welfare. However, when he couldn't he just went after the most vulnerable in order to get some results: the disabled, who could not protect themselves. It was Bill Clinton who hopped into bed with the Republican Congress and together created the most revolutionary welfare reform in American history. That's what the Founding Fathers told us to do "persevere and compromise relentlessly" to produce bipartisan legislation in the people's service.
Personally, in 2000 I looked into GW Bush's soul-- so I thought-- and saw humble, candid, compassionate conservatism from a man who hit rock bottom and crawled his way out, Bible in hand. Alas, I failed to check how much gray matter was left after a life of coke and booze. We thus got a president, unfortunately, whom no one yet has described as well as his former Sec. of the Treasury, O'Neill: a blind man talking to the deaf.
When crisis hit on 9/11, Evil Dick Cheney and carnivorous Rumsfeld got together with the Devil's Disciples, the neocons-- and did exactly what they used to practice doing back in the Reagan years. Back then, Cheney and Rumsfeld, though private citizens with no official authority, would go to the depths of a mountain cave to form an "alternate US Govt," in case the White House was nuked by the Soviets. Asked why they don't take members of Congress, given the succession rules in the Constitution, they insisted that such an alternative government had to be decisive and Congressmen would slow them down. Well, come 9/11, Evil Dick sent President GW Bush on Air Force One to circle around the Midwest while he took over the government. It was then that the Iraq War was hatched out. But, when meeting with Cheney and the neocon cabal at Camp David, Bush had to shut them down, insisting that we WILL attack Afghanistan, not Iraq, as they demanded.
Yet, Evil Dick dicked us all by beating at Bush until he went along with an Iraq War. Since Bush reads nothing, has a limited attention span and little memory, he couldn't argue; all he could finally do was accept the Cheney-Rumsfeld-neocon demand for war in principle in order to delay the war until Saddam Hussein is-- he hoped-- deposed by his own people, thus avoiding war. However, when the cabal threatened to expose Bush's indecisiveness, he relented and gave the "Saddam, ya got 48 hrs, ta git outa Baaagghdaaad!" speech. From that point on, Bush focused on the DECISIVE WAR PRESIDENT myth weaved by court scribe Woodward, the ahistoric picture of "Bush's War."
Finally, after re-election, Bush grew Clintonesque cohones too and he threw out all the neocons, locked Cheney down in the basement and took over the Administration. Cabinet status was based on two criteria: (1) never bring GW bad news; (2) be loyal no matter what, just like the tree monkeys that see, hear nor speak evil. Alas, cahones ain't no substitute for gray matter of the cerebral kind. And so Bush focused exclusively on paying off the robber barons that payed for his campaign by giving America over to them, piece by piece.
Noting that the White House had no foreign policy, no economic policy, no environmental policy, just engaged in the great give away at taxpayer's expense and the failing war in Iraq, Republican legislators became nervous-- especially Republican Congressmen, for there's no one more accountable to the public than Congressmen, and they will face a hostile public, per the polls, in 2006. Rove, however, assured them that he would pull off another miracle as he did in 2002 and 2004. Considering himself the Pied Piper of the Christian Yahoos, he insists that he will deliver votes galore.
Unfortunately, a funny thing happened to Rove on the way to the Forum. Diverting attention of the Plame investigation (the exposing of a CIA covert operative in order to punish her husband for NOT proving Cheney's WMDs lies true) onto himself, a political operative, away from Cheney's neocon parallel NSC of Middle East fanatics, who did have clearance and appropriate legal responsibility, he lost all his seeming impenetrable glow. The more Bush came to his defense, the more he stepped in his own doodoo.
Now Republican legislators are coming to realize that they are Republicans, not Rove trolls. They realize that the balding little guy does not put them into office with his campaign magic, but the voters do with confidence. They realize that, like the Democrat Party, the Republican Party is a party of the people, not of Evil Dick and Dumb George. THAT IS INDEED A REVOLUTION, in every way as important as the Welfare Revolution because now the Republican Congressmen that Rove thought he controls like trained seals realize that their words must reflect the thinking of the voters, not of Rove.
And, for the first time, all those Americans who shut closed their minds when first presented the CRIMINAL NEGLIGENCE of GW Bush and the CRIMINAL INTENT of Evil Dick Cheney during the first term, are given another chance to revisit how we as a nation got into such a mess in less than five years. However Rove cajoles, intimidates and tries to buy off Republican legislators, truth is, everyone realizes that he is a moral midget instead of a frightening ogre. Consequently, when he rants his usual bravado: I'll kill him, tear him limb from limb; I'll squeeze him until he stops breathing; I'll get this s.o.b. and shake him till he can suffer no more, etc., Rove is seen as a puny little pain in the butt, just like like the Wizard of Oz.
All this forebodes a great prospect for the Democrats. But not so if Mrs. Clinton on her way to presidential candidacy accepts to embrace the neocons in return for lots of seed money for her campaign. Already, watching her on MEET THE PRESS from Baghdad, it was impossible to know which, she or Sen. McCain, sitting next to her, was answering the questions-- BOTH were spouting identical BUSHIT!
I don't know if there's any connection between Bill's bad mixing of sex and politics and Hilary's political prostitution, but it ain't gonna work. Americans in the last election chose not to know because they didn't want to know how we got stuck in Iraq-- they were still to frightened by 9/11. After all, most people suffered then from the "ain't my kid going to Iraq" syndrome. But now they have a chance to review what they sent soldiers into by voting for Bush. This time they can't escape the fact that if you don't consider every soldier in Iraq and Afghanistan as "MY KID," you are nothing but a Bushit American. Real Americans will save their souls and this time will want to know why and how. As a result, we enter the 2006 Campaign again debating history. But this time, we won't be debating the Vietnam War of 30 years ago, as in 2004, but the Iraq War, begun three years ago by Evil Dick, Avaricious Rummy and the nutty neocons.
If the Democrats will not get over their awe of Rove, and will seek to emulate him in order to win elections, we will soon know. With Dr. Howard Dean on call as Chief of the DNC, Democrats are all being inoculated with polar positions that leave a wide space between Rove and Democrat principles. For that, Dr. Dean is cursed by all the Rove-copy cats. Hilary's bonding with the neocons, pretending that they are the returned prodigal sons, won't hold water when they are examined by Dr. Dean. Dr. Dean knows very well the difference between the patient and the cancer. He will not permit the metastasis to spread on.
Yet, we little people who only get to vote once in a while for one or the other candidate that the two parties put before us, know full well that politicians-- Democrat or Republicans-- are whores. Thus, neocons prowling dark corners with big bucks in hand will seem irresistible. But remember, once Democrats catch VD from the neocons, all these Democrat candidates will have no place else to go but to Dr. Dean for treatment. Then we will all know where you've been and what you did.
What Bush is made of is evident from the Pentagon's leak of a British document and then the admission that, yes, next year a lot of troops will be pulled out of Iraq. But so desperate are the Rovites that instead of bringing them home for Christmas, the Rovites are waiting until just before the 2006 election to bring them back. Don't you all get angry at the assumption that you are so dumb?
As a dying and disgusted old man, I can only thank God that in their disgust with politics my children chose to fight back rather than roll over and play dead for the likes of Evil Dick Cheney and the robber barons. That means that from now on politicians will be punished for prostitution ABOVE the belt, not just below. OUR kids will look at everything we chose not to see, instead passing on the burden to them. They will not waste time cursing us. Instead they will make us see what we should have done before we close our eyes forever. Thanks kids-- kick ass-- daddy loves ya!
Daniel E. Teodoru
Mr. Teodoru, Sir,
That was a truly inspiring and (pardon the overuse of this word, but it's how I really feel) 'awesome' post you posted above. I may have to reference a few times in the coming days when certain trolls return to this blog and start spewing their inane comments.
Thank you for your insight, wisdom, and knowledge. I look forward to more of your thoughts.
Respectfully,
Casey
Thnaks for your perspective, Danielet, there is a lot of good sense in what you say.
BTW, I take back my pre-criticism of the Sunday shows. I wathed "Meet the Press" and "This Week", and they gave the Roberts/Rove stories about the empasis they each deserved, I think.
I liked the way Tim "Pimp Slapped"
that loser GOP lackey William Sapphire, when he attempted to imply that Valerie Plame wasn't "Really Undercover".
This is the most pathetic and disgracefull argument that the Bush administration and thier media stooges have given as to why a CIA agent was betrayed by Karl Rove.
It is a sign of desperation for Bush that he has to stoop to this level for his girlfriend Karl Rove.
As for Judy Miller, she deserves to be in jail for helping to cover up a crime. The only sad thing is that a cowardly traitor like Robert Novak isn't rotting along side her.
I didn't mention in my previous post that Russert confronted John McCain with Larry Johnson's challenge, made in Friday's Democratic hearing on the CIA leak, to be a Republican who would speak out on this issue. McCain failed miserably, peddling Mehlman talking points and White House stonewalls.
I hope everyone will see now that McCain is little different from any of the Republicans, and certainly no candidate for a Democrat to long for.
Yes, CollegeDNC, that was good discipline that Tim handed the etymologyst. I think Bill should stick to his language column in NYTimes Magazine "On Language" and retire from politics.
CollegeDNC - howdy, and welcome to this blog.
I agree with you - it seems like Bush's Administration (and this is just my personal opinion) is really grasping at *anything* with this Plame investigation. I find it so darn hypocritical to have McClellan echo Bush's rhetoric about "not talking about an ongoing investigation" while Mehlman is out spreadings lies and deceit.
It seems like they are just throwing everything they have against to wall to "see what sticks." I could be wrong here, but that is what it looks like to me.
Why you must push to have Rove fired is beyond me." Posted by FloridaBob on July 23, 2005 at 05:38 PM
Duh? If Rove is the source of the leak, and it sures looks that way, he is guilty of treason - that's merits punishment beyond simply firing him.
I'll turn this typical Republican line of attack around and ask why must Republicans protect Rove?
Why must the RNC issue slanderous talking points meant to smear Valerie and Joe Wilson, when a serious breach of national security has been committed?
Why must the Republican party engage in trash talk, when they should be getting to the bottom of a leak that destroyed an clandestine operation investigating WMD proliferation?
Don't the Republicans boast they are strong on national security? Yet, it's the Democrats that are concerned about protecting the nation while the Republicans follow a power crazy immoral agenda.
Casey, i agree. They're hoping to find something that sticks. But their own refusal to speak is growing to be a bigger story.
Wasn't there another group of agents who spoke out the other day in a op-ed? The morale must be pretty low....mirrors the troops in Iraq.
I thank Larry Johnson and the other ex-agents for their service and having the courage to speak out on this issue.
This is truly a dark chapter in American history. An undercover operation was exposed as a political vendetta by the White House. Both the agent and the cover company were compromised. Hundreds of lives have been put at risk. To think, Valerie Wilson's operation was about WMD proliferation!
The politicians and pundits who continue to cover this up are as reprehensible as the people that did it.
Hey Joe Rospars...or whoever is in charge...
Do ya have to have a flattering publicity head shot of Karl Rove dominating the DNC website? There are plenty odf shots of Karl lurking in the background with Bush/Cheney out front. The whole gang of them is implicated in this Plame thing...do not think it stops at Rove.
Please either remove Karl's picture or get one that better represents what is going on.
And again...please please please fix the RSS feed...see my "contact us" and other emails.
Thanks...site looks good, could use some major tweaking is all.
John Roberts was listed in the directory of the Federalist Society in 97-98, also listed on the steering committee of the group.
He said he did not remember if he was ever a member or not. Don't Supreme Court judges need good memories?
Click my name for the story at the WP.
Daniel E. Teodoru,
Thanks for the very righteous rant. I had missed it earlier tonight when I checked in here. I am saving it to share with some friends. It was heartfelt and powerful.
I only wish our sons would keep up the fight against this bunch when we are not here anymore...but they alas are part of them. At least our daughters see the light.
Sunday, July 24, 2005
Ashcroft v. Bush
Here are the opening paragraphs of a history book of the future:
It is a measure of the depths to which the administration of George W. "W" Bush had sunk that it was the integrity of John Ashcroft that ultimately led to Bush's trial for war crimes.
Ashcroft's integrity had previously gone undetected. He was a reviled figure, a Republican hack who famously had failed to beat a dead man in a Missouri election, and who, as Bush's Attorney General, was enthusiastic about some of the most dour and dubious legal propositions ever advanced by the nation's chief law enforcement officer. Mocked for his prudishness and his pious, unmusical singing of mawkish gospel and patriotic songs he wrote himself, Ashcroft was an unlikely figure to start the process that sent Bush reeling into disgrace and condign punishment.
When Ashcroft, after taking a quick and horrified look at the Administration's defense in the spy-leaking affair, quickly recused himself from investigating anyone or anything. In retrospect it is clear that he did so because he was not prepared to exonerate anyone or everyone. His recusal forced the appointment of the special prosecutor whose indictments had such far-reaching consequences. Soon after, Ashcroft resigned as Attorney General and was replaced by Alberto Gonzalez, whose own legal problems were such a colorful sideshow in the proceedings that brought down the Bush administration.
Ashcroft turned out to be the smartest and most honorable member of that administration. "I wasn't going to carry the can for Karl Rove," Ashcroft wrote in his gossipy and vindictive memoir, When the Eagle Lands, He Eats Garbage. The rueful title makes reference to Ashcroft's optimistic patriotic song "Let the Eagle Soar".
Tom Parmenter
I never thought that anyone could make me appreciate Ashcroft for anything, short of hardening opposition toward he and his friends. Its the little cracks in the wall, holding back all the lies and distortions, which will eventualy drown this sleazy, good old boys club. And if Ashcroft has any thanks coming his way for it, sign me up. Thats what Rove's utter arrogance is going to get him, contempt from his own side. Lets not forget the way he ruined McCain in South Carolina.
So apparently (despite the lies of the Bush administration) Al Qaida is up and running again, with Bin Laden at the helm.
This is as pathetic as it is inexcusable.
Bitch Laden and his girlfriend Al Zwahirri, should have been wasted 3 years ago, but no, this President has to screw EVERYTHING up by invading Iraq.
The way I see it, since Bush has basically diverted 90% of our military and intelligence to this Iraq bullshit, he is partly responsible for the continued mass killings done my Al Qaida.
The President has had over three years to find Bin Laden and kill him deader then shit, and he STILL can't get the job done.
Well, I guess that's what happens when you elect a boy to do a man's job
Posted by CollegeDNC on July 25, 2005 at 07:18 AM
Well, here it is July 25th and no new thread yet. Howard always was a little dense about communicating on the web.
Anyway, CollegeDNC, you seem to be missing the big picture. Osama was only important because he forced the US out of Saudi Arabia and made it even more imperative that Saddam Hussein go along with the scheme to get permanent US military facilities (14 bases, orgininally) in Iraq on the western edge of the Persian Gulf/Indian Ocean Region--i.e. on China's southern flank. Which, I would argue was the impetus for Vietnam when China was still a communist threat. Now that it's a communist capitalist competitor, it's even more important that it be "contained" by our military might in that part of the globe.
Of course, the fact that our might is somewhat tarnished by the fight with the Iraqi insurgents is a gross embarrassment. Shock and Awe was supposed to be an impressive display of all our new toys (weapons).
Since we already knew that Iraq had virtually no military assets left after months of clandestine bombardment before the war even started, the display of fire-power was obviously intended to impress the other interests in the area--to send the message that other nations had better "behave" themselves of the US would come whop them too.
The lies that have been told are so multitudinous that nothing can be believed. Not even that the bin Laden tapes are even real.
CollegeDNC - You are correct, Bush has had over three years to find bin Laden. But, with that in mind, just remember what he said on March 13, 2002:
"And, again, I don't know where he [bin Laden] is. I -- I'll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him..."
That is truly sad.
Peter Galbraith has an interesting op-ed in the Globe this morning.
click to read
My thoughts in response:
That the Iraqi people are fussing over the allocation of their natural resouces should not come as a surprise. The Interim Constitution that Bremer shoved down their throats made it quite clear that the American occupation was directed towards achieving what they had failed to get out of Saddam Hussein, preferential access to All of Iraq's natural resources (land, water, minerals and oil).
What most Americans probably missed was that, under Saddam Hussein, Iraq was a socialist state and most natural and capital assets belonged to the state. In theory, this should have made it easy for American corporate interests to acquire exclusive long-term leases and buy up Iraq's resources cheaply. In theory, it also should have made it easy for the United States to negotiate the construction of those fourteen military bases we wanted to have there in order to assert our dominance over the Indian Ocean basin. But, Saddam was resistant. That's why he had to be removed.
Easy access to Iraqi oil is nice, but we really don't need it. Much more important to military bases in the desert are water and electricity to keep the troops cool and replicate all the comforts of home.
John Kerry has challenged the Administration to declare that the US has no interest in the permanent bases we are even now building. He expressed that conviction during the campaign. Which made it absolutely imperative that he be defeated. A permanent American military presence in the region has been the Pentagon's goal for several decades. Very likely it's what drove the occupation of Vietnam. Fat chance they will give up that dream without a fight.
And to think, that fellow Chalabi promised it would be easy.
Anytime we can find a Republican like Larry Johnson that comes out against Bush or the administration, we gotta get him on Now with Bill Moyers. We'll call it the balance of the so called liberal activist journalism on PBS.
Now is hosted by David Brancaccio..
"Wide Angle" is Bill Moyers new show. In Everett/Seattle/Tacoma he is on Tuesday at 10:30 pm -- KCTS.
Find your local station here:
« Hide Comments
Comments are now closed for this entry.
