Not a bit Quaker. Consider that he said Libby was the first official to got to reporters. Wht didn’t he say Libby blew her cover? Much easier sentence to write and much clearer. On top of that he doesn’t charge leaking. Why again? Did he just forget. Frame, without a solid backup, thinks Fitz couldn’t prove intent. If thats true why say what he said – go half way. Answer: you go half way becasue thats allth eir is. As of July Plames cover was blown. AAndrea Mitchtell strongly implies her CIA affilaition was known by reporters. Her ex boss says it was common knowledge she was CIA. Other reports are of Aldrich Ames ands/or the cubnas blowing her cover in the nineties. Take your pick, but Fitz was careful with his wording and didn’t say Libby blew her cover.

frame,

Either give me evidence that Fitz said Libby blew her cover or give up. Posting three pages of pastes does not impress me. Give me the quote whre Fitz says Libby blew her cover. You haven’t done it and won’t be able to.

Dugger

But let’s go back to what Fitzgerald said “Libby disclosed classified information about Valerie Wilson.” That’s a direct quote. The indictment also says this: “At all relevant times from January 1, 2002 through July 2003, Valerie Wilson was employed by the CIA, and her employment status was classified.”

I just want you to be clear on this. Fitzgerald considered information about Valerie Wilson’s job classified and he said that Libby disclosed that information.

But let’s look at the indictment. Fitzgerald set out to discover the following:

i. When, and the manner and means by which, defendant LIBBY learned that Wilson s wife was employed by the CIA;
ii. Whether and when LIBBY disclosed to members of the media that Wilson s wife was employed by the CIA;
iii. The language used by LIBBY in disclosing any such information to the media, including whether LIBBY expressed uncertainty about the accuracy of any information he may have disclosed, or described where he obtained the information;
iv. LIBBY s knowledge as to whether any information he disclosed was classified at the time he disclosed it; and
v. Whether LIBBY was candid with Special Agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation in describing his conversations with the other government officials and the media relating to Valerie Wilson.

What did Fitzgerald find and what did he charge Libby with? Here you go:

In or about March 2004, in the District of Columbia,
I. LEWIS LIBBY, also known as  SCOOTER LIBBY, defendant herein, did knowingly and corruptly endeavor to influence, obstruct and impede the due administration of justice, namely proceedings before Grand Jury 03-3, by misleading and deceiving the grand jury as to when, and the manner and means by which, LIBBY acquired and subsequently disclosed to the media information concerning the employment of Valerie Wilson by the CIA.

During the press conference, Fitzgerald was asked directly whay he didn’t charge Libby with leaking classified information even though he sys Libby disclosed classified information about Valerie Wilson. Here’s what Fitzgerald said:

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, this began as a leak investigation but no one is charged with any leaking. Is your investigation finished? Is this another leak investigation that doesn’t lead to a charge of leaking?

FITZGERALD: Well, why is this a leak investigation that doesn’t result in a charge? I’ve been trying to think about how to explain this, so let me try. I know baseball analogies are the fad these days. Let me try something.

If you saw a baseball game and you saw a pitcher wind up and throw a fastball and hit a batter right smack in the head, and it really, really hurt them, you’d want to know why the pitcher did that. And you’d wonder whether or not the person just reared back and decided, “I’ve got bad blood with this batter. He hit two home runs off me. I’m just going to hit him in the head as hard as I can.”

You also might wonder whether or not the pitcher just let go of the ball or his foot slipped, and he had no idea to throw the ball anywhere near the batter’s head. And there’s lots of shades of gray in between.

In this case, it’s a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn’t to one person. It wasn’t just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us.

And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?

FITZGERALD: Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?

And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He’s trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.

As you sit here now, if you’re asking me what his motives were, I can’t tell you; we haven’t charged it.

So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make.

I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge.

This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime.

You see Dugger? Fitzgerald answered your question. You just refuse to hear it.

“Libby was the leaker” is NOT the same as “Libby was the first to go to reporters with the information”?

A distinction without a difference.

I challenge you to show me where Fitz said Libby blew her cover. I challenge you to show me where he said Libby was the leaker but he couldn’t prove intent. What Fitzgerald actually said, as you have been informed before and t doesn’t seem to sink in, is that they considered Libby to be the first offical to go to reporters with the information. Not at all the same thing – except maybe in Paranoia-ville.

Dugger

El Hacko Supremo, indeed.

I made it quite clear that there were plenty of reasons why the war was a bad idea that had nothing to do with the lies that lead us there. You’re brief case against the war is so full of strawmen you could print it up and stick it in a corn field.

I will also note that it is you have been forced to change your tune with the Wilson investigation several times. I notice your original argument that there was an important distinction between “Wilson’s wife” and “Valerie Plame” is now a non-starter. You are also forced to parse Fitzgerald’s comments to death in order make your points. You’re down to arguing what the meaning of “is” is but even then you have to completely ignore your own argument to arrive at your pre-ordained conclusion.

Yes, Dugger, at some point Wilson’s cover was blown. Fitzgerald says it was blown in July of 2003. There’s no other way to read this except the way it was intended: Sometime during the month of July in the year 2003 Valerie Wilson’s cover was blown. Fitzgerald was very clear in his language throughout the press conference.

And yet you still manage to take that direct statement and argue that her cover was blown before July 2003 which is why Fitzgerald didn’t bring a charge of leaking classified information. But how could that be when Fitzgerald himself says her cover was blown in July 2003? If he had meant something else why didn’t he say that? Why would he have top rely on your genius linguistic skills to divine his true intentions?

And we know exaclty why he didn’t bring charges of leaking classified information and it had nothing to do with the ESTABLISHED FACT that Libby leaked classified information. Fitzgerald said directly that he couldn’t prove intent. It’s like when a lawyer charges someone with manslaughter instead of first degree murder: It doesn’t mean the guy didn’t kill someone.

And yet you continue on … I can only assume you are typing away in some sanitarium somewhere.

Here is a brief case against the Iraq war, devoid of immature leftist cant and bogeyman-ism.

1. Good intentions aren’t enough if the return on investment, lives and money, isn’t meaningful and substantial.
2. We may strike an actual and symbolic blow against terrorism in Iraq, kill many terrorists who are drawn to Iraq, but we still don’t fix the worldwide problem with the Iraq action alone. Cost versus benefits.
3. The biggest. We will not stabilize Iraq. The societal structure is old testament brutal, and theocratic. It will revert the minute we leave and our good plans and brave soldiers efforts will show little net return.
4. We are not in a Vietnam type quagmire, because we accomplished our major combat mission (well done GIs), but we have no clearcut and near term means of leaving – short of leaving a mess.
5. the war is costly and the budget is escalating, especillay with hurricane recovery programs. Can we afford Iraq now?

Dugger, El Hacko de Supremo!

I know I’ve won when I see the harsh profanity (but then thats the way you do business – some call it compensating, others rank immaturity).

As to the statement on Valerie’s cover being blown, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to know that at some point her cover was blown. But the Fitz wording could mean that it was blown on that date or it blown as of that date. Read it again and then consider context. Why did he say “in” instead of “on” if it was blown ‘on’ that date ? And why no prosecution (see: thinking going on, try it!)? Because, frame, ol bud’, IT WAS ALREADY BLOWN!!!! Your problem is with Fitz. He’s not prosecuting for leaks or blown covers. Is that because he’s evil? A Republican? Or could you be 100% wrong? Bush hate interferes with your ability to think. As per usual.

Dugger, Hack or genius?

Hack: “The issue in Afghan was terrorism and the Taliban. Those jobs there accomplished.” Here’s the latest:

“KABUL, Nov 13 (Reuters) – Talking, not fighting, is the only way to end Afghanistan s four-year-old Taliban insurgency, the head of the government s commission for national reconciliation said on Sunday.

 Talks, dialogue and negotiations& would prove fruitful for ending the war and reaching an understanding, Sibghatullah Mojadeddi told reporters after a conference aimed at exploring possible talks with the Taliban…

Nearly 30,000 U.S. troops and NATO-led peacekeepers deployed in Afghanistan have failed to quell a low-level guerrilla war with the Taliban and their Islamist allies that has cost more than 1,100 lives this year alone.

Mojadeddi, who briefly served as Afghan president in 1992, said quelling the insurgency along Afghanistan s southern and eastern flanks had proved a difficult task.”

 Despite trying so hard, and conducting many operations& neither the government or the international forces have succeeded in establishing complete peace in Afghanistan, he said.  It is difficult for continuous war to be a solution.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL158983.htm

Hack: Libya? And I guess decades of international sanctions and British diplomacy had no effect at all. Jesus, Dugger, Libya wasn’t even one of the original countries in the axis of evil it was so far off the fucking map in 2001. And please tell me you think North Korea and Iran are cowed. Please.

Hack: So what if there’s no such things as fronts in the WOT we can still fight on a front if we want to. Um, that’s the problem. We’re fighting on a front and the terrorists are fighting wherever they damn well please. No attacks on American soil four years after 9-11? I guess you think Clinton was a national security genius then right? Bush still has three years to go to match Clinton for saftey from Islamic radicals after a terrorist attack.

Hack: We can impose democracy on a region by force. We’ll talk after the the civil war.

Hack: I fail on all points? All you did was present a series of idiotic contrasting statements to me after you demanded we all talk about the merits of the war. How the fuck does you disagreeing with me mean I failed to argue about the merits of the war.

And for total hack supremacy: Fitzgerald used the passive voice to say that Wilson’s cover was blown in July 2003. I take this to mean that Valerie Wilson’s cover was blown in July 2003. What do you think it means?

Or do you not think withholding crucial pieces of the truth constitutes a lie, either?

Um, saying that the nuclear scientists at Oak Ridge support your reading of a certain piece of intelligence when the scientists at Oak Ridge and yet to even see that intelligence is a straight up lie. You’re a fucking hack.

Frame  Valerie Wilson s cover was blown in July 2003. one.

Step one. Go to the dictionary and look up the meaning of the word ‘lie’. You’ll find that it is more than just being able to select two contrasting statements (Clinton is president and Clinton isn’t president, for instance, is not a lie). Your first step will be to divorce yourself from the intellectually lazy, morally reprehensible habit of alleging lie. After that, comes thought. It will hurt at first (screeching ‘lies is admittedly’ easier). Once you get past evil bogeymen and all the sinister plots and conspiracies (remember you allege lies, which is a conscious falsehood) things will actually get easier.

Now to your points. The inspections were not working. Access was being restricted and hampered. And it is unclear still if Iraq had WMNDs and got rid of them or never had them. If the former is true, which seems more likely, it would have been easier to dredevlop a program very quickly – especially with the peollpe who gave us ‘oil for food” on watch.

Geopolitically, we are and were not out to re-make Afghan – merely to overthrow the Taliban. Yes we are not remaking Afghan but that hardly seems to be an earthshaking criticism. The issue in Afghan was terrorism and the Taliban. Those jobs there accomplished.

And those rogue states to whom Iraq sent the wrong message – would Libya be one? I think you are 100% wrong there. Rogue states will under stand power and the projection of power – not kumbaya platitudes from weak western politicians.

So what if there is not a single traditonal front in the WOT. Doesn’t mean you don’t fight in that front becasue its non-traditional. Iraq certainly could be a front and we can point to no attacks on our soil as prima facie evidence that it is working in one realm. And there is also a whole neocon “nation building” argument that postulates reonverting or reforming a backward state like Iraq into a modern democracy would be a great weapon in the WOT. There is no doubt Saddam was a harborer and funder of T anyway.

And what other military crises do we need to be responding to? One could argue that we are still a two major -war front military with no major enemies (in terms of combat projection) – since the fall of the USSR.

So you fail on all points – as you do on Valerie Plame. Libby actually no one has ben charged with leaking or blowing cover. Fitz says her cover was blown passive voice and then notes that Libby was the firsy official on record to talk to reporters.

Bush = no lies. Plame = no leaks charged. None No lies. No leaks charged. Read it and weep.

Dugger

another shining example of the conservative willingness to cling violently to ignorance in the face of the facts

There was nothing even remotely close to violence in my comments.

Why are you assuming that I don’t think Bush exaggerated the evidence in the cases I brought up? I think it is obvious that both the intelligence community and the Bush administration failed the America people miserably. However, when someone incorrectly argues the facts when making that point, all they do is make it easier for others to dismiss their rhetoric as extremism.

All Jadegold had to do was admit the error and correct it. Simple.

I guess your still sticking with your opinion in the face of facts strategy. Not one documented lie? I guess administration officials lying to the New York Times doesn’t count? That lie was documented by the Senate Select Committee Report on Intelligence. The administration did indeed lie us into this war, but that’s not why it was a bad idea. Indeed, the reason the Bush administration had to lie was because there was no other way they could get average Americans to buy their plan.

The invasion of Iraq was a bad idea because, first, there was an easier, cheaper way to accomplish the goal of disarming Iraq: Letting the inspectors already on the ground finish their work. The Bush administration’s show of force and the united front of the international community forced Hussein to let the inspectors back in. If Bush had let it go there and allowed the inspectors to finish their work he might have been hailed as a genius of hardball diplomacy. Because the inspectors would have found that Iraq had no WMDs and Hussein would have been exposed on all fronts as a toothless paper tiger, his standing in the Middle East in tatters. The world would have been behind us and if Bush had played his cards right, this might have been enough to trigger an internal revolt in Iraq and a legitimate democracy might have taken root, not one propped up by US guns. You may say that this is all baseless speculation. If that’s so, what was it that Cheney and Wolfowitz were spinning about being greated liberators, the oil would pay for the reconstruction, we’d be home in six months and on and on and on.

The war was a bad idea because it would have and did distract us from our mission in Afghanistan. We have not finished the job there and that country is still in a precarious position, a fledgling democracy in a country still largely under the control of warlords and with an economy still primarily driven by the drug trade. The war was a bad idea because it threatened to produce more instability in an already dangerous part of the world. I think we can all agree that this fear has been born out. The Middle East is a radically more unstable place than it was before the war as we have unwittingly, and against all our best efforts to date, opened a huge space for murderers like Zarqawi to operate with impunity. Or did you not see the recent news from Jordan? The number of terrorist incidents around the world has gone up since our invasion of Iraq.

The war was a bad idea because there is no such thing as a “front” when you are fighting terrorists. Ask the soldiers now in the Baghdad where the front is. When they are going to door to door searching homes where are they going to tell you this supposed “front” is? Ask the people in Manhattan, London, Madrid, Jordan or Indonesia where the terrorist “frontline” is. Do you think they’re going to tell you Iraq? Not by a longshot. We were told that the war on terror was a different kind of war so why do all the people in the Bush administration keep using WWII terminology like “front” and “liberation” to explain themselves? The war was a bad idea because invading nation states is no solution to the terrorism of radical Islam.

The war was a bad idea because it would send the wrong message to other rogue and would be rogue states. It told countries such as North Korea that if you are suspected of having nuclear weapons we will not invade you. It told a country like Iran, you better get nuclear weapons as fast as you can to protect yourself from invasion. Indeed, these are the very messages that Iran and North Korea heard loud and clear. But what can we do about them now? We are bogged down in Iraq.

The war was a bad idea because it would have and has serisously debilitated our ability to respond to other military crisis around the world. The threat that Bush used to get the inspectors back into Iraq is now non-existent. Do you think Iran has been cowed in the least by 150,000 US troops on their back door? Does the Iranian president’s recent threat to destroy Israel sound like the rhetoric of a man afraid of a US response?

I could go on but that should give you enough to work with now. Although I suspect you will respond with your usual obstuse, belligerent, willful ignorance. Some bullshit about how I still didn’t prove a single lie and the rest of it is just a DNC talking point. Fine, Dugger. You have no credibility with me anymore. You are a hack of the highest order. Case in point, as Fitzgerald himself said:  Valerie Wilson s cover was blown in July 2003. Stick that in your Aldrich Ames and smoke it.

Serious question: In your own words, using your own logic and thoughts, is the war a good or bad idea?

Bush lied doesn’t hack it.

Dugger