eriposte..I like your writings....but this vacation/conference line is lame. Find some better stuff.
Posted by T2 at October 16, 2005 05:34 PMI can say without fear of contradiction that a sizeable proportion of America's professionals do, in fact, regard conferences as vacations. Hell, they're better than vacations--you're on the clock, and some portion of your expenses are paid by the employer.
Posted by dj moonbat at October 16, 2005 05:38 PMWas Libby stalking Miller in Wyoming? Was the reference to Aspen a coded threat, an "I can find you wherever you go" kind of thing?
Or is Judy as bad with faces as she is with remembering who has given her classified information, so she just didn't recognize Scooter? It's a very odd place for her article to end.
Posted by biggerbox at October 16, 2005 05:38 PMWell, I knew I would get comments saying vacation=conference and no big deal...which is why I added the P.S.
However, I realize I didn't make the point my post clear - which I will do with an update. The point is whether this was just another convenient anecdote to take attention away from the "aspens turn in clusters" aspect of Libby's letter.
Anyway, if it's lame, it's lame and I fully accept responsibility for a lame post :-)
Posted by eriposte at October 16, 2005 05:46 PMOr none of the above happened. Maybe she was there and so was Libby to have a little meeting with Cheney on their stories. That's probably closer to the truth. The Conference was just the cover.
Posted by Judith at October 16, 2005 06:34 PMWell I'm ready to pick apart all of her story after her shoddy reporting and unethical professionalism. Everything she says is fair game and deserves to be put under a microscope, and I mean everything...Here is my best attempt and if it is lame well so be it.
It has to do with the italized and bolded words from this part of her own "version" of the story.
It is also difficult, more than two years later, to parse the meaning and context of phrases, of underlining and of parentheses. On one page of my interview notes, for example, I wrote the name "Valerie Flame." Yet, as I told Mr. Fitzgerald, I simply could not recall where that came from, when I wrote it or why the name was misspelled.
I testified that I did not believe the name came from Mr. Libby, in part because the notation does not appear in the same part of my notebook as the interview notes from him.
Um, in the first paragraph she admits the name was found "on one page of her interview notes", but then says it comes in a different part of her notebook than the interview notes from Libby. So here's my possible thoughts on this matter.
- I found her choice of words odd. She starts off by saying, "on one page of my interview notes". Why didn't she just say, on one page of my interview notebook (or one page of my notebook) the name Valerie Flame was written. This notation was not not found in with Libby's interview notes and therefore I did not believe he gave me the name.
The way she writes it, it's almost as if in her effort to be too precise she ends up sounding contrived or as if she is trying to hide something(that's my bet). Who knows maybe the notebook was titled "Interview Notes from the Field" or something lame but...it just didn't sit quite right with me for some reason.
-OK saying it really was in another section of the notebook and not with Libby's interview note's. By her own words, she still considered Valerie Flame's name was found "on one page in her interview notes". OK whose interview notes were they and what else did that person have to say in those notes? Inquiring minds want to know because the name was found on one page of your interview notes (does that mean there was more than one page from this person's interview notes)and what other things did you write on the same page of interview notes where the name Valerie Flame was found? Yes, most importantly who the heck was it that you were interviewing in that section of your "interview notes" Ms. Miller...Sounds like a heck of an interview.
OK I am done. It just sounded funny to me...maybe lame but whatever. Besides,I have paperwork that I am avoiding doing and this was much more fun.
The end of the Miller story is a noticeable stylistic departure from the first part of the narrative. So what's the purpose of the novel-like ending to what first puports to be a disppassionate factual statement (snorting implied)? My guess is that something is going to come up about either the meeting in Aspen and/or some type of meeting in Jackson Hole with Libby and Cheney. In case that happens, Miller can then say that she wasn't concealing those events.
Posted by justwondering at October 16, 2005 06:58 PMOf course an additional reason for Miller's odd closing is that she wants to warn Libby that she told Fitzgerald about a Jackson Hole meeting, and had to work that in somehow without actually revealing to everyone what happened.
Posted by justwondering at October 16, 2005 07:11 PMOr how about a tease for her new novel?
That I hope doesn't sell!
I don't get the vaction/conference conundrum. But I do believe Miller's tale is completely full of shit. Libby's cryptic missive is a metaphor for unity: everyone do the same thing because we are united by our (neocon/gov't stooge) roots.
The biggest disappoint for me in this, is that I had hoped Fitzgerald would also fish about the other GREAT CIA BREACH: Chalabi's informing Iran that the Agency had broken Iran's code. Who told Chalabi that classified information? (Miller? Cheney?) Where the hell is that story -- an even bigger screw up than Plamegate IMHO.
Posted by chaucer at October 16, 2005 08:03 PMJustwondering, percisely.
Posted by Judith at October 16, 2005 08:07 PMThe vacation/conference thing doesn't strike me as all that interesting or important.
The phrases 'turn in clusters' and 'roots connect them' are some kind of code or signal or metaphorical reference that has nothing to do with vacations, conferences or aspens.
Posted by James E. Powell at October 16, 2005 08:09 PMIt's just obscuring where possible -- like masking Libby by unnaming his source ass as a "former Hill staffer" instead of "senior administration official". Hey, if you can throw up even an ounce more fog to hide the tracks, why the fuck not?
It's what they DO.
.
Emal,
Good catch...let me mull on that a little more.
Justwondering,
You are correct that her statement would help Libby if and when he's asked about it...this is why I find the whole anecdote rather bizarre - it seems like an effort to divert attention from the clusters...roots..thing.
Chaucer,
Iran-gate is under a separate investigation.
James,
Again, my point is that the vacation/conference thing might be a anecdote cooked up to make Libby's statement look less suggestive.
Well, who are the Aspens? Is Judy one of them? Is she going to "turn" when/if the cluster of criminals around her are rooted out? Was the aspen thing from Libby a code to Miller to keep her mouth shut? Surely Miller has the key to this code, and so she lied to the grand jury on Friday. She failed to come right out and say that Cheney was the one who told her to write down (or did he write the name himself) "Valerie Flame" in her notebook, because she knows that only she can now save that mysterious cowboy she met in the fading light of Jackson Hole. And if she doesn't, she's going to die in the cluster along with them rest of them.
Posted by NealB at October 16, 2005 08:44 PMHi. Please excuse, but I've been out of the loop for this Internet stuff since Thursday night, but Valerie Flame? This is pathetic beyond belief. So many lies, so little time. Something about a tangled web when we try to deceive... Flame, Plame, the whole Bush regime is obviously flaming out high over Crawford. I hope that they all brought along their parachutes... Crashing and burning of this bunch is just around the corner. Last June, I publicly predicted that the Bush regime was beginning to collapse, but these guys are crashing in warp drive. Beam me up Scotty... It's all over now baby bush...
Cheers,
James K. Sayre
To all appearances, the appallingly fawning media coverage of the Bush adminstration began to turn, however weakly, because of the failure to respond to Hurricane Katrina. But why? This administration had done countless stupid and/or negligent things highly worthy of media criticism before the hurricane. Is it just that once everyone observed that Anderson Cooper wasn't devoured by the right wing crocodiles and even became a media darling that they all thought it might be okay to stick a toe in the water? Or was this calculated to be a convenient turning point for media rats abandoning what they perhaps know is a sinking ship? There's fear and speculation that Fitzgerald can be intimidated and/or corrupted, but it seems much too late for that. He's not the only one with all the information. If you look at the 10th circuit decision in the Miller case, there are many pages of redacted findings regarding Fitzgerald's findings in support of the contempt ruling. This means that an entire panel of federal court judges are aware of what Fitzgerald had found to date. So not only Fitzgerald, but what is likely his large staff, the grand jury members and the 10th circuit judges and their clerks and staff know his findings. Consequently, I don't think it's overly optimistic to think that indictments are inevitable.
Posted by justwondering at October 16, 2005 11:47 PMWork-related deductions? Expense account?
Aks the IRS & the Times accounting folks
Posted by degustibus at October 17, 2005 01:31 PMDoesn't anyone else out there realize that Judy Miller wrote "Valerie Flame" because she thought that is what CHALABI TOLD HER? With his accent over the phone she got it wrong.
Who told Chalabi Valerie's cover and other classified national security information is the real question.
Posted by Breathe at October 23, 2005 03:55 PMAspens grow in a grove. As in G+ROVE. George and Rove.
Their true colors are turning alright.
Posted by Grove at October 24, 2005 01:54 PM