Thanks for working this story. I saw one of the earlier threads at WarnadPiece & she suggested that wilkes et al were tied back to the great rethug central american democracy building project, in the 80's. Is there any more to that?
Also wouldn't that tie the whole mess to the Iran Contra crowd?
As I recall it, the Central American 'Democracy' project WAS Iran-Contra. for what other reason would we ever get involved down there but to squeeze the local populace for more 'profits'?
Posted by pessimist at December 12, 2005 06:12 AMI've followed the Plame investigation pretty closely, but I got lost at the Vivica Novak part. How does the fact that she told Rove's lawyer "that's not what I heard" about Rove being in the clear, or not being a source for Cooper, help Rove? Is it that since Rove's lawyer didn't know about it, that proves that Rove forgot about his conversation with Cooper? Can someone clarify?
Posted by CG at December 12, 2005 06:12 AMIt seems like the Vivica Novak thing could be played two ways.
The first is that Rove honestly didn't remember talking to Cooper about Plame as he maintains. If Novak tipped Luskin off to the fact that there had been such a conversation that may have "jogged" Roves memory about it. Which might have led him to find the email to Hadley that mentions the conversation.
The other possibility is that Luskin didn't know about the "Cooper problem" because Rove didn't tell him. If that's the case perhaps Rove knew he spoke to Cooper but thought he was covered because the phone call was not logged. Perhaps what he forgot about was not the actual conversation but that he had sent an email to Hadley about it right afterward?
Perhaps Luskin did know about Roves contacts with Cooper and was simply feigning surprise to cover his ass?
How one could prove one over the other is not clear to me from what is public knowledge at this point.
I have every confidence that Fitzgerald will work it all out.
Posted by snark at December 12, 2005 06:26 AMThanks--that's kind of how I was looking at it, either of those two ways. It all just seems kind of muddy to me.
Posted by CG at December 12, 2005 06:40 AMMan, I've been offline at home for the past week. My HP laptop has developed a glitch. The screen has decided to go blank. I'm hoping it's just a bad connection or a motherboard component malfunction and not a crapped out screen. Anyway, since I don't watch tv anymore not having my computer over the weekend left me cut off from the world.
It was a great weekend though. A few inches of snow to put us in a holiday mood. I got most of my Christmas shopping done, early. We bought and put up our Christmas tree. It's a beaute. I made a gingerbread house with my 6 year old. And we made our first fire of the season in the fireplace enjoyed with some hot chocolate spiked with just a touch of rum (no rum for the kids).
Posted by snark at December 12, 2005 06:41 AMSo is there more to that part of the story? It would be an ideal link to tie this whole mess to the IC Alums currently in the admin.
Posted by PwapVt at December 12, 2005 07:05 AMFor most of us ,this story reached us from the MSM ,through the Duke" Cunningham aspect of it.Blog sites like this one and the Daily Kos have posted items that suggest it is really a much bigger story
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/12/10/114820/90
"The. Biggest. Scandal. Ever! Phony Front Companies Cycle Millions to GOP!"
Will it return to the MSM as a larger tale?
A couple of holier-than-thou's beat the crap out of a University of Kansas professor for poking fun at Intelligent Design. The intelligence was apparently left out of their design.
Posted by tempus at December 12, 2005 09:23 AMCG: Luskin is saying, or possibly acting, that Novak alerted him that Rove may have spoken with Matt Cooper in a conversation that a search of Rove's logs and memories did not reach Luskin. It could be possible that Luskin did know that Rove spoke to Cooper and was just playing dumb in order to pull another reporter into the investigation.
Once Novak sparked Luskin to look into the conversation it was found that Rove did talk to Cooper, but neither party had logs to show that because Cooper called Rove from the White House press office. They had been checking their personal office logs.
Once Luskin learned of this conversation he went back to Rove and a little while later Luskin called Fitzgerald to say that Rove did speak with Cooper. Fitz then called Rove back before the grand jury to recall the details of the conversation.
Novak ended up fielding Fitzgerald's questions because Luskin told him that Novak had some information that Fitz should explore. Luskin needed Novak to explain why Rove, nor Cooper, had initial recollections of the conversation that talked about Niger.
Posted by Gabriel Sutherland at December 12, 2005 09:45 AMInteresting.
It has been estimated that California spends $90 million annually in extra costs directly related to capital cases.
California reinstated the death penalty in 1977.
Since that time they have executed 11 people.
If you take a conservative number of $50 million per year over 28 years it totals $1,400,000,000.
Almost a billion and a half dollars to end the lives of 11 individuals.
What a waste.
Posted by Tim at December 12, 2005 12:21 PMWell it seems Californians will have 12 lives for their 90 million a year. Ahnuld just denied clemency for the murderer Tookie Williams.
Posted by snark at December 12, 2005 12:52 PMthe chimp was on the nightly news lying his ass off about his regime's torture of suspects....
Posted by headxray at December 12, 2005 05:13 PMThanks Gabriel.
Posted by CG at December 12, 2005 05:14 PM