Maybe they're just jealous of the Times and Judy Miller.

Remember the first rule of wingnut journalism: the truth must be "balanced" with lies. The second rule is that all ideas have equal weight; well-researched conclusions are no better than spittle-flecked invective.

Lying is moral if it helps people believe, have faith. Faith moves mountains and the WP is into mountain moving it would appear. What those who promote the notion that "faith moves mountain" left out is what kind of mountains faith moves. Correctly said, "faith moves mountains of lies." The average person always thinks of real mountains. That's how prophaganda works. Tell the truth in such a way as to deceive the listener. I'll bet a nickle, - I'm real confident so make it a dime that there isn't a single lie in the WP article. Well, except for the overall lie, the deception carefully calculated to cause people to believe, have faith.

Is there such a thing as the perfect con? Only God is perfection and therefore only God can pull off the perfect con. What you are seeing is God's representatives, (all power comes from God) attempting to be God and do what only God can do, pull off the perfect con. The WP, the media in general is an integral part of the BA, (Bush Administration) scam.

Lying being a part of morality is very old. It predates the history from which the Bible, a proved hoax was constructed. Moral lying began a long time ago. A man realized how gullible people are. He first threatened them with hell and then promised those that followed him he had the power to send people to hell giving them a license to steal and kill in his name. That's what is going on and has been ever since. Bush got his office from God's representative, those who continue to profit form threats of hell using the Bible as their manual at arms. The Bible is the source of the morality of Bush and the media. It, like them is a phony.

http://www.hoax-buster.org will end any doubts about the Bible being a hoax.

The truth never changes. It can be told over and over again with little or no explaining. Think about how religion has changed and continues to rework itself. It's based upon the hoax, an elaborate lie. July 4, 1776 a few great men attempted to end religion's influence in government. During the Eisenhower administration that changed. Ike decided to combat Godless communism with the lie and put the term, "under God" in the pledge as well as beginning the overt funnelling of tax dollars to churches. That was 50 years ago. The Roman empire lasted less than 100 years after declaring Rome to be a Christian nation. Where are we going? Will America become another bone in the boneyard of lost civilizations, a victim of Christianity. Think about it before you decide your minister know what God really wants.

Watched 'All the President's Men' again last night on PBS (KQED in the Bay Area) and then wake up to see this crap. It's depressing to say the least. Where's Ben Bradlee when we need him?

Knowing the identity of Deep Throat added some new perspective, as did one scene with woodStein and herb sloan, the guy who supposedly implicated haldeman, nixon's chief of staff, to the Grand Jury.

In the scene, they're interviewing sloan at home and about to get their first big break. sloan begins with "Look I'm a lifelong (or loyal, can't remember) republican ..."

woodward / Redford jumps in excitedly "I am too!"

Then for a moment Bernstein and woodward look at each other. Bernstein looks at him like WTF!? woodward looks at Bernstein like 'hey I'll say anything to get information.' Then they go back to talking to sloan.

It was just a moment I found interesting given today's revelations about woodward.

That's why I get the news from a computer.

The downside: it is difficult to wrap fish in a laptop.

If it weren't for the internet, the corporate press would have no scruples at all.

Here was my assessment of the WaPo editor from August 10, 2003:

Evidently the WaPo editors don't have a need to review the facts, because they know they were behind the war 100% and are in no mood to go back and question why they came to that support.

Personally, I remember reading their editorials before the war started and thinking that they were a bunch of bloodthirsty bastards anxiously waiting to see the bombs drop. I guess I shouldn't be surprised that they haven't reconsidered their part in putting our country into this mess.

They have always been a key part to making the case for war and just as complicit as Bush and Cheney in my opinion.

Thanks for putting this post together, eriposte. They deserve to get nailed for their lies.

Put this together with the Post's equally loathsome immigration editorial: in their world, the Dems scuttled the compromise for partisan reasons, ie, the editorial board swallowed the GOP spin whole. The inescapable conclusion is that the Post is devolving into the Wall Street Journal: both papers are capable of doing good, even excellent reporting, but their editorial boards have been taken over by the wingnuts, who don't even read the reporting.

I wonder why Slate's 'Today's Papers' makes not mention of this controversy? Could it be because they are owned by the Wash. Post?

It's curious that other important facts were left out of the editorial: the fact that we found massive stockpiles of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons in Iraq; the fact that we shut down all of the al Qaeda training camps in Iraq; the fact that...

Oh fuck it. This is just so bad it's upsetting to even try to make a joke out of it. Something like this can turn guarded optimism into a feeling of powerlessness so quickly.

What would perk me up is seeing how fast we can crash the WaPo switchboard, fill up their e-mailboxes, and generally shame them into a front-page retraction of that steaming pile of shit.

jexter, how do you shame people who are shameless?

Imressive work, Eriposte. Keep it up.

Yeah...

Either that or the Washington Post editor knows who Bob Woodward's source is, knows that Wilson was in fact twisting the truth as the SSCI investigation found, and knows that continuing to lie about the matter is an untenable position going forward.

Instead of throwing a hissy-fit because the Post doesn't buy your delusional version of the truth, you might want to stop and ponder whether the editor of the Post might know a thing or two more than you do.

I think the Post editor going candid like this shows that they know the gig is up and it's time to come clean on what was actually going on. Especially since Mr. Woodward, working for the Post, knows exactly what the truth is, and it's not the same one the Post was pushing at the behest of Wilson a couple years ago.

I think it's better that you folks start realizing this instead of demonizing everyone that comes up with the truth that you so fear.

The only question is how much did the WH pay them? As I read the Post, they made a deliberate choice to lie, this is not sloppy reporting or opinionating, it is methodical. There's just enough of "already saids" in it to kick in the memory cells of the last swiftboating debacle of Wilson so people who are looking to side with Bush could feel comfortable with this explanation. Is the beginning of a new phase of slander where they drop all pretense of getting to the truth and, perhaps out of desperation, baldly lie throwing the lies against the wall to see how many will stick and figure they'll apologize only when forced to. This is just too over the top.

There's just enough of "already saids" in it to kick in the memory cells of the last swiftboating debacle of Wilson so people who are looking to side with Bush could feel comfortable with this explanation.

Exactly, mainsailset. And the troll above you proves your point. It's gotta be a relief to the braindead minions to get back to "safe" ground - trashing Wilson with the same old lies, bending over for Bushco's version of "truth." Month after month of seeing example after example of the depths their heroes will go to to destroy this country had to be hard to take. Give the minions another helping of character assassination, and they're right as acid rain again, ready to swallow for the boy king once more. But what do you expect? They're idiots, and they don't care who knows it.

Fred Hiatt just can't quit the war or the Bush administration.

Thanks for highlighting this issue...it's one thing to have an opinion and have a bully pulpit to spread that opinion. It's clearly another thing to systemically have an opinion that you point out and source back to information that is based on fraudulent information (even factual information to your contrary opinion that was written in the same paper) and to misuse that bully pulpit to spread known propaganda and disinformation!

That wasn't me.

This WP editorial was so stupid and wrong-headed I actually wondered for a sec if the editorial staff got punked by some Liberty University pranksters.

WHY THE WAPO IS WRONG ABOUT PLAMEGATE

Aside from the FACT that the Washington Post chose to repeat misinformation about Plamegate repudiated on page one of the same paper, they left out a few glaring details in their ridiculous approval of Valerie Plame's outing for political gain.

Leaking Valerie Plame's name took a valuable resource out of the REAL war on terror. This action approved by the President and Vice President has endangered the lives of every American citizen, both at home and abroad.

Leaking Plame's name also blew her front cover employer, Brewster Jennings & Associates. It was Robert Novak, American traitor, and political commentator hack, who in collusion with Bush and Cheney, first published the highly classified information.

It has been suggested that there were other resources within the CIA who were also working undercover as non-official cover operative" (NOC) as employees of Brewster Jennings. It has also been suggested that once their undercover status was compromised, they were quickly captured and eliminated, thus multiplying the damage done to the CIA's ability to gather valuable information in the Mid East.

The outing of Plame destroyed all trust the CIA had for the Bush/Cheney administration. Why would they now put their lives on the line as NOCs knowing that at any time, their cover could also be blown for political gain, thus ending their careers and possibly ending their lives as well?

But there's more!

Plame... 'was a long-term proprietary and deep-cover NOC - well established and consistently producing "take" from ARAMCO (and who knows what else in Saudi Arabia). It was destroyed with a motive of personal vengeance (there may have been other motives) by someone inside the White House.

From the CIA's point of view, at a time when Saudi Arabia is one of the three or four countries of highest interest to the US, the Plame operation was irreplaceable.

Almost the entire Bush administration has an interest in ARAMCO.

The Boston Globe reported that in 2001 ARAMCO had signed a $140 million multi-year contract with Halliburton, then chaired by Dick Cheney, to develop a new oil field. Halliburton does a lot of business in Saudi Arabia. Current estimates of Halliburton contracts or joint ventures in the country run into the tens of billions of dollars.

So do the fortunes of some shady figures from the Bush family's past.

As recently as 1991 ARAMCO had Khalid bin Mahfouz sitting on its Supreme Council or board of directors. Mahfouz, Saudi Arabia's former treasurer and the nation's largest banker, has been reported in several places to be Osama bin Laden's brother in law.

ARAMCO is the largest oil group in the world, a state-owned Saudi company in partnership with four major US oil companies.

Another one of Aramco’s partners is Chevron-Texaco which gave up one of its board members, Condoleezza Rice, when she became the National Security Advisor to George Bush.

All of ARAMCO’s key decisions are made by the Saudi royal family while US oil expertise, personnel and technology keeps the cash coming in and the oil going out. ARAMCO operates, manages, and maintains virtually all Saudi oil fields – 25% of all the oil on the planet.'

http://www.oilempire.us/plame.html

Also, let's not forget the long term friendship and business partnerships between the Bush family and the bin Laden family.

Knowing all of this, how can anyone in their right mind approve of Bush and Cheney's treasonous behavior of outing Valerie Plame and Brewster Jennings for political gain?

"Leaking Valerie Plame's name took a valuable resource out of the REAL war on terror. This action approved by the President and Vice President has endangered the lives of every American citizen, both at home and abroad."

LOL.... LOL.... LOL....

Keep feeding on your own BS man. Not even the CIA has said anything like this. Only people like Joe Wilson have, and not even in the brazenly assertive fashion you spout off with here. What a bunch of tripe. She worked as an analyst at the CIA. Her "secret" agent name was tied to Wilson as his wife publically, such as in Who's Who.

Give me a friggin break guy.

Keep cherry-picking quotes from the WaPo article, and from Fitzgerald's filings. You guys are precious habitual and pathological liars. How about not taking quotes out of context and warping their meaning? Mmmk?

Seixon,

If the Post actually knows who Woodward's source is and he credibly contradicts Wilson, then perhaps they should not have published the Gellman and Linzer article ON THE SAME DAY as that asinine editorial appeared.

Your view of the facts regarding Valerie Plame's role at the CIA can only be described as wishful thinking.

And with the contortions you are putting yourself through to avoid seeing what are by now obvious contradictions between the stories the administration has been telling and what the declassified documents reveal, you'll be needing to call Rush soon for some painkillers.

AJ, you know what's really funny is that these fools are still falling for the same debunked crap they fell for three years ago. It makes you want to knock their hollow melon and say "Hello! There's no learning going on here, kids. No more KoolAid for you!"

I went to a Wash St county caucus yesterday and we had the surprise of a newly minted Dem candidate. He is bright, successful, committed and caring. He is also naive. Said in a soft voice that he is angry at how our country is being run. The crowd was supportive but there were no soft voices amongst us. Rural folks. Pissed, Informed and looking at another bright candidate who did not project passion nor fight. The crowd raged about Plame, Iraq, social security - nearly 50 resolutions for a platform -and he quietly listened. It's just not good enough anymore to be a good guy candidate.

"Keep feeding on your own BS man. Not even the CIA has said anything like this. Only people like Joe Wilson have, and not even in the brazenly assertive fashion you spout off with here. What a bunch of tripe. She worked as an analyst at the CIA. Her "secret" agent name was tied to Wilson as his wife publically, such as in Who's Who."

Sexton, GAME, SET AND MATCH Thanks for playing but you lose.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11179719/site/newsweek/

Arlen Spector cited this editorial on Fox News this a.m. when asked about the leak, but still called for Bush to comes forward with the "facts." Spector also said that he heard now that Bush told Cheney to just "get it done" when it came to getting out information; Spector's pointing to Cheney as the potential bad guy asserting that it was Cheney who leaked the documents (that the Administration now says Bush decided to declassify - back then.) Excuses and bootstrapping to save Cheney anyone?

jexter, how do you shame people who are shameless?
Posted by iamcoyote at April 9, 2006 12:34 PM

*****

You blow em up.

Leftists certainly have a right to be upset. After all, what can they depend upon when even the Washington Post stoops to telling the truth?

Poor delusional Doug. Can't face facts. How do I know this? Because no one who has spent even 30 minutes looking at the declassified documents that formed the basis of the pre-war intelligence can miss the fact that Bush purposely misrepresented that intelligence and that he then tried to smear Joe Wilson to hide that.

Here's a preview of the future for you.

Cheney will be forced to resign as a sacrificial lamb (just like Tenet). But it will not be enough. Bush will be impeached and he will resign.

Do yourself a favor Doug -- don't be the last to know what's coming and why. Read up on eriposte's unimpeachable research work on this topic. You have nothing to lose but the fantasy world you are living in.

So, GoW, I can add your name to the 'pro-pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran' column, then?

Any reports of pro-immigrant rallies today? Here in Dallas the crowd was estimated at 500,000.

So, GoW, I can add your name to the 'pro-pre-emptive nuclear strike on Iran' column, then?
Posted by iamcoyote at April 9, 2006 06:08 PM

*****

I ain't talking about Iran.

Goose1,

How does that debunk anything I said? She was an analyst working at the CIA. Revealing her job there did not endanger any American. If you think it did, find me a single current CIA official who says so. Good luck. She may have been covert, Fitzgerald will still need to provide the evidence of that, but she was still just an analyst working at the CIA. Nice try though.

AJ,

You're right, the WaPo shouldn't have printed that other misleading story. It took Fitzgerald's filing out of context to misrepresent what he was saying. As for my "contortions", would you mind summarizing those for me? I can debunk you all day long on this stuff, your Kool-Aid stand here at Left Coaster has probably got you completely brainwashed as usual. You been reading some Murray Waas perhaps? LOL. What a hoot.

iamcoyote,

You know it's funny that you think I am falling for the same crap I fell for 3 years ago or whatever. That's exactly what YOU are doing. You keep believing Wilson and all his lies, even though the SSCI and everyone else has already showed that he was lying his ass off when he was leaking to Kristof and when he wrote his op-ed.

He claimed that he had determined that the Niger documents were forged, and that the information went straight to Cheney. That's what he told Kristof. Then when he figured out that he would get busted like hell for lying like that, he changed his story in his op-ed. Then he said that he hadn't seen the forgeries after all. Ooops. Yet he still stuck to his story that Cheney had gotten wind of his report, which was not the case. The CIA put it in a drawer after finding it worthless, just like the INR knew the BOONDOGGLE it was. Which is exactly why the State Department told Woodward that the mission was a boondoggle set up by Wilson's wife.

That's the final truth here, and you all better get around to figuring it out before you cry yourself to sleep when Fitzgerald finally has to admit it after protecting his phantom leaker solely for the purpose of trying to nail Libby for absolutely no reason.

The Wilsons lied to Kristof, Kristof started the rumors that Cheney had been told that the Niger documents were forged, so that he must have known before the president gave his speech that it was incorrect.

The vice president's office sought to correct this BS, and giving up Plame as a CIA agent had no relevance to that at all. The only thing they wanted people to know is that Cheney never heard of Wilson's mission, and that he did not receive any briefing on the damn thing.

Read it and weep on my blog in about 4 hours.

Oh, and AJ: you're telling Doug that he is delusional? Here's you fantasizing that Cheney is going to resign soon. LOL. Talk about delusional. Face the facts kid - the Wilsons lied to put a Democrat in office in '04, and Fitzgerald is protecting the REAL leaker to save his own fraud of a case against Libby.

Or do you have a reasonable answer for why Fitzgerald is protecting the original leaker while pursuing Libby for something he was wrong about?

Yeah, didn't think so.

please go away seixon.

anyone who believed that iraq could ever acquire yellowcake was a fool. an ignoramus. a know nothing.

i have been banned from supposedly leftie site for saying these things. should make you wonder if there are any real lefties.

i have concluded that all supposed leftie internet sites are operated by the state.

you can research what i have said over the years - nothing has changed. anyone trying to assert that niger could be a source of yellowcake to iraq was a fool.

even more astounding was the notion that iraq could land yellowcake.

a land under sanctions.

and it gets worse, even if iraq could acquire yellowcake, and get it into a country under constant observation and air control, how would they finesse it into weapons grade material?

it's odd. saying these things on the atrios website has gotten me banned. and duncan is a coward. he refrains from responding to my questions and telling me why.

i conclude by saying this. the left says that it wants allies. i cannot prove it. banning me for no good reason, without explanation, forces me to become a reptillian - your enemy.

is that what was desired?

More rectal journalism from the Washington Post. What is rectal journalism? Well, according to David Sirota, it's when you pull something out of your ass and peddle it as fact. That's clearly what this is.

Ordinarily I say "don't feed the trolls" but this time round I've finally understood that the trolls function is not to convince people who know the facts, but simply to continue to mislead the casual reader. So thanks to the person who posted above with the comprehensive rebuttal. Seixon's deal is the continued repetition of "who you going to believe, me or your own lyin' eyes" in the face of the undeniable facts like
a) much of this has been declassified.
b) tenet himself apologized for faulty intelligence
c) the sSCi report itself
d) fitzgerald's various filings
etc...etc..etc...

We've been following this stuff in detail but the people seixon wants to hang onto--not reach, hang onto--have not. That is seixon's goal. So its worth repeating the facts and their history over and over again because some poor person is reading this site (and others) looking for the truth and its important not to let the seixon's of the world cheat them again. They've just been lied to and betrayed by bush and cheney and the republican party for five years, someone has to offer them a way out.

so go eriposte and others who have continued to try to debunk the right's lies.

aimai

1) This is the first time I can remember a WaPo editorial not being anti-Bush. Just imagine if 90% of the MSM voted GOP, you moonbats.

2) Aside from calling it a leak, which it is IMPOSSIBLE to be, the editorial is spot on.

Enjoy! :)

albertchampion,

Iraq acquired uranium from Niger earlier and the former PM of Niger told Wilson he believed a businessman was making overtures to him on the behalf of Iraq to acquire uranium. Anyone who thinks Iraq could acquire it was a fool? Obviously not, since the CIA took it seriously enough to investigate it, and the British were convinced of it, and the French were also investigating it. If it was such a foolish notion, why were all these intelligence agencies spending so much time on it?

Iraq managed to smuggle 380 rocket engines into Iraq, and smuggled millions of barrels of oil out of Iraq. Yet they would not be able to smuggle in some tons of uranium? Why not?

Your position is untenable with all the facts considered. Only people who listen to Wilson, who claimed there was just no way that the partly French-controlled mines would ever slip some uranium to third parties, believe that it was impossible. The rest of us know that Niger was deep in corruption and turmoil, and that the one thing that speaks loudest in Africa is cash money.

There is no doubt now that Iraq never got their hands on the uranium, but continuing to claim that it was impossible, because Iraq was under sanctions, is the same as believing that the UN would never let Saddam corrupt the Oil For Food program. I guess the only ones who are capable of corruption, in the naive eyes of these people, are the Bush administration and Republicans. Reasonable adults know better.

aimai,

The SSCI proves that it was Wilson who lied. This is undeniable. Wilson sourced columns by Kristof in May and June of 2003 where they claimed that Cheney knew of and had received a report from Wilson's mission to Niger showing that the documents were forged and that there was no basis to the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium.

Every available fact puts that to shame. Wilson has admitted himself that he never saw the documents before his mission, and that Cheney did not know about the mission. He has held onto the belief that Cheney was briefed on his mission, yet the CIA says they didn't send it on because they found it inconclusive.

Everything Wilson anonymously claimed through Kristof was a bunch of lies.

You can try to provide me a rebuttal to that if you'd like.

You are projecting onto me exactly what DailyKos, ThinkProgress, Left Coaster, and all these other sites to on a daily basis: mislead the casual reader.

I've got the facts on my side. Read them and weep. You might want to actually provide a rebuttal to what I have said next time, instead of just claiming I am wrong without showing how or why.

Cheney will be forced to resign as a sacrificial lamb (just like Tenet). But it will not be enough. Bush will be impeached and he will resign.

Baaahaahahahahah!!!

Sorry - but that is so damn funny.

And you wonder why nobody takes you people seriously?

Seixon,

I am quite tired of you parroting fake GOP spin that has been debunked a long time ago (Sec 7.2):
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/005211.php#7_2

There's a limit to tolerating lying in the comment threads.

eriposte,

Yeah, let's have Wilson debunk criticism and debunking of Wilson. Good one. Please let me know which specific points I have made that you feel are in error. I will gladly discuss them with you.

Labeling me a Republican and sending me out the door with a post that doesn't tell me what you are contesting smacks of a partisan dodging a real discussion.

You claim I am lying. Bring it.

Such a fine talent for picking nits! Such a talent was needed by Seixon's ancestors before they fell out of the trees and became Republicans 100,000 years after the rest of us climbed down and became progressives!

Seixon's 'post' [I read it so you don't have to!] is an example of not seeing the forest for the trees by focusing only on the phrase 'office of the vice president' and not parsing the verbs in each of the quotes he cites.

Seixon, go do your blogwhoring somewhere else.

Sexton, You can't read. It says Plame was COVERT/ a NOC/UNDER COVER not an analyst. Game , set, match. You lost.

spin that has been debunked a long time ago

I don't think the left knows what the word means.

You can't just say it three times.

eR,

There is an even more fundamental problem here. Everyone seems to be assuming that Bush ordered the declassification of the NIE so that Libby could leak to Miller and Woodward (and quite possibly others we don't know about). But Libby has not said this, and neither has anyone in the Bush Administration, to my knowledge. All along they've done their best to muddy the waters and confuse the issue, but nobody has come out and said that Bush or anybody else actually declassified portions of the NIE so that Libby could show it to reporters.

Either (parts of) the NIE was officially and formally declassified prior to some time in June 2003, when we know Libby was showing its contents to select journalists, or Libby was just illegally leaking it, on the say-so of Bush himself. Bush can declassify whatever he wants, but that does not mean that he did indeed declassify parts of the NIE prior to Libby's activities with journalists.

I've been belabouring this vital point ever since we first learned about Libby's testimony about "authorisation" to leak the NIE:

"Are leaking and declassifying synonymous?"

No -- and this distinction is extremely important. As I've written elsewhere:

... let's make at least an analytic distinction between Libby being "authorised" to leak the NIE to a couple of select reporters (under the pretence of being a "former Hill staffer", no less) and actual, formal declassification of the NIE. Even if the VP is allowed to declassify unilaterally.

Shouldn't the MSM asking a very basic point of information -- was the NIE ever declassified prior to 8 July 2003? Not some mumbo-jumbo about "authorisation" -- whatever this means -- Was it ever formally, officially declassified (by whatever authority, including the Pres or VP)? Presumably there must be some record of this -- even if the VP can unilaterally declassify the NIE, without the CIA's input, one presumes that there must be some formal documentation somewhere of this official action.

Because if not, and even if the VP has the authority to unilaterally declassify the NIE (which at least these paragraphs [i.e. Section 3.5 of EO 13282] make it sound like they do not), then it seems that this "authorisation" did not involve any official declassification, and thus was quite illegal.

And:

Let's assume for a moment that Dick Cheney does indeed have the authority to declassify, as it were, at will. That still doesn't mean that he actually did in fact declassify (portions of) the NIE prior to June 2003 (by which time, by Libby's own testimony, he was disclosing the NIE to reporters).

Leaking and declassifying are not the same thing. Declassification (whoever authorises it) is a formal, official executive action. There presumably must be some kind of official record of the action -- e.g. declassification date, etc. on the document itself. (See e.g. this DoD primer for marking classified documents, which states that "Classified information that is downgraded or declassified should be promptly and conspicuously marked to indicate the change." This need not apply to the document as a whole but can apply to specific paragraphs with specific classification status. So it should be a straightforward matter of record whether in fact (portions of) the NIE was (were) declassified by June 2003, and if so, when exactly and by whom.)

Just because Scooter Libby was directed (or "authorised") by Cheney to show portions of the NIE to Judy Miller doesn't necessarily mean that Cheney had officially declassified the NIE at that point -- even if Cheney had the ability to do so. So I think there's a very basic question that we should be directing to the WH:

Was the NIE (or portions thereof) ever in fact formally declassified by June 2003 -- by whatever authority?

Because if not, no matter what Cheney's declassification authority might be, the information was still classified and its leak was illegal.

I should think the WH owes us a straight-up yes-or-no answer to this. After all, there is no "ongoing investigation" into any leak of the NIE.

Note moreover that as soon as gaggle reporters started asking the really incisive questions about the specific date that the portions of the NIE were actually officially declassified, Scott McClellan completely shut down:

QUESTION: Scott, you raise an interesting point about the July 18th declassification of the NIE. A number of us had requested the NIE be declassified starting in -- sometime in mid June. Can you tell us by what date the actual declassification process of that executive summary had been completed? Because, obviously, given the discussion that's underway now, the date at which it was declassified is important.

Scott McClellan: Understood, but I think that that is a question that's trying to go back to the issues being brought up in this legal proceeding, and I'm not going to do that.

QUESTION: Scott, you were the one who raised the tactic, you declassified the document, and then it was released on July 18th. The relevant question here --

Scott McClellan: That's all public record. I'm just reminding -- I'm just reminding people in this room -- many of you covered us at that time, including yourself, some others didn't cover us during that time.

QUESTION: The important question is here, separate and apart from the case is, at what point was that considered to be a declassified document? Well, I'm just discussing the executive summary -- because I know at a number of times a number of us asked for it and were told that we couldn't have it because it was classified.

Scott McClellan: Right. That doesn't change what I just said.

QUESTION: That's right. At some moment there must have been a -- when things are declassified there's usually a stamp put on it, a date written on it, you know, "declassified as of" -- you've seen this many times. Could you find out for us what the date is of that declassification?

Scott McClellan: No, David, because you're asking me that in the context of the legal proceeding.

QUESTION: Also, to follow David's question, there's another issue there, which is, you make the point that the NIE was declassified for all of us -- and it's difficult to get to this issue without talking in the context of the trial -- but it would appear that for some of us, the information was provided privately earlier. So is the President comfortable with declassifying information and providing it to reporters on a private basis, earlier? The dates don't jive. There's a 10-day span between when the information was provided from Scooter Libby to Judy Miller --

Scott McClellan: You know I'm not going to get into commenting on it. There's no way I can comment --

QUESTION: I don't know of any way --

Scott McClellan: -- there's no way I can comment on that question without getting into issues relating to --

QUESTION: -- I don't know of any other way to ask the question.

Scott McClellan: Hang on, hang on. There's no way I can get into that without discussing issues relating to an ongoing legal proceeding. And I think you will appreciate that a policy has been established -- I didn't establish it, but I'm obligated to adhere to that policy.

QUESTION: I'm not sure what you mean by that, "a policy has been established"?

Scott McClellan: About not discussing an ongoing legal proceeding.

QUESTION: About not discussing ongoing legal proceeding.

Scott McClellan: That's right.

QUESTION: Okay. But you understand the question I'm trying to get to?

QUESTION: Who established it?

QUESTION: Before we even deal with that --

Scott McClellan: -- back to October 2003, and this has been in place for a long time by the White House.

QUESTION: You make the point that the information was provided to the press, generally, on July 18th. You say -- and you do it specifically, it seems to me, to say the President wanted the public aware of this and felt that it would not compromise national security.

Scott McClellan: It was in the public interest, because the debate that was going on at the time --

QUESTION: Ten days before that -- 10 days before that, this information was provided to another reporter, privately. So is the President comfortable with declassifying information and slipping it to a reporter before the rest of us are told?

Scott McClellan: Again, I think it was Kelly -- it may have been Terry when I was -- I think Kelly brought up the President's views on the leaking of classified information. And those views remain --

QUESTION: I'm not talking about --

Scott McClellan: -- those views remain the same.

QUESTION: I'm not suggesting --

Scott McClellan: No, no, understood.

QUESTION: I'm not suggesting a leak --

Scott McClellan: But you're trying to get into this issue that is being brought up in the context of the legal proceeding. I can't do that.

Go ahead, Martha.

QUESTION: I don't understand why you think David's question about the date you decided to declassify this has something to do with the legal proceedings. You're the one who is saying the public -- you wanted the public to know these facts in the NIE, that it was released July 18th. He's just --

Scott McClellan: Because it's an issue that's referred to in the filing by Mr. Fitzgerald --

QUESTION: Okay, purely let me talk about --

Scott McClellan: -- which go and look at. And that's what his question is getting at.

QUESTION: Well, okay, my question is getting at, then, the public disclosure of this. At what time did you decide on the public disclosure of this?

Scott McClellan: It was disclosed publicly on July 18, 2003.

QUESTION: Yes, but when did you start thinking, or when did you do the stamp about when that would be released? Was it before July 18th? When did you decide you wanted to release that to the public?

Scott McClellan: Well, you can go back and look. Look at the briefings. It went through a declassification process. And I think we talked about that, Martha.

QUESTION: When did that declassification process start?

Scott McClellan: It doesn't change what I just said to David.

Helen, go ahead.

QUESTION: But when did it start? When did the declassification process start to release it to the public on a broad scale?

Scott McClellan: I'm not getting into any time lines.

Now I have always thought it extremely unlikely that any part of the NIE (excluding the portions used for the 2002 White Paper) was in fact officially declassified prior to Libby's leaks. (And remember, although everyone is focussing on the NIE here, Murray Waas's original article revealed that at the encouragement of his seniors, Libby had engaged in a systematic pattern of leaking classified information both after and prior to the war, in trying to make the fraudulent case for war against Iraq.) I was happy to learn that emptywheel agrees (though note my comments to her post). As someone who pays close attention to the characteristic techniques of deception these guys use, McClellan's responses and his obvious attempts to confuse his audience -- especially by deliberate ambiguity as to whether he was referring to the Libby leaks or the public release of parts of the NIE on 18 July 2003 -- pretty much seal the deal for me.

Aside from calling it a leak, which it is IMPOSSIBLE to be...

Oh, please, enlighten me.

You can't just say it three times.

Some of us do not live in Kansas.

goose1,

Apparently the possibility of being a covert (still waiting for Fitzgerald to prove this) analyst has completely escaped your fragile mind.

pessimist,

I find it hilarious that you label me a Republican without knowing a single thing about me. You might be scared to death to know that I am much more progressive than you could foresee in your wildest dreams. Some of us are beyond partisan whoring. You know, us crazy moderates. Oh wait, you thought that most people are liberals or conservatives? Sorry bucko, most of people are moderates.

eR,

Still waiting for you to bring it.

I find it hilarious that you label me a Republican...

You make my case for me, Seixon! Do point out where I describe you personally as a Republican.

You can't. Just like you can't make your challenge to eR with facts.

Allow me to point out to you what a fact is: I mentioned your ancestors becoming Republicans, not you.

That is a fact - like your 'crazy moderate' label being just another attempt of desperation to find some way of reclaiming the lost support Yore Leedur once enjoyed.

Now - I am going to play your game by your rules: King George must be Yore Leedur, for why else would a 'crazy moderate' even care about defending King George against the allegations of Ambassador Joe Wilson?

This twit thinks if he doesn't read all the rebuttals that show how much of a fool he is, they must not be true. A common variation of the "lalala, I'm not listening" method of learning endorsed by the Republican Party.

He and his sidekick bootlicker remind me of Monty Python's twit race, only this dweeb isn't nearly as funny. But if he shoots himself in the head, he might be. Give it a try, li'l idiot, see if you can make us laugh at you some more, would ya?

pessimist,

Oh, so you're going to play games now. I see. The clear message of your post is that I am a Republican, and you can try to spin out of that as you may. That's only because you are a disingenuous hack. Why else would you talk about my ancestors being Republicans while "the rest of us" became progressives?

I am waiting for eR to challenge ME with the facts. All he did was say I lied, and then linked to some post without pointing out just what in the hell that was supposed to prove about my comments. I might as well just slap down a copy of the SSCI report and call it a day.

Then you talk about me trying to reclaim the support of "my leader". So I'm guessing you aren't calling me a Republican again, right? It's that whole definition of is is all over again.

Why would I care about defending "King George"? I don't know, I care about the truth, and I am sick and tired of you brainwashed puppies being so completely ignorant. I only care because I am a lot like you. Just a whole lot less ignorant and brainwashed.

Wilson lied. Get over it.

iamcoyote,

I am listening. I am still waiting for anyone to actually rebut a single point of what I said. Someone tried, and then I reprimanded them with all the facts they forgot. I'm still waiting for you, eR, or anyone else to challenge me on the fact that Wilson lied. A challenge does not consist of "you are a liar, nya, nya, nya".

Oh, and asking me to shoot myself. Cute. Real cute. Isn't that the kind of thing the real King George enjoyed?

I am listening. I am still waiting for anyone to actually rebut a single point of what I said. Someone tried, and then I reprimanded them with all the facts they forgot. I'm still waiting for you, eR, or anyone else to challenge me on the fact that Wilson lied. A challenge does not consist of "you are a liar, nya, nya, nya".

Oh, and asking me to shoot myself. Cute. Real cute. Isn't that the kind of thing the real King George enjoyed?
Posted by Seixon at April 10, 2006 08:15 AM

*****

You've presented no facts. You've presented debunked accusations. The fact that they have been previously debunked renders the addressing of them a waste of time, an exercise in sophistry.

If Joe Wilson were a proven liar, do you not think Rove and Co. would be harping on that EVERY CHANCE THEY GOT???

But, alas, it is not true, and your incessant circular speculation only reveals you to be an ignorant fool. You've brought nothing worthy of discussion to this board; you've only brought discredited talking points.

2003 called...it wants its failed smear campaign back, you kool-aid chugging ass.

One of the most ridiculous situations we will ever encounter.

1) Joe Wilson was obviously a hack who pretty much flat out lied in his NY Times opinion piece. For this he is glorified and treated like a hero by many on the left.

2) The White House releases factual information that debunks Wilson's editorial and at the same time the CIA discloses that Wilson's report showed that what he found was actually quite different than what he had suggested in his article. For this the White House is seen by critics as dirty and underhanded while the CIA brass is accused of being manipulated by the Administration. Attempts to discredit Joe Wilson's misleading ed/op piece are treated as though they are some sort of crime.

3) We are now 2 1/2 years into a federal investigation into whether or not someone broke the law over the disclosure that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. 30 months later, we still have no charges in regards to the disclosure of any sensitive information, and the prosecutor has all but said that there was no crime in disclosing Plame's Identity and that he knew that 29 1/2 months ago. Ken Starr and his 30+ felony convictions was a partisan hack out on a witch hunt, while Fitzgerald (and his shaky investigation related indictments on one person) is an outstanding prosecutor who is only doing his job. Go figure.

4) The President declassifying information and releasing it to the public is now called a 'leak' and treated by some ranting lunatics as if it is a crime.

It's a world gone mad, I tell you... a world gone mad!

Here is my answer to your irrelevant and now very boring challenge.

So Seixon, borass, Doug Book, slickvguy, and Bill, etc., have found a new blog to disrupt. Why don't we just turn this blog site over to them? How many times do we have to rehash and defend truth to people who are NOT INTERESTED IN THE TRUTH?

God of War,

Yet again instead of simply showing how what I am saying is wrong, you just say "you are wrong, a liar, nya, nya, nya" or my favorite hack excuse "debunking you would be a waste of time".

You say I have presented no facts, but I have. It's real easy to just make blanket statements like that without having to actually present anything.

Rove and Co already debunked Wilson, back in 2003. You know, when Tenet went out publically and said that Wilson's version of events was wrong, which the SSCI then confirmed. Wilson also admitted all of this eventually. Also, Rove and Co are busy running the country, instead of playing little partisan hack games like you guys.

Let me know when you actually get the courage to take on any of my points instead of using pathetic dodges to avoid discussion.

Oh, and add CH Truth to the list. Before long, we will be the minority on this blog.

Funny stuff. I ask for a discussion, and all I get is people calling me names, showing me links to graphics calling me an idiot, and the always popular Play the Victim Game.

We're not interested in the truth? Why do all of you keep dodging around everything I said? You still haven't addressed any of the facts I laid out.

Wilson leaked anonymously to Kristof in May and June 2003, which resulted in articles claiming that Cheney knew about and received Wilson's report outlining that the Niger documents were forgeries.

Wilson then changed his story in his July 2003 op-ed, now that Cheney didn't know about his mission, but that he must surely have gotten the report on it. Also, he changed his story to say that he hadn't actually seen the forged documents, only that he was told about them.

Then the CIA said that they never told Wilson about them, because they didn't even have them at the point that Wilson went on his mission.

Cheney never received Wilson's report, and never knew about his mission. This is completely opposite of what Wilson was claiming anonymously through Kristof.

Wilson lied to Kristof.

Now, will any of you address any of this? Or will you continue dodging and linking me to personal attack graphics?

You say I have presented no facts, but I have.

Oh? Linking to your own blogging isn't proof. And if you want a fight so bad, join the Army. They are losing officers faster than they can recruit them, so a smart fellow like you should be able to wrangle at least a silver bar for your hat!

Also, Rove and Co are busy running the country, instead of playing little partisan hack games like you guys.

Posted by Seixon at April 10, 2006 08:38 AM

*****

And with THAT, Sextoy loses even the hint of a whisper of credibility.

That's parody, right? I mean, nobody would actually put forth such a hilarious anti-truth unless they were trying to make the kool-aid kids look bad.

As has been stated ad nauseum, you've presented NO FACTS. You've presented debunked aspersions and you've linked to discredited speculations.

In other words, you're a worthless waste of bandwith. STFU and go away, liar.

and the prosecutor has all but said that there was no crime in disclosing Plame's Identity and that he knew that 29 1/2 months ago.

Posted by CH Truth at April 10, 2006 08:28 AM

*****

Filthy lying scum. Libby was charged precisely because he prevented the prosecutor from effectively conducting his investigation of a criminal act.

Man...you lying shills never quit. Too bad you couldn't go to Iraq and fight with such focused determination.

Oh, wait...that would take courage. Never mind.

"Funny stuff. I ask for a discussion, and all I get is people calling me names, showing me links to graphics calling me an idiot, and the always popular Play the Victim Game."

"We're not interested in the truth? Why do all of you keep dodging around everything I said? You still haven't addressed any of the facts I laid out."

Blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever.

goose1,

"Apparently the possibility of being a covert (still waiting for Fitzgerald to prove this) analyst has completely escaped your fragile mind."

Sexton, Apparently you don't understand how the CIA works. But I knew that.

showing me links to graphics calling me an idiot,

heh, well you did click on it, didn't you? Idiot.

It is truly hard to fathom that people like eriposte still exist, since it is indisputable that Joe Wilson's story HAS changed and he has acknowledged that in public. Get over it.

Now on to the hard part. That would be eriposte clearly stating what s/he feels is the kernel of truth in Joe Wilson's story and how that has anything at all to do with why we went to war.

It is truly hard to fathom that people like eriposte still exist, since it is indisputable that Joe Wilson's story HAS changed and he has acknowledged that in public. Get over it.

Noah, No Proof I see! Quit making thing up! The Fact show Jowe Wilson was right!

Anyone care to bet that noah and Seixon are only two of the personalities inhabiting the waste of DNA that enables them to post?

Has anyone noted that Salon, esp. ‘Today’s Papers’ both yesterday (day of editorial) and today, has not covered this? Seems like an obvious dereliction of duty. But then they are owned by the Wash. Post.

Correction: Slate.

c g, I suspect that whenever salon sits and types it comes out like the goose, the god, the dog, and the rest of the bestiary above. Then spellcheck shitcans it and they start over. Wait a few days for the shock to wear off and the light at the end of the tunnel to bear down on them.
===============================

you people are really f-ing nuts! You need to turn off the computer, go outside and take a deep breath. The echo chamber in which you spend all your time is rotting your brain(s)!! Why is it that every time someone in the MSM (which you think you own) writes an article that doesn't crucify (look out, religious reference) the President enough for your liking, you want them FIRED!, RUN OUT OF TOWN!, OR HUNG FROM THE NEAREST LIGHTPOST!?? Isn't that a little chilling to the concept of "Freedom of Speech"? (this was an Op/Ed after all) Or, is Freedom of Speech only for raging, crazed, committed leftists?

Tae,

Freedom of speech doesn't mean freedom from having people call you a fucking liar after you've exercised your right to free speech.

Ya know, it's the whole accountability thing.

If you're so bothered by it why don't you take your own advise and get some fresh air. No one makes you come here.

Have a great day!

So those calling Seixon a liar should be accountable, too? They're not making a very good account of themselves. Is this blog actually called Ad Hoc Ad Hom?
================================

Tae, I shure you felt the same way when the MSM didn't go after Clinton hard enough. That's what I thought.

We must have touched a nerve somewhere! We are getting far more than the usual number of Freeper creeps today.

So those calling Seixon a liar should be accountable, too?

And if their calling him/her a liar is not warranted perhaps you could demonstrate why?

They're not making a very good account of themselves.

The author of this post has a lengthy documentary record that Seixon can refer to. How many times must one respond to a false argument before enough is enough?

Is this blog actually called Ad Hoc Ad Hom?

Or perhaps Bad Puns R' Us?

Yeah, and less of our host and very few answers to Seixon. Everyone in shock?
=====================

You say there is a lengthy documentary record. So start referring to it. Or was that an ad lengthenum?
======================================

Kim, we have given fact the problem is you (and all the others trolls) choose not to believe them, I can't help that.

heh, well you did click on it, didn't you? Idiot.

lmao!

Tae,

Do yourself a favor and head over to FDL (the "must read takedown" link in the update above). You'll see how factually wrong the editorial was.

Come to think of it Seixon, why don't you head over there and pose your questions? No one is responding because your arguments have long since been addressed ad nauseum. The folks at FDL would sure enjoy a new little cat toy.

kim,

You disappoint me.

You found your way here to this site. You should be able to read the links that eriposte has included. You can also search the archives for his past work on the subject.

Obviously you've got a grasp of long words. Put it to use.

Now there's an ad incredulem. Things are adding up. What's all this mumbling about 'check the policy manual'? Can no one speak English to Seixon?
=======================================

So must I be the one to argue with Seixon? I thought you disagreed with him. Show me something from the archive in response to any of Seixon's points.

Your point is analogous to "Why talk? There's a dictionary on the shelf."
=======================

kim, let your boy toy fight the battles he starts himself! If he hides behind your hoop skirts, you'll only get those lacy petticoats muddy!

Alright Seixon, where's your proof that Kristoff's source was Joe Wilson? You've certainly alleged that.
===================================

I'd be happy to let him fight if there were a battle. I see loons scrambling for cover when the hounds arrive.
=================================

Hissing while they run.
===============

So must I be the one to argue with Seixon?

Did I ask you to argue with Seixon?

If you don't care to read the information that is there to be read for yourself that's your loss.

I thought you disagreed with him.

Where exactly did I say I disagreed with him?

Show me something from the archive in response to any of Seixon's points.

There is a direct response to the accusation that Wilson lied to Nick Kristof about having seen the forged documents. eriposte provided a link back up thread. But you didn't read all that stuff did you because it's Seixon's argument not yours. Right?

God of war...

You seriously believe your own bull?

Fitzgerald knows who 'leaked' the name of Valarie Plame and has not charged anyone with it. If he believes the reporters over Libby to enough degree to charge him with perjury, then he certainly can use the reporter's testimoney to charge Libby with the crime of disclosing Plame's identity... if in fact it is a crime?

The truth is that you can go to Fitzgerals own website and see that he wrote a letter in Feb of 2004 to the judge in charge of the investigation asking if he had plenary authority to investigate 'other' aspects of the case. He knew even then that the Plame portion of the deal was going nowhere.

Are you snark or weasel? So do you not think that Joe lied to Kristoff?
===================================

Enough with you.

You're not worth the time.

Hiss.
===

So do you not think that George lied to everyone?

Better get that leak fixed before all that puffed-up self-importance leaks out. And take CH Truth with you.

I wouldn't feel so important if you guys didn't make me argue issues instead of personalities. I could certainly argue as IMPORTANTLY as your example, though, if you like.
==========================

The truth is that you can go to Fitzgerals own website and see that he wrote a letter in Feb of 2004 to the judge in charge of the investigation asking if he had plenary authority to investigate 'other' aspects of the case. He knew even then that the Plame portion of the deal was going nowhere.
Posted by CH Truth at April 10, 2006 11:47 AM

*****

Talk about bull. Fitzgerald asked that the investigation be expanded because, as he stated, he "had sand kicked in his eyes" when trying to investigate the truth.

Your bizarro world bullshit won't fly here, asshole.

GOW... look at the date... Feb 2003 he hadn't talked to anyone yet, much less got sand kicked in his face.

You, sir, are incredibly obtuse.

But, but, but.... look at the archives.
==================

So the pussy left a pussy with no teeth to defend him? Typical 'pukes, what chickenshit idiots! Always expecting someone else to fight their wars for them. Hilarious that they haven't realized everyone's laughing at them for sport!

Miaow. Your ad felinems make tasty morsels. How about something with a little meat on it?
=========================

GOW... look at the date... Feb 2003 he hadn't talked to anyone yet, much less got sand kicked in his face.

You, sir, are incredibly obtuse.
Posted by CH Truth at April 10, 2006 12:21 PM

Truth, Look at the date. hint: Wilson didn't write the article until july of 2003.

Miaow. Your ad felinems make tasty morsels. How about something with a little meat on it?

WTF? Now that was just plain stupid. Ugh. I feel like I've lost brain cells just reading that crap.

Miaow. Your ad felinems make tasty morsels. How about something with a little meat on it?

Jeff Guckert has something meaty that you could help him get straight.

goose, it should be obvious that CH meant 2/04.

Hey Pooch, if you hadn't lost so many already you'd have a reply besides whining.

You know it's bad when they are reduced to beating gay meat.
==========================

"We must have touched a nerve somewhere! We are getting far more than the usual number of Freeper creeps today."

Pessimist, exactly. We had a short period where these fuckers were not coming here and we all commented on how informative this site had become and how more enjoyable it was. Now, we have several new trolls today along with the usual boring regulars. Today it's like being on a grade school playground, with people calling each other names. But hey, if you guys want to let them control and dictate the subject matter on this blog, have at it. Personally, I think none of them deserve your time, much less your responses.

I think the WaPo editorial was the tide turning. They know they can no longer defend Joe's lies.
=====================================

Seixon=Bagel-troll and that dumbfuck fake lawyer troll whose name I have blessedly forgot. Oh yeah...crappy the craptacular.

Same stupid holier-than-thou style.

And claiming to be a moderate at this point is much the same as sayingI have my head completely up my ass

Have a nice day.

Seixon,

I had no idea you couldn't read English. One of the problems I am realizing here is that trolls have no interest in doing even the bare minimum of work required to go to a URL and read the correct link.

What's more, you are so incensed about some minor contradiction between Wilson's narrative and Dick Cheney-the-liar-in-chief's claims about Wilson and his trip. The guy who - long after he had started a workup on Wilson, and after he had asked Libby to leak cherry-picked fake parts of the NIE to attack Wilson - said that he didn't know who Wilson was, that he never heard of him. I don't see you falling on your face criticizing Cheney's serial lying though.

Anyway, Wilson explicitly said Cheney did not know about his trip to Niger:
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/004878.php

What he did say was that he was told that his trip was arranged in response to a request from the office of the Vice President. No evidence has emerged to indicate that he was not told that. Someone may have very well told him that considering that Cheney was the one who asked the CIA to investigate the Niger uranium claim and someone at the CIA may have given Wilson the impression that his trip was arranged in response to the VP's request. This is the silly and ridiculous point over which you want to hang you hat on?? What proof do you have that Wilson was not told what he said he was told? NONE - other than blind anti-Wilson hatred.

Then you go on a tirade over Wilson "lying" about knowning about the forgeries. Please. Are you on earth or some other planet? That has long been debunked and Nicholas Kristof wrote to Wilson acknowledging that Wilson never said that:
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/005856.php

Before you start a commotion in this comment thread at least do some due diligence before rattling off debunked garbage. And don't waste my time with this complete crap again and again cut and pasted without even an ounce of fact-checking.

Seixon,

Just noticed you kept asking me to post a response again and again.

First of all, I have work to do and can't sit around in comment threads all day. Second, I simply don't like to waste my time responding to garbage I have previously debunked. Third, one of the reasons why Wilson wrote his op-ed is because he realized he had been misquoted by Kristof.
http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/005856.php

Hello everyone. Sorry, was sleeping. It's 7AM, that means it's fisking time (which means fishing in Norwegian... haha).

eR,

You did exactly the same thing that everyone else like you is doing. You are ignoring the FACT that Wilson's story changed.

Whether or not Cheney lied about never meeting Wilson is irrelevant here. If Cheney lied about that, what does it matter? That is a completely irrelevant point here.

The fact here is that Kristof, with the help of Wilson and most likely Plame, wrote two columns where he laid out the case that Wilson had known that the forgeries were fakes, had reported this to the CIA, and that this was reported to Cheney.

I mean, just read the Kristof articles. Now if Kristof was just making shit up, or if Wilson lied - that is something we won't know. However, Wilson told the SSCI that he was told about the forged documents by his CIA handler, but the CIA denies this because there were no documents at the CIA at that time. So here again we have Wilson's word contradicting others. Seems like a reoccurring pattern.

Of course, you will just believe anything Wilson says, and ignore all the inconsistencies he has with several people. In a court of law, or at a police station, that would usually get you arrested or pointed out as a prime suspect.

Someone accused me of not seeing the forest for the trees earlier. That's exactly what you're not doing eR.

You are focusing on all of Wilson's excuses and all the ways he corrected the story that he already helped Kristof set into motion. You are ignoring the very fact that Kristof propagated an incorrect story over several months. You are ignoring that Wilson was found to have been inconsistent with the truth by the SSCI according to interviews with several people.

Kristof, with the help of Wilson, created a false story.

This false story is what got Cheney and Libby all worked up. Because it was false.

You ignore this at your own peril.

I find it hilarious that I could go to sleep and wake up and still no one has addressed any of the concrete points I brought up. All they do is wait for their hero eR to come and try to clean up after them. This is a sign of people who cannot think for themselves, and only go after what others tell them. Like sheep.

pessimist,

You might want to read articles released yesterday that show the Army is above its recruiting goals so far for this year.... Ooops. There's those pesky facts getting in the way of snark again.

Simp,

I would gladly go to FDL and comment. However, Jane banned me from commenting after I made TWO comments, both of which debunked an entire post she wrote simply because she was too lazy to check simple facts. Once again, simple facts got in the way of a good story, and they were ignored. All too common a trait at these sites.

kim,

Wilson himself admitted that he was the source for the Kristof columns. The other source for them was most likely his wife, although we'll probably never get to the bottom of that unless Libby defense team calls Plame or Kristof to the stand in a future trial.

goose1,

I do know how the CIA works. As has been explained in many articles already, Plame has been an analyst for quite some time, ever since she was moved back to the USA in 1997. Whether she has done any covert work since then is up to Fitzgerald to prove if he so chooses to do so. However, seeing as how the Wilsons had children after this point, you think that Plame was out in the world doing undercover work? Nah.

She was an analyst at the CIA, who still had her NOC.

Seixon,

In your definition then, every time the media misreports what Bush and Cheney said, it is Bush and Cheney's fault? What kind of nonsense is this?

Kristof misunderstands and misquotes Wilson - and Wilson is to blame? Wilson comes out and writes an op-ed - in part to correct the misleading/wrong information in Kristof's article - and Wilson is to blame? I'd love to see you blame Bush for coming out and correcting someone misquoting him.

As I said. No logic and no facts - just blind anti-Wilson hatred.

On top of that you claim:
"However, Wilson told the SSCI that he was told about the forged documents by his CIA handler, but the CIA denies this because there were no documents at the CIA at that time. So here again we have Wilson's word contradicting others. Seems like a reoccurring pattern."

Wilson never said he was told about the forged documents by his handler - he said there were "documents pertaining to the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium transaction...". And absolutely the CIA had such documents which they received from SISMI.

Don't make stuff up. The SSCI in fact confirmed Wilson's point that he was even shown details of the Niger reporting. Again, try to curb your blind Wilson-hatred and take a minute to read the facts:

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2005/11/the_cia_report_.html

"The problem, of course, was that Wilson did attend that February 19 meeting and he did participate in these discussions. The SSCI admits this discrepancy, without acknowledging that Wilson is largely proven correct. The DO reports officer's refutation of Wilson's claims to know about the Iraq intelligence are vague:

The DO reports officer told Committee staff that he did not provide the former ambassador with any information about the source or details of the original reporting as it would have required sharing classified information and, noted that there were no "documents" circulating in the IC at the time of the former ambassador's trip, only intelligence reports from [redacted] intelligence regarding an alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal. (44-45)

It appears the SSCI wants to suggest with this tidbit that Wilson couldn't have known of the Iraq-Niger allegations. But some of its other evidence shows clearly he did know. The previous bullet continues, for example,

Meeting notes and other correspondence show that details of the reporting were discussed at the February 19. 2002 meeting, but none of the meeting participants recall telling the former ambassador the source of the report [redacted].(45)

And earlier, the SSCI admits:

The INR analyst's notes [on which the INR memo is based] also indicate that specific details of the classified report on the Iraq-Niger uranium deal were discussed at the meeting, as well as whether analysts believed it was plausible that Niger would be capable of delivering such a large quantity of uranium to Iraq. (41)

In other words, even the SSCI admits that Wilson had very good reason to understand his trip was a response to a specific piece of intelligence, even if the talking points they gave him referred more generally to rogue nations, rather than Iraq specifically.

In fact, if you read Wilson's book, it's clear that he believes he gave feedback as to the possible veracity of the Iraq-Niger allegation at the February 19 meeting, in addition to the trip."

S. - I went to your site and for you to call yourself "a moderate" and "progressive" (in a lameass attempt to appear to have more credibility) is such an obvious, bald faced lie that one immediatly wonders how many other things youre willing to lie about. Im sure you could go on all day. Yeah, youre just a free thinker out to bring the truth to light. LOL. What an effing joke.

Seixon reminds me of one of those little weasals recruited from The Dartmouth Review who believe "some things are more important than the truth." And he probobly considers that a compliment.

eR,

1. So Kristof publishes a column in May that misrepresents Wilson. Then instead of correcting him in public, as you say he did in July, Wilson helps Kristof when yet another column in June! Then Wilson waits another month to "correct" Kristof?

Please. You know as well as I do that a common propaganda technique is to throw out misinformation on to the wires, and then administer a "correction" afterwards - knowing full well that the damage is already done.

If Wilson felt he had been mischaracterized by Kristof in May 2003, why didn't he go to the editors of the New York Times? How come Kristof was able to publish yet another article sourced by Wilson in June 2003 that was even more misleading?

Why did Wilson wait an entire 2 months to "correct" the misinformation that Kristof was peddling?

Riddle me that, Wilson-apologist. You said I had blind Wilson-hatred. Sorry, you are projecting your own partisan love interest in the credibility of Wilson. Only a gullible fool such as yourself would buy the story that Wilson was misquoted by Kristof, and waited a whole 2 months to correct it.

2. You say:

"Wilson never said he was told about the forged documents by his handler - he said there were "documents pertaining to the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium transaction...". And absolutely the CIA had such documents which they received from SISMI."

He was never told about the forged documents, but he said there were documents? How did he know there were documents if he was not told about them? Please tell me you are not dense as a block of tungsten. The CIA had the documents from SISMI in February 2002? No, they did not.

3. You said:

"Don't make stuff up. The SSCI in fact confirmed Wilson's point that he was even shown details of the Niger reporting. Again, try to curb your blind Wilson-hatred and take a minute to read the facts"

Yes, he was told about the general details about the Niger reporting, but he was not told or shown any documents, since they didn't even have the documents at that time. Yet Wilson, through Kristof, acted as if he himself had debunked the documents at the time, because the names and dates were wrong. This, of course, was impossible due to the fact that the CIA didn't even have the documents at that time. All the CIA had were details from the documents. So how could Wilson have known there were documents when he was not told of documents, nor shown them?

You're trying to pull a bait and switch here, and I'm not falling for it. Sorry.

4. Why the distinction between knowing details of the Niger reporting, and knowing about documents is critical:

"In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.

The envoy reported, for example, that a Niger minister whose signature was on one of the documents had in fact been out of office for more than a decade. In addition, the Niger mining program was structured so that the uranium diversion had been impossible. The envoy's debunking of the forgery was passed around the administration and seemed to be accepted — except that President Bush and the State Department kept citing it anyway. "It's disingenuous for the State Department people to say they were bamboozled because they knew about this for a year," one insider said."

This is from Kristof's May 2003 column. Now, here is says unequivocally that the envoy, Wilson, debunked the documents himself and that his finding that the documents were forged was passed to the administration. How is that possible, when the CIA didn't even have the documents at this point in time?

Well, it's not, because all of this was a huge lie. Wilson was a source for this column. Now, if Wilson felt that this was in error, and wanted to correct it... why did he let Kristof write in June 2003:

"Immediately upon his return, in early March 2002, this senior envoy briefed the C.I.A. and State Department and reported that the documents were bogus, for two main reasons. First, the documents seemed phony on their face — for example, the Niger minister of energy and mines who had signed them had left that position years earlier."

So, you claim that Wilson was misquoted, misrepresented, whatever. So why did he not do anything about Kristof's lies in his May 2003 column? Why did he let Kristof lie AGAIN in his June 2003 column without speaking up?

Here Kristof is saying, again, that the envoy, Wilson, reported back that the documents were "phony on their face", even though according to Wilson in his op-ed, he had never seen the documents. In fact, the documents were never at the CIA until much later than this, so how could Wilson have seen them and determined they were "phony on their face"? Well, he couldn't have.

Did Wilson correct this? Yes, a full two months after Kristof first lied about it.

Two months. Wilson knowingly let Kristof carry on with this fairytale without doing anything.

Gee, why do you think that is?

Let's dig up Wilson's speech at the Education for Peace in Iraq Center. What did he say? This was in June, before he went public in his op-ed:

"Let me just start out by saying, as a preface to what I really want to talk about, to those of you who are going out and lobbying tomorrow, I just want to assure you that that American ambassador who has been cited in reports in the New York Times and in the Washington Post, and now in the Guardian over in London, who actually went over to Niger on behalf of the government--not of the CIA but of the government--and came back in February of 2002 and told the government that there was nothing to this story, later called the government after the British white paper was published and said you all need to do some fact-checking and make sure the Brits aren't using bad information in the publication of the white paper, and who called both the CIA and the State Department after the President's State of the Union and said to them you need to worry about the political manipulation of intelligence if, in fact, the President is talking about Niger when he mentions Africa. That person was told by the State Department that, well, you know, there's four countries that export uranium. That person had served in three of those countries, so he knew a little bit about what he was talking about when he said you really need to worry about this. But I can assure you that that retired American ambassador to Africa, as Nick Kristof called him in his article, is also pissed off, and has every intention of ensuring that this story has legs. And I think it does have legs."

Wow, so Wilson in June 2003 said not only that the government sent the ambassador (himself), and NOT the CIA, but talked directly about the Kristof column you claimed he was misrepresented by, and was sure that the ambassador (himself) wanted the story to have legs.

Do you still think that Wilson was misrepresented by Kristof?

If so, why was Wilson making a speech after the 2nd Kristof column, not correcting him, but PRAISING the story and saying that the story would have legs???

Oh my. You are going to have to take an aspirin after this one. Wilson is a liar, and I just proved it, hands down, with his own words.

Seixon,
There you go peddling your trademarked GOP talking points again.

Does it ever strike you that the reason Wilson may not have wanted to come out and identify himself and write a correction is because he was trying to remain anonymous to the public ? If he always wanted to out himself from the start - then there was no reason to remain anonymous was there?

Obviously any sane person who serves as a background source to the media expects the media to correct its coverage (as Wilson tried to do - "Nothing could have been further from the truth, and I had called Kristof the day his article appeared to remind him that I had never seen the documents.") - not expect him to out himself to write an op-ed every time to correct a media report based on his comments. That sorta destroys the purpose of remaining in the background doesn't it?

1. Note that Wilson tried to correct the mistakes the very day the article appeared not a month or more later. You can carry on your hatred for Wilson all you want but if every official who wants to be an anonymous source is expected to come out and write an op-ed or letter to correct it publicly, that will be the end of anonymous sources. Not to mention I don't see this passion in denouncing the myriad lies from your Dear Leader passed on via anonymous leaks to the media and never corrected. I can see how you are standing on "principle" here. Uh-huh.

2/3. "He was never told about the forged documents, but he said there were documents? How did he know there were documents if he was not told about them? Please tell me you are not dense as a block of tungsten. The CIA had the documents from SISMI in February 2002? No, they did not."

Ha ha ha. The word "documents" does not mean "forged documents". Looks who's being dense. Obviously all the Niger reporting were on "documents". When Wilson met with the CIA, the "verbatim text" of the fake "accord" was with the CIA. Guess what - this text was not a bunch of letters floating in the ether! It was on a "document". Wilson was perfectly right in calling them "documents", because on earth, these kinds of things are printed on paper and referred to as "documents". I can see that on Mars things may be different, but on earth they are not.

"Does it ever strike you that the reason Wilson may not have wanted to come out and identify himself and write a correction is because he was trying to remain anonymous to the public ? If he always wanted to out himself from the start - then there was no reason to remain anonymous was there?"

Oh, the irony. Yes, I am perfectly aware the Wilson wanted to remain anonymous while he fed complete bullshit to Kristof and Pincus. That's my whole point, genius. The whole reason to remain anonymous was to whip up a false story about Cheney knowing that the documents were forged, because he himself had reported this to him through the CIA. Then after a few months, he realized that he was about to get sacked by the truth, and came out and tweaked his story.

Not once, not even when he went public in his op-ed, did he correct the previous columns he had sourced.

I see you, again, believe everything Wilson says. So Wilson called up Kristof the next day to remind him he hadn't seen the documents, only to have Kristof use him as a source yet again a month later? Did Wilson contact the editor of the Times?

It's funny because the one thing that was consistent between the Pincus and Kristof articles was that the ambassador who went to Niger had debunked the forgeries. You're telling me that both of these journalists misquoted Wilson?

Wow, what a coincidence. Everyone is a lying liar, except Wilson. How about that.

1. This whole farce of a point is undermined by the fact that Wilson did go public months later. He was anonymous while the press was spitting out utter bullshit, and he altered the story when he had to put his name under it. Classic propaganda procedure. You seem to think that the editors of the New York Times, and Kristof, were completely ignoring Wilson's comments for months, while the Washington Post and Pincus were doing the same thing. When are you going to start realizing that Wilson was running a con game to smear the administration?

2. Please. You keep lying to yourself. How did Kristof come up with the notion that Wilson had debunked the documents because of fake signatures and wrong dates and all of that? Is he a creative writer? Wilson not only told the SSCI that he knew of the documents, but that he knew where they came from. Not only that, no one told him any of this was on "documents". In the digital age, you can store information on computers. You can have oral reports. Yet he kept talking about all of this stuff specifically on documents, and his anonymously sourced articles talked about him debunking those documents.

You are being willfully dense, again.

And I see you didn't make any comments at all about Wilson lying his ass off at during his speech. A speech where he praised the false stories you claimed he tried to correct. A speech where he said explicitly that he was sent on behalf of the government, NOT the CIA.

The fact that you didn't make a single comment about that shows you are protecting a liar and aren't honest enough to admit it.

I have written up a longer post about this, I'd be happy for you to comment on it.

And this time, try not to weasel out of commenting on the fact that Wilson LIED. Mk?

I have written up a longer post about this, I'd be happy for you to comment on it.

You're sooooooo cute when you blogwhore!

When you come up with something resembling proof, maybe someone will comment.

S - When you finish with this relentless stream of b.s, perhaps you could take a moment to SPECIFY how exactly you are "progressive" and "moderate." Btw, Im sending you a Bend Over for Grover bumpersticker.

Looks like to me eriposte was thoroughly defeated by someone who is familiar with what actually happened. Eriposte seems to be more into inferring evil intentions (almost as futile as inferring benign intentions)...I submit that neither you or I or Seixon or eriposte has the slightest upper hand in endeavors of that sort!

pessimist,

Just go to my blog and tell me where I am wrong bud. It's all yours. I don't censor anything from my blog comments. You can even go there and call me all the cuss words you can dream of and I will not censor it. Which leads me to...

jondee,

I never claimed I was "progressive", although I do hold some progressive values, since I am a moderate. I think me not censoring any comments, no matter what, at my blog should give me some good "progressive" credentials, shouldn't it? Well, that seems a bit problematic, since I have been banned from "progressive" sites like FDL simply because I debunked the "delightful" Jane Hamsher with a whopping 2 comments. Where she proceeded to rewrite those 2 comments, calling me an inbred who has sex with my sister, and a bunch of other lovely things.

I'm not sure how "progressive" that's supposed to be, but whatever. I've long since learned that the masters of these liberal blogs are nothing but a bunch of hypocritical partisan liars.

If you're concerned about my credentials as a moderate, why don't you go to my blog and send me an email. I'd love to answer your specific concerns. Rattling off my views on every issue doesn't really have a place in the comments here on the site or this thread.

And I see that no one is willing to face the music - Wilson lied. His words are right there. You can't deny them. He lied.

Game. Set. Match.

Seixon,

I've tended to become pretty confused with this entire Plamegate story rather easily (which I think most laymen are). Perhaps you could outline quickly for me what you see Wilson directly lying about. From what I quickly read, I see you did mention that Wilson said that the government had sent him and not the CIA.

Is this one of the lies you were referring to?

MisterOpus1,

Did you read the blog post I referred to? It lays it out pretty clearly right there.

Basically Wilson leaked anonymously to the New York Times and the Washington Post, telling both of them that he himself had debunked the forged Niger documents back in February 2002, and that his debunking of these documents was reported to the administration in March 2002.

This was completely false, since the CIA didn't even have the documents at the time, and Wilson later admitted, when he was writing under his own name, that he had never seen the documents.

eriposte and others claim that Wilson was misquoted by the journalists, but that explanation doesn't fly. Both the Washington Post and the New York Times had the same thing regarding this, both of them printed articles anonymously sourced by Wilson.

Not only that, Wilson did not correct the misinformation in public when referring to himself secretly in third-person - he praised it and said that the story had legs.

Of course, the entire story was false. He hadn't debunked the documents, the administration was not told of his mission to Niger, and the administration had good reason to believe that Iraq had been seeking uranium from Niger - according to intelligence that was separate from the forged documents.

Then we have the leaking of his wife's name to the media. Of course, it is widely known that many journalists in Washington already knew that Plame was Wilson's wife, and that she worked for the CIA. Also, it was not the administration who first "leaked" this information, it was someone outside the White House. This person is being protected by Patrick Fitzgerald, who is trying to prosecute Libby for lying about something he didn't do.

The leaker is widely believed to be Richard Armitage, who used to be Powell's deputy at the State Department.

No one can give a good explanation for Fitzgerald protecting his identity from being exposed as the original leaker - other than trying to salvage his momentously fraudulent case against Libby.

That's what the facts show, and I challenge anyone to point out anything wrong with what I have just said.

PATRICK FITZGERALD: OOPS, NEVER MIND [Byron York]

An embarrassing move this afternoon from CIA leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. In his now-famous court filing in which he said that former Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby testified that he had been authorized to leak portions of the then-classified National Intelligence Estimate, Fitzgerald wrote, "Defendant understood that he was to tell [New York Times reporter Judith] Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium."

That sentence led a number of reporters and commentators to suggest that, beyond the issue of the leak itself, the administration was lying about the NIE, because the African uranium segment was not in fact among the NIE's key judgments. For example, in a front page story on Sunday, the Washington Post reported:

At Cheney's instruction, Libby testified, he told Miller that the uranium story was a "key judgment" of the intelligence estimate, a term of art indicating there was consensus on a question of central importance.
In fact, the alleged effort to buy uranium was not among the estimate's key judgments, which were identified by a headline and bold type and set out in bullet form in the first five pages of the 96-page document.

A few hours ago, however, Fitzgerald sent a letter to judge Reggie Walton, asking to correct his filing. The letter reads:

We are writing to correct a sentence from the Government's Response to Defendant's Third Motion to Compel Discovery, filed on April 5, 2006. The sentence, which is the second sentence of the second paragraph on page 23, reads, 'Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium." That sentence should read, "Defendant understood that he was to tell Miller, among other things, some of the key judgments of the NIE, and that the NIE stated that Iraq was 'vigorously trying to procure' uranium."
Never mind.

Seixon,

Thanks for the rundown. I'm a bit presse for time tonight, but will look over the material you posted a little closer.

In the meantime, I wanted to ask you about one of your statements:

Then we have the leaking of his wife's name to the media. Of course, it is widely known that many journalists in Washington already knew that Plame was Wilson's wife, and that she worked for the CIA.

Do you have any information from other journalists to support this?

Seixon - "I am much more progressive than you could forsee in your wildest dreams and beyond partisan whoring." But you "never claimed to be progressive." Full of shit and completely shameless about it; theres a clinical term for that, but you guys have definatly found your niche. And Jeff Gannon's (another one of your boys) site is less of a "partisan" whorehouse than yours is. Where do they find you weasals?

Can't speak for Seixon but WTF (where the fuck) do they find the likes of most on this thread?

MisterOpus1,

Thanks for holding a constructive tone. It was no secret to anyone that Plame was Wilson's wife. I don't need to demonstrate that at all, it was public knowledge, attainable through many different public avenues such as the internet, Who's Who, and so on.

It is obvious that Plame was a source for Kristof's earlier columns, and I think either him or Pincus have said that they have used Plame as a source for stories earlier on than all of this. In other words, they knew she was CIA. There have been various statements by journalists, such as Andrea Mitchell, about "everyone knew" and so on, that they retracted later for obvious reasons. If you put any number of these journalists on the stand, they will have to end up admitting that they knew this. Removed from that, it just gets down to piecing it all together. In the very least, the journalist who had Plame as a source for previous stories must have known.

jondee,

"But you "never claimed to be progressive.""

I said I was MORE progressive than you could ever imagine. Does that mean I am a progressive? No. I'm a moderate. People are varying degrees of everything, and I am more progressive than I am conservative. Can you understand English?

From the other thread where you couldn't even tell the difference between September and November, I kind of doubt it.

Your hate for me, because I say things that don't fit with your brainwashed mind, blinds you from simple English.

Seixon - Youre not "brain washed"; youre the light-bringer. Just like those other "moderate" fascists you link to at your site: lgf & co. Like I said: just keep bendin over for Grover. Weasal.

Amazing... a running blog match that completly misses the most obvious point - just like the entire "discussion" aroung Iraq.

How about focusing on what the NEI says? Go read the document, all of it, and tell me that Bush would have not been derelict in his duty if he had not taken out Saddam. It clearly states many times over the variety and depth of the threats and deceptions... If you haven't actually read it, and also the Duellfer & Butler Reports you are not an informed citizen (ie., the world of wow now heaped on the 'journalist" who obviously never read the Butler report but ignotantly claimed that a parliamentary inquiry supposedly backed Wilson's claim - instead it concluded that Bush's 16 words in the SOTUS were "well founded".

The quote from the subject article about Tenant's comments are especially instructive:
"In October, the Intelligence Community (IC) produced a classified, 90 page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's WMD programs. There is a lengthy section in which most agencies of the Intelligence Community judged that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Let me emphasize, the NIE's Key Judgments cited six reasons for this assessment; the African uranium issue was not one of them."

You highlighted the third sentence. Maybe you should have highlighted the second sentence which clearly states: "MOST AGENCIES...JUDGED THAT IRAQ WAS RECONSTITUTING ITS NUCLEAR WEAPONS PROGRAM." Given this overarching conclusion of the intelligence community, is it not obvious that Wilson's deep and through investigation had little if any weight towards absolving Saddam of ill intentions in the uranium field, but rather coroberrated other reports of attempted Iraq / Niger contacts?

The fallback to name calling and personal attacks, dehumanization of your political opponents, reveals more about yourself than your target, and degrades your own karma. Dehumanization is the first step to Facism. I respect my neighbor even if his lawn sign is a different color.

Can anyone actually deal with the facts, and their serious implcations, without partisan meltdown?

Claudia Rossett has seen things these people wouldn't believe.
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