BS From Nick Kristof

In a well-hidden Times Select column, Nick Kristof reveals himself to be a bit of an ironist - he exhorts Dick Cheney to come clean about his role in the Plame leak while lying shamelessly about his own.

Here we go, as quickly as I can type:

I gather from the indictment and other sources that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were upset in May and June 2003 by a column of mine from May 6, 2003, in which I linked Mr. Cheney to Mr. Wilson's trip to Niger.  If Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby thought that my column was unfair, or that Mr. Wilson was exaggerating his role, they had every right to ask for a correction or set the record straight.

But they never raised the issue with me - nor, when Mr. Wilson went public, did they make their case publicly.  Certainly the solution was not to leak classified information about Mr. Wilson's wife.

Emphasis added, and indeed not - the solution might have been for George Tenet, then head of the CIA, to issue a public statement explaining Wilson's trip, and noting that, contra Kristof, Wilson had not been sent at Cheney's behest, had not debunked any forgeries (since he had not seen them), and had not provided a definitive report about Iraq's nuclear aspirations.  But wait, that is what happened on July 11, just after Wilson went public.  Gee, didn't Kristof just say they did not make their case publicly?

Or, the solution might have been for Lewis Libby himself to go on record with a major newsweekly.  Maybe he could have gotten himself quoted in TIME magazine.  Oh, wait - he did!  By the now-famous Matt Cooper, no less.  And what did Libby say, on the record and in quotes?

In an exclusive interview Lewis Libby, the Vice President's Chief of Staff, told TIME: "The Vice President heard about the possibility of Iraq trying to acquire uranium from Niger in February 2002. As part of his regular intelligence briefing, the Vice President asked a question about the implication of the report. During the course of a year, the Vice President asked many such questions and the agency responded within a day or two saying that they had reporting suggesting the possibility of such a transaction. But the agency noted that the reporting lacked detail. The agency pointed out that Iraq already had 500 tons of uranium, portions of which came from Niger, according to the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA). The Vice President was unaware of the trip by Ambassador Wilson and didn't know about it until this year when it became public in the last month or so."

One might have thought that those two public responses would have prompted Mr. Kristof to follow up and justify his own erroneous reporting from May 6, 2003 and June 13, 2003.

Or perhaps the Senate Intelligence Committee report could have provoked a bit of follow-up.  Or maybe Mr. Kristof should have been prodded into action when Joe Wilson told Paula Zahn that, as far as Kristof's anonymously sourced columns went "those are either misquotes or misattributions if they're attributed to me."

But no.  We are still waiting for Mr. Kristof to come clean about his own reporting - Matthew Continetti of the Weekly Standard did get an email from Mr. Kristof containing the assurance that he would look into it, but apparently Mr. Kristof's investigative skills have deserted him on this point.

Byron Calame, Public Editor of the NY Times, does not want to add the Kristof Conundrum to the Miller Debacle, but he always enjoys reader email.  Add to his burdens at public@nytimes.com.

I am sure Mr. Calame would be delighted to regale us with an explanation as to why Mr. Kristof published, on Oct 30, a column with the assertion that the Administration did not publicly respond to the Wilson allegations when the facts tells us the opposite.  If Mr. Kristof meant to say that he only runs corrections after the subject of his erroneous reporting agrees to a personal interview, he should have said so.  However, it was obvious to some observers that the Times had a Kristof problem on this story even back in October 2003.

And if he is on a roll, perhaps Mr. Calame can tell us whether Mr. Kristof proposes to tackle the discrepancies between the story he told on May 6 / June 13 2003, and the stories told by George Tenet on July 11, 2003 and the bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee in July 2004.  He might even attempt to address Joe Wilson's "misquotes or misattributions" remark, although he won't catch us holding our breath.

Yeah, this will happen.

Comments

[topsecretk9]

This what I think Kristof is grappling with

"...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..."

SSI report details this meeting took place at the Wilson's home with 2 de-briefers (that ultimately interpreted Wilson tale different than Wilson) and a "hostess"...

[kim]

And this is a witness for the prosecution? Must be the first time around the block for this prosecutor. Oh, wait.

Hey stop, that's a one-way street.
===================================================

[TP]

Would Kristof have to disclose to his editors the identities of the people at the Wilson's home?

[Toby Petzold]

Kristof is apparently still coming to grips with how Joe Wilson used him at the start of the Restore Honesty Tour '03.

But Kristof really should come clean. For one thing, he can explain the following bit of prose from his 6 May 2003 op-ed in the NYT (emphases mine):

I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. 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.

If any of those four descriptions is not of the same person ---which make Kristof a sneak, anyway, for the way they're worded--- then Kristof has an obligation to now say who else was feeding him information about a CIA-sponsored investigation in Africa in the spring of 2002.

Come to think of it, I'd say he and Wilson were using each other.

[SteveMG]

Would Kristof have to disclose to his editors the identities of the people at the Wilson's home?

Well, it was Joe Wilson, the hostess Valerie Plame and two CIA analysts/de-briefers. My guess is that we're not really interested in the names of the briefers.

Unless it was Vincent Cannistraro and Ray McGovern doing some part-time work (bit of an inside joke for the more conspiracy-minded).

We want to know more about the briefees and what they "briefed" about.

Especially liked to know what the one serving the tea and cake said.

SMG

[SteveMG]

Toby:
If any of those four descriptions is not of the same person

Has to be Valerie Wilson/Plame.

Someone present at the meetings

Present at the meetings were Joe Wilson, Valerie Wilson and two CIA de-briefers.

The CIA de-briefers were clearly not told about the forged documents. So, Kristof's source could not have been one of them.

Kristof's two sources were Valerie and Joe Wilson.

SMG

[topsecretk9]

Really, Kim points it out...Plame will be called, and there will be some very uncomfortable questions for her to answer...can Fitzgerald ignore it?

[MaidMarion]

I have been piecing together a timeline on a guy named Walter P. Lang (aka W. Patrick Lang; Pat Lang). I don’t know if you are familiar with him or not, but I noticed these interesting confluences: Democratic Policy Committee, Larry Johnson, Vince Cannistraro, James Marcinkowski, and Lang. The timing of the articles/events below, especially the May 5th and 6th 2003 articles, is interesting since there had been a Senate Democratic Policy committee conference around this timeframe. And Seymour Hersh’s 20 October 2003 article talking about the possible origin of the “fake Niger document” sure is curious…

5 May 2003

Seymour Hersh, New Yorker, “Selective Intelligence: Donald Rumsfeld has his own special sources. Are they reliable?”(12 May 2003 issue; posted 5 May 2003) http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030512fa_fact

“W. Patrick Lang, the former chief of Middle East intelligence at the D.I.A., said, “The Pentagon has banded together to dominate the government’s foreign policy, and they’ve pulled it off. They’re running Chalabi. The D.I.A. has been intimidated and beaten to a pulp. And there’s no guts at all in the C.I.A.”

6 May 2003

Nicholas Kristof, NYT, “Why Truth Matters” http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/05/06/nyt.kristof/

I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. 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.
--
Patrick Lang, a former head of Middle Eastern affairs in the Defense Intelligence Agency, says that he hears from those still in the intelligence world that when experts wrote reports that were skeptical about Iraq's W.M.D., "they were encouraged to think it over again."
--
"In this administration, the pressure to get product `right' is coming out of O.S.D. [the Office of the Secretary of Defense]," Mr. Lang said. He added that intelligence experts had cautioned that Iraqis would not necessarily line up to cheer U.S. troops and that the Shiite clergy could be a problem. "The guys who tried to tell them that came to understand that this advice was not welcome," he said.

(NOTE: The Weekly Standard's Matthew Continetti reported over a year later, that Kristof had met Joe Wilson only a few days earlier at a Senate Democratic Policy Committee conference. (WS 7/26/2004 http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=4337&R=9F0E3879F): “The first public mention of Joe Wilson's February 2002 mission to Niger appeared in a May 6, 2003, column by Nicholas D. Kristof in the New York Times. Shortly before, Wilson had met Kristof at a Senate Democratic Policy Committee conference in the capital. As Wilson later recounted to Vanity Fair, he told Kristof about his trip to Niger over breakfast the next morning, and said "Kristof could write about it, but not name him.")

29 May 2003

Jim Lobe, Asia Times Online, “WMD: Will the real culprit stand up”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EE29Ak01.html

As explained by W Patrick Lang, former director of Middle East analysis at the Defense Intelligence Agency, to the New York Times, the OSP "started picking out things that supported their thesis and stringing them into arguments that they could use with the president ... It's not intel," he said, using an insider's word for intelligence, "it's political propaganda."

4 June 2003

James Lobe, Asia Times Online, “The truth, the whole truth and nothing but…”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EF04Ak02.html

The controversy over whether the administration of President George W Bush either exaggerated or lied about evidence that it said it had about the existence of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq before the US-led invasion has mushroomed over the past week.
---
Much of the evidence on which the WMD case was based came from defectors supplied by the Iraqi National Congress (INC), an exile group headed by Ahmed Chalabi that has been championed by the neo-conservatives - including Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, Cheney chief of staff I Lewis Libby and Defense Policy Board members Richard Perle, Kenneth Adelman and James Woolsey - for more than a decade.

Retired senior CIA, DIA and State Department intelligence officers, including the CIA's former counter-terrorism chief Vince Cannistraro and the DIA's former chief of Middle East intelligence W Patrick Lang, have also spoken bluntly to reporters about what they call the administration's corruption of the intelligence process to justify war.

20 October 2003

Seymour M. Hersh, New Yorker, “The Stovepipe: How conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred reporting on Iraq’s weapons.” http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact

Who produced the fake Niger papers? There is nothing approaching a consensus on this question within the intelligence community. There has been published speculation about the intelligence services of several different countries. One theory, favored by some journalists in Rome, is that sismi produced the false documents and passed them to Panorama for publication.

Another explanation was provided by a former senior C.I.A. officer. He had begun talking to me about the Niger papers in March, when I first wrote about the forgery, and said, “Somebody deliberately let something false get in there.” He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.

“The agency guys were so pissed at Cheney,” the former officer said. “They said, ‘O.K, we’re going to put the bite on these guys.’ ” My source said that he was first told of the fabrication late last year, at one of the many holiday gatherings in the Washington area of past and present C.I.A. officials. “Everyone was bragging about it—‘Here’s what we did. It was cool, cool, cool.’ ” These retirees, he said, had superb contacts among current officers in the agency and were informed in detail of the sismi intelligence.

“They thought that, with this crowd, it was the only way to go—to nail these guys who were not practicing good tradecraft and vetting intelligence,” my source said. “They thought it’d be bought at lower levels—a big bluff.” The thinking, he said, was that the documents would be endorsed by Iraq hawks at the top of the Bush Administration, who would be unable to resist flaunting them at a press conference or an interagency government meeting. They would then look foolish when intelligence officials pointed out that they were obvious fakes. But the tactic backfired, he said, when the papers won widespread acceptance within the Administration. “It got out of control.”

24 October 2003

Democratic Policy Committee Hearing “National Security Implications of Disclosing the Identity of an Intelligence Operative” http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-hearing.cfm?A=5

Members: Daschle, Rockefeller, Levin, Harkin, Graham, Lautenberg

Witness: Vince Cannistraro, Larry Johnson, James Marcinkowski

"If left unpunished, this cowardly act will not only hinder our efforts to recruit qualified individuals into the clandestine service, but it will have a far-reaching, deleterious effect on our ability to recruit foreign intelligence assets overseas." (Larry Johnson)

27 October 2003

Media Research Center article about CBS coverage of the 24 Oct DPC hearing: “Rather Uses Staged Democratic Event to Justify Leakgate Story”
http://www.mrc.org/cyberalerts/2003/cyb20031027.asp

“Without ever explicitly identifying it as a Senate Democratic Policy Committee event, Stewart moved on to the story about the Senate Intelligence Committee preparing a report critical of the CIA on pre-war intelligence about Iraq.”

31 October 2003

UVA Newsmakers “A Conversation between a Military Strategist and a U.S. Ambassador on Post-War Developments in Iraq” October 31, 2003
http://www.virginia.edu/uvanewsmakers/newsmakers/wilson.html

Guests: Amb Joseph C. Wilson IV with Ret. Col. W. Patrick Lang

22 July 2005

Democratic Policy Committee Hearing; House Government Reform Committee Minority
http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpchearing.cfm?A=23

Members: Dorgan, Schumer, Waxman, Conyers, Slaughter, Inslee, Holt

Witnesses: Larry Johnson, Colonel W. Patrick Lang, ret., James Marcinkowski, David MacMichael, Mel Goodman

[EricH]

Plame will be called, and there will be some very uncomfortable questions for her to answer

And CNN and ABC and CBS will all interrupt their regular broadcasting to break this report?

Plame's admissions, if there are any, will be on page A-42 in the NY Times. Right next to a report on a mudslide in Bulgaria.

[Toby Petzold]

Steve:

Kristof's two sources were Valerie and Joe Wilson.

But, Steve! That would mean that Valerie Wilson disclosed to a reporter with the NYT that she was present at a CIA debriefing.

What would the neighbors have thought of that?

[topsecretk9]

EricH
Can't a girl dream? Quit dashing my hopes with reality, please.

[Cecil Turner]

Present at the meetings were Joe Wilson, Valerie Wilson and two CIA de-briefers.

I know he said "debriefing," but he also said "February" (and the debriefing was March 5th, according to the SSCI). I suspect he was talking about the Feb 19-20 briefings, and the sentence just got edited (for brevity, probably). I think you're still correct (that it has to be Plame), but the case isn't quite as strong as stated.

[boris]

Drudge claims Fitz plans to call Cheney in open court. Also a plea deal went south because Fitz wants Libby to do serious jail time.

Now tell me this guy isn't BDS.

[TM]

FWIW, in the Vanity Fair article, we learn that Wilson told his story to Kristof over breakfast, with his wife there.

IIRC, in his Oct 11 column, Kristof asserts that he never knew Ms. Plame was a spy, and (I'm glad I looked) tells us she was never a source:

I know Mrs. Wilson, but I knew nothing about her CIA career and hadn't realized she's "a hell of a shot with an AK-47,'' as a classmates at the CIA training "farm,'' Jim Marcinkowski, recalls. I'll be more careful around her, for she also turns out to be skilled in throwing hand grenades and to have lived abroad and run covert operations in some of the world's messier spots. (Mrs. Wilson was not a source for this column or any other that I've written about the intelligence community.)

[SteveMG]

(Mrs. Wilson was not a source for this column or any other that I've written about the intelligence community.)

About the intelligence community.

What about intelligence? What about covert operations? What about Niger documents?

What about. . . geezus, we're all becoming James Jesus Angleton paranoids.

Mirrors and mirrors and mirrors. No wonder the guy went nuts.

SMG

[topsecretk9]

WTF...we learn that Wilson told his story to Kristof over breakfast, with his wife there.

Are we supposed to believe Valerie turns into Helen Keller at all these curial times ?

[Jeff]

Wait, so TM and you all are in favor of Cheney coming clean, as long as Kristof does too? Sounds good to me.

[demosthenes]

WHY ISN'T JOE WILSON BEING PROSECUTED FOR LYING TO CONGRESS?

WHY HASN'T ANYONE AT THE CIA BEEN FIRED FOR LETTING VALERIE PLAME SEND JOE WILSON (her house husband!) TO NIGER - WITHOUT HIM EVEN SIGNING AN AGREEMENT NOT TO DISCLOSE HIS CIA MISSION?!

WHY IS NO ONE - NO ONE - ASKING THESE QUESTIONS?

DOES THE MSM HAVE US ALL HYPNOTIZED??

[SteveMG]

Jeff:
TM and you all are in favor of Cheney coming clean, as long as Kristof does too? Sounds good to me.

Okay, you've been hinting about this for awhile (if I've been following your posts to any degree of accuracy).

Lay your cards on the table for us.

You think Cheney and his staff manufactured the Niger documents?

Or knew who did, e.g., Ledeen or Chalabi or Perle?

My guess is you think Ledeen with Chalabi were in cahoots with Libby or Hadley to manufacture or exagerrate the issue of Iraq reconstituting its nuclear weapons program?

SMG

[pollyusa]

The details from Drudge

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is planning to call Vice President Dick Cheney as a witness in the trial of Lewis Libby, the DRUDGE REPORT has leaned.

But the high stakes move could result in an executive privilege showdown between the White House and Fitzgerald, a top government source said Sunday.

"If Mr. Fitzgerald is going to demand a public recounting of conversations between the vice president, or even the president, and his staff, on matters he, himself, has acknowledged are 'classified,' executive privilege will obviously be invoked."

Fitzgerald has made it clear to lawyers involved in the case that he prefers Cheney appear as a witness in open court.

"Mr. Fitzgerald is starting from the position that this should not be done on remote or videotape," the well-placed source said.

This new from Time.

"Mr. Fitzgerald is starting from the position that this should not be done on remote or videotape," the well-placed source said.

Fitzgerald and Libby's attorney Joseph Tate discussed possible plea options before the indictment was issued last week, TIME magazine reports in new editions. But the deal was scotched because the prosecutor insisted that Libby do some "serious" jail time.

[topsecretk9]

Wall Street Journal pretty much sums it all up

http://www.opinionjournal.com/weekend/hottopic/?id=110007476

[Cecil Turner]

Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is planning to call Vice President Dick Cheney as a witness in the trial of Lewis Libby, the DRUDGE REPORT has leaned.

The only possible material point from the indictment would be whether the VP told Libby about Ms Wilson's employment. There may be an argument over privilege, but the idea that this will be some sort of dramatic denouement seems farfetched. (Further, since it has so little to do with the actual substance of the charges, I suspect the parties will stipulate to the pertinent content of the conversations.)

[RedDan]

That crow seems to be sticking in your collective craw.

Facts: There was a coordinated effort to hammer Wilson, and that coordinated effort involved the revelations of his wife's status as a NOC.

Facts: Scooter Libby lied repeatedly to the point where efforts to reveal and lay out that coordinated effort were hampered.

Facts: Libby goes first, and gets squeezed, hard. In the process, he is going to be used as a lever to pry open some more tighly zipped mouths.

Facts: Bush, Cheney, Rove, Hadley, Hannah, Bolton, Wurmser, Fleitz, and a host of other players are incompetent idiots at the very best, and are more likely criminals who knowingly revealed damaging and sensitive information as a means of political retribution. In either case, they are liars.

Facts: Your spinning, whining, and tearing of hair and beating of chests, while amusing at first glance, actually seems to be indicative of some serious mental difficulties.

You folks need help.

[Jim Rockford]

Don't forget that celebrity trials are like catnip for media. And the record for celebrity trials for prosecutors are not good.

Losses: Michael Jackson, OJ, Robert Blake, Scrushy.
Wins: Martha Stewart.

Yes the media won't be able to stay away from the sheer spectacle of Cheney, Wilson, Valerie, Russert, Mr. Mandy Grunewald, Mandy and perhaps Hillary herself, Judy Miller, Kristof, Bill Keller, Andrea Mitchell ("Everyone knew about Valerie Plame"); and a host of others.

Mesereau painted the Michael Jackson alleged victim mother as a far out money grubbing whacko, which seems pretty accurate. Blake's lawyers did the same with the stuntmen witnesses. Even though there was corroborating evidence and rather unsympathetic and unbelievable defendants, the witnesses for the prosecution were so disliked by the jury that the jurors simply tuned out everything else and focused on obvious liars. That's the danger for Fitzgerald.

Expect the full impact of Wilson's many, many lies and being on the pad of the Saudi Dinar to come out; Wilson and Plame being willing to flaunt her CIA status; and frankly incompetent nepotism at the CIA with Wilson being hired while working for the Saudis. If Libby's lawyers can make the case that it's reasonable to assume that Libby WAS told of Plame's status by reporters who socialized with the Wilsons it's likely to fall on the Michael Jackson side and not the Stewart side.

Anyway, the tabloid media will paint a picture of the Media and Democrats as being one and the same, with some unflattering things about the nature of the media being exposed. Defense lawyers can be guaranteed to make that and Fitzgerald has no idea what's coming with top-of-the line lawyers like Spence or Meseraeu or even Geragos.

[Creepy Dude]

"since it has so little to do with the actual substance of the charges"

??? The essence of the charges is Libby constructed (and repeatedly told FBI and swore to the GJ) an untruthful scenario for how he learned of Plame's employment, i.e. he learned it from reporters.

So you're willing to have him stipulate he learned it from Cheney before talking to any reporters? A brilliant defense-almost worthy of the great libby himself.

True if his only defense really is "I forgot" the stipulation doesn't matter, but if that's truly the case, we see why Drudge is reporting the plea deal collapsed because Fitz wanted Libby doing serious time.

[RedDan]

Jim,

You really believe that? Really?

Wow.

[flackcatcher]

Uh SteveMG. You know James Angleton was right. Only the CIA and FBI spys were PRC, not KGB. Angleton bias were alantic, not pacific.

[clarice]

I think the drudge piece is, as Cecil does, a considerable bit of hype. The alphabets are parading Joe around for smurfball interviews and there's not much more to keep the story going after that until a trial.

Back to Aruba for a while.

[TM]

From Irish:

??? The essence of the charges is Libby constructed (and repeatedly told FBI and swore to the GJ) an untruthful scenario for how he learned of Plame's employment, i.e. he learned it from reporters.

So you're willing to have him stipulate he learned it from Cheney before talking to any reporters? A brilliant defense-almost worthy of the great libby himself.

C'mon, guy you have to at least read the indictment - Cheney's role was neot in dispute by November 2003 at the latest.

Let's see:

As part of the criminal investigation, LIBBY was interviewed by Special Agents of the FBI on or about October 14 and November 26, 2003, each time in the presence of his counsel. During these interviews, LIBBY stated to FBI Special Agents that:

a. During a conversation with Tim Russert of NBC News on July 10 or 11, 2003, Russert asked LIBBY if LIBBY was aware that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. LIBBY responded to Russert that he did not know that, and Russert replied that all the reporters knew it. LIBBY was surprised by this statement because, while speaking with Russert, LIBBY did not recall that he previously had learned about Wilson’s wife’s employment from the Vice President.

We don't know from this indictment what other of Libby's contacts were identified early on (presumably, in Cheney's case, from Libby's own notes), but Cheney is a given.

[BurkettHead]

Fitzmas turned to Fizzlemas. All the MSM got was a Scooter. Their Next Big Hope is the Wilson's civil suit against, well, whoever it will be against. They hope that the Wilsons will be able to prove the conspiracy & the heinous crimes for which Fitzgerald somehow neglected to issue indictments. So out comes Joe to tell us how horrible all of this has been, when all he was doing was trying to save the free world as we once knew it. Or, as he once knew it, anyway.

Can you imagine a decent lawyer taking that case on a contingency fee?

[clarice]

I take it--since he's saying the leak has wrecked his wife's career, that her employment will be an issue..After all, what damages did he suffer? And to prove her case, the CIA will have to testify anf provide employment records. Do you see that happening?

Since Novak leaked his name, I do hope he is the defendant in any such suit, not that I don't love the old paleocon gasbang.

[topsecretk9]

After all, what damages did he suffer?...that Vanity Fair didn't take of?

[BurkettHead]

If this civil suit does somehow materialize, will Valerie Pflame be a co-plaintiff? What can she testify about? Will she testify from behind a partition, her voice disguised? Or with a scarf & sunglasses, just like the Vogue photos? Will the CIA have to clear her testimony?

I hope they do file a civil suit. It'll be so much fun to watch.

[clarice]

Would it be wrong to start a letter writing campaign telling him to do it, that we weep with him and his wife and want him to have his day in court?

[topsecretk9]

Did Campbell Brown ask if Wilson had revised his only regret about Vanity Fair? and I relish the thought of an attorney asking Wilson to explain what he meant by the "generic blonde" regret.

[Jeff]

Okay, you've been hinting about this for awhile (if I've been following your posts to any degree of accuracy).

Lay your cards on the table for us.

You think Cheney and his staff manufactured the Niger documents?

Or knew who did, e.g., Ledeen or Chalabi or Perle?

The comment about Cheney coming clean is considerably more narrow than all this business. All I mean is that there is so much outrage at the hypocrisy of Kristof calling for Cheney to come clean when he has a lot to come clean on himself, and lost in all the outrage is the evident implication that the outraged should want -- as I do -- both Kristof and Cheney to fully clarify their role in all of this mess. I'd be more than happy to see both of them do so. Of course, I'm confident that the result would be a lot worse for Cheney than for Kristof and the Wilsons, and repression of that fact explains the odd blindness of TM and posters here to the implications of their own comments. But I'd be fine too if Cheney came out looking good. I'm genuinely for maximum transparency. So let's have at it!

As for the Niger documents, the same principle holds. There are lots of righties here who are convinced, just convinced that the forged documents lead back to Wilson and the French -- based, seemingly, on no more than one article in the Telegraph which, on my take, was just a successful piece of disinformation planted by the Italians. But since those righties are clamoring for investigation of the forged documents, I'm happy to join in, convinced that the results will not be to their liking -- but again, if I'm wrong, so be it, who cares, as long as transparency and openness are served. As for my theory, I genuinely have no idea who forged the documents, but I am convinced 1)that the Italians put them into circulation to 2) a number of different governments, including at least the British, the French and the Americans so that 3) what looks like a variety of different evidence of Niger-Iraq uranium business all goes back to the same, flawed source: the forged documents. I am further convinced that both the SSCI and the Butler Report went out of their ways to obscure this last fact. As for who knew the documents were forged when, and who circulated them how, I have my suspicions, but they are no more than that, and I'm happy to have a more resourceful investigation find out. Only trouble is, the Republicans in charge of investigatory power in the executive and legislative branches of government in the U.S. seem not just uninterested, but downright hostile to finding out. Which should make you wonder.

[topsecretk9]

want him to have his day in court?

I suspect that was the point of tonight, right? Trying to sway public opinion?

[BurkettHead]

It might be very wrong to start that letter writing campaign, but it would be so very, very rewarding. Unless you do want the Wilsons to have their day in court. It does seem that Fitzgerald did deny them that. I suspect that there are many others who want the Wilsons to have their day in court, as well.

[MJW]

From Kristof: I know Mrs. Wilson, but I knew nothing about her CIA career and hadn't realized she's "a hell of a shot with an AK-47,'' as a classmates at the CIA training "farm,'' Jim Marcinkowski, recalls. I'll be more careful around her, for she also turns out to be skilled in throwing hand grenades and to have lived abroad and run covert operations in some of the world's messier spots. (Mrs. Wilson was not a source for this column or any other that I've written about the intelligence community.)

Perhaps the mealy-mouthed Russert statement has made me over-parse things, but I notice a couple of oddities.

First he says: I know Mrs. Wilson, but I knew nothing about her CIA career and hadn't realized she's "a hell of a shot with an AK-47 . . ."

He could still know she worked for the CIA without knowing anything about what specifically she did; i.e., her career. That he immediately follows up with a detail about her career makes this suspecion more reasonable.

He concludes: Mrs. Wilson was not a source for this column or any other that I've written about the intelligence community.

I wouldn't characterize the column about Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger as one "about the intelligence community"; maybe Kristof wouldn't either. More telling perhaps, why didn't Kristof say: "Mrs. Wilson was not a source for this or any other of my columns"?

[JayDee]

So, to be clear, you all disagree with Kristof that a Vice President of the United States has some responsibility to behave ethically in office and to be honest and forthright with the American people. Can someone explain Pubby "Patriotism" one more time? I know you believe that we should do lots of military adventuring, and any criticism of any military adventuring - no matter how incompetently and dishonestly it is waged - is considered sedition. But beyond that, I'm very unclear on what your vision for this great democracy is supposed to be. I get that we're all supposed to behave like passive subjects, and that we're supposed to believe in a priori American goodness, meaning the USA has carte blanche to rampage around the world on any pretext it's unethical leaders cook up. I just don't get where this makes us a democracy. It kind of reminds me of the status of serfs in the old European feudal system - where the rich deserved their privileges through their inherited moral superiority and the rest of us lowly beings had no earthly purpose other than to fill their pockets and die in their wars of choice.

Oh, and yeah, it does look like the old Dick will have to testify in person and be cross examined if this goes to court. Luckily we're not really in your feudal paradise. No noblesse oblige for elected servants like Dicky.

[kim]

Your rampage is my prudent pre-emption.

And I'm sorry you feel so servile. I don't.
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[Jeff]

And I'm sorry you feel so servile. I don't.

It comes that naturally?

[Syl]

JayDee

"I get that we're all supposed to behave like passive subjects"

This is just silly. Democracies are NOISY. Everyone has the right to criticize and argue about policy. Nobody should be passive.

The problem I see is that those who are criticizing current policies aren't willing to accept that those who agree with the policies have the right to argue back.

I don't have a problem at all with the fact that you criticize, I have a problem with you characterizing my, or anyone else's, criticism of your arguments as some weird mind meld effort of 'pubbies' to stifle dissent.

[MaidMarion]

Jeff,

Is Seymour Hersh a rightie?

I'd like to know the source of his 20 October 2003 article (see above) who claimed it was disgruntled CIA guys who were behind it.

[clarice]

A Tale of Two papers and a new word "mediagenic" http://americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=4951

[clarice]

Pardon Libby. The NY Sun makes a powerful argument that the President should so it now. http://www.nysun.com/article/22258?access=249292

Saturday's Washington Post (a major figure in this mediagenic scandal) said in a Saturday editorial that his indictment criminalized a political dispute. TM, why not ask them publicly if they'll join the Sun in asking for this?

[kim]

Yes, not feeling servile comes naturally.
==========================================

[Jeff]

Maid Marion - What's your point? My basic position is, let's all work together for a real investigation to get to the bottom of who forged the Niger documents and who put them into circulation, and why. If it turns out it was disgruntled CIA guys out to get the Bush administration with a plan that, on its face, makes no sense, but that somehow worked, fine with me. Find out and punish them.

Is your point that there's another source of info out there (Hersh's article) besides the one Telegraph article, with a theory floated as one possibility that is beloved of righties, even though it appears to be utterly inconsistent with the Telegraph article? Fine. Let's pursue it, and see where we end up.

Meanwhile, there's lot of other reporting going on right now that suggests we may end up somewhere quite different, which also would be fine with me.

Here's another question about your question: who do you think Hersh's source for the Stovepipe article was? If your suggestion is that it's someone like Cannistraro, Lang et al, you may be right, but I don't think you've thought through the implications of that idea.

[Jeff]

kim - being, being, not feeling.

[kim]

Jeff, no one leashes my mind. Well, except Tom.
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