JustOneMinute

Waas On Rove

Murray Waas reviews the circumstances behind Karl Rove's fifth grand jury appearance.

I have a quarrel with his insinuation that Rove and Libby could not have caveatted their leaks because reporters wrote with confidence:

Rove also testified to the grand jury that when he told Cooper that Plame worked at the agency, he was only passing along unverified gossip.

...Cooper has also testified that Rove, as well as a second source -- I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, then-chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney -- portrayed the information about Plame as accurate and authoritative. Cooper has testified that based on his conversations with Rove and Libby, he felt confident enough about the information to identify Plame as a CIA officer in a July 17 Time story.

...If Rove's and Libby's accounts to the grand jury are correct, journalists wrote about Plame's CIA employment even though both White House aides said the information was unsubstantiated gossip. Both reporters have said that the information was not qualified in any way, and that they believed it authoritative enough to publish.

Emphasis added.  That would sound a lot less dramatic if Mr. Waas would emphasize two additional facts:

(1)  Mr. Cooper's confidence in publishing on July 17 may well have been boosted by the appearance of the Robert Novak column on July 14.  In fact, the final version of Mr. Cooper's "outing passage" reads as follows:

...some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched Niger to investigate...

Oddly, the first version of this story to hit the Web omitted the paragraph noting Robert Novak.  Might one infer that editors felt that a bit of reinforcement was needed?  Were they overcome by a desire to salute the competition?  Or was it just painfully obvious that they were three days late with this?

(2)  Robert Novak did not have either Libby or Rove for his primary source.  Whoever that source was (we are guessing Richard Armitage, then-Deputy Secretary of State), he may have been quite expansive and authoritative.  Beyond that, Mr. Novak also confirmed the fact of Ms. Plame's CIA employment with the CIA press spokesman Bill Harlow.  "I heard that, too" from Rove may have been plenty for Novak.

Let's reprise what Novak wrote and note the varied sourcing:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him.

And here is Matt Cooper describing his chat with Karl Rove:

Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the "agency"--by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. Rove added that she worked on "WMD" (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction) issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife.

As an aside, it is interesting in re-reading his account to see how hazy Matt Cooper's memory is.  For example:

As for Wilson's wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak's column or Googled her, I can't recall which.

He can't recall?  He was working on the big story about which all of Washington was buzzing, and he can't recall?  Where's the indictment?

 

The Times On Rove

The NY Times covers Rove fifth appearance before Special Counsel Fitzgerald's grand jury:

WASHINGTON, April 27 — Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor in the C.I.A. leak case, is expected to decide in the next two to three weeks whether to bring perjury charges against Karl Rove, the powerful adviser to President Bush, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.

With the completion of Mr. Rove's fifth appearance before the grand jury on Wednesday, Mr. Fitzgerald is now believed to have assembled all of the facts necessary to determine whether to seek an indictment of Mr. Rove or drop the case.

Two or three weeks?  Cool - let me call the bets, then.  Will Rove be indicted for:

(a) perjury, obstruction, false statements for his Cooper testimony;

(b) leaking to Bob Novak in violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act;

(c) perjury/obstruction for his testimony about how he learned about Ms. Plame's status;

(d) none of the above.

My guess - unless there is a huge gap between what has been reported and what Fitzgerald is looking at, this is a weak case.  But that said, Fitzgerald wants to indict Rove like I want... well, never mind, let's just say that Fitzgerald would like to indict and convict Karl Rove.

And a hint - anyone who picks (b) had better be braced for some follow-up questions along the lines of, waddya smokin', and where can I get some?

[Bah!  I forgot to make my picks!  Well, there are no accidents.

I am picking (e) Double None of the Above.  I can understand why Rove's team, who would be most of the sources for the Times article, would leave the courthouse humming "It's Now or Never".  I can see why they would like the Times to run an article urging Fitzgerald to fish or cut bait.  But I can't quite see why Fitzgerald should be in any hurry to move this forward.  It's not as if he is closing up shop - the Libby trial is not scheduled to start until next year.  And who knows what the morrow may bring in terms of new evidence against Rove or others?

So my guess is that nothing happens, but that nothing happening means nothing.

Now ask me about the unknown unknowns.]

MORE:  I especially liked this:

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Mr. Rove, said Mr. Rove would be cleared. "We're confident at the end of this that Mr. Fitzgerald is going to find that Karl has been totally truthful and not only has done nothing wrong but has done everything right," Mr. Corallo said.

Rove has done everything right!  There goes the possible indictment for "Failure to Floss".

Props to Jeff for this catch - Rove's press flack used to handle the press for John Ashcroft.  One might presume that Corallo has good DoJ contacts, although, given Fitzgerald's independence, that may not be much help to Karl.  And yes, the MSM had to recognize Corallo's face and name, and no, I can't guess why they didn't mention this.

Last bit - today's NY Times piece duly notes that Rove testified to contacts with Bob Novak; they sort of dropped that yesterday.

UPDATE:  Per Covert Commenter TS9, we see that Judge Walton has asked Fitzgerald to produce the CIA criminal referral for ex parte review by the judge (2 page .pdf)  Does this mean that Libby's team will get it next?  Well, it certainly means the judge wants to inspect the bone of contention.

Generalizations And The Peril Thereof

Glenn Greenwald has a new book (congrats) and a new post titled "The Importance of Speaking In Inflated, Absurd Generalities" (note to self - might want to double-check that).

Like every other idea Greenwald has ever written, uttered, or thought, his latest post is long on generalizations and short on evidence.  I have noticed that this propensity to leap past facts to untenable conclusions is typical of all lefties with a "G" in their name - it has something to do with "Generalizations" and "G", or at least, that is my current theory until I think of a new one.

Do you suspect me of having a pre-disposition in this tussle?  My own ghastly history with Greenwald started with his notion that Bush followers are Authoritarian Cultists.

I mocked it, mocked it again, finally got a reply, and mocked that.  We do have our fun around here!  Greenwald scaled the comic heights when he explained that James Taranto and myself were engaged in "intellectual cowardice" by deferring judgment until we saw some evidence.  Evidently in Greenwald's corner of the Reality Based Community, facts are for cowards.

As to the "Authoritarian Cultist" theme itself - the Republican Dubai rebellion overtook it, and it became clear that the cult in question couldn't extend much beyond George, Karl, Laura, and *maybe* the twins.

As to the broader question - sure, generalizations are inevitable.  Hyperbolic generalizations are optional.  But for a certain type of market appeal, they are a great option.

Decision '08 has similar thoughts on Greenwald's screedifying.  For folks who have not been following the links, here is a proto-typical bit of Greenwaldian "analysis":

As much as anything else, Bush defenders are characterized by an increasingly absolutist refusal to recognize any facts which conflict with their political desires, and conversely, by a borderline-religious embrace of any assertions which bolster those desires. It’s a world-view which conflates desire with reality, disregards all facts and evidence that conflict with the decreed beliefs, and faithfully embraces any assertions and fantasies, no matter how baseless and flagrantly false, provided that they bolster the mythology.

Yeah, yeah, yeah - when that is set to music, it will go to Number One - wth a bullet.

"Ass-Welt" Journalism

Howard Kurtz is fascinating on the topic of "Blogs: Good or Evil" but I take exception to this dichotomy:

A better series of questions: What can MSM types learn from blogs, both in terms of criticism of their work and as a more freewheeling form of communication? Should reporters blog, and if so, what are the boundaries? Would blogs be more of a factor in public debate if more of their practitioners did a little research -- say, including the very old-fashioned notion of calling people up -- instead of merely pontificating?

Calling people up instead of pontificating?  AHHH!  I reject these false choices!

Let me use Google to slide behind the TNR subscription firewall and liberate Jonathan Chait to argue an alternative vision; his topic was the Democratic convention in Boston and the undue emphasis placed by the MSM on "on-the-spot" reporting:

Conveniently enough, I've developed a theory justifying my opposition to convention reporting. Here it is: Reporting as a whole, while obviously necessary, is overrated. The mania over attending news-free conventions merely epitomizes a mentality that values going places and talking to people above all else. This prevalent ethos was expressed in the ur-journalism movie All The President's Men. Protesting the assignment of the Watergate story to young city-desk reporters, a Washington Post editor notes, "I have some experienced guys sitting around," prompting a devastating rebuke from his fellow editor: "You said it--sitting around."

But what's so bad about sitting around? You can learn a lot sitting behind a desk, mining the papers for interesting factual nuggets, reading political commentary from every perspective, poring through books and reports, and using the Nexis database to compile enormous stacks of newspaper stories. Most journalists scorn this kind of research because they're obsessed with uncovering new facts, not synthesizing them.

...  Part of the problem is that journalism terminology glorifies "shoe-leather reporting," whereby you pound the pavement so often you wear out the soles of your shoes. Yet there's no widely used term of approbation for the other kind of reporting. For this very reason, my New Republic colleague Franklin Foer and I decided a few years ago to coin a phrase: ass-welt reporting. It means you've sat in your chair for so long reading books and documents that you've worn a welt the shape of your backside into your chair. I'm not saying that every news story could be reported without leaving one's desk. (Bernstein: "Woodward, look! I found a clip from 1971 in which President Nixon tells the Omaha World-Herald he plans to order his goons to break into Democratic headquarters in the Watergate Hotel!" Woodward: "I'll cancel that meeting with Deep Throat.") I'm simply saying that, sometimes, laziness can be the better part of valor.

I'm not worried that reporters currently spend too much time with Google and Nexis.

MORE:  Fine, Howard Kurtz did say "...a little research -- say, including... calling people up", (emp. added) but I still dispute the suggestion that there are not plenty of well-researched blogs out there.

Where The Boys Are

The Dinocrat lets loose.

Let's Roll

Todd Beamer's father reviews "United 93".

Special Counsel Fitzgerald Not *Too* Special

Judge Walton has turned down the Libby defense request that Special Counsel Fitzgerald's indictment of  I. Lewis Libby be tossed out because Fitzgerald's appointment violated the Constitution (31 page .pdf)

That is not a surprise.  The key question is, did the judge allow for an expedited appeal?  Here is the 1 page order, which is silent on that.

Some reaction to the initial defense filing is here; here is background on the Fitzgerald response, and the final defense submisison.

Buried Lede Du Jour

Anne Kornblut of the NY Times has this at the very end of her article about Karl Rove's grand jury appearance:

The identity of Mr. Novak's original source for the column that triggered the entire case is still unknown, at least to the public.  Mr. Novak has testified to the grand jury since Mr. Rove's last appearance in October 2005.

He did?  When has anyone reported anything about Novak, and why isn't this featured a bit more prominently?  Novak has not exactly been Chatty Cathy on the subject of his involvement or cooperation in the investigation.

Of course, this might be wrong.

Truth, Put Your Boots On!

Atrios is recycling this old Isikoff piece from Feb 2006 which explained that Fitzgerald's court filings demonstrated that Valerie Plame was covert.

Fine - I'll recycle these old Kleiman and York responses, both of which noted that we are looking at a vague, out of context quote the meaning of which is far from clear.

So far, Fitzgerald has resisted all defense efforts to document Ms. Plame's status, although he did say at his Oct 2005 press conference that her status was classified.  "Classified" is not "covert" as per the IIPA statute, however - there is still the matter of overseas service in the previous five years, and uncertainty about whether "service" means a stop-over at a European airport or a formal posting abroad.

The WaPo On Rove's Day In Court

Jim Vandehei of the WaPo covers Karl Rove's day in court.  If we can believe his sources, seemingly from Rove's side, the day was spent on the Cooper situation:

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove sought to convince a federal grand jury yesterday that he did not provide false statements in the CIA leak case, testifying for more than three hours before leaving a federal courthouse unsure whether he would be indicted, according to a source close to the presidential aide.

In his fifth appearance before the grand jury, Rove spent much of the time arguing that it would have been foolish for him to knowingly mislead investigators about his role in disclosing the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame to the media, the source said. His grand jury appearance, which was kept secret from even Rove's closest White House colleagues until shortly before he went to court yesterday, suggests prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald remains keenly interested in Rove's role in the case.

...

Rove's testimony focused almost exclusively on his conversation about Plame with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in 2003 and whether the top aide later tried to conceal it, the source said. Rove testified, in essence, that "it would have been a suicide mission" to "deliberately lie" about his conversation with Cooper because he knew beforehand that it eventually would be revealed, the source said. Lawyers involved in the case said yesterday that they expect a decision on Rove's fate soon.

The source's account could not be corroborated by the prosecutor's office, which has declined to discuss the case.

My guess is that Rove will not be indicted for forgetting about Matt Cooper, in part (as noted here) because Fitzgerald is apparently not going to indict the Unnamed Government Official for his leaks to Woodward and Novak and his failure to testify about the Woodward leak.

I take exception to this passage from the WaPo:

The Libby case has served as a constant distraction for the White House and comes at a politically turbulent time for the president. A court filing by Fitzgerald earlier this month, for instance, provided the new and politically damaging revelation that President Bush authorized Libby to disclose previously classified information about Iraq's weapons programs. The president did not authorize Libby to leak information about Plame, however, according to Libby's legal team.

Emphasis and shock added - the Libby team?  Here is the WaPo's original reporting from April 7:

Although Fitzgerald specifically said Bush was not aware of the leaking of a CIA agent's affiliation, the allegation that the president was involved at all in a leak campaign unleashed a torrent of criticism from Democrats.

Here was an odd WaPo editorial defending the leak:

In last week's court filings, [Special Counsel Fitzgerald] stated that Mr. Bush did not authorize the leak of Ms. Plame's identity.

And this is the relevant passage from Fitzgerald's filing itself (39 page .pdf), p. 27, emphasis added:

During this time, while the President was unaware of the role that the Vice President’s Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser [i.e., Libby, who had both jobs] had in fact played in disclosing Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment...

That is coming from Fitzgerald, who is emphatically not on Libby's legal team.

A Great Day For Karl Rove!

Byron York tells us that Karl Rove is back with Special Counsel Fitzgerald before the grand jury for the fifth time (more here).  [Here is the AP by Pete Yost.]

The NY Times has coverage as well, and they are confused, or confusing:

In his initial testimony to the grand jury, in February 2004, Mr. Rove failed to disclose that he had ever discussed the issue of Valerie Wilson, a C.I.A. operative, with any reporters. Mr. Rove came forward months later to change his story, acknowledging that he had a phone conversation with Matt Cooper of Time Magazine in the summer of 2003 that eventually turned to the subject of Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, Ms. Wilson's husband.

Mr. Rove said he had forgotten the call, one of hundreds he participates in each day. Lawyers for Mr. Rove say he will be exonerated in the case, in part because he volunteered details of his conversation with Mr. Cooper.

Tht Times is focusing on Rove's grand jury testimony but what about Bob Novak?  Jane Hamsher has a good round-up of reporting on Karl's early testimony, where he forgot about saying "I heard that, too" to Novak in his initial FBI testimony.  That said, if I recall correctly the conventional wisdom is that Rove noted his Novak chat in his first grand jury testimony.

The Anon Lib had a good reprise of the missing Hadley e-mail.

I hope to have more later.  As to why this may be a good day for Rove - as I recall, prosecutors are discouraged from bringing to the grand jury folks that have decided to indict, so presumably, a candle is still flickering for Karl.

And don't forget this - how can Karl be indicted but not He Who Must Not Be Named?

It's worth keeping in mind that (very probably) someone leaked to Bob Woodward in June, then again to Bob Novak in July.  When queried by investigators, this Unnamed Government Official only mentioned his chat with Novak; it was not until November 2005 that the UGO remembered his leak to Woodward.

So, one might suppose that the UGO is in Dire Do-do, as we Bushies say, since he committed two criminal leaks topped by obstruction of Fitzgerald's investigation.

But one might be wrong - in a February 2006 hearing (42 p. transcript), Special Counsel Fitzgerald sought to protect this leaker from the defesne, and the judge concurred:

...[Judge] Walton said the source's identity is not relevant, and there is no reason to sully the source's reputation because the person faces no charges.

No kidding?  Not facing charges?  Perhaps a balky grand juror (this grand jury has never met with Karl) is wondering just why the UGO gets a pass while Karl faces indictment.  I know I am!

Rick Ballard with MJW tackled the UGO mystery, as did Emptywheel, by studying a redacted court filing.  They both lean towards Richard Armitage, then-deputy Secretary of State; I had been pushing that way myself.  Among the MSM, Evan Thomas and Mike Isikoff (don't flush this) also fingered Armitage.

No Hobgoblins Here

Bush announces steps on gasoline prices; from the Times:

President Bush announced a series of short-term steps on Tuesday intended to ease the rise in energy prices, including a suspension of government purchases to refill the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, a relaxation of environmental rules for the formulation of gasoline and investigations into possible price gouging and price fixing.

In addressing energy prices in a speech here, Mr. Bush joined a chorus of lawmakers who have been advocating populist-sounding initiatives to respond to surges in gasoline and crude oil prices and the threat they pose to Republicans in this fall's Congressional elections.

Well, if Carter or Clinton had done this I imagine I would have mocked it as poll-driven posturing.  But a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, so I have no doubt this Bold Presidential Vision will guide us to a brighter and more fuel-efficient tomorrow, energy-wise.

The Baseball Crank posts his thoughts on energy policy.  This sends me into the mental file cabinet for the old econ notes on taxes, prices, supply, and demand because his Point 1 on What To Do is "Cut Taxes at the Pump".

My question is this - let's grant that the current market for gasoline is clearing at a price of $3 per gallon, of which (let's say) $0.50 is taxes.

Suppose we eliminate those taxes altogether.  Yes, the gas station owner could now afford to sell gas at a price of $2.50 while preserving his modest profit margin. 

But previously I was happy willing to pay $3.00, and frankly, it was of no great import to me as to how that was split amongst the recipients.  Consequently, if station owners all try to pass along the tax cut by lowering their price, I expect that I, and others like me, will respond by buying more.

But a tax cut, in itself, does not bring forth new supply.  So, either we will have shortages, as stations run out of gas, or prices will quickly rise back to their old equilibrium of $3.00.

My strong impression is that, absent some other mechanisms to reduce or regulate demand - rationing coupons were not attempted by Nixon, but (IIRC) odd/even days fill-up days and forced closures of gas stations on Sundays were - a cut in the  tax at the pump will simply reallocate the $3.00 per gallon We the People are paying into a different set of pockets.

Since the Dems are also pandering with a call for a cut in the gas tax, it would be worth having an answer to this.

I Blame Bush For [Fill In The Blank]

Did rain ruin your weekend?  Blame Bush's environmental policies!  Did your ball club lose?  I'm not sure why that is Bush's fault, but I know it is.

Andrew Sullivan and David Schraub of The Moderate Voice both evidence Bush Derangement Syndrome with their coverage of police torture in Tennessee. 

Let's go to Mr. Schraub first:

If we start torturing suspected terrorists, where do we stop? Suspected murderers? Robbers? Drug dealers?

Read the story and listen to the audio of a suspected small-time drug dealer being beaten and shocked through his testicles by "officers of the law."

Mr. Sullivan picks up the same story:

The five cops are now mercifully in jail, but only for, at most, seven years. I guess when the president has endorsed torture by the CIA, it's hard to put low-level cop-torturers in jail for life. Radley believes this kind of atrocity is more common than we might believe. I have no way to know. What I do know is that when the government launches an ill-defined "war" on a "thing", rather than an explicit foreign enemy, and when you have an administration as profoundly hostile to American liberty as this one is, all sorts of abuses will necessarily follow. And they have.

It's not clear from the context whether the "thing" upon which we have declared war is drugs (this was, after all, a drug dealer) or terror.

However - if Messrs. Sullivan and Schraub really believe that police brutality in this country began with the invasion of Iraq, or the opening of Gitmo, or the ascension of George Bush in 2000, let me just puzzle them with two names - Abner Louima and Rodney King.

'Nuff said.  Now I have to go in the backyard and deal with the crabgrass that has been spreading like crazy ever since Bush personally outed Double Super Secret Agent Valerie Plame.

MORE:  The first commenter at The Moderate Voice is even more skeptical than yours truly.

UPDATE:  Andrew Sullivan responds.

Help Me! I Am Trapped In This Circle Of Logic!

Dana Linzer of the WaPo answered questions about sacked CIA officer Mary McCarthy in an online WaPo chat.  I am still spinning from this one:

Tokyo, Japan: Hello, Ms. Linzer-You said earlier "we don't know exactly what was said and to whom ". That isn't entirely correct. Dana Priest would know the nature of her contacts with McCarthy, and Dana Priest is a Washington Post reporter. Why can't she just tell us? After all, she seems to feel comfortable exposing secrets. What are the ethics on this?

Dafna Linzer: Hi, you're up late. The compact reporters enter into with sources for information that they wouldn't get otherwise is often one of confidentiality, especially on issues of national security. That is the pact that Dana entered into with her sources.

But... but... if Ms. McCarthy was *not* a source for Dana Priest, then there is no compact, yes?  Why can't Ms. Priest simply say, "Although I will never discuss my sources, I will occasionally discuss my non-sources; in this case, Mary McCarthy was not a source to me in my Pulitzer Prize winning secret prison reporting."

Well.  Just to engage in a bit of forward planning, and as a general disclaimer, let me stake out the following position as the official Just One Minute policy, and express my fervent hope that media figures will oblige me by adhering to it - if I am ever being pilloried in the press for having been a secret, illegal source, when in fact I was *not* a secret, illegal source, feel free to speak up on my behalf!

Don't feel like you are protecting me by letting me twist in the wind.  Thanks.

CAVEAT:  Yes, there may be some odd situation where eliminating me as a suspect points the finger definitively at someone else.  Or, aliens may abduct me!  In either case,  I exhort the media to report using their best judgment.

UPDATE:  In a Taranto-Maguire smackdown, I know where my money is!  Mr. Taranto makes it clear that my caveat was insufficieintly vague by writing this as a justification for a universal "no comment about my sources" policy:

If a reporter is willing to say "X   is not my source," then his refusal to say the same of Y fingers Y as the   source.

Well, yes.  The key is whether Ms. Priest can address this one odd trifecta - a Pulitzer Prize winning article, a fired employee, and credible allegations that the sacked employee was her source - without establishing a precedent that will put her, or other reporters subject to her example, on the spot.

I'm not a fan of "slippery slopes" arguments, and, like the Supremes in Bush v. Gore, Ms. Priese might declare a clarification of the McCarty situation to be non-precedential.  However, a consistent "no comment" is clearly safest.  A related point is that Ms. Priest's compact is arguably not with Ms. McCarthy specifically, but with all her sources.

MORE:  File this answer under "Do You Want The truth?  You Can't Handle The Truth!":

Arlington, Va.: I'm sure you'll get this one from several chatters, but why did The Post choose to leave out the political donations to Kerry and other democratic fundraisers made by Ms. McCarthy from the Saturday profile and follow-up articles? After your own Howard Kurtz blasted The Post over the weekend and in his Monday column [here] and chat, I was expecting some mention in either today's article or in a "clarification" from the editor. Don't your readers deserve ALL of the relevant facts?

Dafna Linzer: You're absolutely right - I'm getting a lot of questions about this. I disagree with Howie on this one. I think in his chat he said her campaign contributions go to motive but I don't know yet what she's done so I'm not sure how to assign motive here. Intelligence officers do not check their citizenship at the gates of Langley and like all government employees they are free to vote and make contributions - all of which is very much apart from their committment to government service and to fulfilling the policies of any president.

But we are living in partisan times and people want a partisan, political motive and explanation for everything. I don't think that's reasonable. Should we publish the campaign contributions of every person who testifies before Congress, every person who briefs a president, every person who writes a policy paper or plays any role in governmnt whatsoever or who is ever quoted in a story? We could, the information is public. But I don't want to confuse readers or issues by throwing that into the mix unless I understand its relevance. We have reported that she worked in Clinton's NSC and whom she has worked with and will continue to write about it.

Emphasis added.  Well, then - Ms. Linzer tells us that Ms. McCarthy worked on the NSC under Clinton.  Just why is that more clearly relevant than the fact that her ex-boss, Rand Beers, was a senior adviser to Kerry while she wrote big checks to the Kerry campaign?

Perhaps she could explain how the one fact goes into the mix while the other does not.

If It Is Worth Reporting, Isn't It Worth Reporting Right?

The NY Times remains stuck on dumb on fired CIA officer Mary McCarthy's partisan campaign contributions:

The case has increasingly taken on distinct partisan coloring. Ms. McCarthy gave $2,000 to Senator John Kerry's 2004 presidential campaign, and conservative commentators suggested that Ms. McCarthy had deliberately tried to sabotage President Bush's policies by leaking to the news media.

The Times continues to fail to report  on Ms. McCarthy's $5,000 contribution in October 2004 to the Ohio Democratic Party; they also are skipping past the $2,000 contribution to John Kerry by Michael J. Murphy of the same address (we are guessing it is her hubby).

The Times - ignorant, or willfully deceptive?

They love to ignore their readers: try the public editor at : [email protected]

Now, there is some hope - the Times is at least listening to Rush Limbaugh:

In his Monday broadcast, Rush Limbaugh, the radio personality, called Ms. McCarthy a "Clinton person" and part of a "shadow government in opposition," suggesting that she was one of a number of C.I.A. officers who had worked against the White House. "When we've said that the C.I.A. was at war with the White House, we were more right than we knew," Mr. Limbaugh said.

This seems to capture the spirit of the bit to which the Times was referring (in the linked transcript, a phrase quoted by the Times, "shadow government in opposition", does not appear, although "shadow government in operation" does).  Shockingly, there is no mention in this segment of her generous contributions, but I have no doubt that El Rushbo mentioned it at some point.

The Times delivers the comic climax in their concluding paragraph, right where the punchline belongs:

Yet friends and former colleagues have strongly challenged that partisan allegiance ever governed Ms. McCarthy's actions.

"That's not the Mary McCarthy that I know," said Rand Beers, a former colleague of Ms. McCarthy's on the National Security Council who has spoken to her several times since her firing.

"I'm glad she was prepared to push back," Mr. Beers said. "I was concerned that we were only hearing one side of the story."

Mr. Beers, who is now only "a former colleague", doubts her partisanship.  Was it only Saturday that the Times reminded us that Mr. Beers was "an adviser to Mr. Kerry's campaign in 2004"?  How soon they forget.

UPDATE:  I will argue from an authority even greater than the Times own decision to mention the $2,000 donation - Howard Kurtz himself:

But on National Review's The Corner , Andy McCarthy says:

"There is no mention by the Post -- none -- that Mary McCarthy is a big Kerry campaign and Democratic Party contributor.

"How can the WPost justify reporting one friend's mere impression that McCarthy is not biased and that it is very difficult even for those who know her well to understand why she would leak sensitive information, and yet not report the objective fact that -- after a meteoric professional rise in intelligence circles during a Democratic administration -- McCarthy, while a government official on a government salary, gave at least $7,700 of her own money in a single year to Democratic political campaigns?"

I would agree. Absolutely relevant information.

That buttons it down.

 

Please Help Larry Johnson

We are having a bit of an off-site meeting of the Just One Minute regulars over at intel commentator Larry Johnson's blog, and he would welcome more visitors, and more intellectual firepower on his side.

In his comments section Mr. Johnson has made some statements linking the McCarthy and Plame situations that, in my humble opinion, will be hard to sustain.  However, Jeff and Jim E could surely help him with his broad themes.

Let's also note that in his comments section Mr. Johnson currently seems to lean towards ad hominem as his primary (also secondary and tertiary) response, but please - let's leave that to the lesser lefties.  Our motto - Trogs Rule!

MORE:  Transportation will be provided.

HIGHLIGHT FILM:  The full comments thread at "No Cojones" is a comedy classic, but Chants has provided an impressionistic highlight film here.

More On "An Army of Hiltziks"

Deputy Attorney General Patterico covers the NY Times report on LA Times' columnist Michael Hiltzik's use of sock puppets to cheerlead for himself at various blogs.  His main point - the NY Times can't state the obvious about the ethics of posting supportive comments under pseudonyms.

Oddest detail - no MSM have contacted Supreme Court nominee Patterico for his version of events.

Let's Get This Right, Please

Walter Pincus of the WaPo tries to report on the Mary McCarthy firing and manages to bungle a related story:

Democrats Suggest Double Standard on Leaks

Key Democratic legislators yesterday joined Republicans in saying they do not condone the alleged leaking of classified information that led to last week's firing of a veteran CIA officer. But they questioned whether a double standard exists that lets the White House give reporters secretly declassified information for political purposes.

"I don't know this woman, and I do not condone leaks of classified information," said Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, referring to the firing of Mary McCarthy.

Harman added that "while leaks are wrong, I think it is totally wrong for our president in secret to selectively declassify certain information and empower people in his White House to leak it to favored reporters so that they can discredit political enemies," she said on Fox News Sunday.

Harman was referring to White House staff members disclosing the classified identity of CIA case officer Valerie Plame in 2003.

No, she wasn't referring to the Valerie Plame leak, or if she was, the WaPo should have noted her error rather than reinforcing it - per the recent Fitzgerald filing, Bush and Cheney authorized Libby to leak portions of the National Intelligence Estimate as part of the push-back against Joe Wilson.

Much as he seemingly wanted to, Fitzgerald offered nothing indicating he had any evidence indicating that Cheney had authorized a leak of Plame's CIA affiliation.  As to Bush's involvement in Libby's Plame-related chats, Fitzgerald provided this:

During this time, while the President was unaware of the role that the Vice President’s Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser [i.e., Libby, who had both jobs] had in fact played in disclosing Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment, defendant implored White House officials to have a public statement issued exonerating him.

Since Walter Pincus and Bob Woodward were Plame leak recipients, I am surprised that Mr. Pincus and his editors could be so misinformed on this point.  Especially since they seemed to have a firm grasp on the NIE connection just a few weeks ago.

MORE:  Mr. Pincus' mis-reporting aside, how fair is to to compare the Plame and Secret Prison's leaks?

I think we can all agree that Ms. McCarthy was well aware that she was leaking classified information.  But what about I. Lewis Libby or the other Plame leakers?

It's far from clear just what crime it might be that Special Counsel Fitzgerald is investigating.  We say this because someone (probably then-deputy Secretary Armitage) apparently leaked to Bob Woodward and Robert Novak, then only disclosed his leak to Novak in his early encounters with investigators; the Woodward leak was eventually disclosed in November 2005.

So somebody leaked twice, including to the person who first published Ms. Plame's CIA link, then mis-led investigators about his involvement.  What's a prosecutor to do?  Conceal his identity to shield him from embarrassment!  From the WaPo:

But Walton's decision to continue to protect the anonymity of one administration official, whom Libby's attorneys described as a confidential source about Plame for two reporters, one of them apparently Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward, is a blow to Libby's case. Defense attorneys had said they needed to know the official's identity and the details of his conversations with the two journalists to show that Libby was not lying when he testified that many reporters knew about Plame's identity.

But Walton said the source's identity is not relevant, and there is no reason to sully the source's reputation because the person faces no charges.

The official's identity has been the subject of intense speculation since syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak published Plame's name in July 2003 -- eight days after her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, accused the administration of twisting intelligence to justify going to war with Iraq.

Defense attorneys in yesterday's hearing described the official as someone who did not work at the White House and was the source for two reporters. They said that one of those reporters had revealed in November that he learned about Plame from the official in mid-June 2003.

Well - per this example, leaking about Plame to the press and then lying about it does not seem to merit prosecution.  But did the White House know she was covert?  Here is Fitzgerald from a filing related to the Judy Miller subpoena:

To date, we have no direct evidence that Libby knew or believed that Wilson's wife was engaged in covert work.

OK, that was then.  But Fitzgerald's recent filing in which he noted the Bush-Cheney authorization of the NIE leak would have been enhanced by any mention that Libby knew Ms. Plame's status was classified, but it slid past that point, rather awkwardly - Fitzgerald noted that Libby was reluctant to discuss the classified NIE without authorization, but never asserted that Libby sought authorization to leak information about Plame, or that Libby believed Plame to be classified.

However, per a defense response, we get the opposite:

Mr. Libby was not, of course, a source for the Novak story. And he testified to the grand jury unequivocally that he did not understand Ms. Wilson’s employment by the CIA to be classified information.

Again, his silence speaks volumes - if Fitzgerald has contradictory evidence that Libby did know that Ms. Plame's status was classified, why not indict him on that point for perjury?

How might Libby have found out about Ms. Plame's status?  Perhaps VP Cheney told Libby that Ms. Plame was classified.  It's imaginable, but who told Cheney?  From Murray Waas, we get this:

Cheney told investigators that he had learned of Plame's employment by the CIA and her potential role in her husband being sent to Niger by then-CIA director George Tenet, according to people familiar with Cheney's interviews with the special prosecutor.

Tenet has told investigators that he had no specific recollection of discussing Plame or her role in her husband's trip with Cheney, according to people with familiar with his statement to investigators.

Maybe Tenet remembers getting a Medal of Freedom, but this sort of evidence is not going to prove that Libby, or anyone, know that Ms. Plame had special status.

Let's wrap this by noting a quote from the notes of the INR analyst describing the Feb 19 2002 meeting that launched Joe Wilson's Niger trip - Valerie Wilson was "a CIA WMD managerial type and the wife of Amb. Joe Wilson".

Is "managerial type" spook-speak for "NOC", and are NOCs names bandied about in memos?  Please.

There is a reasonable possibility that the White House did not know her status was classified, although I can not conceive of documents that would prove that.  Similarly, there is an excellent possibility that First Leaker Armitage (if it was he) did not know either.

Well - the McCarthy/Libby comparison has an irresistible appeal, and post-Kerry Dems may have lost their zest for nuance and details.

Extraordinary Cardplay

I declare - Jennifer Williams did a fine job here.  We especially like the threat of an endplay at the fourth trick - the end is near, but that near?  Maybe these columnists should write about foreplay...

McCarthy's Contributions - Still An Impenetrable Mystery At The Times

What might have been motivating the fired CIA officer?  The Times noted her $2,000 campaign contribution to John Kerry in their Friday coverage, but overlooked another $5,000 contribution that she had made to the Ohio DNC; they also overlooked her husband's max contribution to John Kerry (OK, per the FEC database they have the same last name and same address so we are guessing "husband").

David Cloud follows up for the Times on Saturday, and still scores an "incomplete", twice, in his coverage:

Others said it was possible that Ms. McCarthy — who made a contribution to Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 — had grown increasingly disenchanted with the methods adopted by the Bush administration for handling Qaeda prisoners.

And a bit later:

Several associates of Ms. McCarthy said she returned to the C.I.A. in 2004, taking a job in the inspector general's office. That year, public records show, she contributed $2,000 to Mr. Kerry's presidential campaign, identifying herself as a "government analyst."

This is simply not this difficult - gee, someone get the Tmes a subscription to "Open Secrets".

For what it's worth, as the Times ponders Ms. McCarthy's motivation to leak and struggles to connect the dots and, let's point out a few possibly relevant details from their article:

When President Bush took office in 2001, Ms. McCarthy's career seemed to stall. A former Bush administration official who worked with her said that although Ms. McCarthy was a career C.I.A. employee, as a holdover from the Clinton administration she was regarded with suspicion and was gradually eased out of her job as senior director for intelligence programs. She left several months into Mr. Bush's first term.

And:

Rand Beers, who at the time was Mr. Clinton's senior intelligence aide on the National Security Council, said he had hired Ms. McCarthy to be his deputy.

"Anybody who works for Charlie Allen and then replaces him has got to be good," said Mr. Beers, who went on to serve as an adviser to Mr. Kerry's campaign in 2004. Ms. McCarthy took over from Mr. Beers as the senior director for intelligence programs in 1998.

I'm stretching here, but let's see - her CIA career had stalled under Bush; her old boss was a senior advisor to Kerry.  Dum de dum, in 2004 might she have been rooting for Kerry specifically, and Democrats generally?  And there's nothing wrong with that!

However - one might wonder whether she was part of the White House - CIA war that preceded the 2004 election.  And the Times might be more inclined to wonder that as well, if they would even get the basic facts about her campaign contributions lined up in front of themselves.

Well, the truth is out there - here are Jonah Goldberg and Andrew McCarthy of the NRO.

HELP:  I saw some lovely trouncings of the Times hagiography of McCarthy.  If folks could recommend their faves, that would be great.  Or, put in a plug for the other side - bring it on.

A REMINDER:  Was Ms. McCarthy's only outlet as a "whistleblower" to go to the press?  Please.  DCI Porter Goss wrote about the Intelligence Community Whistleblower Protection Act in a NY Times op-ed and I had a harangue about it here.  Believe it or not, we actually have laws covering this sort of thing - Ms. McCarthy would have had special protection if she had revealed her classified info to members of the Congressional oversight committees.

And we know that Harry Reid has figured out how to arrange for a closed session of the Senate.

WE COULD GET TO LIKE DANA PRIEST:  Ms. Priest took an on-line victory lap after her Secret Prisons article came out last November.  Her bitter foes will seize on this bit of misdirection:

Washington, D.C.: Cliff Kincaid writing in "Accuracy in Media" says that your story on secret prisons yesterday "reflects the view of a faction in the agency (CIA) that opposes this policy and wants to use The Post to convey its view publicly. Once again, the secret war against the Bush administration is on display for all to see."

While I don't expect you to reveal your sources to us -- although go ahead if you want to do so -- you should at least be able to tell us if there is any truth to the notion that currently serving CIA officers are trying to undermine the Bushies. Are they?

Dana Priest: ...

Most CIA people I've met probably voted for George Bush. And the CIA is responsible for executing the war on terror and capturing the vast majority of the terrorist suspects around the world. No one from the CIA and no one who used to be in the CIA proposed that I write the article I did. On the contrary.

Yeah, whatever - it does not take a majority to form a disgruntled group of leakers.

But we like this "Plame equivalence" Q&A:

Columbia, S.C.: Great Work!

How do you answer critics who point out this may be a 'leak' that could potentially compromise national security, ala the Plame leak?

Dana Priest: I don't actually think the Plame leak compromised national security, from what I've been able to learn about her position.  As for my article, we tried to minimize that by not naming the countries involved and, otherwise, no, I don't believe it compromised national security at all.

HELP WANTED:  J.west has sent a spreadsheet of big donors to Ohio Democrats in the October 2004 (Balky text file).  But what does it mean?

FWIW, Ohio had clearly been pegged as a battleground in October.  Whether Kerry made a special fundraising appeal for that state is something I have not pinned down.

The Duke Timeline

The NY Times presents their version of the timeline of events during the Duke lacrosse debacle.

I have some quibbles:

At 12:53 a.m., Ms. Roberts called 911 to report that men at 610 North Buchanan had shouted a racial epithet at her and a friend. About that time, Mr. Bissey said, he heard one partygoer yell, "Thank your grandpa for my nice cotton shirt."

The police responded to Ms. Roberts's 911 call about 12:55 a.m. They found the house quiet, lights off. No one answered a knock at the door.

Mr. Mostafar said he went to the house again at 1:07 a.m. and saw about 20 students outside the house and picked up four. The time discrepancy between his account and that of the police has not been explained.

(1) Why didn't the neighbor hear anything more offensive?  Doesn't mean they didn't say something worse, but why not shout something worse?

(2) The cabbie is reported here as saying he went back to the house at 1:07.  But he reportedly never went to the house in the first place, so "back" can't be the right word - per the alibi, he picked up Mr. Seligmann a couple of blocks away, near what I have read is probably another player's residence.

Which suggests a likely explanation - he went back to the original pick-up point near a second player's house, where the players had re-congregated.

(3)  The NY Times recycles this:

Mr. Finnerty's lawyer said his client was at a restaurant several blocks away when the women were dancing. But Ms. Roberts told The Associated Press that she recalled seeing Mr. Finnerty, whom she described as the "little skinny one."

As I previously noted, Mr. Finnerty was listed in this Duke press release as 6' 3", 195 pounds.  In another Duke roster I have seen on-line, he is listed as 6'3", 175 lbs.

I'll accept a description of tall and skinny, but "little"?  And the full quote from the AP contained a clear reference to his height:

Roberts said Thursday she does not remember Seligmann's face, but said she recalls seeing Finnerty whom she described as the "little skinny one."

"I was looking him right in the eyes," she said.

I think the Times ought to note that discrepancy.

The Duke Line Up

Details have emerged about the photo line-up procedure used by DA Mike Nifong in the Duke lacrosse debacle:

To obtain the identification, Durham police showed the woman photos of the 46 lacrosse team members one at a time, sources said. The woman said she was 100 percent certain that Finnerty and Seligmann were involved and 90 percent certain that a third player was involved.

...No other photos were shown to the woman, sources said, and the defense attorneys maintain that police should have included photos of other young, white men in the photo array to make the identifications legitimate.

...U.S. Department of Justice guidelines on using photo identifications call for using a photo array that includes only one suspect and at least five "fillers," or other people who generally fit the witness' description of the perpetrator, for each array.

Defense attorneys also noted that two people at the party who aren't on the lacrosse team weren't included in the photos shown to the woman. Those two people also have never submitted DNA samples to authorities for testing, attorneys said.

Jeralyn Merritt checked North Carolina guidelines, and reminds us that, although the DA did not follow the state guidelines either, that is not illegal or automatic grounds for suppression.

However, it is grounds for marveling at the weakness of this case.  With the procedures employed, anyone could have picked out three lacrosse players.  Blindfolded.

Well - I don't know what happened that night, but this DA is not helping me to find out.  My current prediction is unchanged - Nifong tries to keep a straight face about this until his May 2 primary, then the wheels fall off.

MORE:  From the AP:

On Friday, Robert Ekstrand, an attorney for dozens of the uncharged lacrosse players, said authorities have given the defense team a copy of the police report on the photo identifications made by the accuser. Ekstrand said according to the report, the accuser was shown photos of 46 lacrosse players and was told by police that all were believed to be at the party.

Ekstrand said the police should have included photos of people not linked to the case.

''There weren't any dummies in there,'' Ekstrand said. ''There weren't elements to test her, like someone known not to be near the party or involved.''

Nifong's office said Friday the prosecutor, as he has for several weeks, would not comment on the case.

Sacked CIA Officer - Hey, Big Donor...

The NY Times seems to think the political contributions of the sacked CIA officer are significant, but their investigative skills are apparently a bit rusty, since they are about $7,500 light in their reporting.  From David Johnston and Scott Shane we get this:

Public records show that Ms. McCarthy contributed $2,000 in 2004 to the presidential campaign of John Kerry, the Democratic nominee.

I applaud their instinct to look in this direction at all.  However, per public records at Open Secrets, we can easily find the $2,000 donation to Kerry, a $5,000 donation by Mary O. McCarthy to the Ohio DNC, a $2,000 donation by a Michael J McCarthy from the same address (Husband, brother, bro-in-law, dad?  I'll guess hubby), and a $500 donation to Barbara Mikulski, all in 2004.  $9,500 in 2004 donations from two folks who have reported almost nothing before that.  Might be a story there, if the Times could find it.  But will the Times try to follow the money?

The FEC website has more info, including home addresses, in their searches.

Flopping Aces has lots on McCarthy; I have some below.

UPDATE:  If it is worth reporting, it is worth getting right - David Cloud follows up for the Times on Saturday, and still scores an "incomplete", twice:

Others said it was possible that Ms. McCarthy — who made a contribution to Senator John Kerry's presidential campaign in 2004 — had grown increasingly disenchanted with the methods adopted by the Bush administration for handling Qaeda prisoners.

And a bit later:

Several associates of Ms. McCarthy said she returned to the C.I.A. in 2004, taking a job in the inspector general's office. That year, public records show, she contributed $2,000 to Mr. Kerry's presidential campaign, identifying herself as a "government analyst."

This is simply not this difficult.

CIA Officer Sacked For Leaking

The NY Times and the WaPo cover the news that CIA officer Mary O. McCarthy was dismissed for leaking.  From the Times:

The Central Intelligence Agency has dismissed a senior career officer for disclosing classified information to reporters, including material for Pulitzer Prize-winning articles in The Washington Post about the agency's secret overseas prisons for terror suspects, intelligence officials said Friday.

The C.I.A. would not identify the officer, but several government officials said it was Mary O. McCarthy, a veteran intelligence analyst who until 2001 was senior director for intelligence programs at the National Security Council, where she served under President Bill Clinton and into the Bush administration.

At the time of her dismissal, Ms. McCarthy was working in the agency's inspector general's office, after a stint at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, an organization in Washington that examines global security issues.

The Times found her bio at the CSIS before someone took it down, or crashed it out, or something.  I reprint it below, and it is also available at NYU Law (scroll down) or the Google cache (until Chloe and the CIA clean it out).  Let's duly note her overlap with Joe Wilson on the National Security Council from June 1997 to July 1998.

The Times notes that Ms. McCarthy made the max $2,000 contribution to John Kerry in 2004, but so did Sue; what the Times missed (but Rick didn't) is that Ms. McCarthy also appears to have given $500 to the DNC in 2004.  Ghostcat found a $2,000 contribution to Kerry from the presumed hubby, Michael J McCarthy; and I have found a $5,000 contribution to the Ohio democratic party in 2004 (FEC, Mary McCarthy, Bethesda, CENTER FOR STRATEGIC & INTERNATIO).

So, in 2004 the McCarthys gave over $9,000 to the Democrats.  How about that?  And the Times even found $2,000 of it.  Maybe they should subscribe to the FEC Spy.  [Open Secrets site is helpful, too - Mary O. McCarthy, Michael J McCarthy.]

But the Times did better on this than the WaPo, which did not even look in that direction.

I liked this:

News of the dismissal was first reported Friday by MSNBC.

I have read that Andrea Mitchell had that first.  Since she also broke the news of the Plame criminal referral in September 2003, I just like to think of her as in the know.

The Times regales us with this outraged intel official:

Several former intelligence officials — who were granted anonymity after requesting it for what they said were obvious reasons under the circumstances — were divided over the likely effect of the dismissal on morale. One veteran said the firing would not be well-received coming so soon after the disclosure of grand jury testimony by Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff that President Bush in 2003 approved the leak of portions of a secret national intelligence estimate on Iraqi weapons.

"It's a terrible situation when the president approves the leak of a highly classified N.I.E., and people at the agency see management as so disastrous that they feel compelled to talk to the press," said one former C.I.A. officer with extensive overseas experience.

No - it's a terrible situation when the Times can run this criticism of the NIE "leak" with a seemingly straight face and fail to note that the key bits of the NIE were formally and publicly declassified on July 18, 2003, within a few weeks of the Libby talks.  In fact, if the Times reviews their own Ms. Miller's account, they will see that she was troubled that Libby was not giving her anything new [on the NIE] (since other parts of the NIE had been declassified in October 2002).  Let's just clip that here:

As I told Mr. Fitzgerald, Mr. Libby also cited a National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, produced by American intelligence agencies in October 2002, which he said had firmly concluded that Iraq was seeking uranium.

An unclassified version of that estimate had been made public before my interviews with Mr. Libby. I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I had pressed Mr. Libby to discuss additional information that was in the more detailed, classified version of the estimate. I said I had told Mr. Libby that if The Times was going to do an article, the newspaper needed more than a recap of the administration's weapons arguments. According to my interview notes, though, it appears that Mr. Libby said little more than that the assessments of the classified estimate were even stronger than those in the unclassified version.

A terrible situation indeed.  To their credit, the Times runs two off-setting quotes:

But another official, whose experience was at headquarters, said most employees would approve Mr. Goss's action. "I think for the vast majority of people this will be good for morale," the official said. "People didn't like some of their colleagues deciding for themselves what secrets should be in The Washington Post or The New York Times."

Paul R. Pillar, who was the agency's senior analyst for the Middle East until he retired late last year, said: "Classified information is classified information. It's not to be leaked. It's not to be divulged." He has recently criticized the Bush administration's handling of prewar intelligence about Saddam Hussein's unconventional weapons programs.

UPDATE:  Flopping Aces plays Friendster with Mary McCarthy - links to Joe Wilson, Rand Beers, Sandy Berger, Dana Priest (at the NYU Center for Law and Security).

Gag Me With An Order - Not!

The Libby defense team responds to the Judge Walton's notion that he ought to impose a gag order on both sides.

Their gist - they have almost never spoken to the press, but when they do, it is in a good-faith attempt to correct egregious misinformation.

The judge seemed to be particularly irked by their quick release of Fitzgerald's correction letter (on Fitzgerald's mis-statement of Libby's NIE leak), so the defense also addresses that.

Fitzgerald also files a response which, in sum and substance, says we don't leak - never have, never will.

UPDATE:  Jeralyn Merritt links to more of the filings, has more analysis, and is, well, the More Woman. 

Duke - Bring Better Witnesses

From the ABC News interview with Kim Roberts, the other exotic dancer at the Duke lacrosse party, we learn that Ms. Roberts remembers Colin Finnerty well:

Roberts said Thursday she does not remember Seligmann's face, but said she recalls seeing Finnerty whom she described as the "little skinny one."

"I was looking him right in the eyes," she said.

Uh huh.  From a press release:

Finnerty, a 6-3, 195-pound attackman, tallied 30 points as a junior for Chaminade High School.

Skinny?  Maybe by comparison with some of the others.  If she was looking him in the eyes, she was standing on a box.

MORE:  Fine, let's allow for "program inflation", where no athlete is as big as listed in the program.  Let's also toss in another year' in the weight room.  I'll take 6' 1'', 185 as a minimum for Finnerty's size, and defy any credible witness to call him the "little skinny one".

The balance of the article is hardly a valentine to the Second Dancer, but it is odd that ABC News skipped over the size discrepancy.  Some highlights:

"I was not in the bathroom when it happened, so I can't say a rape occurred and I never will," Roberts told The Associated Press on Thursday in her first on-the-record interview. But after watching defense attorneys release photos of the accuser, and upset by the leaking of both dancers' criminal pasts, she said she has to "wonder about their character."

"In all honesty, I think they're guilty," she said. "And I can't say which ones are guilty … but somebody did something besides underage drinking. That's my honest-to-God impression."

...Roberts, 31, was arrested on March 22 eight days after the party on a probation violation from a 2001 conviction for embezzling $25,000 from a photofinishing company in Durham where she was a payroll specialist, according to documents obtained by the AP.

On Monday, the same day a grand jury indicted lacrosse players Reade Seligmann and Collin Finnerty, a judge agreed to a change so that Roberts would no longer have to pay a 15 percent fee to a bonding agent. District Attorney Mike Nifong signed a document saying he would not oppose the change.

"It seems she is receiving very favorable financial treatment for what she is now saying," Thomas said.

Mark Simeon, Roberts' attorney, said the bond conditions were changed because Roberts is not considered a flight risk. Nifong, who hasn't spoken with reporters about the case in weeks, didn't return a call seeking comment.

Well - since she is still around after her 2001 crime, she may not be a flight risk.  But isn't it interesting that the police and/or the DA picked her up for a chat right after the party - was she that hard to find before?

...Later, police received a 911 call from a woman complaining that she had been called racial slurs by white men gathered outside the home where the party took place. Roberts acknowledged that she made the call because she was angry.

And the Big Finish:

Also Thursday, 5W Public Relations, a New York firm that specializes in "crisis communication," distributed an e-mail signed "The 2nd Dancer," and Roberts confirmed she sent it after learning the AP knew her identity.

"I've found myself in the center of one of the biggest stories in the country," she wrote. "I'm worried about letting this opportunity pass me by without making the best of it and was wondering if you had any advice as to how to spin this to my advantage."

Opportunity may knock again - I bet her memory could become refreshed once or twice more as offers come in.

STILL MORE:  That press release to which I linked is not the full Duke team, but just the current sophomores, none of who I intend to malign.  However, a quick glance down the list shows one player who could plausibly pass for the "little skinny one"; Finnerty is strikingly average.

No One Knows You're A Dog

As the famous saying goes, on the internet, no one knows you're a dog.

However - they will probably figure it out if you are a horse's ass.

Patterico and LA Times columnist Michael Hiltzik are at it again.  Maybe Hiltzik wins some of these rounds, but I haven't noticed.

For a bit of perspective, let's check the reaction to John Lott when his "Mary Rosh" sock puppet was outed.  Here is Kieran Healey of Crooked Timber, Tim Lambert, and Timothy Noah of Slate.

Must-See, Can't Enjoy

Here is a review of the upcoming "United 93":

...[Writer-director] Greengrass has made an emphatic political document, a movie about defiance against tyranny and terrorism.

How many moviegoers will be willing to endure "United 93"? I suspect many will, but what that adds up to in terms of boxoffice is anybody's guess. Understandably, controversy engulfs this film. Is now the right time for such a film? Why make the film at all? These are legitimate questions. No one possesses a "right" answer. But Greengrass has made not only a thoroughly fact-checked film but a film that uncontrovertibly comes from the heart.

I expect this movie will be something like "Schindler's List" - on the "really ought to see, really don't see how I can enjoy it" list.  Of course, the obvious difference is that "Schindler's List" was not by any means the first holocaust film.

Well.  I'll be seeing it.

MORE:  Folks looking for video rental ideas might start here:

Greengrass wants the 91 minutes United 93 was in the air to speak to our tenuous situation in a scary, riven world. A previous film by him anticipates this work. The invaluable "Bloody Sunday" (2002), shot as if it were made by a camera crew at the time, dramatized a 1972 incident in Londonderry, Northern Ireland, where 13 unarmed civil rights demonstrators were shot and killed by British soldiers. Here again he takes a hard look at a cataclysmic event to provoke dialogue.

No-News Novak

Matt Drudge is blaring the no-news from Novak, which is being headlined by the Chicago Sun-Times:

Novak: Feds know who outed CIA agent

Robert Novak said Wednesday that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald knows who outed a CIA agent to the Chicago Sun-Times columnist but hasn't acted on the information because Novak's source committed no crime.

..."The question is, does Mr. Fitzgerald know who the source was?" Novak asked. "Of course. He's known for years who the first source is. If he knows the source, why didn't he indict him? Because no crime was committed."

No kidding - as to "the Feds know", that has been clear from court filings for quite some time.  And Fitzgerald certainly seems to share Novak's opinion about "no crime", since they are insisting that the source's name be kept quiet to protect his reputation, and, per the judge, he faces no charges.

100% Certainty

ABC News follows up on the Duke lacrosse debacle:

According to defense attorneys, the prosecution said the woman picked out two of her alleged attackers with 100 percent certainty and one other attacker with 90 percent certainty while examining pictures.

However:

ABC NEWS EXCLUSIVE: Key Evidence Supports Alibi in Potential Rape Defense for One Indicted Duke Player

Reade Seligmann Was At Party, But Has An Alibi and Taxi Driver Witness and a Call to Girlfriend

Over the last few days, sources close to the defense have given ABC News an exclusive look at the evidence behind one player's alleged alibi — evidence that includes electronic records, photographs and witness statements. If that material is authentic, it could prove that it was practically impossible for him to rape, kidnap or assault the alleged victim.

Seligmann's argument is simple: He is innocent and he has an alibi. He attended the party that night, but documents, photos and witness testimony show that he wasn't there long enough or at the right time to attack the alleged victim.

...

By 12:24 a.m., a receipt reviewed by ABC indicates that Seligmann's ATM card was used at a nearby Wachovia bank. In a written statement to the defense also reviewed by ABC, a cabdriver confirms picking up Seligmann and a friend a block and a half from the party, and driving them to the bank. By 12:25 a.m., he was making a phone call to a girlfriend out of state.

What did Seligmann do after leaving the bank? The taxi driver remembers taking him to a drive-thru fast-food restaurant and then dropping him off at his dorm. Duke University records show that Seligmann's card was used to gain entry at 12:46 a.m.

In addition to bolstering Seligmann's alibi, the taxi driver's written testimony provided a rare glimpse of color in an otherwise darkened night.

"I remember those two guys starting enjoying their food inside my car, but I'm glad I end up with a nice tip and fare $25," the taxi driver said in his testimony.

The Ankle Biting Pundit wonders how the prosecutor will proceed with what looks like a bit of a problem here.  The DA's primary election is May 2.
ABC News has more on the photo timeline.

UPDATES:  ABC News interviews the cab driver; the NY Times reviews Seligmann's alibi; and the AP gets more from the cabbie:

Cabbie: Lacrosse Player Behaved Normally

 

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

 

Filed at 8:41 a.m. ET

DURHAM, N.C. (AP) -- A cab driver called to take a Duke University lacrosse player home from a team party says his passenger, now charged with raping an exotic dancer, seemed calm and even jovial that night. But a second passenger he picked up later was talking about a stripper, he said.

Moez Mostafa said the second passenger spoke about a stripper in a tone that made it ''look to me like somebody get hurt.''

 

...

In an interview on MSNBC, Mostafa said he returned to the house later to pick up another customer. He said he remembered that person ''said in a loud voice, 'She just a stripper.'''

Asked whether the second fare was complaining about the stripper or whether it appeared something bad had happened to her, Mostafa initially said he didn't ''have any information about what was going on in the house.''

''When I look back, he look like he mad at the stripper. Or the stripper, she going to call the police and she just a stripper. ... It look to me like somebody get hurt. But what kind of harm, ... I have no idea.''

Interesting.  Mr. Seligmann's dorm card was used at 12:46.  The police showed up to an empty house where the party had ocurred at 12:55.  The cab driver is cutting it close here, but I presume the dorms and the off-campus housing don't need to be far apart.

STILL MORE:  From the Ankle Biting Pundit:

First, the caveat:

...a person whom I'd known for a few years and been in contact with previously (and who knows my "real-life" identity) on matters unrelated to this case wrote me with some information not reported in the press.
 
In fairness, this person is sympathetic to, and has connections with, some of the Duke Lacrosse players (which he/she freely admitted to me). The person also freely admitted that he/she had received this information on a "second-hand" basis and was only relating to me what he/she had been told.

However, with the above disclosure, and because I know the person to be "straight-up" from other dealings with him/her, I'm going to pass along the information the source shared with me.

And, the news/rumor:

Race may be playing a factor - but not how you think. The strippers were hired over the phone, and the person that called asked for white strippers. However, as everyone knows by know, neither of the strippers were white. When the strippers did come over they were clearly impaired - so much so that the alleged victim passed out on the back porch, and some of the players had to help her to the car because she couldn't walk. Further, the strippers did not even "perform" their show.

FWIW - my own Jersey connections (we are alluding to the high school/college gossip mill here) said the same thing - the LAX players were expecting a white stripper, asked the two women in question to leave, there was a dispute about money, performance, etc., and here we are.

Now, a rumor is not true just becasue a lot of folks hear it.  But I'm just sayin'.

Avoiding Negativity

This post titled "Angry/negative people can be bad for your brain" is getting some buzz.  Can it be a coincidence that it follows so closely upon the WaPo mockery of the Left Brain?

Motions To Quash

Jeralyn Merritt notes the motions to quash filed by news organizations resisting the subpoenas of the Libby defense team; Reuters, the AP, the NY Times, and the WaPo have coverage.

From the TIME and Judith Miller subpoenas themselves, we find this to be of interest - the defense wants information on contacts between reporters and "Ari Fleischer, Marc Grossman, Eric Edelman, Bob Grenier, Cathy Martin, Joseph Wilson, George Tenet, and Bill Harlow".

Most of those names are well known (Cathy Martin was Cheney's press spokesperson).  Eric Edelman has been linked to this case but has not featured prominently, and Bob Grenier's name is almost new to this [NO!  Clarice Feldman notes that he appears in para. 7 of the Libby indictment].

Here is Eric Edelman's bio; he was Libby's Principal Deputy prior to his appointment as Ambassador to Turkey in July 2003.  He was also the chap on the other end of the phone in points 12 and 13 of the Libby indictment, made notable by Libby's comment that "he could not discuss the matter on a non-secure telephone line".

And Robert Grenier was a top CIA guy:

The CIA's top counterterrorism officer was relieved of his position yesterday after months of turmoil atop the agency's clandestine service, according to three knowledgeable officials.

Robert Grenier, who spent most of his career undercover overseas, took charge of the Counterterrorism Center about a year ago after a series of senior jobs at the center of the Bush administration's national security agenda.

FWIW - he was in a position to remember Valerie Wilson by her maiden name, since he would have first met her that way.  I mention that because an enduring puzzle of this leak was the use of Ms. Plame's maiden name in the Novak column - she was referred to as Valerie Wilson in the recently disclosed INR memo, so one might think that White House folks would know her that way.

And since we are ruminating on possible leaks from the CIA, let's hark back to this - on July 8, Robert Novak had his odd sidewalk encounter with a friend of Joe Wilson's, in which Novak said, roughly, "The CIA sent him.  His wife, Valerie, works for the CIA.  She's a weapons of mass destruction specialist.  She sent him".

The wrinkle is this - on July 8, Andrea Mitchell reporting in the possibility that George Tenet would become the fall guy for the "16 Words", said this about the origin of the Wilson trip:

MITCHELL: Well, people at the CIA say that it's not going to be George Tenet; and, in fact, that high-level people at the CIA did not really know that it was false, never even looked at Joe Wilson's verbal report or notes from that report, didn't even know that it was he who had made this report, because he was sent over by some of the covert operatives in the CIA at a very low level, not, in fact, tasked by the vice president.

Emphasis added - one might even infer that CIA sources were feeling quite chatty on July 8 - Reuters had a similar leak, although they do not point specifically to the CIA:

A U.S. intelligence official said [Joseph] Wilson was sent to investigate the Niger reports by mid-level CIA officers, not by top-level Bush administration officials. There is no record of his report being flagged to top level officials, the intelligence official said.

I don't know that Novak received a similar leak on that day, but it is easy to imagine, since he was probably making similar phone calls.  And his lead paragraph from his notorious July 14 column mirrors the Mitchell report, as does his subsequent use of the word "operatives" (But don't underestimate the power of Lexis):

The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge. Remarkably, this produced a political firestorm that has not yet subsided.

Some thoughts and questions:

(a) Novak and/or Mitchell may have received a leak from Grenier on this.  But why single out Grenier and not, for example, McLaughlin?  Does someone know something? [As noted above, Grenier apparently talked to Libby, per the para. 7 of the indictment.]

(b) Novak's sidewalk comment - "She's a weapons of mass destruction specialist" - tracks well with the INR memo, which described Ms. Plame as "a CIA WMD manager" (in the original notes she was described as a "CIA WMD managerial type", which may be a term of art reserved for double-secret covert agents.  The July 8 Mitchell leak, referring to low-level covert operatives, does not match as well with Novak's sidewalk job description.

(c)  Why do these suboenas not mention contacts with Richard Armitage or Stephen Hadley, both of whom were discussed in court and in filings, and have been touted as a likely source for Woodward and/or Novak?  I'm guessing that some legal subtlety is escaping me here.

For completeness, let's just put Novak's fateful "outing" paragraph here as a reminder.  Spoiler Alert - the sentence that has never appeared in the NY Times is emphasized; perhaps the notion of CIA sources contributing to the Plame leak is considered too shocking to report:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

And the Eric Edelman Turkish Taffy is for AJ Strata.

MORE:  For the "Can't Make This Stuff Up" Department - per the Miller Times response, Judy Miller can't find her original notebook from her June 23, 2003 Libby interview.  Well, Bush couldn't find the WMDs, either.  And no worries - Fitzgerald, we are informed, has "a true and complete color copy" of the notebook.

UPDATE: Clarice Feldman opines on the legal arguments at The American Thinker.

Indictments, Arrests In Duke Lacrosse Case

Two players have been arrested in the Duke lacrosse case.  From the NY Times:

Two Duke University men's lacrosse players were arrested today and charged with rape and kidnapping in a case involving a woman who has accused three team members of attacking her at a party last month.

Sgt. Andre Mims of the Durham County Correctional Facility identified the two players who has been arrested as Reade Seligmann of Essex Fells, N.J., and Collin Finnerty of Garden City, N.Y

Both men are sophomores.

Court officials unsealed the arrest warrants in the case this morning. The warrants, issued on Monday, noted that the men had agreed to turn themselves in at 5 a.m. today, and set their bail at $400,000. The warrant said that a court appearance was scheduled for 9:30 a.m., but by that time Mr. Sigelmann had had been released on bond.

For what it's worth - One of the two men, Reade Seligman, was a high school team mate of Ryan McFadyen, who, also per the Times,

had sent a crude, threatening e-mail message hours after the alleged attack. McFadyen was given an interim suspension when the email became public on April 5, the same day Duke President Richard H. Brodhead canceled the lacrosse season, accepted the resignation of the coach and announced a series of campus investigations.

Their Delbarton team was a powerhouse, apparently.

As to the case itself - my guess is that once the District Attorney gets past his election situation in early May, the wheels will fall off.  My sources in New Jersey assure me that there is nothing to this, but who knows?

Widen The Net

Jason Leopold, writing in TruthOut, and Josh Gerstein of the NY Sun both break news in the Plame investigation.  Evidently the State Department was quite casual about Ms. Plame's CIA role, describing her in one set of notes as "CIA WMD managerial type and the wife of Amb. Joe Wilson".

Let's go to Mr. Leopold first:

Defense attorneys for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said in a court filing   late Wednesday that the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney   doesn't remember a conversation he had with a State Department official in June   2003 in which the official told Libby that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the   CIA.

    But the conversation did take place, according to current and former administration   officials and attorneys who have remained close to the two-year-old CIA leak   probe. At least a half-dozen witnesses who testified before a grand jury over   the past two years said that they were at the meeting when Marc Grossman, the   former Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, told Libby that Plame   Wilson worked for the CIA, according to attorneys and US officials close to   the two-year-old CIA leak probe. Grossman also told Libby that Plame Wilson   got the CIA to send her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, on a fact-finding   trip to Niger in February 2002 to check out reports that Iraq tried to purchase   uranium from the African country.

Per the Libby indictment, that meeting took place on June 11 or 12.  If there were half a dozen people in the meeting, all of them become possible leakers, yes?  And of course, anyone with whom those six discussed this internally become possible leakers as well.  Of course, Marc Grossman's superior, Richard Armitage, is a leading candidate as the fellow who leaked Plame's identity to both Bob Woodward and Bob Novak, so one might imagine that Mr. Grossman is a bit defensive on this point.

Folks who have focused on the circulation of the INR memo on Air Force One will want to know more about the attendees at this June meeting.  And well we might wonder - is this the manner in which the identity of a deep-cover NOC is treated?  Sure, we assume these people had clearances, but where was the need to know, and why was this discussed so casually?

Josh Gerstein shines a light in that direction - apparently the Sun has received a declassified copy of the INR memo (per a FOIA request by The Sun)  originally addressed to Marc Grossman, and rewritten and re-addressed to Colin Powell in order to bring him up to speed for his trip to Africa in early July.   Let's take for granted that the initial memo to Grossman was the basis for the Grossman-Libby meeting.  Plame's classified status was not mentioned:

Contrary to published reports, a State Department memorandum at the center of the investigation into the leak of the name of a CIA operative, Valerie Plame, appears to offer no particular indication that Ms. Plame's role at the agency was classified or covert.

The memo, drafted by the then head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research and addressed to the then secretary of state, Colin Powell, was carried aboard Air Force One as President Bush departed for Africa in July 2003. A declassified version of the document was obtained by The New York Sun on Saturday.

...

Mr. Fitzgerald's investigators have attempted to establish a precise chain of custody for the document because it is one way some White House officials might have learned that Mr. Wilson's wife was a CIA employee, working in the agency's weapons of mass destruction division.

"In a February 19, 2002, meeting convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD manager, and the wife of Joe Wilson, he previewed his plans and rationale for going to Niger," the memo from the State Department intelligence chief, Carl Ford Jr., said. Mr. Ford also drafted an earlier version of the memo, addressed to an undersecretary of state, Marc Grossman. Mr. Grossman apparently sought the information about Mr. Wilson's trip after receiving inquiries from the then chief of staff to Vice President Cheney, I. Lewis Libby.

Mr. Gerstein address The Sign of the S noted in the WSJ story; blog critics had made a similar point earlier (and we have table-pounding in the comments from Lew Clark):

A Wall Street Journal article on July 19, 2005, citing an unnamed person familiar with the memo, reported that the memo "made clear that information identifying an agent and her role in her husband's intelligence gathering mission was sensitive and shouldn't be shared." The Journal account said the paragraph discussing Ms. Plame's role in her husband's trip was marked in a way to indicate it shouldn't be disclosed.

A story the following day in the Washington Post, "Plame's Identity Marked as Secret," said correctly that the paragraph carried the mark "S," signifying the middle level of three major tiers of classification.

Not noted in the previous press reports was the fact that six of the seven paragraphs in the memo are marked "secret," while only one appears to mention Ms. Plame. In addition, virtually every paragraph in the attached supporting documents from the State Department about alleged Iraqi uranium procurement in Niger carries the "secret" designation.

With most, if not all, of the Niger-related documents marked "secret" in a host of places, there is no particular reason a reader would think the classification was derived from Ms. Plame's status or involvement.

Some attached notes futher undermine the notion that Ms. Plame's identity was known to be a Big Deal (emphasis added):

One attachment to the memo consists of typewritten notes a State Department representative took at a February 19, 2002, meeting where sending Mr. Wilson to Niger was discussed. "Meeting apparently convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD managerial type and the wife of Amb. Joe Wilson, with the idea that the agency and the larger USG could dispatch Joe to Niger to use his contacts there to sort out the Niger/Iraq uranium sale question," an American diplomat serving as the west and southern Africa division chief in the State Department's intelligence and research bureau, Douglas Rohn, wrote.

Mr. Gerstein does a good job getting predictable quotes from Karl Rove's attorney and Joe Wilson.

Well.  Per a recent defense filing, we have the news that Libby has "testified to the grand jury unequivocally that he did not understand Ms. Wilson’s employment by the CIA to be classified information".

Back when Fitzgerald was arguing the urgency of obtaining Judy Miller's testimony, he told the judges that "[t]o date, we have no direct evidence that Libby knew or believed that Wilson's wife was engaged in covert work."

And let's not overlook Murray Waas' contribution to the Loosening Noose.  Maybe Cheney learned about Plame's classified status himself, and shared it with Libby?  It's possible, but the person who told Cheney isn't helping out:

Cheney told investigators that he had learned of Plame's employment by the CIA and her potential role in her husband being sent to Niger by then-CIA director George Tenet, according to people familiar with Cheney's interviews with the special prosecutor.

Tenet has told investigators that he had no specific recollection of discussing Plame or her role in her husband's trip with Cheney, according to people with familiar with his statement to investigators.

Hmm.  So Libby was part of a vicious conspiracy to punish Joe Wilson by not leaking to Cooper, Russert, Woodward, or Miller any news about the connection between Ms. Plame and the Niger trip, and by not being aware that her status was classified.  Got it.

NOTE:  Let me hat tip Jeralyn Merritt, who continues her fine work on this with the Leopold post, and Clarice Feldman for the Sun shine.  And when does Josh Gerstein start getting the accolades heaped on Murray Waas?

MORE:  On the question of whether Wilson debunked the forgeries, as originally reported by Nick Kristof, the INR memo says that Wilson's report was handled by the CIA (so don't blame the INR!), and that "the reporting we have from his trip makes no mention of documents, fraudulent or otherwise".

STILL MORE:  "Grossman's The One!", or, "Who Put The One in the One by Two by Six?".  From Leopold:

Attorneys as well as current and former administration officials close to the   case said Grossman was the lone dissenting unnamed official quoted in a September 28, 2003, Washington Post story who told two Post reporters that "two top White House officials" called "at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife."

Well - Fitzgerald found the "One x Two x Six" theory very interesting when he took over the investigation.  From the NY Times:

At first, the investigation seemed narrowly focused on trying to identify who at the White House provided the information about Ms. Plame to Mr. Novak. But more recently, prosecutors have focused on a Sept. 28, 2003, article in The Washington Post, which said the newspaper had been told that "yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife."

Prosecutors, referring to the story as "one by two by six," have sought to learn the identity of the senior administration official or the two top White House officials, believing that whoever provided the information to the Post knew who spoke with Mr. Novak.

That is so at odds with Richard Armitage, Deputy Secretary of Sate, being the source for Novak and Woodward that I wonder what it could mean; let's score it as a (small) straw in favor of Hadley as Novak's source.

 

Ah, It Was A Bad Leak

The NY Times responds to last week's controversial WaPo editorial titled "A Good Leak" with their own "A Bad Leak".  [And we see that the WaPo ombudsman tackles this as well.]  The topic is the news that Bush chose to declassify a portion of the NIE so that Libby could discuss it with Bob Woodward in late June and Judy Miller in early July.  Highlights of the NIE were then declassified on July 18, 2003.

Some silly bits from the Times editors:

Since Mr. Bush regularly denounces leakers, the White House has made much of the notion that he did not leak classified information, he declassified it. This explanation strains credulity. Even a president cannot wave a wand and announce that an intelligence report is declassified.

To declassify an intelligence document, officials have to decide whether disclosing the information would jeopardize the sources that provided it or the methods used to gather it. To answer that question, they closely study the origins of the intelligence to be disclosed.

One might think the Times editors could hold on to the not-subtle distinction between what a President can do within his Executive power, and what he ought to do if exercising his power responsibly. 

This messy episode leaves more questions than answers, so it is imperative that two things happen soon. First, the federal prosecutor in the Libby case should release the transcripts of what Mr. Bush and Mr. Cheney said when he questioned them.

The federal prosecutor should release the transcripts?  If disclosure and transparency are the new norm then perhaps, in clearing up their own role in this messy story, the Times could:

(a) report on their own subpoena fight with Libby's legal team;

(b) tell us what surprises might be found in Nick Kristof's notes, or Judy Miller's.  Both are subject to subpoena (we think), both might become evidence at trial - why the wait?  [We are especially curious because Nick Kristif may himself have known about Ms. Plame's CIA connection, and Judy Miller may have learned about Ms. Plame from someone at the State Dept. (and the Net Widens as to who at State may have known).]

(c) clear up a few mysteries for us - when the Times ran the famous Joe Wilson op-ed on July 6, 2003 did they know that he was an unpaid adviser to the Kerry campaign?  Did they know that his wife was in the CIA group that was battling the White House over pre-war intelligence?

The Times presented Joe Wilson thusly for his op-ed:

Joseph C. Wilson 4th, United States ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995, is an international business consultant.

Did the Times consider more forthright descriptions, such as "Kerry adviser bashes Bush", or "On intel dispute with White House, CIA spouse backs CIA"?  Just wondering.

Marginalize The Opposition

If your critics are insane, why listen to them?  The WaPo continues its tussle with left wing bloggers - I would cite the Abramoff debacle and the recent WaPo editorial on pre-war intel as examples, if I had time to put in any links.

And keep in mind - WaPo columnist Charles Krauthammer trained as a psychologist, so the WaPo may be getting expert guidance here.

Tell Me About Duke Lacrosse

Tell me what to think about the Duke lacrosse debacle.

My two cents - I would have have shut the "program" down after reading Tom Wolfe's "I Am Charlotte Simmons".  And in my current mode (Knock their teeth out, then kick 'em in the stomach for mumbling) I would still shut it down - the University of San Francisco did this with their basketball program, as I recall.  Yes, there are due process issues here, so that may be one of many reasons I am not in charge of Duke.  But after I shut the program down, the kids who tried to transfer out would (I'll wager) only be able to be accepted elsewhere after demonstrating a bit more cooperation with the authorities.

Well - lacrosse is just affirmative action for middle class white kids who don't have the guts to mix it up with the minorities and play football or basketball - we can let that role be filled by the golf and swimming teams.  Or, for kids who want to play at being a tough guy, drop all the padding and play rugby.

I'm not a fan.

Meanwhile, Back At The Washington Post...

The WaPo makes news and reports it today in the Plame investigation.  Tucked away at the bottom of a story about a gag order in the case is this:

In a related development, The Post yesterday was subpoenaed by Libby's defense team to produce records related to the case that the newspaper had not turned over to Fitzgerald. Eric Lieberman, a counsel at The Post, said the newspaper would comply by providing Libby with a complete copy of a memorandum by Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward from his interview with Libby on June 27, 2003.

Woodward has said Libby spoke in the interview about the same intelligence report he discussed with other journalists. "This action does not pose legal or journalistic concerns to The Post or Mr. Woodward," Lieberman said.

This actually raises more questions than it answers.  First, the Washington Post was not among the original group of news organizations cited as receiving subpoenas.  Secondly, there does not seem to be any record of the WaPo subpoenas on PACER, although filings related to the others can be found.

A likely answer - the PACER filings, as Jeralyn noted, relate to the organizations that are *contesting* their subpoenas; the WaPo seems to be in a negotiating mode. But wouldn't the defense want more than Woodward's notes about his interview with Libby?

I can think of two reasons for the WaPo to be cooperating.  First, as a strategic matter the NY Times did not help the journalistic community with their losing defense in the Judy Miller case.  The Times legacy there is a series of court rulings that will make it harder for the next journalist to fight a subpoena.  The WaPo may be trying to play it smart by negotiating, giving in gracefully, and avoiding the creation of ghastly new legal precedents.

Secondly, the Wapo knows some things the rest of us here among the great unwashed do not.  Walter Pincus has said that he thinks the talk of a crime is overdone, and that the motive of the person who leaked to him was not to punish Joe Wilson, but to get the press to ignore him (Hmm, for Wilson that might be the ultimate punishment - what a diabolical genius that Karl Rove is!).

Secondly, Bob Woodward (and presumably his editor) knows who it is that leaked to him in mid-June - Richard Armitage of the State Dept is a likely candidate.  Woodward has also been critical of the Fitzgerald investigation, and has reported that the CIA did not find any great damage to have resulted from the Plame leak.

Add it up, and the WaPo may not see a reason to fight.

MORE:  Good job by someone I have not read before; Bob Somerby finds a plaintive Kevin Drum wondering why the press is leaving out the bits of the Fitzgerald filing exonerating Bush.

Since the Bush Admin is threatening to take the NY Times ands the WaPo to court over the NSA leak and the CIA prison leak respectively, I suspect they have extra incentive to tip one way.

The Revolt Against Rumsfeld

The NY Times continues its coverage of the revolt (my hyperbole, not theirs - alliteration is all!) against Rumsfeld.

At one time, as exemplified by the dispute over the Crusader, grumbling from the Pentagon could be dismissed as the Old Guard defending the Old Army against Rumsfeld's attempts to transform it away from a heavy force meant to fight the Soviet Army in Central Europe and towards a smaller, lighter, more nimble force. 

However - these latest generals served in Iraq and are directing their criticism towards the effort in Iraq.

Gregory Djerejian, not a long-time fan of Rumsfeld, has more.

In the media watch department, we are groaning over this:

Mr. Rumsfeld's critics often point to his treatment of Gen. Eric Shinseki, then the Army chief of staff, who told Congress a month before the 2003 invasion of Iraq that occupying the country could require "several hundred thousand troops," rather than the smaller force that was later provided. General Shinseki's estimate was publicly dismissed by Pentagon officials.

Yes, the critics often point to that - can't fault the Times for literal accuracy, although we wonder whether they should recycle fantasy like this.  Prior to that Congressional testimony Rumsfeld had neutered Shinseki by announcing his replacement 15 months prior to Shinseki's scheduled retirement in June 2003.  They had a variety of disputes, as noted in the WaPo link, or more here.

MORE:  The "Crusader"?  What PR visionary picked that name?  Obviously that name wouldn't bother the Soviets, but what if we used it in, oh, let's say Iraq?

UPDATE:  Let's get John Cole and Powerline in the mix for some spine-stiffening.

Libby's Team Replies On Disclosure

Jeralyn Merritt has Team Libby's latest on the disclosure question (29 page .pdf or here) and has added some must-read UPDATES.  It's hard to believe this will make as many headlines as Fitzgerald's last filing, but dig in.

Here, for example, is a headline that will not appear: "Libby Didn't Lie, But Fitzgerald Did".   From a footnote on p. 3:

Perhaps not surprisingly, given the media’s overwhelming interest in this case, an erroneous statement in the government’s response brief led to stories in the press that falsely accused Mr. Libby of making inaccurate statements – or even lying – to reporter Judith Miller about the contents of the NIE. (See, e.g., Walter Pincus, Specter Says Bush, Cheney Should Explain Leak, WASHINGTON POST, April 10, 2006, at A04, attached as Ex. A.) The government has since written a letter to the Court to indicate that, consistent with his grand jury testimony, Mr. Libby did not tell Ms. Miller “that a key judgment of the NIE held that Iraq was ‘vigorously trying to procure’ uranium.” (See Ltr. from Patrick J. Fitzgerald to Hon. Reggie B. Walton, dated April 11, 2006, attached as Ex. B.) Instead, during his testimony, Mr. Libby drew careful distinctions between the key judgments of the NIE about WMD and its section on uranium. Accordingly, there is no basis for the media reports that accused Mr. Libby of misrepresenting the key judgments of the NIE to Ms. Miller.

My apologies - I see the NY Times is covering this, with a different headline: "Prosecutor Corrects Filing About Former Aide to Cheney".  Folks who track this sort of thing will want to see how many of the blogs that pounded Libby for misrepresenting the key judgments of the NIE to Miller will note the correction [And I am advised in the comments that several have; here, for example, is TalkLeft].  And here is the letter itself.

And as we read on, we wonder - was our man Fitzgerald being a bit cute with other facts in his last filing?  More from Team Libby (p. 20):

The government pretends that Mr. Wilson’s wife was a part of the response Mr. Libby was instructed to make to Mr. Wilson’s false claims, and even argues that “[d]isclosing the belief that Mr. Wilson’s wife sent him on the Niger trip was one way for defendant to contradict the assertion that the Vice President had done so . . .” (Id. at 19.) In fact, as the government is well aware, contemporaneous documents reflect the points that Mr. Libby was to make to reporters, and these documents do not include any information about Wilson’s wife. Further, the government’s theory ignores the fact that neither the indictment nor the evidence supports the notion that Mr. Libby told any reporter that “Mr. Wilson’s wife sent him on the Niger trip.” The only reference to such an idea in the indictment is the allegation in paragraph 23 that Matthew Cooper asked Mr. Libby on July 12, 2003 whether he had heard that Wilson’s wife was involved in sending him on the trip, and Libby said “he had heard this information too.”

Emphasis added - presumably this refers to some typed-up talking points.  We harped on the broader point a bit, or meant to - Fitzgerald never presents evidence that Cheney directed Libby to discuss Ms. Plame, even though there are passages from the Fitzgerald filing where presenting such evidence (if it existed) would be totally appropriate.  For example:

Defendant further testified that on July 12, 2003, he was specifically directed by the Vice President to speak to the press in place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the NIE and Wilson. Defendant was instructed to provide what was for him an extremely rare “on the record” statement, and to provide “background” and “deep background” statements, and to provide information contained in a document defendant understood to be the cable authored by Mr. Wilson. During the conversations that followed on July 12, defendant discussed Ms. Wilson’s employment with both Matthew Cooper (for the first time) and Judith Miller (for the third time). Even if someone else in some other agency thought that the controversy about Mr. Wilson and/or his wife was a trifle, that person’s state of mind would be irrelevant to the importance and focus defendant placed on the matter and the importance he attached to the surrounding conversations he was directed to engage in by the Vice President.

Here is the TIME article co-authored by Matt Cooper that came from that, as well as Matt Cooper's recollection of the circumstances.

And Judy Miller's account includes this on her July 8 interview with Libby:

Mr. Fitzgerald asked me whether Mr. Libby had mentioned nepotism. I said no. And as I told the grand jury, I did not recall -- and my interview notes do not show -- that Mr. Libby suggested that Ms. Plame had helped arrange her husband's trip to Niger. My notes do suggest that our conversation about Ms. Plame was brief.

And for their July 12 talk, it is not clear whether Ms. Plame was mentioned at all:

My third interview with Mr. Libby occurred on July 12, two days before Robert D. Novak's column identified Ms. Plame for the first time as a C.I.A. operative. I believe I spoke to Mr. Libby by telephone from my home in Sag Harbor, N.Y.

I told Mr. Fitzgerald I believed that before this call, I might have called others about Mr. Wilson's wife. In my notebook I had written the words ''Victoria Wilson'' with a box around it, another apparent reference to Ms. Plame, who is also known as Valerie Wilson.

I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I was not sure whether Mr. Libby had used this name or whether I just made a mistake in writing it on my own. Another possibility, I said, is that I gave Mr. Libby the wrong name on purpose to see whether he would correct me and confirm her identity.

I also told the grand jury I thought it was odd that I had written ''Wilson'' because my memory is that I had heard her referred to only as Plame. Mr. Fitzgerald asked whether this suggested that Mr. Libby had given me the name Wilson. I told him I didn't know and didn't want to guess.

My notes of this phone call show that Mr. Libby quickly turned to criticizing Mr. Wilson's report on his mission to Niger. He said it was unclear whether Mr. Wilson had spoken with any Niger officials who had dealt with Iraq's trade representatives.

With the understanding that I would attribute the information to an administration official, Mr. Libby also sought to explain why Mr. Bush included the disputed uranium allegation in his 2003 State of the Union address, a sentence of 16 words that his administration would later retract. Mr. Libby described it as the product of a simple miscommunication between the White House and the C.I.A.

So, based on this defense filing, Libby had prepared talking points which did not include a mention of Ms. Plame, nor did he mention a connection between Ms. Plame and the Niger trip to any reporter.

The defense re-emphasizes this:

The government’s argument that Mr. Libby attached importance to “the controversy about Mr. Wilson and/or his wife” (id. at 20) cleverly masks the fact that the evidence on which this argument relies – e.g., the involvement of the President and Vice- President, the declassification of the NIE, the Vice President’s direction that Mr. Libby speak to the press, the rarity of “on the record” statements by Mr. Libby – has nothing whatsoever to do with Mr. Wilson’s wife.

Here is yet another reason to look forward to a trial - the defense tells us yet again that they may call Joe Wilson:

Further, because the defense may call Mr. Wilson as a hostile witness, we need to prepare to examine him, if necessary, on the details of the trip, including his wife’s role in selecting him for the assignment and the findings he reported to the CIA, and later, to the press.

I'm not a lawyer, so help me out - is there a category of witness beyond "hostile"?  "Incandescent", maybe?

MORE:  Fun's fun, but who's having fun now?

The press had a great time taking a Fitzgerald comment out of context - in making a banal point about the difficulty of delivering documents with the objective of proving a negative, Fitzgerald wrote that "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson."  (Here, for example, is the Tuesday Times pretending that Fitzgerald was claiming to have an overwhelming case demonstrating a conspiracy.)

However, the defense is turning that back against Fitzgerald:

The government asserts that documents exist that could be characterized as demonstrating that the White House planned to punish Mr. Wilson, and that the plan involved talking to reporters about Mr. Wilson’s wife. (Gov’t Br. at 29-30.)  However, the government says that although it has divulged some of those documents to the defense, it is currently withholding others. Rule 16 entitles the defense to all such documents.  On this critical issue, the defense needs to know everything the government knows, to avoid getting blindsided with unexpected testimony about such a plot at trial.

One hopes that Mr. Fitzgerald enjoyed his headlines - now, if the defense is successful in using all that press attention as additional leverage, he gets to deliver the documents he was trying to retain.

STILL MORE:  How Covert Was Valerie Plame?  The defense makes a good arguement for finding out:

Finally, the government’s arguments about motive further underscore that the defense is entitled to discovery about whether Ms. Wilson’s employment status was classified, as the defense has requested in previous motions. The government resists disclosing information regarding the allegedly classified status of Ms. Wilson’s employment, and the knowledge and understanding of others as to whether that employment was classified, on the ground that the information is not relevant to the defense. Yet, almost in the same breath, the government presents an argument on Mr. Libby’s motive to lie that makes this information highly relevant and material to preparation of the defense.

The government states that it will argue Mr. Libby feared losing his job because the President “had vowed to fire anyone involved in leaking classified information” (id. at 28), and because Mr. Libby had requested that the White House Press Secretary say that “Libby was not the source of the Novak story. And he did not leak classified information.” (Id.) Mr. Libby was not, of course, a source for the Novak story. And he testified to the grand jury unequivocally that he did not understand Ms. Wilson’s employment by the CIA to be classified information. The government’s argument puts squarely at issue the credibility of Mr. Libby’s position that he did not leak classified information. The government surely cannot, on the one hand, contend that Mr. Libby knew he had revealed classified information (and thus felt in jeopardy of being fired), and on the other hand withhold from the defense information that would tend to prove her employment status was not classified and that others who knew of that employment had the same understanding.

I find this to be a bit muddled - even if her status was in fact classified (and IIRC, Fitzgerald has asserted that in various filings, and the original CIA referral was for a leak of classified information), the key point would seem to be, did Libby know (or fear) that at the time he testified to the FBI and the grand jury?

Well.  The defense also reiterates its request for the CIA referral document.  Here is just one of their arguements:

And, to the extent that Director Tenet was involved in the creation of the referral documents, or actively pushed the DOJ to investigate the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity, the referral documents would show that the bias against Mr. Libby reached to the highest levels of the CIA and did not simply represent the complaints of lowerranking employees. Further, Mr. Tenet is a likely witness. If he was personally involved in the referral process, then the referral documents would be important for preparing to examine him on the issue of bias. To prepare for trial effectively, the defense must have the opportunity to explore all of these issues further.

I have not seen (or don't recall) a timetable for the judge's final decision on these discovery questions.

UPDATE:  A very interesting point from the Anon Lib - does the filing contain a hint that Libby had a secret understanding with Bush and/or Cheney such that Libby was not worried about being fired for leaking classified information?

My quick reaction - if Fitzgerald had such evidence, his most recent filing would have been a great place to introduce it.  Fitzgerald is clearly scraping around for any evidence at all of a Bush or Cheney role in this, so again, his silence speaks volumes.

Who Was Woodward's Source For His Plame Leak?

Many, including yours truly, have derided the recent schizophrenic WaPo coverage of the Plame case and the weird "Good Leak" editorial.

However - the WaPo editors surely know Woodward's source for his Plame leak, which he got in mid-June.  Do you suppose they would have written that editorial if Woodward's source was Stephen Hadley of the NSC (or, as a dark horse, Ari Fleischer)?

Let's tip the scales back towards Richard Armitage of State.

MORE:  I am off to a place with an uncertain internet connection, so I may go dark.

STILL MORE:  From the NY Times - Bush Ordered The Code Red.  Admitting the minimum is a good strategy.  And the Times makes the Woodward connection we noted yesterday - in late June Woodward wanted to talk about the NIE with Libby and Cheney for his upcoming book.

What Is Happening At The WaPo?

If an editorial can induce aneurysms, the Washington Post may have killed or wounded a significant slice of left-leaning America with their effort on Sunday - in "A Good Leak" they both defend Libby's leak of the NIE to Judy Miller and beat on Joe Wilson.  Since they also buried a seemingly-significant story about who at the White House knew what and when on the Niger-uranium question, we wonder if there has been a Ben Domenech-inspired coup at the WaPo.  [A more serious defense of the WaPo is here - basically, Woodward, Pincus, and the editors have insider knowledge about who leaked and why.]

First, their praise of the leak, with emphasis added:

A Good Leak
President Bush declassified some of the intelligence he used to decide on war in Iraq. Is that a scandal?

PRESIDENT BUSH was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. Presidents are authorized to declassify sensitive material, and the public benefits when they do. But the administration handled the release clumsily, exposing Mr. Bush to the hyperbolic charges of misconduct and hypocrisy that Democrats are leveling.

...There was nothing illegal or even particularly unusual about that; nor is this presidentially authorized leak necessarily comparable to other, unauthorized disclosures that the president believes, rightly or wrongly, compromise national security. Nevertheless, Mr. Cheney's tactics make Mr. Bush look foolish for having subsequently denounced a different leak in the same controversy and vowing to "get to the bottom" of it.

Wow.  Of course, these are presumably the same editors hyping the "punish Wilson" excerpt from the Fitzgerald filing, so go figure.

LOTS of reaction at Memeorandum; I may scout a few lefty sites to perform a body count, but let me try to anticipate their outrage on the Wilson segment.  To do that I have to take the unaccustomed role of Joe Wilson apologist, but here we go:

Mr. Wilson originally claimed in a 2003 New York Times op-ed and in conversations with numerous reporters that he had debunked a report that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium from Niger and that Mr. Bush's subsequent inclusion of that allegation in his State of the Union address showed that he had deliberately "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraq threat."  The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.

Well, per the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report from July 2004, it is true that there were aspects of his report that supported that conclusion, since Wilson noted an Iraqi overture from 1999 that may have been related to uranium.  However, his report was considered inconclusive.  From the report:

Conclusion 13. The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq.

Let's go back to the editorial:

Mr. Wilson subsequently claimed that the White House set out to punish him for his supposed whistle-blowing by deliberately blowing the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, who he said was an undercover CIA operative. This prompted the investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson's charge.

As much as I agree, this editorial is appearing in the very same paper that reported this on Saturday, in the lead:

As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.

And this was in the Friday edition:

Fitzgerald's brief uses unusually strong language to rebut this claim. In light of the grand jury testimony, the prosecutor said, "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson."

My goodness, regular readers of the WaPo risk whiplash.  [That said, the WaPo editors surely know who Bob Woodward's source is for his Plame leak; they also must know Walter Pincus' source.  So they may have unpublished reasons to be skeptical of the "punishment" theory.]  Let's press on:

Mr. Libby's motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Mr. Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Mr. Cheney. In fact Mr. Wilson was recommended for the trip by his wife.

Devoted Wilso-philes will swoon at the notion that Libby's motive may have been to correct the record.  As to the idea that it is a "fact" that Wilson's wife recommended him for the trip, stand back! 

Wilson's position has shown admirable flexibility in the face of new facts; here he is chatting with TIME in the famous Matt Cooper article:

In an interview with TIME, Wilson, who served as an ambassador to Gabon and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad under the current president's father, angrily said that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to Africa. "That is bulls__t. That is absolutely not the case," Wilson told TIME. "I met with between six and eight analysts and operators from CIA and elsewhere [before the Feb 2002 trip]. None of the people in that meeting did I know, and they took the decision to send me. This is a smear job."

The Senate report told a different story - here is Susan Schmidt of the WaPo from July 2004:

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

Can't fault the WaPo editors for lack of consistency.  Joe Wilson fired back, and it is fair to say this has been a point of contention (some of my thoughts here).

In any case, both Wilson's position and the coverage at TIME have been evolving - here is a TIME account from August 2005:

...That means Wilson was also shading the story:  "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," he wrote in his 2004 book The Politics of Truth.  "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."  When asked last week by TIME if he still denies that she was the origin of his involvement in the trip, he avoided answering.  But he has maintained all along that Administration officials conducted a "smear job" on him and outed his wife in revenge.

Time to survey the battlefield.

MORE:  Odd - Joe Wilson emails SusanG at the Daily Kos, but skips past the spousal question to focus on the schizophrenia at the WaPo.  Joe and I, thinking as one - that ought to make at least one of us uncomfortable.

Brad DeLong uses the one of my favorite phrases to describe the WaPo.

ERiposte and ThinkProgress make me look concise, but add some points.  I am going to dispute Think Progress on this:

CLAIM: Wilson said Cheney sent him to Africa “Mr. Libby’s motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Mr. Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Mr. Cheney.” [Washington Post, 4/9/06]

FACT:

Wilson never said that Cheney sent him, only that the vice president’s office had questions about an intelligence report that referred to the sale of uranium yellowcake to Iraq from Niger. Wilson, in his New York Times article, said CIA officials were informed of Cheney’s questions. [Bloomberg, 7/14/05]

Groan - Nick Kristof is hazy on who said it or how it got started, but *someone* asserted that Wilson was sent "at the behest" (Kristof's phrase) of the office of the Vice President, and the White House certainly felt pressured to rebut it.  Here, for example, is the fact-proof Chris Matthews insisting repeatedly that Wilson was sent "at the behest" of the VP's office.  Perhaps the WaPo editors should have separated the office from the man, but to pretend that the idea was not out there (following, we should note, the Kristof columns (May 6, 2003; June 13, 2003) with Wilson as an anonymous source) is not reasonable.

MORE:  And if Wilson did not say Cheney sent him, he ought to ask his publicist to correct his current on-line bio.  or maybe the WaPo made their mistake by reading his bio, which says this:

Wilson is now at the center of a major political maelstrom involving the White House, the C.I.A. and the second gulf war in Iraq. In 2002, at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney, Wilson was assigned by the C.I.A. to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein was seeking to acquire uranium from Niger for the purpose of advancing his nuclear program. When his investigation turned up nothing, Wilson reported back to officials in Washington that there was no basis for the claims.

Hat tip to Maybee.

IF I Had To Spin Up An Innocent Explanation...

I am not paid enough to do this, but if I had to spin the "Bush Authorized a Leak!!!" story, I would start with Bob Woodward, who had vast White House access back in 2003 since he was working on a book. 

This is from his account of his leak experience:

I also testified that I had a conversation with a third person on June 23, 2003. The person was I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and we talked on the phone. I told him I was sending to him an 18-page list of questions I wanted to ask Vice President Cheney. On page 5 of that list there was a question about "yellowcake" and the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate regarding Iraq's weapons programs. I testified that I believed I had both the 18-page question list and the question list from the June 20 interview with the phrase "Joe Wilson's wife" on my desk during this discussion. I testified that I have no recollection that Wilson or his wife was discussed, and I have no notes of the conversation.

So in late June Woodward wants to talk to Libby and Cheney about, among other things, the NIE.  Libby talks to Cheney, who says, sure, we spill our guts to Bob we never worry about whether it's classified.

A bit of time passes, and now Libby decides he wants to discuss the NIE with Judy Miller, so he asks Cheney if he can reprise his Woodward talk with her.  And Cheney says, no problem.

And there we are, sort of.  Now, per his excerpted testimony, Libby sought reassurance from Cheney that Bush had cleared this - why?  If I had to guess, I would say Libby is, hmm, misremembering this detail.  I would also say he misremembered that he had gotten clearance to talk to Woodward about the NIE, and neglected to mention that to Fitzgerald as well.  Well, June was an odd month for Libby - he also forgot to mention his June meeting wirth Judy Miller.

But in broad outline, the approval to "leak" to Miller followed in Woodward's wake, and the chat with Woodward was as pre-cleared as those chats ever were - I have no idea whatWoodward's arrangement is with the White House, but he clearly got access to classified info.

Here is what Woodward wrote about Libby:

I testified that on June 27, 2003, I met with Libby at 5:10 p.m. in his office adjacent to the White House. I took the 18-page list of questions with the Page-5 reference to "yellowcake" to this interview and I believe I also had the other question list from June 20, which had the "Joe Wilson's wife" reference.

I have four pages of typed notes from this interview, and I testified that there is no reference in them to Wilson or his wife. A portion of the typed notes shows that Libby discussed the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction, mentioned "yellowcake" and said there was an "effort by the Iraqis to get it from Africa. It goes back to February '02." This was the time of Wilson's trip to Niger.

When asked by Fitzgerald if it was possible I told Libby I knew Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and was involved in his assignment, I testified that it was possible I asked a question about Wilson or his wife, but that I had no recollection of doing so. My notes do not include all the questions I asked, but I testified that if Libby had said anything on the subject, I would have recorded it in my notes.

And for what it's worth, Fitzgerald did ask Ms. Miller about Cheney:

Before the grand jury, Mr. Fitzgerald asked me questions about Mr. Cheney. He asked, for example, if Mr. Libby ever indicated whether Mr. Cheney had approved of his interviews with me or was aware of them. The answer was no.

Go Fish.  Well, at least she didn't say, "Go Cheney yourself".

UPDATE:  Here is the latest spin from the professionals:

President Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, be the one to disseminate the information, an attorney knowledgeable about the case said Saturday.

Bush merely instructed Cheney to "get it out" and left the details to him, said the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case for the White House. The vice president chose Libby and communicated the president's wishes to his then-top aide, the lawyer said.

No mention of Woodward in this story.

The Loosening Noose, II

Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer of the WaPo tell us that Dick Cheney was the real star of the most recent Fitzgerald filing (39 page .pdf), review the 16 Word debacle (breaking news in the process, I think), and repeat a misrepresentation of the Fitzgerald filing that the WaPo hyped before.  Let's dig in:

A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush Critic
Prosecutor Describes Cheney, Libby as Key Voices Pitching Iraq-Niger Story

As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.

Bluntly and repeatedly, Fitzgerald placed Cheney at the center of that campaign. Citing grand jury testimony from the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald fingered Cheney as the first to voice a line of attack that at least three White House officials would soon deploy against former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

Yes he did, as I noted in my first pass through the filing in the "Get Dick!" section.  However, I also noted that it was what Fitzgerald did not tell us that was important - it is obvious from this filing that Libby did *not* testify that Cheney instructed him to leak information about Ms. Plame.

And Murray Waas reported that, although Cheney claims to have learned about Ms. Plame from then-DCI George Tenet, Tenet does not remember the conversation (although I bet he remembers getting a Medal of Freedom!)

So - Libby hasn't said that Cheney ordered him to out Plame; Tenet hasn't said that he warned Cheney that Plame was covert - this is quite a compelling case that is coming together against Cheney.  Well, I covered that in "The Loosening Noose".

Let me take up another point - in describing a possible White House conspiracy the WaPo misrepresents, for the second time (April 7, R. Jeffrey Smith), an interesting part of the Fitzgerald filing.  Here we go:

Fitzgerald reported for the first time this week that "multiple officials in the White House"-- not only Libby and White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who have previously been identified -- discussed Plame's CIA employment with reporters before and after publication of her name on July 14, 2003, in a column by Robert D. Novak. Fitzgerald said the grand jury has collected so much testimony and so many documents that "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson."

Wow!  Fitzgerald has so much evidence that he can't conceive of evidence that would let the White House could dig itself out of this hole!  Stunning!  But not true - the WaPo has taken a reasonable statement from Fitzgerald out of context and twisted its meaning 180 degrees.

The filing relates to the Libby defense request for various documents under discovery.  Fitzgerald makes the point that, although he could provide documents that suggested a conspiracy, trying to provide documents proving the non-existence of a conspiracy involves the challenge of proving a negative - just how many documents that don't suggest a conspiracy, Fitzgerald wondered, would be needed to prove there was no conspiracy?  And just what would those documents say - "No conspiracy here"? 

That line of argumentation led Fitzgerald to the comment excerpted opportunistically but inappropriately by the WaPo:

"...it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson."

C'mon, get an editor to look at what Fitzgerald wrote, and save this nonsense for the lefty blogs.

That said, and for the benefit of the WaPo editors, here is a more complete excerpt, starting on p. 29 of the .pdf.  Emphasis on the part they selectively excerpted:

Defendant also asserts without elaboration that “documents that help establish that no White House-driven plot to punish Mr. Wilson caused the disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity also constitute Brady material.” Once again, defendant ignores the fact that he is not charged with participating in any conspiracy, much less one defined as a “White House-driven plot to punish Mr. Wilson.” Thus, putative evidence that such a conspiracy did not exist is not Brady material.  Moreover, given that there is evidence that other White House officials with whom defendant spoke prior to July14, 2003 discussed Wilson’s wife’s employment with the press both prior to, and after, July 14, 2003 – which evidence has been shared with defendant – it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to “punish” Wilson. Surely, defendant cannot claim that any document on its face that does not reflect a plot is exculpatory.

I happen to think that is crystal clear and makes a very different point from that chosen by the creative excerpters at the WaPo.  But just to gild the lily, here is Fitzgerald addressing a similar discovery issue on p. 26:

Defendant is not charged with knowingly disclosing classified information, nor is he charged with any conspiracy offense. Moreover, as a practical matter, there are no documents showing an absence of a plot, and it is unclear how any document custodian would set out to find documents showing an “absence of a plot.” Indeed, there exist documents, some of which have been provided to defendant, and there were conversations in which defendant participated, that reveal a strong desire by many, including multiple people in the White House, to repudiate Mr. Wilson before and
after July 14, 2003.

Fortunately it is not illegal to devise a communications strategy to repudiate one's critics.  But unlike the passage so eagerly hyped on two occasions by the WaPo, Fitzgerald does not assert that he has a plethora of documents indicating a White House plot to "punish" Wilson.  However, the word "punish" was chosen by Libby's lawyers and gleefully seized upon by Fitzgerald and the WaPo, so they ought to adjust their bill.

ERRATA:  Here is the Friday hype of that passage:

Libby, who was indicted last year for allegedly lying to the FBI and a grand jury about what he said to reporters about his contacts with the media, wants the materials because he thinks they will show that his misstatements were innocent and did not stem from an orchestrated administration campaign to discredit Wilson, according to his court filings.

Fitzgerald's brief uses unusually strong language to rebut this claim. In light of the grand jury testimony, the prosecutor said, "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson."

MORE TO FOLLOW:  This looks like the breaking news on the 16 Words, with emphasis added:

Tenet interceded to keep the claim out of a speech Bush gave in Cincinnati on Oct. 7, 2002, but by Dec. 19 it reappeared in a State Department "fact sheet." After that, the Pentagon asked for an authoritative judgment from the National Intelligence Council, the senior coordinating body for the 15 agencies that then constituted the U.S. intelligence community. Did Iraq and Niger discuss a uranium sale, or not? If they had, the Pentagon would need to reconsider its ties with Niger.

The council's reply, drafted in a January 2003 memo by the national intelligence officer for Africa, was unequivocal: The Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest. Four U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge said in interviews that the memo, which has not been reported before, arrived at the White House as Bush and his highest-ranking advisers made the uranium story a centerpiece of their case for the rapidly approaching war against Iraq.

If this is news, why is it buried?  To Do - check the SSCI and the Robb-Silberman reports.

With Coverage This Slanted, Bush May As Well Resign

Pete Yost of the AP delivers an "analysis" of the "Bush Authorized Leaks!!!" story that is laughably slanted.  Let's attack back!

New Twist in CIA Leak Probe
Bush and Cheney at the Center of a Leak Campaign

WASHINGTON Apr 8, 2006 (AP)— Now in its third year, the CIA leak investigation took a decidedly unwelcome turn for the White House last week. A court filing by prosecutors depicted President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney as setting in motion leaks to the press that ended in the disclosure of the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.

The court papers say that in the weeks before Plame's identity was revealed, Bush authorized Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, to leak intelligence from a classified document to rebut a war critic, Joe Wilson.

Even Maureen Dowd took care to remind her readers that this story is based on an excerpt of grand jury testimony from I. Lewis Libby, who has been indicted for perjury and seems to be preparing a faulty memory defense.  Mr. Yost ought to similarly caution his many readers that maybe, just maybe, Libby's (incomplete) version should be taken with a grain of salt.  That said, Fitzgerald did speak with Addington (an attorney in the Office of the Vice President who has been moved up to Libby's old spot), Bush and Cheney, so we can presume that Libby's story was not flatly contradicted.  But did Bush and Cheney respond with "I don't recall that?  We don't know.

[UPDATE:  The latest WH spin is that Bush approved the concept of getting the story out, but left the details to Cheney:

President Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, be the one to disseminate the information, an attorney knowledgeable about the case said Saturday.

Bush merely instructed Cheney to "get it out" and left the details to him, said the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case for the White House. The vice president chose Libby and communicated the president's wishes to his then-top aide, the lawyer said.]

Let's resume with the AP Q&A:

...Q: Now that the story is out that Bush and Cheney put Libby in play, are the president or the vice president expected to be called to testify at Libby's trial?

A. The prosecution and the defense have not signaled their intentions.

"Put Libby in play"?  As the story eventually notes (see MORE, below), the timeline is hazy at best.  This is partly because, at the time Libby testified, Special Counsel Fitzgerald was unaware of Libby's chats with Judy Miller and Bob Woodward in June 2003; consequently, Fitzgerald's questions to Libby about his conversations with reporters focused on July, and the issue of whether Libby was cleared to talk with Woodward did not arise.

As a result, it is hard to judge whether Libby began leaking and then sought authorization, or the reverse.  That is assuming that the authorization even occurred, and is not a convenient ex post fiction (The Anon Lib wonders about this).

And as to people in play, who turned loose Fitzgerald's Official One, who leaked to Woodward and (probably) Novak?  Did Bush authorize that?  Does Fitzgerald even care who leaked Plame's CIA affiliation to Novak?  Last we heard Offical One should have his privacy respected because he was not facing charges (story, transcript).

...Q. If Libby was directed by Bush and Cheney to leak information from a classified National Intelligence Estimate, why did he allegedly leak information about Plame's CIA identity as well? Did he do so with or without direction from his superiors?

A. No one in a position to know has offered answers.

But some of us in a position to read Fitzgerald's filing have offered an answer - on p. 27 of the .pdf, Fitzgerald says this, with emphasis added:

During this time, while the President was unaware of the role that the Vice President’s Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser [i.e., Libby, who had both jobs] had in fact played in disclosing Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment...

At a minimum, we can conclude that Fitzgerald is unwilling to offer evidence that Bush knew about Libby's Plame-related leaks.  One might even infer (unless one were an AP writer) that Bush did not authorize them.  Surely this passage merits a mention - the WaPo thought so on Friday:

Although Fitzgerald specifically said Bush was not aware of the leaking of a CIA agent's affiliation...

OK, we are past the worst and I should relent a bit here - after the deplorable intro the article becomes a bit more balanced.  Here are the next two questions, with plausible answers:

Q. Didn't a lot of people know that Plame worked for the CIA? So what was the big deal about identifying her?

...

Q. Did Bush do something illegal?

But the attempt at "fair and balanced" is lost with the next question, which presumes more than we know:

Q. If what Bush did was legal, why does this matter?

A. The furor prompted by the latest disclosure that Bush and Cheney were directing a leak campaign against Wilson goes to the practice of declassifying secrets to gain political advantage...

Fitzgerald provided no evidence on the question of whether Bush and Cheney specifically discussed Joe Wilson, let alone "direct[ed] a leak campaign against" him.

Now, late in the game, is a Q&A that is stunning for its accuracy and relevance.  Where were they in July of 2003?

Q. What else did Libby leak?

A. Aside from allegedly revealing Plame's CIA identity, Libby discussed with New York Times report Judith Miller a then-classified CIA report that arguably undercut Wilson's public attacks on the administration. In it, Wilson described how an Iraqi delegation had visited Niger in 1999 and sought to expand commercial relations, which Niger understood to be a desire to obtain uranium. On the one hand, Wilson was saying publicly it was highly doubtful Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. On the other hand, Wilson was leaving out from his public criticism the information he had learned during his CIA-sponsored trip to Niger about Iraq's desire to expand commercial relations.

Emphasis added, and can we have a yip, yip, yippee.  Of course, George Tenet said this at the time, but nobody cared.  Nobody in the Mainstream Media, anyway.

MORE:  The bit about Woodward is thought-provoking, and I blame bloggers, starting with yours truly, for not having flagged the Woodward statement earlier (I did check the Judy Miller material, which was not conclusive on the question of whether they discussed details of the NIE when they met in June.  Guess I was only half-asleep).

From the AP:

I Save You Time And Pain!

I earn my paycheck with this one - the Times has a tedious, must-skip article about John Kerry's latest bloviations and obfuscations.  The article really ought to carry one of those warning labels that say "Do not attempt to read this while driving or operating heavy machinery".

However, the final paragraphs made my pain worthwhile, and you can skip the pain!

A spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, which skewered Mr. Kerry's speeches relentlessly during 2004, responded with a verbal shrug yesterday.

"John Kerry deserves credit for continuing to take himself so seriously, despite the fact that no one else does," said the spokeswoman, Tracey Schmitt.

That's bringing it!

MORE:  Ann Althouse has a high pain threshold and a great point.

Help Wanted!

Scott Shane of the NY Times picks up their coverage of the "President Authorized Leaks!!!" story:

WASHINGTON, April 7 — That President Bush authorized an aide to disclose classified intelligence on Iraqi weapons, as asserted in court papers, comes as no shock to official Washington. The leaking of secrets has long been a favored tool of policy debate, political combat and diplomatic one-upmanship.

"We've had leaking of this kind since the administration of George Washington," said Rick Shenkman, a presidential historian at George Mason University.

I scarcely have time to read this, let alone comment, but... Rick Shenkman has a blog and is a prof at George Mason in the History Department.

Which is close!  We are really hoping to enlist the George Mason law school guys, who stood alone and tall on the FAIR/Solomon Act dispute, to opine on the various filings arguing that the appointment of Special Counsel Fitzgerald was unconstitutionally broad.  Our current thoughts are here.

MORE:  On the "President Authorized Leaks!!!" coverage - for heaven's sake.  Critics (other than partisan opportunists, such as the Times) who are belaboring Bush for hypocrisy ought to pause and reflect on *why* the President does not like leaks.

In my casual observation, leaks in Washington are intended to promote or attack agendas or individuals.  The President, be he Nixon, Clinton, or, in this case, Bush, would prefer to see his Administration function as a unified team and resolve their personal and policy disputes through proper channels rather than through the press.  The President wants everyone on the same page, and he wants that page to be his - leaks that do not promote THE PRESIDENT'S AGENDA are what a President doesn't like.

In that context, when the President authorizes a leak, it is intended to promote his agenda, and is not problematic.  Such a leak does *not* signify a divided Administration, and is simply a time-honored news management technique.

Duh.

I now resign my (hopefully temporary) Chairmanship at The Department of the Obvious.

Now, if the President didn't like leaks if, for example, he thought it was wrong for the public to have information, then Bush could be accused of hypocrisy.  But most criticisms of leaks (and most praise of the early Bush White House for being leak-free) focused on the issues of message management, team unity, and discipline, rather than the public's right to be kept confused.

Or, in specific instances such as the CIA prisons or the NSA eavesdropping, there has been a plausible national security issue at hand to balance the benefits of disclosure.  That is far less clear in the case of Iraq and pre-war intel, much of which had been or was about to be declassified.

STILL MORE:  Having read the article, let me praise it as the most brilliantly bifurcated Bush-basher I have see today.

The first eleven paragraphs are a polemic that, with minor changes, could be posted directly at the Daily Kos.  Let's reprise the hyperventilation here:

Would A WASP-y Gay-baiter Incline Towards Anti-Semitism?

I am not a big "-ism" guy, so don't look to me for some deep psychological profiling here.  However, I am intrigued by Mark Kleiman's account of gay-baiting by Joseph Wilson of Plame fame:

You know when they first started trying to come up with a way to discredit me, which we now know started in March of 2003, they went through the old standbys. "He's had 3 wives, he's a womanizer, he's done drugs." But then they realized they couldn't use those because I've never actually denied them. I mean I'm the first to admit that, unlike Ken Mehlman and David Dreier, I really like women.

Anyway - I had once wondered whether Libby's apparent pre-occupation with Joe Wilson may have stemmed from a perception on Libby's part that Wilson was anti-Semitic (this would connect to the dubious proposition that anti-neocon equals anti-Semitic).

Who would know?  But as a follow-up question, is a middle-aged California WASP who engages in casual gay-baiting also more likely than most to project the impression that he harbors anti-Semitic attitudes? 

Anyone who thinks they can get inside Libby's head is encouraged to take a stab at this.

"Nailed" Means What, Exactly?

Andrew Sullivan responds to my criticism of his post on the "President Approved Leak!!!" story:

Make your own mind up. But it seems to me that a president who routinely decries leaking of classified information has now been revealed as someone who purposefully and with premeditation leaked classified information, gave his veep special clearance to do so, and did so during a very heated debate about possible malfeasance with respect to pre-war intelligence handling. Tom is within his rights to cling on to the scintilla of doubt that still exists. But at what point does that approach naivete?

The "scintilla of doubt" seems to revolve around whether, as Mr. Sullivan originally asserted, Bush had been "nailed" for his role in "the Plame leak".  Let's run some video, or something:

We have a missing link. No, I don't mean the post-fish. I mean the Bush connection in the Plame leak. It turns out that, according to Libby, it was the president who first sanctioned the leak of the NIE data to discredit Joseph Wilson.

...

Just a small point. Cheney's judgment in this matter is extremely odd. Who really cared about Joseph Wilson's op-ed? Why the extreme defensiveness and then recklessness of the Plame leak? We're either talking extreme hubris here, or someone who felt he had a lot to hide. Or an admixture of the two.

Two mentions of the Plame leak, one of the NIE leak - might this contribute to some confusion, and a conflation of the two?  As even the WaPo has reported, Fitzgerald's filing included the tidbit that Bush had no knowledge of Libby's Plame-related leaks.

And, as I noted, Fitzgerald's filing had *zero* evidence Bush had specifically discussed or targeted Joe Wilson.  Call me naive, or old-fashioned, but I would like to see a scintilla of evidence before concluding someone is "nailed".

MORE:  Irk me - The Plank writes this about Mark Kleiman:

It's always good to see another liberal come to the realization that Joe Wilson is a buffoon. From Mark Kleiman (via Andrew Sullivan)...

What follows is some lovely Wilson-bashing, but my point is this - Mr. Kleiman was bashing Joe Wilson back when The Plank was just a tree growing in a forest somewhere - I would date his Wilso-phobia to the fall of 2003.

But (the irksome part) can I find a link to demonstrate that?  Humbug.

STILL IRKED:  Here is Mr. Kleiman from July 2004, following the Senate report:

I’ve suspected for quite a while that Joseph Wilson sometimes lets his narcissism get in the way of his veracity. But since he’s not running for anything right now, and since nothing about the Valerie Plame case depends on any assertion by Wilson, and since the (il)legality of revealing Plame’s status as a CIA case officer isn’t changed by whatever role she had or didn’t have in sending her husband to Niger, I haven’t paid much attention to the back-and-forth between Wilson and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

There is earlier stuff out there, I think.

AH HA:  Mr. Kleiman from Dec 2003:

Nor, for that matter, is it clear why Joseph Wilson's behavior tells us anything of interest; nothing important about the case now rests on his account of it. I wrote him off as a source when it emerged that his reference to Karl Rove as a likely culprit rested on no very adequate basis, and haven't based anything since on Wilson's words.

Hopelessly Compromised (II)

The NY Times editors tackle the latest Fitzgerald filings, and are more disingenuous than their reporters. 

Playing Hardball With Secrets 

For more than two years, Senate Republicans have dragged out an investigation into how the Bush administration came to use bogus intelligence on Iraq to justify a war. A year ago, Pat Roberts, chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, called it "a monumental waste of time" to consider whether the White House manipulated intelligence to exaggerate the threat posed by Saddam Hussein.

Meanwhile, the evidence has steadily mounted that President Bush and his team not only did that before the war, but kept right on doing it after the invasion. The most recent additions to this pile came yesterday, in reports by The New York Sun, The National Journal and other news organizations on documents from the case against Lewis Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Cheney who is charged with lying about the unmasking of Valerie Wilson, a covert C.I.A. agent.

According to these papers, Mr. Libby testified that President Bush authorized him to tell reporters about classified intelligence on Iraq as part of an effort to discredit Mrs. Wilson's husband, Joseph Wilson, a retired diplomat who had cast doubt on the claim that Iraq tried to acquire uranium for nuclear bombs from Niger. The National Journal reported that Mr. Libby has also said that Mr. Cheney authorized him to leak classified information before the invasion to make the case for war.

Emphasis added throughout.  Regarding the "unmasking of... a covert C.I.A. agent", it is clear that Ms. Plame's status was classified, but does the Times actually know that she was "covert" as defined by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act?  A key open issue is whether she served abroad in the last five years [See Kleiman, York, or yours truly].  That is evidence currently being sought by the Libby defense team and withheld by Fitzgerald (if it exists), so the Times ought to break this scoop - if, in fact, they have any idea what they are talking about.  They sort of grasped this point in February 2005, but perhaps they have moved on.

On "President Bush authorized him to tell reporters... as part of an effort to discredit ... Joseph Wilson", a casual reader might infer that President Bush was specifically apprised of the motivation behind NIE disclosure.  In fact, the Fitzgerald filing does not address Bush's state of mind in approving the disclosure, nor was Libby privy to that conversation, which, per Libby's testimony, took place between Bush and Cheney.  In any event, if rebutting one's critics is a crime, all of Washington should be locked up.  Hmm, we're not afraid of Big Ideas... Well, let's press on:

Mr. Wilson was sent by the administration to Niger to check out the report that Iraq tried to buy uranium in the late 1990's. He concluded that it was bogus and said so in a Times Op-Ed article in July 2003. In response, the administration leaked word that Mr. Wilson's wife was a C.I.A. agent.

Wow.  The editors seem to have forgotten what Joe Wilson actually wrote, and what he actually reported.  I have more detail in this post, but the gist is, Wilson did not report that Iraq had not *tried* to buy uranium from Niger; in fact, he reported on a 1999 Iraqi approach which appeared to be exactly that.  He did report that he did not believe such a sale was consummated, which is a different matter.  One might expect the Times editors to be aware of this distinction.

As to their statement that "In response, the administration leaked word that Mr. Wilson's wife was a C.I.A. agent", let's note that Woodward received a Plame leak in mid-June 2003, prior to the Wilson op-ed.  Cause, effect, tedium.  Maybe they should mention those great Kristof columns.

The Times also pounds the table on the aluminum tubes, which, in a particular left-wing constellation, have replaced the Niger uranium as the shining star for the case that Saddam had nuclear aspirations:

According to The National Journal, that document said the State Department and the Energy Department had concluded that it also was not true that Iraq bought aluminum tubes to enrich uranium. During his State of the Union address in 2003, Mr. Bush said flatly that it was true.

Flatly?  No, he didn't.  Here we go from January 2003:

Our intelligence sources tell us that he has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes suitable for nuclear weapons production. 

That is the sort of caveatted, carefully phrased statement that ought to infuriate any of the President's critics who trouble themselves to read it (We infer that the Times editors have not done so).  One might guess that the wording carefully reflected the dispute which was revealed in July 2003 with the partial declassification of the NIE.  Here we go with excerpts on the aluminum tubes:

Most agencies believe that Saddam's personal interest in and Iraq's aggressive attempts to obtain high-strength aluminum tubes for centrifuge rotor - as well as Iraq's attempts to acquire magnets, high-speed balancing machines, and machine tools - provide compelling evidence that Saddam is reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort for Baghdad's nuclear weapons program. (DOE agrees that reconstitution of the nuclear program is underway but assesses that the tubes probably are not part of the program.)

And later, in the famous INR dissent:

The Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research (INR) believes that Saddam continues to want nuclear weapons and that available evidence indicates that Baghdad is pursuing at least a limited effort to maintain and acquire nuclear weapon-related capabilities. The activities we have detected do not, however, add up to a compelling case that Iraq is currently pursuing what INR would consider to be an integrated and comprehensive approach to acquire nuclear weapons.

...In INR's view Iraq's efforts to acquire aluminum tubes is central to the argument that Baghdad is reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, but INR is not persuaded that the tubes in question are intended for use as centrifuge rotors. INR accepts the judgment of technical experts at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) who have concluded that the tubes Iraq seeks to acquire are poorly suited for use in gas centrifuges to be used for uranium enrichment and finds unpersuasive the arguments advanced by others to make the case that they are intended for that purpose.

The DOE thought the tubes were "poorly suited" for use in centrifuges; what the President's wordsmiths had written was that the tubes "were suitable" for such use, which was probably true.  Only the Times editors know what logical leap they undertook to get to "Mr. Bush said flatly that it was true" that "Iraq bought aluminum tubes to enrich uranium".

But parsing aside, the Times theme is that the aluminum tubes (not, any more, the 16 Words and the Niger uranium) were what crystallized the case for war.  In fact, even the NIE dissenters believed that Saddam had nuclear aspirations; they simply did not believe that the tubes were proof of it.

UPDATE:  Lots more on the faux aluminum tubes controversy from Seixon.  We especially like this [But was this publicly available in October 2002?  I want to believe!  And per the Times, the CIA did release an unclassified version of the NIE on Oct 4, 2002.]:

[Folks promoting this new controversy] always makes news out of things that aren’t, simply by fooling the reader into believing that it is news in some way. All of this is quite simple to show, and I will.

...[The attack theme is that] Bush would be severely damaged if the public knew that the president might have been made aware of the aluminum tubes dissenting opinions? I see. Well, that’s quite odd, since the public unclassified intelligence assessment on Iraq was released in October 2002 containing the following passage:

Iraq’s aggressive attempts to obtain proscribed high-strength aluminum tubes are of significant concern. All intelligence experts agree that Iraq is seeking nuclear weapons and that these tubes could be used in a centrifuge enrichment program. Most intelligence specialists assess this to be the intended use, but some believe that these tubes are probably intended for conventional weapons programs.

In other words, anyone with eyesight and a knack for reading comprehension in the United States could have seen that some intelligence specialists thought the tubes were intended for conventional weapons.

UNRELENTING:  The Times editors assert that "Mr. Wilson was sent by the administration to Niger".  Really?  Per the Wilson account, he was sent by "officials at the Central Intelligence Agency"; per George Tenet, Wilson was sent by "CIA's counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative"; per Robert Novak,

The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge.

We could go on - Andrea Mitchell and Reuters used, on July 8, language similar to Novak's July 14 column, and the SSCI report from July 2004 told a similar story.

My point - "Administration official" normally denotes someone whose career in the Executive Branch ebbs and flows with the political tides of new elections.  For example, Tenet and his top aides at the CIA are political appointees who could properly have been described as "Administration officials".

The Wilson trip was arranged by CIA careerists who would, in an honest editorial, be described as "government officials". 

I have no doubt that the Times editors deal with these sourcing issues on a daily basis and are fully capable of distinguishing between "government" and "Administration" officials, so it is hard to believe this mistake is accidental.  As an example, look at their big James Risen story from Dec 16 2005 which broke the NSA warrantless eavesdropping.  Here is the lead:

WASHINGTON, Dec. 15 - Months after the Sept. 11 attacks, President Bush secretly authorized the National Security Agency to eavesdrop on Americans and others inside the United States to search for evidence of terrorist activity without the court-approved warrants ordinarily required for domestic spying, according to government officials.

Just sayin'.