Valerie Plame

Obama and Congress Must Act to Restore the Constitution

dlindorff — Fri, 16 Jan 2009 13:13:08 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

The calls for a reckoning for the criminals of the Bush/Cheney
administration are growing by the day, as the final few days of the
Bush presidency tick down, and as new evidence of their crimes keep
pouring out of the deflating gas bag that was the Bush White House.

For years, the Democrats in Congress, with a few notable
exceptions, have sat on their hands, allowing the ongoing destruction
of the Constitution, of the US military, of the nation’s reputation,
and of the rule of law, as well as of the institution of Congress
itself, by a cabal of Republicans in the White House, led by Vice
President Dick Cheney, who have sought to establish an executive-led government
that answered only to itself.

Obama, running for the White House, initially talked of restoring
the constitutional order, and of prosecuting crimes where they had
occurred, much as he talked of ending the war in Iraq. But now, as he
increasingly assumes the role of President, he is backing away from
that kind of talk, with plans instead to extend the war and occupation
in Iraq for years, while actually expanding the war in Afghanistan, and
to give the outgoing administration of criminals and
Constitution-wreckers a free pass, in the name of “letting bygones be
bygones.” Ironically, he is doing this even as some in Congress,
including House Judiciary Chair John Conyers, who ducked the issue of
impeachment and sat on proposed impeachment articles against Bush and
Cheney filed by Rep. Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) for two critical years when
he could have ordered a formal hearing by his committee, are now
calling for a special prosecutor.

But broken promises about the war aside, Obama cannot have it both
ways. If, as he is still declaring, “no one is above the law” in
America, then it is essential that those who have committed grave
crimes must be indicted and tried for those crimes. As he takes the
oath of office on Jan. 20, Obama will swear to uphold and defend the
Constitution. That means not only defending the integrity of the
document itself, but enforcing all the laws that have been passed in
accordance with that document.

As President, Obama has no more right than did his predecessor to
pick and choose which laws to enforce. At a time when the nation’s
jails are crammed to overflowing with hundreds of thousands of people
whose crimes are as minimal as stealing CDs from a convenience store,
if President Obama and his Justice Department fail to order an
investigation into profound White House crimes like the destruction of
evidence in the Valerie Plame spy-outing case, or the investigation
into the politicalization of the appointment and firing of US
Attorneys, or of the deliberate campaign of lies to justify an
unnecessary invasion of Iraq, if they fail to investigate fully what
the president’s illegal National Security Agency wiretapping program
was really all about, if they fail to investigate the rampant fraud and
profiteering by White House-connected private contractors in the Iraq
War zone, if they fail to investigate the clear evidence of White House
efforts to undermine fair elections in 2002, 2004, 2006 and 2008, if
they fail to prosecute the White House, right up to the offices of Vice
President and President, for authorizing, directing and then covering
up evidence of systematic torture of captives in the wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan and in the so-called “war” on terror, if they don’t
investigate what the administration really knew and what it covered up
in the days and weeks before the 9-11 attacks in 2001, it will no
longer be possible to say, with a straight face, that in America
everyone is equal under the law.

But that is only part of it.

Many of the current administration’s “crimes” are not statutory
violations. They are so called “high crimes” as defined by the
Founders. That is to say they are abuses of power that threaten the
nation’s very essense. They are not crimes in the sense that they
violate a law, but, even more seriously, they undermine our political
system and consequently threaten the very continued existence of our
free and democratic society.

The appropriate remedy for these high crimes—things like Bush’s
refusal, expressed through signing statements, to enact or envorce laws
or parts of laws duly passed by the Congress, his and Vice President
Cheney’s refusals to comply with Congressional subpoenas, his lies to
Congress regarding the true situation regarding the alleged threat
posed by Iraq in 2002 and 2003, and his overall assertion of “unitary
executive” power as commander in chief—was impeachment, but with Bush
and Cheney about to leave office, that is probably a lost cause.
(Certainly the two men could still be impeached, as impeachment itself
does not require that the impeached party still be in office, and the
potential penalty for conviction of an impeachable offence, besides
removal from office, also can include a permanent ban on holding any
future public office—an important sanction for the historical record.)
But here Obama—and the Democratic Congress--could act creatively, for
example by ordering the creation of a commission of inquiry to
investigate and condemn such constitutional undermining. By compelling
the testimony of witnesses under oath, it is possible that actual
punishable crimes such as contempt or perjury could still be committed
by White House officials and even by Bush and Cheney, but more
importantly, the nature of these crimes would be publicly exposed and
condemned, so that it would be far less likely that any future
administration would again commit them.

Obama should also act unilaterally to undo as much of the damage as
possible—for example revoking all unconstitutional presidential signing
statements from the Bush/Cheney years, and canceling all
unconstitutional Executive Orders, such as those authorizing torture
and extraordinary rendition programs.

The time is right for these actions. The public is almost uniformly
angry at the outgoing administration, which is walking away from office
leaving the nation a smoking ruin. Contrary to what Obama and his
advisers and the pathetic leadership in both houses of Congress seem to
think, the American public doesn’t want them to simply “move forward.”
Sure we want action to fix the wrecked economy, and to get all the
troops safely back home, but we also way the country put back together,
and we want those who wrecked the place to pay for the damage they’ve
done.

Few Americans would be dismayed to see Bush and Cheney squirming in the dock. Most would, in fact, be cheering and jeering.

The time has come for the newly empowered Democratic government in
Washington to stand up proudly and unambiguously for the Constitution
and the rule of law, and to prove that the phrase “No one is above the
law” isn’t just, as Bush’s hack lawyer Alberto Gonzales once said of
the Geneva Conventions, a “quaint historical artifact.”
________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist. His most recent
book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2006 and now
available in paperback edition). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

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digg_bodytext = "By Dave Lindorff\r\n\r\n The calls for a reckoning for the criminals of the Bush/Cheney administration are growing by the day, as the final few days of the Bush presidency tick down, and as new evidence of their crimes keep pouring out of the deflating gas bag that was the Bush White House.\r\n\r\n For years, the Democrats in Congress, with a few notable exceptions, have sat on their hands, allowing the ongoing destruction of the Constitution, of the US military, of the nation’s reputation, and of the rule of law, as well as of the institution of Congress itself, by a cabal of Republicans in the White House, led by Vice President Dick Cheney, sought to establish an executive-led government that answered only to itself.\r\n\r";
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Will `Tough Guy' Dick Cheney Cop Out as Usual and Take a Pardon?

dlindorff — Sun, 28 Dec 2008 18:29:33 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

Vice President Dick Cheney has cultivated the image of a serious
tough guy, with his grim, scowling vissage, his dismissive "So?"
comments when things go badly, his unrepentant defense of torture,
including waterboarding, and his brash statements confirming that he
approved the interrogation measures that clearly violated US criminal
statutes and the Geneva Conventions.

But it appears we willl in a few days get to discover whether Cheney
really is a tough guy, or whether he is in truth just the same
corpulent, self-centered hypocrite and gutless coward that he was back
in the 1960s when, despite being a vocal backer of the Vietnam War, he
ducked the draft not once but five times by arranging for student and
marriage deferments, which he later defended by saying he had "other
priorities" than serving his country.

If, as most people expect, Cheney is offered a pardon by outgoing
President George Bush for his role in approving the systematic torture
of US captives in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere, for his role in the
outing of CIA undercover operative Valerie Plame and the subsequent
coverup of that crime, and for his role in lying about the alleged
threats posed by Saddam Hussein's Iraq, the vice president will be
admitting that he is guilty of those crimes. He will also be taking the
coward's way out, after earlier strutting about and claiming to be in
the right.

It would be vintage Cheney--talking big but hiding from responsibility for his statements and his actions.

If Cheney were for real, he would tell Bush he doesn't want no
stinkin' pardon. He'd say he backed a policy of torture of captives
because they deserved it, because it would save American lives, and
because he had no respect for international law. He would dare the US
government, and other governments around the world that have a policy
of universal jurisdiction, to indict him and put him on trial for his
actions.

But that's not Dick Cheney's way. His way is to duck responsibility and to let lesser people take the heat for him.

We've seen his MO already. This is a guy who would furtively destroy
the career of a dedicated undercover agent, putting not just her, but
all of her in-country contacts in places like Iran at risk for their
lives, and then let a subordinate, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, take the
fall for him. Libby, recall, was convicted of lying about his role in
exposing Plame's identity in a federal trial that included considerable
evidence that it was his boss, Cheney, who was actually behind the
effort. He ended up being convicted and sentenced to prison, though he
was spared being locked up by a presidential clemency order. Cheney
didn't lift a finger to protect Libby, who remains a convicted felon,
unable to return to his practice of law.

If Bush pardons Cheney, and if Cheney accepts that pardon, he will
be admitting that he is a war criminal, willing to let a few
low-ranking soldiers who simply did what he says he wanted them to do
take the heat for him and his criminal actions.

While we're at it, it will also be interesting to see whether Bush,
whose media handlers have also spent the last eight years constucting
an image of him as a swaggering, tough-talkin' Texas cowboy, will grant
himself a broad pardon for his many crimes in office.

My guess is he will do both, confirming that this has been an
administration not of tough guys, but of cowards, hypocrites and
professional buckpassers.

_______________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is "The Case for Impeachment" (St. Martin's Press, 2006 and
now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

digg_url = 'http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/38536';
digg_title = "Will `Tough Guy\' Dick Cheney Cop Out as Usual and Take a Pardon?";
digg_bodytext = "By Dave Lindorff\r\n\r\n\r\nVice President Dick Cheney has cultivated the image of a serious tough guy, with his grim, scowling vissage, his dismissive \"So?\" comments when things go badly, his unrepentant defense of torture, including waterboarding, and his brash statements confirming that he approved the interrogation measures that clearly violated US criminal statutes and the Geneva Conventions.\r\n\r\nBut it appears we willl in a few days get to discover whether Cheney really is a tough guy, or whether he is in truth just the same corpulent, self-centered hypocrite and gutless coward that he was back in the 1960s when, despite being a vocal backer of the Vietnam War, he ducked the draft not once but five times by arranging for student and marriage deferments, which he later defended by saying he had \"other priorities\" than serving his country.\r\n\r";
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FBI Believes Cheney Lied About Outing Valerie Plame

Bob Fertik — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 10:51:44 -0500

Murray Waas has the scoop on an FBI report that suggests the FBI believes Cheney lied to them:

Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a still-highly confidential FBI report, admitted to federal investigators that he rewrote talking points for the press in July 2003 that made it much more likely that the role of then-covert CIA-officer Valerie Plame in sending her husband on a CIA-sponsored mission to Africa would come to light.

Cheney conceded during his interview with federal investigators that in drawing attention to Plame’s role in arranging her husband’s Africa trip reporters might also unmask her role as CIA officer.

Cheney denied to the investigators, however, that he had done anything on purpose that would lead to the outing of Plame as a covert CIA operative. But the investigators came away from their interview with Cheney believing that he had not given them a plausible explanation as to how he could focus attention on Plame’s role in arranging her husband’s trip without her CIA status also possibly publicly exposed. At the time, Plame was a covert CIA officer involved in preventing Iran from obtaining weapons of mass destruction, and Cheney’s office played a central role in exposing her and nullifying much of her work.

As always, Marcy Wheeler brilliantly analyzes the significance of Waas' scoop.

Cheney's new talking points raised a question the answer to which was--Cheney believed--"Valerie Plame, Joe Wilson's CIA spook wife." Which, as Cheney apparently admitted to the FBI, might raise the chances that Plame would be outed--as happened like a charm with Matt Cooper and John Dickerson. Dickerson, recall, was instructed to look into who sent Wilson, and Cooper answered that question for Dickerson with help from Rove: Wilson's wife.

Now, Murray points out that Cheney's admission--certainly from the perspective of June 2004, when Cheney was interviewed--would make it more likely that Cheney had a role in outing Plame. Frankly, when you put Judy's testimony together with Libby's notes and Addington's testimony, that case has already been proved, and for much earlier in the week than Murray's discussing (since it proves that, on Cheney's order, Libby was asking Addington about both Plame and Wilson in the preparation to talk to Judy). But, people are thick, so hopefully Murray's reporting--apparently direct from Cheney's FBI interview--will convince some people to actually look at the available evidence.

Marcy promises more tomorrow - a Fitzmas present for all Plamophiles!

White House Lied About Iraqi Yellowcake Buy, But That’s Not the Biggest Scandal

dlindorff — Fri, 19 Dec 2008 10:32:55 -0500

By Dave Lindorff

A new congressional report is belatedly confirming what many have
long known: that the White House and in particular then White House
Counsel Alberto Gonzales, lied to Congress in 2004 when he told them
the Bush administration was not repeatedly warned by the CIA not to
make the claim that Saddam had tried to buy uranium ore from Niger.

What is astonishing about this report,
which documents that the CIA at least four times tried to prevent Bush
and other top officials from presenting that lie to Congress and the
American public in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, is not that it
documents what has long been known, but that Congress and the corporate
media are still pretending that the claim itself was an acceptable
justification for launching a war.

Set aside for the moment the fact that the claim that Saddam
Hussein had tried to buy uranium ore (so-called yellowcake) from the
desert nation of Niger was based upon forged documents which were
almost certainly the work of Defense Department hacks in the
Rumsfeld/Cheney-created Office of Special Plans (see my book The Case for Impeachment).
Even if this fraudulent deal had been real, how on earth could it have
been used as it was by President Bush and Vice President Cheney to
justify an invasion of Iraq?

Consider that what was being asserted was that Iraq had attempted
(not even succeeded!) to buy 400 tons of uranium ore. This claim was
used by President Bush, in his Jan. 20, 2003 State of the Union
address, to argue that Iraq had a nuclear weapons program. But in the case of a country that does not have a nuclear weapon, a program is years away, perhaps a decade or more away, from the reality of having a usable weapon.

As we have seen in the case of Iran, which has been refining
uranium ore now for at least five years, the mere fact of possessing
uranium ore, and even of having a quantity of gas centrifuges to refine
out the minute quantities of the fissionable isotope U-235 are only the
first and, technologically speaking, the easiest, steps towards
actually constructing a bomb. (Experts say that after all this time,
even if it is actually trying to build a nuclear bomb, which the
Iranian government denies, the country remains years from that alleged
goal.)

If Bush and Cheney had not been lying through their teeth, and
Saddam had actually been buying yellowcake for the purpose of making a
nuke weapon, he would still have had to obtain large numbers of
centrifuges, would have had to power them up and run them for years,
and would have then had to obtain the technology to build and test a
bomb, none of which steps he was even alleged to have taken.

Yet Bush was claiming that there was an imminent threat to
America posed by Saddam Hussein’s yellowcake purchase effort, and that
an invasion had to be launched almost immediately. He used the term
imminent because that is the legal requirement in the UN Charter, to
which the US is a signatory and which is based upon the Nuremberg
Charter established at the end of the Second World War. It states that
no nation may invade another nation unless that nation poses an
imminent threat to the would-be invader.

The yellowcake story, now definitively shown to have been a
deliberate lie, even if true, could not have constituted such an
imminent threat.

Yet not once has this key point been addressed by any member of
Congress who voted to authorize an invasion. Nor does the point get
mentioned in mainstream journalistic reports on the matter.

Average Americans, nearly half of whom reportedly believe that the
earth was formed just 6000 years ago and a fair proportion of whom
believe that the sun revolves around the earth, might be excused for
not understanding this point, but clearly intelligent members of
Congress like former Democratic presidential candidate Sen. John Kerry
and future secretary of state Hillary Clinton, who both claim they
might not have voted for war “had they had known then what they know
now,” are themselves caught in a lie.

They and other war backers clearly knew in 2002 and 2003 that the
yellowcake story, even if true, was no justification for war. So did
editors and reporters (like Judith Miller and Michael Gordon of the New
York Times, for example).

I have yet to see a single US corporate media outlet explain that
the yellowcake story was simply never a justification for war. It will
probably never happen, and yet many analysts have said it was that
claim by Bush, Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and
others (remember her dark warnings about not wanting a “smoking gun” to
be a “mushroom cloud”?), more than any other that stampeded the nation
into a war that has cost over $1 trillion over five years, and over
4000 US lives and one million innocent Iraqi lives.

Bush, Cheney, Rice, Gonzalez, Rumsfeld and others in the outgoing
administration should all be impeached, tried and jailed for their
lying and treason in embroiling the US in the pointless and criminal
Iraq War, with the yellowcake story a key element in any indictments.
But there needs to be some kind of reckoning too, for the willful
ignorance and deceit on the part of the majority of Congress and of the
press in pretending that an alleged scheme to buy uranium ore was a
justification for launching a war of aggression, which five years on,
is still continuing.

The American people themselves also need to reflect deeply, not
just on how ill served we are by our elected officials and by our
media, but on how gullible we have become, and how ignorant.
__________________
DAVE LINDORFF is a Philadelphia-based journalist and columnist. His
latest book is “The Case for Impeachment” (St. Martin’s Press, 2008 and
now available in paperback). His work is available at www.thiscantbehappening.net

digg_url = 'http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/38360';
digg_title = "White House Lied About Iraqi Yellowcake Buy, But That’s Not the Biggest Scandal";
digg_bodytext = "By Dave Lindorff\r\n\r\nA new congressional report is belatedly confirming what many have long known: that the White House and in particular then White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales, lied to Congress in 2004 when he told them the Bush administration was not repeatedly warned by the CIA not to make the claim that Saddam had tried to buy uranium ore from Niger.\r\n\r\n What is astonishing about this report, which documents that the CIA at least four times tried to prevent Bush and other top officials from presenting that lie to Congress and the American public in the run-up to the Iraq invasion, is not that it documents what has long been known, but that Congress and the corporate media are still pretending that the claim itself was an acceptable justification for launching a war.";
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Is Peter Osnos Withholding Impeachable Evidence For "Lucre"?

Bob Fertik — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:47:47 -0500

Let me state at the outset that I bear no ill will towards Peter Osnos, the highly-respected founder and editor-at-large of PublicAffairs, which publishes outstanding books, including Scott McClellan's forthcoming memoir.

But I'm writing this blog because Osnos has just published a column about the media frenzy that followed publication of McClellan's now-famous excerpt about the Plame lies.

“The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

“There was one problem. It was not true.

“I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice-President, the President’s chief of staff and the President himself.”

Osnos concludes his column with this:

Scott McClellan is writing a responsible book about his moment in history. Much of our popular media, including some leading brand names, apparently shoot first and ask later. The blogosphere and cable news operate in a universe of their own in which frenzy and vituperation are the major currency. As for the known perpetrators of the Plame leak, whatever they may have done to McClellan and the pursuit of truth, they seem to have gotten away with it. Karl Rove is now a contributing columnist for Newsweek and is getting a substantial book contract. Libby was convicted of perjury but excused from jail time by President Bush.

All of which is true. And as a blogger, my skin is thick enough to take the slings and arrows that come with the territory. I'm not trying to prove Osnos wrong or defend my own or anyone else's blogs.

But I do want to add an important point that Osnos leaves out.

Scott McClellan is a witness to a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice by the five most powerful people in the White House.

We do not yet know exactly which members of that conspiracy committed exactly which actions, but we know that at least two of them (Libby and Rove) participated in the outing of Valerie Plame, which shut down her urgent work stopping the spread of WMD's to our enemies, and was therefore an act of treason - not to mention a probable violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) and a certain violation of the law governing use and abuse of classified information.

The CIA investigated the outing, concluded a serious crime was committed, and referred it to the Justice Department for prosecution. Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed Special Prosecutor and tried to get to the bottom of the crime but was prevented from doing so by Scooter Libby's lies. Based on the limited evidence available, everyone who followed the trial believes Libby lied to conceal the role of his immediate boss, Dick Cheney, and possibly George Bush as well, in Plame's outing.

In a further act of obstruction, George Bush commuted Libby's 30-month prison term to keep Libby from cooperating with Fitzgerald. Bush reportedly did so at the urging of Cheney.

So based on available evidence, Bush and Cheney may have participated in the crime of outing Plame. They certainly participated in the coverup of that crime. Either way, they committed impeachable offenses.

Scott McClellan has important evidence about these impeachable offenses. And Osnos is likely in possession of that evidence, if McClellan has written the whole truth (naturally a big "IF"):

The chapter cited in the catalog has been drafted. It is a meticulous account of the period at the start of McClellan’s tenure, when he had to handle the flap over the disclosure that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA operative, collateral damage in the Washington fracas over blame for the Iraq war blunders...

Before taking on his book, my colleagues and I talked to White House correspondents and reporters in Texas and were assured that if McClellan said he would write a book without fear or favor, he would. And he is. (The Associated Press put out a story under the headline “Aides Choose Royalties over Loyalties,” listing the press secretaries who have written memoirs for large advances. I can assure you, as anyone familiar with PublicAffairs will attest, that lucre is not McClellan’s incentive to work with us.)

If McClellan is not after "lucre," then why doesn't Osnos immediately publish McClellan's complete chapter on this episode, so Congress and the American people can determine whether McClellan has material evidence of impeachable offenses?

Osnos of course has no legal obligation to do so, but he has a moral obligation at a time when a majority of Americans suspect impeachable crimes but lack firm enough evidence to convince Congress to act.

The only reason for Osnos not to publish this chapter now is fear it would hurt sales of the book.

So if McClellan is not after "lucre," why is Osnos?

Did Ed Gillespie Help Roger Stone Create the Rathergate Forgery?

Bob Fertik — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:24:21 -0400

emptywheel has become obsessed with Ed Gillespie, which is a very good thing.

I'm increasingly fascinated with the prominent role of Lobbyist-in-Chief, Ed Gillespie. We now know he was included in discussions, in spring of 2006 (at precisely the time Andy Card and Scottie McClellan were ousted), about whether or not to fire Rummy. He picked up the portfolios of both Dan Bartlett and Karl Rove, two of the last hold-outs from the Texas Mafia. And now here he is, promising to do what Karl Rove couldn't do--excommunicate the corruption from the Corruption Party.

The Lobbyist-in-Chief is accruing an awful lot of power in fairly short order. Is Gillespie the guy corporate America imposed on BushCo to ensure the Republicans not lose power for all eternity? And is Gillespie the guy who told Rove and Gonzales to leave?

Gillespie doesn't make a lot of headlines so I checked my archives and was surprised to find Gillespie on a conference call at the height of the Rathergate scandal, courtesy of NewsMax:

Many questions still remain. Was a crime committed? I believe so. Obviously, forgery is involved. But the Texas Legal Code also says it is a third-degree felony if one "makes, presents, or uses any record, document, or thing with knowledge of its falsity and with intent that it be taken as a genuine governmental record" or "makes, presents, or uses a governmental record with knowledge of its falsity."

Did the Kerry campaign know about the existence of the documents in question in advance of the CBS report? A chronology of events indicates they did.

At the time, I loved the rightwing argument that the forgeries were a crime that absolutely positively had to be prosecuted - because I knew the forger wasn't Bill Burkett (who freaked out when he received the forgeries) but most likely GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone, whose Cuban wife most likely played the role of "Lucy Ramirez," the woman who arranged the delivery of the forgeries to Burkett.

But was Stone working alone, or was he working with the Busheviks who scrubbed all records of Bush's National Guard desertion from 1998 to the present - people like Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Dan Bartlett - and Ed Gillespie?

It's hard to imagine Stone worked alone. And it's Standard Operating Procedure for the Busheviks to use a string of intermediaries to create "plausible deniability" for the insider operatives who are actually pulling the strings. (Think how Cheney used Libby to quietly spread Plame's identity through a series of White House officials and reporters.)

And it's also SOP for Busheviks to aggressively blame Democrats for the crimes they commit. So the fact that Ed Gillespie led the charge to blame the Kerry campaign for the forgeries is powerful circumstantial evidence that Gillespie himself helped create the forgeries - and is therefore guilty of the very crimes he cites.

At the time, DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe asked exactly the right question:

Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic national chairman, attempted to turn the matter against Republicans. McAuliffe cited a New York Post story that said Roger Stone, a Republican consultant based in Miami Beach, had declined to comment on whether he was the source of the documents. "Will Ed Gillespie or the White House admit today what they know about Mr. Stone's relationship with these forged documents?" McAuliffe said.

"I have nothing whatsoever to do with this," Stone told USA TODAY. "I'm a firm believer in political hardball, but I draw the line at forged documents."

So c'mon bloggers, let's find the connections between Gillespie and Roger Stone!

p.s. since emptywheel is also obsessed with Plamegate, she will also find this interesting from 9/30/03, when the Plamegate scandal was breaking:

RNC CHAIRMAN ED GILLESPIE: I think if the allegation is true, to reveal the identity of an undercover CIA operative -- it's abhorrent, and it should be a crime, and it is a crime.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: It'd be worse than Watergate, wouldn't it?

GILLESPIE: It's -- Yeah, I suppose in terms of the real world implications of it. It's not just politics.

Now that Gillespie has access to all the secret White House files about Plamegate, isn't it his duty as a lawyer to help solve the crime by turning those documents over to Patrick Fitzgerald and Henry Waxman?

"Loyal Bushie" Judge Dismisses Plame Lawsuit

Bob Fertik — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:34:20 -0400

So who is Judge John D. Bates, the judge who threw out Valerie Plame's lawsuit against Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and Richard Armitage?

A "loyal Bushie," of course.

Deputy Independent Counsel for the Whitewater investigation from 1995 to mid-1997, where he forced the White House to release thousands of documents related to Hillary Clinton's conversations about Whitewater.
Appointed as Federal judge in December 2001 by George W. Bush
In December 2002, he dismissed a lawsuit filed by the GAO against Cheney over access to his energy task force documents, claiming the GAO lacked authority to sue the VP.
In February 2006, he was appointed by Chief Justice Roberts to serve as a judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - replacing a judge who resigned in protest over the illegal NSA wiretapping. It's a safe bet Bates has been a reliable rubber stamp allowing Bush's NSA to spy on millions of Americans without a warrant.
In August 2006, Bates declared it acceptable for Bush to sign a bill that had not been passed by Congress.

And why did Bates reject Plame's lawsuit? Because after Joe Wilson told the truth about Niger, the Bush Administration was allowed to do anything it wanted to get Wilson - including outing Wilson's wife.

The alleged means by which defendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson's comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory. But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration's handling of prewar foreign intelligence by speaking with members of the press, is within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials.

Unsavory??? Within the scope of their duties??? The defendants exposed a covert CIA agent and endangered her life, destroyed her network of spies trying to stop the spread of WMD's to terrorists and endangered our Nation - and may have gotten some of her spies murdered. That's not unsavory - that's treason.

Joe Wilson, always the patriot, puts national security ahead of his family's security:

"This case is not just about what top government officials did to Valerie and me." Wilson said. "We brought this suit because we strongly believe that politicizing intelligence ultimately serves only to undermine the security of our nation. Today's decision is just the first step in what we have always known would be a long legal battle and we are committed to seeing this case through."

But Valerie Plame will never get justice - and our nation will never be safe - by relying on the Bush-controlled Federal courts.

It is way past time for Congress to Impeach Dick Cheney.

Move on to impeachment

richardmathews — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 18:49:16 -0400

MoveOn is finally moving on to talk about the possibility of impeachment proceedings!

Sign their petition:
http://pol.moveon.org/subpoena/

It states:

"Congress must force Vice President Cheney to respond to its subpoenas. If he continues to obstruct justice and disregard the rule of law, Congress has no choice but to begin impeachment proceedings against him."

Richard M. Mathews

Ambassador Joe Wilson Reacts: "Corrupt to the Core...Congress Should Investigate;" Bush: "Tell Truth, Or Be Held Accountable"

Chip — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 03:15:39 -0400

The career of Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, ended when her cover was blown as retribution for Ambassador Wilson's exposing the falsity of the Niger yellowcake story as a premise for the Iraqi war. Ambassador Wilson spoke tonight with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann about Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence. You can watch it here.

In giving the commutation, Bush said: "... a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable. They say that had Mr. Libby only told the truth, he would have never been indicted in the first place...The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby's case is an appropriate exercise of this power."

A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

WHEREAS Lewis Libby was convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in the case United States v. Libby, Crim. No. 05-394 (RBW), for which a sentence of 30 months' imprisonment, 2 years' supervised release, a fine of $250,000, and a special assessment of $400 was imposed on June 22, 2007;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, pursuant to my powers under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, do hereby commute the prison terms imposed by the sentence upon the said Lewis Libby to expire immediately, leaving intact and in effect the two-year term of supervised release, with all its conditions, and all other components of the sentence.

IN WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this second day of July, in the year of our Lord two thousand and seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Ambassador Wilson also spoke with Keith Olbermann when Libby, who had been assigned Inmate No. 28301 - 016 by the US Board of Prisons, was convicted of 4 out of 5 of the felonies with which he was charged.

You can check the status of the civil case against Defendants' Cheney, Libby, Rove and Armitage at: http://www.wilsonsupport.org/.

Keith Olbermann, visibly angry, promised a special comment tomorrow, the eve of our national Independence Day, to suggest that Bush and Cheney resign.

Your congressional representatives are in their home districts for the holiday. Let them know your opinion!

Libby IS Bush’s Legacy

Tom Ball — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:25:55 -0400

As record high fuel prices, category 5 hurricanes, and drowning polar bears have helped slap some sense into the reluctant minds of many science-denying troglodytes, so to must the record hubris, category 5 incompetence, and drowning integrity of this administration slap some sense into the reluctant minds of the remaining reality-denying Bush supporters.

Oddly enough, you'd think that pardoning a traitor would be the last straw -- even for these people. You'd be wrong. In fact, acting as savior for the American betrayer known as I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby might be the only thing that can salvage Bush's remaining barrel-scum protectorate. That is what they find important. So too must he.

And so, this single act of apologist, vicarious treason will be the defining moment in Bush's presidency -- encompassing within it all the lies, bullying and incomprehensible ineptitude that was the hallmark of this administration. This will be Bush's legacy.

He has no choice... and essentially nothing to lose.

That's the way it is. The chorus of prideless conservatives -- also known as Bush's remaining base -- are relentlessly pressuring Bush to Pardon Libby with nary a moment of time served. Heck, even Paris served a couple days.

They dismiss the irony that "the judge that gave Libby the 2 ½ year sentence was "one of the first appointments that Bush made to the federal bench" and fail to note that Libby's judge was known as a 'Tough Guy'. "That's Why Bush Appointed Him."

The Los Angeles Times notes, "That Walton would put the Bush administration in an uncomfortable position of having to consider a politically charged pardon for Libby is highly ironic."

Yes, being held accountable for your trespasses to humanity is always an 'uncomfortable' activity. And a Bush appointee respecting the rule of law is truly 'ironic'. Still, I can't help but feel that President Bush should be suffering far more discomfort than his widely televised, smirky, smirk-faced smirk suggests he is.

Seems 'discomfort' is something for which Bush and his beloved 29% must have little time. According to the New York Times, "a conservative with close ties to the administration" said, "Letting Scooter go to jail would be a politically irrational symbol to the last chunk of the 29 percent upon which he stands."

Irrational indeed. Bush has pandered to the AEI 29% with untouchable integrity over the last 7 years. Thus the royal screwing administered to the other 71% of us.

Maybe that's because Bush's 29% are an influential bunch -- people like potential future convict Tom Delay. Tom recently noted, "The President should pardon Scooter Libby. I mean, what -- what's he worried about? Is it his ratings? I mean, his approval ratings? ... This -- this is a travesty of justice."

Yes, like the 'travesty of justice' that will no doubt bare its ugly face if Mr. Delay fails to garner a Bush pardon when he's sized for an orange jumpsuit.

And then there are blind loyalists like former Justice Department official Victoria Toensing who offered a spin sure to be embraced by conservative traitor-lovers across the nation, "Patrick Fitzgerald abused his prosecutorial powers when he indicted Scooter Libby for a faulty memory. The only remedy is a presidential pardon."

"Faulty memory"? "Only remedy"? "Abused his prosecutorial powers"?

No matter. It's the 'conservative movement' that matters now. The New York Times opines, "a decision not to pardon Mr. Libby would further alienate members of Mr. Bush's traditional base of support in the conservative movement, a group already angry about his proposed immigration policy, his administration's spending and his approach to Iran."

Tim Russert concurs, "A lot of conservatives are saying to the President, you are antagonizing the base about immigration. This is the way to reach out to your base."

Reach the base, eh? Hmmmm. Who else is trying to reach this magic 29%?

The Libby pardon issue "has thrown a twist into the race for the Republican presidential nomination, forcing candidates to make an awkward choice between loyalty to a party stalwart and reverence for the rule of law."

Ohhhhhh. So that's it. Well, we all know which choice will be made here.

And that, my friends, will establish the legacy for the next generation of the conservative movement.