As with all scams and frauds, promises and presentations, but nothing of substance from the liar behind them.

It's nothing new. From little old ladies to ladies of the evening, from speculators to sailors to socialites, there is an endless array of anecdotes about innocents who have followed liars down the primrose path, and bought the Brooklyn Bridge.

But as any gendarme can tell you, there are no new scams.  Con men just keep running the golden oldies on new pigeons.

Like the freshly thawed tripe laid out here by wchurchill. The lazy fraud hasn't even bothered to stir it once with a greasy spoon before dishing it out. The same pap is available verbatim on Free Republic -- day old, month old, year old.

Put your money back in your pocket, pilgrim.

And give a big wink to the next rube heading this way . . .

Frames exist within larger frames. Draw a larger frame around your opponent's frame; he will appear wrong or insufficient. This is how wizards play.

Fitzgerald does not have to prove one thing about Plame or her outing.  He merely has to show that Libby lied under oath and impeded the grand jury's investigation.  Both of these promise to be the easiest prosecutions ever.  

But what was Libby lying about?  Is he really as innocent as a new-born lamb?

So the new story is that Plame's name was floating around Washington DC for months.  Story it is, and it is two-fold:  1) Her name was hardly on everyone's lips, and 2) the original rumor came from . . . where?  I don't think it was the CIA:  They are not in the habit of destroying their own undercover ops, in fact, they've gotten Congress to pass laws against this sort of thing.  Serious laws--felony-level.  

Could it be the White House, which alternates between claiming it didn't do it, and claiming that lawlessly putting government agents at risk of their lives is no of more significance than failing to feed a parking meter?  

If the White House really did blow human int operations in the Middle East--as it appears--this actually could qualify as treason . . .

We now are hearing a bit about how the White House leaked Plame's name into the press corps so that they could hear it repeated back to them--an interesting new  approach to "plausible deniability."  Criminality is implicit in the very concept.  

But since when do we believe Woodward as a source?  Watergate was a long time ago, and he seems to have long since repented of investigative journalism.  Now that he himself has been implicated in the Plame Affair we can see him spinning for all he is worth.  He can tell us whatever he likes, but I hope he remembered to tell Fitzgerald the truth, unlike a certain other media whore working at another major "paper."  

The Fates are kind.

Just one point to be very precise: we agreed that Valeris Plame was not an undercover agent for the purpose of the Intelligence Act of 1982 (which has the requirement that you have to be overseas less than 5 years ago). That does not mean that she actually was not an undercover agent as such, and that this was classified information - the leak of which would still be criminal, but under other acts.

As to the fact that there was an underlying crime, the simple fact that the CIA has pushed for the investigation, that a independent special prosecutor was appointed (after the AG recused himself, no less) and that he was able to convince the grand jury and the judge to keep this going - and that he ended up with some indictments, shows that something fishy happened - or was covered up.

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

Meanwhile, here is this interesting tidbit about Woodward, who is now embroiled in a conflict with Pincus:

In his formal statement in The Post, Mr. Woodward said he had mentioned to Mr. Pincus in June 2003 that Ms. Wilson worked at the C.I.A. But Mr. Pincus, who has written that he first heard about Ms. Wilson from a senior administration official in July, said he did not recall that.

"The way he describes it, which is he walked by and said something about Wilson's wife being at C.I.A., I have absolutely no memory of it at all," Mr. Pincus said in a telephone interview. "And I think he may say that my reaction was 'What!' " like I was surprised. He now thinks I may never have heard him, and said, 'What?' "

Mr. Pincus did recall a later conversation with Mr. Woodward, in October 2003, after Mr. Pincus wrote about administration officials' efforts to discredit Mr. Wilson. He said Mr. Woodward stopped by his desk to tell Mr. Pincus that he "wasn't the only one who had been told," about Ms. Wilson's identity before it was publicly revealed in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003. Mr. Pincus said Mr. Woodward "asked me to keep him out of my reporting, and I agreed to do it."

Two things: wchurchill, do you have a link or a pdf to the report you refer to?

Secondly, I'm not seeing that much critical response to wchurchill's observation that Wilson's article and the report show discrepancies. I would like that a lot better than ignoring the post altogether, and I really don't care whether it is a right wing talking point. If it is one, disprove it. That's how evolutionists have completely mangled the creationist talking points and will do again with the Intelligent Design: disproving them, not by ignoring them. Anyone?

First, though Wilson initially denied his wife was involved in getting the assignment, of course she was.  Also note the very unbiased description of the assignment she gave to him <snark>.  (Emphasis is all mine).

Some CPD officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador's wife "offered up his name" and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador's wife says, "my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." This was just one day before CPD sent a cable DELETED requesting concurrence with CPD's idea to send the former ambassador to Niger and requesting any additional information from the foreign government service on their uranium reports. The former ambassador's wife told Committee staff that when CPD decided it would like to send the former ambassador to Niger, she approached her husband on behalf of the CIA and told him "there's this crazy report" on a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq.

<snip>)
On February 18, 2002, the embassy in Niger disseminated a cable which reported that the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal "provides sufficient detail to warrant another hard look at Niger's uranium sales. The names of GON [government of Niger] officials cited in the report track closely with those we know to be in those, or closely-related positions. However, the purported 4,000-ton annual production listed is fully 1,000 tons more than the mining companies claim to have produced in 2001." The report indicated that the ambassador had met with the Nigerien Foreign Minister to ask for an unequivocal assurance that Niger had stuck to its commitment not to sell uranium to rogue states. The cable also noted that in September 2001 the Nigerien Prime Minister had told embassy personnel that there were buyers like Iraq who would pay more for Niger's uranium than France, but the Prime Minister added, "of course Niger cannot sell to them." The cable concluded that despite previous assurances from Nigerien officials that no uranium would be sold to rogue nations, "we should not dismiss out of hand the possibility that some scheme could be, or has been, underway to supply Iraq with yellowcake from here." *The cable also suggested raising the issue with the French, who control the uranium mines in Niger, despite France's solid assurances that no uranium could be diverted to rogue states.

<snip>

Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure, he would have been aware of it. Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999,(                    ) businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that *Mayaki interpreted "expanding commercial relations" to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq.",,,,,,,,

The former ambassador also told Committee staff that he was the source of a Washington Post article ("CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data; Bush Used Report of Uranium Bid," June 12, 2003) which said, "among the Envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because `the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong" when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports. The former ambassador said that he may have "misspoken" to the reporter when he said he concluded the documents were "forged." He also said he may have become confused about his own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in March 2003 that the names and dates on the documents were not correct and may have thought he had seen the names himself.

The possible grades are unsatisfactory, satisfactory, good, excellent, and outstanding, which, according to the Deputy Chief of CPD, are very subjective.                      SENTENCE DELETED                      The reports officer said that a "good" grade was merited because the information responded to at least some of the outstanding questions in the Intelligence Community, but did not provide substantial new information. He said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerien officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerien Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting.

<snip>

They did not find Nigerien denials that they had discussed uranium sales with Iraq as very surprising because they had no expectation that Niger would admit to such an agreement if it did exist. The analysts did, however, find it interesting that the former Nigerien Prime Minister said an Iraqi delegation had visited Niger for what he believed was to discuss uranium sales.

Some argue that the grand jury is unjust as the defendant is not represented by counsel and/or does not have the right to call witnesses. Intended to serve as a check on prosecutors, the opportunity it presents them to compel testimony can in fact prove useful in building up the case they will present at the final trial.
In practice, a grand jury rarely acts in a manner contrary to the wishes of the prosecutor. Judge Sol Wachtler, the former Chief Judge of New York State, was quoted as saying, "A grand jury would indict a ham sandwich." As such, many jurisdictions in the United States have replaced the formality of a grand jury with a procedure in which the prosecutor can issue charges by filing an information (also known as an accusation) which is followed by a preliminary hearing before a Judge at which both the defendant and his or her counsel are present. New York State itself has changed procedures that define how grand juries are formed to no longer require jurors to have former jury experience.

For example, do you know that Libby was not allowed to have his lawyer in the room when he testified.  When Fitzgerald brought the indictment to the jury, no one argues the other side of the case.  Neither Libby nor his lawyer was even there.  This case, when presented in court with the defendant and his lawyers there, and speaking, is going to be far from easy.

The Fitzgerald news conference (post Libby indictment)

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

Clifford May vs. Patrick Fitzgerald ◊ by BooMan
Fri Oct 28th, 2005 at 03:30:38 PM PST

FitzMan -- My New Hero ◊ by BostonJoe
Fri Oct 28th, 2005 at 11:46:16 AM PST

Special Day PropaGannon Team  √ Victory ... ◊ by Oui
Fri Oct 28th, 2005 at 04:14:14 AM PST

"Treason doth never prosper: what's the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason."

▼ ▼ ▼ MY DIARY

Have a peaceful cultural summer

Woodward, who along with Post colleague Carl Bernstein gained acclaim as an investigative reporter during the Watergate scandal in the 1970s, gave a deposition to a special prosecutor investigating the matter on November 14.

Woodward said the source made the 2003 comments in a "casual and offhand" nature, not as part of a conspiracy to smear the agent, Valerie Plame, and her husband, retired career diplomat Joseph Wilson, a Bush administration critic.

Woodward said he did not believe there was an "underlying crime" when his source first mentioned Plame's identity to him.

"When it all comes out -- and hopefully it will come out -- people will see how casual and off-hand this was," he said.

"Remember the investigation and the allegations that people have printed about this story is that there's some vast conspiracy to slime Joe Wilson and his wife, really attack him in an ugly way that is outside of the boundaries of political hardball.

"The evidence I had firsthand, a small piece of the puzzle I acknowledge, is that that was not the case."

He said the source told him Plame was a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction. In his experience, Woodward said, such analysts are not undercover. Fitzgerald has said Plame had covert status.

hmmm--seems like obstruction and perjury may still be around, but leaking confidential info????