MSNBC- CIA Leak: Karl Rove and the Case of the Missing E-mail

[Wilms]

CIA Leak: Karl Rove and the Case of the Missing E-mail

Newsweek

Oct. 17, 2005 issue - The White House's handling of a potentially crucial e-mail sent by senior aide Karl Rove two years ago set off a chain of events that has led special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to summon Rove for a fourth grand jury appearance this week. His return has created heightened concern among White House officials and their allies that Fitzgerald may be preparing to bring indictments when a federal grand jury that has been investigating the leak of a CIA agent's identity expires at the end of October. Robert Luskin, Rove's lawyer, tells NEWSWEEK that, in his last conversations with Fitzgerald, the prosecutor assured Luskin "he has not made any decisions."

snip

Why didn't the Rove e-mail surface earlier? The lawyer says it's because an electronic search conducted by the White House missed it because the right "search words" weren't used. (The White House and Fitzgerald both declined to comment.) But the e-mail isn't the only belatedly discovered document in the case.

snip/more

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9630676/site/newsweek/

[Independent_Liberal]

1. Kick!

[sadiesworld]

2. Bring. It. On.

:popcorn:

[mom cat]

3. Nominated.

[finecraft]

4. Maybe they should have tried searching for "Miserable failure"

no wait, that would have shown all Karl's emails to Commander Bunnypants! :rofl:

[speedoo]

5. Perjury... conspiracy....espionage act....obstruction of justice...

Rove.... Miller..... NY Times.... Card..... Libby....

All entertwined.

[Wilms]

6. And that's just this case. n/t

[Bumblebee]

13. you mean, like roots of aspens?

[MADem]

7. The right search words were not used???

OH PLEASE...what were they entering??? Happy puppy, smiling kitty?

Give me a break!

And what is with these people, finding shit AFTER they testify, Judy finding her extra notes, and this clown:

But after he testified, Luskin discovered an e-mail Rove had sent that same day—July 11—alerting deputy national-security adviser Stephen Hadley that he had just talked to Cooper, the lawyer says.

[samdogmom]

8. I'm with you! Can't you search by date? This excuse is bogus! n/t

[Canuckistanian]

11. Fitzgerald should subpoena the whole database

Or does he have that power?

[texpatriot2004]

14. I think you mean get a search warrant...subpoenas are for people

I think.

[Andrea]

19. Supoena Duces Tetum

Is a demand to produce documents. I believe this is what would be needed.

[texpatriot2004]

23. Yes, that sounds right. n/t

[Tigress DEM]

33. Due to possible TOP Secret Stuff, he's probably have to know...

what he is looking for. Probable cause search warrant for example is that there is a meth lab in the garage. Don't know what happens if you walk in and it's something else illegal.

But I think in this case they just weren't looking hard enough and there was a keyword issue in the search for the White House to cop out on.

[merwin]

39. If you're looking for one thing, and see another illegal thing in plain

view, then you can get them for that. However, if that second illegal thing was in an area that wasn't covered by the search warrant, it's inadmissable.

[Catrina]

43. That was before the Patriot Act

I believe the Patriot Act, (and the Drug Laws for that matter) has pretty much eviscerated the 4th Amendment.

It would certainly be ironic if they were told that under their own laws, in a case such as this, probably cause is not necessary. All that's necessary is an accusation the something is there or the Prosecutor's 'belief' that something is there.

[katinmn]

47. That would be Poetic Justice.

I hope Fitz is able to use the Patriot Act against the fascists, at least once.

[Jackpine Radical]

60. Oh, no. I appreciate good irony as much as anyone, but

I don't want the PA strengthened or legitimated by being found useful in ANY cases.

[katinmn]

73. I understand but they've already used it to hurt innocents

In this cse, I believe turn about is fair play.

When common sense and decency prevails again, we'll rescind the PA immediately!

[Peace Patriot]

90. "When common sense and decency prevails again..." --and we've...

...thrown Diebold and ES&S election theft machines into 'Boston Harbor'!

Then we'll take care of a number of things.

[katinmn]

93. Oh yeah! A number of things. It would take years to undo

all the damage if we did it peicemeal. To make it easy we could just repeal all the laws passed since January 2001 and start over!

[Peace Patriot]

95. We ARE the People, you know, and we have the right to repeal...

...whatever we damn please, including invalidating all Bushite laws and appointments and amending the Constitution as we see fit, and even writing a new one--if only we can restore transparent elections. Back to square one, I'm afraid. Our right to vote. But a person can dream.

[bostonbabs]

79. just this one time and then when the dems

have control they will reinstate the 4th.....

[Tigress DEM]

105. Irony is a great thing, isn't it?

I would laugh my ass off :rofl: if they could be told "under (The New and Improved Patriot Act) their own law, in a case such as this, probable cause is not necessary. All that's necessary is an accusation the something is there or the Prosecutor's 'belief' that something is there."

[oneold1-4u]

75. Whatever is forthcoming

Will have, just like Nixon, had time to get rid of a lot. Just hope that what they couldn't find before will find a lot more than just this one item. Maybe even on some of the original funding of 9/11? Maybe a Xtian president using forbidden 4 letter words? Maybe even someone's personal error of making personal contact with Gannon? Perhaps on that line, the proposal of how to pay him off for enough to disappear? (DISAPPEAR HE DID!) Has anyone a scoop on his whereabouts? Why haven't the tabloids hit it yet?
A real search by thousands of bloggers should show up a lot more dirt! Like Nixon's bunch, some things won't be destroyed in time!

[Peace Patriot]

92. "Maybe even on some of the original funding of 9/11..."

Pat "loose lips sink ships" Robertson just asserted that Hugo Chavez paid OBL $1.2 million after 9/11. On my psychological theory of Bushitism--that whatever they accuse others of doing they have done (or are planning to do)--Robertson may have just laid the ground work (or given us a hint of the ploy) to confuse the issue, should a leak emerge about Bushite payments to OBL, with the cover lie that...ahem...Chavez did it. (It's hard not to laugh, but that's what the lunatic clown just said, and I gather he dines at the White House, where these Orwellian pigs feast together and make their plans.)

Would they be stupid enough to leave an email unpurged (or to have written an email!) on such a subject? They were stupid enough to contact SIX reporters (journalist witnesses to treason) in a rush to get Valerie Plame outed. They were stupid enough to put Judith Miller in place in Iraq to "find" the WMDs that they tried to plant there--and to strenuously prime the public for that "find--never thinking that they, in their almighty-godness, might FAIL to produce the needed WMDs, or that someone might want to, and might succeed at, foiling them.

They were stupid enough to cross Joseph Wilson, and the good people at the CIA, in their hunger for unchecked looting and the power and the opportunities to loot.

It may seem stupid. But so was Nixon taping himself in the midst of a criminal conspiracy.

The powerful become stupid BECAUSE they are too powerful. I wouldn't rule out raving stupidity in the Plame case (prompted by fear and panic, both at what she might have known, back then--which I think has to do with a plot to plant WMDs in Iraq--and the exposure of all the top Bushites to treason charges in the efforts to cover it up), and in other things that may emerge over the next few months. Added to the baseline stupidity of this junta on all fronts, stupid financial policy, stupid foreign policy, stupidity at governance. Frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to find the Twin Tower demolition plans on a White House computer (or Diebold's secret vote tabulation source code.)

[guruoo]

31. They needed the time to do...

a little tidying up around the office.
:argh:

[rfranklin]

61. Wait, there's an 18-minute gap in that e-mail!

They never seem to learn.

[LiberalFighter]

120. Maybe he was using code names for Hadley, Cooper and others

So they couldn't retrieve the pertinent emails

:eyes:

[bunny planet]

9. I don't think little Snotty McClellan should've pissed Newsweek off when

he blamed riots and deaths in Aghanistan on them earlier in the year. They have been having their revenge.

Oopsy Karl, those dang e-mails on those internets.

[NVMojo]

100. ah, yes, sweet, sweet karma! I am still hoping Dan Rather gets his

...and so does John Kerry ...

[swag]

10. It's a good article. Here's another graph:

But lawyers close to the case, who asked not to be identified because it's ongoing, say Fitzgerald appears to be focusing in part on discrepancies in testimony between Rove and Time reporter Matt Cooper about their conversation of July 11, 2003. In Cooper's account, Rove told him the wife of White House critic Joseph Wilson worked at the "agency" on WMD issues and was responsible for sending Wilson on a trip to Niger to check out claims that Iraq was trying to buy uranium. But Rove did not disclose this conversation to the FBI when he was first interviewed by agents in the fall of 2003—nor did he mention it during his first grand jury appearance, says one of the lawyers familiar with Rove's account. (He did not tell President George W. Bush about it either, assuring him that fall only that he was not part of any "scheme" to discredit Wilson by outing his wife, the lawyer says.) But after he testified, Luskin discovered an e-mail Rove had sent that same day—July 11—alerting deputy national-security adviser Stephen Hadley that he had just talked to Cooper, the lawyer says. In the e-mail, Rove said Cooper pushed him on whether the president was being hurt by the Niger controversy. "I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote Hadley, adding that he warned Cooper not to get "far out in front on this." After reviewing the e-mail, Rove then returned to the grand jury last year and reported the Cooper conversation. He testified that the talk was initially about "welfare reform"—a topic mentioned in the e-mail—and that Cooper then changed the subject. Cooper has written that he doesn't recall a discussion of welfare reform.

[MADem]

18. Cooper was no fool, he wrote an article after he testified

http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1083899,00.html

And we never heard Rove get up and say, hey, liar, liar, that ain't how it happened! Rove must have already have BSed the GJ before that article hit print...uh oh!

[mod mom]

49. Cooper writes this about the makeup of the grand jury:

" They somewhat reflected the demographics of the District of Columbia. The majority were African American and were disproportionately women. "

You would think if Rove was smart, he would have quickly acted in getting the president in action after the Katrina disaster in NO. He certainly hasn't enamoured the African American community to this administration. Rove is NOT smart but cunningly evil. I hope he gets what he deserves!

I know even if he is convicted there will be pardons. I hope that state prosecutors go after these guys (perhaps the Rove claim of living in a $25,000 shack in Texas in order to vote there will come back to haunt him, perhaps he used it to save $ from paying state taxes while living in DC) as well so they serve some time behind bars where they belong!

[Dangerously Amused]

88. Good jury.

That's a good jury. Female jurors are more judgmental than male jurors.

[myrna minx]

108. ?

Would you please elaborate your statement in case I am misunderstanding you? Why do you believe that female jurors are more 'judgmental' than male jurors? Are there any JAMA or Lancet studies that you can link to that show that female jurors are more 'judgmental' than male jurors?

[Massachusetts]

109. "female jurors are more 'judgmental' than male jurors?"

Females Do have MORE insight for sure, and I'm a male.

[janx]

69. This guy sounds awfully naive.

I'm glad he wrote the story, but shouldn't he have been able to figure some of this stuff out earlier?

[MADem]

80. He probably did have a clue, but this WH has a way of intimidating

journalists--stray too far off the party line, and ACCESS IS DENIED. No access, no utility to your employer, no job, no paycheck.

Cooper was covering his ass once he saw which way the wind was blowing. Better late than never, I guess.

[janx]

84. But these "journalists"--those like Cooper and Miller who

believed their job was to PROTECT their sources--aren't really journalists at all. It's not a journalists job to protect anyone. Where were they trained? How did they become so malleable?

[MADem]

86. They were trained by their generous paychecks

and caught between a corporate media rock and an access to power hard place. They were seduced by money and a sense of being close to the throne. The best thing you could say about them is that they were WEAK. The worst thing you could say is that they were traitors to their profession and their country by going along with such an unholy arrangement.

The idea of protecting a source really resonates with the people when the source is someone who is exposing corruption and abuse of power. When the source is a White House toady spoon-feeding disinformation, the sympathy factor goes into the negative numbers.

[janx]

89. Good points, and I'm even more disgusted.

I can only hope that this gets exposed and that all media get one very full dose of the exposure.

By the way, I admired your post to Binka in GD.

[MADem]

91. She needs all the help she can get right now

And seeing as they are a civilian family overseas, the idea of going to the base might not occur immediately in a situation like this. But casualty assistance is not just for death, it is also for serious injury. And when the injured is a military member, the CACO should be coming from there (nearest mil facility), anyway. I wish I were over there, I know how to grease the skids on this stuff, having done it more times than I care to think about.

[janx]

96. Yes, she does.

It was kind of you to give her such specific advice.

[mirandapriestly]

37. Cooper.....doesn't recall a discussion of welfare reform. heh heh nt

[savemefromdumbya]

77. He wrote the email but he thought that he would get away with it

so he didn't mention it. Concealing from a grand jury = ?
you can't tell me a person 'so close' to President Bush forgot to tell him about it.

[zann725]

12. I like the use of "snip/more"...

How appropos.

[berni_mccoy]

15. Why Doesn't Fitz Have EVERY EMAIL written by Rove?

You'd think at this point, he'd be able to subpoena that...

[tinrobot]

26. No prosecutor can subpoena everything

In any criminal case, a prosecutor can't just go on a fishing expedition to rifle through somebody's records hoping to find something. He has to have reasonable suspicion that something is there. You can't ask for all phone records for 2003, for example, but you can ask for phone records regarding certain dates and times.

On top of that, if Fitzgerald had all Rove's emails, he would also have a lot of top secret stuff he's not privy to see (which is mildly ironic, since the case is about Rove giving out top secrets)

[Cookie wookie]

51. Under Section 215 of the Patriot Act

"...the director of the FBI or a designee as low in rank as an assistant special agent in charge may apply for a court order requiring the production of 'any tangible things (including books, records, papers, documents, and other items)' upon his written statement that these items are being sought for an investigation 'to protect against international terrorism or clandestine intelligence activities.' A judge presented with an application under Section 215 is required to enter an order if he "finds that the application meets the requirements of this section.

Notably absent from Section 215 is the former FISA restriction that required the government to specify in its application for a court order that 'there are specific and articulable facts giving reason to believe that the person to whom the records pertain is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power......Nor is the class of persons whose records are obtainable ... limited any longer to foreign powers and their agents; it may include U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents...."

Silencing Political Dissent, Nancy Change, pp 52-53, copyright 2002

[Melissa G]

16. Yes .. it is amazing what goes Missing in this Misadministration....n/t

[pacalo]

17. This part stood out for me...

(He (Rove) did not tell President George W. Bush about it (Rove's conversation with Cooper) either, assuring him that fall only that he was not part of any "scheme" to discredit Wilson by outing his wife, the lawyer says.)

What proof does Newsweek have that this is fact?

Plus, Isikoff gives the impression that * really was seeking "assurance" from Rove. I don't care for Isikoff's use of the word "scheme", either -- it seems to downplay Rove's motives. His aim wasn't merely to discredit Wilson -- he meant to cause both Wilson & his wife serious damage.

[MADem]

20. The source was either Rove, or Scotty on background under orders

from Dunceboy.

[pacalo]

30. Missing from the sentence was "according to..."

Without attribution, Isikoff's conjecture reads as though it were a fact. A seasoned journalist should know better.

[MADem]

36. Ya never know

Maybe he asked Rove, and then asked Bush-direct!! But they only talked on background...thus no attribution.

[Garbo 2004]

38. it quotes the lawyer: "the lawyer says" = Rove's lawyer. n/t

[pacalo]

97. Omg...you're right, Garbo. My bad!

That is the reason for the word "scheme" being in quotes -- Isikoff was using Rove's language.

Thanks for pointing that out -- forgive my earlier Emily Latella-isms.

[Garbo 2004]

99. Isikoff could have written the article more clearly IMO. And he too often

does indeed use his sources' language and talking points and doesn't attribute it, just goes along and repeats it as his own. Even if it's bs. Not a particularly fastidious journalist is Mr. Isikoff. But he does enjoy the limelight on his "scoops" that he's handed by people.

As I mentioned previously, the only really new ground here IMO is that Judy's notes apparently weren't home in a knitting basket or whatever, they apparently were in the NYT DC bureau. Notes the NYT claimed it didn't have, if recollection serves. That sudden "discovery" and Judy's continued "chats" with Fitzgerald are of far more interest to my mind.

[pacalo]

110. Yes, her "sudden discovery" of the notes interests me, too.

It's another testament to Fitzgerald's effectiveness.

I'm curious about NYT's complicity: Why haven't they gotten rid of Miller? Despite the fact that her fictitious WMD articles helped the WHIG's get their war & NYT had to subsequently print an apology in Miller's stead, why do they continue to stand by her?

[pauldp]

25. Exactly. That's ridiculous

They should say "Rove said he did not tell Bush".

That's
really sloppy.

[pacalo]

32. Exactly.

And "scheme" is too tame a word for "conspiracy".

[WinkyDink]

57. Isikoff isn't out for the Truth;

he's out to sell himself as a sage and Newsweek as better than Time.

He was anti-Clinton; don't expect precision in his articles exposing the Bush treason.

[marylanddem]

70. It IS sloppy, you're right

In journalism school in the 1970's they taught us to be careful to attribute such statements -- i.e., Rove SAID he did not tell Bush -- and it really upsets me to see this glossed over. It is an apparently small but critical factor in careful journalism...

[Peace Patriot]

94. It wasn't a scheme to discredit Wilson, in my opinion. It was a scheme to

shutdown the CIA's ability to monitor WMDs around the world, probably for the purpose of furthering and covering up Cheney arms dealing, but which got accelerated, in my opinion--and pushed top Bush officials into panicky, precipitous action--when Tony Blair was informed, on July 7, 2003, who their BBC whistleblower was (their chief WMD expert, David Kelly) and that Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things"--AFTER Kelly had already told the BBC about their "sexed up" WMD intel on Iraq. (What else did Kelly know?) Plame was outed 7 days later (in a highly scattershot, risky manner--with many top Bushites involved, and contacts with SIX journalists), and 4 days after that, on July 18, Kelly was found dead, under highly suspicious circumstances. My guess: These two plots (the plot to shutdown the CIA's honest monitoring) and Kelly's whistleblowing, intersected on July 7, probably with a Blair phone call to AF-1, warning them that Kelly was a problem. (I suspect--also a guess--that what Kelly knew about was a plot to plant WMDs in Iraq for Judith Miller to "find.")

Ergo: Karl Rove wasn't lying, exactly, when he said he told Bush that he hadn't been part of any scheme to discredit Wilson. Discrediting Wilson (if they could) was just a collateral benefit to a much more devious scheme and coverup. According to a Wilson interview I read, Condi Rice even taunted him to publish his article--so they knew it was coming. I think the whole Niger thing--the forged docs, his trip--was some kind of long term scheme to "get" the CIA, that is, to disable it. Rove outing Plame in a fit of political pique, to "punish" Wilson, is a cover story (one of many, covering up various things).

[Bush_Eats_Beef]

21. Electronic search using "the right words" = F.M.T.P.

..."Frog March To Prison" for Boy Genius.

Couldn't happen to a nicer guy.

[nolabels]

54. Boy, oh boy, kinda wonder what comes up using the wrong words

:evilgrin:

It kinda sounds creepy for people to be snooping around but one must remember this is a GOVERNMENT agency that is supposed to be upholding and enforcing the law, not snaking around like they are the crooks themselves.

[MADem]

81. GOVERNMENT computers belong to WE, THE PEOPLE

I would never think of doing anything on a government computer, from sending an email to even doing simple research, that I could not justify in testimony in open court. When you boot up, you get the "notice" that the thing is gov't property and subject to monitoring.

The best way to approach use of a government computer is to imagine that you are sitting in Macy's window, and your internet activity broadcast to everyone. Don't write anything you cannot bear looking at years down the road.

[mmonk]

22. Making sense

and why the screws are tightening. I love it when crooks don't all have their stories straight with each other. Makes it easier to produce the next stumble in trying to cover things up.:popcorn:

[keopeli]

24. I seldom use "search" to find an email, but if I did, I would use

ROVE
JULY
COOPER

All of these words occur in the email. After all, we are talking about officials who spoke to the press. That was the inquiry.

On the other hand, if I was a moran, I would enter

"Valerie Plame"
"Joseph Wilson"
"secret agent"
"don't tell anyone"
"you didn't hear this from me"
"this is treasonous, but I'm going to tell you anyway. Just don't ever say you got this from me"

[Tight_rope]

113. LMBAO...I totally agree!...

[Rainscents]

27. Boy, this is getting real good!

:popcorn:

[Catherine Vincent]

28. "the right "search words" weren't used"

That's a new one.

[wtmusic]

40. Kinda like when Rosemary Woods erased 5 minutes of the Nixon tapes--

"by accident".

The White House staffs of Republican administrations have a tradition of being competently incompetent.

[MADem]

83. Actually, that gap was EIGHTEEN AND A HALF MINUTES

And we are supposed to believe that ole Rosemary kept her big old leadfoot on the button all that time....YEAH, and I have a bridge for sale!!!

http://www.archives.gov/press/press-releases/2003/nr03-43.html

[wtmusic]

98. That's right

she claimed it was only 4 or 5. Silly me--I believed a Republican!

:rofl:

[MADem]

103. Heh, heh

Well, she looked like a sweet little old librarian, who could blame you for being conned?

[Bernardo de La Paz]

29. Shades of Watergate and the famous 8 minute gap in the tape.

The parallels between Nixon and Bush's Whitehouse are astounding, but Bush exceeds them, and his policies and policy actions fail to rise to even to Nixon's level. Nixon started the EPA. Nixon did not start disastrous foreign wars.

George W. Bush: Worst president ever.

[Spiffarino]

34. Perfect analogy

When confronted with inconvenient requests they stonewall, "misplace" or destroy critical information. I'm glad this was an email or it would have been shredded long ago.

BTW, it was an 18-minute gap. Just goes to show ya...with Republicans it's always even worse than you'd expect. :evilgrin:

[Spiffarino]

35. K&R. It's the cover-up, stupid.

Silly Republicans. They never learn.

[Garbo 2004]

41. That email was known previously, it's not new or recently found. I recall

it was mentioned in an article after Cooper testified. (The email was "found" last year. Rove omitted the Cooper conversation from his 2003 discussions with investigators and initial gj testimony.) This really isn't hot news. Isakoff's saying that the discrepancies re: conversation with Cooper is the reason for Rove's 4th visit to the grand jury. It well may be, but the discrepancies have been previously noted. Seems to me,unless I've missed something, that Issakoff's article is just setting the stage for Rove's GJ appearance, not breaking new ground.

Looks like Rove's got a bit of "clarifying" to do. He reportedly claimed, for example if memory serves, that he learned about Plame from a journalist but doesn't remember who. I think Russert previously had been mentioned as a possible source of Plame info but Russert claimed all he knew is what he read in the papers.

But the one new thing in this article AFAIK is that the June 2003 Miller/Libby conversation notes were "discovered" in the Times' Washington bureau. Weren't those the kind of notes the NYT claimed it didn't have?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

42. Miller's "notes" and Rove's "e-mails."

Completely normal.

[Vinca]

44. Maybe we shouldn't be so fast to criticize.

There's no doubt this is the most incompetent administration in the history of the country. The fact they can't figure out how to use a search engine shouldn't be a huge (pardon me . . . hugh) surprise.

[Cookie wookie]

52. They are not incompetent.

Their intention is to destroy our system of government, install a military/corporate dictatorship, all the while calling it democracy (think Iraq). Everything they do is masterfully calculated to that end.

[Peace Patriot]

101. I agree that they are masterful, but I think the main motive is greed, not

dictatorship. Everything they do seems aimed at creating opportunities to loot. They seem to have no interest in governing, except to commit various kinds of theft. They have been inept at social engineering and haven't convinced most people of anything--in fact, are quickly losing ground in public opinion (and never had much of a toehold to begin with--read the issue polls over the last couple of years--they will amaze you!) They are NOT creating a great manufacturing base and war machine, a la Hitler and Nazi Germany. They are thoroughly exhausting and fraying the one we had. And they are just throwing money at things (or rather, stuffing it into their cronies' pockets by the billions). Their Christian rightwingism is patently absurd, and may have convinced a few dumb people who were already inclined that way, but has not sat at all well with most Americans. I don't even think the real stringpullers believe in the neocons' PNAC. I think it's all window-dressing. I think they are empty-souled greedbags.

And that may be a blessing in disguise--small comfort, maybe (certainly to the dead and wounded, and impoverished), but intriguing, as to strategy and our own long term thinking. Do you see any Nazi youth marching around? Or any brownshirts? Maybe a few in Florida in '00, and on the internet now (the ones who harassed Andy Stephenson in his dying days, for instance). But I'm sure not seeing it as a general phenomenon. People aren't buying this crap--and, if the issue polls over the last couple of years are any guide, never have, or haven't for quite some time. The general population strongly disagrees with the rightwing Bush line on all major issues, and started defecting from the Bushite "terrorism" line, in great numbers, after 9/11 was turned into the Iraq war. (58% opposed the Iraq war BEFORE the invasion! It's over 70% today. 63% oppose torture UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. May '04.)

Whereas, in Germany in the 1930s, there were an awful lot of true believers--especially at the "they've got the trains running on time" level. And demoralized and very impoverished Germans wanted to believe that they and their culture were superior. It was a big and effective motivator, that Hitler was very shrewd at utilizing. Hitler didn't loot them (generally). He got their economy back on its feet, big time, after the disaster of WW I.

The Bushites, on the other hand, aren't building anything. They're DESTROYING things, one after another: the budget surplus we had, the jobs, the manufacturing base, the general prosperity, our commons, our infrastructure, good government, the things we do best (like disaster relief), scientific integrity, medical integrity, our self confidence, our belief in ourselves and in our government, not to mention what they've done to Iraq and Afghanistan, turning them toward chaos. They are NOT governing them. That is not their purpose.

What's it all been for? Certainly not to the greater glory of American society. We are shamed before the world--and, in the Gulf coast disaster, shamed before the world and before ourselves.

It has all been for the grand scale looting and war profiteering. Greed trumps ideology every time. Look at the deficit!

This is not to say that Nazism couldn't happen here. Maybe we will be faced with that down the line, when the wrecking crew is finished, and large numbers of people are homeless, unemployed and starving. That may even be some rightwing "think tank" plan. But I still think the greed of the current gang is a huge and fatal flaw. I think it's damned stupid of them, if their goal is the Fourth Reich.

The most ominous thing to me--bar none--is the Diebold and ES&S election theft machines, because that's going to make it really difficult to repair all the damage the Bushites have done. Election theft makes it impossible for our country to correct its course. And the best thing we can do--to cast out the thieves, and to prevent the rise of Nazism--is to recover our right to vote, which is still possible both directly (reforming the election system at the state/local level) and in combination with overwhelming votes for change (overwhelming the fraud with numbers).

So, to conclude, they have been masterful at grand theft, and they have NOT been masterful, thus far anyway, at creating a Nazi state.

In fact, given their control of the White House, the military, the intelligence apparatus, the Congress, the courts, the news media, and the election system, they have accomplished absolutely nothing, and are losing ground, as to brainwashing the people. They have failed in requirement #1 of creating a fascist state: making people believe that they are better off. If anything, they've brought tremendous discredit both upon corporate rule and upon militarism. And I think it's quite possible that some of the corporate rulers (and certainly some in the military) are having very big second thoughts about it all.

This is not an easy country to govern. It is much bigger and much, much more multi-cultured than Germany. If you are going to impose a military/corporate dictatorship here, you MUST have the cooperation of many, many people, either through convincing them that you are committed to higher goals that they share, or through brainwashing and coercion. People are NOT convinced. People at all levels are seeing unparalleled greed, the lack of higher goals, and vast incompetence and mismanagement. Every corporate crack in our system is being exposed. I think what we're looking at is a FAILING coup, based on greed, not a successful one based on ideology. The thieves have succeeded in THEIR goal (thievery); the corporatists, and neocons, and Christian Armageddonists, and militarists, have not succeeded in theirs. They're well-larded, though, and so, as soon as we recover our right to vote, the first thing we must do is ban private money from political campaigns, and reclaim some of our public airwaves for political debate.

[Wilms]

102. Excellent points deserving a thread. n/t

[Cookie wookie]

106. Well thought out,

thanks for responding. Certainly you are right on the money, so to speak, about the gluttony and greed of this cabal. However, what I envision as their goal is something more along the lines of a South American-style military/corporate dictatorship rather than something made in the mold of Hitler's Nazi Germany. If we look at what the World Bank does (and look who's running that: Wolfowitz), then factor in the Pentagon accumulating more power, the end game would be to bankrupt the citizens of this country, remove citizen's rights, undermine the court system, and expand US military power in the US (and privitize it with mercenaries), weaken state's rights, and corrupt the voting system.

[Lerkfish]

107. masterful post, thank you. It crystalizes some errant thoughts I've had

lately but coalesces them much more succinctly and eloquently than I could have imagined.

I've been telling people since before the Iraq War that the neocons are all the more dangerous because they are naive. They want world domination, but instead of achieving it through carefully planned chess moves, they have instead tromped on the board and declared themselves winners, destroying the political infrastructure so that no future games can be played. They are accomplishing a scorched earth policy, almost literally.

It is possible to be both evil AND incompetent. And that is proving much more dangerous in combination than either one would have been alone.

[MaineDem]

45. I pray they don't get away with this one

Rove has come out smelling like a rose too many times.

PLEASE please please let it stop here!

[Nightwing]

46. I smell a frog march coming!!

Looks like things are heating up for a Rove indictment and it doesnt get any better than that!! Here's hoping the trail of corruption and conspiracy leads Fitz all the way to POTUS.

:kick:

[lakeguy]

48. well sure they couldn't find it using the "right search words" because

they weren't looking for the poetry coded messages they now seem to be sending to people like miller, duh.

[doni_georgia]

50. Kick

:kick:

[goforit]

53. Question????....Can they forge an e-mail?????

[hang a left]

56. I would think that any emails sent to Cooper were already turned

over by Cooper to the GJ. Someone else will have to answer that question.

[negativenihil]

63. Yes. It's quite trivial to forge and email...

... so that it looks to be from a specific date and person. especially if you're only trying to pass it off to a non-techie.

[lovuian]

55. Ironic one of the most important memo topic Welfare reform!!!

"Luskin discovered an e-mail Rove had sent that same day—July 11—alerting deputy national-security adviser Stephen Hadley that he had just talked to Cooper, the lawyer says. In the e-mail, Rove said Cooper pushed him on whether the president was being hurt by the Niger controversy. "I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote Hadley, adding that he warned Cooper not to get "far out in front on this." After reviewing the e-mail, Rove then returned to the grand jury last year and reported the Cooper conversation. He testified that the talk was initially about "welfare reform"—a topic mentioned in the e-mail—and that Cooper then changed the subject. Cooper has written that he doesn't recall a discussion of welfare reform."

I didn't take the Bait HA HA HA Rove is like a trout thrashing against the line reeling him in... He's Hooked!!!

[WinkyDink]

58. The aspens are turning.

And the oaks in the Bohemian Grove will be toppled by Hurricane Fitz, for though their roots are many, far-reaching, and tangled, yea, they are rotting swiftly.

[goforit]

66. I like your thinking. Scalia "demotion" is proof of this

[Delphinus]

68. Beautiful poetry. n/t

[Demobrat]

59. Oh, sure. They forgot the words

Plame, Wilson, wife, CIA, Niger and agent. Who can blame them, with all the stress they must be under?

[MADem]

85. They searched for YELLOW CAKE and all they got was a notice

about an office birthday party!!

[seattlemetal]

62. do you think we'll actually get to see him hauled off to jail?

:bounce:

[paineinthearse]

64. Michael Isikoff

Thank you for your consistant and fine investigative journalism.

:thumbsup:

[ewagner]

65. Indictments or no indictments

Fitzgerald has exposed the entire corrupt NETWORK of Neocon liars! :bounce: :bounce: :bounce:

[lonestarnot]

67. I'd say Red Rover is about to take the plunge over Dover! Teehee!

[cally]

71. Gonsalez or Meier are to blame for this

The White House Counsel would be responsible for responding to the search warrant. One of them is incompetent or obstructed justice.

[Tight_rope]

119. You know...maybe you are on to something...

That's why Bush want's Meier appointed so bad and he keeps saying to the base that they shouldn't worry...that she is on there side. I think something is very fishy about trying to appoint his in house counsel to the Supreme Court and he sure picked her in a hurry. Someone with no experience and too close to him. Damn it was be like picking ole Dick all over again. This shit it smell worse everyday.

[Herman47]

72. Things are looking good. When this thing first hit...

...I thought there was no way in hell that Fitzgerald would get indictments, especially after Alberto Gonzales gave the Bushies a "heads-up,": advanced warning that an investigation was coming. I thought that all incriminating evidence would have been destroyed, and that Novak and the Bushies would have gotten their stories straight. I guess I overestimated the intelligence of the Bushies, and underestimated how effective a skilled, determined prosecutor could be.

[savemefromdumbya]

78. lets hope the prosecutor

lives to tell the tale?

[janx]

74. Re these "missing documents"--

Were Rove and Miller trying to hang onto them, hoping they would not be discovered...but now they're getting scared?

Has Fitzgerald in effect scared them into turning over the documents?

[savemefromdumbya]

76. OK and what about Gannon?

The interest in this character surfaced last year.........

[politianskissit]

82. When?

He's cooperating because he doesn't want Fitzgerald to indict him. If he does, that means Rove is out of the White House and that would be disastrous.

But the damage is already rooting in with general public's impression of this administration. Most Americans probably don't know or don't care about the details, but you know they're getting the whiff of the massive corruption that we all know has been festering from the right.

The right move from Democrats is to just sit back, and let them go at each other... "crabs in a pot" analogy particularly poignant here, considering all the blame and finger pointing toward the local officials that was coming from GOPers after Katerina (with the ever so subtle touch of racist assumptions, "why didn't they leave?")...

Well you can fool this public once... good luck trying to fool them again.

There's only so far you can cash in on the ride by telling the public what they want to hear (iraq is ok, economy will grow, terrorism is everywhere but your safer than ever before)...

Eventually, if you don't produce, you begin to sound like a lunatic, entirely divorced from reality. And when that happens, watch the support scurry for cover, a giant light switch turning on this administration.


Only question is... when?

[0007]

87. Busted!

[DearAbby]

104. Playing Cops theme over and over

Bad Boys, Bad boys what cha gonna doooooooo....
What cha gonna do when they come for youuuuuuuuu.


:applause: :woohoo: :popcorn:

[Tight_rope]

111. This whole thing stinks to high heaven....Fitz needs to just lock ....

them all up...Rove, Cheney, Libby, Miller, Cooper. The whole damn gang.

[Dr Fate]

112. "My dog ate it." n/t

n/t

[The Roux Comes First]

114. Who's Doing Due Diligence?

Coming as it does so near-synched with Judith Miller's "found" notes, this event has troubled me. Rarely in the reporting and commentary on issues of this sort, here, elsewhere in c'space, or in corporate media, is there much if any discussion of the issue of veracity of the key exhibits.

We have seen more than a few examples of tainted or even forged documents in the past few years (yellowcake memo and Rathergate come to mind), with fascinatingly varied and creative sinister purposes behind them. The Rather episode still haunts me.

It seems quite easy to cobble together notes, memos, and emails after-the-fact, with complete freedom to concoct contents for any number of vile objectives. Possibilities that come to mind include impugning the credibility of public figures or journalists, fuzzifying the historical record, or offering a distraction for the ongoing cacophony of evil spirits coming home to roost in the white house.

Presumably in actual trial settings efforts are routinely made to check on and document the bona fides of critical bits of documentation. In the meantime though, out here in the real world where we must do our own newsgathering if we really want to stay in touch and anything like current (thanks * and MSM for that vital lesson!), it seems to me more care and skepticism is needed.

I'm interested in insights from those with working experience in professions like journalism and law enforcement. How hard would it be to fake a helpful email after the fact, and how much risk do we face from weakly-documented or even wholly uncorroborated documents like the Rove email that often tend to catalyze wild speculative wordstorms?

[Garbo 2004]

124. Don't have to fake an email. It's CYA, establishing a story line in

advance in case it's ever needed later.

Basically a concerted coordinated planned effort was made to discredit Wilson (and more importantly his info) via leaks to the press. Talk to a reporter, document it. But do so in a manner that supports your cover story and spin, just in case it's ever needed. Keep it in your pocket, so to speak. If it's not ever needed, fine. If it is, you got your story down and documented.

After Matt Cooper testified in this July, someone conveniently leaked Rove's email to the media (AP story here: http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050717-121150-3026r.htm ) to get Rove's storyline out in advance of Cooper's own story. Cooper subsequently wrote his own account of his testimony ( http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1083899,00.html ) which contradicts Rove's story.

Remember, the Rove email was belatedly "found" and turned over to Fitz in 2004, not recently. This tidbit, and also that Rove failed to mention his conversation with Cooper first to the FBI and later in his initial grand jury testimony, also was reported some time ago as I recall. (After the memo with Rove's storyline was leaked to the media.) The recent Newsweek story doesn't have a scoop on this. Luskin is trying to put a good face on this.

And clearly, there's an effort to publicly distance the President from his "rogue" staff since the heat's on Rove.

[Supersedeas]

115. the 'search words' alibi - rotflmao

[OKNancy]

116. kick

[paineinthearse]

117. Isikoff: CIA Leak: Karl Rove and the Case of the Missing E-mail

MSNBC.com
CIA Leak: Karl Rove and the Case of the Missing E-mail
Newsweek

Oct. 17, 2005 issue - The White House's handling of a potentially crucial e-mail sent by senior aide Karl Rove two years ago set off a chain of events that has led special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to summon Rove for a fourth grand jury appearance this week. His return has created heightened concern among White House officials and their allies that Fitzgerald may be preparing to bring indictments when a federal grand jury that has been investigating the leak of a CIA agent's identity expires at the end of October. Robert Luskin, Rove's lawyer, tells NEWSWEEK that, in his last conversations with Fitzgerald, the prosecutor assured Luskin "he has not made any decisions."

But lawyers close to the case, who asked not to be identified because it's ongoing, say Fitzgerald appears to be focusing in part on discrepancies in testimony between Rove and Time reporter Matt Cooper about their conversation of July 11, 2003. In Cooper's account, Rove told him the wife of White House critic Joseph Wilson worked at the "agency" on WMD issues and was responsible for sending Wilson on a trip to Niger to check out claims that Iraq was trying to buy uranium. But Rove did not disclose this conversation to the FBI when he was first interviewed by agents in the fall of 2003—nor did he mention it during his first grand jury appearance, says one of the lawyers familiar with Rove's account. (He did not tell President George W. Bush about it either, assuring him that fall only that he was not part of any "scheme" to discredit Wilson by outing his wife, the lawyer says.) But after he testified, Luskin discovered an e-mail Rove had sent that same day—July 11—alerting deputy national-security adviser Stephen Hadley that he had just talked to Cooper, the lawyer says. In the e-mail, Rove said Cooper pushed him on whether the president was being hurt by the Niger controversy. "I didn't take the bait," Rove wrote Hadley, adding that he warned Cooper not to get "far out in front on this." After reviewing the e-mail, Rove then returned to the grand jury last year and reported the Cooper conversation. He testified that the talk was initially about "welfare reform"—a topic mentioned in the e-mail—and that Cooper then changed the subject. Cooper has written that he doesn't recall a discussion of welfare reform.

Why didn't the Rove e-mail surface earlier? The lawyer says it's because an electronic search conducted by the White House missed it because the right "search words" weren't used. (The White House and Fitzgerald both declined to comment.) But the e-mail isn't the only belatedly discovered document in the case. Fitzgerald has also summoned New York Times reporter Judith Miller back for questioning this week: a notebook was discovered in the paper's Washington bureau, reflecting a late June 2003 conversation with Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis (Scooter) Libby, about Wilson and his trip to Africa, says one of the lawyers. The notebook may also be significant because Wilson's identity was not yet public. A lawyer for the Times declined to comment.

—Michael Isikoff

URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/9630676/site/newsweek/ (Go to the URL to rate the story).

[nadinbrzezinski]

118. get yer popcorn, get yer hot popcorn

:popcorn: :popcorn: :popcorn:

[Nothing Without Hope]

121. I find it interesting that this leaked information specifically exonerates

Bush:

He did not tell President George W. Bush about it either, assuring him that fall only that he was not part of any "scheme" to discredit Wilson by outing his wife, the lawyer says.

Whenever I read about leaked information, I always ask why this specific material was leaked. In this case, the central inclusion of a declaration specifically excusing Bush is...interesting. Is this part of a move to isolate Bush from damage? Too soon to tell.

:popcorn:

[NVMojo]

122. interesting discussion about this on Olbermann tonight ...

he asked this Bushie if this info could exonerate Rove and that guy said it could ...crap!!!!

[Nothing Without Hope]

123. Well, if he was talking to a Bushie, I'm not going to worry much about

claims about proofs of innocence for other Bushies. It's all spin, and they don't miss an opportunity to launch it. I have great respect for Olbermann, but even he isn't going to get the truth out of an Administration hack.