Bernie Ward's message for tonight: "Stay focused on intent"

[eleny]

He urges his audience not to get totally hung up on legality regarding Rove. But rather we should keep our eye on the intent of Rove to get revenge on Wilson. Was Rove willing to sacrifice national security for political revenge. Bernie asserts that the political issue is more powerful than the legal.

I need to sleep on that before taking his advice.

[Check12]

1. Two words

"FAIR GAME"

[eleny]

3. Yup

And I wonder how that suck up, Tweety, feels about spilling those beans on his show? Not that his audience is the widest. But videos live on here on the internet(s).

[Quixote1818]

2. So does that mean the legal road is a long shot?

I am not sure if I am that excited about this or not. How can the political issue be more powerful than the legal? Legal ALWAYS trumps political! LEGAL DEFINES POLITICAL!!

[eleny]

11. I don't know if I quite agree, either

But these past few days have shown that the court of public opinion is powerful. And this is how Rove operated in the past with his negative whisper campaigns as a political campaign strategy. So, there is some truth to what Bernie asserts. I hope that it helps to ferret out enough to make a legal case stick.

[Cogito ergo doleo]

4. A Lawyer posted this on Huffington:

"As a lawyer, I remain stunned at the legal knowledge of some of our most prominent reporters.

Rove's lawyer has not claimed that Rove didn't intend to leak information as Crawford suggests, but rather he claims that Rove didn't knowingly identify Plame as a covert agent when Rove leaked her identity. There is a big difference between the two. Crawford didn't get this right and he should have. But on either issue, the proof should be easy, rather than hard, as has been suggested.

It is clear that Rove intended to leak, and Rove's lawyer knows that he will get nowhere with that argument; so, he has tried to argue that Rove had did not know that Plame was covert. This defense will not work either.Under the law, actual knowledge of her covert status is not necessary; knowledge of her covert status can be imputed to Rove.

The court will find, and will instruct the jury, that Rove had an affirmative duty to check out the status of Plame before he leaked her identity. If he failed to perform this duty, he is guilty of knowingly leaking the identity of a covert agent. This is not something where Rove can look the other way and pretend he didn't see."
More>
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/craig-crawford/dirty-plot-or-accidental-_3946.html#comments

[Quixote1818]

6. Now thats good news! The best news I have seen all night!

nt

[eleny]

9. "Rove had an affirmative duty to check out the status of Plame"

Amen!

[Bozita]

5. He brought Squirmin' Scottie into the conversation

Bernie's on a roll tonight.

[Swamp Rat]

7. Good! Stay focused on intent!

And I will remain focused on exosing Rove's TRUE nature. :)

[eleny]

10. Are the "mumps" bumps new?

Your pic of him is getting like the Portrait of Dorian Grey! Now, he's got pustules. Ack! I won't be able to sleep.

[Swamp Rat]

18. It's hard to say...

They are constantly losing and regrowing body parts. :puke:

[BCBud]

8. Yes, thats what I think.

I've sensed that all along. The political issue will reveal the true nature and intent on every issue. I'm just an observant Canadian but your country is being destroyed from within and I feel terrible about it. I couldn't believe they tried to impeach a popular President(domestically and internationally) over a sexual matter. I couldn't believe GW was being considered for President. I couldn't believe what they did to McCain. I couldn't believe he won the primaries. I couldn't believe..... you get the point. Finally they F'ed up so badly that the MSM has to react. I won't believe it if it doesn't turn the public against the administration to such a degree that the house must act and impeach. I'm thinking that Kerry nor any Dem really wanted to be Pres now. Let Bush go down in disgrace and take back the country for real Americans.....YEEEEAAAAW! Go Dean!!! Go Conyers!!!!

[eleny]

13. Thanks Bud!!!

Welcome to DU! :grouphug:

[BCBud]

16. Thank you...

...for being here.

[JDPriestly]

12. Generally, the knowledge element of

a criminal charge is not the tough part if you are dealing with a crime that is almost inherently intentional.

Rove is not in trouble for inadvertently telling the checkout clerk in the supermarket that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent. He purposely (intentionally) told Cooper, a journalist, that fact in order to get it published widely and to discredit Wilson's blowing the whistle on the White House lies about the Niger yellow cake.

Rove is in trouble, deep trouble. And if he isn't the whole nation is in big trouble because if he can get by with outing a CIA agent, then no undercover agent or police officer in this country is safe and our entire intelligence apparatus is a political tool in danger of destruction. That's not good for us because if our politicians sell out to countries like Pakistan that sell nuclear secrets to the highest bidder without regard for international law, what kind of a future does humankind have? Our intelligence apparatus has to be independent and as free from ideology as possible. That is the only way we can get accurate information.

Rove's crime is extremely serious. He has jeopardized our ability to get information about major crimes and major international criminal syndicates in the future. We have to keep focused on the horror of what he did.

Outing an undercover police officer who is trying to arrest drug pushers would be a horrible thing. Rove's act was a million times worse than that. The drug pusher, at most and only occasionally, kills a few people, but the kind of people Rove's act keeps us from catching could kill tens if not hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions. Rove is the worst scum for what he did.

DUers are concerned about the political implications of Rove's act and of Rove's relationship to Bush, but the real horror is in what Rove's act means to the CIA people and their sources who put their lives on the line to protect ours. If Rove's action is not severely punished it will send a message to all CIA operatives and their sources that the US government does not care about them and will not protect them. What effect do you think Rove's act will have on our future intelligence gathering capacity? Think long and hard about that, because that is what we should really be focusing on here, and that is why Rove has to be called to answer.

[eleny]

14. "the real horror is in what Rove's act means"

But that *is* the crux of why we're concerned. It's the nation that's at stake. And Rove's political dirty methods of dealing with his enemies is what has now put the nation at risk, as you say.

I think Bernie called it "the political" because Rove is the political arm of the White House. He shapes every national policy in a political context - how to push the policy so it helps the neocons keep power.

It's all connected to the Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld war policies framed for the public by Rove's unique propaganda. It almost worked until they rewrote Wilson's report.

P.S. Recently, I read an article about how the CIA is already demoralized. That there have been a significant number of protest resignations and retirements because of the Bush administration.

[JDPriestly]

17. Rove's outing of Plame is a security issue.

That is the point we have to drive home. We can't be secure in the "homeland" if Rove and his ilk are outing the CIA agents that give us the information we need to protect ourselves from the really bad guys. Average Americans see terrorists as folks who are suicidal religious fanatics in funny outfits who scream religious slogans as they attack. But, behind them are the guys like Bin Laden who are really clever power hungry types, and those are the types that Plame was going after. It doesn't matter whether they are into selling opium on the international market or selling nuclear secrets or materiel. We need people like Plame to help us protect ourselves from them. The problem with Rove's crime is that he has jeopardized our ability to protect ourselves. He sacrificed our national security. That is why just getting him out of the White House is not enough. He needs to be in jail in order to teach others a lesson. We need to protect our undercover agents, especially the ones who work on WMD sales and similar issues.

[Bozita]

15. USAF orders to stay out of central London -- Brits are really pissed

We like you.

We just don't want to be too close.

[Swamp Rat]

19. MIHOPer on the show now

:yoiks:

[cry baby]

20. I agree with Bernie on this one.