Talking Points = confession of guilt

[Marnieworld]

The recently released RNC statement
http://rnc.org/News/Read.aspx?ID=5620
and the uncovered "talking points" about Rove releasing Valerie Plame's name to the media stipulate that Rove committed a crime. A felony. The Deputy Chief of Staff at the White House is a felon but the president has "complete confidence" in him.

The only question is whether Rove told a reporter that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. This was classified information that he released to the media IN RESPONSE to Joe Wilson's Op-ed in the NYT. The piece was July 11, 2003 and the Matt Cooper email about Rove's leak was after this piece but before Novak's article on July 14th. They have conceded the crime and it's only because there is proof that has been revealed. Any other detail connected to this is irrelevant, deliberate spin and they know it. We should not let them get away with it.

It is meaningless who sent Wilson to Niger to investigate the now proven fraudulent documents. It is irrelevant if Dick Cheney asked the CIA to investigate it and then they sent Wilson as he believed and has stated or the CIA was conducting its own investigation. It is irrelevant whether Valerie Plame suggested to co-workers that her husband happens to be an expert and should be asked to help. It was irrelevant when Karl Rove was whispering to reporters about it and it's irrelevant now.

The understood and agreed upon facts of the case are that there were these documents that an expert needed to investigate. The CIA had an expert investigate them. They were determined in 2002 to be crude forgeries, but though this was understood by the intelligence community the forgeries were used by the administration to justify war. This "evidence" was removed from a speech in October of 2002 so it was clearly understood to be false at the highest levels of the administration when used in the SOTU speech. Wilson, a whistleblower that previously was apolitical working for both parties in his career, exposed this because a country shouldn't go to war based on lies. A country shouldn't "fix facts and intelligence to justify policy." When an administration lies to go to war they try and maintain the lie at all costs. Rove went after the credibility of Wilson in a vicious retaliatory way meant to serve as a warning to all whistleblowers. Knowing that they lied to go to war they would work to continue this lie. There is no other explanation.

If Rove was simply "discouraging a reporter from writing a false story based on a false premise" then why didn't he give this peachy explanation 2 years ago and not after documented proof of this was published recently? What is the "false story" and "false premise" that he was correcting anyway? It's administative details of who sent Wilson and whether his wife mentioned his name. The story was that it was clear that the Niger documents were forgeries and that the administration knew this and presented it as evidence anyway. That story has never been proven false which is why they went after Wilson's wife.

Fact: It is a crime for a government official to reveal an undercover CIA operative- classified information. There is nothing in the law that states that you could have a reason to justify it, certainly not to retaliate against a whistleblower's wife. It is about revealing an identity not their complete legal name. Wilson's wife and Valerie Plame are synonymous and it is spin to suggest otherwise.

Fact: Rove has lied in the past about his involvement and now admits to this crime.

It is treason to reveal this information. Plame was not just an undercover operative but she was a major operative in the fight against WMD proliferation. Outing her did more damage to the country, to the so-called "War on Terror", in addition to jeopardizing her life as well as destroying a CIA operation and endangering the lives of all involved. Rove is a traitor and should be tried and convicted to the fullest extent of the law.

The talking points reveal the complete hypocrisy and total shamelessness of the Republican party. To defend such treasonous actions of one of their own by arguing who sent him to Niger and why makes clear that there is no defense. To excuse destroying a mission designed to protect us all while proclaiming to be the party strong on security would be laughable if it wasn't so frightening that they are the ones in control of our security.

I beg the leaders of our party to fight for the truth and not let this complete disregard for the nation's security to go unpunished. The truth is clear. Let the truth be known to everyone. Do not surrender to this shameless spin. The soldiers abroad and their families deserve no less.

[Marnieworld]

1. Shameless self-kick

Yah so what? ;-)

[papau]

2. Excellent summary

:-)

[Inland]

3. And if he's just correcting a false story

why do it under Double Top Secret Confidentiality?

Why would someone simply telling the truth--about something as central to our nation as yellowcake from Niger to Saddam--have to go off off OFF record?

Because Rove wasn't correcting a false story. He was smearing and punishing an opponent--not contradicting anything he had to say, for we now know as Rove knew that there was no yellowcake.

Today's repugs don't think they ever have to deal with the truth or falsity if they can do an ad hominem attack. That's what he was doing--a slime on Wilson and a punishment to his wife who was "fair game."

[plusfiftyfive]

11. AN excellent point!

And one that needs to be driven home to the press, and to the few people here in the USA who haven't made up their minds that Rove is a bad bad bad bad man to have so close to such a stupid President as W !!

[wryter2000]

26. Welcome to DU

:hi:

[Roland99]

4. It was HILARIOUS watching Newt spew the Talking Points on the Today Show

when just a few minutes prior they showed an image of the memo and one could tell Newt was going right through that very same list!

[ooglymoogly]

5. still and all

as i understand it, valery was asked by superiors to write a report...she did not proselytize her husband...he had the best credentials for the job and was chosen by superiors because of that fact...though these facts are perhaps meaningless to the criminality, they are cogent in the psychology of the matter and how this plays out in the media. that they are lying about this fact further incriminates them in the public eye.

[Norquist Nemesis]

10. Exactly! She summarized his qualifications at their request

and "offered him up" when another person in her office asked if she knew of anyone who could/would/should make the trip to Niger.

It's good to take a look at previous articles on this one to keep things straight, IMHO. Here's one from WaPo that's pretty thorough ...

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A11208-2003Sep27?language=printer

I was looking for the info on Chris Matthew's saying he called Joe Wilson to tell him that Rove had called him and said, "your wife is fair game." Apparently, it was in Newsweek. Here's a good rundown about it from the LeftCoster blog...

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/000626.html

It seems to me that even if you give Karl Rove a pass on the initial contact to reporters that blew her cover, Rove most assuredly picked up the ball and began to run with it leading the charge on a smear campaign. Andrea Mitchell says THAT is the real story: pushing her name and involvement to discredit Wilson. In other words...conspiracy.

The WH is locked down tight because they all have a finger in it, Condi, Cheney, Rove, Perle, Wolfowitz, Libby, Card, Bush, Fletcher, Libby, and the list goes on. Fitzgerald is getting his ducks in tight formation before a grand jury. The DSM exposes this as well in "fixing the policy" by discrediting all critics with on-going smear campaigns.

[chaz4jazz]

21. You mentioned Libby twice

But he probably deserves to be hit two times. :)

[Norquist Nemesis]

22. There's so many of them to list!

LOL! Thanks for the heads up. :)

[melissinha]

6. You mentioned

What I have decided to be my point regarding all the crimes committed by the Bush crime family....


If you combine all the actions and statements made by the Bush crime family... it all adds up to High Crimes and a concerted effort to defraud this country. The administration and the MSM have been tackling each issue individualy.... Saddam not involved in Al Qaeda, no WMDs, DSM, Yellow cake-Plame outing.... They try to say... ohhh but we got faulty intelligence information ...don't blame us.... but COMBINED with the WIlson's piece in the NYT... he was exposing those (conveniently characterized as faulty information ONCE they got caught) reports as forgeries... then it turns out it wasn't true.... hmmm cause Joe WIlson SAID SO .... but so conveniently after his NYT piece someone jsut haphazardly mentions that this wife with her role in the CIA... you get my point.


We can't attack each individual point... because they can be debunked .... but the WEB of lies shows a true pattern of deceit and preemption. We need to keep harping at the crimes as a whole.

[iam]

7. The Democratic Party is utterly politically incompetent

"THERE IS A TRAITOR IN THE WHITE HOUSE!" is what every elected Democrat in the country should be screaming at the corporate media. But no, they sit back and wait for the justice system to produce an indictment. Idiots. Can you imaging the forces of darkness in the republican party to have been as silent as the Democrats for the last two years on this? In competent idiots. Republicans flipped the entire Congress in 1994 because of gays in the military and a haircut in LA and dumbya lies us into war killing tens of thousands if innocent Iraqis as well as thousands of our own service men and women, screws the world economy, plunges the nation into world-record deficits, damns our children to life in a planet harmed by his refusal to spend a dime to remediate global warming.

[sweetroxie]

8. Here is another important summary

From Alternet today

Code Rove
By Evan Derkacz, AlterNet. Posted July 13, 2005.

In this complex scandal there's really only one thing to keep in mind: Karl Rove endangered America.

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Okay, keep your eye on the ball: Karl Rove endangered America.

But, you've been keeping up, reading, watching TV, and you've undoubtedly heard (or will hear) that Karl Rove didn't say the words "Valerie Plame," or he didn't mean to blow her cover -- or was her cover too threadbare to even matter? -- or Joe Wilson's claims weren't true, or else he was trying to save a reporter from printing a false story, or....

...Hey, look over there: MoveOn.org is unpatriotic!

Confused? Well, that's the plan, anyway. By shattering the story into a dozen shards, defenders of Rove's dangerous abuse of power hope to shift the debate away from the scandalous fact that Karl Rove endangered America by leaking the classified information that Joseph Wilson's wife "works at the agency" (CIA). In fact, the GOP's latest talking points on the Rove scandal focus almost exclusively on smearing Joseph Wilson -- which is ironic, to say the least, given the fact that this whole scandal began with a smear of Joseph Wilson.

Ignore it. Joseph Wilson didn't order Karl Rove to leak the identity of his wife.

Next, lawyers and "experts" will parse the legalese: Here are the A, B and C required to convict Karl Rove of violating the law, they'll say. Again, ignore it. It's not about the letter of the law, it's about two simple facts:

Karl Rove endangered America
Karl Rove retains his security clearance and the trust of President Bush, thus enabling him to do it again.
All the remaining questions being filtered to the media for scripted debate on Hannity and Colmes or Hardball are, to varying degrees, worth debating. Sometime. And in a balanced venue. But right now, the most important strands in this scandal are the two simple, irrefutable facts above.

A 'Treasonous' Action

This is not a partisan issue. Back in October of 2003, shortly after Robert Novak -- over CIA protestations -- published Plame's identity, a group of former CIA agents testified before a Senate Democratic Policy Committee on the outing of their colleague. The agents, Larry Johnson, Michael Grimaldi and Brent Cavan, all of whom are Republicans, pulled no punches in their shared statement:

"We also want to send a clear message to the political 'operatives' responsible for 'outing' Mrs. Wilson. Such action was treacherous, if not treasonous...Such action has allowed the less attractive aspects of politics to supersede the Government's responsibility to protect the citizens of this nation and the individuals who serve in difficult, dangerous covert capacities. This has set a sickening precedent. The 'senior Administration officials' who did this have warned all U.S. intelligence officers and the intelligence community that any one individual may be compromised if providing information or factual analysis the White House does not like."
We now know that the "senior Administration official" referred to in the above testimony is Karl Rove. We know it because his email to Time magazine's Matt Cooper says so and because Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, all but cemented this fact when he "updated" his public statements from: " did not reveal any confidential information," to the more litigation-proof: " never knowingly disclosed classified information."

There's a certain irony at work when the president's most trusted adviser, Karl Rove, outs Valerie Plame, a WMD specialist, while waging a war on Iraq which was, publicly at least, about protecting America from WMD.

Outing her not only jeopardized whatever she was working on at the time but, as the Washington Post reported, "Every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities."

The article also warned that, "Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered."

But let's return to the testimony of the former CIA agents for the specifics:

"If left unpunished, this cowardly act will not only hinder our efforts to recruit qualified individuals into the clandestine service, but it will have a far-reaching, deleterious effect on our ability to recruit foreign intelligence assets overseas. Who in their right mind would ever agree to become a spy for the United States when we cannot even protect our own undercover officers?"
As for assertions that Valerie Plame wasn't "especially well hidden" or that her cover wasn't "double super secret," not only is that not the issue, it's a rather stupid card to whip out in this particular hand. After all, a major part of the legal argument employed by Rove and his lawyer is that Rove didn't "knowingly" expose the classified nature of Valerie Plame's identity.

So which is it? Already a certain amount of digging had to be done for Rove to even come up with the information that Valerie Plame had recommended her husband for the Niger job. In the course of this digging, Rove must have, at a bare minimum, learned that Plame's status was classified. Did he also do enough digging to learn that her front company, Brewster Jennings & Associates, wasn't terribly well hidden? If he came up with that much information, made that great a calculation, doesn't that destroy the ignorance plea that he didn't "knowingly" reveal an agent's identity?

Just after the leak in late September 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan declared, "the president knows" that Rove wasn't involved and that it was "a ridiculous suggestion" that was "simply not true." And: "I've made it very clear, he was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was."

A couple weeks later, referring to Rove, Scooter Libby and Elliot Abrams, he was once again very clear: "I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I had no doubt with that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did."

The fact that McClellan lied in the above statement unleashed a torrent of unusually forceful questions from reporters at Monday's press conference, including this one:

"Scott, I think you're barrage today in part because we -- it is now clear that 21 months ago, you were up at this podium saying something that we now know to be demonstrably false. Now, are you concerned that in not setting the record straight today that this could undermine the credibility of the other things you say from the podium?"
For its part, the White House has remained mostly silent, preferring instead to let others do the talking -- via its Talking Points, of course. In its stead, the RNC, pundits and the pom-pom squad (blogs like Powerline, Captain's Quarters, Blogs for Bush, Michelle Malkin, etc.) are busy focus-testing these talking points attempting to occupy and divert the press until it gets bored and seizes on the next big issue (the Supreme Court, another hurricane, another celebrity trial).

But that will only divert attention from the facts: Karl Rove endangered America; the administration's credibility is severely damaged; reporters are questioning whether anything said in press briefings can be trusted.

The final desperate attempt at instant historical revisionism may look like this: Sure, Rove did it and it's good that he did. Valerie Plame wasn't in line with the Bush administration's plans for invading Iraq and so she deserved to be outed. This Soviet mentality has already debuted on Fox (video here) and you can bet it'll be the tactic of choice should all else fail -- which, from the look of recent press conferences, isn't exactly a pipe dream.

An interesting historical footnote on Rove and his sleazy tactics. Not only does Rove know this dance, but he and his partner have danced it before. A Nov. 9, 2003 Houston Chronicle article by Rick Casey reveals that Rove was fired from Pappy Bush's '92 re-election campaign. The reason: he leaked information intended to smear a political opponent (a fellow Republican) to a national columnist.

That columnist's name was Robert Novak.

It's not bad enough that Karl Rove endangered America. Bush continues to leave this high-risk, one-man sleeper cell positioned to do it again.

Evan Derkacz is a New York-based writer and contributor to AlterNet.
http://www.alternet.org/story/23506

[natrat]

9. dark times; most are bought off

[myrna minx]

12. Excellent analysis.

[ms liberty]

13. Devastating critique....

Marnieworld, there's blood on your pen.

I hope you've sent this out to the media...

Recommended

[Marnieworld]

14. We are the media

The blogosphere is all democracy has left. Thanks for your comments.

[Hamlette]

15. not to put to fine a point on it. . .

Joe Wilson's column appeared on July 6. It seems Rove's conversation with Cooper was July 11. It seems, from the article, that the column was the 11th.

[Marnieworld]

20. My bad

I was working from memory. I can't edit now unfortunately. The point is that the timeline of events is Wilson Op-ed, then Karl Rove committed treason, then Novak published article. That's all that really matters.

[mermaid]

16. Treason Is Punishable By Death - It Is A Capital Offense....

THE DEATH PENALTY FOR KARL ROVE!!! YESSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!!!!!

[culturalelite]

17. The slime just continues to ooze

The RNC talking points just illustrate how sleazy the RNC is. That Wilson supported Kerry is supposed to show that his motivation was partisan. What BS! Presumably all criticism of Bush by anyone who has ever supported a Democrat is partisan. And of course they suppress the fact that Wilson also supported Bush Sr and other Republicans. They also suggest that Rove was counteracting Wilson's lies about his wife's role in his trip to Niger. More BS. Rove said that Plame "authorized" Wilson's trip, which is clearly false. She didn't have that authority. And as for Wilson's claims about his wife's role in his trip, why would he lie about that? The most likely explanation is that he was unaware of the meeting in which Plame had mentioned his qualifications and/or recommended him for the job. Wilson never claimed that Cheney personally met with him to ask him to go to Niger. The office of the Vice President had wanted the CIA to find out more about Niger, and Wilson says that he was told by CIA contacts that this was so and that his mission was part of the effort to provide such information. None of this has been shown to be false, but the Republicans are making it look like Wilson deliberately lied about Cheney.

These people make me want to vomit. But what should I expect. They even go after people like poor Michael Schiavo for political gain. Fuckem.

[emald]

18. I am amazed

that rove and * are not sitting in prison right now. How stupid is this country? All the spin in the world doesn't change the fact that rove outed this woman. All the spin in the world doesn't change the fact that our "president" (the stupid pretzel choking bicycle crashing monkey) used known false information to start a ruinous unjust unholy war on innocent people. All for profit. Greed.
These facts cannot be disproved. These facts are not even in dispute. These incompetent morons have destroyed our country, on purpose, with malice aforethought. Wow, what does it take?
I can draw only one conclusion myself and that is that this miss administration wants, desires, works tirelessly for, the destruction of the United States as we have known it. Their sedition is obvious for all to see. Lying cheating stealing; what morals?
Every day I wake to a pain in my heart knowing that the country that I twice volunteered to serve has become an ugly whore vomiting it's bile on the world.
These pukes need to be in prison. If not then our country is gone.

[scdusek]

19. Who gives a damn anymore

Nothing's going to happen to any of these ass clowns. Most people don't care any more and I'm quickly becoming one of those. I just don't know what to do any more. All people care about is if there's an 'R' or a 'D' next to someone's name and then attack accordingly. Nothing ever gets done to solve the real problems in this country. Whether Rove goes to jail or is given the congressional medal of honor doesn't change the fact that by the time my kids hit college in 12 years I won't be able to afford it because gas will be $8 per gallon and healthcare will eat up all my discretionery income.

[jokerman93]

23. It's occurred to me

It's occurred to me before, and this post kind of solidified it in my mind. Something insidious and outrageous has crept into the public consciousness. That is, the tacit premise that the rule of law is really pretty irrelevant. What counts now is the power to maintain the prevailing fiction - whatever it happens to be. And the American public seems to be happily going along with it as long as they can feel like winners.

What is true is what you can convince the public is true. If you can't convince the public with lies, spin and absurdist political theater, then maybe...maybe...you have a problem. Of course, making the public "forget" what you had them believing last month, or last year, is the trick to staying above the ever-rising pile of bullshit that has become the American ethos, the American character, and the American conscience.

The barbarians are not coming. We are the barbarians.

[bejammin075]

24. Agree! Main point: Bush covering up war LIES

This is all about Bush deciding to go to war in Iraq, at least a year before the invasion, and lying to Americans and Congress about it.

This is about Bush knowing how bad the intelligence was, and proceeding with war anyway. No matter how bad the intelligence was (and it must have been pretty bad if the best intelligence to go into Bush's speech was based on forged docs!), was was the first and only resort.

This is about Rove trying to discredit and punish Joe Wilson for exposing Bush's lies about the war.

[jokerman93]

27. Yes , the Main Point IS the War

It seems to me that nearly all the deception the American public has been subject to derives directly from the push toward Bushco's endless war. The war is a trap built out of lies.

[bobbieinok]

34. RSuskind's article in the NYTimes some time ago....we are the

'culture of reality', but we will always be behind the bush administration, because they are always creating 'new realities'.....reality is what the Bush adm says it is ....


these are paraphrases of what Suskind reported he was told by a person high in the Bush adm

someone may have a readable link.....I think someone had a link in the signature line

edited to add: found the link in the signature

http://www.kanzeon.nl/doubt.html

....

(toward the end of the article)

In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend-but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency.
The aide said that guys like me were "in what we call the reality-based community," which he defined as people who "believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality." I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. "That's not the way the world really works anymore," he continued. "We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality-judiciously, as you will-we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors . . . and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do."

more....

[Marnieworld]

37. That quote stayed with me too

They are constantly creating reality and the MSM just repeats it I believe with full knowledge that they are spreading propaganda. We have to yell louder. We have to be fearless. We can't let them get away with it. We have to re-invent the game because business as usual got us to this point. That's why all of the states' democratic parties were all in favor of Howard Dean. The man calls it like he sees it and he doesn't parse his words. We need more like him.

[buddha8]

25. problem

You have spent all this time codifying this convoluted scandal and then you unctiously ask why the Democratic Party can't run with it? Are you serious? Do you want a real answer? Do you want to come out of denial? We are living under a very functional and well organized one-party system. Not at all unlike what the Nazis were able to accomplish in Germany by 34' or so. True, the other parties have not been outlawed but then they don't need to be. The Press is bought and paid for, they ape the RNC talking points. All committees in Congress are headed by Republican operatives and Congress is very easily controled by these Jacobins. What is there that you do not understand and why are you whining about Democrats not doing anything?

It is absurd that at such a late stage in this Junta of 00' so many still wish to beleive that we are living in a democratic republic. Have you all been so easily fooled? No way in Hell Rove ever gets prosecuted or fired for this thing. Why? Because that would be assuming the first premise once again, that we are living in a functional democratic republic. But the Republic was overthrown quite a few years ago and many of you still haven't caught on. What is the matter with you? How in the world are criminals in power surrounded by other criminals going to prosecute themselves for outrageous crimes that they themselves committed? How is that possible? Please someone enlighten me.

Until you start arguing for mass mobilizations,marches and protests in the tradition of King and Ghandi you will remain lost and impotent, content to merely decry the obvious. At this late point there is only power in the people and in organizing nonviolent protest. IF and when a draft becomes necessary to prosecute a new war against IRan and or Syria and if and when they begin to draft some middle and upper middle class kids then you will witness people power. But by that time they may have already installed Martial Law and made protest illegal. If you think this is not a good likelihood then in my opinion you are not paying attention and you have not studied the history of similar regimes that have come before you.

[jokerman93]

28. BINGO! n/t

[Marnieworld]

30. You're right

The bad guys are in charge and it's formidable. But I do disagree that all politicians regardless of party affiliation are co-conspirators. We do have leaders fighting for what's right, not enough of them and not enough of a fight but they do exist.

I called for truth to be told and to be spread. The obvious result of more people knowing the truth would be the mobilization of a movement that you spoke of. Spreading the truth about the lies leading to war and death of thousands will lead to movement. Your tone was sarcastic and condescending though. All we can do is keep fighting and keep speaking truth to power. History proves that empires do fall too. It's not impossible but it starts with a fearless, clear message. So much is about defining reality and we have to fight against their framing with truth. Protests aren't silent.

[ColonelTom]

29. not to be a wet blanket, but...

The only question is whether Rove told a reporter that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.

That's incorrect, at least as it pertains to the main charge being investigated - it's whether he knew that Wilson's wife was an undercover CIA operative when he leaked her identity to the press. That's the linchpin of the case, and without it we're left with a mere perjury charge.

[Marnieworld]

31. I guess the question would be...

Whether it is possible then to know she worked at the CIA without knowing that she was a non-official covert operative? I can't imagine her name listed on a company directory. If her identity was so secret that the information was classified how could it not be wrapped in her NOC status? I'm no expert but that doesn't seem logical.

Whether Karl gets prosecuted for the treason we know he committed or he somehow finds a legal loophole that the whole leak was built around (also major indication of knowledge of guilt) is not crucial. The main point that should be stressed is that the entire incident is yet another example of the administration justifying its case for war based on lies that they knew were lies. His actions against the Wilson was to protect the overall criminal war. It matches the description of the DSM. It's another piece in the horrific puzzle that kills daily.

[Fritz67]

35. "Mere" perjury...

Isn't perjury what the Republicans used to try and excuse the Impeachment witch hunt against Clinton?
:shrug:

[SemperEadem]

32. Wow! Well said!

[ClintonTyree]

33. Excellent assessment.............

and something we shouldn't hesitate to point out at every possible opportunity. "Plamegate" is only a part of this story. The retaliation by the Bush White House, the use of these false documents to aid in their quest to invade Iraq, the lies and misinformation to the people and press of America, THAT'S the entire story. It doesn't start and end with "Plamegate". It's only a small part in this administration's "weapons of mass deception" program to invade Iraq at all costs. We and the Press must never forget this!

[Knight of Ni]

36. You must be a Republican if you believe.........

Criticizing the Iraq war and/or the Bushies' (mis)handling of it?

TREASON!!!


Illegally blowing the cover of a covert CIA operative (and an expert on WMD, the very thing Chimpy and his pals claimed Iraq threatened us with), endangering her life as well as those of her contacts, and robbing our country of valuable future intelligence, just to vindictively settle a score with a man who discredited Shrub?

HEROIC!!!


This must be held in the face of EVERY Republican who tries to paint us as traitors for daring to dissent against the Great And Powerful Bush. Jesus,I'm sick of their crap!!!!