Safire in full spin mode on MTP

[hiaasenrocks]

I've never liked that guy anyway, but this morning he is particularly disgusting.

He's saying Fitzgerald found that there was no illegal outing of a covert CIA agent.

Ummm, Fitz never said that.

[displacedtexan]

1. Fox News Sunday is pulling the same crap.

Kristol is particularly petulant this morning, and Juan Williams is doing a piss poor job refuting him.

[kevinmc]

9. Juan Williams is doing a piss poor job refuting him.......

As usual. That guy is useless at defending anything but his butt in that chair. If he was any good he'd be gone.

[spanone]

2. I haven't seen MTP yet, but Safire is generally full of shit.

[MelissaB]

3. I expected to hear this today, but it still makes me angry.

Spin spin spin...I'm getting so dizzy.

[Gin]

4. Libby was indicted for obstruction of justice......doesnt that mean Fitz

wasn't able to get to the truth because Libby didnt tell the truth?

We cant let the thugs focus on the lie charge...the obstruction is the reason hes indicted....the rest is icing on the cake.

Unless I mis-understand the whole damn thing.

g

[AnnInLa]

5. Most of them agreed, there was NO outing of a covert CIA agent

I thought Fitz said he was unable to determine this because of the obstruction by Libby??? Someone refresh my memory.

[hiaasenrocks]

7. I thought Judy Woodruff was about to jump

in and correct the record...but she didn't.

We have a press that is overly deferential to this Administration. I don't know why I'm shocked anymore.

*sigh*

[Dudley_DUright]

17. Timmeh stepped in an said "whoops, we are out of time,

to be continued..." :puke:

Safire was spinning like a madman, but you could tell by his demeanor that his heart was not in it.

[Sydnie]

6. Cornyn (sp?) said the same thing on This Week

They have nothing else to stand on - he didn't indict on the base charge. I say ... he hasn't done that yet. It could still happen.

I see they all got their talking points before the shows this morning.

[Tom Bombadil]

8. Fitz just hasn't been able

to prove that they outed a CIA agent. Too much sand in his eyes.

But this ain't over yet...

[Admiral Loinpresser]

10. As a former prosecutor,

there is a profound difference between stating that someone is exonerated and simply refraining from making an allegation in an indictment.

It reminds me of the old cartoon with a jury foreperson saying: "Your Honor, we find the defendent not guilty, but not all that innocent either."

As to Fitz not indicting for the underlying crime, as others have pointed out, the investigation is ongoing. But even if Fitz never indicts on the underlying crime, it cannot be reasonably be interpreted as exoneration for anyone with respect to that crime. The only responsible interpretation is that Fitz felt he didn't have evidence sufficient to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

Safire was spinning like a top, true to his Nixonian roots.

[wtmusic]

13. Good insights

Somehow John Dean doesn't feel the need to revert to those roots, however

[Z_I_Peevey]

11. How is Fat Timmy holding up?

I might have to watch the replay if he's crumbling.

[wtmusic]

12. Maybe someone should ask the question

of *why* Scooter was lying (if Fitz filed charges he must have solid evidence of intent).

The most obvious explanation (to those not in an unhealthy state of denial) is that there is a coverup. Or maybe Scoot just decided it was a good day to tell some tall ones. :eyes:

[Tom Bombadil]

16. Exactly. Why did Scooter lie?

A question the right-wing has been unable to answer. Why lie if you've got nothing to hide? Are we to assume he didn't know that a CIA officer's identity is classified and that he was merely trying to cover up for his ignorance of this fact.

[wtmusic]

19. They'll probably try to play that card

ignoring that it would be a risking going to prison just to cover up a personal embarrassment.

Can we apply some common sense, or is that beyond "the four corners" of the indictment?

[pdxmom]

14. This is the Right Wing talking point on the entire matter. n/t

[mirrera]

15. How about that crap about a "narrative"

He laid out exactly what is going to happen. The narrative right now is a downer for Bush but soon the press will start a new narrative all about "the come back". I suppose the Diebold programmers are preparing the software to fit the new narrative of our "decisive come back kid" GW. Safire also tried to frame Fitz as a harmer of the first amendment as concerns reporter's sources. He gushed over Judy Miller, but Woodruff quickly brought up how controversial she is even at the Times, and that reporters were central to the investigation. Russert backed her up saying that even the Judge who is for a "shield" for Reporters said in this case it wouldn't hold. The other Times guy made it a POINT to say this investigation proves their is no "cancer" in the Whitehouse, just a lot of bad luck and a mis-reading of what the American people want. No conspiracy, move on folks nothing to see here.

I was shouting at him through the T.V. but he just wouldn't shut up. Had to excuse my language to my kids but I think they don't even notice that mommy is watching a shill again.

The same kind of crap was said during the "robbery" charges in Watergate. Just a low level burglary...move on.

They will eat their words.


http://NoBullshiRt.com

[leesa]

18. I think it's hysterical that Timmy, who has worn out his knees blowing

this criminal administration, was implicated as the source by Libby. He will still hug and slobber over them even though they would be more than willing to wrap his ass in the mess. Just like McCain.

[mirrera]

20. agree...n/t

[Roland99]

21. WTF? Russert let *this* crap through from Safire with NO rebuttal?!?! >>>

Safire: ...This whole thing started as an investigation of the violation of a law. And the law that was violated was you must not deliberately out an agent who is undercover. And what the special counsel found is that law was not broken.

MR. RUSSERT: That’s a very important point.

:wtf:

Damnit, Timmy! Safire just LIED and you let him get away with it!

In fact, this VERY talking point was predicted and addressed in Fitzgerald's press conference!!!

Well, why is this a leak investigation that doesn’t result in a charge? I’ve been trying to think about how to explain this, so let me try. I know baseball analogies are the fad these days. Let me try something.

If you saw a baseball game and you saw a pitcher wind up and throw a fastball and hit a batter right smack in the head, and it really, really hurt them, you’d want to know why the pitcher did that. And you’d wonder whether or not the person just reared back and decided, I’ve got bad blood with this batter. He hit two home runs off me. I’m just going to hit him in the head as hard as I can.

You also might wonder whether or not the pitcher just let go of the ball or his foot slipped, and he had no idea to throw the ball anywhere near the batter’s head. And there’s lots of shades of gray in between.

You might learn that you wanted to hit the batter in the back and it hit him in the head because he moved. You might want to throw it under his chin, but it ended up hitting him on the head.

And what you’d want to do is have as much information as you could. You’d want to know: What happened in the dugout? Was this guy complaining about the person he threw at? Did he talk to anyone else? What was he thinking? How does he react? All those things you’d want to know.

And then you’d make a decision as to whether this person should be banned from baseball, whether they should be suspended, whether you should do nothing at all and just say, Hey, the person threw a bad pitch. Get over it.

In this case, it’s a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn’t to one person. It wasn’t just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us.

And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused?

Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray?

And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He’s trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view.

As you sit here now, if you’re asking me what his motives were, I can’t tell you; we haven’t charged it.

So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make.

I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge.

This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime.I will say this: Mr. Libby is presumed innocent. He would not be guilty unless and until a jury of 12 people came back and returned a verdict saying so.

But if what we allege in the indictment is true, then what is charged is a very, very serious crime that will vindicate the public interest in finding out what happened here.

<…>

QUESTION: Mr. Fitzgerald, the Republicans previewed some talking points in anticipation of your indictment and they said that if you didn’t indict on the underlying crimes and you indicted on things exactly like you did indict — false statements, perjury, obstruction — these were, quote/unquote, technicalities, and that it really was over reaching and excessive.

And since, when and if they make those claims, now that you have indicted, you won’t respond, I want to give you an opportunity now to respond to that allegation which they may make. It seems like that’s the road they’re going down.

FITZGERALD: And I don’t know who provided those talking points. I assume…

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: I’m not asking — OK.

QUESTION: (OFF-MIKE)

FITZGERALD: I’ll be blunt.

That talking point won’t fly. If you’re doing a national security investigation, if you’re trying to find out who compromised the identity of a CIA officer and you go before a grand jury and if the charges are proven — because remember there’s a presumption of innocence — but if it is proven that the chief of staff to the vice president went before a federal grand jury and lied under oath repeatedly and fabricated a story about how he learned this information, how he passed it on, and we prove obstruction of justice, perjury and false statements to the FBI, that is a very, very serious matter.

ARGH!! The fucking arrogance of the GOP spinmeisters and politicians! This was ADDRESSED BY FITZGERALD and they STILL push their spin and the sad thing is still gets a free pass!!!

:mad: :mad: :mad: