Fitz: "Libby was the first govt official KNOWN to have told a reporter"

[Oilwellian]

We finally find out who "Deep Throat" is, and five months later, we’re back trying to figure out who is Bob Woodward’s latest secret source in a White House scandal.

There are many implications to Woodward’s belated revelations of his firsthand knowledge of the CIA Leak Case, but the exculpatory "blockbuster" portrayed by Scooter Libby’s attorney Ted Wells, is not one of them.

Wells released a beautiful hunk of "chaff" — the stuff submarine captains expel to try to throw off enemy torpedoes — in his claim about Woodward’s announcement that someone at the White House told him about Valerie Plame in June, 2003. Wells made it seem as if Woodward had just proved that Libby was not the first to leak Plame’s name and/or job to a reporter, and that in so doing, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s case had just tumbled to the ground.



But he did it only by altering the truth.

Wells issued a statement at midday, the key passage of which concludes that Woodward’s "disclosure shows that Mr. Fitzgerald’s statement at his press conference of October 28, 2005 that Mr. Libby was the first government official to tell a reporter about Mr. Wilson’s wife was totally inaccurate."

But Fitzgerald never said that.

The transcript of Fitzgerald’s news conference is not disputed — nobody from his office has called up trying to get it altered after the fact. On October 28, Fitzgerald actually said: "Mr. Libby was the first government official known to have told a reporter" about Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife.

"The first government official known to have told…" is a huge difference from "The first government official to tell…"

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9665308/#051116a

[Amonester]

1. The rovian method: remove one word, and run away spinnin'

I :puke: on their spin machine.

Apparantly, 56 to 58% (and growin') see them thru and :puke: on it now...

The more they spin, the lower they drip!
The house of cards is 'dissassembling'! :)

[emulatorloo]

8. Rove method- raise Reading Comprehension Issues to an artform

or else just plain lie.

[Garbo 2004]

2. Libby's not indicted for leaking but for lying to the feds and grand jury.

So this story does nothing to harm that case. Instead, it seems to lend credence that Administration officials were engaging in a concerted coordinated leakfest to journalists to get the Wilson info out there. One would leak, another confirm. Rinse and repeat.

Rove talks to Novak (as a second confirming source, oh make that "official A") and then reports the conversation to Libby. Rove talks to Cooper and reports back to...oh, Hadley. Isn't that interesting. Did Hadley talk to no one? Was Hadley indeed Woodward's source? All these folks just casually dropping the same bits of info, in almost identical words, to journalists within this timeframe.

Nah, this helps Fitzgerald more than Libby.

[Justice Is Comin]

3. And if it was Hadley, now he's on the hook too.

There is a very strange question unanswered here.

Fitzgerald certainly would have interviewed anyone listed on the White House logs shown to have spoken to Libby or others.

If Woodward was in that White House talking to him as he openly admits now, why wasn't his name on that White House log?

[Norquist Nemesis]

4. Woodward has no bearing on Libby. Libby LIED

and that is what he's being charged with.

Woodward only has bearing as to how far back this Administration start planting the seeds...manipulating the *cough*free and independant*cough* media to influence public support for an invasion into Iraq.

The Espionage Act needs a thorough review with regard to the (s)elected officials running our country.

http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/html/uscode18/usc_sec_18_00000793----000-.html

[speedoo]

5. This is a point the MSM is completely unaware of.

All they are doing is repeating the Libby lawyer talking point: that the Woodward disclosure "undermines Fitzgerald's case againt Libby."

And these presstitutes actually get paid for this?

Excellent find, by the way, GO.

Nominated.

[raysr]

6. I don't believe the MSM is

"unaware" of anything.

[Berry Cool]

7. Neither do I, especially that the person who WROTE the above,

and to whom George Oilwellian should have given proper credit for writing the above, is none other than Keith Olbermann.

If he isn't a part of the MSM, I don't know what he is.

On his show last night, he made the same points he made on this blog--including taking ABC to task for not noticing the same thing he did, and for swallowing the idea whole that somehow all of this hurts Fitz and helps clear Libby.

So, the next time someone on DU is tempted to get out that great big tar brush and smear the entire MSM with it for being lazy and ignorant, drinking the Kool-Aid and repeating the lies...please, please remember that we still have Keith Olbermann.

[speedoo]

10. Thanks for pointing out who the author is.

Still, Keith is a voice in the wilderness. What other member of the MSM is digging and analyzing independently for the truth?

How many of the hundreds of other MSM are ignoring the rethug talking points? Jon Stewart? I love him, but he is into comedy not journalism, which places him outside the MSM group.

I stand by first post in this thread.

[annabanana]

9. They are counting on INNATTENTION...

This has worked for them so often in the past that they think it will again. We have to keep calling them on it.. In public when there's a call-in or other opportunity... In LTTE's when we see it in print.... and email them every time you hear this crap.

The lie will die sooner when we can get then to add a caveat, at least.