They Figured It Out All By Themselves...
and it only took four years!
NEW YORK - Two leading columnists for rival New York Times and Washington Post have come to the same conclusion: There are many minor points and side issues and even "red herrings" in the current Libby/CIA leak trial but at its heart it is an extremely significant case revolving around the crumbling of a "cover-up."
That is, the leaking of Valerie Plame's name, and the furious approaches to reporters in the summer of 2003, was mainly in the service of trying to prevent a truth from coming out: that the administration essentially lied our way into war.
Frank Rich in his Sunday column for the Times joined David Ignatius from the Post in this matter. Sunday happens to be the day before the fourth anniversary of Colin Powell's highly inaccurate and misleading speech to the United Nations that greased the path to war.
Rich refers to Vice President Cheney's recent CNN interview in which he declared claims of setbacks in Iraq "hogwash" this way: "The vice president’s on-camera crackup reflected his understandable fear that a White House cover-up was crumbling. He knew that sworn testimony in a Washington courtroom would reveal still more sordid details about how the administration lied to take the country into war in Iraq. He knew that those revelations could cripple the White House’s current campaign to escalate that war and foment apocalyptic scenarios about Iran. Scariest of all, he knew that he might yet have to testify under oath himself.
"Mr. Cheney, in other words, understands the danger this trial poses to the White House even as some of Washington remains oblivious. From the start, the capital has belittled the Joseph and Valerie Wilson affair as 'a tempest in a teapot,' as David Broder of The Washington Post reiterated just five months ago. When 'all of the facts come out in this case, it’s going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great,"'Bob Woodward said in 2005. Or, as Robert Novak suggested in 2003 before he revealed Ms. Wilson’s identity as a C.I.A. officer in his column, 'weapons of mass destruction or uranium from Niger' are 'little elitist issues that don’t bother most of the people.' Those issues may not trouble Mr. Novak, but they do loom large to other people, especially those who sent their kids off to war over nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and nonexistent uranium.
"In terms of the big issues, the question of who first leaked Ms. Wilson’s identity (whether Mr. Libby, Richard Armitage, Ari Fleischer or Karl Rove) to which journalist (whether Mr. Woodward, Mr. Novak, Judith Miller or Matt Cooper) has always been a red herring. It’s entirely possible that the White House has always been telling the truth when it says that no one intended to unmask a secret agent. (No one has been charged with that crime.) The White House is also telling the truth when it repeatedly says that Mr. Cheney did not send Mr. Wilson on his C.I.A.-sponsored African trip to check out a supposed Iraq-Niger uranium transaction. (Another red herring, since Mr. Wilson didn’t make that accusation in the first place.)
"But if the administration is telling the truth on these narrow questions and had little to hide about the Wilson trip per se, its wild overreaction to the episode was an incriminating sign it was hiding something else."
Ignatius in the Post had written on Friday: "Why was the White House so nervous in the summer of 2003 about the CIA's reporting on alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger to build a nuclear bomb? That's the big question that runs through the many little details that have emerged in the perjury trial of Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby.
"The trial record suggests a simple answer: The White House was worried that the CIA would reveal that it had been pressured in 2002 and early 2003 to support administration claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and that in the Niger case, the CIA had tried hard to resist this pressure. The machinations of Cheney, Libby and others were an attempt to weave an alternative narrative that blamed the CIA....
"So we begin to understand why the White House was worried about the CIA in the summer of 2003: It feared the agency would breach the wall of silence about the claims regarding weapons of mass destruction.... Let me say it again: This trial is about a cover-up that failed."
I guess, this partisan junkyard prosecutor got lucky on this one...and to think that Jason Leopold was accused of getting too far out in front of this story...
That is, the leaking of Valerie Plame's name, and the furious approaches to reporters in the summer of 2003, was mainly in the service of trying to prevent a truth from coming out: that the administration essentially lied our way into war.
Frank Rich in his Sunday column for the Times joined David Ignatius from the Post in this matter. Sunday happens to be the day before the fourth anniversary of Colin Powell's highly inaccurate and misleading speech to the United Nations that greased the path to war.
Rich refers to Vice President Cheney's recent CNN interview in which he declared claims of setbacks in Iraq "hogwash" this way: "The vice president’s on-camera crackup reflected his understandable fear that a White House cover-up was crumbling. He knew that sworn testimony in a Washington courtroom would reveal still more sordid details about how the administration lied to take the country into war in Iraq. He knew that those revelations could cripple the White House’s current campaign to escalate that war and foment apocalyptic scenarios about Iran. Scariest of all, he knew that he might yet have to testify under oath himself.
"Mr. Cheney, in other words, understands the danger this trial poses to the White House even as some of Washington remains oblivious. From the start, the capital has belittled the Joseph and Valerie Wilson affair as 'a tempest in a teapot,' as David Broder of The Washington Post reiterated just five months ago. When 'all of the facts come out in this case, it’s going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great,"'Bob Woodward said in 2005. Or, as Robert Novak suggested in 2003 before he revealed Ms. Wilson’s identity as a C.I.A. officer in his column, 'weapons of mass destruction or uranium from Niger' are 'little elitist issues that don’t bother most of the people.' Those issues may not trouble Mr. Novak, but they do loom large to other people, especially those who sent their kids off to war over nonexistent weapons of mass destruction and nonexistent uranium.
"In terms of the big issues, the question of who first leaked Ms. Wilson’s identity (whether Mr. Libby, Richard Armitage, Ari Fleischer or Karl Rove) to which journalist (whether Mr. Woodward, Mr. Novak, Judith Miller or Matt Cooper) has always been a red herring. It’s entirely possible that the White House has always been telling the truth when it says that no one intended to unmask a secret agent. (No one has been charged with that crime.) The White House is also telling the truth when it repeatedly says that Mr. Cheney did not send Mr. Wilson on his C.I.A.-sponsored African trip to check out a supposed Iraq-Niger uranium transaction. (Another red herring, since Mr. Wilson didn’t make that accusation in the first place.)
"But if the administration is telling the truth on these narrow questions and had little to hide about the Wilson trip per se, its wild overreaction to the episode was an incriminating sign it was hiding something else."
Ignatius in the Post had written on Friday: "Why was the White House so nervous in the summer of 2003 about the CIA's reporting on alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger to build a nuclear bomb? That's the big question that runs through the many little details that have emerged in the perjury trial of Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby.
"The trial record suggests a simple answer: The White House was worried that the CIA would reveal that it had been pressured in 2002 and early 2003 to support administration claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and that in the Niger case, the CIA had tried hard to resist this pressure. The machinations of Cheney, Libby and others were an attempt to weave an alternative narrative that blamed the CIA....
"So we begin to understand why the White House was worried about the CIA in the summer of 2003: It feared the agency would breach the wall of silence about the claims regarding weapons of mass destruction.... Let me say it again: This trial is about a cover-up that failed."
posted by Patrick J. Fitzgerald at 2/04/2007
15 Comments:
Sorry I disagree oh Little Angel you didn't get Lucky your just that good. You said from the start it was a cover up but the White House journalist spread the word you were wrong. I even saw former Proscutors on PBS say you had no case and it was a waste of time. Yes me the wise one knew they were on the White House pay role for the spin. But as I told you over a year ago you are truly blessed and you give from your heart. Somebody up stairs likes you and I do to.
Good night sleep tight don't let the evildoes in your dreams.
Fitz that's my message under anonymous.
Fitz that thing came up as Anonymous and didn't take my username you have to fix it ok.
It's nice that the press had a profound revelation. I wonder how much information, in their new found enlightenment, they will report.
Yep, it looks like a lucky break on this case, but I would attribute it to pure skill...
G:
Best of luck Mr. Fitzgerald next week in court. I finally caught up with all the updatesof the Libby trial. I don't know what to tell Scooter. His case is a lost cause. Getting late over here. Will check the blog as much as I can next week. Enjoy the Superbowl game.
The MSM are very slow...
Eriposte is doing a very detailed and wonderful analysis of the evidence coming out of the trial.
(1)He makes it clear that certain redactions to testimony presented to the Senate Security Committee were made, not for security reasons, but to support the WH position that Iraq had indeed sought to buy yellowcake. GOP Senator Pat Roberts was the one who made those those strategic redactions.
(2)Eriposte's analyses also seem to prove that the CIA HAD REPEATEDLY found the Iraq Niger story not creditable. The only way it could have gotten into WH briefings would be if it was inserted by rogue CIA members in WINPAC.
(3)There is also an interesting note of an unprecedented meeting between the Italian Secret Service and Bush. The sequence seems to go like this: the Italians had tried to get the CIA to accept their story of the attempted yellowcake buy, the CIA kept refusing to do so. Someone in Winpac told the pres to go with the 16 words, and had the Italians meet with him to assure him the story was true.
It will make your head ache to try to follow it all, but you can find the posts on FDL and The Left Coaster, if you want to dig into it more.
Good Day Justice Bloggers... :)
It's all about the Mysterious..
How can people not have seen all this from the start? That's why I've been excited about this trial. I knew the truth about the selling of the war would come out. Even if nothing happens to this Bush regime, the truth is finally coming out. That will lead to something far more meaningful happening.
GEF
Far out...Condamima's Yellow Cake.
I wonder what Harry Belafonte would say about this?
calamityjane said...
How can people not have seen all this from the start?
Yep...It's like turning a board over in the back yard. It's amazing, the vermin that are exposed to the daylight, and they better start running for cover before the chickens spot them...Hee hehe
Hi Jackie
I did a post at 3:17 and had the same problem. Took a few minutes to upload...?
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Nothing like an Epiphany......
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Cheney and Addington have been the among the most powerful proponents of the theory of a "unitary executive," but there are indications that they have also advanced, though less publicly, a theory of a constitutionally distinct and independent vice presidency.
For a long time, talk of Cheney's unprecedented power carried with it a whiff of left-wing radicalism and Oliver Stone conspiracies. But in the last year, several serious journalistic efforts have explored the Cheney vice presidency....
If Cheney were the actual president, not just the de facto one, he simply could not govern with the same set of policies and approval ratings of 20 percent. The media focuses relentless attention on the president, on the premise that he is actually the chief executive. But for all intents and purposes, Cheney is chief, and Bush is more in the ceremonial role of the queen of England.
Yet the press buys the pretense of Bush being "the decider," and relentlessly covers Bush -- meeting with world leaders, cutting brush, holding press conferences, while Cheney works in secret, largely undisturbed. So let's take half the members of the overblown White House press corps, which has almost nothing to do anyway, and send them over to Cheney Boot Camp for Reporters. They might learn how to be journalists again, and we might learn who is running the government.
TPM
The MSM are a bunch of cover-up artists, liars and spinners aligned with the White House trying to save face now. They have much to make up to the American people, for now they should be scorned and shunned.
Anon @ 4:04 "They should be scorned and shunned." In other times and places traitors and liars might have experienced far worse consequences. It will be interesting to see what happens as more and more Americans wake up to the lies.
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