National Journal: Bush Told Prosecutors He "Directed" Cheney To Discredit Joe Wilson...

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Jul 4 2006, 10:28 AM) [snapback]281047[/snapback]</div>

And the problem is?

The President is the one person in the nation who CAN disclose that information.

 

The President is the one person in the nation who can pardon Moussaoui but it would be unacceptable.

Why is it acceptable for the President to reveal a covert agent for political purposes?

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gschoen @ Jul 4 2006, 11:16 AM) [snapback]281064[/snapback]</div>

If she were in a covert status, her hubby should not reveal it either...

 

Gee, that makes it OK I guess. I mean, it's not like any lives were in danger or her being "outed" had any impact on the security of the Nation.

 

Rove's a genius.

BUT: how much has this 3-year goose chase of an investigation cost us, and the time and trouble of all involved? Why couldn't this have been revealed from the git-go, with everyone having been saved the trouble?

If the Dems win either house of Congress, we're going to hear a lot about impeachment.

It seems the final two years of every President's term is filled with high-level investigations and recriminations instead of doing the people's business. I'm tired of it.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Jul 4 2006, 02:22 PM) [snapback]281110[/snapback]</div>

And you can prove this how?

"because, if you can, there is still an ongoing investigation by a duly appointed (read: not the media) that may want to interview you under oath.

 

What have Cheney and the shrub's public statements been through the years regarding Plum and Wilson ? I seem to remember anything from "plausible deniability" to outright lies, but some choice quotes are in order.

Somewhat off topic, if the US gets through the shrub/repub years without a dictatorship, it will be high time to revisit the powers and due process allowed in 'the interests of national security.' The shrub's abuses of it are mind boggling.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(EricGo @ Jul 8 2006, 01:32 AM) [snapback]282933[/snapback]</div>

What I find more mind boggling is the way cons blindly defend his every move. I expect shrub to lie, cheat and steal. His personal history is rampant with such behavior. However, normal intelligent people following lock step behind him is beyond any reasonable expectation. Hell, while I didn't find Clinton's blow job to be of anyone's business, most dems immediately distanced themselves from him during that time. Cons defense of shrub is indefensable, and proves beyond a doubt these people are mere mindless robots.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(gschoen @ Jul 4 2006, 11:16 AM) [snapback]281064[/snapback]</div>

Show me where it says "reveal a covert agent".

Even if we assume Valerie Plame's not-so-secret cover was blown by the President, he is the one person in the country who is allowed by law to do so.

And that's probably why, no matter who did it, the President will take the blame.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Jul 8 2006, 01:06 PM) [snapback]283060[/snapback]</div>

On the first point, I think you are wrong. I have heard commentators mention that it was "common knowledge" inside the beltway that Plame worked for the CIA (it was so common, in fact, that the original mention of her didn't seem unusual to Robert Novak.) Her husband, the real target of the discrediting, has said that she was not a covert agent on the day that Novak said she worked for the CIA; she drove to Langley every day, and worked there instead of in her "cover" offices in Boston. The news agencies trying to prevent their reporters, Judith Miller and Matt Cooper from going to jail rather than reveal their sources testified that they knew her cover had been blown in the mid-1990's by a Moscow spy and later by the Cubans. They believed she was "called home" and was part of the Washington, DC social circuit along with Joe Wilson, her husband. See the Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame

On the second point, I think you are right (for the first clause of you sentence, anyway). It is morally reprehensible to engage in any effort to "discredit" someone by using innuendo about their family, and separately, morally reprehensible to reveal a cover for an agent, even if the agent is no longer working under that cover. It may be illegal to reveal a cover or national secret that is already blown, and if so, anyone guilty of it should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

And by the way, I include Robert Novak, Judith Miller and Matt Cooper in that category. They should all be charged if the evidence supports that they violated the law. Reporters do not get a pass at revealing state secrets.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(IsrAmeriPrius @ Jul 8 2006, 07:54 PM) [snapback]283190[/snapback]</div>

Or her husband, evidently.

No matter, we agree on the most important principle: even if there's "no harm done", if the disclosure was illegal and met the standard of endangering national security, then those that can be held responsible should be prosecuted. And even if it isn't illegal, such as for the President who is immune from that particular law, it is morally reprehensible.

 

Well, I guess resigning (firing oneself), would be a good way to escape impeachment.

 

The Office of President is all about character.

This is just the last in a long line of increasingly serious red flags indicating the character, or lack thereof, of the current President.

I'll take a man who cheats on his wife and lies about sex over the current resident of the White House any day.

Poster boy for faith having no correlation to morals, ethics or character. After his term is over, he should go into tele-evangelism.

 

<div class='quotetop'>QUOTE(MarinJohn @ Jul 8 2006, 11:07 AM) [snapback]282977[/snapback]</div>

This is because the Bush admin and those that support it are nationalistic while posing as patriotic. There is a huge difference.

George Orwell wrote the following paragraph in 1945 describing nationalists.

"Actions are held to be good or bad, not on their own merits, but according to who does them, and there is almost no kind of outrage -- torture, the use of hostages, forced labour, mass deportations, imprisonment without trial, forgery, assassination, the bombing of civilians -- which does not change its moral colour when it is committed by "our" side."

Sound familier?