Screaming Penguin - Source Does Matter

I read some more about this at various sites and this is really ridiculous. First off I thought the administration denied these black sites existed, so why the need for such concern over something that doesnt exist? Me thinks they doth protest too much.

And that aside we are not talking about the outing of a particular CIA agent here are we - that after all is not a big deal per the same jackasses - rather we are talking about revealing an entire program of frankly illegal prisons. Prisons without international observers - without even oversight from Congress - likely illegal prisons per international law.

Drawing a Plame parallel here is just total bullshit.

Talk about a "stunt" or an "affront", just amazing.

Nobody outed a covert CIA agent. Plame was not a covert operative, and most indications show that everyone knew she worked for the agency because her own husband told everyone that.

An agent, working in the Directorate of Operations for a CIA front company whose own family didn't know her eployer was not a covert agent? The whole "covert" status arguement stems directly from a CIA internal pay-grade issue: she had not served overseas in 5 years and was therefore "dropped" in status. To say she wasn't covert, or that if nothing else, exposing the CIA front company and who knows how many agents had no effect is disingenuous in the extreme. Moreover, the fact that the CIA referred the matter to Justice indicated that they felt it impeded their operational status -- much like they did with the "black sites" case. You can argue the justification for either of these, but I think to diminish Wilson's signifigance is both not corroborated by the external actions of the agency, nor something I have heard anyone in a position to actually know say anything about. Even the galactic asshat Bill Buckley noted that his getting "outted" 15 years after the fact and after he was no longer in the employ of the CIA was a far cry from exposing perhaps an entire chain of NOCs working for "Brewster, Jennings & Assoc."

It sounds like Fitzgerald may have ignored witnesses who came forward saying that they new, due to Joe Wilson, that Plame worked at the CIA. Granted, this is a newsmax.com story, but it names names. I just don't think this is as big a deal as everyone, including "I've got a book coming out and want publicity" Joe Wilson, is making it out to be. With that said, and let me restate this, if Libby committed perjury, than he should have to pay for this crime. Kinda like Clinton did. (Doh! Did I say that??? lol)

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/11/9/115114.shtml

If they were saying 'unnamed sources' or 'rumored'. But they are actually naming names, some of which are in the mainstream media, something I would think wouldn't be taken likely if false. So I don't think you can immediately cry bullshit on this one.

And yes, the CIA might have thought something wrong had occured, that's why it was Fitzgeralds primary goal. Instead he found perjury on something else. Could it possibly be that NO CRIME actually occured?

Or how about this - if Valerie Plame's activity in the CIA was 'common knowledge' to news folks and everyone else, maybe Libby didn't think telling her name was 'bad'. It seems like it was not illegal, and maybe, just maybe there was no intent to do harm. In order for him to be held responsible I think you would need to 1) Prove that Valerie Plame WAS a covert agent and a law was broken and 2) that Libby KNEW she was a covert agent but spilled the beans anyways - criminal intent. And if this is the case, then why isn't Joe Wilson being questioned for the same exact crime if he knew she was a covert agent and in fact was blabbing it around town???

Besides, leaking something that everybody knows isn't leaking, is it? Rather it is just an acknowledgment of common knowledge.

I realize it is tempting to see bad intentions in everything the Republicans do (and yes, I see plenty of it), but at the same time you should also see bad intentions in many things the Dems do.

Right now I think the weight of the evidence points to nothing more than Libby possibly, and stupidly, committing perjury. I could be wrong, but then I'm not one to convict without evidence.

Couple of corrections: Fitzgerald found only perjury in a related matter, but did not prove his primary goal. It is possible a crime was committed - perjury. Nothing else has been found.

Out of that list, however, the only one that actually does "Reporting" is NPR, and they have many of the same problems as any other of the big news agencies. Everyone else in that list simply cites reporting done elsewhere. Drudge and NewsMax, however, both pretend to be generating original reporting, which about 85% of the time on both of them either turns out to be completely made up or so wildly off from the truth, I don't count anything I see on them as being remotely true until it shows up in AP or CNN.

On a related note to the end of my last comment, here is some info we can put in NEXT YEARS state of the union.

Pre-war CIA report questioned al Qaeda-Iraq ties

Brilliant! You mean the same UN that did not sanction the war but said we should take 30 days to look some more. That UN? You are using the UN to justify the invasion when the UN would not sanction it. Fucking brilliant.

No one disputed that there were UN resolutions in place, "pal".

UN resolutions are NOT the same as claiming Iraq had nuclear weapons to justify a war that the UN did not sanction. Nor are they the same as claiming Iraq had ties to Al Qaeda which they did not have. The UN resolutions were NOT what you or the President used before the war to justify it, dont start pulling that now.

And in point of fact, the evidence and intelligence did NOT come from the CIA, the CIA has been at odds with the White House over that very claim for a long damn time. The CIA had contradictory and unsteady claims (now proven to even be forgeries) and SAID THAT. The Bush administration chose to spin that into "we know he has weapons of mass destruction and we know exactly where they are right now - we know Iraq harbors Al Qaeda - we know Iraq had 9/11 connections" all of which just happens to be complete bullshit.

Deal with it man, you were lied too and you bought it. You are going to tell me today, after everything that has happened, that you dont think the Bush administration lied about the case for the war in Iraq?

We just will have to differ "pal". I just put pal in quotes because of the way it was directed at me, comma, pal. Seemed a little confrontational there, but hey maybe I am just a sensitive guy. All I meant was "pal" back at ya, pal.

Me and the UN. I dont recall saying anywhere in this thread that the UN is great and that there approval was needed for anything, hmmm? What I was doing was calling bullshit on you using the UN to justify the Iraq situation when clearly the UN (and all the countries you mention) did not support an invasion. The UN also did not RULE OUT an invasion though, something everyone loves to overlook, they simply said 30 more days at the time. The UN are pussies and horrible and so on, I get it. We told them them to piss off when it came to their recommendations on Iraq (and the inspectors, etc) so we should live with that decision and not cry "UN" every time we try to justify messopotamia. I did not say the UN was good or bad, I said the UN and their resolutions cannot be used to justify our NON UN RELATED actions.

Nobody ever said Saddam wasnt a bad guy, I dont think we need to dig that dead horse up, even though maybe we already have.

And I never said I trusted the Dems, what does that have to do with this?

I think we can agree we are both skeptical of gevernment and we have a very different outlook on the Iraq situation.

Now heres a real low blow, how is Oklahmoma doing this year?