Not this one:

Congressman Joe Wilson (R-SC) appears to be a decent and honorable man. Part of his background includes military service (with four sons currently serving). The truth czar’s impassioned outburst during President Obama’s healthcare speech may seem out of step with his character and his military discipline, but he vented/channeled what many frustrated Americans were shouting into their tv sets, while provoking a million-mob strong march to turn out in D.C.: You LIE.

Not only is former ambassador Joe Wilson a liar; but the current president of the United States is one, too.

Congressman Wilson broke decorum and the rules of civility with his outburst (not like Democrats didn’t do this during Bush’s speech). But he manned up and offered his apology (accepted by President Obama) while not backing down from the facts of the matter. If Democrats wish to press for a forced apology (not happening) for nothing more than political humiliation, then lets bring to the floor Charlie Rangel and his ethical transgress. Where was the disapproval resolution for Democrats who booed President Bush? Did Harry Reid ever pay through the nose for his comment about President Bush as a “loser” and a “liar“? Did the Pelosi vs. CIA embarrassment ever get resolved? Apparently not, since she’s still House Speaker.

Joe Wilson’s charge may have been improper, but it achieved positive results. (He could use your support).

What is most remarkable about President Obama’s speech last Wednesday (and again, since), was just how divisive it was; and how un-evolved from previous speeches. What bizarro world is it that talking heads live in when they ooh and aah the partisan campaign speech that was anything but presidential?

Status quo? Who’s advocating for that?

Republicans haven’t been offering alternative bills and solutions? Lies, spin, strawman, and more lies and spin.

Last Friday, September 11th, Investors Business Daily put out a brilliant piece as part of their Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure series. Here, they dismantle piece by piece, some of the misinformation and spin in President Obama’s healthcare speech:

Speaking Of Misinformation

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, September 11, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Reform: Millions of Americans finally got to hear the Democrats’ pitch on health care reform, made by their top salesman. But they heard nothing new — just a lot of discredited myths recycled as the truth.

For the record, we support improving our health care system. As is, it has too many rules, too much government spending and too few market forces to keep costs low and quality high.

We spend north of $2 trillion every year on health care — 17% of our GDP, the most of any wealthy nation. If that sounds like a lot, remember this: An estimated 47% of that already is spent by the government. And government’s share will grow even without “reform.”

Look closely at the plans so far to emerge from Congress. What the Democrats have proposed, in essence, is a government takeover of nearly one-fifth of our nation’s economy. When brought up in Congress, this idea has been rejected repeatedly. Yet, somehow, the idea never dies.

That’s why the president’s speech Wednesday night was a big disappointment.

Rather than a breakthrough that would remove government’s stranglehold on a once-healthy market and move us toward true reform, we heard a lot of old bromides and myths — things we just can’t let go uncorrected. Too much is at stake.

So following are 15 of the biggest misconceptions — and there are many more, we assure you — that we found in the speech:

• “The uninsured . . . live every day just one accident or illness away from bankruptcy. These are not primarily people on welfare.”

Actually, of the 46 million people the census estimates don’t have insurance, some 20 million have incomes above average and could afford to buy it, according to a study by former Congressional Budget Office Director June O’Neill.

Of the remaining 26 million uninsured, an estimated 13.7 million are poor. They are eligible for Medicaid — the state health care programs for the poor. But many, too, are illegals — about 8 million.

Though they’re eligible, research from the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association suggests as many as 14 million uninsured Americans qualify for public coverage, but don’t enroll. And as many as 6 million are enrolled, but don’t report it to the government, according to the National Center for Policy Analysis.

That leaves about 5 million people with no care.

By the way, according to the Census Bureau, America now has 37 million people in poverty. But Medicaid enrollment covers 55 million people — at a cost of $350 billion a year.

Based on this, no one should be without care. Which leads us to wonder: Is nationalizing our health care system really necessary to take care of people who already have care available to them?

• “Many other Americans . . . are still denied insurance due to previous illnesses or conditions that insurance companies decide are too risky or expensive to cover.”

This statement betrays a profound ignorance of what insurance is. If you can buy insurance after you’ve gotten sick, it’s not really insurance, is it? And why have insurance at all? It’s an incentive to simply wait until you get sick, then make someone else pay for it.

To see how absurd this is, let’s take the same concept to auto insurance. Why not let people buy insurance after they get in an accident? One reason, of course, is it leads to fiscal and personal recklessness.

• “There are now more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage . . . every day, 14,000 Americans lose their coverage.”

As noted above, the bulk of the 30-plus million uninsured actually can get coverage — and in many cases, qualify for existing government programs. But how about 14,000 Americans losing their coverage each day? A little math shows this is just a scare statistic.

Multiply it out, and it comes to 5.1 million people losing coverage in a year. Sound scary? Consider that, according to the census, 46.3 million Americans don’t currently have insurance — 600,000 more than last year. That means that, along with 14,000 Americans losing their coverage each day, another 12,400 Americans are signing up for it — even in the middle of a brutal recession.

Those who lose insurance do so usually because they’ve lost a job. Most are without insurance for a couple of months or so. The best way to boost the number of insured — and one that “costs” nothing — is to cut taxes, ease regulations and slash government spending. Those policies are all proven job creators.

• “We spend one-and-a-half times more per person on health care than any other country, but we aren’t any healthier for it.”

This is a non sequitur. We spend one and a half times more per person, true. But because our health care here is better. That’s right — better. True, our life expectancy of 78.1 years — which is up sharply from just a decade ago — ranks us 30th in the world in longevity. But look a little closer at the data.

The U.S. homicide rate is two to three times higher than in other industrial nations. And we drive a lot more than others, so our auto fatality rate of 14.24 deaths per 100,000 people is higher than in Germany (6.19), France (7.4) or Canada (9.25). Add to this, we eat far more than other countries on average, contributing to higher levels of heart disease, stroke, diabetes and cancer.

When all those factors are figured in, according to a recent study by Robert Ohsfeldt of Texas A&M and John Schneider of the University of Iowa, Americans actually live longer than people in other countries — thanks mainly to our excellent health care.

In case anyone missed it, Charles Krauthammer’s excellent piece regarding the myth of prevention as “cost effective”.

• Rising health care premiums are “why American businesses that compete internationally — like our automakers — are at a huge disadvantage.”

Well, right and wrong. Soaring health care premiums are a problem for some. But who’s to blame for this? Government health care programs, which make up 47% of all health care spending, are the biggest drivers of rising insurance premiums.

For example, Medicare forces doctors and hospitals to give patients 20% to 30% discounts on their care and drugs. Sounds great. But who pays for the “discount”? Private insurers, that’s who. And they pass it on to businesses. This is yet another case of government causing a problem, then blaming the victim.

Even so, in some industries health care premiums are an enormous problem and competitive liability. This is certainly true of the auto and steel industries. But they have no one to blame but themselves.

They gave gold-plated benefit packages to their unions during the fat times, and now that times are lean, want us — taxpayers — to make good on their extravagant promises.

This is why so many big businesses support nationalized health care. It bails them out of their own bad decisions — and by those imposed by government. Just last week a congressional oversight panel announced that taxpayers were unlikely to recoup much of the $81 billion they spent to bail out GM and Chrysler. That’s another indirect health care tax your children and grandchildren will have to pay.

• “Finally, our health care system is placing an unsustainable burden on taxpayers. . . . If we do nothing to slow these skyrocketing costs, we will eventually be spending more on Medicare and Medicaid than every other government program combined.”

Are we supposed to believe that adding more government will bring down government costs?

Medicare is already spending more than it is taking in through payroll taxes. Medicare trustees expect the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund part of the program to be insolvent by 2019. From now through 2017, it will need $342 billion of taxpayers’ money in order to keep paying hospital insurance benefits alone. Over the next 50 years or so, Medicare’s shortfall is expected to hit $37 trillion — an almost unbelievable deficit nearly three times our current GDP.

If Medicare has done one thing, it’s proved that government programs always cost more than their original projections. Citing the runaway costs of Medicare is an argument against, not for, further government intervention.

• “On the right, there are those who argue that we should end the employer-based system and leave individuals to buy health insurance on their own. . . . I believe it makes more sense to build on what works and fix what doesn’t, rather than try to build an entirely new system from scratch.”

Discouraging employer-based coverage and encouraging individuals to buy their own insurance would help. But only if lawmakers make two real reforms, neither requiring a “new system from scratch.”

First, Washington must give tax credits for premiums paid on individual policies. That would make them more affordable for more people. Second, Washington has to make it easier for Americans to have health savings accounts. HSAs hold costs down because account holders self-ration treatment. They also give people more control over their health care.

• “Nothing in this plan will require you or your employer to change the coverage or the doctor you have.”

Shawn Tully, Fortune editor at large, dug into the legislation and found that for “Americans in large corporations, ‘keeping your own plan’ has a strict deadline. In five years, like it or not, you’ll get dumped into the exchange,” a government program in which heavily regulated private companies sell insurance policies.

Workers who buy their own insurance or begin coverage through small businesses will also be forced into the exchange if their plans change in any way, because it’s then considered a new plan. Since plans generally change policies every year, Tully says, “it’s likely that millions of employees will lose their plans in 12 months.”

According to a July study by the Lewin Group and the Heritage Foundation, health reform could cause as many as 88 million Americans to lose their private, employer-based coverage.

• “If you lose your job or change your job, you will be able to get coverage. If you strike out on your own and start a small business, you will be able to get coverage. We will do this by creating a new insurance exchange.”

The president says this is “a marketplace where individuals and small businesses will be able to shop for health insurance at competitive prices.” But it won’t be a real marketplace. Participating insurers will be saddled with a host of mandates. Those that don’t like the regulations will be left out. There’ll be little room for competition.

The Cato Institute’s Michael Tanner has said that “in practice, at least as demonstrated in Massachusetts,” an exchange “can quickly devolve into a regulatory body.”

• “Some of people’s concerns have grown out of bogus claims . . . The best example is . . . that we plan to set up panels of bureaucrats with the power to kill off senior citizens. . . . It is a lie, plain and simple.”

As far as we know, there is no provision for a death panel buried in the 1,018-page bill. But we do know how Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, the administration’s health care czar, feels about treating those who need the most help.

“When the worse-off can benefit only slightly while better-off people could benefit greatly, allocating (treatment) to the better-off is often justifiable.”

So the federal government won’t be actively killing the old and the sick. It will just let them die by denying them the care that will supposedly be available to every American.

• “There are those who also claim that our reform effort will insure illegal immigrants. This, too, is false — the reforms I’m proposing would not apply to those who are here illegally.”

Tough words are one thing, enforcement is another. As IBD’s Sean Higgins reported last week: “Some independent analysis indicates — contrary to Obama’s claim — that the House health bill could result in coverage being extended to illegal immigrants.”

It starts with the mandate for everyone to buy insurance, including illegals. Their choices will be presumably through the “exchange,” and they won’t be eligible for subsidies to buy. But the non-partisan Congressional Research Service warns there’s no verification mechanism. An amendment by GOP Rep. Dean Heller of Nevada, to use electronic immigration records to verify eligibility for subsidies, was shot down by Democrats.

Enforcement woes are nothing new. The U.K.’s nationalized system treats as many as a million illegal immigrants a year because eligibility verification at the point of service is nearly impossible. It’s now giving up the ghost of trying because illegals have won the right to be treated at taxpayer expense as a “human right.” That’s brought new waves of “health tourism” as word spreads.

Cabinet officials, such as Labor Secretary Hilda Solis, support union demands to give amnesty to 12 million illegals. If so, they will get public health care. And hospitals that continue to treat illegals through emergency rooms, are reimbursed through Medicaid.

• “My health care proposal has also been attacked by some who oppose reform as a ‘government takeover’ of the entire health care system . . . Unfortunately, in 34 states, 75% of the insurance market is controlled by five or fewer companies. . . Without competition, the price of insurance goes up and the quality goes down.”

Obama is right about limited numbers of insurers in states. They’re the last ones able to survive the layers of bureaucratic mandates and regulations without going bankrupt.

The fastest way to create choice for consumers isn’t by adding a government option, but by breaking down trade barriers across state lines. By letting citizens buy insurance from any state, a truly competitive market can develop, with choices in coverage, service and price. It would be far better if each American could buy health insurance from any of the nation’s 1,300 insurers, not just a handful in their own states.

• “Despite all this, some . . . argue that these private (insurance) companies can’t fairly compete with the government. And they’d be right if taxpayers were subsidizing this public option. But they won’t be. . . . (The public option) would . . . keep pressure on private insurers to keep their policies affordable and treat their customers better . . .”

When the government acts as both producer and regulator of its own and everyone else’s products, the playing field is tilted because there’s a basic conflict of interest. It’s also a recipe for cronyism and corruption. Witness Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

We looked at the after-tax margins of some big health insurers over the last 12 months. Here’s what we found: Among HMOs, Humana, 3.1%. Cigna, 4%. Wellpoint, 5%. United Health Group, 4.4%. Broader health insurers, like Unum (8.6% after-tax margin) and AFLAC (12.3%), do a bit better.

The point is, these are not outrageous profits. And the health care industry’s $13 billion in 2008 profits pale in comparison to the $65 billion in annual fraud in Medicare alone.

• “I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits — either now or in the future. Period. And to prove that I’m serious, there will be a provision in this plan that requires us to come forward with more spending cuts if the savings we promised don’t materialize.”

From the folks who brought us a $10 trillion deficit over the next decade, that’s hard to swallow. The White House has assured us the public option would be funded by premiums. So, it’s hard to know what he means by savings or spending cuts.

Although Medicare and Medicaid, are slated for $313 billion in cuts, the government has yet to eliminate the $65 billion or so that goes to waste and fraud. They don’t need health reform to do that, they can do it now.

• “The only thing this plan would eliminate is the hundreds of billions of dollars in waste and fraud as well as unwarranted subsidies in Medicare that go to insurance companies — subsidies that do everything to pad their profits and nothing to improve your care.”

Speaking of waste and fraud, as we said, why can’t it be done today instead of waiting for some health care reform bill to pass? The president proposes $313 billion in Medicaid and Medicare cuts, saying $110 billion would come from reducing scheduled increases in Medicare payments.

“That would encourage health care providers to increase productivity,” White House budget director Peter Orszag told reporters. $110 billion would come from ending payments to hospitals to treat uninsured patients. But much of that comes from treating illegals, who aren’t supposed to be eligible for the public option.

Another $75 billion would come from “better pricing of Medicare drugs,” Orszag said.

What he doesn’t get is that some $10 billion of Medicare funding goes to dubious expenditures like hospitals padding bills because they are paid too little and must make up lost revenue in volume.

Cutting payments more means more padding, as the Mayo Clinic has warned. That means rationing. The Democrats’ plan may not be explicitly mean to ration, but not paying a fair and market-determined price for services will ensure less of it for patients.

President Obama began his speech by noting it’s “been nearly a century since Theodore Roosevelt first called for health reform” and that “nearly every president and Congress, whether Democrat or Republican, has attempted to meet this challenge in some way.”

“A bill for comprehensive care reform was first introduced by John Dingell Sr. in 1943,” he also pointed out. “Sixty-five years later, his son (Rep. John Dingell, Michigan Democrat now in his 28th term) continues to introduce that same bill at the beginning of each session.”

Could it be, we wonder, that the reason why health reform of the kind the Dingells and Democrats have been pushing for 100 years has gone nowhere is that Americans want nothing to do with it? What is it about “No!” that they don’t understand?

Does he see his own image reflected back at him from his telemprompter:

“But we’ve also seen in these last months is the same partisan spectacle that only hardens the disdain many Americans have towards their own government. Instead of honest debate, we’ve seen scare tactics. Some have dug into unyielding ideological camps that offer no hope of compromise. Too many have used this as an opportunity to score short-term political points, even if it robs the country of our opportunity to solve a long-term challenged. And out of this blizzard of charges and counter-charges, confusion has reigned.”

-President Barack Obama, “Remarks to a Joint Session of Congress on Health Care,” U.S. Capitol, Washington, D.C., September 9, 2009

That seriously could have been written at the president.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Feb. 16 (UPI) — At least 31 people died Monday in a remote area of Pakistan in what seems to be a U.S. missile strike, a witness and a Pakistani government official said.

The attack by the pilotless aircraft occurred near Parachinar, a town near the Pakistan-Afghanistan border in the semi-autonomous Kurram tribal region, The New York Times (NYSE:NYT) reported Monday. A government official said those killed were all thought to be Taliban militants.

The official and a resident both said U.S. drone aircraft were seen in the area before the strike near the village of Sur Pul. The target was a camp used by Taliban militants, the government official said.

The missile attacks by CIA-operated drones have been aimed at foreign al-Qaida and Taliban militants who hide in Pakistan. Pakistani authorities have criticized the strikes, sharing their complaints with Richard Holbrooke, U.S. President Barack Obama’s representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, who is on a “listening tour” in the region.

The latest attack came a day after government officials and Taliban militants seemed close to reaching an agreement to end violence in Swat, also in northern Pakistan, the Times said. Militants there declared a 10-day cease-fire and the government indicated it was ready to accept the introduction of Islamic law.

related:
Democrat Senator outs an entire covert base and operation, but no outcry for indictment from the people who called for Karl Rove’s head after DepSecState Armitage outed a quasi-Beltway-spy

The entire article by Lance Fairchok at American Thinker is spot-on excellent, and exactly what I was looking for as an answer to this, which surprisingly seemed to get little media traction. However, I’d like to cite the following passage as a lead-in for a different, if not unrelated topic:

Webster defines propaganda as the “spreading of ideas or information to further or damage a cause,” it is also “ideas or allegations spread for such purpose.” The popular connotation of the word is false information, or information used to deceive or mislead. The left uses the word as a negative label for information that does not conform to their view, a tool to demean and discredit, regardless of truth. Their purpose is to dominate what the public sees with their messages and to eliminate contradictory information.

In information warfare, this is called shaping the battle space.

Throughout this war, the military has been inundated with negative press. Damaging leaks were rampant, coming from the Democrats in the Senate and the House, from the CIA and the State Department, even from inside the Pentagon. Every setback was exaggerated in an unrelenting information campaign to shape public perception.

Disinformation from our enemies was accepted without critical analysis by much of the media. Papers worldwide splashed every unsubstantiated negative story they could find. Enemy agents posing as stringers were feeding false stories about American atrocities. Terror attacks were timed for the 24-hour news-cycle. The broadcast media’s mantra for Iraq was “if it bleeds it leads” writ large.

The enemy knew it, and used it.

This relentless media assault frustrated and confounded the military, for whom the lessons of press malfeasance in Vietnam still rankle. How can you prosecute a war against a vicious enemy when your every action may be portrayed as criminal? How can you show success when failure is all Americans are allowed to see and hear? How do you get your message out when the press ignores or alters it? How can you tell the ground truth if no one is there to listen?

This brings us to today’s New York Times piece, written by Scott Shane, which details some of the little known interrogation of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed. What is shocking (and yet, why shouldn’t we be surprised?) is the disclosure outing of the name of the 9/11 Mastermind’s interrogator:

Mr. Martinez declined to be interviewed; his role was described by colleagues. Gen. Michael V. Hayden, director of the C.I.A., and a lawyer representing Mr. Martinez asked that he not be named in this article, saying that the former interrogator believed that the use of his name would invade his privacy and might jeopardize his safety. The New York Times, noting that Mr. Martinez had never worked undercover and that others involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news articles and books, declined the request. (An editors’ note on this issue has been posted on The Times’s Web site at nytimes.com/world.)

What is it about today’s press that has impaired judgment, given aid and comfort to America’s enemies, endangered lives, prolonged the conflict, and sabotaged and undermined anti-terror programs by publishing leaks regarding such things as CIA secret prisons, NSA surveillance program, the SWIFT program? Were 32 frontpage stories on abu Ghraib published in the New York Times really warranted? Did the act itself inflame the Arab world and create more terrorists, or was it the media hype about the abuses, which did so? What about Haditha? Who has done more damage to the war effort? Soldiers on the frontlines to win hearts and minds, protesters out on the streets, politicians back in Washington, or perceptions created and driven by the media in its coverage of the war? The Bush Administration is held accountable for its failures in prosecuting the Iraq battle with zero percent casualties; but where is the media accountability?

There’s a reason for classified information and government secrets, aside from cynical conspiratorial beliefs that our government is up to no good, to remain secret from the public (and consequently, from our enemies). Is it not obvious?

From the editor’s note regarding the NYTimes defending its decision to publish KSM’s interrogator’s name:

The Central Intelligence Agency asked The New York Times not to publish the name of Deuce Martinez, an interrogator who questioned Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and other high-level Al Qaeda prisoners, saying that to identify Mr. Martinez would invade his privacy and put him at risk of retaliation from terrorists or harassment from critics of the agency.

After discussion with agency officials and a lawyer for Mr. Martinez, the newspaper declined the request, noting that Mr. Martinez had never worked under cover and that others involved in the campaign against Al Qaeda have been named in news stories and books. The editors judged that the name was necessary for the credibility and completeness of the article.

The Times’s policy is to withhold the name of a news subject only very rarely, most often in the case of victims of sexual assault or intelligence officers operating under cover.

[sarcasm]
Yes, if only he were an “undercover” operative like Valerie Plame Wilson. Then the NY Times would have kept him anonymous. [/sarcasm]

Since I opened this post by citing a passage from Michael Yon’s book I found relevant, let me bookend the post by closing with this passage from Robert Kaplan’s Hog Pilots, Blue Water Grunts, pg 26-27:

Dekryger showed me the book he was reading, Tarawa: The Story of a Battle by Time-Life correspondent Robert Sherrod. He said that he found the book inspiring. Leafing through it, and reading it carefully at night in the hootch, I discovered that it was like other books popular among marines and soldiers, but which the contemporary media, aside from the military correspondents, were barely aware of. No potboiler, Tarawa was just an old-fashioned sort of book, very much in the tradition of great war reporting as defined by Richard Tregaskis in Guadalcanal Diary, Bing West in The Village, and Harold Moore and Joe Galloway in We Were Soldiers Once…and Young. These books celebrated the sacrifice and heroism of American troops in World War II and Vietnam not because it had been the authors’ intention, but because it was true and happened to be all around them.

~~~

Sherrod, like other correspondents of the era, keeps using the words “we and “our” when referring to the American side, for although a journalist, he was a fellow American living among the troops. Back in Honolulu a week after the battle, he found the naïveté of the home front toward Tarawa “amazing”. The public saw the killing of so many troops in so few days as scandalous. There were rumblings in Congress about an intelligence failure, and vows that such a thing must not happen again. But as Sherrod argues, there was no easy way to win many wars (in fact, eight months later, the first day of fighting on Guam would claim nearly seven hundred marines dead, wounded, or missing). Thus, “to deprecate the Tawara victory was almost to defame the memory of the gallant men who lost their lives achieving it.” He concludes that on Tarawa, in 1943, “there was a more realistic approach to war than there was in the United States.”

link

Back in 2004 the Senate Intelligence Committee began an investigation into pre-war intelligence regarding Saddam’s regime, the threat it posed, and how the intelligence was handled.  Democrats on the committee did their best to politicize the investigation and give it the appearance of a precursor to impeachment of President Bush under some sort of Bush Lied conspiracy theory.  They did this for purely political purposes despite being contrary to national interests.  Again and again the committee came out with report after report.  Each report showed that the problems with pre-war intelligence regarding Saddam’s regime was not some grand conspiracy by a President who can barely read a teleprompter, but rather the result of bad intelligence from agencies that were as on the ball in 2002 and 2003 as they were on 9/11/2001; they were out of touch, undermanned, ill-equipped, budget constrained, and bureaucratically strangled.

In October of 2006, on the eve of the midterm elections, Senate minority leader Harry Reid pulled a big political PR stunt and ordered the doors of the Senate closed to discuss the classified elements of the investigation.  Publicly, he claimed it wasn’t a stunt, but rather that the Bush Administration was holding up the committee’s report to avoid embarassment and to skew the upcoming elections.  In those elections, Democrats took over the House, the Senate, and the Committee, then…instead of releasing it, they sat on it for almost two years.  Why?  Because they didn’t want the reality to make the news: that it was Democrats who were deliberately misleading the American people about the casus belli for the invasion of Iraq: the threat of an Iraqi/Al Queda WMD attack on the United States.

Now, when everyone else was watching Hillary’s 1/2 hour speech again and again and again, on 3 cable networks and every other news outlet, the Democratic-controlled committee released the final report on pre-war intelligence about Saddam’s regime.   In that report…they finally admit that YES

Saddam’s regime was in fact harboring Al Queda groups and leaders, meeting with Al Queda groups and leaders, and more.

Thomas Joseclyn fires the first shot at sinking the “no connections” lie that the Democratic Party has deliberately created and perpetuated for their political gains at national expense.  Naysayers will point to the source as partisan, but the article cited gives plenty of quotes in proper context for one to form an unbiased opinion, and to see with clarity that the real misleading regarding the war in Iraq, hasn’t come from the Bush Administration’s 6months of pre-war rhetoric, but from the Democratic Party’s leaders and flag bearers over the past 66 months.

Floris, Va.: Here’s what I’ve never understood about the Valerie
Plame Wilson issue. Most reporters don’t print information without
having at least two sources. Did you have more than one source
regarding Mrs. Wilson’s CIA status before you published the information
in your column?

Robert D. Novak: You must not have followed the case very
closely to ask that question. I have answered it in my columns, in my
memoir and in many TV and radio interviews. My three sources were
Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, presidential aide Karl Rove
and CIA spokesman Bill Harlow.

Chambersburg, Pa.: Do you think that Joseph Wilson’s information
about yellow cake from Niger was correct? Did he do the job that he was
asked to do?

Robert D. Novak: Pretty poor job, as the material released now
indicates. Based on his report, you could not definitely Iraq was not
seeking yellowcake uranium.

Kennett, Mo.: How do you rationalize the Bush administration’s
need for secrecy and the way the administration used you to out Ms.
Plame? The end justifies the needs.

Robert D. Novak: I was not used. The information was given me by
Deputy Secretary of State Armitage, who was out of phase with the White
and, like me, a critic of the Iraqi intervention.

San Francisco: Isn’t it true, though, that CIA spokesperson
Bryce Harlow asked you twice not to publish Valerie Plame’s name? How
can this request from a U.S. intelligence agency to a presumably
patriotic American be construed to make him a “source”?

Robert D. Novak: Bill Harlow, not Bryce Harlow.

He confirmed to me that she worked for the CIA in the Counter-Proliferation Division.

Denver: Have you rethought the admiration you expressed for
Ambassador Joseph Wilson in the column that he still claims ruined his
wife’s life?

Robert D. Novak: Yes, I was much too kind to him.

Minneapolis: I found your book very entertaining reading. Since
you finished writing it, it has been disclosed publicly by the
government both that Valerie Wilson was a covert employee by the CIA’s
own standards, and that investigators determined early on that she was
in fact a “covert agent” covered by the Intelligence Identities
Protection Act — in part because, contrary to what you say in your
book, she indeed had performed missions abroad undercover in the period
immediately preceding the public blowing of her cover in your column.
She was not, as you assert in your book, a desk-bound analyst at CIA
headquarters. (And by the way, it is investigators’ and prosecutors’
responsibility, not the CIA’s, to determine whether Wilson was covered
by the IIPA legislation.) How does that change your view of the case
and of your own role in it? Have you revised your view of whether what
you did was regrettable?

Robert D. Novak: Special Counsel had three years (and millions
of dollars) to determine whether anybody violated the IIPA. Of course,
nobody did.

Also, do you take seriously the claim that a person driving her car
every day from her home to CIA headquarters at Langley was a covert
agent?

I love that last one.  The left is constantly trying to bring up the fact that the CIA considered the desk-jockey “covert” and is covered by IIPC.  Only problem with that is then there would have been some criminal charges filed against the person who leaked the name right? 

Cough….Armitage…..cough….

Common sense right?

Alas, we all know who lacks common sense in this debate.

Tom Maguire with some thoughts:

If I had availed myself of the opportunity to brighten the Prince of
Darkness’s day, I would have asked him whether he had followed up on
the question of Ms. Plame’s covert status with Rep. Hoekstra.  When last we looked, the CIA Counsel was still unclear as to her status, but that was many months ago.

And if I had a follow-up, I would query him about Ms. Plame’s pension situation
- her pension gets increased based on service abroad and the CIA has a
formal record of what they consider (by their guidelines, which may not
fully overlap with the intent of the Intelligence Identities Protection
Act) to be the dates of her service abroad, so my question would be,
has Novak talked to Hoekstra or anyone else about just what the CIA
considers to be her official dates of service abroad?

And that, BTW, is my response to Jeff  – it may well be the case
that in the first wave of investigation the FBI took for granted that
Ms. Plame was “covert” as defined by the IIPA; however, the only time
that Fitzgerald actually asserted that was in the sentencing phase
after the case had gone to verdict and after the defense had forgone
their opportunity to challenge that point.  My view – Fitzgerald
clearly ducked the point about her pension dates of service, which he
would not have done had they gone in his favor.

In the end it doesn’t matter to the left in this country that this lady was not covert, that she was just a desk-jockey doing her best to bring down our President with lies.  The duo lied about who sent Joe to Niger, he lied when he wrote that the rumors about yellow-cake were not real when in fact he told the CIA he could not debunk the rumors.

So sure, there were plenty of lies to go around on this story.  The biggest being that these two were just some innocent Washington insiders wanting to do the “right thing.”  

Funny, funny stuff.

Whats the trash talk?  Well, he writes a tell-all book and wanting to ensure it will sell millions he releases a few sentences that he knew would get the left drooling in anticipation.

Former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recount the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby were “not involved” in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.

“There was one problem. It was not true,” McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Monday. “I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president’s chief of staff and the president himself.”

And do they ever drool.  Olbermann and Matthews almost orgasmed on camera. 

But I have a question for Scott.  Are you telling me that you lied last March?

KING: Scott, were you lied to?

MCCLELLAN: Well, Larry, I said what I believed to be true at the time. It was also what the president believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given.

Or are you just trying to sell books?

I’m betting the latter.

UPDATE

Jeff Gannon with some interesting facts:

Later in the same interview, McClellan responded to the allegation that the White House sought to gain from ‘outing’ Valerie Plame:

Well, Larry, remember that the person was the one who was the original or primary source for Robert Novak, the column that started this whole investigation really was Dick Armitage, who was the deputy secretary of State, not really a proponent of the Iraq war. And it was certainly not a partisan gun-slinger as Robert Novak said in his article or said later in an interview. In terms of any other involvement beyond that, what came out in this trial is what I learned for the first time. So I don’t know of any effort beyond what we have seen in this trial come out in the media that was going on. I think one of the questions that this gets to is, was the administration trying to discredit or retaliate against a critic? I would say that the administration was trying to set the record straight. Whether or not people were involved in leaking someone’s name and that name was classified, that’s a different matter. I don’t know anything about that.

McClellan indicated that his entire knowledge of the ‘outing’ of Valerie Plame from both his personal knowledge and the public record was complete at this point, yet did not make any claim that high-ranking officials sent him out to “pass false information” about it. McClellan’s meaning in the book excerpt is murky at best and does not necessarily contradict the definitive statements he made to Larry King.

UPDATE II

Just as we figured, it was all a ploy to sell more books:

Former White House spokesman Scott McClellan does not believe President Bush lied to him about the role of White House aides I. Lewis Scooter Libby or Karl Rove in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity, according to McClellan’s publisher.

Peter Osnos, the founder and editor-in-chief of Public Affairs Books, which is publishing McClellan’s book in April, tells NBC from his Connecticut home that McCLellan, “Did not intend to suggest Bush lied to him.”

Osnos says when McClellan went before the White House press corps in 2003 to publicly exonerate Libby and Rove, the problem was that his statement was not true. Osnos said the president told McClellan what “he thought to be the case.” But, he says, McClellan believes, “the president didn’t know it was not true.”
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Osnos says the quotes which appeared on the Public Affairs Books website were part of the roll out of the book catalogues for the spring printings. And he says McClellan had not finished the manuscript for the memoir yet and was working under deadline to have the book completed for the April publishing.

Olby and Chrissy are no doubt inconsolable now.

Is having a huge conniption fit right about now with this news:

Former CIA operative Valerie Plame lost a lawsuit Thursday that demanded money from Bush administration officials whom she blamed for leaking her agency identity.

Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to disclose her identity in 2003. Plame said that violated her privacy rights and was illegal retribution for her husband’s criticism of the administration.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments.

Poor Chrissy, he’s going to blow a gasket after the news his good pals lost another round.  First they fail to bring down the 2004 election, then they fail to get Rove or Cheney indicted, and now they lose their silly ignorant lawsuit.  Not a good run for these treasonous rats huh?

Oh, and take a look at that bolded part in the AP’s article.  They are alleging that the Judge threw it out on jurisdictional grounds which is quite plainly disputed in the actual opinion on page 41: (h/t Hot Air)

For the reasons given above, plaintiffs have failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted with respect to their four causes of action asserted directly under the Constitution. Furthermore, this Court lacks subject-matter jurisdiction over plaintiffs’ claim for public disclosure of private facts.

Mighty slimy of the AP to get the story wrong huh?  I’m sure it was just an accident….

My favorite part of the opinion is the one with the most common sense explanation:

[D]efendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson’s comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory. But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush Administration’s handling of prewar foreign intelligence, by speaking with members of the press is within the scope of defendants’ duties as high-level Executive Branch officials.

Your damn right it’s within their duties, hell….it’s something that MUST be done when a man with a anti-war, anti-Bush agenda is sent to Niger by his rabid anti-Bush wife to investigate that "crazy report" about Saddam trying to acquire Uranium and then comes back and lies about what he discovers to bring down a President.

Valerie Plame recommended him for the job (and then lied about doing it), Joe Wilson comes back and tells the CIA something completely different then what he writes about in Vanity Fair, then he lies about who really sent him and then when caught in all his lies he and his desk-jockey wife become victims.

Sound like the typical Democrat family to you?  A Victocrat as Larry Elder likes to call them.

No, what this Judge did today is what all judges should do.  Namely rule with some common sense.

Of course we all know the KOSKiddies and DummiesU alumni will go batty over the fact that the Judge is a Bush appointee….they have yet to find a conspiracy they don’t love.

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Reporter: Have you entertained the idea that Congress might take your sole decision-making power away?

I don’t think Congress ought to be running the war. I think they ought to be funding the troops. Trying to run the war through legislation is a prescription for failure…Congress has all the right in the world to fund. that’s their main involvement in this war. Troop strength? Position? I don’t think that would be good for the country.

Damn right it wouldn’t be good, and unconstitutional.

Meanwhile Bush was thrown this Libby question and he comes back with an answer many of us have answered questions such as these with:

Democratic presidential contender Hillary Rodham Clinton drew a distinction between President Bush’s decision to commute the sentence of White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby – which she has harshly criticized – and her husband’s 140 pardons in his closing hours in office.

“I believe that presidential pardon authority is available to any president, and almost all presidents have exercised it,” Clinton said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “This (the Libby decision) was clearly an effort to protect the White House. … There isn’t any doubt now, what we know is that Libby was carrying out the implicit or explicit wishes of the vice president, or maybe the president as well, in the further effort to stifle dissent.”

Libby, a former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, had been sentenced to 30 months in prison as well as two years’ probation and a $250,000 fine for perjury in connection with the leaking of CIA agent Valerie Plane’s name to reporters.

Just hours after a federal appeals court rejected Libby’s appeal, Bush announced his decision to commute the prison term portion of the sentence, which he labeled excessive.

As she campaigns with her husband for Iowa’s leadoff precinct caucuses, Clinton has joined other Democrats in ripping Bush’s decision. In the interview, she said it was “one more example” of the Bush administration thinking “it is above the rule of law.”

Her husband’s pardons, issued in the closing hours of his presidency, were simply routine exercise in the use of the pardon power, and none were aimed at protecting the Clinton presidency or legacy, she said.

Protecting the Bush Presidency?  From what?  Apparently from the man who was railroaded because he forgot some dates.  Nevermind that the Special Prosecutor found nothing to charge anyone with regarding the Plame idiocy.  No, Libby going to jail would somehow harm Bush.

Of course we know the legacy of the Clinton’s quite well and if anyone should be worried, it’s these two hacks.

The real Bill Clinton pardoned two of the biggest tax cheats in United States history who had renounced their citizenship and had traded with the Iranians during the hostage crisis, all because Marc Rich’s daughter gave a million bucks to the Democrat party and gave plenty to the Clinton campaign.  He commuted the sentences of 14 convicted terrorists.  He pardoned Rick Hendrick, who was convicted of mail fraud in 1997, once his good friend Hugh McColl, CEO of Bank of America at the time, pleaded for a pardon and gave $500,000 to the Clinton Foundation.  In fact it took exactly 14 days from the day the check was delivered until Rick was a free man.   Or how about the Drug kingpin who made millions transporting Cocaine and other various drugs across the border, Mr. Carlos Vignali.  The man who was represented by Bill Clinton’s brother-in-law, who gave money to the Democrat party and incidently enough gave plenty of cash to our current Mayor in Los Angeles Antonio Villaraigosa.  He served 6 years of a 15 year sentence and was set free by Clinton.

Hell, it was just a few months ago that the Gregory case reared it’s ugly head again:

A court-appointed bankruptcy trustee asked a federal judge this week to schedule a new court date in a case against Tony Rodham, the brother of Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., accused of failing to repay $109,000 in loans from a carnival company whose owners received controversial pardons issued by President Bill Clinton in the last hours of his presidency.

According to documents filed in the case, Rodham received the loans, before and after the pardons were granted, from United Shows of America, Inc., owned by Edgar Gregory and his wife, who had been convicted of defrauding several banks.

A congressional report by the Republican-controlled House Reform Committee concluded Rodham "had tried to sell his access to the White House" and that "but for Tony Rodham’s lobbying efforts, the Gregory pardons would not have been granted."

The Clinton Presidency was for sale to the highest bidder.  If anything can ruin the legacy of a President that fact would be one of them.

Let see, Libby forgets some dates while Bill forgot about a BJ…..which one is more plausible?

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President Bush spared former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby from a 2 1/2-year prison term in the CIA leak case Monday, stepping into a criminal case with heavy political overtones on grounds that the sentence was just too harsh.

Bush’s move came hours after a federal appeals panel ruled Libby could not delay his prison term in the CIA leak case. That meant Libby was likely to have to report to prison soon and put new pressure on the president, who had been sidestepping calls by Libby’s allies to pardon the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

"I respect the jury’s verdict," Bush said in a statement. "But I have concluded that the prison sentence given to Mr. Libby is excessive. Therefore, I am commuting the portion of Mr. Libby’s sentence that required him to spend thirty months in prison."

Grab some popcorn people and watch heads explode across our liberal MSM tv channels.  Going to be some fun tonight!

This is just outstanding.  Lets recap, a case about the outing of a CIA deskjockey who sent her husband off with the sole purpose of harming the President’s policy became a perjury case against a Cheney aide.  Perjury not even related to the outing mind you since everyone now knows who did in fact out her….cough Armitage cough….but no matter.  Libby gets some dates wrong and BAM!  Lets send him to prison for 3 years.  This case was a political railroad job from the beginning so why shouldn’t more politics be brought into it?

It’s not like Clinton ever pardoned terrorists right?

Just last week, Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, speaking on the first anniversary of the deadly U.S. embassy bombings in Africa, vowed to wage an all-out war against terrorism. This week, President Clinton turned that promise into a joke by offering to commute the justifiably harsh prison sentences of 14 FALN terrorists, including the wife of its bomb-maker mastermind, the notorious William Morales.

He offered and then did in fact commute their sentences.

So we should feel bad because this good man was commuted.  I don’t think so.

I can hear it already….the popping noise of heads exploding from the CNN office in New York…..Yippeee!

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A federal judge ordered Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff to surrender in six to eight weeks to begin serving his 30-month prison term, increasing the pressure for President Bush to decide soon whether he will pardon the only administration official prosecuted in a White House leak investigation.

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said both the law and his own sense of fairness required that he reject I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby’s request to remain free while appealing his conviction for perjury and obstruction of the leak investigation, an approach that could have deferred the pardon question for years.

Walton said his decision was based on what he considers to be the slight chance Libby will succeed in having his conviction overturned, and his belief that the court cannot have one set of standards for well-connected, white-collar criminals and another for the remaining criminals also about to lose their freedom.

"Clearly, under the statute, I’m required to detain him," Walton said before delivering his decision. "And I just think blue-collar criminals are entitled to the same kind of justice as white-collar criminals."

Libby remained stoic as Walton announced his decision, while Libby’s wife, Harriet Grant, wiped away tears. Two of his attorneys, who had seemed resigned to getting bad news throughout the two-hour hearing, shook their heads ruefully. They later vowed to file an emergency appeal to seek a delay in Libby’s reporting to prison.

JustOneMinute put up an interesting transcript of these proceedings:

Robbins (for Libby): …The question here is whether these are close questions. I don’t think it can be debated that these are close, and I think we’ll win.

When someone does not have to report to anyone, does not have to follow DOJ procedures, sometimes things go wrong. Under section 6c2 under ______ the AG is allowed to object to disclosure of classified information, if disclosure would damage national security. Fitzgerald did submit such a report because he assumed plenary authority.

Walton: but the CIPA issues did not arise until later when Libby asked for material.

Robbins: But this is an example of how things go wrong when authority is too broadly delegated. [Reads the language of the act, congressional statute]. Authority to AG, DAG, AAG. These are the ones who can make these disclosures, and no one else.

Walton: Be that as it may, your client through his counsel did not submit his request to Mr. Fitzgerald, their CIPA request, not to others. This issue was not raised at the time. Was this issue waived?

Robbins: My understanding is this document was declassified and made public after the case. I was not part of the history of this case. But Lawrence Walsh was denied this authority in the past.

Walton: I think your co-counsel did not address this.

Jeffress: This affidavit was submitted in camera. It has recently under seal, and we obtained it pursuant to your ruling, we received it in May.

Walton: Your time is up.

So if I’m reading this correctly Fitzgerald signed an affidavit for which he had no authority to sign.  When the Judge asked the defense team why they didn’t bring it up sooner they answered that the documents had not been unsealed until it was too late.  This whole thing goes to the Libby’s team main appeal that Fitz was improperly appointed since the appointment made him a principal officer, which would have to go through the Senate since he answers to no one.

Either way the Libby team was prepared for this development and I’m sure they have the appeal already filled out.

This joke of a trial is not over yet.

Ronald Cass:

What information was worth risking his reputation, his career, and his freedom to keep hidden? And who was he risking that for?

Recently, the Board of the DC Bar, which had granted Berger his license, began asking those questions. There was only one way to stop that investigation, to keep from answering questions about what he did and why he did it, to keep the Bar from questioning his colleagues in the Clinton Administration about what had been in the documents Berger destroyed.

Berger took that step, surrendering his license, and stopping the investigation.

This case truly damaged our country while this Libby case is nothing.  Nothing!  How in the world is this a big deal?  A man gets railroaded for perjury on a criminal case that never was.  How could he have obstructed an investigation into outing a covert agent when she was not covert under statue? 

But that’s neither here nor there.  What I’m talking about is the simple fact that even had this been a true leak of a covert agent, ONE covert agent, the case pales in comparison to the crime Sandy Berger committed.

But nothing from the MSM.  Nothing from the left.  The only one’s writing about it at all are the conservative blogs, and that’s it.

Jeff Goldstein:

Meanwhile, right here in front of us, we have a case where Sandy Berger, a former National Security Advisor, has voluntarily surrendered his law license rather than come clean about what documents he destroyed, why he destroyed them, and who he was trying to protect in doing so.

When I begin to hear the same people who’ve been braying for Libby’s blood take similar aim at Berger—and by all rights, their animus should be even more concentrated, given Berger’s position and power, and given the nature of his crime, which involved the pilfering and destruction of classified documents—I’ll take their defenses of the Libby show trial more seriously.

But this will never come.  The lefties will go on and on about how terrible the Plame case was but  completely ignore the Berger case.  A case in which a much bigger fish would rather lose his license rather then to spill the beans.  How else could anyone look at this and not believe he is hiding something big. 

Ronald Cass again:

Justice Department officials who investigated the missing documents initially were persuaded that Berger must, as he claimed, have taken documents by mistake and then destroyed them to avoid having sensitive material in his possession. The plea agreement was based on the assumption that Berger was mishandling classified material – not manhandling it:

Now, however, it is clear that there was nothing innocent or inadvertent in Berger’s conduct. He has something to hide and, whatever it is, he was terrified that at least some part of it would come out of a non-criminal hearing before the Bar. With no possible criminal charges to face, he could not have claimed a right against self-incrimination. He could no longer get away with saying that he took documents accidentally, took them only to prepare for up-coming hearings (why, then, take five copies of one memo?), or didn’t intend to destroy them. He would, in other words, have had to say more than he has so far.

We don’t know with any certainty what is missing, which papers exactly are gone, or what notes – and whose notes – may have been on them. Berger’s lawyer asserted that the 9/11 Commission had copies of all the material Berger stole and destroyed. But if that is so, why would Berger risk so much to destroy it and be so keen today on avoiding any real inquiry into what he did?

Berger had access to Archives documents that could be critical to understanding what information the Clinton Administration had, what options it considered, and what decisions it took on these sensitive subjects. In addition to primary documents, Berger had access to copies, and the only plausible reason for taking five copies of a single memo is that some had original notes on them from key officials, maybe from Berger or President Clinton.

For Berger to risk jail and disgrace, to then give up the right to practice his profession merely in order to avoid having to answer questions, he must be hiding something important. And if it is that important to him, it is also important to us.

But hey, lets put faulty memories and other side shows up on the front page.  Lets write books about it and talk it about it incessantly for years.

Why bother with a very high level Clinton stooge stealing top secret documents about the war on terror from the National Archives and ADMITTING he made false statements during the investigation.  Did he serve 30 months?  Nope.  Because you see, the real news is that some assistant to the VP lied about a case that never really was a case.

Now THATS news!

“Former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s hopes of avoiding prison in the CIA leak case began to dim Tuesday as a federal judge ruled he could face a longer sentence because the investigation he obstructed was so serious.

Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, is the highest-ranking official convicted of a crime since the Iran Contra affair.

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald wants to put Libby in prison for up to three years because the investigation he was convicted of obstructing—the leak of a CIA operative’s identity—was so serious. Libby’s attorneys are seeking no jail time and argue that it’s unfair to increase the sentence simply because the investigation was serious.

“No one was ever charged. Nobody ever pleaded guilty,” attorney William Jeffress said. “The government did not establish the existence of an offense.”

U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton didn’t accept that. By that reasoning, Walton said, witnesses benefit if they aggressively obstruct investigations so prosecutors can’t make their case.

“I just can’t buy in on that being good social policy,” said Walton, who has a reputation as a tough sentencing judge. “It’s one thing if you obstruct a petty larceny. It’s another thing if you obstruct a murder investigation.”

So now the Judge is ruling on whether the prosecutor had enough to try someone on a case never brought before him?  And comparing this to a murder investigation?

We can see where this is going folks.  Expect the book to be thrown at Libby today even though the probation office has suggested leniency:

Former vice presidential aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby should be considered for leniency when he’s sentenced today on perjury and other charges, says the office that helps federal judges calculate sentences.

Libby qualifies for a lighter sentence than the 15 to 21 months recommended by federal sentencing guidelines, says the U.S. district court’s probation office. The office, which filed its recommendations in court papers, cites Libby’s public service, damage already done to his career and the fact he was not charged with or convicted of the "underlying crime" for which he was investigated.

Expect it, but also expect the appeal to be quite strong.

UPDATE 0852 hrs PST

And just as I expected the Judge threw the book at him.  30 months in prison and a $200,000 fine (check comments at 1152hrs EST).  Appeal time baby.

UPDATE II

The Judge said this at one point according to the comment thread referenced above:

...My take on evidence presented, no evidence that Mr Libby knew that Ms Wilson status was, but being NSA for VP seems to me that anybody in that high level position had a unique obligation that before they said anything said anything associated with national security agency…

How is this an issue when it was not an issue at trial?

UPDATE III

Possible good news, he may be released pending appeal:

Apparently he will be released pending appeal:
"Within 72 hours report to probation department and abide by supervised release.

In ref to obstruction, 30 months, To other counts, to 15 months, concurrent. Supervised release for 2 years following release from detention.

He must provide sample of DNA, he will be required to contribute 400 hour of community service.

Short break, will proceed with bond issue"

But not certain since proceedings are going on.

“The term ‘covert agent’ means—

(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency . . .

(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and

(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States.”

Many of us pundits on the right have said this over and over and over again over the years, find out if she served outside the US within the last five years prior to her name being leaked and TA-DA!  Question answered.

Well, no so fast.  If she had served within the prior five years was it in covert status or not? 

Lots of varying shades of grey in this case but I think the most telling part is that NO ONE was charged with the leak.  But at least give us the dates she supposedly served overseas. 

But, as Tom notes, Patrick Fitzgerald won’t tell us or the defense it seems.  Their sentencing summary contains only this brief explanation about any overseas work:

“She traveled at least seven times to more than 10 countries,” the document states. “When traveling overseas, Ms. Wilson always traveled under a cover identity … At the time of the initial unauthorized disclosure in the media of Ms. Wilson’s employment relationship with the CIA on 14 July 2003, Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States.”

No dates.  Just that she traveled seven times during her career.  Why would they conceal the dates because they most certainly had access to that information, namely that being her pension file.  By law CIA officers are entitled to an upward adjustment in their pension for serving abroad so her file should show this, WITH the dates.  So did they have access to the file:

Is it possible that the DoJ investigators did not have access to her file?  No, per footnote 2 on page 5 of the sentencing calculations, we are assured that "The investigators were given access to Ms. Wilson’s classified file".

So why no friggin dates?

This smells to high heaven.  Clarice Feldman concurs:

Fitzgrald’s "evidence" for this is largely taken from the recent Waxman hearing, which proved no such thing, and an undated summary of her personnel records, which also prove no such thing. He has deliberately conflated the Agency’s terminology with that of the far more restrictive language in the Act and hidden from view the facts necessary to ascertain when her service abroad ended, a necessary factor in such an analysis. (Her husband in his book said she stopped serving abroad in 1997,which, if true, would place her outside the purview of the IIPA.) Certainly the same service records (including pension records) summarized by the Prosecution reveal when her service abroad ended. Why has he not presented these records to the Court and defendant?

Because why should he when it’s obvious there is one set of rules for the left, and a completely different set for the right.  The very fact that Fitz tells the judge and the defense that her status isn’t relevant for the trial….but NOW it is during the sentencing speaks volumes. 

That is not how our criminal justice system works.

This is not right – our legal system has discovery rules for a reason.  IF Ms. Plame’s formal dates for service abroad buttress the prosecution position, that should be disclosed to the defense so that they will not waste time pursuing a false trail, or so that the prosecution can prepare arguments that the CIA formal procedures do not comport with the language and intent of the IIPA.  On the other hand, if her formal dates for service abroad support the defense position, that should be disclosed so that the defense can argue that this represents the best established practice and settles the issue.

But it is simply not appropriate for Fitzgerald to unilaterally conceal this from the defense, especially when it is a reasonable guess that it was concealed because it would aid the defense.

Check out a few comments left at Tom’s site:

But, even if everything were released tomorrow and it proved that Val really did qualify under the five year rule, you still have to get around the other provision of taking "affirmative measures" to protect her identity. Harlow’s actions negate that right off the bat and Val’s own actions of openly identifying herself and introducing her husband at the meeting that generated the INR memo just add to the lack of evidence of affirmative measures. Afterall it was her actions that ultimately allowed Armitage to blab about her to a nationally syndicated columnist and her husband’s ego needs vis a vis Who’s Who that verified her name.

Fitz turned that Rumsfeld quote on its head?

You go to trial with the law you want or wish to have, not the law you have.

Becuase, afterall, who’s gonna stop you?

But anyway, I think there is something else being hidden by the "not acknowledged" fandango. Not acknowledged to whom? Take the aluminum tubes in Jordan example. If Plame went to Jordan to debrief a source (one that she recruited while in Europe?) or anywhere where she debriefed a source, then sure, that would be covert and service abroad. But if she went to Jordan and met with Jordanian intelligence officials to discuss the tubes, then she didn’t get in the door unless the CIA vouched for her — i.e. disclosed her CIA affiliation to a foreign government. And there was apparently a WMD "dog and pony show" that went to Canada among other places — sure, Canada is a friendly government, but if the CIA outed Plame to the Canadian government, then, sorry, not covert.

The overseas service is necessary but not sufficient for the IIPA. I’m sure George Tenet travelled a bit overseas and got some pension boosts out of the deal, but it was never against the law to tell anyone that he worked at the CIA. I’m wondering if the "subtle and complicated" thing is whether Plame mixed "covert" stuff in with non-covert stuff, and the CIA lawyers are saying, "Whoa! You can’t have someone be overtly a CIA agent, and then turn around and have them be covert, too. Covertness is like virginity — once it’s gone, you can’t get it back."

Some of our more bizarre resident trolls make barely-coherent accusations that Plame got sources killed. If a monstrously incompetent CIA sent Plame on a couple of "covert" missions to meet with people who were spying on Iraq, Iran, or any other countries for us, and somebody’s intelligence service who knew her from her multiple outings followed her around to see who she was meeting with and then killed them, well, yeah, that would be a nasty complex and subtle legal issue to sort out whether she counts as "covert".

As always, good stuff from JustOneMinute. 

This is the rub in all this.  Libby gets raked over the coals over this silly case and the leaker of the NSA Wiretap program has not seen one minute in our criminal justice system.  A program whose existence to the public did REAL harm to this country and we hear nothing.  No outrage from the very same people railing about the Plame leak.

This says it all folks.