William Safire has lost it...

"This whole thing started as an investigation of the violation of a law. And the law that was violated was you must not deliberately out an agent who is undercover. And what the special counsel found is that law was not broken."

This was what William Safire had to say on Sunday's Meet the Press with regard to the release of Valerie Plame's name.

What I want to know is how in heaven's name does Mr. Safire come to this conclusion? What he could have said which would have been legitimate is that Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was not able to build a sufficient case to bring charges of a conspiracy to out Ms. Plame.

However, the law in question prohibits the revealing of an agent's identity. Whether a conspiracy existed or not, her identity WAS revealed. Mr. Fitzgerald was very clear on the fact that the amount of lying and purjury going on made it difficult to determine whether the conspiracy was to leak the name, or merely to cover up the leak once it had happened. Nevertheless, we have an agent whose identity was leaked, we have a White House that benefitted from that leak. And we have a Special Counsel who has said that he is still investigating some aspects of the case.

So there are fair statements to be made about this case. It is fair to say that so far no charges have been brought on the matter of outing Ms. Plame. It is fair to say that so far Mr. Fitzgerald doesn't feel he has enough evidence to suggest a conspiracy to reveal her identity. But there is no question that her identity was revealed, and the information that has been released by Mr. Fitzgerald clearly shows that Mr. Libby and others in the Administration knew full well that Valerie Plame/Wilson worked for the covert branch of the CIA.

So for Mr. Safire to say "And so I think we ought to keep that in mind. This was a cover-up of a non-crime" is ludicrous. A crime WAS committed. An agent WAS outed. A cover-up DID happen.

And by the way, if there was nothing illegal or unethical about Administration behavior, why the cover-up? This Administration has shown an almost cocky disregard for the opinions of their opponents. They do not cut and run and engage in cover-ups when they don't believe they did anything wrong.

The facts are:

• They lied to garner support for a war.
• They lied to discredit sources of information counter to their argument.
• They released classified information as part of that discrediting process.

Hardly bringing honor and dignity back to the White House.

Liam.

Valerie Plame leak consequences...

For anyone who's falling too heavily for the spin that Valerie Plame was transitioning off of covert status, and thus, there was no damage done by releasing her name...

I've been reading several articles recently that seem to provide pretty good information that at least one covert agent in the field was executed as a direct result of the leak.

Now, this sort of information is very difficult to corroborate, because the CIA doesn't confirm the status of covert agents even after they're killed, when doing so might jeopardize national security or the lives of other covert agents.

So we may never know for sure. But it does look like at least one agent lost his or her life due to the loose lips of this Administration.

And again, "Brewster Jennings & Associates", the front company through which Ms. Plame worked, was still in use as of the date of the leak. We'll probably never know what sorts of ongoing investigations were compromised by that leaked information.

But we need to remember what's really at stake here.

Liam.

They're at it again...

About two and a half hours since Bush announced his nomination, and already I've received e-mails from both the RNC and Planned Parenthood, urging me to either tell my representatives that Alito is the second coming and should be confirmed immediately, or the antichrist and would fall just below Hitler and Osama bin Ladin in fitness for the Supreme Court.

I understand politics are part of things, but c'mon folks... Let's at least PRETEND we took the time to actually vet the candidate BEFORE issuing our recommendation.

Liam.

On a slightly different note...

Paul Begala, who worked in the Clinton Administration, has written an interesting take on the differences between the Fitzgerald investigation and the Ken Starr investigation.

His conclusions are certainly the ones you’d expect him to come up with, but nevertheless, it’s important to hear both sides, and continuing cries of “Liberal Media” notwithstanding, it is clear that we get far more Administration line than we get hard news and confirmation out of our main stream media these days.

I found it interesting to hear how Begala contrasted the two. You can read his piece over at the Huffington Post..

Liam.

It's been a while

I've been slightly sick, very busy, and just haven't had the energy for a lot of political discussion of late.

However, I can't let the day go by without commenting on the first of what promise to be a number of indictments on the whole Valerie Plame afair.

I rejoice, but not for the reason so many are rejoicing today. I and my wife rejoice because there is FINALLY some accountability in the White House.

Many on the Right Wing have focused on the fact that Valerie Plame "wasn't out in the field any more", and so she "wasn't really covert". However, the leak of her name outed not only her but the front company through which she worked and all other agents who worked through that same front company. This quite possibly destroyed on-going investigations, if not by Mrs. Wilson (nee Plame) then certainly by others whose identities were compromised by the release of her name.

Close neighbors and friends of the Wilsons, re-questioned earlier this week, reaffirmed that until the case became public, they had NO idea that Mrs. Wilson worked for the CIA.

We will probably never know how much good intelligence was lost, how much money setting up fronts was wasted, and how many agents were put in peril (or even lost their lives) because of the leak of Valerie Plame's name. The CIA doesn't generally report these things, because to do so would involve confirming the covert agent status of killed agents, an action which would further compromise agents still in the field.

The fact is, I don't care WHY it was done. The possibilities are many:

• Punishment of Joseph Wilson for having the audacity to say “Hey, wait a sec, you’re not being entirely truthful!”
• Intimidation of others who might choose to question the White House.
• Honestly just intending to cast doubt upon Wilson as a source, without even considering that there might be sensitive information in play.
• Something to do with the work Ms. Plame was doing with the CIA, and the discrediting of Wilson was just a happy side effect.

The fact is, I really don’t care WHY it was done. I’m willing to believe sinister motive, but I’m just as willing to accept a simple, lethal cocktail of hubris and stupidity.

Nevertheless, this Administration originally ran on the notion of restoring honor and dignity to the White House. They didn’t do it. In fact, arguably they have taken us from petty misbehavior to damaging the nation. It’s about time SOMEONE’S feet were held to the fire over this.

There are mid-term elections coming up in a year. There is a Presidential election coming up in three. What this country needs most (but will sadly fail to get) is a full refresh of our government, with all new faces from all new parties, people whose goal is a strong America and not partisan politics. We can’t trust the Left or the Right to put the needs and the good of our great nation ahead of personal gain and cronyism.

I’m not sure they ever really existed, but I miss they days when we could be naïve enough to BELIEVE that the major difference between the Democratic and Republican parties was in their beliefs about what was best for the country, rather than which personal and special interests they bowed towards.

Liam.

Important Video

Col. Lawrence Wilkerson was Colin Powell's Chief of Staff when Powell was Secretary of State.

It's all over the news, so you may have seen this. And I'm pretty certain that as with previous ex-members of the Administration (such as Richard Clarke and Paul O'Neill), pretty soon the neocon smear machine will be all over him, trying to cast him as a vindictive ex-employee, or a partisan, or for some other reason unqualified to make the statements he has.

He gave this speech to the New American Foundation. If you still think the Bush Administration is a net positive for this nation (regardless of your ideological slant), please watch it. It's eye openeing.

Liam.

Has Anyone Else Heard This?

[UPDATE: It looks like this was some whack job ranting. Searching for the story on the 'net, the only sites I find that reference it at all seem to be the same sites that keep insisting that the WTC collapse was a controlled demolition, and that some number of the 9/11 hijackers are still alive. Which is not to say that there can't be any truth to any of those stories, only that such sites tend to have much lower standards of proof than more legitimate news sites, and so I'm not willing to accept their testimony. -- Liam]

I heard a news item of questionable veracity today. According to this news report, a source in Afghanistan (or maybe Pakistan, I didn't catch the country) reports that Osama bin Ladin died in December of 2001 of organ failure (I missed the organ, although I'd assume kidney, as he was reported to have been on dialysis).

I should say, I heard this on a radio program as I was station surfing. I don't know the station, I don't know the host, I could barely hear the signal, which is why I'm missing so much.

I'm going to see if I can research this some more, but if anyone else has any idea where this story came from and how much truth to assign to it, please tell me!

Liam.

Truth

Most people have by now read or heard about Bush's "Q&A" with 10 soldiers in Iraq. Billed as a free exchange between 10 soldiers and their Commander in Chief, more and more evidence shows up that it was, in fact, scripted to the nines.

Additionally, at least one of the participants has an odd affinity for showing up whenever soldiers are interviewed. Apparently this one soldier (I can't find the source now, I'll try to find it later and update this) has been on television giving the "average soldier's" view more often than the President himself.

Anyway, Paul Rieckhoff is a vet who has set up a web site called "Operation Truth", dedicating to getting the word out from soldiers whose own blogs are censored.

He has posted this article on the Huffington Post today which is highly enlightening. Two soldiers were asked several of Bush's questions from the televised event, and their answers couldn't be more different.

Now, the same charge might be leveled at Reickhoff, that his selection of soldiers is self selecting towards those who disagree with what is going on in Iraq, but on the other hand, Reickhoff isn't their Commander in Chief, he doesn't have the staff to coach their answers. And anyway, he doesn't have to show what ALL soldiers think, he only needs to show that the universal love-fest for Bush that we saw on TV isn't the full story.

This Administration will stop at nothing to put it's message out there, even when that message is demonstrably false. They have mischaracterized this administration-scripted self-congratulatory hand job as somehow indicative of the real story in Iraq, instead of just an inventive press release.

They can't be trusted. Get 'em out.

Liam.

Bankruptcy

Today, the new Bankruptcy laws went into effect.

In honor of that event, I thought I'd post some statistics I heard today. Quite different from the abuse of the system that we're told is being curbed by this new law, the majority of bankruptcies are NOT filed by the poor, they are filed by the middle class.

And the majority are NOT fraudulent or the result of people borrowing more than they can afford or buying too much on credit.

The two most common reasons that people file for bankruptcy are:

• unexpected extreme medical condition (source)
• divorce

Apparently, at least according to the statistics I read, fully half of all bankruptcies are spawned because of an extreme medical event, often in an insured family that ran afoul of some sneaky little loophole in their medical insurance coverage that allowed the insurance company to declare the disease a non-covered event.

Another 30% are the result of messy divorces in which the half of the couple that DIDN'T earn most of the money is left with half of the mutual debts and no longer any way to make the payments on them.

Which means that this new law, while ostensibly trying to crack down on cheats and the fiscally irresponsible (and how dare our government chastise ANYONE for fiscal irresponsibility?), those make up at best 20%. And meanwhile, we're sentencing thousands of people fighting cancers and other deadly conditions to a lifetime in hock. Some compassion for the sick.

Liam.

A Quote

See if this quote sounds like any government you know:

"Naturally, the common people don’t want war, but they can always be brought to the bidding of their leaders. Tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and endangering the country. It works the same in every country."

I first heard it a while back, but at the time could not confirm it's authenticity. Then the good folks at Snopes confirmed it, so now it's worthy of posting.

Snopes, for the record, is one of the premiere verifiers/debunkers of urban myths and the like. I have never known them to be incorrect. When they aren't certain of their facts, they will list the results of their research as "inconclusive".

So anyway, the quote above, which sounds a lot like the way we're currently being led? It was from Nazi Herman Goering during the Nuremberg Trials.

(For more information, feel free to visit the Snopes confirmation page.)

Tell them they're being attacked. Our President and other leaders can hardly make it through 30 seconds of any speech without invoking 9/11, al Qaeda, WMD, the War on Terror or the insurgency.

Denounce the pacifists. "You're either with us or you're with the terrorists". "Liberals Hate America". "Not supporting the war is not supporting the troops".

Goering may not be the source from which the Neo Conservatives got their play book, but it doesn't make me feel any warmer towards them that they're using the same tactics he did.

Liam.

More Lies...

I'm too tired to do this topic the justice it deserves, so I'll simply post this link to a post on Huffington Post.

Yes, I know the Bush apologist visitors to the blog hate Huffington Post in much the same way I hate, for example, Rush Limbaugh, but facts are facts.

And the fact is, Bush continues to lie and exaggerate to justify his continued war in Iraq.

Liam.

A quote from a "strict constructionist"....

"[Miers] stands for the sanctity of biblical marriage. And she stands for the authority of the text of the Constitution. In other words she is as strong a Constructionist as she is a Biblical believer. She treats both texts with respect that realizes that text holds an objective authoritative standard that should not 'grow' or 'change' over time." (Quote from a constructionist blogger named Kevin McCullough)

I read this and realized that this is what is wrong with the "strict constructionist" view of the Constitution: It has elevated the core document at the heart of our country with the holy writings at the core of the Christian faith.

But the problem is, the Constitution framers were not perfect, nor were they prescient. They knew that they were bound to have gotten it wrong in some places, and that progress would bring situations they could not have foreseen.

That's why the Constitution contains in itself specific instructions on how it can be modified. It is NOT holy writing, handed down by a diety or a prophet, to be consumed whole and unadulterated. It is a living document whose authors intended to have evolve over time.

Liam.

Just a thought, but...

It seems a large amount of the dissent between people these days vis a vis the Constitution rests with whether there is a right of privacy stated or implied by the Constitution.

One side says "Sure, it's there. You can infer it from the penumbra of several of the Bill of Rights".

The other side says "Ah, but it's not explicit, and as strict constructionists, we don't believe in anything that's not EXPLICITLY spelled out in the Constitution."

And some other folks chime in with "Yeah, but does it really matter? The Constitution does not grant rights. The Constitution merely LIMITS the power of the Federal (and to a lesser extent, State) government to take away rights."

And it's all well and good. Certainly I'm more with the last argument than the Scalia model of "You want a right? Pass a law!". The intent of the Constitution seems clear to me to be about limiting government rights, not enumerating citizens’. The ninth and tenth amendments explicitly say so:

The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

and

The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.

However...

Can someone tell me what’s WRONG with a right of privacy? If so many of our disagreements are based on that, why can’t we pass an amendment explicitly spelling out the right of privacy?

The right is already there, both inferred in many court decisions as well as being left open to the people by the fact that it’s not specifically RESTRICTED. So explicitly enumerating it wouldn’t harm anything.

So what I want to know is what are the down sides to an explicit citizen’s right to privacy? And why are more people not concerned that in the last five years, government seems to have taken a sharp turn AWAY from citizen’s privacy and TOWARDS governmental secrecy?

Please, someone, tell me why a right to privacy would be such an anathema to your view of the United States?

Liam.

Thoughts on Harriet Miers

I'm not saying anything, just yet... But has anyone else noticed how QUICKLY the conservatives were out in force on this one?

Ken Mehlman of the RNC was accusing Democrats of trying to torpedo her nomination and urging people to step up and help within hours of the announcement of Ms. Miers' nomination. We had it in our e-mail box before I'd even heard the news that the nomination had been made.

And how could certain right wingers have been so quick to denounce Ms. Miers' nomination? Initial condemnations of the pick were out as quickly as Mehlman's e-mail. Everyone else is sitting around trying to figure out HOW to assess this woman, who has basically no public record to examine.

It seems to me to be a tactic. Convince the extreme right fringe to denounce the choice quickly, perhaps convince the left wing that she's a good pick, because THEY don't like her.

In point of fact, whether you like Bush or not, his people aren't dumb, they're MASTER manipulators. They knew, before they announced this, who was going to like Miers and who was going to dislike her. They're not going to give people who will dislike the choice any kind of advance notice. So condemnations that come out that fast are either knee-jerk administration haters (which the right wing certainly doesn't fit) or are calculated.

By the way, with all the talk on Cronyism in this White House, does anyone else find it interesting that this is the SECOND time the person tasked with finding a person to fill a position has chosen themselves? Dick Cheney was in charge of finding the VP candidate when Bush was first running. And Miers was in charge of finding the candidates for the Supreme Court.

Finally, with recent leaks about the Valerie Plame case making it sound as though Fitzgerald (the special prosecuter) may actually be aiming higher than Rove and Libby, and with some discussion going on about war crimes committed by the United States, it is also possible that maybe this choice is less about pleasing the right wing and more about packing the court with people as loyal as possible to the President, in case the Supreme Court ends up having to hear a case against him. Heck, with his struggling popularity numbers and the large number of Republican scandals (Delay, Frist, the Plame matter, just to name a few), there's a very real risk he could lose the Congress in 2006 and end up on the wrong end of an impeachment trial. There are certainly enough Democrats who have advocated such, but knew they could never get it through with the Republicans in control. So maybe he really doesn't care about his base as much as he does stacking the deck against one or more of these pigeons coming home to roost.

Just my initial thoughts. The thing that sucks about Ms. Miers is that if you thought John Roberts was a stealth candidate, Miers is positively invisible. Even if we had a Congress that took its "advise and consent" role seriously, there's simply no way for them to do that.

(I'd like to go on about some of the corruption at the law firm Ms. Miers apparently was managing partner for back in Texas, but so far I've not had time to confirm it from reliable sources, so I'll wait.)

Liam.

Bio Weapons?

And this...

Tularemia is one of a number of biological agents (including anthrax, plague and smallpox) that are considered candidates as bio-weapons.

And it was detected in the air in Washington during the anti-war protest on 9/24 and 9/25.

According to the article I linked to, officials don't believe it was intentionally released... but...

The only time they detect this disease in the air is when a batch of anti-Administration people are protesting on the Mall? That seems coincidental.

I'm not saying it was done officially, if it was done intentionally by someone it may just have easily been a Timothy McVeigh type, convinced of the righteousness of the war and the current Administration and wanting to strike back. And of course it is possible that it's entirely coincidental.

But just consider the possibilities. A possible small-scale biological attack on a group of people known to be in opposition to the party currently in power.

Scary stuff.

Liam.

Indiana

UPDATE: As of October 6th, the proposal for this law has been withdrawn due to public outcry.

* * *

I don't believe this. I simply don't believe this. Click here if you don't believe me.

There is a bill up for consideration in Indiana which would criminalize medically assisted conception/reproduction, unless the woman in question first passed a screening test.

The bill says a woman "who knowingly or willingly participates in an artificial reproduction procedure" without court approval, "commits unauthorized
reproduction, a Class B misdemeanor." The same is true of her doctor.

In it's face, that doesn't sound so bad, until you hear the requirements.

In order to become pregnant by any means other than male-female intercourse, a woman would have to obtain a government authorization ("Gestational Certificate") to reproduce. In order to get said authorization, she would have to:

...be married to a person of the opposite gender.
...have the right values, including participating in church or other faith based activities.

In other words, the state of Indiana wants to make it illegal for lesbians to become inseminated, and considers athiest/agnostic couples with fertility troubles not worthy of medical help.

Now, don't get me wrong, there are a lot of people out there having children who shouldn't. There are a lot of horrible parents out there. But to try to limit access to reproductive medical assistance to anyone who is not married, straight and christian is not in line with the philosophies of this country.

Philosophically, I would have no problems with prospective parents having to meet certain minimum qualifications before they would be allowed to reproduce. In practice, the idea scares the willies out of me, because it would be a law just begging for abuse.

But this, a law which couldn't be more unequal if it came right out and said "If you aren't the right sort of people, you can't have children in Indiana". First it's gays and non-christians. Who'd be next? Blacks? Arabs? Families with ties to the Democratic Party?

Liam.

The U.S. Ministry of Propaganda

I can't recall whether I've written about this before. I'm pretty sure I didn't, because I became aware of the story in the midst of some other flurry of posts (Katrina, perhaps, or earlier stuff on the Plame/Rove/Libby story).

But now the U.S. Government Accountability Office (G.A.O.) has weighed in, finding that the regular release of government-written articles as "news" violates the law, according to a New York Times article.

But here's one of the really frustrating things about our government: Although we have laws to prevent certain behaviors, we don't really have any punishments in place, and often it's the honor system.

In this particular case, the G.A.O. has the responsibility of issuing this finding, but has no power to impart penalties. Their responsibility, and their authority, end with providing the report to... the White House and Congress, the people responsible for the crimes in the first place.

Why do I not think anything will come of this? It's flagrantly illegal, but who cares? As seems so often to be the case lately, those in charge of enforcing the rules are those who are breaking them, or at least their close friends.

Congressional oversight of the President? Don't make me laugh, the majority of this Congress has it's collective nose so far up the Presidential posterior that the tip of said proboscis has distinct marks of digestion. And while the courts are set up to oversee Congress, that’s being attacked on two fronts. First, by nominating activist arch-conservative judges (and then throwing a “nuclear option” tantrum when even a very small minority of them are blocked), and second by arguing that the courts are inherently overstepping their bounds and must be curtailed back until they have almost no power over Congress.

Pay attention, folks. When the people who are at the heart of an argument against regulatory powers are those who stand to gain the most freedom by being out from under regulation, you have to pause and think. You really have to wonder why such oversight concerns them so much, if they have no intention of abusing their power.

And so once again, a story about how this Administration has broken the law and violated the independence of the news media, and given how many moral, legal and ethical lapses they’ve had, it barely even registers.

Really makes me look back fondly on the days when misbehavior in the Oval Office involved cigars and oral sex. So much for the much vaunted oath to “restore honor to the White House”.

Liam.