Originally Posted By TomSawyer Do you see any posts by anyone on the other side of the ideological fence that you can use as an example of why this nation can never come together?
Originally Posted By gadzuux >> Once again showing why his opinions and comments must be brushed aside, by clear thinking individuals, as nothing but ideological blather!!! << One man's ideological blather is another man's fact based reasoning. What you're brushing aside is the "bigger picture". Why are white house officials lying under oath? What is it they're trying to hide? What motives would the white house have for outing a CIA agent? Is it just one big coincidence that this particular agent is married to someone who embarrassed the white house - by pointing out OTHER lies? Bush supporters are continually forced into saying that this or that appalling action is an isolated case, and not reflective of a larger problem. They have to - it's the only way to justify their unquestioning support of a corrupt administration. Already we've got the usual suspects saying that "he's presumed innocent until convicted". Well that works both ways - just because they're haven't been more indictments doesn't mean that nobody else is guilty.
Originally Posted By planodisney But your belief as expressed above, doesnt prove that there is anything larger going on here. Of coarse your fact based reasoning will leed you to believe all of the things you express above. Your biased would never allow you to ponder if maybe, this was just brought out in conversation. Or to ponder, why would they leak this information, and then blab about it to the press. Or to ponder, what could they have gained by outing his wife. or to ponder anything that doesnt fit into your pre-determined assumption on every issue when it comes to this administration. Your ,"gut feeling" that this administration is crooked doesnt prove anything, accept that you enter into every discussion with biased interpretation.
Originally Posted By planodisney gadzuux, i am not saying that what you believe to be true in this case is possible. Of course it is!!! My feeling is that, at this point, it doesnt make much sense though, and leeds me to believe that they were not intentionally outing her, but facts to be upcomming could definitely change my mind. What frustrates me about people like you, is that you wont allow for any facts to sway you predetermined position. A position that doesnt jive with your obvious intelligence. As humans, we have to always be cognizant that we are not 100% correct in all of our assumptions or views. We are just flat wrong some times. You dont seem to be able to enter into any argument without the attitude that you know everything and everyone else is a blind partisan idiot.
Originally Posted By AgentLaRue Still waiting for those links to quotes of Wilson lying about Cheney sending him to Niger.
Originally Posted By patrickegan I think I know why we can’t come together as a nation, it’s because George Bush never owned an El Camino with Astroturf in the back?
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>I think I know why we can’t come together as a nation, it’s because George Bush never owned an El Camino with Astroturf in the back?<< And there's your LaughingPlace.com Obscure Reference™ of the day!
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <No, it didn't. It voted to grant the President the authority to attack Iraq if there was a clear and present danger to the United States.> That's not what it said. <a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html" target="_blank">http://www.whitehouse.gov/news /releases/2002/10/20021002-2.html</a>
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <He apparently did tell people without a security clearance or a need to know, which is a crime even if the information isn't published.> Then why wasn't he charged with that?
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <They based it also on British intelligence claims... which seem to also be based on those documents.> The British claims were not based on those documents, and it was corroborated by other intelligence, including, as I've recently shown you, Ambassador Wilson's report. As Lord Butler said, the claims regarding Niger and yellowcake were "well-founded". <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/3894093.stm" target="_blank">http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/ 3894093.stm</a>
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Still waiting for those links to quotes of Wilson lying about Cheney sending him to Niger.> Beaumandy did stretch a bit with that one, but Wilson has told a few whoppers. <a href="http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/005/827tvxjl.asp" target="_blank">http://www.weeklystandard.com/ Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/005/827tvxjl.asp</a>
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>Then why wasn't he charged with that?<< I'm guessing you didn't hear or read a transcript of the prosecutor's press conference, so I'll just quote what he said: Let me then ask your next question: Well, why is this a leak investigation that doesn't result in a charge? I've been trying to think about how to explain this, so let me try. I know baseball analogies are the fad these days. Let me try something. If you saw a baseball game and you saw a pitcher wind up and throw a fastball and hit a batter right smack in the head, and it really, really hurt them, you'd want to know why the pitcher did that. And you'd wonder whether or not the person just reared back and decided, "I've got bad blood with this batter. He hit two home runs off me. I'm just going to hit him in the head as hard as I can." You also might wonder whether or not the pitcher just let go of the ball or his foot slipped, and he had no idea to throw the ball anywhere near the batter's head. And there's lots of shades of gray in between. You might learn that you wanted to hit the batter in the back and it hit him in the head because he moved. You might want to throw it under his chin, but it ended up hitting him on the head. FITZGERALD: And what you'd want to do is have as much information as you could. You'd want to know: What happened in the dugout? Was this guy complaining about the person he threw at? Did he talk to anyone else? What was he thinking? How does he react? All those things you'd want to know. And then you'd make a decision as to whether this person should be banned from baseball, whether they should be suspended, whether you should do nothing at all and just say, "Hey, the person threw a bad pitch. Get over it." In this case, it's a lot more serious than baseball. And the damage wasn't to one person. It wasn't just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us. And as you sit back, you want to learn: Why was this information going out? Why were people taking this information about Valerie Wilson and giving it to reporters? Why did Mr. Libby say what he did? Why did he tell Judith Miller three times? Why did he tell the press secretary on Monday? Why did he tell Mr. Cooper? And was this something where he intended to cause whatever damage was caused? FITZGERALD: Or did they intend to do something else and where are the shades of gray? And what we have when someone charges obstruction of justice, the umpire gets sand thrown in his eyes. He's trying to figure what happened and somebody blocked their view. As you sit here now, if you're asking me what his motives were, I can't tell you; we haven't charged it. So what you were saying is the harm in an obstruction investigation is it prevents us from making the fine judgments we want to make. I also want to take away from the notion that somehow we should take an obstruction charge less seriously than a leak charge. This is a very serious matter and compromising national security information is a very serious matter. But the need to get to the bottom of what happened and whether national security was compromised by inadvertence, by recklessness, by maliciousness is extremely important. We need to know the truth. And anyone who would go into a grand jury and lie, obstruct and impede the investigation has committed a serious crime. FITZGERALD: I will say this: Mr. Libby is presumed innocent. He would not be guilty unless and until a jury of 12 people came back and returned a verdict saying so. But if what we allege in the indictment is true, then what is charged is a very, very serious crime that will vindicate the public interest in finding out what happened here.
Originally Posted By patrickegan “When I was a younger man and had a life, I owned an El Camino pickup in the '70s. It was a real sort of Southern deal. I had Astroturf in the back." Bill Clinton And Carville had the seeds to called Paula Jones trailer park trash!
Originally Posted By TomSawyer >>As Lord Butler said, the claims regarding Niger and yellowcake were "well-founded".<< Not according to the CIA. <a href="http://www.sundayherald.com/print35264" target="_blank">http://www.sundayherald.com/pr int35264</a> (excepted below) Well before the IAEA rained on the pro-war parade, the CIA was telling its masters in the Bush administration that the British intelligence on the Niger connection was nonsense. Vice-President Dick Cheney's office received the forged evidence in 2002 -- before Bush's State of the Union address on January 28 this year -- and passed it to the CIA. The CIA then dispatched former US ambassador Joseph C Wilson to Africa to check out the claim. Wilson came back saying the intelligence was unreliable and the CIA passed Cheney the assessment. Nevertheless, Bush kept the claim in his speech, and Cheney said, just days before the war began in March, that: 'We know (Saddam's) been absolutely trying to acquire nuclear weapons, and we believe he has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons.' He also poured scorn on the IAEA for saying the documents were forged. 'I think Mr El Baradei frankly is wrong ... (The IAEA) has consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don't have any reason to believe they're any more valid this time than they've been in the past.' Wilson said it was Cheney who forced the CIA to try to come up with a credible threat from Iraqi nukes. 'I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons programme was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. A legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretences,' he wrote. Wilson also said: 'It really comes down to the administration misrepresenting the facts on an issue that was a fundamental justification for going to war. It begs the question: 'What else are they lying about?'' Wilson is no rogue official. He was lauded by George Bush Snr for 'fighting the good fight' after he became the last US diplomat to confront Saddam in the run-up to the first Gulf war. The irony isn't lost on Wilson, who says: 'I guess he didn't realise that one of these days I would carry that fight against his son's administration.' Greg Thielmann, director of the State Department's Office of Strategic, Proliferation and Military Issues, says the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research ruled the Niger connection implausible and told US Secretary of State Colin Powell. Thielmann also said Iraq posed no nuclear threat, and Team Bush distorted intelligence to fit its drive for war. Richard Kerr, a former CIA deputy director now leading a review of the agency's pre-war intelligence on Iraqi WMDs, says intelligence was ambiguous and the CIA was under pressure from the Bush administration. The CIA, in what one British intelligence source described as a 'wise attempt at an ass-saving manoeuvre', also tried to have reference to Iraq's uranium links to Niger deleted from Bush's State of the Union address. CIA officials say they 'communicated significant doubts to the administration about the evidence'. Condoleezza Rice, Bush's national security adviser, disputes the claim, saying the CIA cleared the reference made by Bush. The CIA also tried to save Blair's ass too. In September, before publication of the UK dossier citing the Niger connection, the CIA tried to persuade Britain not to use the claim. CIA figures say the agency was consulted by the UK and 'recommended against using that material'. Blair, however, continues to defend the allegation, claiming the UK has separate intelligence -- or 'non-documentary evidence' -- to back up the Niger claim, proving Britain wasn't solely reliant on the forgeries. That's quite a different tack to the White House, which shamefacedly admitted on Monday that Bush's uranium claim was based on faulty British intelligence and shouldn't have been included in the State of the Union address. But Bush is determined not to find himself in the same situation as Blair -- facing calls for his resignation over claims that he lied. On Friday, CIA director George Tenet said he was to blame for Bush's use of the bogus uranium claim . He said the insertion was a 'mistake', the CIA cleared the speech and 'the President had every reason to believe the text presented to him was sound'. But that doesn't tally with high-level intelligence that the Niger claim was written into the President's Daily Brief -- one of the most top-level intelligence assessments in the US, prepared by the CIA and given to Bush and other very senior officials.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <I'm guessing you didn't hear or read a transcript of the prosecutor's press conference, so I'll just quote what he said> No, I heard all that, and my question remains. If Mr. Fitzgerald can prove that Mr. Libby broke the law, then he should charge him with that. And if he can't, then we should assume that Mr. Libby is innocent of that offense.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <Not according to the CIA.> That article doesn't quote anyone from the CIA. It quotes former agents who are now members of VIPS, a left-wing organization.
Originally Posted By Kar2oonMan >>“When I was a younger man and had a life, I owned an El Camino pickup in the '70s. It was a real sort of Southern deal. I had Astroturf in the back." Bill Clinton<< Alright. Now, what in the wide, wide world of sports does that quote have to do with Libby's indictment?
Originally Posted By TomSawyer He can prove that Libby revealed the identity of a covert agent to the press. He can't prove intent because of Libby's obstruction and lies. Think of this in a different way: a body is found. They investigate to see if it was suicide, murder, manslaughter or an accident. They know it was either murder, manslaughter or an accident based on the physical evidence. However, when they question witnesses one of them lies and the lie is serious enough that the prosecutor cannot determine whether the victim was killed by a premeditated assault, or killed in the heat of passion, or killed by accident. The prosecutor can't charge the liar with the crime of murder or manslaughter because he doesn't know the intent of the person responsible for the death of the victim. Murder and manslaughter have specific tests that have to be met in order for the charges to stick - just like the laws about outing a covert CIA operative.
Originally Posted By DouglasDubh <However, when they question witnesses one of them lies and the lie is serious enough that the prosecutor cannot determine whether the victim was killed by a premeditated assault, or killed in the heat of passion, or killed by accident. The prosecutor can't charge the liar with the crime of murder or manslaughter because he doesn't know the intent of the person responsible for the death of the victim.> In this case, however, the "liar" and the "killer" are one and the same. Are you saying I can go murder someone, and then lie about it, and the most I'll be charged with is perjury?
