Ghouliani had Dick Wigton, of Kidder, Peabody arrested on the trading floor and led out in handcuffs in time for the evening news. After two years, no charges were ever brought, but the man was ruined.

Ghouliani: Just because we didn't bring a charge doesn't mean he's not guilty.

This is the last person this country needs picking up where John Torture Yoo's unitary executive left off.

And Fred Thompson is supposed to be the Law and Order candidate?

Thanks, Larry.

I am incapable of understanding how the treasonous activities of the White House in this instance can be scoffed at so easily but then all those serving our country instead of harming it are expendable under the current administration.

Best, Terry

Nice letter. Only thing is, neither Martinez nor anybody else who holds pro-Libby views will actually be swayed by it. Few of them will ever even read it. And when they do they will seize upon the minor inaccuracy that Judge Walton's given name is Reggie, not Reginald. Reggie B. Walton. "Aha!" they will say, "This invalidates his whole argument!"

Too bad you already sent the letter.

Thompson is apparently just the next stooge but stooge for who in particular?

I think the Dems should go along with subpoenas for Valerie Plame, etc. as long as they're tied to subpoenas for Rove and Cheney. In the interest of truth and justice, I'm sure this is a deal the Republicans can agree to.

Attacking Plame, if she's to be called in Committee,sounds like the usual Republican tactic. Scooter Libby should visit in trustee orange to testify to the record in comparison.

Show No Quarter.

So many things seem to be said to get support from one's party power brokers during an election year. That pandering is corruptive, but it seems we go on accepting it as foundational when we should be digging the parties with their special interest parasitism out of the ground of US constitutional government. If that isn't done, there won't be justice for abused CIA or military public servants or anyone who gets in the way of the calcified entitlement system our party regime has become. Where is the word Republican or Democrat or conservative or liberal in the Constitution?

I know that it will be said this is oversimplifying. But if we can't solve the obvious, tectonic, simple dislocations in our system, you can kiss the complex ones hello for good. Power and economy will then adapt by perpetuating our national issues because it creates a co-dependent system of passing time and profit through generations of the hapless.

The Plame violation is another offense in the manhandling of the CIA by an ideologic mindset in one of the parties. The other party has its own inefficient, illogical inner-inconsistencies.  When Rumsfeld's DoD initiated covert operations parallel with the CIA mission and distinguished them as "combat" versus CIA "geopolitical" it seemed an endrun and supplantation of CIA influence. Later photographs of CIA operatives wielding weapons and wearing body armor suggests that the distinction I'd heard b/w Defense and CIA intelligence operatives by a spokesman for Goss's CIA was smoke. On one hand, Bush sanctioned CIA operatives to hunt and kill terrorists. On the other, his underlings were arguing that Defense wasn't undercutting a CIA mission by having its own hunt-to-kill intelligence operatives who could operate in the GWOT where the world was their "theatre."

The fulcrum giving the administration and Rumsfeld leverage to usurp the CIA's "central" status was 9-11 and the 9-11 commission report. I wondered whether the impulsive creation of the NDI and DHS was further layered cover for the power shift, and have heard and read different stories on that. I am not saying that some at CIA were not responsible for "intelligence failures" but they are not the only ones. It is clear that 9-11 opened up partisan divides that had been worsening over time. I think it is extraordinary that former CIA officers are writing public letters about ethical lapses they've felt compelled to point out. There's more to this entire story than misdirective comments by Fred Thompson about Valerie Plame.

This power shift from CIA to Defense became an issue in a number of investigative reports and reams of stories. Reading the overtly stated neocon ideologies / visions set forth by different personalities after 9-11, it seemed that the neocons were warning the world: we're going to run over everyone to get back at the terrorists. No one's going to like it, but we're sure of what we're doing, we don't need advice, and it takes a ruthless regime to deal with ruthless regimes. Oh, by the way, when it's all over and democracy is established all over the world, then we'll let it go back to the way it was . . . well, with a few exceptions."

Partisan elitism's sense of entitlement to wage wars without public accountability or a declaration was expressed perfectly in the quote attributed to Cheney that Iraq was "our due." That said a lot about the acquisitive, dualist pendulum logic used by the partisans in power to bypass the people. If the two parties "own" the White House in various successions, then in some way, they are parties-in-conspiracy against popular responsiveness.

After Goss took over, there was a spike in firings and resignations of CIA officers during Rumsfeld's ascent, some of which may have affected the authors of the letter above. It seemed that Goss's appointment carried with it an agenda he would carry out quickly before being replaced. Part of it was to steamroll independent thinkers and remove yet more checks and balances from the system so that the executive may do what it wants. The idea of being as bad or worse than your enemy took hold early on at the Defense Policy Board advising the Pentagon, and the "war" footing was used to change the paradigm of governance.

The CIA is a huge organization, and the fact that there are only 8 signators in the ex-officers will be emphasized by opponents of their ideas. However, as always, it is the merit of their points that should matter.

Another unethical revolving door spun continuously by non-combat experienced politicians in this administration has been the use and abuse of combat experienced officers asked to lead the Iraq campaign with poor definitive mission guidance from above, who are then shamelessly used as scapegoats for the disintegration caused by that lack of concretely militarily achievable mission. The politicians are forcing the military into impossible situations in Iraq, and letting them sit like ducks without a concrete militarily achievable objective physically determinable by our military, to get out and be done.

The awareness that troops are left sitting like ducks because of the lack of a concrete, militarily achievable objective, suggests that there must be a remaining hidden agenda for the politicians that is not rooted in the national defense of the United States and its people.

Awareness of this means troops are wilfully exposed by the politicians to attack without a leadership lifeline, swinging in the wind. I believe General Pace, who has spoken up against Rumsfeld's ill-answer to the question of whether a warrior is duty-bound to stop someone from being tortured, or simply required to report it, is an honest U.S. Marine officer. I read his face to be a face of a man ready to rip the mid-gut out of his own leadership chain if asked under oath to tell the truth about his view of the war. Pace is not a neocon or a yes man.

It may be true that Gen. Pace would have been grilled for his comments about homosexuals in the military, but his opinion about that isn't central to his ability to lead a force that is nearly all heterosexual. The last place overly sensitive gay politics should be allowed to make a big stink and disrupt unitary life is the military. The overwhelming plurality of people serving are simply not gay. For those that are, I don't think they are the ones screaming for the ability to march to a different tune because of it. It is irrelevant to the mission. Also, to avoid prejudicial disruptions, not allowing the discussion of the matter ought to be the norm. Private time or liberty is private time or liberty, and it ought to be left at that.

If some in Congress were going to sift Pace over his comment versus his on the job performance and career, effectively making his attitude about DADT policy a litmus test for re-confirmation, I say those misguided congresspersons are the same ones who would let something like that disrupt continuity in leadership over the Armed Services even more than the divide-and-conquer Bush administration officials have already done.

A political leadership that lacks the discipline to model the sort of government and leadership that it lauds about past Administrations in its speeches, particularly when it gets OPK's other-peoples'-kids killed, should receive no legal sympathy, lesser charges or mitigated punishment on conviction.

As far as I'm concerned "Scoter” and the rest of the lying phony intelligence generating Neo-Cons should be stood up against the nearest wall and shot for high treason. I figure Libby is getting off light all things considered, and I have no time for the cowards and sycophants who are whining on his behalf. The whole lot of them can go straight to Hell where they have so richly earned a berth.

The world has achieved brilliance without conscience. Ours is a world of nuclear giants and ethical infants.

Gen. Omar Bradley

Sorry, duplicate.

I'll settle for sending them to ICC.

Tom

Let's see how loyal George is to his Beltway neocon cabal.

Though they have deserted Bush, he can't desert them. Scooter will skate and that will be the sad ending to the entire affair.

The Onion had a headline saying something like God Answers Prayers of Dying Boy.

God said, "No."

Liberals have to deal with the way God answers prayers too.

Best, Terry

Let's see:

A commission headed by the former national security advisor Brent Scowcroft recently recommended that the director of central intelligence be given real budget authority over the entire intelligence community. But that move has long been resisted by the Pentagon.

Here you had Scowcroft saying that Central was supposed to mean Central, and implying that CIA can't be scapegoated for what they were not budgeted to do, i.e. be "central." And this is a problem caused in large part by some Democrats opposing too much budgetary power at CIA, while joining the GOP's grandstanders to criticize the hades out of CIA and ignore their own partisan fights over CIA's budget and power following decades of distrust of each others' presidents and their use of the agency. Then when there was an intelligence failure, they formed a congressional commission and then a Kissinger commission to talk about how screwed up the CIA was, playing right into Rumsfeld's hands. And so we see the abuse of the military through the DoD playing itself out in Iraq as a supposed part of the war on terror rather than as a separate war for some limited purpose, i.e. depose Saddam, restore temporary ordrer, then get out.

And so it appears Scowcroft was for increasing CIA's power, while the Pentagon under Rumsfeld, was against it. So Bush sends Goss to "discipline" the agency, while Bush et al start forming yet more layers of bureaucracy by which to be even more central than central intelligence, and that, with some interesting results to date.

Here is a Washpost piece indicating the "symmetry" between Bush-Kerry on a key issue related to ME terror, versus Scowcroft's more non-partisan, pragmatic approach:

Although both Bush and Kerry have been very supportive of Sharon's plan to withdraw from the Gaza Strip, Scowcroft said he warned Rice that this is a ruse to prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.

"When I first heard Sharon was getting out of Gaza I was having dinner with Condi and she said: 'At least that's good news,' " Scowcroft recounted. "And I said: 'That's terrible news. . . . Sharon will say: 'I want to get out of Gaza, finish the wall [the Israeli security barrier] and say I'm done.' "

The White House did not respond to a request for comment. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, when asked about Scowcroft's remarks on Fox TV's "Your World," said that "I have the greatest respect for Brent Scowcroft" but that Bush had gotten Sharon to attend a summit in 2003 with the Palestinian prime minister, and that Sharon has said he is committed to the U.S.-backed peace plan known as the road map.

Now look at it. And you want to tell me there's no symmetry in a destructive to anti-terror policy? Count me in the 1% and read the 2004 graphic showing the damned symmetry:

U.S. President Updated 2:09 AM ET Precincts:0%  CandidateVotes %   Bush * (R)  60,693,28151%   Kerry (D)  57,355,97848%   Other  1,107,3931% Full ResultsSource: AP

Your talk about a lack of symmetry, and the Democrats not being part of the problem through which our politicians have dragged the CIA, FBI and Armed Forces, is false.

The symmetry may not be perfect, but there is a mass of special interests and hypocritical we-can't-be-wrongers on both sides of the aisle.

How was the CIA being used by partisans before 9-11 and the various commissions which followed it? That's the question to answer to give us the right context in which to understand this transaction:

In private, F.B.I. and C.I.A. officials complained bitterly about the committee's staff, led by Eleanor Hill, a former inspector general at the Pentagon. Antagonism between the intelligence agency and the joint inquiry flared in September when Mr. Tenet sent an angry letter to the panel's leaders, protesting the treatment of a senior agency officer who had testified before the committee.

Mr. Tenet's letter was in response to a disclosure that the joint committee staff had predicted in a briefing book to committee members that the officer, Cofer Black, formerly the chief of the C.I.A.'s counterterrorism center, would "dissemble" in his testimony. Mr. Tenet said the disclosure revealed that some members of the committee staff were motivated by "bias, preconceived notions and apparent animus."

I never said Wilson was corruptive in telling the truth. However, he was married to a CIA agent whose agency had been used as a scapegoat to conceal a much greater dereliction of duties of the uphill buck which stops at the doors of those bitter partisans running the higher posts in this country who LET the intel community and Pentagon become overly-politicized enclaves in which battles over ideologic differences between the parties left the nation without real leadership. It isn't hard to drive fuel loaded airliners into major buildings and hammer the Pentagon itself in such an artificially partisan divided government.

And what do you make of this partisan battle regarding the Gulf War troops and the Clinton Administration, which was viewed by many in the US military as somewhat hostile to it, however accurate or inaccurate that is:

January 4, 1997
Web posted at: 11:20 a.m. EST

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A commission examining unexplained illnesses afflicting Persian Gulf War veterans has sent President Clinton a scathing review of its findings in which the panel accuses the Pentagon of "ineptitude and indifference in its investigation," according to CBS News.

That would be the Clinton Pentagon acting indifferently regarding the needs of US troops through executive negligence in leading and managing the Pentagon. Cohen, later at Johns Hopkins, said the Pentagon was so vast, it was ungovernable. Rumsfeld was the extreme pendulum swing in the other direction from that weak perspective. In such a vacuum of leadership at Pentagon, the extremes seem to rule, and the troops always lose because of it.

Now, if you are telling me that both parties and their partisan battles have not disserved the US Armed Forces and the intelligence community over decades, I say that you are making donuts on Pluto.

If I read Fred Thompson correctly, he is saying, in a nutshell, that God gave Scooter Libby the inalienable right and guidance, through the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, to do what he did. End of story.

Thompson is a prime example of Wingnutus Americanus. He is likely beyond reach of reality based argument.

Yes, there may be symmetry over time, but the current state is not to be made the responsibility of all past presidents--or we get to include Reagan and Nixon. Come to think of it, we already do have them as Cheney was with the rump state of the Ford presidency and we get the Iran-Contra crowd, as well, with Negroponte and Abrams.

These guys screwed up, big time. Accept it.

Larry,
I love when you say, much better than I could, the things that run thru my mind when I see these pathological liars speak.

I'd ask you to consider adding Sam Brownback's name to this, as he was guilty of saying Val wasn't working in the field.

This is a sitting Senator who has existing responsibilities. The others are formers in all categories...Hazbeens...

I asked the Ethics committee if Sam Brownback had any responsibility to tell the truth...and a nice lawyer for the govt called back and said,...well basically no. They can lie if they wish and blame it on "interpretation". However she did say there were obviously some cases of "lies" that might be actionable, but doubtfully this. So I called "Countdown" and asked them to cover this lie set...still no article specifically on this, but they have been covering the story more accurately than most.

So, then I called each member of the Ethics committee and the Intel committee and asked them to go ahead and clarify this allegation that Val Plame lied to congress. Get into it...pull up the truth. Stop the bullshit innuendos and just out it.

My blood is boiling over this issue and each and every time that Slackjaw Brit Hume and his gaggle of mollusks on FauxNews discuss how Plame wasn't covert, working in the field, a desk jockey soccermom, yet powerful enough to send a former ambassador overseas.

Thank you for your work Mr. Johnson. There are many who appreciate your words and efforst. Keep it up.
and....add Sam Brownback to your list.
peace

Accept that one of the two partisan groups making this country an insane asylum with their obdurate thinking toward one another, has screwed up? That's not hard to accept.

What I'm wondering is why you continue to try to get me to approve of that process.

My two cents:
1. How does all this play with the Bush Admin & Republican push to take away judicial discretion and have mandatory sentences for federal crimes. Will this become known as the "Scooter Libby Law" ?

2. A reminder about Martha Stewart [not that I particularly care about her, but,] she lied to a federal investigator basicly beacause she THOUGHT that what she did was against the law. There was no "underlying crime" so to speak. Ol' Scooter went into a court room and lied under oath. You can cry all you want about whether there was an underlying crime there. This is a magnitude larger than Martha's crime, committed by a very highly place government employee. He is getting off easy at 2.5yrs.

It might be fun to go look and see if any of the names that are so supportive of Scooter show up anywhere voicing concern about what happened to Martha....

...

... hello?

dc

If Paris Hilton can do time, so can Scooter.

OK, here is my 2 cents-worth:

1.  Did anyone notice that Bush had a bill on his desk for 2 weeks that would essentially eliminate the free ride of the Justice Department to appoint people without Congressional approval?  He held on to it long enough to appoint (under the table) another "loyal Bushie."  Everyone knows what he did and why he did it.  His response?  "F**k you!  You won't do anything about it, so I can do what I want to!"  So why does anyone think he won't pardon Scooter?  He couldn't care less what people think! 

2.  FYI, Larry, as a Virginian, I can tell you that the words of Jim Gilmore about the rule of law were the only intelligent words the man has ever uttered in his entire life.  Trust me, he is NOT presidential material (unless you consider George Bush presidential material).

3.  All that said, we have to keep Larry's letter and its points out there.  Who would want to be a CIA agent and put their life at risk when they know that they are at the mercy of politics?

By The Way -- Does anyone else crack up when they hear George Bush accuse people of "playing politics?"  What an idiot!  But he has a definite, although dwindling following.  The problem is that people like Rudy are superficial enough to pick up many of those who were in Bush's camp until a few months ago.

 Jan

Condi Rice.

"Try Sylvan learning centers on that reading attention span problem."

 Or you could try to think before your fingers hit the keyboards....

CVille Dem said:

His response? "F**k you! You won't do anything about it, so I can do what I want to!" So why does anyone think he won't pardon Scooter? He couldn't care less what people think!

Exactly. I find it incredible that Democrats and newsies have yet to figure that out. I sometimes think Bush simply enjoys rubbing people's noses in the fact that he's "The Decider", the President.

At the risk of seeming to be a conspiracy theorist I believe the forgetfullness of all the Bushies who testify before Congress is is a way of thumbing their noses at the Dems as the Bushies know "forgetfullness" is not a crime.

Definition of a partisan kiss-up to the majority, aka cowardice in the forum: Good4America nailing a guy he disagrees with for rebuffing the following:

"7500 words of mental gymnastics"

And where's the substance -- the specific point by point response to the actual content -- nowhere.

Where are the thinkers? Why should a person take care to write their thoughts out on a subject, only to have it summed up short and without any sort of engaging arguments, by two of the shortest straws in the brain department I've read on the site. What do I get from participating seriously on this site? I get a bunch of hurt-feeling liberals trying to defend their partisan blankies, just the same as would happen on a righty site. It's so predictable and so boring and so tiring to get folks who don't engage the ideas and who reduce the discussion to quick soundbytish network news headline cheap shots.

Where is the engagement that it is said it would be Good4America to master abroad? It isn't here, and it certainly isn't in your comment.

You're kissing OGD's rear for buddyship and I fear for your independence somewhere in your northern hemisphere from his southern.

I'll have to agree, as an another wordy type, that the first long post was a bit  of an eye-glazer. Now let's drop the attacking of our fellow hominem.

~

Ooooo . . .

Try Sylvan learning centers blah blah blah blah blah.

I read Pace's letter blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah "blah" blah blah. SEC Chair blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Uniformed military are blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah; blah blah blah blah blah. Now if you are saying blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Now if you are saying blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Otherwise, Pace's letter blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Pace's interaction with blah blah blah blah; blah blah.

As for Libby answering blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah / blah blah blah blah blah.

It seems that Pace blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah. Before I could buy blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah. Pace must have blah blah blah blah blah/blah blah blah-blah-blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

See also that Pace blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.This omission may blah blah blah blah blah blah.

Consider that Pace blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah.

I think Plamegate was as good an example as any of the satirical farce that our government has become, and the follies and public pratfalls that've ensued from the whole thing make for entertaining reading, but betray a serious lack of professionalism and adherence to both the oath and prescribed duty of the offices to which these people have attained.
And thus, we march off the deep end into 9,10,15 trillion in debt...global credibility falling, interest rates and inflation rising...and the Iraq war drags on, for another year, and another, and another, and...oh, another thing about Plame: Isn't there oil in Niger? Hmmmm....the plot thickens, has lower viscosity for easier starting, helps prevent engine breakdown, saves gas on the highway, AND it's API certified! LOL

You are prosecuting Pace because Libby was prosecuted. It's called guilt by association.

By your OGD-like logic, no one should ever be a defense witness, either in trial or in the punishment phase, or, if they are, they must be deemed to be in bad faith and "shunned by all decent Americans." As if you are the judge of "all decent Americans." Amazing.

Regarding hurt feelings of MrMurder: the truth hurts, doesn't it?

This is a blog where people try to "talk" (in written form) to each other.  Talking is a shared experience.

I am sure you have been at a party where someone decided he or she had something so important to say that once his mouth opened no one else could get a word in edgewise.  That is how all the rest of us are responding to your unnecessarily verbose posts.

Now, when people tell you you are boring them, you respond by calling them names and telling them they are stupid.  You could try examining the message rather than the messenger.

friends,

I called about 15 congressional members to ask them to go ahead and have another hearing to finalize the record so those mollusks like Tom Davis who continue to accuse Valerie Plame of perjury can be silenced with some truth.

I've read the "memo" in question and they are stupid to continue this pack of lies. So please call your congressional leaders and encourage them to get this crap over with. Put it on the record, finalize that Plame did not send Wilson, and couldn't have.

and while you're at it...get some support to impeach cheney

You can stop there if you like. I don't think we ought to stop there, because it ignores the historical context of dual party responsibility the cycles of which it is so crucial to break.

Go back and read the transaction again. This isn't a writing style issue. This is about a partisan disdain for people who think differently and write it out, and disingenuine personal attacks / style attacks which substitute for substantive disagreement and discourse.

I've seen plenty of long posts that weren't given equal treatment by you or OGD or your "trusted users" who do not play fair and equal here. Nor are all of my posts long. It underscores the site's chief problem: partisan guardians and lackeys who can't handle political comments which make them upset and challenge their premises. I know my experience on this site, and I'm firing back no worse than I've taken and you folks call it when it's me, but don't call it when its someone you agree with ideologically.

OGD didn't respond to the substance of a comment I wrote but tooks shots at me, as usual. It's a repetitive thing with him and I've lost patience for it, and for interlopers who don't deal straight on what has actually been said and done.

The way to deal with a long post is either read it and respond to its content, or ignore it and don't. Don't fail to deal with its contents, throw ad hominem grenades, and then count on your crutch-buddies to come down rate the guy who returns fire and lie about the reason being long comments. The down rating for ideological disagreement for pretextual reasons amounts to baiting people so as to make sure that those whose opinions you disagree with cannot ever be "trusted users."

I apologize for returning ad hominem for ad hominem, but this is getting old. It was return fire. Shouldn't have to go through this to belong to this site and comment here.

If you want to take this further on, we can do that. I'm trying to participate here. This is not a social party but a political website. It isn't an oral presentation format. People aren't kept from commenting while someone else comments, or because they comment at length. There is no "hogging space" because you can link to parents, scroll, skip and engage at will. Your arguments by analogy to such a situation don't work out.

Two more mind farts....

~

The
JOB of
the chief
of the JCS is
to provide, to
his civilian boss,
direct unadulterated
no bullshit truth about
the military's abilities.

His job is NOT to be sitting
around composing letters to some
judge in reference to some crook who
took an active roll as a conspirator to treason.
The perception alone doesn't sit well with the troops.

~OGD~