Posted by: jimhogan
Too rich... - 30/10/2005 01:50
Personally, I think anybody with a stupid name like "Scooter" deserves to be indicted just on general principle.
And so the current administration isn't busy enough getting Marines killed and generally being inept? So they have to sue The Onion over the use of the prezidential seal? What a bunch of morons.
Sue The Onion?
What were they thinking?
So
there. You reap what you sow.
Posted by: gbeer
Re: Too rich... - 30/10/2005 02:17
Note that no one has actually been indicted for the leaking itself. Only for obstruction of justice, perjury and the like.
Basically a lamb has been sacrificed. Not that Scotter is much of a lamb. Who knows maybe he did it and this is the deal that was worked out.
Posted by: gbeer
Re: Too rich... - 30/10/2005 04:59
I said he wasn't much of a lamb, and compared to leaking the name of an active duty agent. Yes, "only" is fitting.
Edit: Lamb compared to the remaining suspects, that fits too.
Posted by: blitz
Re: Too rich... - 31/10/2005 13:32
"ScAlito"
"The nomination of Judge Alito requires an especially long, hard look by the Senate because of what happened last week to Harriet Miers. Conservative activists forced Miers to withdraw from consideration for this same Supreme Court seat because she was not radical enough for them. Now the Senate needs to find out if the man replacing Miers is too radical for the American people." _ Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev.
Posted by: tonyc
Re: Too rich... - 31/10/2005 19:28
There's one thing about this that really gnaws at me, and that I haven't really read much about in the mainstream media or blogs.
Kay Bailey Hutchison, Alexander Haig, and a slew of other right-wing wackjobs have all thrown out varied wordings of the idea that, somehow, because Fitzgerald couldn't bring an indictment for the actual revelation of Valerie Wilson's identity, that the perjury/false statements/obstruction of justice indictments are somehow irrelevant, frivolous, etc. They characterize these indictments as the desperate act of a politically motivated prosecutor who "couldn't get the original indictments to stick" with respect to the leak. The "witch hunt" rubric has been used on more than one occasion.
Now, the hypocrisy of this rationalization when compared with the Clinton impeachment proceedings has been well covered. Nobody's come to expect consistency from these mindless idealogues, so it's not shocking that they're condemning the exact same behavior they supported when Ken Starr was going after Clinton (investigating a crime, and, when the original crime can't be proven, indict on perjury and obstruction.) It's also not shocking that they'd consider lying about receiving fellatio and lying about giving your intern a cushy job at Revlon to be worse than lying about a potential conspiracy to go after an outspoken critic of the war in Iraq by revealing his wife's identity.
The hypocrisy is underscored and boldfaced, however, when you consider that the perjury that Libby is accused of is VERY much germane to the original charges being investigated, whereas Clinton's alleged perjury and obstruction of justice were the result of about six hard left turns from the Whitewater scandal being originally investigated. Clinton absolutely lied about his sexual affairs, and very likely lied and obstructed justice with regards to other tributaries of the investigation, but even the overzealous Starr couldn't build a case that there was any lying about Whitewater. Libby's alleged perjury, on the other hand, was a key barrier to Fitzgerald being able to get to the bottom of the leak investigation. Clinton was lying about his relationship with Monica so he could keep his dirty little secrets about his sex life; Libby was lying about where he discovered Plame's identity so he could throw off the investigation of the leak itself, and possibly to shield even higher level administration figures from blame in the matter.
So, even if Dubya's water carriers were to admit an equivalence between what Starr did and what Fitzgerald is now doing. they'd be full of shit, because Starr went way further to find the perjury/obstruction charges than Fitzgerald did. And Fitzgerald did it at less than 1% of the cost of the Starr investigation, something fiscal conservatives should rejoice about.
Posted by: blitz
Re: Too rich... - 01/11/2005 13:03
Just curious... have you ever given a depostion as a fact witness?
Posted by: matthew_k
Re: Too rich... - 01/11/2005 14:36
What I don't understand is how leaking classified information is not a crime, or at least necessitates the loss of security clearance. I can understand how the actions may have not have met the standard of "knowingly revealing the identity of an undercover CIA officer", but how about plain "revealing classified information"? Her identity was floating around air force one on a memo marked "classified" after all. Ah well. I didn't think I had any respect for the president, but I have even less now that Karl Rove still reports for work every morning.
And on a lighter note, I think Eddie Izzard said something relevant:
Quote:
So, per – you know, perjury, umm, you know. If you commit perjury, I – I don’t care. Don’t give a shit. I don’t think you should because you grade murder. You have murder one, murder two. You realize that there can be a difference in the level of murder. So there must be a difference in the level of perjury. Perjury one is when you’re saying when you’re there’s no Holocaust when, you know 10 million people have died in it, and perjury…nine, is when you said you shagged someone when you didn’t.
Matthew