Because it is not a crime that can be proven on circumstantial evidence. You would have to come up with two witnesses to the “overt act” – that’s in the Constitution – and that would not be easy.
Also, a sitting president probably cannot be prosecuted for any crime, though that’s more debatable.
Yeah, but he’s got to stand up sometime, to take a leak, or stretch his legs or something. They can get him then, can’t they?
Depends on who you mean by “they” - the fact that Plame and Wilson have a civil suit outstanding against some of the key players - I am pretty sure it includes Libby, Cheney and Rove - could be an interesting development down the line. I wonder what the timetable is for that case?
That’s not the real reason.
First, the crime, such as it is, wouldn’t be treason no matter who did it. We’ve been thru this over and over. You have to “adhere to the enemy”, which means join up with them and give them “aid” or “comfort”. Leaking to a newspaper is not “adhering to the enemy”.
Second, there is no evidence that I’ve ever seen that links Bush personally to the leaking of this information.
In any case, we just might have something more solid to nail W on.
My thread is my cite? :dubious:
Can you quote the part that indicts Bush (as opposed to Gonzales)?
That’s why I said "just might." There’s no way to tell, at this point, what the president knew or when he knew it. (Assuming the question has any meaning applied to one with his level of reading comprehension.)
I wonder if Esfandiari or Tajbakhsh have ever been publicly associated with Plame? If we do have a network in Iran, it seems it’s being shut down by the Iranians.
Are you saying you think those 3 actually are spies? Seems very unlikely to me.
Are you saying we have no covert agents in Iran? That seems very unlikely to me.
It is, but why would the CIA use a high-profile scholar like Esfandiari? Spies should be as anonymous and invisible as possible.
Climb on a plane and fly out to one of the desert states, such as Arizona. Get a car and drive out into the desert. Wait for the sun to go down and let it get good and dark. Step out and listen. You’ll hear a coyote howling at the moon.
That coyote’s howling at the moon is more intelligent and has more meaning than Bill Maher’s howling at the moon any day of the week.
(edited to fix typo)
Ah! A non sequitur expressed as personal belief long after the topic has wandered far from its origin.
How timely.
[sigh] Do we have to go through this again?
Sure, but you have to work with the assets that are available, rather than the assets you want. Besides, a high profile scholar like Esfandiari is likely to meet with high profile Iranians; the sort able to dish out on what’s really going on within the halls of power. We have no embassy, thus no ‘cultural attaches’, so we’ve got to get the information such people would provide through another route. While we Americans may be too noble to do anything as sneaky and underhanded as dispatching academics to spy for us, I sincerely doubt that the Iranians think of us as being that noble.
The intel agencies have gotten away from operatives in recent years, they were supposed to be reversing that in the wake of 9/11, but these things take time. We may not have any agents on the ground, or not enough to be effective.
That was over a half decade ago. They damn well better have something by now, even if it is only a few travelling scholars. Of course, the drought of covert agents in the 90’s makes the outing of Plame even more serious than it would otherwise be. Rumor has it that she was working on Iranian nuclear proliferation, and it is exactly there that we see Americans being arrested for spying.
Remember, you’re expecting this of an Administration that thought putting a horse judge in charge of FEMA was a good idea, who thought terrorists were going to attack us with “dirty bombs” in their shoes, who claimed that Iraq had WMDs, who had all kinds of warning signs that something was up in August 2001, but chose to ignore it, and who can’t admit that Iraq is a clusterfuck of the highest order. Forgive me if I don’t share your effervescent optimism.
Screw the admininstration, I expect this of the CIA. It’s their fucking JOB, regardless of who is, or is not manning the white house.
And it’s the tits in the White House who appoint the head of the CIA, and, IIRC, the current head is a Bush appointee.