I mentioned it, yes. though I didn’t recall the name of the company.
It’s my opinion that they wanted so badly to discredit Wilson that they didn’t particularly CARE who else was outed.
John Mace asks you for examples of apologist posts. You respond with one from [Martin Hyde**, and then say that you’re sure that I, and another poster, will provide more soon?
Do I take it from that response that you acknowledge no post of mine in this thread qualifies as apologist now?
If that’s true, why even mention my name in response to a question about apologist posts?
Actually, I’m somewhat surprised that the big three networks ran with the story. I thought it would get all the coverage of Al Gore’s speech. So I’ll withdraw my criticism of the media for this story.
The Democrats cite eight different denials from Bush from George Bush regarding knowledge of the leak. Even Peter only denied Jesus three times. Turns out George Bush denied knowing about the leak that he authorized eight times before the donkey brayed. Are eight lies about leaking the name of a covert agent as serious as not coming completely clean about an illicit relationship?
But this information wasn’t classified by virtue of the President’s decision. Yeah, maybe people should consider that before voting for someone for president, but not only did Bush not do anything illegal in this case, I don’t think that releasing a summary of a NIE is inappropriate.
There’s a world of difference between releasing specific information about intelligence gathering services and the summary results of a NIE brief. Why the hell can’t you people either understand or acknowledge that?
Looking at BobLibDem’s link, there’s nothing inconsistent in those eight quotes and declassifying material is not the same as leaking it. Again, it’s a power that the President has because he’s the President.
Everybody is trying to force this declassification into a personal vendetta against Ambassador Wilson to make political hay, but does the administration not have a right to respond to pressing political issues? Defending the war in Iraq is certainly a part of his job after leading us to it.
Telling Libby to get out his fuck stick for Wilson is an enitrely different matter from responding in a substantiative manner to a substantiative criticism, and all the evidence right now points to the latter and not the former.
I was probably going to vote for a Democrat in 2008 because I hate Bush, but if some idiots keep this stupidity up like with the Dubai Ports Deal, I’ll consider who the GOP has on offer.
If not personal retribution, what was it? There’s a difference between defending a policy and playing dirty tricks on those that present opposing information. And leaking classified information is not the same as declassifying it. He didn’t say “this was not classified information at the time it was made public.”
Well, you’re assuming for the purposes of this question that Bush actually did authorize it. As I mentioned above, that assumption requires accepting Libby’s statement about Cheney as true, AND Cheney’s statement about Bush as true, which is double hearsay.
But assuming it is true, I’d say it’s both more serious and less serious. In terms of the import of the underlying matter discussed, it’s much more serious. If this is true, then Bush exercised his authority to declassify material for the sole purpose of gaining partisan and political advantage, and then repeatedly lied about it. That’s reprehensible.
It’s less serious in a purely legal context, assuming the “illicit relationship” you’re talking about was Clinton’s perjurious statements to the criminal grand jury. Bush’s alleged lies, while about more serious underlying matters, are ultimately not illegal; Clinton’s were.
Does the president have absolute authority to declassify? Suppose someone else, Congress for example, classifies it? And what is the process of declassification? Does it need to be documented at the time? If the “I declassified it” defense is to work, is there a way to say “prove it”?
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Materiality, counsellor?
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Authority?
Of course it does. I don’t think anyone wants to deny them the right to respond to criticism. It’s just that the administration has many methods at their disposal, and they chose this particularly underhanded method.
Clearly both parties were involved in the resistance to the Dubai Ports deal. While Schumer attempted to work the Senate and made some boilerplate remarks, Peter King (R-NY) was easily the most vocal critic of the deal around here.
We already went over this earlier. Yes.
It was reported by the Whitehouse correspondent on Hardball yesterday that the mere fact of the president releasing material is an act of declassifying it. Which basically means that the President cannot “leak” something if we take that word to mean the unauthorized giving of information.
We can criticize him for releasing specific information, but calling him the “leaker in chief” as some Dems have done is highly disingenuous.
It’s still unclear to me that any of the released info in this story was directed at discrediting Wilson, qua Wilson, as opposed to just offering a counterargument to his reports. What I see as Pitworthy here on Bush’s part is selective releasing of material to make his like good (is that news?), rather than a smear campaign against the person of Joe Wilson. But I haven’t seen all the documents, so I’m open to changing my mind if someone has evidence.
Gahh! That should be “make his side look good…”
One of the primetime news shows did an episode on the CIA a few years back and I remember the level of paranoia associated with it. They had permission to film a couple of interviews in CIA headquarters, but every employee including those in the gift shop (which is open to employees only) had to have their face blurred and wear their nametags/photo-IDs in their pocket when on camera and the CIA had to have the tape and full rights to edit it before it was shown on television. One thing they showed was the Memorial Stars on the wall for agents killed in the line of duty and their names, which are revealed for the first time only after their death. Even then they don’t release them all and they do not reveal every name immediately because it could endanger too many lives.
Clay Bertrand, the posterchild of JFK conspiracy buffs, was outed as a CIA “contact” only years after his death and more than 20 years after he was supposedly last used as a contact. Even so, this revelation was made only under subpoena and after much legal advice because of the potential fragility of the information. Sorrell Booke, who played “Boss Hogg” on DUKES OF HAZZARD and worked for the OSS at one time, told a reporter in an interview (I wish I could find it, but this was many years ago)- and he was not joking- that 30 years later he could not discuss what cases he was involved with. This is not because of tin-foil hatted agency managers deciding it makes them sound cool and mysterious but because it really is that dangerous to make their contacts and employees known.
Valerie Plame was not, so far as we know, involved in “MR. & MRS. SMITH” type stuff, but that is AS FAR AS WE KNOW. The exact nature of her assignment and duties is not public. Even the president would not necessarily have known what a particular agent is involved in- the office job in Delaware may actually have a lot to do with the Middle East or Africa. Any company that she has ever worked for can now be suspected as a CIA front company, thus endangering their employees whether they are or are not CIA fronts. Anybody that she associated with (including her husband and his acquaintances [because a disproportionate number of CIA employees marry other CIA employees due to the extreme secrecy involved by the work being hard to relate to a non CIA employee]) is suspect. If she took a weekend antiquing trip to Quebec in 1989, it is suspect.
The fact that she wasn’t a Ninja trained superagent (to our knowledge 
) is irrelevant. She is a pulled thread whose revelation could endanger the safety of others, including some who never worked for the CIA.
Other talking heads on the news talk shows say otherwise. Let me get this straight: Revealing that Wilson’s wife was CIA was done to make Bush’s side look good? How was that supposed to work? We’re supposed to think: “gee, that Niger stuff was all a load of crap but wait a minute, the guy that tells us that has a CIA agent for a wife. I guess I believe Bush now.” This was retribution, pure and simple. And rather than admit to authorizing the leak, he decided to go on and on about how the leaker would be punished. No amount of spinning makes Bush come out smelling like a rose here.
Here’s the $64 Dollar Question:
Why did the White House authorize a multi-million dollar investigation by a special prosecutor if they knew all along what had happened and that, because the information was declassified or declassifiable by the President, there nothing to investigate?
Wait a minute. There is a proceedure for declassifying information that even the President must follow. It’s up there in this thread somewhere. This proceedure, which is law, was not followed.
The President cannot just leak whatever he feels like to whoever he feels like, no matter how much Bricker and John Mace would like to believe otherwise. Not even for reasons of national security much less for vindictive, backbiting reasons.
If it is true that the President, in allowing this information to be distributed to the media, has in fact declassified it, why is much of this information NOT being given to the news sources today? How is it now all of a sudden classified information?
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: This President could eat babies live on TV and some people will blame the babies for being to pink and tender.
How many times do you have to be told that (from my post above, emphasis added):
I don’t undestand why you keep bring that up in the context of this news story.
See above. You owe me $64. 
I don’t understand the question. If you’re asking whether Clinton’s statements were not material, and thus not perjury, that’s simply not the case. Clinton’s statements to the grand jury were directly related to the grand jury’s investigation; they were per se material.
Emphasis added. Do we know that? How?
Hey, I wouldn’t “like” anyone to believe anything other than the truth. I’m reporting what I heard on the news.
The WH claimes it was declassified (empahsis added):
Do you have a cite that this info was not declassified? It’s an honest question, because I haven’t seen proof that it wasn’t. You claim to know that it wasn’t declassified-- can we see the evidence?
I’m afraid it depends on what you read. From MSNBC,
We don’t yet know if it was Bush or Cheney or both that outed Plame.