Monday, September 29, 2003
Plame, Plame, And More Plame
It looks like Ambassador Wilson & family are going to be something more than a minor irritant to the Bush administration. Josh Marshall, whose don't miss two part interview with Joe Wilson is now available in PDF format , has scads on the fallout from the Friday annoucement that a referral has been made by the CIA to the Justice Department requesting an investigation of how Mrs. Wilson's maiden name and occupation as an undercover CIA agent got leaked to Bob Novak, as does Atrios, and Cal Pundit, for whom this story appears to have been both a clarifying and a cauterizing moment, and Billmon, who is ready to go at it 24/7 if sufficient material continues to trickle outside of insider confines, and is asking for suggestions from readers as to other possible angles of coverage.
Billmon also has an hilarious re-imagining of a famous Watergate phone call.
From the right, mainly silence, with notable exceptions, like Daniel Drezner, whose tough stance runs under the intriguing title, "What Could Cause Me To Switch Parties."
Pretty damn tough. But Josh Marshall does a good job of showing that Bush has to have known, at least from mid-July when Wilson went public with the whole issue of Novak's printed leak. Atrios and various of his commentators pick up on the same point, and Brad de Long takes on Drezner's misperception directly:
To which Atrios adds his own little twist.
All of this has provoked some fascinating comment threads; in particular, if you want a sense of what the non-freep right is saying and thinking, read the comments to Drezner's post.
The White House appears to be taking a passive non-approach to the possibility of a major underminging of that old Republican favorite, the rule of law, as exemplified by Condi Rice's extraordinary performances on both Meet The Press and Fox News Sunday.
Here's a sampling of her responses to questions from the always friendly, Tony Snow:
There's more. Apparently this White House has no mechanism by which to monitor or investigate what goes on inside of it.
One aspect of all this I found particularly intriguing is the potential use of White House phone logs, or, indeed, phone logs from whatever telephones might be involved. Remember that phone logs were made available to The Weekly Standard for their hit piece on Wesley Clark. Remember the alacrity with which the Republican congress jumped to investigate the most remote possibility of Clinton scandals.
And while we're remembering, let's return, for a moment, to yesteryear, to a time when no one, and I do mean no one, in the media, among Republicans, and even among Democratic office holders or among those vermin Democratic strategists who started showing up on the tube around that time, early in the Clinton administration, considered there to be anything remarkable about the incessant demands by various congressional staffs for all manner of phone logs: they asked for and got phone logs from the oval office, from the first Lady's office, from the White House residence, logs from the phones of the President's closest advisers, from the phones of his Presidential legal councels, phone logs from the first Lady's stay at her parents in Little Rock during her father's final illness, phone logs from the first lady's friends, all of them produced as demanded without complaint.
Surely one of the biggest of the many big lies produced in American history was the lie that the Clinton's first response to questions about potential scandals was to stonewall, and the corollary lie that they were mainly responsible for the never-ending investigations of their administration because of their withholing of documents, or delays in producing them.
I've longed for some time now to begin a Freedom of Information claim against the various congressional committees that carried on these investigations, the point being to get hold of copies of every piece of information turned over by the Clinton administration; someone or some group should; the result would be nothing less than astonishing. The contrast with the genuine stonewalling of the Bush administration nothing less than embarrassing, if anyone in that administration was capable of embarrassment.
Then, perhaps, we could retire at least one of the thousands of slanderous lies that continue to be circulated about the Clintons and the Clinton administration, by our SCLM as much as by Republicans.
(Anyone interesting in participating in such a project, especially anyone who knows anything about the Freedom Of Information Act, feel free to contact me)
Billmon also has an hilarious re-imagining of a famous Watergate phone call.
From the right, mainly silence, with notable exceptions, like Daniel Drezner, whose tough stance runs under the intriguing title, "What Could Cause Me To Switch Parties."
What was done here was thuggish, malevolent, illegal, and immoral. Whoever peddled this story to Novak and others, in outing Plame, violated the law and put the lives of Plame's overseas contacts at risk. Compared to this, all of Clinton's peccadilloes look like an mildly diverting scene from an Oscar Wilde production. If Rove or other high-ranking White House officials did what's alleged, then they've earned the wrath of God. Or, since God is probably busy, the media firestorm that will undoubtedly erupt.
Let me make this as plain as possible -- I was an unpaid advisor for the Bush-Cheney 2000 campaign, and I know and respect some high-ranking people in the administration. And none of that changes the following: if George W. Bush knew about or condoned this kind of White House activity, I wouldn't just vote against him in 2004 -- I'd want to see him impeached. Straight away.
Pretty damn tough. But Josh Marshall does a good job of showing that Bush has to have known, at least from mid-July when Wilson went public with the whole issue of Novak's printed leak. Atrios and various of his commentators pick up on the same point, and Brad de Long takes on Drezner's misperception directly:
Whether or not he knew about it beforehand, for two and a half months--ever since two senior White House officials called six reporters and got Robert Novak to take the bait in his July 14 column--George W. Bush has "condoned this type of White House activity." No heads have rolled. No sanctions have been applied. The White House's posture has one of hunkering down: that this is no big deal, that this will pass, that nothing internal has to change, and that this is a tempest in a teapot.
Whether or not George W. Bush knew beforehand, his reactions since July 14 put him well over the line of "condoning." We don't need to write, "If George Bush knew about or condoned..." We need instead to write, "Since George Bush condoned..."
To which Atrios adds his own little twist.
All of this has provoked some fascinating comment threads; in particular, if you want a sense of what the non-freep right is saying and thinking, read the comments to Drezner's post.
The White House appears to be taking a passive non-approach to the possibility of a major underminging of that old Republican favorite, the rule of law, as exemplified by Condi Rice's extraordinary performances on both Meet The Press and Fox News Sunday.
Here's a sampling of her responses to questions from the always friendly, Tony Snow:
RICE: I know nothing of any such White House effort to reveal any of this, and it certainly would not be the way that the president would expect his White House to operate.
My understanding is that, in matters like this, as a matter of routine, a question like this is referred to the Justice Department for appropriate action, and that's what's going to be done.
(edit)
SNOW: Well, when the story came out...his wife's name is in the paper....was it known in the White House that she was a CIA employee?
RICE: I'm not going to go into this, Tony, because the problem here is this has been referred to the Justice Department. I think that's the appropriate place...
SNOW:
(edit)
Was there, at least within the White House, a gasp when somebody said, "Uh oh"? And if so, did the White House take any action, back then in June, when the story appeared?
RICE: Well, it was well known that the president of the United States does not expect the White House to get involved in such things. We will see...
HUME: You mean the revelation of names?
RICE: Anything of this kind. But let's just see what the Justice Department does. It's with the appropriate channels now, and we'll see what the Justice Department....how the Justice Department disposes of it.
There's more. Apparently this White House has no mechanism by which to monitor or investigate what goes on inside of it.
One aspect of all this I found particularly intriguing is the potential use of White House phone logs, or, indeed, phone logs from whatever telephones might be involved. Remember that phone logs were made available to The Weekly Standard for their hit piece on Wesley Clark. Remember the alacrity with which the Republican congress jumped to investigate the most remote possibility of Clinton scandals.
And while we're remembering, let's return, for a moment, to yesteryear, to a time when no one, and I do mean no one, in the media, among Republicans, and even among Democratic office holders or among those vermin Democratic strategists who started showing up on the tube around that time, early in the Clinton administration, considered there to be anything remarkable about the incessant demands by various congressional staffs for all manner of phone logs: they asked for and got phone logs from the oval office, from the first Lady's office, from the White House residence, logs from the phones of the President's closest advisers, from the phones of his Presidential legal councels, phone logs from the first Lady's stay at her parents in Little Rock during her father's final illness, phone logs from the first lady's friends, all of them produced as demanded without complaint.
Surely one of the biggest of the many big lies produced in American history was the lie that the Clinton's first response to questions about potential scandals was to stonewall, and the corollary lie that they were mainly responsible for the never-ending investigations of their administration because of their withholing of documents, or delays in producing them.
I've longed for some time now to begin a Freedom of Information claim against the various congressional committees that carried on these investigations, the point being to get hold of copies of every piece of information turned over by the Clinton administration; someone or some group should; the result would be nothing less than astonishing. The contrast with the genuine stonewalling of the Bush administration nothing less than embarrassing, if anyone in that administration was capable of embarrassment.
Then, perhaps, we could retire at least one of the thousands of slanderous lies that continue to be circulated about the Clintons and the Clinton administration, by our SCLM as much as by Republicans.
(Anyone interesting in participating in such a project, especially anyone who knows anything about the Freedom Of Information Act, feel free to contact me)
