Media still repeating false claim that Armitage role in Plame leak exonerates Libby
…media figures have continued to repeat the false claim that former deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage’s role as columnist Robert D. Novak’s original source for Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA operative proves Libby was not involved in the leak of her identity. However, as Media Matters for America has previously noted, the fact that Armitage was the original source for Novak’s column revealing Plame’s identity is not inconsistent with Libby’s disclosure of Plame’s identity — specifically, to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller — before the publication of Novak’s column.
On the July 3 edition of NBC’s Today, Weekly Standard editor William Kristol claimed: “Scooter Libby does not deserve to go to jail. I would remind Joe Wilson that Scooter Libby did not leak Valerie Plame’s name. Richard Armitage told Robert Novak, we now know, about Valerie Plame’s name, so this was an investigation that should never have happened. There was no underlying crime.” Kristol was referring to former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, Plame’s husband, who reportedly issued a statement saying that “the president’s actions send the message that leaking classified information for political purposes is acceptable” and that “Mr. Libby not only endangered Valerie and our family, but also our country’s national security.”
As Media Matters has previously documented, journalist Murray Waas noted in his book The United States v. I. Lewis Libby (Union Square Press, June 2007), Miller testified on January 30 that Libby had disclosed Plame’s CIA employment to her at a July 8, 2003, breakfast meeting at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C., well before Novak publicly revealed it in his July 14, 2003, column.
After every Bush scandal we have the President Clinton did it too defense. I enjoy it to some degree because it marks the start of the right-wing flop sweat as they disparately try to obscure the facts with smoke and mirrors to dig themselves out of responsibility for yet another treacherous act against America and our values. Some may remember that the Right tried to sell some garbage about President Clinton violating FISA so Bush doing so was OK. The fact that President Clinton didn’t violate FISA ( the National Review editor Rich Lowry doesn’t seem to have much in the way of a conscience – he became the semi-official front man for the ever so intellectual Right’s lies about The Big Dog and FISA). The Right was so frantic to defend Bush’s emperorish behavior they went all the way back to President Carter, Intellectual Integrity Watch: Clinton And Carter Did It Too! Edition
The problem with what Bush did is not that he ordered warrantless searches, period. The point is that he ordered them on US citizens, in cases in which the law forbids it. Both the Clinton and Carter orders, like the order by Reagan that I discussed earlier, require that any warrantless surveillance be carried out in accordance with the law. That’s not a trifling detail; that’s the rule of law.
How many times have we heard the Right, once backed into a corner defend their and their leaders unethical and often illegal behavior by using the President Clinton did it too defense. They’ve never been right, Presidents Clinton and Carter both followed the law in accordance with FISA and working with Congress on any point of contention. Let’s suppose for a moment that in every instance in which Bush broke the law, President Clinton had previously broken the same law. Wouldn’t that mean that Bush is governing just like President Clinton. Then they have to explain why if Bush governs just like President Clinton why they hated The Big Dog then and still do. Conversely, why do they defend Bush if he’s just Bill Clinton redux. Could the answer be that at least since 1992 the Right has been both deeply dishonest and disingenuous when it comes to any public debate about politics. Did Clinton really do it too?
Slate’s Tim Noah has already gotten the coveted “Wanker of the Day” award — and a long excoriation from Digby — for his latest column, which defends President Bush’s commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence. So while we don’t want to pile on, we do think it’s worth pointing out that Noah makes at least two errors of fact in the piece.
Again another case where in defending Bush’s actions and in this case Scooter Libby, the Right’s defense leave out some inconvenient details. This is from the Digby post Alex Koppelman referred to, Bully For Him
The Libby matter, on the other hand, was a national security investigation in the wake of the worst terrorist attack in history. Libby lied repeatedly and blatantly to the FBI and Federal prosecutors when the stakes were very high and the entire Department of Justice was on high alert. Telling the truth about spilling the names of CIA agents could have real consequences.
Nothing much has changed in the Right’s priorities, Bill Clinton’s personal indiscretions are worse then outing the identity of a covert CIA agent for petty political revenge. Yet day after day the Right claims they have better values and is THE party to trust when it comes to national security. The history of the last six years doesn’t just prove they have strained credulity, they’ve shattered it. The wacky comparisons game of the Right also continues, David Shuster dismantles Fouad Ajami’s comparison of Libby to our fallen soldiers
Libby commits treacherous act. Right thinks LIbby’s lies are to protect his superiors is the same as dying in a fire fight in Afghanistan. The Right also claims puppies can fly.
Have you looked under your bed, in the closet or behind the curtain. You might want to because Al Qaeda is now everywhere, NBC, LA Times quoted Bush claiming Al Qaeda is our “major enemy in Iraq,” ignored experts’ rebuttal
On the July 5 edition of NBC’s Today, NBC News White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell said that President Bush’s response to calls for U.S. withdrawal from Iraq is “Remember Al Qaeda,” and then showed a video clip of Bush’s statement during a July 4 speech that “a major enemy in Iraq is the same enemy that dared attack the United States” on September 11, 2001. O’Donnell did not report that, according to a June 28 McClatchy Newspapers article, “U.S. military and intelligence officials” dispute Bush’s repeated assertion that Al Qaeda is the source of much of the violence perpetrated in Iraq. McClatchy reported that these officials’ “say that Iraqis with ties to al Qaida are only a small fraction of the threat to American troops,” and that “[t]he group known as al Qaida in Iraq didn’t exist before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, didn’t pledge its loyalty to al Qaida leader Osama bin Laden until October 2004 and isn’t controlled by bin Laden or his top aides.”
There was no Al Qaeda in Iraq before Bush decided let them in. Now if we invade Iran or whatever country is next on the neocon hit list at least a few of them will start calling themselves Al Qaeda. Then we have the perfect circle of justification for invading everybody. For some reason people don’t like having their countries invaded and they will have a tendency to join up with any group that will fight against the invaders regardless of how much the invaders claim to have the best intentions.
September 27, 2006 – CNN) — Seventy-one percent of Iraqis responding to a new survey favor a commitment by U.S.-led forces in Iraq to withdraw in a year.
The majority of respondents to the University of Maryland poll said that “they would like the Iraqi government to ask for U.S.-led forces to be withdrawn from Iraq within a year or less,” according to the survey’s summary.
“Given four options, 37 percent take the position that they would like U.S.-led forces withdrawn ‘within six months,’ while another 34 percent opt for ‘gradually withdraw(ing) U.S.-led forces according to a one-year timeline.’
The Rightie blogs have swarmed on this story like flies on cow dung, Al-Qaeda linked to operations from Iran
It is not clear how much the al-Qaeda operation, described by one official as a money and communications hub, is being tolerated or encouraged by the Iranian government, they said.
To the Right it adds up, but at this point if one knows anything about who is fighting who in the Middle-East and why it doesn’t,
In the past, Tehran has also been a target of al-Qaeda attacks. A militant Sunni group based in Pakistan and possibly linked to al-Qaeda was suspected of the 1994 bombing of the shrine of the seventh Shia Imam, Reza, in Mashhad, killing 26 people.
Iran has also shown growing concern over Jundullah, a radical Sunni group from the restive south-east area of Balucestan that has carried out violent attacks in recent years.
Is it possible that Iran is looking the other way. Sure it is. It is also possible that much like the U.S. Iran has unwanted immigrants and the government cannot control every square inch of land. Iran had offered to help Bush get Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, but Bush declined.
“The ingenuity of self-deception is inexhaustible” – Hannah Moore
The Long Goodbye 