« Namaste | Main | What A Good Press Briefing Should Look Like-Excerpts »
Do As I Say, Not As I ..Oh, Whatever.
It's hard to believe anything Veterans Affairs Secretary, Jim Nicholson, says, such as this quote in today's WaPo:
"Our number one priority is returning service members from the combat theater . . . and to provide world-class health care to veterans, as well as benefits," Veterans Affairs Secretary Jim Nicholson said after a tour late last week of the 127-acre Waco campus, whose neighbors to the west include the huge Army base of Fort Hood, with 41,000 soldiers, and President Bush's ranch in Crawford.
"The increase in demand for our services from what we projected is up 126 percent," he said. "We have to obviously be prepared to ramp up."
As I said, it's hard to believe, when in the very next paragraph, we read this:
The Waco hospital, with its well-kept pre-World War II red-brick, red-roof-tiled buildings, has provided health care for veterans in central Texas for 73 years. Now it is on the chopping block, scheduled along with 17 other VA hospitals to be closed or downsized as part of an agency plan to restructure the health care system. A 1999 government study found the VA was spending $1 million a day on buildings it did not need, and in 2003 a government commission recommended closing older, underused hospitals, including the one in Waco. The Waco facility is part of the Central Texas Veterans Health Care System, which also includes a hospital in Temple and outpatient clinics in Austin and five other communities.
It might be more accurate to call Waco a "heretofore" underused hospital, since it seems to be getting plenty of use now and for the foreseeable future as well.
And here's a question to think about: If the VA Hospitals begin to close, where will the troops turn to for medical care? At hospitals such as those owned by the Frist family? If so, shouldn't Senator Frist have recused himself from any action or comment on this issue?
OT: A little news from America's colony courtesy of the NYTimes:
July 11, 2005
Gunplay in the Capital City
There is no end to Congressional intrusion in the lives of the residents of Washington, and lives is the operative word this time around.
The House has cavalierly overruled the city and voted to repeal a local law that requires licit gun owners to keep their weapons unloaded and locked or disassembled when stored at home. What could be more sensible in an American gun culture that is regularly punctuated by the tragic deaths of children who happen upon family weapons? Yet this worthy precaution proved too much for the gun lobby and its lock-and-load sycophants on both sides of the aisle, who voted 259 to 161 for repeal.
Deprived of fair representation at the Capitol, the city has been historically abused by Congress's plantation whimsy. The one practical idea in the gun debate came from Representative David Obey, a Wisconsin Democrat, who said a $70,000 pay cut was logically in order for his colleagues. "If the people in this House want to act like your D.C. city councilman, then they can be paid like a D.C. councilman," he said. The House, of course, clung to its salary the way the gun lobby clings to its symbolic musket.
Washington taxpayers now must throw themselves on the mercy of the Senate if this bit of home-rule sanity is to survive.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/opinion/11mon3.html?ex=1278734400&en=d675da0456ac4c30&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
I suspect that that study was done much like the budgeting which has produced the current $1 billion plus shortfall for the current year: based on utilization figures from peacetime... pre-2003 figures.
Don't you just wonder about the mental competence of the people running the VA when they acknowledge in Congress that they did not adjust their figures to account for any increase in utilization as a result of Bushco's warmongering?
No doubt they were pressured to decrease budgets so George could feel good about his tax cuts.
Who gives a damn for the veterans? Certainly not this administration.
Republicans plan to savage MoveOn:
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/GOP_aims_to_savage_MoveOn._0711.html
Rep. John Conyers
What's Fair Game?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/john-conyers/whats-fair-game_3938.html
Cast in its best light, the Bush Administration's Karl Rove defense boils down to this: Rove never revealed the NAME of an undercover CIA operative because he didn't know her name. He might not have even known she was an undercover CIA operative, and you can't prove it anyway. Actually, he was merely spreading false information about the operative in an effort to smear her husband.
Remember during the 2000 Presidential campaign when the Republican mantra was that President Bush was going to "restore honesty and dignity to the White House?" How's that going? When Vice-President Cheney accepted his party's nomination for Vice-President in 2000, he boldly declared: "They will offer more lectures, and legalisms, and carefully worded denials. We offer another way -- a better way -- and a stiff dose of truth." Is that what we are getting?
Today, on its online site, Newsweek magazine breaks some news. Before the publication of the infamous Novak column outing Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA operative appeared in newspapers around the country, Time magazine's Matt Cooper talked to Karl Rove. The topic: Ambassador Joe Wilson's now-proven contention that stories about Iraq acquiring uranium from Africa (later touted by the President in his State of the Union address) were pure fiction. According to Cooper's emails, the following was said:
"Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a 'big warning' not to 'get too far out on Wilson.' Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA" -- CIA Director George Tenet -- or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, 'it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip.' Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counter-proliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: 'not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger... '"
In light of this new information, it should be noted that -- viewing these facts in the light best for Rove -- as Friday's Washington Post pointed out, there were many, many instances the White House Press Secretary and other Administration officials made, to use the parlance of the '90s, "accurate, but misleading" statements:
On Oct. 10, 2003, White House press secretary Scott McClellan was asked whether Rove; Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; or National Security Council official Elliott Abrams had told any reporter that Plame was a covert CIA agent.
'I spoke with those individuals, as I pointed out, and those individuals assured me they were not involved in this,' McClellan said. 'And that's where it stands.' Reporters pressed McClellan to clarify that statement but he held to the words in his first answer until one reporter asked, 'They were not involved in what?' To which he replied, 'The leaking of classified information.'
In the 90's, there was a media uproar when literally accurate, but misleading, statements were made about a private sexual affair. Today, when such statements are made out a life and death matter -- the decision to go to war -- for a Nixonian purpose -- to smear truth-telling critics -- there is barely a peep from the press corps. In the days since Rove's role became public, the White House press corps has yet to pose a question to the White House press secretary about it. Not a word about the disgusting hypocrisy of an Administration that came to office promising to "change the tone" in Washington now attacking a critic through his spouse.
According to an earlier Newsweek report, Karl Rove was telling reporters that Wilson's wife was "fair game." Many reporters accepted this repulsive notion. One has to wonder whether their complicity in this smear then has rendered asking the important questions about it today "off-limits." ++
Senator Boxer | "Iraq was a War of Choice, Not Necessity"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071005A.shtml
IS KARL ROVE SCREWED, OR NOT?
Jan Frel, AlterNet
For once, Bush or Rove or somebody in this administration may get an uppercut that keeps them down on the mat, or at least for an eight-count.
http://www.alternet.org/story/23451/
What Karl Rove Told Matt Cooper
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071005Z.shtml
Americans Paying a "Fearful Price for Bush's Adventure"
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/071105Z.shtml
Paymasters Of Carnage
The ghost at Gleneagles
By John Pilger
In the orgy of summit coverage something has been overlooked: the two men at the heart of it, telling us how the world should be run, are the men responsible for Fallujah and Abu Ghraib.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article9432.htm
Recent additions to Webster's Dictionary:
Rove: (Noun) "I better put some air in the tires... I think I've got a Rove."
Roving: (Verb) "My pipes busted, and they're Roving all over the basement."
Don't make me go on...
Don't make me go on...
Posted by: Victoria ellen at July 11, 2005 11:59 AM
By all means, go on. I Rove ya' to! I double-dog Rove ya' to!
We're Not in Watergate Anymore
FRANK RICH
July 10, 2005
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/10/opinion/10rich.html?pagewanted=1&ei=5090&en=32557fce77942be2&ex=1278648000&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
WHEN John Dean published his book "Worse Than Watergate" in the spring of 2004, it seemed rank hyperbole: an election-year screed and yet another attempt by a Nixon alumnus to downgrade Watergate crimes by unearthing worse "gates" thereafter. But it's hard to be dismissive now that my colleague Judy Miller has been taken away in shackles for refusing to name the source for a story she never wrote. No reporter went to jail during Watergate. No news organization buckled like Time. No one instigated a war on phony premises. This is worse than Watergate.
To start to see why, forget all the legalistic chatter about shield laws and turn instead to "The Secret Man," Bob Woodward's new memoir about life with Deep Throat. The book arrived in stores just as Judy Miller was jailed, as if by divine intervention to help illuminate her case. Should a journalist protect a sleazy, possibly even criminal, source? Yes, sometimes, if the public is to get news of wrongdoing. Mark Felt was a turncoat with alternately impenetrable and self-interested motives who betrayed the F.B.I. and, in Mr. Woodward's words, "lied to is colleagues, friends and even his family." (Mr. Felt even lied in his own 1979 memoir.)
Should a journalist break a promise of confidentiality after, let alone before, the story is over?
"It is critical that confidential sources feel they would be protected for life," Mr. Woodward writes. "There needed to be a model out there where people could come forward or speak when contacted, knowing they would be protected. It was a matter of my work, a matter of honor." That honorable model, which has now been demolished at Time, was a given in what seems like the halcyon Watergate era of "The Secret Man." Mr. Woodward and Carl Bernstein had confidence that The Washington Post's publisher, Katharine Graham, and editor, Ben Bradlee, would back them to the hilt, even though the Nixon White House demonized their reporting as inaccurate (as did some journalistic competitors) and threatened the licenses of television stations owned by the Post Company.
(snip)
Time Warner seems to have far too much money on the table in Washington to exercise absolute editorial freedom when covering the government; at this moment it's awaiting an F.C.C. review of its joint acquisition (with Comcast) of the bankrupt cable company Adelphia. "Is this a journalistic company or an entertainment company?" David Halberstam asked after the Pearlstine decision. We have the answer now. What high-level source would risk talking to Time about governmental corruption after this cave-in? What top investigative reporter would choose to work there?
But the most important difference between the Bush and Nixon eras has less to do with the press than with the grave origins of the particular case that has sent Judy Miller to jail. This scandal didn't begin, as Watergate did, simply with dirty tricks and spying on the political opposition. It began with the sending of American men and women to war in Iraq.
(snip)
This was another variation on a Watergate theme. Charles Colson's hit men broke into the office of Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist, seeking information to smear Mr. Ellsberg after he leaked the Pentagon Papers, the classified history of the Vietnam War, to The Times. But there was even greater incentive to smear Mr. Wilson than Mr. Ellsberg. Nixon compounded the Vietnam War but didn't start it. The war in Iraq, by contrast, is Mr. Bush's invention.
Again following the Watergate template, the Bush administration at first tried to bury the whole Wilson affair by investigating itself. Even when The Washington Post reported two months after Mr. Wilson's Op-Ed that "two top White House officials" had called at least six reporters, not just Mr. Novak, to destroy Mr. Wilson and his wife, the inquiry was kept safely within the John Ashcroft Justice Department, with the attorney general, according to a Times report, being briefed regularly on details of the investigation. If that rings a Watergate bell now, that's because on Thursday you may have read the obituary of L. Patrick Gray, Mark Felt's F.B.I. boss, who, in a similarly cozy conflict of interest, kept the Nixon White House abreast of the supposedly independent Watergate inquiry in its early going.
Political pressure didn't force Mr. Ashcroft to relinquish control of the Wilson investigation to a special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, until Dec. 30, 2003, more than five months after Mr. Novak's column ran. Now 18 more months have passed, and no one knows what crime Mr. Fitzgerald is investigating. Is it the tricky-to-prosecute outing of Mr. Wilson's wife, the story Judy Miller never even wrote about? Or has Mr. Fitzgerald moved on to perjury and obstruction of justice possibly committed by those who tried to hide their roles in that outing? If so, it would mean the Bush administration was too arrogant to heed the most basic lesson of Watergate: the cover-up is worse than the crime.
"Mr. Fitzgerald made his bones prosecuting the mob," intoned the pro-Bush editorial page of The Wall Street Journal, "and doesn't seem to realize that this case isn't about organized crime." But that may be exactly what it is about to an ambitious prosecutor with his own career on the line. That the Bush administration would risk breaking the law with an act as self-destructive to American interests as revealing a C.I.A. officer's identity smacks of desperation. It makes you wonder just what else might have been done to suppress embarrassing election-season questions about the war that has mired us in Iraq even as the true perpetrators of 9/11 resurface in Madrid, London and who knows where else.
IN his original Op-Ed piece in The Times, published two years to the day before Judy Miller went to jail, Mr. Wilson noted that "more than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already," before concluding that "we have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons." As that death toll surges past 1,700, that sacred duty cannot be abandoned by a free press now. ++
As that death toll surges past 1,700, that sacred duty cannot be abandoned by a free press now. ++
=========================
And yet it has.
Just a snippet from a well-written opinion piece in today's Guardian...
~snip~
We know what took place. A group of people, with no regard for law, order or our way of life, came to our city and trashed it. With scant regard for human life or political consequences, employing violence as their sole instrument of persuasion, they slaughtered innocent people indiscriminately. They left us feeling unified in our pain and resolute in our convictions, effectively creating a community where one previously did not exist. With the killers probably still at large there is no civil liberty so vital that some would not surrender it in pursuit of them and no punishment too harsh that some might not sanction if we found them.
The trouble is there is nothing in the last paragraph that could not just as easily be said from Falluja as it could from London. The two should not be equated - with over 1,000 people killed or injured, half its housing wrecked and almost every school and mosque damaged or flattened, what Falluja went through at the hands of the US military, with British support, was more deadly. But they can and should be compared. We do not have a monopoly on pain, suffering, rage or resilience. Our blood is no redder, our backbones are no stiffer, nor our tear ducts more productive than the people in Iraq and Afghanistan. Those whose imagination could not stretch to empathise with the misery we have caused in the Gulf now have something closer to home to identify with. "Collateral damage" always has a human face: its relatives grieve; its communities have memory and demand action.
~snip~
http://www.guardian.co.uk/attackonlondon/comment/story/0,16141,1525755,00.html?gusrc=rss
The rest is equally worth reading...
From Think Progress - the full text of Scotty's afternoon press briefing. If you enjoy watching a liar sweat, read on and enjoy...
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/11/briefing-711/
You gotta laugh when reporters actually call the WH spokesperson's remarks 'ridiculous' to his face.
Could the press be coming back to life after the cryogenic experiment of the last 5 years?
Again I bring to your attention Hawaii's 2 Democrat Senators, (both voted for drilling in Alaska. The 'akaka' bill is named after Sen. Akaka.)
TODAY...Sen. Inouye is part/chair of the hearings now deciding if...
AS IT HAS BEEN SUGGESTED...
"ALL FUNDING BE CUT TO PBS AND NPR
BECAUSE THEY ARE, LIBERAL, AND UN-BALANCED."
Sen. Inouye says he supports funding. But today had almost no questions to ask of the person's testifying. (These hearings are going on right now and the outcome's are undecided, I urge you to watch them on C_SPAN because they effect the funding to go digital to keep us all connected.)
*~*
This is about the AKAKA BILL still pending. and is all published in the forum...
http://www.democracycellproject.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=771
(SNIP)
The group known as Hui Pu said it wants OHA to sponsor hearings immediately to air all points of view on the Akaka Bill. Hui Pu feels opposition to the Akaka bill has been silenced by OHA's spending of thousands of dollars of state money to publicize only support for the Akaka Bill.
"There are many voices out there and there is only a one-sided story that is being told right now and its not pono (good)," said Andre Perez, of Hui Pu. "We reject the Akaka bill because we refuse to sell our ourselves, our keiki (children) our aina (land) and our resources."
(SNIP)
in my humble opinion...
There is no-one who has any power that will be able to stop this steam-rolling of the Hawaiian people. Unless someone somewhere begins to care about this issue the Hawaiians will lose there ability to right any wrong that may have happened to them. During the election, Kerry said he supported the AKAKA BILL in an effort to gain votes, when he was informed that the bill didn't reflect the native hawaiians true stand, Kerry stopped 'talking' about it. I still see no-one caring about this enough to educate themselves on this issue and further even understanding that as a SOVEREIGN NATION, when the US came in and took Hawaii, it is de'kine (Like) the US coming in and jailing and killing, Queen Elizabeth and all the BRITISH Royality, telling them they could no longer, worship, marry, govern, speak Hawaiian, own their own lands and on and on and on... It's a long story but suffice it to say...
The AKAKA BILL would make Hawaiians, NATIVE AMERICANS...
NATIVE AMERICANS WITH NO TREATIES UNDER THEIR BELT! No Nothing!
WE ALL KNOW HOW THE INDIANS WERE TREATED,
THE HAWAIIANS WERE TREATED SO BAD THAT IT IS STILL A SECRET!
PLEASE EDUCATE YOURSELVES ABOUT THESE AMERICANS.
read all about it...
http://www.democracycellproject.net/forum/index.php?showtopic=771
posted really at 9:51AM Hawaiian time
Posted by: Victoria ellen at July 11, 2005 03:43 PM
It looks as though some of them are thawing out, all right. They are wiggling a little.
As much as I enjoyed reading about Scotty sweating, I would much rather have seen it. You gotta love it.
Could the press be coming back to life after the cryogenic experiment of the last 5 years?
Posted by: Victoria ellen at July 11, 2005 03:43 PM
Vic:
Loved the link.
Jon Stewart couldn't come up with a better series of lines than McClellan did.
Posted by: Victoria ellen at July 11, 2005 03:43 PM
I really want to "get to the bottom of this" and I really "appreciate the questions" asked by WH Press Corpse, but something tells me that Scotty thinks he can't "answer a question because the Rove investigation is ongoing..."
What I really want to know is how many times Scotty roved in his pants during that press conference...
Posted by: Victoria ellen at July 11, 2005 03:43 PM
V.E.,
That press briefing is SO funny!
What I really want to know is how many times Scotty roved in his pants during that press conference...
Posted by: madame defarge at July 11, 2005 04:17 PM
I hate to tell you, but that depends.
Posted by: madame defarge at July 11, 2005 04:17 PM
LOL. As many as he repeated himself. Let's see.... how many ways can you say 'now is not the time' and 'ongoing investigation'?
They always taught me to practice, practice, practice when I had something difficult to say. I'll bet that was cute. "How Many Ways to Lose Your Rover".
It is now a headline on CNN.com...
White House won't comment on Rove and leak investigation
Monday, July 11, 2005; Posted: 2:28 p.m. EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- For two years, the White House has insisted that presidential adviser Karl Rove had nothing to do with the leak of a CIA officer's identity. And President Bush said the leaker would be fired.
But Bush's spokesman wouldn't repeat any of those assertions Monday in the face of Rove's own lawyer saying his client spoke with at least one reporter about Valerie Plame's role at the CIA before she was identified in a newspaper column.
Rove described the woman to a reporter as someone who "apparently works" at the CIA, according to an e-mail obtained by Newsweek magazine.
http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/11/cia.leaks.ap/index.html
Posted by: Truth Shall Prevail at July 11, 2005 04:36 PM
Maybe Scotty thinks there's a "gag" order out on this case. I have to say that I gagged a few times when I read the transcript...And I didn't need a spoon...
An Ode to Scott McClellan
50 ways to leave your Rover
The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I’d like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to leave your Rover
She said it’s really not my habit to intrude
Furthermore, I hope my meaning won’t be lost or misconstrued
But I’ll repeat myself at the risk of being crude
There must be fifty ways to leave your Rover
Fifty ways to leave your Rover
Just slip out the back, jack
Make a new plan, stan
You don’t need to be coy, roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, lee
And get yourself free
Just slip out the back, jack
Make a new plan, stan
You don’t need to be coy, roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, lee
And get yourself free
She said it grieves me so to see you in such pain
I wish there was something I could do to make you smile again
I said I appreciate that and would you please explain
About the fifty ways
She said why don’t we both just sleep on it tonight
And I believe in the morning you’ll begin to see the light
And then she kissed me and I realized she probably was right
There must be fifty ways to leave your Rover
Fifty ways to leave your Rover
Just slip out the back, jack
Make a new plan, stan
You don’t need to be coy, roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, lee
And get yourself free
You just slip out the back, jack
Make a new plan, stan
You don’t need to be coy, roy
Just listen to me
Hop on the bus, gus
You don’t need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, lee
And get yourself free
BTW, here's a little gem about Rover's lawyer...a real outstanding kind of guy...
One case that jumps out at you is his representation of Stephen A. Saccoccia.
Saccoccia and his wife Donna were eventually convicted of laundering more than a hundred million dollars for various Colombian drug kingpins. Stephen is currently serving a 660 year sentence. Their racket was laundering drug money through companies which traded in precious metals.
Saccoccia was convicted in 1993. And Luskin took up his case on appeal.
Eventually the Feds got the idea that the money Saccoccia had paid Luskin and his other attorneys for their services was itself part of the $137 million in drug money he was ordered to forfeit. Now, on the face of it this seems a bit unfair since under our system everyone is entitled to good representation and how was Luskin to know it was tainted money.
Well, the prosecutors thought he should have gotten some inkling when Saccoccia started paying Luskin's attorney's fees in gold bars.
Yep, you heard that right. Luskin got paid more than $500,000 of his attorney's fees in gold bars from his client who was trying to appeal his conviction on charges that he laundered drug money through precious metals dealers. Who woulda thought that was drug money?
Luskin insisted that he "never have, and never would, knowingly accept a fee that was the proceeds of illegal activities."
But when federal prosecutors finally got a chance to depose Luskin and Saccoccia's other lawyers, they found that their lawyers' fees had come in forms "such as gold bars, cash that was dropped off at hotels and trunks of cars, and money transfers from Swiss bank accounts."
Eventually, in 1998, Luskin came to a settlement with the government in which he agreed to cough up $245,000 of the money he'd gotten from Saccoccia.
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2005_07_10.php#006045
Posted by: madame defarge at July 11, 2005 04:52 PM
Madame,
O.M.G. Who WOULDA thought?
What I really want to know is how many times Scotty roved in his pants during that press conference...
Posted by: madame defarge at July 11, 2005 04:17 PM
=================
Excellent use of the verb form of Roved... and a major nod to "that depends" too!!
on Rovegate:
Crooksandliars has entire video of today's WH press briefing, if you want to watch Scotty squirm:
just scroll down until you see Scotty at the podium:
Press Corp grilling Scotty
David Gegory: Did Karl Rove commit a crime?
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2005/07/11.html#a3868
"It is now a headline on CNN.com...
White House won't comment on Rove and leak investigation
Monday, July 11, 2005; Posted: 2:28 p.m. EDT
Posted by: monkey at July 11, 2005 04:47 PM"
This story not only has legs, it has tentacles, forearms, and TEETH...
HEY EVERYONE LOOK!! THE PRESIDENT SAID SOMETHING RIGHT!
(Harry) Reid on Rove:
“I agree with the President when he said he expects the people who work for him to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. The White House promised if anyone was involved in the Valerie Plame affair, they would no longer be in this administration. I trust they will follow through on this pledge. If these allegations are true this rises above politics and is about our national security.”
From Josh Marshall
People, people, people...let's give Scotty a break. The reason he won't comment on this ongoing investigation is because he's busy helping the president spread lies...oops, I mean freedom & democracy around the world and fighting terrorists over there so that we don't have to fight them over here...
July 11, 2005
The Honorable Tom Davis
Chairman
Committee on Government Reform
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Mr. Chairman:
I am writing regarding recent reports that provide new details about the involvement of Karl Rove, the White House Deputy Chief of Staff, in the disclosure of Valerie Plame's identity as an agent of the Central Intelligence Agency.
An article in the Washington Post this morning and recent disclosures in Newsweek and other reports are extraordinary. If true, they indicate that the President's top political advisor played a central role in the outing of a covert CIA agent. According to the Washington Post account, Mr. Rove's attorney insists that Mr. Rove did not identify Ms. Plame "by name." But Mr. Rove did identify her as the spouse of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, which would seem to be a distinction without a difference.
The new disclosures also raise issues about whether Mr. Rove acted alone or whether there was a conspiracy with other White House staff to use classified information for the political purpose of discrediting Ambassador Wilson.
I first wrote to you to request a hearing about this matter on September 29, 2003, and I renewed my request in a second letter on December 11, 2003. During this period, we met with Ambassador Wilson, but you turned down my request for a hearing because you wanted to see what the investigation of Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald would uncover.
The recent disclosures about Mr. Rove's actions have such serious implications that we can no longer responsibly ignore them. The intentional disclosure of a covert CIA agent's identity would be an act of treason. If there were evidence of such a serious breach during the Clinton Administration, there is no doubt that our Committee would have immediately demanded that the Deputy Chief of Staff testify at a hearing. This would have been the right course of action then, and it is the right course now. For this reason, I am renewing my request that the Committee schedule an immediate hearing at which Mr. Rove is called to testify.
A congressional hearing at which Mr. Rove testifies under oath remains the simplest and most effective means for Congress and the public to learn the truth about this disgraceful incident.
Sincerely,
Henry A. Waxman
teevee alert!
CSPAN
will run the entire WH press briefing from today, when the press corps finally bit back...even the Faux guy Cameron challenged Scotty on Rove:
11:12 PM EDT
(est.)
News Briefing
White House Daily Briefing
White House, Briefing Room
Scott McClellan , White House
http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/schedule.csp
This follows yesterday's news leak out of Britain:
Its official,
Latest # 1 headline on Yahoo News:
U.S. May Begin Iraq Troop Drawdown in '06
By ROBERT BURNS, AP Military Writer
40 minutes ago
WASHINGTON - Major reductions in U.S. troop levels in Iraq next year appear increasingly likely, although Pentagon officials said Monday it is too early to predict the specific size and timing.
continue~
http://tinyurl.com/993wn
However, we CANNOT let the Rove phenomena distract us from the SUpreme Court nominations and the DOwning Street Minutes...
Lots to do, lots to do...
White House Won't Comment on Rove, Leak
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
1 hour, 1 minute ago
The Rove disclosure was an embarrassment for a White House that prides itself on not leaking to reporters and has insisted that Rove was not involved in exposing Plame's identity.
The disclosure also left in doubt whether Bush would carry out his promise to fire anyone found to have leaked the CIA operative's identity. Rove is one of the president's closest confidants — the man Bush has described as the architect of his re-election, and currently deputy White House chief of staff.
continue~
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20050711/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak_investigation
Even if Bush "officially" fires Rover (and we all know that's probably not going to happen), do you really think that's going to stop Rover from being involved politics...
http://thinkprogress.org/2005/07/11/briefing-711/
I re-posted the link to the McClellan thing, just so it wouldn't be missed. I REALLY hope Jon Stewart does something on this...
Kudos to the reporter who said he was "ridiculous" and the one who told him, "You're not even saying anything!"
Posted by: on.to.victory4Dems at July 11, 2005 05:53 PM
Oh, thank you, thank you......
Wonder if C-SPAN One will have it too? Oh, I see you just posted about C-Span also. Thanks.
~ ~ ~
Posted by on.to.victory4Dems at July 11, 2005 06:21 PM
I hope they aren't making (previously) secret plans to withdraw troops from Iraq for the purpose of sending them to another nation like Iran in the quest of "Spreading Freedom and Democracy Around the World".
Everyone hear me? I don't like how this smells. I don't like the timing of the attack in London, all the hawk speak about spreading freedom and democracy around the world, and the leak about plans to start withdrawing troops from Iraq in a year. Didn't Rummy just say it could take as long as twelve years?
Then we have Condi wearing a tangerine colored top with a mandarin collar trying to tell N. Korea and China how they should be running their affairs.
Sheesh. If this weren't so scarey and sad it would make a hilarious comedy (of errors).
Posted by: madame defarge at July 11, 2005 06:33 PM
Well, no, but it would really make the Republicans look bad if we make everyone see the truth about Rove...
If the media would spend as much time on the DSM as they did on the winds of the hurricane..we might get somewhere! No such luck.
Posted by: madame defarge at July 11, 2005 06:33 PM
Nope. Rover is their Billion Dollar Baby. Sure, he has said he is retiring, and will not be the architect for the next presidential bid. I think that is probably not the case. Barring an unforseen event or illness, he'll probably be around until he drops. In front of the curtain, or behind the curtain, the show will go on. He is the Wiz.
I found this at CBS News:
No doubt about it, THIS has got to be the best headline of the day!
Rove Needs A Pink Slip
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/07/11/opinion/main708115.shtml
~pulling troops out of Iraq~
Truth,
like you, I was skeptical also...
But I think reality has just caught up with Bu$h's folly in Iraq. Just saw a bit of coverage on CBS Evening News, on the "leak" that US will be pulling large number of troops out of Iraq in early '06.
They have to...the enlistments of many of the troops now in Iraq (some for the 2nd or 3rd time) are coming to an end....there's not enough replacements, recruits to take their place...Bu$h has indeed broken the voluntary military. The Repubs will never begin a draft while they are in power, that would all but hand '06 & '08 elections over to Dems, so they can't draft and not enough are volunteering for Bu$h's war...they have no choice, but to downsize in Iraq.
Now what we have to make sure we don't let them do, is somehow spin this "cut & run" out of Iraq into something they will blame on the Dems....because you know they will try...
Iraq is Bu$h's war...Bu$h is ready to "cut & run".
United States Senator Frank R. Lautenberg (D-NJ) issued the following statement to RAW STORY today in light of the recent revelation Karl Rove was responsible for revealing the identity of a covert CIA agent.
“Karl Rove has accused liberals of not understanding the consequences of 9-11, but he’s the one who blew the cover of a covert CIA agent. The President should immediately suspend Karl Rove’s security clearances and shut him down by shutting him out of classified meetings or discussions.
The excuses offered by Karl Rove’s lawyer don’t pass the laugh test. Naming someone’s spouse is the same as naming them. And as a 31-year veteran of politics, Karl Rove should know that if you want to keep a secret, you don’t tell a reporter.”
A progressive watchdog group, Citizens for Ethics and Responsibility in Washington, also wrote President Bush calling for Rove to surrender his security clearance.
“Considering that it is a federal crime to identify covert agents, and that President Bush signed executive orders identifying the vital role the President plays in protecting national security secrets from unauthorized disclosure, it is appropriate for the President to suspend Mr. Rove’s clearance pending the investigation’s outcome,” the group's executive director Melanie Sloan said in a statement.
“The evidence uncovered so far raises serious questions about Mr. Rove’s conduct and his ability to safeguard highly sensitive classified information," Sloan wrote Bush . "Until those questions are resolved, CREW believes it is not appropriate for Mr. Rove to have continued access to classified information. Anything short of suspension raises an unacceptable risk to our nation’s security,”
The White House declined all questions on Rove Monday, saying they couldn't comment during an ongoing investigation.
DNC begins Rove assault: What did Rove know and when did he know it
EXCLUSIVE: The Democratic National Committee fired this salvo at Bush confidante Karl Rove in a statement to reporters Monday evening. Until now, the Party has remained relatively silent on the matter.
WHAT DID ROVE KNOW AND WHEN DID HE KNOW IT?
At the White House briefing today, Scott McClellan repeatedly stonewalled legitimate questions from reporters about his earlier assertions - now proven false - that Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was not involved in the illegal disclosure of a CIA operative's identity. According to reports this morning, Karl Rove had detailed conversations about Valerie Plame’s classified, national security responsibilities with at least one political reporter.
“Karl Rove and his high priced lawyers might disagree, but the truth is Rove betrayed the identity of an undercover officer fighting on the front lines in the war on terror. These actions are particularly egregious in a time of war,” said Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean. “President Bush should demonstrate his commitment to the war on terror by holding his own people accountable. It is disturbing that this high ranking Bush Advisor is not only still working in the White House, but now has a significant role in setting our National Security policy.”
See below for a new document from DNC research:
Until recently, Karl Rove had denied even knowing Valerie Plame's name. Then, after the release of emails from Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper revealing the name of the White House source, Rove's lawyer confirmed that Rove did speak with reporters about the case. Now, previously secret Time emails reveal that Rove did indeed leak to Cooper information about "Wilson's wife"-Plame. Rove had a short conversation with Time reporter Matthew Cooper on July 11, 2003, three days before Robert D. Novak publicly exposed Plame in a column about her husband, Joseph Wilson. This new evidence raises a host of new unanswered questions.
"If left unpunished, this cowardly act will not only hinder our efforts to recruit qualified individuals into the clandestine service, but it will have a far-reaching, deleterious effect on our ability to recruit foreign intelligence assets overseas."
-Larry Johnson, former CIA Analyst [Senate Democratic Policy Committee Hearing, 10/24/03]
ROVE REVEALED "WILSON'S WIFE" TO COOPER
more... http://rawstory.com/news/2005/DNC_begins_Rove_campaign_What_did_Rove_know_and_when_did_he_know_0711.html
Monkey and madame and ontovictory and truth:
Let's remember, there is probably more, much much more than Valerie Plame. We have to go all the way back to the first year of the Administration. It should not end at Rove.
Rove is where we should BEGIN.
Exactly Nikko, as I was just saying to some hipster-in-the-know friends of mine, THIS is where the house of cards begins it's tumble...
Cuz The Joker's Wild
Check this site out. I bought the book "Start Making Sense" and -- guess what...it makes sense...
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/sms/
Example: they have this interesting piece...
SCOTUS activist kit
Wanna do more than just read about the latest arguments over the yet-to-be-announced Supreme Court candidate? Moving Ideas (a project of the American Prospect) provides an activist kit, complete with instructions for communicating with the President and Senate:
* President & Senate Must Work Together to Name a New Supreme Court Justice: Urge the President and Senate to choose consensus and consultation over confrontation when nominating a new Supreme Court justice.
* Supreme Court Mass Immediate Response: Turn your cell phone into an activist tool! Join the Mass Immediate Response team to respond to the need for immediate calls to Senators, the media and other targets, based on your location.
* Tell Your Senator In Person - 'Protect Our Rights, Save the Court': Meet with your Senator(s) or their staff in person over the July 4th recess to tell them to vote against an extreme right-wing Supreme Court nominee.
There's also instructions for ways to educate and mobilize activists in your area. Go here to see the rest and to sign up for their action alerts.
http://www.alternet.org/blogs/sms/23387/
O.T.V.4.D.,
I so hope what you say will be the scenario. Anything else would be total insanity, but then...
I really wanted to watch CBS News tonight, but I got so busy reading the newsy posts....
Monkey, Madame, Nikko, O.T.V.4.D.,
Well, I can think of ONE scenario where Rove would not be guilty - if he can prove Joseph Wilson was a bigamist. Think that's too wild? Well, they told us Iraq had WMD and ties to Al Qaeda, too.
Crazy is as crazy does.
Rove is where we should BEGIN.
Posted by: Nikko at July 11, 2005 07:20 PM
Correct!
Next question:
So Who was Rove's source?
and
Who is Judy Miller's source?
Betcha this goes back to Cheney's guy Libby and begins with Cheney himself.
David Gregory, NBC, MSNBC and Mike Isikoff, Newsweek, just on Hardball...they are all over this, it will not stop with Rove, because that leaves other questions not yet answered.
Well, I'm off to din-din, and a meeting.
Don't forget - C-SPAN one is airing today's press conference with Scotty McClellan tonight at 11:12 P.M. Eastern time. Don't forget the popcorn. (Schedule courtesy of On to Victory 4 the Dems.)
11:12 PM EDT
(est.)
News Briefing
White House Daily Briefing
White House, Briefing Room
Scott McClellan , White House
http://inside.c-spanarchives.org:8080/cspan/schedule.csp
Posted by on.to.victory4Dems at July 11, 2005 06:14 PM
Q: why will US have to pull troops out of Iraq?
A: from NY Times today:
Part-Time Forces on Active Duty Decline Steeply
By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID S. CLOUD
Published: July 11, 2005
WASHINGTON, July 10 - The number of Reserve and National Guard troops on domestic and overseas missions has fallen to about 138,000, down from a peak of nearly 220,000 after the invasion of Iraq two years ago, a sharp decline that military officials say will continue in the months ahead.
The decrease comes as welcome relief to tens of thousands of formerly part-time soldiers who, with their families, employers and communities, have been badly stressed by their long call-ups for duty in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Reserve and National Guard members from all of the armed services make up about 35 percent of the troops in Iraq, a share that is expected to drop to about 30 percent by next year; the vast majority are from the Army Reserve and Army National Guard.
But as these returning troops settle back into their civilian lives, the Army is running perilously low on its Reserve and National Guard soldiers who largely fill certain critical support jobs, like military police and civil affairs officers and truck drivers. Marine Corps reservists are facing similar constraints.
A main reason for the shortages is that more and more of these troops who have been involuntarily mobilized are nearing their 24-month maximum call-up limit set by the Bush administration, military personnel specialists say.
The Army says it has found ways to handle the dwindling pool of reservists eligible to fill the support jobs, but some members of Congress, senior retired Army officers and federal investigators are less sanguine, warning that barring a reduction in the Pentagon's requirement to supply 160,000 forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, or a change in its mobilization policy, the Army will exhaust the supply of soldiers in critical specialties.
"By next fall, we'll have expended our ability to use National Guard brigades as one of the principal forces," said Gen. Barry McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army commander who was dispatched to Iraq last month to assess the operation. "We're reaching the bottom of the barrel."
continue~ at NY Times
http://tinyurl.com/cckp7