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What Arianna's Doing On Her Summer Vacation...
In what has easily been one of her best posts to date, Arianna Huffington offers this fascinating picture of the now "Rove-Libby-Wilson-Powell-Gonzales-Ashcroft-Bolton-Rice-Hadley-Fleischer-Card-Comey-Cheney-Hughes-Plame" scandal.
Not everyone in the Times building is on the same page when it comes to Judy Miller. The official story the paper is sticking to is that Miller is a heroic martyr, sacrificing her freedom in the name of journalistic integrity.
But a very different scenario is being floated in the halls. Here it is: It's July 6, 2003, and Joe Wilson's now famous op-ed piece appears in the Times, raising the idea that the Bush administration has "manipulate[d]" and "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Miller, who has been pushing this manipulated, twisted, and exaggerated intel in the Times for months, goes ballistic. Someone is using the pages of her own paper to call into question the justification for the war -- and, indirectly, much of her reporting. The idea that intelligence was being fixed goes to the heart of Miller's credibility. So she calls her friends in the intelligence community and asks, Who is this guy? She finds out he's married to a CIA agent. She then passes on the info about Mrs. Wilson to Scooter Libby (Newsday has identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 in Washington with an "unnamed government official"). Maybe Miller tells Rove too -- or Libby does. The White House hatchet men turn around and tell Novak and Cooper. The story gets out.
This is why Miller doesn't want to reveal her "source" at the White House -- because she was the source. Sure, she first got the info from someone else, and the odds are she wasn't the only one who clued in Libby and/or Rove (the State Dept. memo likely played a role too)… but, in this scenario, Miller certainly wasn't an innocent writer caught up in the whirl of history. She had a starring role in it. This also explains why Miller never wrote a story about Plame, because her goal wasn't to write a story, but to get out the story that cast doubts on Wilson's motives. Which Novak did.
This version of events has divided the Times into two camps: those who want to learn everything about this story, and those who want to learn everything as long as it doesn't downgrade the heroic status of their "colleague" Judy Miller. And then there are the schizophrenics. Frank Rich is spending his summer in the second camp, while at the same time writing some of the most powerful and brilliant stuff about the scandal:
"This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit… is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped up grounds… That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war."
Nice work.
214 for to 211 against, with eight red and one blue outstanding votes to be cast. time has been up for over 15 minutes now.
24 reds have voted nay and 15 blues have voted yea.
from NYT::
not only Rove & Libby, but " a third administration official whose identity has not yet been publicly disclosed." ::
Case of C.I.A. Officer's Leaked Identity Takes New Turn
By DOUGLAS JEHL Published: July 28, 2005
WASHINGTON- In the same week in July 2003 in which Bush administration officials told a syndicated columnist and a Time magazine reporter that a C.I.A. officer had initiated her husband's mission to Niger, an administration official provided a Washington Post reporter with a similar account.
The first two episodes, involving the columnist Robert D. Novak and the reporter Matthew Cooper, have become the subjects of intense scrutiny in recent weeks. But little attention has been paid to what The Post reporter, Walter Pincus, has recently described as a separate exchange on July 12, 2003.
In that exchange, Mr. Pincus says, "an administration official, who was talking to me confidentially about a matter involving alleged Iraqi nuclear activities, veered off the precise matter we were discussing and told me that the White House had not paid attention" to the trip to Niger by Joseph C. Wilson IV "because it was a boondoggle arranged by his wife, an analyst with the agency who was working on weapons of mass destruction."
snip~
Mr. Pincus has not identified his source to the public. But a review of Mr. Pincus's own accounts and those of other people with detailed knowledge of the case strongly suggest that his source was neither Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, nor I. Lewis Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, and was in fact a third administration official whose identity has not yet been publicly disclosed.
continue~
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/politics/28leak.html?pagewanted=1
CAFTA has just passed.
At over one hour past time for closing the vote, with a total of 434 votes to be cast, the vote got to 217 yea and 215 nay. The two final votes, never cast, were gaveled and the voting was closed with a victory declared for they yea's.
Democrats who voted yea---
Bean IL
Cooper TN
Cuellar TX
Dicks WA
Hinojosa TX
Jefferson LA
Matheson UT
Meeks NY
Moore KS
Moran VA
Ortiz TX
Skelton MO
Snyder AR
Tanner TN
Towns NY
More than 300 scouts collapse waiting for no-show Bush at jamboree
http://www.cbc.ca/cp/world/050727/w0727108.html
BOWLING GREEN, Va. (AP) - More than 300 Boy Scouts were sickened by the heat Wednesday while waiting for President George W. Bush to arrive at a memorial service for four Scout leaders who were killed while pitching a tent beneath a power line.
The president's visit to the Scout Jamboree at Fort A.P. Hill was postponed because of the threat of severe thunderstorms and strong winds. Instead, Bush is scheduled to visit the gathering Thursday.
But before the president's appearance was called off, many Scouts fell ill from temperatures that rose into the upper 30s C, made worse by high humidity.
One-half of those were treated and released from the base hospital, about five kilometres from the event arena. Dozens more were sent to other hospitals, where they were in stable condition Wednesday night, said Gregg Shields, a Jamboree spokesman.
Soldiers carried Boy Scouts on stretchers to the base hospital and others were airlifted from the event.
Jamboree officials called for emergency assistance from surrounding areas and ambulances transported Scouts during a storm that brought high winds and lightning. . .
DOes anyone know where to se how each House member voted on CAFTA?
thomas.loc.gov, mkh
Casey--When we were in Canada, the talk show hosts on the radio were saying that Judith Miller was the source for Valerie Plame. This was two-and-a-half weeks ago.
I found the Canadian radio discussions to be among the clearest and to have wonderful perspective on the truth.
On CAFTA, it does appear that everyone was told that they could get something for their vote--those who needed an add-on to the Energy or Highway bills got whatever they wanted.
I want to write more about this later, but it strikes me again that Members are under the most tremendous pressure to bring home the bacon to the local district, and this administration has mastered the strong-arm techniques necessary.
This does not excuse the bad votes we tend to see all too often. But it does mean that each of us must maintain regular contact with our members, and we must let them know what we want them to do. They do respond to the voters' preferences-after all, we elected them--and they do not hear from the regular people early enough to influence them on legislation such as CAFTA. And believe me, they ARE hearing from the lobbyists.
I just realized how appropriate this is due to CAFTA passing!
I happened across this article and think that every Democrat should read it. Of course, we should take other things into consideration, too, and this may not have all the answers... but it certainly comes close!
The thesis is that Democrats can win if they return to a populist platform. This includes:
1) fight the "class war"
2) champion small business over big business
3) protect the farmer
4) fight corporate corruption and corruption in government in general and do it as a "values" argument
And proof that this is a winning strategy (besides the fact that these are the principles Democrats have always stood for and always won on)is in all the Democrats who have gotten elected in very red areas using this message. Really responds to the "What's the matter with Kansas?" question.
It was written in December, so you may have seen it before, but if not, please give it a look:
The Democrats’ Da Vinci Code
How the path to nirvana is painted right on the 2004 electoral map.
By David J. Sirota
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8917
here's the beginning...
Yet encrypted within the 2004 election map is a clear national economic platform to build a lasting majority. You don’t need Fibonacci’s sequence, a decoder ring, or 3-D glasses to see it. You just need to start asking the right questions.
Where, for instance, does a Democrat get off using a progressive message to become governor of Montana? How does an economic populist Democrat keep winning a congressional seat in what is arguably America’s most Republican district? Why do culturally conservative rural Wisconsin voters keep sending a Vietnam-era anti-war Democrat back to Congress? What does a self-described socialist do to win support from conservative working-class voters in northern New England?
http://www.prospect.org/web/page.ww?section=root&name=ViewWeb&articleId=8917
July 28, 2005
E.P.A. Holds Back Report on Car Fuel Efficiency
By DANNY HAKIM
DETROIT, July 27 - With Congress poised for a final vote on the energy bill, the Environmental Protection Agency made an 11th-hour decision Tuesday to delay the planned release of an annual report on fuel economy.
But a copy of the report, embargoed for publication Wednesday, was sent to The New York Times by a member of the E.P.A. communications staff just minutes before the decision was made to delay it until next week. The contents of the report show that loopholes in American fuel economy regulations have allowed automakers to produce cars and trucks that are significantly less fuel-efficient, on average, than they were in the late 1980's.
Releasing the report this week would have been inopportune for the Bush administration, its critics said, because it would have come on the eve of a final vote in Congress on energy legislation six years in the making. The bill, as it stands, largely ignores auto mileage regulations.
The executive summary of the copy of the report obtained by The Times acknowledges that "fuel economy is directly related to energy security," because consumer cars and trucks account for about 40 percent of the nation's oil consumption. But trends highlighted in the report show that carmakers are not making progress in improving fuel economy, and environmentalists say the energy bill will do little to prod them.
"Something's fishy when the Bush administration delays a report showing no improvement in fuel economy until after passage of their energy bill, which fails to improve fuel economy," said Daniel Becker, the Sierra Club's top global warming strategist. "It's disturbing that despite high gas prices, an oil war and growing concern about global warming pollution, most automakers are failing to improve fuel economy."
Eryn Witcher, a spokeswoman for the E.P.A., said the timing of the release of the report had nothing to do with the energy bill deliberations.
more... http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/business/28fuel.html?ei=5065&en=e782c053a94be35e&ex=1123128000&partner=MYWAY&pagewanted=print
Needless to say, if Arianna's story is true, Miller has to be canned by the NY Times.
Cyrano,
hahahahahahah
you so funny.
About CAFTA, some politicians around here favor it because we aren't an industrial area any more and so they lean toward free trade. We have more markets, and can do things like sell lentils to Fidel.
I like to think more in terms of the whole country, but that's just me & I'm not a politician.
I like to think more in terms of the whole country, but that's just me & I'm not a politician.
Posted by: not my president at July 28, 2005 09:33 AM
Now now, don't you know it's in vogue to put self above country?
It's the latest craze.