In another post you suggest the only "just" thing to do is wait for a report, and to accept the findings of a report.
Yet you do not seem to feel this applies to you as you certainly dismiss and indeed reverse the findings of an old report, and while telling everyone else to wait on this new report, continue to submit evidence which could be used to exonerate Rove.
Now I am fine with an ultimate wait and see approach. I backed this quite vocally in the MJ thread. Indeed all I have done in this thread is give conditionals and suggest criticism on some of the legal loopholes proRovers have been suggesting.
That is until Wilson himself began to get slammed as if that mattered one bit as to whether Rove did or did not do something wrong. That is when I have become quite proactive, and feel there were many mistatements made for which you have not come clean. Here are some very simple claims you made, and the questions I put to you:
1) Claim: Wilson is a long time Democratic partisan who worked in the Clinton administration long before Bush and Rove entered the national scene.
Q1a: Did Wilson also work for Republican administrations, including for Bush Sr to great acclaim and in defiance of Saddam Hussein, risking his life to save Americans, as well as supporting Republican candidates as late as 2000?
Q1b: If so, how does that suggest he is a partisan likely to lie to the CIA?
Q2c: Why would he bother working for the CIA if he felt it was for a republican cause, instead of just refusing the job?
Q2d: Why, after going on the mission, would he feel he'd have to lie to stop a war he would eventually oppose, if in fact the war had not been proposed yet by the administration, and he could not have known that this was going to be one of the arguments for the war?
2) Claim: It was Wilson who launched the media blitz criticizing Bush in the run up to the election campaign by writing several articles critical of the Bush administration. This was long before Rove was involved in anything.
Q2: Has it been shown that Rove
was involved in attempting to undercut Wilson, directly after Wilson's statements and not "long" after?
3) Claim: Wilson didn’t deliver a review of certain intel different from that supplied by B&R as you suggest.
Q3a: Has it been shown that his intel was different than what B&R promoted, and that the CIA had tried to correct them several times on the matter?
Q3b: If it was not different, then why attempt to discredit Wilson by suggesting his wife authorized the project herself, and suggest it had nothing to do with Cheney or the CIA, instead of simply pointing out that his media article conflicted with his intel report which backed their proposition?
4) Claim: Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were proven false in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report... (This also covers your additional claims of "said Wilson provided misleading info", and other Wilson negative language)...
Q4a: Has it been shown that, in fact, the Senate did not mention any sort of qualitative statements regarding Wilson or his intel (besides noting some discrepencies which existed across all intel reports generated), indeed suggesting that his report was valid including for interpretations that the sale, or attempted sale, was unlikely?
Q4b: Has it been shown that, in fact, the Senate criticized CIA handling of the intel, biasing it in favor of certain analyst's interpretations (which were based on initial erroneuos assumptions), and not reporting Wilson's findings accurately to Cheney?
Q4c: If either one is not true, please cite actual quote from the Senate, and include page reference from the report, to back your initial claim. (Note: This does not include their questions about the claim that he identified the Niger forgeries which was not in his report, and is already agreed he spoke incorrectly about.)
5) Claim: The Senate panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, actually bolstered the case.
Q5: Has it been shown that Wilson's intel did not bolster "intelligence" on the sale, showing instead that while most CIA analysts used it to corroborate their theory (which at that point was already errant), INR analysts (who are equally "intelligence") in contrast found it disproving?
Q5b: If not, please provide full Senate statement with page number(s).
6) Claim: Contrary to Wilson's assertions, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.
Q6: Has it been shown that, in fact, the CIA had many qualms about the reliability of the Intel and had tried to get the White House to remove such references? (Note: It is true that the CIA did not fully divulge the source nor the nature of the disqualification, and the Senate rebuked the CIA for that, but they had certainly expressed doubts on the reliability of the intel).
7) Claim: Of course it wasn’t Cheney’s office that had questions. The only CIA official he was contacted by was his wife, Plame... (this also covers all claims about Plame being responsible for Wilson's trip, and his denial of her responsibility)...
Q7: Has it been shown that, in fact, Cheney's questions drove the CIA to create the investigation and that Wilson had mutiple contacts with CIA regarding that investigation outside of his wife, indeed that she had no control over the decision to send him at all?
Q7b: If not, please post the full Senate description of the Niger trip, and indicate the exclusivity of Plame and Wilson, as well as that Cheney was not the initiator of the need for that information. You may edit unnecessary "detail" info.
8) Claim: Wilson actually corroborated the intel that Iraq wanted to buy uranium in Niger.
Q8: Has it been shown that the trip was, in fact, meant to discover the accuracy of intel regarding a specific attempt, and the possibilities of its success, and that this put in question that event, both that it occured and that it could have ever succeeded?
Q8b: If not, please cite the Senate finding and list page #.
9) Claim: (paraphrased) Plame's identity was leaked by an analyst at CIA and so she was already outed.
Q9: While you cited
this article from Cloud, which indicates a 2002 memo could be used to track the source of the leak (as the source used info from that memo), how does that raise any issue that it had been released publicly prior to the Novak article, as the article does not discuss that possibility at all?
Q9b: Why are you suggesting Cloud was leaked that memo such that it indicates it had been circulating when Rove made his comments, as Cloud's article was made after the CIA asked for an investigation and Cloud suggests where he learned of the memo (two people familiar with the memo, who might be related to the investigation)?
Q9c: Do you agree with the contents of Cloud's article which clearly show Plame was not "responsible" for the trip, that the trip was initiated by Cheney and CIA questions about a particular incident, and that the conclusions were negative on that point?
Q9d: While you go on to say...
you’ll see that it has appeared in several news outlets and blogs over the last couple of years. Here is a reference to it in
DailyKos.
..., doesn't the article actually rebut your own assertion by arguing that Cloud was the first person outside of Novak to mention a memo, that it was clearly not from direct information, and that the next journalist to mention it as a source was Gannon?
Q9e: Does this article also go on to argue that the logical conclusion is that the only people which might have been leaked the memo are Novak and Gannon, and most importantly this was all concurrent with the Rove-Novak connection and not vastly prior to Novak's column?
Q9f: Does this article, in fact, conclude that...
Jeff Gannon was planted by the administration to disseminate their talking points unfettered by any journalism ethics or investigation shortly after the Iraq war, when the failure to find WMDs was becoming apparent. He became incredibly useful in L'Affaire Plame to continue to push the dual stories that a) Plame's name was already common knowledge and therefore `outing' her was not a crime and b) to continue to help discredit the CIA and Wilson.
Based on the evidence, I believe the 2002 CIA memo was leaked to Gannon when Novak became unusable and when the `mainstream' reporters with CIA contacts were not pushing the WH's preferred story line. They needed cover, and they got it.
... and so wholly rebut your position?
10) Claim: (paraphrased) Rove is being hounded needlessly by Bush opponents.
Q10: Even if Rove is found to not be chargeable, or beats charges of outing a covert officer, aren't there good reasons for people to be concerned that Rove, an administration official, attempted to discredit an administration critic by making false statements to the press regarding that critic, in order to bolster their (at this point) proven erroneous claims against his proven accurate claims?
Q10b: Don't you think such a person and those connected with that action should pay some very real price, like removal from office?
Q10c: If Rove is convicted, should Bush be held accountable for backing this person using White House assets, and not removing him from duty when he is clearly being investigated for improper if not criminal activity as an official?
Q10d: Don't you think, given the evidence in support of Wilson's claims, that perhaps he is the one who is the target of Bush idealogues, and should be given a break?
This message has been edited by holmes, 07-15-2005 08:12 AM
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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