Well, Joe is the one proclaiming great acclaim and he did so on numerous occasions in his book. Wilson did work for Republican administrations but so what. Each administration employs thousands of individuals, are you suggesting that all of them must be aligned with the Presidents political affiliation?
Interestingly enough you are the one suggesting that all employees must be aligned with the President's political affiliation or they are de facto partisan operatives against the administration. You did so by demonizing both Plame and Wilson and suggesting it was incorrect to send him on an intel mission, if they knew his actual political affiliation.
In any case you have completely dodged, the point I made. He was accredited for fine work by Republicans. I gave you evidence. Now is this true or not? And if he was accredited as a hero by republicans, does this not suggest a nonpartisan civil servant?
Joe Wilson worked for Al Gore and Tom Foley and was a known opponent of the plan to invade Iraq. This should have disqualified him for a trip to find evidence in support of the invasion of Iraq, but the CIA missed it in large part because his wife pushed his recommendation through CIA channels and no one questioned it.
This is completely false as stated. He may have worked for Al Gore and Foley, and he might have been opposed to the invasion of Iraq. However neither of those things would have suggested what he should do on his trip to Niger to obtain info on a suspected arms sale. Unless he was clairvoyant, or his wife was, there was no way they could know how that intel would be used and so be able to be used against the administration at some future date.
Here is a clip from Republican former CIA analyst Larry Johnson explaining what I said during congressional testimony. If you do not have Quicktime then you can go to
this page and download other vids or the transcript of his testimony.
It disproves several of Bush apologist talking points, including the idea that anyone upset by the treatment Plame/Wilson have received must be liberal in aspect. Not that I find the term liberal demeaning in any respect, but the issue of national security has suddenly been made a partisan political issue, with those defending our intel community painted blue. That is not true.
he has a bias against the Bush administration and was not fair in the Niger reporting because of that bias.
How is not fair in reporting different than lying? I will happily rephrase my question if it will motivate you to answer it instead of using semantics to dodge it.
Because it was an opportunity to discredit the administration. Why send Wilson to investigate a WMD issue when he has no background in WMD’s?
How could he know he would be able to discredit the administration more than a year later because they would ignore his findings as well as CIA efforts to correct administration statements, and then try and cover up those mistakes?
You went on to discuss Plame's connection to his being sent on that trip. It is in direct contradiction to the evidence submitted in the Senate Report. If you do this again, you will most certainly be a liar.
No, that hasn’t been shown at all. Nothing has been shown at all that Rove did anything to undercut Wilson other than corroborate information that was already being circulated amongst several journalists. Remember, it was Cooper who contacted Rove, not the other way around.
Corroboration of a false story which would undercut Wilson's statements, is an action of attempting to undercut his statements and protect their own fallacious position. I might ask that since your last sentence is now known to be false, what is your position?
No, it hasn’t been shown that the intel is different
That was one of the findings within the Senate Report which I cited. How do you explain the disconnect between your stated position and the findings of the Senate?
Cheney didn’t recommend Wilson for the trip, it was his wife.
Wilson never claimed Cheney recommended him for the trip. This is just spin on your part.
Wilson has stated that Iraqi’s never made any inquiries into the purchase of uranium from Niger. Wilson was definitive about it and in interviews he goes beyond the statement regarding what he found during his trip.
I have already proven using the Senate Report that his mission was specific. The attempted purchase was indeed falsified by the findings of his trip, and yet the administration continued to use language about a specific incident. Why do you continue to challenge the facts as stated within the Senate Report?
Wilson’s intel did bolster evidence on the sale by suggesting a recent inquiry into the purchase of uranium by the Iraqis. But the sale didn’t go through.
I posted a citation showing that the Senate found it was considered "bolstered" only by most (which is not all) CIA analysts (who were without question working with a mistaken theory as proven in other parts of the report), and NONE of the other intel community working on this issue. How do you define it as having bolstered the case when the majority of the intel community felt it didn't?
If she had full control of the situation she wouldn’t have pushed, she would just have sent him. As it is, she made the recommendation and argued on his behave noting his credentials as the best candidate for the job. The CIA should have questioned her but didn’t and eventually approved Wilson for the task.
Your original position was that she had just sent him and she had full control. So you have changed your position on this? As it stands she did not, and could not, push through anything. The ultimate resolution (as stated in the Senate Report) came from a meeting with Wilson alone with other intel officers. In the clip I cited above Johnson furnishes more info on how little Plame could have done, and indeed that she was contacted by the CIA regarding her husband first.
I don’t know the parameters of the trip, or the details of the mission instructions given him by the CIA. Do you have a specific reference that shows exactly what his mission was? Please cite references.
This was in the Senate Report and I cited them directly to you. Unless you are talking exact parameters and details? They gave an outline of them, not exact details, but that is all you'd need. They are not what you said and show that the trip was regarding intel on a specific sale.
It raises the possibility that the memo could be the source of the leak.
No it does not. It suggests that that memo could be used to track the source of the leak as whoever did the leaking would have had to have been familiar with that specific meeting, either from being there or by having been privvy to that memo.
I suppose that in itself raises the possibility that the memo taker could have leaked that memo, but that is not the main point of the article at all, nor the main suggested route.
I’m sure you would agree that the 2002 memo should be investigated because it includes Plame by name and was a classified document in 2002. If this was in the public domain before Novak or Cooper talked to Rove, then it is another indication that Rove is innocent.
That it should be investigated, yes. That it makes Rove innocent, hardly. If someone corroborates that an official secret is in fact true, one is aiding an abetting a criminal act. Isn't it obvious that if Novak came forward with info of such sensitive nature, then Rove should have been interested in finding the leak and denying its validity?
Plame was not responsible for the trip. I never said she was, those are your words. She recommended her husband for the trip.
Must I quote your earlier posts back to you? You claimed she was the one who sent him and indeed the only person Wilson had contact with at CIA? Or can you not remember your own hyperbolic commentary? I will also note that you dodged answering that it countered your previous positions on the focus of the trip as well as its findings, both of which you fallaciously restate in your post.
The Cloud article does not even mention Gannon. You are confusing multiple different articles and combining them together to weave an argument. Again, I don’t know who leaked the 2002 CIA memo. If your logical conclusion is that the only people which might have leaked the memo are Novak and Gannon, then suggest it to Fitzgerald, maybe he doesn’t know about it.
Your are not reading the articles nor my questions. My question was whether the other article suggests that Novak and Gannon were the leaks. Cloud did not have to state Gannon, as it stated two anonymous sources, and the article in question makes a link to one being Gannon.
Not at all. First of all, I included the DailyKos blog just to indicate that others were writing about this 2002 memo. Gannon was one of them.
Your position was that the memo had been leaked and so Plame was public knowledge for some time. What this showed is that this theory is fallacious as the memo was never discussed (even by bloggers) until after the Novak article, and that the first ref was by Gannon.
No not at all. Rove has done nothing wrong and should not be punished for doing nothing wrong.
I have asked you a direct question, which removed discussion of criminal wrong doing. I will ask it again. Regardless of criminal charges being brought, or convictions handed down, don't you find the attempt to discredit an administration critic, using false information and potentially damaging information for an intel operative, something WRONG?
Not criminal... wrong.
Does such an act, which imperils future intel gathering by showing they may be smeared for coming up with opposite conclusions from an administration, or may even have their careers cut short in clandestine work because of partisan political motives of administration officials, violate your sense of ethics and so make you want to remove that person?
I understand that currently, you don't like people lying about getting a blowjob during an investigation into financial affairs. But are you about to go on record saying smear jobs of intel officers by partisan political operatives, is somehow less important than that?
He lied and can’t be trusted because of it.
Other than your restatement of this position, with already presented counterevidence suggests it itself is a lie, I see no reason why I should believe you.
What did he lie about again? What is your evidence?
AbE: I just realized that at the beginning of your post you said he wasn't a liar in order to dodge a question, and ended by repeating (accurately) your original position that he is a liar. At the very least that he is a liar now and so we must treat his other commentary as lies.
This is the problem with spin. Eventually you may find yourself 180 opposite from your initial position. Let me know when you get a stable and consistent story and firmly document it with the Senate Report.
This message has been edited by holmes, 07-25-2005 06:06 AM
holmes
"...what a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away.."(D. Bros)
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