And, as I am now obligated to discuss this story until someone drives a stake through its heart, here is your daily Plame update and accompanying flame-war thread:
Two aides to Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, testified last Friday before a federal grand jury investigating whether government officials illegally disclosed the identity of an undercover C.I.A. operative, according to a person who has been officially briefed on the case.
The aides, Susan B. Ralston and Israel Hernandez, were asked about grand jury testimony given on July 13 by Matthew Cooper, a reporter for Time magazine, the person who was briefed said. Mr. Cooper has said that he testified about a July 11, 2003, conversation with Mr. Rove in which the C.I.A. officer was discussed.
Tom Maguire handles everything else.
TallDave
I have a feeling a lot of people will be laughing very hard when this investigation is over.
DougJ
Me, too, Dave. What a joke, what waste of time. Rove “leaks” information to Novak that anyone could have found in Who’s Who and they convene a grand jury. The beauty of it is that when said grand jury comes back with no indictments and perhaps even a report explicitly exonerating — or maybe even praising — Rove’s and Libby’s conduct here, the Dems will have to eat their words. They won’t, though, they’ll just go on blabbing about cover-ups and “treason” and so on. Some folks just don’t know how to admit they’re wrong.
Geoduck
The only person who can drive a stake through this story is Patrick Fitzgerald. Until he does so, the rest of us, on both sides of the issue, are just blowing.. warmed-over balloon juice.
Stormy70
No kidding.
Might as well turn this into an open thread again. Just now starting the new Harry Potter book, since I had to reread the Order of the Phoenix again. I know you guys all care, don’t you?
DougJ
Stormy, you really read the Harry Potter books? I thought you’d be the one who would agree with me that they promote sorcery and perhaps paganish. Sigh….
Zifnab
Hermonie dies!
Sorry, Somethingawful.com moment, but seriously I think once the media and the Republican political machine are done sucker punching each other to death over this one, I don’t think White House news ‘leaks’ the same way again. After all, when trying to protect your sources – who themselves would just as soon see you hung out to dry – means you could be looking at 5-10 in a federal prision, getting information straight on CIA operatives in Africa just doesn’t seem so important anymore.
ppGaz
Bzzzt. Sorry, wrong. This is what happens when you believe the shit in the rightwing websites, Storm.
Ms. Wilson’s covert status was not in Who’s Who. It’s her status that is protected, not her name. Her name could be in the phone book, that doesn’t blow her cover. Her name was not secret. Her marriage to Wilson, not secret. Her status, secret. Get it?
Jesus, get a clue.
ppGaz
I don’t think you will be one of them. Put your money where your mouth is. Let’s make a bet. To make it interesting, here’s my fifty bucks.
?
ppGaz
Whoops, replace “Storm” with “Doug”. Wrong attribution, my bad.
ppGaz
Okay. Are the Cowboys going to suck again this year?
Stormy70
Definitely, although I have a friend who made the Dallas Cowboy Cheerleading squad. They run that squad like a freaking boot camp, too, poor girl’s exhauseted.
I love Harry Potter, DougJ, and I have to disagree on the pagan promoting crap.
Zifnab – Please be joking, because that is just freakin’ wrong to spoil someone’s book before she’s read it. :(
Sojourner
Fitzgerald had bloody well better come up with something after keeping Judy Miller in jail all this time. She deserved to be fired for her incompetence in covering the Bush lies about the Iraq war but she shouldn’t be in jail if he can’t bring indictments against somebody.
ppGaz
Well, our Cardinals are being touted as a possible division champ out here. Nobody will be more surprised than the Cardinals themselves, who have built a tradition of abject crumminess that will serve forever as an example of how not to run a football team. So we got Green, and some new players, and we’re building a Multi-Quatrillion-Dollar air conditioned dome for them to play in (2006 season) and …. well, we’ll see.
I bought a used car couple years ago that had a Cardinals plate on the front bumper (we dont have front license plates here). First thing I did when I got the car home … take off that plate. It’s embarassing to have people laugh and point at your car at the gas station.
Bob
So Stormy70, do you see the new Minister of Magic and his incompetent fight against Voldemort as Rowling’s allusion to the current War on Terror? I believe Rowling worked for Amnesty International years ago.
Or do you see Harry Potter as George Bush?
Bob
Okay, Cooper testifies, there’s a discrepancy between what Cooper says and what Rove’s lawyer says. His underlings are called in.
Undoubtedly checking about why the phone call wasn’t logged in. Very cool.
There was a story floating around about one of the people screening Rove’s calls as first contacting Grover Norquist before letting the calls through. Interesting, considering Norquist’s recent history with Arab funding which has washed up against the shores of terror funding.
And let us not forget that Judith Miller was being investigated by Fitzgerald for her part in tipping off an Arab “charity” about an impending raid by the Justice Department.
Can’t wait for the report.