Joe Wilson is feeling ornery:
Cheney’s request for the declassification of material is a welcome development, but it should not be limited to his narrow request. Our country’s understanding of what was done in our name by the Bush administration depends on the release, not just of the documents Cheney has designated, but of all documents related to the efforts of the Bush administration and Cheney himself to defend the indefensible—the decision to invade Iraq despite the knowledge at the time that Iraq did not have a nuclear program, had no ties to al Qaeda, and posed no existential threat to the United States or to its friends and allies in the region.
The disinformation campaign to manipulate public opinion in favor of the invasion, the torture program, and the illegal exposure of a clandestine CIA agent—my wife, Valerie Plame Wilson—were linked events. In their desperate effort to gather material to whip up public support, Cheney and others resorted to torture, well known in the intelligence craft to elicit inherently unreliable information. Cheney & Co. then pressured the CIA to put its stamp of approval on a series of falsehoods—26 of which were inserted into Secretary of State Colin Powell’s speech before the United Nations Security Council. At the same time, Cheney was furiously attempting to suppress the true information that Saddam Hussein was not seeking yellowcake uranium in Niger. After I published the facts in an article in The New York Times in July 2002, Cheney tried to punish me and discredit the truth by directing the outing of a CIA operative who happened to be my wife.
Among other documents Cheney should release is his testimony to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald about the role he played in the treasonous leak of the identity of a covert CIA officer. His chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury for his efforts to ensure that the “cloud over the vice president,” as Fitzgerald noted, was not penetrated.
As a witness in the Libby case, Cheney has the legal grounds to release his own testimony. If he feels more comfortable, he can ask permission, though he does not need it, from former President George W. Bush—and ask that Bush release his testimony as well. Because Cheney has called for transparency, why should he or Bush object? Then Pat Fitzgerald can make public the transcripts. It’s time for this coverup to end.
Your move, Dick.
Cat Lady
Dick “dick” Cheney hopefully will be Exhibit A to the adage “be careful what you wish for”.
sgwhiteinfla
Thats what happens when you call for transparency. Whether someone was setting this trap purposely or not, Dick Cheney definitely seems to have walked right into it. But the problems is as long as you have MSM outlets still spreading propaganda to cover Cheney’s ass you will never get enough outrage to really hold his feet to the fire. DINO Harold Ford Jr was just on Morning Joe quoting David Broder to try to push the “lets just move on” meme. It is what it is.
Michael D.
Your move, Dickhead.
Much better.
ppcli
Cheney is, or at least is acting as if he is, unaware that one of the main reasons he and his cohort were able to control the discussion was that they had the ability to selectively declassify documents whenever it would be useful for public relations reasons. Now his opponents are the ones who can release all and only the information they want.
.
This will be fun to watch.
EconWatcher
I’m glad Scooter Libby was held to account and I wish more had been. But you have to admit, Joe Wilson is a snake-oil salesman. Ever seen the guy on TV? Wouldn’t trust him as far as I could throw him.
Valerie Plame herself seems more equable. But whenever the two appear together, Joe is doing all the talking, basking in the limelight and wallowing in a victimhood that is not even his. I believe the scandal was the best thing that ever happened to him, rescuing him from obscurity and an apparently stalled career.
r€nato
OT: was over at the folks’ house last night and accidentally caught about 15 seconds of Fox News Channel.
They still have that execrable alleged comedy show “Red Eye”. Know what one of their really funny stunts is? They read through the latest stories on current events and for the left-wing interpretation of them, they have a talking copy of the NY Times. It’s a newspaper, folded flat just like you see it at the newspaper rack but with the edge of the pages facing you instead of the fold. It’s got two eyes on top and they gave it a mouth by putting what appears to be black cardboard paper on the top and bottom of the inside fold. They’ve got a string on it so it’s like a puppet more or less I guess.
I’d say Jon Stewart’s job is pretty safe.
r€nato
@EconWatcher:
no, I don’t gotta admit Joe is a snake-oil salesman. Upon what do you base that? I’m pretty pleased that one of Cheney’s victims has the ability and balls to fight back effectively against Darth Cheney.
wilfred
What trap? Cheney doesn’t give a shit and will never be called to account for any goddamned thing he’s ever said or done.
He lied to get us into Iraq and hundreds of thousands of people died. He’ll get a pass on this because of the people he’ll bring down with him, who in turn are needed for this week’s cause.
A lot of people looked the other way on torture.
sgwhiteinfla
EconWatcher
No I don’t have to admit that. Joe Wilson was THE person who almost derailed our march to war when he debunked the yellow cake story and in response the Vice President of our country sought to out his wife and ruin her career. If he is selling snake oil as you say, I hope he breaks every damn record for sales ever known to man. This fucking government was determined to take us to war by any means necessary and we have lost more American citizens, soldiers, in that war than we did on 9-11. A war we didn’t need and a war that wasn’t justified. Joe Wilson has every right to call that sonofabitch Cheney out and I hope he never stops doing so.
Mr. Stuck
Dick Cheney finally follows the law
Of unintended consequences
joe from Lowell
Wow, Econwatcher, that’s almost verbatim from the talking points the White House was putting out about Joe Wilson during the 2004 campaign and the Patrick Fitzgerald investigation.
Say, you wouldn’t want to hold forth on how he ended up getting picked for that mission to Niger, would you?
Hunter Gathers
@sgwhiteinfla
They are doing more than just providing cover for Cheney. They are covering thier own ass as well. They want no part of any investigations that might take place, because some of the MSM would get dragged into it as well.
Julia Grey
I think Cheney is going to be dying soon and he knows it. He’s scrambling desperately to rescue something from the ashes.
Cancer or the heart thing. Six months, tops.
Joe Wilson can sell whatever he wants to sell, and in massive quantities. That’s what’s got the jealous dicks’ knickers in a twist.
jrg
Horse shit. If we had listened to him in 2003, we’d have saved trillions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives.
Cat Lady
@Julia Grey:
I hope you’re right, but I don’t see any evidence of that. He made his deal with Satan, and is drinking puppy blood or something. His cheeks are rosy and his skin is smooth. So much creepy right there. And what happened to the story about him having his own off the shelf death squads? So many shoes left to drop on that guy.
TR
Hey, Dick, here’s a steaming hot mug of Shut the Fuck Up. Enjoy!
EconWatcher
OK, all you Joe Wilson defenders. Read Wilson’s ridiculous attack on Obama, and bizarre explanation for why Hillary has no responsibility at all for voting to authorize the war, and then tell me why this guy is not a snake-oil salesman:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joe-wilson/obamas-hollow-judgment_b_89441.html
Look, I think Wilson has sometimes been useful. And no, joe from lowell, I’m not a Bushie just because I don’t trust Wilson. I’d just be very careful before I let this guy be a front man on any important issue.
Zifnab
Listen, John. You can’t just release all the memos. Wilson is, once again, being irresponsible and unserious. By releasing all memos, you continue to threaten the safety and security of our CIA agents and the effectiveness of their practices.
However, there are some memos you can release. The trick is that only Dick Cheney knows what those memos are. How does he know? Well, that’s a state secret and can’t be divulged for the above reason. The bottom line is that you don’t know Dick. He’s looking out for our country by doing what he does best. Joe Wilson is just another one of those free-love hippies trying to mare the public discourse with his vindictive, uneducated, liberal, elitist, anti-American crazy talk.
kay
I think Wilson re-litigating Plame under the guise of the revelations on torture is a terrible idea.
You get one shot at prosecution, and Wilson had it. He also had a shot at a civil judgment.
We can forget about any rational approach to the memos. We’re back to Scooter Libby. This is a mistake, and I wish like hell he had thought it through.
It is a fundamental mistake to conflate all of this, and ram it into the guise of “prosecutions”. We prosecute specific individuals for specific crimes, and Libby was convicted. Wilson doesn’t get a broader inquiry after the fact.
Kevin K.
EconWatcher is right, Joe Wilson didn’t skirt as far into angry anti-Obama land as his pal Flowbee, but he was pretty well out there. Doesn’t mean he wasn’t right in the past or right now, but my admiration for him dropped considerably with some of the stuff he was writing in ’08.
The Grand Panjandrum
@EconWatcher: Thank you. I was about to post the same piece. He got carried away in that piece and ended up sounding like an unhinged PUMA. So I haven’t forgotten his ludicrous attempt to support HRC by undermining Obama with the “he isn’t ready to lead” bullshit. But he was right about the run up to the war and the facts are on his side.
Ash Can
@kay: It seems to me that Plame was never litigated in the first place. The Scooter Libby trial was about obstruction of justice and perjury committed in the process of investigating the outing of Plame. Not that I’m convinced that this is the time and the place for this specific inquiry, but I’m not convinced that it ever really took place, either. Or is my memory just faulty?
someguy
The cleverest thing Cheney ever did was to arrange for Richard Armitage to spring the Plame leak to Novakula. Armitage claimed it was an slipup on his part but it seems clear that he was a Cheney / Rove plant in the State Department to sabotage and dupe Colin Powell, and to float useful leaks. Too bad Scooter couldn’t keep his stories straight – hope he enjoyed his stay at Federal Pound Me In The Ass Prison.
And Econ Watcher, just because you don’t always agree with Wilson, doesn’t make him a bad person. He’s wrong on the merits there. The ass-whupping Obama is laying on the high & mighty in the financial world and his willingness to punish the greedy in this country despite the ranting teabaggers and blue dogs shows his courage. But Wilson’s error in judgment about domestic politics and his campaign advocacy for HIllary doesn’t make him a snake oil salesman.
cleek
@EconWatcher:
exactly.
just because Wilson got fucked-over by CheneyCo for being on the right side of the war issue doesn’t make him an unimpeachable authority on all issues.
he lost his shit during the primaries.
here’s Wilson:
…
now that’s verbatim from WH talking points.
kay
@Kevin K.:
I don’t know about any of that.
It’s a stupid and self-serving move to challenge Cheney on Plame under the guise of the torture memos.
Cheney must be thrilled.
Cat Lady
OT, but Obama just made the geeks at the National Academy of Sciences laugh at an Einstein joke. Republicans didn’t get it.
sgwhiteinfla
Econwatcher
Are we still litigating the damn primary? Of course he tried to trash Obama, he was a Hillary supporter. Hillary herself said a lot worse and she is now the Sec of State. I didn’t appreciate the stuff either of them said but it was politics as usual, nothing more and nothing less. But to say he shouldn’t take every opportunity to hit Dick Cheney is ludicrous. If Dick Cheney is going to now call for transparency then lets not limit it to the shit he wants us to see. Propaganda that its likely he himself had commissioned as CYA documents. Hell lets see just how involved Cheney was in leaking Plame’s name.
Lets not forget that the Senate Armed Services Committee report says that we tortured not to catch al Queda, but to help make the case for going to war with Iraq. They waterboarded Zubaydah and KSM over 200 times combinded not to try to stop an imminent attack, but to try to get them to say, even in a false confession that Saddam had ties to al Queda. Thats precisely why it IS intertwined and its also why we should know everything that was done by Cheney and his cronies to manufacture the “evidence” that led us to war. The consequence of Wilson debunking the yellow cake “evidence” was his wife being outed. What effect did that have on other people who might have spoken out against the faulty case? What else did these people sweep under the rug? I for one want to know.
kay
@Ash Can:
That’s true. The witnesses lied during the Plame trial. Wilson lost. He had hoped they’d get to Cheney. They didn’t.
I just think this damages the already-crap “debate” over torture.
Cheney would like nothing better than to re-litigate Plame, rather than talking torture.
EconWatcher
Someguy, please take this as a respectful suggestion: I don’t think anyone on our side should make prison-rape jokes. I wouldn’t wish that on Scooter Libby or anyone. While I’m as disgusted as anyone by the revelations about official torture in the last administration, the fact is, an eighteen-year old kid convicted on a minor felony, with no gang affiliation to protect him, will often have things done to him in state prison worse than anything that even KSM was subjected to. It’s a horrible blight on our democracy that we allow this to happen routinely and even joke about it. (I told such jokes myself until I really sat down and thought about it. I’m not trying to be condescending; just suggesting you think about it.)
As for Joe Wilson, my beef is not that he supported Hillary. Many fine people did. I just don’t think he was intellectually honest in doing so, so I don’t trust him.
GregB
MSNBC is blabbing about the dwindling GOP base. It’s down to 21% in a recent poll.
Some assbag is saying that they need a big tent philosophy.
Ah, no………they need a bigger clown car.
-G
Hunter Gathers
@ kay
Fitzgerald got damn close didn’t he?
It doesn’t matter what Cheney is talking about. Anytime he appears on TV is bad for the GOP.
He could go on Meet The Press extolling the virtures of puppy adoption to Paul Bunyon’s Axe himself and it makes Republicans look bad. The simple act of him opening his pie hole is a net loss for the GOP.
Brick Oven Bill
Joe Wilson in a Washington political hack and his wife Valerie has in much in common with a CIA covert agent as I have with Hines Ward. Here is one photo, Google [“Joe Wilson” “Vanity Fair” photo] for the one of them in the convertible, which seems to be copyright protected.
Release all of the documents, since the ‘War on Terror’ is over. Release everything from Guantanamo, everything from Joe Wilson’s saga, everything from the Clinton Administration. I would be especially interested in Eric Holder’s memos.
This process of slowly releasing a few incriminating pictures here, or some other embarrassing memo there, or some memo from Joe Wilson’s saga, is political crap. We can handle transparency Mr. President. Really, we can.
joe from Lowell
Wilson’s editorial is perfectly standard campaign-season spin. He advocated for Hillary, putting everything she did in the best possible light, while denouncing her strongest opponent, diminishing his accomplishment and describing everything he did in the worse possible light. In the meantime, Obama surrogates did precisely the opposite to Hillary.
I was an Obama partisan myself last year, and got pretty hot under the collar at Hillary, but come on, have some perspective. Things got hot during a closely-contested political campaign. The two of them have put it behind them, and so should we.
I’m certainly not going to turn my nose up at Joe Wilson popping up to remind the country what Dick Cheney and his history of declassifications are all about.
jrg
Kay:
These issues have been conflated for years. They have all been used as partisan “soft on terror” rhetoric (unless you support torture/the war in Iraq/secret prisons/detainment without trial, you’re somehow “pro terrorist” or you “hate America”).
I’m not saying that it’s wise to connect these events when pursuing prosecutions (I’m not in a position to know), but the general question “how did we get here?” is pretty context-dependent.
brent
@sgwhiteinfla:
Gotta say that I am leaning toward Econwatch on this one. That is to say that I get how valuable Wilson was on the war issue but I am loathe to treat anything he has to say too seriously after his behavior toward Obama, not just during the primary, but well into the election. He wasn’t just a detractor. He was seriously over into Larry Johnson/NoQuarter/PUMA territory. I will track down some of the video if I get a chance shortly but my memory was that it was waaaay past politics as usual.
sgwhiteinfla
brent
Lets say you are right, that Joe Wilson was a PUMA during the election. Here is my thing, it has nothing to do with this issue. This is from Frank Rich’s column yesterday.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/opinion/26rich.html?_r=1&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss
That is why Joe Wilson calling for transparency on this issue is very appropriate because it followed a pattern of behavior of seeking to justify going to war with Iraq at all costs. THATS why we need to know how the outing of Valerie Plame went down and who signed off on it.
kay
@jrg:
Wilson entering this, and listing his objections to the Plame prosecution, worries me.
Like it or not, that narrow issue was settled.
Saying that Republicans conflated all these issues for a political theme against Democrats doesn’t comfort me.
This is a big, complicated multi-layered problem. Wilson combining it all under “lies Cheney told us” does nothing but serve the interests of Cheney, who relies on dumb-ass arguments.
Watch what happens. I’ll concede if I’m wrong. If Wilson’s entry ( and he isn’t even honest: this complaint isn’t about torture, and he seized it to return to Plame ) furthers the aim of accountability for torture I’ll give him credit.
Cheney loves the Plame discussion. It’s over.
Halteclere
L’Affaire Plame is spent powder – that shot has been fired and there will be no reloading.
Those who are outraged will continue to be outraged, those who are dismissive will continue to be dismissive, and those who are indifferent will continue to be indifferent. Bringing up this affair won’t change anything.
When dove hunting you wait for the birds to fly near (unlike quail that quickly fly away, and often times between you and a fellow hunter (see Dick) ). You save your shot for the birds that come close, not the birds that are out of rage or the birds that you have already shot at once and missed.
PK
This is not about trusting Joe Wilson. It’s about Wilson asking Cheney to release documents. How does that make him a snake oil salesman? He happened to be right about Niger and the Iraq war. How exactly does the trust issue play into this.
In fact I think this is the perfect time for all disaffected parties to pile on and hound Cheney to release everything related to the Iraq war and torture.
kay
@Halteclere:
Absolutely. Good hunting analogy. I think.
I hadn’t read how wacky Wilson got during the primary, but I’m not all that surprised.
He’s not our best asset. “Completely over the top and personal” isn’t persuasive.
edmund dantes
Really? I could have sworn the Wilson’s lawsuit got thrown out on jurisdictional grounds (they had not shown it belonged in federal court where exactly does it belong? who knows), and it never got fully litigated. They never got their day in court. I could totally be remembering it wrong though, but I don’t recall them getting to depose Cheney, Libby, or any other member of the administration for their civil suit unlike Bill Clinton.
Fitzgerald got a shot at Cheney, but he was going after something different from the Wilson’s. So no I don’t believe the Wilson’s have had their day in court like Paula Jones was afforded.
Joel
@EconWatcher: I’m with sgwhite.
Wilson was right about the war, and his PUMA-ism doesn’t discredit that stance one iota.
kay
@edmund dantes:
Jurisdictional grounds are completely legit. It’s not a loophole.
I’m not in favor of relying on a civil proceeding to uncover criminal acts, so if that’s how Wilson “didn’t get his day in court”, because he didn’t get to depose Cheney in the civil suit, then I guess we disagree there, too.
If Wilson’s intent was to use the civil suit to nail Cheney, when Fitzgerald couldn’t do it, then I guess I don’t think he should do that either.
joe from Lowell
Politics is about narratives. Right now, the Republicans are pushing the narrative that torturing people was done to keep us safe. The Democrats are pushing back against that narrative; playing defense.
One bright spot is the evidence that torture was carried out not to reveal al Qaeda plots, but to gin up phony evidence to support the invasion of Iraq. By reminding the public about the Yellowcake story, Joe Wilson is turning that point into a narrative; the Republicans did bad things not for good reasons, but to mislead us into the Iraq War.
Dick Cheney is pushing a narrative about Obama misleading the country by selectively declassifying classified documents. By reminding the public about the outing of his WMD-tracking, covert agent wife by DICK CHENEY’S OFFICE, this charge is blunted.
The Republicans have been playing his game for years. We, and the public, don’t have to decide we like or trust Joe Wilson for this to work. You know who wins a mudfight between Dick Cheney and Joe Wilson? Barack Obama, because now Dick Cheney is somebody who rolls around in mud with Joe Wilson, and oh yeah, did a lot of bad stuff, and now his argument about torture being done to interdict terror plots is discredited.
maya
Why are some of you trying to narrow the issue to just the torture memos? Cheney and Goss have gone on record stating that by releasing the memos, Obama has endangered National Security. National Security is The issue, boneheads. Therefor, the outing of a CIA operative engaged in protecting National Security is, as Rove the Wonder Boy would say, fair game.
joe from Lowell
The other thing people should have learned from the past two years is that debates over national security issues are not automatic wins for Republicans anymore.
It is only when Democrats vacate the field that they become so. When the Democrats hit back, it’s a pretty fair fight.
EconWatcher
joe from lowell wrote:
“You know who wins a mudfight between Dick Cheney and Joe Wilson? Barack Obama, because now Dick Cheney is somebody who rolls around in mud with Joe Wilson, and oh yeah, did a lot of bad stuff…”
Possibly. But the danger is that Wilson becomes the face of the opposition (as he’d like to be, being a shameless self-promoter). The other side has shown some skill over the years in changing the subject by attacking the messenger. (Remember how Dan Rather’s mistakes tanked the whole issue about the gaps in W’s National Guard service?)
I stick with my story, and agree with Kay and Halteclere: Wilson is the wrong messenger, with the wrong message. Steer clear of him, and stick with people you can trust.
brent
@sgwhiteinfla:
Fair enough. I certainly don’t disagree that Cheney needs to be called on his bullshit. I just have a little discomfort with Wilson himself as a front man for such a pursuit in the same way that I would be if it were say, Larry Johnson. You make a good point however. I guess you go to war with the spokesman you have…
geg6
Wow, I really don’t think some people understand the Libby case at all. The issue that Wilson and Plame argue was never really litigated, despite all those who are saying that somehow Wilson and Plame got their day in court and lost. The only thing that got litigated was Libby’s lies under oath. Which was immaterial to the legal question of whether or not Plame’s outing itself was illegal. Choosing not to prosecute isn’t the same as saying it was or wasn’t.
And, regardless of Wilsom’s PUMAness during the campaign (which I readily concede, having followed it in real time), Joe Wilson will always be, in my mind, a hero for his insistent and consistent pushback against the lust for war and lack of sincerity in their concerns over national security of the W crime syndicate. He and Valerie gets all kinds of passes from me for the years they spent being persecuted and crying into the wilderness.
RememberNovember
Sounds like a dick move.
Cat Lady
@joe from Lowell:
This is the right analysis. Joe Wilson has had his time as the flavor of the month, though. Mud wrestling requires cable TV, and they will not be interested in using him to push the narrative. Cheney will always have Fox and John King, and all the other Bush establishment hacks like Mike Allen, the WaPo and WSJ. Valerie Plame is way more attractive – actual mud wrestling with Cheney would probably get some buzz.
HyperIon
@EconWatcher:
yes, i have seen him on TV.
and i think he is another bombastic fellow who loves attention and the sound of his own voice. but i don’t think he is a snake-oil salesman. i think he is bloviating about snake-oil salesmen. unfortunately some people are too dense to tell the difference. maybe you are one of these people.
kay
@geg6:
Right. Because they couldn’t prove the outing because everyone lied.
It was litigated. Libby wasn’t convicted on violating the statute because Fitzgerald couldn’t prove it, because everyone lied. It doesn’t matter how many times you re-order those events, “it” was litigated.
Poor result. Still over.
El Cid
I’d like to remind everyone of a basic fact that even the media in all the coverage of the “yellowcake” controversy left out:
The whole Niger uranium – Iraq story was ridiculous not just because there was no evidence for Saddam Hussein trying to get yellowcake (low grade) uranium from (the French-owned and controlled) Niger plant, but…
…Iraq already possessed THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of TONS of low grade, yellowcake uranium.
What had held the Iraqi nuclear program back was not a lack of vast quantities of shitty uranium, but their failures in technical development.
Note that Niger itself doesn’t have any nuclear technology, even though it has boatloads of yellowcake. That should tell you some thing.
Thadeus Horne
Anything Joe Wilson has to say about the walking shit bag named Cheney is interesting to me.
Kick his ass, Joe, and don’t take any prisoners.
Corner Stone
@someguy:
Say what now?
patrick
Most snake oil salesmen aren’t really known for their courage. Joe Wilson is. He may come across as frustrated and angry, but he has reason to be. He has watched Bush’s criminality from a much closer vantage point than most of us, spoken out when few would, and watched in frustration as the principles he has believed in and acted on his whole life have been distorted. The only result of his effort is that he and his family were lied about and forced to leave a job that further damaged the country.
There is a difference between tenacious and overwrought. The issues are important enough that I would describe Joe Wilson as tenacious and courageous.
From wiki: …he (Joe Wilson) was the Deputy Chief of Mission (to U.S. Ambassador to Iraq April Catherine Glaspie) at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. In the wake of Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait, he became the last American diplomat to meet with Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, telling him in very clear terms to leave Kuwait (Wilson, The Politics of Truth 107–27). When Hussein sent a note to Wilson (along with other embassy heads in Baghdad) threatening to execute anyone sheltering foreigners in Iraq, Wilson publicly repudiated the dictator by appearing at a press conference wearing a homemade noose around his neck and declaring, “If the choice is to allow American citizens to be taken hostage or to be executed, I will bring my own fucking rope.” Despite Hussein’s threats, Wilson sheltered more than 100 Americans at the embassy and successfully evacuated several thousand people (Americans and other nationals) from Iraq. For his actions, he was called a “a true American hero” by President George H. W. Bush…
I cut a guy like this a lot of slack.
iluvsummr
@Cat Lady:
Kind of like his bubble sort joke at Google.
Re – Wilson; so he was wrong about Obama. I don’t care about that. He was right about the Yellowcake story, saw it attacked and the warmongers win, had his wife outed, and no one has been prosecuted specifically for revealing that she was a CIA agent. I’d be upset too.
SnarkIntern
Things ordinary people care about today:
Their jobs, their healthcare, their bills, the flu, not necessarily in that order.
I’m sorry, Joe Wilson? Dick Cheney?
That movie already went to cable. Cheney got fired, and has a popularity rating down there with e-coli.
Why are we talking about this, again?
SnarkIntern
Slightly OT, but slightly on ….
How do you know your side is on the outs?
You are the GOP in AZ and you are seeing a cable tv commercial run around the clock, featuring an Obama look-sound-alike touting wood flooring. Last line in the spot: Thank you Mister President!
Try to imagine that spot featuring Dick Cheney.
John PM
@SnarkIntern: #60
I am really getting tired of people who say any variation of the above regarding Bush and Cheney. They got term-limited. It is like hitting mandatory retirement age – no one would suggest that people who hit the age 63 (or whatever) got fired. True, McCain could have chosen Cheney as his vice-presidential running-mate; true, Cheney could have tried to run for the Republican nomination for president; true, that Cheney could have tried to manufacture some type of incident where he became president-for-life. However, at the end of the day, Cheney left the office of vice-president because his term of office was done, not because he was fired.
This is why I would like to see the repeal of the amendment limiting a president to two terms in office. It would have been great to see Clinton trounce Bush in 2000 after Clinton had been “impeached” yet retained high approval ratings. It would have been even better to see Bush get trounced by Obama in 2008, which would have been an actual and direct repudiation of Bush and Cheney’s policies over the previous 8 years; in that situation, Cheney would have been fired. Alternatively, it would have been fun to try to watch Bush and Cheney explain why they were not running for re-election in 2008 given the continuing “War on Terror” and the actual wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
joe from Lowell
Doesn’t the fact that Joe Wilson laid it on thick against Obama during the primary make him a better spokesman to attack Cheney and the Bush administration?
He certainly can’t be dismissed as an Obama mouthpiece.
SnarkIntern
Yeah, uh, it’s a figure of speech. They, and their party, and all their friends, and their party’s replacement gang, got repudiated at the polls. We have a new government. The Republicans and their bullshit? Out.
Of course, it’s a good idea to keep the ear to the wall. Only today I saw a reputable poll saying that public opinion on “torture” as a useful too was running about 49 to 48 percent, with “no” in the narrow lead. This issue is not exactly setting the world on fire out there.
Good luck with that “tired” thing. You really haven’t seen me be tiresome yet.
Amirite, audience?
Boadicea
Darth Dickery thought he was changing the narrative by requesting two specific folders -but what he did was open up the door to asking for fuller examination of what the Bushies so hermitically sealed off.
I believe it’s going to bite him in the ass, and a more deserving ass I don’t think I’ll ever see.
HyperIon
@patrick:
Please leave courage out of this.
Next you’ll be calling him a hero.
(If George HW Bush called him one years ago, OK. But JW should NOT lionized for the yellow cake stuff.)
Boadicea
Just a note on Joe Wilson-his family’s safety was compromised in ways you and I can not thankfully imagine when his wife’s cover was blown.
Then, they were left to twist in the wind and fend for their own safety, and that of their twins.
Their lives were unalterably changed, and they’re still being smeared long after he was proved absolutely correct in what he said about the false claims made by Cheney’s OVP.
So, before you blow off Amb. Wilson as an angry has been, consider how you yourself would have weathered such a storm.
None of this makes him omniscient, but he and his family have given more in service to this nation separately and together than most of his critics combined.
Including ol’ Deferment Dick.
liberal
Damn straight.
Let’s broaden this beyond the torture problem, to the problem which (bad enough as the torture issue is) has been an utter disaster for both the US and Iraq.
joe from Lowell
Mr. Cheney, Mr. Wilson sees your bet, and raises you.
liberal
@SnarkIntern:
Well, for one thing, the Iraq war has cost us hundreds of billions in direct funding, and perhaps a couple trillion if you include economic impact.
That’s not as big as the financial crisis, but it’s almost the same order of magnitude.
Apart from that, you’re right, insofar as most people in most places don’t really give a crap if their nation goes somewhere and slaughters thousands or millions of people—they just care about themselves.
liberal
@HyperIon:
Best thing is to commit neither ad hominem attacks nor make appears to authority or popularity.
To the extent Wilson makes criticisms that are historically accurate, he should be lauded. To the extent not, not.
Peter K.
Snarkintern:
Things ordinary people care about today:
Their jobs, their healthcare, their bills, the flu, not necessarily in that order.
I’m sorry, Joe Wilson? Dick Cheney?
That movie already went to cable. Cheney got fired, and has a popularity rating down there with e-coli.
Why are we talking about this, again?
Because people get off on Bush-hate. Obama has only been in office 100 days and already they miss the quality bitch-time.
They tried bitching at Obama, that he was too centrist and timid etc. etc., but he’s done a pretty good job so it doesn’t satisfy. Wilson’s just trying to milk his celebrity to the gullible.
In other words the opportunistic effort to try to change the subject from torture to Iraq is b/c they’re jonzing.
Obama has the right bipartisan approach which appeals to moderates and independents, who helped him win states Democrats havn’t won in a long time. Look ahead and move the ball foward. Let the AG look into it and wait for the intelligence report later this year.
On health care Obama has taken the correct partisan approach and will take the process through reconcilliation, thereby recquiring only 50 senate votes.
How much did Iraq cost? We will never now how much it would have cost had Saddam been allowed to remain in power. We just don;t. How much did it cost to allow the Taliban to gain power after we helped them drive out the Soviets? How much did it cost when we let Afgahnistan become a failed state which led to the Taliban which led to 9-11? Billions? Trillions? It’s the sin of omission.
geg6
@kay:
Prosecuting Libby for lying is not the same thing as Wilson and Plame getting their day in court. You may see it as the same thing, but it is not. And every day there are hundreds, if not thousands, of crimes, misdemeanors, and civil suits that aren’t litigated because the case is impossible to make at a particular moment. That is not in any way the equivalent to having had your day in court. All it means is that no lawyer can make the case as it exists at the time. Doesn’t mean those circumstances can’t change with time and depending on the statute of limitations. I really think your argument is just a bit silly, legally speaking. Mainly because it doesn’t take law into account in any way. It’s just your opinion, based on…well, nothing legal, actually. Just your opinion.
Will
I’m all for Joe Wilson calling Dick Cheney out anytime, anywhere. However, let’s not forget that Joe Wilson is also a PUMA piece of $hit.
patrick
@ Hyperion
@ liberal
Many inside the Washington circle knew facts that put lie to Bush administrations assertions about the war. Few had the courage to speak out at that time. And while liberal is absolutely right that whether he was accurate is of premier importance, when you are accurate is also relevant. Many fewer Washington insiders had the courage to be both outspoken and accurate back when Joe Wilson was.
joe from Lowell
Indeed, let’s hype the sh#t out of that fact.
The further from the Oval Office the anti-torture, pro-accountability message is coming from, the harder it is for the guilty parties to convince the public that it’s just partisan score-settling.
liberal
@Peter K.:
Wrong. It’s because Bush is a war criminal, and some of us (unlike you, apparently) think war criminals belong in the slammer.
LOL! Geithner et al. are picking our pockets to the tune of $4T or so.
No, it’s a welcome effort to add Iraq to the docket, which was a far greater crime than the torture mess.
There’s a big risk that Democrats will pay when the bill for paying off the thugs in the financial sector comes due.
Not to mention that the US is continuing to be bled dry by an absurdly large military budget.
Yes, that’s a good thing.
By that standard, we can’t know anything.
However, it’s reasonable to state that invading Iraq was extremely costly, whereas leaving Hussein more or less alone would have been pretty cheap. Particularly since he wasn’t going to live forever.
LOL! You yourself admit that we created the monster in Afghanistan to begin with.
As far as “sins of omission” go, I’ll take the side of George Washington and John Quincy Adams: we shouldn’t get involved abroad, militarily, unless we’re directly threatened.
terry chay
@kay: You need to study law—I suppose bext you’re going to claim that OJ was innocent instead of “not guilty” of criminal charges.
As the pprevious poster mentioned, “it” was never litigated, because Fitzgerald determined that there was an obstruction of justice clouding the investigation—that part was litigated…and successfully.
What’s with this “had his day in court” “spent powder” bullshit? Is this some right wing meme I missed? The (well-known liberal-biased) fact is it never did have its day in court.
I’m of the opinion that it will someday, but not any time soon. Cheney might be dead by then. Now probably isn’t the time to fight that, but political winds change very fast. I seem to remember a war criminal winning an election outright four years ago.
kay
@terry chay:
I’m not going to argue this anymore, because it’s ridiculous.
Let’s use OJ. He was found not guilty. Then there was civil litigation. Then he was convicted on a different charge.
If you feel there was a miscarriage of justice in the Plame matter, my suggestion is not to pursue the original charges.
Because you’re going to end up right back at obstruction of justice.
When you lose, you can’t just keep bringing the same charge, for all eternity.
kay
@terry chay:
What’s with this “had his day in court” “spent powder” bullshit? Is this some right wing meme I missed? The (well-known liberal-biased) fact is it never did have its day in court.
Because reality intervenes.
Let’s seek the same charge. We’ll call the same witnesses. Let’s just pretend the state will go along, because that’s who have to bring it. We do that. We re-litigate Plame. The same witnesses lie.
Woops! We’re right back at obstruction of justice!
For God’s sake. You’re not getting Cheney on Plame. Try something else.
Will
@joe from Lowell:
Good point!
liberal
@El Cid:
Exactly. It tells you that “anyone who doesn’t understand that obtaining uranium ore is perhaps the most trivial step in building a nuke shouldn’t be commenting on the issue.”
Attention really should be focused on things like the aluminum tubes lie.
kay
Or, we could wait until Cheney releases whatever we need to convict him for outing Plame.
That’s a viable plan.
We should just pursue Dick Cheney on this Plame thing for the rest of time.
Peter K.
“liberal”
Yes it might have been cheaper to have signed a neutrality pack with Hitler but we’ll never know. I just disagree with you on Hussein. What do you think are the worst things that can be said about Hussein and his torture-state, even if conservatives agree with you?
Doesn’t Joe Wilson realize that the CIA is frowned upon these days with its culture of torture? The CIA waterboarded one guy 90 times, then KSM 180 times? Certainly looks like sadism to me. Does Wilson have anything to say about the CIA’s record of torture? No it’s all about trying to change the subject to Iraq. Real nice….
liberal
LOL! Hussein == Hitler?
You’re free to disagree. It doesn’t change the fact that you’re wrong.
liberal
@kay:
I agree—while the Bush Whitehouse’s actions re Plame were thoroughly dishonorable, the whole Plame affair was a distraction from what should have been the central point: a needless war of aggression whose justification was based on a series of lies.
As El Cid points out above, the yellowcake thing was silly anyway. The lies about the aluminum tubes were far more central.
JK
Bush’s DOJ said subjecting a person to the near-drowning of waterboarding wasn’t a crime and didn’t even cause pain, but Reagan’s DOJ thought otherwise, prosecuting a Texas sheriff and 3 deputies for using the practice to get confessions
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2009/042309b.html
joe from Lowell
Pawning it off on the CIA isn’t going to fly. The CIA was browbeaten into accepting the interrogation policies ordered by the White House.
Heck, we have the documents from the White House to the armed forces asking for help in devising torture practices, because the CIA didn’t have any. We have the armed forces pushing back and saying that these techniques don’t work and produce faulty intelligence. We have the CIA repeatedly insisting for more and more legal cover when ordered to utilize the practices, and the administration providing it to them.
And on top of that, we have the evidence that the White House ordered the interrogators and guards at Abu Ghraib to use the very torture techniques that they had proclaimed originated in the sick minds of some low-level enlisted personnel.
You think another “hide behind the troops” excuse is going to work, Peter K? Good luck with that.
Peter K.
“liberal”
Wrong about what? That Hussein was bad?
I wasn’t saying Hitler = Hussein. I was saying it might have been cheaper to have signed a neutrality pact with Hitler rather than going to war with him. But would have it been in the long term, actually when you do a full accounting? Would Hitler have been content to gas Britain’s Jews and have all of Europe under his contro? I mean Hitler would have died one day too, as you said of Hussein.
Facts are Saddam didn’t like America (we did kick him out of Kuwait and encourage the majority Shia and Kurds to revolt against him) He could have handed off weapons to terrorists. It’s plausible. And the fact is (look it up at Wikipedia) he wouldn’t come clean to weapon inspectors. He’d let them in, kick em out, let them in, dick em around. He bluffed the Iraqis and neighbors so he’d look strong, even while Iraq suffered under sanctions.
He committed genocide against the Kurds. He annexed a member of the United Nations, Kuwait. He invaded Iran which led to a disatrous 8 year war. He ran a police/torture state. He’d build palaces for himself while the Iraqi population suffered under sanctions. (which the war ended).
And you dont’ think he was “that bad”? Sorry you’re wrong and a bit complacent if not spoiled.
Yes we once backed the Taliban and Saddam (everyone backed Saddam against revolutionary Iran), but circumstances changed and now the level of torture in the world has significantly dropped since those two regimes are forever gone. So, smart guy, why did Bush lie to “attack Iraq”? To give Iran a shia neighbor, because that’s what he did? So US oil companies could steal their oil?
kay
@liberal:
I guess my point is a little broader. It takes me 50 posts to get there…
The Libby prosecution wasn’t about lying us into a war. It was “about” (originally) whether someone or other violated one or another specific statute.
The torture memos aren’t about Valerie Plame.
I know that both Plame and torture touch on the global issue of lying us into war. A court isn’t going to find that, though.
A court can’t fix that.
SnarkIntern
@liberal:
Well, you strike me as a person who will just start screaming at anyone who rings your doorbell. I was yelling bloody murder about the Iraq war in 2002 before it started, I don’t really need any rehash of why it was a clusterfuck.
What people care about is the future. The past is something we can learn from, but if you think the next four years is going to be about re-living the past so that we can punish the people who pissed us off, I’m afraid you are in for a lot of disappointment. I don’t see the government having the time or energy for that much. Dick Cheney is a sideshow and now sounds worse than the original Darth Vader complete with helmet and raspy breathing sound effects. How much more of your time and energy is he really worth?
Of course, the good news is, the blogs provide a nice home for past-hugging behavior. Not that anyone is noticing right now, but if this is what the blogs are turning into, then their marginalization and irrelevance is going to keep pace with talk radio.
Peter K.
Joe:
I haven’t seen evidence of this. The CIA was torturing before the Bybee memo, or so says the Senate Armed Service Report.
It will be interesting to see what the Senate Intelligence Report has to say when it comes out later this year. My view is that that they all knew it was going on – White House, CIA, Military – and did nothing to stop it except for some few brave souls. The CIA has a long history of torture, and a long with the aforementioned institutions, Congressional oversight of the CIA failed also. One would have hoped they would have put a stop to it.
El Cid
@liberal: The problem I was raising wasn’t just the lies by the administration.
It was that nobody reacted to the claims of Iraq-Niger-yellowcake by saying “But Iraq already has THOUSANDS OF TONS of yellowcake uranium — why would they need a few more tons? And if they do get a few more tons, how does this help them build a nuclear weapon?”
Nobody said this. Nobody asked anybody this. They just all pretended like it was a discussion of a real problem — forget the wholesale forging of the fake, stupid story.
It’s ridiculous. I’m no nuclear or disarmament speci@list. I’m no Niger or Iraq correspondent. But no professional journalists and major publications were bringing this basic, simple point up.
hat's the
@SnarkIntern:
I really enjoyed your series of posts about citizenship, and birth certificates. You were going back and forth with Brick Oven Bill, and you cleaned his clock, although he never admitted it.
Clear responses and good information. I checked.
If I’m ever faced with a birther, in real life, I’ll know what to say.
geg6
@kay:
First, no one was ever charged. So your whole scenario falls apart right there. Everyone lied to the grand jury, or at least, we know Scooter Libby lied. We have no idea what anyone else said because those transcripts haven’t been released. It may be that Fitz couldn’t bring charges because he would have needed some of those documents that are currently still not available due to national security or the W/Cheney whims. It could be that Fitz may decide to revisit those others who he couldn’t indict at the time or someone else may be appointed to do that.
And, obviously, grand jury investigations do not guarantee anyone will ever be charged or that they might not be charged with something at a later date. Grand juries are there to find out if enough evidence exists at a particular time to charge someone.
Either way, you are acting as if this is all irrelevant to anything (which it is not). Or that somehow it would be double jeopardy of some unknown sort (which it wouldn’t be since no one was ever charged, let alone tried). If the torture was about drumming up false reasons to invade Iraq and Wilson’s op ed blew up one of their most compelling reasons and we are now finding out that torture is related to falsely going to war and all of it is tied up in a CIA agent being outed as vengeance for ruining one of the war lies…well…I see it as very relevant and necessary to follow the evidence. You don’t seem to think anyone was damaged by this, whether individuals, an intelligence agency, the nation and our Constitution, or the military who had to fight this useless war. I think this is one of many crimes committed in this dark quest and I really am not in favor of ignoring any of those crimes because someone isn’t fond of Joe Wilson.
geg6
@SnarkIntern:
Then according to you, we should just forget about all criminal cases because who gives a shit what happened in the past, right? Let’s move on because it’s the past and we need to look to the future. I’m sure the Craig’s List killer will be happy to hear your plan and support you 100%. So will Richard Poplowski.
Just keep walking, I guess. You and Nooners are truly soul mates.
Impeach Jay Bybee
“The bottom line is that you don’t know Dick. He’s looking out for our country by doing what he does best. ”
Lying?
Denying the VP is part of the Executive Branch?
Putting classified documents in his personal safe so not even National Security Agency personnel can get to them?
Outing CIA agents?
Running around saying “the sky is falling” like Chicken Little?
hat's the
@geg6:
I got this same reaction during the Plame prosecution, because I felt as if it was going to disappoint, and it did.
I don’t have any personal feelings for Joe Wilson, good or bad, although I must say Bill Clinton’s hands aren’t clean on Iraq.
The point of Fitzgerald’s prosecution was not to determine if Bush lied us into Iraq. Fitzgerald himself actually said that, fairly eloquently.
You can’t just cram trials and indictments and prosecutions into some broad category of “accountability”, and throw a lot of shit at the wall, and hope some of it sticks.
The Plame matter was taken to a grand jury, with the evidence they had, and charges were brought. There was a trial, and a conviction. Because you think (maybe correctly) that some further Plame trial may lead to further unspecified charges does not mean it should happen.
That’s the wrong reason.
Specific charges, specific person. It’s not just me. That’s our system. We don’t just throw a broad indictment out there and say ‘God I hope some of this lands someone in prison and if it doesn’t we’ll re-indict on something else!”
Whether we think they belong in prison or not.