You know, DR, if you're going to come here and insult the intelligence of people who disagree with you, you might want to actually do a little fact-checking before starting your usual anti-Republican rants. Fact-checking, so easy even a stupid conservative can do it. Perhaps you feel no need. In any case, Bill Clinton most certainly did pardon people who had a HUGE effect on his administration. Here's a list of Clinton's pardons........

Recognize any of the folks on that list? Of course you do, smart guy and critical thinker like you would certainly recognize some of them. But for the rest of us non-critical thinkers, let's take a look at a couple of them.

Henry Cisneros - Former Secretary of Housing and Urban Development. Whoa! That's a cabinet position! Seems to me that's a pretty important position within an administration. He must have had some effect. Wonder what he did. Let's check the link and see.....



Oh my!!! He lied to the feds? Isn't that kind of what Scooter Libby was accused of doing? Non-critical thinkers would like to know.

Meanwhile, let's look at another Clinton pardon....

John Deutch Any connection or effect on the Clinton Administration? Let's see. From the link....



The Director of the CIA? Sure sounds pretty important to me. Wonder what he did....



Kinda sounds to me like he violated laws involving National Security and in doing so, placed life as we know it at risk. Kind of like Libby did according to the critical thinkers here.






Nope, we aren't, but at least we check our facts first.


Aquilla

NONE of those he pardoned protected the office of the president or vice-president. Clinton was a serial liar, and cheat, and embarrassment to the presidency. But his pardons - as dispicable as they were - did not affect his office. Failing to pardon any of these people would not affect his soiled presidency one way or the other. THAT is the difference.

Now, if he would have commuted Susan mcDougal's sentence, you would have a perfectly valid point.

But you don't.

A reprieve is commuting a sentence.

I didn't read down to your Constitutional ramblings, because once you started your "no reason to believe" rant, I saw that facts were irrelevant to you. Your take on Plamegate is on par with "A Second Shooter", "Faked Moon Landings", "Aliens & Illuminati", "Selected not Elected", and "Big Oil Price Fixing." Nobody can prove to your satisfaction that Cheney or Rove or the Boogeyman wasn't involved in outing Plame. I won't waste time trying. The possibility that the "facts" you believe were hidden may not actually exist is completely unthinkable to you and many others (DaytonRocker comes to mind).

Still, I'll respond to your odd Constitutional reading. Odd, in that you're speaking of the use of impeachment to rein in the Prez. Odd, because the pardon power specifically does not cover those who have been impeached. Odd in this post, because the pardon is the only check that the Executive has on the sitting Judiciary. I'm sure you appreciate the wisdom of the checks and balances the Framers instituted. Clearly, since the Pardon power does allow the President to overrule the Judiciary (note: in one direction only), the Framers did intend for the Executive to take "on the role of the Judiciary", in the same sense as they intended the Executive "take on the role of the Legislature" via the veto.

See what happens when one is charitable.

The ONLY hope anyone who supports Bush has in this thread is to change the subject.

He just foiled a federal investigation and stuck a finger in the eye of the American taxpayer by undoing the efforts of law-enforcement we pay for.

Let's try and focus on the situation at hand.

Reprieve

1 : to delay the punishment of (as a condemned prisoner)
2 : to give relief or deliverance to for a time

http://www.m-w.com/dictionary/reprieve

Commutation

3 : a change of a legal penalty or punishment to a lesser one commutation of a death sentence.

http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary?va=commutation

I don't think so, BD.

Reprieve seems to to indicate a delay in carrying out a sentence; while commutation means to change the sentence.

This thread is all about the actions of a President in exerting his Presidential powers improperly and thus further obstructing justice. In order to make this claim and support it some here have constructed a hypothetical web of nefarious behavior on the part of Cheney, Rove and goodness knows who else. As an example let's go back to one of DR's previous posts.......



No proof for that at all. Just another conspiracy theory. Sounds kind of like some of the arguments Fitzgerald may have made before the jury in Libby's trial. Now, were I into conspiracy theories, and I'm not because I suppose I'm a stupid conservative non-critical thinker, I could probably weave a huge obstruction of justice conspiracy into Clinton's various pardons and claim Bush just did what Presidents do, only he did it mid-term unlike the coward who proceeded him who waited until the end of his term and let his people twist in the wind. The fact is that thus far NOBODY here, or in the court has proven there was an underlying crime at all. So, I ask again. If Valerie Wilson was indeed a NOC agent for the CIA, why wasn't Armitage charged with a violation of the federal statute? If he knew enough to know that she worked for the CIA why wouldn't he have known that was a secret? Can't have it both ways and Fitzgerald knew who the leaker to Novak was at the very beginning of his investigation. Why continue unless he was simply looking to "get someone" for whatever political reasons he may have had? That's why this commutation is a good first step and the proper thing for President Bush to do. At least it keeps Libby out of jail. Hopefully, Bush will do the right thing down the line and issue a complete pardon.


Aquilla

Remember that Libby was convicted not for outing Valerie Plame, but for obstructing justice.

Remember further that everyone, even Bush, agrees that Scooter Libby obstructed justice.

Consider lastly that obstructing justice is a crime that typically has a punishment.

Our we to assume from your response that you believe obstructing justice should not be punished? (you wanting a pardon)

No, we aren't. Obstructing justice is a crime, no question about that but in order to "obstruct justice" there should be some form of justice happening in the first place. And, a fishing expedition doesn't qualify for "justice" in my mind. So I want a full pardon because this entire thing has been a gross miscarriage of justice and that would be the proper response to such behavior.


Aquilla

Perhaps, Aquilla, you could point us to the section in federal law that defines or limits "obstruction of justice" consistent with your spin. How many of the judges associated with this case take your position - Judge Walton, the three member (including 2 Republicans) appellate court?

Good, I happy to understand your position more clearly. You do not believe a crime has been committed at all, which means you disagree with the jury, the judge, and lastly, Bush himself. Correct?

..and what is this "mafia" you speak of? I an unaware of the existance of such an organization.

It doesn't matter if that cop was waiting for me to blow past that stop sign on a deserted street all afternoon long.

Scooter is a felon, he lied to federal investigators.

It's only fishing if you didn't do it...

This is an interesting philosophical question. Let's see if I understand this:

Assume: X has not committed a crime

1. X is questioned under oath about the crime.
2. X has three choices: (a.) tell truth, (b.) take the fifth and (c.) tell a lie
3. If (a.) or (b.), then all is well.

However, you're saying, Aquilla, that if X has not committed a crime but X has lied under oath, then it's still OK. Am I correct?

Or are you saying that there was no lie under oath because this was not a fair trial? If you believe this, then please demonstrate why this wasn't a fair trial AND why the normal appeals process was appropriately short-circuited.

Thanks, BoF. I was about to assist Bikerdad with his vocabulary, but you beat me to it.


Would you care to point out in what way the facts are irrelevant to my argument? Or are you simply going to make random assertions with nothing whatsoever to back your position up? My "take" on Plamegate is based on news reports of actual events, reported testimony by key players, and statements made by judges and prosecutors. In short, my "take" is based on the public record. If there are any single statements that you dispute, please dispute them. Gainsaying without foundation is not refutation. It is the debate equivalent of "So's your Mom." Surely you can do better than that.


Of course nobody can prove to my satisfaction that Cheney and Rove were not involved in outing Plame because they were involved in outing Plame. Richard Armitage leaked Plame's identity to Bob Woodward in June, 2003, and to Robert Novak by July 8, 2003; Karl Rove leaked her identity to Matt Cooper on July 11, 2003; I. Lewis Libby leaked her identity to Judith Miller on July 8, 2003 - and Dick Cheney instructed him to do so. Indeed, when Cheney informed Libby that Plame worked for the CIA in the Counterproliferation Division, he was informing him that she was employed in the clandestine service of the Agency and that she was an undercover officer. I don't recall mentioning the Boogeyman, but were he a White House staffer, he would doubtless have leaked Plame's identity and status as well.


I'm flattered by your indulgence.


What's so odd about mentioning that presidents who abuse their power are subject to impeachment? Especially when they have betrayed their public trust, pardoned crimes which were advised by themselves, or extended this privilege to stop inquiry and prevent detection. President Bush, arguably, did all of the above - except through commutation rather than using the Constitutionally-sanctioned power of pardon.


Um... I was suggesting that there is now an even better case for impeaching the president, not that the president might be contemplating extending a pardon to someone who has been impeached.


No, they intended the Executive to take on the role of the Executive. The powers of veto and pardon are exclusive to the executive branch. Commutation is not mentioned in the Constitution. It was never the intent of those ratifying the Constitution to enable the Executive to overrule or rewrite judicial sentencing. The Executive can either grant a stay or exonerate a criminal altogether. There's nothing in the Constitution about a president altering a sentence - keeping parts and abrogating others or changing the length of a prison term or reducing a fine. Nothing. Had President Bush pardoned Libby, I would still have seen it as a purely political act and part of an ongoing cover-up, but I would not have disputed it on Constitutional grounds.

What's really odd here, Bikerdad, is that you somehow managed to miss the point of my citing the framers altogether. What was salient in my references, was that the Founders felt that the power of pardon should be used rarely and fairly - and that it should never be invoked for political reasons - or to stop inquiry and prevent detection, especially when the crimes may have been advised by himself. In short, none of the powers of the Executive should ever be used for political ends or to cover up crimes. And even the semblance of a breach of the public trust should be treated very, very seriously indeed.



See above. Far from hypothetical.


Because he may not have been guilty of a violation of the federal statute. There may have been exculpatory evidence - or his leak of Plame's information may have been without foreknowledge of its classified status - or it may have been proved that he was a hapless fall-guy like Libby. We cannot know - and, again, we may well have good ol' Scooter to thank for that. As it was known that Armitage was Novak's source before the Special Prosecutor was even appointed, perhaps you should be asking the Department of Justice why the investigation was initiated in the first place. Why didn't the Attorney General's office simply charge Armitage with such a violation? Perhaps they knew that there was exculpatory evidence - or that his leak of Plame's information may have been without foreknowledge of its classified status - or that he was a hapless fall-guy. I suspect that any of those possibilities is more likely than the suggestion that Fitzgerald is involved in some shadowy conspiracy to give provably guilty criminals a free pass. That's the president's job.


Because there are many people working for the CIA whose identities and status are not a secret. And, perhaps, because he felt that whoever leaked the information to him wouldn't have done so if the information were classified - at least, not without informing him. Are we looking at another fall guy - or a dupe? As the grand jury notes themselves are secret and as Lewis Libby has derailed the entire investigation, we may never know - and Fitzgerald, clearly, was unable to prove that Armitage knew of Plame's classified status before his conversations with Woodward and Novak - which, may, again, be due to Libby's obstruction. We may never know. Thanks, Scooter.


But you can? If you dismiss Fitzgerald's assertion that there was a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" Wilson - in short, a conspiracy - how can you accept that there is an even more outlandish and less likely conspiracy to spare poor Richard Armitage an indictment because he was in the Bush State Department rather than the Vice President's office or because he was a cooperative witness who didn't lie to cover up the crimes of the White House or because he has a funny-shaped head or whatever the minutiae of your conspiracy theory might be. For the sake of argument, I'll accept your conspiracy theory for a moment if you accept the one the Office of the Special Counsel described on the basis of the grand jury testimony. Either way, due to the nature of grand juries and the crimes of Lewis Libby, you and I will never know. Aside from the possible perpetrators themselves, the only person capable of making any kind of informed assessment is Patrick Fitzgerald. No offense, but I think I'll lean more toward his opinion than yours.



There's one logical conclusion arising from the trial, verdict, sentencing, and commuting of Irving Lewis Libby:

Libby's legal defense from the outset was that he was a fall guy - that he was taking the rap for others. Clearly, those "others" weren't Richard Armitage, who made his admission in early October 2003, nearly three months before Fitzgerald was even appointed. Clearly, then, Fitzgerald's brief was never just to find out who leaked to Novak. So if Fitzgerald's investigation followed Armitage’s confession, Libby would have no need to shield Armitage, of all people, and Fitzgerald had every reason to pursue the task with which he was charged - especially since Armitage had already been eliminated as the primary source.

We also know, on the basis of grand jury testimony and interviews with those involved in the case that Richard Armitage, I. Lewis Libby, Karl Rove, Andrew Card, Roberto Gonzales, Ari Fleischer, Scott McClellan, John Hannah, David Wormser, Dick Cheney, and George W Bush were all directly involved either in the leak or its cover-up. Why abort an investigation because one player confessed? It also seems increasingly apparent that some sort of deal was cut with Libby during the trial. Otherwise, whatever happened to his "fall guy" defense?

Just as Armitage was known as "the leaker" on "Day Three" (actually "Day Minus Ninety"), we have subsequently come to know that Karl Rove was also "the leaker", that Libby himself was another "the leaker", and that Dick Cheney was "the leaker" to "the leaker". The whole Armitage deflection is just that: a deflection, a smokescreen, a muddying of the waters - obfuscation - obstruction. If Armitage was proved guilty through the Special Counsel's investigation, there was no reason for him not to have been indicted - and I have full confidence that Fitzgerald would have done so if he had the evidence. But his indictment would, in no way, have prevented any other guilty party from also being indicted and would certainly have provided no reason to stop investigating everfyone else who might have been involved.

Had there been enough evidence to indict Armitage and had be been convicted and sentenced and had Bush decided to commute his sentence, I would be just as outraged as I am over Libby's "Get Out of Jail Free" card. Crimes have been committed and I just want to see justice done. It seems that virtually no one on the right - and certainly no one in the Bush administration - wants to see a just resolution to this case. This makes no sense to me. And where is the outrage over the exposure of a covert agent and her network in a time of war in the first place? Didn't that sort of thing used to mean something to Republicans? Didn't lawlessness used to be part of the conservative nightmare vision of anarchy? American conservatism is slowly casting off every single principle that used to make it a viable alternative or a worthy opposition to liberal positions. It's like a bunch of fat bankers are sitting around in some think-tank's bunker somewhere saying "Let's keep white superiority, male superiority, militarism, hatred, greed, and oppression, but ditch small government, fiscal responsibility, personal responsibility, the rule of law, and honor."

As Fitzgerald made clear in the press conference following Libby's indictment, there was an underlying crime. Getting to the bottom of the crime - ascertaining who was culpable - was the whole point of the investigation:
In case you haven't yet realized it, leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent is a crime - and a very serious one. Fitzgerald's "whether" a crime was committed was contingent on Plame's actual covert status - which, it turns out, was classified. Once it had been determined that Plame's status was classified information prohibited from disclosure under Executive Order 12958, the only question was: How many people committed this crime and who were they? Due in large part to Libby's lies, the investigation was stymied. That is a further crime - also a serious one, if not quite as serious as directly threatening national security as those leaking Plame's identity did.

Because Irving Lewis Libby "knowingly and corruptly endeavored to influence, obstruct and impede the grand jury's investigation by misleading and deceiving the grand jury" - compounded by President Bush's commutation of his sentence for those crimes - we may never know (for sure) for whom he has been covering up. The obstruction of justice continues...

Lesly:

Please tell the good judge for me, well, here is what you said he said:

"Society recognizes five principal reasons for the sentence of those who violate the law. They are rehabilitation of the wrongdoer, punishment of the wrongdoer, protection of society from the wrongdoer, preservation of good order in society, and deterrence of the wrongdoer and those who know of his crimes and his sentence from committing the same or similar offenses."

Society has zero moral right to "punish" anyone, as vengence isn't mine or yours to take. We don't otherwise lock humans in the pokey on the nebulous notion of "preservation of good order in society", as for why, witness the former Soviet Union and Mao's China, who used that rationale to incarcerate ad infinitim [it was their modus operandi]. And we don't impose sentence to otherwise deter other humans, as such is simply the living embodiment of the immoral. And so what does the judge have against what Bush did, when he himself is using as "reasons", well, three of the five are nothing other than immoral and so the application of the same ought to operate to deprive the defendant of liberty without due process of law, so who is he to speak of "daggers" "into the heart" of "our legal system"?

Oh, and since the judge apparently cannot understand that, well, no surprise that he has no problem that what someone is being punished for isn't the underlying crime that was the subject of the original investigation, but a purported "obstruction of justice".


And now for you and the rest, well, re the "outing" of Ms. Plame, please, could some be more absurd? Prior to Robert N., her husband was already writing in the NYT about "discredited intelligence" and his efforts in respect to the same. Here's the piece:

http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm

So, he went at the CIA's behest. So what does that make his wife? Rather suspect, at least for non-Americans? And to put the two together, there was that cover photo in Vanity Fair of the both of them. And so if the hubby was looking for that long lost anonymity for his wife that he declared with those crying eyes, then why the cover of Vanity Fair? Knowing her name isn't knowing her face and she can go by and travel under an assumed name. But with the two of them on the cover of Vanity Fair, we have a name, and far more importantly, a face.

And if some don't get that last point, British Intelligence was well familiar with one Michael Collins, and had even written their own biography of him, but putting the name to the face is a whole other matter and so one Michael Collins bicycled around Dublin with a price on his head during the entirety of the Anglo-Irish War.

And that's about how ridiculous I find this whole "outing" thing, since, again, if anyone cared, even her, she would never have appeared on the cover of Vanity Fair with her hubby.

Lastly, some persons and groups even claim that Joe Wilson was "outed". For those such souls, please read Mr. Wilson's own NYT article where he outs himself and makes his wife a probable "spy" [just by his marriage to her]. But in line with what I've said, even that wasn't so bad, since some would still need to connect the name and the face.

Sorry, one more, some questions for Ms. Plame, as she is no victim to me:

http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=MWEyM...jMyODczYzNiOTU=

Now for the motive of "outing", simple, you're an easily replaceable soul, Ms. Plame, and you don't play politics with your job. And so you were made to pay for that sin and, ironically, to serve as a lesson to others, something the "good" judge would probably understand.

Sorry, almost forgot, but given the nature of the meetings described in the National Review piece, well, Mr. Kristof wouldn't have needed to be told that Ms. Plame was an intelligence operative, since if she wasn't, then why was she even present to begin with [she hadn't gone to Niger, had she, so what did she know, and what other place would she have there in this context, none?]? And Joe Wilson? A shameless whore [which no doubt explains his prior suitability to be a US Ambassador]. Apparently needs to feed his own ego, and otherwise doesn't understand that if you already have a firm position on a matter, and he did, then you don't go to investigate, but he did. And so he too paid for that sin. And so all get that point, how many times has one here accused the other of cherry-picking the evidence so as to conform to preset view [as it were]? Same reason why Joe Wilson doesn't go to Niger, and if this wasn't politics and/or Ms. Plame wasn't so stupid, then she'd have never suggested that he go. And so more sins that some paid for.

Edited to add: And, Wertz, please tell Fitzgerald for me that he's a fool or just plain stupid. Michael Collins. His name never outed him and so he bicycled around Dublin even though the "Cairo Gang" was sent to kill him. His cover would only have been blown had British Intelligence ever put a face to the name. The only souls who did that here were Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame, and you can ask Vanity Fair for your own personal copy of the outing.

This how ridiculous I find people debating this subject who have not educated themselves on the subject, but instead rely on people like the Bushbots over at NRO (which I have to read frequently over the course of the day) to do their work for them.

That Vanity Fair issue was an entire year after she was outed.

Byron York is NRO's attack dog. He's never been correct about anything he's written, but it gets the Bushbots fired up.

DaytonRocker:

Outed how? Could you have put a face to the name? No? Then she wasn't outed. Her name means nothing, and police ABPs are filled with Mr. A aka Mr. B aka Mr. C, ad infinitum. The very fact that she was a US Ambassador's wife makes her suspect to anyone who knows the first thing about counterintelligence. But that didn't matter here, because while some new that Joe had a wife, they didn't know what she looked like, and so she could have dinner and drinks with some, and they would never know, unless she told them, that she was Joe Wilson's wife. It isn't your name, but your face that matters. As a matter of fact, if they have the face, then they don't a need a name, since just as with our APBs, be on lookout for the gal who looks just like this....and she might be going under any one of a score of assumed names, so the name she tells you, and on her driver's license, may very well mean nothing...

So, again, outed how and by whom?

Hopefully, you're just kidding about that whole face/name thing. If they have the name, they have the face. That is, assuming that "they" aren't completely inept, and I'm going to go ahead and assume that. I hope all our intelligence agencies and politicians are making that same assumption.

These arguments are bordering on the absurd. This is why I never participated in the "Defending the Indefensible" thread - I don't have the tolerance for absurdity it would would require.

Here is the timeline for the case from the Washington Post. Please read it.

This timeline - from the same source shows where Libby lied.

Here's the bottom line. It is against the law to lie and obstruct justice. Libby was found guilty with overwhelming evidence on all counts on this. You may not like it and you might not agree, but a jury of his peers found Libby committed crimes to protect somebody. That is a 100% verifiable fact. The proof is in the obstruction charge.

It doesn't matter why he lied or we'd have an entire court system filled with people appealing their behavior in court because of "extenuating circumstances". It just doesn't work that way. There is no excuse whatsoever to lie and obstruct justice in our court system.

If you tell the truth, you don't go to jail for perjury and obstruction. It's a principle that goes all the way back to at least Bill Clinton. The defenders of this travesty sound just like the nimrods who stood besides the liar-in-chief Bill Clinton when he lied under oath to a grand jury. I couldn't see how they could do that, but now I can see why they did - because people on both sides of the aisle have no principles.

While slightly off topic I've noted this incredible concern for the outing of a CIA agent. I think this is a good thing. We should all be concerned about that. I have also noted that the outed agent has become something of a celebrity which does strike me as particularly odd. I'd think a covert agent would want to get anonymous again as quickly as possible. Another thing is that the husband of this CIA agent (who clearly got him his gig in Nigeria) is writing Op Ed pieces for the NYT about the "mission" he was on.

I don't care what side of the political fence you're on - if you're truly concerned with the safety of our covert CIA agents - you have got to be taken aback by Joe Wilson's rather foolish lapse in judgment. He, as much - if not more than - anyone could have gotten his wife killed.

Spectacularly, and thankfully, she's safe and sound and it would seem no worse for the wear.

No, not kidding. Read up on one Michael Collins. And please find a photo in a media even approaching parochial circulation of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame that predates Vanity Fair. You won't find one, and the reason is because Joe can't be seen with the Mrs. else she is suspect as his wife and it will only take her photo with him to know who she is. And, no, during the Anglo-Irish War, the British never got their photo of one Michael Collins, and so he kept on cycling around Dublin to his hearts content. And that story in the movie, it is true, Det. Broy did take Michael Collins into the Castle to look at British Intelligence files. But they knew his name.... he was passed off as someone else, obviously...

What has changed between now and then? Nothing of any import? And back to the photos, where would they be? Her high school yearbook? Maybe for college as well? How many of those still exist? And if you cared, wouldn't you have asked the school to destroy its copy/ies? Did that happen here? I ask that because an Irish Volunteer had been killed while in the custody of British Intelligence and the most wanted in man in Ireland carried his casket at the funeral. A picture was taken of that event, appeared in the newspaper, but Michael & Co., made sure that the paper didn't run the photo in the late edition, went around town buying up the already for sale copies, etc.

And you do understand, yes, that you might have actually met Valerie Plame but knew her by some other name, and so until you saw the photo, well, then you wouldn't that the woman called Valerie Plame was the woman that you had dinner with last week. And that's your problem, since if they had her photo and knew her as the Ambassador's wife, then her "covert" status simply does not exist as she is suspect as the wife of a US Ambassador [she won't be able to pass herself off as another American Taliban, since she's the US Ambassador's wife]. So were are these photos again, I mean, you claim that all have them, so what use could she possibly have as a covert agent, since all would know that she is the wife of a US Ambassador...

Find a photo in the media? Why would that be necessary? If you have a person's name who is married to a prominent person such as Joe Wilson, and you know that person is CIA, you know enough to find out what they look like.

That is just plain silly.

The name is enough.

This Vanity Fair business doesn't add up to an argument of any merit.

Here’s just another example at the Bush administration’s hypocrisy regarding the Libby affair.

(A link to the 96-page brief is included in the article)

Who’d a thunk that Bush, of all people, would present such a valuable gift to defense attorneys? That sort of flies in the face of the Republicans’ stern stance on law and order, doesn't it? An interesting thought on why Bush chose commutation over a pardon; with a commutation, Libby retains his 5th Amendment rights. If he had been pardoned, he would have had a much harder time refusing to answer when faced with further questions.

And what about that whole requirement that a convicted person serve at least a portion of his sentence before commutation? What about Libby accepting responsibility or expressing remorse? Why is there a different standard for this one person? Why will no one address that issue? This is an abuse of power, and a perversion of justice, plain and simple.
(emphasis mine)
So, which of the three is it, I wonder? Hmmmmmmmmm

DaytonRocker:

It isn't about whether I like it or not, but it is about you not seeing the larger picture. Everyone on the administration side knew that no outing could occur sans the photo. And some simply know Joe better than he knows himself and so he took the bait and then accomplished what the other side was never intent on doing [or else they would have provided the photo with the name]. Absent Vanity Fair and some more recent photos, I wouldn't have known Valerie Plame from millions of other women in the US. And the reason why this is all okay with me, well, some things are larger than our judicial system. One of those things is that US Ambassadors don't get to undermine their commander in chief, who just happens to be the chief executive officer of this nation. And if we need to obstruct "justice" to ensure that such does not happen again, then it's all good with me.

And for the "indefensible", well how about Joe? Bush said:

"The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Her Majesty's government says:

"It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible."

Joe Wilson called Bush a "liar". Ambassadors, even former ones, don't get to do that. And certainly not on Democratic Party funded websites.

But for more:

"Wilson reported that he had met with Niger's former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki, who said that in June 1999 he was asked to meet with a delegation from Iraq to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between the two countries.
Based on what Wilson told them, CIA analysts wrote an intelligence report saying former Prime Minister Mayki "interpreted 'expanding commercial relations' to mean that the (Iraqi) delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales." In fact, the Intelligence Committee report said that "for most analysts" Wilson's trip to Niger "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal."

Now back to the Brits, well, they had never seen the Italian forgeries until well after the fact, so no one, certainly not Shameless Joe Wilson, can claim that British analysis was based on forged documents. And Bush said, again:

"The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Where is there some reference to anything that our government has said or done? So why do Truthout [meaning, all lies], ThinkProgress and www.democrats.com all think that Bush was referencing some Italian forgeries and ought to be impeached for lying to Congress? And one site even asks, How did discredited documents end up in the State of the Union speech? They don't and they didn't as such were never once referenced in the relevant State of the Union Address. And so you, me and the rest weren't lied to in this respect.

And here, your STD, call it indefensible:

"According to the report, "Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium.

This claim, which made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address in January, 2003, was based on falsified documents from Niger and was withdrawn by the White House one day after former Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote an op-ed in the New York Times in July 2003 disputing the administration’s claims that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger. It was Wilson’s op-ed and public criticism of the Iraq war that led officials such as Libby to blow Plame’s cover in an attempt to discredit Wilson, Plame’s husband, who went on a fact finding mission to Niger in February 2002 to investigate the uranium allegations. In outing Plame’s covert status to reporters, Libby and other officials were trying to show that Wilson’s trip was a boondoggle that was set up by Plame."

The State of the Union address wasn't based on false Italian documents, but on British government intelligence which was not privy to the Italian documents. Or as answers.com puts it:

"The actual words President Bush spoke: "The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" suggests that his source was British intelligence and not the forged documents."

And here, for why "Shameless" Joe Wilson [from answers.com]:

"Wilson told The Washington Post anonymously in June 2003 that he had concluded that the intelligence about the Niger uranium was based on the forged documents because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." The relevant papers were not in CIA hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip. Wilson had to backtrack and said he may have "misspoken" on this.[16] The Senate intelligence committee, which examined pre-Iraq war intelligence, reported that Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports."

And so he was punished for his transgression, and in my opinion, rightly so, and again, if we need "obstruct justice" to effect some needed discipline, then it's all good with me.

Lastly, in line with the immediately above, if this is true, well, then this ought to frighten you and the rest, and again, from answers.com:

[i]"According to a 2003 article in The New Yorker by Seymour Hersh, the forgery may have been a deliberate entrapment by current and former CIA officers to settle a score against Cheney and other neoconservatives. Hersh recounts how a former officer told him that "somebody deliberately let something false get in there." [21] Hersh continues:

He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.

"The agency guys were so *** NOTICE: THIS WORD IS AGAINST THE RULES. FAILURE TO REMOVE IT WILL RESULT IN A STRIKE. *** at Cheney," the former officer said. "They said, 'O.K, we’re going to put the bite on these guys.'" My source said that he was first told of the fabrication late last year, at one of the many holiday gatherings in the Washington area of past and present C.I.A. officials. "Everyone was bragging about it—'Here’s what we did. It was cool, cool, cool.'" These retirees, he said, had superb contacts among current officers in the agency and were informed in detail of the sismi intelligence."

You can venture on over to answers.com and read the rest, but while I can't say whether such is true or not, as I simply don't know, but if so, then we have larger things to worry about than whether someone outed Valerie Plame Wilson. And also if true, then if need be, more "obstruction of justice", as some things are more important than a court of law.

I love the little moral hurdles from the SUPPOSED "moral right" are jumping through here to absolve this administration of guilt

Fact 1)

Valerie Plame was an Agent for US national security issues

Fact 2) This administration, including Dick Cheney and Karl Rove, outed this agent for political purposes

Fact 3) Libby obstructed Fitzgerald from being able to bring charges and impeachment proceedings against the above players, and was convicted for it

Fact 4) Bush "commuted" his sentence- AGREEING he obstructed justice, but believed the price too high.


No amount of republican spin will change any of those things

The CORRECT punishment for the crime of obstruction would be to give libby the same punishment of anyone convicted of treason- which was what Rove and Cheney had commited- and had libby not obstructed Fitzgerald from going after Rove and Cheney - most likely- treason would have been the correct charge.

So, the minimum should be life in prison without possibility of parole, or th death penalty.

I can respond to this even though I'm quoting the Mean Old Bastard. Whatever you may personally feel about the justice system, penologists have given four justifications for punishment: retribution, incapacitation, deterrence, and rehabilitation. Being a communist state isn't a requisite for vengeance. Of course, neither one of us can exact vengeance with Due Process in place. Vengeance is carried out by the state as the entity with a monopoly on violence. Let's turn to my handy dandy "Judicial Process in America" book, pages 244 and 245:



If deterring crime is immoral the justice system is rife with immorality.


You can disagree that deterrence works because we still have a huge amount of crime, but both concepts are part of the justice system and are taken into considering to varying degrees based on individual circumstances during the sentencing phase.


I wish you were joking. You're in the Twilight Zone rooting for Libby without cause. Well, the only cause is he's on your team. The "immoral" justice system you're maligning is the best we have come up with. I won't sing its praises because there is a lot that needs fixing, but don't pretend that had Libby actually been denied due process of law he could not have appealed and won (or lost) like every other convicted felon that goes through the appeals process. Libby could have eventually lost all his appeals. Guess what? That's just too bad. Your proximity to the political elite does not confer special rights.

Conservatives getting relativist all up in yo' face about the justice system would be hilarious if it wasn't so damn sad. Send more convicted Republican administration officials. Maybe GOP voters will give criminal defendants in general a second look.

I have to agree and disagree with this statement.

I agree that a 'fishing expedition' doesn't qualify for 'justice.' Accordingly, I hope that this mess again calls into question the wisdom of appointing "independent counsels" for cases like these. The constitution has checks and balances all spelled out - Article I says that the legislature makes the law, Article II says that the President / executive branch enforce the law, and Article III tells the the courts to interpret the law. The Independent Counsel statute has cost us tens of millions of dollars and has really turned into a political tool more than anything. Whether Iran-Contra releasing their report just days before the 1992 elections, or Ken Starr looking into bimbo eruptions through history. It's not good for the government. We already have the tools to manage this. Appointing a special counsel, a blue ribbon commission, or whatever just means that the players don't have the stones to do their jobs.

I disagree with your stance that this fishing expedition found no crime, thus there is no obstruction. It seems a rather obvious point that obstruction could obstruct, and thus make it less likely to indict and convict someone on a crime. Mob killing of witnesses comes to mind. Additionally, when Fitz learned about Armitage telling Nowak, he had also heard about others telling others, and there were reporters willing to go to jail before they gave up their sources. If you are a prosecutor and hear rumors and have witnesses clamming up, you keep investigating. Seems obvious.

Patrick Fitzgerald is a fine prosecutor, and now he is tarred with all of this political nonsense, only because he accepted an appointment as an independent counsel. I can't imagine who is going to accept the next one, other than some stooge who will only use the position to achieve personal political gains. We cannot expect good people to take this job anymore, given how it destroys people.

Huh?
BA, being a covert agent isn't a simple game of hide and seek, letting you hide again after getting caught. Especially in today's era of internet "privacy" (an oxymoron), her covert career with the CIA is over.

The CIA spends millions of dollars and countless hours of effort to setup a front such as the one that Plame worked at on WMD. It wasn't just her cover that was blown, but likely the cover of every person who worked at that "company". That was the grand irony of this outing. In exchange for getting pants'ed over the baked Nigeria claims, Cheney, or someone close to him, decided to blow up one of our few good sources of intel on WMD.


In response to the fact that the Bush Administration was knowingly misrepresenting those findings to justify an invasion of a sovereign country, I'd say it was a calculated gamble.


Safe, yes. I don't know about sound. If someone just ruined my career in intelligence, I'd be fairly upset.

Perhaps this concern of yours might be extended to a person like Scooter Libby. He goes to DC to serve his country and because certain people within the Beltway who dislike his boss (including I might add, Armitage) he ends up getting caught up in a fishing expedition by a federal prosecutor looking for a crime, even if he has to manufacture one. Would you want to serve in a situation where that sort of thing happens? I wouldn't. This is supposed to be about justice, and it's not. It's about politics. Not "obstruction of justice" but rather about "obstruction of a political agenda". And, in DC, that apparently is a crime, regardless of the party in power. This entire thing was about a murder where nobody was killed or a bank robbery that never happened.


Aquilla

Had Libby never lied, he would have been fine no matter who likes or dislikes his boss. For the life of me, I can't see how anyone supports this commutation, esp from the aprty who is so quick to remind everyone Clinton's real crime was lying under oath. Lying under oath was wrong then; it's wrong now. I don't care what the lie is about or who's on what agenda.

Close, but no cigar, Aquilla.

When more than one person alledgedly get together to attempt to murder someone, even if nobody is killed, it's still a crime. If two or more people alledgedly conspire to rob a bank, even if the vault is never breached, it's still a crime.

People in the White House are alledged to have conspired to "out" a covert CIA operative, in retribution for comments made by her husband. In fact, this "outing" did indeed take place. Scooter Libby had material knowledge of who did what, and when it was done.

And anyone with material knowledge of said actions, either before or after the fact of the actions, who lies to Federal investigators, lies to prosecutors, and lies to a Grand Jury, to conceal the facts of the crime is commiting perjury and is obstructing justice.

What about this is so difficult for you?

A conservative prosecutor convinced a a jury of 12 men and women of the perjury and obstruction. A judge, appointed by a Republican president, handed down sentencing. An appeals Court, consisting of two (out of three) conservative judges, again appointed by a Republican president, affirmed the sentence. Good God, man, if even jurists on the conservative side of the fence can see that justice was perverted in this case, and that Libby deserved to go to prison, I don't get how you can still be an apologist for what this administration has just done.

Actually, I'm beginning to believe that "apologist" is the wrong word here. I think that folks still clinging to the "Whatever Bush says must be right" group are no longer apologists for this band of egomaniacal crooks, they are willful (if unwitting) enablers, and collaborators.

Doggone....second time at andrewsullivan.com. Andrew published another post of mine here.

It was basically the same question I asked Aquilla earlier - what about Susan McDougal? Whitewater could have been deemed a witch hunt, there was no underlying crime found, and Susan McDougal went to jail. Clinton could have commuted her sentence but didn't. Where was the republican outrage then? Was Clinton wrong not to commute her sentence and/or pardon her?

I'm just looking for consistency and not surprisingly, there's none to be found.

Doclutus:

Her "cover" was working for a company that had an address but no real physical presence at that location. That isn't a "cover", it's a joke. Ms. Plame otherwise had been working at Langley for years. She had no value left, since while some wouldnt know that she was Joe Wilson's wife and suspect as such, anyone who drives a car into Langley is suspect. And so you know, the Russians already knew who she was, as one of their agents had already outed her. The CIA otherwise failed to stop Fidel Castro from coming into possession of documents that identified Valerie as a CIA agent. Both circumstances probably explain why Mr. Wilson didn't do much to protect the anonymity of his wife, i.e., he already knew that she had no value as a covert agent.

Here's how pathetic the attempt at cover was [courtesy of the Chicago Tribune]:

"Two years later, when Plame made a $1,000 contribution to Vice President Al Gore, she listed her employer as Brewster-Jennings & Associates, a Boston company apparently set up by the CIA to provide "commercial cover" for some of its operatives.

Brewster-Jennings was not a terribly convincing cover. According to Dun & Bradstreet, the company, created in 1994, is a "legal services office" grossing $60,000 a year and headed by a chief executive named Victor Brewster. Commercial databases accessible by the Tribune contain no indication that such a person exists."

Now re her being the Ambassador's wife:

"After Plame left her diplomatic post and joined Brewster-Jennings, she became what is known in CIA parlance as an "NOC," shorthand for an intelligence officer working under "non-official cover." But several CIA veterans questioned how someone with an embassy background could have successfully passed herself off as a private-sector consultant with no government connections."

Would you tell the wife of a US Ambassador anything that you didn't want the US government to know?

This isn't even about this single incident, but about the pathetic attempt at cover that our CIA apparently provides to some of its operatives. Are we trying to get them killed?

Now back to driving into and working at Langley, again from the Chicago Tribune:

"After Plame was transferred back to CIA headquarters in the mid-1990s, she continued to pass herself off as a private energy consultant. But the first CIA veteran noted: "You never let a true NOC go into an official facility. You don't drive into headquarters with your car, ever."

Which is to say, if you aren't a spy, then why are you at Langley? So you don't drive your car into the lot at Langley, ever.

Lastly, if you wanted to expose "Brewster-Jennings", again, you only need to have gone to the physical address given to know that there was no such company in operation. From the Boston Globe:

"The CIA may have thought so too. Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA operative once listed as her employer Brewster Jennings & Associates. A company by that name has a listed address but no visible presence at the 21-story office tower.
***
While the renovated building houses legal and investment firms, current and former building managers said they've never heard of Brewster Jennings. Nor did the firm file the state and local records expected of most businesses.

Both factors would have aroused the suspicions of anyone who tried to check up on Brewster Jennings, said David Armstrong, an Andover researcher for the Public Education Center, a liberal Washington think tank.

At the least, a dummy company ought to create the appearance of activity, with an office and a valid mailing address, he said. "A cover that falls apart on first inspection isn't very good. What you want is a cover that actually holds up . . . and this one certainly doesn't."

Some in the real estate industry believe something was amiss, if not illegal. "It's almost like out of a spy novel -- the tenant that wasn't there," said Griffin, who once oversaw management of the tower. "And they picked a nice address.""

To conclude, yeah, she was real covert, this wife of a former US Ambassador who drove her car into Langley five days a week and who otherwise claims to have worked for a company that has no physical presence at its listed business address. Some strong cover indeed...

Ignoring the urge to make a Clinton reference here.




You are inferring a criminal conspiracy here. That would indeed be a crime, a very serious crime. Now maybe you believe such a thing happened and maybe Fitzgerald also believed that. Yet, no conspiracy charges were ever filed. We can add this to the list of "phantom crimes" I suppose, just because some people don't like Cheney or Rove.



Uh, maybe the fact that there is no underlying crime here? Only speculation.



I don't know what the political philosophy of the prosecution in this case is, and I don't care. I see this case as a purely political witch hunt, plain and simple and I don't like seeing our system of justice turned into a game of political "gotcha". Now, if that makes me an "apologist" for Bush, oh well. I haven't apologized for anything, it was the right thing to do. I would have preferred to see a complete pardon, but for now........



Luckily you aren't a federal prosecutor or you'd be indicting me next for being a member of that VRWC. If you can get an indictment for a ham sandwich, just think of what you could do with one of my BBQed pulled Pork sandwiches that I do for the VRWC picnics!

and from DR.......



You are looking for consistency between Bush and Clinton? You gotta be kidding. Clinton pardoned Susan McDougal, but he waited until the end of his term to do it. He let her rot in jail until then so he didn't have a pay the political price. Real stand-up guy, that Clinton (and no pun intended).

Aquilla

He pardoned Susan McDougal just like Bush said he might do. But this isn't about a pardon. When Whitewater was being investigated - a case where no underlying crime was found - Susan McDougal was forced to testify against Clinton. She refused and instead, went to jail including significant time in solitary confinement.

Using the same exact method Bush used, he could have commuted her sentence and/or pardoned her - just like all the Bushbots have been demanding.

But that would have been as dispicable as the case you are supporting.

The problem here for you Aquilla, is I never voted for Clinton and think they guy is a world-class fraud. So when you compare Bush to Clinton, you basically make my case.

DaytonRocker:

Here, read it from someone else:

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dw...n1.1b6ae80.html

Hopefully this won't be my last response in this thread, but this insistence of focusing on Fitzgerald or Valerie Plame when they in fact have little to do with this debate lessens my desire to continue. Some of our debaters are also selectively answering questions, which always irks me.

Logophage demonstrated what I was after:

Essentially, I only see two logical ways out for commutation supporters.

The first is if you believe the trial itself was somehow unfair. The great part about defending against this assertion is that, principally, the big players here all already disagree with you. As I have been gleefully saying, even Bush thinks the trial and verdict were correctly delivered. In order to demonstrate an unfair trial, you would have to do as Logophage stated and "demonstrate why this wasn't a fair trial AND why the normal appeals process was appropriately short-circuited."

The second way out, assuming you agree with Bush, the judge and the jury about the verdict, is that the punishment somehow doesn't fit the crime. This is the position take in KivrotHaTaavah's editorial. Even though the author of that masterpiece believes obstructing justice doesn't deserve a prison sentence, more reasonable people do. It has, to the glee of other posters, been noted that even Paris Hilton did hard time.

So whats it gonna be. If Libby is innocent, prove this trial wrong, a task above even our president, who agreed with the sentence thus issuing a commutation.

Or, if the punishment was too harsh, explain why obstructing justice doesn't deserve a jail sentence.

Its a tough debate no matter which way you slice it.

KivrotHaTaavah:
Can you provide the links to support these quotes? Thanks.

Additionally, it doesn't matter if the CIA does a horrible job at protecting their cover. Its immaterial. There is a simple question of whether Plame was a NOC at the time that Novak outed her. The answer is yes. If she was, then the person or persons who knowingly leaked that information broke the law.

Your source still glosses over the main problem with your defense: Who leaked to Libby?

Your source stops with Libby - as most supporters do - and assumes the leak starts with him. But the leak didn't start with Libby. Somebody had to tell Libby.

Fitzgerald tried to get Libby's source. Libby has never told the court who his source is. Nobody knows to this day who his source was because after lying, the president - who testified in this case and refused to do so under oath - commuted his sentence effectively burying this question forever.

Let me say this again - Libby's sentence was commuted by the guy that testified in his case, but refused to do so under oath.

Libby's source was the leaker that knew Plame's status and was covered under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. That was the underlying crime. There was not just one leaker to the press. Clearly, both Libby and Armitage were leakers. That is verifiably undisputed fact. But somebody passed that information off to those two, Ari Fleisher, and a whole host of people that did not have a need to know about her status.

Who was that person? We will never know because Libby's lies obstructed the investigation to the point that they could not go any further. Had Libby told the truth, the investigation could have continued - and possibly came up empty - with Libby going untouched just like every other person caught up in the leak. Or they could have found the person that knowingly outed a covert CIA employee for political gain.

In writing this post, I've come to the realization that Bush has clearly abused his power. Bush commuted a person's sentence who obstructed the investigation of the White House. I'd like to see evidence of this happening in the past. Allowing this to happen would enable any president to effectively kill any investigations of the White House by lining someone up to take the fall, then pardon them or commute their sentences. It's a virtual bulletproof vest.

And you supporters will be ok with this when President Hillary does it?

And there you have it- it is as simple as that- what a very tidy little way to break the law and get away with it eh? Commit a crime, have a lackey take a fall for it- and then protect him from any possible punishment that may make him re-think his evil ways.

It is amazing the total lack of accountability that the current crop of republicans demand of thier party members. Really pathetic. Especially after all this noise making about "character" and morals. Very lame indeed.

Doclotus:

This should do it:

http://www.boston.com/business/globe/artic...fer_much_cover/
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationw...1,2504459.story

Now, to address both you and DaytonRocker, well, (1) I truly don't believe that most of those with the loudest voices here are concerned with truth and abuse, but instead with removing the "illegal" President from power, and (2) if we truly care about Ms. Wilson's physical safety, indeed, her very life, then we might want to provide her with better cover, well, that's the concern with your more non-descript agent, but for the life of