Shhhhhhhh, ---------------------------------------- (shhh, ok more rope) ------------------------------------------------...

...------------ (shhh, it's "slime and defend") ---- (more rope)-----------------------------...

I'll let you connect the dots Chief:

Wilson (respected diplomat, Ambassador), < Plame (wife, CIA, messenger), < Foley (then head of the Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation and Arms Control Center, Plame's boss), < The man who made serveral visits to the CIA and told the staff to make more of an effort to find evidence of WMD's even to the point of "intimidation."

Dick Cheney.

God Bless America!

(shhhh, more rope) ---------------------------------------...(Acutally miller is only protecting her value as a speaker after she gets out of the can. Kind of a rebirth for a discredited "journalist.") ------------------------------

Last edited: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 at 8:42:48 PM

^ Ah, to go where the Grand Jury has not yet gone afore. What's it look like over the edge there?

While Hillary, John, and Mr. Wilson are having a group hug.

Dennis the Menace is just winding string around ^.

^ I have little doubt that Cheney is capable of outing a CIA agent. After all, the man who is a heartbeat away from the president had no qualms of helping dupe America into the Iraq war.

However, I do believe he isn't stupid enough to do it himself and risk 10 years in prison. It should be interesting who is finally chosen to take the fall. No need for him to worry though, he should have vast knowledge of skeletons behind the door to the presidents bedroom. I smell a presidential pardon in the wind...

(BTW, why don't you check the timeline? It can be quite informative. Especially as the "truth" changes as it is repeated by the players.)

Last edited: Tuesday, July 12, 2005 at 10:37:08 PM

Anything on Cheney is pure speculation at this point.

Regarding Judy....my money's actually on Wilson (that's the beltway word anyway).

Let's see, maybe the opposite does make more sense.

Evil liberals John, Hillary, and Wilson learn what Bush is going to say in his 2003 State of the Union address.

They cook-up a scheme to discredit Bush and put heat on Rove. They decide to send Wilson on a fake fact finding mission to Niger knowing that Cheney is putting pressure on the CIA to find evidence of WMD's. Ah, Cheney is a perfect coverup and unwitting patsy all in one!

Wilson goes to Niger and spends his time in 5 star hotels sipping fine wines in the spas and writes up a fake report. Upon returning he is debriefed by the CIA. Here's where it get a bit fuzzy. Either the CIA doesn't pass along the fake report to Cheney knowing it is fake because it has wine stains on it. Or they do pass it along, and the clever vice instantly recognizes it is poop because he realizes it is a merlot stain and he knows Wilson only drinks pinot noir when he is working, so he doesn't bother to brief the President on it's content.

So now the trap is set. Bush goes on to give his State of the Union address and cites the Niger yellow cake for one reason he wants to crawl up Saddam's butt. Rice goes on Meet the Press and cites the yellow cake (I prefer mine with chocolate frosting!) as a reason we should go to war and crawl up Saddam's butt.

Wilson calls the powers that be at Washington to trigger the trap. "You guys ignored my merlot stained report on the reasons why the Niger yellow cake was not sold to Saddam. Bad, bad. I'm going to have to tell what I found out to the Times but don't mention that my wife is a CIA agent."

The "slime and defend" machine goes into action and a few discrediting leaks start coming from DC. Novak calls Rove; "Can you confirm that Wilson is married to a CIA agent?" Rove says, "You didn't hear it here first but now that you mention it..."

Photo op of John, Hillary, Wilson point fingers at Rove. Perfect execution! Media frenzy descends upon the White House.

God Bless America!

(Any fuzzy spots need clarification?)

Last edited: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 at 7:37:01 PM

Dammit, Flea! I love reading your comments! Good job!

I always fear commenting here for the majority of TT players are Yanks. But you speak my mind (and the majority of others up here) that some of the reasoning going around...is...well, quite frankly baffling.

Jangles...please feel free to weigh in! I assure you your comments are always welcome.

I will read Flea's post tomorrow am (when I am sober)......

Thank you Jangles! :)

Please, please feel free to add to your feelings and comments to these debates. Another perspective is always welcome.

The effect of the traitor rat/s who outed Plame may even affect you.

How?

This may surprise you; the NOC list that Plame was on is not guarded by Top Secret clearance. The list is kept under the classification of TS/SCI( Top Secret/Secret Compartmentalized Information.)

Within "Top Secret" other documents and information can be further classified so that they are available only to select people, such as the president, the secretaries of state and defense, and a few high White House officials.

ONLY THEY have access to the names of the CIAs NOC non-official cover agents.

If one reads the Vanity Fair article you can get the gist of how they operate. They act as private individuals that work for companies that are legitimate and are not in any way associated, and more importantly, thought to be associated with the CIA. These covers can take years to establish, and their main value lies in that they pass the smell test of foreign intelligence agencies and are believed to be entirely non-CIA connected.

If these agents are apprehended by a foreign authority our government can do absolutely nothing to help them. They have no official status that can protect them and they can be dealt with and disposed of in any manner.

The names on the NOC list is one of the greatest secrets possessed by our country. In the Vanity Fair article you'll find that Plame worked for Brewster-Jennings and Associates, an energy consulting firm. They were mainly active in the US and Saudi Arabia but also in China, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Pakistan, Russia and Syria.

The traitor who outed Plame compromised two decades of intelligence work in those countries.

If what was compromised was intel to the whereabouts of old Russian nukes or if we lose intel about countries such as Iran or North Korea acquiring nukes and delivery systems, you can imagine the possibility of it affecting you.

If a nuke detonated in DC we might not be worse off considering who we have there now.

The traitor rat/s need to be rooted out and shot.

Let's keep this in perspective.

I am all for prosecuting to the fullest extent of the law anyone who damages this nation's security.

Again - Ms. Plame's employ in the CIA was public record. Incidentally. The DO alone alledgedly has a couple thousand people with level clearance sufficient to access...not to mention the various staff members of the intel-related (oversight, select House, Senate select, etc) commitees....the number of people with access (again alledgedly) runs into 5 figures.

This is SOLELY politically motivated by Wilson....and the media is eating it up and doing their damnedest to give this story legs. Wilson was a very boisterous critic of Bush foreign policy before the run up to Iraq...and I think it's kinda funny that both Democratic and Republican Senators last year found that Wilson had made false statements in his 2003 public condemnations of the Bush administration's Iraq policies....yet no one's talking about that.

I'm here to tell you....there's a stripper in the cake. Judith Miller (who is no friend of this administration) ain't going to keep sitting in Ryker's forever....and my money's on Wilson himself. I mean - what a coincidence that the person authorizing his "voyage" would be....his wife??? You mean no one else in Langley would sign off??? Dude - it ain't that small a world.

There is absolutely no one else she would be willing to go this far to protect - journalistic privilege be damned.

http://encyclopedia.laborlawtalk.com/classified

"...Executive Order 13292 (amending EO 12958) issued by President George W. Bush in 2003; this executive order lays out the system of classification for information handled by the United States Government and its employees, contractors, and industrial firms, handling classified information.

The desired degree of secrecy about such information is known as its sensitivity. Sensitivity is based upon a calculation as to the damage to "national security". The United States has three levels of classification confidential, secret, and top secret. Each level of classification indicates an increasing degree of sensitivity top-secret being the highest, and confidential being the lowest. If one holds a "top-secret" clearance, one is allowed to handle information up to the level of "top-secret" (thus, secret, and confidential information). If one holds a "secret" clearance, one may not then handle "top-secret" information, but may handle confidential classified information.

In addition to this, information that is classified is often restricted in its dissemination based on the "need to know." In order to have access to classified information in the U.S. Government, one must have both the proper degree of classified clearance as well as a need-to-know the information. Having a "top-secret" clearance does not give one access to all documents classified at that level. Rather, information is released/disseminated based upon sensitivity level and the need-to-know. In addition, dissemination of information is often compartmentalized, requiring special additional clearance requirements above the "collateral" clearance (confidential, secret, and top-secret are collateral clearance levels). For example, individuals who need access to the most sensitive information, as well as information that is highly restricted in its dissemination, hold "TS/SCI" clearance Top-Secret/Secret Compartmentalized Information. In addition, specialized programs or "SAPs" (Special Access Programs) may restrict access to ALL information relating to a specific program or project regardless of its classification."

"...In the United States Department of Defense, compartmentalized information is usually classified at Top Secret levels, but with the additional caveat of being Sensitive Compartmentalized Information or SCI."

Plame married Wilson in 1997.

Valerie Plame's dentification as a CIA "operative" was made public by columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003.

Novak wrote. "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report."

Chief, if you can find any documentation that it was common knowledge that Plame was a NOC before Novak's outing please post it. Not the hearsay "slime and defend" so common with this administration.

The administration attacks the character of anyone who disagrees with them or presents alternative facts. Try to notice that it is not the information/allegations or facts that are ever challenged or proven wrong. "Slime and defend, slime and defend." They're picking on me mom.

That is what makes Tally and me so tired. How in good conscience can you blind yourself to this? They are totally contrary to our constitution.

Root out the traitor rats and shoot them. They are endangering our freedom.

I concur completely. On that I assure you we are in agreement.

I actually still have a magazine with an article on Plame and Wilson at the house - it's from before 2001 (last time I was in DC). If nothing else, I will scan it and post it as a PDF. (Edit: Incidentally, I never said her covert status was public domain info - just her employment at the Agency as, I think, a liaison to the IAEA or some other UN WMD taskforce).

Also - just saw this:

Last edited: Thursday, July 14, 2005 at 10:17:39 PM

On an other note - I agree that politics as a whole has gotten more and more "win at all costs"....unfortunately, this has been going on since before now. Just ask Paula Jones and Gennifer Flowers.

Last edited: Thursday, July 14, 2005 at 10:18:13 PM

I think Rove is a poor substitute for a patsy mostly because he is such an easy target, albeit still a slim-ball (hey! Character assassinations are fun:)

I'm still banking on my connect the dots (but deliberately left out Libby for the personal pleasure it gives me :)

Actually all this can be traced to Vanity Fair.

;)

Wikipe

PS: In the last day or so, Rove made mention that he may have got his information from a reporter first.

I see now that your quoted news article mentions ^, Chief.

Now that would be an interesting turn of the tables. It would lead you to think possibly that Rove has been messing with everyone's mind.

How far back does the source really go?

Last edited: Friday, July 15, 2005 at 8:48:48 PM

Somebody wake me when we can impeach Bush.

Some strange discomfort watching this thread dip into page 2. So, bump and...

"Like a lot of President Bush's critics, I supported the Iraq war at first. Because of the evidence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction laid out by Colin Powell, I agreed that we needed to disarm Saddam Hussein. I even think it's possible that 25 years from now, historians will conclude that the Iraq war helped accelerate the modernizing of the Middle East, even if it doesn't fully democratize it.

But if that happens, Bush might not get as much credit as he hopes, and not just because most historians, as Richard Nixon liked to say, are liberals. Bush may look bad because his leadership on Iraq has been a fiasco. He didn't plan for it: the early decisions that allowed the insurgency to get going were breathtakingly incompetent. He didn't pay for it: Bush is the first president in history to cut taxes during a war, this one now costing nearly $1 billion a week. And most important of all, he didn't tell the American people the truth about it: taking a nation to war is the most solemn duty of a president, and he'd better make certain there's no alternative and no doubt about the evidence.

Why do I mention this now? Because for all of the complexities of the Valerie Plame case, for all the questions raised about the future of investigative journalism and the fate of the most influential aide to an American president since Louis Howe served Franklin D. Roosevelt 70 years ago, this story is fundamentally about how easy it was to get into Iraq and how hard it will be to get out.

We got in because we "cooked" the intelligence, then hyped it. That's why the "Downing Street Memo" is not a smoking gun but a big "duh."...

Read on at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8598301/site/newsweek/

As feverishly as I defended Clinton during the Lewinsky debacle -- this shouldn't be impeachable...it's a private affair...what does this have to do with whitewater...he's a great president...etc., etc. -- I always felt disappointed and misled, though was hard-pressed to admit it.

I wonder if the average republican feels the same about the Plame leak. Do they really believe the spin? Or do they know that this administration is as dirty as they come?

Quite honestly....I am more distressed by how rancorous the political process as a whole has become.

Regarding Plame....I am down to two possibilities. Either it was Wilson himself, or it was Scooter Libby. I just don't think Rove is stupid enough to do leak "that obviously", although he has admittedly done it before.

If a senior staff member winds up being convicted of this - I will be deeply disappointed.

Chief, reinsert brain.
Seriously. It's a party, not a religion.

OK, let's go over the pertinent information. XD

Valerie Plame

1. A CIA operative who hadn't been out of country five years prior to Niger.
2. Not a agent but an operative/analyst on WMD whose identity everyone already knew -- even the janitor who cleaned the building at the fake company Brewster-Jennings, which even the CIA says was kinda flimsy cover.

Mr. Wilson

1. A retired, non-technical diplomat who is sent to Niger without knowledge of anyone much, possibly only his wife who booked the flight.
2. He produces a report that the CIA labels as "WHATEVER."
3. He starts a public, partisan rant after the trip.
4. He makes for a cute, snuggly little article in Vanity Fair in the midst of all this.

Robert Novak, probably the most puzzling contributor to this mess.

1. A conservative journalist who is after the liberals in the bureaucracy, or so his justification goes for the bad column he writes.
2. He "outs" Plame after passing along gossip from White House sources. ("Out" has become a really elastic word now.)
3. What the heck did he do that for??????

Matt Cooper

1. A gotcha journalist who while needling Rove and others for his future Pulitzer Prize also gets a name-drop on Valerie Plame.

Special Prosecutor

1. Justice Department is after them all. Tally Ho! (No, no, just as the fox hunting call goes...)

Last but not least, our Rather-ian gallant mystical knights of America: the White House press corps .

1. They know what really happened. Story over, story done. If you in the general public weren't so lowly and "of the earth", you'd see things as concisely as they do...

Rome burns, some fiddle. It's a slow news day. Trivial pursuit.

Last edited: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 at 4:52:37 AM

No, seriously, it was the Italian journalists.

Well, maybe not really.

My bet on the spring that feeds this enormous river of inquiry: Watch out for State department people.

Mr. Novak should soon speak! O brother where art thou.

I am a man of constant sorrows, I've seen troubles all my days...

Hehe

Last edited: Tuesday, July 19, 2005 at 4:57:25 AM

July 17, 2005
Follow the Uranium
By FRANK RICH

WELL, of course, Karl Rove did it. He may not have violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, with its high threshold of criminality for outing a covert agent, but there's no doubt he trashed Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame. We know this not only because of Matt Cooper's e-mail, but also because of Mr. Rove's own history. Trashing is in his nature, and bad things happen, usually through under-the-radar whispers, to decent people (and their wives) who get in his way. In the 2000 South Carolina primary, John McCain's wife, Cindy, was rumored to be a drug addict (and Senator McCain was rumored to be mentally unstable). In the 1994 Texas governor's race, Ann Richards found herself rumored to be a lesbian. The implication that Mr. Wilson was a John Kerry-ish girlie man beholden to his wife for his meal ticket is of a thematic piece with previous mud splattered on Rove political adversaries. The difference is that this time Mr. Rove got caught.

Even so, we shouldn't get hung up on him - or on most of the other supposed leading figures in this scandal thus far. Not Matt Cooper or Judy Miller or the Wilsons or the bad guy everyone loves to hate, the former CNN star Robert Novak. This scandal is not about them in the end, any more than Watergate was about Dwight Chapin and Donald Segretti or Woodward and Bernstein. It is about the president of the United States. It is about a plot that was hatched at the top of the administration and in which everyone else, Mr. Rove included, are at most secondary players.

To see the main plot, you must sweep away the subplots, starting with the Cooper e-mail. It has been brandished as a smoking gun by Bush bashers and as exculpatory evidence by Bush backers (Mr. Rove, you see, was just trying to ensure that Time had its facts straight). But no one knows what this e-mail means unless it's set against the avalanche of other evidence, most of it secret, including what Mr. Rove said in three appearances before the grand jury. Therein lies the rub, or at least whatever case might be made for perjury.

Another bogus subplot, long popular on the left, has it that Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, gave Mr. Novak a free pass out of ideological comradeship. But Mr. Fitzgerald, both young (44) and ambitious, has no record of Starr- or Ashcroft-style partisanship (his contempt for the press notwithstanding) or known proclivity for committing career suicide. What's most likely is that Mr. Novak, more of a common coward than the prince of darkness he fashions himself to be, found a way to spill some beans and avoid Judy Miller's fate. That the investigation has dragged on so long anyway is another indication of the expanded reach of the prosecutorial web.

Apparently this is finally beginning to dawn on Mr. Bush's fiercest defenders and on Mr. Bush himself. Hence, last week's erection of the stonewall manned by the almost poignantly clownish Mr. McClellan, who abruptly rendered inoperative his previous statements that any suspicions about Mr. Rove are "totally ridiculous." The morning after Mr. McClellan went mano a mano with his tormentors in the White House press room - "We've secretly replaced the White House press corps with actual reporters," observed Jon Stewart - the ardently pro-Bush New York Post ran only five paragraphs of a wire-service story on Page 12. That conspicuous burial of what was front-page news beyond Murdochland speaks loudly about the rising anxiety on the right. Since then, White House surrogates have been desperately babbling talking points attacking Joseph Wilson as a partisan and a liar.

These attacks, too, are red herrings. Let me reiterate: This case is not about Joseph Wilson. He is, in Alfred Hitchcock's parlance, a MacGuffin, which, to quote the Oxford English Dictionary, is "a particular event, object, factor, etc., initially presented as being of great significance to the story, but often having little actual importance for the plot as it develops." Mr. Wilson, his mission to Niger to check out Saddam's supposed attempts to secure uranium that might be used in nuclear weapons and even his wife's outing have as much to do with the real story here as Janet Leigh's theft of office cash has to do with the mayhem that ensues at the Bates Motel in "Psycho."

This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit - the big enchilada, to borrow a 1973 John Ehrlichman phrase from the Nixon tapes - is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war, not the unmasking of a C.I.A. Operative who posed for Vanity Fair.

So put aside Mr. Wilson's February 2002 trip to Africa. The plot that matters starts a month later, in March, and its omniscient author is Dick Cheney. It was Mr. Cheney (on CNN) who planted the idea that Saddam was "actively pursuing nuclear weapons at this time." The vice president went on to repeat this charge in May on "Meet the Press," in three speeches in August and on "Meet the Press" yet again in September. Along the way the frightening word "uranium" was thrown into the mix.

By September the president was bandying about the u-word too at the United Nations and elsewhere, speaking of how Saddam needed only a softball-size helping of uranium to wreak Armageddon on America. But hardly had Mr. Bush done so than, offstage, out of view of us civilian spectators, the whole premise of this propaganda campaign was being challenged by forces with more official weight than Joseph Wilson. In October, the National Intelligence Estimate, distributed to Congress as it deliberated authorizing war, included the State Department's caveat that "claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa," made public in a British dossier, were "highly dubious." A C.I.A. Assessment, sent to the White House that month, determined that "the evidence is weak" and "the Africa story is overblown."

AS if this weren't enough, a State Department intelligence analyst questioned the legitimacy of some mysterious documents that had surfaced in Italy that fall and were supposed proof of the Iraq-Niger uranium transaction. In fact, they were blatant forgeries. When Mohamed ElBaradei, the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency, said as much publicly in the days just before "shock and awe," his announcement made none of the three evening newscasts. The administration's apocalyptic uranium rhetoric, sprinkled with mushroom clouds, had been hammered incessantly for more than five months by then - not merely in the State of the Union address - and could not be dislodged. As scenarios go, this one was about as subtle as "Independence Day" and just as unstoppable a crowd-pleaser.

Once we were locked into the war, and no W.M.D.'s could be found, the original plot line was dropped with an alacrity that recalled the "Never mind!" with which Gilda Radner's Emily Litella used to end her misinformed Weekend Update commentaries on "Saturday Night Live." The administration began its dog-ate-my-homework cover-up, asserting that the various warning signs about the uranium claims were lost "in the bowels" of the bureaucracy or that it was all the C.I.A.'s fault or that it didn't matter anyway, because there were new, retroactive rationales to justify the war. But the administration knows how guilty it is. That's why it has so quickly trashed any insider who contradicts its story line about how we got to Iraq, starting with the former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill and the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke.

Next to White House courtiers of their rank, Mr. Wilson is at most a Rosencrantz or Guildenstern. The brief against the administration's drumbeat for war would be just as damning if he'd never gone to Africa. But by overreacting in panic to his single Op-Ed piece of two years ago, the White House has opened a Pandora's box it can't slam shut. Seasoned audiences of presidential scandal know that there's only one certainty ahead: the timing of a Karl Rove resignation. As always in this genre, the knight takes the fall at exactly that moment when it's essential to protect the king.

Well I started my own thread for this but I guess we have a republican admin who didn't like hearing the truth cause they deleted my thread. Oh well I'll just post it here.

War
"Naturally, the common people don't want war, but after all, it is the leaders of a country who determine the policy, and it is always a simple matter to drag people along whether it is a democracy, or a fascist government, or a parliament, or a communist dictatorship. Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. This is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in every country."

Herman Goering at the Nuremberg Trials

You start to consider the foolish positions people take to support the ongoing embarrassments of their leaders and you start to think everybody needs a little therapy. Repubs are making excuses as if they were defending their families. Imagine If it was a demo who leaked. There would already be blood on the lawn.
It's tragic the Repubs find the Dems as vile an enemy as the terrorists.
*
It's not a conversation if the other party has a handkerchief over their eyes and cotton in their ears while running around the room beating a wooden spoon into a frying pan.
*
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/The_Daily_Show_Plame_Game.mov
http://movies.crooksandliars.com/msnbc_ko_bush_flips_rovegate_howard_fineman_050718-01.wmv

Wow Tally, Where have you been ??

@Flea

Those volleyball players must have been democrats -- flip-floppers, every last one of them.

Sorry.....I fell asleep watching Nightline.

Were y'all saying something?

Postarama coming up - waffles for all. A little bit for everyone....I'm even going to mention Kerry.

My secret - I write this stuff in the airport. You should be able to tell by now when I'm in the airport bar.

@Flea

Funny how all the really intelligent people are branded liberals eh?

The most intelligent people always agree with me. :)

@ 44

Ummm...the war angle is based on Mr. Wilson, who is the wild card in this whole cranky affair, and his so-called intelligence.

@ else

The thing is hoot.

Conservatives in the cross fire of other conservatives. The liberals floating somewhere in the ozone, cranking out their famous a priori, conclusions-before-the-process-ends reasoning.

The Media Machine, the Wilsons, Robert Novak, Karl Rove, the so-called witch-hunting conservative prosecutor, the calls for shields for reporters before the Senate.

"Seasoned audiences" are shaking their heads.

Last edited: Thursday, July 21, 2005 at 10:14:52 AM

http://movies.crooksandliars.com/Countdown_WSJ_Top-Secret-Plame.wmv
Giddy up.

Last edited: Thursday, July 21, 2005 at 7:34:31 PM

WOW! There's no way they can escape this one!

Bush will not last the weekend!!

Chief!

Still politicking? Still cooking out? Decided work is more important? Heh! :)

A new tactic by the Democrats! (This is a repeat of a removed but enhanced post of yesterday.)

I bumped into a review of the book Don't Think Like an Elephant! by George Lakoff, who is a college professor in linguistics and a top Democratic consultant.

Lakoff's new tactic is called framing. It is the use of metaphor to steer political debate. In short, it is typecasting. The President is a power abuser. Rove is his top henchman, for example.

The first use was in the Social Security debate. The lack of debate on fixes for SS by the Democrats was deliberate, which is an interesting spin. Because private accounts made the public nervous, Nancy Pelosi says, "We branded them [the White House] with privatization."

Pelosi "laughs loudly" according to the review and says, "At the beginning of this debate, voters were saying that the president was a president who had new ideas. Now he's a guy who wants to cut my benefits."

The tactic's weakness is that it is offers no new ideas.

We are getting no debate or problem solving on Social Security or Iraq from the other side and we shouldn't expect any with this tactic. Just typecasting. Isn't it apparent?

It possibly will be the big tactic during the Roberts Supreme Court process, if the 14 lose compromisers lose control.

Stand by for news!

...or flick the light off as you go :)

Last edited: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 at 6:25:13 AM

@ Sally, when will you realize that PMSNBC is not reporting the truth!! %)

Sorry JJ - have been busy as hell at work as of late.

You're making some great points. Particularly with Wilson.

You know....he's probably the first guy I think of when I think of African yellow cake uranium. I would imagine he probably has a plane on hot status at Langley AFB waiting to wisk him around the globe on "eyes only" secret uranium missions.

LOL - would make a helluva video game. Maybe as fun as shooting cartoon tanks.

The biggest reason this whole issue has landed with a resounding "thud" with no applause outside the beltway.....everyone (or at least most everyone) sees it for what it is - political smear.. Liberals making issues out of what start as non-issues and at the end of the day saying "but yeah....still....".

This mission would have probably worked had they sent Superman instead of Schneider (what was the name of that '70's show?).

That one trick pony played out in the Clinton '90's guys. It's day has come and gone. And that, quite honestly, is probably the biggest reason Dems fear and loathe Karl Rove. The Dan Marino of the polical realm.

I love it though! I hope they keep it up. I hope they do in fact raise holy hell in the next 45 days of Roberts' confirmation. Hillary in '08 ain't a lock you know.

@JJ and Chief

Don't think like a donkey. Instead, try using the tactics of distraction and counter-attack if you're being attacked and want to avoid discussing the merit of the charges....simply change the subject and attack somebody else.

That's what's happening with Joe Wilson right now. The irony is that it was an effort to discredit Wilson two years ago that got Rove and Scooter in trouble in the first place....and here they go again. More distraction. More counter-attack. No discussion of the merit of any of the charges. Who cares if they leaked a CIA agent's name? Who cares if they disclosed information from top secret memos? Who cares if they may have lied to a federal prosecutor to cover up their crimes? Distract and counter-attack. Works even better than that new framing tactic.

Here's the beauty of this story for those of us with eyes open and brains unwashed: Say what you will about Wilson and Plame -- even if he's the biggest idiot around and his wife's nothing more than a desk jockey -- smear them any way you want -- it doesn't change the fact that the CIA launched an investigation of the White House for leaking an undercover agent's identity. That ain't going to change, no matter how you distract, counter-attack or frame.

@ 44

I agree wholeheratedly in that anyone disclosing information sensitive to national security should be strung up.....provided they are proven guilty, by a jury of his/her peers, beyond a reasonable doubt (not in the media) in a court of law.

Sorry bro - I thought that had been addresses already.

A re-cap...at least of my posts....anyone else wanting to re-address should probably bump theirs as well for point/counter-point: