Posted on 10/30/2005 8:53:09 AM PST by flixxx
If a senior White House official leaks classified information that identifies an undercover CIA officer to reporters in order to undermine a critic of the administration, he is not entitled to lie about it to FBI agents and a grand jury charged with the task of determining if such a leak violated the law. That was special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald's message, as he held a dramatic press conference at the Justice Department to explain the five-count indictment his grand jury issued against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. "This is a very serious matter," he insisted.
(Excerpt) Read more at thenation.com ...
Fitz is NEVER going to be an AJ.
No democrat targets ever.
Nice sign-up date. I guess I should welcome you to Free Republic, but maybe the Viking Kitties will do a better job.
It's a free country. If David Corn is dumb enough (and leftist enough) to believe that a suspicious indictment (at best) against a WH official for a "crime" that Fitz can't prove which has no underlying crime, so be it.
There's nothing that says moonbat prognostications must be accurate. For my money, the farther out in left field they are (like this one), the better.
Meow!
Were people actually expecting Corn to say anything different.
But .. when Bill Clinton was lying to a SP - it was no big deal!
We have got to learn to ignore these people. They want another Watergate and they're not going to get it.
If a senior White House official leaks classified information that identifies an undercover CIA officer to reporters in order to undermine a critic of the administration, he is not entitled to lie about it to FBI agents and a grand jury charged with the task of determining if such a leak violated the law.
To me this is the underlying premise the the MSM just wants to keep putting out to make it seem like the Bush Admisinstraion is just full of corruption. Valerie Plame was not undercover according to the law in question.
No offense taken...I do think that part of what FreeRepublic can do well is share with Conservatives what the Left is saying about various issues.
Many here tend to avoid the MSM (for good reason) but unless we are aware of the Dems' talking points and arguments, you can be amazed (well maybe not) when you run into others who only read the NY Times or watch CBS...in my defense, I did post the 'barf alert' and the author's name to let you pass by the post if you wished.
One important factor never seems to get discussed.
The leftist theory is that the White House conspired to get back at Wilson by outing his wife. The intrinsic assumption is that this would damage her, and therefore by association him, and thereby intimidate other future possible critics.
Yet there never seems to be any discussion of exactly how this method of silencing critics worked in practice. Was Ms. Plame's life endangered, was her career destroyed? What actual negative side effects did she and her husband suffer?
Everything I read seems to indicate that they both had their careers and social standing greatly boosted by the controversy. Which means that the attack on them, if such it was, backfired in a major way. I suspect there are lots of people who would greatly appreciate attacks on them that have such effects, and that therefore the chilling effect didn't actually cool down any potential critics.
Am I just missing something obvious here?
I agree with you...but everyone knows how pathetically one sided Cornhead\the Nation is...
In other words, yeah, my guy Clinton lied to a grand jury too, but your guy lying to a grand jury is much, much worse. Hypocrisy, thy name is Liberal.
I was willing to give Fitzgerald the benefit of the doubt as to whether he was nothing more than a Democratic Hack, but after his performance in his press conference where he skirted this very issue, by duplicitously saying Plame was "classified", I am more certain than ever he is nothing more than a Democratic Hack. His gratuitous aassertion to the contrary notwithstanding.
I don't know what motivation Fitzgerald could have, other than being starstruck with his name in the lights, or possibly he has seen the way the Dems work, and knows first-hand that his hide will be handed to him on a skewer if he didn't provide them some blood-shed. Going after Libby is preventing, for at least the time being, his own blood being spilt for the Dem cause. It's called self-preservation. He wasn't ready to die politically, so he's going after some one else's career.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.