"I'm sorry, I don't recall."
Posted on 10/30/2005 3:43:25 PM PST by Brian Mosely
Edited on 10/30/2005 4:02:24 PM PST by Admin Moderator. [history]
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX SUN OCT 30, 2005 18:31:21 ET XXXXX
PROSECUTOR PLANS ON CALLING CHENEY AS WITNESS IN OPEN COURT; EXECUTIVE PRIVILEGE FIGHT LOOMS
**Exclusive**
Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is planning to call Vice President Dick Cheney as a witness in the trial of Lewis Libby, the DRUDGE REPORT has leaned.
But the high stakes move could result in an executive privilege showdown between the White House and Fitzgerald, a top government source said Sunday.
"If Mr. Fitzgerald is going to demand a public recounting of conversations between the vice president, or even the president, and his staff, on matters he, himself, has acknowledged are 'classified,' executive privilege will obviously be invoked."
Fitzgerald has made it clear to lawyers involved in the case that he prefers Cheney appear as a witness in open court.
"Mr. Fitzgerald is starting from the position that this should not be done on remote or videotape," the well-placed source said.
Fitzgerald and Libby's attorney Joseph Tate discussed possible plea options before the indictment was issued last week, TIME magazine reports in new editions. But the deal was scotched because the prosecutor insisted that Libby do some "serious" jail time.
Developing...
The Senate has just shut down (declared Article..??? 21 ??) to go behind closed doors to discuss the Libby indictment. Just heard something on Rush. Not up on Drudge yet. Looks like they are gunning to impeach Bush for lying about WMD.
Hillary has given her orders.
Rules for Radicals
In 1971, Saul Alinsky wrote an entertaining classic on grassroots organizing titled Rules for Radicals. Those who prefer cooperative tactics describe the book as out-of-date. Nevertheless, it provides some of the best advice on confrontational tactics. Alinsky begins this way:
What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.
His “rules” derive from many successful campaigns where he helped poor people fighting power and privilege
For Alinsky, organizing is the process of highlighting what is wrong and convincing people they can actually do something about it. The two are linked. If people feel they don’t have the power to change a bad situation, they stop thinking about it.
According to Alinsky, the organizer — especially a paid organizer from outside — must first overcome suspicion and establish credibility. Next the organizer must begin the task of agitating: rubbing resentments, fanning hostilities, and searching out controversy. This is necessary to get people to participate. An organizer has to attack apathy and disturb the prevailing patterns of complacent community life where people have simply come to accept a bad situation. Alinsky would say, “The first step in community organization is community disorganization.”
Through a process combining hope and resentment, the organizer tries to create a “mass army” that brings in as many recruits as possible from local organizations, churches, services groups, labor unions, corner gangs, and individuals.
Alinsky provides a collection of rules to guide the process. But he emphasizes these rules must be translated into real-life tactics that are fluid and responsive to the situation at hand.
Rule 1: Power is not only what you have, but what an opponent thinks you have. If your organization is small, hide your numbers in the dark and raise a din that will make everyone think you have many more people than you do.
Rule 2: Never go outside the experience of your people.
The result is confusion, fear, and retreat.
Rule 3: Whenever possible, go outside the experience of an opponent. Here you want to cause confusion, fear, and retreat.
Rule 4: Make opponents live up to their own book of rules. “You can kill them with this, for they can no more obey their own rules than the Christian church can live up to Christianity.”
Rule 5: Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It’s hard to counterattack ridicule, and it infuriates the opposition, which then reacts to your advantage.
Rule 6: A good tactic is one your people enjoy. “If your people aren’t having a ball doing it, there is something very wrong with the tactic.”
Rule 7: A tactic that drags on for too long becomes a drag. Commitment may become ritualistic as people turn to other issues.
Rule 8: Keep the pressure on. Use different tactics and actions and use all events of the period for your purpose. “The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition. It is this that will cause the opposition to react to your advantage.”
Rule 9: The threat is more terrifying than the thing itself. When Alinsky leaked word that large numbers of poor people were going to tie up the washrooms of O’Hare Airport, Chicago city authorities quickly agreed to act on a longstanding commitment to a ghetto organization. They imagined the mayhem as thousands of passengers poured off airplanes to discover every washroom occupied. Then they imagined the international embarrassment and the damage to the city’s reputation.
Rule 10: The price of a successful attack is a constructive alternative. Avoid being trapped by an opponent or an interviewer who says, “Okay, what would you do?”
Rule 11: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, polarize it. Don’t try to attack abstract corporations or bureaucracies. Identify a responsible individual. Ignore attempts to shift or spread the blame.
According to Alinsky, the main job of the organizer is to bait an opponent into reacting. “The enemy properly goaded and guided in his reaction will be your major strength.”
Source: http://www.vcn.bc.ca/citizens-handbook/rules.html
Please call your senators, congressmen and W to express support.
Time for us to invested the votes from NewSquare. Buying votes to put that witch in office.
This move is their cover story, apparently, for this: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1513512/posts
Perkins is REMOVED. Say again, Perkins is REMOVED.
No murder was committed.
Libby wasn't the murderer.
Libby was the guy who thought he learned the name of the victim from one source and the Daily Planet says he learned it elsewhere.
So, he's being prosecuted for a contradiction between two stories about where he learned the name of the murder victim.
If this were a murder trial, that would be laughed out of court.
No. It conceivably could get a directed verdict, but the indictment is facially sufficient, as far as I can tell.
It does us no good to circle the wagons. If anyone divulged classified material to reporters, he should be gone. If he revealed the name of a covert operative, he should be jailed. If he lied to the grand jury, he should be jailed. These go for everyone, from the file clerk to Pres. Bush himself.
I do not think that Libby is accused of outing an covert operative which was the original reason for this investigation....to discover IF and WHO did such a thing.
The prosecutor went out of his way to point out that there was no finding on that. I listened to him.
The charge against Libby appears to be a contradiction between when he says he knew Plame's name and when some reporters say he knew Plame's name.
Actually, the President is able to divulge the name of a covert agent, the nature of operations, etc. for national security reasons which he himself would decide as POTUS. He can do it, or he can direct his branch to do so. Everyone one at State, CIA, Justice, etc. has POTUS as their boss.
The Hatch Act forbids government employees (particularly CIA) from running operations to influence elections. It is illegal.
If the Lacey Peterson lawyer had come up with no charge against Scott Peterson, but had instead indicted him for a discrepancy between when he first thought Lacey was missing and when reporters said he first thought Lacey was missing, what would you have thought?
I’ll have a blue Fitzmas without Rove
I’ll be so blue just thinking about Rove
Indictments of red on a blue Fitzmas tree
Won’t be the same dear, if Rove’s not here with me
And when those blue states start falling
That’s when those blue memories start calling
You’ll be doin’ all right, with your Fitzmas of white
But I’ll have a blue, blue blue blue Fitzmas
(instrumental break)
You’ll be doin’ all right, with your Fitzmas of white,
But I’ll have a blue, blue Fitzmas
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