Posted on 11/03/2005 11:36:34 AM PST by shhrubbery!
[snip]...It is not surprising that your White House distrusts and/or despises the media, the CIA, the State Department's career officers, the United Nations and a host of other institutions that you could not control...People in those institutions were out to defy and/or get you.
But you and yours helped them accomplish the mission. One lesson available in this story is that amateurs are no match for the CIA in disinformation campaigns. The spies are far better at operating in the shadows than you politicians will ever be. They have a license to dissemble.
The hidden management of the criminal justice process and the news media practiced by spooks in Wilson-Rove-Libbygate is nothing short of brilliant. So you were right to fear the agency...
Fear probably caused you to keep the Clinton-appointed leadership in place at the CIA long after some of its top operatives mounted a rebellion against the White House, in part to shift attention from their failures to yours. I know that George Tenet charmed you, and the rest of us. That's what spies and spymasters do, sir. You should have been taking that into account...
...After Wilson's slanted account of his mission to Niger provoked a small hubbub over your 16-word reference to Iraq's seeking uranium, Britain reiterated repeatedly to the United States that it stood by its reporting on that topic -- which was not based in any way on the much-ballyhooed forgeries from Italy...
...Telling the public that there was an independent stream of intelligence, with all the problems and counterattacks it would have triggered from the opposition leakers, would have been better for you than aides' taking it on themselves to plant stealthy suggestions of nepotism at the CIA...[excerpts -- all emphasis added by me -- shhrub]
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Even when the garbage is identified there is no action. Berger, Wilson, Clintons, DNC, on and on----
Any forward progress on Able/Danger? Or just more careers and bodies to count? Where is the special investigator on this? The Grand Jury? Who is blocking the process?
I found this from daily K'O'S's site while googling. Last sentence is interesting. -- The close collaborator with Richard Clarke -- going back to Bush I at NSC was Rand Beers -- who quit last summer and walked down the street and volunteered his services to Kerry, where he has been ever since. Beers eventually drew Joe Wilson into the Kerry camp.
Wait! Wasn't Bush 41 a big dog in the CIA at one time? Why would they go after his son?
Tenet is a long time buddy of Bill Clinton. They keep saying he is a buddy of the presidents but that isn't what was being said during the time Clinton was in the White House.
You're likely right; and you're not the only one who thinks there's significance to that.
Paul Vallely, for example. You might know who Vallely is -- he's a retired army general who's now a military analyst for Fox News.
Vallely, on air last night on the John Batchelor show, said he got the distinct impression that Joe Wilson was "shopping around a book" in 2002 (months before the alleged "outing" of Plame).
Vallely said he happened to meet Joe Wilson in 2002 the "green room" of some cable network's studio, while both were waiting to go on air. Wilson, at that time, was packaging himself as an expert on Iraq.
You know what else Vallely said about that little meeting with Joe Wilson? He said Wilson told him, Vallely, that "my wife is CIA." Again, this was...2002.
Paging Patrick Fitzgerald, Mr. Fitzgerald, please answer your phone.
I can't say it's the "first time" the mainstream liberal media have acknowledged the existence of such a plot.
But it's the first time I've seen it published by a liberal columnist, not identifiable as a Bush supporter (as are Toensing and Zell Miller).
Anyway, I'm confused too. When I left this thread yesterday, there was disagreement over whether Hoagland meant this as a "satire," or if it was in earnest. The consensus seemed to be moving in the direction of the latter.
Just got back to the thread now and am trying to figure it out.
I'm not saying the column isn't interesting, because it certainly is. But you need to recognize the difference between editorial musings and actual news.
OK, point taken.
I will admit (as long as we're using that word) that I also mistakenly thought Jim Hoagland was still an editor at the Washington Post. He WAS the "foreign editor" there, beginning in 1979; but the Post's website describes him as "now [a] columnist and senior foreign correspondent," as of some unspecified date.
So it would've been better, perhaps, if I'd put "[Hoagland, liberal columnist for the WaPo, admits...]" in my title line.
But that probably wouldn't have fit.
I make no claims to being a journalist, and I don't have a journalism degree (and since when do "real" journalists post accurate headlines, anyway?).
The information about Vallely is VERY interesting. You are correct . . . paging Mr. Fitzpatrick . . . and also Ted Wells. It would be very damaging to Wilson's credibility if it were true that he was shopping a book in 2002 and that this book made no mention - or minimal mention - of his Niger trip, a trip which he later spun as having earth-shaking ramifications. As I said earlier, my impression is that the Niger stuff in his published book was inserted into a previously existing version of the book. That was a long book - 500 pages, plus index - and most books written simply to exploit a transient news event are shorter, and many have no index. I'm not sure Wilson had the time to write that book between July 2003 and March 2004.
Agreed. Somehow, you're the first person to mention that WoeJoe went to Niger within 6 months of 9/11! Excellent note, thanks.
Re Clintonistas and NoKo- isn't Madeleine Albright a wonder? She managed to trust, but not verify. I think that whole dangerous fiasco should be investigated. I saw her on some TV show, where she complained that Mentally Il LIED to the US, after we gave him the goods. Imagine that. What did Billary get out of it, I want to know.
ping
This may not be perfect but it's pretty close to what I read someplace.
Ping!
bttt
Oh Please let this erupt in the Libs. and MSM's faces! I'm going to start the popcorn and ice down the beer just in case.
While given with the usual left-liberal slant, this column is full of examples of the vicious and dishonest bureaucratic infighting from CIA and State that amounts to a surreptitious insurrection against the elected government of the USA. It is long past time for the WH and the Republicans in Congress to clean house and reshape the two worst bureaucracies in DC, State and CIA.
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