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 ...
Wouldn't surprise me if the MSM led Dems weren't helped by the CIA last Election.
Do you think Lucy Ramirez might be a covert Spy for the CIA?
I do.
Or, the administration, because they're Republicans, don't want to call for an investigation because they are afraid of being accused of "smearing" their detractors. God knows any self-respecting Republican would not want anyone to think they were being impolite.
It is amazing to see this in the Post of all places but it is no more amazing than the fact that Bush did not clean house and rid the government of as many Clinton appointees as possible.
I was always amazed that he would allow the poisoned system that he inherited to exist without radical change.
Justice, State, CIA and who knows what all else.
The media knows it will be on trial here. The reporters have lied thru their teeth.
So then I guess he is hiding.
I'm speechless, or typeless or stunned. Pigs are flying, dancing, and singing four part harmonies.
I thank you kindly. You make some of the most intelligent posts here on FR, so I take seriously your opinion that this might be satire.
However, any potential grovelling by me will have to be postponed until later. I have to leave the computer now (nope, not taking a shower...), will check back later to see if there's any consensus on what Hoagland's up to here.
"The media knows it will be on trial here. The reporters have lied thru their teeth."
So, assuming Hoagland is of like mind, then stating this ...
"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."
... can be interpreted as a not-so-thinly-veiled warning to back off?
Thank you!
"The spies are far better at operating in the shadows than you politicians will ever be. They have a license to dissemble."
And because their work is covered by confidentiality, they can hide their screw ups and vendettas.
I guess in the long run, the article reads like what we would/have/might set forth. His "stab in the back", unsaid is "speculate if you will", but Libby is going to trial.
Joe's been all over the place. A veritable media tour, timed to coincide with the indictments.
The CIA has been playing `CYA' for three years, since one of its employees (we'll call her `99') sent her 'free-agent' husband (read: an unemployed Maxwell Smart) on an intelligence gathering mission to Niger, without having him sign a confidentiality agreement.
Customarily when something like this happened--before a 'loose cannon' started shooting off his mouth--the director, here, Tenet, would call the journalist (Novak) and ask that he not report an employee's identity, but that was not done here. And Novak probably assumed everyone knew who she was anyway . . . at the time the `scoop' was probably that the CIA had devolved into a `Mom & Pop' operation.
Further the CIA has been MIA since Stansfield Turner effectively `cut its nuts', stopping real `human intelligence' efforts, beginning with Jimmah, and this debacle is just a result. (9-11 was another)
Some in the Agency now are hoping to `pin' on the executive branch their own inability/failure to follow their own policies & procedures (they have been hostile to this administration for 5 years) but they filed the request for investigation, and this is due to their failure to get smart until it was too late. The genie's out of the bottle now. Our illustrious intelligence community.
All President Bush and his people did was say to other insiders, "Hey, wait a second--this "expert" is the hubby of the spook that sent him on this `fishing expedition' and they're both Democrat partisans!"
Before this is concluded I can see a few CIA employees taking early retirement.
I read this as a hit piece on Pres. Bush.
Nothing else.
The manner of this investigation and Fitz's presser last week says that in his legal opinion Plame's status was irrelevant to whether crimes had been committed. the crimes being perjury and OoJ. But if no crime was committed in leaking Plame to the press then the legality of the succeeeding investigation seems suspect and its purpose clearly directed at entrapping someone in perjured testimony. Libby's lawyers should, IMVHO, pursue this in their defense, even to the point of calling Fitz as a witness to determine the timeline of when the outing of Plame as being a crime, became irrelevant.
"Before this is concluded I can see a few CIA employees taking early retirement."
So what's the punishment for lying about something that's integral to American foreign policy? Wilson's doing his speaking tour, Kerry's in the Senate, and some CIA people are going to take early retirement? And Libby's life and career have been ruined.
I think that is the link. Oil for food. Wilson was out of state and in biz asociated with shady international biz characters. His second wife ws French intel, and he liked Saadam. maybe he was part of or privy to the forged documents which appear to have been created to disuade the war. There was a fascinating file her on FR about Wilson by Feodora.
It wouldn't hurt my feelings if Joe and Valerie were behind bars with Aldrich.
While I heard Andrea Mitchell lie thru her teeth the other night while talking about the matter to Russert - Sean just read a statement of hers from last year stating that everyone knew Wilson's wife was CIA.
Take it easy, pop. He's not ruined, not yet. He hasn't even been tried.
"For those with an eye for such things, an accused man can be very attractive." Voltaire (paraphrasing)
This could be an opportunity to cure our ailing intelligence agencies, as well as vindicate Mr. Libby. I'm sure he's getting support from those who would like to get less politics and more intelligence gathering from Langley.
AFK gotta pay the bills
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