Prominent Democrats campaign for Clinton, Obama

Two high-profile backers of presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama campaigned in Nevada on Thursday, avoiding attacks on each other's candidate and instead criticizing the Bush administration.

Former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, supporting Obama, said in an interview that Democratic candidates for president as well as for Congress have an edge in the 2008 elections because “the American people believe even more that we're on the wrong track and we need a change.”

Clinton backer Joe Wilson, a former ambassador and husband of outed CIA operative Valerie Plame, said in a telephone interview that Republicans can't hold onto the presidency because “the country can't afford it. They have so utterly discredited themselves and done such lasting damage.”

He (Daschle) also said independent voters tend to lean toward Democrats this year – and especially toward Obama.

Obama is “a fresh face” who lacks the “baggage” that candidates with long political careers have, Daschle said, adding that he was speaking generally and not singling out Clinton for criticism.

He added that Nevada isn't a red state but instead has become “a swing state, a purple state” with its new status as an early caucus location.

Wilson said the Democratic candidates, especially Clinton, should draw Republican voters fed up with the failures of the Bush administration and the transformation of the national GOP into “nothing more than a huge propaganda organ.”

Clinton is ready for the Republican “slime machine,” Wilson said, adding, “Hillary has made it clear that if they come after her she will strike right back. ... She knows it's coming and she's nothing if not a fighter.”

Wilson also said he and his wife, while they were being targeted by Republicans, had steadfast support from Clinton.

PING ~~! .. and more laughable news:

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http://www.pasadenaweekly.com/article.php?id=5141&IssueNum=91

‘It’s about honesty’

Diplomatic whistleblower Joe Wilson on the war in Iraq, the White House liars who put his wife in harm’s way and why he’s supporting Hilary Clinton

In July, a federal judge dismissed a lawsuit filed against top White House officials by American diplomat Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame, the CIA agent whose identity was leaked to the media days after Wilson’s refutation of some of the “facts” used by President Bush to justify the war in Iraq appeared in The New York Times.

Just as quickly as Vice President Dick Cheney, then presidential adviser Karl Rove and former Cheney aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby allegedly conspired to out Wilson’s wife a week after that column appeared, the Wilsons wasted no time in filing an appeal on July 20, the day after their case was dismissed by US District Judge John D. Bates.

Although Bates, a Bush appointee, tossed the Wilsons’ case, saying they did not exhaust all of their administrative remedies before filing their lawsuit and did not show that the case even belonged in district court, the judge did say that the suit raised “important questions relating to the propriety of actions undertaken by our highest government officials.”

In the end, however, no one was ever charged with revealing Plame’s identity. Bates, according to a Washington Post account of the proceedings, noted that even if what they did was “highly unsavory,” administration officials were acting within the scope of their duties to speak with the media to rebut Wilson’s July 9, 2003, Times column, “What I didn’t find in Iraq,” in which he put the lie to administration claims of Iraq importing from Niger yellowcake uranium needed to manufacture weapons of mass destruction.

Since then, the couple have set up a trust fund and Web site (www.wilsonsupport.org) for people to keep track of their case and contribute to their cause.

“We believe there are some fundamental constitutional issues, and we think that’s what Bates was saying when he said he couldn’t address them,” Wilson said. “We have heard that there are those in and around the Supreme Court who think this case will ultimately end up there, and those [courts] on the way up the chain are reluctant to establish precedent, so we think it’ll bounce all the way up.”

Also since July, Wilson, who describes himself as a political centrist, has come out publicly in support of Hillary Clinton for president and is traveling the country touting Democratic candidates.

Wilson is also author of “The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies That Led to War and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity.” On Sunday

he will be speaking at the La Cañada Flintridge Country Club on behalf of the La Cañada Flintridge Democratic Club, which was formed by Joe Mealey, co-director and producer of the acclaimed documentary “Bush’s Brain,” a critical look at the Svengali-like role Rove has played throughout Bush’s political career, including the episode involving the Wilsons that has come to be called “The Plame Affair.”

“The White House has always said that [Wilson] was this left-wing guy who had an axe to grind,” which wasn’t the case at all, said Mealey, who started the Democratic Club in upscale and Republican-rich La Cañada Flintridge shortly after the 2004 presidential election. He pointed out that Wilson served a number of presidents, including George W. Bush’s father, who once described Wilson as a hero.

“It’s not about Democrat and Republican. It’s about honesty,” said Mealey.

The 57-year-old Wilson, who spent much of his professional life in the US diplomatic corps, now serves as vice chairman of Jarch Capital, LLC, a firm dealing in African natural resources. He took time out last week to speak by phone with the Pasadena Weekly from his home in Santa Fe, NM.

— Kevin Uhrich

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Pasadena Weekly: Even though you are a central figure in this scenario, the real focus of this has always been your wife and the danger this leak has put her in. How has this affected her career, as well as your lives together?

Joe Wilson: Well, she has a book coming out on Oct. 22 (“Fair Game: My Life as a Spy, My Betrayal by the White House”), which will address a lot of that, so I don’t want to upstage her. But I’ll tell you it’s more than just putting her life in danger. It’s also a matter of what it did to the national security capabilities of the United States, because after all, if the US government is not going to protect its covert CIA officers, how can anybody overseas think that they will be protected when they are asked to divulge secrets that are of benefit to us? So it’s an enormous risk.

Switching gears a little bit, Donald Rumsfeld often said the war would only last five or six months, but did you ever foresee this dragging on for this long? And do you see an end in sight?

Oh, sure. I spoke out often before the war. I brought to the debate not any partisan agenda, although I’ve been accused of that, but really my experiences having been in Baghdad during the first Gulf War. I said on a PBS program with Bill Moyers that it was my fervent hope that my analysis was so wrong that I’d be completely discredited and never invited back to another foreign policy debate, because if my analysis was right, we were into a real mess.

Getting into Baghdad is one thing. Getting out is a much different proposition. I’ve been on the record on that since well before I was known as Mr. Valerie Plame.

I know we don’t hear this mentioned very much, but do you see any possibility of a diplomatic solution in Iraq?

The only solution has got to be a political process. It’s not Joe Wilson saying that; it’s the military generals that have been saying that to George Bush for years. Even his commanders and field commanders have been saying, “Look,

we understand this is a military situation, but there is no military solution. You’ve got to have a political process.” A couple months ago, Peter Pace [chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff] and Gen. Casey, as well, said, “Look, our policy here is like a three-legged stool, one leg being security, one leg being reconciliation, which is a political process, and the third leg being economic reconstruction.” You can’t have economic reconstruction until you have the security piece and the political reconciliation piece in place.

I’ve been involved in a lot of these political processes. I was in charge of the embassy in Baghdad while we put together the coalition to throw Saddam out of Kuwait in the first Gulf War. I was serving as political adviser … with the armed forces in Europe when Bill Clinton and [Richard] Holbrooke put together the Dayton [Accords] process in Yugoslavia. …

In the first Gulf War, you had every aide to George Herbert Walker Bush calling coordinators, putting together the consensus on what we should do about Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait. We had Jim Baker going on planes around the world, putting in place the coalition, the financing, everything else. When we were in Yugoslavia, you had Bill Clinton on the phone every day to leaders around Europe, eastern and western. It took presidential leadership and hard work. This president won’t even call the damn prime minister of the United Kingdom or Syria or anybody else. And that undermines security efforts.

It’s been said that perpetuating the war is really the only reason Bush is in office, and that it was always the intent of his handlers to make the war last as long as his presidency. Do you see any validity to that claim?

Certainly the president was quoted as saying even before coming to the White House that it’s a war that makes a president a great president. And he certainly hasn’t shied away from putting Americans in harm’s way. I think there is some validity in the notion that what this is all about now is handing it over to the Democrats and blaming them for the George W. Bush Memorial War.

Should you prevail in your appeal, what would you like to see happen to Rove and [former Deputy Secretary of State Richard] Armitage, who is named in your civil suit?

I want to see them held to account. I’ve said about Rove over the years that I’d love to see him thrown out of the White House in handcuffs. I still think that should’ve happened. I’m sorry it didn’t. But some accountability, and, of course, the American judicial system permits you to pursue civil cases even if the criminal justice system is unable to take it to where you have to be. … In a civil case, we will be able to assess monetary damages and use this to teach future generations not to engage in similar reprehensible behavior.

What’s your opinion about recent efforts to impeach Bush and Cheney?

I obviously think this administration has acted in a way that is antithetical to American interests, and I am delighted that Congress is exercising its oversight responsibilities and investigating the administration. Whether that will ultimately lead to actual impeachment, I don’t know. My own view of those sorts of decisions and debates is facts emerge from congressional investigations. I wouldn’t put the cart before the horse. I would just say let the investigations proceed. If it advances to impeachment, so be it.

Finally, why Hillary?

She’s strong, she’s tough, she’s disciplined, she’s got experience. I’ve been advising her on Iraq policy for a number of years. She’s the one political leader who has shown enormous capacity for growth and assimilation. She’s extraordinarily bright.

I’ve known her for 10 years and she was one of the few people in Washington who completely understood the nature of the campaign that was being waged against us because, of course, it was the same crowd that waged the campaign against her and against Bill.

People talk about her being cold and aloof. I can tell you from personal experience if you want to see her light up, just ask her about Chelsea, or just watch her as she listens to you talk about your own kid. I know; I’ve done it.

She’s a good friend.

The nice thing about the Democrats is that there are a number of very talented candidates, but I think [she’s the best] in terms of experience and strength and ability to understand just how nasty the Republicans can be because she’s lived through it. No one would know better.

We were in Santa Fe [and] five of us were at dinner; the only one missing was Bill.

We talked about how many people had gone through the character assassinations and come out the other side stronger. Washington, DC, is littered with the corpses of those who have never recovered from the attacks. She could have walked away in 2000 and returned to a nice, private life. She’s enormously talented and a very impressive leader.

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Joe Wilson, who will not be accompanied by his wife, will be speaking Sunday at the La Cañada Country Club, 5500 Godbey St., La Cañada Flintridge. Cocktails will be served at 11:30 a.m. Lunch will be served at 1 p.m. For more information, call (818) 503-3325 or visit www.lacanadadems.org .

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California FReepers ?

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