November 20, 2007Bush's Plame-Gate Cover-UpWith a new disclosure from an ex-White House press secretary little Scotty McClellan, the evidence builds that George W. Bush participated in a criminal cover-up of the White House role in leaking Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA identity. Now, what can the Democrats do? July 03, 2007Greasy Grimy Government...A few minutes before I headed over to Red Mountain Monday afternoon to talk about the Siegelman, Scrushy case on the radio with Frank Mathews, I put up the headline on the news page telling the story of how President George W. Bush commuted the sentence of former White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, allowing him to escape a 2 1/2-year prison term for obstruction of justice - just hours after a federal appeals court panel had ruled Libby could not delay his prison term in the CIA leak case. This is odd timing, coming on the heels of the "excessive" sentence handed down in Montgomery by a Republican judge and the fast-track jailing of former Alabama Governor Don Siegelman and Richard Scrushy. What conclusion can be drawn from this? Absolute power corrupts absolutely. And for those who have all the money and power, there is also arrogance of the highest order. Somebody in the press and the Senate better bring this Bush monarchy down before it destroys democracy once and for all. Where are the people? Where are the protests? Where are the marches? On the eve of the Fourth of July 2007, perhaps we should cancel the fireworks shows and all go to Washington instead. The White House needs to feel some heat, people. As long as Karl Rove and Dick Cheney feel like they can get away with stomping on the Constitution - what Bush calls "just a piece of paper" - they will continue to trample it into the ground. As I have said before and I will repeat again, apparently King George Bush II has a corporate mandate as president. What is it? To prove "big government" doesn't work and hope the people will go along with privatizing the running of the country by the board of directors at Exxon-Mobile, State Farm and Wal-mart. Remember what ole Fob James said about Alabama government? The government should work like the Waffle House. Personally, I would rather avoid the greasy, grimy eggs and bacon - and the putrid smell of rotten government. Give me a locally grown tomato sandwich on homemade bread any day - and a government that works for the people as well as the corporate bastards. You? March 07, 2007Libby Only A 'Fall Guy' in Cheney-Bush Leak, CoverupThe four-count conviction of White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice has left many Americans, including the jury, wondering why Libby's bosses weren't in the dock with him. The evidence, viewed chronologically, leaves little doubt that George W. Bush, Dick Cheney and other senior officials had a hand in both the exposure of a covert CIA officer's identity and the cover-up. As one juror noted, Libby was surely guilty of his crimes but he also was most certainly "the fall guy." For the full Special Report on what the Libby conviction really means, go to the independent ConsortiumNews.com. Scooter Libby Found Guilty in CIA Leak TrialScooter Libby's conviction of lying and obstructing of justice in the CIA leak case could be the corner stone of the historical case against the Bush administration for waging a doomed, corrupt war in Iraq and lead to the restoration of American Democracy - if the remaining stones are put into place by the Democrats who now control Congress. Once the closest adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was convicted Tuesday of lying and obstructing a leak investigation that shook the top levels of the Bush administration, according to the AP and every other news organization and blogger in the mainstream media and the liberal blogosphere. For simpllicity's sake, here's the AP story and the key facts. Scooter Libby Found Guilty in CIA Leak Trial Four guilty verdicts ended a seven-week CIA leak trial that focused new attention on the Bush administration's much-criticized handling of intelligence reports about weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the Iraq war, the AP reports. Then, the AP reminds us, again: Campaigning in 2000, George Bush promised he would swear on the Bible to restore honor and dignity to a sullied White House and give it "one heck of a scrubbing." The conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby gave the White House a scrubbing - but not the one Bush had in mind. "But don't count on it," the AP reports. "Bush in the past has repeatedly come to the defense of his vice president." In fact, Bush may well pardon Libby. It will be up to the special prosecutor and the Judiciary committees in Congress to bring Cheney and Bush to heel in this scandal, in the form of oversight and investigative hearings. What we want to know is, why is Larry King of CNN booking former White House press secretary Scott McClellan to talk about how he was "setup" and "lied to" by Libby and Karl Rove? Everyone who is anyone who knows the facts knows McClellan was the press secretary who made luvvy duvvy to gay male prostetute Jeff Gannon in the White House and lied to the press and the American people and the press about who knew what, when, in the CIA leak case. He was in the same room in the same meetings with Bush, Cheney, Rove, Libby, et al. If there was true justice in the world, McClellan would be under indictment for lying too, not out on the "speaking circuit" - pumping a new book and trying to continue the coverup. And it is a coverup. A far more serious coverup than Clinton's lying about his sex life - or Nixon denying knowledge of funding for the Watergate burglars. While trying to create a corporate Republican majority in American politics for a generation, Karl Rove and company came very close to destroying American Democracy. They may have succeeded in the latter - and potentially cost the Republican Party an honest stake in the U.S. national government for some time to come. Especially if the Republicans nominate Rudi Giuliani to run for president in 2008 against John Edwards or Al Gore. The Christians are already changing the channels from the Clinton-Obama show to Bonanza on bad, commercial cable. They will not be voting in '08 - which is an open opportunity for us educated liberals to take back the big show. If the national Democratic Party has what it takes to lead: Guts. July 13, 2006Former CIA Officer Sues Cheney, Rove Over LeakThe CIA officer whose identity was leaked to reporters sued Vice President Dick Cheney, his former top aide and presidential adviser Karl Rove on Thursday, accusing them and other White House officials of conspiring to destroy her career. In a lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court, Valerie Plame and her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador, accused Cheney, Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby of participating in a "whispering campaign" to reveal Plame's CIA identity and punish Wilson for criticizing the Bush administration's motives in Iraq. November 16, 2005Intel Officials Demand White House AccountabilityFormer Intel Officials Send Demand Accountability by White House in CIA Leak Case Letter Sent to Bush Today Requests 'No Pardons' Pledge, Suspension of Security Clearance for Officials Who Spoke to Reporters About Valerie Wilson's Identity and Asks Bush to 'Restore Honor' to White House A group of 16 former intelligence officials sent a letter to George W. Bush earlier today expressing their outrage over "the breach of trust between this Administration and members of the intelligence community that has resulted from the Valerie Plame case." The letter is described by former CIA analyst Larry C. Johnson as having been signed by a "bipartisan" group "representing a variety of political views." "We are agreed on one thing," said Johnson in an Email receved by The BRAD BLOG this evening, "we are Americans and believe this country is worth defending." The missive, sent late this afternoon from the variety of former and retired officials, calls on George W. Bush to keep his "promise to restore honor to the White House," and demands accountability for any staff members "implicated in the leak of Valerie Wilson's classified identity." It goes on to decry the "bond of trust" that was "shattered with the exposure" of Wilson's identity. MORE DETAILS and FULL LETTER at Brad Friedman's Blog November 02, 2005Bush's Rule of LawGeorge W. Bush reacted to the indictment of Dick Cheney's top aide, Lewis Libby, with a startling assertion about the U.S. legal system. "In our system," the President declared, "each individual is presumed innocent and entitled to due process and a fair trial." While Bush's statement was surely intended to remind the public that Libby has yet to be convicted of a crime, it was remarkable to hear Bush endorse the presumption of innocence and due process after all he has done to erode those principles, according to Nat Parry at ConsortiumNews.Com. Also check out the Washington Post's lead story today on the subject: October 28, 2005CIA Leak Case Highlights Vicious Partisanship in U.S. PoliticsAfter watching the press conference of Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgeral on CNN, it is clear the obstruction of justice charge is meant to put a clearly guilty party in the spotlight of justice, Vice President Dick Cheney's cheif of staff I. Scooter Libby, to get to the bottom of the malice behind the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame-Wilson's name. The investigation is not over. It is also clear that what this case is about highlights the level of viciousness in U.S. politics these days so drastically divided as it is along partisan lines. This has been true of Democrats as well as Republicans, including the Friends of Bill Clinton (FOB), according to sources including Jennifer Flowers. It is true of the Siegelman-Scrushy charges filed this week in Alabama. It is true of e-mail exchanges many of us have been in lately as well. I'm not sure there's any hope of this changing anytime soon, but it would be nice to imagine a better world. That, however, will take a different kind of leadership. George W. Bush and Karl Rove first learned how to practice this form of personal attack politics in George Wallace's Alabama, as I have reported in the past. None of the national media were interested in exploring this, but it is true. Now these so-called neocons (meaning I suppose a new kind of conservative, maybe one that is not actually philosophically conservative) have turned the politics of vicious personal attacks into a Machiavellian art form. The damaging consequences of this are not a partisan issue. This is bad for America, whether you are a liberal Democrat, a conservative Republican, or something in between, such as an independent liberaltarian. For more information, visit Patrick J. Fitzgerald's Special Counsel Web site. Cheney Adviser Libby Resigns After IndictmentThe Associated Press is already reporting before the 2:15 p.m. press conference that Vice presidential adviser I. Lewis "Scooter' Libby Jr. will resign today after being charged with obstruction of justice, perjury and making a false statement in the CIA leak investigation in a politically charged case that could throw a spotlight on President Bush's push to war in Iraq.
Full AP story October 21, 2005Dirt on the Plame Investigation About to Fly?Red meat is coming soon on the CIA Plame Leak case, according to Alternet.Org. Among the revelations from two senior members of senate and key staffers; counsel for individuals that have been called before the grand jury; and two journalists taking a lead position in investigating the case. The investigation has focused mostly closely on Vice President Cheney and his staff, as well as the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, John Bolton. Eight indictments have already been prepared, with the possibility of another 10, including senior White House staff, most notably Cheney's chief of staff Scooter Libby, Fred Flights (special assistant to Bolton), and national security adviser Steve Hadley. Apparently, Libby and Hadley have both been told by their lawyers to expect indictments. Also, the indictment of senior bush political advisor Karl Rove seems highly probable. Colin Powell told John McCain he showed the infamous memo with Plame's identity on it to just two people - Dick Cheney and George Bush. NYT Editor Says He Missed Miller 'Alarm Bells'The New York Times' Judith Miller belatedly gave prosecutors her notes of a key meeting in the CIA leak probe only after being shown White House records of it, and her boss declared Friday she appeared to have misled the newspaper about her role, according to the Associated Press.
Full story | E-mail text FAIR Media Advisory on the Judith Miller CaseMiller's Tale: Can the reporter-or the New York Times-be trusted? The New York Times editorial page told readers over and over again that Times reporter Judith Miller went to jail for 85 days for a noble cause-the protection of confidential sources. But to many outside observers, the principles that Miller went to jail for were far from clear, with many fundamental questions left unanswered, according to this media advisory from the non-profit press watchdog group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting.
Full story October 18, 2005When Journalists Join U.S. Cover-UpsAs embarrassing as the Judith Miller case is for the New York Times, the fiasco underscores a more troubling development that strikes near the heart of American democracy - the press corps’ gradual retreat from the principle of skepticism on national security issues to career-boosting “patriotism,” according to Robert Parry at ConsortiumNews.Com. Miller - and many other prominent Washington journalists over the past quarter century - largely built their careers by positioning themselves as defenders of supposed American interests. Instead of tough reporting about national security operations, these reporters often became conduits for government spin and propaganda, he says. October 16, 2005Truth is the First Casualty of War
Americans can't handle the truth. That is clearly a fact these days, and this does not just apply to the "ignorant masses." Our so-called leaders won't admit the truth until it lands them in jail. This includes President George W. Bush and his aide Karl Rove, and it includes Vice President Dick Cheney and his aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby. Watch for indictments in the next few days. The mainstream media and the press in this country can't handle the truth - because it would put them out of business. As Sen. Hiram W. Johnson from California reportedly said in the run-up to World War I in 1918, "The first casualty when war comes is truth." Much earlier in our history, Samuel Johnson seems to have had the first word on the subject. He reportedly said in The Idler magazine in 1758: "Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages." In case you don't know what credulity means, it is defined as "a disposition to believe too readily." It is now clear, despite all the double-speak going on in New York and Washington, that New York Times correspondent Judith Miller too readily believed what she was hearing from Bush administration connected sources in 2003 on Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction programs in Iraq. Ms. Miller got out of jail a few days ago for ostensibly protecting a source. She finally published part of her account in Sunday's New York Times. The Times also published a story about the case written by other supposedly independent reporters at the paper. (See the previous post for links). In the wake of the story, Editor and Publisher magazine is calling for an apology from editor Bill Keller and for Miller to be fired. Keller Should Fire Miller, Apologize to Readers But that won't happen, because Ms. Miller is a friend and confidant of publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. As the official Times version of the story reported, when Ms. Miller was released from jail On Sept. 29, she was "whisked by Mr. Sulzberger and Mr. Keller to the Ritz-Carlton Georgetown for a massage, a manicure, a martini and a steak dinner." I met Sulzberger once and, through a number of staff correspondents, he bought me many a steak dinner, including several while I helped the paper cover the trial of deposed HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy. When I met him, Sulzberger was sitting in the lobby of the Ritz-Carlton on Canal Street in New Orleans with a young woman who was not his wife. He made a talk at a conference in place of then-executive editor Howell Raines, who had canceled his appearance to stay in New York and direct the coverage during the first week of the Iraq war. Raines had hired me to work for the Times as a free-lance reporter to help the Atlanta bureau cover the South after he let bureau chief Kevin Sack go to the Los Angeles Times, where he went on to win a Pulitzer Prize. What burns me up after reading all this coverage of the Miller case is the discrepancy in how she and her story have been treated compared to how the Alabama contingent for the Times was treated. Is there something about being from New York and going to Harvard that makes someone a better journalist? Obviously that is not true, considering all of the reports about the problems with Ms. Miller's reporting. She even called herself "Ms. Run Amok." But she is now a celebrity journalist who will no doubt get a book deal to write about her time in jail, ala Martha Stewert, while many better reporters who were not friends of Mr. Sulzberger languish in obscurity – and American democracy is sacrificed for a de facto monarchy. I almost called this column "If I could turn back the hands of time," after the line in the song. Something has been eating at me since business editor Larry Ingrassia got his hands on an e-mail I wrote complaining about how the Bush Justice Department was treating the New York Times during the Scrushy trial. The Times was the only news organization in the country that did not have press credentials to cover the trial, thanks to a decision by staff correspondent Reed Abelson not to apply for credentials in advance. She made that decision based on a conversation with Justice Department public affairs officer Edward Adams, who convinced her that the credential could be pulled if it was not used every day. I found that decision ludicrous, so I fought it with Adams and court clerk Sharon Harris, since it would fall to me to cover the trial on a day-to-day basis. Abelson and other correspondents would fly in for a toe-touch dateline now and then and crank out a feature from their hotel rooms - based largely on my reporting. Here's the rub. I was not backed up by any of the five editors I worked with on the case or the New York Times legal counsel. But Judith Miller, who is now vilified for sucking up to the Bush administration and contributing to the false information that led to the war in Iraq, is treated like a hero. The paper's management backed up Ms. Miller through this entire scandal, which seems to suggest that kissing up to the Bush administration is A-OK. They did not back me up while standing up to the Bush Justice Department, which seems to suggest a pattern. It just goes to show you that American journalism no longer values seeking the truth and standing up to the powerful. It is all about the money and the celebrity - and to hell with the rest of us little people who still do our best to believe in American values and stand up for the ideals of democracy. And that pisses me off. If it pisses you off, support independent press outlets like this one and show the bastards in New York that they are not the only people on the planet who have what it takes to practice this thing called journalism. Weekly Column: Truth is the First Casualty of WarNever fear. A massive Sunday column is in the works. But it is too nice a day to spend all afternoon in the bunker working on it. So it may be late tonight or even Monday before it is finished and posted. You might want to do a bit of background reading to fully understand the subject. Here are a few relevant stories. The Miller Case: A Cause and a Deal? Miller: My Four Hours Testifying Miller Recounts Testimony Over CIA Leak CIA Leak Prosecutor Asked About Cheney's Role October 15, 2005Bush Feared 'Looking Weak' on Iraq?Less than two months before invading Iraq, George W. Bush fretted that his war plans could be disrupted if United Nations weapons inspectors succeeded in gaining Saddam Hussein's full cooperation, possibly leaving Bush "looking weak," according to notes written by a secretary to British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Taken by Blair’s personal secretary Matthew Rycroft, the notes were included in a new edition of Lawless World, a book by University College professor Philippe Sands, according to investigative reporter Robert Parry of ConsortiumNews.Com. At the time, Blair wanted Bush to seek a second resolution from the U.N. Security Council that would have judged Iraq to be in violation of U.N. disarmament demands and would have authorized military action. According to the notes, Bush agreed that “it made sense to try for a second resolution, which he would love to have.” But Bush’s deeper worry was that chief U.N. arms inspector Hans Blix would conclude that Hussein’s government was cooperating in the search for weapons of mass destruction, thus delaying or blocking U.S.-led military action. October 13, 2005The Judith Miller Story: Not Ready YetN.Y. Times Staffers Voice Dismay at Newspaper's Coverage The anguish among New York Times staffers over the paper's handling of the Judith Miller saga has mounted in recent days, much to the consternation of its top executives, according to Washington Post media critic gadfly Howard Kurtz in his column today. Well get ready for more consternation, Times people. If I do not hear back from business editor Larry Ingrassia by Friday on my request for a hearing on his slander against me in the Times intranet concerning my work helping the Times cover the trial of deposed but acquitted HealthSouth founder Richard Scrushy, I am going to tell the whole story and e-mail it to every media critic and blogger in the country. I hate to do it, but if the mainstream media is going to behave corruptly, they have to be held to account in a democracy just as we hold government to account. WMD Found in Times Newsroom?From the Village Voice Bush Beat
What did she know and when did she know it? October 10, 2005Karl Rove and the Case of the Missing E-mailThe White House's handling of a potentially crucial e-mail sent by senior aide Karl Rove two years ago set off a chain of events that has led special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald to summon Rove for a fourth grand jury appearance this week. His return has created heightened concern among White House officials and their allies that Fitzgerald may be preparing to bring indictments when a federal grand jury that has been investigating the leak of a CIA agent's identity expires at the end of October. Lawyers close to the case, who asked not to be identified because it's ongoing, say Fitzgerald appears to be focusing in part on discrepancies in testimony between Rove and Time reporter Matt Cooper about their conversation of July 11, 2003. |
by Glynn Wilson