Is the narrow to broad transition Dean is hinting at the switch from outing a spy to using a forgery to start a war?

Also, in the affidavit that Fitz just posted, he has indicated that his narrow focus on perjury – while putatively necessary because there is â€sand in his eyes†– may be intended to steer clear of having to deal extensively in classified information.

Check this out…

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/…..idavit.pdf

(Because it is far easier for the parties and the court to deal with declassified materials than to deal with classified information,we will be seeking a classification review wherever appropriate,though those reviews can be cumbersome.) Because the indictment in this case charges obstructionoffenses rather than substantive national security crimes,it is hoped that the case can be tried with a minimum ofissues concerning classified information needing to be resolved,and thus that the trial may be conducted in as public a manner as possible.

Arthur

I’m not sure it’s reporting it’s own story. It seems like a repeat of some other stories out there, rather than original reporting.

I think Hadley is a very likely X in this case. But no one has yet convinced me.

Woodward’s opinion that this was â€gossip†might have been an interesting perspective. But it wasn’t just an opinion, it was a cause celebre. On Larry King Live, he was acting like a litigator, interrupting others on the panel to make his points. He wasn’t just speculating, he was arguing a case.

At the time, it struck me as odd. I’d like to think he had just done a stupid thing, or maybe an arrogant thing, but he sure sounded that night like he was part of the club with full ’talking point’ privledges – a ’made’ wise guy…

kant wrote:

â€Also, in the affidavit that Fitz just posted, he has indicated that his narrow focus on perjury – while putatively necessary because there is â€sand in his eyes†– may be intended to steer clear of having to deal extensively in classified information.â€

That can be read in at least two ways. In one reading, the last clause refers to Fitz’s general approach to the entire case. In another, it refers only to his tactical construction and pursuit of Libby’s indictment and to its strategic role in his broader case.

This is very fascinating however, like Dean I can’t help but wonder why Fitzgerald has not â€made any effort whatsoever to undertake any civil remedies dealing with this either intentional or grossly careless destruction of a government asset. As acting Attorney General for this matter, you have even more authority than did Special Counsels Roberts and Pomerene.â€

Indeed, if statements Dean made, regarding Fitzgerald’s broad powers are true, I’d be much obliged if the special prosecutor would begin â€enforcing those contracts†in order to protect American democracy from the bullies and traitors in the Bush Administrations â€who have released national security information?†It’s not that I don’t admire Fitzgerald — I’d just feel a whole lot safer if he’d at least â€go to court and get an injunction to remove their security clearances.†Until Bush can be impeached, that’s about all this patriotic American can hope for.

Emptywheel,

Thank you for your continued insight and almost absurd devotion to detail in untangling L’affaire Plame. I confess that occasionally I get lost in the various subplots and intrigues, but it’s always interesting.

This article, though, is beautiful. While it’s certainly speculation, it’s such beautifully plausible speculation — I so want it to be absolutely true in every respect! Woodward is almost certainly irretrievably lost to the forces of the Republican kleptocracy, but if anything could bring him back it would be this appeal to his pride and reputation.

Thanks again.

Thad Beier

Dean has an interesting perspective, though EW has a salubrious approach to the ambivalences in the syntaxes of his twice a month columns online. In the timeframe when EW was about to drive three days through aspens autumnal a Dean column coached Fitzgerald to shut down the entire investigation and not write a report, citing statutory smokescreens behind which such a truncation would be legitimate. Sometimes the tenor of the Dean material, though precision executive branch legal strategy, seems based on a time tested confidence the 18.5 minutes were erased, even though Dean has mused distractedly recently they might be ’out there’. Since that is history, at least as we know it now, we continue to the current time. The peculiar open letter to Fitzgerald seemed to do several things Dean has done in his writings on this case throughout, one of which seems to me to be a misdirection strategy, as if to supply diversionary cover to the administration, an instinct Dean honed and which persists; he is a complicated person. So I see him coaching both sides, partly based on teleologic intent as when he helped open up the Watergate investigation, yet somewhat couching terms to support the accused. I find his civil sanctions suggestion a perhaps imprudent skirmish in which if Fitzgerald were to become entwined much of the investigation’s other activities could be seized like a useless engine and hindered amid the political buzz. As one writer above mentioned, and Fitzgerald himself, I believe, proffered at the time of the October 28 closeout of the then Grand Jury, the next phase of the investigation indeed was largely to look at a lot of the material [EW had developed quite forcefully at this site] surrounding the ephemeral journalism in which Judy Miller engaged, and the underlying falsified documents for some of that reporting. Much of this is at other websites and has transitioned into statements in congress as well recently. Some European events recently have helped explain some of the false document authorship though incompletely to my review. Lastly was the Woodward revelation, which actually seems dated only a week before the Libby-to-Miller ’outing’, and even EW had parsed some Miller narrative about the June 23 date as perhaps something subsequent to the first discussion on the topic. An interesting babble of denials has echoed the Woodward comment as frantic attorneys rework their timeline chronology.

I’d be surprised if Rove were privy to any conversation between Woodward and Armitage – and then used this with Fitzgerald in his defense (unless Woodward approached Rove with new info about Plame).

It seems more likely to me that Rove would know about goings-on at the WH however, but even then how would he know details of Woodward’s conversation there?

Maybe there really was a Grand Plame-outing Conspiracy?

Lastly, any denial from Matalin about conversations with Woodward?

Lastly, any denial from Matalin about conversations with Woodward?

Kim – could you elaborate on this? I haven’t seen anything new on Matalin for a while. How is she connected to the Woodward debacle?

I really don’t have much in the way of elaboration, beyond the usual facts about Woodward and Matalin, just my initial reaction to the Plame story – which was that I could more easily see a woman, rather than a man, going after Plame in this way. Attacking Wilson’s wife because of his op-ed really is taking things beyond the pale.