One-by-Two-by-Timing
I mentioned the other day the story Armitage's colleagues told Corn and Isikoff raises interesting questions for the 1X2X6 story; I'd like to explain why. First, let's review the timing:
September 26: DOJ launches an investigation into the Plame leak
September 28: Priest and Allen publish the 1X2X6 article
September 29: Novak and Rove speak about the leak--Novak assures Rove he will protect him
September 29 (evening):
The Armitage Bombshell that Isikoff Didn't Mention
Gotta go have a good old old fashioned floor fight at my state convention (Go Amos Williams!!), so will have to post more later. But here are the most important passages in Isikoff's new article:
Armitage acknowledged that he had passed along to Novak informationcontained in a classified State Department memo: that Wilson's wifeworked on weapons-of-mass-destruction issues at the CIA.
Who Decides If We Go to War?
In my post on Fred Fleitz' Iran propaganda the other day, merciless asked how we can stop the Iran War. Which got me thinking of a different question--who decides if we go to war? There are a couple of factors playing into this that I think we'd all do well to suss out--because if we're going to prevent this, we need to start working.
Chief among the factors is one I've been
Jim Marcinkowski on the Latest Iran Propaganda
Many of you will recognize the name of Jim Marcinkowski. He's Valerie Plame's classmate from the CIA--the guy who reported she was the best shot in their class with an AK-47. Well, he's running against Mike Rogers in MI-8. Rogers is the head of the House Intell Subcommittee that produced the Iran propaganda we've all been talking about--the one John Bolton's buddy Fred Fleitz fluffed together?
Well, as you can imagine, Jim
Search and Replace: Q, N
Summary: In this post I look at the report released by the House Intelligence Committee. It serves two purposes, in my opinion: To present the first "case" against Iran, under the guise of calling for better intelligence on Iran. And to suggest that, since we don't have good intelligence on Iran, we can't negotiate with them, because we'd have no way of verifying any agreement.
I've been pondering two questions of late.
Why Didn't Judy Flog the Purported Iraq-Al Qaeda Connection?
President Bush's claim the other day that no one ever claimed a connection between Iraq and 9/11 got me thinking. Judy Miller reported extensively on Al Qaeda before 9/11--both the previous World Trade Center bombing and on terrorist financing. We know she tried to report on imminent threats from Al Qaeda in summer 2001.
The Armitage "News"
Just a few words about the story that some are pointing to as a big deal. Armitage, whom we've been arguing was Woodward's source since March, is probably the Woodward source. And in other exciting news, my corn just grew 1/4 inch last night. (Actually, it is exciting, I picked the first cob last night, and it was stunningly beautiful.
Chronological Jujitsu with the Bioweapons White Paper
Back in April, I speculated that Judy Miller had been leaked the CIA/DIA White Paper on the purported mobile bioweapons labs (MBL) to pre-empt the report of an expert team, the "Jefferson Team," sent to Iraq to investigate the trailers. Via Steve Aftergood and this report on the trailers (which I will follow-up with shortly and which lukery is busy working on as well), I found the White Paper itself.
Predictable Failure Update
Justin Rood points to this Observer article which supports two of my past speculations.
emptywheel, 8/18
But I suspect he may be misreading theadministration's dominant impulse with regards to information. Roodargues that because the administration hates leaks, the leak musteither have been sanctioned or just something the administrationmissed.
Most likely, the leak was sanctioned.
I Wonder How Dick Annotated THIS Hersh Article?
We know that Dick reads--and probably annotates--Sy Hersh's articles. No lesser source than Patrick Fitzgerald suggested as much in his filing describing which newspaper articles he'll submit as evidence during Libby's trial. You remember--the filing where he showed us Dick's annotated copy of Wilson's op-ed? Well, in the same filing, he revealed that a copy of Sy Hersh's famous Stovepipe article circulated around OVP, and Libby and "others" had annotated the
Yoo Misleads You
The most breathtaking moment in John Yoo's op-ed today in the LAT comes when he seamlessly moves from claiming British "advantages" over our civil liberties protections don't go far enough to throwing out probable cause as equally old fashioned.
But increasing detention time or making warrants easier to come by merely extends an old-fashioned approach to catching terrorists.
Secrecy or Spin?
Justin Rood points out an interesting leak--the tidbit that some of the people arrested in last week's alleged terrorist plot made phone calls to the United States.
That's why my antennae started buzzing when I read this paragraph from an Aug. 12 AP story about U.S. government efforts to trace possible domestic links to the recently-foiled London terror plot:
Two.
A Guide to Domestic Surveillance
Jane Harman is confused. In her statement responding to yesterday's court decision, she said (looking for a link, not up on her site yet):
Today, a federal court in Detroitstruck down as unconstitutional the President's NSA Program. Thedecision is significant in that it represents the first judicialdetermination that the President's program violates the law and theConstitution.
The terrorists who are plotting against us would like nothing more thanto see us erode our
Republican Foreign Policy: Make a Profit on Destruction, Make a Profit on Reconstruction
I can't remember where I asked it, but several weeks ago I asked who was going to pay for Lebanon's reconstruction. Some in the thread mused that we, the American taxpayers, would pay for it. Well, wouldn't you know:
The Bush administration is scrambling to assemble a plan to helprebuild Lebanon, hoping that by competing with Hezbollah for thepublic's favor it can undo the damage the war has inflicted on itsimage and
Judy and Johnny
It seems Arianna hasn't disbanded her impressive network of Judy Miller sources. She reports:
At 7:30 this morning, John Bolton was having breakfast at Oscar's at the Waldorf with Judy Miller.
Arianna wonders whether Bolton's nomination battle to be reappointed came up. But I'm not convinced. After all, we have good reason to believe that John Bolton is the only Neocon who has availed himself of Judy's particular talent for WMD porn since
First Wilkes and Now Mrs. Cunningham
Last week we were treated to Brent Wilkes' attempt to exonerate himself publicly and/or threaten his co-conspirators, Lowery and Lewis. This week, we're treated to Mrs. Randall "Duke" Cunningham's story (sub. required), who is apparently a person of interest in the investigation. As Mrs. Cunningham's lawyer explains, she's trying to convince us that she didn't know about Duke's multi-million dollar bribery racket.
"My client faces an uphill battle as faras people believing
The Question They Didn't Ask and Bush's New Plan C
You don't need me to tell you things are not going well in Iraq. The NYT surveys the state of affairs this morning, and the news is not good.
The number of roadside bombs planted in Iraqrose in July to the highest monthly total of the war, offering moreevidence that the anti-American insurgency has continued to strengthendespite the killing of the terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
How Was Rashid Rauf Arrested?
Atrios links to Andrew Sullivan being skeptical who links to Craig Murray being even more skeptical. And Murray raised a point that I had raised earlier. Here's Murray:
What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance forover a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not justMuslims.
Allen's Mob and Their Caca
By now, you've no doubt read about or seen the video of George Allen drudging up the racism his mother taught him to insult an Indian-American student trailing his campaign for the Webb campaign. Allen is now on his second or third excuse right now, trying to claim he was talking caca all the time.
Allen's a racist, and we need to use Allen's antics to make that clear to people.
But I'd
The Shrillification of the Moderates
I'm fascinated by the outpouring of moderates' conversion narratives, from balanced and temperate to, um, shrill. JMM started it:
As Americans I think we need to grapple with what's happened. And it goes beyond President Bush. He did after all win reelection.He marginally expanded his congressional majorities. In the rough andtumble of the political moment, the fight needs to be taken to thepresident and his party.