The Armitage "News"

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Mcc_husking_cornJust 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. Really beautiful! McCaffrey the MilleniaLabrador promptly stole it out of my hand and started husking it, so I had to bribe him to get it back with the cob mr. emptywheel ate at dinner. McCaffrey promptly went into the other room and ate the whole butter-slathered cob.)

No, seriously, about the only thing new in the story is that it allows us to pinpoint the date of the Woodward conversation, to June 13. So the day after Walter Pincus published an article saying this:

Chronological Jujitsu with the Bioweapons White Paper

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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. Based on the White Paper and a review of the evidence, I’m going to fine tune my theory.

Here’s the theory–this is speculative, but I wouldn’t even call it "outtamyarse" at this point, based on the evidence.

  • For some reason (because they knew the trailers were crap?) they sat on the story of them for up to 2 weeks (mid to late April to May 11–it took them 4 days to review the trailer)
  • They created the White Paper and briefed the White House on it–and leaked it to Judy–to pre-empt the Jefferson Team
  • They re-issued the White Paper, now dated after the Jefferson Team report, to justify ongoing administration use of the claim

One thing appears to be clear, though. The SAO quoted in Judy’s "balanced" June article claims the objections raised about the trailers were considered and dismissed. They may have been. But they weren’t considered in the analysis of the White Paper. In other words, the SAO dismissing objections about the MBL claims may have lied about having considered those objections. Go figure.

An Issue of Fairness

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mamayaga makes a superb point, in response to Byron Calame’s explanation that withholding the NSA domestic spying story was an issue of fairness:

[C]andidatesaffected by a negative article deserve to have time — several days to aweek — to get their response disseminated before voters head to thepolls.

To which mamayaga asks:

By the same logic, shouldn’t the major news media have held the storyof bin Laden’s conveeeenient new videotape until a few days after theelection? Or did they only want to be "fair" to one candidate?

Well, Calame doesn’t really speak for all the major news media. But let’s see how the NYT treated the OBL video:

The Gray Lady's Gray Area

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Byron Calame pretends to come clean today, forcing the NYT to admit that it knew about the NSA domestic spying story before the 2004 elections. Come clean, you say? Then he must have revealed precisely when Risen first had the story, right?

Not really.

Calame comes closest to revealing precisely when the NYT had the NSA story when he says,

Holding a fresh draft of the story just days before the electionalso was an issue of fairness, Mr. Keller said. I agree that candidatesaffected by a negative article deserve to have time — several days to aweek — to get their response disseminated before voters head to thepolls. [my emphasis]

So we’re to assume, I guess, that the decision to hold the story was made closer than "several days" or "a week" to the election, but before the election, just days before.

Marty Marty Marty

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I’m going to take a guess and say that Marty Peretz has been designated as the guy who will give Joementum cover for joining the Republican party, in fact if not in name. I say that for two reasons. First, there’s this little bit of nuttiness:

Worse can besaid of Bill Clinton’s stumping in Connecticut for Joe (and Hillary’sendorsement, too.) When Clinton came into the state, Lieberman andLamont were running dead even in the polls, more or less. Clinton’sappearance began Lieberman’s decline. Within two or three days,Lieberman was down by ten points. (In the last few days of thecampaign, Lieberman recovered considerably … but not enough.)

Obviously, Marty is wrong on the facts. Clinton’s campaigning came after Joementum saw he was losing big. Clinton came in. Joementum made up lost ground.

So what’s the reason for Marty’s delusions? Well, it probably has to do with the fact that Clinton said he will support the winner of the primary (and Hillary has already sent off a big check to that effect). The guy who helped Joementum keep this close is about to endorse his opponent. So Marty does Joementum’s backstabbing for him, diminishing the value of a Clinton endorsement just before he endorses Joementum’s opponent. Hey Bill?!?! After Joementum’s shiv during Monicagate, did you really expect any better behavior this time?

Judy's Call Data Versus My Call Data

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There’s an irony to yesterday’s 2nd Circuit Court decision that the NYT must turn over Judy Miller’s and Phillip Shenon’s phone records to DOJ. Since the District Court decision that the NYT didn’t have to turn over phone data, we’ve learned that the government is already getting our phone data–all of ours, journalist or not–in the name of fighting terrorism. Not that that should affect existing First Amendment privilege, but keeping in mind that AT&T is already handing over your phone records, consider what the Circuit Court decision describes as Judy’s and Shenon’s actions.

The opinion starts the chronology with an October 1, 2001 Judy Miller and KurtEichenwald article that discusses government efforts to shut down a bunch ofcharities tied to Al Qaeda.

Widening the financial assault on Osama bin Laden, administrationofficials are preparing to freeze the assets of about two dozen morecharities and other organizations that are suspected of providing moneyand support to his terrorist operations, government officials saidyesterday.

Judy as the Subject of Spying

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Novak Loses the Narrative (Again)

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Novak_2 Plame3As I’ve said before, the pro-Cheney forces are really hamstrung because they have to rely on Novak as the public face of their fight with Wilson. You’ve got a man whose charisma derives from his dark creepiness fighting for press attention against a classic American blonde beauty. (I keep seeing visions of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, but at least Quasimodo was a sympathetic character.)

Add to that, Novak is really having a tough time sticking to his script.

Novak appeared on MTP today and gave yet another version of the story he’s peddled his his own column and with Brit Hume. So here’s my take on Novak’s ever-changing story.