Sunday, September 28, 2003

Schumer On Plame Schumer's FBI Request for Investigation of Plame Leak. Back in July, Sen. Charles Schumer (D-NY) called upon FBI Director Mueller to investigate the source of the leak of... [TalkLeft: The Politics of Crime] "This is one of the most reckless and nasty things I’ve seen in all my years of government," Schumer said. "Leaking the name of a CIA agent is tantamount to putting a gun to that agent’s head. It compromises her safety and the safety of her loved ones, not to mention those in her network and other operatives she may have dealt with. On top of that, the officials who have done it may have also seriously jeopardized the national security of this nation." (full text here.) Everything's beginning to hit the fan - Clark all but called for an independent counsel, Dean got pretty firey as well...

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Plame The Tip Of The Iceberg? Betrayed. BETRAYED....Dan Drezner says well something that I haven't quite found the exact words to express. Exposing Valerie Plame was dumb, he says, a serious crime for what seems like a trivial benefit. But:If it is nevertheless true, however -- an... [CalPundit] Drezner (a Republican and supporter of the Bush/Cheney campaign in '00, btw) makes this point: if the Administration is willing to break the law for something as pointless as outing Valerie Plame, what would (have?) they been willing to do for things that might actually matter? I hadn't thought about it from that perspective - we have to look at this White House not just as a pack of lying dogs but as a pack of lying cheating Nixonian dogs. Dirty tricks, we know they've used those. But this could be their Watergate - in the sense that it reveals how damned illegal the Bush White House's default behavior is.

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On Plame And Blame This whole Plame thing...I've got nothing to say that someone else hasn't already said more eloquently, but I'm angry. Really, really angry. To be honest, what's pissing me off the most is that Bush hasn't turned on the bastards that burned Valerie Plame already. I mean, why the hell is he letting these obvious felons continue to advise him? Even if you assume the worst, that he ordered or suggested the leak, you'd think he'd send someone off the plank by now. Why the hell is he protecting them? One of them, at least, has got to be really, really close to Bush - someone Bush feels he must protect. That means Rove, Cheney, or Card - I don't see anyone else in the administration who Bush would cover for this long. As Marshall and others have pointed out, the DC media already knows who the leak came from - the "senior administration official" who dished to the Post wouldn't say who the officials were ON THE RECORD. Which means he/she DID say who they were. Toss in the fact that these criminals approached 6 different DC journalists with the story...their identities are out in the DC media world. It's only a matter of time before they leak out to us. If it IS Cheney or Rove...damn. Things fall apart.

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Quicksilver - Done I finished Quicksilver last night - it came together pretty nicely. We still don't know if Stephenson hsa learned how to end a story - since Quicksilver is only the end of the first third of the Baroque Cycle story. It's a history lesson, an adventure story, and all kinds of random other things. If you have any interest, I'd strongly suggest you get your hands on it ASAP and get ready for some serious reading.

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More On The Plame Affair One More Thing. ONE MORE THING....I just have to add something to the post below. Now that this story has been confirmed, it really makes you face up to the true contemptibility of the whole affair. Think about it: two top White House... [CalPundit] CalPundit nails how incredibly offensive this whole thing is, and there's some great talk in the comments thread.
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Bush White House Officials Blatantly Broke The Law Okay, no question:... (September 27th, 2003 -- 10:43 PM EDT). Okay, no question: the Washington Post has the story about the Wilson/Plame scandal. This story, frankly, blows the whole thing wide open. The Post got... [Talking Points Memo] If you hadn't already followed this story, I'd suggest jumping in now. This isn't about Niger any more. This isn't about Iraq any more. This isn't about Wilson any more. This isn't even about Bush any more. This is about two people in the Bush administration calling journalists and disclosing the classified identity of an undercover CIA agent. That's blatantly illegal. Whoever did this needs to be found out, arrested, and jailed.

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