Today has been one of the noisiest I can recall.
1) The Director of the CIA, George Tenet, resigned. Reading between the lines, one wonders if he was fired. The fact that Bush chose to announce this as he was flying over on his rah-rah tour of Europe also makes one wonder if Tenet's removal helps make Bush's goodwill and "HELP!" message more viable -- that he (Bush) is cleaning house and getting rid of those who conjured up the bad intelligence against IRaq.
2 ) Bush has sought legal advice from Jim Sharp in regards to the leaking of the CIA agent, Valerie Plame. Bush's comment on this was as follows: "This is a criminal matter. It's a serious matter. I met with an attorney to determine whether or not I need his advice, and if I deem I need his advice I'll probably hire him."
Eschaton explained in a nutshell what this meeting implies. In a post today called Misprision, Atrios writes:
With Bush consulting with a lawyer it's a good time to consider what possible legal difficulties he could be confronted with. Now, obviously if as Capitol Hill Blue claims (they aren't a trustworthy source, BTW), one of the grand jury witnesses has claimed Bush had prior knowledge of the leak then he would be in seriously deep doodoo.
But, let's assume for now that isn't the case (or, at least that there isn't actually such a witness). If after the fact he knew who did it, then he would be likely be guilty of being an accessory after the fact for actively covering it up, depending on how his public statements, etc... diverge from the facts.
And, even if not guilty of being an accessory, he could still face charges of "misprision of a felony" - of knowing about it and not coming forward.
So, the point is -- if at any time, before or after, the president knew the identity of the leakers then, to quote Michael Kinsley, "Ha. Ha. Ha."
LiberalOasis seems to have a more pessimistic take on this-- writing that this tactical/legal move allows Bush to hide behind the client/attorney privilege blanket. On a note of digression, LO believes that this latest development should be used to attack Bush's integrity. Consider these paragraphs from today's post:
...[H]ow should this latest Plame development fit in?
LO is not hopeful it will fit in much at all, even though this scandal has the potential to be the fatal blow to Bush.
The Dems have laid relatively low so far, probably thinking (short-sightedly) that if the investigation touches Bush or any other White House official, it will do its own damage with or without Dem help.
There's no reason to think that will change now, not with so many other things to talk about, and not until more concrete info surfaces.
But George "Tort Reform" Bush's decision to duck behind a lawyer instead of simply coming clean with whatever he knows could be used to tie up all of the percolating scandals.
And in doing so, attack Bush at his foundation, his perceived integrity.
In essence, Dubya's legal move is the capper of the Administration's continual avoidance of responsibility and accountability.
That is the thread that runs through all of the current flaps.
No acceptance of responsibility for propping up Chalabi, for shoddy war planning, for favoring Halliburton, for egregious detainee policy.
I too find the timing of this revelation quite interesting--just as Bush goes to Europe. Could it be that he feels he will be able to stay away from the American press until this story dies down or is replaced by another tragedy?
No matter the timing, PlameGate lives. It will be very interesting to see what transpires in the next few days. The cynic in me wonders if anything will come of this before November. I fear that the more time that passes, the less relevance the findings have on the issues that face us today and in November.
3) The FBI is investigating intellgence links to Iran via the neocons favorite Iraqi exile Ahmad Chalabi. Consider the text of this AP report written by Katherine Pfleger Shrader:
Chalabi, a longtime favorite of some in the Pentagon, is at the center of a controversy over whether he then shared with Iranian officials the closely guarded information about methods used by the United States to spy on the Iranian regime.
Government officials said there is evidence that Chalabi or his followers told Iran the United States had cracked some of its codes for transmitting sensitive information.
The officials said the FBI is investigating whether anyone in the U.S. government may have provided Chalabi the information, a potential criminal offense that may have hurt American efforts to monitor Tehran's activities.
The New York Times offered this tidbit of irony. Chalabi was reported to have said that Tenet mislead Bush into going to war:
Chalabi also accused Tenet of providing ``erroneous information about weapons of mass destruction to President Bush, which caused the government much embarrassment at the United Nations and his own country.''
To wrap up the happenings of this day, you could say it all comes down to intelligence-- Bush fired the director of intelligence, is running away from an ever tightening investigation on the matter of who leaked the name of an intelligence agent, and is trying to distance himself from the Iraqi exile who not only fed us bad intelligence about Saddam's Iraq but also fed Iran our intelligence.
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