Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson's Statement in Response to I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby's Announcement That He Is Dropping His Appeal

If this president does it, it's not against the law. Attempts to justify the outing of Valerie Plame still ring pathetic.

"By dropping his appeal, Mr. Libby has finally abandoned the pretense that his conviction was a miscarriage of justice. Mr. Libby's decision suggests, however, that he may have received word that President Bush plans to pardon him shortly. Of course, a pardon is completely at odds with the president's earlier claim that he would not tolerate anyone on his team leaking a covert CIA officer's identity, but this is the kind of inconsistency representative of this administration."

Given the White House's extensive and continuing efforts to cover up how and why Valerie Wilson's identity was leaked to the press, the only way that remains to get at the truth in this sordid matter is through our civil suit against Libby, Vice President Cheney, Karl Rove, and Richard Armitage."

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Top Admiral Who Said Attacking Iran 'Will Not Happen on my Watch,' Splits with Bush on Occupying Iraq

As the current policy desires of the American people bear no weight with George W. Bush, the hope of millions of Americans is the spectacular emergence of an unimpeachable administration insider blowing the lid off the Bush scam in Iraq so convincingly that another war with Iran is halted and Democrats in congress are infused with a spinal column on the existing war with Iraq—the human embodiment of the Pentagon Papers, Daniel Ellsberg, Joe Wilson and the retired Generals who have blasted the administration all rolled into one.

This hope is naïve of-course; no one is unimpeachable to the amoral Bush administration, and the career inducements for going along with Bush’s insane ploys prove irresistible for war planners and for those who simply know better.

But human decisions matter, no matter the anti-democratic ethos of the Bush administration and indeed the entire Republican Party.

The Washington Post fronts a report this morning chronicling a split in the administration involving Adm. William J. Fallon, chief of the U.S. Central Command overseeing Middle East operations, and the administration’s newest frontman, Gen. David H. Petraeus, whose White House-authored report delivered to Congress can be expected to be, if not laughed out of Washington, met with great skepticism and ridicule, though this incredulity won’t lead to much congressional action to halt the policy so disbelieved.

The page one, 3,639-word Post piece quotes on very deep background one administration official’s description of the schism between General Petraeus and Adm. Fallon as follows:

"Bad relations?" said a senior civilian official with a laugh. "That's the understatement of the century. . . . If you think Armageddon was a riot, that's one way of looking at it."

As the administration attempts another bald-faced, lying PR campaign to continue the Iraq occupation and apparently plans for a military engagement with Iran, it’s worth noting Adm. Fallon’s reported words this February on striking the politically and militarily powerful Iran: An attack on Iran "will not happen on my watch".

Could Fallon be the ultimate insider that millions of Americans wish for who would blow the lid off the administration’s lies?

Maybe Colin Powell will discover that moral courage over career is the honorable course.

One can hope.

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Karl Rove Lies as He Prepares to Leave

Karl Rove leaked and participated in an ugly scheme to leak the identity of Valerie Plame, an (undercover) non-official cover CIA operative working on halting weapons of mass destruction proliferation.

The leaking occurred after Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, exposed in a New York Times op-ed column one of the Bush administration's lies used to sell the invasion of Iraq.

Wilson's op-ed drew the attention of the highest officials in the U.S. government (Bush, Cheney, Rove and Libby), where orders for the subsequent leak of Wilson's wife were found to have originated.

Rove hit the Sunday talk shows to deny all this, getting in some last-ditch lies before he leaves at the end of August.

Two things about Rove's blowing the cover of this CIA operative are striking.

If a democratic administration had done this (a President Clinton, Edwards, or Obama), we would hear non-stop howls of treason and "unprecedented" betrayal, widespread impeachment calls, banner Country in Crisis coverage on the news networks and Bob Dole talking about how all of what he fought for was being betrayed by the administration.

Does this reaction describe coverage of Rove and Co. as Rove leaves government?

Even today, rightwing pundits look to excuse the leak, as Lewis Libby, Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and George W. Bush have their crimes and lies almost completely covered up with the tremendous help of their friends.

Even Libby, found guilty of lying and obstructing justice, has his sentence commuted while Bush is still in office.

Via ThinkProgress

During his tour of the Sunday shows this morning, Karl Rove attempted to downplay and dismiss his role in the CIA leak scandal, telling Fox News’ Chris Wallace that he acted benignly in his conversations with reporters about Valerie Plame’s identity:

What I did say to one reporter was, I’ve heard that, too. And what I said to another reporter, off the record, was, in essence, I don’t think you ought to be writing about this.

Appearing on Meet The Press today, Matthew Cooper, one of the reporters to whom Rove spoke about Plame, said Rove’s version of the story was hard to believe. “I think he was dissembling to put it charitably,” said Cooper. “To imply that he didn’t know about [Plame’s identity], or that he heard it in some rumor out in the hallways, is nonsense.”

Cooper also contradicted Rove’s characterization of their conversation, describing the “essence” of it as much more than just an attempt to wave him off the story:

Look, Karl Rove told me about Valerie Plame’s identity on July 11, 2003. I called him because Ambassador Wilson [Plame’s husband] was in the news that week. I didn’t know Ambassador Wilson even had a wife until I talked to Karl Rove and he said that she worked at the agency and she worked on WMD.

Cooper’s right. Rove is peddling “non-sense” with his brushed off description of his role in the leak scandal. On Meet The Press, Rove also declared, “if a journalist had said to me, ‘I’d like you to confirm this,’ my answer would have been ‘I can’t, I don’t know, I’ve heard that too,’”

But as Cooper notes, Rove not only confirmed to him that Plame worked at the CIA, but he willingly pushed the information to him without it even being solicited, telling him that she “works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues.”

When pressed by Wallace about his conversation with Cooper, however, Rove resorted to the administration’s standard line when asked about inconvenient facts: “I don’t recall.”

UPDATE: Crooks and Liars has more on Rove’s Meet the Press appearance here and here.

UPDATE II: Marcy Wheeler, who wrote a book about the Plame scandal, debunks Rove’s Meet the Press claims here.


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