I could be remembering all of this wrong, and if so, forgive me. I really didn’t care too much about the former President and whether he lied or not, and what about. He’s a politician, and as such is liar in my book…they all are to certain extent. My recollection, however is that Mr. Starr wasn’t initially hired to investigate a civil lawsuit related to sexual harrassment brought by Paula Jones. He was hired to investigate a failed land deal by the Whitewater partnership that may or may not have involved fraud by the man who later became President.
It’s quite possible that the former President’s rude behavior towards women happened at the same time as his involvement in land speculation, but was it the initial driving force for Mr. Starr’s investigation? I guess I’m missing how being an abusive jerk to a subordinate is enough of a part of real estate fraud to be part of the “greater emphasis” standard you are advocating. Maybe you have a handy link that would help me understand exactly what Mr. Starr’s mission started as; as I say, I could be misremembering all of this old stuff.
Your memory is fine. Starr did initially investigate Whitewater and managed to get three convictions (that is, if I understand correctly). The Jones/Lewinsky aspect of Starr’s investigative mandate was given by Clinton’s Attorney General Janet Reno.
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In accordance with the Independent Counsel Reauthorization Act of 1994, I hereby notify in writing the special division of the court that I have commenced a preliminary investigation … into whether violations of federal criminal law were committed by Monica Lewinsky or any other individual, as described below.
As a result of my inquiry into this matter, I request expansion of the jurisdiction of Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr to further investigate and determine whether prosecution is warranted. The court has already been informed of this matter and my request orally.
So, although it was an additional mandate for Starr, it was not happenstance.
By the way, I take issue with any light characterizations of the sexual harassment issues. Although the Whitewater investigation was significant, harassment is an extremely serious abuse of power which can result in severe psychological damage to the victims. IMO, it should have taken immediate precedence over the other issues and investiagtions. One might argue that another Independent Counsel should have been appointed to pursue the Jones case (in fact Starr suggested this after the fact), but it should by no means have been ignored or postponed. Perhaps Reno purposely tried to overload Starr (but that is just my personal speculation).
Quote (clavastudio @ Oct. 25 2005,19:03)
Quite so. Couldn’t agree more. I certainly hope that members of the White House staff didn’t do this, especially a White House that has been so outspoken about security for the American people they were elected to protect. If members of the White House staff committed no crime regarding exposure of a covert agent they should have no worries about be honest towards the investigator. If, even though the crime of exposing a covert agent was NOT committed falsehoods WERE told to the investigator, falsehoods that need not have been told since no crime was committed, there SHOULD be serious repercussions and such needless falsehoods SHOULD be part of the central focus of the investigation. Stated another way, why on earth would otherwise intelligent people with access to the finest legal counsel available to anyone in America tell an investigator anything but the truth, especially about a crime that they didn’t commit? Don’t make no sense to this simple mind, but I’m not a lawyer or a Government official. In my mind, lying to an investigator about a crime you didn’t commit is WAY worse than doing the right thing and just telling the truth.
I don’t understand why someone would lie when a crime wasn’t committed, but I do understand that people don’t always have clear memories of details. Prosecuting the latter seems extremely counterproductive IMO.
Quote (clavastudio @ Oct. 25 2005,19:03)
I have enough confidence in Mr. Fitzgerald’s abilities that I believe we’ll soon find out the truth. Not the truth as either of the main political parties in this country perceives it be for their own purposes, but the “truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth” that is presented when men of character get to do their jobs correctly.
And thanks for being so civil to someone who generally hates playing in this particular sandbox, KSDB…
You’re so funny (and predictable). The whole article has a negative tone to it.
I disagree with your negative characterization of the story. If anything, he was pointing this out as a wake-up call for the administration to do a better job of confirming facts.
Quote (Mr Soul @ Oct. 25 2005,19:09)
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WASHINGTON – The CIA’s decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet’s knowledge.
This first paragraph belittles Wilson’s trip immediately. I’m sure there are many things done at a low-level in the CIA, but Novak had to make the statement & set the stage.
The senate report jibes with this characterization, not yours, so I disagree, this was a very impartial, factual way to describe the trip.
Quote (Mr Soul @ Oct. 25 2005,19:09)
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Wilson’s report that an Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger was highly unlikely was regarded by the CIA as less than definitive, and it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it.
It was classified at the time, so how could Novak even make these claims?
Wilson already let the cat out of the bag with his column “What I didn’t find in Africa.” Further, Novak apparently called the CIA to get background and other confirmation.
Quote (Mr Soul @ Oct. 25 2005,19:09)
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Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report.
You’re the big one on media bias. Why did Novak even have to make this statement? It added nothing to his story.
It clarified that Wilson wasn’t working directly under Cheney (as was unclearly expressed in Wilson’s column) and explained why a non-CIA operative was given an assignment on the CIA’s behalf.
Quote (Mr Soul @ Oct. 25 2005,19:09)
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CIA officials did not regard Wilson’s intelligence as definitive, being based primarily on what the Niger officials told him and probably would have claimed under any circumstances. The CIA report of Wilson’s briefing remains classified.
How did he know this, he acknowledges that it was classified?
Again, Wilson already leaked his own mission and Novak contacted the CIA for background.
Quote (Mr Soul @ Oct. 25 2005,19:09)
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After the White House admitted error, Wilson declined all television and radio interviews. “The story was never me,” he told me, “it was always the statement in (Bush’s) speech.” The story, actually, is whether the administration deliberately ignored Wilson’s advice, and that requires scrutinizing the CIA summary of what their envoy reported. The Agency never before has declassified that kind of information, but the White House would like it to do just that now – in its and in the public’s interest.
Novak was defending his pals all through this article about a couregous hero.
Defending them?? Novak was telling them to pay attention to Wilson’s report. See the part in bold above.
By the way, I take issue with any light characterizations of the sexual harassment issues
I appologize if I’ve left you thinking this was the thrust of my argument; I certainly didn’t intend create that impression. As someone with a 20 year career in a heavily male dominated industry that has been loaded with harrassment issues I feel like I’m more than familair with the damage they create.
My intention was to point out that the original intent of Judge Starr’s investigation was other than what it eventually turned into. The appearance of violation in other areas and of a different nature than originally envisioned presented themselves, and the Judge went where he thought he was permitted. If Mr. Fitzgerald has discovered similar avenues of further investigation, or crimes that are only tangentially related to his original investigation, I believe he should be free to persue them as well. Again, I’m of the mind that Government officials who knowingly misrepresent the facts to duly sworn investigators are, or should be, in serious trouble. This is an area where I take no light issue.
I have no idea if facts were or were not knowingly misrepresented in this case…let me make that as clear as I possibly can. I suspect Mr. Fitzgerald is more than competant to discern whether a failure to clearly remember details rises to the level of crime. Thoroughly sifting the written and verbal evidence is something Mr. Fitzgerald has shown a bit of a flair for. If he does see the need for a report, I’m certain it will be exhaustive, complete, and unasailable. It’s kinda the way he does things…
I disagree with your negative characterization of the story.
No problem - we agree to disagree then.
The Senate Report was inconclusive & biased IMO. The right used it exactly the same the left jumps on stories sometimes. The CIA gave Wilson’s report a rating of good. Wilson addressed all criticisms from the Senate report & asked for the record to be changed.
I don’t see what you mean about “What I Didn’t Find in Africa” letting the cat out of the bag? Wilson didn’t mention his wife?
But seriously, if your take on this whole issue was true, then why would Fitzgerald investigate this for 2 years? Surely there can be no indictments if you are correct.
Let’s simplify this discussion: should the President have included the 16 words about Iraq & Niger or not? The WH & the CIA now says it shouldn’t - what do you think?
PS - in Novak’s 2nd article he tried to belittle the issue by saying that everyone knew Plame worked for the CIA. It appears that may not be true. From the WP:
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FBI agents on Monday night questioned some of Plame’s neighbors about whether they knew about her CIA work before her identity was leaked to the press. The interviews could help Fitzgerald show that Plame’s status had been a closely-guarded secret.
Wilson’s column gave a lot of detail about his mission for the CIA. If it was classified information, he shouldn’t have been able to write opinion columns about it in the newspaper. It’s Wilson’s phrasing that is unclear about whom he was working for, which is why Novak contacted the administration for information. They merely replied that Wilson wasn’t doing it for Cheney and they thought his wife had something to do with getting him the job. Novak found out who the wife was and confirmed it with the CIA. Other than the wife, Novak said little more about Wilson’s mission than Wilson himself did in the earlier column.
If there’s political pressure for indictments, it’s because Wilson played up the role of a victim and his party put pressure on Fitzgerald’s office to find wrongdoing. While there may be wrongdoing, it doesn’t seem that it will rise to the level that was originally pursued.
As far as the 16 words, the Butler Report upheld the basis of factuality behind them. From a political standpoint, the 16 words may have been unnecessary, but otherwise it was not wrong for the President to include that in his speech. The President & CIA merely bowed to political pressure to say it was wrong and moved on, while the opposition continued to inflate it into a much bigger issue than it really was.
So it’s OK for the president, vice president, secretary of state, etc, to use information previously thought to be false by their own intelligence agencies as a truths to justify killing people?
Wilson’s column gave a lot of detail about his mission for the CIA. If it was classified information, he shouldn’t have been able to write opinion columns about it in the newspaper. It’s Wilson’s phrasing that is unclear about whom he was working for, which is why Novak contacted the administration for information. They merely replied that Wilson wasn’t doing it for Cheney and they thought his wife had something to do with getting him the job. Novak found out who the wife was and confirmed it with the CIA. Other than the wife, Novak said little more about Wilson’s mission than Wilson himself did in the earlier column.
I got to give you credit ksdb - you are a right-winger all the way
- How do you know Wilson didn’t get permission to talk about this trip? Please provide that information. - Novak did indeed contact the Admin because he’s a shill for them. And the Admin. did indeed try to get Novak to write about Wilson’s wife IN ATTEMPT TO DISCREDIT HIM!!! - The purpose of Novak’s article was to belittle & discredit Wilson - plain & simple - Where in Novak’s article does it say that “Novak confirmed it with the CIA”?
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Other than the wife, Novak said little more about Wilson’s mission than Wilson himself did in the earlier column.
My God man - that’s what this whole bloody thing is about!!!
Wilson’s column gave a lot of detail about his mission for the CIA. If it was classified information, he shouldn’t have been able to write opinion columns about it in the newspaper. It’s Wilson’s phrasing that is unclear about whom he was working for, which is why Novak contacted the administration for information. They merely replied that Wilson wasn’t doing it for Cheney and they thought his wife had something to do with getting him the job. Novak found out who the wife was and confirmed it with the CIA. Other than the wife, Novak said little more about Wilson’s mission than Wilson himself did in the earlier column.
I got to give you credit ksdb - you are a right-winger all the way
If you take the word “winger” out, your statement will be much more accurate.
Quote (Mr Soul @ Oct. 26 2005,11:47)
- How do you know Wilson didn’t get permission to talk about this trip? Please provide that information.
Either it’s classified or it’s not. If it was, Wilson had no business writing about it in an op-ed piece. If it’s not classified, then there should have been no concerns about Plame and her role in the situation.
Quote (Mr Soul @ Oct. 26 2005,11:47)
- Novak did indeed contact the Admin because he’s a shill for them. And the Admin. did indeed try to get Novak to write about Wilson’s wife IN ATTEMPT TO DISCREDIT HIM!!! - The purpose of Novak’s article was to belittle & discredit Wilson - plain & simple
Typical left-wing smear. I see you’ve provided no evidence to support this.
Quote (Mr Soul @ Oct. 26 2005,11:47)
- Where in Novak’s article does it say that “Novak confirmed it with the CIA”?
In the article: "The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "
Quote (Mr Soul @ Oct. 26 2005,11:47)
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Other than the wife, Novak said little more about Wilson’s mission than Wilson himself did in the earlier column.
My God man - that’s what this whole bloody thing is about!!!
Novak propped up Wilson’s claims. The wife was a minor detail. She isn’t even mentioned until paragraph six. If the purpose was to out the wife, she would have been in the headline and lead paragraph. She was a footnote, an aside and an inconsequential part of a story whose real intent was to call the Bush administration irresponsible for not utilizing Wilson’s findings. Any other characterization is purely delusional.
Typical left-wing smear. I see you’ve provided no evidence to support this.
The proof is Novak’s article and a reasonable person reading it.
If it were classified then how the h*ll could Novak make these claims?
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Wilson’s report that an Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger was highly unlikely was regarded by the CIA as less than definitive, and it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it…CIA officials did not regard Wilson’s intelligence as definitive, being based primarily on what the Niger officials told him and probably would have claimed under any circumstances.
Who from the CIA would/should have told Novak that?
The purpose of Novak’s article was to say that Joe Wilson’s trip was unimportant & his findings were unimportant. As a side, why not suggest it is was his wife that got him the job anyways, rather than someone important in the CIA (that assumes that she wasn’t important of course). Also point out that it was so unimportant that the Tenet, the Director, probably didn’t even read it.
Typical left-wing smear. I see you've provided no evidence to support this.
The proof is Novak's article and a reasonable person. A reasonable person would see that Novak said Wilson had been heroic and supported Wilson's claims by insisting the administration pay heed. A reasonable person doesn't consider words like "routinely" and "less than definitive" to be loaded or disparaging. A reasonable person would look for truly negative words and literal character assassination before presuming that a piece was designed to smear.
Hey you added stuff while I was replying above. Now I’ve got to add a new post.
Quote (Mr Soul @ Oct. 26 2005,13:30)
If it were classified then how the h*ll could Novak make these claims?
Wilson wrote about the “classified” mission first. Maybe it wasn’t really classified. It does appear that the CIA spoke to Novak. If not, Novak would have been the target of the investigation instead of all the others.
Quote (Mr Soul @ Oct. 26 2005,13:30)
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Wilson’s report that an Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger was highly unlikely was regarded by the CIA as less than definitive, and it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it…CIA officials did not regard Wilson’s intelligence as definitive, being based primarily on what the Niger officials told him and probably would have claimed under any circumstances.
Who from the CIA would/should have told Novak that?
The person who answered the phone. You know how it goes with unnamed sources in Washington. They’ll tell you anything as long as they aren’t identified.
Quote (Mr Soul @ Oct. 26 2005,13:30)
The purpose of Novak’s article was to say that Joe Wilson’s trip was unimportant & his findings were unimportant. As a side, why not suggest it is was his wife that got him the job anyways, rather than someone important in the CIA (that assumes that she wasn’t important of course). Also point out that it was so unimportant that the Tenet, the Director, probably didn’t even read it.
There’s no reason to write about something in the newspaper to say it’s unimportant. Writing about it calls more attention to it. Telling the administration to look into the matter calls more attention. If you got the impression that Wilson’s trip was unimportant, that’s because it was, up until Wilson and Novak wrote about it. The Senate Report confirmed that it was a minor part of the CIA’s WMD investigation. Wilson did not submit a written report. He was not called back for further duty. No report was given directly to the administration about the trip from the CIA. The only one who thought it was important was Wilson himself, but even he didn’t think it was important enough to follow through on it until FOUR MONTHS AFTER the war in Iraq started.
The only one who thought it was important was Wilson himself, but even he didn't think it was important enough to follow through on it until FOUR MONTHS AFTER the war in Iraq started.
I don't know about you fellers, but THAT spoke volumes to me... just another oppertunistic poli wog doing the "Hey look at me shuffle."
Red herring. Have you ever seen anything in government move at a swift pace? It took him that long to fill out his appication to investigate in triplicate, have it lost in th epost office, resubmit it, call the justice department, be put on hold, call dropped, called back, left voice mail…
Ah, you must be correct sir. They still have not mailed me by Birth Certificate. I guess technically, I don’t exist! S$%T! I want all that tax money BACK!
Red herring. Have you ever seen anything in government move at a swift pace? It took him that long to fill out his appication to investigate in triplicate, have it lost in th epost office, resubmit it, call the justice department, be put on hold, call dropped, called back, left voice mail…
We’re not talking about government. We’re talking about Joe Wilson. Wilson commented that he didn’t understand why Bush used the 16 words in the SOTU address. The next day he casually mentions it to a state department buddy (whom he didn’t identify - could have been the custodian for all we know), but does nothing afterwards. His own wife still worked at the CIA; he could have asked what happened to his report. He could have told her to go spy on Cheney. He had many recourses, but instead, FOUR MONTHS AFTER the war, he notices the use of what he considered to be inaccurate information by the White House. Instead of going back to his sources, he writes a column for the Op-Ed pages. Personally, I believe he waited to make sure WMD weren’t found so he could pat himself on the back in the newspapers.
The only one who thought it was important was Wilson himself, but even he didn’t think it was important enough to follow through on it until FOUR MONTHS AFTER the war in Iraq started.
This is typical right-wing smear. Make the issue Wilson, not Plame or not the yellow-cake. When he came out with the article isn’t important. It’s too bad that he didn’t come out with it earlier but I’m sure it took him time to come out with it.
Novak’s article did just that too - make Wilson & the trip the issue, not the substance. Novak could have written a completely different article about yellowcake & Niger, but instead he made the article about Wilson. IMO - the “nice” things he said about Wilson is patronizing.
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Personally, I believe he waited to make sure WMD weren’t found so he could pat himself on the back in the newspapers.
More smear.
You & TG are treating this case the same way that the people who trivialized Watergate as a second class breakin.
The only one who thought it was important was Wilson himself, but even he didn’t think it was important enough to follow through on it until FOUR MONTHS AFTER the war in Iraq started.
This is typical right-wing smear. Make the issue Wilson, not Plame or not the yellow-cake. When he came out with the article isn’t important. It’s too bad that he didn’t come out with it earlier but I’m sure it took him time to come out with it.
Novak’s article did just that too - make Wilson & the trip the issue, not the substance. Novak could have written a completely different article about yellowcake & Niger, but instead he made the article about Wilson. IMO - the “nice” things he said about Wilson is patronizing.
You & TG are treating this case the same way that the people who trivialized Watergate as a second class breakin.
This is completely disingenous. Novak responded to Wilson’s column. He wasn’t just writing about Niger and yellowcake. There would have been nothing topical about those subjects, except that Wilson had made it topical. Novak’s column, basically, said this Wilson guy might be onto something. Novak checked it out and wrote about it. There’s nothing disparaging in it unless you have the ego of a 2 year old.
