Karl Rove exonerated

[SezMe]

In reality, the same people who demand the Gitmo prisoners be "put on trial" would go apes**t over every conviction. What they REALLY want is the people in Gitmo either released without trial or tried and acquitted. Whenever the US does release someone from Gitmo, they scream to high heaven how the release proves his total innocence, and listen in rapt attention to his claims of "mistreatment" and "torture".

I just wanted to say, Skeptic, that you are not speaking for me here. What I REALLY want is for the USA to obey the principles of the constitution, the laws of the land, and, more specifically, the rulings of the Supremes. This applies to Gitmo and Rove.

 

[fuelair]

I'm confused?

I just wanted to say, Skeptic, that you are not speaking for me here. What I REALLY want is for the USA to obey the principles of the constitution, the laws of the land, and, more specifically, the rulings of the Supremes. This applies to Gitmo and Rove.

What do Diana Ross and her singing group have to do with Guantanamo and Karl Rove? Oh wait a minute, you meant the Supreme Court didn't you. Sure would help if you would write more precisely. Just a suggestion (someone mentioned it earlier and I thought maybe it made sense.).

 

[SezMe]

Actually, the group was "Diana Ross and the Supremes" (my italics) so your confusion arises from your conflation of the two.

Geeeezbus, what a derail.

 

[BPSCG]

I was responding to BPSCG's argument that only members of the "unhinged left" believe that Rove's actions undermined national security at all. Attempts to deflect that question aside, I still haven't heard an adequate explanation of how the actions that Rove is on record admitting to do not undermine national security.

Well, since you drug me back in here (I been lurking...), my last post here questioned whether "outing" Plame - whoever did it - did indeed undermine national security. My understanding was that Plame had not been outside the U.S. for more than five years before being "outed," and that she'd been working at the CIA's Langley, VA, headquarters - both unusual behavior for someone who was allegedly an "undercover operative."

If that information is incorrect, someone please say so.

 

[BPSCG]

Wrong. On contentious issues such as this, clear, precise writing is a must. Over in, say, humor, is isn't. So stop making excuses for you erroneous post and your disinterest in making specific points.

[nit]
You meant to say "lack of interest." "Disinterest" means having no personal stake in the outcome of an argument.
[/pick]

On contentious issues such as this, clear, precise writing is a must.

 

[fishbob]

In reality, the same people who demand the Gitmo prisoners be "put on trial" would go apes**t over every conviction. What they REALLY want is the people in Gitmo either released without trial or tried and acquitted. Whenever the US does release someone from Gitmo, they scream to high heaven how the release proves his total innocence, and listen in rapt attention to his claims of "mistreatment" and "torture".

A good dose of ex-lax would clear that little problem up for you.

I don't see how you can be that full of ..it, and still type.

 

[Dr Adequate]

That would be a bad idea for most of them, since if they are to be treated like criminals, then most of them are surely guilty of shooting at, or killing, US soliders, and thus of assault or murder. But I discussed all this in detail in "The Geneva Convention" thread.

In reality, the same people who demand the Gitmo prisoners be "put on trial" would go apes**t over every conviction. What they REALLY want is the people in Gitmo either released without trial or tried and acquitted. Whenever the US does release someone from Gitmo, they scream to high heaven how the release proves his total innocence, and listen in rapt attention to his claims of "mistreatment" and "torture".

So I want THAT treatment for Rove, please. First, scream loudly how the lack of prosecution is absolute evidence of his total moral innocence; then, scream even louder how any claim from him (if he made it) of being "mistreated" by the media or investigating reporters in any way is absolute proof of the fascist-like use of torture by the US mainstream media against its enemies.

Why, after all, should Rove be treated with less courtesy and concern than Al Quaeda people?

Oh, some sing of George (the saintly)
In old staves that tell us quaintly
How the fellow killed a dragon. Are we meant to be impressed?
Fans of Beowulf keep harping
On his greatness. Is it carping
To point out that his courage never met the final test?

But YOUR reputation's vaunted
For your fearless and undaunted
And courageous epic fight against the menace of straw men ---
When it's scarecrows you're attacking
Then your courage isn't lacking
And you've faced their mighty wicker legions time and time again.

When you get iconoclastic
Then your actions can be drastic
And soon the hated images are strewn upon the floor
When you see a clumsy effigy
Not cowardice nor lethargy
Can stay your hand from shredding it to its component straw.

Grateful Britons all remember
How, when peril comes (November)
You're always there to save them from the terror of The Guy
Your bravery's Churchillian
And Limeys by the million
Bear witness to your courage when you make the stuffing fly.

Though at first the tailor's dummy
Made you cry out for your mummy
You summoned all your courage and delivered it a blow
Pretty soon you had its measure
And dispatched it at your leisure ---
A most heroic victory against this worthy foe!

For some impudent corn dolly
To oppose you would be folly
You would fell the awful creature with your mighty sword of wood.
Against such foes you're peerless
And I'm sure you'd be as fearless
If you faced a real opponent who was made of flesh and blood.

When you met the dreadful Scarecrow
You delivered him a rare blow
With so fearsome an opponent, what an epic fight that was!
Yet your hand it was prevailed ---
Let your victory be hailed
By all the merry creatures in the merry land of Oz!

 

[Apollyon]

A total nonsequitur to the point I made.

Not really. I was pointing out that - denied entry to Iraq or not - harping on Blix is ultimately meaningless.

 

[fuelair]

Derailleur

Actually, the group was "Diana Ross and the Supremes" (my italics) so your confusion arises from your conflation of the two.

Geeeezbus, what a derail.

Once again, you are demonstrating the problem. Clearly the singing group was the Supremes - you knew it, I knew it - but you adjust it and appear to claim it was an error. My point was (and that should have been clear but.....) if I need to be very careful in my wording so as not to confuse you, then you should be very careful in yours so as not to confuse me. Have fun! (oh - in case that was not clarity loaded - I am saying I really knew what "Supremes" you were talking about, I was being sarcastic).

 

[SezMe]

Well, since you drug me back in here (I been lurking...), my last post here questioned whether "outing" Plame - whoever did it - did indeed undermine national security. My understanding was that Plame had not been outside the U.S. for more than five years before being "outed," and that she'd been working at the CIA's Langley, VA, headquarters - both unusual behavior for someone who was allegedly an "undercover operative."

If that information is incorrect, someone please say so.

I'll express my opinion, but I am NOT claiming any special knowledge to back it up. The problem was not necessarily or solely Plame. If I understand correctly, the firm she was involved with, Brewster Jennings, was still active as a front for the CIA. Importantly, it was our covert nose into the Iranian nuke biz, which is right now of obvious importance. Whether it was 5 years ago or 15, any mole we had in Iran that could have been linked to that firm is no longer useful, and might even be dead.

THAT is damaging to our national security.

 

[Apollyon]

Plame was the sole employee of Brewster Jennings.

And let's face it. Was it really wise to have a supposedly important undercover operative who married a high-profile ambassador and drove into CIA headquarters at Langley daily?

Besides that, many of the same people that get all in a tizzy about Plame don't seem to care one whit when the NY Times or WaPo make public highly classified terrorist investigation programs, despite pleas from the White House that doing so would damage national security. It seems to be a display of a double-standard. I'm not accusing you of doing that, but there's a noticeable hypocrisy wafting on the political breeze concerning national security.

 

[gnome]

Plame was the sole employee of Brewster Jennings.

And let's face it. Was it really wise to have a supposedly important undercover operative who married a high-profile ambassador and drove into CIA headquarters at Langley daily?

Besides that, many of the same people that get all in a tizzy about Plame don't seem to care one whit when the NY Times or WaPo make public highly classified terrorist investigation programs, despite pleas from the White House that doing so would damage national security. It seems to be a display of a double-standard. I'm not accusing you of doing that, but there's a noticeable hypocrisy wafting on the political breeze concerning national security.

The consistency in complaining about Plame and the classified programs is that both of them are an act of watchdogging abuses of power.

 

[Skeptic]

The consistency in complaining about Plame and the classified programs is that both of them are an act of watchdogging abuses of power.

Nice expression, but what this really means is "I'm a watchdog of abuses of power, dammit! So do as I say, not as I do!"

The hypocracy of the press--routinely praising violations of national security in ways which puts others in risk of their lives, but being shocked, SHOCKED that somebody else might violate national security in a way that embarrases one of their own--is very telling.

 

[Apollyon]

The consistency in complaining about Plame and the classified programs is that both of them are an act of watchdogging abuses of power.

I see.

So let me get this straight. Your "consistency" is that it's a bad abuse of power when Plame was exposed and a good abuse of power when the NSA and banking programs were exposed?

 

[Skeptic]

I see.

So let me get this straight. Your "consistency" is that it's a bad abuse of power when Plame was exposed and a good abuse of power when the NSA and banking programs were exposed?

It's consistent once you remember journalists are superior human beings, and REAL justice means "doing what the press wants".

 

[gnome]

I see.

So let me get this straight. Your "consistency" is that it's a bad abuse of power when Plame was exposed and a good abuse of power when the NSA and banking programs were exposed?

I refer to abuses of power on the government's part.

It is a "bad" leak that forces a change, however small, to our intelligence options, for the sake of political revenge. The bottom line is someone used their official position to harm someone, not in the national interest, but for political reasons.

It is a "good" leak that reveals an abuse of power on the part of the government. If a news organization has reason to believe that the government is breaking the law, they don't merely have the right to report it, they have the OBLIGATION to. It is in the national interest to keep our government honest.

I don't see how these two are even remotely similar.

 

[Apollyon]

I refer to abuses of power on the government's part.

It is a "bad" leak that forces a change, however small, to our intelligence options, for the sake of political revenge. The bottom line is someone used their official position to harm someone, not in the national interest, but for political reasons.

It is a "good" leak that reveals an abuse of power on the part of the government. If a news organization has reason to believe that the government is breaking the law, they don't merely have the right to report it, they have the OBLIGATION to. It is in the national interest to keep our government honest.

I don't see how these two are even remotely similar.

Great. When someone actually exposes an abuse of power by the government that involves breaking a law, you might have a point. So far though, the exposure of the NSA and banking programs served no other pupose than to be a political hatchet job by reporters who have been known in the past for their anti-administration stand and who frequently use their reporting credentials as their personal political bully-pulpit.

And the real consistency here is that all of the disclosures hurt our intelligence options, with the Plame disclosure seemingly the least damaging of all. Yet somehow you see the disclosures that did greater damage to our intelligence collection capabilities as a "good" thing while harping about Plame.

That, good sir, is inconsistency.

 

[Renfield]

The NY Times Headline was "No Rove Charges Over Testimony in C.I.A. Leak"

I don't know, does that sound like they were trying to spin it as Rove being sinister? It sounds like their usual slightly boring headline to me.

You have to read it like a Republican would, as if you lived in the Bizaro world from Superman comics.

to them, the incredibly dull, neutral sounding "No Rove Charges..." = Fascist Swine Rove Narrowly Avoids Indictment For His Crimes Against Humanity.

Remember, you're talking to people who think all the NYT did is promote and push Gore and Kerry during the presidential elections.

 

[JamesDillon]

Great. When someone actually exposes an abuse of power by the government that involves breaking a law, you might have a point.

Not to concede that no laws were broken, since even Arlen Specter seems to think that the NSA thing was over the line, but why should the question of technical legal violation determine whether a leak is "good" or "bad"? And how is a potential leaker even to know whether the law is being broken in a particular case? Even granting that the NSA thing is a close call, there are legitimate arguments to be made that the administration policy is illegal; how do you propose that an employee with information regarding such a program, who may or may not be a lawyer, make that determination?

The "breach of law" standard for judging leaks is a silly rationalization for Republican apologists who want to pretend that there's nothing wrong with widespread government wiretapping, CIA kidnapping, and networks of secret prisons, so long as a case can be made that no laws were technically violated. As a lawyer, I can assure you that some case can be made that no technical violation occurred even in the most egregious of circumstances. We all know an abuse of government power when we see it, and the key distinction between the Rove incident and the NSA, etc., incidents is that in the former case, the leak itself was an instance of governmental abuse, whereas in the latter, the leak was an attempt at rectifying an existing abuse.

 

[BPSCG]

Not to concede that no laws were broken, since even Arlen Specter seems to think that the NSA thing was over the line, but why should the question of technical legal violation determine whether a leak is "good" or "bad"? And how is a potential leaker even to know whether the law is being broken in a particular case? Even granting that the NSA thing is a close call, there are legitimate arguments to be made that the administration policy is illegal; how do you propose that an employee with information regarding such a program, who may or may not be a lawyer, make that determination?

The "breach of law" standard for judging leaks is a silly rationalization for Republican apologists who want to pretend that there's nothing wrong with widespread government wiretapping, CIA kidnapping, and networks of secret prisons, so long as a case can be made that no laws were technically violated. As a lawyer, I can assure you that some case can be made that no technical violation occurred even in the most egregious of circumstances.

As a lawyer, you must also know that the correct answer to your question at the end of the first paragraph above is "He doesn't make that determination. He contacts his agency Inspector General's office and they make that determination."

Your answer would appear to be, "He contacts The New York Times andThe Washington Post."