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Nickdfresh
07-18-2005, 05:18 PM
Analysis by GARY LANGER

July 18, 2005 — Just a quarter of Americans think the White House is fully cooperating in the federal investigation of the leak of a CIA operative's identity, a number that's declined sharply since the investigation began. And three-quarters say that if presidential adviser Karl Rove was responsible for leaking classified information, it should cost him his job.

Skepticism about the administration's cooperation has jumped. As the initial investigation began in September 2003, nearly half the public, 47 percent, believed the White House was fully cooperating. That fell to 39 percent a few weeks later, and it's lower still, 25 percent, in this new ABC News poll.

This view is highly partisan; barely over a tenth of Democrats and just a quarter of independents think the White House is fully cooperating. That grows to 47 percent of Republicans — much higher, but still under half in the president's own party. And doubt about the administration's cooperation has grown as much among Republicans — by 22 points since September 2003 — as it has among others.

There's less division on consequences: 75 percent say Rove should lose his job if the investigation finds he leaked classified information. That includes sizable majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats alike — 71, 74 and 83 percent, respectively.

At the same time, in September 2003 more Americans — 91 percent — said someone who leaked classified information should be fired. The question at that time did not identify Rove, the White House deputy chief of staff and one of George W. Bush's closest advisers, as the possible source of the information.

Should Karl Rove Be Fired If He Leaked Classified Information?
Yes No
All 75% 15%
Republicans 71 17
Independents 74 17
Democrats 83 12

A Time magazine reporter, Matthew Cooper, said this weekend that Rove told him that the wife of a former ambassador was a CIA officer, without giving her name. Cooper testified last week before the grand jury investigating the matter, saying his source had released him to do so.

Bush today appeared to raise the bar on a dismissable offense, saying he'd fire anyone who committed a crime. Previously the administration said anyone who'd disclosed the CIA agent's identify would be removed, without specifying a criminal act.

Miller

This poll finds majority support for another reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, who's gone to jail rather than disclose her confidential source in the case. Sixty percent say she's done the right thing, ranging from 49 percent of Republicans to about two-thirds of Democrats and independents.

That view comports with an ABC News/Washington Post poll in May that found majority support for the use of confidential sources by news reporters — 53 percent in general, rising to 65 percent if it's the only way to get an important story.

Serious

The leak investigation is seen as a meaningful issue: About three-quarters call it a serious matter, and just over four in 10 see it as "very" serious. These are down slightly, however, by five and six points respectively, from their level in September 2003.

Fifty-three percent are following the issue closely — a fairly broad level of attention. Those paying close attention (who include about as many Republicans as Democrats) are more likely than others to call it very serious, to say the White House is not cooperating, to say Rove should be fired if he leaked, and to say Miller is doing the right thing.

Methodology

This ABC News (http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/PollVault/story?id=949950) poll was conducted by telephone July 13-17, 2005, among a random national sample of 1,008 adults. The results have a three-point error margin. Sampling, data collection and tabulation by ICR-International Communications Research of Media, Pa.

DrMaddVibe
07-18-2005, 06:49 PM
Wilson Stonewalls on Wife's Status

Former Ambassador Joe Wilson repeatedly refused to say yesterday whether his CIA employee wife Valerie Plame had been stationed overseas in the five years prior to having her name revealed in the press in 2003 - a stipulation necessary for the Intelligence Identities Protection Act to have been violated.

Appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation," Wilson was asked by Chicago Tribune reporter Jan Crawford Greenburg:

"Ambassador, I am just not clear on something. The law actually covers and protects covert agents who served abroad within the last five years. So if these conversations took place in 2003, does that law protect your wife? Did she serve abroad as an agent since 1998?"

Rather than answer Greenburg's query directly, Wilson responded: "Well, I'm not a lawyer, first of all. But the CIA would not have frivolously referred this to the Justice Department if they did not believe a possible crime had been committed."

Not satisfied, Greenburg pressed: "But had she served abroad in the time period from [1998 through 2003]?"

Wilson dodged the question again, saying: "I would just tell you that she was covered according to the CIA, and the CIA made the referral."

At that point "Face the Nation" host Bob Schieffer stepped in and changed the subject. But a few moments later, Greenburg returned to the topic, offering Wilson one more chance to clear up the mystery:

"Well, could we go back to the ambassador in this? You declined to say whether she served abroad within five years of those conversations, but did anyone know that she was working at the agency or driving to Langley? Did her friends or neighbors? Did anyone know that your wife worked for the CIA."

Wilson answered that his wife's friends had no idea about her CIA employment, but refused to offer any information about when she last stationed abroad.

Nickdfresh
07-18-2005, 06:53 PM
Nice 'no-link' article. It's all WILSON's fault now I guess...

Actually, the case may be more about perjury now than anything, you know. Sorta' like when the REPUBLICANs were hounding CLINTON...

ODShowtime
07-18-2005, 07:10 PM
Originally posted by DrMaddVibe
Did she serve abroad as an agent since 1998?"

Rather than answer Greenburg's query directly, Wilson responded: "Well, I'm not a lawyer, first of all. But the CIA would not have frivolously referred this to the Justice Department if they did not believe a possible crime had been committed."

Not satisfied, Greenburg pressed: "But had she served abroad in the time period from [1998 through 2003]?"

Wilson dodged the question again

Come on now. You're smarter than that. Do you really believe that the CIA would waste resources with an unjustified investigation?

Use some common sense. How would he know the last time she worked in a covert operation? It's a fucking covert operation!!!!! :rolleyes:

DrMaddVibe
07-18-2005, 07:30 PM
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2005/7/18/95611.shtml

http://www.cbsnews.com/htdocs/pdf/face_71705.pdf

Warham
07-18-2005, 08:49 PM
OD,

They do investigations all the time, even when it's something frivolous, just to waste taxpayer dollars.

And you believe that the government never wastes resources?

Use some common sense!

ODShowtime
07-18-2005, 08:56 PM
Originally posted by Warham
OD,

They do investigations all the time, even when it's something frivolous, just to waste taxpayer dollars.

And you believe that the government never wastes resources?

Use some common sense!

If the people in charge of the CIA didn't think her identity was a secret, they would not have ordered an investigation. End of story.

Warham
07-18-2005, 09:06 PM
Sure they would've!

They are just going through the necessary paperwork to just make sure a law wasn't being broken.

ODShowtime
07-18-2005, 09:12 PM
Originally posted by Warham
Sure they would've!

They are just going through the necessary paperwork to just make sure a law wasn't being broken.

Warham, they weren't investigating whether it was a secret or not, they were investigating who leaked the info... WHICH WAS SECRET.

LoungeMachine
07-18-2005, 09:16 PM
How dumb do they think we are?

Monday, July 18, 2005; Posted: 7:44 p.m. EDT (23:44 GMT)


There are the generally forgettable fibs, like a senator who's making his seventh political trip to New Hampshire since the first of the year insisting he has made no decision about a White House run.

The falsehoods you remember are bold and brassy. I will never forget President George H.W. Bush stating with a straight face that the nominee's race had never even crossed his mind when he picked Clarence Thomas for the Supreme Court.

Presidential candidate Bill Clinton demonstrated early his flair for fiction by contradicting all his campaign's previous statements on his non-service in the military when he admitted that, yes, during the Vietnam War he actually had received a draft notice calling him to military service.

Why had Clinton never mentioned this fact before during the endless Q-and-A sessions about his military record? In a polygraph-punishing explanation, Bill Clinton lamely explained he had just "forgotten."

Let's be clear: If you were a young man of draft-eligible age during Vietnam, you might be excused for forgetting your first kiss or your first beer. But you would forever remember that ominous moment when the letter, carrying with it the full force and power of the U.S. government, arrived summoning you to bear arms.

So, too, did George H.W. Bush fully understand that his nomination of Clarence Thomas, an African-American jurist of modest legal achievement, would discomfort and demoralize many Democrats.

Today in Washington, the big, barefaced lie is very much back.

For two years, the George W. Bush White House had asserted that Bush's closest political advisor, Karl Rove, had nothing to do with press leaks revealing that the wife of the former U.S. ambassador whose report had publicly refuted administration claims that Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore from Africa for nuclear weapons was an undercover CIA officer.

Scratch those assertions: Karl Rove did tell Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper that former Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA.

A senior Bush administration official told The Washington Post that, shortly after the publication of Wilson's piece in the New York Times -- which undercut the administration's case for launching a pre-emptive war against Iraq -- two top White House officials had called six journalists to disclose the identity and the position of Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife.

That same senior administration official said: "Clearly it (the leak 'outing' Plame) was meant purely and simply for revenge."

Are you ready for a barefaced lie? Listen to the Republican talking points. It is true that Rove did talk to Matt Cooper. But he was not trying to smear Wilson and thus silence a formidable critic of Bush's Iraq policy.

No, Rove's only motive was to make sure that Cooper and Time did not publish something that could turn out to be false. This is a side of the man we have not seen before -- selflessly saving gullible newsmen from publishing anything inaccurate.

Imagine how busy Rove must have been during Bush's 1994 race for Texas governor, when his campaign was accused of launching a whispering campaign in East Texas about Democratic Gov. Ann Richards' affinity for gays. Try as he must have, Karl just couldn't stop the circulation of those ugly rumors.

In 2000,George W. Bush's campaign was accused of spreading the vicious charge that Bush's main rival, Sen. John McCain, was unstable because of the time he had spent as a POW in isolation.

You just know Karl must have been speed-dialing reporters, valiantly trying to kill that slander. In 2004, the man who bankrolled the Swift Boat Veterans against John Kerry was one of Rove's oldest Texas allies.

Wayne Slater of The Dallas Morning News, who has covered Rove long and well, puts it this way: "Throughout his political career, bad things happen -- sometimes involving dirty tricks -- to his enemies or rivals." Is that because he's evil? "He's amoral. He doesn't set up a plan to damage, defeat or destroy his enemies because he's evil. He does it because he's so unbelievably competitive and amoral."

All of this raises one nagging question: Just how dumb do the Bush people believe we are, that we would swallow, for even a nanosecond, the fabrication that Karl Rove's only motive in calling reporters was to discourage inaccurate stories? Do they really think we are that stupid?

LoungeMachine
07-18-2005, 09:18 PM
Originally posted by Warham
Sure they would've!

They are just going through the necessary paperwork to just make sure a law wasn't being broken.


What a fucking DOLT :rolleyes: :rolleyes: :rolleyes:

academic punk
07-18-2005, 09:21 PM
Whether or not a law was broken is secondary, mate. Wanna talk about Karl Rove's ethics?

ODShowtime
07-18-2005, 09:23 PM
Originally posted by academic punk
Whether or not a law was broken is secondary, mate. Wanna talk about Karl Rove's ethics?

Sure. How about when he wanted to piss all over the Constitution to take away people's rights?

academic punk
07-18-2005, 09:26 PM
Originally posted by ODShowtime
Sure. How about when he wanted to piss all over the Constitution to take away people's rights?

That was John Ashcroft.

LoungeMachine
07-18-2005, 09:27 PM
Originally posted by academic punk
Whether or not a law was broken is secondary, mate. Wanna talk about Karl Rove's ethics?

Like calling Max Cleland a coward, and comparing him to Osama for questioning the formation of Homeland Security? [ got duct tape? ]

Or bugging his own office, or stealing stationery from his opponent and putting out fraudulent press releases?

Or maybe by calling John McCain crazy?



I HOPE KKKARL GOES TO PRISON AND IS GANG RAPED BY ANGRY EX-REPUBLICANS

seriously:cool: I wish it on him :cool:

ODShowtime
07-18-2005, 09:30 PM
Originally posted by academic punk
That was John Ashcroft.

No, no, not when they started locking up brown people and throwing away the key.

I mean when they were trying to get a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage.

I always found it particularly distateful that they would change a document that symbolized freedom and use it to take away people's freedom. Not that it was the first time.

Warham
07-18-2005, 09:36 PM
You guys need to settle down about Karl Rove. He's not the reason your party has been out of touch with America since 1994. I also know losing the last two elections can cause seething rage and hatred to possess your mind. Talking about him getting fucked in the ass in prison is not healthy.

Let's just sit back, have a beer, and relax..

:D

LoungeMachine
07-18-2005, 09:39 PM
Originally posted by Warham
Talking about him getting fucked in the ass in prison is not healthy.



No, it's Karma

I've HAD IT UP TO HERE with your whole administration

Is KKKarl the WORST offender? Hell no.

But watching him go down will help :cool:

Fuck him

academic punk
07-18-2005, 09:40 PM
Originally posted by Warham
Talking about him getting fucked in the ass in prison is not healthy.

Let's just sit back, have a beer, and relax..

:D

How unsettling is it to read warham writing "getting fucked in the ass" in one sentence, and then in the very next one invite us all to have a beer and relax?

Warham
07-18-2005, 09:41 PM
Some xanax may help.

Warham
07-18-2005, 09:41 PM
Originally posted by academic punk
How unsettling is it to read warham writing "getting fucked in the ass" in one sentence, and then in the very next one invite us all to have a beer and relax?

Tell Lounge to stop talking about his fantasies, and then we can move on.

academic punk
07-18-2005, 09:45 PM
Originally posted by Warham
Tell Lounge to stop talking about his fantasies, and then we can move on.


Fair enough.

(Though, come to think of it, between the two of you - you with your "Clinton, blowjob, etc etc" and LM with his "Karl, ass-fucking"...

you both seem to have...interesting...obsessions.

I'm just saying.)
(Then again, who am i to talk, between the turtle jokes and the jesterstar comments???)

Nickdfresh
07-18-2005, 10:20 PM
Originally posted by Warham
OD,

They do investigations all the time, even when it's something frivolous, just to waste taxpayer dollars.

And you believe that the government never wastes resources?

Use some common sense!

You mean like the Blow Job Secret Police?

LoungeMachine
07-18-2005, 10:36 PM
Originally posted by Warham
Tell Lounge to stop talking about his fantasies, and then we can move on.


Yes, I fantasize about KKKarl Rove getting sodomized by his cellmate

and Rummy taking on fire in a '92 Explorer with garbage cans for armor

and Alberto Gonzalez being "water boarded"



Karma, it's a bitch


Now your fantasy tends to revolve around watching Clinton getting a hummer;)


To each his own:cool:

Nickdfresh
07-18-2005, 11:38 PM
This is the topic on ABC's NIGHTLINE.

LoungeMachine
07-18-2005, 11:47 PM
More Tepid Polling News For GWB


1. Generally speaking, would you say things in this country are heading in the right direction, or are they off on the wrong track?

Right direction, 36 percent ; Wrong track, 59 percent: Not sure, 5 percent



2. Overall, do you approve, disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president?

Approve, 42 percent ; Disapprove, 56 percent; Mixed feelings, 1 percent; Not sure, 2 percent



3. And when it comes to handling the economy, do you approve or disapprove or have mixed feelings about the way George W. Bush is handling that issue?


Approve, 42 percent; Disapprove, 56 percent; Mixed feelings, 2 percent; Not sure, percent.

BigBadBrian
07-19-2005, 06:54 AM
Originally posted by LoungeMachine
How dumb do they think we are?



I think you and the liberal crowd are amazingly stupid.

;)

:gulp:

Nickdfresh
07-19-2005, 08:32 AM
Originally posted by BigBadBrian
I think you and the liberal crowd are amazingly stupid.

;)

:gulp:

We're not the ones self-destructing right now.:)

LoungeMachine
07-19-2005, 09:38 AM
Originally posted by BigBadBrian
I think you and the liberal crowd are amazingly stupid.

;)

:gulp:


amazingly, no less;)


Hope we can find our way to the polls in '06:cool:

LoungeMachine
07-19-2005, 09:47 AM
Boston.com

I. Lewis Libby’s involvement represents an even more insidious abuse of power. The Bush administration is being accused of leaking the name of Valerie Plame in retribution for a New York Times op-ed article written by her husband, diplomat Joseph Wilson. Wilson wrote that he never found any evidence in a 2002 trip to Africa, contrary to claims made by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address, that Saddam Hussein was procuring uranium from Niger for nuclear weapons.

Bush would invade Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that were never found. But Libby, Cheney, and the other influential right-wing hard-liners, such as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith, saw their dreams come true. Back in the administration of the senior President Bush, Cheney was defense secretary and Libby and Wolfowitz were two of his aides who, after the first Gulf War left Saddam in power, drafted a document advocating ‘‘preemptive’’ war against possible threats.

They said the United States should be ‘‘postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated.’’

Such provocation was kept at bay when President Clinton beat Bush in 1992 and took office for eight years. But when the junior Bush became president in 2000, the hard right on foreign policy took the helm. They used the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 as an excuse for invading Iraq, even though President Bush’s own 9/11 Commission found no tie between Saddam and 9/11.

Libby was in the thick of whipping up fear over the thinnest of evidence. The level to which Libby and Cheney stooped to get their war was highlighted by the momentous presentation of Saddam’s ‘‘threat’’ before the United Nations Security Council by then Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell gave a presentation six weeks before the war where he said, ‘‘every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions.’’ Those assertions resulted in grudging acceptance of the war from many Democrats.

Virtually all of Powell’s solid sources fell apart when the United States turned Iraq upside down, killing thousands of Iraqi civilians in the process. He would have looked much worse had he listened to everything Libby and Cheney tried to feed him. It was Cheney’s staff who wrote the first draft of Powell’s UN speech. It was Libby who suggested, in strategy meetings at the White House, playing up every possible, conceivable threat of Saddam — with the emphasis on the word ‘‘conceive.’’

A US News and World Report story in the summer of 2003 quoted a senior administration official as saying Libby’s presentation ‘‘was over the top and ran the gamut from Al Qaeda to human rights to weapons of mass destruction. They were unsubstantiated assertions, in my view.’’

Powell, according to both US News and Vanity Fair, was so irritated by Libby’s hodgepodge of unsubstantiated facts that he threw documents into the air and said, ‘‘I’m not reading this. This is bull ...’’

Libby, whose nickname is Scooter, was particularly unhappy that Powell had thrown out sections of the presentation that would have attempted to link Al Qaeda to Saddam, including a discredited report that top 9/11 Al Qaeda airline hijacker Mohamed Atta had a meeting with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague. According to Vanity Fair, ‘‘Cheney’s office made one last ditch effort to persuade Powell to link Saddam and Al Qaeda and to slip the Prague story back into the speech. Only moments before Powell began speaking, Scooter Libby tried unsuccessfully to reach [Larry] Wilkerson by phone. Powell’s staff chief, by then inside the Security Council chamber, declined to take the call. ‘Scooter,’ said one State Department aide, ‘wasn’t happy.’’’

According to Vanity Fair, Cheney himself urged Powell to go ahead and stake his national popularity on the nonexistent evidence by saying to Powell, ‘‘Your poll numbers are in the 70s. You can afford to lose a few points.’’

America and Iraq would go on to lose more than a few points. Libby may end up as a symbol of a government so driven to ignore the truth it was willing to resort to dirty tricks to stop anyone from telling it.

diamondD
07-19-2005, 12:44 PM
Originally posted by Nickdfresh
We're not the ones self-destructing right now.:)

No, you save that until the weeks before the elections.

;)

LoungeMachine
07-19-2005, 01:04 PM
Originally posted by diamondD
No, you save that until the weeks before the elections.

;)

Funny AND True :cool: