2008-05-29

Bush Outed a CIA Agent?

Firedoglake, the go-to people on the Libby case, thinks one of Scott McClellan's recent revelations has effectively proven that George W. Bush authorized the outing of a CIA Agent. McClellan says that Bush told him that he had authorized the selective declassifying of the NIE, which was intimately tied to the effort to destroy Joe Wilson. Just to make it clear how bad McClellan's book is for the WhiteHouse, that fact isn't even amongst the ones being heralded as scandalous.
Think of how much sense this makes. We have evidence that George Bush ordered Libby to respond to Joe Wilson on June 9, 2003. We now have Bush's own confirmation that he authorized the leak Libby made to Judy Miller on July 8, 2003--which included the leak of Valerie Wilson's identity. We know on July 10, Condi told Stephen Hadley that Bush "was comfortable" with the response the White House was making towards Wilson. And we know that--when Cheney forced Scottie McC to exonerate Libby publicly that fall, he did so by reminding people that "The Pres[ident] [asked Libby] to stick his head in the meat-grinder." We know that Libby's lawyers tried desperately to prevent a full discussion of the NIE lies to be presented at trial. And we know that--after those NIE lies did not come out, for the most part (though one juror told me that NIE story was obviously false, even with the limited information they received)--the President commuted Libby's sentence on July 2, 2007.
They have the full details, including links to all the trial testimony that reveals the cited facts. There are no flights of fantasy driven by Bush-Derangement-Syndrome. Everything is documented.

Daddy's not going to be happy:
“I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.
Junior sure showed him, huh? Add it to the "not-taking-out-Saddam" rebellion and the tax-cut fundamentalism, and you've got quite the pattern of Junior trying not to be the same "failed President" his Daddy was, and failing even more epically in the attempt. Looks like Daddy wasn't such a failure after all, huh?

No comments: