to bobby

so i'm reading the common ills mid-morning post and thinking it's really strong, thinking props to christine for the great essay at ms. musing. thinking 'yea codepink!' and thinking cindy sheehan rocks. and of course dahr jamail reigns supreme in my book. and the daily howler's not included because it hadn't posted yet.

so i head on over to the daily howler and i cannot believe it.

somerby, what's going on?

I'll put flowers at your feet and I will sing to you so sweet
And hope my words will carry home to your heart

somerby's pissing all over the people who feel karl rove did something wrong.

not a tinkle, mind you, this is a horse piss splattering everything on the left and near left and probably spilling over to the center.

bobby, what's going on here?

You left us marching on the road and said how heavy was the load
The years were young, the struggle barely had its start

okay, we got it a long time ago. no 1 could go the howler back during the '16 words' in the state of the union address without grasping that bobby really hated joe wilson. we got that.

it's confusing because bobby loves all things al gore and wilson was involved, loosely, in gore's campaign. so it's confusing that bobby feels the need to attack wilson over and over. and let's not kid here, it's an attack:

Almost surely, Rove thought Wilson was a kook and an asshole. Unfortunately, it isn’t clear he was wrong.

so i call up c.i. and say i'm calling about the daily howler and c.i. says 'it wasn't up or it would have been included, it will be noted tonight.'

i guess a lot of people had already e-mailed about it?

'a ton of people. all mad at what's up there. some congratulate me for skipping it. i didn't skip it. it was not up. i held the post for 30 minutes waiting for it to go up and kept checking to see if it was up yet. i had a meeting and that had to go up then or it wouldn't be up. now some members think that i didn't include him on purpose and they're happy about it.'

what does c.i. think about it?

'well the issue really isn't joe wilson. the issue is rove and plame.'

what about what's up there?

'he goes by the public record, he's very much by the record and that's what he goes by. i don't know what else to say.'

but his record includes the weekly standard?

'i know. i don't know why david corn's work in the nation isn't noted if somerby's going to include the opinion journal the weekly standard. that puzzles me but i haven't read the weekly standard piece.'

and won't.

'of course not. it's goes against everything i believe in and i won't give them my web traffic.'

somerby brings up the senate report.

'without noting that there are qualifiers to the report. such as the thing buzzflash noted by wilson. susan schmitt's article is wrong and i'm surprised it's noted. the chris matthews thing was mentioned earlier in the week and that's public record in my opinion but i'm guessing somerby feels wilson lacks trusts so he's disqualifying that as well.'

the chris matthews thing is when matthews tells wilson that he was told it was open season on valerie plame. that is public record. and chris matthews has never denied it.

what about the diane rehm comments?

'ruth's already called me about that. i told her that the ruth's morning edition report is her space and she can do whatever she wants with it. between that at the top and wilson throughout i'm not sure what i'll be able to pull quote and i know whatever it is, i'll hear about it in e-mails.'

so why quote it at all?

'he's an important voice. just because we disagree in this instance doesn't mean he gets ignored. you know i think he does great work and you know that the whole point is to steer people to places where they can learn information. i don't agree with this and it's not like with the thing on katrina [vanden heuvel] where i could see it as katrina's speaking of things that are true but not in the public record somerby's going by. i don't know what to t-- you're not going to write on this, are you?'

at which point conversation ended on that topic. even with my offer of 'super duper, triple decker, deep background.' (which did make c.i. laugh.)

yes, i am writing on it because it needs to be dealt with.

first, since c.i. and i spoke susan schmitt's article has already resulted in a correction at the bottom of the piece. atrios apparently e-mailed somerby about that.

i use the link to go over to atrios. i note he's now billing his site as an online magazine which is a joke about the rights of bloggers vs. the press. bloggers apparently have no rights. which may make c.i. smarter for maintaining for some time that the common ills is not a blog (it's a 'resource/review' for a community).

that's been corrected so i'll let it go but note that there are so many things wrong with bobby's post.


Do you hear the voices in the night, Bobby?
They're crying for you
See the children in the morning light, Bobby
They're dying

and voices do cry out for bobby. he's an astute critic. but he's wrong here. the children dying?
let's be real honest, bobby hasn't spent a great deal of time addressing the press coverage of the war. or the 'live from the green zone' reporting. or dexter filkins. (i agree with c.i. 100% on dexter filkins' november reporting on fallujah. it will haunt him for the rest of his life and history will not be kind to it.)

pull joe wilson out of the search results and you're not see a great deal of critiquing of the war coverage.

i don't know why that is. nor am i suggesting bobby doesn't care about it.

but i am saying that with bobby's strengths, his critique of the war coverage would be very useful. instead, we're back on joe wilson.

when the common ills community was angered by the slams on katrina vanden heuvel, c.i. stated that somerby's concerned with the public record and katrina's concerned with social justice. (as is c.i.)

but bobby's not going by the public record in slamming joe wilson, he's going by parts of it.

he's noting the new york post and the weekly standard.

i don't know if this is a grudge fuck against joe wilson or what. but c.i. was correct (before the clam up when it was realized i would be writing about this), the issue isn't joe wilson.

the right tries to make it about joe wilson. it doesn't matter what joe wilson did or said. he could dance naked in washington square and it still wouldn't be about him.

the issue is that valerie plame was outed. and we know karl rove was involved.

bobby wants to act like that's not true. bobby should look into the law.

none of his attacks on joe wilson change what karl rove did. elaine called me and said 'turn on nightly news!' i groan (i hate brian williams) but do. they've got a former c.i.a. guy who's explaining that it doesn't matter if karl knew or not, due to his position he knew he should make a call before discussing it.

there's no way to hide behind attacks on joe wilson on that. or on the law.

and while c.i.'s going ballistic on the press for not getting an opinion on the law (they rely on the robert novak's gal pal vicky toejam, as c.i.'s dubbed her, to tell what the law means - she's hardly a disinterested party - a critique that in other times bobby might make).

where's bobby on that? where's bobby saying the press needs to tell the readers, viewers and listeners what the law means? bobby's silent on that while he continues to go after joe wilson.

bobby, we get it. you don't like wilson. now can you move on to something matters?


No one could say it like you said it, we'd only try and just forget it
You stood alone upon the mountain till it was sinking

taking on the press is where you should be. you're not there. you've got a hard on to grudge fuck joe wilson from here to tomorrow. is that the most important thing right now?

knowing ruth was upset i called her. are you going to write about it? 'i don't know. i talked to tracey [ruth's granddaughter] and she heard the show with me. we didn't think it was the 'hey rube' that he did. and if i do write about it, i will be talking about that and i will be talking about npr's pass during the 2004 presidential campaign. rebecca, you know that only c.i. and buzzflash raised that issue. it was a huge press error and 1 npr never addressed. how do you cover the mainstream news day in and day out and not address that conflict of interest even now?'

so you're going to be writing about it?

'i asked c.i. and to every question, i was told "it is your space, use it the way you see fit." which means write what you want, it will go up and you will be supported.'

but it's not exactly a request for the topic?

'no. i was surprised that mr. somerby is also apparently unaware that morning edition had not done 1 report on the topic this week until wednesday. they're a morning news show. it's all over the tv and papers monday and tuesday but they're silent until wednesday.'

what's your feelings regarding the commentary on joe wilson?

'i think mr. somebery needs to stop trying to be so literal. and i think it's an interesting sort of literal. obviously valerie plame did not send joe wilson on the mission as the drag king, tracey's term, claims. but does mr. somerby address that? no. he wants to rip into every statement by joe wilson but he wants to offer up the right wing drag king to dispute wilson and lets her off with a pass of "more right than wrong." she is not more right. the public record does not demonstrate that valerie plame was in charge of who went on the mission and who didn't. to let that stand without comment is suprising to me because mr. somberby can be such an academic. but with regards to mr. wilson, mr. somerby will search high and low through the right wing to find an attack on mr. wilson to back up his own attacks.'

i couldn't have said it better myself.

And in a frenzy we tried to reach you
With looks and letters we would beseech you

whatever his problems with joe wilson, he's not helping any 1 with his attacks. this story is not about wilson. he is supposed to be critiquing the press and he's off on a side road while the real story is playing out on the highway. highway 61 revisted?

ruth knows she can write whatever she wants and it will go up. she also knows, as do i, that if c.i. thinks bobby is taking a stand, c.i. will give him credit for not running with the pack.

that's great that bobby doesn't run with the pack. c.i. noted this week that the easiest thing, after friday's howler proved so popular and was linked all over the web, would be to churn out another 1 just like it. instead bobby went to a point that he knew would bring him criticism. that is brave, i agree with c.i.

but there is a big issue here and bobby is bogged down on wilson.

to the point that he's minimizing the outing of valerie plame as he rushes to offer that maybe karl rove had reasons to see joe wilson as a kook or asshole. bobby, who's that helping?

c.i. respects bobby and c.i. roots for the underdog. i'm wondering what will be pulled for a quote over at the common ills. something will be. and if you're a member and you're angry, realize that c.i. doesn't abandon people just because of a disagreement of opinion.

when bobby raises a valid point (and most of the time that's what he does), there's no 'well this will offend some on the left so we won't spotlight it.' c.i. notes it every day. the daily howler will always be noted there. not just linked to but noted. and c.i. will refer to something bobby said in other entries. so members who are upset better realize it's happening. and that asking c.i. to dump the daily howler is only going to make c.i. see bobby as more of an underdog.

i link to the daily howler on my blog roll. (my magazine roll? should i follow atrios's lead?)

i agree with c.i. that bobby's an important voice. but i also think he's dead wrong here. c.i. probably does too. but if it looks like there's an attack on bobby, c.i.'s not going to join in. so save the e-mails because if you're really upset with bobby (and i am), e-mailing c.i. is not going to make bobby go away. and if you make personal attacks on bobby in the e-mails or dismiss him completely, the result will most likely be that c.i. will start highlighting previous posts by bobby to demonstrate a) that there's no backing off bobby just because he's angered some and b) that bobby is a valid critic with strong skills.

i agree that bobby's talented. even immensly so. i just don't agree that he's right about this. i don't mean that he's wrong about wilson. as with judy miller, joe wilson isn't that important to me. where i think he's wrong is that in the midst of a huge press feeding frenzy, he wants to focus on two years ago as opposed to offering criticques on developments currently. (for example, the fact that the press has yet to explain the law to the people without going by vicky toejam's reading of it.)

wilson's the story to the right wing. miller and cooper are the story to the journalists. at a time like this where bobby is needed is to walk in and put the spotlight on the real issues: the outing of valerie plame and the press's failure to responsibly explain the law to the audience.

Never knowing what, where or how you were thinking
Do you hear the voices in the night, Bobby?
They're crying for you
See the children in the morning light, Bobby
They're dying

there are bigger issues. and bobby's usually up for them and then some. for whatever reason he's now focused on joe wilson and like a dog with a bone he's not letting go.

Perhaps the pictures in the Times could no longer be put in rhymes
When all the eyes of starving children are wide open
You cast aside the cursed crown and put your magic into a sound
That made me think your heart was aching or even broken

bobby doesn't get 1/2 the respect he deserves. i'll be the 1st to admit it. but i'll also be the 1st to say 'this is nonsense' when it's nonsense.

if bobby truly believes joe wilson is a kook and an asshole, what does that have to do with anything? does that allow for karl rove to out valerie plame?

no.

does that make karl rove's actions okay?

no.

others are sitting down for a meal and bobby's off in the tv room snacking.

today's daily howler is a waste of time. (again, i'm really curious what c.i.'s going to find to excerpt.) and it's a waste of time because joe wilson is not the issue. judith miller isn't even the issue. if this were day 1, i wouldn't say anything. certainly bobby's earned the right to be off a game or 2. but this is day 3.

3 days of wasted time. 3 days of an important critic going over his grudge fuck of joe wilson yet again. it needs to stop because the daily howler is starting to turn into a john simon review of barbra streisand on a daily basis. (yes, i am an arts & leisure gal.)

bobby would probably argue that wilson has given the non administration view for the last 2 years. yes, he has. and if bobby has a problem with wilson's view, it's all the more important that he find some 1 else on this topic. someone not from the new york post and not from the weekly standard.

the topic's more important than joe wilson.


But if God hears my complaint
He will forgive you
And so will I, with all respect, I'll just relive you

my intent is to splash some cold water on his face. (or to pull a cher and slap him while saying 'snap out of it!') the daily howler is not supposed to be trivial. it's risking becoming that as he bends over backwards to prop up the right wing to further his own problems with joe wilson.

And likewise, you must understand these things we give you
Like these flowers at your door and scribbled notes about the war
We're only saying the time is short and there is work to do
And we're still marching in the streets with little victories and big defeats
But there is joy and there is hope and there's a place for you

the lyrics throughout this are from joan baez's 'to bobby.' her song to bob dylan. i think it's an appropriate comparison. he can be our strongest voice, our strongest critic, our most sensible.
but right now he's focusing on minor issues when the story's long since moved elsewhere.

And you have heard the voices in the night, Bobby
They're crying for you
See the children in the morning light, Bobby
They're dying

while i lay sleeping . . .

while i lay sleeping, c.i. knocked out an incredible entry on something in this morning's new york times. i'm going through my e-mails, drinking my coffee and see sherry's written which is always a good read and she's saying 'rebecca, post this!'

i read it and have to agree. here's c.i.:

NYT: "At White House, a Day of Silence on Rove's Role in C.I.A. Leak" (Richard W. Stevenson)
Nearly two years after stating that any administration official found to have been involved in leaking the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer would be fired, and assuring that Karl Rove and other senior aides to President Bush had nothing to do with the disclosure, the White House refused on Monday to answer any questions about new evidence of Mr. Rove's role in the matter. With the White House silent, Democrats rushed in, demanding that the administration provide a full account of any involvement by Mr. Rove, one of the president's closest advisers, turning up the political heat in the case and leaving some Republicans worried about the possible effects on Mr. Bush's second-term agenda. [. . .]
Under often hostile questioning, Mr. McClellan repeatedly declined to say whether he stood behind his previous statements that Mr. Rove had played no role in the matter, saying he could not comment while a criminal investigation was under way. He brushed aside questions about whether the president would follow through on his pledge, repeated just over a year ago, to fire anyone in his administration found to have played a role in disclosing the officer's identity. And he declined to say when Mr. Bush learned that Mr. Rove had mentioned the C.I.A. officer in his conversation with the Time reporter. [. . .]
In September 2003, Mr. McClellan said flatly that Mr. Rove had not been involved in disclosing Ms. Plame's name. Asked about the issue on Sept. 29, 2003, Mr. McClellan said he had "spoken with Karl Rove," and that it was "simply not true" that Mr. Rove had a role in the disclosure of her identity. Two weeks earlier, he had called suggestions that Mr. Rove had been involved "totally ridiculous." On Oct. 10, 2003, after the Justice Department opened its investigation, Mr. McClellan told reporters that Mr. Rove, Mr. Abrams and Mr. Libby had nothing to do with the leak.

The above is from Richard W. Stevenson's "At White House, a Day of Silence on Rove's Role in C.I.A. Leak" in this morning's New York Times. Among the pluses of Stevenson's article is that it's front paged so Karl gets fingered on the front page. Among the more problematic areas of the article is this portion:

"We made it exceedingly difficult to violate," Victoria Toensing, who was chief counsel to the Senate intelligence committee when the law was enacted, said of the law.
[. . .]
"She had a desk job in Langley," said Ms. Toensing, who also signed the supporting brief in the appeals court, referring to the C.I.A.'s headquarters. "When you want someone in deep cover, they don't go back and forth to Langley."*

Toensing is identified in a very interesting manner. Who's Victoria Toejam? Failed TV pundit. Friend of Robert Novak. (Did he give her bad tips for punditing or was she just unable to overcome her own deficiencies?) Victoria Toejam felt the need to weigh in on this matter before with an op-ed in the Washington Post co-written with Bruce Sanford (whom also weighs heavily at the end of the Times' article).

No mention is made by Stevenson of the Washington Post op-ed entitled "The Plame Game: Was This a Crime?" (January 12, 2005) or of her friendship with Novak (proving that you can take an Elite Fluff Patrol squad member out of the fluff, but you can't take the fluff out of the member). Here's Media Matters responding to that op-ed with regards to Victoria Toejam ("Victoria Toensing failed to disclose friendship with "No Disclosure" Novak in Wash. Post op-ed"):

Multiple news outlets have noted that Toensing is apparently a personal friend of Novak -- a fact that neither she nor the Post saw fit to disclose.
Press sightings of social interactions between Toensing, her husband, Joseph E. diGenova, and Novak abound:
An October 1, 2004, article on Salon.com reported that Novak was a guest along with Toensing and diGenova at a September 21, 2004, party in Washington to celebrate the success of the book Unfit for Command: Swift Boat Veterans Speak Out Against John Kerry (Regnery, 2004).According to an October 17, 2001, "Reliable Source" column in The Washington Post, Novak was among "70 friends" hosted by diGenova to celebrate Toensing's 60th birthday at the Palm restaurant.
A February 27, 1998, profile of Toensing and diGenova in The Washington Post reported that "[t]he couple retreat on weekends to their Fenwick Island, Del., beach house, hanging with such pals as Robert Novak and Bill Regardie."
Novak has also defended or praised his friends Toensing and diGenova on at least three occasions in his nationally syndicated column:
"DiGenova, a conservative Republican, would introduce something new at the IRB [Teamsters union Internal Review Board]. He might recommend that it is time to end the monitoring that has cost the union more than $75 million. [Federal prosecutor Mary Jo] White did her best to obstruct the 1998 congressional investigation of the Teamsters conducted by diGenova and his law partner-wife, Victoria Toensing. Nor is diGenova an admirer of Mary Jo White's glacial pursuit of the pre-Hoffa conspiracy between the Teamsters, the AFL-CIO and the Democratic National Committee as the statute of limitations is about to block further prosecution." [8/1/2001]
"This is a cautionary tale of Washington today. Anybody who dares investigate the Clinton establishment can expect the worst. [Former independent counsel] Ken Starr has been transmogrified from a bookish appellate lawyer to Grand Inquisitor Torquemada. His deputies have seen their legal careers belittled and their religious beliefs derided. Congressional investigators Victoria Toensing and Joe diGenova have had their ethics challenged." [5/14/1998]
"On April 30, House Minority Whip Rep. David Bonior, D-Mich., accused Joe diGenova and Victoria Toensing, the Republican husband-and-wife lawyers running the House Workforce Committee investigation of the Teamsters, of 'an outrageous conflict of interest' because they had become part-time commentators for NBC (a deal they canceled Wednesday)." [5/8/1998]

Toejam and Sanford argued Plame wasn't deep cover in their op-ed. Today they again stress to the Times that an outed agent has to have been stationed out of the country in the last five years. Run back the clock. Plame doesn't qualify by public record. Does the law define a covert agent as someone who has been out of the country in the last five years?
I don't know. I don't see that in the excerpt available online of The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. That doesn't mean it isn't in the act. When Stevenson address it in one paragraph, he fails to make it clear whether he's noting the act (or a legal opinion on it) or if he's being fed by Toejam and Sanford. By not noting Toejam's past history (more later) with the press or her relationship with Novak, he leaves himself open to questions of whether he researched or jotted down unquestionally. (A skill that Elite Fluff Patrol squad leader Elisabeth Bumiller apparently taught to everyone under her command.) It may very well be in the law (which would appear to defeat Poppy's intent behind supporting such an act for years -- some of Poppy's public remarks are noted here.).

People can speculate on whether Plame left the country for any missions (possible) after moving to D.C. (first to an apartment with Wilson in 1997, mid-1997, then later to a home). In January 2000, Valerie Plame gives birth to twins and suffers from postpartum depression. That doesn't make it impossible that the CIA wouldn't have used her for an operation in the time after the birth or at some point before. If the five year rule, that Toejam and Sanford are trumpeting, is correct (if) then Plame would have had to have been "stationed" (which we'll define here as taking part in a "operation"* -- though Toejam and Sanford define it differently, as permanent residence in a foreign country) as late as July of 1998. (July 12, 2003 is the published leak. By the public record, prior to Novak's colum, the leak starts in early July.)

It seems unlikely that if this defintion of a covert operative is in the 1982 Act, Patrick Fitzgerald wouldn't know of it. (Though who knows?) Toejam likes to pass herself off as a "expert" on the Act. But if the "rule" is in the act and she's the "expert" on it that she present herself as, that still doesn't make her an "expert" on when the CIA last utilized Plame undercover. (Which could have occurred at any time prior to July 2003.) That's accepting the five year "rule" and accepting that Fitzgerald's going backwards from July of 2003.

But if we go to Hunter at Daily Kos (via BuzzFlash) we find him citing a Walter Pincus article on the matter:

On July 12, 2003, an administration official, who was talking to me confidentially about a matter involving alleged Iraqi nuclear activities, veered off the precise matter we were discussing and told me that the White House had not paid attention to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's CIA-sponsored February 2002 trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction.

Is Fitzgerald looking at this as a conspiracy that started long before Novak's July 12, 2003 column? If the White House is not "paying attention" in "February 2002" what are we looking at? If Fitzgerald is arguing that the plan to out Plame was hatched in February 2002 (when the trip went down) the five year "rule" is in play -- Plame was stationed overseas in February of 1997.

If the White House (or individuals in it) knew in 2002 that Wilson's trip couldn't damage them (regardless of results), were plans already in motion to out Plame?

The five year "rule" may or may not be fact. (Stevenson doesn't inform us why he's including it in the article -- quoted to him by Toejam & Sanford or independtly verified by Stevenson.) But if Fitzgerald is looking at as a conspiracy, Plame returns to Washington (as I interpret Wilson's The Politics of Truth pp. 239-242) in June of 1997. Prior to that, she is stationed overseas.

As Hunter points out, as early as February 2002 (according to Pincus' report) the White House was dismissive of the trip (not "paying attention") because of whom Wilson was married to.

There are blanked out portions (several pages) in Fitgerald's court papers arguing the need for Matthew Cooper and Judith Miller's testimony. This has been noted in various places. We focus on the Times so we'll note a Times' July 7, 2005 editorial "Judith Miller Goes to Jail"** which maintains "The inquiry has been conducted with such secrecy that it is hard to know exactly what Mr. Fitzgerald thinks Ms. Miller can tell him, or what argument he offered to convice the court that his need to hear her testimony outweighs the First Amendment." We'll also note Adam Liptak's front page story of the same day (entitled "Reporter Jailed After Refusing To Name Source"):

Mr. Fitzgerald, who has relied on secret evidence in persuading courts to order Ms. Miller jailed, said that the law now requires her to testify.

What's in the "secret evidence?"

With Toejam and Sanford again trumpeting this five year "rule," it's obviously going to be a talking point. Toejam and her husband diGenova are possibly good at talking points (false ones?). Jacob Weisberg's "Worse Than Drudge: What game is Joe diGenova playing?" (Slate, Feb. 28, 1998) addressed this issue:

One could legitimately describe either diGenova or Toensing as a "Washington lawyer knowledgeable about the investigation," newspapers' favorite leaker ID. There is no proof that either has served as a cutout for Starr. But if they haven't, why do they qualify as a "source" about anything? In fact, the unreliable gossip they sometimes pass on makes the notorious Matt Drudge look discreet.
One gets a glimpse of Joe and Vicky's peculiar role in the fiasco that occurred in late January, when the Dallas Morning News reported, then retracted, then semi-reasserted that a Secret Service witness to a Clinton-Lewinsky encounter was prepared to testify. To recap: On the evening of Monday, Jan. 26, the paper published a report on its Web site. It quoted a lawyer "familiar with the negotiations" as saying there was a Secret Service agent who had seen Clinton and Lewinsky in a "compromising situation" and that he had become a government witness. Hours later, the paper recanted: "the source for the story, a longtime Washington lawyer familiar with the case, later said the information provided for Tuesday's report was inaccurate." The paper further noted that, "The source is not affiliated with Mr. Starr's office." But the following day, the paper reissued a version of the story. An intermediary for a witness or witnesses who might or might not be a Secret Service agent or agents had told Starr's office about seeing Clinton and Lewinsky in what was now described as an "ambiguous situation." Inexplicably, the story quoted "former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova, who is not directly involved in the case," as saying that the intermediary had made contact for the witness or witnesses with Mr. Starr's office. "In essence, your story is correct," diGenova told the paper.
Was the original source also diGenova or Toensing?
I think it must have been. Click here to find out why.
Whether diGenova was the source or not, we do know that diGenova spoke to the Dallas Morning News on the record, confirming that a witness of some sort did indirectly pass information to Starr's office. And we know that Toensing spoke off the record, contradicting the originally published version. Since diGenova says they weren't representing anyone involved, on what basis did they know? "This is a small Southern town," says diGenova. "People talk to a lot of people. Reporters talk to people. Lawyers talk. You hear things and you pass them on to reporters so that they might investigate. Sometimes people don't investigate the way they should." This sounds almost like an admission, and suggests that Starr's office may be indirectly using journalists to try to substantiate rumors it has heard. In any event, the fact that the Dallas Morning News considered diGenova a legitimate source would suggest that the paper's reporter thought he wasn't just relating third-hand gossip, but had real information from Starr's office.

So Toejam may have experience issuing talking points. And she (and Sanford) are trumpeting the five year "rule" again. If the "rule" does exist in the law, is Fitzgerald unaware of that "rule" or is he going for a plot to out Plame, should Wilson cause discomfort, hatched on or before February of 2002?I don't know and I'm really not big on speculation. But I'm also not real big on the rejects from the Clinton character assassinations resurfacing as 'reliable' via an unquestioning press. Their false information damaged the country (my opinion). Toejam was part of that (I'm inclined to believe Jacob Weisberg) and she's now returning to the scene, so I think there's reason to speculate. I also think that if Stevenson is told there is a five year "rule" he needs to establish in his article whether that's true or not and what he's based that finding on.

What would it have taken? I'd argue only one call to Floyd Abrams. Abrams certainly knows the act (as Miller's legal counsel). If he didn't, he could get someone to look into it and have an answer long before the story went to press. (Though I'm personally having a hard time picturing Abrams not knowing every aspect of the Act. As always, I could be wrong.) Which would lead to a sentence reading, "Floyd Abrams, counsel to Judith Miller, states that the five year rule . . ."

The five year "rule" may or may not exist. A larger point to be made is that it really doesn't matter in terms of Karl Rove needing to go. His participation, as reported, in this matter makes him unfit to serve in the White House. Regardless of whether a criminal law has been broken or not, he is now known to have passed on information that Plame was CIA (the latest argument on that is that he didn't give her "name" just whom she was married to -- which is pointing out in a similar manner that one identifies in a police lineup). That's not the way Americans expect their government to work.

And as Stevenson notes, the Bully Boy said anyone involved would be fired.

The need on the part of Toejam and Sanford to repeatedly interject the five year "rule" may speak to the fact that Rove will walk (if the "rule" exists) on criminal charges. That doesn't mitigate the fact that the White House has behaved in shameful manner. The Bully Boy was about as clear as he can be when pressed by reporters. He didn't say, "If there's a conviction." (If there's a conviction, it's assumed the person would be gone anyway since he or she would be behind bars.) From Stevenson's article:

Mr. McClellan and Mr. Bush have both made clear that leaking Ms. Plame's identity would be considered a firing offense by the White House. Mr. Bush was asked about that position most recently a little over a year ago, when he was asked whether he stood by his pledge to fire anyone found to have leaked the officer's name. "Yes," he replied, on June 10, 2004.

There's a reason for the repeated use of ToeJam and Sanford's talking point. They promoted it January 12, 2005 in the Washington Post so it's hard to believe Fitzgerald is unaware of the talking point. It may exist in the Act. If so, Fitzgerald may be going for something else (or else be a really bad prosecutor) based on additional information. That could (or could not) include something such as a conspiracy begun while the five year "rule" applied or he could have information on a mission or missions Plame took part in as an undercover operative after moving to D.C. in mid-1997.

Regardless of what Fitzgerald's going for, the fact remains that Bully Boy was clear (even for the Bully Boy) on this matter. Rove e-mailed Matthew Cooper saying Wilson's wife was CIA prior to Novak's column appearing. (His remarks after Novak's column appeared, to Chris Matthews, that Wilson's wife was fair game were also out of line since he shouldn't have been engaging in such conversations.) Rove is involved in the leak. The pledge was that anyone involved would be fired. Even with the talking point (true or false), there' shouldn't be any dancing room on this for the Bully Boy.

The e-mail address for this site is common_ills@yahoo.com.

[*"Stationed" according to one lawyer who has handles cases for CIA agents (former and current) should not mean living abroad if it is in the act. He states that "stationed" should mean "positioned" for a mission regardless of the agent's permananet base. Any other meaning would be "worthless" based on the fact that operatives are in and out of countries frequently and their cover "must be mobile and not locked to a certain area" for them to work effectively undercover. He is unfamiliar with the five year "rule" but notes that Plame being an undercover operative at some point and her cover not yet been blown -- whether or not Novak was told that it was doubtful Plame would be used again in an undercover mission, as Toejame and Sanford maintain in their Washington Post op-ed -- the fact that Plame had an existing cover and was still with the CIA meant that the cover might be used again for national security reasons. If the five year "rule" is in the act, it goes against the intent of the Act which was to ensure, according to him, that undercover operatives' identies were protected. "If Plame's cover was in place" prior to Novak's outing "it didn't have a use-by date. Until she was outed, her cover was a national security asset to the nation. Regardless of the manner in which the law was written, I have difficulty believing that it allows for the destruction of a national security asset to the country. An agent with an existing cover is one that can be reactivated at any time -- such as in a time of national crisis where assistance is needed."
**I don't comment on the editorials in the Times here. I've quoted from one above. And I'll say thanks to Zach who e-mailed Thursday afternoon urging me to read that editorial. I'll also say thanks to Dallas who spotted Stevenson's article online, copy and pasted and gave me heads up. I would have been scratching my head over this article without the heads up. I'll also thank the attorney, who asked not to be named, for his assistance in walking me through this. Disclosure, though it should be obvious from the time frame in which his walk through occurred, the attorney is a friend of mine --otherwise I wouldn't have woken him with a phone call for a walk through on the issue and that talking point offered by Toejam.]

forgive the spacing. it's too early in the morning for me!

democracy now and third estate sunday review

if you read the third estate sunday review (and if you didn't, get over there!) you know that we were talking about the power that we have and what would the world be like if every left blogger plugged democracy now for five days in 1 week. so let me do my part to use my power:

Report: Ex-French President Ok'd Sinking of Greenpeace Ship
On Sunday, hundreds of Greenpeace activists gathered in Paris to mark the 20th anniversary of the sinking of the organization's ship the Rainbow Warrior. The ship sank in a New Zealand harbor on July 10, 1985 when an explosion ripped open its hull. Greenpeace photographer Fernando Pereira was killed in the incident. The ship was preparing to head to sea to protest against French nuclear bomb tests in the South Pacific. Over the weekend, the French newspaper Le Monde revealed that the late French President Francois Mitterrand personally approved the sinking of the ship. The paper has obtained a handwritten account of the ship's sinking written by the former head of France's spy agency that says Mitterrand had authorized the ship to be sunk. One former crew member of the Rainbow Warrior spoke at a commemoration ceremony on Sunday.

this 1 stuck out to me most because of the common ills. back in june, c.i. did a thing on this and i had no idea about it and don't think i'd heard fernando pereira's name before. i read it and it was kind of mind blowing that the french government would do something like this. but then, at the same time, not so shocking.


sunday the new york times did an article on the fact that french president francois mitterrand had signed off on the sinking and in the article (there's debate about who wrote the article, see c.i. and ava's post) and yet the report never mentioned pereira by name or that any 1 died onboard the ship. as c.i. and ava noted, how do you do that?

i think you do that because you do not want to make a big deal out of the story. i think it's too embarrassing. a french president signed off an action that resulted in the death of a civilian. the action was bad enough without any 1 dying. but when you add that fernando pereira died as a result, it's all the more vile.

now go back to the item i quote above and note that democracy now mentions pereira in the 2nd sentence. that is just 1 example of why it matters. the new york times does a long article that never mentions him. you get more information that you can use and that matters from democracy now. so that's the point i'm making today.

now let me note sunday's editorial from the third estate sunday review:

Editorial: Time to Head On Home
To quote the Beatles "I read the news today, oh boy." A quick scan of the headlines on BuzzFlash reveal what we already knew, the Bully Boy's not made us safer. We see links to stories on the feelings of the British. (Similar to Pru's feelings expressed at The Common Ills.) C.I. and Dallas go international and end up with Tony Allen-Mills and Andrew North's "Downed US Seals may have got too close to Bin Laden" (Sunday Times of London) about "the worst incident in the history of the Seals." Not a credit the Bully Boy needs right now after dragging his feet for almost four years since Sept. 11th. What was "Wanted Dead or Alive?" A provocative personal ad? It certainly wasn't anything with meaning.
Then there's Michael Smith's "UK in talks to hand Iraq role to Australia" (also Sunday Times of London):
BRITAIN is negotiating with Australia to hand over military command of southern Iraq to free up British troops for redeployment to the front line in Afghanistan.
An announcement is expected within weeks that several thousand British soldiers are to be sent to Afghanistan.
The coalition of Operation Enduring Falsehood continues to shrink.
And folks, we're just getting started. Still sticking with The Sunday Times of London, check out Hala Jaber's "Allawi: this is the start of civil war:"
IRAQ’S former interim prime minister Iyad Allawi has warned that his country is facing civil war and has predicted dire consequences for Europe and America as well as the Middle East if the crisis is not resolved.
"The problem is that the Americans have no vision and no clear policy on how to go about in Iraq," said Allawi, a long-time ally of Washington.
In an interview with The Sunday Times last week as he visited Amman, the Jordanian capital, he said: "The policy should be of building national unity in Iraq. Without this we will most certainly slip into a civil war. We are practically in stage one of a civil war as we speak."
Occupations will lead to civil wars. No surprise there. To resentment, to anger and to violence.
Or how about this UPI article linked to at Iraq Coalition Casualties? The link's bad (they don't have the full web address in the link) but look at what you can read:
07/09/05 upi: Iraq war results in at least 254 amputees
Army hospitals treated 254 amputees from the Iraq war...Nearly 19,000 soldiers have been medically evacuated ...There were 2,527 evacuated with battle injuries, 5,444 with non-battle injuries and 10,758 with disease.
At The Independent, Andy McSmith's "Leaked memo shows Iraq pull-out plans" only makes the point more clear about who's still wanting to dance with Bully Boy and who's called a taxi for the ride home:
Almost two thirds of the 8,500 British troops in Iraq will have been pulled out by the end of next year, under plans drawn up in Whitehall to hand over two provinces to Iraqi control.
The plan set out in a leaked memo written by the Defence Secretary John Reid, hints that the Government is keen to cut the heavy cost of patrolling southern Iraq.
The memo calculates that the current cost of the British presence in Iraq, around £1bn a year, could be halved if the number of troops were reduced to 3,000 during 2006. The memo implies that the British would formally hand over control to the Iraqis of the four provinces currently under British control by April 2006, but that it take another eight months before what the memo calls the "UK military drawdown" has been completed - and 18 months before the money comes through.
Are we starting to get the picture yet? The public is. They want the troops home. Polls show that. It's just the media and our leaders that are too timid to address it. "Stay the course!" they chant. This "cakewalk" has now lasted over two years. Donald Rumsfeld says twelve is a possiblity. "Cakewalk?"
How do you define "success" in Iraq? That's difficult since the reasons for the invasion/occupation constantly shift. But it's not been a cakewalk, this war of choice. And we haven't made the world safer for anyone. Iraq's not safer. We're not safer. The London bombings prove the fly paper theory was crap.
Now we're supposed to let the ones who brought us this war go back to the drawing board to . . . think up new excuses? They had no planning other than (as Naomi Klein pointed out in "Baghdad Year Zero") to have a tag sale on the Iraqi assets. Even the Operation Happy Talkers seem to have a case of cat got their tongues. (Sadly, we're sure this is a momentary condition.)If sane people can agree that the illegal occupation is a disaster for everyone involved (outside of those profitting from the war), how much are we willing to give to "stay the course?" We want the body counts to double? When do we reach the point that we say enough?
We steer to you to "Should This Marriage Be Saved?" and ask at what point do we take a realistic look at what's going on? Pig-headed is not a virtue. It's not sane. It's not logical. And it's only going to get more people killed.
The Bully Boy has sullied this nation's name. He's trashed treaties and conventions. He's had a five-year frat party at our expense. At some point, we need to roll up our sleeves and do some cleaning. And that means tossing in the garbage the notion that after two years of the "cake walk" this is anything like what was sold to us.
"Stay the course?" We say "head on home." Head on home to what America is supposed to stand for. On what America is supposed to represent. This invasion/occupation isn't what America's supposed to be about. So let's all grow up, sober up and realize that the Bully Boy's taken us on a two-year bender. Comes a time when you gotta head home. It's past time for that.
Iraq had no WMD. It was not a threat to us ("mushroom cloud," Condi?). Someone lied us into war. They took us off course. It's time to get back to what America's all about and it's time to realize that drunk slurring his words and telling us he knows another bar that's still open isn't anyone we want to get a car in with. We're ready to head on home and return to the lives we should be leading. Lives that don't involve wars built on lies. Lives that don't involve trying to impose a system on a people who didn't ask for us to be there. Lives that don't involve falling for the latest Operation Happy Talk. Lives that are reality-based. Bar's closing, let's all head on home. At least the ones who still have that option, the ones who didn't give their lives to a war of choice, one that should have been avoided.
[Note: Since these editorials tend to get reposted elsewhere, we'll note this was written by The Third Estate Sunday Review crew of Jim, Dona, Ty, Jess and Ava as well as by C.I. of The Common Ills, Rebecca of Sex and Politics and Screeds and Attitude, Kat of Kat's Korner, Mike of Mikey Likes It! and Betty of Thomas Friedman is a Great Man.]

call it a blog report

call it a blog report

so i get a call from c.i. this afternoon. 'are you blogging tonight?' to which i reply 'are you my parent?' c.i. laughs and says 'i forgot something in the mid-day entry and was wondering if you wanted to grab it if you had space.' i always have space.

what's up for the third estate sunday review? well there will be another 'five books, five minutes' because the readers are really enjoying those. it's a way to highlight 5 books and often a jumping off point for us to discuss a current event or a belief we hold or any other topic in the world. of course, there will be an editorial. what else will be in it?

oh come on, you all know you only have 1 question and that's will there be a tv review from ava and c.i.? yes, there will be. and i know what on. but both would kill me if i told. so instead i'll tell you that i've spoken to both today and yes, they still don't think their recent tv review make room for bully is funny. of course it's funny. the e-mails show people think it's funny. ava and c.i. are too tough on their own work. when jim, dona, ty, jess, kat, betty, mike and myself were all reading it, we were laughing. it's funny.

my personal favorite review that they've written would probably be either the 1 on what i like about you or the 1 on jake in progress. no, wait. it's the 1 they did on smallville. i'll stick with the last 1 as my favorite. they're all funny.

so what else is going on? i'm trying to remember. i was all set to do this and then i got off on a tangent about what my favorite tv review by ava and c.i. was and forgot everything.

well let's just make this a blog report because i got an e-mail from elaine that i agree with whole heartedly. so this will be our blog report.

c.i. forgot to mention what was coming up at third estate but look at that entry and everything in it and you'll understand why, it's long.

is mike not doing an incredible job at blogging? i love his site and i mean what is this, his 3rd week. i love his emphasis on recruiting and on answering questions. he makes me laugh.

now let's run over to betty's site. she's doing a 2 parter and has the 1st part up already. it's a fourth of july with friedman. let me give you a sample because it's hilarious as always:

We had a "roof picnic" Monday. It was a nightmare. Nicky K and Mrs. Kristof were there as well as this woman named Patti Limerick Nelson.
There was Thomas Friedman the not so great man up on our roof wearing a "Kiss the Chef" apron. Did I mention it was over his shorty robe?
I kept begging him to put on some clothes but he insisted on wearing the shorty robe because he wanted an "all body tan" to go with his highlights. He's had more done. Mrs. K again asked if he was getting more gray hairs and Thomas Friedman again pouted.
While he was pouting and on the ledge of the roof insisting that since no one understood him, appreciated him, valued him or even wanted him for their partner in charades (his fault, he can't keep his mouth shut even when he's acting out the clues) he might as well jump, Nicky K, probably because of the heat, launched into a version of Van Halen's "Jump."

the thought of thomas friedman in a shorty robe is both disgusting and hilarious! i love it whenever betty manages to work in the shorty robe.


and let's note kat's brave entry 'i had an abortion.'

and the wonderful ruth has another wonderful post and i'd say it even if she didn't include some yiddish just for me! it's an interesting look at the bombing of london via a trip to the pediatrician with her granddaughter tracey and her infant grandson. here's a slice:

While a few small children played, all the adults were listening to the radio broadcast.
A twenty-three year-old woman named Christy had a son who will be two in October. She whispered to Tracey and I that she had voted for the Bully Boy in November and it was because she believed that we needed to "stay the course" and that invading Iraq had made the world safer. Now, as she hears Donald Rumsfeld saying that we may be occupying Iraq for twelve more years, as the body count continues to mount and as London is bombed, she feels she made a huge mistake in her vote.
She told us she'd been feeling that way since March. What we call Operation Happy Talk no longer works on her. The news of the elections gave her hope and she wanted to believe the statements that the elections would result in peace and stability but that didn't end up being the case. She said when people were speaking of purple fingers she felt some doubts but silenced them. When the violence continued after the elections, she stopped silencing the doubts. Now when she hears people talk up Iraq, she just feels sick to her stomach.


and i want to note common ills community party member, british pru with her remarks on the bombings:

But as I looked around yesterday, I saw grief that was mature and reasoned. There was no need to question, "Why us?" It's perfectly obvious why us. We have engaged with and supported the policies of the United States not limited to the invasion and occupation of Iraq. This has been done despite the large objection coming from the people of our country and despite the fact that the objection has only grown as we have been confronted with the reality that there is no "win" in Iraq, not for us, not for the States.
"Why us" does not trip off our tongues because the answer is obvious and frightening.
Equally obvious has been the answer which is that we must pull out of the illegal occupation. Thursday's events make that quite clear and, all around me, that was the sentiment most often shared.
Prime Minister Tony Blair did not shirk the way the Bully Boy did. He was present and accounted for. However, what he had to offer were empty words that, while more eloquent than anything that tumbles out of the Bully Boy's smirking mouth, said very little. Terrorist attacks. Check. Empty words supposed to warm us. Check. The reasons for the attack? Silence.
All around I heard people asking the hard questions and supplying the tough answers that the Prime Minister refused to address. We've grown to expect that from him and there is a sense among some that what is in the best interest of England is not the primary concern of our current Prime Minister.


as for folding star, i don't know what to tell you. i'm reading the e-mails. c.i.'s getting them too. we weren't told ahead of time, any of the community bloggers, that it was happening. i don't know what to tell you. the only 1 who has heard from folding star is c.i. maybe folding star will start blogging again, maybe it's the end of a winding road.

bette davis said aging wasn't for sissies. if she were alive today, she might say that about blogging. but having received attack e-mails repeatedly, i do understand how you can want to give up. folding star made that decision. i haven't. i've kept on. and we actually had a conversation about this, c.i., mike, betty, jim, dona, ty, jess and myself. what does this mean? how do we address it? we've all gotten some questions on it.

here are the questions you've been asking me in e-mails.

why?

what do you think about it?

will folding star blog again?

is this a prank, stunt or drama?

why did fs stop blogging? it's in the only post that's left at the site.

what do i think about it? every 1 has their own opinion. i think, considering that i pushed a winding road over and over here, for me to find out about it by visiting the site was pretty lame.
no head's up and nothing after the entries were deleted.

is it a prank? a stunt? drama? i don't know. if it is any of 3, it should have been executed better.

i will say that if you're having problems with e-mails, you talk about it to others. you can't keep it inside. laugh about it with other people and it seems a lot less important. if you are doubting yourself as a blogger, figure out why. do you need to improve? if you think you do, work at that.

but maybe folding star never wanted to blog? there weren't a lot of posts in june or may. so when a critical e-mail comes in maybe folding star saw it as a way to end a hobby?

i'm being pretty frank here and i'll hear about it from c.i. and possibly others.

if i decided to stop blogging next week, i wouldn't delete what i'd already written. and it's really silly to have deleted everything because folding star still has entries up at the third estate sunday review. those aren't being deleted. they aren't going anywhere.

i would e-mail people like sherry and wally who have been strong supporters of my site and let them know. if i was upset, i might do it after i posted an announcement but they would get a personal e-mail from me because they have been here through good posts and bad posts.

and you better believe that i would call up jim, c.i., kat, betty, ruth and mike to say 'i'm bagging it guys.' they have helped me. (jim would pass it on to dona, ty, jess and ava.) they have plugged my site. when i have been down or confused or hurt, they have been there for me. when things have gone really good, they've shared my joy.

c.i. has gotten e-mails but only because c.i. has e-mailed folding star. folding star didn't even tell c.i. about shutting down a winding road. i was the 1 who told c.i. on monday morning. i was painting my toe nails because i was wearing sandals to the cookout and i was surfing around online while i did thinking i'd find something to blog on before i left. so i am going from site to site and then i land on a winding road and think 'what?'

i call c.i. who had a house full of guests and i could hear most of them over the phone and have to repeat what i'm saying due to the noise. even after i do, c.i. asks, 'rebecca, what did you say?' only this time out of disbelief not because it was hard to hear.

i really thought c.i. would have known. i get off the phone with c.i. and call kat and she doesn't know anything about it. i call jess's mother because i knew he was going there and jess is there but knows nothing about it.

during the phone call mid-week, while we were all discussing how to answer the questions, c.i. said, 'let me see if i can get permission for an answer' because c.i. didn't want any 1 speculating.

i don't know why it happened.

if you make chocolate chip cookies and i'm telling every 1 'oh you have to taste folding star's chocolate chip cookies' over and over and it turns out that there are no cookies being brought to the party and, in fact, folding star has decided not to attend, then i look like an idiot.

so i don't think it was handled well. i'm not supposed to say that. i'll hear about it from others (not just c.i.) but that's how i feel.

talking to c.i.

judy miller is the punching bag today at most sites.

i called c.i. to find out what visitors were saying and, no surprise, they were griping. about
'NYT: "Reporter Jailed After Refusing to Name Source" (Adam Liptak)' and 'The Js: Jane (Mayer), Jude (Iddybud) and Judith (Miller).' in nasty terms filled with accusations.

and c.i.'s response was to laugh. that's something that people might not get. c.i. will say 'i may be wrong' at the site and in conversation. 'to be fair' are 3 words anyone who knows c.i. has grown to expect. so there may be the idea that c.i. can be swayed on something and a number of visitors were saying 'i will never come back here unless you change your position.'

but what they don't get is that c.i. is not bothered by taking an unpopular position. never has been. years ago, i can remember this completely peaceful look that c.i. would get when it was time to take a stand. i could picture that look while speaking on the phone today.

it's the same look we saw before the war when c.i. said it was wrong and we would be stuck there and people would be dying, no cake walk. we were at a dinner party and this guy was just enraged by those comments and red faced and yelling and c.i. didn't care.

i have never known c.i. to say 'i told you so.' but when c.i. takes a stand on something it's usually works out to where c.i. could say 'i told you so.'

i asked c.i. 'do you feel you're right?' and c.i. said absolutely and that 'you didn't grow in the family i did without realizing the importance of a free press. my mother and my grandfather would both haunt me if i took any other position.' and c.i.'s family was in the newspaper business and i think c.i.'s told that at the common ills. if not oops.

and that's where c.i.'s anger comes in at today's press. c.i. is very old school and was very much old schooled by the family.

freedom of the press is not a position c.i. will support half way. nor 1 that c.i.'s grandfather would have supported half way.

'what are you being accused of?' i asked.

'the funniest 1 is that i'm trying to get a job at the new york times as though they'd say "hey you stuck up for us on this so let's forget that you've trashed elisabeth bumiller and that you've trashed dexter filkins and all the rest and come work for us!"'

the other chuckle came from the suggestion that c.i. was trying to position as a moderate since c.i. is extreme on free speech.

you don't apply it just for the people you agree with. and c.i.'s rudith miller is well known as are opinions of judith miller. but you don't toss out your princples just because it might help you score a political victory.

i asked c.i. about members and c.i. noted some members disagree but that they do grasp what's involved and that their position is similar to fair's position which is a respectable position that has thought behind it 'but these i hate judy so she must go to jail' opinions are not based in reality.

c.i. also brought up the point that while miller deserves criticism in terms of the new york times, there are people who want to act as though she is responsible for everything and while others get to 'slink off' she remains the lightening rod.

'miller didn't host nightly news. she didn't even book herself on the programs she appeared on.
others made those decisions but they'll get a pass and it's miller time nonstop.'

and c.i. listed 5 examples and then asked me if i noticed something about the examples?

'they were all men. miller's more fun to bash because she's a woman. the times does have a reach and miller did benefit from it but in terms of tv versus newspaper, more people see tv news than read a paper. to imply that judith miller is responsible for all media is to give a lot of people a pass.'

and that's a point c.i. made awhile back when talking about the paper's mea culpa. that to name judith miller would give everyone an out. where's nbc's mea culpa or cbs's or any 1s?

or the nonsense about dick cheney holding up the times on meet the press. he held it up. there was nothing to prevent tim russert from asking hard questions. there's no rule that you hold a paper and then the questions stop.

'people are dead and dying. miller's reporting is an issue in that but she's not the only 1 though you'd think so to read some of the nonsense. she was a bad reporter. she wasn't the only 1. but focusing on her allows others to get off. there's this argument that there's a circling of the wagons. no. iran-contra, barbara walters one day in the news and then vanishing was circle the wagons. miller's used as an excuse for others to hide behind. there are other reporters and others who pretend to be that were as bad as miller but to read the e-mails you'd think she hosted every evening news program and every morning show. anything she went on, she went on as a guest. if there were not opposing guests, that's a problem with the show. within the times the criticism is sound and the criticism of the paper is sound. when you leave that to do an all media criticism, turning her into the scapegoat so that others can avoid be pressed on their own reporting is an easy out.'

'if the times's reach was so incredible, the runaway bride wouldn't have been the huge nonstory it was. the times can flood the zone and impact what gets covered. but miller was doing bad reporting that others backed up, endorsed or added to. and to make it "judy took us to war" means someone better tell soros and others to stop wasting money on election cycles because cleary that money should be poured into journalism schools instead. it would be lying to say that she and the paper can't impact coverage. they can. but people make those choices in other formats and they need to be held accountable for them. and there's a woman at nbc who never gets named despite the fact that she was even spoken to about her 'reporting' and told to modify it because it was too obvioulsy one sided. people in the control room would burst out in laughter during some of her early reports as she scowled while mentioning some democrat and then beamed her brightest smile as she intoned "the president." no one wants to touch her, left or right. and she covers d.c. she covers the bully boy. and her reports are as bad if not worse than miller. is she taken seriously? probably not by professionals but i doubt most tv viewers question her.'

'i don't care if miller took a brave stand for selfish reasons. some people say that. it doesn't matter to me, the stand was for a free press. whether she meant it or not i don't know and i don't care. it was a brave stand and to deny that is to deny the climate we're in, my opinion.'

'there is fair criticiscm. fair has solid criticism. and people wanting to rejoice about miller should probably bone up on that so that they can have something to argue other than "bad reporter!"
instead they want to turn her into being personally responsible for all media and apparently for decisions made in the oval office. "she lied us into war." even within the context of the times, spread some of that blame on up the chain. her name's not on the masthead as publisher or executive-editor. howell raines went with those stories. and reporters on tv have people who aired their own stories. there's a lot of blame to go around. but since miller's so obviously criticized it's easy to grab that criticism and avoid doing work on others. you can read amy goodman's book, for instance, and then trash judy miller. goodman's writing within the context of the times and dealing with the paper's reach. but some people don't seem to get that and think that judy miller and only judy miller got us to where we are. they must miss it when amy goodman says "people like judith miller" as well. where's any network's mea culpa? i watched tv news during the lead up to the war and i never watched fox news. i saw reports similar to miller's. why aren't those people's known as bad reporters?'

'she's the fall guy for everyone which isn't fair. there were many reporters whose work would not now hold up to scrutiny. i'm not defending her reporting and i've been clear about that at the common ills. but i am saying stop making her the sole sin eater because a ton of people are getting off with a pass as a result.'

'and you can be opposed to her reporting and still defend the rights of a free press. you can also support a free press and argue that she should turn over her source. fair's done that. but a lot of people don't want to do that thought or that work. they want it in black and white terms where there's one villaness and it's all so simple. i don't think it is simple. i can respect fair's stance and see where they are coming from. but others who haven't done the work twist in the wind because they have no foundation to their argument that also supports a free press. it's just bash judith miller for who she is. the case wasn't about her. that's why i criticized the times for treating it like that in some stories. that's what we got at when we were brainstorming. the issue is bigger than miller. if you're going to come out insisting she cough up a name you need to have something to back that position up with. none of the emails did that no matter how long they went on.'

c.i., grace lee boggs, granny d & david sirota

i was talking on the phone to c.i. about the new york times today and we both agreed that judith miller's showing more spine than 'big boy' matthew cooper.

whatever any 1 else feels, miller doesn't back down. that can be a strength and is in this case. it can also be a flaw and maybe the reason why there's been no 'here were things reported that we now know were wrong' piece.

but in a world where people bend and break all the time, i do have to say that i'm admiring miller's strength. and thinking that in terms of the image of the profession she's conducted herself in this case more like a 'newsman' than any of the reporters around her.

so i'll say she's fighting strong and applaud any woman that fights strong. keep giving it to them, judy miller. she's playing it strong and coming off like a maverick and that's always very popular with the public. too bad her newspaper has yet to figure out how they need to come off.

1 of the things i brought up on the phone with c.i. was why jill what's her name? that was in reference to this:

They should continue to fight this. Even if Miller goes to jail, they should continue to fight it. They've done a really bad job getting the issues, as they see them, across to their readers. They need to designate a point person to speak to the press and go on TV. It should be Jill Abramson. She's managing editor and she knows the D.C. beat. She has a level of respect that others may not have and she also would (hopefully) be better at stating the issues. Bill Keller's too close to it and Arthur Sulzberger, Jr. nearly torpedoes Miller any time he attempts to defend her (by offering poor examples that don't help). (Keller gets snippy when questioned on Miller.)
Today doesn't look good for Miller and the Times needs to realize that. The coverage has improved in the last few days (Seelye* and Liptak). But if Miller goes to jail, they'll want people on the news. Miller's come out fighting (noted in Saturday's report in the Times) and hopefully she'll continue to make her own case strongly. But Fitzgerald is now calling the paper itself into question.

jill abramson covered d.c. and apparently did a good job. but i still wasn't persuaded. then c.i. says 'strange justice' and i'm thinking 'billie holiday remix song?' c.i. says 'rebecca, anita hill.'

alright yeah, it would make a difference. she's got some currency. but i'm not sure she wants to spend it on this.

as managing editor she does have a postion of power and with her own accomplishments, she probably would come off as reasoned and informed. and jane mayer co-wrote the strange justice book with her. at the end c.i. asks, 'did you watch democracy now?' of course i did.
'so you saw abramson's former co-writer?' jane mayer! i was surprised.

anita hill seems so long ago but as c.i. has pointed out the 14 years can't be that long ago if after all this time the only 'change' has been that the judiciary committee now has 1 woman on it. 1 woman. 14 years and that's 'progress.'

c.i. knows i love granny d - and who doesn't - so i was thrilled to check my inbox and find this by grace lee boggs -"AN OLDER ELDER URGES LEADING FROM LOVE:"

Five years ago, at the age of 89, Doris "Granny D" Haddock
walked from L.A. to D.C., to lobby for campaign finance reform.
Now 94, she recently, congratulated Hampshire College graduates
for exercising their power to shape their own lives.
"For it is the loss of faith in our personal power that drives
the woes of the world. When we feel insecure in our power to
direct the future of our own lives, we fall into a kind of social
mental illness that encourages us to distrust and hate other
people. When people are made to feel powerless, they feel despair.
"The current effort by zealots to pass laws against the interests
of gay people is a good example of this. In the Germany of the
1930s, the average German was struggling to survive in a worldwide
depression.
"Monetary inflation reached such an extreme that people literally
carried cash around in bushel baskets to pay for groceries.
"That is what is happening in the United States today. The best
jobs of our middle class have been wiped out by big box stores,
the export of jobs. Safety nets, such as Social Security and
our Bill of Rights, are being cut for the financial benefit
of a few."

that's not the end so use the link to read more. and you should read more because

granny d is giving us a wakeup call if we pay attention. the time to say what happened is not after everything's fallen apart, it's while things can still be fixed. and we still have time. but it means paying attention to what's going on. and it also means figuring out what you wish was going on. that means paying attention to cafta and other issues. here's david sirota:

The Washington Post fronts a story about the House wrangling over the Central American Free Trade Agreement(CAFTA) – and the piece offers us a smorgasbord of what's wrong with the Beltway culture.First and foremost, we get the regular comments from faux "centrists" (aka. corporatists) who say voting against the agreement will hurt the party. For instance, former Christian Coalition official Marshall Wittmann, who now hilariously purports to speak for Democrats, says Democrats previously "used pro-trade positions to show moderate voters and business interests they are willing to stand up to their labor union backers..."
There is no mention that those party leaders also helped undermine the party's ability to attract votes from working class districts - many of the same districts that have turned red over the last decade. And there is no mention that polls show Americans overwhelmingly want politicians to stop ramming corporate-written trade deals down our country's throat.Then we get DLC CEO Al From, who – as usual – uses the most hyperbolically inflammatory and dishonest language possible to undermine Democrats (he has made a career in Washington's cocktail party circuit doing this kind of thing). He claims that being against corporate-written trade deals that sell out American workers will make "hard to assume national leadership" because it will mean
Democrats have "a protectionist bent." That's his trick – anyone who opposes a trade deal because it includes no labor, human rights or environmental standards is "protectionist" – even though our country has already shown that you can actually craft trade deals with those provisions in them, if politicians decide not to just shill for Big Business.

think about it.

judy, judy, judy

c.i. sent me a thing from fair. it's from august of 2004:


FAIR, the national media watch group, encourages the reporters and news outlets who have been asked to reveal their sources in the Valerie Plame and Wen Ho Lee cases to cooperate with investigators. Protecting the identities of confidential sources is a journalistic right that should be recognized by the courts, but only when it protects genuine whistle-blowers, not when it shields government wrongdoing. Plame is the covert CIA officer whose identity was apparently leaked after her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, charged the Bush administration with misuse of intelligence. Lee was a scientist falsely charged by the Clinton administration with being a Chinese spy, and officials seem to have leaked selective information about him in an effort to discredit him in the press.
Reporters in both cases are being told by investigators to reveal the specific members of the government who transmitted information. FAIR believes that attorneys' attempts to discover these sources are legitimate, and the ethical journalistic choice is to assist their efforts.The ability to protect confidential sources who reveal government wrongdoing is an important journalistic protection that deserves judicial respect. In both the Plame and Lee cases, however, the journalist's sources were not revealing government wrongdoing, but committing government wrongdoing . In both cases, the alleged crime was the act of revealing protected information to journalists in order to harm the government's enemies. Given that the alleged criminal acts apparently involved oral conversations between government officials and journalists, it is likely that no evidence of these purported acts would exist except for the journalists' potential testimony.
Unless one believes that the government ought to be able to surreptitiously use its enormous information-gathering powers to attack opponents with impunity, investigators must have the ability to ask journalists for their sources in such cases, and to compel them if necessary.

my feelings on the thing are neutral in terms of does judy go to jail or not. i honestly have more pressing things going on in my life and the new york times hasn't made it a 1st amendment case to my satisfaction (or really at all -- they did have one article that c.i. pointed out - i think it was monday).

but c.i. thought i might find something there that would be interesting. i love fair as much c.i. does. and i think they are making a good point above.

is this a case where the leaker was leaking something to help the public? no. it's not that kind of case. valerie plame was outed. not to save the public money, not because she was running some program that was turning the public into test subjects. there was no real reason to reveal her.

and what we're left with was people who had information didn't keep it public.

i'm really neutrel on this. i see fair's point and think they make it beautifully. i'm not sure i see the new york times' case because they've done such a god awful job making the point.

tomorrow the case is heard and judy miller will say she's not talking.

omg, i've got this shooting pain in the side of my head. seriously. it's like a twitch of pain. o.k. it's gone. that was weird.

so judy miller will say she's not talking.

i think fair has a point. i think the paper could make a point. i'm not seeing that they have.

i'm still neutral. i'm glad c.i. brought this to my attention and hopefully it will help some 1 who comes here. and i think fair's a great resource but i'm just not seeing this case as earth shattering. the paper's failed to do the basic work they should have been doing. that's their problem. tomorrow it becomes miller's.

maybe her attornies and she herself know how to fight better than the new york timid?

guess we'll see tomorrow.

what i want to weigh in today on is that ava and c.i. are hilarious and i know it was a pain in the ass for them to do the review saturday/sunday but it is hilarious and i cannot believe that they still can't see that. if you haven't read it, go read it. they send up everything and it's hilarious and has a message. i also will mention that sherry thinks 'operation enduring falsehood' is 1 of the best terms that c.i. alone or with ava has ever come up with. i agree it's a great tag and i'll start using it here:

The character he's playing is infamous not just for "Bring it on" but also for the "brave" sacrifice of giving up sweets when Operation Enduring Falsehood began. Judging by the size of the Bully's gut during the 2004 campaign, that's just one more promise he broke.

read the review!

bbq talk

did ya get sunburned? did ya pig out?

did the heat knock you out?

while i was catching up with friends and family today there were 2 big topics.

1) the downing street memo

2) karl rove

i know the mainstream media seems to think the 1st 1 is going away, but it's not. my grams was talking about it and when news reaches my grams that goes beyond what 1 of the spauldings are doing on the guiding light it's not going away.

there was a great deal of talk about karl rove and whether he outed valerie plame, the c.i.a. agent. that's another 1 that's not going away.

so today, the day that we celebrate our national independence, i saw independent thinking that went beyond any of the cozy comfort the mainstream media tries to shove down our throats.

my uncle had a really good point: how long can the people sit around wondering why the media will not cover the important stories before the media collapses?

it's a good question because my uncle is not what anyone would call political.

among family and friends who were political, the words were much more harsh about the way the media was not covering things.

a cousin brought up the return of 'up next! shark attacks!' and wondered where all that hollow talk from the media about how 9-11 had taught them how important it was to focus on real news went?

my nephew who is 100% behind impeaching the bully boy did a poll asking all of us what we thought?

there were 2 people out of every 1 who felt that we shouldn't impeach the bully boy.

now my nephew is a developing hottie who's going to break a lot of hearts and he is also really likeable so the poll is not scientific by any means. some people may have been humoring him.
but no 1 mounted a real defense of the bully boy.

so maybe on this independence day we're seeing that an independent people can turn on a lap dog press and form their own conclusions?

that's my happy thought today. hope every 1 had fun this weekend and got home safely.