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Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson

[First posted on October 20, I've bumped it up since reporters are beginning to focus on the March, 2003 rather than June, 2003 date.]

Joseph Wilson wrote in his book and told Tim Russert on Meet the Press that the White House campaign to discredit him began in early March, 2003, after he had appeared on CNN and criticized the Niger documents as forgeries. In an earlier post, I quoted both:

Wilson's Book:

...According to my sources, between March 2003 and the appearance of my article in July, the workup on me that turned up the information on Valerie was shared with Karl Rove, who then circulated it in administration and neoconservative circles.

....Apparently, according to two journalist sources of mine, when Rove learned that he might have violated the law, he turned on Cheney and Libby and made it clear that he held them responsible for the problem they had created for the administration.

Meet the Press, May, 2004:

[Russert Reading From Book]: After my appearance on CNN in early March 2003, when I first asserted that the U.S. government knew more about the Niger uranium matter than it was letting on, I am told by a source close to the House Judiciary Committee that the Office of the Vice President--either the vice president himself or, more likely, his chief of staff, Lewis (`Scooter') Libby, chaired a meeting at which a decision was made to a `workup' on me. As I understand it, this meant they were going to take a closer look at who I was and what my agenda might be. The immediate effect of the workup, I am told by a member of the press, citing White House sources, was a long harangue against the two of us within the White House walls. Over a period of several months, Libby evidently seized opportunities to rail openly against me as an `[expletive] playboy' who went on a boondoggle `arranged by his CIA wife'--and was a Democratic Gore supporter to boot."

RUSSERT: You're saying that in March the White House started talking about you and your "CIA wife"?

AMB. WILSON: That's my understanding from not just that one particular source but corroborated by other sources and offered actually by other sources from different walks of life, that after I appeared on CNN and said I thought the government knew more about this Niger business than was letting on, there was this meeting at which it was decided to run an intelligence collection operation against me, which led to the learning of my wife's identity and her employment.

....RUSSERT: "According to my sources, between March 2003 and the appearance of my article in July"in The Times"the workup on me that turned up the information on Valerie was shared with Karl Rove, who then circulated it in administration and neoconservative circles."

So you're saying as early as March the information about your wife being a CIA operative was being distributed by the White House?

AMB. JOSEPH WILSON: That's the information I have. That also would explain how Mr. Novak got information so quickly, how to--a decision was made for two people to call six journalists and leak the information within a couple of days. And it also explains how Cliff May, who wrote for the National Review online, suggested in a matter of days after my article appeared and a leak appeared, that it was widely known in Washington that my wife worked for the CIA. It was not widely known. None of my friends, for example, knew it. So it's hard to believe that it was widely known unless somebody else put that story out.

MR. RUSSERT: You mentioned Mr. Rove's name. You also say this on page 442, "The man attacking my integrity and reputation - and, I believe, quite possibly the person who exposed my wife's identity - was the same Scooter Libby"--in Vice President Cheney's office. Then you go on to say, "The other name that has most often been repeated to me in connection with the inquiry and disclosure into my background and Valerie's is that of Elliott Abrams, who gained infamy in the Iran-Contra scandal during the first Bush administration."

But then you say this: "In fact, seniors advisers close to the president may well have been clever enough to have used others to do the actual leading, in order to keep their fingerprints off the crime."

So what exactly did Wilson say on CNN in early March? Is this what started it all? From the transcript pf March 8 (Saturday) (available on Lexis.com):

[Video Clip] MOHAMED ELBARADEI, DIRECTOR GENERAL, IAEA: On the one hand, there is a lot of indication in the intelligence community that there are -- Iraq still has chemical and biological weapons. On the other hand, none of the inspectors are able to find any of these weapons. So there is no smoking gun.

....RICHARD ROTH, CNN SR. U.N. CORRESPONDENT: What else is Mr. ElBaradei reporting to the Security Council? Well, it drew little notice, because of the high powered debate and arguments among the big powers, but the director general of the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that his group has certified that documents provided by countries that allege possibly that the Iraqis were doing deals with the African nation of Niger to get enriched uranium for nuclear production were fakes, were forgeries. They refused to say whether it was the U.S. that gave them all the documents or Britain, but they're just saying what they were given to examine shows no confirmation that Iraq, as President Bush alleged in his State of the Union address, was getting enriched uranium in a potential deal with the African nation of Niger -- Renay.

CNN ANCHOR RENAY SAN MIGUEL: As we certainly will. Richard Roth, thank you very much. Now, as Richard just said, during his report yesterday, Mohamed ElBaradei said some of the evidence that Secretary of State Colin Powell presented to the U.N. was apparently faked. Joining us now from our Washington bureau is Joseph Wilson, who was acting ambassador to Iraq when the first Gulf War began. Mr. Wilson, thank you so much for joining us today.

....How could this happen? It is the perception that documents like these are vetted to within an inch of their life by intelligence agencies. How do you think this managed to slip by?

WILSON: Well, this particular case is outrageous. I actually started my foreign service career in Niger and ended my foreign service career doing -- in charge of Africa in the Clinton White House. We know a lot about the uranium business in Niger, and for something like this to go unchallenged by U.S. -- the U.S. government is just simply stupid. It would have taken a couple of phone calls. We have had an embassy there since the early '60s. All this stuff is open. It's a restricted market of buyers and sellers. The Nigerians (sic) have always been very open with us.

For this to have gotten to the IAEA is on the face of it dumb, but more to the point, it taints the whole rest of the case that the government is trying to build against Iraq.

SAN MIGUEL: I was just going to ask you, I mean, I got the idea from your answer about this, but just how damaging is this to the U.S. case with the stakes being as high as they are?

WILSON: Well, you know what it's like when you go into court. A prosecutor comes up with some evidence that is obviously false, it casts doubt on every other bit of evidence that he produces. And I think it's safe to say that the U.S. government should have or did know that this report was a fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the U.N. yesterday.

SAN MIGUEL: There's also another courtroom saying that, you know, lawyers like to say, never ask a question that you don't know the answer to. That could play into this as well.

But Mr. ElBaradei did tell our Richard Roth today, during an interview, that the intelligence isn't just coming from the U.S., that there were other countries involved. Which other countries do you think, and how is it that all of these intelligence agencies or intelligence agencies from these countries that were involved could be taken in by these forgeries?

WILSON: Well, the report I saw said that the Brits were involved. Maybe it was the British that passed this report on. I don't know who else might have been involved, but I can tell you this: The report in "The Washington Post" today said -- quoted a U.S. official as saying, "we just fell for it." That's just not good enough. Either he's being disingenuous, or he shouldn't be drawing a government paycheck.

SAN MIGUEL: So how do you play this, then? I mean, what, do you admit it, do you just move on? Do you try to get these things verified if you do believe, indeed, that Iraq was trying to buy this material from Niger? I mean, how do you handle this? What's the damage control on this?

WILSON: I have no idea. I'm not in the government. I would not want to be doing damage control on this. I think you probably just fess up and try to move on and say there's sufficient other evidence to convict Saddam of being involved in the nuclear arms trade. But Dr. ElBaradei yesterday was pretty clear. He doesn't see that this is happening.

Some thoughts:

Wilson was on CNN a lot in March. In most of his appearances, he charged that the war was not about disarming Iraq, but about Bush's quest to redraw the political map in the Middle East and about regime change.

So, is he right? That because he became a thorn in the Adminstration's side in March, someone ordered a dossier on him?

It sure makes sense. The timeline fits. Wilson gave his interview to Kristof in May; Pincus asked the CIA for info on Wilson in June; Grossman asked for the memo in June, in preparation for a meeting at the White House. Miller says Libby was focused on Wilson in June.

Wilson also says Karl Rove was part of this early attempt to gather info on Wilson. Rove told the grand jury he never saw the June, memo until Fitzgerald showed it to him.

Lots of questions remain, but I think Fitzgerald has it all figured out. Hannah and Wurmser will flip on Libby. Will they also flip on Hadley, Feitz, Bolton and Rove?

In his four hour testimony last week, did Rove 'fess up and fall on his sword to protect the President by giving up Libby and/or Cheney? Did he get a deal from Fitzgerald for it?

< Bill Keller's Staff Memo on Judy Miller | Stupid Criminal of the Week >
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    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#1)
    by theologicus on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:12 PM EST
    If Plame and Wilson bring a civil suit in order to force Cheney and Bush to testify, the campaign to discredit them will go to a whole new level of smear tactics.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#2)
    by Sailor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:12 PM EST
    So everything Wilson said has turned out to be the truth and everything his swiftboaters said turned out to be a lie ... I'm shocked, shocked I tell you! (I was going to complete the quote with teh 'gamblingt line but I thought I'd save that for jackabeoff and delay;-) mr charlie, dead wrong and loving it.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:12 PM EST
    New PlameGate revelations this week confirm what most long ago concluded about President Bush. First, the President did not tell the American people the truth about his knowledge of the affair. And second, Bush, the preeminent practitioner of the Politics of Payback, was concerned not about treason and threats to American national security in his own White House, but only about political embarrassment. For the full story, see: "What the President Knew and When He Knew It."

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#4)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:12 PM EST
    sailor writes:
    So everything Wilson said has turned out to be the truth...
    As the car rental commercial says, "Not exactly."
    It should be clear by now that the only one telling flat-out lies was Joseph Wilson. Again, Wilson's trip to Niger took place in February 2002, some eight months before the U.S. government received the phony Iraq-Niger documents in October 2002. So it is not possible, as he told the Washington Post, that he advised the CIA that "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." And it is not possible, as Wilson claimed to the New York Times, that he debunked the documents as forgeries.
    Link In addition to the above, we can revisit his inital editorial of 7/6/03 in which he made a great show of "no sales." He, and the Left, have made a great show about that proving Bush lied in his '03 SOTU speech, in which Bush quoted a British report that Saddam had attempted to buy urnamium and which the Senate Intelligence committee has said is true. Saddam did "attempt." So while Wilson may not have lied in his editorial, he certainly didn't answser the question, and he apparentntly is guilty of misdirection. Now, would the Left do that? Yes, they did. And I tell you I am shocked, yes shocked.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#5)
    by aw on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:12 PM EST
    Gee, PPJ, did you alert the prosecutor?

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#6)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:12 PM EST
    Sorry, can you find a source OTHER than the Weekly Standard?

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#7)
    by cpinva on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:12 PM EST
    much as it pains me, i must agree with ppj, on one specific point: bush claimed, in the 2003 SOTU, that iraq had attempted to secure yellow cake, not actually purchased it. wilson's mission was to determine if iraq had actually purchased it, not attempted to. he determined that no purchases were made. while there, wilson was advised, by niger officials, that they had been contacted by person's, who they believed to be iraqi agent's, and that they further believed wanted to discuss the purchase of yellow cake. none of this was ever confirmed, by either the niger officials, or wilson. this was not wilson's operational mandate. however, the duelfer report states there is no evidence to suggest that iraq was even attempting to purchase yellow cake, from niger or anywhere else, after 1991. while i wouldn't suggest taking the duelfer report as gospel, it would seem to contradict the actual assertion made by bush: that iraq was still trying to purchase yellow cake. of course, as ppj well knows, this all has absolutely nothing whatever to do with the issue at hand: did rove, libby or anyone else in the administration commit a crime, by leaking valerie plame wilson's name, as a covert cia operative, to a party not qualified to receive that data? beats me. i'm still not wholly convinced that she was, at the time of the leak, a qualifying party. yes, i know, if the cia complained, it must be true. you'll pardon me if i wait for the movie.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#8)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:13 PM EST
    cpinva - The issue is simple. Wilson writes an editorial about what he didn't find, yet he leaves out the information about the attempt. Why? It was some seven months after the SOTU, and what Bush said was well known, and available for review. It was, I belive, misdirection. Almost everything stems from that point. Another intersting point, made by Clifford May and poopooed by the Left, is that Wilson himself, working thorugh David Corn, outed his wife. Whether you believe that or not, consider this: Novak's 7/14/03 column provides very few details. Yet David Corn's column, publshed 7/16/03 is loaded with details provided by Wilson, including this: Wilson says,
    "I will not answer questions about my wife......Naming her this way would..."
    Why not a No comment? Or a simple denial, "Novak is wrong." This is is classic, "nudge, nudge, wink, wink." And given that Corn's article is clearly an attack against the Bush administration, and given Wilson's anti-war position I can only conclude that he was deliberately pursuing a strategy, and not the outrage over the outing so often given as cover for his actions.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:13 PM EST
    deleted for insults to another commenter

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#11)
    by scarshapedstar on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:15 PM EST
    In addition to the above, we can revisit his inital editorial of 7/6/03 in which he made a great show of "no sales." He, and the Left, have made a great show about that proving Bush lied in his '03 SOTU speech, in which Bush quoted a British report that Saddam had attempted to buy urnamium and which the Senate Intelligence committee has said is true. Saddam did "attempt." So while Wilson may not have lied in his editorial, he certainly didn't answser the question, and he apparentntly is guilty of misdirection. Now, would the Left do that? Yes, they did. And I tell you I am shocked, yes shocked. Uh... what's Wilson got to do with it? I thought this was about outing a CIA agent. Even if I grant, for sake of argument, that Wilson did something wrong... this is still about outing a CIA agent. Am I missing something?

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#12)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:15 PM EST
    Darkly - If you will take the trouble to read the articles, my point was that Wilson said he wouldn't talk about his wife, and then rattled on for comment after comment, and that leaves out any he made that Corn didn't include. As to why Corn hasn't been questioned, I really don't know. I would think a Grand Jury, if it was interested in who said what to who and when, would be very interested in having him answer a few questions. That he hasn't been called leads me to believe that the issue of "covert" has been settled, and she wasn't "covert." I would still like to read what Wilson said, and any other contacts Corn may have had. scar - The subject of the thread is "LaunchDate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson." It would be helpful if you would read that before you complain. As for outing a covert agent, I would almost bet that no one will be indicted for that, because she was not. Obstruction, etc., perhaps, which is, more or less, what Martha Stewart was nailed on.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#13)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:15 PM EST
    much as it pains me, i must agree with ppj, on one specific point: bush claimed, in the 2003 SOTU, that iraq had attempted to secure yellow cake, not actually purchased it. I disagree. Your reasoning is as fallacious as the White House's. It is clear that Bush's claim of "attempted" was actually based on that forgery of a Niger "sale". Indeed, the evidence shows that the Bush speechwriter dropped back to the weaker "attempted" (or "seeking") when the Niger evidence of sale proved to be bogus and CIA wouldn't support the original claim. But the weakening to "attempted" is based on flawed reasoning. Take away that piece of evidence of a "sale" and you've also removed the evidence of "attempted." Bush had no evidence of any attempts. Of course, it's impossible to prove a negative - that Iraq never attempted - but the reality here is that there was no evidence that it did "attempt" to purchase Yellowcake, much less negotiate a purchase.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:15 PM EST
    Jim, How can you possibly argue that she wasn't covert after all that has been said and done? The best evidence that she was covert is that the CIA refered the case AND the DOJ accepted it and spent two years investigating. If she wasn't covert, this thing woulkd have been over two years ago.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#16)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:15 PM EST
    PPJ-Social liberal? you seem more like a Neocon to me. The weekly standard is one of their rags as well as the other rags you like to quote from. These words from Michael Leeden could just as easily have been coming out of your echo chamber as you defend our dear leader and his pals:
    Ledeen explains: "In order to achieve the most noble accomplishments, the leader may have to 'enter into evil.'.....
    or this:
    "lying is central to the survival of nations and to the success of great enterprises.....
    Rep. Ron Paul asks:
    Does calling it "strategic deception" make lying morally justifiable? Ledeen and Machiavelli argue that it does, as long as the survivability of the state is at stake.
    From Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), 1988 Libertarian Party candidate for President.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#17)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:15 PM EST
    Squeaky – I voted for Bush because of his support for the war. My liberal positions on social issues, national healthy care, gay rights, pro choice, tax reform, rationalized drug policy have been well defined in my comments. Darkly – If you do not understand that the media, as a group, reflect the bias of the people involved, then you have much to learn. I understand that the Weekly Standard and MoveOn are both biased. The question is, are the facts accurate? As for your comment:
    “Gee, that doesn't sound like "Wilson said he wouldn't talk about his wife..”
    This is a direct quote from Corn’s article:
    “Wilson says, "I will not answer questions about my wife.”
    Having some time to spare this AM, my game doesn’t start until 11, I decided to count the words and I discovered that 186 words out of 1638 were about his wife. Of the remaining 1400, about 800 were by Corn commenting on Wilson’s statements. Ah, if only poker was as easy as refuting you. Did the CIA lie? Ask them. As to why they filed charges, I would speculate they may have filed charges for any, or all, of several reasons. First, there are specific legal requirements as to who is, and is not, a covert agent. They may belatedly have concluded that she was, and the law was violated. Or it could have been a CYA to demonstrate to the other coverts/employees that they would try and protect them. Or it could have been done just for the chilling effect it would have on other reporters. Whatever the case, we will soon know what the SP thinks, and perhaps even a jury, which actually has the final say. BTW - I loved your comment:
    (which I probably read long before you did so):
    And I am sure your bicycle is shiner, your baseball glove a real “Ted Williams” and the ninth grade home room teacher liked you better than me…. ;-) Darkly, I swear you are better than the Comedy Channel when it comes to making me laugh. You know, perhaps your moniker should be changed to "Big I." Libbysosume – Re covert. See the comment to Darkly. As to your comment about Bush’s words…. Look. He said what he said. I think a reasonable person would use what he said. You, and the Left, have made a campaign refuting what you think he meant. That’s nonsense. BTW – You wrote:
    Indeed, the evidence shows..
    Can you provide a link? “Evidence,” you know, has a specific meaning.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#19)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:15 PM EST
    ppj-so you were in on the neocon plot from the beginning, as you voted for Bush in 2000.
    Let there be no doubt, those in the neocon camp had been anxious to go to war against Iraq for a decade. They justified the use of force to accomplish their goals, even if it required preemptive war. If anyone doubts this assertion, they need only to read of their strategy in "A Clean Break: a New Strategy for Securing the Realm.".... .....Of course, a threat to us had to exist before the people and the Congress would go along with war..... ......Ledeen argues that this religious element, this fear of God, is needed for discipline of those who may be hesitant to sacrifice their lives for the good of the "spectacular state."
    link

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#20)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:15 PM EST
    Squeak - Well, you've got me. The evil Karl Rove met secretly with me in 1980 at a Ramada Inn in Liberal, Kansas. Remember he said. The code word is: neocon. So for years and years I waited.... BTW - The inability of the Demos to not muster up anyone to run with acceptable positions on defense has been the lead dog in their decades long decay and ecline. Like it or not, Squeaky, a large number of Americans are defined in this article. Darkly, or is it "Big I"... In another thread, you challenged me to show snarky remarks by Darkly. After reading your above, I rest my case. Gotta go. I have a huge chip lead and should have this one locked. TaTa

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#21)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:15 PM EST
    PPJ- as it is clear that you are either anti-intellectual beacause of your ideology or because of your constitution, I did not expect that you were on the front lines of the neocon strategic planning. I see your position as intuitive: you channel Fox News, The National Review, The Weekly Standard, The Public Interest, The Wall Street Journal, Commentary, and the New York Post and any other neocon echo chambers you run across.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#23)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:16 PM EST
    PPJ-A 'neocon' in 'social liberal' clothing, at best.
    Like it or not, Squeaky, a large number of Americans are defined in this article.
    The National Interest can be added to my list of neocon rags above as it was founded in 1985 by Irving Kristol. The editor Nikolas K. Gvosdev is a Senior Fellow at the Nixon Center. Henry A. Kissinger is the Honorary Chairman of both organizations.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#24)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:16 PM EST
    ppj-What a surprise, your link could be an indoctrination screed for a White Supremacist cult. It reads like an astrological profile, just substitute Gemini for Jacksonian and it can be sold as a computer generated astrological profile. As true racist and bigot Walter Russell Mead used sleight of hand and false claims to effortlessly weave PNAC doctrine into the fabric of his fictional version of American history and he claims to have a finger on the pulse of America's current zeitgeist; what a joke. The most hilarious bit is when he claims that his apparent hero "Hiram W. Evans, the surprisingly articulate Imperial Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan" is offering the same Jacksonian "folk" ideas as Woody Guthrie and Pete Seeger. Goebbels must be chuckling in his grave over that one. No wonder you are so messed up, and a racist bigot. I guess that you are what you read.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#25)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:16 PM EST
    ppj-Are these part of "large number of Americans" that you identify with. Prussian Blue They sound fabulously "Jacksonian", as they fit Mead's criteria to a T. How many of their CD's do you have?

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#26)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:16 PM EST
    JimakaPPJ, Left Coaster has a pretty good, well-linked FAQ debunking all the stuff you say. Here is the main TOC. Here is a handy scorecard on the favorite GOP Talking Points. It would be well worth the hours for you to read and study all of it. You don't have much time. Indictments are next week.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#27)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:16 PM EST
    Squeak - Only a person who sees a racist under every bed would say that an overview of President Andrew Jackson and his influence on American politics is "racist." But, since you brought the subject up, you do remember your attacks on Karl Rove because his grandfather was a German engineer in WWII. Now that, Squeak, is truly racist. So when you want to see one... just look in the mirror. BTW - Your lack of knowledge regarding American history is showing... Try the local library. Darkly - Those are remarks you don't agree with, not "snarky." Now here is a snarky remark:
    Posted by The Dark Avenger at June 10, 2005 05:08 PM PPJ, I wouldn't compare you to a dogs' butt, I have too much respect for dogs' butts to do that.
    As for links and speculations.... Uh, logic lesson: If it is speculation, it is speculation. You do understand the difference...hmmmm maybe you don't... oh well, such is life. (Now that is a semi-snarky remark.) BTW - The Snark1 you quoted leaves out some other comments I made in that thread. I note five of’em for context. The thread was about the nomination of Janice Brown.
    But I will tell you. As someone who was born dirt poor in the rural south I totally understood what was being done to the blacks, and I never accepted it. Che - As a sharecropper's son, I think I can cheer for someone from the fraternity. Resentful over what? That I am happy that someone has achieved a great honor? You call that race baiting? ShermBuck - Whoever told you I was your friend? I pick my friends based on their character, beliefs and actions, not the color of their skin. I still note how Dodd's comments about Byrd were ignored, while Lott's, who I was happy to see go, were not. Can we say, hypocritical??
    Libby - So the Left has a website that changes what people said? Zounds. Again. Claim all you want. He didn't say "purchased." And about a 100,000,000 people heard him.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#28)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:16 PM EST
    PPJ-the only quote, in a very long article, from the link you gave was a quote from the founder of the KKK. Wake up. it may seem normal to you but the Mead is Ugly.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#29)
    by Tom Maguire on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:16 PM EST
    As for your Weakly Standard piece, it's in a magazine subsidized by the same conservative media magnate who owns Faux News. Pretty compelling rebuttal. Since the Weekly Standard was referring to the May 6 2003 Kristof column and the June 23 Pincus article, both of which used Wilson as an anonymous source, let's eliminate the middleman and go directly to the source material: From Kristof: Consider the now-disproved claims by President Bush and Colin Powell that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger so it could build nuclear weapons. As Seymour Hersh noted in The New Yorker, the claims were based on documents that had been forged so amateurishly that they should never have been taken seriously. I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged. The envoy reported, for example, that a Niger minister whose signature was on one of the documents had in fact been out of office for more than a decade. In addition, the Niger mining program was structured so that the uranium diversion had been impossible. The envoy's debunking of the forgery was passed around the administration and seemed to be accepted — except that President Bush and the State Department kept citing it anyway. "It's disingenuous for the State Department people to say they were bamboozled because they knew about this for a year," one insider said. From Pincus: After returning to the United States, the envoy reported to the CIA that the uranium-purchase story was false, the sources said. Among the envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong," the former U.S. government official said. How well has the Kristof assertion - "the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium dea" stood up? And as noted in, for example, the SSCI, the US came into possession of the forgeries in the fall of 2002. So how did Wilson debunk them so expertly in the spring of 2002? His answer to the Senators to that very question provided a comedy classic. But no matter - presumably the bipartisan SSCI report was a packet of Bush lies. So what did Wilson say to Paula Zahn when she asked about the Pincus and Wilson article? WILSON: Well, I'm not exactly sure what public comments they're referring to. If they're referring to leaks or sources, unidentified government sources in articles that appeared before my article in "The New York Times" appeared, those are either misquotes or misattributions if they're attributed to me. So there you go - both the Kristof and Pincus articles don't need to be explained, because both reporters blew it! Too bad for Libby -if he had only waited a year, Kristof and Pincus might have run corrections, and he would not have felt like he needed to respond on behalf of Cheney and the White House. Whatever. I do love the notion that, because we have no proof that the CIA "lied", or hyped the charges in the criminal referral, it must be God's truth. Is that the new default position on the left - that every utterance from the CIA is true until proven false? Uou ought to alert Seymour Hersh, who actually speculated in the pages of the New Yorker (The Stovepipe) that former intel officers deliberately planted the forgeries to discredit Cheney and the neocons, and that current CIA officers knew about it and found it to be pretty amusing. My point being that evidently, Mr. Hersh does not yet share your trust in the CIA. And if you think back, the CIA was involved in a pretty heavy war of leaks with the White House at the time. But none of that was my point. What evidence, other than Wilson's say so, supports the idea that the WH took an interest in him in March? His March statement was not that strong. I haven't checked the press coverage, but I have a hard time believing he was the only person noting thst relying on fake documents is stupid and implausible. Condi Rice famously knew nothing about his trip when she appeared on Meet The press, on June 8 (which led to her "bowels of the agency" remark). And plenty of other accounts say that the Kristof and Pincus pieces were the key to his ascent onto the WH radar. Well, at this late stage it hardly seems to matter, but if folks have any evidence, it would be interesting to see it.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#31)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:16 PM EST
    Jim was wrong Wilson didn't "out" his wife. Jim wrote
    Another intersting point, made by Clifford May and poopooed by the Left, is that Wilson himself, working thorugh David Corn, outed his wife.
    Look at the dates. Novak column was written 7/14/03. In it he said,
    Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.
    What more could be said? She was outed. Corn's column came out 7/16/03. How in the world could Wilson have "outed" his wife? She was already outed.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#32)
    by jimakaPPJ on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:16 PM EST
    Darkly - Spew, Darkly spew. Attack, Darkly attack. And then do a long quote, proving nothing. BTW - About 90% of what is on the so-called news/political blogs is speculation, so why make a big deal about it? Do you think all speculation should be eliminated? Anyway, many have pointed out when she returned to CONUS and say that she has lost the legal cover. Has she? I have a tendency to believe them, and speculate that any indictments will not be over that. Now attack, Darkly. Attack. debbie - Novak's column was published on 7/14, Corn's on 7/16. Obviously Corn interviewed Wilson between sometimes on 7/14 and sometimes on 7/15, at the latest on the AM of 7/16. Or had Wilson been tipped off (by the CIA?) that Novak was writing the article, and he and Corn talked in advance? That's why I would love to see Corn asked a few dozen questions under oath. But no matter what, if he had been truly concerned about her outing, he would not have spoken with Corn. That he did so says it all. Squeaky – The Bible also quotes the Devil, but that doesn’t mean it agrees with him. The quote you refer to, when read in context, demonstrates how the KKK was marginalized (almost) out of existence by the people it was attacking. How it happened:
    In what is still a largely unheralded triumph of the melting pot, Northern immigrants gradually assimilated the values of Jacksonian individualism. Each generation of new Americans was less "social" and more individualistic than the preceding one. American Catholics, once among the world’s most orthodox, remained Catholic in religious allegiance but were increasingly individualistic in terms of psychology and behavior ("I respect the Pope, but I have to follow my own conscience"). Ties to the countries of emigration steadily weakened, and the tendency to marry outside the group strengthened.
    As they rejected the Pope, they also rejected the Grand Wizard. No one was going to tell them who to “like” or “what to do.” BTW – The guy quoted, Hiram W. Evans didn’t found the KKK. Not even close. Read some history. And if you think that article is racist, you have some real problems.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#33)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:16 PM EST
    PPJ, here is some Sunday Reading material for you...try not to move your lips... Let us know how many of your lies are covered in here, K? Much appreciated... LJ

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#34)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:16 PM EST
    And by the way, PPJ, if the "Unknown" star on the C.I.A. wall of honor turns out to be that of a C.I.A. asset executed in a foreign country after Plame was exposed, exactly what will your excuse for the Admin be? Please, before the facts are known, exactly what would you say about that and the people who caused that death by whispering to Novak et al? Love to hear it...

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#36)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:17 PM EST
    ppj-you are full of "jacksonian"sh*t. Your Mead article which celebrates the triumph of the "Jacksonian" spirit (wingnut) over the "Jeffersonian"(liberal), is not an "overview of President Andrew Jackson" as you put it it is revisionist at best and pure propaganda at worst. You claim that America is now dominated by the "Jacksonian" camp, a wingnut group that you hail.
    a large number of Americans are defined in this article
    Well the "Jacksonian" spirit is defined by people like Imperial Wizard Evans. As usual you get it backwards with your point:
    The quote you refer to, when read in context, demonstrates how the KKK was marginalized (almost) out of existence by the people it was attacking.
    Mead's "Americans" (read "Jacksonians") were embodied by "the fiery spirit of Hiram Evans". African American were not the "attacked" group Mead was referring to in your quote. Mead is referring to immigrants who were also hated by the KKK. The African Americans had been here long before most American families arrived to the new world, ironically perhaps even the Booth family from which Hiram Evans was generated from. Here is Meads big point about "Jacksonians" or real "Americans" as he would have it. Unsurprisingly it is the reverse of what you posit above:
    What came next surprised almost everyone. The tables turned, and Evans’ Americans "americanized" the immigrants rather than the other way around. In what is still a largely unheralded triumph of the melting pot, Northern immigrants gradually assimilated the values of Jacksonian individualism.
    Translation: The immigrants got with the program and realized that the Africian Americans were on the bottom to the pile and were fair game. Here is another doozy from Meads piece:
    The young are independent of the old: "free, white and twenty-one" is an old Jacksonian expression; the color line has softened, but otherwise the sentiment is as true as it ever was.
    Notice that the "color line has softened", gosh poor Mr. Mead laments that one. One can see the faint traces of the but Mead left out. He implies this: "but the Jacksonian (read racist) fiery individualist spirit cannot and will not ever be damped." You either are blinded because Mead's racist screed is normal run of the mill reality for you, or that your sixth grade reading level is keeping you dumb, fat and happy. BTW-your typical line
    Squeak - Only a person who sees a racist under every bed would say that an overview of President Andrew Jackson and his influence on American politics is "racist."
    is one that would make Rove proud. You call me anti american and racist because I criticize "an overview", as you call it, of President Andrew Jackson". Meads screed just uses Jackson to Legitimize his phony argument. It is propaganda, dumbed down to read like computer generated astrology for dopes like you.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#37)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:17 PM EST
    Squeaky, I agree with your post above but one thing needs clarification. A long time ago, I knew Walter Mead, around the time of the publication of his first book, when he was a self-described "chuckle-headed liberal." Walter comes from a hermetically sealed American cultural world in which neither Italians, Irish, Catholics or Jews were considered white, let alone American, until, maybe, three years ago or so.. It is genuinely hard to imagine such a world, but think Sunny von Bulow. That - without anwhere near the money - is the environment from whence he came. It is the only world, with rare anthropological excursions into my world, the world most of us live in, he has ever known. I think it is at least arguable that if you are an Episcopalian and you have rarely encountered anyone more ethnically exotic than a white Southern Baptist, as to whether "racist" is an appropriate label. It may be. I prefer the terms "clueless" or "completely oblivious" when I think of Walter. He is brilliant, utterly brilliant. And yet, he doesn't seem to understand a thing. A very strange man, not unlike Ignatious J. O'Reilly from Confederacy of Dunces. It is remarkable that today he is a respected voice. His ideas back then were just as bizarre as they are now, but back then we, his friends, all had enough commonsense to know he was probably joking. Or at least hoped he was. I'm not sure, after his support of Bush/Iraq, I could hold my temper around him anymore. And his comments on immigrants are utterly appalling. Racist? I can't go there, but I can easily see how, if you didn't know him, you'd think so. I don't so much dispute your opinion as draw attention to precisely how peculiar and removed from America the people we are both arrayed against actually are.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#38)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:17 PM EST
    And that is the ultimate irony, tristero: The chromosomally-challenged "White Supremacists" and their ilk in the Bible-Thumping South have used their Constitutionally-Protected rights of assembly and speech to gain power in America...to rob Americans of their Constitutionally-Protected rights of assembly and speech. Isn't it delicious? The very ones trying to create a police state in American are doing so because they know perfectly well the dangers of democracy- Hell, didn't they use it to usurp the status quo? Heaven forbid they preserve it to come back and bite them on the @ss... And PPJ and all his ilk, for all their faithful service, wouldn't even be able to afford a crust of bread at their fund-raising dinners... I find it ironic that the world now has the greatest nation in the history of the world financially, culturally and militarily, being led by a chimp whose followers think the world is flat and Jesus was a WASP... I remember the notion of a great nation, and I look at the state of things today and want to weep.

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#39)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:17 PM EST
    Yes, Laughing Jackal. The notion of Walter Mead giving PPJ the time of day is preposterous. Walter has a genuine multi-cultural experience when orders lasagna: so this is what Dante ate! (As you may recall, Bush visited Italy for the first time and said he was excited to be there because he'd heard they had pretty good food over there. Same social circles as Walter but Bush failed Yale while Walter aced it, I believe.) And he most certainly is not going to attend to anyone in the military below the rank of Colonel, his honorary ranking (Walter, of course, never served, and wouldn't dream of getting his hands dirty, but he was made an honorary Colonel by, I think, the North Carolina militia or something. He is very proud of it.) What poor PPJ doesn't seem to understand is just how much of a sucker he's been played for, by the snootiest elitists in this country. People who can't even see people like PPJ, let alone bother responding to him. To them, PPJ isn't even the "little people." PPJ simply isn't. Get it, PPJ? We're you're friends, not that clown in the White House! It's too late to repent of your ways. Google goggle google goggle one of us one of us...

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#40)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:17 PM EST
    You'd think PPJ would know who his "friends" are with the amount of time and bandwidth he's spent at this site...just like him to saunter over to insult us because he'd never get in a word in a forum of which he'd actually approve. Personally, I think PPJ is a TL plant, for how many of us have heard of something on the newswires and thought, "D@mn, I'd better get over to TalkLeft and see how that PPJ lunatic is spinning it...?" TL doesn't want to see PPJ go any more than we do, and that's what's so funny...if he was lying in the road, I'd pick him up, and I daresay most of us on this site would, regardless of our opinions of his "facts." Try to picture George coming across PPJ in the road and doing anything other than looking both ways before running him over... Retraction: Alberto Gonzales Factor- George wouldn't even look both ways...

    Re: Launchdate for Campaign to Discredit Wilson (none / 0) (#41)
    by squeaky on Sat Dec 17, 2005 at 01:05:17 PM EST
    It is good we get the rumblings of the otherside at their most watered down and reductive, without having to actually tune into fox. PPJ adds to the mix.