Forgeries

It's the moonie upi, and I'll believe it when I see it, but there seems to be general consensus that this is, in fact, true:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 23 (UPI) -- The CIA leak inquiry that threatens senior White House aides has now widened to include the forgery of documents on African uranium that started the investigation, according to NAT0 intelligence sources.

This suggests the inquiry by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into the leaking of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame has now widened to embrace part of the broader question about the way the Iraq war was justified by the Bush administration.

...

Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium. This claim, which made its way into President Bush's State of the Union address in January, 2003, was based on falsified documents from Niger and was later withdrawn by the White House.

This opens the door to what has always been the most serious implication of the CIA leak case, that the Bush administration could face a brutally damaging and public inquiry into the case for war against Iraq being false or artificially exaggerated. This was the same charge that imperiled the government of Bush's closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair, after a BBC Radio program claimed Blair's aides has "sexed up" the evidence on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

There can be few more serious charges against a government than going to war on false pretences, or having deliberately inflated or suppressed the evidence that justified the war.

Judy Judy Judy

Miller's response to the public editor/keller is quite funny. You can read it here.

I especially liked this bit:

The third “troubling” ethical issue you raised – my access to secret information during my embed in Iraq – had been fully clarified by the time you published. No one doubts that I had access to very sensitive information or that I did work out informal arrangements to limit discussion of sensitive intelligence sources and methods to the most senior Times editors. Though there was occasionally enormous tension over whether

and when I could publish sensitive information, the arrangement ultimately satisfied the senior officers in the brigade hunting for unconventional weapons, the Times editors at the time, and me. It also led to the publication of my exclusive story that debunked some of my own earlier exclusives on the Pentagon’s claim that it had found mobile germ production units in Iraq.

Jack Shafer covers Judy and the Mystery of the Mobile Weapons Labs quite well.

Frist - Big Liar

I don't know whether Bill Frist committed any crimes, but he certainly "lied to the American people" repeatedly. I remember when that was supposed to matter.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was given considerable information about his stake in his family's hospital company, according to records that are at odds with his past statements that he did not know what was in his stock holdings.

Managers of the trusts that Frist once described as "totally blind," regularly informed him when they added new shares of HCA Inc. or other assets to his holdings, according to the documents.

I'm sure comments will return shortly. Jeevan, the wizard of haloscan, is usually quite good about such things.


...temporary comments system installed. Be nice to it.

President I Didn't Do it Boy

Commander Coocoo Bananas not to blame!

yes, comments not working. Seems to be a haloscan problem all around.

Open Thread

No thread can take your place, you know what I mean. We have the same intrigue as a court of kings.

Open Thread

On the darkest night so painful do you hunger for thread midst the torture of being one?

Open Thread

Distant as the distant thunder Where equal threads will rent asunder.

Douchebag of Liberty

Novakula flipped:

A critical early success for Fitzgerald was winning the cooperation of Robert D. Novak, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist who named Plame in a July 2003 story and attributed key information to "two senior administration officials." Legal sources said Novak avoided a fight and quietly helped the special counsel's inquiry, although neither the columnist nor his attorney have said so publicly.

Given all the bloviating about protecting sources over the past few months I'd really welcome an honest untainted discussion of the subject. If Judith Miller was a hero were all the journalists (including her, eventually) who did testify villains? Does Novakula have an obligation to tell us what he knows? Ditto Russert, Mitchell, etc...

There aren't simple easy answers to all of these questions. But, the club of elite journalists settled on one storyline awhile back and clearly it's no longer operative. That storyline was overly simplistic and largely based on their self-perception of being above reproach. I think, as I have throughout this, that there are important issues here. However, the Miller case and everyone who jumped aboard it obscured those issues and harmed whatever worthy cause they may have thought they were fighting for.

But, back to the original point. If you're praising those journalists who refused to testify why aren't you condemning those who did? Who did do the right thing, and why?

The Queen of All Iraq

Maybe she'll get her chance to join her king.

Cornered Animal

When the Fitz hits the fan we can expect the Right to react as it's been trained to act in such situations, like a cornered feral animal. It's a moment where the mainstream media should consider whether it's time to, once again, hand their pages and airtime over to the Barbizon School of Former Prosecutors Defense Lawyers and other such partisan hacks or whether they choose to cover things with a bit of dignity.


The showing of "adult" Republicans such as Gergen and Thornburgh on some Sunday shows points to the possibility that the media will treat this seriously, but I'm not optimistic.

Local Notes

Saw Winesburg, Ohio at the Arden Theater. This Inqy review describes it fairly well. I enjoyed the music and thought the cast was one of the best I've seen in anything locally (including someone I knew once upon a time), though the play itself ultimately didn't add up to something greater than the sum of its parts. Still, an enjoyable evening and well worth seeing for the quality of the cast alone for any musical fans.

Wanker of the Day

Russert and Jarvis share the prize. A daily wanker first!


...oh, what the hell, I shouldn't leave out assrocket. Triple Crown!

Shabby

Indeed. Show some courage when courage matters.

Open Thread

your eyes.

Open Thread

Always on the thread of what could be the greatest moment in this life.

Open Thread

Our thread is our world, our life.

Sources

Josh Marshall has this about right:

Leaks come in many flavors. But we can chart two broad categories. In one falls leaks rooted in individual motivations of conscience, cattiness or revenge, dogged reporting or long-standing relationships between sources and reporters. In another are those leaks best termed 'official', in which the government itself decides to put out a story, but does so through leaks rather than officially. The latter variety is fraught with danger.

The New York Times is one of an extraordinarily small number of news outlets (probably fewer than you have fingers on one hand) that get those calls. And with respect to my friends at the Times, you routinely find articles in the paper that began with just that sort of unique and privileged acccess -- and in far too many cases, ended there. We seem now to be moving quickly toward the consensus opinion that Judy Miller was the proverbial bad apple. But the WMD fiasco isn't the only mess the Times has found itself in in the last decade. And I think this broader institutional problem for elite news outlets -- being the recipients for 'official' leaks -- deserves more attention.

While to some degree Judy's assertion that whatever prominent government officials are saying is almost by definition "news" it's much less the case of those government officials are allowed the cloak of anonymity. There's an implicit contract between reader and journalist that the journalist has in fact verified the information that anonymous government officials are telling them, even more so than if they're named. Oddly, "according to anonymous officials" tends to give more weight to readers than "according to head lickspittle Ken Mehlman," in part because of the assumption that journalists wouldn't take the extra step of granting anonymity unless it were true.


p.s. blogger, I am not a spam blog! please take the goddamn word verification off.

Open Thread

Threads to the left of you threads to the right speak when you are spoken to don't pretend you're right.

Gergen

David Gergen was remarkably good today on Howie's show:

DAVID GERGEN, FORMER PRESIDENTIAL ADVISER: Howie, it grows curiouser and curiouser as they said in "Alice in Wonderland." This whole episode now after "The New York Times" fiercely defended her, while she was in prison, now they are basically accusing her of doing not only a bad job reporting on the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, but also misleading the paper itself. And we've now had Maureen Dowd yesterday, as you know, a well-respected columnist at "The Times" saying that Miller should not come back to the paper. And today, the public editor of "The Times," on its editorial pages, Byron Calame, has said she should not come back. And most curiously of all, "New York Times" editorial page that had so been such a fierce defender of her while she was in prison, has been totally silent.

...

But secondly, very importantly, I think "The Times" is waking up to the fact that its own credibility is now tied to Judy Miller, and that its own credibility has been damaged yet again. And for such an important institution in our society, this is a big deal. I think "The Times" is not only separating itself out from Judy Miller, but they're scrambling to restore their own credibility. And you know, Alex Jones, who is the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who is now at the Kennedy School, has said so clearly, they've got a long way to go in this. I do think that their editorial page now has to address this in a very fair way, and they've got to totally pursue this as if she does not work for them and no longer protect her, but really try to get to the bottom of it, and get the facts out for their own credibility.

...

Were Miller and "The Times" used by Iraqi exiles and by administration officials?

GERGEN: Clearly. Clearly they were used. And the administration was used as well, and it appears that intelligence agencies were used or misused by Chalabi and by -- and others did the same thing.

But I do -- what you're saying, though, Howie, does point to something else. There is now going to be a longer journalistic effort to uncover and to try to -- the -- the journalistic practices of Judy Miller and how "The Times" worked with her. Did they keep her under a tight rein or not -- and obviously they didn't.

...

But I don't think that the press has over-dramatized this story. This is a major important story in American political life. After all, the investigation we know is focusing on the two men who are closest to the president and the vice president of the United States. That's point one. And secondly, rapidly, if there are indictments, this story is also becoming an indictment over the way the Bush administration led us into war. Those are two important, dramatic stories.

Tuesday?

Would be nicely timed with the local Drinking Liberally.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald appears to be laying the groundwork for indictments this week over the outing of a covert CIA operative, including possible charges of perjury and obstruction of justice, lawyers involved in case said on Sunday.

Top administration officials are expected to learn from Fitzgerald as early as Monday whether they will face charges as the prosecutor winds up his nearly two-year investigation, the lawyers said.

Fitzgerald could convene the grand jury as early as Tuesday to lay out a final summary of the case and ask for approval of possible indictments, legal sources said. The grand jury hearing the CIA leak case normally meets on Wednesdays and is scheduled to expire on Friday unless Fitzgerald extends it.