Scott McClellan Talks...

No shit.



It used to be called treason. Is Scott McClellan aware that there is probably a full pardon of Scooter Libby, awaiting the right moment for approval by the President?

UPDATE 12:50 PM

Something that'll make your head explode:



If Judas betrayed Jesus, that's one thing.

If Scott McClellan is Judas, and he has betrayed George Bush, then Bush is Jesus?

If Bush is Jesus, when the fuck is he going to start acting like it?

-WS

Taking Stock: a day later

I spent 24 hours enraged. That is my MO. Then I pull myself together and I get downright calculating and methodical. That was the part that scared my kids the worst when they were growing up and ran afoul of the Rule of Mom, which was the equivalent of the rule of law in our household. (Military Moms tend to run a tight ship, no matter what branch of service they are married to. I was no exception. You spend too much time alone with the kids farther into the career and you can’t lose control of your charges.)

So – I have had 24 hours to assess the situation. There is still some there there, if you know what I mean.

Did aWol commit an impeachable offense when he commuted the treasonous Libby’s jail term? No processes were observed, no recommendations considered, no briefs were filed and no procedures were followed. So...perhaps. (Note: It is the opinion of this blogger that the entire Bush Presidency has been an impeachable offense.)

The way this played out, it smacks of a cover-up. It looks like the resident was scared shitless that Scooter might spill when he found himself looking into that cell.

Remember, from the very outset, Libby’s attorneys played it like he was a fall guy, a patsy, a chump taking the rap for others – specifically the vice president. Fitz repeatedly and sharply stated that the details that surrounded the case cast doubt and suspicion over Dick Cheney.

Take the fact that the defense claimed he was a fall guy, add the shadow over vice, and it is a short step to come to the conclusion that Libby was made Cheney’s bitch.

It is within the scope of powers afforded the office of the President to commute sentences, of course. However, it is not within the scope of those powers for him to commute a sentence in an effort to derail a criminal investigation. If the sentence was commuted for the purpose of covering up criminal activity, be those activities ongoing or previous, that in and of itself is a crime that merits the impeachment of this feckless president.

What underlies the decision by the resident to offer this commutation, without a single day served, must be investigated thoroughly.

Both Judiciary Committees and Representative Waxman’s Oversight Committee must open investigations and get to the bottom of this. Including calling Patrick Fitzgerald to testify.

This is not over. Not by a long shot. Unless, that is, those we chose turn into whiny-assed little bitches and fold like a bunch of cheap suits.

What is it going to take to get impeachment back on the table?

Let's see - he has turned our nation into a laughing stock on the world stage, broken the military, started an illegal war, and bankrupted the treasury. Then there is the contempt for congress, the politicization of the justice department, and now he has audaciously flouted the rule of law and excused treason against our nation.


If I were Judge Walton, I would resign from the bench tomorrow (Bush will never successfully appoint anyone else to anything ever) and make a big god-damned deal out of why I was stepping down. Why do we need judges, or juries, or due process, anyway? Just let the decider decide everyones fate, based on their politics and their bank balance.

This is an affront to decency, to say the least. Was it enough?

This is what Nancy Pelosi had to say in the wake of Benedict Bush’s commutation of the traitor Libby:

"The President's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence does not serve justice, condones criminal conduct, and is a betrayal of trust of the American people. The President said he would hold accountable anyone involved in the Valerie Plame leak case. By his action today, the President shows his word is not to be believed. He has abandoned all sense of fairness when it comes to justice, he has failed to uphold the rule of law, and he has failed to hold his Administration accountable."

So cowgirl up, Nancy. Locate your ovaries (or borrow mine) and push back. Impeach the mother fucker already. He has scuttled the ship of state and must be held accountable.

In closing, I refer Madam Speaker to the words of James Madison.

"If the President be connected, in any suspicious manner, with any person, and there be grounds to believe he will shelter him, the House of Representatives can impeach him; they can remove him if found guilty..."

An open letter to my congressman

I just sent this email to my Congressman, the Honorable Emmanuel Cleaver:

Impeachment. Now. The Libby commutation of sentence was the last straw. This craven administration has shown nothing but contempt for the rule of law. Political opponents are not the "loyal opposition" but instead we are "enemies." Well, this "enemy" fights back, and respectfully urges her Congressman to do the same.

The Biggest Traitor of them All

So, one treasonous mother fucker commuted the sentence of the other treasonous mother fucker.

I'm not surprised.

I am, however, in mourning for my nation and the rule of law we used to live under.

America, the grand experiment, is over.

It's time to

ITMFA!!!

BREAKING: No Stay of Sentence for Scooter

A glimmer of Justice was seen flickering in the sunlight today when the three-judge appeals panel unanimously rejected the plea by Scooter “Treason” Libby to remain free on bond while appealing his sentence. Instead, he will have to report to prison in just a few weeks to start serving his much-to-short sentence.

Look for the apparatchiks who place Party over country and the rule of law to turn up the volume on their bleating about dedicated public servants. (Who happen to commit treason and successfully obstruct justice!)

And when they start in, call them on it. Mock them, ridicule them, and question their patriotism. At least with them and their ilk it’s justified, because they do excuse treason. (Fred Thompson, I'm calling you out right now.)

Scooter, one word of advice. Don’t drop the soap, lest what happened to our country with your mendacious assist, could very well happen to you.

I think this is what is commonly referred to as "arriving"

You know how I am always saying that you should be reading Watching Those We Chose? Well, that little enterprise of mine got a very kind mention in the New York Times in the Monday edition. Here is the article:

Libby’s Supporters Who Wrote to Judge Learn That Letters Take on New Life on the Web

By NOAM COHEN

In what may be a sign of things to come, the lawyers for I. Lewis Libby Jr. last month invoked the rarely used courtroom tactic: the “bloggers can be mean” defense.

The issue was whether to release the more than 150 letters written to Judge Reggie B. Walton of Federal District Court in Washington, nearly all in support of Mr. Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

Mr. Libby was convicted in March of lying in investigations into the leak of the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative, Valerie Plame Wilson. Last week, Judge Walton sentenced Mr. Libby to 30 months in prison.

As the judge considered the appropriate punishment, he received testimonials to Mr. Libby’s character from luminaries like former Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, the former United States ambassador to the United Nations John Bolton and Paul D. Wolfowitz, who was pressured to resign the Word Bank presidency amid charges that he engaged in favoritism in the employment of his girlfriend.

When representatives of the news media asked that the letters be released, Mr. Libby’s lawyers argued against that, saying it “needlessly risks undermining the fair administration of justice.”

Then, alluding to the sometimes combative world of online media, they added there was “the real possibility that these letters, once released, would be published on the Internet and their authors discussed, even mocked, by bloggers.”

The judge rejected these arguments on May 31, though, saying that “the court must strive to be as transparent as possible without compromising the fairness of the system or the ability of the court to acquire information relevant and helpful to the sentencing process.”

The letters were released Tuesday — with some personal details covered in black ink — and were readily available online. The Washington Post organized them alphabetically by letter writer, and the Smoking Gun, a Web site, quickly had 30 pages ready for easy perusal.

As Mr. Libby’s lawyers feared, the bloggers came to mock. The Libby trial has been a favorite of liberal blogs. One, Firedoglake, committed to “live blogging” the trial.

One blogger, Rick Perlstein, writing at commonsense.ourfuture.org, belittled Mr. Bolton’s letter in support of Mr. Libby: “So there it is: yes, maybe he perjured himself. But only because he was so busy protecting us ... Don’t you, dear judge, want us protected from Armageddon?”

Kagro X, writing at the site the Next Hurrah, took on Kenneth L. Adelman’s letter by recalling his prediction about the war in Iraq being a “cakewalk.” As Mr. Adelman, Kagro wrote: “I’m a great judge of character, Your Honor. Trust me! Sentencing is gonna be a cakewalk!”

Asked about the amount of mocking he had seen online, Bill Moore, a lawyer who contributes to the blog Watching Those We Chose (proctoringcongress.blogspot.com), said: “There is some, sure — not an undue amount. Some of the stuff that goes on needs to be mocked.”

The principle was more important, said Mr. Moore, who personally wrote a brief to the court asking that the letters be made public. “If the powerful in our government are asking for someone to be spared, we ought to know,” he said. “The purpose of the letters is to influence the judge on sentencing, and if there is influence that ought to be transparent.”

Marcy Wheeler, one of the bloggers who helped cover the trial for Firedoglake, said the argument concerning mockery indicated that the Libby legal team “may be frustrated by the amount of attention paid on this trial that otherwise wouldn’t have been paid.”

“If you want to dismiss transparency,” she said, “just talk about bloggers.”

Phone messages left with Mr. Libby’s lawyers on Friday were not returned.

Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet governance and regulation at Oxford University, agreed that the letters had to be made public because of the serious issues involved, but said that the legal system must address the rapid spread of information online that, in the past, would be available only “in the dusty courthouse file.”

“The act of writing a letter in a much lower-profile case will be on the ‘permanent record’ of the Internet,” he said. “That is a difference, and it is totally sensible to think about if this is what we want.”

Carol Leonnig tells it like it is

Carol Leonnig of the Washington Post does a fine take-down of the conservative screeds that attempt to gloss over the treason of Scooter Libby.

Read it. The whole thing.

Judge Reggie B. Walton, who sentenced I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to 30 months in prison last week for lying to federal investigators about his role in the leak of a CIA officer's identity, received 373 pages of letters about the high-profile convict whose fate he had to decide. Many argued for leniency on behalf of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, whom former defense secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld called a "dedicated public servant" and "strong family man." But some less famous writers were outraged about the example Libby set; one letter from "An Angry Citizen" demanded the longest prison term possible.

Around here, I'm the one who gets both kinds of letters. While covering this case for The Washington Post from the beginning of Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's investigation in December 2003, I've received a steady stream of mail, most of it fuming -- some because the writers think a tireless patriot is being persecuted by a runaway prosecutor, others because they think a ruthless traitor is getting off easy after jeopardizing national security.

In fact, neither caricature is fair -- let alone accurate. But even now, four years after Valerie Plame's name hit the papers, the public still has some startling misconceptions about this fascinating, thorny case.

1. Valerie Plame wasn't a covert operative.

Wrong. She was.

Granted, this wasn't so clear at the start of Fitzgerald's grand jury investigation, so Libby's allies argued that the beans he spilled weren't that important to begin with. In fact, many of the officials who knew about her classified CIA status kept mum, which let Libby's pals jump to assert that she wasn't an undercover operative at the time of the leak.

But a CIA "unclassified summary" of Plame's career, released in court filings before Libby's June 5 sentencing, puts this one to rest: The CIA considered her covert at the time her identity was leaked to the media. The CIA report said that Plame had worked overseas in the previous five years and that the agency had been taking "affirmative measures" to conceal her CIA employment. That echoes the language used in the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, which makes it a crime to reveal the identities of covert CIA officers.

When Libby was convicted, some conservative pundits complained that Fitzgerald had presented no compelling evidence at trial that Plame was covert. But that wasn't for lack of evidence; it was because Libby's lawyers convinced the court to bar any mention of her status during the trial, arguing that evidence suggesting that her job was classified would have been "unfairly prejudicial" to their client.

The CIA isn't famous for its clarity, but it's being pretty blunt on this issue: Langley says she was covert. Which other spook bureaucracy do you need to ask?

2. Karl Rove would have been indicted in the Plame case if it hadn't been for all the destroyed evidence.

You'll find this conspiracy theory all over left-wing blogs. The main cause of the hyperventilating is a series of missing White House e-mails, supposedly containing marching orders from President Bush's top political adviser in which Rove told his troops to out Plame and punish her husband, former ambassador Joseph I. Wilson IV, for having poured cold water over reports that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium in Africa.

Those e-mails may contain interesting stuff, but for now, it's rank speculation to suggest that they hold information about the Plame case or would have pushed Fitzgerald to charge Rove with perjury. Fitzgerald told the court just that. He was exercising standard prosecutorial discretion when he decided not to charge Rove, according to sources close to the investigation. He didn't think he had a strong enough case to prove that Rove had intentionally lied to investigators (though some FBI agents disagreed).

3. Libby didn't leak Plame's identity.

Oh, brother, am I tired of this one. Libby wasn't charged with the crime of knowingly leaking classified information about Plame; he was charged with lying to investigators. But the overwhelming weight of the evidence at the trial -- including reporters' notes of their interviews with Libby -- showed that Libby had indeed leaked classified information about Plame's identity, even though that wasn't what put him in the dock. The jury agreed that Libby lied when he said that he'd been telling reporters only what other reporters had told him about Plame's role at the CIA.

What is unclear is whether Libby knew she was a covert CIA agent at the time he discussed her with reporters -- a key point in determining whether this was an illegal leak. But Walton said that Libby "had a unique and special obligation" to keep such secrets, well, secret.

4. Bad press doesn't get under Cheney's skin.

The most powerful vice president in U.S. history is usually described as a tough customer who shrugs off media criticism. But if he had been that immune to (as one of his predecessors put it) "the nattering nabobs of negativism," he never would have told his top aide to talk about Joe Wilson, and none of this would have happened.

After all, did you hear Cathie Martin describe at trial what it was like to be the vice president's communications director during the spring and summer of 2003? Twice, Cheney dictated talking points for her about how to bat down Wilson's allegations that the administration had twisted the intelligence about Iraq's nuclear ambitions. Cheney also ordered her to start monitoring all television reports on the Niger controversy and arranged a luncheon for conservative columnists to help get out his take on everything.

And that's not all. According to Libby's testimony, Cheney arranged to have Bush declassify passages from the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons programs -- the first time Libby had ever heard of such a thing happening -- and pass them to Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter whom the administration saw as sympathetic.

5. The White House would fire any administration official who leaked classified information about Plame.

When the investigation began, the president said he hated leaks and would hold leakers of classified information accountable. But he has not sacked anyone over the case.

Libby resigned the day he was indicted in October 2005. Two other officials who gave reporters information about Plame, former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage and former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, left government before Fitzgerald's inquiry concluded. And Rove, who first told Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper about Plame's CIA identity, remains in the White House.

Thirty Months for Scooter

Linked at the Salon Blog Report, Blogging from the Left

05 June 2007

And a $250,000 fine.

"Evidence in this case overwhelmingly indicated Mr. Libby's culpability," U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton said moments before he handed out the sentence. The judge said he was sentencing Libby "with a sense of sadness. I have the highest respect for people who take positions in our government and appreciate tremendously efforts they bring to bear to protect this country."

At the same time, Walton said, "I also think it is important we expect and demand a lot from people who put themselves in those positions. Mr. Libby failed to meet the bar. For whatever reason, he got off course."

Just before Walton pronounced the sentence, Libby briefly appealed to the judge. After thanking Walton for the court's courtesy and kindness during the lengthy proceedings, Libby said: "It is respectfully my hope that the court will consider along with the jury verdict my whole life. Thank you your honor."

As you know, I was pulling for an application of the gallows, but I’ll take what I can get. As far as I am concerned, I don’t care if you are Mother-freakin’-Theresa – if you commit treason – or the obstruction of justice that prevents a charge of treason from being brought – then you deserve to feel the floor give way beneath you.

Libby spat in the face of the Constitution, and I have made it very clear in the past that the Constitution is the one thing, outside my family, that I would fight and die for with not a moment of hesitation.

It’s a miracle he can walk at all

Linked at the Salon Blog Report, Blogging from the Left

01 June 2007

(Pearl-clutching warning issued for harsh language...sometimes profane is the only fucking way to capture the appropriate fucking level of outrage.)

The man will need a wheelchair to get to court – ‘cuz there is no way in hell he can walk with stones this big.

Scooter Libby wants probation…and maybe a little community service…if he can work it in between the time the aspens turn and Thanksgiving. Can you fucking stand it? Commit treason against our nation, and have the unmitigated gall to shamelessly ask for probation???

And the hell with the notion of leniency because he's a first time offender. HE COMMITTED TREASON. There should be no leniency, and the time should be spent at hard labor. i live close enough to Leavenworth to hand him the sledgehammer my damned self. In fact I volunteer to do so!

In Japan, he would be obliged to kill himself in order to redeem his honor...But we are not talking about a man of honor - we are talking about a Cheney flack would know nothing about that. My bad.

Seriously – I threw up a little in my mouth when I heard about this.

He outed a CIA asset – the number one asset we had where nuclear counter-proliferation was concerned – because her husband told the truth about some lies that the war criminal in the oval office told – lies that have displaced as many as 5 million people in a population of 25 million – and killed upward to one million human beings - nearly 3500 of them Americans.

The man has the blood of a million people on his hands, and he compromised national security for the most crass, craven, mendacious of reasons…Politics.

And now he wants probation?

Probation???

I'm gonna be sick again.

He committed treason. If there was justice, he would fucking hang by the neck until dead. Seriously. He is right up there with Benedict Arnold as far as traitors to the nation go. We executed the Rosenberg's for less.

I hope Judge Walton is just half as offended by this notion as I am.

The opprobrium of his offense is such that he should die.

The mere idea that he should get probation is an affront to common decency.

Has he, at long last, no shame?

(h/t Jeralyn @ TalkLeft who is a hell of a lot more reserved and deliberative about this apostasy than I am.)

A hashmark in the “Win” column

Sometimes you win one. And when you do, damn it feels good.

The Libby pre-sentencing letters are going to be released.

When it comes right down to it, what bmaz and I did yesterday – filing that amicus brief – is going to matter far beyond 5 June 2007. (His thoughts on our win can be found here or by clicking on his name any place it appears in this post.)

The issue of bloggers-as-journalists will be revisited. And we are part of the precedent that will be referred to.

I am proud to be associated with the effort, and glad to be of service. But the credit is not really mine – the credit goes to bmaz for the excellent legal work, and to Some Perspective For You for taking part of his day and personally walking that brief into Judge Walton’s chambers. Around Blogtopia (y, sctp™) I have been getting more credit than I deserve.

Those two are the real heroes of this story – I signed on – they did the real work. And damned if we don't have something to show for it!

WTWC takes a stand for all bloggers in the Scooter Libby criminal case

[Cross-posted from Watching Those We Chose, unaltered. For those who don't know, WTWC is where I practice journalism, and I was one of the two bloggers who brought the petition before the court.]

Just a few minutes ago, an amicus brief was filed in Federal District Court in Washington D.C. petitioning for the public release of the pre-sentencing letters that were submitted to the court for consideration in the sentencing of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby. For once, the blogs are pushing back after being singled out by Libby's attorney for scorn and ridicule. Two of the principals from right here at Watching Those We Chose are proud and honored to be the named parties in this formal legal brief filed with the court, not just on behalf of ourselves, but more importantly, for all of the blogosphere.

Bloggers across the spectrum did an incredible job covering and analyzing the Libby trial. Led by the groundbreaking work of FireDogLake, with Marcy Wheeler and Jane Hamsher live blogging the trial in real time from the E. Barrett Prettyman Courthouse, bloggers provided a level of coverage, opinion commentary and legal analysis that simply was not available anywhere else in the media, mainstream or otherwise.

Bloggers clearly provided something the public craved as well, because the traffic at sites working the Libby trial was off the charts during the trial. The efforts of bloggers were widely praised nearly everywhere, but are still clearly feared by the power brokers like Libby and his enablers. It was important to fight back against the slurs of Libby and his ilk, and we have.

Bloggers are here to stay, and we here at Watching Those We Chose are excited to be a part of this important effort.

Always knew I would be a party to a Federal Case before I shuffled off this mortal coil – but I was thoroughly convinced I would be a defendant…

Update: Here is a link to the brief as it was filed, h/t to No Quarter for posting that link as part of their post. I have had Adobe difficulty all day.

Sure would be nice to have Valerie Plame on the job about now...

MOSCOW - Russia test-launched a new intercontinental ballistic missile Tuesday capable of carrying multiple independent warheads, the Russian Space Forces said.

The missile, called the RS-24, had not yet reached its designated target, a space forces spokesman said, declining to give further information.

Russian news reports said the missile is seen as eventually replacing the aging RS-18s and RS-20s that are the backbone of the country's missile forces.

Yes – You read that right. This morning the Russians tested a new MRV. For the uninitiated a MRV is a Multiple Reentry Vehicle. In layman's terms, one missile goes up, and multiple guided warheads fall back to earth. MRV’s are prominent players in my cold-war-steeped nightmares. Remember this bit about MRV's: some warheads can be set to “air burst” and kill a lot of people, and others can be set to “ground burst” for the purpose of destroying infrastructure. With a MRV, you don’t have to choose! Do both!

So much for that view of Pooty-Poot’s soul that the Useless Tool™ famously took a gander at.

Seriously – this is really bad, people. Bad to the point that my husband, upon hearing the news, poured a shot of whiskey in his coffee this morning, and he doesn’t drink. The country that could actually represent a clear and present danger to the American way of life is now in the catbirds seat, and we are suckin’ hind tit.

We are buried under a mountain of Chinese debt, accrued to finance a vanity war that was launched on lies. A war that didn't need to be fought against a third rate dictator which was run by a second rate wannabe dictator who doesn't have a single first-rate person serving in his government. How serious are these people? They had to go find a war czar. They've ignored the Iraq study group--now they're paying attention to it. They stand in front of row after row of uniformed soldiers because that's all they have left--they have to stand in front of people who face punishment if they criticize the government or speak out. They are a captive audience, forced to obey. Tell me again that we don't have an authoritarian in charge. Tell me again that Rudy Guiliani doesn't give these people their throbbing war woody because he's exactly the type of authoritarian they love...

And a real threat looms, reemerging from the nooks and crannies of the Kremlin, and brings with it more danger than we need have faced.

In a week, Scooter Libby will be sentenced.

Scooter Libby committed a treason against this nation when he “outed” Valerie Plame Wilson, our number one intelligence asset on the issue of nuclear proliferation.

I do hope that at his sentencing, this action on the part of the Russians is taken into consideration by the judge, because the actions of Libby damaged irreparably the intelligence program that confronted issues like the advent of entire new Russian MRV IBCM systems.

[Cross-posted from Watching Those We Chose]

GUILTY ON FOUR COUNTS

Justice isn't dead. In fact, she seems to be responding remarkably well to therapy.

It isn't okay to out a CIA agent for political purposes, because you have been caught fixing *facts* and called on it.

It isn't okay to subvert justice and - let's call a spade a spade here - commit treason just to make some political hay.

Get it now?

Libby is guilty on four counts, and the Associate United States Attorney's who were fired for political reasons are pushing back. Hard. And good for them.

The Walter Reed scandal grows daily. And the squalor is not the worst of it. The neglect is the scandal.

The wheels are coming off the bus. It is obvious to all except the most willfully ignorant in our midst that the man in the oval office is not fit to live among us, and neither are his cronies.

The Bush administration is the gravest threat to the American way of life - to America herself - that has ever been faced in our history.

Can we get our impeachment on yet?