THE DOWNING STREET MEMO

It is not news to any of us that President Bush lied about the reasons for going to war in Iraq, and although there is plenty of evidence to that effect, what’s needed is evidence that gets media attention.

In June, The Times of London printed what has come to be called “The Downing Street Memo”. The memo was presented at a British Cabinet meeting on July 23, 2002 and discusses then recent conversations with the Bush Administration on their plans to go to war with Iraq. Sir Richard Dearlove, Director of British Foreign Intelligence (MI6) reported on his recent meetings in Washington:

“Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy”.

Congressman John Conyers of Michigan started a citizen’s petition demanding that Bush respond to the Downing Street Memo. Thanks to Congressman Conyers, and 360,000 signatures collected by MoveOn.com (check out their website), a petition with a total of 560,000 signatures was delivered to the White House on June 16 amidst swarms of media. The story did get, and is continuing to get nationwide coverage.

LHS

THE VALERIE PLAME EPISODE
Is Another Shoe About to Drop?

Possibly, and hopefully, the Valerie Plame episode will blow up in the face of the extremists that control the Executive Branch of our government. I believe that another, and very big, shoe may drop.

Just to fill you in on the background: In 2002 Joseph Wilson went on a CIA sponsored mission to Africa to find out if Saddam Hussein was, as Bush claimed, negotiating with Niger to buy uranium that could be converted for use in nuclear weapons. Wilson found that Bush’s claim was false. The story was first reported by Nicholas Kristof as an OP-Ed piece in the New York Times in the spring of 2003, but made a bigger splash on July 6, 2003 when Mr. Wilson himself reported the information first hand on the Times’ Op-Ed page. This was an extreme embarrassment to the Bush Administration, which could not easily back away from its false story.

Bush had first introduced the Niger uranium lie in his January 2003 State of the Union address, and had a lot of political capital riding on it. It was for this reason that it was vital for the Bush people to discredit Mr. Wilson and his story, and also to make it clear that speaking out against the Administration would not be easily tolerated. The discrediting and retaliation began on July 14, 2003 when Robert Novak, in his syndicated column, reported that according to two administration officials, Valerie Plame, Wilson’s wife, and a CIA operative, had influenced the CIA to send Wilson on the mission.

Two months later the Washington Post reported that two top White House officials had called at least six reporters to give them a story that would damage Mr. Wilson and his wife. This corroborated Novak’s story that there were two administration officials involved. It also implied that the story was not about an incidental leak, but an orchestrated campaign to punish and discredit Wilson.

The CIA asked the Justice Department to investigate the leak, and John Ashcroft, who recused himself from the investigation, appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as special prosecutor. In December of 2003 Fitzgerald subpoenaed two reporters, Matthew Cooper of Time Magazine and Judith Miller of the New York Times, to testify and identify their source for the leak of Valerie Plame’s name. Both refused, citing a reporter’s right to maintain the confidentiality of their sources.

Time Magazine’s editor and chief, Norman Pearlstine, over Matthew Cooper’s objections, yielded to the pressure to disclose Cooper’s notes on the leak story. These documents contained the information needed to show that the Administration official who outed Valerie Plame was Karl Rove. Subsequently, Cooper said that he had been given permission by Rove to testify in court in connection with the investigation of the matter by Fitzgerald. The permission by Rove was, no doubt, given because the Time magazine documents had already exposed his name.

The fact that Matthew Cooper escaped going to jail at the eleventh hour, and NY Times reporter Judy Miller did not, could mean that the other, still unknown, leaker is more important to the Administration than Rove. Who could be more important to the Bush Administration than Rove? Matthew Cooper has written that the second leaker is I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a Cheney aide. If this were confirmed, the investigation would then naturally turn to his boss, Cheney. Hopefully, we will find out soon enough, and when we do, it will lead directly to Cheney, and be the dropped shoe heard round the world.

It goes deeper than that however. The Bush Administration had developed an organized procedure for disseminating false information through the press. Rove and at least one other high Bush official, would regularly called a group of receptive right-wing reporters with deceptive news stories that supported Bush policy. It is this blatant attempt to control the news that the Bush Administration is desperately trying to cover up.

Judith Miller was high on the Bush list of receptive right-wing reporters. She was one of the co-authors of the aluminum tube story that ran on the front page of the New York Times. Aluminum tubes found in Iraq were identified as components of a centrifuge designed to purify weapons-grade uranium. The story proved to be another Bush lie, but the Times’ retraction was buried inside the paper. Miller consistently wrote stories that supported the Bush Administration’s spin, and tried to push them to the front page. She is in jail now to protect her close relationships with the Republican party, as well as the identity of her source. Her motives are probably more about the cover-up than about protecting the confidentiality of news sources. So, don’t feel sorry for her sitting in a jail cell. She is where she belongs. Forgive me if I get some pleasure in seeing a conservative reporter go to jail to protect the liberal cause of a free and independent press.

One possible deterrent to knowing the true extent of the problem is that Patrick Fitzgerald is an Ashcroft appointee. He would not have been appointed as special prosecutor if the Bush Administration expected him to do a proper job. Fitzgerald was appointed because he was expected to cover up any Administration wrongdoing. That is why the first round of stonewalling was about the leak being under investigation, and that America should rely on the special prosecutor to discover the truth. So, did Fitzgerald just slip up when he got Rove’s name exposed, or is he having an attack of honesty? So far he seems to be conscientiously doing his job.

The Watergate burglary was just a small part of a pattern of dishonesty by the President of the United States and his highest Administration officials. In Nixon’s case the purpose was to influence his re-election. Likewise, the leak of Valerie Plame’s name is just a small part of the Bush Administration’s pervasive policy to falsify the news that any democracy must depend on to remain a democracy. Bush will do anything he can to cover this up.

LHS

THE VALERIE PLAME EPISODE CONTINUES:
Miller, Chaney, Rove and the Other Shoe

In American Panthers’ newsletter # 8, I speculated that Times reporter Judy Miller was in jail to protect Dick Chaney and not the confidentiality of news sources. I went on to say:

"It goes deeper than that however. The Bush Administration had developed an organized procedure for disseminating false information through the press. Rove and at least one other high Bush official, would regularly called a group of receptive right-wing reporters with deceptive news stories that supported Bush policy. It is this blatant attempt to control the news that the Bush Administration is desperately trying to cover up."

The New York Times has finally admitted the error of its ways, and seems to have dropped its support of Ms. Miller and begun to question her honesty and credibility. These admissions are too little and too late to save the lives of 2000 American solders who have died in Iraq and too little and too late to save America from many consequences of the disastrous quagmire that the war has become. However, I suppose we could support a “better late than never” position.

In an op-ed piece by Maureen Dowd of the Times (who I have often praised, and continue to do so) she begins by saying that she has always liked Judy Miller. That said, the story is far from complementary. The article is entitled “Woman of Mass Destruction” and ends by saying that Ms. Miller intends to return to her old job after she writes a book. If that happens, says Dowd, “the institution most in danger would be the one in your hands”. Certainly a strong statement about a person who could rejoin the Times as her coworker. The Times editors are of a similar mind.

Bill Keller, now Executive Editor, said: I wish that when I learned Judy Miller had been subpoenaed as a witness in the leak investigation, I had sat her down for a thorough debriefing, and followed up with some reporting of my own. If I had known the details of Judy’s engagement with Libby, I’d have been more careful in how the paper articulated its defense.”

Arthur Sulzberger Jr. the Times’ publisher has stated that if Miller returned to the Times, there would be new limits on what she can do next. “…the problems facing her inside and outside the newsroom would make it difficult for her to return to the paper as a reporter.”

Jill Abramson, who as Washington Bureau Chief in 2003 was Ms. Miller’s direct superior, denied the truth of several Miller statements, including Miller’s statement that they had discussed her conversations with Libby.

Belatedly perhaps, nobody at the Times believes Judith Miller anymore, but don’t feel too bad for her. She will get another job on some right-wing rag, or even possibly on FOX News, where dishonesty is considered a virtue.

LHS

ABRAMOFF

HOW CAN THE BUSH EXTREMISTS EXPECT ORDINARY AMERICANS TO KEEP UP WITH ALL OF THESE SCANDALS!

The Abramoff Scandal is not in-itself confusing, or any more confusing than the other scandals. The problem is that there are just too many scandals for us Liberals to keep up with. It is starting to flow into one ugly sewage heap, devoid of segments and detail. It’s a pretty unique cover-up. Simply cover one scandal with another until the public’s Attention Deficit Disorder comes to the fore, and then change the subject.

But I digress…