Drudge on Full Dean Assualt

Attempting to frame the debate.

Anyhoo, here's some thoughts

1) Dean is not McGovern, Or Gingrich, Or Mondale, or Dukakis. He's Dean, and he, or any other of our fine candidates will send shrub packing verrrry soon.

2) Bush, however, is a nice mix of Nixon and Hoover (with a touch of Ken Lay) - and judging on his ability to make friends around the world, I'd say he's not even up to his father's standards.

3) As far as Novak and "loose lips" - well, I'd love to discuss treason with him, as well as "anger" with Sean Hannity, Ann Coulter and Rush Limbaugh.

Bring it on, GOP, we've got your number. America's no longer buying what you're selling.

:kick:

I wonder how much Bush&Co pay disrupters to post?

if you have a problem with bashing Bush, then you may want to look at your surroundings :)

Or have you been playing in the medicine cabinet again?

That would be the, "kicking Repug ass and taking names" side judging by your post - correct?

Great post! :yourock:

lets kick some ass, til we've got congress and the presidency back.

Then lets keep kicking ass.

... "puttin' my boots on" :)

CIA seeks probe of White House

WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman’s husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush’s since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from Africa, NBC News has learned.
…
http://www.msnbc.com/news/937524.asp?0cv=CB10
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=135657

Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm

The leak of a CIA operative's name has also exposed the identity of a CIA front company, potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

The company's identity, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, became public because it appeared in Federal Election Commission records on a form filled out in 1999 by Valerie Plame, the case officer at the center of the controversy, when she contributed $1,000 to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign.

After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA. Plame's name was first published July 14 in a newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two senior administration officials. They were critical of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his handling of a CIA mission that undercut President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger for possible use in developing nuclear weapons.

The Justice Department began a formal criminal investigation of the leak Sept. 26.

The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.

A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities.

"That's why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name," the former diplomat said.
…
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40012-2003Oct3.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=147987

Democrats seek assessment of damage caused by outing of US intelligence agent

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Leading Democrats sent a letter to the US agency tasked with safeguarding America's intelligence capability, seeking an immediate assessment of the damage caused by the outing of a CIA agent's identity.

Top Democrats in the US Senate, including Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, asked the National Counterintelligence Executive headed by Michelle Van Cleave to undertake an immediate review of whether US intelligence has been compromised by the leak.

"The exposure of one of America's undercover intelligence officers by an official of the US government constitutes the most egregious form of betrayal," read the letter by Daschle, and fellow Senate Democrats Carl Levin, Joseph Biden, and John Rockefeller.

"Since this case involves the publication of classified information and the extent of the material disclosed is known, we believe that a damage assessment can and should be undertaken immediately," the lawmakers wrote.

"Swift action is needed to protect the individuals whose lives may be at risk," they said, requesting a copy of the findings within 30 days.
…
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20031015/pl_afp/us_cia_iraq_politics&cid=1521&ncid=1480
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=539395

Rice 'Knew Nothing' About CIA Agent Leak

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday she knew "nothing of any" White House effort to leak the identity of an undercover CIA officer in July, a charge now under review at the Justice Department.

On the "Fox News Sunday" program, the top aide to President Bush said, "This has been referred to the Justice Department. I think that is the appropriate place for it."

Rice said the White House would cooperate should the Justice Department, headed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, decide to proceed with a criminal investigation of the matter, which centers on the alleged public disclosure of the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson.

Wilson was sent by the CIA to Niger in 2002 to investigate a report that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger, but returned to say it was highly doubtful.
…
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030928/ts_nm/iraq_intelligence_probe_dc&cid=564&ncid=1480
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=136932

A White House smear

Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security—and break the law—in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?

It sure looks that way, if conservative journalist Bob Novak can be trusted.
…
The sources for Novak’s assertion about Wilson’s wife appear to be “two senior administration officials.” If so, a pair of top Bush officials told a reporter the name of a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what’s known as “nonofficial cover” and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material. If Wilson’s wife is such a person—and the CIA is unlikely to have many employees like her—her career has been destroyed by the Bush administration. (Assuming she did not tell friends and family about her real job, these Bush officials have also damaged her personal life.) Without acknowledging whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee, Wilson says, “Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames.” If she is not a CIA employee and Novak is reporting accurately, then the White House has wrongly branded a woman known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm as a CIA officer. That would not likely do her much good.

This is not only a possible breach of national security; it is a potential violation of law. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent. The punishment for such an offense is a fine of up to $50,000 and/or up to ten years in prison. Journalists are protected from prosecution, unless they engage in a “pattern of activities” to name agents in order to impair US intelligence activities. So Novak need not worry.

Novak tells me that he was indeed tipped off by government officials about Wilson’s wife and had no reluctance about naming her. “I figured if they gave it to me,” he says. “They’d give it to others....I’m a reporter. Somebody gives me information and it’s accurate. I generally use it.” And Wilson says Novak told him that his sources were administration officials.
…
http://thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=823
http://www.arbiteronline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/07/23/3f1f5fa79c206
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=18072&mesg_id=18072&page=
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=5913&mesg_id=5913&page=

…
Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. “I didn't dig it out, it was given to me,” he said. “They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it.”

Wilson and others said such a disclosure would be a violation of the law by the officials, not the columnist.

Novak reported that his “two senior administration officials” told him that it was Plame who suggested sending her husband, Wilson, to Niger.
…
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uscia0722,0,2346857.story?coll=ny-top-headlines
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=2326&mesg_id=2326&page=

A War on Wilson?
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,465270,00.html
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=18113&mesg_id=18113&page=

White House striking back?
http://www.msnbc.com/news/942095.asp?0cv=CA01

Schumer Urges FBI Probe Into Iraq Leaks
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030724/ap_on_go_ot/schumer_agent_1

Probes Expected in ID of CIA Officer
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uscia233384176jul23,0,5461415.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-print

The Bush Administration Adopts a Worse-than-Nixonian Tactic: The Deadly Serious Crime Of Naming CIA Operatives by John W. Dean
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030815.html

The *nerve* of Novak writing a column about "loose lips..."

I have to take exception to your attack on Novak and "loose lips".
He is a member of the press, and the First Amendment guarantees freedom of it...
even if we don't like what they say. I don't think we need to be calling for censorship of the press here just yet (the Revolution is not yet complete).

If you have a problem with the CIA leak then take it up with the leakers, not the journalist reporting it.

He can say what he wants, and has that right for sure. But it does not change the fact that he is a Republican stooge and a whore of the highest order.

We're talking about hypocrisy here, and Novak's got it in spades.

Considering that the Bush administration shopped the rumor around to various sources, all of whom refused to print it, before they found a tool in Novak, I don't see how anyone can argue that his lips are all that tight.

as a journalist is to have loose lips. Just like all journalists.
I'm not defending Novak as a person, I'm defending journalism as a sacred profession.

He has soiled that profession greatly.

for exposing the leak in the first place.

Remember, as a journalist, Novak is part of the PUBLIC, not part of government. The leak occurred when Novak was given the information, not when he did his job as a journalist by printing it.

He served his profession well, just as Woodward and Bernstein did a generation before.

he has more in common with Ann Landers than Edward R. Murrow.

Time warp him back to the 1950's and he'd be McCarthy's go to guy to get the slime out.

He outed a CIA operative in his column, just as a White House stooge asked him to.

He didn't expose a leak - he exploited a leak.

Very big difference.

I don't believe in it.

This is justifiable criticism of a columnist who routinely shills for the Bush Administration.

Novak's remarks about "loose lips" are hypocritical.

We have the First Amendment right to say so.

The CIA didn't do this leak the White House did. And there are limits to journalistic freedom, just like there are limits to free speech.

If Novak were a Dem he'd need a lawyer.

:shrug:

I have several friends who read him religiously and insist that he is "balanced". :puke:

Bush's America SUX!

Witha stupid hat.

to his website every day. Don't let him frame the debate.

Write letters. Whenever you hear people repeating the GOP spin, reframe the debate with talking points of your own.

Here's a few:

Dean is not Dukakis, Mondale or McGovern. But as long as we're talking about these guys,

1) Dukakis never had the opportunity to lose 3 million jobs as did George W. Bush, rivaling Herbert Hoover.
2) McGovern didn't have to resign in disgrace, as did Richard M. Nixon whose only rival in secrecy and paranoia has been George W. Bush and his Nixonian VP Dick Cheney.
3) Mondale would have raised taxes on the rich, not handed out tens of thousands (if not hundreds of thousands) of dollars to his wealthy campaign contributers.

Nor did any of these men get us into a quagmire in Iraq that has killed or maimed thousands of our sons and daughters, and alienated us from the world community.

.

..and its wishful and desparate thinking to pretend otherwise.

I am not desperate - I'm going to take the fight back to them. You are welcome to join me if you want.

ust because talking heads blather, it does not change reality.

The only ones believing the propaganda are the Bushies themselves.

some ways we can reframe the debate against the GOP. That's about it.