As Leak Investigation Concludes, Right-Wing Spin Machine Gears Up
By on Oct 23rd, 2005 at 10:46 pm
As Leak Investigation Concludes, Right-Wing Spin Machine Gears Up
Just out from the New York Times:
With a decision expected this week on possible indictments in the C.I.A. leak case, allies of the White House suggested Sunday that they intended to pursue a strategy of attacking any criminal charges as a disagreement over legal technicalities or the product of an overzealous prosecutor.
Actually, they’ve already been at it for some time and ThinkProgress has collected the information you need to debunk the spin. Check out our document: Right-Wing Myths About The Leak Investigation.
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My guess is this will come in handy over the next few days. Good work.
October 23rd, 2005 at 10:47 pmThis is standard reichwing tactics. Anytime you prove them wrong, they always pull this bullcrap of ‘well we will just have to agree to disagree’. This a standard response from the passive aggressive and unaccountable wimps that continually populate the reichwing ranks. They are too weak to handle the psychological trauma that comes to them when they admit they’re ‘wrong’ or ’stupid’ or ‘weak’ in some way.
As soon as a republican states this nonsense, you know they know they’ve lost but they can’t cope with their failures – that’s all.
October 23rd, 2005 at 10:53 pmI like how perjury isn’t considered a real crime to right-wingers now that Republicans are on the hot seat. Time to dig up some quotes from the Clinton presidency.
October 23rd, 2005 at 10:55 pmKay Bailey Hutchison was employing a pretty obvious strategy of trying to minimize the seriousness of perjury or obstruction charges. There will be a lot of republican politicians and their surrogates out spreading those talking points and they need to be rebutted. However these tactics may just be laying the foundation for more audacious moves later.
Will Fitzgerald be allowed to stay on as the special prosecutor? Who will be supervising him at the Justice Department if he does stay on? If he is replaced, who will replace him?
October 23rd, 2005 at 11:00 pmHow bizarre have things gotten when the smear machine gears up to push back on the indictments that were necessitated by the smear machine’s prior activities?
It a vindictive circle I tell you!
Fitzy will have them hopping though:
Fitzgerald Issues Frog-Marching Guidelines
October 23rd, 2005 at 11:07 pmSenator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Republican of Texas, speaking on the NBC news program “Meet the Press,” compared the leak investigation with the case of Martha Stewart and her stock sale, “where they couldn’t find a crime and they indict on something that she said about something that wasn’t a crime.”
Ms. Hutchison said she hoped “that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars.”
My god, this is EXACTLY what they did to Clinton, and that was perjury over illicit sex, not perjury over a national security issue.
October 23rd, 2005 at 11:30 pmThey are shameless.
This plays into Repub themes along several lines. Although they are the majority it sets up their faithful to have an us against an unjust world mindset.
For whatever reason, that always seems to work with the Stepford Wives of the republican Taliban. Scary.
I don’t expect any major repubs yet to vocally denounce DeLay, bushco or the corporate overlords…yet. But just wait. When the idictments are listed this week, and after all the trials Scooter, Karl, Dick C, DeLay start going down to convictions….Well, then I want to hear someone with integrity start to say something about how maybe, just maybe the heads of the party are possibly corrupt.
I say I’d LIKE to see that. I don’t think I ever will from them. No, they’ll use the defense we see ‘em all trotting out right now. Still, it would be nice…
Go ChiSox!
October 23rd, 2005 at 11:51 pmThis does assume on their part that Fitzgerald doesn’t have hard evidence of crimes that aren’t perjury or obstruction of justice (or conspiracy, if that’s also not a substantive crime in their view). Do they have spin prepared if Fitz has multiple officials admitting conspiracy to a explicitly leak the name?
October 24th, 2005 at 12:02 amFor a complete colection of the latest PlameGate news, briefings, timelines, statutes and other essential documents, see:
“The Rove/PlameGate Scandal Resource Center.”
October 24th, 2005 at 12:08 amThe issues here go beyond indictments.
While it will be months until we know the final results of Patrick Fitzgerald’s PlameGate investigation, there is one thing we can conclude with certainty. At long last, President George W. Bush is being punished for his “Politics of Payback”. After five years of savage and baseless attacks on the likes of Richard Clarke, General Eric Shinseki, Paul O’Neill, Jim Jeffords, and Richard Foster, the small, mean-spirited, venal and vengeful George W. Bush is finally paying the price…
For the full story, see:
“Blowback: Bush, Plame and the Politics of Payback.”
October 24th, 2005 at 12:13 am“Willful, corrupt, and false sworn testimony before a Federal grand jury is a separate and distinct crime under applicable law and is material and perjurious if it is ‘capable’ of influencing the grand jury in any matter before it, including any collateral matters that it may consider.” I vote `Guilty’ on Article I, Perjury. I vote`Guilty’ on Article II, Obstruction of Justice.”
-Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, during the Clinton Impeachment Trial in the Senate, 1999,
I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation were not a waste of time and dollars.
October 24th, 2005 at 2:45 am- Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson, on Meet the Press this morning
I can see another talking point coming: Democrats didn’t think perjury was a big deal when Clinton did it. Why do they think it’s a big deal now? (audaciously trying to turn the tables, and ignore the fact that Clinton didn’t actually commit perjury, and that the Clinton fiasco was over a consensual affair).
October 24th, 2005 at 7:36 amOf course, as noted above, this is predicated on the notion that more serious charges aren’t brought to bear.
Basically, as always, the GOP is trying to defuse more serious issues of criminal behavior by turning everything into a “he said, she said” world of political wrangling.
October 24th, 2005 at 7:39 amThe could have been arguing “overzealousness” for 2 years now. But they haven’t, they’ve been waiting to see how bad they have been. What an insult.
Delay was atleast smart enough to smearing Earle from the beginning.
October 24th, 2005 at 8:34 amWhat did they say about Watergate? That it was about a “cover up” of a “third rate burglary”. Sounds like a technicality to me.
So these people would still want Tricky Dick in the Whitehouse. So this is what your party of “family values” has come to? Leaking critical US security secrets to get revenge? Lying under oath?
The other thing is, if you pull at this thread, the whole sweater will probably come with it. Why were they so hot to go after Wilson? They probably have something to hide. The thing that they have to hide is how tremendously incompetent the pre-Iraq war intelligence-gathering effort was. (Here’s the shameless plug: I’ve got a lot more at my weblog, http://www.hackthemedia.com)
October 24th, 2005 at 8:47 amThe thing is, perjury and obstruction of justice, by any measure, are serious charges. They’re felonies for a reason.
And really, if nothing was done wrong, then why did administration officials have to lie about it?
October 24th, 2005 at 8:57 amIt seems to me that the key here to bringing this presidency to its knees (where it belongs) is going to be how the Big Three mainstream media outlets handle their reports once Fitzgerald makes his call and the rightwing apparatus kicks into overdrive. We know what Hannity, Limbaugh and O’Loofah are going to do, what will be important in how America reacts is how the “less” corrupt media figures handle it. If Stephanpopolus, Russert, Matthews, Andrea Mitchell, Brian Williams, Bob Sceiffer, et al. don’t finally do some real journalism and buck this increasingly blatant (and increasingly exposed) practice of protecting the powers that be, this entire affair gets short-shrift and the fallout is contained. Knowing what I know of their dismal performances in taking the Bushies to task on Iraq, Downing St., vote corruption, (everything except Katrina really)….I’m not encouraged.
If this is just Rove and Libby, they’re in BIG trouble but they’ll recover enough to limp through the remainder of his term. If this touches Cheney or there are bombshells regarding the runup to Iraq, Bush may not make it through this term. Just IMHO.
October 24th, 2005 at 9:14 amIMHO without Rove and Libby, an administration that’s already flying blind will basically be completely lost.
October 24th, 2005 at 9:38 amHutchinson had a point about Martha Stewart. Now, let the special prosecutor put all connected with this leak in prison for 5 months, just like they did to Martha Stewart.
Sounds good to me. Hutchinson is a bitch puke alcoholic with her nose so far up bushlandia ass she cant think straight.
October 24th, 2005 at 10:23 amI hope they can put all of them in prison for more than 5 months and another 6 months house arrest. If it is good for Martha Stewart, it is good for these corrupt scumbags. I think Martha Stewart came out a better person.
October 24th, 2005 at 10:36 amHutchison=
Fisrt she voted against perjury, then she voted for it….
flip flop
October 24th, 2005 at 1:54 pm#21- What’s wrong with being an alcoholic? You beast!
November 6th, 2005 at 5:56 pm