Speaking of the Democrats’ knee-jerk name-calling in the wake of the Alito nomination, remember when the Democrats used to say that criticizing judges was wrong, even dangerous?
Democrat Senator Reid incites violence against judges…
Another Democrat incites violence against judges
Linked at OTB.
So now we can all just put that whole unfortunate Harriet Miers episode behind us. President Bush appears by all accounts to have made another great pick for the Supreme Court, Samuel Alito, Jr.
From the WaPo:
Bush, fresh from withering criticism of Miers for her lack of judicial experience and questions about her intellect, stressed Alito’s many years of litigation experience, first arguing 12 cases before the Supreme Court and then his years as an appeals court judge. Bush said Alito was the most experienced nominee in 70 years. The president highlighted the fact that Alito went to the Yale Law School, where he was an editor of the prestigious law review. Bush called Alito “brilliant.”
Alito’s resume, including his service in the Justice Department during the Reagan administration, is very much unlike that of Miers’s, who had no appellate experience, and very much like that of Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr.
And like Roberts, Alito served during the Reagan administration in the Office of the Solicitor General, which argues on behalf of the government before the Supreme Court.
Unlike Roberts, he has opined from the bench on abortion rights, church-state separation and gender discrimination to the pleasure of conservatives and displeasure of liberals.
Democrats, who seem capable of little more than petty name-calling, are less thrilled than conservatives. Harry Reid led the way to the sandbox:
The nomination of Judge Alito requires an especially long, hard look by the Senate because of what happened last week to Harriet Miers. Conservative activists forced Miers to withdraw from consideration for this same Supreme Court seat because she was not radical enough for them. Now the Senate needs to find out if the man replacing Miers is too radical for the American people.
Harry Reid plainly doesn’t know what the word “radical” means. He’s just throwing around a word he has no understanding of as a cheap epithet. We might expect that sort of behavior from some leftist blogger trying to get attention, but not from the senate minority leader.
Update: And now this from Hugh Hewitt:
Schumer Hits Bottom
Chuck Schumer just argued that it is possible that Judge Alito, as Justice Alito, would roll back the achievements of Rosa Parks….
A despicable slander. And it’s only been a couple of hours…
More: A big roundup from Michelle Malkin. And a good roundup of leftwing reactions from ConfirmThem.
Hugh Hewitt has an online Alito poll up.
One of the many lies told by Joe Wilson was that he had debunked the documents purporting to show a sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq which later turned out to be forgeries. But we know that could not be true, indeed Wilson later had to admit he had never seen those documents, because in fact those documents were obtained by the U.S. in October 2002, and Wilson went to Niger in February 2002. The forged documents had nothing to do with President Bush’s SOU address of January 2003, and nothing to do with Joe Wilson’s trip to Niger in February 2002.
Today, the Washington Post continues to spread this discredited myth:
Wilson was a former ambassador who traveled to Niger in February 2002 after Cheney requested elaboration on a Defense Department report — based on erroneous information originating from the Italian security service — that Iraq had an agreement to buy processed uranium ore, or “yellowcake.” Upon his return, Wilson reported to CIA and State Department analysts that he had found no support for the allegation and had reasons to believe it was untrue. When the Bush administration nonetheless launched a public relations campaign that highlighted the uranium report — most prominently in the president’s State of the Union speech on Jan. 28, 2003 — Wilson began raising questions among friends in government. In March, when the International Atomic Energy Agency exposed the documents as forged, a fact Wilson had not discovered, he began telling journalists in not-for-quotation interviews that the White House propounded a deliberate lie.
Almost everything in this paragraph is wrong. Cheney’s inquiry was based on several reports about a possible uranium deal between Iraq and Niger. The forged documents, acquired from Italian journalist, came later, in October 2002. Wilson did not say in his report to the CIA that he had found no support for the allegations about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger. In fact, he reported that the former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Mayaki, had reported:
“An Iraqi delegation had visited Niger in 1999 to explore “expanding commercial relations” between Iraq and Niger. Mayaki had met with the Iraqis and later concluded that their request for enhanced trade meant they wanted to discuss purchasing uranium. Mayaki said he had not pursued the matter because such deals were prohibited under U.N. sanctions.”
There was no allegation by the Bush administration that Iraq had actually bought uranium from Niger. The president’s statement in his State of the Union address, the famous “16 words”, were attributed to British intelligence, not the Italian information.
How did this sloppy “reporting” ever get past the WaPo’s editors? A major news outlet should be able to do better than that. Pathetic.
Previous:
Wilson Plame Rove Libby Saddam Iraq Niger Fitzgerald Mint Tea-gate
Joe Wilson, proven, documented liar, has a self-serving, whiny op-ed today in the Los Angeles Times.
Patterico gives old Lyin’ Joe the shredding he deserves here. Have a look.
Wilson’s article contains this interesting tidbit:
But on July 14, 2003, our lives were irrevocably changed. That was the day columnist Robert Novak identified Valerie as an operative, divulging a secret that had been known only to me, her parents and her brother.
It’s certainly understandable that Valerie Plame would want to tell her parents and her brother that she was an under-cover CIA operative, but did those individuals have security clearance to receive classified information? Or did Valerie Plame and/or Joe Wilson leak classified information to people not authorized to receive it? It sounds like they did.
Update: In the January, 2004 Vanity Fair profile of Wilson and Plame, it says this:
Plame herself thought instantly that the leak was illegal. Even members of her family did not know what she did.
So there are three possibilities – Wilson does not consider Plame’s parents and brother to be members of her family, the statement in the Vanity Fair profile is false, or Joe Wilson’s statement in the Los Angeles Times is false. Not a huge lie, but old just Joe can’t seem to keep his story straight.
Linked at OTB and The Mudville Gazette.
And now Howard Dean is spouting the same fraudulent talking point about the Libby indictment:
“Beyond the evidence that the White House manipulated the intelligence used to justify the war in Iraq, a group of senior White House officials not only orchestrated efforts to smear a critic of the war, but worked to cover up this smear campaign. In so doing, they ignored the rule of law, endangering our national security and the brave men and women who dedicate their lives to protecting our nation’s security. I. Lewis Libby was a part of this internal White House group.
(Link via Polipundit)
Again, the indictment had nothing to do with national security, nothing to do with outing a covert agent, nothing to do with the war to liberate Iraq. Libby was indicted for lying to investigators, nothing else.
But we’re confident the Democratic party leaders will continue to spin and lie about it, and the MSM will continue to let them get away with it.
Previous:
Top Dems already lying about Scooter-gate
Update: No surprise, the bogus spin makes it overseas.
We said just a few hours ago that the Democrats would be dishonestly spinning the indictment of Libby:
First, it’s important to recognize that these indictments are for actions relating to the investigation, none of them address any underlying crime. The left and the MSM will continue to spin this as being about “outing Valerie Plame to discredit Joe Wilson”, but no one has been charged with anything like that. Further, these charges have nothing to do with “misleading us into war.” These indictments are for lying about what Libby said to Russert, Cooper, and Miller. They have nothing to do with Iraq, per se. The left will need to be confronted whenever they try to pull that spin.
It sure didn’t take long for us to be proven right. From Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nevada:
“These are very serious charges. They suggest that a senior White House aide put politics ahead of our national security and the rule of law.
“This case is bigger than the leak of highly classified information. It is about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president.
But that’s all complete nonsense. Harry Reid is a bald-faced liar, to put it bluntly. Libby was indicted for lying about conversations he had with reporters. His indictment had nothing to do with national security, or leaking classified information, or Iraq.
And Ted Kennedy, that icon of integrity, spouts the same lie:
In effect it’s an indictment of the vicious and devious tactics used by the Administration to justify a war we never should have fought. It’s an indictment of the lengths Administration officials were willing to go to cover up their failed intelligence, their distortion on Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, and their serious blunders on the war. It is an indictment of their vindictive efforts to discredit anyone who challenge their misrepresentations.
In effect, Teddy is spreading blatant falsehoods. These people are shameless.
Linked at the Mudville Gazette Open Post.
A few initial thoughts upon reading the indictment of “Scooter” Libby:
First, it’s important to recognize that these indictments are for actions relating to the investigation, none of them address any underlying crime. The left and the MSM will continue to spin this as being about “outing Valerie Plame to discredit Joe Wilson”, but no one has been charged with anything like that. Further, these charges have nothing to do with “misleading us into war.” These indictments are for lying about what Libby said to Russert, Cooper, and Miller. They have nothing to do with Iraq, per se. The left will need to be confronted whenever they try to pull that spin.
All the background about the whole Wilson-Plame-Scooter-Rove, etc. affair seems somewhat out of place, given that none of the actual charges directly relate to that background.
On page 3 of the indictment, the background information given seems to accept at face value the bogus Joe Wilson claim that he “debunked the forged Niger documents” that in fact Joe Wilson did not ever see:
On May 6, 2003, the New York Times published a column by Nicholas Kristof which disputed the accuracy of the “sixteen words” in the State of the Union address. … According to the column, the ambassador reported back to the CIA and State Department in early 2002 that the allegations were unequivocally wrong and based on forged documents.
But in fact the forged documents didn’t come out until much later, in October 2002, and Joe Wilson never saw them, as he was later forced to admit. The indictment does include the caveat “According to the column…”, but nonetheless it’s interesting that this falsehood is now part of the official record.
In a similar vein, the indictment states:
On June 12, 2003, the Washington Post published an article by reporter Walter Pincus
about Wilson’s trip to Niger, which described Wilson as a retired ambassador but not by name, and
reported that the CIA had sent him to Niger after an aide to the Vice President raised questions about
purported Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium. Pincus’s article questioned the accuracy of the “sixteen
words,” and stated that the retired ambassador had reported to the CIA that the uranium purchase
story was false.[p.3]
But there was no “uranium purchase story”. Remember, the president SOU speech said “sought” not “bought”, a critical distinction.
Incidentally, will Joe Wilson be indicted for leaking classified information? Surely his trip to Niger was classified, wasn’t it?
According to the indictment:
On or about June 11 or 12, 2003, the Under Secretary of State orally advised LIBBY
in the White House that, in sum and substance, Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and that State
Department personnel were saying that Wilson’s wife was involved in the planning of his trip.[p.4]
If corroborated, this seems to establish that Libby knew in June 2003 that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. If he clearly testified to the FBI and/or the grand jury that he couldn’t recall that fact, that does not seem plausible. This does not seem to be a fact easily forgotten.
However, from the excerpts of Libby’s testimony in the indictment, it’s unclear whether he was lying to the FBI and the grand jury, or to Tim Russert, Matt Cooper, and Judith Miller (the latter would not be a crime):
During these interviews, LIBBY stated to FBI Special Agents that:
a. During a conversation with Tim Russert of NBC News on July 10 or 11,
2003, Russert asked LIBBY if LIBBY was aware that Wilson’s wife worked
for the CIA. LIBBY responded to Russert that he did not know that, and
Russert replied that all the reporters knew it. LIBBY was surprised by this
statement because, while speaking with Russert, LIBBY did not recall that
he previously had learned about Wilson’s wife’s employment from the Vice
President.b. During a conversation with Matthew Cooper of Time magazine on or about
July 12, 2003, LIBBY told Cooper that reporters were telling the
administration that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA, but that LIBBY did
not know if this was true; andc. LIBBY did not discuss Wilson’s wife with New York Times reporter Judith
Miller during a meeting with Miller on or about July 8, 2003.[p.9]
…
32. It was part of the corrupt endeavor that during his grand jury testimony, defendant
LIBBY made the following materially false and intentionally misleading statements and
representations, in substance, under oath:
a. When LIBBY spoke with Tim Russert of NBC News, on or about July 10,
2003:
i. Russert asked LIBBY if LIBBY knew that Wilson’s wife worked for
the CIA, and told LIBBY that all the reporters knew it; and
ii. At the time of this conversation, LIBBY was surprised to hear that
Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA;
12
b. LIBBY advised Matthew Cooper of Time magazine on or about July 12, 2003,
that he had heard that other reporters were saying that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA, and further
advised him that LIBBY did not know whether this assertion was true; and
c. LIBBY advised Judith Miller of the New York Times on or about July 12,
2003 that he had heard that other reporters were saying that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA but
LIBBY did not know whether that assertion was true.
[pp.11-12]
….. . . . And then he said, you know, did you know that this – excuse me, did you know
that Ambassador Wilson’s wife works at the CIA? And I was a little taken aback by
that. I remember being taken aback by it. And I said – he may have said a little more
but that was – he said that. And I said, no, I don’t know that. And I said, no, I don’t
know that intentionally because I didn’t want him to take anything I was saying as in
any way confirming what he said, because at that point in time I did not recall that
I had ever known, and I thought this is something that he was telling me that I was
first learning. And so I said, no, I don’t know that because I want to be very careful
not to confirm it for him, so that he didn’t take my statement as confirmation for him.
Now, I had said earlier in the conversation, which I omitted to tell you, that
this – you know, as always, Tim, our discussion is off-the-record if that’s okay with
you, and he said, that’s fine.
So then he said – I said – he said, sorry – he, Mr. Russert said to me, did you
know that Ambassador Wilson’s wife, or his wife, works at the CIA? And I said, no,
I don’t know that. And then he said, yeah – yes, all the reporters know it. And I said,
again, I don’t know that. I just wanted to be clear that I wasn’t confirming anything
for him on this. And you know, I was struck by what he was saying in that he
thought it was an important fact, but I didn’t ask him anymore about it because I
19
didn’t want to be digging in on him, and he then moved on and finished the
conversation, something like that.
[pp.18-19]
….
In short, the allegations against Libby look kind of thin, but it’s not implausible to suggest he made knowingly false statements. It looks at first glance like the prosecutor is being tough, but not outrageously irresponsible in bringing these indictments. We had hoped there would either be indictments based on clear and compelling evidence of serious wrongdoing, or no indictments. It looks like the prosecutor landed somewhere in the middle today.
Excerpts via The Washington Post.
Much more from Michelle Malkin, Orin Kerr, Kevin Aylward, and Ed Morrissey.
Update: Patterico catches the L.A. Times being sloppy with the difference between “sought” and “bought”.
Conjecture and speculation roundup from some major news outlets —
WaPo:
The prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation … is expected … according to people familiar with the case. … according to people close to the aide. The sources … it was unclear whether … might … or whether … Fitzgerald could seek … But sources familiar with the prosecutor’s work … wondering about who might be indicted. … There were signs … One legal source said … Now they might be called upon … that could …
… guessing is rife … possible wrongdoing … But speculation was rampant … likelihood … speculated … probably … A third possibility … unlikely … it was possible … lawyers said … possibly laying the groundwork … it remained a possibility … the possibility …
… might … could … could … possibly … other possibilities … possible … suggested … may also have … raised the possibility … might … remains unknown … could be … revived the possibility … might be considering … apparent effort … uncertainty … guessing … might … not publicly known … almost certainly … are believed to focus …
Bottom line, no one knows anything at this point. Pundits who guessed right will say “told you so…”, those who guessed wrong will simply move on. We, who stay away from predictions and speculation, remain above the fray. Mr. Fitzgerald will indict, or not. All one can responsibly do is wait and see.
More Scooter-gate possibilities from The Anchoress and linked at The Mudville Gazette.
Harriet Miers has withdrawn her nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court. That sound you hear is a big sigh of relief from conservatives all over America. As Michelle Malkin put it on her blog this morning:
“What a relief. Sad, pensive, what-a-waste relief. Not happy-joy-joy relief.”
That’s our feeling on the matter in a nutshell.
Hugh Hewitt’s reaction comes off a bit whiny:
“I think Ms. Miers has been unfairly treated by many who have for years urged fair treatment of judicial nominees.
She deserves great thanks for her significant service to the country. She and the president deserved much better from his allies.
There’s nothing unfair about asking legitimate questions about a nominee for the Supreme Court. Was there some rhetoric from Miers’ detractors that went over the top? Sure. But a blanket condemnation of any criticism is unfair, Hugh.
Like night follows day, the Democrats immediately went into their knee-jerk name-calling mode:
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) echoed that view in a statement this morning. “The radical right wing of the Republican Party killed the Harriet Miers nomination,” he said.
More reason the opinions of people like Reid should be ignored when choosing the next nominee.
But now is the time to put this whole ugly episode behind us. The president will pick a great nominee next time, conservatives will rally to support him, onward and upward.
More reaction from The Volokh Conspiracy, and a roundup from Wizbang.
The Anchoress has a good post up about Hillary Clinton. Read the whole thing.
But this one particular quote stuck out:
Clinton said she doesn’t support a deadline for withdrawing troops from Iraq nor does she support leaving our troops there for an open-ended period.
Huh? What are the other options? If there’s no deadline, isn’t the deployment “open-ended” by definition? It’s nothing but pure, unadulterated, meaningless doublespeak.
“I voted for the $87 billion, before I voted against it.”
“I smoked marijuana, but I didn’t inhale.”
“I’m against President Bush’s Iraq policy, whatever it is. I’m for you’re Iraq policy preference, whatever it is.”
Here’s the Democrats’ policy on Iraq:
“We need to change our policy in Iraq.”
“How?”
“To something different.”
“Like what?”
“Something better.”
“Like what?”
“The President is a failure.”
“So what’s your plan?”
“The president lied to America.”
“So what’s your $&%*# plan?!?”
“We can do better. We must do better.”
” …. ”
Robert Kagan has written an important corrective in the Washington Post to all the spin that’s been coming out over the last four years about the justifications for the war in Iraq. The article is written in response to attacks on NY Times reporter Judith Miller for her reporting about Iraq’s WMD programs before the invasion. She’s now being portrayed by many on the left as a shill for the Bush administration line.
…Many critics outside the Times suggest that Miller’s eagerness to publish the Bush administration’s line was the primary reason Americans went to war. The Times itself is edging closer to this version of events.
But the implications of Kagan’s article go way beyond Miller. He cites numerous examples of editorials and articles from both the NY Times and Washington Post about the danger posed by Iraq under Saddam Husssein.
There is a big problem with this simple narrative. It is that the Times, along with The Post and other news organizations, ran many alarming stories about Iraq’s weapons programs before the election of George W. Bush. A quick search through the Times archives before 2001 produces such headlines as “Iraq Has Network of Outside Help on Arms, Experts Say”(November 1998), “U.S. Says Iraq Aided Production of Chemical Weapons in Sudan”(August 1998), “Iraq Suspected of Secret Germ War Effort” (February 2000), “Signs of Iraqi Arms Buildup Bedevil U.S. Administration” (February 2000), “Flight Tests Show Iraq Has Resumed a Missile Program” (July 2000). (A somewhat shorter list can be compiled from The Post’s archives, including a September 1998 headline: “Iraqi Work Toward A-Bomb Reported.”) The Times stories were written by Barbara Crossette, Tim Weiner and Steven Lee Myers; Miller shared a byline on one.
There was consensus about the danger posed by Iraq during the years of the Clinton administration — Hussein sought WMD, he supported terrorists, he posed a threat to our national security and the security of the region, etc.
Two things, only two, changed — 9/11 and the election of George W. Bush. The anti-victory left will shout, “But Iraq had nothing to do with 9/11!” And that seems to be true, according to the evidence so far collected. But that doesn’t end the discussion. Our task in the war on terror is not to simply avenge the last attack, but to try to prevent the next one. 9/11 lowered the bar for responding to perceived threats, thus raising the likelyhood of invading Iraq, which was perceived as a threat throughout the 1990s.
What’s really galling is that the press and the Democrats know this. Their position on the whole thing is just a huge fraud. They’ve essentially been lying to the American people over and over again for four years.
And the lies go right to the top leadership of the Democratic party. When Ted Kennedy called the war “a fraud, cooked up in Texas”, he knew full well that was not true. He knew the policy of the United States was regime change in Iraq during the Clinton administration. The press that uncritically reported statements like Kennedy’s knew it too. They’re ignoring the relevant history, and supplying a deceptive, false narrative, because they oppose President Bush. Playing politics with important national security questions in such a cynical way is just unconscionable.
More from The Mudville Gazette, California Conservative, The Strata-Sphere, and Joust the Facts.
And here’s another good example of Democrat weaseling from Right Wing News. Also linked at OTB.
Update: And today, another example of Democrat duplicity on Iraq – John Kerry continues to speak as if Iraq wasn’t an issue before 2001. Someone call his office and tell him the campaign is over, and he lost.
There’s a lot of excitement among the anti-liberation left today at the unfortunate news of “2000 dead in Iraq”. Nothing gets their hearts fluttering more than some bad news they can use to bash the administration over the head and undermine the war effort. Moveon.org is already using the tragic event for fundraising.
To put 2,000 deaths in three years in some perspective, consider:
Of course it should go without saying that each of these deaths is a tragedy, especially for the families of those killed. We in no way intend to minimize the death of any soldier. But a little perspective is needed. The picture that is being portrayed by the mainstream media of Iraq as a horrible quagmire and obvious debacle is just not fair or accurate.
We hope and pray that no more soldiers are killed. We share the desire of all Americans to see every single one of the brave men and women of our military come home safely. But we also understand that the war must be won first. Do the fundraisers at Moveon.org really not understand what’s at stake in Iraq? Or do they just not care? Either way, it would be a real disaster if they and their anti-liberation fellow travelers got their way, and we pulled out of Iraq before the mission is complete.
Here are the stats for 1980 through 2004.
Some additional perspective from a man who’s there, via The Washington Post:
“The number 2,000 means a lot to me — I mean, two of those were two of my best friends,” said Sgt. Brian Zamiska, 27 of Bentleyville, Pa., whose 4-64 Armor unit is based in Baghdad. “But it doesn’t mean you pack up and leave. I reenlisted. I’ll be in 12 more years. I am sure I will be back over here, and we should be. If we leave too soon, they died in vain. If we get a stable situation first, they died for a good cause.”
Michelle Malkin has a roundup.
