Bob Woodward's explanation of why he didn't come clean with his executive editor does not add up

1. Woodward says that when he learned Plame's name (in mid-June 2003), he was in the middle of finishing a book, and that's why he didn't want to come clean with his executive editor at the Washington Post about his involvement in the Valerie Plame affair - he was afraid of getting subpoenaed while working on the book.

When Woodward learned Plame's name, he told The Associated Press Wednesday, he was in the middle of finishing a book about the administration's decision to go to war in Iraq, and didn't want to be subpoenaed to testify.

But no one was being subpoenaed in June 2003, no one was even talking about subpoenas at that time. Patrick Fitzgerald wasn't even appointed as special prosecutor until December 2003, and the first journalists, from NBC and Time, weren't subpoenaed until May 2004. Judy Miller wasn't subpoeaned until August 2004, and she didn't do jail time until summer 2005.

So why was Woodward afraid to come clean to his editor between June 2003 and December 2003, when PlameGate was already a massive scandal, yet before there was any talk at all of anyone being subpoenaed? Woodward's fear-of-subpoena excuse just doesn't hold water.

2. Today Woodward adds the following excuse for not coming clean:

"The grand jury was going and reporters were being jailed, and I hunkered down more than I usually do."

Again, this is why he didn't want to fess up what he knew to his editors, fear of going to jail.

Okay, that's a seemingly honest excuse for why Woodward might have been worried once reporters started getting subpoenas in May 2004. It doesn't explain why he didn't come clean before that time. And more importantly, it doesn't explain why Woodward didn't come clean this past summer. Let me explain...

3. By July 2005, Woodward was no longer worried about possibly being jailed, in fact, he offered on Larry King Live to be jailed in place of Judith Miller. Fair enough. Maybe Woodward really had gotten over the initial fear he suffered in mid-2004, the fear that stopped him from coming clean to his exec editor back then.

But if Woodward was over his fear of facing jail-time by mid-2005, over it enough that he was willing to offer to go to jail in Judity Miller's stead, then why didn't Woodward come clean with his editor at that time? In fact, Woodward didn't come clean with his editor until just last month, October 2005, three months AFTER he offered to go to jail for Judy. So now we know that the fear-of-jail excuse doesn't hold water either.

So, basically, Woodward's explanations as to why he didn't come clean with his executive editor just don't add up. Read the rest of this post...

A few interesting gay stories

1. Gay man elected head of Parti Quebecois.

2. Mmm, Jake...

3. Ok, not gay but VERY cool. An ad from Sony, just gorgeous - and what is that song? I love it.

PS All 3 of the above links are via Andy Towle's TowleRoad. An excellent blog, "with homosexual tendencies" (as Andy says). It's really quite good, just added it to my blog roll, suggest folks check it out (it's pretty gay, but interesting across the board in a non-gay way too - thus the gay tendencies thing - maybe I'd call it straight-friendly). Read the rest of this post...

GOP Lt. Gov of Maryland changes his story on supposed racist criticism he received

My oh my. It seems the African-American Republican Lt. Governor of Maryland, Michael Steele, is now backing off of reports by himself, the GOP governor of Maryland, and their press secretary that he was greeted by a veritable shower of Oreo cookies, thick as locusts the press secretary said, during one of the debates during the last election.

Now that the Baltimore Sun has basically proven the story to be an outright lie, the Lt Gov is - surprise! - changing his story.

See, Republicans only care about black people under attack when it's their own black people, when they're not really under attack, and when they're simply lying and using their minority status to help other conservative politicians who don't care a lick about black people or any other people.

But Michael Steele is an honorable man. Read the rest of this post...

Cheney vows to throw critics' words back at them. Is he crazy or just stupid?

Tell me NO ONE on his staff read this line in today's Cheney speech and said "dude, you have an approval rating just this side of Satan, you personally got caught lying 51 times about Iraq, and now you're talking about 'throwing words back at people?' Are you stupid or crazy?"

The President and I cannot prevent certain politicians from losing their memory, or their backbone – but we’re not going to sit by and let them rewrite history. We’re going to continue throwing their own words back at them.

51 times Cheney misled the American people about Iraq, and he's the best guy this administraton can come up with to convince the American people that you're a traitor if you accuse them of lying. Read the rest of this post...

Dick Cheney, who outright lied to justify invading Iraq, now attacks Demcrats for calling him on his lies

UPDATE: Cong Henry Waxman has a document online detailing 51 times that Cheney misled the country about Iraq! (The Cheney stuff begins on page 26 of the document, which is actually page 32 of the pdf file.)

Oh this is rich. Cheney is the newest attack dog Bush is sending out to chastize Dems for calling Bush and company liars. The only problem? Cheney himself is one of the liars who repeatedly and intentionally misled the country in order to justify the war.

Do you remember the one where...

1. Cheney Claimed Iraq Was Providing WMD Training To Al-Qaeda Months After Source Recanted

or the one where...

2. Cheney claimed Saddam was harboring Al Qaeda? He wasn't.

or the one where...

3. Cheney claimed Saddam gave Al Qaeda bomb-making expertise and trained Al Qaeda terrorists how to use chemical and biological weapons? Saddam didn't.

or the one where...

4. On Sept 14, 2003 Cheney claimed, for the second time at least, that there was evidence suggesting Mohammad Atta visited the Iraqi embassy in the Czech Republic? He didn't, and Cheney knew the supposed evidence had already been debunked, yet repeated the charge on Tim Russert's show as a justification for the war.

With respect to 9/11, of course, we’ve had the story that’s been public out there. The Czechs alleged that Mohamed Atta, the lead attacker, met in Prague with a senior Iraqi intelligence official five months before the attack

or the one where...

5. Cheney said during the VP debates last October that he NEVER had publicly connected Iraq and 9/11. Of course, he did on Meet the Press a year before:

Cheney: "If we're successful in Iraq, if we can stand up a good representative government in Iraq, that secures the region so that it never again becomes a threat to its neighbors or to the United States, so it's not pursuing weapons of mass destruction, so that it's not a safe haven for terrorists, now we will have struck a major blow right at the heart of the base, if you will, the geographic base of the terrorists who have had us under assault now for many years, but most especially on 9/11."

or the one where...

6.Cheney denied linking Atta to the Iraqis, when he did:

June 17, 2004. Vice President Cheney talking to CNBC's Gloria Borger:

Borger: 'Well, let's go to Mohamed Atta for a minute, because you mentioned him as well. You have said in the past that it was, quote, 'pretty well confirmed.' '

Cheney: 'No, I never said that.'

Borger: 'Okay.'

Cheney: 'Never said that.'

Borger: 'I think that is . . . '

Cheney: 'Absolutely not. What I said was the Czech intelligence service reported after 9/11 that Atta had been in Prague on April 9th of 2001, where he allegedly met with an Iraqi intelligence official. We have never been able to confirm that nor have we been able to knock it down.'

On Dec. 9, 2001. Cheney talking to NBC's Tim Russert (this is perhaps the first time he made this lie):

Cheney: 'Well, what we now have that's developed since you and I last talked, Tim, of course, was that report that -- it's been pretty well confirmed that he did go to Prague and he did meet with a senior official of the Iraqi intelligence service in Czechoslovakia last April, several months before the attack. Now, what the purpose of that was, what transpired between them, we simply don't know at this point, but that's clearly an avenue that we want to pursue.

'

Read the rest of this post...

Bill Clinton says Iraq invasion was a "big mistake"

So, one member of the Clinton family has weighed in. It will be interesting to see whether the junior Senator from New York agrees:

Former President Clinton told Arab students Wednesday the United States made a "big mistake" when it invaded Iraq, stoking the partisan debate back home over the war.

Clinton cited the lack of planning for what would happen after Saddam Hussein was overthrown.

"Saddam is gone. It's a good thing, but I don't agree with what was done," Clinton told students at a forum at the American University of Dubai.

Oh, and remember as the Bush people keep telling us, Clinton saw the same intelligence as they did. Difference is that Bill didn't invade Iraq -- and he now says it was a mistake. On the other hand, his wife voted for the war and apparently still stands by that decision. Read the rest of this post...

Open Thread

This day got very interesting. Read the rest of this post...

Growing signs of a criminal conspiracy over PlameGate at the White House

New from AP:

1. We find out that a senior White House official leaked to Bob Woodward the name and CIA status of Valerie Plame.

The newspaper reported that Woodward told Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leak of Plame's identity, that the official talked to him about Plame in mid-June 2003.

2. That official is not Libby.

Woodward and editors at the Post refused to identify the official to reporters other than to say it was not Libby.

3. That official is not Rove (if you believe his spokesman).

Mark Corallo, a spokesman for Karl Rove's legal team, said Rove was not the official who talked to Woodward.

4. That means YET ANOTHER senior administration official - a THIRD official - was running around town leaking Valerie Plame's identity and CIA status.

I'm sorry, but we now have Karl, Scooter, and a third senior official all just "happening" to be telling numerous journalists that Amb. Wilson's wife is a CIA agent, yet we're to believe that this is NOT part of a coordinated conspiracy to spread that info? It was all just random chance that official after official kept leaking the info to the media's top players - NYT, Wash Post, NBC, TIME, etc. We're to believe it was simply "random chance", or an innocent slip of the tongue, as I believe Bob Woodward called it, that 3 senior officials all happened to "slip" in talking to the top media outlets in the nation. Now, mind you, the top officials apparently didn't slip when talking to the Topeka Times or the Billings Gazette (or any other small-bit newspaper), they only "slipped" when talking to the biggest news outlets that could broadcast this "gaffe" worldwide.

Imagine the coincidence of that.

Basically, what we have here is more evidence suggesting a possible conspiracy to out Valerie Plame conducted by at least 3 senior administration officials. THAT'S why Fitzgerald is still taking testimony. This isn't over by a long shot.

As for Woodward, there's this interesting tidbit in the article:

On Wednesday, Woodward apologized for not telling his boss, Washington Post's executive editor Leonard Downie Jr., about his being among the journalists who were told about Plame's identity, even as the investigation morphed into a national scandal.

Woodward held back the information because he wanted to protect his sources and because he was worried about being subpoenaed in the inquiry, according to the newspaper's Web site.

So Woodward withheld info from his editor because he wanted to protect his source (from your editors?) AND because Woodward didn't want to be subpoenaed.

Call me crazy, but isn't trying to hide evidence of a crime in order to avoid a subpoena called obstruction of justice? It's one thing for Woodward to say he was protecting his source. It's quite another to say he was intentionally hiding the info from the prosecutor because he didn't want to testify.

I think Bob has got some explaining to do. Maybe Judy could use some more help on her Web site? Read the rest of this post...

US denies using white phoshorus on civilians

According to the US military:

"We don't target any civilians with any of our weapons. And to suggest that U.S. forces were targeting civilians with these weapons would simply be wrong."

A few responses:

1. Of course, up until yesterday the Bush administration said they didn't use white phosphorus at all as a weapon, but then they got caught, and now admit it.

2. Define "targeting." I doubt anyone thinks the US military "targets" innocent women and children to be burned alive just for the heck of it. But has the US' use of this weapon ever killed any innocent civilians in Iraq? That's the question I'd like an answer to, rather than this Clintonian "we never 'targeted' civilians" crap. Read the rest of this post...

Iraqi Government torturing detainees

The new Iraqi government is allegedly torturing their prisoners. They've learned well from the occupying forces:

Iraq's government said Tuesday that it had ordered an urgent investigation of allegations that many of the 173 detainees American troops discovered over the weekend in the basement of an Interior Ministry building in a Baghdad suburb had been tortured by their Iraqi captors. A senior Iraqi official who visited the detainees said two appeared paralyzed and others had some of the skin peeled off their bodies by their abusers.

Torture in Iraq used to be so Saddam Hussein. Now, it's so Dick Cheney. Nice work. Read the rest of this post...

Reid has "significant concerns" about Alito

Harry Reid set the stage for the upcoming confirmation battle over Scalito today. Fortunately, unlike some of the more tepid members of his Democratic caucus, the Minority Leader has major problems with the nominee and is unabashed about them:

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid on Wednesday said he has "significant concerns" about Supreme Court nominee Samuel Alito, calling President Bush's latest choice one of the most conservative judges in the United States.

"A picture of Sam Alito is emerging that may explain why the extreme right-wing is popping champagne corks," Reid, D-Nev., said in a Senate speech, referring to a 20-year-old document in which Alito asserted "the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion."

Reid also let the Senate know that the GOPers and right wing changed the rules when they eviscerated Harriet:

"Harriet Miers was forced to withdraw by conservative activists who want to change the legal landscape of America," Reid said. "They decided she was inadequately radical or insufficiently aggressive for their purposes, so they gave her the boot."

Alito, through his own words and actions, has given the Senate plenty of reasons to question his nomination. And, it's a good thing to see Reid taking the lead on asking those questions.

The full text of Reid's statement can be found here. Read the rest of this post...

Bob Woodward's ethics malfunction

Atrios is doing some major coverage today of Bob Woodward's major ethical lapse regarding his ongoing criticism of Patrick Fitzgerald while NOT telling anyone that he was a major player in the entire PlameGate story.

Atrios 1
Atrios 2
Atrios 3
Atrios 4
Atrios 5
Atrios 6

Also check out Steve Clemons.

As Atrios noted last night, I'm sure a panel on blogger ethics could clear all this up. Read the rest of this post...

Lots more bodies found in New Orleans

Remember when the feds stopped the searches and said there we no more bodies to be found, but everyone else said they were lying? They were. Read the rest of this post...

Tuesday Morning Open Thread

What's the latest? Read the rest of this post...

Bush attack on Dems. over Iraq implicates GOP, too

The smear campaign strategy of Bush and company could actually start working against his own party. Oh well:

President Bush's efforts to paint Democrats as hypocrites for criticizing the Iraq war after they once warned that Saddam Hussein was a grave threat could backfire on Republicans.

Polls show marked declines in support for the war, notably among moderate Republicans, especially Republican women, and independents - voting blocs that the GOP needs to woo or keep in their camp.

If Bush castigates Democrats for changing their minds on the war, he might wind up alienating Republicans who have done so, too.

That's what happens when the President won't admit a mistake. He is so stubborn he's willing to destroy his allies. Read the rest of this post...

Open thread

I'm off to bed. Read the rest of this post...

Wash Post: Oil execs lied to Congress last week about secret Cheney meetings

No wonder they wouldn't testify under oath.

And Cheney's office knew all week that the oil CEOs lied to Congress, and said nothing about it to anyone. Read the rest of this post...