Apr 26 2006
Fly By 04/26/06
Another brief posting day (Wednesday’s are always bad for me).
I am happy to see Fox’s Tony Snow taking on the WH Press Secretary Job. Tony has a good relationship with the press, the people and conservatives. This will help the WH image immensely.
I also like Bush’s initiatives yesterday on the gas price front. While suspending deposits into the oil reserve was helpful, getting rid of the special blends required by some overzealous cities, counties and states was a much bigger step.  These summer only special blends have a truly marginal impact on clean air, but they require the diversion of refinery resources to create large enough stockpiles and end up restricting supplies as refineries reconfigure for them. This will illustrate the low return these trendy blends provide for the cost.
And hopefully all those disgruntled fiscal conservatives will finally realize that Bush is not the big spender, but that Congress holds the purse strings if they want to lay blame. The price Bush must have paid to get his tax cuts, education bill, energy bill etc must have been tremendous. Well, he is finally putting his foot down on the spend-happy Congress with his veto threat on a bloated war funding bill. People, we need to stop blaming Bush for the bad habits of Congress.
I think I have figured out McCarthy’s Clintonesque denials coming out of Ty Cobb. Here is Cobb’s quoted statement:
Ty Cobb, a lawyer representing Ms. McCarthy, said again on Tuesday that she never admitted divulging sensitive material. “She did not confess, orally or in writing, to leaking classified information,” Mr. Cobb said.
Well, semantically this means she never confess using the words ‘leaking classified information’. The conversation probably went like this:
CIA: ‘Did you meet with reporter Smith without permission?’
McCarthy’: ‘Yes I did.’
CIA:’Did you discuss details x, y, and z regarding subject alpha with reporter Smith?’
McCarthy’: ‘Yes I did.’
CIA: ‘Did you know subject alpha was classified?’
McCarthy’: ‘Yes I did.’
Notice how she never says ‘I leaked classified information’. These Clintonesque word games are insulting to the public. Bill Clinton was good at it, but once caught everyone knew he was just using people, not treating them with respect and being up front with them. Dumb game McCarthy. If anyone has posts or transcripts on her supposed interview last night on the radio I would appreciate the link!
Have a great day!
Bad Targeting (WAPO)
“Which bring us to Mr. Goss. He has taken no disciplinary action against CIA personnel identified by his inspector general as having played a part in the failure to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He has taken no action against CIA interrogators known to have participated in the torture and killing of foreign detainees, or against those who knowingly violated the Geneva Conventions in Iraq. He has driven a host of senior managers from the agency. Now he would have the country believe that one of the CIA’s biggest problems — worthy of an unprecedented internal investigation he personally oversaw — is unauthorized leaks to the press. His setting of priorities seems unlikely to improve the CIA’s success rate in judging foreign programs of weapons of mass destruction or preventing the next terrorist attack.”
Fired CIA Officer Likely Won’t Face Charges Over Leak (LAT)
“WASHINGTON — Despite the CIA’s goal of cracking down on leaks of classified information, the government may forgo criminal charges against a senior agency officer fired last week for disclosing operational secrets, according to current and former intelligence and law enforcement officials.
The officials cited a number of obstacles to pursuing the case, including that the employee was fired in part over polygraph results that would not be admissible as evidence and that she was accused of leaking secrets the government would be reluctant to air in court.”
The WAPO editorial piece, wow, speechless. Much to hide, jeez.
MARY McCARTHY’S MYSTERY MUG…
AJ Strata: I think I have figured out McCarthyÂ’s Clintonesque denials coming out of Ty Cobb….
WSJ gets it right however.
Our Rotten IntelligenCIA
“We’re as curious as anyone to see how Ms. McCarthy’s case unfolds. But this would appear to be only the latest example of the unseemly symbiosis between elements of the press corps and a cabal of partisan bureaucrats at the CIA and elsewhere in the “intelligence community” who have been trying to undermine the Bush Presidency.”
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/04/our_rotten_intelligencia.html
AJ: Did you see this chart connecting the dots between McCarthy, Wilson, Priest and her husband, William Goodfellow?
Dana Priest is married to a fellow that is helping Joe Wilson make money off speaking engagements.
AJ,
She was not interviewed on the John Batchelor show as rumored on FR or MMilkin. Batchelor and Larry Kudlow interviewed Jed Babbin about Ms Mary.
From the corner (NRO) on previously mentioned WAPO editorial;
RE: THE FOG [Andy McCarthy]
Jonah, happily I was drinking orange juice by the time I saw this one, so I didn’t scald myself. But I think the WPost editors are sprinkling LSD on their Cheerios. Take this part (and, yes, I realize this is fishing in a barrel) (italics and other modifications are mine):
Maybe [MAYBE?!?] disclosure of the prisons damaged national security — the CIA has offered no evidence of that — but it’s hard to imagine what could be more damaging than the existence of the system itself.
1. So, it’s not enough that the war effort be undermined. It’s now incumbent on the CIA to explain in detail to al Qaeda — through the pages of the WPost of course — how classified disclosures have damaged our attempts to defeat them?
2. So, if we are unable to keep the Khalid Sheik Mohammeds isolated until they talk to us, and they therefore don’t tell us about a plot we would otherwise have learned of, and thus an avoidable bombing of, say, downtown Washington happens, the WPost finds it “hard to imagine” how that could be more damaging to our country than the isolation program itself?
Next best part: the WPost’s indignation in summation over “CIA personnel [who] … played a part in the failure to prevent the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.” Perfect! — do everything you can to make it impossible for us to get intelligence and then prattle about intelligence failure!
I now think I’ve been all wrong about this. The Justice Department shouldn’t bother with prosecution for the publication of defense secrets. It appears the press has a bullet-proof insanity defense.
That laugh-track you think you hear is actually the next bin Laden video …
AJ,
You’re letting the president off the hook too easily; he does have the power to veto spending bills, but he has chosen not to use it, just as he chose not to veto, say, McCain-Feingold. That makes him very much part of the problem.
JLMadyson,
I read the same editorial, and reacted the same way. It was also interesting that they chose to frame the situation as Those who leak to the press often do so for patriotic reasons, not because they wish to damage national security. Which is very much a red herring here, where the likely motivation is partisanship; where people who have been put in a position of public trust and granted access to our nation’s most closely held secrets violate that trust and illegally disclose these secrets in order to harm our nation’s elected leaders, no matter the consequences to national security.
The real crime is ……
AJ Strata posts the following this morning:I think I have figured out McCarthy’s Clintonesque denials coming out of Ty Cobb. Here is Cobb’s quoted statement: Ty Cobb, a lawyer representing Ms. McCarthy, said again on Tuesday that she never admitted…
Fedry? I think AJ was saying that bush quid pro quo’d those big spending bills, in exchange for his tax relief bills. Now however, the congress has overstepped and bush has the cojones to finaly say “no.” At least that is more of what I got from AJ.
As far as the Clintonesque denial, and your hypothetical interrogation, I think that you are mincing a little too much. I think it is more likely
Good guy: have you had any unauthorized contact with a member of the media in which you discussed classified information.
Mary: No.
polygraph: BEEP BEEP BABE! WRONG! EHHHHHHHH Squeal
Good guy: are you sure that you had a no unauthorized contact with a member of the media in which you discussed classified information.
Mary: No
polygraph: better
(continue to end of polygraph)
(seperate interrogation for the purpose of clarifying facts)
Good guy: what did you mean you weren’t sure?
Mary: Now that I think about it, while I was knocking back some expensive drinks at a democratic national committee function with Valerie Plame, Dana Priest, and John Kerry, I think I was asked what I thought about those illegal unconstitutional gulag like prisons in eastern Europe. I can’t remember through the haze of joy brought on by the addoration I was experience in the presence of one of the finest americans, and true president by rightl, John Kerry, and the pulitzer deserving journalist Dana, not to mention the brave martyr Valerie that I might have slipped and said something along the lines of “I heard that too, and it’s wrong, wrong I say wrong.”
I did not deliberately leak information, however I might have accidentaly admitted their existence during this orgasmicaly historic day in which I was praised by the clear victor of the coming election in November.
Good guy: Thank you for that clarification, don’t let the door hit you and don’t leave the borders of the country.
(fin)
That is one way that you could say that you never leaked, never failed a polygraph (since like all things there is a grade scale, even for a polygraph, you can get some questions wrong but still pass) while still doing both.
I seem to be the only one hung up on the words in Goss’s statement to his CIA troops that she “willfully shared classified intelligence, including operational information.” It is that qualifier that has me upset. Operational details are a whole lot more serious than just a mere leak on policy differences. Leaking sources and methods, which is my understanding of what operational information means, could cost lives. See The Squiggler “The real crime is …” for my thoughts on the seriousness of this matter.