Cheney leaked Plame's covert identity NIE estimates on purpose.

[tongodeon]

Last week Scooter Libby said he had orders to leak Valerie Plame's covert identity directly from the Vice President. Today Cheney responded to the accusation by announcing that he has the power to declassify sensitive government information based on an executive order

Comments

IT IS A MATTER OF MORAL CHARACTER

[drieuxster]

Remember that they have been trying to dodge the big bullet on the fundamental problem, burning an active asset, and with that Asset, the associated assets, merely as a matter of simple domestic political power playing...

Keep reminding yourself what all of the rest of us have to remind us - it is NOT Dick Cheney's Fault - Congress Authorized the burning of any asset for any reason - so we should not hold Dick Cheney Morally Accountable, it's not like he is a Republican or Anything....

Re: IT IS A MATTER OF MORAL CHARACTER

[tongodeon]

Then again any *support* of the Vice President that originates from someone known to have been shot in the face by him several weeks earlier should be dismissed as cheap and probably partisan emotional bias.

Just saying this now so that I can refer to it in a few weeks when Harry's swelling goes down and he starts making the talk show circuit.

Re: IT IS A MATTER OF MORAL CHARACTER

[drieuxster]

that's the problem with you leftist liberals, you are just unwilling to Support The President to Keep America Safe From Imaginary Threats!!!!

I say it is time to find out who in the Evil Liberal Media has been covering up the Heroic Struggle that the VP has clearly always been in, stopping those Iraqi Flying Saucers with his valiant Side Kick Harrry....

[dataghost13]

Actually, what would become the perfect ending of this stroy is to discover that Dick Cheney, the Vice-President himself, was working under an assumed name as vice president...which of course, would make him a fiction as well!!

[gaping_asshole]

Sounds to me like there's pretty good reason to prosecute Cheney. I've got no idea how the rules actually work, but as you pointed out, declassifying something and announcing a still classified fact to the NYT are quite different. I've got to believe that by not actually declassifying the information that Cheney is guilty of illegally sharing classified information

minor nit here

[drieuxster]

if IT is declassified, then it is declassified.

IF one does not have the actual lawful means by which it is designated as declassified, and you blow it out into the open, THEN it is called "a breach of the espionage laws" - which in a time of deferring the tax burden onto the unborn could be as much a capital crime as in the actual times of war.

so amongst the problems is whether there was an actual declasification and a mere violation of the classification laws, or is this really more idiotic.

[dataghost13]

I like that phrase -- "intentional distortion of intelligence"...great way to say look, we're gonna act stupid on purpose...

[tongodeon]

I hate getting into semantic arguments. "Bush lied." "No he didn't, Bush believed what he was saying even if it wasn't true."

Bush intentionally molded correct intelligence which did not support a war into false intelligence which did support a war.

[dataghost13]

Yeah. Like I said, act stupid on purpose...don't worry...we be on the same page!!

But Congress Is To Blame!

[drieuxster]

They said it was OK for the president to dress up like that, it was a part of the no child left behind bill, and in this case we got merely the left behind and not the whole child....