Welcome to Press the Meet. We explore the stories that Meet the Press ignores……

In spite of the constant claim from the right wing blogosphere and Bush mouthpieces in the right wing media I’ve never really seen any proof that her position was really widely known.

It looks to me like Cheney indirectly sent Wilson (by asking the CIA to check it out) On Wilson’s return he reported that the documents were forgeries, and that the claim was false. It is unknown what Cheney’s office did with that information, but if he knew it was false when it was put in the SOTU in Jan of 2003, that’s pretty significant isn’t it? That summer Cheney, Rove and Libby began the organized effort to discredit Wilson by outing his wife (though Armitage was the first to out her so it wasn’t a crime when the others did). Its the misuse of prewar intel that was known to be false, that is the most important factor here.

Remember the fuss started when Wilson wrote that editorial criticizing Cheney and the administration’s use of false intel.

Oh, I’m well aware of course. The question is whether or not Wilson’s criticism was accurate though, too. A less sinister version would be that Wilson blew things out of proportion and then Cheney did feel the need to discredit him. That’s still dirty politics and I don’t approve, but I can see the rationale and see that it’s not as malicious as the administration discrediting someone who was telling the truth. Honestly I don’t think we’ll ever know and I assume there’s probably some guilt on members of the administration- but I don’t know to what level.

The real scandal to me is that we never found out what happened to Joe Wilson’s report. Did Cheney bury it, and then discredit Wilson so that Bush could make the Niger claim in the SOTU? Remember the fuss started when Wilson wrote that editorial criticizing Cheney and the administration’s use of false intel.

I don’t really think anyone but Scooter will end up paying for this, but the coverup and Cheney’s role in this mess continues to bug me.

I think this prosecutor has treated the WH and Cheney with kid gloves, compared to Ken Starr!

Kim, To some degree I’d agree with you but my guess is that whatever complicity Cheney and Rove may have had was not documentable (is that a word? LOL). And honestly, I think there was probably wrongdoing on Clinton’s part that wasn’t documentable either, but Starr went bulldog on him by going after the personal stuff to try to bring him down that way. That’s crossing the line of what an aggressive prosecutor should do, and I wouldn’t want Fitzgerald to stoop to that level (and I don’t think I’d feel differently if the party affiliations were reversed.) I thought it was wrong then and the same tactics would be wrong now.

I agree with you that at least from what has been reported, there was no attempt by anyone in the administration to determine whether or not the leak of Plame’s identity would be damaging. The only mitigating factor there, though, would be if they believed that her status was already common knowledge and therefore believed that what they were leaking was only in regard to the reasons that her husband was chosen to go to Niger- and not that they were leaking Plame’s identity as a covert agent. So, I’m interested in knowing whether or not it would have been reasonable for them to have made that assumption.

I think Marlowe’s right though- I think Mitchell’s testimony would be very relevant because I’m not convinced that the “outing” was as serious as it is being claimed.

It could be a fascinating book and a great movie.

I don’t think Darth Cheney cares what anyone thinks about him, except probably his family. He is hard core.

The defense cross-examination was pretty brutal, with Wells opening up holes in Russert’s credibility. From JustOneMinute liveblogging:

“In sum, Wells established that (a) the FBI report of his conversations (they say he had two, he only recalls one) made far closer in time to the event indicate he conceded that Ms. Wilson’s name may have come up in their conversation though he earlier discounted that as “impossible” (b) In a heated matter involving the Buffalo News, his own memory was faulty. He’d made two angry calls to a critical reporter, denied that he had, and then, after checking his phone records, apologized, asserting he had no memory whatsoever of the calls….”

Also note the flurry of prosecution motions to block Libby from calling Andrea Mitchell to the stand. Mitchell had declared on camera that everyone in Washington was aware of Palme’s status…no big secret…has since backtracked, but clearly Fitzgerald wants to stop Libby from calling her.

It ain’t over till its over, said Yogi Berra. The defense has not begun making their case yet. If they can get Wilson on the stand, it could be a bloodbath for Fitzgerald.

Cheney knew that the Niger documents were forged and let Bush put those 16 words about uranium in the SOTU anyway. He is the one who should be sitting in that courtroom, as Libby is taking the bullet for HIM.