I agree somewhat. Certain rightwingers obfuscate the debate, and in so doing create a diversion that distracts leftwingers and centrists, effectively reinforcing the righwingers’ gambit. I consciously attempt to avoid being diverted in this way.

But your response seems largely a diversion in itself. You change the subject from the orginal obfuscation to the leftwingers’ and centrists’ overreaction. You understood the point but neither agreed nor disagreed, making a different point instead.

I’ll skip ahead a little now. I think you more or less agree that there’s a significant accountability problem relating to Bush, Cheney et al, but consider that others are doing plenty already to address that problem.

And my response to that is. . .

Making these guys accountable is more than just a political issue. You have yourself given up on supporting them, but not only are many still supporting them even now, not only did they have much more support when they began, but others like them will similarly draw support in the not-so-distant future to wreak havoc again. That is, unless we very emphatically recognize what went wrong here, to the point where the lessons of Iraq will persevere longer than the lessons of VietNam appear to have.

Most of the Misinformation put out by the right was disproven in the Libby trial testimony and by Plame’s sworn testimony in Congress- so that’s not much of an assumption. As far as Wilson’s basic contention that the Italian document was a forgery, and he could find no evidence that Saddam was getting uranium from Niger, that was supported by Stephen Hadley, who admitted that claim was not true.

I think a very clear distinction needs to be drawn between the two, and I think it’s been the habit of rightwingers (not saying you’re one of them) to try to blur distinctions like this in the service of granting their operatives freer reign to wreak havoc and escape accountability. Yes, I can understand that point but I guess I’d say that this habit of certain rightwingers has led to a certain amount of overreaction by leftwingers and centrists. In other words, polarity of one extreme leads to increased polarity in the other direction, or for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction, that sort of thing. Note, for example, that Jim S is unwilling to even consider my comments but instead paints me with the winger brush, assuming that MY motivations are to blur the lines of guilt in order to soften the blows against ‘my guys’. To him it is impossible to look at both sides unless one is trying to prevent people from seeing the polarized view that isn’t flattering to your own side.

Little danger of that, practically speaking. The highly priviliged always have someone to speak up for them.

It is of course the nature of inferences and implications that they will never be strictly equal. It’s useful to know that what you intended to imply was different from what I inferred.

Note I have not argued that Joe Wilson should be excused. I would argue that his culpability has already been extensively argued.

More than that, though, I would argue in this case, so what? There’s playing the system to score debating points, and there’s playing the system to initiate a war. I think a very clear distinction needs to be drawn between the two, and I think it’s been the habit of rightwingers (not saying you’re one of them) to try to blur distinctions like this in the service of granting their operatives freer reign to wreak havoc and escape accountability.

Jjc,
The key word is that you are reacting to an INFERRENCE. Glad to see that you got that wording correct as some people tend to confuse inferrence and implication. But I’ll point out, that whatever you inferred is your own interpretation and it happens to be different than mine. Your inferrence (and that of other commenters) is that assigning blame on both sides means that I’m somehow making a weaker case for blame on any particular person. I don’t understand why it would be less possible to assign blame to one side if we are also willing to assign blame to the other side if the evidence indicates there was wrongdoing there as well. I think that kind of polarized thinking prevents us from getting to the heart of the problem, the systemic ills.

In other words, I get your point and see the nit about equality of blame not being the issue, but I still disagree with you on this and it was never my intention to imply what you have inferred here:

It was my issue that you seemed to suggest, by making the statement at all, that “blame� or accountability was beside the point and so not really worth pursuing. As you know only too well, many of us see that very accountability as the point no one should lose sight of.

It’s my view that focusing ONLY on the accountability of these “highly priveleged men skilled at playing the system” while ignoring or excusing other people who are also highly skilled at playing the system, prevents us from fixing the aspects of the system which facilitate this behavior.

Over the past few years we heard that she was not covert in the first place, no law was broken, the Wilsons were publicity hounds, Plame had a desk job, Wilson lied about who sent him because he had been co-opted by subversive leftists, Plame sent her husband , who had no qualifications, on the trip in the first place, Plame’s identity was widely known on the cocktail party circuit, no crime was ever committed, etc, etc.

Its not surprising that so many were confused by this case. If there’s enough misinformation out there, we start believing it, and then aren’t we swiftboating the truth? I have followed this case for years, but even I didn’t know until Plame testified that she was really covert. It shouldn’t be that hard to find out the truth in a democracy with a free press.

Just to pick the sort of nit that occasionally influences a discussion:

I objected to the inference that seemed reasonable to draw from your statement that the generality of the blame was more at issue than the blame of anyone in particular. I know you never said they were EQUAL.

I understand you were responding to several people at once, so it would be unfair for me to expect you pay particular attention to my particular issue. I hope you don’t think I’m picking on you here, but if you do, well here’s what I’m after–

I bring this up in connection to something GWB said somewhere along the line: “I was careful NOT to say that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11.” (Not sure the quote is exact, but am confident this is close.) Whatever it was he actually DID say was a significant part of the discussion of this issue that had 69% of Americans believing that Saddam Hussein was connected to 9/11 two years after 9/11.

I don’t know whether GWB intended to achieve this result or not, but his being “careful not to say” what people ended up believing is near the top of my list of several hundred issues I have with his choices of how to lead this nation.

Long after this Presidency has ended, the issues are sure to smolder regarding the accountability of Bush, Cheney et al. for the death, distruction, and disasters in their wake. Whatever is the opposite of accountability, seems to be a big part of what these guys are all about.

I think the many people who responded to your statement, “there is blame just about everywhere you look,” are animated by a sentiment uncomfortably close to rage that highly privileged men skilled at playing the system connived and finagled to their own benefit and at enormous cost to hundreds of millions, and have so far maneuvered succesfully to largely avoid accountability, or “blame,” and are more likely than not to do so until they die.

In conclusion, it was never my issue whether there was EQUAL blame to go around. It was my issue that you seemed to suggest, by making the statement at all, that “blame” or accountability was beside the point and so not really worth pursuing. As you know only too well, many of us see that very accountability as the point no one should lose sight of.

I may be opinionated, and stubborn, and biased at times (no really, I can be!), but I try to be intellectually honest.

http://www.sweetness-light.com/archive/when-and-why-joseph-c-wilson-iv-outed-valerie-plame

That’s how I remember it to. What I didn’t remember was when you suggested before that Libby wrote the speech for him. I doubt that is the case, though he was certainly given guidelines or an outline to focus his arguments.

Hopefully Powell will write a book one day giving all the details.

Bravo

I’m sure we will know more once Bush is out of office. I predict a run of “insider” books from former administration officials.

As far as Powell’s speech- Libby wrote it for him over in Cheney’s office. He has said in interviews that he regrets giving it, and that he knew parts of it were shaky, but did not have time to rewrite the whole thing. I remember reading that the decision was made by Karl Rove for Powell to give the speech– because of the trust factor. I’ll see if I can find it anywhere- it might have been in the biography of Powell that came out last year, or he might have said it in an interview.

As I stated previously, Fitz found no evidence that Armitage knew she was covert, but it is common sense that if you are discussing someone at the CIA that that would be a consideration. I agree that it was difficult to prove that the law had been violated, just as it was difficult to prove that there was a conspiracy. But thats what it all points to. I actually am not sure that Armitage knew whether or not she was covert, but it would be interesting to know-not sure if this will come out in the congressional hearings or in the civil case.

It’s not just conspiracies that are hard to prove, look at the requirements I listed above for one to violate the law. Plame had not served overseas since 1997, so even if there was intent, and all the other requirements, there was still no violation of the act. That doesn’t make what happened right, but as far as violating the law goes, it seems pretty clear that it wasn’t violated. I find it highly unlikely that people working in the State Department knew whether Plame was covert or not – the CIA does not exactly publish a list of personnel who fall into that category.

The intent of this law was originally to deal with people like Phillip Agee, not people like Armitage and this situation – that’s why there were no indictments.

Powell was not “used” by the WH as you suggest. He gave the speech partly because of his credibility, and partly because it was his responsibility as SECSTATE. Furthermore, he personally vetted everything he said – he did not have hit talking points dictated to him. That’s one reason the weakest evidence, like the Niger Uranium, never made it into his speech. To call Powell a lackey is simply incredible and suggests he was some kind of weak-spined pawn of the Administration. It’s clear he was not.

And just so we’re clear on Wilson, what he reported to the CIA after his trip was different from what he later said publicly and before Congressional Committees. The text is too long to quote here, but read pages 44-46 of this declassified report:

http://intelligence.senate.gov/108301.pdf

If you want the whole story on what happened with the Niger Uranium, begin on page 36 – it’s probably as definitive as one can get.

CS- If Plame had no regard for her privacy after the outting- why would she have bothered? By then it was too late to worry about it, as the reason necessitating secrecy about her identity was no longer valid. And what is the “evidence� that she had no regard for it before the outting???

Kim,
I really wasn’t going to comment again but since you directed a question to me…

I wasn’t really speaking so much about Plame’s behavior beforehand, rather about Wilson’s (I have no way of knowing how much he consulted with her prior to the publication of his OpEd). My point being, when someone behaves as a whistleblower, part of the story is what that person’s motivations are. You assume that Wilson’s were pure but I don’t. I don’t know that they weren’t, either, but the fact that he chose to level a VERY serious accusation against the Bush administration in a VERY public way, before getting all of the facts straight, doesn’t pass the sniff test to me. It’d be like a person working in a nuclear or chemical plant going to the press about safety violations without finding out first whether any wrongdoing actually took place.

Jim, I hope that answers your question as well. I’m writing my own opinions, thank you very much. I’m sure there are others who see it the way I do, but I don’t regurgitate what other people write, I simply call things as I see them.

CS- If Plame had no regard for her privacy after the outting- why would she have bothered? By then it was too late to worry about it, as the reason necessitating secrecy about her identity was no longer valid. And what is the “evidence” that she had no regard for it before the outting???

Fitz said he declined to prosecute Armitage because he couldn’t prove that Armitage knew Plame was covert. That means the others knew.

My intent was not to suggest that somehow the yellowcake story was valid. It certainly wasn’t. I was simply pointing out that Wilson’s evidence, though helpful, was not a smoking gun that blew the yelloscake theory out of the window. The preponderance of evidence showed the yellowcake to be false. My main point was that the WH should have attacked the credibility of his evidence and not the man himself.