Update 7/8/07
Real Washington Whispers
1. Michael Bloomberg is running for President: Bloomberg recently had lunch with David Boren, former Senator and a Democrat from Oklahoma. Bloomberg told Boren he is running for President. This will split the vote of Democrats and Independents and will boost the chance that Fred Thompson will be the next President. A well plugged in Republican friend of mine is betting that the final slate of candidates will be Hillary, Thompson, and Bloomberg. Thompson will reap the reward for Bloomberg’s third party candidacy.
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Update 5/31/07
Former FBI Director Louis Freeh to Endorse Rudy Giuliani
Louis Freeh, FBI director during the Democratic administration of former President Bill Clinton, is endorsing Republican presidential hopeful Rudy Giuliani for president in 2008.
The endorsement could provide a big boost to the former New York City mayor, who already gets high marks on the issues of security and terrorism, the New York Daily News reports.
“Any endorsement that lets Rudy talk about fighting crime and terrorism is good for him, said GOP consultant Dan Schnur.
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Update 5/30/07
How About Them Apples Vicky Toensing?
Victoria Toensing, Cliff May, Byron York and the other rightwing apologists who have long insisted that Valerie Plame Wilson was not undercover have some “splaining” to do. Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s latest filing in the Scooter Libby case leaves no doubt about Valerie Wilson’s status–she was covert and undercover and served overseas. Thanks to a heads up from McClatchy’s Jonathan Landay, followed in short order by a note from John Amato at Crooks and Liars, I got my hands on the Fitzgerald filing. [Update: David Corn posted the first piece on this Friday night. He needs to do more self-promotion.] Man, the rightwing stooges are getting their collective asses handed to them on all fronts (e.g., a bird shits on Bush, Wolfowitz gets bounced from the World Bank, and rightwing bloggers, Flopping Aces and Charles Johnson in particular, were exposed making fraudulent claims). As Jackie Gleason used to say, “how sweet it is!”
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The Sept. 13, 2006, letter from Cheney’s lawyer says logs for Cheney’s residence on the grounds of the Naval Observatory are subject to the Presidential Records Act.
The Justice Department filed the letter Friday in a lawsuit by a private group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, seeking the identities of conservative religious leaders who visited Cheney at his official residence.
The newly disclosed letter about visitors to Cheney’s residence is accompanied by an 18-page Secret Service document revealing the agency’s long-standing practice has been to destroy printed daily access lists of visitors to the residence.
Separately, the agency says it has given Cheney’s office handwritten logs of who visits him at his personal residence.
“A lawyer for Vice President Dick Cheney told the Secret Service in September to eliminate data on who visited Cheney at his official residence, a newly disclosed letter states.”
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Plame was ‘covert’ agent at time of name leak
WASHINGTON – An unclassified summary of outed CIA officer Valerie Plame’s employment history at the spy agency, disclosed for the first time today in a court filing by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, indicates that Plame was “covert” when her name became public in July 2003.
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Update 5/29/07
Right Wing World’s Plame Fantasy
Senators Bond, Hatch, and Burr have sent the rightwing nuts into a frenzy with their comments challenging the truthfulness of Valerie Wilson in one of the appendices to the latest report from the Senate Intelligence Committee on pre-war Intelligence about post-war Iraq. If dumb is forever then the three intrepid Senators are guaranteed eternal life. Bond can be excused because, like Bill “Bolangles” Robinson, “he drinks a bit”. Orin Hatch’s failing mental faculties are probably the result of his dotage–he has become more shrill with each passing year. And Senator Burr? Okay, just plain dumb.
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5/25/07
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Related: Let’s Review
HATCH COMMENTS ON TENET RESIGNATION
“I have just learned of Director Tenet’s resignation. George did not discuss this with me prior to his announcement, so I know no details of his decision, and accept his reasons.“I have known George Tenet for a long time, since he was a staff member on the Senate Select Intelligence Committee in the 1980s, rising to staff director under David Boren. I supported his nomination to Director of Central Intelligence in 1997.“I know from working with him as DCI that George Tenet was one of the first people in Washington to take seriously the threat of Al-Qaeda. During his tenure, we were attacked, and we responded, and the CIA led in many of our initial responses. When the dust settles, I think people will recognize the many contributions George Tenet made to the war on terror. I understand why the President had confidence in him.”
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Important Link at this Blog:
Tenet’s Ties to Boren: The Only Warm Evidence Trail to Truth
Other Background info:
(with detail shown here why Clinton looks pretty awful if you believe the official story of 9/11)
GEORGE TENET UNDERMINES THE CIA.
The Operator
But Tenet faced a more daunting task in charming an indifferent White House. Clinton had ignored Woolsey and Deutch and had initially paid little attention to Tenet, asking for occasional memos but not seeing the CIA chief in person–and, in relationships with the White House, face time is everything. But Tenet finally got his chance to demonstrate usefulness to the president. After the Al Qaeda bombing of the U.S. Embassies in East Africa in August 1998, he was called to the White House to help plan how and where the Clinton administration should retaliate. Tenet was determined to win the access that had been denied him and his predecessors. And he did–but in a way that provides an unsettling preview of what would happen four years later in the debate over WMD in Iraq.
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Giltner Review 