Revisiting the Alleged Leak

Off Topic Politics and World Issues
21

[quote]vroom wrote:
Boston, your analysis is very flawed. While the acts contain specificity, they also contain catch alls such as “any information”.

They also clearly indicate that a person should simply know that such a release of information could be dangerous to US interests.

Considering the right wing cheerleaders like to point out “THIS IS A TIME OF WAR”, you’d think that outing intelligence assets which may damage US efforts, during a time of war, would have republicans clamoring TREASON if such an event did occur.

If such an event were to be proven to have occurred, a lot of cheerleaders would either have to change their tune or be actively supportive of what would arguably be treason, just because they are in support of the administration doing it. Wow.

It makes no difference how many learned partisans attempt to convince themselves that certain laws can’t be applied in this case, because all of that is a mere distraction. Perhaps it is merely an attempt to pre-arm the public followers with talking points in the event that indictments do occur?

Who knows? However, leaked events would indeed point to inappropriate behavior within the administration. I know I know, I hear cries of PROVE IT already. First, we’ll see in a week or so if there is enough evidence to make it appropriate for the parties in question to go out and try to PROVE IT.

Things like the FEMA fuckup, cherry picking of information, starting a war without any idea how to handle the aftermath, using fear to gather public support and having key republican officials indicted is huge. Stick your cheerleading heads in the sand all you like, maybe you’ll find oil?[/quote]

Nicely said.

22

Gee, I don’t know, perhaps that is a blatant mischaracterization? Perhaps the tactic of painting someone who questions the administration as a Bush hater or someone searching for evil is a common attack tactic around here?

Sassy, you are off the deep end. I’m not stating that I have any information that you don’t or anything like that. I have said that I have seen some things in my judgement that I think were wrong, whereas you can find no fault in any actions of the administration.

As an observer of political events now is a fascinating time. We have a whole series of fumbles by the Bush administration, his appointees, prominent republicans, all of which are occuring within a very short period of time. If you blind to these events, then fine.

If you want to go ahead and wait, then go ahead and do so. The rest of us are going to speculate about what is going on and stake out our claims for the right to say “I told you so” afterwards. However, what I won’t say is that I “know for a fact”. I’ve already admitted, above, that I too have to wait and see… whether I am right or wrong in my own thinking.

That is what is often missing from the right when I’m talking about waiting and seeing. If you don’t see that, then fine, who cares. Complain all you like, nobody cares.

23

You claim it a blatant mischaracterization that I would consider you anti-Bush!!??

That’s your whole basis for considering my post a personal attack on you!?

Whatever vroomy, specualte all you like, it’s your given style. That way you get to make unsubstantiated claims and then back off when proven wrong with your “I never said it was fact…”

Or maybe you can give me a possibility that I myself haven’t considered. Maybe you can throw around the word cheerleader on anyone who dares question your thought process, therby making it moot.

You toss around personal attacks pretty freely, yet continually call the card. In this case, not even the least bit substantiated.

Here’s my opinion on the thread. It’s going nowhere. There will be no DIRECT indictment on ‘the leak.’ To satisfy some, you may get a lesser charge on a nobody, we’ll see. It’s small potatoes. But it’s against the administration, so go for it, it’s your style

24

[quote]vroom wrote:
Boston, your analysis is very flawed. While the acts contain specificity, they also contain catch alls such as “any information”.

They also clearly indicate that a person should simply know that such a release of information could be dangerous to US interests.

Considering the right wing cheerleaders like to point out “THIS IS A TIME OF WAR”, you’d think that outing intelligence assets which may damage US efforts, during a time of war, would have republicans clamoring TREASON if such an event did occur.

If such an event were to be proven to have occurred, a lot of cheerleaders would either have to change their tune or be actively supportive of what would arguably be treason, just because they are in support of the administration doing it. Wow.

It makes no difference how many learned partisans attempt to convince themselves that certain laws can’t be applied in this case, because all of that is a mere distraction. Perhaps it is merely an attempt to pre-arm the public followers with talking points in the event that indictments do occur?

Who knows? However, leaked events would indeed point to inappropriate behavior within the administration. I know I know, I hear cries of PROVE IT already. First, we’ll see in a week or so if there is enough evidence to make it appropriate for the parties in question to go out and try to PROVE IT.

Things like the FEMA fuckup, cherry picking of information, starting a war without any idea how to handle the aftermath, using fear to gather public support and having key republican officials indicted is huge. Stick your cheerleading heads in the sand all you like, maybe you’ll find oil?[/quote]

vroom,

From what I read of the excerpts of the laws, there weren’t any “catch alls” at all – in fact, the “any information” part was qualified entirely by the categories that followed. The lack of the “catch all” is telling, and that is the basis of the analysis.

The closest thing to a “catch all” is this phrase: … information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation…

Even that would be difficult to satisfy. You would need to conclusively demonstrate each factor: 1) the information related to the national defnese; 2) the possessor believed or reasonably should have believed (this is very close to an actual knowledge standard) 3) that the information could be used to the injury of the U.S. or the advantage of a foreign nation.

Each of those factors would seem difficult to me to prove, given what is known of the case.

As to cries of “Prove it”, well, yeah, you’ll hear those. That’s what you tend to hear when you accuse someone of committing a crime. I believe the standard is “beyond a reasonable doubt.”

25

[quote]Even that would be difficult to satisfy. You would need to conclusively demonstrate each factor: 1) the information related to the national defnese; 2) the possessor believed or reasonably should have believed (this is very close to an actual knowledge standard) 3) that the information could be used to the injury of the U.S. or the advantage of a foreign nation.

Each of those factors would seem difficult to me to prove, given what is known of the case.[/quote]

Boston,

When, and if, an indictment is laid, then you can claim prove it. Until then, we’re all simply staking our claims. Am I saying I have inside info or anything?

Hell, I think something is going to come out of it, and if nothing does, I’ll be happy to say I was wrong. I’ve done that before around here, but I’m confident cheerleaders will forget to come back and admit a mistake.

Anyway, your points:

  1. Any time you out CIA operatives or initiatives it is very possibly a matter of national defense, especially during a time or war.

2,3) Any reasonable person understands that the CIA performs vital acts of infiltration and espionage such that outing those assets can endanger lives or reduce the effectiveness of the CIA in its delivery of vital information to the administration and the pentagon… thereby endangering military intelligence or even US civilian lives in this particular war.

I’d say that most non-partisan reasonable people would believe the above to be so.

Can you really claim that outing CIA operatives during a time of war would not be expected to have a detrimental effect on those operatives and the ability of various government departments to acquire intelligence vital to strategic interests?

Any reasonable person, especially one who is within a sensitive government position must surely know the seriousness of such an act.

You think Rove, Libby or others in the administration do not understand what the CIA does or that they do not feel that intelligence provided by the CIA is materially important during a time of active warfare against terrorists on a global scale?

That is laughable.

26

P.S. Sassy, I had even put ALLEGED in the title, just to keep people like you from bitching, you big baby you. Of course, that must be some deceptive tricky wordplay or something… sigh.

27

[quote]vroom wrote:
P.S. Sassy, I had even put ALLEGED in the title, just to keep people like you from bitching, you big baby you. Of course, that must be some deceptive tricky wordplay or something… sigh.[/quote]

Good job, you covered yourself on every angle.
sigh…bzzzt…pssst…name call
Once again you are fostering the true discussion you wane for.
You’re a joke.
BB blasts through your ‘flawed’ assertion so you come back to your tried and true.
I gave my opinion on your thread. Obviously, you’d rather take the focus off your joke of a ‘stance’ and instead hurl insults and allegations at those that disagree.

28

BB did no such thing, in my opinion. He stated his interpretation and as usual it was a skewed interpretation based on his desire to support the administration.

While you might feel otherwise, I think it is very obvious to most that interfering in the ability of the CIA to provide intelligence to the pentagon could lead to loss of lives or other material interests of the US.

You’d have to be a pretty blind cheerleader to suggest otherwise, or that high level government officials could not reasonably be expected to know this.

Oh. Yeah. That would explain it. Anyway, I’m sorry you don’t like it that people actually think and choose language that expresses their thoughts in a careful and deliberate manner, but it certainly isn’t wordplay or tricky in any way. It’s entirely appropriate, especially since many are so wont to put words in my mouth.

29

Let me play defense attorney for a moment and inject some reasonable doubt into your view here:

[quote]vroom wrote:
…

Anyway, your points:

  1. Any time you out CIA operatives or initiatives it is very possibly a matter of national defense, especially during a time or war.[/quote]

Let’s see here. To “out” a CIA operative, one needs to assume that said CIA operative was indeed an undercover operative whose identity was being actively concealed by the CIA for some national security purpose.

Doubt one: Was she really undercover anymore? See the above post I linked by Tom Maguire.

Doubt two: Would a reasonable person be expected to know she was undercover, especially given the items related to Doubt 1?

Doubt three: If she was undercover, was that linked to a national-security reason that the CIA was actively pursuing, so that “outing” her would reasonably be expected to harm national security. Not “could she have been being used” or “could she have been used in the future” but was she actually being used in that manner so that a reasonable person who made a reasonable investigation would be expected to know that “outing” her would materially harm U.S. national security.

[quote]vroom wrote:

2,3) Any reasonable person understands that the CIA performs vital acts of infiltration and espionage such that outing those assets can endanger lives or reduce the effectiveness of the CIA in its delivery of vital information to the administration and the pentagon… thereby endangering military intelligence or even US civilian lives in this particular war. [/quote]

Yes, of course any reasonable person understands that the CIA does perform vital acts for national security. But that’s not the question at hand. The question at hand, as illustrated above, is: Was the CIA actively keeping Mrs. Wilson’s identity secret for a vital national security purpose. In other words, to rephrase your second clause: Would a reasonable person be expected to think that “outing” Mrs. Wilson’s identity, given how the CIA was using her and how easy it would be to determine she worked for the CIA, would materially harm vital U.S. military or CIA national security operations?

ADDENDUM: To quote Mickey Kaus from Slate, one could also put the question in this form: “If the harm to the country was so great, why did Plame’s annoyingly egomaniacal husband, Joseph Wilson, thrust himself into the public spotlight in a way almost guaranteed to eventually cause his wife’s employment to be discovered and publicized? (It’s not as if Wilson thought he was the only thing stopping the country from going to war, remember. The Iraq invasion had already taken place by the time Wilson went public. We were already in the recriminations phase.)”

[quote]vroom wrote:

I’d say that most non-partisan reasonable people would believe the above to be so.

Can you really claim that outing CIA operatives during a time of war would not be expected to have a detrimental effect on those operatives and the ability of various government departments to acquire intelligence vital to strategic interests?

Any reasonable person, especially one who is within a sensitive government position must surely know the seriousness of such an act.

You think Rove, Libby or others in the administration do not understand what the CIA does or that they do not feel that intelligence provided by the CIA is materially important during a time of active warfare against terrorists on a global scale?

That is laughable.[/quote]

I think after considering the totality of the circumstances and the actual wording of the underlying laws, reasonable doubts don’t seem so laughable any more.

30

Vroom was just owned.

I’m sure there is a legal term for it, and I am sure the canucks have a special word for what BB just did to vroom, but I am neither. We call it getting taken behind the woodshed.

Interestingly enough - All of the ponts that BB raised were addressed immediately after the story broke - what was it - a couple of years ago?

I’ll resign from T-Nation if any of the indictments (which there are even doubts that there will be any handed down) yield a conviction of any high ranking Bush official.

31

[quote]vroom wrote:
BB blasts through your ‘flawed’ assertion so you come back to your tried and true.

BB did no such thing, in my opinion. He stated his interpretation and as usual it was a skewed interpretation based on his desire to support the administration.

While you might feel otherwise, I think it is very obvious to most that interfering in the ability of the CIA to provide intelligence to the pentagon could lead to loss of lives or other material interests of the US.

You’d have to be a pretty blind cheerleader to suggest otherwise, or that high level government officials could not reasonably be expected to know this.

Oh. Yeah. That would explain it. Anyway, I’m sorry you don’t like it that people actually think and choose language that expresses their thoughts in a careful and deliberate manner, but it certainly isn’t wordplay or tricky in any way. It’s entirely appropriate, especially since many are so wont to put words in my mouth.[/quote]

So bb is wrong. I’m wrong. You’re right. I’m shocked by your conclusion.

I’ve put no words in your mouth yet you bring it up off topic to take the focus off of your weak/non position here.
You again use the term cheerleader for nothing more than inflamatory purposes to disregard any info that doesn’t agree with your position.

I’ve addressed your post directly, yet you continue to use the forum to attack personally.

Let me say AGAIN. My opinion is this is nothing big. Nothing happened here that will bring indictments to anyone of importance. As I’ve already stated, maybe–MAYBE-- they bring in some low level charge against a nobody just to get their pound of flesh.

Attack away vroomy

32

Rainjack, Sassy, I’m not sure you guys understand the process of legal argument. Boston is doing exactly what he should to counter my argument. Cheerlead on however, if you makes you feel good.

–

Boston,

First, from a legal sense, you know darn well it is immaterial whether or not Wilson might have suspected his actions may or may not eventually lead to an increased chance of his wife being discovered. Such a consideration has no bearing on the issue legally, which I’m sure you are aware.

Second, you may be right, there certainly is a chance for plausible deniability. I certainly don’t know what Rove and Libby knew, but I suspect somebody out there does. The real question is if charges come out, will some people turn states evidence and remove the layer of deniability that currently exists. It is a risk, but neither you nor I know what information is currently available in notes, email and personal conversations.

Third, while it is possible that nothing will come out of the original charges, there are plenty of discrepencies in statements that may lead to charges related to conduct during the investigation itself. As we’ve seen in the past, that in itself is something that is much easier to prosecute.

I suppose if you are going to throw out a legally useless statement concerning wilson accepting a role that may help focus attention on his family, I’ll throw one out as well. If Rove or Libby are found to be obstructing justice, or whatever, then the court of public opinion will assume they had something to hide… I wonder what that might be?

–

Sad, I now await for your reply so (and this is targetted to them, not yourself, as I’ve received such statements – particularly from Rainjack) that your followers who’s lips are stuck to your ass can proclaim another victory on your behalf!

Woohoo, must be nice to associate yourself with such clueless cheerleaders… congrats on your entourage.

33

Actually, I responded once or twice before bb even replied to your silly little thread.
My lips are nowhere near anyone’s ass.
You’re just upset that none of your buddies has jumped in for you. Problem is, your schtick is getting old.
How many times did you say probably in your last post?
How many snide attacks along with your “post?”
Face it vroom, this was a nothing thread, that if it weren’t for your personal garbage would have died after 5 posts cause there is nothing here.
Nothing! No probably. No maybe. No i wonder what the court of public opinion thinks. Who the fuck cares what the court of opinion thinks.

Oh yah- you do when it suits your argument. Public opinion of Bush down=people are in tune and losing faith. Nothing much happens with indictments=cheerleaders and American publics heads in the collective sand.

Great arguments!

34

I’ve stated my opinion on this. I stated my opinion on this when the first thread was started right after the ‘scandal’ broke.

Why revisit what I have already said? Nothing will come of it. There will be very few indictments. No one of any omportance will be convicted of anything.

What else is there for me to say?

Just because I comment on the fact that you got your ass totally ground up and spit out doesn’t mean I am doing anything other than laughing out loud at you.

What I find particularly telling in this is that you are focusing on me and sasquatch - BB is owning you like a prison bitch and you try the dodge duck dip dive and dodge - the 5 D’s of Dodgeball. I’m sure that will help your postiton.

Damn I wished I was half as smart as you think you are. Funny thing - you aren’t half as smart as you think you are either - you just don’t know it.

35

Ahahahaha. I’m glad this is my own thread or I’d feel guilty for tuanting you two dorks.

Oh well, maybe someone will come along and continue with some real conversation.

Anyway, Rainjack, I wish I actually did half the things you accuse me of doing or thinking, it would be nice to think I was “so smart” and shit like that.

So, I’m curious, if the court of public opinion is so unimportant, why is there so much effort to discredit people? Why is Delay saying his prosecution is politically motivated… could it be to influence the court of public opinion?

The realities of the world don’t change based on who’s making the claims, or whether or not the claims are in line with your own views.

Strangely, I notice that cheerleaders, such as the two of you, get VERY uptight with your posts when there are substantial items like this one, which have a good chance of being very damaging to either the Bush administration or the public perception of the republican party.

Why do you think that is?

36

What, exactly, have you said that is substantial? What exactly has been proven to be substantial?

Oh yah-I really feel the taunting. You’re really giving it to me.

Another post though with no relevance to your own topic. At least you’re consistant.

In your world, you’re owning this thread and making a point. In the real world, your post was boring and old news, contained no new information, offered nothing substantive wrt the allegations, and was just an attempt by you to get a shot at the administration.

You couldn’t even fend off a couple of dork cheerleaders like me and rj. And we don’t need to be to graphic with what bb did to you with your juvenile attempt to go toe to toe with him in lawyer speak.

At least you’ve killed time before my Badger start.

Hey rj–seeing as this thread is going nowhere–should I lay the 16 points and take Tech–or is Texas just to strong?

37

[quote]vroom wrote:
Ahahahaha. I’m glad this is my own thread or I’d feel guilty for tuanting you two dorks.[/quote]

So now you’re saying that getting beat like a trailer trash whore was just a taunt? Please - keep taunting me then. Because my laughter is not a result of being taunted. It is because you got schooled and your too fucking stupid to even acknowledge that you were bested. In fact - you turn your attention to me and start calling me names. Pussy.

[quote]
Oh well, maybe someone will come along and continue with some real conversation.[/quote]

That would be assuming that anyone givesd a shit about what you have to say. I only posted on here to laugh at your ignorant ass.

[quote]
So, I’m curious, if the court of public opinion is so unimportant, why is there so much effort to discredit people? Why is Delay saying his prosecution is politically motivated… could it be to influence the court of public opinion?[/quote]

The court of public opinion has no place in the rule of law. It’s not a fucking popularity contest. Delay is saying it is politically motivated because the cum-stain of a DA Ronnie Earle has a track record of going after people with differing political views - even those in his own party(there was thread about this - what in the fuck does it have to do with the shit going on in DC?)

[quote]
The realities of the world don’t change based on who’s making the claims, or whether or not the claims are in line with your own views.[/quote]

No one is trying to change any reality. What a fucking douche.

[quote]
Strangely, I notice that cheerleaders, such as the two of you, get VERY uptight with your posts when there are substantial items like this one, which have a good chance of being very damaging to either the Bush administration or the public perception of the republican party.

Why do you think that is? [/quote]

WTF? It has already been covered in an earlier thread. Has anything new come out? Then why rehash it just because you think it shoud be? I have posted on the ID thread, does that mean I am a cheerleader over there as well?

You have started a stupid thread. You make a stupid argument that was soundly thrashed - and yet I am the dork?

Whatever it takes to make you feel good about yourself, I guess.

38

Ahahahaha. Sassy, do you know what the word taunting even means? How it relates to “owning” something I have no idea.

Anyway, real life calls, later.

39

Yeah, okay. The issue is supposed to come to head in a couple days. Seems like an interesting time to me. Sort of like a playoff series or something, all the talking and posturing have been done, mostly, so now we get to see what, if anything, happens.

Anyway, I can tell nobody is interested because the keep posting insults.

As for being owned, Boston has his viewpoint and I have mine. When it comes to legal interpretations that happens all the time. If you have a legal interpretation of the issue, other than that which Boston presented, feel free to detail it for us.

Later.

40

[quote]vroom wrote:
Ahahahaha. Sassy, do you know what the word taunting even means? How it relates to “owning” something I have no idea.

Anyway, real life calls, later.[/quote]

Please,please,please,

Make some sense–any sense

At what point did I associate taunting with owning or assume definition of either.

Bye vroom, you obviously have nothing to say any more. In fact a quick reread shows you’ve had nothing to say for some time.