link to torture vote.

“Does nobody else find this fishy/bizarre?

Swopa cites the latest on the Libby defence strategy from the NYT:

“Lawyers for I. Lewis Libby Jr., the former White House official indicted on perjury charges, plan to seek testimony from journalists beyond those cited in the indictment and will probably challenge government agreements limiting their grand jury testimony, people involved in the case said Tuesday.

‘That’s clearly going to be part of the strategy — to get access to all the relevant records and determine what did the media really know,’ said a lawyer close to the defense who spoke on condition of anonymity.”

Then, the same day, word comes out that Bob Woodward, a journalist “beyond those cited in the indictment”, is claiming he’d been told about Wilson’s wife even before Judy Miller. Libby’s lawyer is triumphant. Jeffress claims the testimony raises questions about what else Fitz may not know. Libby’s defence strategy scores its first victory!”

Libby knows Wurmser was tasked with leaking Plame’s identity to reporters, because he was part of the whole scheme. And now Libby’s team is exploiting this leak to Woodward in the hopes of lessening the burden on Libby.

It’s fractured logic, of course. Such a tactic ignores the obvious reality that Libby, thus far is not charged with leaking but with perjury, obstruction, and making false statements.

Anyway, my money’s still on Wurmser, a professional stooge if ever there was one. And as for Woody’s absurd contention that his source came forward as a resultof Woodward reporting, I can only say that Booby has been his own biggest fan for so long that his ability to discern reality is severly damaged by his narcissism.

this seems to me to be a likely scenario.

anyway fritz would be able to determine the legitimacy of woodies claims?

Is Hadley really a small fry? He was promoted to National Security Advisor by Bush AFTER all this went down. As I blogged earlier this morning, if Hadley was the first administration official to discuss Plame’s name with a reporter, then all of the efforts to insulate Bush from the scandal go out the window!

And it also explains why the discrepancy between Woody’s story and Pincus’ about when Woody told Pincus about Plame. The discrepancy is so implausible that is makes it look like what it probably is — a post hoc invention by Woody to turn an innocuous October 2003 conversation into a June 2003 revelation that tries to reduce the pressure on WH leakers at the expense of Pincus’ credibility with Fitz. That’s why Pincus was so pissed at Woody to publicly call him a liar, in effect.

Note also that the October 2003 date for the conversation that Pincus put on it is after the CIA referral of the Plame case to DoJ, which would certainly help explain why Woody was anxious to create this post hoc help — information that he might have wanted to keep for his book had suddenly become very problematic indeed, at the behest of the Agency where Pincus had previously worked. So Woody gets back at the CIA and offloads his problem with being a silent recipient of the leak on Pincus, at the same time.

The only question I have about Paul’s comment is that it helped Hadley. Obviously this assumes Hadley was Novak or at least Woody’s source, but it’s not like Woody to endanger so much of his public image for a relative small fry like Hadley. IMHO, at least, that strenthens the case for Woody’s source being Cheney.

There is just too much floating around about a probable group of people setting out to achieve agreed ends. That group has several members, and it seems at least a half a dozen reporters were to be tools in the plot.

So, half a dozen tools, a group with a plan, and just one indictment? Not a high success rate, for a special prosecutor who does, we are told, a good job when he tackles it.

My guess? Several more indictments in the offing, with several more “tools” still to be publicly revealed.

It would be a good step if someone decided to tackle this a bit more intensively from the “tool” side: just who were to be used, and how exactly do their stories tie up? Who played along, which of the “tools” cut a deal and is cooperating?

I would think the first among the “cooperative tools” would be Mr. Novak (the silent man). Judy Miller – after some hesitation and diligent prodding – is another “cooperative tool”, in my view.

Now, what about “hidden tools”? Anyone care to take a stab at identifying them?

Multiple hundreds of millions sounds about right — not including whatever could be “scavenged” in Iraq, what with bales of US money going missing all over the place. (Imagine the work required to dampen the news of billions gone walkabout…)

And then there’s the meat puppets in the press and the spiking of stories; buying those things doesn’t come cheap, and really needs an intermediary so as not to leave a messy trail back to DoD or other departments. A scalable infrastructure needed, best suited to outsourcing providers. But that’s the way I’d think if I were an executive manager in business.