Sounds like a set-up of some weird sort to me.

I greatly admired the way our man Fitz ran through that rat behind the curtain last Fitzgiving…however…perp’s like Rove can sense the slightest weakness. By not slapping Gonzo and Woodchipper with serious obstruction indictment’s I believe he may have shown weakness …in the reptilian eye’s of the Turd Rex I mean.

Then again he may be playing Sun Tzu’s game of luring the enemy ‘ in deep’.

This is a tough one but I would urge all not to place all cereal’s in one box. ( Or beers in one can for that matter ) Merry Fitzmas and happy state of the union next year.

Lieberman, Iraq war cheerleader, recently talked about the geopolitical oil issue:

http://www.forbes.com/business…..61993.html

I’ve also noticed a lot of articles recently about Sudan and China.

There is also the interesting recent Zogby poll about China being right behind France as the country most trusted by Mideast Arabs.

Throw into the mix the leaked 2002 DPB presentation:

http://www.cooperativeresearch…..isinvolved

Not good. Not good at all. Dec. 15th Iraqi elections upcoming (Judith, are you on the story?), with Sistani making an implicit endorsement – and a call for unified Shiite voting- is basically going to leave us up the creek without a paddle.

Anyway, more on point, my latest theoretical narrative is:

- WH knew Niger story blew chunks for awhile
- Wilson wife outing was just one prong of a Cheney approved WHIG damage control operation
- damage control focus was to make sure the whole Niger thing wouldn’t be looked at too closely, because it was part of larger information operation (not just WHIG)
- Fitz’s problem is that he know about the wider operation (partially classified) and the authorization of the WHIG Niger action but can’t find conclusive evdence that there was a conspiracy beyond Libby and Rove. But he suspects there might be Cheney approval
- Hadley, knowing the most about the Niger fiasco, was the point man in the WHIG for coordination on the Niger action
- Rove’s e-mail to Hadley was simple reporting up for coordination purposes.
- the Strobel article about the Franklin investigation being about the “whole ball of wax” was where that investigation intersected the global information operation activated at the beginning of the Afghanistan war.

But, tomorrow I may think differently.

http://justoneminute.typepad.c…..y_on_.html has the same Newsday article, but also adds more as to the supoena list. Interesting list, but it’s not clear where this added information comes from.

—A federal grand jury has subpoenaed White House records on administration contacts with more than two dozen journalists and news media outlets in a special investigation into the improper leak of a covert CIA official’s identity to columnist Robert Novak last July. They include:

Robert Novak, “Crossfire,” “Capital Gang” and the Chicago Sun-Times; Knut Royce and Timothy M. Phelps, Newsday; Walter Pincus, Richard Leiby, Mike Allen, Dana Priest and Glenn Kessler, The Washington Post; Matthew Cooper, John Dickerson, Massimo Calabresi, Michael Duffy and James Carney, Time magazine; Evan Thomas, Newsweek; Andrea Mitchell, “Meet the Press,” NBC; Chris Matthews, “Hardball,” MSNBC; Tim Russert, Campbell Brown, NBC; Nicholas D. Kristof, David E. Sanger and Judith Miller, The New York Times; Greg Hitt and Paul Gigot, The Wall Street Journal; John Solomon, The Associated Press; Jeff Gannon, Talon News

Hmmm… if the list is correct, seems hard to “understand” why “Cooper” would have been left out of the search terms. But maybe they were looking for direct communications and not emails mentioning reporters. Whatever, I found it pretty amusing that “Andrea Mitchell” and “Jeff Gannon” were on the very same list.
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I’m with Jane S. on this, and Fitz’s gamesmanship in this regard also relates to P’s anxious comment earlier at 8:07:

“…what bothers me is the redacted 8 pages in the Dow Jones motion….Now, from FitzÂ’s motion to release portions of the redacted pages, itÂ’s revealed (I think) that there is no classified information in there and that most of the information is already out there….Please, if someone could convince me …that there is some sort of indication that this investigation has expanded beyond just Libby and Rove, IÂ’d most appreciate it.”

P, I don’t think you have to worry. Two things about Fitz: 1) he starts low and relentlessly works his way up. 2) He appears to be a master of understatement and soft-sell. Remember Fitz’s indictment press conference? He said words to the effect, “This investigation is for the most part over…” He described the limits of “this indictment,” and made of point of saying that it didn’t cover the espionage act. He didn’t say, “I’m not going there.” He said, “This indictment isn’t going there.” People wailed, “Fitz don’t fail me now” (sorry for the pun… Little Feat fan). But he’s since gone on to more investigations, and a new GJ.

We’re going beyond Libby and Rover. It won’t happen fast, but it will happen.

The original search of e-mails did include “Niger”. I still don’t see how it was missed even without the “Cooper”, “Wilson”, etc.
Teresa | 12.03.05 – 8:34 pm | #
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Teresa and others,

Mea culpa. I had forgotten about the Niger reference. So much for that idea.

Btw, whenever the comment thread over here gets too crowded, we can all head over to Needlenose. The comments there are moderated, and I know for a fact (well, friend of a friend told a friend kind of thing) that Swopa would like nothing better than to moderate 50-100 comment submissions per hour.

You game? :)

And in keeping with that line of thought, I have wondered if Rove really is playing with a different game board than everyone else is, including Fitz.

He might just be diverting everyone’s attention in 10 different directions and not even care about proving eventual innocence or guilt. He believes he can out bloviate anyone around, including Fitz, and will wait for his pardon.

If Rove has to leave the WH, he will be on everyone’s speed dial.

Rove is playing 3 level chessgames. One level is Bush policy (ick), second level is Fitz and keeping him at Bay until Dec. 2006, and third is to keep their majorities in both houses despite their turmoil.