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I remember seeing on the net somewhere (and I took this with a grain of salt) that not so long ago the HUD was highly abused with no checks and balances, big cash cow for select special people if you catch my drift. Just thinking. Roberts being in the Senate for 19 years, is it?, and he covers this crap up? What else has he been doing all these years, too? ACK!!

It is quite conceivable, at least in my mind, that a staffer, and/or a member of congress put a bug in someone’s ear at the WH and/or the OVP, and it stands to reason that anyone that heard Wilson in that closed hearing might want to ‘help’ their boy in the WH once it came down to signing off on a senate ‘report’.

Walter Pincus, WAPO, October 12, 2003: “The first public mention of Wilson’s mission to Niger, albeit without identifying him by name, was in the New York Times on May 6, in a column by Nicholas D. Kristof. Kristof had been on a panel with Wilson four days earlier, when the former ambassador said State Department officials should know better than to say the United States had been duped by forged documents that allegedly had proved a deal for the uranium had been in the works between Iraq and Niger. Wilson said he told Kristof about his trip to Niger on the condition that Kristof must keep his name out of the column. When the column appeared, it created little public stir, though it set a number of reporters on the trail of the anonymous former ambassador. Kristof confirmed that account.”

Walter Pincus & Jim Vanderhei, WAPO, July 21, 2005: “Plame — who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo — is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post. The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the “secret” level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as “secret” the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.”

The information in the subject INR praragraph that the CIA dispatched Joe Wilson on a mission to Niger was classified Secret on July 7, 2003, so it was also classified in May 2003 when Mr. Wilson revealed it to Kristof. Mr Wilson certainly was aware that his mission to Niger to investigate yellow-cake was classified. Yet he chose to leak it to journalist Kristof. He was not authorized to do so. I believe there is a law against that. In Washington, leaks beget leaks. Thus Joe Wilson is the proximate cause of his wife’s notoriety and career problems. (I will bet she has told him as much too.)

It is interesting to note that his wife is identified in the second paragraph of the INR memo as Valerie Wilson (no Plame). Thus if Novak had not used the trade name V. Plame, but only V. Wilson, this still would have been an unauthorized release of classified information. But I am wondering if Fitzgerald would be in business if the name Plame had not appeared in Novak’s column? I am betting Libby could march hundreds of movers and cocktail shakers into court who knew Wilson’s wife Valerie worked at the agency. It will be interesting to see if Fitzgerald places special importance on the name Plame being disclosed, and if he can find the original source to a reporter for it. Judy Miller’s memory and notes were evidently unhelpful on this. Based on her previous work, I have always thought that she had the name Plame in her head, and maybe rolodex, way before the Wilson-Novak fracas.

Speaking of corruption, last night on the Daily Show host Jon Stewart gave the best reason yet as to why we can expect a war with Iran in the near future:
Watch the video
http://thebluestate.typepad.co…..feld_.html

I think they have electrodes attached to them in Texas.

Whether he shovelled out American Dynasty or American Theocracy …

Whether he was building the right-wing-nut empire or allegedly “switched” to ring the alarm bell …

Phillips can NOT be broken into memes, summaries, bullet points, talking points or the comprehensible gist of things. Hopelessly pedantic, academic and irrelevant.

Only reason the right-wing-nutters cited Phillips — whom they could never understand anyway — is to say: See. We gots us some Pee Ache Dee types, too. So, there, smarty pants.

So long, Karl.

The point was to obscure the fact that Wilson was investigating whether (as per the forgery) a sale was made. The committee wanted to misrepresent his mission as investigating whether an attempt was made to buy. (Thus, the Republican addendum to the report set out to spin Wilson’s trip, because of an account of one ambiguous meeting at which uranium was not mentioned, as “strengthening” the case for yellowcake.)