John of Cal said:
“their religion”?
I guess african slaves were kinda the pilgrims

that has got to be one of the dumbest thing’s tinpot ever said.

They didn’t bring Christianity with them – that’s for sure. Though they learned some Christian ways the hard way on the boats on the way over. Dubya mighta been referring to the various tribal religions they’d had back in Africa – Not!

And a good many of those slaves that were sent over from Dakar were originally Muslims.

Tom Maguire @ 23

Re Addington, and this:

At the end of the day, Cheney former counsel, now his Chief of Staff, took the stand. He was friendly, not hostile yet seemed to bury Libby. He said that between July 6 and July 14, Libby asked him if the President could order material declassified and whether there would be a paper trail if a CIA employee’s spouse went on a trip.

FWIW, neither of the two other livebloggers made any mention of “spouse”, “wife”, or anything like it in their account. Here is Marcy Wheeler:

F Conversation about CIA paperwork

A Asked if someone worked at CIA, would there be records. Normal for him to ask me bc he knew I worked at the CIA. Kind of paperwork would depend on whether you were on the Operations or Analytical side. On operational side, CIA officers are not just free to use whoever they want, need to get approval, requesting permission to use someone, would generate paperwork approval. On analytical side there’d be a letter of instruction or contract. In any case, this is the govt, when you spend money, there’s a money trail. I did tell him also it had been 20 years since I worked at the CIA.

From that version, Libby might simply have been loking for documentary proof that the CIA (rather than, for example, OVP) had sent Wilson.

Here is Rory O’Connor:

In the same time frame, Addington spoke with Libby about CIA paperwork. “Would there be records at CIA if someone there sent a person on a mission?” That would depend in part if the mission were operational or not, says Addington. If so, there would be paperwork approval of that. If the mission involved instead the non-operational, analytical side, there would probably be a contract, and a money trail or receipt for the use of the money. So it was likely there would be a paper trail in any event. The conversation took place after Ambassador Wilson appeared on Meet the Press with Tim Russert.

Prior to that conversation, Addington was not aware of Plame’s work for CIA. Nor did he learn of it from that conversation.

Love you dearly, Tom. But you seem to have forgotten the spot where Addington says he thought all this referred to Wilson.

Also, David Addington is not on trial for not knowing about Plame. Libby is on trial for knowing that he knew about Plame–but lying and saying he didn’t. Addington is one piece among many that Libby did know–probably knew when Libby claims to have forgotten this stuff.

Interesting! What this means is that there might be some documentation that Libby sought, or was thinking about seeking, regarding Wilson’s trip and who sent him.

If he did seek it he would have either received material in a format that would indicate that Plame worked in the Directorate of Intelligence (i.e. Wilson would have received a contract) or Operations (approval from the Assistant Director of the CIA at the very least, with specifics of who made the request, rationale, etc.).

If Libby received these documents he would clearly have known that Plame was ~ not the one who “initiated” the mission to Niger or “approved” the sending of Wilson. He would have learned that she was a member of the CPD. He would have learned she was not an analyst.

If the CIA denied his requests for the documents he would have had strong signals that the mission and those involved in it were Classified or covert.

If he didn’t seek out the information it seems that he “already knew” the answer he would get…and that it wouldn’t help make the case that the OVP didn’t initiate the CIA’s effort to find out more about the Niger-Iraq “contract”, and that it might actually falsify their “deep background” suggestion that Plame “sent” her husband on a boondoggle.

Rather than directing his answers to Zeidenberg or Jeffress, he turned to the jury and spoke to them directly, gesturing with his hands. This is a trick FBI agents use.

I beg to differ on this point Ms. Merritt. The jury, not either (or any in this trial) attorney, is the trier of fact and, therefore, the appropriate audience for the witness. I have testified as an expert witness for nearly two decades and have never witnessed an attorney request that they be addressed directly nor can I imagine a judge instructing a witness to do so.

1) That isn’t a valid objection. There is nothing in the F.R.Crim.P. that prohibits any witness from talking to the jury. In fact, the whole reason the jury is there is to HEAR THE WITNESS’ TESTIMONY. If she makes that objection and the judge asks her for a basis, she is screwed because she has no basis whatsoever. She would be overruled, and she would look like a dope.

2) If she makes the objection, she makes the witness more credible, and makes her look like she is trying to hide something. Duh! Why doesn’t she want us to hear the witness? Maybe because the witness is KILLING HER CLIENT! Duh!

Note to self: If you ever get busted in Colorado, don’t hire Jeralyn Merrill, because her trial instincts are about as good as Bush’s military strategy.

I don’t think the title of the original Cooper/Dickerson/Calabresi article, “A War on Wilson?” (July 17, 2003), would have been used if Time didn’t know the White House was mounting an attack on multiple fronts, through multiple administration officials, using multiple journalists:

http://www.time.com/time/natio…..70,00.html

But of course Time wanted to hide all this, didn’t they? They even appealed to the Supreme Court to keep from reporting the truth about the leak. So why not pretend it was Cooper alone who got the cookie?

Good gravy, we need a graphologist badly on this project. This is some weird mojo handwriting that Scooter has. The bulk of his script is above baseline, but he has those weirdly deep but unclosed below-baseline swings, will have to research this. Very untrusting — note the pointed, sharp “shark’s teeth” letters n, m, r. And extremely uptight, the letters compact both in size and within the sheet of paper. Surprised he ran to a second page, being so uptight.

Sweet Letter to Ari From Scooter