Who is playing for the Judy Miller bio pic ? Money like that is hard to come by – someone is paying for it, someone who probably never expects to see that money again. Someone is funding this in the shadows, and I bet the blogosphere can bring them out into the open, where they do not want to be.

Ed Rogers characterized the case, in contradiction to what Sloan had just said, in terms of a judge throwing it out of court on its merits. She should have restated that the ruling was a narrow legal one.

When asked on what grounds she would appeal, she could not come up with an answer and instead complained again how her clients were wronged, sounding very much like the partisan hack attorney Rogers just accused her of being.

Or maybe I’m just confusing him with some Psycho relative of his?

Which may explain why Judge Bates is covering for the Republican Psychos in the White House, Republican Psychos who didn’t think twice about disclosing the top-secret covert identity of a career CIA officer, who was responsible for protecting our nation, and our nation’s children, from the threat of other Psychos getting their hands on nukes or other WMD.

Yep, Psycho-loving Judge Bates has done a great, great service for the criminal Psychos in the Bush administration, but has done a grave, grave disservice to our nation.

Nooorrrmmaann!!!! Get that nice judge, cousin Bates, to come up here and change my bedpan.

Impeachment is appropriate. So is a civil lawsuit. Wasn’t John Dean one of the first to bring up civil suit as a parallel to a similar very effective suit in Watergate?

Comment # 15 above is right on target about this. Even a layman can see it. Just read pages 33 and 38, and see where the absurdity leaps right out at you.

Impeachment is the only option.

Fresh thread

I heard about the decision while listening to Hardball. The Wilson’s need someone better than Melanie Sloan to be handling their case — she let Ed Rogers walk all over her.

I’ve read the decision. I am not suprised by the bottom line, but I am quite troubled by the way the judge got there. It’s apparently been a long time since I did any reading on Bivens suits, because that whole special factors analysis was news to me. That’s a signficant limitation on the Bivens line of cases, and the special factors analysis is based on pretty circular reasoning — the whole rationale for Bivens suits was that there weren’t other available means of redress, but now the absence of remedies becomes a factor weighing AGAINST permitting a Bivens suit to go forward as long as you can persuade a judge that the absence of a remedy was not “inadvertent.” The Privacy Act analysis seemed pretty result-oriented to me, but I may be wrong about that — I’m just not familiar enough with the statute, or the “special factor” cases. I’ll have to go back and read the underlying cases when I have time, which is not now, alas.

On the Federal Tort Claim Act claim, I’m not surprised at all. Yes, under the FTCA a federal employee can act illegally and still be acting within the scope of his employment. There are tons of cases that say that. I assume that is why the Wilson’s didn’t explicitly rely on the FTCA in their complaint, and instead asserted a common law tort for invasion of privacy. That part of the judge’s decision is, I’m afraid, on pretty solid ground. The one thing I am puzzled by, however, is the failure to exhaust administrative remedies ruling. What administrative remedies could Ms. Wilson have, and against what “agency”?

The court did not reach the question of whether the Wilson’s constitutional claims were “clearly established” at the time of Ms. Wilson’s outing, and recited as fact that Wilson was a covered operative within the meaning of the IIPA, although the wingnut noise machine will ignore that. The court also said it was a reasonable inference that Karl Rove learned of Ms. Wilson’s identity from Cheney, Libby or Armitage. The wingnuts will ignore that too.

I’m sorry for the Wilsons, and they should appeal, but they need a TV spokesperson other than Melanie Sloan. I sure hope she’s a better briefwriter than she is a public spokesperson.

I agree about Melanie Sloan. My heart sank when I first saw her speak a couple of weeks ago. I felt like I was better prepared with arguments than she was, and ianal. She was so easily bullied and thrown back on the defensive. That is just not how the game is played.

And good to see you here litigatormom. I love your Wilson comments!

I heard about the decision while listening to Hardball. The Wilson’s need someone better than Melanie Sloan to be handling their case — she let Ed Rogers walk all over her.

I’ve read the decision. I am not suprised by the bottom line, but I am quite troubled by the way the judge got there. It’s apparently been a long time since I did any reading on Bivens suits, because that whole special factors analysis was news to me. That’s a signficant limitation on the Bivens line of cases, and the special factors analysis is based on pretty circular reasoning — the whole rationale for Bivens suits was that there weren’t other available means of redress, but now the absence of remedies becomes a factor weighing AGAINST permitting a Bivens suit to go forward as long as you can persuade a judge that the absence of a remedy was not “inadvertent.” The Privacy Act analysis seemed pretty result-oriented to me, but I may be wrong about that — I’m just not familiar enough with the statute, or the “special factor” cases. I’ll have to go back and read the underlying cases when I have time, which is not now, alas.

On the Federal Tort Claim Act claim, I’m not surprised at all. Yes, under the FTCA a federal employee can act illegally and still be acting within the scope of his employment. There are tons of cases that say that. I assume that is why the Wilson’s didn’t explicitly rely on the FTCA in their complaint, and instead asserted a common law tort for invasion of privacy. That part of the judge’s decision is, I’m afraid, on pretty solid ground. The one thing I am puzzled by, however, is the failure to exhaust administrative remedies ruling. What administrative remedies could Ms. Wilson have, and against what “agency”?

The court did not reach the question of whether the Wilson’s constitutional claims were “clearly established” at the time of Ms. Wilson’s outing, and recited as fact that Wilson was a covered operative within the meaning of the IIPA, although the wingnut noise machine will ignore that. The court also said it was a reasonable inference that Karl Rove learned of Ms. Wilson’s identity from Cheney, Libby or Armitage. The wingnuts will ignore that too.

I’m sorry for the Wilsons, and they should appeal, but they need a TV spokesperson other than Melanie Sloan. I sure hope she’s a better briefwriter than she is a public spokesperson.

Are you up for the job? If I were the Wilsons I would hire you in a New York minute….

I agree that the Wilsons should both run for congress/senate (pref Senate), and help resore our abused and battered nation.

Joe Wilson is brilliant. He is not only a real orator (in the Roman sense–stealing the metaphor from bodiun) but he is also incredibly courageous. We need people like him in Washington, in the house and in the Senate.

I’ve read the decision. I am not suprised by the bottom line, but I am quite troubled by the way the judge got there. It’s apparently been a long time since I did any reading on Bivens suits, because that whole special factors analysis was news to me. That’s a signficant limitation on the Bivens line of cases, and the special factors analysis is based on pretty circular reasoning — the whole rationale for Bivens suits was that there weren’t other available means of redress, but now the absence of remedies becomes a factor weighing AGAINST permitting a Bivens suit to go forward as long as you can persuade a judge that the absence of a remedy was not “inadvertent.” The Privacy Act analysis seemed pretty result-oriented to me, but I may be wrong about that — I’m just not familiar enough with the statute, or the “special factor” cases. I’ll have to go back and read the underlying cases when I have time, which is not now, alas.

On the Federal Tort Claim Act claim, I’m not surprised at all. Yes, under the FTCA a federal employee can act illegally and still be acting within the scope of his employment. There are tons of cases that say that. I assume that is why the Wilson’s didn’t explicitly rely on the FTCA in their complaint, and instead asserted a common law tort for invasion of privacy. That part of the judge’s decision is, I’m afraid, on pretty solid ground. The one thing I am puzzled by, however, is the failure to exhaust administrative remedies ruling. What administrative remedies could Ms. Wilson have, and against what “agency”?

The court did not reach the question of whether the Wilson’s constitutional claims were “clearly established” at the time of Ms. Wilson’s outing, and recited as fact that Wilson was a covered operative within the meaning of the IIPA, although the wingnut noise machine will ignore that. The court also said it was a reasonable inference that Karl Rove learned of Ms. Wilson’s identity from Cheney, Libby or Armitage. The wingnuts will ignore that too.

I’m sorry for the Wilsons, and they should appeal, but they need a TV spokesperson other than Melanie Sloan. I sure hope she’s a better briefwriter than she is a public spokesperson.