I think I should point out that one of your haiku is wrong. Rusty didn’t write the post to which you link. Drew wrote it.

But that would only leave four sylablles in the line.

Even a philistine like you should know the rules o’ haiku:

Max Leader says: Wrong
Facts, schmacts. Allergic to truth
It’s campaign season

Poor Smallholder. Never thinking. Always lashing out when his flaws are pointed out. Did you think of this:

Scooter indicted
Drew says: perjury not bad
Monica’s man: Whew!

And I didn’t touch on how easily you were willing to misquote and then refuse to change to fit facts once you were made aware of them.

Oops! Just touched on your unwillingness to fess up when proven wrong.

Funny, I read that blog entry, and didn’t see where it says “Perjury isn’t bad”. Can someone point that out for me?

Max Leader:

Hello, pot? This is the kettle?

If you scroll down a couple of posts, you’ll see me admit that Brian was right about switching topics on ssm.

How far do we have to look for a smilar Max Leader concession?

In fact,

The very comment you linked shows an admission of error:

Facts, schmacts… campaign season.

Self-deprecation
Lost on the Maxi Leader
He is kinda slow

Brian, the following paragraph doesn’t state explicitly, but (methinks) clearly implies that what the indictment was a reach when the prosecutor couldn’t get a an indictment for a real crime. Perhaps I’m misreading the tone.

“OK, correct me if I’m wrong, but didn’t Scooter Libby get indicted for perjury because they didn’t have any proof that Valerie Plame was “outed?” At least that was the impression that I got. Because if you could actually prove the charges you were investigating, you would have indicted for them instead of some other thing that you just happen to think you might have found.”

Smallholder believes
Drew’s super seekrit message:
Prosecutor dumb

But Smallholder hopes
Brian will correct if I’m wrong
Spanked by Memento

Actually what I got was “Perjury isn’t the same thing as…” Certainly, if Libby is convicted of Perjury, he should pay the price for it. But the Left in their reaction to the indictment seems to commit two egregious errors:

1. They ignore presumed innocence.
2. They commit all sorts of guilt-by association errors, to whit: a) Libby got indicted, he must be guilty. b) Libby must be guilty, therefore he must be guilty of EVERYTHING the investigtion covers. c) Libby must be guilty, therefore, so must ROVE and CHENEY and BUSH and and ALL REPUBLICANS!!!! YEEEAARRRGHH!!!!

Um,

I’m not making that argument.

I’m simply pointing out the delicious irony that the right sounds suspiciously similar to Democrats over Monicagate.

(And, if you’ll recall, I don’t remember many on the right calling for Clinton to be considered innocent until proven guillty).

For that matter, the legal principle in the courtroom is a different thing than individual or public judgment. Clinton was guilty of perjury, albeit legally acquitted. I doubt many people think O.J. is innocent even though he was not foiund guilty in a court of law.

The Dems were wrong then.
The Republicans blindly supporting Libbry are wrong now.

Why couldn’t Dems have said: “Clinton is a rat. He ought to resign. We won’t tolerate this kind of behavior from our leaders?”

Republicans ought to say: “Defending the war in Iraq did not require mistruths. In fact, lying about Nigeria hurt the long term prosuction of the war by creating doubt in the minds of the American public. Whether or not Valerie Plame was covered by the law, this backdoor assault on Wilson was unseemly and unwise. Not telling the truth to the prosecutor (and the American public) about the source of the leak was, if not criminally, at least politically stupid. So, just as Democrats should have demanded Clinton’s head for betraying the interests of his causes, we want Libby and Rove to resign for damaging our cause (read our as either Republican or American).

First of all, I dare you to find a single instance where I have defended Libby. I’ve said numerous times that if he committed the crime, he should be punished. But I also believe in Presumed Innocence.

Incidentally, Clinton was NOT acquitted, he was found guilty, but got off with a slap on the wrist.

As for the issue of Nigeria, the veracity of thast claim, and for that matter, the issue of whethe it was a lie even if it was untrue, is still much debated. I’m certainly not inclined to take Joe Wilson’s word for it.

As for “outing” Plame, again, you seem to be taking at face value certain claims and assumptions about that as well. In my mind, the key issue is “Was a law broken”? given everything I’ve seen and learned about Plame and Wilson, if no law was broken, I have no problem whatsoever with what’s happened to them. It’s become obvious to me over the years tha politics is a dirty business.

George Tenant, director of the CIA, has officially fallen on the sword for Nigeria. The bogusness of the Nigeria claim is admitted by the administration.

Was Clinton tried somewhere else than the Senate? As I recall, he was impeached but acquitted. I’m not aware of any other judicial proceeding.

George Tenant, director of the CIA, has officially fallen on the sword for Nigeria. The bogusness of the Nigeria claim is admitted by the administration.

Was Clinton tried somewhere else than the Senate? As I recall, he was impeached but acquitted. I’m not aware of any other judicial proceeding.

Clinton agreed to a plea deal under which his law license was suspended. It was a forgettable codicil to a overwrought prosecution.

Actually, it’s Niger, not Nigeria. I suspected we were using the wrong country name, should have verified.

I have done some research, and have to give you this point. It’s obvious that the document the US relied on was a fake. But it’s not clear from what I’ve read that the administration KNEW it was a fake at the time they relied on it. A mistaken reliance on an untruth is NOT a lie. Still, I admit, that was a screw up.

The question that keeps getting asked,m though, is why Iraq would have sent an ambassador to somewhere as insignificant as Niger if not for its uranium. The British concluded that there is still credible evidence (excluding the US documents) that Iraq was seeking fissionable material. US intelligence now says otherwise, but as we’ve seen, the credibility of the CIA is sorely wounded these days.

As for Clinton, I was under the impression that he was impeached, which is eqquivalent to conviction, but let off the hook. Be that as it may, it was proven in a legal proceeding (his impeachment) that he lied under oath. In Libby’s case, he’s been accused of doing so, he has not been convicted.

As I understand it, Wilson was sent to investigate and came back and told the administration that the claim was bogus. When the administration continued to make the claim, he became enraged and went public. At which point his wife was outed by two generally discrete major players in the White House. Some of the statements Wilson has made have been over the top, but given that the reason he was “punished” was for going public on the forgery issue, it does appear (if only to me) that the White House was pissed that the truth was getting in the way of their case for war.

I acknowledge that politics is a rough business. But the Plame outing seems both dishonest and reckless. Perhaps more pertinently, even folks who think what Libby and Rove did is okay ought to be concerned about the stupidity of it. These guys decided it was a good idea to up the ante on Wilson, a loose cannon, and thought that no one would notice. They then went on camera and said they ad no idea who had done the leaking. And Bush then went on to promise that anyone who leaked would be fired - again on camera (as an aside, I think Bush’s appearance on camera and his appointment of a real prosecutor shows that he was not part of the conspiracy). Leaking and then lying on camera, and then lying to a prosecutor strike me as being so stupid as to call a person’s judgment into question. The Naked ministers will recall that lack of judgment was my prime reason for calling for Clinton’s resignation - even if I thought that lying about Monica did not constitute a high crime or misdemeanor.

Brian: An impeachement is NOT a conviction. An impeachment is directly analogous to an indictment; it sets up a trial. The Impeachment trial ended up acquitting Clinton.

I was unaware of the plea deal that the Maximum Leader references. Could the Max Leader give us a source? Thanks.

And I’ve been reading things that indicate that your understanding is incorrect — that Wilson did NOT tell the White House that the claim was bogus, that he waited until the White Hosue had ACTED on the info and THEN came public with it. read the laterst at Ace of Spades: http://ace.mu.nu/archives/131001.php

I’m not sure what Powerline’s sources are, but apparently it’s a recap of things that people have been saying for some time, and they’re pretty good about vetting their sources.

And that’s why I just don’t buy the thinking that Plame and Wilson were merely outed as “punishment”. That would be petty and stupid. But if they’re as partisan as it now seems, it was a brilliant manouver, because it definitely calls into question the veracity of what Wilson has said.

As for the definition of impeachment, I stand corrected.

On the Clinton deal you could check out the Wikipedia article on the Clinton impeachment:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Impeachment_of_Bill_Clinton

Clinton agreed to fines and disbarment in exchange Robert Ray ended his investigation.

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