Judy Miller met with Scooter Libby on July 8th 2003 to discuss Valerie Plame, reports Murray Waas.
--Josh Marshall
Former UK Foreign Secretary Robin Cook, 59, dies after collapsing on a walking trail in Scotland.
--Josh Marshall
Here is the full page in which Joe Wilson's entry appears in Who's Who.
I will try to do a post later on explaining why the whole commotion over Valerie 'Plame's' mention in the bio is simply an attempt on Novak's part to confuse the issue. It does have some value, however, in as much as it seems again to show Novak's mendacity.
--Josh Marshall
I got a chance to talk with James Carville this afternoon about the Novak episode. I posted what he told me over at the Coffee House.
--Josh Marshall
A small request.
Everyone seems to agree that Valerie Plame is listed in the 2003 Who's Who entry for Joe Wilson. A number of you have looked at copies you yourselves have access to.
Can someone scan the page in question and send it in?
Late Update: A number of you have now been kind enough to send me in scans of the page. But I've also found out that Wizbang has the page posted online. So I'm going to link to them. I also have the whole page. So I'll post that shortly.
--Josh Marshall
Aha!
Okay, I had to go out this morning. So maybe this is already old news. But it turns out that was an apparently-menacing copy of Who's Who sitting there on the table as Bob Novak stormed off the set yesterday on CNN.
Says the Chicago Sun-Times ...
In a column that ran in the Sun-Times on Monday, Novak suggested he learned Plame's identity partly from reading Who's Who in America. A CNN source said a producer had placed a copy of Who's Who on the set Thursday prior to the taping, apparently so it could be consulted while Novak was asked about the issue.
Maybe this is all just an ingenious guerilla marketing campaign by Who's Who. After all, have they gotten this much publicity in a century?
(ed.note: Thanks to TPM Reader MF for the tip.)
--Josh Marshall
There is an article in the Post tomorrow about our efforts to send most of the detainees at Guantanamo back to their native countries for imprisonment there. Nearly 70%, the article says, will be sent to Saudi Arabia, Yemen and Afghanistan. The countries have to "commit to taking steps that will prevent enemy combatants from re-engaging in hostile activity, and commit to treating the detainees humanely."
(That last part must be a fun conversation, right?)
More specifically, the article says that most Afghan nationals (110 at Gitmo and 350 at Bagram) will be turned over to the "exclusive" control and custody of the new Afghan government. And if you read down further into the article what becomes clear is that this is being done because of mounting international and internal pressure to scale down if not shut down the extra-legal prison system we're running at these various detention facilities around the world.
But isn't this a tacit admission that we don't consider the vast majority of the folks at Gitmo much of a threat after all? Either that or this is an amazingly reckless thing to do.
Face it. We can't have any real confidence that the new Afghan government will even exist in a few years. And we're turning these hardened terrorists over to them? Please.
We don't think there might be some anmesty? Someone might lose the keys and a few might slip away?
Someone tell me with a straight face that an Afghan terrorist we turn over to the Afghan government isn't one we aren't particularly worried about.
--Josh Marshall
Early today I set up a thread over at TPMCafe where people could speculate and discuss just what it was that happened today on CNN with Bob Novak. It's actually an amazing mix of speculation and deft insight with, okay, a few wild flights of fancy mixed in. But I was just reading through them and running the images through my mind over and over again as I tried to make sense or evaluate what this or that commentator was saying. And at the risk of saying something mind-numbingly obvious: what a friggin' bizarre episode that was.
I mean, I've seen people storm off sound stages a few times. But there's something even weirder about it than that. A psychologist would have the appropriate terminology. But there's some element of inappropriate affect scattered through the hullabaloo. I just watched it yet again. And even now it's not quite clear to me what Novak's so upset about.
It's like some spastic teenager or maybe the copywriter who pens the screeds for the World Wrestling Federation just started doing a re-write of the script we're all living through.
--Josh Marshall
This is a big story: Paul Volcker reportedly will accuse Benon V. Sevan of taking kickbacks in the Oil-for-Food program.
Yes, Sevan's name has been tossed around for ages.
But so much else you hear about the Oil for Food scandal is all fruit of the same (Chalabite) poison tree. Or else it comes from an organ grinder monkey who happens, through tragic accident, to represent the state of Minnesota in the senate.
But Volcker, to say the least, speaks with much more authority.
--Josh Marshall
Can someone give me some back up or <$NoAd$>elaboration on what TPM Reader KC just sent in to me ...
I recently read Wilson's entry in Who's Who myself, and I can confirm that indeed "Valerie Elise Plame" is named as Joseph Wilson's wife. However, it's important to note that naming wives by their maiden names seems to be standard practice for the book -- Wilson's previous wife is listed by her maiden name, for just one example. This indicates one of two things is likely true: 1) The book is where Novak got her name, and he committed one of the sloppiest and laziest acts of journalism in recent history by not realizing that the book's standard practice list wives by their maiden names or 2) Novak knew that was the standard practice for Who's Who, so once he realized that his source identified Valerie Wilson by her maiden and cover name, he turned to a publicly available source that would naturally list her by that maiden name as "proof" that her cover name was widely known. To me, the second situation seems somewhat more likely. After all, if the book was his actual source for the name and he was interested in protecting the source who told him "Wilson's wife" worked for the CIA, then he would logically have said outright that he got the name from the book. However, Novak has never said the Who's Who guide is where he got the name, just that others could find it there.
I have to confess that I'm not sure I've even seen a copy of Who's Who, let alone opened one, since I was in high school, probably more than twenty years ago. In fact, I think it's a very dated concept or product. Most people under 40, I think, think of Google when they want to find biographical information about someone. (And, believe it or not, google has info for the non-muckety-mucks among us.) In any case, point being, if what KC suggests is true -- that wives are often referred to by their maiden names, as in the former Ms. such-and-such -- then KC's malign possibility #2 seems rather likely.
--Josh Marshall
First two grafs of Sid Blumenthal's <$NoAd$> new piece in The Guardian ...
Almost every significant aspect of the investigation to bring the London terrorists to justice is the opposite of Bush's "war on terrorism". From the leading role of Scotland Yard to the close cooperation with police, the British effort is at odds with the US operation directed by the Pentagon.Just months before the London bombings, upon visiting the Guantánamo prison, British counter-terrorism officials were startled that they did not meet with legal authorities, but only military personnel; they were also disturbed to learn that the information they gathered from the CIA was unknown to the FBI counter-terrorism team and that the British were the only channel between them. The British discovered that the New York City Police Department's counter-terrorism unit was more synchronised with its methods and aims than the US government was.
See the rest.
--Josh Marshall
Wow, he's right. Now that I look, it's there as bright as day.
Look at the still frame of Novak and Carville at the Crooks & Liars site. Mickey Kaus says there's a big reddish-brown book sitting there on the table and that it's Who's Who in America, the book Novak has sorta kinda implied was his source for the name Plame. And, yes, there it is, sitting right there on the table, or at least something that looks a lot like it. (Perhaps we can enlist a forensic videographic to enhance the image to see just what's written on the spine of the tome.)
I'm still not sure I see just what about the book would make Novak freak out. I've always thought his Who's Who in America story was a crock. But surely he looked it up to make sure she was named, right?
Late Update: Here's a photo of what the actual Who's Who looks like. Looks like a good match.
--Josh Marshall
US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald shares a few words with a reporter about whether he thinks he'll get fired.
--Josh Marshall
I'm still not entirely sure what to make of all the details. But here is a link to the indictments handed down today against Larry Franklin and the two AIPAC employees. See in particular the references to the unnamed US government officials (USGOs) and unnamed DOD officials. Also note the pattern of the use of the information vis-a-vis the US government.
Late Update: This JTA article seem to say that one of those two officials was recently given a senior position in the Bush administration: "A source close to the defense said that one of the U.S. officials involved, who has not been indicted, was recently appointed to a senior Bush administration post. The source, who asked not to be identified, would not name the official."
--Josh Marshall
Good point. TPM Reader MB asks when Accuracy in Media et al., or whatever other group Brent Bozell uses these days, will start piping in the calls to the FCC demanding a fine for Novak. (ed.note: Yes, obviously, the FCC has no authority to levy a fine since CNN is cable TV. But can't Brent Bozell still stomp up and down and say something terrible has to happen to him?)
Late Update: Novak agrees to "take some time off" from CNN.
--Josh Marshall
I must say, I'm more than a little perplexed by what sent Bob Novak over the edge on CNN today (see post below).
Watching it a few times, what Carville said just wasn't anything out of the ordinary given the sort of verbal fisticuffs Novak normally deals in. On first blush, the fact that host Ed Henry was about to ask Novak questions about the Plame case suggests that maybe he was looking for an excuse to duck out. But that doesn't really make sense either. After all, Novak's been BSing (shall we say) about the Plame case for two years now. Why stop now?
Clearly, the sort of stuff that leads a veteran reporter like Novak to flip out on camera and march off the set doesn't necessarily work by linear, logical reasoning. He did march off, after all. So something must have been eating at him. And the Plame saga (broadly speaking) must be the dominant issue in the guy's life at the moment. But I still don't think I've seen an adequate explanation or even a solid theory.
(ed.note: Got a theory? We're discussing them here.)
--Josh Marshall
Novak meltdown live on CNN? That's what readers are telling us. Let us know what you heard. We'll post when we know more.
Crooks and Liars has the tape.
Late Update: Wo ... I just watched the tape. And I have to say what James Carville said to set Novak off wasn't really even that pointed, at least not right on the surface at least. The jibe, as near as I could get it, was that Carville was sort of baiting Novak, insinuating that Novak was saying what he was saying because he needed to show the conservative base that he was a tough guy.
Later Update: Pains me as it does to have to rely on Drudge, Drudge says that Ed Henry, the interviewer, ended the segment by saying that he had told Novak in advance that he was going to ask him about the CIA leak case. I take it from the short note that they hadn't yet gotten to that question, thus perhaps suggesting that Novak was looking for an excuse to bolt. If you saw the segment, let us know the details.
Even Later than Later Update: MediaMatters has a clip that includes what Henry says at the end of the segment. At least that's what I'm told. I seems to go garbled toward the end when I try to view. But perhaps they're getting too much traffic.
Late(2) Update: ThinkProgress has what Henry said: “Thanks, James Carville. And I’m sorry as well that Bob Novak left the set a little early. I had told him in advance that we were going to ask about the CIA leak case, he was not here for me to be able to ask him about that. Hopefully, we’ll be able to ask him about that in the future.”
--Josh Marshall
Dooing a little? Or dooing a lot?
Rep. John Doolittle (R) is one of Congressman Free-Mealers noted in the post below. But there's also this weird story about a roadside bill board that I'd love to hear more about.
Former Congressman Pete McCloskey put together a group of moderate Republicans who call themselves Revolt of the Elders (basically an anti-wingnut group, as far as I can tell). And they raised $41,500 for a year long ad whacking Doolittle on an electronic sign at the Roseville Auto Mall.
But after a few weeks, the sign went down. Suddenly the political ad was in violation of some list of permitted uses that no one had ever heard of before.
Doolittle's Chief of Staff told the Sacramento Bee: "We did not ask the auto mall to take them down. We've had several people call who were upset by the political nature of the signs, so I could understand why the mall would be concerned about their sign being a repository for McCloskey's liberal political agenda."
Has anyone heard anything more about this? Is it another sign of creeping bamboozlepaloozaism?
--Josh Marshall
Do you know the names of the four Congressman Free-Meals who look like they're in violation of the congressional gifts-ban because of the free dinners they got courtesy of Jack Abramoff at his swanky DC restaurant Signatures? Click here to find out.
--Josh Marshall
Charges expected within the hour on AIPAC intel/spy case. Possibly more on the Franklin front as well.
--Josh Marshall
Which Republican incumbents seem vulnerable to you next year? And why? Lots of people in DC get paid tons of money to answer this question. And generally they know what they're talking about. But some shifts in the wind are hard to sense at a distance, even with access to the best polling and census data. So let us know what you're seeing where you live. We've set up a discussion thread here. Tell us who you think is vulnerable and just as importantly, why.
--Josh Marshall
I guess Katherine Harris is looking for other self-mockery-memes she can launch against herself in anticipation of her run for the senate next year. On the Hannity show yesterday, she apparently claimed that all the jibes about her titanic use of make-up were unfair because all the newspapers back during the recount had graphically enhanced her make-up, thus making her look like even more of a clown than her behavior already had.
But neither she nor her campaign are coming forward with any evidence or even any specific newspapers to level the charge against. And experts quoted in the article linked above suggest that such an media-wide rouge-ifying conspiracy is highly unlikely.
--Josh Marshall
Like a lot of you, I saw Raw Story's piece last night on the new Vanity Fair article on Sibel Edmonds. The author mentioned that it was out so far only in New York. So I figured, hey, this living in New York thing has finally come in handy. And I went out to buy a copy.
The real stunners in the piece are Edmonds' claims -- reportedly aired before Congress -- that in the course of her work at the FBI she listened to and translated wiretap recordings which appeared to discuss Speaker Hastert receiving large sums of money from a Turkish criminal syndicate. Edmonds made no claim that Hastert's own voice was on the tapes. And thus there's no direct evidence or even corraborating evidence for what was allegedly said on the tapes outside of some highly circumstantial evidence Vanity Fair notes regarding the pattern of giving to Hastert's congressional campaigns.
For the moment I'm not quite sure what to make of it. And the mystery is heightened by the fact that the magazine itself, on the cover, in advance publicity and in the structure of the article itself seems to have made little effort to push this aspect of the story.
(ed.note: This is a revised version of the original post.)
--Josh Marshall
There's a good piece in the Post today by Jeffrey Birnbaum (who's been on this beat for literally decades) about all the forms of DC corruption that are perfectly legal. And this is really the heart of the story about what's going on in DC today.
We have a piece coming later today about a few GOP congressmen who got probably thousands of dollars worth of free meals courtesy of Jack Abramoff at his swanky (and now almost deserted) restaurant Signatures.
But if you just follow the guidelines set forth it's totally fine to accept lush vacations, golf tournaments, ski vacations and more.
So hundred dollar meal from a lobbyist, terrible. Ten thousand dollar trip to Bermuda set up by a lobbyist, not a problem.
--Josh Marshall
A true journalistic service. In The New Republic, Ryan Lizza goes undercover in Bushland and identifies the key "sources close to the White House."
--Josh Marshall
For weeks now I've been hearing that the Justice Department investigation of the cluster of scandals going under the 'Abramoff' label is much larger than press reports have led us to believe. And in any case, there are so many different parts of it and so many different players that it's more than a little hard to keep up.
There's Jack Abramoff and Michael Scanlon, who are at the center of it. Then you have Ralph Reed and Grover Norquist in the mix funneling money in one direction or another. And then there's the elected members of Congress including Tom DeLay, Bob Ney and others.
I've wanted to dig into this for a while. But until recently I didn't have time, what with launching the new site and other miscellaneous stuff I've been working on. But now we're ready. And we're launching a new site that will focus on just this story. We call it Auction House, the name presumably speaking for itself, about a House of Representatives where everything is now for sale.
We'll cover other political shenanigans there too, of course. But this is the core story because it is about the system of corruption upon which the DeLay machine is built.
I'll be doing my own snooping and writing here. But we have a team of determined young researcher-reporter-writers who will be following this story at Auction House, digging into the stuff the dailies don't have the time or interest for, telling you who the main players are, assembling the whole thing into a comprehensible storyline, and last but not least breaking news and advancing the story.
Along the way, as was the case with all the stories we've covered, we'll need your help. Send us your tips, flag newspaper stories we may have missed, and let us know parts of the story we're missing.
More shortly on what we're going to be doing.
--Josh Marshall
When a congressman puts out a statement like this, you pretty much know it's not a good press day ...
Today, federal law enforcement officers executed search warrants on my Washington, D.C., and New Orleans homes as well as my vehicle in Washington. Subpoenas were issued to me, in my official capacity, to the clerk of the U.S. House of Representatives and to members of my Washington and New Orleans office staff. I do not know the extent or precise nature of this investigation but I am cooperating fully with the authorities.
That's from Rep. William Jefferson (D) of Louisiana.
Late Update: Here's an article with at least some information about this whole thing may be about.
--Josh Marshall
A TPM Reader <$NoAd$> chimes in ...
The creation vs science question has a major bearing on a rather visible government program:Isn't the primary rationale for most of the space program to learn more about the origins of life? Some would say that exploration of Mars and the moons of Saturn will help us shed light on these eternal mysteries. Others would point out that all we need to know can be found in the book that's available in every hotel room.
How can it be that the Bush Administration, which advocates pushing toward manned travel to Mars, hasn't acknowledged that its space program objectives are inconsistent with the creationist views?
Secularists have been causing trouble since Galileo.
--Josh Marshall
A bunch of others have commented on this already. But I'd feel remiss if I didn't make some comment on President Bush's embrace yesterday of teaching creationism as a scientific theory in science classes.
That's hardly a surprise. The cardinal point of the Bush presidency, after all, is not getting out of step with the religious right ever on anything. But what about reporters at the Times, the Post and other papers.
Do they really need to pretend that there's a scientific debate over 'Intelligent Design' rather than a political tussle between science and the religious right?
Today in the Times Elizabeth Bumiller describes 'Intelligent Design' as a theory which is, "advanced by a group of academics and intellectuals and some biblical creationists."
Creationists just along for the ride?
Is that really an accurate description of who's behind this?
As Atrios aptly notes, there's a bit of a bait and switch afoot here. Most mainstream religious groups have long since made their peace with evolutionary theory. As in, most Protestant denominations, the Catholic Church, Judaism in its Conservative, Reform, and most Orthodox groups. The stipulation, in most cases, is simply that evolution is part of God's plan for the creation of life.
Few have any real beef with that stipulation because it is one that is just not relevant to the sorts of question evolutionary biologists study. It allows religion and science to happily coexist.
What you have here with the president and the intelligent design hucksters is an attempt to teach creationism as a rival theory to evolution in science classes. And more broadly, it is a brief for Biblical literalism being taught in the public schools, despite the fact that people as far back as Origen could figure out that at least certain parts of the Bible could not possibly be intended to be understood as literal truth.
Another thought. How can we deal with global warming if we're not sure the Earth is more than 6,000 years old?
And while we're at it? Where'd all the oil come from?
--Josh Marshall
I linked below to Ivo Daalder's post about the Bush administration's transition from GWOT (Global War on Terror) to GSAVE (Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism. Ivo thinks this is both a very big change and a very good change.
I'm inclined to agree. But first a few thoughts.
First of all, let's hope that the administration is as proficient in combating terrorism as it is in coming up with new buzzwords and acronyms.
Secondly, on the political front, isn't it necessary for the president to -- how else to put it? -- 'fess up? This is a complete repudiation of roughly four years of counter-terrorism policy out of the White House.
The core of the Bush Doctrine was that the threat of terrorism is still one tied to states rather than non-state-actors. As Doug Feith said some three years ago, the reliance of terrorists on state sponsors has been the "principal strategic thought underlying our strategy in the war on terrorism."
If we take their words at face value, they've now abandoned that cornerstone of their strategy. Shouldn't that prompt some questions?
--Josh Marshall
What are we to make of the change from GWOT (Global War on Terror) to GSAVE (Global Struggle Against Violent Extremism)? Ivo Daalder says it's a big deal. And that it's being driven by the Pentagon, which is the institution experiencing the failure of the Bush-GWOT firsthand.
--Josh Marshall
Nurse-blogging against Gov. Schwarzenegger? Take a look the new Stop Arnold Weblog from the California Nurses Association.
--Josh Marshall
Brewing Dobson-Frist Smackdown? Who heard today's Focus on the Family segment with Dr. James?
Dobson says he can't bear being "stabbed in the back by somebody that I thought was a friend … [And] that is what I think has happened here. This is not personal ... Sen. Frist has not put the knife in my back. But it’s essentially placed in the backs of all pro-life and pro-family people around the country."
--Josh Marshall
Final results are in. And it's Schmidt over Hackett, 52%-48% -- a spread of about 3500 votes. The key was that Schmidt's home turf was late reporting.
This is a solid Republican district, though. And Hackett made them really work for it.
It'll be interesting to see what lessons and signs can be gleaned from the results.
--Josh Marshall
As of 10:20 the last I've heard is still a 50%-50% race, with Schmidt up over Hackett by just under a thousand votes and 662 of 753 precincts reporting.
Hackett started with a slim lead, lost it after about half the votes had been counted and then pushed the margin back to the result above. But the outstanding votes, as far as I can tell, come from Schmidt's home turf.
We're discussing the results in this thread.
We'll post updates as we hear them.
--Josh Marshall
If you're looking for informed play-by-play on the congressional race tonight in Ohio's 2nd district you'll probably want to head over to either Swing State Project or MyDD.
But just for my part, even now, this is looking like it could be a pretty exciting evening. According to Chris Bowers latest numbers it's Hackett (D) 51.99-48.01 over Schimdt (R) with 250 of 753 precincts reporting.
That's close enough that you really can't interpret those numbers without knowing precisely which precincts have come and the precise contours of the district.
But remember: this is a heavily Republican district. And with a third of the vote in, Hackett is managing to hold on to a razor thin lead. At worst, Hackett is giving Schmidt one hell of a run for her money. And at best ... well, let's wait and see.
Late Update: Schmidt pulling ahead in the stretch ... with 508 precincts reporting, 52% for Schmidt, 48% for Hackett.
Later Update: 660 precincts out of 753 reporting, Schmidt up by less than a thousand votes. 50%-50% by percentage. -- 9:51 PM
(We'll be watching the numbers at this thread at TPMCafe.)
--Josh Marshall
Over his site, Ed Kilgore's got a partial answer to the Ralph Reed mystery. That is, how Reed is still managing to run for state-wide office in Georgia even though he's been centrally implicated in the Abramoff Indian gambling shakedown scandal. Ed says, just be patient. Lots of people in the state seem to realize Reed's goose is cooked. The question, says Ed, is just when between now and election day it all catches up with him.
--Josh Marshall
Here's something I'm not clear on.
Jack Abramoff has totally clammed up about his starring role in his own eponymous scandal. But what about Ralph Reed, who's certainly up for supporting actor billing in the Abramoff debacle?
Reed was the rousting agent in the Abramoff gambling protection racket. With Abramoff's direction and financial support, Reed would whip up local opposition to gambling. Then Abramoff et al. would swoop in to offer their lobbying services to protect the casino owners from Reed.
As I said, Abramoff isn't answering questions, as is his right. But what about Reed?
Reed is actually running for something: Lt. Governor of Georgia.
Reed's dealings with Abramoff suggest not only that he is corrupt but that his morality issue grandstanding is utterly cynical. But as near as I can tell he's yet to take much of a hit for any of this back in Georgia.
What gives?
--Josh Marshall
There's a rather problematic article in Tuesday's Times on the subject of Robert Novak's new column about the Plame matter.
It's by Anne Kornblut.
The question the article seeks to answer is the mystery of why Novak referred to Joe Wilson's wife as Valerie Plame when she had already for several years been going to by Valerie Wilson. The question has never had any legal significance per se. But it does have evidentiary significance, as Kornblut notes, in as much as the use of the name may shed light on Novak's sources and, as Kornblut doesn't note, on their motives.
Along the way, Kornblut appears to buy into Novak's absurd argument that the need to keep Plame/Wilson's identity secret was in any way related to which name she went by.
Writes Kornblut ...
Any request that he withhold Ms. Wilson's name from his column of July 14, 2003, would have been "meaningless" once he had been told she was married to Mr. Wilson, Mr. Novak wrote on Monday, because she was openly listed in the directory. But Mr. Novak also wrote that he would never have used Ms. Wilson's name had anyone from the C.I.A. told him that doing so would endanger her or anyone else.
Again, this is nonsense.
The disclosure was identifying Wilson's wife as a CIA operative, not that he had a wife, which needless to say was not a state secret.
On these points my only criticism of the article is that Kornblut seems to go along with Novak's diversion, making the issue of the name appear to have more legal consequence than it has.
The real problem, though, is that Kornblut doesn't examine another series of potential motives and the abundant evidence of Novak's mendacity on this subject.
Novak's use of Plame's name has been used to try to narrow down who his sources may have been -- something that Novak has a strong interest in concealing. Many have also speculated that Plame/Wilson was identified by the name 'Plame' precisely to cause the most damage to her career and the clandestine networks she had been involved in, since this was name she'd used through most of her career.
In other words, there's a very clear potential motive for referring to her by her maiden name. It's not a meaningless distinction.
In his column yesterday, Novak suggests that anyone could have figured out Wilson's wife's name by looking him up in Who's Who. And Kornblut, perhaps not unreasonably, takes this as a suggestion that this may well have been what Novak did.
That may be true. Someone could have done that.
But why should we believe Novak?
There is very strong evidence that Novak has been lying about his exposure of Plame from the start.
As I've noted here on a number of occasions, Novak's claim that he used the word 'operative' either accidentally or through sloppiness is simply not credible -- on the basis of simple logic and a review of his previous columns. Novak only came up with his 'accidental operative' story after a legal inquiry got underway.
And the same seems to be the case with his dust-kicking claims about discovering Plame's name from Who's Who.
Timothy Phelps and Knut Royce got to Novak a week after his original column ran. And he said nothing about having to track down Plame's name himself or any second-guessing about the word 'operative'.
He was quite clear. When Phelps and Royce asked him about his exposure of Plame he told them: "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me. They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."
Bear in mind that he made that statement in the context of an article that was all about how he came up with Plame's name and why he had revealed her identity as a covert agent.
The bottom line here is that Novak is simply not a reliable source. By all indications he has already lied publicly in an effort to protect both himself and his sources. There's simply no reason to take what he says at face value when he comes up with new and improbable stories which again have the clear effect of reducing the legal vulnerability of his sources and further damage to his own professional reputation.
--Josh Marshall
In response to the post below about Denny Hastert's new-found desire to weaken the rules governing privately-funded congressional travel, I got a note from one of my more right-leaning readers harping on about all the Democrats who have also had to revise or refile traveling disclosure forms.
For the most part, this is a bogus point. There's a reason all the attention is being heaped on DeLay, Ney, etc.: in short, their infractions are part of a very large system of organized influence-peddling, of which the Abramoff scandal is simply one part.
But this does present an opportunity for a post I've been mulling for the last few days. I'll frame it as a question.
Can we be sure we're pushing for a sufficiently robust reform agenda so long as a significant portion of the Democratic leadership on the Hill doesn't have to be dragged to it kicking and screaming?
Think about that for a moment.
This has always been a concern to me. The DeLay machine has made the House of Representatives (and at a secondary level, all of capitol hill) as corrupt as it's been for upwards of a century, perhaps more than a century if the true analogue is to be found in the 1880s and 1890s. But a lot of the current Democratic leadership still remembers the days before 1994. And though they may want to clean things up a bit, and certainly want to drive the Republicans from power, I think a lot of them don't want to change things that much. Because it'd be nice to have the perks from the old days back again. That's not surprising. That's human nature.
But for those of us not sitting up there. It's something to think about.
I'm opening up a thread to discuss this. Drop by to share your thoughts, disagreements, agreements, suggestions, etc.
--Josh Marshall
GOP goofball buzzword alert!
According to a story just out from Roll Call (sub.req.), Speaker Denny Hastert has placed congressional "private travel reform" on the agenda in the House.
What is congressional "private travel reform"? Well, according to Republicans, the current rules for regulating when private interests can pay for junkets for members of Congress are themselves responsible for the likes of Ney, DeLay, et al. getting in trouble for taking fancy trips on the dime of cronies and fixers like Abramoff.
Rep. Alan Mollohan (W.Va.), Democratic ranking member on the Ethics Committee, has rebuffed Speaker Hastert's request for a rule change.
In particular, he told Hastert, "It is also important to note that in proceeding on the matter of privately funded travel, the Committee must take care to ensure that there is no suggestion that the rules themselves are to blame for any problems that have occurred — i.e., there can be no suggestion whatsoever that this is an effort to scapegoat the rules for improper Member conduct. I believe we can all agree that Members who are sophisticated enough to pass the laws of the land are sophisticated enough to understand the straightforward House rules on privately funded travel."
No word from Hastert on how it feels to be a wholly owned subsidiary of Tom DeLay.
Late Update: We've posted a copy of the Mollohan letter here.
--Josh Marshall
Is Judge Roberts really bad enough to go to the mats over? We're discussing that over at TPMCafe.
--Josh Marshall
Bob Novak has another column up today defending himself with regard to the Plame matter. Read it and see if you can catalog the untruths and distortions.
--Josh Marshall
Michael Barone has been doing more than the usual water-carrying. But TPM Reader MC just pointed me to this new article on the decades-long effort by the powers of darkness to undermine Republican presidencies in which Barone describes Watergate thusly: "Richard Nixon, by obstructing investigation of the Watergate burglary, unwittingly colluded in the successful attempt to besmirch his administration. Less than two years after carrying 49 states, he was compelled to resign."
--Josh Marshall
In the post just below, I linked to an article about Charles Kernaghan, a man who spends his life shaming big corporations over their use of child labor and sweat shop labor in the products they have made overseas. Over at his site, Matt Yglesias responded with the standard, but quite powerful, argument that we in the West (or the developed world) often project unrealistic and even harmful expectations on to wages and labor practices in developing countries.
So for instance, rotten working conditions for far under a dollar an hour may be bad. But the conditions <$Ad$> may be less onerous and the pay at least marginally more generous than what some of these people would otherwise be making in the agricultural sectors of their national economies. And maybe that's why the company owners are able to get people to work at what seem to us to be inhumane conditions. (As a general matter, people in the West underestimate the sheer wretchedness of agricultural labor and the endemic nature of rural poverty.)
In any case, that's the argument. And while I think it somewhat discounts the related issues of rural overpopulation and mechanization, on balance it's a strong argument.
There is one thing, however, that this line of reasoning misses: political violence. Which is, after all, the grand-daddy of extra-economic inputs.
You can't make a solid argument that wages in other countries have found their natural level if one of the major 'inputs' is organized political violence to keep wages low and labor activism inert.
To put it more concretely, one part of a real market in labor is the ability for people to protest conditions, either actively (through organizing) or passively (through quitting or refusing to work). But if people who try to form labor unions are murdered then that whole theory falls apart.
This certainly doesn't solve the thicket of questions about globalization and third-world economic development. Nor does it invalidate the broader argument Matt is making. But on this particular point I think it makes clear that we're dealing with more than invisible hands.
--Josh Marshall
"If we were doing penguins or whales, we'd probably be raising millions" -- a quote from Charles Kernaghan, a guy who runs a group that exposes American companies that have their products made by sweatshops and/or child labor overseas. He's talking about the shoe-string budget his outfit runs on. The Post has an article about him.
--Josh Marshall
