Secret Code -- Change The Subject!

Linked through from Crooks & Liars:

As Mark here points out, what does Plamegate have to do with Dr. Murphy's no-fly-list experiences and complaints? And what kind of 6th-grader mentality is the commenters' practice of insulting someone by de-capitalizing their name? Please. No wonder nothing can be taken seriously anymore.

I'm actually more surprised that they didn't jump all over Allen, below, for not believing Murphy's account. Ed.

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How much is Bart DePalma being paid to divert our attention from the issue of the misuse of the terrorist watch list?

After all, none of the things he brings up have to do with the topic of the post, which is a clearly sourced story that illustrates how the Constitution is being dismantled by the Bush Administration.

Further, wasting the TSA's time harassing an "enemies list" is not the way to fight the real threat of terrorism. And why does "Brad" want us not to focus on this? Is Brad actually writing from Pakistan?
# posted by Mark : 8:10 PM

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Everybody knows that Valerie Plame sent her lucky-ducky husband Joseph Wilson on a vacation junket to Niger. That trip was a completely government-funded boondoggle. Likely as not, Joseph Wilson spent his entire trip sipping cool juices on the verandas of colonial villas while being fanned by the lovely women of Niger. What's some "former ambassador" going to know about gather intelligence? Nothing, that's what. Hence the juices and gals.

Oh, and every right-thinking person knows that Richard Armitage unknowingly and without the slightest criminal intent let slip Valerie Plame's name a good, you know, 3-9 days before His Hoary Eminence Robert Novak ever heard about her from that innocent victim of a partisan witchhunt Scooter Libby.
# posted by Bart Depalma Jr. : 3:57 PM

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Although less lethal, it is of the same evil ilk as punishing Ambassador Joseph Wilson for criticizing Bush's false claims by "outing" his wife, Valerie Plaime

I'd have a bit more respect for the good professor if he was not repeating long disproven nonsense such as this. It makes me wonder about his concern for the facts in other cases, such as his encounter with the TSA.
# posted by flenser : 4:39 PM

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One of the two people to whom I talked asked a question and offered a frightening comment: "Have you been in any peace marches? We ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I explained that I had not so marched but had, in September, 2006, given a lecture at Princeton, televised and put on the Web, highly critical of George Bush for his many violations of the Constitution. "That'll do it," the man said.

That part of the story seems a little over the top to me. I just can't imagine anyone affiliated with the airlines or with security saying "we ban a lot of people from flying because of that." I don't think they would have a job for very long, and for that reason, I don't believe it was said. It makes the whole story somewhat unbelievable, IMHO. Not to say it didn't happen, but it is hard to believe.
# posted by Allen : 5:12 PM

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I'd have a bit more respect for the good professor if he was not repeating long disproven nonsense such as this. It makes me wonder about his concern for the facts in other cases, such as his encounter with the TSA.

I'm curious where and how you believe that "this" -- i.e., the outing of Plame in order to punish Wilson for his criticisms of the Administration -- was "disproven".
# posted by Mark Field : 5:49 PM

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Mr. depalma
If you are so knowledgeable of the Plame case then perhaps you also know that Valerie Wilson DID NOT send her husband to Niger. She was asked to sound him out about going by other CIA officials.
Wilson had experience in Niger and it was thought he would be able to obtain any information about Iraq trying to buy yellow cake.
You must also know Valerie Wilson was pregnant at the time and would not want her husband gone if she could help it.
You would also be knowledgeable of how it came to be perceived that she sent her husband on the trip..a perception not investigated by either Rove or Cheney they just decided using this to discredit Wilson was more important than being truthful...something they excel at.
It appears you have selective studied the case and the facts.
# posted by Legerdmain : 6:22 PM

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Mark Field said...

I'm curious where and how you believe that "this" -- i.e., the outing of Plame in order to punish Wilson for his criticisms of the Administration -- was "disproven".

Novak and his colleagues discovered the information about Plame weeks before Wilson lied in his NYT op-ed about finding no evidence in Niger that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium.

Novak and his colleges initiated the contacts with the Bush Administration, not the other way around.

Novak's initial source was a state department war critic who had no ax to grind with Wilson.
# posted by Bart DePalma : 7:13 PM

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Legerdmain said...

Mr. depalma, If you are so knowledgeable of the Plame case then perhaps you also know that Valerie Wilson DID NOT send her husband to Niger. She was asked to sound him out about going by other CIA officials.

This is in dispute. The initial CIA source who claimed that Plame recommended her husband changed his story later on. Plame did not comment on her role for a long time and has recently testified to Congress under oath that she did not recommend Wilson.

In any case, what got the VP's office so ticked off was that Wilson lied about being sent by the VP's office to Niger. Why would Wilson make up this story if not to protect the person which did send him? If that person was a simple functionary at the CIA WMD office, the lie makes no sense. If it was a case of nepotism by his wife, the lie makes much more sense.

Wilson had experience in Niger and it was thought he would be able to obtain any information about Iraq trying to buy yellow cake.

Wilson was and is a political operative who had no background in WMD. The fact that Wilson was unqualified for the job and a Dem political operative was what caused Novak to wonder why the Bushies would have sent Wilson in the first place.

You must also know Valerie Wilson was pregnant at the time and would not want her husband gone if she could help it.

Right. And that is why she either recommended Wilson or at the very least helped recruit him.

You need to take what Wilson and Plame have with an enormous grain of salt.

Wilson is a political partisan with a long track record of self serving lies.

Plame has been assisting him in this smear campaign so her political motives are also suspect.

Plame and Wilson are parties to a lawsuit against members of the Bush Administration seeking money damages.
# posted by Bart DePalma : 7:32 PM

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I'm curious where and how you believe that "this" -- i.e., the outing of Plame in order to punish Wilson for his criticisms of the Administration -- was "disproven".

# posted by Mark Field

Flenser has Stop The ACLU on his blogroll and reads The Anchoress.

Don't wear all black in D.C.

FBI Collected Intel on War Protesters in D.C., Lied About It

Where were all these skeptics back in 2003 before we invaded Iraq illegally based on lies?

El Cid's advice to us over at Glenn Greenwald's regarding Shooter 242, Bart's smarter brother:

Is this what people need to be filling up these pages with? Debating with someone who actually perceives a risk that the U.S. is in danger of 'surrendering' to an Islamic Caliphate and we risk in 50 years being forced to pray to Mecca 5 times a day?

If someone here raises a truly interesting point worthy of debate, then by all means, debate it.

But if someone declares in a snide aside that "What are you liberals going to do when the mole-men hatch from their lava eggs and start forcing the human women to bear their larval children?", do the readers of this blog really have to fill up 50 pages to respond to such mentally ill paranoia?

Heh.
# posted by JT Davis : 7:37 PM

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bart, the dems will do you a big solid and investigate this along with all the other crime your "leaders" have engaged in, including stolen elections. Very few will escape without the moron-in-chief exercising pardon powers that won't extend to himself. You're in for a bad time, as supporters of criminals and torturers should be.
# posted by Ron : 7:38 PM

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People should know that there is no purpose served in discussing these things with bart depalma. Clearly he suffers from a personality disorder that prevents him from noticing obvious things. He could probably be standing on a beach and insist that there was no ocean.

I don't quite understand why he thinks "hiring or firing" subordinates shouldn't be of interest to Congress, when the people who tasked to defend these decisions have repeatedly lied to Congress. Lying to Congress is a crime, after all.

It is interesting to see somebody so blithely uninterested in the idea that a US federal prosecutor could be fired because he refuses to engage in politically-motivated prosecutions during election season, or another prosecutor fired because she has been systematically indicting and convicting a Republican congressman and his cronies. But depalma is an intellectual lightweight. He problem thinks that the prosecutors were fired because of performance issues.

It's not an explanation that bears up under scrutiny, but scrutiny is not something that a person like mr. deplama does well.
# posted by whispers : 8:07 PM

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depalma

Wilson was sent to Niger to investigate yellowcake sales not WMDs, ust yellowcake. He is and was familiar with Niger since all his diplomatic postings were in Africa.
I am also curious as to why a career CIA officer whose current job at the time of your nepotism accusation was about WMDs would send her husband on a boondoggle to Africa? I know, even though she had been covert for many years she was secretly plotting the destruction of the Bush administration.
Do you know why Cheney and Rove jumped on the boondoggle angle? Because someone from another agency wrote a memo about the Joe wilson debriefing meeting at the CIA. This guy came in late and asked who had chaired the meeting and was told Wilson's wife introduced him...which it turned out is all she did as she left and went back to her job.
You have nothing credible to substantiate your allegations but like so many others it isn't a dispassionate analysis of facts you are interested in, just dogma and agenda.
# posted by Legerdmain : 8:09 PM

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Holy crap Bartman, where'd you find these people.

Stop dredging them up from the musty backrooms of CPUSA.

And I used to think Arne was bad . . .
# posted by Someone : 8:16 PM

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If true, and unfortunately I find it all too unlikely, then it is precisely of a part with the firing of US Attorneys. "Bart Depalma"--Can you not see this such as abuse flows from the politicizing of government? Government should be used to reward loyal Bushies and punish those who dare to disagree with King George?

How low have we sunk as a democracy that "someone" can write such drivel with a smug sense of righteousness: "I think we all agree that someone shouldn't be on a terrorist watch list even if they participated in a peace march." Yes, even if.

"But .... some individuals associated with the sponsors of the so-called "peace marches" are affilitiated with less than reputable organization that might warrant scrutiny."

A selective police state. Marvelous.

Why oh why do you hate us for our freedoms?
# posted by Tara : 9:27 PM

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I've seen a lot of comments about a lot of different issues but Mr. DePalma's deranged drivel about The Plame Affair may take the prize.

Not one assertion true.

A sense of pathetic outrage that 'folks' won't 'believe' the way the Fascist Scum Cheney and Bush want them to.

The man must be scared witless.
# posted by A. Citizen : 9:34 PM