5 days or less. We can wait. Of interest is the Times story in further exploring how the GOP attack machine will respond.

Howard Dean got the message out on This Week (without distraction): they’ll attaqck. That’s what they always do. But atacking Dean and attacking Fitz as per judy’s column are very different things. And note that Newsweek didn’t fall for it, but printed Judy’s comment. She’s damaged goods now. Everyone’s wary.

kim

Good question. I’ve been wondering when he would reappear. I certainly think it possible he is the â€third source†everyone is wondering about (Pincus’ source, among others). And they have used Abrams for this kind of work before, albeit on an area more closely related to his purported Latin American expertise.

If he is the third source, then I suspect he’ll get a security violation charge and conspiracy. Just to be thorough, you understand. But I also think it possible he wasn’t involved at all.

emptywheel,

I feel like a diabetic in a candy factory with all these articles of yours.

You wrote:

â€Well, it almost certainly means Fitzgerald has two witnesses (Novak and Cooper) to prove Rove leaked Plame’s CIA identity and it almost certainly means Fitzgerald has two witnesses (Novak and Judy) to prove Libby leaked Plame’s CIA identity. On top of that, Fitzgerald has a lot of evidence to show that Rove and Libby conspired to obstruct justice, that they perjured themselves, that they tampered with a witness.â€

Based on the pattern of the leaks, â€obsessive Scooter,†â€burned out Scooter,†Rove/Luskin/WH are throwing Scooter â€under the bus.†Rove/Luskin/WH IMO would never have done this if they thought Fitz had two witnesses OTHER than Scooter against Karl. If you’re right, and it seems crystal clear to me that you are, not only did Rove/Luskin/WH not gain anything from sacrificing Scooter, they lost a ton, because they drove him closer to Fitz. Three witnesses against Karl leaking Plame’s identity is 33% more than two witnesses against Karl leaking Plame’s identity.

Posted by John Casper

Importantly, does anyone here think Robert Novak is loyal to anyone but Robert Novak?

In other words, if Novak had to have a second visit to the GJ to â€clean up†testimony, do you really think he’d perjure himself to try to save Rove or Libby?

JohnGabriel,

I hadn’t associated Novak’s and Judy’s use of the â€Flame†name for Plame with the WH use of nicknames. Great pickup. That might be the origin of the nickname.

The behavior of 3 people appears to indicate that the nickname was important. (See my speculative and more casually written post here for details.)

The behaviors of Novak and Fitzgerald in particular are difficult for me to understand unless there is a document with the â€Flame†name used unambiguously to identify Valerie Plame.

Note that Christopher Dickey is also puzzled in the first two paragraphs of page 2 here by Fitzgerald’s and Judy’s behavior in this matter. (I think this Christopher Dickey article has been too much ignored by Plameologists. He speculates along a completely different path than the norm and hence should be paid attention to.)

Now, might this nickname with a WH origin appear in a document? Perhaps. I could see that it might appear in a casually written email and even a very important email if participants believed that the nickname reference never would be figured out.

Again, great pickup.

================================
emptywheel,

It seems to me that the argument against Judy going back later and writing in the â€Flame†name is this: Fitzgerald’s behavior would appear to indicate the he thinks it’s important. Details on this at the link to my post above.

Robespierre:

Do check your spellchecker. Most spellcheckers will correct Plame to Plume.

park –

Novak strikes me as having an odd sort of integrity – he is an old-style reactionary, and wasn’t a fan of the Iraq war. He may have cooperated early and readily, and the fact that he lied in his column need not mean he lied to the GJ.

In fact, here is a nutso theory for you: What if Novak flamed Plame so openly because he knew she was getting burned anyway, and decided to set up a little blowback? After all, one indisputable fact is that the Novak column triggered the investigation. Novak is not stupid, and the outcome was predictable from the moment he linked her to WH leakers.

Yeah, I know, that’s crazy.

– Rick

Robespierre,

Please excuse my immodesty in pushing my own post. But the best, admittedly speculative, argument (so far) against the â€spell checker†origin of the â€Flame†name for Plame is this:

The behavior of 3 folks involved in the matter appears to show that it is important in some way. That argument is here.

emptywheel,

re: your point below where the â€it†is the â€Flame†name for Plame:

â€That’s all I think we can get out of it, unless Fitz has a memo that says, ’to cover up the leak, use these alterantive names.’â€

If there are documents of any kind associated with the leakers or those around them which use the name â€Flame†in clear reference to Valerie Plame then that, in itself, is significant evidence. It’s evidence that the document author was aware, at the very least, of the meaning of the name that found it’s way into Judy Miller’s notebook. Seems to me that that is not a trivial thing, IMO.

xposted at Kos.

I’m sure this idea has been suggested by emptywheel or others before now, but I just had an Occam’s Razor epiphany about it last night: Fitzgerald has said that he wrapped up the Plame investigation â€for all practical purposes†in October 2004. I think he had already built his conspiracy case by then, but needed Miller’s and Cooper’s testimony on record to make sure it didn’t undermine the case in any way. IOW, Fitzgerald, being the completist he is, didn’t need their testimony in order to get new info, but rather to make sure it didn’t exonerate the conspirators (that he was further able to nab Rove and Libby in lies and obstruction through M & C’s testimony was just gravy to Fitz).

That would explain the 8 redacted pages in the papers Fitz presented to the court, arguing for the jailing of M & C. Those pages discussed the conspiracy he had identified, perhaps in addition to the effects on national security of the outing of Valerie Plame, and that’s why they were so convincing to every judge who reviewed them. What say you guys?

orchid314: In support of your argument, there’s a point in the 83 page ruling where one of the judges says â€the plot against Wilsonâ€. Here’s the passage:

In essence, seeking protection for sources whose nefariousness he himself exposed, Cooper asks us to protect criminal leaks so that he can write about the crime. The greater public interest lies in preventing the leak to begin with. Had Cooper based his report on leaks about the leaks—say, from a whistleblower who revealed the plot against Wilson—the situation would be different. Because in that case the source would not have revealed the name of a covert agent, but instead revealed the fact that others had done so, the balance of news value and harm would shift in favor of protecting the whistleblower. Yet it appears Cooper relied on the Plame leaks themselves, drawing the inference of sinister motive on his own. Accordingly, his story itself makes the case for punishing the leakers. While requiring Cooper to testify may discourage future leaks, discouraging leaks of this kind is precisely what the public interest requires.

Granted, the term is used in making a hypothetical argument, but it’s not used in the sense that â€the plot against Wilson†is hypothetical. The hypothetical element in the judge’s argument is the whistleblower.

emptywheel: I’m trying to reconcile two possible theories:

1) Novak’s use of â€Flame†in 10/03 was a blunder, as argued by your original post above:

Given that he invented the Who’s Who story at about the same time, the Flame spelling is a huge problem for Novak’s pre-fabricated lie. You can’t, on one hand, claim you found Plame’s name from Who’s Who and, at the same time, use the name Valerie Flame.

2) Novak’s use of â€Flame†in 10/03, (and possibly Judy’s in her notes), was intentional — to provide some sort of deniability to the leakers.

And I fervently hope you’re right about Fitzgerald’s meeting with Hogan!

emptywheel and obsessed,

I agree that if the â€Flame†name has significance, we might conclude that Novak’s use of it in the 10/3 article was a blunder.

However, by the time of the Carville/Novak/Who’s Who volume on the desk incident at CNN we can surmise that, at least Novak, had realized the problem. The problem was so big, in Novak’s mind, that he was willing to behave in a way that cost him his CNN gig.

He didn’t know why the Who’s Who volume was on the interviewer’s desk and he had to assume that Carville was behind putting it there. Neither the CNN producer nor the interviewer would have thought to place it there on their own.

And Novak had no idea where James â€Hand-’em-an-anchor†Carville might be inteding to take the discussion. I’ll bet Jimmy was just intending to play with him a bit and let him know that he knew.

Admittedly speculative, all of it.

OK. I confess. I like writing it, I like reading it, and I like saying it.

– The â€Flame†name for Plame

– The Plame â€Flame†name

– The Plame name â€Flame†game

emptywheel & aspTrader: Thanks for bearing with me here. I understand how the following defeats Novak’s lie that he got â€Plame†from Who’s Who:

Oh, I think it was a blunder only insofar as no one had made sure their story was internally consistent. I think he did mean to use Flame. But I think he (I mean Rove) didn’t think through how using Flame would undermine the Who’s Who excuse.

Now, just get it perfectly clear in my feeble mind once and for all, how exactly might the â€Flame†ruse have translated into an alibi for Rove (or others)? In other words, if â€Flame†was an agreed-upon fabrication by Novak & Rove (and apparently Miller), what was their plan, specifically?

Rove: â€All right, Bob, here’s what we do …â€

Rove: â€Well, Bob, start using the word Flame. Pretend that’s what you heard. It’ll suggest whoever leaked it to you didn’t leak her name, was just going on hearsay.â€

Lame, I admit. But these guys seem to be just this lame.

Also, wrt McNulty, I doubt there’s a question. You put someone who is ALMOST as pliant as the last hack they nominated to oversee and interrupt the Plame investigation. He had already proven his willingness to interrupt justice for a good partisan cause.

obsessed,

Billmon also wondering about that.

Someone with a clear understanding of the Independent Counsel Act would have to chime in about what NcNulty could do.

Hardball is good tonight. Did Andrea Mitchell just suggest Tom Defrank’s source is Dick Cheney?

Andrea Mitchell was emphasizing DeFrank’s connections with Cheney going back to when DeFrank covered the White House during the Ford years. It was all done in the context of vouching for what an experienced reporter DeFrank is, but there was an undertone, I thought. Also, the way DeFrank talked about his source wasn’t inconsistent with Cheney being the one bitching about Bush blaming him.

Quick comment on Plame/Flame… it’s possible Judy Miller (or a source) learned about Plame from a document — or from a non-English speaker — for whom the F/P sounds were easily transposed.

One example should explain this phenomenon – many native speakers of Japanese have difficulty with the American â€L†so that if they say â€lice†it ends up sounding like â€rice.†Obviously, these are quite different sounds to the ears of native English speakers — â€L†made in the back of the throat; â€R†made with the tongue up at the top of the mouth… yet for many Japanese speakers learning English, these two quite different consonants are often interchanged.

I grew up around Native Americans who pronounce â€the†as â€deâ€, mixing up D / TH sounds. For speakers of â€white middle-class English,†the sound â€D†is created by pushing the tongue up against the roof of the mouth, whereas â€THâ€pushes the tongue against the front teeth. White, middle-class speakers never get these two sounds mixed up; others have trouble hearing the difference between â€TH†and â€D.â€

It’s not unheard of for quite different consonants to be ’mis-used’, or ’mixed up’ by non-native speakers of English.

I don’t know which language groups might substitute â€F†for â€P†(or vice-versa) — either in speaking **or in writing.** If I were on Fitz’s team, I’d want more info about the languages (or foreign speakers) most likely to make this sort of error.

I doubt that Mr. FitzP has a linguist on his staff, but hope he has consulted one.