At Last ……..

EW:

OT but I was curious about your take on Jason Leopold’s story posted yesterday on truthout.org

Looks like Cheney coordinated the leak of the October 2002 NIE through Libby to Woodward and Miller in June 2003.

Leopold goes on to say:

â€In the meantime, while Libby had been leaking portions of the NIE in late June to back up the administration’s use of the Niger claims, other officials from Cheney’s office and the National Security Council had been speaking with a select group of journalists and had revealed Plame Wilson’s identity.â€

This seems to go against your latest take – based on â€redaction kerning analysis†(my term, forgive me EW) – of recent Fitzgerald filings that Woodward’s and Novak’s source for the Valerie leak was likely Ari Fleischer. That is to say, Fleisher is not in Cheney’s office nor in the NSC. So either the kerning is wrong or Leopold is wrong. Or maybe I’m wrong. What say you EW?

In any case, Leopold manages to strr the pot on L’affair Plame once again. Kudos for that. And kudos to you for your efforts to Sherlock this important story.

I’d agree with EW. I don’t see how it’s Hadley, unless Hadley ordered whomever X is to leak to Woodward and Novak, and Fitz doesn’t know this. There is no way Hadley fits in the redacted spaces.

I think it likely that Novak has more than two sources for Plame, he just had two sources (Rove and X (Fleischer/Armitage)) willing to go on background. I think at least Libby was one of his off-the-record sources (and maybe Hadley too).

Rumsfeld thinks there is no Civil War in Iraq

Speaking as a ranch person who sees quail every day, my guess is to hunt them the sport devolves into very much something like a gunslinger shooting from the hip, as quail when flushed fly surprisingly low to the ground and fast into the nearest shrub. I can hear some readers superimposing Quayle in that Bush or Shrub; but irreverence aside, the field behavior of quail is pretty much as I described; they are the kind of diminutive fowl that one need not slow the car for, rounding the bend, as most assuredly, though they are daredevilishly slow to take flight and can scamper as quick as a freight-train, they will be very much faster than your vehicle. Imperturbable. And the fact there was one quail alone flushed, while not extraordinary, would be rare, as they are a highly social avian.
Additionally, should your reading experience have spanned some hunter-gatherer arts in abbreviated fashion, I proffer the following more contemplative, though not aboriginal, view of one way to hunt.
The advice from your ex-, aside, there is a less ostentatious way to enjoin the search, as reflected in the linked excerpt from the German metaphysician historian.
So we have an aged patrician in the field safari style, with a shoulder arm; perhaps Novak might even expatiatingly say, no partisan gunslinger; tho DCheney had better scramble if he aims to unite site with quarry; and, in fact, that is what shotguns are all about, less aim necessary. Which is to say, to be more explicit, lots of hunters are the prototype Isaac Walton with beercan instream; but my experience is that with less bravado and greater success there is a class of hunter who avoids mixing drink and the quest, be it for game as quarry, or some other more elemental union of a telological variety.
Ever the historian, peanut might have a more biographical insight than the foregoing abstract data collected literally in the field, as our place is an expansive ranch.
This post of mine skips the side topics which have appeared in the thread, as well as the extensive and complex background which is important and which you have studied widely, and bears much more history: namely, the Persian theater, even the newly elected President there. If EW’s repertoire includes French and or German, there might be a trove of online information to develop that aspect of the proposition. I would even wonder what Rumsfeld would think about the VP’s speechmaking which you describe, though, ostensibly the gents have coordinated message. Such a risky part of the world in these times, Asia. I may ask Ockham and PeanutGallery for observations.
And besides drawing a parallel with Bush vintage 2002, I have a long planned research to look at vintage spring 2000, which was before the neocon roots had expanded in his new administration, and was a time when AIPAC was rather effective in exposing that fledgling moment in Bush-2, term-1, and that embarrassed the Bush administration into rejoinder, after considerable study. I think the new admin did its homework immediately when that contrast became apparent in the news, and some of the backgrounders had to have been the enticement of the dormant Iraq-2 plan. If I actually do this research, as EW would, a good place to begin evidently actually is Bush’s 2002 quote, working toward earlier times in the administration, before the autumn of 2000. The firewall fees are imposing for the casual visitor. May check back here later.