Judy and Johnny

/in , /by

It seems Arianna hasn’t disbanded her impressive network of Judy Miller sources. She reports:

At 7:30 this morning, John Bolton was having breakfast at Oscar’s at the Waldorf with Judy Miller.

Arianna wonders whether Bolton’s nomination battle to be reappointed came up. But I’m not convinced. After all, we have good reason to believe that John Bolton is the only Neocon who has availed himself of Judy’s particular talent for WMD porn since she was ousted form the NYT. And while Judy has been instrumental in the past in helping Bolton get someone fired, drumming up political support in Congress to get someone hired isn’t really her forte. That would take rational argument, after all.

Perhaps this news from Steve Clemons offers some clues as to what Judy and Johnny were doing this morning at 7:30 am.

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  1. Jeff says:

    I swear it’s like a bad dream. Is it 2006 or 2002? The story on Iran’s mushroom cloud – or whatever this year’s slogan will be – comes out on September 10, with various senior administration officials fanning out to cite it on the morning cartoon shows. And then the adventure commences, again. But where will Miller publish this time? The WSJ editorial page? Citing the Times is so much more better for the administration than the WSJ editorial page.

    The Democrats are probably marginally more prepared, and better prepared, to respond this fall than back in 2002. But mainly, I suppose, we have to hope that enough Americans have wised up to resist the rhetorical onslaught of the Bush administration, if it happens.

    Am I being paranoid? The very fact that I cannot easily say yes is distressing to me, and of course I blame the administration.

  2. Anonymous says:

    I have yet to see the letter the LA Times talked about yesterday–of a bunch of security experts saying Iran is not a threat. That’s what we need more of. There were Democrats opposed to the war before. But no one was changing the dominant paradigm of immediate threat, so they enabled Bush anyway.

  3. ecoast says:

    Yea, but where will Judy publish all this? The power of Judy was not Judy herself, but the NYT and she lost that perch. Who cares what she writes in some rag like New York Sun or something?

  4. freepatriot says:

    let judyjudyjudy publish her â€Iranian Nuks†story

    once we finish laughing in her face, we can use this pinata to destroy the bush campaign stratgey

    what did george say ???

    â€fool me once, shame on me, fool me twice, can’t get fooled againâ€

    I think Abe Lincoln knew better

    some of the people, and only some of the time

  5. Anonymous says:

    EW — you said it: we need to counter the frame that Iran is a dire threat. On its face I find this hard to believe. 70 million relatively poor people halfway around the globe don’t a threat make. But counter-information is not yet assembled and out there. I’d be curious — does anyone reading this have suggestions about what resources have been assembled to discuss the threat, or more likely its absense, rationally?

    I know intelligent discourse doesn’t stop these thugs, our rulers, but it is a prerequisite to building an alterntive pole.

  6. Anonymous says:

    janinsanfran

    The point of my â€Why is Iran the real threat†posts was an effort to do that–to scaremonger a bit about Pakistan (which we simply CAN’T invade) so it makes the fearmongering on Iran look more benign. I think we’d be more successful short term posing that question–why bomb Iran while Pakistan, the proliferator, is expanding its enrichment program?

  10. Jeff says:

    polly

    Not the answer I was hoping for. I was wondering where you’d went. Got anything new on the Plame front? I got nothing but crumbs, though one interesting one, which I noted on another thread: I finally had a chance to read the Wilsons’ complaint, and they seem to assert their belief (at the bottom of p. 15) that Cheney talked to reporters, either before or after July 14, about Plame’s employment. I wonder what, if anything, is the basis for that belief. Maybe they’re just fishing. Or maybe they have some reason to believe Cheney talked to, say, Mitchell at Ford’s birthday party; or – much more juicy – to Pincus on July 12 (I’m not holding my breath for that last one).

  11. Anonymous says:

    Though the Pincus one is more likely. We KNOW Pincus has been sharing details with the Wilsons. Mitchell did admit that the WH told her to go after Plame. But she didn’t say who in the WH (and I believe it was plural). And otherwise, I doubt she’d be that forthcoming with them.

  12. Jeff says:

    Thanks, ew, and I don’t mean to distract my from the main topic here; I figured with polly, it was fair game.

    It’s true about Pincus sharing details with Wilson. I still find it just hard to believe that Cheney would be so stupid as to blow Plame’s cover with any reporter himself, much less with Pincus, even though there are things that make it not implausible at the same time. I am very curious as to what the Wilsons know.

  13. pollyusa says:

    Hi Jeff,

    My response on the paranoid question is based entirely on what I’ve been hearing from people this summer. Generally the CW I’ve been hearing is that Iran is/will be a nuclear threat, Hezbollah is the terrorist arm of Iran, Iran is the source of Hezbollah’s money and arms, and Tim Russert is really smart.

    The Pincus source is one of the most interesting mysteries of the Plame case. I don’t think Pincus would have revealed his source to the Wilsons.

    I don’t think Cheney is the Pincus source, Waas has the Pincus source admitting to talking to Pincus and others.

    The Bush administration official, according to attorneys familiar with his testimony, told a federal grand jury that he made the claim to the Post reporter and others in an effort to undermine Wilson’s credibility, who was alleging at the time that the Bush administration was relying on faulty intelligence to bolster its case to go to war with Iraq. But the official just as adamantly denied to the federal investigators that he had ever told the Post reporter, Novak, or anyone else that Plame was a clandestine CIA operative.
    Waas 4/22/05

    The last sentence in the quote from the Waas article reads to me that the Pincus source also talked with Novak. We know that Pincus’s source is in the WH so Armitage is out. If Pincus and Novak share a source, that leaves Rove or some other WH source who talked to Novak as well. Novak did talk to several people in the WH that week.

    The logs indicate that several White House officials talked to Novak shortly before the appearance of his July 14 column.
    Newsday 2/11/04

    The Ford Party was on July 16, 2003.

    I think the possibilities are Rove, Hadley, Fleischer or Martin. It’s not exactly clear when the Pincus source came forward, but it looks to be sometime in September 2004 when Pincus was fighting his subpeona.

    Meanwhile, a Bush administration official who was a confidential source for a Washington Post story about Plame and Wilson has come forward to speak with investigators.

    As a result, Post reporter Walter Pincus, who had refused to reveal his source’s name to prosecutors, provided a deposition in the case on Sept. 15. Pincus did not, however, name the administration official.
    AP 9/17/04

    Martin certainly knew what Cheney and Libby were up to on AF2 on 7/12/03, but she is the least likely possibility in my view. Martin was interviewed very early and I think she probably told all in October of 2003.

    Even early in the investigation, two key people were publicly known at the time to have been interviewed by the FBI: Ari Fleischer, then-White House press secretary, and Catherine Martin, a Cheney press aide.
    WaPo 11/13/05

    I am leaning toward Rove, mostly based on the Waas article which sources â€attorneys familiar with his [Pincus source] testimony†and has the Pincus source admitting to leaking to discredit Wilson and â€admantly denied to the federal investigators that he had ever told the Post reporter, Novak, or anyone else that Plame was a clandestine CIA operativeâ€. This sounds exactly like what we have heard about Rove’s testimony.