The suggestion that Bob Kjellander was working with Rove to have Fitz fired is not new.

In a hearing before court began, prosecutors said they hoped to call Ali Ata, the former Blagojevich administration official who pleaded guilty to corruption yesterday, to the stand.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Carrie Hamilton said she believed Ata would testify to conversations Ata had with his political patron, Rezko, about working to pull strings to kill the criminal investigation into Rezko and others when it was in its early stages in 2004.

"[Ata] had conversations with Mr. Rezko about the fact that Mr. Kjellander was working with Karl Rove to have Mr. Fitzgerald removed," Hamilton told U.S. District Judge Amy St. Eve.

Back in the days when there was question whether Fitzgerald would be ousted in 2006 (before the USA purge broke), Chicago commentators regularly noted how badly Chicago pols–and Kjellander in particular–wanted to see Fitzgerald gone.

And there’s good reason to think he might be [fired], aside from the president’s non-assurance. One of the chief practitioners of Illinois establishment politics is Republican operative Bob Kjellander, who brags (whether true or not) about his friendship with Bush chief political strategist, Karl Rove. Despite Kjellander’s engineering Bush defeats in Illinois and other Midwest states, the White House (Rove?) thought he was pretty hot stuff and brought him to the Beltway where he is engineering who knows what political disaster.

Kjellander also will be credited with the coming GOP election disaster in Illinois, thanks to his help in selecting state Treasurer Judy Barr Topinka to run against incumbent Blagojevich. She’s a dear lady, a treasured "moderate," but not a gusty independent willing to stand up to the political establishment.

The point is that Kjellander (pronounced Shelander), a Republican national committeeman who has received $800,000 in unexplained fees through a state bond-borrowing deal engineered by Democrat Blagojevich, is no fan of Fitzgerald’s either. No one, in other words, in the political establishment in Chicago or Washington, is pushing for Fitzgerald’s reappointment. [my emphasis]

And after news broke last year that Fitzgerald had been on the firing list, at least one Chicago commentator predicted that Kjellander was the reason, and not the Plame case. (This is a March 21 Chicago Trib article by John Kass behind the firewall, but here’s a blog post that cites most of it.)

How many conversations did Karl Rove–the political Rasputin of the Bush White House–have with top Illinois Republicans about U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald?

Ten? Fifty? None?

Did Rove speak directly to Big Bob Kjellander, whom Rove engineered into the job of treasurer of the Republican National Committee?

Answers might tell us why Fitzgerald, honored in 2002 as one of the top prosecutors in the Justice Department–and the fed most feared by the bipartisan political Combine that runs Illinois–was abruptly downgraded in March 2005.

[snip]

Conventional wisdom from Washington is that Fitzgerald fell out of favor with the Republicans because of his pursuit of the CIA leak case, which led to the recent perjury conviction of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.

But why not consider an alternative?

Just as that March 2005 memo downgrading Fitzgerald was making its way to the White House, Fitzgerald’s office in Chicago was proceeding in a fascinating political corruption probe involving alleged kickbacks requiring state approval for the construction of hospitals.

That case would mushroom into Operation Board Games, revealing bipartisan political influence in hundreds of millions of dollars invested through state pension funds.

There have been so many distractions that you’re bound to have forgotten about Operation Board Games. The distractions include City Hall’s Olympic dreams that won’t cost taxpayers a dime and whether Lord Conrad Black’s wife thinks reporters covering her husband’s federal fraud trial are a bunch of vermin and sluts. With all this talk of Olympics and sluts and so on, you probably haven’t had time to figure the Fitzgerald timeline.

But as that 2005 memo was sent to the White House, Fitzgerald was formally unmasking the Combine in what would later become Operation Board Games.

[snip]

One fellow in the federal documents of the Operation Board Games case was listed as "Individual K." And his buddy appeared several times in those same documents as "Individual A," for Alpha.

Individuals A and K have not been indicted. But the Tribune identified them as Big Bob Kjellander (pronounced $hell-ander) and his buddy, Big Bill Cellini, the political boss of Springfield.

Kjellander is the Republican committeeman of Illinois who flaunts his friendship with Rove and who recently resigned as treasurer of the Republican National Committee. Kjellander also represented the famous Carlyle Group before the teachers’ pension fund board and he received $4.5 million in questionable consulting fees.

Did Kjellander discuss Fitzgerald with Rove? I don’t know.

In other words, knowledgeable observers at least suspected–as Fitzgerald’s presence on the firing list came to light last year–that Kjellander, and not Rove in Plame, was the cause. (Me, I think both might have been the reason Fitzgerald made the firing list; far be it for Rove to be choosy about his reasons to fire a USA.)

Since the suggestion is not new, I’m not so much surprised by the announcement as I’m interested in the way the USA NDIL introduced this evidence and the implications it has for the whole investigation of politicized prosecutions.

You see, I believe–based on somewhat attentive observation of Patrick Fitzgerald over time–that introducing this kind of evidence is one of his favorite MOs. He introduces information that pertains to a case but is actually much more valuable for the way it points to much graver criminal issues that Fitzgerald is not in a position to address at a given moment. Thus, Fitzgerald introduced a great deal of evidence to show that Dick Cheney had, indeed, ordered Scooter Libby to leak Valerie Wilson’s identity. Because of constitutional reasons and pixie dust reasons and the inadequacy of Judy Judy Judy’s recall, he was not able to indict either Libby or Cheney on IIPA. But he got the evidence out there that that is, indeed, what happened. Unfortunately, Congress and the press were too busy trying to get Fitzgerald to release grand jury information that they failed to look closely at the information already in the public domain, and the information was never used to good effect.

I suspect that Fitzgerald has figured out the limits of Congress and the Press, because this time he has made it a bit easier. Golly, the press actually even reported on a non-trial conference, something that rarely happened in the Libby trial.

Fitzgerald’s office (though not Fitzgerald personally) has just said to John Conyers, "Hey, I see you’re still looking into politicized prosecutions. Well, here’s a witness who can testify that a Rove crony was working with Rove to get Fitzgerald fired–just before Fitzgerald almost got fired." This adds another witness–like Dana Jill Simpson–who is willing to testify that Rove got personally involved in prosecutions affecting his political allies. But it also brings someone from the requesting side to the fore–someone who (unlike the GOP cronies in Washington who got John McKay fired and unlike the GOP cronies in NM who got Iglesias fired) is apparently willing (and presumably has already signed an affidavit to the effect) to testify that Karl Rove entertained these demands for firing seriously. Conyers will, undoubtedly, take a few days to respond (he’s not so quick as Henry Waxman), but I imagine he will respond.

This will make it much easier demonstrate the criminal behavior needed to successfully subpoena Karl Rove to testify about this case, about Siegelman, and about Iglesias. It is, presumably, someone who is willing to go on the record to say that Karl Rove willingly intervened to fire a USA with the clear intent of stopping an investigation in one of Rove’s allies.

Notice that Rove’s lawyer Robert Luskin was very quick to issue a very insistent denial.

But Robert Luskin, Rove’s attorney, today issued an unequivocal statement about all of this to the Tribune on behalf of Rove, former deputy chief of staff to President Bush, architect of Bush’s presidential campaigns and a private consultant in Washington now.

"Karl has known Kjellander for many years,” Luskin said, "but does not recall him or anyone else arguing for Fitzgerald’s removal. And he (Rove) is very certain that he didn’t take any steps to do that, or have any conversations with anyone in the White House — or in the Justice Department — about doing anything like that.”

Ha ha! Gold Bars! You thought you had beaten Fitzgerald once and for all, didn’t you? Ha. Ha!

Of course, there’s one more witness to this issue: Kyle Sampson. Now, even in HJC’s preliminary report on the USA firings, there was clear evidence that cliquemembers at DOJ conspired to cover up the real reasons behind the firing of David Iglesias. As Glenn Fine reportedly draws near to finishing his investigation into the matter, those who participated in that cover-up may be getting antsy about their own role in the cover-up. I don’t know whether such antsiness will or has made Kyle Sampson recall in more detail how or why he suggested Patrick Fitzgerald be fired. But I would imagine there is about to be a whole lot more pressure for him to remember those details.

Last week we learned that John Durham asked a computer forensics expert to contribute to a legal declaration pertaining to whether or not the CIA Inspector General had–or had ever had–evidence pertaining to the interrogations of two Gitmo detainees.

Today we learn that two of the people involved in the Torture Tape destruction are current high-raking Administration officials.

The [HPSCI] panel interviewed two “current, high-level government officials” in April, according to a congressional official, who declined to name the officials.

Both [Intelligence] panels have interviewed CIA Director Michael V. Hayden. 

It’s not clear whether this passage means that Hayden (who just resigned from the military) is one of the two "current, high-level government officials" or not–he’d certainly qualify.

But that leaves another "current, high-level government official." This is significant because several of the key players (like Jose Rodriguez, who remains under subpoena from HPSCI) are former officials. Two notable exceptions are John Rizzo, who works in CIA’s General Counsel office, and John Helgerson, CIA’s Inspector General. We also know that John Negroponte, currently at State, wrote a memo pertaining to the Torture Tapes when he was DNI. Finally, there’s always everyone’s favorite current high-level government official involved with the torture tapes, David Addington.

But I’m not holding my breath.

I’m just as intrigued by the news that Crazy Pete Hoekstra and Silvestre Reyes have gotten into a spat over this investigation.

The House investigation has been riven by partisan disputes. In January, Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, the panel’s ranking Republican, publicly took issue with Democrats over issuing a subpoena for Rodriguez, selecting witnesses and other aspects of the investigation. Democrats have maintained that they have been responsive to Republican input.

A spokesman for Hoekstra declined to comment Tuesday.

As I have said repeatedly, one of the people spinning hard to dissociate himself from the Torture Tape destruction is Porter Goss, who was head of the CIA when the Torture Tape was destroyed, and who received Negroponte’s warning not to destroy the Torture Tape. I’ve long worried that an HPSCI investigation, handled badly, would work the same way Lee Hamilton and Dick Cheney’s HPSCI investigation into Iran-Contra did–to immunize key players from prosecution. In particular, I’ve worried about Pete Hoekstra attempting to protect his former colleague, Porter Goss, from any incrimination.

So I consider it a good sign that Crazy Pete has his knickers in a twist about the investigation. 

Since Hillary apparently needs a reminder that Israel has nukes–some of the technology for which they stole from us–yesterday’s charging of Ben-Ami Kadish for spying
ought to provide her a useful reminder.

An 84-year-old former Army engineer in New Jersey was charged on Tuesday with leaking dozens of secret documents about nuclear arms, missiles and fighter jets to the Israeli government during the early 1980s, federal prosecutors said.

While I’d be interested in Israel’s nukes attracting more attention in discussions of Middle East policy, at the moment I’m more curious how the government suddenly discovered Kadish’s alleged spying … more than 20 years after the events in question?

The NYT admits it doesn’t know the answer to that question.

Federal officials said authorities became aware of what they called Mr. Kadish’s spying activities only in recent months but would not say how they learned of his efforts more than 20 years later.

Mr. Kadish admitted to an F.B.I. agent last month that he had shown 50 to 100 classified documents to the Israeli official, according to prosecutors’ court filings on Tuesday.

It also reminds readers that Israel had assured us that they had revealed all of the spying Yosef Yagur–the science attache who appears to have solicited Kadish’s spying and who also was the Israeli agent handling Jonathan Pollard–had engaged in.

Though Mr. Kadish is suspected of having operated at the same time as Mr. Pollard, and not afterward, another conviction would be embarrassing for Israel because its officials were supposed to have disclosed to the United States all relevant information about Israeli intelligence gathering at the time of Mr. Pollard’s arrest.

So how did the US uncover Kadish’s spying?

One possibility is that Larry Franklin disclosed Kadish’s spying to the government. While the AIPAC trial is increasingly likely to be dismissed rather than have Condi reveal her A1 Cut-Out methods under oath, Larry Franklin’s plea deal did require his ongoing cooperation with the government–so presumably, if he knew of other Israeli spying, he revealed it to them. But Kadish was charged in relation to a grand jury investigation out of SDNY, not EDVA (Kadish committed the alleged acts in New Jersey).

Another possibility is that the government traced back technological information they knew had ended up someplace it shouldn’t have back to the Israelis, and with it, to Kadish. The criminal complaint describes three documents above all that Kadish shared with the Israelis.

1. One containing information relating to a nuclear weapons system
2. One describing a modification of an F-15 sold to another country
3. On concerning the Patriot missile system

It also noted that Kadish had signed out these documents in question. In other words, it’s possible that the government worked backwards from a country that had integrated certain F-15 modifications and Patriot missile technology into their own nuclear program to learn how they had acquired that technology–which led them through Israel to Kadish. One possibility is that this information ended up with Pakistan and this is an investigation that arose in relation to active investigations into the AQ Khan network (back in the BCCI days, the Israelis dealth US nuclear technology to the Pakistanis; though by 1988, the Pakistanis had modified their F-16s to carry nukes). It’s also possible Saudi Arabia is involved, since elsewhere the complaint describes Kadish saying the F-15 document "had a direct correlation to Israel’s security."

But the bit I find most telling are the charges only tangentially related to espionage: obstruction and false statements. As the complaint describes,

On or about March 20, 2008, after law enforcement officials … interviewed BEN-AMI KADISH, … KADISH received a telephone call from … CC-1 [almost certainly Yosef Yagur, Kadish’s handler], and CC-1 instructed KADISH to lie to the Law Enforcement Officials.

On or about March 21, 2008, the Law Enforcement Officials interviewed KADISH again in connection with the Grand Jury Investigation, and during this interview, KADISH stated that he (KADISH) did not speak with CC-1 after the First Interview.

In other words, Yagur (who is not in the US) apparently learned that the FBI had interviewed Kadish about the espionage (it is unclear whether the FBI first interviewed Kadish on March 20, or earlier than that). Yagur called Kadish and told him to lie. And the very next day, the FBI re-interviewed Kadish to ask about that call from Yagur, which Kadish denied.

Yagur knew–and knows–they’re closing in on him, over twenty years after he fled the country. And the FBI presumably had tapped Kadish or Yagur.

Back when Yagur handled Jonathan Pollard, he escaped charges (and escaped the country). For some reason, the government seems to have renewed interest in Yagur.

I wanted to link to Elsinora’s diary at DKos, where she describes John Ascroft’s attempts to avoid admitting that he sanctioned torture (the "me" in the dialogue is Elsinora herself).

ME: First off, Mr. Ashcroft, I’d like to apologize for the rudeness of some of my fellow students. It was uncalled for–we can disagree civilly, we don’t need that. (round of applause from the audience, and Ashcroft smiles) I have here in my hand two documents. One of them, you know, is the text of the United Nations Convention against Torture, which, point of interest, says nothing about "lasting physical damage"…

ASHCROFT: (interrupting) Do you have the Senate reservations to it?

ME: No, I don’t. Do you happen to know what they are?

ASHCROFT: (angrily) I don’t have them memorized, no. I don’t have time to go around memorizing random legal facts. I just don’t want these people in the audience to go away saying, "He was wrong, she had the proof right in her hand!" Because that’s not true. It’s a lie. If you don’t have the reservations, you don’t have anything. Now, if you want to bring them another time, we can talk, but…

ME: Actually, Mr. Ashcroft, my question was about this other document. (laughter and applause) This other document is a section from the judgment of the Tokyo War Tribunal. After WWII, the Tokyo Tribunal was basically the Nuremberg Trials for Japan. Many Japanese leaders were put on trial for war crimes and crimes against humanity, including torture. And among the tortures listed was the "water treatment," which we nowadays call waterboarding…

ASHCROFT: (interrupting) This is a speech, not a question. I don’t mind, but it’s not a question.

ME: It will be, sir, just give me a moment. The judgment describes this water treatment, and I quote, "the victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach." One man, Yukio Asano, was sentenced to fifteen years hard labor by the allies for waterboarding American troops to obtain information. Since Yukio Asano was trying to get information to help defend his country–exactly what you, Mr. Ashcroft, say is acceptible for Americans to do–do you believe that his sentence was unjust? (boisterous applause and shouts of "Good question!")

ASHCROFT: (angrily) Now, listen here. You’re comparing apples and oranges, apples and oranges. We don’t do anything like what you described.

ME: I’m sorry, I was under the impression that we still use the method of putting a cloth over someone’s face and pouring water down their throat…

ASHCROFT: (interrupting, red-faced, shouting) Pouring! Pouring! Did you hear what she said? "Putting a cloth over someone’s face and pouring water on them." That’s not what you said before! Read that again, what you said before!

ME: Sir, other reports of the time say…

ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read what you said before! (cries of "Answer her fucking question!" from the audience) Read it!

ME: (firmly) Mr. Ashcroft, please answer the question.

ASHCROFT: (shouting) Read it back!

ME: "The victim was bound or otherwise secured in a prone position; and water was forced through his mouth and nostrils into his lungs and stomach."

ASHCROFT: (shouting) You hear that? You hear it? "Forced!" If you can’t tell the difference between forcing and pouring…does this college have an anatomy class? If you can’t tell the difference between forcing and pouring…

ME: (firmly and loudly) Mr. Ashcroft, do you believe that Yukio Asano’s sentence was unjust? Answer the question. (pause)

ASHCROFT: (more restrained) It’s not a fair question; there’s no comparison. Next question! (loud chorus of boos from the audience)

Thanks to Elsinora for exposing what Ashcroft’s defense against war crimes will be: The Senate reservations, and apples and oranges.

That’s all I can surmise from Terry McAuliffe’s boast that Hillary "won" Michigan.

Goddamned I wonder if these people give a damn how aggravating such statements are to people in MI whose Hillary-supporting Governor and other top leaders played chicken with the DNC and lost … our vote.

There’s a lot of outrage over Hillary’s comments on nukes and Iran yesterday (some of which will be broadcast today on the Today show). Some of that is not surprising, given the way the comments make her sound like Dick Cheney without his meds.

But there’s a kernel of sense in her comments that is being missed–and we’d be much better off pointing out that kernel and understanding it and its limits–than magnifying the sound bites that make her look so bad.

Here’s the transcript that Ab2kgj put together.

Well what we were talking about was the potential for a nuclear attack by Iran, if Iran does achieve what appears to be it’s continuing goal of obtaining nuclear weapons, and I think deterrence has not been effectively used in recent times, we used it very well during the Cold War when we had a bipolar world, and what I think the president should do and what our policy should be is to make it very clear to the Iranians that they would be risking massive retaliation were they to launch a nuclear attack on Israel.

In addition, if Iran were to become a nuclear power, it could set off an arms race that would be incredibly dangerous and destabilizing because the countries in the region are not going to want Iran to be the only nuclear power. So I can imagine that they would be rushing to obtain nuclear weapons themselves. In order to forestall that, creating some kind of a security agreement where we said, ‘No, you do not need to acquire nuclear weapons if you were the subject of an unprovoked nuclear attack by Iran the United States and hopefully our NATO allies would respond to that as well.’ It is a theory that some people have been looking at because there is a fear that if Iran, which I hope we can prevent, becoming a nuclear power, but if they were to become one, some people worry that they are not deterrable, that they somehow have a different mindset and a worldview that might very well lead the leadership to be willing to become martyrs. I don’t buy that, but I think we have to test it.

And one of the ways of testing it is to make it very clear that we are not going to permit them, if we can prevent it, from becoming a nuclear power, but were they to become so, their use of nuclear weapons against Israel would provoke a nuclear response from the United States, which personally I believe would prevent it from happening, and that we would try to help the other countries that might be intimidated and bullied into submission by Iran because they were a nuclear power, avoid that fate by creating this new security umbrella.

What got people’s attention were the words "massive retaliation." But what got missed were the two concepts that have guided our nuclear policy since World War II: a security umbrella and deterrence.

What Hillary is addressing (which got missed by many people going nuts about this statement) is that within fairly short order–certainly before Iran gets nukes–other countries in the Middle East are going to start pursuing them. Can Saudi Arabia, for example, allow its rival for hegemony among Islamic states acquire nukes without itself acquiring them? And considering that Saudi Arabia provided significant funds to Pakistan for their nuke program, presumably the Saudis could acquire nukes (though perhaps not build them) reasonably easily.

So Hillary is trying to address both the problem of Iran’s pursuit of nukes but also the inevitable arms race that will (has?) started in response to Iran’s attempts. So Hillary’s seemingly sane response to this challenge is to do what we did after World War II: to provide the countries that wanted nukes with a security guarantee, to persuade them not to develop their own programs (this happened particularly well with Japan and Germany). And, to assert something Bush’s cronies refuse to believe–which is that the Iranians, like all leaders of nation-states, can be persuaded not to use nukes by the threat of assured destruction. (In her support for deterrence, at least, Hillary is less belligerent than the nuts currently in the White House.)

The reason Hillary sounds like such a raving lunatic about bombing Iran is because she is–as we speak–laying the groundwork for that kind of deterrence program, proving she can sound sufficiently belligerent to scare the mullahs running Iran.

So for those who think Hillary is a raving lunatic, it’d be well to 1) address whether or not deterrence paired with a security umbrella would work and 2) if not, then how we’re going to prevent Iran’s demonstrated interest in acquiring nuclear technology from destabilizing the Middle East.

You’re all going to address the NIE that shows that Iran does not now have an active program, and it’s an important point. While Iran, of late, has accelerated its enrichment program, we don’t have reason to believe Iran is also, for example, developing the missiles that can carry nukes. Which ought to provide one hint how to respond to this without all the belligerence–to start, first of all, by saying "we should implement a strategy that works for all countries in the Middle East now, while we still have time." I’ll come back to this point. But it doesn’t change the fact that–particularly with the increasingly tense fight for hegemony among Islamic states–there is and will continue to be a burgeoning arms race in the Middle East. That should be–and Hillary and Obama ought to have rephrased it (though by the time it came up in the ABC debate, they were probably just desperate to get that terrible thing over)–how do we prevent a nuclear arms race from breaking out across the Middle East?

So would Hillary’s strategy work? Is a security umbrella and deterrence a real plan in the Middle East, as it was in Europe and Asia?

This is the area where people ought to be challenging Hillary’s statements.

And, in my non-expert opinion, the answer is no. There is no way we–with our close relationship with Israel–can convincingly offer a security umbrella for the entire Middle East. To establish a convincing security umbrella after all, we’d have to persuade every country that might potentially acquire nukes that we would protect them in case of an Israeli strike. Hillary seems to deliberately leave the countries that might want a security guarantee vague—surely, she’s thinking of Saudi Arabia, but she may also be thinking of Iran, though no Presidential candidate is going to state that we might offer to defend Iran. But there is no way we could convince Iran, our mortal enemy since 1979 (or, if you’re Iranian, since 1953), that we would protect them in case of an attack by Israel. FWIW, I think France could credibly establish such an umbrella, possibly even China. But not only is France unilaterally cutting its own nuclear weapons, I can assure you the US is not going to want France or especially China providing security guarantees (and presumably obtaining preferential oil deals in exchange) in the Middle East.

Any effort to prevent further nuclear proliferation in the Middle East (Hillary conveniently neglects to mention Israel’s nuclear arsenal, and doesn’t consider that Pakistan and India are integrated enough into the Middle East such that it is naive to assume an arms race isn’t already fully engaged) needs to start with the acknowledgment that 1) Israel has nukes and that 2) the US is not now a credible entity to offer a security umbrella.

If Hillary or anyone else is serious about using a security umbrella to foster peace in the Middle East, they’re going to have to convince the US to cede at least part of its hegemonic position in the Middle East to a credible security guarantor, France or China. Which, of course, means the US is going to have to free itself from its dependence on oil. So long as we are utterly dependent on oil, nukes will continue to be a going concern in the Middle East.

Okay, I’ve tried, best as I can, to take Hillary’s comment as the rational statement I think she intended it as, steeped as it is in the existing–but increasingly unworkable–paradigm of US foreign policy that has existed since World War II.

That said, WTF is she thinking??? She has already been fighting to spin her vote on Kyl-Lieberman as a sane vote for engagement and not what it really was, a vote to give Bush more keys to war. Even though this statement–as most of her statements on Olbermann–was painfully scripted, she seems unaware that she was spouting belligerent sound bite after belligerent sound bite. Sure, this might help her among PA’s most conservative voters. "Hurrah! Let’s vote for the woman who wants to obliterate the brown people!!" It’s still not going to help her with the majority of Democratic voters who want out of Iraq and definitely don’t want to start war with Iran.

I honestly think it was intended to be a rational argument in favor of an established foreign policy paradigm. But boy did she miscalculate.

So Dan Abrams took none too kindly to being accused of constructing fables by the Walt Disney of the Conservative Movement. In a response that is about twice as long as the Turdblossom’s tome, Abrams provides quote after quote to demonstrate that he had done the work Rove accused him of shirking. Abrams repeatedly pointed to the parts of his interviews where he challenged Don Siegelman and Dana Jill Simpson. Most of all, I like where Abrams provided a set of questions designed to expose Rove’s cheap parsing for what it is.

1) You say you "certainly didn’t meet with anyone at the Justice Department or either of the two US attorneys in Alabama about investigating or indicting Siegelman." Did you talk to, or otherwise communicate with, any of them about it even if you did not meet? Did you have any discussions with any of them about this topic?

2) What about your old friend Bill Canary, whose wife initially led the prosecution? Are you denying that you spoke with him about anything related to the case?

3) You worked for former Alabama Attorney General Bill Pryor. Did you ever talk to him about anything related to the Siegelman matter?

4) Did you ever ask anyone else to communicate with any official in the Justice Department about the Siegelman investigation or case?

5) Do you know why your lawyer told us that you would testify about this case if you were subpoenaed but now, after you have been invited to do so, he states that there are issues of executive privilege: "Whether, when and about what a former White House official will testify … is not for me or my client to decide" he said.

6) You have said you never spoke with the White House about the case. If true, what is the possible "executive privilege?"

7) You ask why I did not further question one of my guests when he discussed your effort to help now Governor Riley in his campaign. Did you consult in any way with Riley or anyone else working with him on the campaign?

8) Did you ever discuss, with anyone, the possibility of media leaks about the Siegelman case? Did you speak with any members of the media about Siegelman during his campaign? [my emphasis]

I’m actually having quite a bit of fun watching these two exchange their letters–I hope it lasts until football season, when there’ll finally be something worth watching on the telly again. (I was always a big sucker for epistolary novels.)

Until Turdblossom crafts his next monument to cheap parsing, though, I think it wise to start keeping track of how many times Karl has been invited to give his side of the story on Don Siegelman–yet continued to parse cheaply.

• 60 Minutes contacted Rove–who denied through Luskin Simpson’s allegations
• 60 Minutes contacted Rove for the follow-up–Rove said he never talked to DOJ about Siegelman, nor anyone at the White House about him
• Rove spoke to GQ–complaining in much the same way he did about Abrams
• Abrams says he "repeatedly" invited Rove to appear on his program
• Abrams invited Rove, through Luskin, after Siegelman left prison (Luskin said "sure," Rove would testify)
• John Conyers invited Rove to testify before HJC (Luskin backed off his earlier claim, explaining Rove might be prevented from testifying by executive privilege)
• With this letter, Abrams invited Rove once more to appear and answer questions

Two offers from 60 Minutes, "repeated" invitations from Abrams, and one from Conyers. Yet Rove still won’t appear before a antagonistic interviewer.

As Abrams says, the ball is, and has been, in Rove’s court.

Your letter poses questions that you believe I should have asked as part of our coverage, but many of the most significant ones only you can answer. I address your specific critique below, but I begin by wondering, based on many of your questions, whether you actually saw, or reviewed, all of our coverage. Or perhaps, as you put it, "you don’t want the facts to get in the way of a good fable."

You accuse me of "diminishing the search for facts and evidence," yet thus far you have refused to answer any questions under oath or even from me that would aid in that very search.

I wonder whether Rove played these same games with Patrick Fitzgerald? Now that would be an epistolary novel worth reading. Just imagine if Rove refused to show up eight times before finally agrreing to each of the five appearances he had before Fitzgerald and the grand jury? That’d be 40 chapters long–just with Rove’s fanciful replies.

Siun and Spencer make what I believe to be the most important point about Condi’s taunt of Moqtada al-Sadr.

“I know he’s sitting in Iran,” Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr’s latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. “I guess it’s all-out war for anybody but him,” Rice said. “I guess that’s the message; his followers can go [to] their deaths and he’s in Iran.”

Here’s Siun:

Hmmm … am I missing something here? Aside from the fact that it is only the U.S. military that keeps claiming al Sadr is always in Iran, I had not noticed the redeployment of the Bush White House and State Department to the streets of Iraq. Occasional drop-ins at the Green Zone, less occasional speed tours of locations outside the GZ (complete with air cover and hundreds of military escorts), sure, but … when did George and Condi move to Baghdad?

And here’s Spencer:

So Sadr is a coward for making threats from Iran… and Condoleezza Rice is a stateswoman for blustering Sadr into making a move that carries the potential of killing American soldiers. Why is this woman respected again?

Once again, this Administration’s claims of manlihood are so much empty fluff.

But I’d like to point out something else about Condi’s taunt. Back when Dick Cheney snuck off to Iraq to meet with Nuri al-Maliki, it remained unclear whether or not Cheney’s visit had some causal relationship with what came next: Maliki’s ill-fated offensive into Basra. It seemed like a pretty telling coincidence, but the Administration barely admitted the US was providing air support, much less admit that Dick at least approved–if not incited–the offensive.

I submit we will have no doubts about what comes next. Condi has made it very clear she owns–we own–whatever atrocities are about to happen in Sadr City.

Update: Here’s Scarecrow making the same point. He also notes that, by inciting more civil war, the US seems to be engaging in an effort to further empower Iran.

The Administration wanted this fight, and Petraeus’ first duty is to protect the Green Zone from rocket attacks. His only tactical complaint was his claim — which now appears disingenuous — that the Iraqis tried to move against Basra before US forces were ready. He blamed al Maliki’s impatience for the initial stumbles, but as soon as the offensive stalled, the Americans (and British) bailed out the Iraq Army with their fire power and embedded forces. The offensive now appears to be succeeding in establishing Iraq Army control of Basra, due in part to the Iranians, who arranged al-Sadr’s withdrawal and seem willing to have the Government in control of Southern Iraq.

There have been other reports that suggest Iran is willing to allow the al-Maliki government to consolidate control, preferring that to the less controllable — by Iran — elements of Sadr’s more nationalist militia. That means the Bush Administration and John McCain are engaged in a massive bait and switch about who we’re fighting and why.

[snip]

With McCain’s nonsense providing the cover (reinforced by the Pentagon’s propagandists embedded in the media), US forces are providing the critical military difference in a civil war to solidify the political and military power of the most pro-Iranian elements in Iraq — the parties of al-Maliki and his Shia allies — all of whose leaders have strong ties to Iran. But by identifying al-Sadr’s resistance fighters in Sadr City with Iran, and attributing US deaths to Iranian weapons and Iranian trained fighters, (recall Lieberman’s questions to Petraeus) Bush and McCain are unmistakably keeping the door open for a possible military strike against Iran.

I’m working on a catalog of Rummy’s Rent-A-Generals. But I couldn’t help but notice this particular Rent-A-General.

On Friday, April 14, with what came to be called the “Generals’ Revolt” dominating headlines, Mr. Rumsfeld instructed aides to summon military analysts to a meeting with him early the next week, records show. When an aide urged a short delay to “give our big guys on the West Coast a little more time to buy a ticket and get here,” Mr. Rumsfeld’s office insisted that “the boss” wanted the meeting fast “for impact on the current story.”

That same day, Pentagon officials helped two Fox analysts, General McInerney and General Vallely, write an opinion article for The Wall Street Journal defending Mr. Rumsfeld.

“Starting to write it now,” General Vallely wrote to the Pentagon that afternoon. “Any input for the article,” he added a little later, “will be much appreciated.” Mr. Rumsfeld’s office quickly forwarded talking points and statistics to rebut the notion of a spreading revolt.

“Vallely is going to use the numbers,” a Pentagon official reported that afternoon.

[snip]

Many also shared with Mr. Bush’s national security team a belief that pessimistic war coverage broke the nation’s will to win in Vietnam, and there was a mutual resolve not to let that happen with this war.

This was a major theme, for example, with Paul E. Vallely, a Fox News analyst from 2001 to 2007. A retired Army general who had specialized in psychological warfare, Mr. Vallely co-authored a paper in 1980 that accused American news organizations of failing to defend the nation from “enemy” propaganda during Vietnam.

“We lost the war — not because we were outfought, but because we were out Psyoped,” he wrote. He urged a radically new approach to psychological operations in future wars — taking aim at not just foreign adversaries but domestic audiences, too. He called his approach “MindWar” — using network TV and radio to “strengthen our national will to victory.”

[snip]

Back in Washington, Pentagon officials kept a nervous eye on how the trip translated on the airwaves. Uncomfortable facts had bubbled up during the trip. One briefer, for example, mentioned that the Army was resorting to packing inadequately armored Humvees with sandbags and Kevlar blankets. Descriptions of the Iraqi security forces were withering. “They can’t shoot, but then again, they don’t,” one officer told them, according to one participant’s notes.

“I saw immediately in 2003 that things were going south,” General Vallely, one of the Fox analysts on the trip, recalled in an interview with The Times.

The Pentagon, though, need not have worried.

“You can’t believe the progress,” General Vallely told Alan Colmes of Fox News upon his return. He predicted the insurgency would be “down to a few numbers” within months.

So let’s see. General Vallely,

• Believed it was more important to lie to the public than let them question the purpose for war
• Took Pentagon talking points and used them for a WSJ op-ed
• Is documented by NYT’s sources to have stated publicly the precise opposite of what he acknowledged observing in Iraq

All in the name of hiding the fact that Rummy had no credibility with his generals and in an attempt to sustain support for the war.

So why should we care?

Well, you might recall that Paul Vallely claimed, in November 2005 (just days after Libby was indicted), that Joe Wilson had outed his wife to Vallely in a Fox green room in 2002.

A retired Army general says the man at the center of the CIA leak controversy, Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, revealed his wife Valerie Plame’s employment with the agency in a casual conversation more than a year before she allegedly was "outed" by the White House through a columnist.

Maj. Gen. Paul Vallely told WorldNetDaily that Wilson mentioned Plame’s status as a CIA employee over the course of at least three, possibly five, conversations in 2002 in the Fox News Channel’s "green room" in Washington, D.C., as they waited to appear on air as analysts.

[snip]

Vallely says, according to his recollection, Wilson mentioned his wife’s job in the spring of 2002 – more than a year before Robert Novak’s July 14, 2003, column identified her, citing senior administration officials, as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."

Now, far be it for me to suggest that General Vallely lied–outright–when he invented a story that would protect Libby, Novak, and Cheney. After all, that claim has been made before, so I don’t need to claim it anew. And I notice that Libby’s defense team ultimately decided that Vallely wasn’t going to help their case–though Vallely was listed as a witness in Libby’s trial, he spent precisely as long on the witness stand as Dick Cheney did.

So I’m not claiming the news that Vallely is a lying hack is new. Rather, I’m pointing out that Vallely’s stated motives for lying about the war…

• Believed it was more important to lie to the public than let them question the purpose for war
• Took Pentagon talking points and used them for a WSJ op-ed
• Is documented by NYT’s sources to have stated publicly the precise opposite of what he acknowledged observing in Iraq

… So closely parallel the motives he might have had for lying in order to pretend that Dick Cheney wasn’t desperate to hide the fact, in 2003, that he had lied us into war.

That, and I think it’s rather sweet that Rummy lent his old friend Dick Cheney one of his Rent-A-Generals in his time of need.

Update: Joe Wilson responds (via email):

I too was curious when I read the NYT piece but my disgust that he would leave the troops hanging out to dry in order to do the Pentagon’s dirty business overwhelmed any thoughts of his feeble attempts to suggest I had told his wife of Valerie’s covert status.  Our troops deserve not just our support as fellow citizens but even more the support of generals in whom they entrust their lives.

By now you have probably heard that the New York Times has an in-depth piece by David Barstow out for Sunday’s edition on the use by the Pentagon of media "military experts" as propaganda conduits.

It would be nice to be able to say that the revelations in Barstow’s article are shocking, but they are not. Spin and propaganda have, from the outset, been more important to the Bush Administration than efficient and effective performance and truth. This already looks to be a big deal around the blogosphere, everybody will be discussing the general parameters of the story. Dave Neiwert serves up a dissection at FDL (and do click through his links here and here to his earlier pieces at Orcinus in 2004 on Bush Administration psy-op propaganda, they are excellent).

Beyond the face value of the NYT article, however, lurk some more interesting issues. Marcy has, as usual, immediately found one in relation to the spotty history of the NYT on Bushco propaganda, most notably in regard to Judith Miller and the case for the Iraq War (can you say "Sweet Judy Blew Lies"? I can). Here is mine; we know this Pentagon propaganda scheme is crass and loathsome, but is it legal?

Arguably, the answer is no, it is not legal; of course, as we have seen time and again, that is never an impediment to the Bush Administration. And, as with so many other Bushco ills, we have a template for analysis because they have made a pattern and practice of crossing the line of propriety in this area. The gang of tricks is all here, "creative" expansion of law and standards, even one of those OLC opinions exonerating the conduct.

The framework for analysis here is supplied by the previous actions of the Bush administration in relation to paying Armstrong Williams to shill the No Child Left Behind program and the propagation of prepackaged fake video news stories. The heavy involvement of the Pentagon in the disingenuous news business was demonstrated by Jeff Gerth in a December 2005 NYT article:

The media center in Fayetteville, N.C., would be the envy of any global communications company.

In state of the art studios, producers prepare the daily mix of music and news for the group’s radio stations or spots for friendly television outlets. Writers putting out newspapers and magazines in Baghdad and Kabul converse via teleconferences. Mobile trailers with high-tech gear are parked outside, ready for the next crisis.

The center is not part of a news organization, but a military operation, and those writers and producers are soldiers. The 1,200-strong psychological operations unit based at Fort Bragg turns out what its officers call "truthful messages" to support the United States government’s objectives, though its commander acknowledges that those stories are one-sided and their American sponsorship is hidden.
…
The recent disclosures that a Pentagon contractor in Iraq paid newspapers to print "good news" articles written by American soldiers prompted an outcry in Washington, where members of Congress said the practice undermined American credibility and top military and White House officials disavowed any knowledge of it. President Bush was described by Stephen J. Hadley, his national security adviser, as "very troubled" about the matter. The Pentagon is investigating.

But the work of the contractor, the Lincoln Group, was not a rogue operation. Hoping to counter anti-American sentiment in the Muslim world, the Bush administration has been conducting an information war that is extensive, costly and often hidden, according to documents and interviews with contractors, government officials and military personnel.

The campaign was begun by the White House, which set up a secret panel soon after the Sept. 11 attacks to coordinate information operations by the Pentagon, other government agencies and private contractors.

Since 1951, Congress has enacted an annual, government wide prohibition on the use of appropriated funds for purposes of "publicity or propaganda." For instance, in 2005, the prohibition stated

No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress. Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2005, Pub. L. No. 108-447, div. G, title II, 624, 118 Stat. 2809, 3278 (Dec. 8, 2004). (The language of the prohibition has remained virtually unchanged since 1951.)

All of these ginned up propaganda programs started hitting the public consciousness in 2005, causing a public outcry and Congressional calls for an investigation, which was undertaken by the Government Accountability Office. The GAO issued a formal report in February 2005 indicating that the Bush Administration efforts to shape the news via the prepackaged video news releases were inappropriate. The GAO subsequently issued similar opinions on the other Bush propaganda programs, for instance, this September 2005 report on the paid use of Armstrong Williams on NCLB:

In previous opinions and decisions, we have found “materials . . . prepared by an agency or its contractors at the behest of the agency and circulated as the ostensible position of parties outside the agency” amount to covert propaganda that violates the prohibition. B‑229257, June 10, 1988. A critical element of this violation is the concealment of, or failure to disclose, the agency’s role in sponsoring the material. E.g., B-303495, Jan. 5, 2005. For example, in B-223098, B‑223098.2, Oct. 10, 1986, the Small Business Administration (SBA) prepared “suggested editorials” and distributed them to newspapers. The editorials advocated public support for an administration proposal to merge the SBA with the Department of Commerce. We found that those agency-prepared editorials were misleading as to their origins. The agency intended for the newspapers to print the editorials as their own position without identifying them as SBA-authored documents. This effort to conceal the agency’s authorship and make it appear that respected, independent authorities were endorsing the agency’s position went “beyond the range of acceptable agency public information activities” and violated the publicity or propaganda prohibition. Id. Similarly, in 66 Comp. Gen. 707 (1987), we held that newspaper articles and editorials (supporting the government’s Central American policy) that were prepared by paid consultants at government request and published as the work of nongovernmental parties violated the prohibition. Again, it was the covertness of the government’s actions that led to the violation. In that case, the government was attempting to convey a message to the public advocating the government’s position while misleading the public as to the origins of the message. Id. at 709.

In addition to the violation of the standard Appropriations Act language, the GAO has also pointed to the violation of the provisions of the Anti-Deficiency Act provisions:

The Department’s use of appropriated funds in violation of the publicity or propaganda prohibition also constituted a violation of the Antideficiency Act, 31 U.S.C. sect. 1341(a). This act prohibits making or authorizing an expenditure or obligation that exceeds available budget authority. B-300325, Dec. 13, 2002. Because the Department has no appropriation available to procure favorable commentary in violation of the publicity or propaganda prohibition, it violated the Antideficiency Act, 31 U.S.C. sect. 1341(a). Cf. B-303495, Jan. 4, 2005; B-302710, May 19, 2004. Under 31 U.S.C. sect. 1351, the Department must report its Antideficiency Act violations to the President and the Congress. At the same time, a copy must be sent to the Comptroller General.

The bottom line seems to be that any "covert" program by the government to shape the news, or disseminate false news, to the domestic American audience constitutes a violation of both the Appropriations Act prohibitions as well as the Anti-Deficiency Act. As further evidence of how sensitive the United States has historically been on prohibiting the governmental dissemination of domestic propaganda, keep in mind that the Smith-Mundt Act even prohibits the domestic dissemination of information utilized in foreign propaganda efforts of the US, which, of course, are legal (think Voice of America radio).

You would have to imagine that the first rationalization from Bushco will be along the lines of "well this is different than the Armstrong Williams situation because we didn’t expend any money paying the military analysts and there was no quid pro quo". I would argue that the following snippets from today’s NYT article put the lie to that likely defense:

Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.
…
In turn, members of this group have echoed administration talking points, sometimes even when they suspected the information was false or inflated. Some analysts acknowledge they suppressed doubts because they feared jeopardizing their access.

A few expressed regret for participating in what they regarded as an effort to dupe the American public with propaganda dressed as independent military analysis.
…
Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.”
…
Conversely, the administration has demonstrated that there is a price for sustained criticism, many analysts said. “You’ll lose all access,” Dr. McCausland said.
…
Some of these analysts were on the mission to Cuba on June 24, 2005 — the first of six such Guantánamo trips — which was designed to mobilize analysts against the growing perception of Guantánamo as an international symbol of inhumane treatment.
…
It was, he said, “psyops on steroids” — a nuanced exercise in influence through flattery and proximity. “It’s not like it’s, ‘We’ll pay you $500 to get our story out,’ ” he said. “It’s more subtle.” The access came with a condition. Participants were instructed not to quote their briefers directly or otherwise describe their contacts with the Pentagon.
…
The memorandum led to a proposal to take analysts on a tour of Iraq in September 2003, timed to help overcome the sticker shock from Mr. Bush’s request for $87 billion in emergency war financing.
…
Some Pentagon officials said they were well aware that some analysts viewed their special access as a business advantage. “Of course we realized that,” Mr. Krueger said. “We weren’t naïve about that.”
…
Some e-mail messages between the Pentagon and the analysts reveal an implicit trade of privileged access for favorable coverage.
…
The Pentagon paid a private contractor, Omnitec Solutions, hundreds of thousands of dollars to scour databases for any trace of the analysts, be it a segment on “The O’Reilly Factor” or an interview with The Daily Inter Lake in Montana, circulation 20,000.

Sure looks like there was a conscious quid pro quo, and that a lot of money and effort went into this program that was not formally appropriated, and therefore was in violation of both the Appropriations Act yearly provisions and the Anti-Deficiency Act provisions.

Oh, by the way, remember my mention of the attempted use of one of those golden OLC Opinion shields? Here it is, although it now seems to be missing from the official list on the DOJ website. The opinion was authored by our old friend Steven Bradbury; although, clearly, neither the GAO not Congress found it persuasive in the least. What a shock.