Entries by emptywheel

It’s Called R-E-C-U-S-A-L

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Tom Maguire usually takes himself more seriously than this. After reading the WaPo’s series on Dick, he chose to ignore the widespread criticism on the part of hardcore conservatives of OVP’s dismantling of the Constitution and instead claim that the WaPo article was proof–proof at last!!!–that “Fitzgerald’s prosecution of Libby may have been politically motivated.”

To prove that “Fitzgerald’s prosecution of Libby may have been politically motivated,” Maguire ferrets out the abundant

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More Classification Games

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Nico at TP links to this story about the Senate’s thus far unsuccessful attempt to declassify two of SSCI’s reports on WMD. The basic story is that the White House is trying to prevent an effort, supported by both our too-genteel SSCI Chair Jay Rockefeller and by the partisan Pat Roberts, to declassify last fall’s Phase II SSCI reports, the one that compared pre-war assessments and the one that showed the

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Sources: Or, Tedious Kremlinology

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I’ve talked about Cheney’s and Addington’s Methods. Now I’d like to inventory the sources that Gellman and Becker used for their articles, as a way to understand where the shifting loyalties of the Administration lie. One thing that becomes clear by mapping this out is the centrality of Josh Bolten to many of the more damning accusations against Cheney.

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Addington’s Methods

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Before I get too deep in the detail of today’s installment of WaPo’s series on Cheney, I’d like to remind you of a point I made in my Take Back America speech. While David Addington’s theories on executive power are tremendously dangerous, Addington does believe in the rule of law. He admitted in his Libby trial testimony, for example, that the “Treated as Top Secret/SCI” stamp that OVP had used with

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PFIAB and OVP

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I’d like to point out a teeny detail in the report that Henry Waxman cites as his source that OVP isn’t providing ISOO with information about OVP’s classification and declassification activities:

PFIAB and OVP did not report data through the SF 311 to ISOO this year. This report, therefore, does not include any data from these two entities.

It was not just OVP that blew off ISOO in 2003.

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Angler

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Okay, now something totally frivolous about the Cheney piece (if you want real analysis, go here). The WaPo piece reveals Cheney’s secret service name:

“Angler,” as the Secret Service code-named him,

Which is of course the name they’ve given the series.

Well, I think it perhaps ironic because, as I understand it, Cheney’s not that great a fisherman.

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Pope Keeps Blair Out of Heaven because of Iraq

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Via Cannonfire, I see that Pope former-Nazi has finally done something worthwhile with his position: he told the Poodle that God meant it about that commandment that, Thou shalt not kill.

Tony Blair yesterday used his last official foreign engagement beforeleaving office to tell Pope Benedict he wanted to become a RomanCatholic, a Vatican source said last night.

But, in talks lasting more than half an hour, the outgoing PrimeMinister was left

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Cheney’s Method

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There’s a remarkable paragraph close to the start of Barton Gellman and Jo Becker’s story on Cheney today:

Cheney is not, by nearly every inside account, the shadow president ofpopular lore. Bush has set his own course, not always in directionsCheney preferred. The president seized the helm when his No. 2 steeredtoward trouble, as Bush did, in time, on military commissions.

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And While We’re at It, Let’s Take Away Their Security Clearance

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Mimikatz already posted Rahm’s first response to Cheney’s wicked theories that he is a branch of government unto himself. And mcjoan has posted his second response.

House Democratic Caucus Chairman Rahm Emanuel issued the followingstatement regarding his amendment to cut funding for the Office of theVice President from the bill that funds the executive branch.

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Heffelfinger, NAIS, and the USA Purge

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At a hearing before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs this week, Thomas Heffelfinger got asked some questions about how the USA Purge related to his work–and that of Chiara, Charlton, Iglesias, McKay, and Bogden before they were fired. In his testimony, Heffelfinger noted that those USAs on NAIS who were fired were not just on the subcommittee, they were leaders on it.

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