Archive for category: emptywheel

Here’s the holy shit no one has noticed from yesterday. Here’s the version of the INR memo introduced in court yesterday.

 You’ll note in the last paragraph of the second page–it says, "These documents, which were sent to Washington via both CIA and [State] Department channels…"

This is really big news. The CIA got the forgeries. But all this time, they’ve been saying CIA only got the forgeries through State.

Nope. They had their own copies. And still didn’t analyze them until after it was too late.

Also note that it says that INR "may" have concluded the forgeries were forgeries earlier than January 12. This is totally disingenuous–they say they’ve looked at emails, but they clearly are ignoring the email the INR analyst sent back in October 2002. Huh. Still reading this, but it’s time to go to the Court House.

Just a few quick thoughts before I hit the sack.

I just saw the Bush’s approval rating is at 28%. I can’t help but think that his approval rating was still around 50% when this whole process started, when Libby made the decision to risk a jury rather than settling rather than flipping on Cheney. When they made that decision, they didn’t calculate the damage that revealing a lot of what is about to be revealed to the public would do to a president with a sub-30% approval rating, they really thought they could be studly men and there would be no downside of a jury trial.

And I really do think we’re talking revelation. Will Cheney go to jail? No. But in the last several weeks it became clear that Novak is still active, that his name will come up at this trial a lot more than expected. And I’m increasingly convinced (though I seem even lonelier arguing this in the media room than I do here on this blog) that Cheney ordered Libby to out Plame–the media room still doesn’t get why Libby might not want to introduce David Sanger’s notes. But I think that, at the least, I’ll have Read more →