Regardless of where Fitzgerald suceeds in taking this grand jury, the simple political reality has these guys hung around Bush’s neck like rotting albatrosses. Significantly the real opposition is that now disaffected chunk of the GOP, who understand the party and the presidency are crippled for as long as these guys stay on.

I’m bitter on powerful violent hypocrites, whereever I find them. And currently the most powerful, most violent and most hypocritical bunch seem to be heavily weighted towards old, white, male republicans. That is true. But I have never noted it anywhere as relevant. That would be silly given that I am old, white and male myself.

So you can stuff your sarcastic blessing right up somewhere your amazing 25 celcius IQ can probably work out. Most people die with brains that cold, but you guys just keep cranking on, which makes me suspect you’re really part lizard, or maybe jellyfish.

“…. for some “reason” I’m bitter on old white male republicans ….”

You flatter yourself, Ben.

Your tangible bitterness in that regard — and as-palpable envy, hatred and latent rage — descends not from reason. But is definitively symptomatic of the liberal [Socialist] psychosis.

Blessings from [Older, (Although only sufferers of the liberal psychosis and other morbidly-age-discriminatory bigots feel compelled to make the distinction) "white," (Although only sufferers of the liberal psychosis and other organically-racist bigots feel compelled to so note) male, (Although only sufferers of the liberal psychosis and other obsessively-sexist bigots are ever overwhelmed by the need to so discriminate) Republican: (Automatic with every higher than room-temperature IQ)] — Brian

>

You flatter yourself, Ben.

Your tangible bitterness in that regard — and as-palpable envy, hatred and latent rage — descends not from reason. But is definitively symptomatic of the liberal [Socialist] psychosis.

Blessings from [Older, (Although only sufferers of the liberal psychosis and other morbidly-age-discriminatory bigots feel compelled to make the distinction) "white," (Although only sufferers of the liberal psychosis and other organically-racist bigots feel compelled to so note) male, (Although only sufferers of the liberal psychosis and other obsessively-sexist bigots are ever overwhelmed by the need to so discriminate) Republican: (Automatic with every higher than room-temperature IQ)] — Brian

I’m lost what inconsistency you’re talking about, I haven’t raised any new points for about 10 posts, just responded to a desperate stream of attempts to misinterpret them.

As you might have already forgotten since only a few hours ago, I still haven’t made any statements about Cheney, but that’s right, I forgot, Ben isn’t me, it’s the looney left and all their conspiracies, which is why for some reason I’m bitter on old white male republicans, despite being old, white and male myself.

Would you like me to give you the standard and most obvious reasons why Cheney and Rove might be responsible, since I’m Straw Ben anyway? Or would you prefer to give the matter the few seconds thought that it requires and then pin it on me like it’s a conspiracy theory that I’m claiming mathematical levels of proof for?

Why am I even asking *if* you will do that, you’ve been doing it all along. You always do it. It’s only you who’s fooled into thinking it alters any facts out there in the world, though. You’re not going to be able to stop this indictment by all this quibbling, or make it less serious, or discredit the people pursuing it, just by quibbling and pooh-poohing it. All that does is put you in the blind and partisan Bush establishment worshipping camp you find it so lonely to be in these days.

What are your reasons for believeing that Cheney and Rove are responsible for the leak? Is it simply that they are old white male republicans in the Bush administration?

But I’m quite happy if you choose to use the word Ben to mean ‘People who characterize a viewpoint you would like to argue against, rather than any particular person or their viewpoint’.

I think I now understand why I’m so confused by your apparent argument with me – it’s not actually an argument with me at all! It’s with a fictional collection of views you’d like to characterize by associating them with me.

That’s cool. We can use it that way from now on. When you say Ben, you mean ‘Straw Ben, the archetypal pinko’.

Now that’s clear I can sign out of talking to you again, since it’s already been a real waste of time, and it’s only getting worse, as your whole pointlessly obvious ‘pigs may fly’ pedantry demonstrates. Feel free to continue with screeds of deeply philosophical statements of the bleeding obvious to justify the patently stupid. And PM can pad it out tenfold without the swearwords.

PM may speculate, but at least he does so with enough information to make his opinion worth something. Whereas your speculation is apparently based on a self invented fairytale about what the facts should be. The difference between you and PM, is the difference between arguing from a base of facts and arguing in complete ignorance and denial.

I mean, look at the questions you just posed, “Perhaps they didn’t fabricate evidence”, “Perhaps Rove and Cheny weren’t involved”. Your starting point is that they DID fabricate evidence, that Rove and Cheney ARE involved. But there is a distinct lack of irrefutable facts supporting these claims. To you, though, it doesnt seem to matter, you have decided who the bad guys are, and they are old white male republicans in the Bush administration.

Those perhapses do exist in phase space, in which pigs indeed can fly, but simply because they CAN exist, doesnt mean they are likely to exist, or that a rational person could expect them to exist. Based on the information that is available though, it is unlikely they do exist, but if you have information (or even a logically reasoned argument that doesnt rely on an unfounded belief that the people involved are corrupt, evil and unintelligent) that they exist then please provide it, you might change somebodies mind.

The fact that you say that pigs can fly in relation to the perhapses, shows what you truly think; those perhapses all go one way, and that is towards the negative. So you have really just provided opinions regarding a whole range of issues separate from Libby, ie Cheney is involved etc. Which kind of negates the most self-pitying part of your whinge.

‘Back to your “it took Fitzgerald 2 years to indict Libby – what are the chances he’s going to indict Rove in the next two months? Possible but unlikely” statement. Do you have any idea how loony that sounds? “Rove isn’t indicted now, and probably won’t be in the next two months, but one day there will be a day of reckoning”. Yeah right.‘

No, I don’t have any idea of how loony that sounds. Why does it sound loony?

And you’re right, I haven’t gone too far into the facts on this case, because it is really all just idle speculation at this point. We don’t know exactly what the grand jury did, what they will do, or what any of the hawks did or didn’t do.

Which is why I didn’t comment based on anything other than the well known fact that Libby has been indicted and faces jail. Everything else is speculation. Perhaps he didn’t lie to a grand jury. Perhaps they didn’t fabricate evidence. Perhaps they didn’t go after Wilson/Plame. Perhaps it isn’t technically against the law. Perhaps Rove and Cheny weren’t involved. Perhaps Nigeria was really trying to sell Saddam yellowcake. Perhaps the WMDs are hiding somewhere in Iraq. Perhaps pigs fly and perhaps you’ll admit all these perhapses go both ways.

You and your boring buddy PMs longwinded speculations and tedious poring over snippets of other people’s speculation are in the same speculative boat. He seemed to be intent on trying to get to the bottom of it with all the efficiency of a Thompson twin and you were content to chip in with abuse. Hence the satire. A regular Laurel and Hardy act. Keep it up, it’s all here in the permanent record for when we really do know what happened.

I can’t be arsed being dragged into trying to put odds on this stuff. I’m just happy at least one shitstick is feeling the consequences for almost the first time in this administration’s titanic list of costly blunders. And I’m content to be happy with it. You can make whatever silly bets you like and wriggle around with whatever evidence you can dig up. You can abuse me. It like water off a ducks back to be accused of being irrational by someone who can’t even use the search button on his browser to see if the statements he’s accusing of being irrational were ever made.

If a contract sells at 20 it means the odds are low. When the specified event occurs, the contract will expire at 100, and the profit 100-20 = 80 will go to you. Every tick is worth 10 USD cents, so in this case you will earn 8 USD.

If the specified event does not occur, the contract expires at 0. In that case you lose the difference, i.e. 0 – 20 = -20 = 2 USD.

When you bet a little money, i.e. 2USD in order to gain 8USD, the odds are against you.

You can also go short. In Rove’s case it means you sell a contract at 20. If the event occurs, you lose 8USD, if it does not you win 2 USD.

It’s a great site to test the loony predictions of the left. “Read the MSM and lose all your money” is my motto.

Back to your “it took Fitzgerald 2 years to indict Libby – what are the chances he’s going to indict Rove in the next two months? Possible but unlikely” statement. Do you have any idea how loony that sounds? “Rove isn’t indicted now, and probably won’t be in the next two months, but one day there will be a day of reckoning”. Yeah right.

Rove, Cheney and Bush HAVE NOT BEEN INDICTED, and it is only by reflexive anti-Bushitis that anyone could expect with certainty that they will be.

Oh, and Krugman? Jimmy’s credibility (RIP).

But I don’t really understand gambling – does someone who has a clue want to visit the Rove indictment page and tell me what the odds are?

It’s a site where people can take your opinion and bet on it. An opinion of “it could be yes, it could be no”, wouldn’t make them a dime, would it?

And the people who will take your opinion on matters of current affairs will lose dimes. Lots of them.

http://edstrong.blog-city.com/everything_the_bush_regime_touches_turns_to_crud.htm

Lets get one thing straight Crimes were comitted.

Nope. An indictment alleging a crime has been committed has returned. Crimes may have been committed but the courts require beyond reasonable doubt.

Libby is facing 10 years in jail, funny way of saying no crime comitted.

I don’t see anybody saying no crime committed. What has been pointed out over and again is that no crime appears to have been committed in the circumstances that led up to the Fitzgerald inquiry.

The very reason no one is facing charges under the Espionage or Identities Protection Acts is Libby’s lies.

Untrue. If Fitzgerald can prove that Libby was lying about what he told Russert, Cooper and Miller, then he can prove that Libby leaked the name. And whatever lies Libby may have told does not affect what Official A told Novak.

And if the Whitehouse had really cooperated then Cheny would have ordered his most important employee to cooperate fully or be sacked right now.

Except that Libby did co-operate by providing his notes, testifying before the grand jury twice and signing documents releasing journalists from their confidentiality agreements over a year ago. What more co-operation was Cheney expected to provide?

I wonder why Libby chose to lie away, to help his boss seems a good conclusion.

How does Libby lying about what he told reporters help Cheney in any way?

Rove was in the same position, until very late last week, when he suddenly had about of recovered memory and Fitzgerald held off indicting him in exactly the same way.

Categorically false and you have been corrected on this before. Rove was willing to testify again as far back as July but Fitzgerald wanted to wait until he had heard from the testimony of Cooper and Miller.

As for those who say no crime was committed,

Who are these people?

well the police here have a saying , we know who is responsible, we just cant get a jury to convict.

I dunno what part of the world you are from but the local police in NZ are at least able to describe the specific crime that they think was committed even if they don’t have the evidence to convict. With Cheney, nobody’s come up with anything.

The Directorate of Operations (DO) has primary responsibility for the clandestine collection of foreign intelligence, including human source intelligence (HUMINT). Domestically, the DDO is responsible for the collection of foreign intelligence volunteered by individuals and organizations in the United States.

Guess where Val worked , not in DI http://www.cia.gov/cia/di/org_chart_section.html
which analyses the intell, not in directorate of Support which does all the other back room stuff, no she was Counterproliferation division of the operations division.

You really are turning into a write-only poster as we’ve been over this before. Just because Valeria Plame worked in the DO does not mean that she was a NOC operative as not everybody that works in the DO are NOCs. Hence you cannot conclude that from the fact that her employment status was classified, that she was a NOC. The simple fact that Fitzgerald hasn’t charged either Libby, Offical A or anybody else with a violation of the IIP act indicates that Plame was not a NOC as both the NY Times and the WaPo
(among others) have deduced is likely to be the case over the past year.

Libby and Cheney knew all the details and Cheney got Libby to tell reporters in order to damage Val’s career.

Cheney told Libby on June 12th. Libby is alleged to have told Miller on June 23rd and July 8th, Russert on July 10th and Cooper on July the 12th about Valerie Plame. Despite this, it’s only through the efforts of Official A that the name actually appears in the Paper on the 18th. If I were Cheney and I said to Libby to leak the name then I would have fired him for mere incompetence.

As for Val’s career being damaged, it was already damaged by the antics of her husband, Joe Wilson.

.and Peter are you really the only person who doesn’t know who “official A” is?

Take remedial reading lessons and look up the meaning of “certain” as used in my statement:

Nobody knows for certain whether Official A is Rove.

Well, duh. It *was* your metaphor.

So you can’t tell the difference between a metaphor and the facts of the case?

“Nobody knows for certain whether Official A is Rove.”

Apart from people involved with the case, three of whom spoke to AP’s reporter and said it was.

Oh yes. Leaks. Considering the number of false leaks in this case, not to mention the falsity of Joe Wilson’s leaking, one can never have certainty of knowledge that Rove was Official A as I had originally said.

Me: “Rove returned to the Grand Jury after Cooper and Miller had given their testimony and has not relied on the memory defense.”

RBThat’s not what the WaPo and the LA Times say:

Again supposition, leaks and guesswork. There are other ways to defend against the making of false statements on the grounds of conflicting testimony than just the memory defense.

It would seem to be his main argument against being indicted.

“Seem” says it all.