I've found that only a divided government can really compromise to actually deliver smart legislation. When the US last balanced the budget we had a Democrat Pres, and a Republican majority in congress. The time Before that we had a Republican president and a Democratic majority in congress.
Not that this is any indicator of success for Canadian politics, but that there is an alternative to the lame duck government.
We had a minority last time, and yes, they got quite a lot done, but the only reason it worked is because the NDP was willing to work with the Liberals on stuff. Somehow I just can't fathom the idea of the NDP and the Liberals making anything easy for the Conservatives. As for the Bloc, they only teamed up with the Tories last time because at the time they hated the Liberals more than them.
And after the Cons screwed around with the Bloc, and used them and all that. I highly doubt the Bloc are going to be helping them out.
It was revealed last week that Dick Cheney's former chief-of-staff Scooter Libby has dropped a dime on the vice president. Libby testified under oath that he was authorized to disclose classified information "by his superiors," according to a letter written by prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.
That loud whirring you hear emanating from the direction of Washington D.C. is the sound of Cheney's pacemaker going into overdrive: if this information is true, then his next undisclosed location could well be a federal prison. Or perhaps Guantanamo Bay - I believe that's where they're supposed to keep enemies of the state these days. Hey, if he's really unlucky, Cheney could end up being "extraordinarily renditioned" to some black hole in Uzbekistan. Don't worry Dick. After all, it's not really torture, right?
This news comes hot on the heels of fresh information revealing that, despite loud assertions to the contrary, Valerie Plame was an undercover agent after all. According to Newsweek, "Plame had indeed done 'covert work overseas' on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA 'was making specific efforts to conceal' her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion."
Um, Cycle? Look further down in the letter.
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Libby has never claimed that Cheney encouraged him to disclose information about Plame to the media.
So Cheney is ruled out of the 'superiors' group. Besides, here's a question: Who decides what is classified and what is not? If Cheney is Vice-President, can't he decide on his own authority to release classified information? And what about other White House "superiors" to Libby? Who's that? Cheney? Bush? Rove?
Doesn't President Bush get to decide what's classified and what is not? (BTW, the answer is yes.)
Besides...it is a bit of a moot point to begin with.
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If Libby knowingly disclosed information about Plame's status with the CIA, Libby would appear to have violated Title 18, United States Code, Section 793 if the information is considered "information respecting national defense." In order to establish a violation of Title 50, United States Code 421, it would be necessary to establish that Libby knew or believed that Plame was a person whose identity the CIA was making specific efforts to conceal and who has carried out cover work overseas within the last 5 years. To date, we have no direct evidence that Libby knew or believed that Wilson's wife was engaged in covert work. [emphasis added]
Fitzgerald Affidavit of August 27, 2004 - FN 15 on Page 28
Much ado about nothing.
Sorry Plame, but it's kind of hard to call yourself a 'covert' operative when you drive to Langley five times a week. How could this woman have been covert being married to an ambassador? It's bunk. To be outed, you have to be stationed IN ANOTHER COUNTRY within the last five years, not making plane trips to that country once in a blue moon.
Even her former boss said all she really did was corporate spying. Heck, even the Newsweek article you linked to (the very part you quoted!) says the following:
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But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done "covert work overseas" on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA "was making specific efforts to conceal" her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion.
How special. Fitzgerald is an absolutely horrible prosecutor. This case is going nowhere.
Before these articles Cycle, we already knew:
1. Fitzgerald did not charge Libby with violating the 1982 law banning the outing of a covert CIA agent.
2. Libby did tell Miller about Plame.
Pick one:
3a. Plame was not a covert agent.
or
3b. Plame was a covert agent but Libby didn't know it.
Congratulations. If you are correct, then you've added another piece to the puzzle. Now, all I need to know from you is what makes you think this new information damages Libby's defense?
And even so, granting Isikoff's premise (which I'm not sold on whatsoever, but for the sake of argument), does this mean Joseph Wilson is subject to prosecution for allegedly disclosing Plame's background to several witnesses? Would Bob Woodward also be subject to prosecution if he discussed it with anyone? Nicholas Kristof? And so on and so forth.
Isikoff is making stuff up. If the article actually WAS true and Plame WAS covert, Joe Wilson should have taught his kids to say "Daddy is famous and mommy is a SUPER secret spy". 
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So Cheney is ruled out of the 'superiors' group.
Incorrect analysis. Just because someone has not claimed something doesn't mean it didn't happen. No one that is above Libby is ruled out of the "superiors group" unless Libby has claimed that the superior did not say something--and even then the person(s) wouldn't be ruled out due to a lovely thing called "lying."
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Sorry Plame, but it's kind of hard to call yourself a 'covert' operative when you drive to Langley five times a week. How could this woman have been covert being married to an ambassador? It's bunk. To be outed, you have to be stationed IN ANOTHER COUNTRY within the last five years, not making plane trips to that country once in a blue moon.
I won't claim to be an expert on espionage, but I don't see how the number of times a person is within a country matters. Not all conversations between agents would occur outside the U.S.--a lot of it occurs within our own borders. I also don't see how being married to an ambassador negates being a covert agent. I'm sure covert agents are married to plenty of different types of people. The whole marriage bit you'll have to do a much better job of explaining the significance (though I'd think as part of doing "spying" work that her real identity including stuff about her spouse, wouldn't be known to those she's talking to undercover).
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Even her former boss said all she really did was corporate spying.
So? Spying = spying. Covert = covert. Either she is covert or she isn't. Considering we have to follow the money when it comes to finding out who is attempting to buy/sell things, corporate spying is important too.
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Now, all I need to know from you is what makes you think this new information damages Libby's defense?
Cycle wasn't talking about Libby anywhere. He was talking about Dick Cheney and how this revelation may affect Cheney as he has zeroed in on Cheney as the superior in question. I do agree with you only on the point that Cheney isn't the only possible superior so I'll hold off until more info comes out before pinning the superior thing on Cheney (though you can't say picking Cheney would be totally off the mark as a guess).
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If the article actually WAS true and Plame WAS covert, Joe Wilson should have taught his kids to say "Daddy is famous and mommy is a SUPER secret spy".
Why?
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Incorrect analysis. Just because someone has not claimed something doesn't mean it didn't happen. No one that is above Libby is ruled out of the "superiors group" unless Libby has claimed that the superior did not say something--and even then the person(s) wouldn't be ruled out due to a lovely thing called "lying."
Given the attention on Libby (and the fact his statement was given under oath, IIRC) as of late, I doubt he'd want to add another count of perjury to the list of offenses he's been indicted of.
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I won't claim to be an expert on espionage, but I don't see how the number of times a person is within a country matters. Not all conversations between agents would occur outside the U.S.--a lot of it occurs within our own borders. I also don't see how being married to an ambassador negates being a covert agent. I'm sure covert agents are married to plenty of different types of people. The whole marriage bit you'll have to do a much better job of explaining the significance (though I'd think as part of doing "spying" work that her real identity including stuff about her spouse, wouldn't be known to those she's talking to undercover).
Think about it TR. If Plame was in fact covert, then wouldn't this case have been done with by now? The moment that Fitz concluded Plame was not covert and no crime in that regard had been committed, the investigation should have ended. Fitz could have concluded and ended this 'investigation' on day one after having receiving confirmation from someone at the CIA that her employment was not covert and not classified. Whomever she reported to would know her status. No other interviews with anyone (including Libby) would have been necessary.
Based on what I've read, continuation of the investigation beyond this point is justified by Fitz's defining, (or re-defining) , the word 'classified' as not whether Plame was covert, but instead, defining 'classified' as the mere fact that she worked for the CIA, regardless of status.
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Cycle wasn't talking about Libby anywhere. He was talking about Dick Cheney and how this revelation may affect Cheney as he has zeroed in on Cheney as the superior in question. I do agree with you only on the point that Cheney isn't the only possible superior so I'll hold off until more info comes out before pinning the superior thing on Cheney (though you can't say picking Cheney would be totally off the mark as a guess).
Considering the amount of people that were actually superior in rank to Libby within the Administration, the power to declassify classified material would be something they would have.
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Why?
Just from frustrated sarcasm. This case has gone on far longer than it needed to.
And in any case, from this:
THE MEDIA TELLS THE COURT: PLAME'S COVER WAS BLOWN IN THE MID-1990s As the media alleged to the judges (in Footnote 7, page 8, of their brief), Plame's identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a spy in Moscow. Of course, the press and its attorneys were smart enough not to argue that such a disclosure would trigger the defense prescribed in Section 422 because it was evidently made by a foreign-intelligence operative, not by a U.S. agency as the statute literally requires.
She never worked covert after Ames outed her. The statute never applied in this case.
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If Plame was in fact covert, then wouldn't this case have been done with by now?
No, because I remember that Clinton was supposedly being investigated for money issues and it somehow became a case about obstruction of justice and perjury. Ironically, Fitzgerald's case started as an outing thing and has turned into an obstruction of justice and perjury case. I find this as basically a repeat of what went on during Clinton's presidency.
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Considering the amount of people that were actually superior in rank to Libby within the Administration, the power to declassify classified material would be something they would have.
And that has what to do with a superior ordering Libby to talk about Plame with reporters how?
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This case has gone on far longer than it needed to.
Not based on what was established with Clinton it hasn't.
This case has gone on far longer than it needed to.
Said the guy who thinks they should revisit Roe v. Wade.
Well True Red, I'm not exactly privy to the case with Clinton you're referring to, as I was rather young at the time (and I only gained an interest in politics within the last few years, starting in 2003), so I can't really comment on any similarities these two cases may have.
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And that has what to do with a superior ordering Libby to talk about Plame with reporters how?
Adding up that:
A) Plame was not a covert agent, therefore could not be outed.
And,
B) Libby's superiors have the power to declassify classified material.
This would equal a non-story. The only thing left to consider about this case would be the charges of perjury that occured after the fact.
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Said the guy who thinks they should revisit Roe v. Wade.
Drastically different cases on drastically different issues. Abortion is a matter that should be left to the states, not the federal government.
Abortion is a matter that should be left to the states, not the federal government.
A thousand apologies for dragging this off-topic, but it has to be said:
Man, what?
The major differences between Libby and Clinton is the accused.
People are trying to get to the administration through Libby, instead of people trying to get the administration directly by attacking shady real estate deals and Clinton lying under oath to congress. "I did not have sexual relationsh with that woman." I'm glad that oral sex is no longer considered part of "sexual relations".
Clinton was not impeached for whitewater, he did go through the impeachment process for lying to congress.
Jimro
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Man, what?
10th Amendment.
A little background on US history.
The framers of the Constitution believed in a "limited Federal government" that would be supreme within it's sphere, but the general government of day to day life would be the responsibility of the states, and that disputes between the states would be settled by the Feds.
This is why up until the Civil War all military units were State organizations, like the 1st Maine or the 3rd Wisconsin. Today the military assets of a State in the form of the National Guard can be taken away by Presidential whim, even tho the National Guard came into being long after the Civil War.
The reason why the Federal government was given broader powers under the Constitution than it was under the Articles of Confederation was that the Fed gov was inneffectual in mediating economic disputes between states under the Articles of Confederation.
However, the broader powers granted to the Fed Gov by the Constitution were tempered by the Bill of Rights, which the Framers intended to reserve the rights NOT SPECIFICALLY GRANTED TO THE FED GOV to the States and the People. Basically a limited sphere of governement for the Feds, anything not SPECIFICALLY ALLOWED is forbidden.
We see that the Bill of Rights has been ineffective in reigning in the Federal Government on many occaisions, from the "Trail of Tears" to Vietnam.
Jimro
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The only thing left to consider about this case would be the charges of perjury that occured after the fact.
Bingo. That is the case and the similarity I was referring to was mentioned my Jimro when he said:
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Clinton was not impeached for whitewater, he did go through the impeachment process for lying to congress.
My understanding of the Libby situation is that he's being prosecuted for originally lying to the grand jury. The situations are different as well as many other issues, but both were ("are" in Libby's case since it hasn't technically happened yet) prosecuted for lying in the end--nothing else.
10th Amendment.
I've never understood this obsession with confederation in the US. How do 50 smaller governments actually benefit the populace, or indeed ensure fair and equitable treatment for the populace? The only reason to do it is so you can subtly vary the law in 50 different places, which to me is inconsistent with enforcing rights and liberty.
Does a person in Ottowa need to have a say in Vancouver politics?
Jimro
Since when was abortion a municipal issue?
Since abortion was an issue not originally mentioned in the Constitution, the power to legalize abortion is a matter for the state governments to deal with, and not the federal government. The only exception would be a constitutional amendmant legalizing or banning abortion, and there is not.
Walter Cronkite:
I hope we all get along as we go along. I expect that occasionally we'll have some differences of opinion. I expect to be provocative.
After more than 60 years as a journalist, I have some ideas about the state of our nation, of our world, of our culture, and I wouldn't be true to the purpose of a column if I didn't vent them here.
My hope is that you will find my commentary interesting, informative, perhaps occasionally amusing (deliberately, that is) and, at all times, fair and as unbiased as it is possible for opinion to be.
You are going to disagree with me from time to time; I'll be disappointed if you don't. That fulfills the provocative requirement of a column like this.
When the nation was deeply divided over the Vietnam War, we at CBS got a lot of mail complaining about our coverage. I was disturbed until we found out that the number of letters condemning us as being government lackeys in support of the war almost precisely balanced those condemning us as being sympathetic to the war protesters. I relaxed with the simple philosophy that if you are being shot at from both sides, you must be in the middle.
Let's face this one down right now: I'm neither Republican nor Democrat. I'm a registered independent because I find that I cast my votes not on the basis of party loyalty but on the issues of the moment and my assessment of the candidates. Basically, I'm a fiscal conservative and a social liberal, but those who rabidly support those positions will be more often disappointed in my views than otherwise.
I believe that most of us reporters are liberal, but not because we consciously have chosen that particular color in the political spectrum.
More likely it is because most of us served our journalistic apprenticeships as reporters covering the seamier side of our cities -- the crimes, the tenement fires, the homeless and the hungry, the underclothed and undereducated.
We reached our intellectual adulthood with daily close-ups of the inequality in a nation that was founded on the commitment to equality for all. So we tend to side with the powerless rather than the powerful.
If that is what makes us liberals, so be it, just as long as in reporting the news we adhere to the first ideals of good journalism -- that news reports must be fair, accurate and unbiased.
That clearly doesn't apply when one deserts the front page for the editorial page and the columns to which opinion should be isolated.
The perceived liberalism of television reporters, I am convinced, is a product of the limited time given for any particular item. The reporter desperately tries to get all the important facts and essential viewpoints into his or her piece but, against a fast-approaching deadline, he or she must summarize in a sentence the complicated story.
That is where the slippage occurs and the summary too frequently, without intention, seems to emphasize one side or the other.
The answer to that problem, as with much else in television news, is in more time for the dominant evening newscasts.
In our ever-more complicated and confusing world, those newscasts need an hour.
Incidentally, I looked up the definition of "liberal" in a Random House dictionary. It gave the synonyms for "liberal" as "progressive," "broad-minded," "unprejudiced," "beneficent."
The antonyms it offered: "reactionary" and "intolerant."
I've always suspected those fine folks at Random House of being liberals. You just can't trust anybody these days.
And an antonym for "conservative" is "destructive".
Jimro
