What do you think of our current President?

[renrich]

The crime he was convicted of was perjury and he did not out a CIA agent. The agent had already been outed by someone else. He was an aid to the vice president, not the president. That whole deal was cooked up to get at the President by the dem party and the left wing media(which is most of them) Interesting that he was sentenced to jail for perjury and another fellow I am sure you are proud of committed the same crime and had nothing done to him but losing his law license.

[pbfoot]

Originally Posted by renrich

The crime he was convicted of was perjury and he did not out a CIA agent. The agent had already been outed by someone else. He was an aid to the vice president, not the president. That whole deal was cooked up to get at the President by the dem party and the left wing media(which is most of them) Interesting that he was sentenced to jail for perjury and another fellow I am sure you are proud of committed the same crime and had nothing done to him but losing his law license.

yeah OK
He was an assistant to the Pres whether it as Pres or other I'm not sure.

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by pbfoot

The crimes he was charged with then pardoned .He outed a CIA agent which is as low as you can go in my mind that is taking polotics too far, the guy should be stood up against the wall for that . Doesn't the President have a say as to who is aides are , as Libby was also his aide as well as Cheney.

Pbfoot,

What you have stated here is incorrect.

The special proscuter job was to find out who leaked the CIA agent. He found out who let the information out right away:

‘Novak dispels rumors that he asserted his Fifth Amendment right and made a plea bargain, stating: "I have cooperated in the investigation." He continues:

For nearly the entire time of his investigation, Fitzgerald knew — independent of me — the identity of the sources I used in my column of July 14, 2003. That Fitzgerald did not indict any of these sources may indicate his conclusion that none of them violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act....’

Armitage acknowledged that he had passed along to Novak information contained in a classified State Department memo: that Wilson's wife worked on weapons-of-mass-destruction issues at the CIA

According to Isikoff, as based on his sources, Armitage told Bob Woodward Plame's identity three weeks before talking to Novak, and Armitage himself was aggressively investigated by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, but was never charged because Fitzgerald found no evidence that Armitage knew of Plame's covert CIA status when he talked to Novak and Woodward.

Knowing the source, Armitage, and knowing there was no crime committed, the special prosecutor, Fitzgerald nevertheless continued his investigation.

But Mr. Armitage kept his actions secret, not even telling President Bush because the prosecutor asked him not to divulge it,

Now the special prosecutor was exploring for a new crime in which he could justify his world. He found a lacky , Libby, who, while testifying under special prosecuter pressure, made some contridictory and confusing statements.

The federal trial United States v. Libby began on January 16, 2007. On March 6, 2007, Libby was convicted on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements, and was acquitted of one count of making false statements.

Note here that he was not charged with outing Plame.

The CIA leak grand jury investigation did not result in the indictment or conviction of anyone for any crime in connection with the leak itself.”

The jury recognized that Libby was a fall guy

Another member of the jury, Ann Redington, who broke down and cried as the verdict was being read, also told Chris Matthews, in a March 7, 2007, appearance on Hardball, that she hoped Libby would eventually be pardoned by President Bush; she told Matthews that she believed Libby "got caught in a difficult situation where he got caught in the initial lie, and it just snowballed" and added: "It kind of bothers me that there was this whole big crime being investigated and he got caught up in the investigation as opposed to in the actual crime that was supposedly committed."”

This was a travesty of justice. No crime was committed, knowing this, the investigation continued anyway and caught an overworked staff member whom I am sure was stressed by the investigation. This almost smells of entrapment.

In March 2008, the Government Accountability Office revealed that the investigation had cost $2.58 million. The GAO also reported that "this matter is now concluded for all practical purposes."

All quotes came from wikipedia.

Pbfoot, is this the way your news sources reported this event?

[pbfoot]

I stand corrected but according to what I read or heard they've never really determined the source of the leak although Armitage fits the bill , I still feel Libby is as crooked as a dogs hind leg and the whole ordeal was just a payback for the witch hunt by Starr on the Clintons .

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by pbfoot

I stand corrected but according to what I read or heard they've never really determined the source of the leak although Armitage fits the bill , I still feel Libby is as crooked as a dogs hind leg and the whole ordeal was just a payback for the witch hunt by Starr on the Clintons .

Armitage was the guy. He admitted it, Novak admitted it, and I believe Woodward admitted it and that is what the investigation record shows. What sources are you using?

[Njaco]

the whole ordeal was just a payback for the witch hunt by Starr on the Clintons .

That about sums it all up!

[renrich]

Unfortunately, with the media largely made up from the far left, people like Libby wind up punished and pilloried in public and the sleaze bags associated with Clinton; Berger, the bunch from Arkansas and the Clintons themselves get off scott free. Then, uninformed and left inclined people go around repeating misinformation which is believed by the other uninformed people.

[davparlr]

Originally Posted by pbfoot

the whole ordeal was just a payback for the witch hunt by Starr on the Clintons .

Actually, I agree with this. While I believe what Clinton did (blatantly lie) was criminal, the fact that the Senate would never oust Clinton should have made the House not pursue impeachment. It was only to embarrass Clinton and, in reality, stressed out and agitated everyone to no overall good of the nation.

[pbfoot]

Originally Posted by davparlr

Armitage was the guy. He admitted it, Novak admitted it, and I believe Woodward admitted it and that is what the investigation record shows. What sources are you using?

I used a few trying to stay away from sites that are to far right or left.. I initially used Wiki but that just got me pointed in the direction to check out other sources. I find it hard to get the actual truth because a lot of the sources are so polarized , as for the news sources here it wasn't a major story
I try to keep an open mind and read both sides unlike some.
I do believe the US people were sold a bill of goods ref Iraq if it wasn't for that I think Bush was a fair pres as you indicated in your report card.

[renrich]

I cannot understand how people who are open minded believe that the War in Iraq, the removal of Saddam, the overwhelming number of voters in Iraq, the beginnings of democracy in that country and the capture of and killings of many terrorists both from Iraq and from outside that country is a bad thing. The reports that I hear seem to indicate that the vast majority of the troops over there support the mission wholeheartedly. Also, recent reports on reenlistment rates for US military indicate that the troops believe in what we are doing there. How can a free and democratic Iraq, allied with us and providing a base for our military in that unstable but vital region of the world be a bad thing?

[pbfoot]

I didn't realize the invasion of Iraq was to bring them into the fold of democratic countries my error . I thought is because of WMD

[freebird]

Originally Posted by renrich

How can a free and democratic Iraq, allied with us and providing a base for our military in that unstable but vital region of the world be a bad thing?

It would be great Ren, and I doubt that it will happen. Soon you will have a government there in which Sadr is involved or has major influence.

These people {muslim hardline clerics} have close to zero interest in being "free & democratic", or being "allied with us"

Originally Posted by renrich

I cannot understand how people who are open minded believe that the beginnings of democracy in that country is a bad thing.

It's nice to be optimistic.

Here's a cold hard truth.

Former colonies, developing countries in Africa & Asia, and former league of nation mandates have about a 95% failure rate.

My criteria:

Free & democratic - with functioning democratic institutions, without rampant corruption & voting fraud

Allies in the war on terror - self explanitary

Stable - should be for at least 40 or 50 years without genocide, coups, rigged elections, civil war, juntas, mass violence, etc.

Note that this does not include "developed nations" in Europe or Australia, NZ, Canada, Israel, Japan etc.

The list of countries that fail this test is just about every country in Africa, Arabia & Asia.

[renrich]

To say that the efforts in Iraq are not worthwhile because not many WMDs were found is the same as saying "I am a left wing idealogue and no amount of good results in Iraq will make me give any credit to the present admininistration." The record shows that the previous administration also said on many occasions that Saddam needed to be removed as well as many other world leaders. As far as success in Iraq is judged, there are a number of relatively stable democratic type governments in the Middle East that can be counted on in most circumstances to be friendly to the interests of the western democracies. No one with any judgment at all would say that the situation in the Middle East has any easy solutions but this world will be relying on oil for the foreseeable future and a stable situation in that oil rich region is to be desired. Most observers thought the democratic experiment in the USA would fail also!

[pbfoot]

Originally Posted by renrich

As far as success in Iraq is judged, there are a number of relatively stable democratic type governments in the Middle East that can be counted on in most circumstances to be friendly to the interests of the western democracies. !

Please name them aside from Israel . Turkey a possibility if you discount military coups.

[freebird]

Originally Posted by renrich

To say that the efforts in Iraq are not worthwhile because not many WMDs were found is the same as saying "I am a left wing idealogue and no amount of good results in Iraq will make me give any credit to the present admininistration." The record shows that the previous administration also said on many occasions that Saddam needed to be removed as well as many other world leaders.

I disagree Ren, I think people can have a legitimate argument that the war in Iraq was too costly, and shouldn't have been done. THAT ARGUMENT is not one that I agree with, I don't have a problem with Bush removing Saddam from power, but the actions after that have been badly screwed up.

Originally Posted by renrich

As far as success in Iraq is judged, there are a number of relatively stable democratic type governments in the Middle East that can be counted on in most circumstances to be friendly to the interests of the western democracies.

Which countries would that be then? {other than Israel of course}

Would it be Jordan which had gone over a decade since elections after the executive suspended many legislative rights in 2001?

Democracy In Jordan?

Here and Now : Democracy in Jordan? - 6/21/2005

Or Egypt where the 2 main opposition leaders from the 2005 election were either jailed or fled the country?

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/17/wo...=1&oref=slogin

Yemen? Saudi Arabia which supplies money for terrorists?

[quote]No one with any judgment at all would say that the situation in the Middle East has any easy solutions but this world will be relying on oil for the foreseeable future and a stable situation in that oil rich region is to be desired. Most observers thought the democratic experiment in the USA would fail also![/QUOTE]

Yep, no Thomas Jeffersons over there.

As I said Ren I don't have a problem with Bush ousting Saddam. In fact I applaud him for taking that bold step.

However the knock against Bush before he became prez was that he was weak on foreign policy. Cheney & Rummy & Wolf were supposed to compensate for this and have totally failed. Bush is the top guy and ultimately he is responsible

They should have known that democracy was near impossible for Iraq, and had a better plan. Bush's stubborn nature has not helped, he is unwilling to admit a mistake and chart a different course. There is no shame in this, many good leaders have changed policy to improve things, from Eisenhower Lincoln & and many others