Month: October 2005

For Immediate Release

DEMRadio Progressive Talk Coming to the Blogosphere

DEMBloggers.com and The Revolution To Air New Talk Radio Online and Over the Air

(ASHEVILLE, NC — Oct. 19, 2005) — DEMBloggers.com, one of the most influential progressive blogs in America, announced today that it is partnering with The Revolution 880AM radio to launch progressive talk show, “DEMRadio.” The program will launch at DEMBloggers.com on November 19th, with a launch date on The Revolution 880AM to be determined. DEMRadio features lively and dynamic political conversation led by three co-hosts, Brian Hopkins, Gordon Smith, and John Fletcher. Topics will touch on affairs at the national, state, and local levels with the three friends and progressives using the platform to represent the Democratic Party as they envision it.

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Friday’s New York Times tells us that Karl Rove and Lewis “Scooter” Libby are definite targets of Fitztgerald’s investigation of the Plame leak.

They may not be busted on the most serious offenses, but it’s likely they will be indicted on lesser offenses that would still ruin their political careers, seeing them frog-marched right out of Washington.

WASHINGTON, Oct. 20 – As he weighs whether to bring criminal charges in the C.I.A. leak case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel, is focusing on whether Karl Rove, the senior White House adviser, and I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, sought to conceal their actions and mislead prosecutors, lawyers involved in the case said Thursday.

Among the charges that Mr. Fitzgerald is considering are perjury, obstruction of justice and false statement – counts that suggest the prosecutor may believe the evidence presented in a 22-month grand jury inquiry shows that the two White House aides sought to cover up their actions, the lawyers said.

Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby have been advised that they may be in serious legal jeopardy, the lawyers said, but only this week has Mr. Fitzgerald begun to narrow the possible charges. The prosecutor has said he will not make up his mind about any charges until next week, government officials say.

According to the NYT article, it is still quite possible that someone may be charged with espionage. Fitzgerald’s people are mum on the speculation though.

Blogger Matthew Gross thinks that Wurmser and Hannah are the most likely leakers, thus the rumours that they’ve both turned on their higher-ups who orchestrated the conspiracy.

Meanwhile, back at the conscience-challenged White House ranch, Bush referred to the investigation as background noise. I guess that’s what it sounds like when you hold your hands over your ears like a toddler and scream “I can’t hear you! La la la.”

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Scooter and Judy, cut the whining about coercion and rights! You’re a couple of liars who only respond to hardcore proof — like Secret Service logs, writes this year’s Woodward & Bernstein-rolled-into-one, Murray Waas:

New York Times reporter Judith Miller told the federal grand jury in the CIA leak case that she might have met with I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby on June 23, 2003 only after prosecutors showed her Secret Service logs that indicated she and Libby had indee met that day in the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House, according to attorneys familiar with her testimony.

ReddHedd has a professional’s insights into this story at FireDogLake. In Crap! Those Pesky Records! — with the background as a public defender of criminals in federal prosecutiions — he writes that “[i]n this particular matter, what Judy and Scooter forgot is that they are dealing with a professional [Fitzgerald].”

Not some slackass, just out of law school, wet behind the ears kid. Not some political social climber who would sell his mother for a Senate seat or a nomination to the Federal bench. Not some guy who was going to phone it in because he didn’t want to piss off the high and mighty and powerful. This guy is a professional prosecutor, who does his job. Period.

You don’t prosecute the Gambinos, Sheik Omar Abdel Rachman, Osama Bin Laden and former Governor Ryan of Illinois just for kicks. Those cases are all long, hard slogs, and potentially very deadly to your career as well as your person.

And when you do your job, you find things like this: all government buildings after 9/11 (and even before 9/11 in a lot of cases) require that you sign in and out. That goes double for buildings where you have the potential for someone being around national security documents or highly placed government officials, because you don’t want something disappearing without some written record of who has had access to the building. You follow the paper trail, the evidence in hand, the usual patterns of behavior, and sometimes even your gut — but it is the little details that nail someone to the wall.

During her first go at her testimony, Judy was evasive and could not recall whether or not she had ever met with Scooter on June 23rd, when asked specifically about this by the Special Prosecutor. (Note to witnesses: If the prosecutor is asking you about a date certain, he has something that he will nail your ass with unless you are completely truthful. Keep that in mind in the future.)

Perry Mason would have LOVED this:

A gotcha moment can be a rare and beautiful one for any attorney, and usually occurs over some very specific detail on which you can hang the person on the stand. But it is almost always a detail that the witness thought was so insignificant that no one would ever bother with it in a million years.

Wrong.

For Judy Miller, that detail was a Secret Service log from June 23, 2003. It showed her entering and exiting the Executive Office Building adjacent to the White House to meet with Scooter Libby.

ReddHedd’s riff on the Waas revelations is a must-read. It’s long, but worth it. And I loved this part:

My read on all of this is that Scooter is in very big trouble. And Judy is on a very, very short leash. If Fitz finds out that she has lied about anything else, held back anything, tried to cover for anyone else’s ass, she’s toast.

Billmon also adds spin to this story:

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Since this seems to be Judy Miller Day at Booman, I’ll post this diary, adapted from my “log entry” on my blog, Dreaming Up Daily (http://dreamingup.blogspot.com)

The Times was given a challenge it can’t refuse by its rival New York paper, the Daily News yesterday. But to understand the import of that Wednesday challenge, it’s necessary to remember what the Times printed on Sunday.

There were three important pieces on the Plame affair in Sunday’s New York Times, though only two got a lot of attention: the staff story about Times reporter Judy Miller and her jailing, and Miller’s own piece about her testimony.

But the third piece was Frank Rich’s column, when he took a step back and zeroed in on the underlying crime, the campaign to sell the Iraq war to the American people, Congress and the world.

—more–

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We take the 50 state strategy seriously.

No race uncontested. No wingnut politician with a free-pass.

The 50 state strategy means 435 contested House races with good candidates. It means 33 (or 34) contested Senate races with good candidates. It means every Governor race, every state race, every local race CONTESTED with good candidates.

No shying away from any issue. No point conceded. No labelling of our people or our message by the right wing without full, and complete defense, and quickly turning it into offense. There are no Red states, only Blue states and “currently Red” states.

We spent 90 days in spring 04 finding candidates, and frankly that was too late.
For ’06, THE TIME IS NOW!

As that announcer guy says….

LET’S GET READY TO RUMMMMMM-BLE!

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