Author: Dean Pajevic

MSNBC’s Don Imus and CNN are buzzin’ about the new story on Tim Russert’s involvement in the CIA Leak case. Imus joked about Russert’s possible indictment (then slipped in that his little boy Wyatt likes Tim who gives him lots of toys). Cozy.

Libby’s testimony stated that Rove had told him about his contact with Novak and that Libby had told Rove about information he had gotten about Wilson’s wife from NBC’s Tim Russert, according to a person familiar with the information shown to Rove, (AP/CNN, Oct. 20, 2005; 6:32 a.m. EDT)

The sources are “people directly familiar with testimony the two witnesses gave” who also said that, during his grand jury testimony, “Rove was shown testimony from Libby suggesting the two had discussed with each other information they had gotten about Wilson’s wife from reporters in early July 2003.”

One problem is that, according to MSNBC TV today, Russert’s testimony shows that he talked to Libby a week after Libby spoke with Rove.

And, unlike the Matt Cooper case, there may not be a “smoking gun” in the form of an e-mail from or to Russert. From the WSJ on July 11, 2005:

Newsweek magazine reported that among Mr. Cooper’s notes was an email he sent to one of his editors describing a conversation with Mr. Rove a few days before columnist Robert Novak first identified Valerie Plame as a CIA agent in print [on July 13, 2003].

It’s critical to keep in mind that if Matt Cooper hadn’t sent that e-mail, he’d have been in a stronger position to resist Judge Hogan and Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald.

This story could be partially recycled news. From the July 23, 2005 WaPo story, “Testimony By Rove and Libby Examined” — in which the sources were “lawyers in the case and witness statements”:

“Libby has testified that he learned about Plame from NBC correspondent Tim Russert, according to a source who spoke with The Washington Post some months ago. Russert said in a statement last year that he told the prosecutor that “he did not know Ms. Plame’s name or that she was a CIA operative” and that he did not provide such information to Libby in July 2003. […]

The possible conflicts in the accounts given by Russert and Libby were first reported yesterday by Bloomberg News.

Russert’s silence is strange because, after all, he is a “journalist.” … More below:

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Tonight — at 10pm ET — the politics- and news-charged satirical cartoon, “South Park,” begins its ninth season of, as Yahoo TV guide puts it innocently enough, “The adventures of four boys who live in South Park, Colorado.”

Along with the happy news that Comedy Central plans to carry its top-rated show “into infinity,” the New York Times offers up a tribute to tonight’s premiere and its creators. Oh, and that “into infinity” phrase is not a quote from a CC executive; that’s the Times’s description of the show’s possible longevity.

“Eight years of tackling up-to-the-minute issues like the search for Osama bin Laden, the controversy over Mel Gibson’s “‘Passion of the Christ’ and the right-to-die questions raised by the court battle over Terri Schiavo have elevated Mr. Parker and Mr. Stone to a position as opinion arbiters: viewers count on divisive, newsworthy topics getting the ‘South Park’ treatment.

“Mr. Stone and Mr. Parker bristle … ‘Now it’s like, ‘What’s “South Park” going to do this week about Hurricane Katrina?” Mr. Stone said. ‘I don’t know what we’re going to do. …’ (They may complain, but they can’t help themselves: on tonight’s episode, a beaver dam breaks, causing a flood in a neighboring town. Assigning blame becomes the top priority.)”

Who’s your favorite character?

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See Keith Olbermann jump for joy! Crooks & Liars has the actual video of Keith emoting after reporting that [B]Ill O’Reilly may call it quits!

Tonight, KeithO is on the CIA Leak case and how Pres. Bush “made his displeasure known” to Karl Rove two years ago. “He made his life miserable about this,” says Keith in his daily newsletter, citing the NY Daily News story that has everybody buzzing, including FireDogLake‘s Jane Hamsher, via Salon‘s Daou Report.

… OPEN THREAD! (We — the royal we — forgot about Scottie’s Open Thread today. Sorry, Scottie. But even C-SPAN preempted you for a House vote.)

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As MSNBC reporter David Shuster gave his latest report on the CIA leak case, I madly jotted down names of those from V.P. Cheney’s office under the most intense scrutiny, including John Hannah, WHIG member Mary Matalin and two names new to me in connection with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation — David Wurmser and Cathie Martin.

Who wants to bet that David Wurmser was one of Judy Miller’s best buds? Raw Story has also just revealed that Wurmser is the second flipper in the case, following John Hannah.

And Mrs. Martin? She’s married to Kevin Martin, the current head of the FCC, appointed by Bush in March of this year. (See “All Shook Up: Martin Remakes FCC.”) Mrs. Martin, who previously served as “vice president Dick Cheney’s chief spokesperson, is now a special assistant to the president on economic matters.” (Advanced Pipeline, via Nag) There’s much more about Cathie Martin below the fold, including an interview of her with Seymour Hersh on Cheney’s awareness of Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger.

David Wurmser:

• Update: See “As the Wurmser Turns (Second Aide Known to Have Flipped),” an excellent diary by jorndorff at Daily Kos.
  

• RightWeb bio:
  
  
  
  • Office of the Vice President: Middle East Adviser
    
    
  • U.S. Committee for a Free Lebanon: Board member
    
    
  • Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies: Former director
    
  • American Enterprise Institute: Former fellow

  
  Government Posts/Panels/Commissions
  
  
  

  • Office of the Vice-President: Middle East Adviser (2003-current) (1)
    
    
  • U.S. Department of State: Special Adviser to Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security (2001-2003) (1)
    
  • U.S. Institute of Peace: Project Officer (1988-1994) (2)

  
  Note: RightWeb has much more on Wurmser.
  

  
  

• According to Raw Story, Joseph Wilson suggested Wurmser as a possible source of the leak: “‘John Hannah and David Wurmser, mid-level political appointees in the vice-president’s office, have both been suggested as sources of the leak …Mid-level officials, however, do not leak information without the authority from a higher level,’ Wilson notes.”
  

  
  

• “AMY GOODMAN: And Mike MALUF, the man who was working with Richard Perle?” [From her interview on November 6th, 2003, “As Occupation Worsens, White House Tries to Blame CIA For Rejecting Iraqi Offer on Eve of War.”]
  

  
  MICHAEL ISIKOFF: Mr. Maluf has lost his security clearance. He has been petitioning to try to get it back and this incident in his dealings with Mr. Hajj have been — have been cited as a reason for continuing to deny him his security clearance. Mr. MALUF did play a pretty important role in the run-up to the war in Iraq.-He and a colleague, then colleague of his, David Wurmser who has since gone on to work for vice president Dick Cheney, were the two people who were sort of culling through intelligence files, looking for evidence of Iraqi ties to Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations and that Intelligence became quite influential.-That analysis, the Maluf-Wurmser analysis became quite influential within the pentagon and was being cited by a lot of pentagon officials as evidence to make the case for war.-So you have sort of — You know, even cross agendas within Mr. Maluf that don’t quite add up here.-
  

  
  

• [From Amy Goodman’s interview of former CIA analyst Melvin Goodman and Mother Jones reporter Robert Dreyfuss — who discuss George Tenet’s speech and examine the role of the Pentagon’s secretive Office of Special Plans in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq — on February 6, 2004, “CIA’s Tenet: Iraq Posed No Imminent Threat; Hunt for WMD Must Go On.”]
  

  
  ROBERT DREYFUSS: … So what happened is right after 9-11, they brought in a guy named David Wurmser who was the director of Middle East policy for the American Enterprise Institute [where] Richard Perle and Newt Gingrich and others hang their hats when they are not out causing mischief.

  And Wurmser and a colleague began trying to find ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda. This is immediately in the aftermath of the attack, so it was an explosive issue and they started producing evidence not only linking Iraq to Al Qaeda, which we now know was false and which the CIA all along believed was false. But they also started linking Iraq and Al Qaeda to weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and trying to create a case that Iraq was a threat to the United States.

  This group officially took form in the late summer of 2002 as The Office of Special Plans. They brought in ideologues from their fraternity and then led by Abram Schultzski, [a] defense policy person.

  The important thing about all of these people is that none of them were intelligence experts. In fact, they purged and forced them to retirement, as my article details, people who in the Pentagon were long-time intelligence experts, long-time Middle East specialists and Iraq experts. And they brought in to replace them greater and greater numbers of people who were not capable of looking at the vast mounds of intelligence.

  You know, any intelligence conclusion, as Mel Goodman knows better than anyone, involves thousands or tens of thousands of bits of information and a lot of them are going to be contradictory. Some will be based on lies or, you know, misstatements, mistakes, error, all kinds of forged documents. And a professional intelligence analyst can look at that pile [and] reach, hopefully, something like a conclusion.

  What this group did was the exact opposite. They picked all of the information out of that mound which justified going to war. …

MORE below on Wurmser, and newly added info on Cathie Martin:

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A Warwick, NY high school student — and member of the Bruderhof community — created this stunning graphic for his school’s newspaper. From the Oct. 18 Times Herald-Record:

   Set on a backdrop of neat rows of tombstones, a full-page ad in October’s The Survey, Warwick Valley High School’s monthly student-run newspaper, reads:

    “You can’t be all that you can be if you’re dead. There are other ways to serve your country. There are other ways to get money for college. There are other ways to be all you can be.

   THINK ABOUT IT. Before you sign your life away.”

   The ad was created and paid for by a Warwick student who is a member of the Bruderhof community, a Christian-based communal order in Sugar Loaf that preaches pacifism. …

And, reports the newspaper for the Hudson Valley and Catskills, “[T]he ad has sparked controversy in the school district and the community and provoked lively First Amendment debates among students and teachers in the classroom.”

— Sent to me by Norma who spotted it at Blah3.

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