...honestly, this place is out of control - it's just total anarchy anymore.
And it's really too bad, because the technical format of DU is really superior - but the content has gone to hell.

Catch ya'll on the flip side.

Tin Man, over and out.

Oh man, this Libby trial is opening lots of doors into the scope of the CheneyGate conspiracy, specifically the complicity of many heralded Washington reporters. Like Bob Woodward.

Today's testimony at the Libby trial calls into question the nature of Woodward's involvement in CheneyGate. Was he just a bit player, a non-event, as he had originally claimed - or something more sinister? Follow along with me for a couple paragraphs...

1) Does anybody here remember prominent NeoCon Richard Armitage's mea culpa last August, that it was he who had innocently and inadvertently disclosed CIA agent Valerie Wilson's identity to Robert Novak? The suggestion being, that Armitage alone was responsible for PlameGate - and that there was no conspiracy in the OVP, and no ensuing coverup of the effort to discredit Wilson.

2) Today, at the Libby trial, we learned that Armitage was the source for BOTH Novak AND Bob Woodward. I guess this means that Armitage innocently and inadvertently slipped, not once, but twice. Some accident. But I digress...

3) And remember how, at the time of Armitage's mea culpa, the Corporate Media were so quick to accept and publish the claim as simple fact? Consider the 9/1/2006 WaPo editorial, "End of an Affair", in which the editorial staff so confidently dismissed PlameGate as much ado about nothing. It was all a mistake. There was no conspiracy in the OVP. Armitage was the accidental source of the whole affair. Hoo-boy, did the Post buy into that Armitage diversion - hook, line and sinker...

4) Kinda makes you wonder:

a) How could the distinguished Washington Post have been so thoroughly fooled?
b) Who among the WaPo staff actually authored the editorial?
c) And why, only for the first time today, did WaPo correspondent Bob Woodward confess his source was Armitage?
.
.
.
Holy shit! Did Bob Woodward write the "End of an Affair" editorial in the 9/1/06 Washington Post ? Might this editorial have been Woodward's "red herring" attempt to assist in the CheneyGate cover-up???

==================================================================================================

Editorial below:

End of an Affair
It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband.

Friday, September 1, 2006; Page A20

WE'RE RELUCTANT to return to the subject of former CIA employee Valerie Plame because of our oft-stated belief that far too much attention and debate in Washington has been devoted to her story and that of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, over the past three years. But all those who have opined on this affair ought to take note of the not-so-surprising disclosure that the primary source of the newspaper column in which Ms. Plame's cover as an agent was purportedly blown in 2003 was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage.

Mr. Armitage was one of the Bush administration officials who supported the invasion of Iraq only reluctantly. He was a political rival of the White House and Pentagon officials who championed the war and whom Mr. Wilson accused of twisting intelligence about Iraq and then plotting to destroy him. Unaware that Ms. Plame's identity was classified information, Mr. Armitage reportedly passed it along to columnist Robert D. Novak "in an offhand manner, virtually as gossip," according to a story this week by the Post's R. Jeffrey Smith, who quoted a former colleague of Mr. Armitage.

It follows that one of the most sensational charges leveled against the Bush White House -- that it orchestrated the leak of Ms. Plame's identity to ruin her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson -- is untrue. The partisan clamor that followed the raising of that allegation by Mr. Wilson in the summer of 2003 led to the appointment of a special prosecutor, a costly and prolonged investigation, and the indictment of Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on charges of perjury. All of that might have been avoided had Mr. Armitage's identity been known three years ago.\


(full editoral at link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/conte... )

Recapping some discussion posted here late last night...

Consider the following note entered into the record by Fitz at the Libby trial yesterday.



On the bottom half of the document, Cheney writes:
"Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice this guy this Pres that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."

Of particular interest is Cheney's strikeout of the words "this Pres" (as in "this President") from the sentence. Why did Cheney refer to the President, and subsequently cross-out this reference? What was Cheney's original intent and/or message, and why did he feel the need to make revisions?

Examination of the physical structure, the layout, of the sentence in question - reveals that the revision was made "in real time", i.e. Cheney crossed-out the words "this Pres" as soon as he wrote them, then immediately composed the remainder of the sentence. So let's consider the note, as it was composed chronologically, i.e. as it was original assembled - ink flowing from pen to paper:

1) First, Cheney writes:
"Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice this guy this Pres

2) Immediately, Cheney strikes out the words "this Pres"
"Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice this guy this Pres

3) Now Cheney completes the sentence:
"Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice this guy this Pres that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."

Notice "that was asked to stick his head in the meatgrinder" is a passive voice construction. Passive voice "hides" the subject of the action, revealing only the action and the object of the action. This begs the question: *Who* asked Libby "to stick his head in the meatgrinder"?

Could it have been "this Pres" perhaps?

Did Cheney originally intend to write something like
"Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice this guy (that) this Pres. asked to stick his head in the meatgrinder" - using an active voice that identifies Bush as the source of the request?

Did Cheney suddenly reconsider this active voice sentence construction, which explicitly named the Pres as the source of the request, and with a single stroke of the pen, change the construction to passive voice to avoid identifying the President's involvement? Did Cheney implicate that Bush authorized PlameGate???

For the original thread from which these ideas emerged, refer to http://www.democraticunderground.com/discu...
Look for discussions of Spazito and Tin Man. And thanks to Cynatnite for the capture of the .pdf document for inline display.