I can envisage Mr Bush stepping down after being pushed out by the right of his party like Maggie Thatcher.

The victory dance is premature. Bahu makes it sound like the entire rationale for toppling Saddam was based on a single document "known" to be forged. This is a tactic commonly employed by the left - zeroing in on one thing, to the exclusion of thousands of other facts and circumstances, then cherry-picking factoids to build around it a completely unrepresentative version of history slanted to their biased pre-determined opinion. There are plenty of Americans capable of seeing through the BS and arriving at their own conclusions. Contemporaneous popularity polling is irrelevant - these kinds of popularity swings occur with every presidency and are a natural consequence of the ebb & flow of politics.

It was entirely predictable that if Fitzgerald was unable to indict Rove or Libby for disclosing Plame's identity on the basis of the facts, the left would simply continue to declare them guilty of the offense anyway. In that sense, the Special Prosecutor's investigation was pointless.

Cheers,
Daiwa

The Karl Rove muck just wont go away. Today CNN's Woolf Blitzer interviewed Ambassador Wilson. I was struck by two points made by Wilson regarding the outing of his wife as a covert CIA operative. First as a NOC (Non Official Cover), Valerie Plame had risked life and limb over two decades of service in order to penetrate the arcane world, a murky one too, of weapons proliferations, suppliers and prospective buyers of WMD. All her hard work was with callous cynical indifference set at rest in order to score a dubious political point. Fritzgerald, the Special Prosecutor is right now only looking at the obstruction of justice angle, but he is surely not going to be stonewalled by the White House as American Law has been broken with impunity

Do you have ANY idea what you're talking about? There was NO LAW broken! Plame returned to the US in 1997 (mission completed) and this is out of Wilson's mouth and his book. According to the US statute in question the protection expires after "5 YEARS". Since the story was broken in 2003 that makes it "6 YEARS". Ergo....NO CRIME! This whole BS investigation was done in order to score a dubious political points.

It amazes me how easily some people can be made the pawns of political propagandists.

Well, thank our For Fathers for implementing the Checks and Balancing System, allowing none of the three branches of the Government to have more power over the other.....they also allowed for this system to have continual maintenance throughout the years, and also the ones to come . This system is what allows us to be a free country, by never allowing our government to rule as one person, or one branch, without allowing one of the other branches to have the power to change and correct or reject. Making this system one that will continue to revolve for the betterment of our country as we step into the future. Not even Our current President will be able to destroy what was given to "we the People" Even though he has undermindedly tried to, in my opinion!

It's interesting that if Plame was so "covert" that she had no problem posing for magazine covers.

It's interesting that if Plame was so "covert" that she had no problem posing for magazine covers.

The Novak story came out in July 2003. The Vanity Fair article came out on January 2004. Also...she didn't pose for any magazine covers, Viggo Mortensen was on the cover of Vanity Fair for the issue that the story was in.

Is there some magazine cover that she "posed for" that predates the Novak story?

Do you have ANY idea what you're talking about? There was NO LAW broken! Plame returned to the US in 1997 (mission completed) and this is out of Wilson's mouth and his book. According to the US statute in question the protection expires after "5 YEARS". Since the story was broken in 2003 that makes it "6 YEARS". Ergo....NO CRIME! This whole BS investigation was done in order to score a dubious political points

I am surprised at this post No Law broken.The identity of a CIA officer cannot be revealed and the point of the matter is not whether Valerie returned in 1997 or any other yeatr, but the fact that her identity was revealed in order to settle a political point., and it is here that the perceived illegality lies.

Yes, it was a terrible week for Bush... unless you are actually able to discern fact from fiction.

The only "fact" you brought up that was a downer for Prs. Bush was Harriet Miers pulling her nomination. You're right that that was a blow. On the other hand, any warm fuzzies the left could have possibly enjoyed from it have been rudely quashed by the nomination of Judge Alito (since he if far too Conservative to please them, but far too Constitutional and Qualified to pull enough Republic Senate votes to pull off the "nuclear" option).

I laugh in your face at the attempt to make the Valerie Plame case any bigger than 2 years of investigation could. After 2 years, Plame can't even convince the investigators that she was ever covert, much less that her life was in danger.

Her "news" magazine cover story pretty much proved to me that her face and name could be put together in public and neither she, nor anyone else in the CIA would die. Kind of makes it difficult to make the case that there was ever a danger to her in the first place, now doesn't it.

I'm sure you missed the whole Constitution in Iraq news though, along with the fact that the far left's patron saint Cindy Whatsername was arrested and nobody cared (including the few in the press who acted like they did just a few short weeks ago).

Keep up the entertainment though, if nothing else, you are hilarious!!

her identity was revealed in order to settle a political point., and it is here that the perceived illegality lies.

One - the act and its motive are pure assumptions on your part - neither has been proven, even after 2 years of digging by the special prosecutor.

Two - Things are either legal or illegal - "perceived to be illegal" appears nowhere in any statutes so you can't be "guilty" of it.

Cheers,
Daiwa

laugh in your face at the attempt to make the Valerie Plame case any bigger than 2 years of investigation could. After 2 years, Plame can't even convince the investigators that she was ever covert, much less that her life was in danger. Her "news" magazine cover story pretty much proved to me that her face and name could be put together in public and neither she, nor anyone else in the CIA would die. Kind of makes it difficult to make the case that there was ever a danger to her in the first place, now doesn't it.

Posing for a mag cover is not the issue, Revealation of her status oas a NOC is. Why do do detract from the major issue under investrigation by throwing out red herrings along the way.

Iraq is hardly peaceful. Last week was the worst week in terms of American casualities.And finally even the US admonistasrtion has confirmed what we have been saying all along that the civillian deathn toll is on the higher side.

Do you have ANY idea what you're talking about? There was NO LAW broken! Plame returned to the US in 1997 (mission completed) and this is out of Wilson's mouth and his book. According to the US statute in question the protection expires after "5 YEARS". Since the story was broken in 2003 that makes it "6 YEARS". Ergo....NO CRIME! This whole BS investigation was done in order to score a dubious political points I am surprised at this post No Law broken.The identity of a CIA officer cannot be revealed and the point of the matter is not whether Valerie returned in 1997 or any other yeatr, but the fact that her identity was revealed in order to settle a political point., and it is here that the perceived illegality lies.

You had better go read the law in question! Just an fyi....there is a 5 YEAR limit to this! The agent must have been on covert status within 5 years of the leak. WHICH PLAME WAS NOT! Let me repeat Plame was outside the 5 year clause and was NOT covert during that time. Their ID CAN be revealed as long as it does NOT affect national security, hence the 5 year limitation. So point in FACT 1997 is a VERY important date as far as this is concerned. And that is the whole thing right there. "Perceived illegality" has been perceived incorrectly!

Last week was the worst week in terms of American casualities.

LOL - you've been headline skimming again, Bahu. It was the "worst" week since January, not that that's a good thing.

And finally even the US admonistasrtion has confirmed what we have been saying all along that the civillian deathn toll is on the higher side.

After months of the antiwar crowd claiming the civilian death toll was in the hundreds of thousands, and of course all at the hands of the evil Americans, we have an indication that the cumulative civilian casualties are closer to about 26,000, not that that's a good thing, but almost all of them at the hands of the so-called "freedom fighters".

Cheers,
Daiwa

Do you have ANY idea what you're talking about? There was NO LAW broken! Plame returned to the US in 1997 (mission completed) and this is out of Wilson's mouth and his book. According to the US statute in question the protection expires after "5 YEARS". Since the story was broken in 2003 that makes it "6 YEARS". Ergo....NO CRIME! This whole BS investigation was done in order to score a dubious political points I am surprised at this post No Law broken.The identity of a CIA officer cannot be revealed and the point of the matter is not whether Valerie returned in 1997 or any other yeatr, but the fact that her identity was revealed in order to settle a political point., and it is here that the perceived illegality lies. You had better go read the law in question! Just an fyi....there is a 5 YEAR limit to this! The agent must have been on covert status within 5 years of the leak. WHICH PLAME WAS NOT! Let me repeat Plame was outside the 5 year clause and was NOT covert during that time. Their ID CAN be revealed as long as it does NOT affect national security, hence the 5 year limitation. So point in FACT 1997 is a VERY important date as far as this is concerned. And that is the whole thing right there. "Perceived illegality" has been perceived incorrectly!

Which is EXACTLY why the prosecutor could NOT get the grand jury indictment on the supposed outing.

After months of the antiwar crowd claiming the civilian death toll was in the hundreds of thousands, and of course all at the hands of the evil Americans, we have an indication that the cumulative civilian casualties are closer to about 26,000, not that that's a good thing, but almost all of them at the hands of the so-called "freedom fighters".

Wasn't it proposed by the U.N. that up to 10,000 people a month were being killed by Saddam before? Where was the liberal outrage then?

Also...she didn't pose for any magazine covers, Viggo Mortensen was on the cover of Vanity Fair for the issue that the story was in.

"she has gone back to work at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., after a leave of absence; she has been photographed for Vanity Fair, snapped at the Tribeca Film Festival;"

http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1083924,00.html