I’m working on a new system to pass on interesting links that will fold into the regular site as a regular post. I didn’t like the del.icio.us daily blog post came at a fixed time of day, didn’t like the sidebar, so I’m doing it manually for now. The new system will allow all the writers here to post into it with one click just like del.icio.us.

So, here are the links:

• Here is the crime in outing of CIA agent — an editorial by Gary Hart in the Denver Post. Get to the end, or read Atrios’s summary.
• Bank of America: Keep the Change — an interesting program to help you save money while helping you use your debit card more. Cool. (via kottke.org)
• News.com.com.com.com: Razr to Nano, when design matters — News.com has photos of some of the cool gadgets out this year.

This is so pathetic:

Hutchinson: Indictments Should Be “On a Crime and Not Some Perjury Technicality”

On Meet the Press, Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchinson picks up where George Will left off:

I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn’t indict on the crime so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation were not a waste of time and dollars.

Perjury is just a little technicality punishable by up to five years in prison.

Where were these GOP opinions (note the George Will link, too) when Bill Clinton was getting impeached for the same exact bull? And, to put this in further perspective, President Clinton lied about a blowjob while this potential perjury charge will be about outing a CIA agent, something that impacts national security.

There’s a difference, and it ain’t favorable to the GOP talking point zombies.

Update: Didn’t see that Atrios has a better example: The GOP wants to Free Lil’ Kim!

A detailed explanation of Hutchinson’s own hypocrisy in this matter is on CardCarryingMember.

Update 2: And it just dawned on me the President Clinton’s perjury charge was part of a cover up to a part of the investigation UNRELATED to the original reason the special prosecutor was brought in (Whitewater). In the Plame case, any perjury charges would be related directly to a cover up of the charges under investigation. F’ing party of law and order my ass.

Will the other Republicans please stand up to these thugs running your party? For God’s sake, have you no integrity?

The beginning of the end? It would be sad to have another President taken down by a relatively minor bit of stupidity. At least this one actually has to do with his job, not some personal indiscretion that was inconsequential to the rest of us. Though, even here the cover up could end up being more costly than the original crime. Of course, Fitzgerald could just go home and not bring any indictments. We’ll have to see. I just wish this President would go down for the bullshit leading up to the war, but if these charges are legit, I’ll take ‘em.

Josh Marshall puts another log on the circumstantial fire:

I’ve told you many times how Sen. Pat Roberts (R) of Kansas, Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is a shame to the office, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the White House political operation if there ever was one.

…

Note that there are no congressional investigations into the origin of the Niger forgeries, the outing of Valerie Plame, and countless other scandals and mysteries large and small. (Remember, after the 2004 election, Roberts announced that there’s now not enough time for the investigation into possible political manipulation of Iraqi WMD intel, which he promised prior to the election.)

But now there will be congressional hearings into whether the CIA does a good enough job at protecting the ‘cover’ of its agents in its Directorate of Operations.

This is pretty odd. It’s interesting that we’re having Congressional hearings about the question of what “having cover” means, especially since the CIA itself was the one that asked the Justice Department to investigate this. Clearly, they think that something was amiss here. From the Times article linked above:

But agency officials apparently believe that the law does apply to Ms. Wilson, possibly because she took overseas business trips in the five years before 2003. The C.I.A. sought an investigation, and the Justice Department and Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, concurred in choosing to pursue the case.

A number of Ms. Wilson’s former colleagues have spoken out in recent days, saying the exposure of her cover was a serious offense.

What makes me curious, though, is that we’re now going to have a congressional hearing into the CIA’s process of granting cover to their covert agents. I’ll be interested to see whether these hearings are open or closed to the press and public, as well as how much Valerie Plame/Wilson’s name comes up. I would think that the CIA’s practices regarding cover aren’t something we want to make too public. Granted, sophisticated foreign intelligence agencies probably know all this stuff… but do small terrorist groups? I would rather not have to worry about recruiting more informants overseas because it’s easier to identify agents…

So, if the hearings end up on CNN live, well, I’ll be looking for other signs that it’s a show to deflect attention from the White House…

Even more interesting revelations from AG Gonzales that bring up even more interesting questions. Frank Rich also brings up some oddities about the timeline at the start of the investigation. Atrios reports:

Return of Heads Up Gate

I’m glad Frank Rich reminded the world of the absolutely unjustifiable delay the White House was granted allowing them to hold off on officially being required to maintain documents. It’s one tidbit of this case that I’d forgotten. NPR reported at the time:

The White house asked for and got permission earlier this week to wait a day before issuing a directive to preserve all documents and logs which led one seasoned federal prosecutor to wonder why they wanted to wait a day, and who at the justice department told them they could do that, and why?

It’s another part of this scandal which should’ve raised more than a few eyebrows among the beltway kool kids, but they weren’t too concerned about it at the time.

APJ lets us know that we’ve learned something new - that Gonzales told Andy Card that night.

While we’re walking down memory lane, we must also remember that the documents were also vetted by Gonzales before they even got to the Justice Department.

All of this is building up a circumstantial case against the White House, at least as far as a cover up is concerned.

On a personal note, I’m reluctant to get to “rah-rah” about this case. It’s serious, I think, and the accusations are just as serious. If a White House staffer leaked a name of a CIA employee in an act of petty revenge, well, that goes to the heart of our government, doesn’t it? We’ve built a system (or believe we have, at least) that strives to keep personal favor out of government. Do your job to according to the law and to the best of your ability and our system succeeds, that’s the idea, right?

Cynicism mutes my default idealism, though. First, these people are senior enough that the law works weirdly. It’s like the laws of physics as you approach the speed of light… things get a little odd, and maybe you can outrun the law. So, even if there is something here, the chances of us knowing before 20 years go by is small. Second, the political aspect of this story makes me uncomfortable. I remember the Clinton years and I remember being deeply frustrated and annoyed that a partisan witch hunt got a President impeached. That millions of dollars were spent investigating a real estate deal that turned up nothing. That rather than shut down the investigation when it didn’t turn up anything, the special prosecutor decided to investigate a blowjob.

I also remember that it all seemed at least plausible at the time, especially to those inclined to distrust the President.

Well, I distrust Karl Rove and I distrust the White House. I don’t want to be sucked into an investigation that might be built up on the same false pretenses as the Clinton scandal. So, I’m being cautious and watching the news with interest.

It does seem that this investigation has proceeded with less partisan furor moving it along. The Democrats are surely fanning the flames, but they’re not pushing very hard. Also, the investigation seems a lot more focused and, quite frankly, a lot less like a witch hunt due to the relative silence from the prosecutor. Ken Starr’s investigation was a constant leak factory, as much a made-for-TV event as a real investigation. Fitzgerald’s investigation has been relatively quiet by any standard. So, I hold out some hope of it being clean.

So, I’m waiting and seeing. And hoping that does make a difference in 2006.

Atrios highlights Larry Johnson’s testimony to Congress about the Valerie Plame affair. He is a career CIA officer and was a classmate of Valerie Plame’s in the CIA training program. He discusses how the CIA classifies their agents and how they work. Plame was most definitely a CIA agent even though her story might not be as sexy as James Bond. More troubling, the White House knew this according to an article in the Washington Post. Maybe I’m a weak-kneed liberal or whatever, but screwing over a covert agent and putting intelligence assets at risk is a big deal. Maybe even a bigger deal that a guy lying about a blowjob.

I hope the press and Congress don’t drop this. Whoever leaked the name should get fired at the very least.

If you want a funny but solid overview of the whole Plame/Rove leak situation, you can check out this video from the Daily Show. You need to have windows media player installed for that link to work.

I’ve been watching the various calls for Rove to resign and keep thinking that this is not what Democrats want. Of course, it would be great if he resigns, but calling for that resignation isn’t the only thing Democrats need to have happen. They should be getting up in front of the media in every statement reminding the American people that this is part of a pattern of behavior. If the Clinton White House was characterized (or “typed”) as a dishonest White House, this White House is characterized by cronyism. No one faces any negative consequences for any failure, rule breaking, or anything except, perhaps, not being a “Yes” man (e.g. see O’Neill or Christine Todd Whitman). That’s the central theme of this case and it’s the way to begin to undo the damage this White House has done to our country.

Repeat after me: It’s not about Rove. It’s about the disease of cronyism that infects this White House and prevents it from doing what’s best for America. No one gets fired for any mistakes. Heck, the President can’t acknowledge any mistakes except not hiring enough Yes men. Serious people on both sides of the aisle have raised questions about the these leaks now and in the past. Too bad the Administration feels like it doesn’t need to answer questions from the American people about this.

That’s how you build a talking point and repetition is how you get it to stick. Don’t you guys watch the Daily Show???

You can see the official White House version of the video and transcript at the White House site. The video contains the whole thing and you can see the whole thing and complete level of consternation. It’s also a reminder that this press secretary rarely answers questions directly.

He’s no CJ Cregg, that’s for sure.

Update: AP is actually being a news source and is reporting the original quotes from 2003 where McClellan addressed Rove and this quote.

Is the White House Press Corp finally getting a spine? With the revelation that Rove was one of the sources that leaked information about Amb. Joe Wilson’s wife being a CIA agent, reporters questions White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan about his and Bush’s statements in 2003 that the White House would fire anyone who divulged this information. Then, they got annoyed (finally!) when Mr. McClellan reverted to the equivalent of “no comment.”. I’m not holding my breath, but maybe they’re getting fed up with the lies and bullshit.

On a separate note, Atrios points out a post at Democrats.org (the DNC web site) that pretty much summarizes why I think people of any party should vote out the Republicans in 2006:

The revelation that Karl Rove was the source who leaked Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA agent to Time’s Matt Cooper probably comes as a surprise to exactly nobody. After all, dirty tricks have been the hallmark of Rove’s political career since he was a teenager.

As this story continues to unfold over the next few weeks, Republicans are going to try to parse every word Rove ever uttered about the case. They’re going to dissect every letter of relevant law trying to find a loophole to prove that Karl Rove is innocent.

But let’s make one thing perfectly clear: Rove’s secret outing of Valerie Plame put partisan politics above the security of our nation. He chose to reveal Plame’s identity as a CIA agent, with no thought to the consequences to American national security, simply because it provided an opportunity to smear her husband.

And this is part of a pattern. When Democrats proposed creating the Department of Homeland Security, Republicans fought it until they saw a partisan advantage to exploit in the 2002 elections. When the September 11 Commission was trying to get the facts about the terrorist attacks on our soil, the administration fought them every step of the way. [emphasis added]

This is the bottom line and it’s been going on since 2001. Lying to you, the American public, and putting their own political interests above those of the nation at large has been their MO from the first week they were in office. It’s not about politics or an ideology of conservatism or Christianity… it’s about winning the next election and raising money. It’s about instilling in the minds of government workers that the White House will come down on dissenters like a ton of bricks, truth and regulations be damned. It’s about showing lobbyists that they should keep funding the Republicans because they will do whatever it takes to get their legislation passed.

But, I guess Roe vs. Wade or having a Ten Commandments monument or gay marriage is more important than having a healthy, functioning Democracy… Sometimes I’m so very sad about the place this country is at.

PS. If you’re having trouble watching the video at the link above, I have mirrored it here at FatMixx.

Thanks to Atrios for the links.