1 Boring Old Man

• Cheney Spearheaded Effort to Discredit Wilson
• Ex-CIA Official Faults Use of Data on Iraq: Intelligence ‘Misused’ to Justify War
• Cheney ‘Authorized’ Libby to Leak Classified Information
• Where’s My Subpoena? Valerie Plame, Scooter Libby, and me
• Fitzgerald Eyes Plame-Niger Conspiracy: Prosecutor Probing Niger Forgeries, Possible Conspiracy in CIA Leak

It’s been kind of sliding out in the cracks instead of coming down the main channel, but there are an increasing number of first-hand accounts about what went on in the Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame outing affair. It’s hardly pretty:

• First, they [meaning Cheney, Libby, Rove, Hadley, and supporting cast] were all actively involved in a dirty tricks campaign even before Wilson wrote his oped piece. And it wasn’t subtle. Cheney was at the meetings and going to the C.I.A. about it. Strategies were actively being devised to smear Wilson.
• Second, the things that they said afterwards were lies. There were two lie categories:

  1. They continued to act as if the Niger Forgeries were real Intelligence.
  2. They lied big time about their involvement in outing the Wilsons.

Although some of the information is still coming from anonymous sources, there’s a lot of it and it’s coming from reputable places. I suppose that we should be biting at the bit for Fitzgerald to indict more people. Instead, he seems to be playing chess with Libby’s lawyers and the ‘greymail’ defense, whatever that is.  I guess I’m comfortable with his ability to know when to act.

What’s more important to me in that the ‘iron curtain’ is finally coming down. What we’re hearing these days, is what actually happened. How they’ve kept it all under wraps for this many years is a testimonial to something. I guess it has taken the general disillusionment with the Bush Administration to allow the people who know what happened to begin to talk. I suspect that there are literally legions of officials who know pieces of this story.

Personally, I don’t enjoy being placed in the position of being a ‘suspicious’ person. We’ve spent months/years thinking that something very fishy went on, and being told the reason we think it is because we’re ‘liberal’ or ‘unpatriotic.’ Reading the articles listed at the beginning of this post make things clear enough. No more vague worry about my opinion being overly colored by my politics. It’s colored by the truth. It’s a a relief to begin to hear this first-hand confirmation.

Keep it coming…