If Napolitano should resign, Bush and Cheney should have been impeached

By GottaLaff

See that blog title (by Brent Budowsky)? IMHO, the "if" part could have been dropped. Bush and Cheney should have been impeached. Period:

If Janet Napolitano should be fired for her role in the Christmas bombing plot, George W. Bush should have been impeached for being warned about planes flying into buildings in New York and ignoring those warnings, and Dick Cheney should have been impeached for his role in the CIA leak case and prosecuted for his role surrounding torture.

That cannot be be stated often or more strongly enough.

[...] Napolitano could have handled this better, but the consequences of her mistakes are nothing compared to the consequences of mistakes by Bush, Cheney, Alberto Gonzales and many others.

BushCo could have puffed themselves up, donned their codpieces, and strutted around spewing their fear mongering and threats for another decade, but that wouldn't have compensated for the thousands who died on their watch. They didn't follow through, people were killed, and yet they boast like 8-year-olds about "keeping America safe".

President Obama has "kept us safe" longer than BushCo did, and he gets attacked relentlessly from the very man who was in charge on 9/11: Dick Cheney. It is he and his gang of thugs who should be condemned.

Perhaps the Obama administration could have handled the Christmas day situation better, but nobody died. The Obama administration says they are working to improve national security. Good. It needs improving, and most likely always will. Has any country eliminated terrorism completely? Is that even possible? No.

At least this president didn't ignore a briefing that warned him of some guy with explosives in his underwear, nor is he acting like an arrogant flight-suited peacock, bragging and parading around like a spoiled brat.

And again, nobody died.

It's time that the Rushpublics practice what they preach and support their commander in chief. Here's a thought: Try coming up with some solutions for a change. That would be a real step toward "keeping America safe".

VIDEO- Jonathan Turley recalls what Dick Cheney can't re: CIA leak case

By GottaLaff

Thank you, David Shuster, for tweeting the link to this. I've been looking everywhere for it:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Dickless McHeartStent: Big fat old, white, lying tattered bag of amnesia.

For more details, read Jason Leopold's excellent piece here.

VIDEOS: Jason Leopold interviews Valerie Plame about CIA leak case

By GottaLaff

My pal Jason Leopold is not only the go-to guy for all things Plame/Rove/Cheney, he also conducts interviews with newsmakers.

Here's a Q and A from 2007 that he had with Valerie Plame Wilson herself that deserves more attention, especially in light of the newest revelations about what a big fat liar Dickless McHeartstent is:

Valerie Plame Still Wants to Know ...
By Jason Leopold t r u t h o u t | Report Tuesday 13 November 2007

Former covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson would still like to know the identity of the CIA official who passed her name to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney in the spring of 2003, and 'under what circumstances.' That's just one of several unanswered questions Plame Wilson has been trying to figure out in the years since several senior officials in the Bush administration leaked her name to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and a handful of other journalists.

That leak ended her two-decade CIA career. 'I'd like to know, why did Novak go with my maiden name, Plame, in his original article?' Plame Wilson said during an hour-long, two-part interview with Truthout. 'I always thought that was strange. When I married, I took my married name. And then he [Novak] used Valerie Plame [in his column]. It was only the CIA who knew that I worked for them, and my maiden name.' Plame Wilson is promoting her book, 'Fair Game,' a memoir she wrote about the leak, her job as an intelligence operative working on counterproliferation issues, and the fallout that ensued when she became a public figure after her identity and CIA status were published in newspapers and magazines.

Her book landed on The New York Times bestseller list two weeks ago and has more than 350,000 copies in print. Perhaps the most important question yet to be answered for Plame Wilson is whether President Bush had prior knowledge about the leak of her identity. "I'd love to know, what did President Bush know about all of this?" Plame Wilson said.

Jason Leopold is senior editor and reporter for Truthout. He received a Project Censored award in 2007 for his story on Halliburton's work in Iran.

Supreme Court Refuses to Hear Plame's Lawsuit v. Cheney, Rove

By GottaLaff

Another day, another Supreme Court decision that makes me want to do this:

The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday refused to hear a civil lawsuit filed by Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, against Bush administration officials who were responsible for leaking her covert CIA status to the media and attacking her husband for accusing the White House of twisting prewar Iraq intelligence.

The Supreme Court’s rejection effectively brings the three-year old case to a close. The Wilson’s had sued Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Cheney’s ex-Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage for violating their civil rights.

Sigh.

Whatnot

By GottaLaff

I'm fading fast, and it's Christmas Eve eve, which is my way of justifying posting a few links that looked interesting, and then calling it a night.

• Exclusive: Cheney’s admissions to the CIA leak prosecutor and FBI
• Obama frustrates Republicans' desire to criticize
• Is Norm Coleman acknowledging impending defeat?
• Obama's choice signals a long-overdue reorganization of the Foggy Bottom bureaucracy
• Rove: Joe Biden Is Trying To Acquire More Power Than Dick Cheney

Okay, I'll dutifully make the obvious joke: It's a night.

Cheney's notes v. Scottie's words

By GottaLaff

Fernando and I have been wondering why Scottie's quote from George Bush ("He was saying that you, yourself, was the one that authorized the leaking of this information. And he said 'yeah, I did.'”) is such a revelation. Anyone remember this?

Last year, during the federal criminal trial of Libby, Cheney's handwritten notes were introduced into evidence. The notes revealed that Bush played a larger role in the campaign to discredit Wilson than he had previously acknowledged. To provide some context to McClellan's public comments on the issue, The Public Record is republishing a story by Jason Leopold from the trial of Scooter Libby that explains Bush's role.

Cheney's Handwritten Notes Implicate Bush in Plame Affair
By Jason Leopold
January 31, 2007

Copies of handwritten notes by Vice President Dick Cheney, introduced at a trial by attorneys prosecuting former White House staffer I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, would appear to implicate George W. Bush in the Plame CIA Leak case.

So why was Puffy McMoonFace's book the newsmaker? My take, as I told Fernando, is that:

• It came from a Bushie's mouth, directly... literally, Bush's mouthpiece. Someone he trusted, so the impact was palpable. We could watch him speak, and we could hear his words.
• He repackaged an "old product", that Bush was implicated, and breathed new life into it.
• Therefore, it's "new!" and "different!", like laundry detergent! or... confessions!
  

Other than that, I'm not sure why this particular thing is getting the play that it is, when it is. Any ideas?