Sunday, September 28, 2003

Krugman Truth Squad Truth Squad. Donald Luskin's whole life revolves around pulling apart every sentence that Paul Krugman writes.  In light of recent developments regarding the Plame situation, it's useful to review his bug-wing dissection of a Krugman article that was, in retrospect, dead on.  And early in the game too. This is, of course, the "post edited" version of his article, where he inserts furious, backpedalling commentary.  Perhaps he can pick a new color for newer, even more furious backpedalling. A sample:  Now on to the fifth sentence: "Think about that: if their characterization of Mr. Wilson's wife is true (he refuses to confirm or deny it), Bush administration officials have exposed the identity of a covert operative." Huh?! When did "their characterization" of Plame go from being an "operative" (per Novak) or an "official" (per Time) to being a "covert operative"? That's Krugman's characterization. That's not reporting. That's not commentary. It's just plain old making stuff up. *** This is the heart of the matter: Did Krugman have reasonable grounds to make the leap from "operative" and "official" to "covert operative"? Maybe Ms. Plame is, in fact, exactly that -- but one thing's for certain: nothing in his Times column provides grounds for saying so. The fact is that in his column he offers no source beyond Novak and Time, and those two sources simply don't justify what Krugman said. Another interesting point of view: Donald Sensing met Ambassador Wilson (Plame's husband years back, who publicly criticized the administration on the Niger uranium issue).  Here's a relevant quote: Wilson was the ambassador to Iraq who immediately preceded the hapless Amb. April Glaspie, who has been blamed for inavertantly giving Saddam the green light to invade Kuwait in 1990. (She didn't, but that's another story.) I happen to have been a seminar attendee in 1993 in which Wilson was a speaker one day. There were only about two dozen attendees, some of us military and others civilian government factotums from all branches of government. So we had very informal and engaging discussions with the daily speakers. I found Wilson to be expertly knowledgeable on the Middle East and quite sober-minded. I rate his credibility extremely high, so I find the charges he has made very credible and very disturbing. Finally, the relevant law: TITLE 50 > CHAPTER 15 > Sec. 421. Sec. 421. - Protection of identities of certain United States undercover intelligence officers, agents, informants, and sources (a) Disclosure of information by persons having or having had access to classified information that identifies covert agent Whoever, having or having had authorized access to classified information that identifies a covert agent, intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both. (b) Disclosure of information by persons who learn identity of covert agents as result of having access to classified information Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identify of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both. (c) Disclosure of information by persons in course of pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents Whoever, in the course of a pattern of activities intended to identify and expose covert agents and with reason to believe that such activities would impair or impede the foreign intelligence activities of the United States, discloses any information that identifies an individual as a covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such individual and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such individual's classified intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined under title 18 or imprisoned not more than three years, or both. (d) Imposition of consecutive sentences A term of imprisonment imposed under this section shall be consecutive to any other sentence of imprisonment 11:50:53 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

The Bush Plan. Esmay: It's not about "the plan", per se.  It's whether the justifications for war match the reality, and whether the expectations of the Administration match reality.  From the perspective of non-Republicans, the goods don't match the sales pitch.  Republicans writing here generally do so from an "us smart guys knew it would be hard" standpoint.  This is NOT the image that was conveyed to the public.  Remember Mitch Daniels?  $50 billion for the war, he said.  Lawrence Lindsey was fired from the White House for saying it would cost $200 billion. The White has played down the costs of this war very actively, particularly in the decision stage.  If things are "going according to plan", as many of you seem to feel, then why have the costs spiralled upwards?  This war may end up costing, in the long run (ten years), half a trillion dollars.  If the Iraq situation IS going according to plan, cost estimates early on were inaccurate at best, and potentially deliberately misleading. It is perhaps true that the planners in the administration knew roughly where we'd be at this point, and that we're on one of their contingency lines.  Accurate financial information was not provided to the decision makers (Congress).  In addition, faulty intelligence was used to make the decision.  The continuing argument of the administration is that virtually all intelligence prior to the war had Hussein in possession of WMD...to the extent that we are able to verify it, there are no WMD. Sometimes when you make a huge mistake, you pay a price.  I can't think of a much bigger mistake than leading a country into a war with shoddy financial planning, incorrect intelligence, and having kicked sand in the face of the rest of the world.  Even if Bush did this with good intentions, it's a sufficiently huge mistake, either in process or result, that his removal would be sensible. It's up to the voters to decide. 11:05:27 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Plame Again. This one doesn't look too good for the Bush folks.  There's ample coverage out there at the moment...try CalPundit, Daniel Dreznor, Josh Marshall, Atrios, the Washington Post.  The first thing to remember is that the Novak story came out three months ago.  That means that this story has been buried for three months, and I would guess that whoever decided to bury it was pretty happy.  Until yesterday, when somebody got pissed off (a "senior administration official"), and coughed up a part of the truth. I would like to think that Bush didn't know.  This is probably the political arm of the White House, operating independently, overstepping their bounds.  But there is this: Plame was outed months ago, and the White House has done nothing publicly to go after the perpetrator(s).  There are two scenarios: Either Bush was told that it wasn't true (somebody lied to him), or he made the decision to wait it out.  If no further facts had come out, the "wait it out" strategy would have worked. It is also possible that Bush was never briefed on this issue, and never made a decision...it could have been handled entirely at the political level. Condi Rice didn't look too happy this morning as she was answering questions; she indicated that the Justice Department was looking into it.  We have a problem, there -- since the demise of the Independent Counsel statute, there isn't any way to get an unbiased look inside the White House.  We will have John Ashcroft's people doing the work.  That doesn't seem like a very good way to get at the truth. Plame was outed because there's something else that they didn't want coming out.  Someone else was the recipient of this message, someone who might have said something even more damaging. Right now it looks to me that there are two Administration officials who are likely to be charged criminally, if the DoJ actually investigates...now that this has been "turned over", there is the distinct possibility that it could be buried again.  If I was Robert Novak I wouldn't be too happy either -- he deliberately, as a part of a White House political move, outed a covert agent.  Somebody posted the statute somewhere, earlier, and I didn't see any exemption in there for reporters.  At least five other reporters were called by the outers, and did not print the story.  It seems to me that they just kept calling until somebody bit and was willing to take the risk and print the story...that somebody is Novak. 5:16:53 PM     | comment [] | trackback []

Josh Marshall Rules. If you're not already reading Talking Points Memo, you should be.  Josh has a real insider's grasp of Washington Politics, and is easily one of the most thought-provoking reads around.  He just gets news faster, and does the work better. 1:14:08 PM     | comment [] | trackback []