Posting Towards Gomorrah

[SlaveNoMore]

Tyrone Slothrop
President Bush said yesterday that he senses a "Third Awakening" of religious devotion in the United States that has coincided with the nation's struggle with international terrorists, a war that he depicted as "a confrontation between good and evil."

It's clearly awakened me to the fact that it's a central tenet of the "Religion of Peace and Love" to commit jihad and kill me.

[SlaveNoMore]

We talk about federalism all the time in this country in the context of abortion.

But let's get even more extreme. What if the majority voted in favor of being able to stone your wife to death:

THE HAGUE, 13/09/06 - Justice Minister Piet Hein Donner considers the Netherlands should give Muslims more freedoms to behave according to their traditions. Muslims refusing to shake hands is fine with him. And Sharia law could be introduced in the Netherlands democratically, in the minister’s view.

Muslims have the right to experience their religion in ways that diverge from Dutch social codes, accordign to the Christian democrat (CDA) minister. He thinks Queen Beatrix was very wise not to insist on a Muslim leader shaking hands with her when she visited his mosque in The Hague earlier this year.

Integration Minister Verdonk did previously scold an imam who would not shake her hand. Without directly referring to this incident, Donner considers “a tone that I do not like has crept into the political debate. A tone of: ‘Thou shalt assimilate. Thou shalt adopt our values in public. Be reasonable, do it our way’. That is not my approach”.

Donner strongly disagrees with a recent plea by CDA parliamentary leader Maxime Verhagen for a ban on parties seeking to launch Sharia (Islamic law) in the Netherlands. “For me it is clear: if two-thirds of the Dutch population should want to introduce the Sharia tomorrow, then the possibility should exist,” according to Donner. “It would be a disgrace to say: ‘That is not allowed!’”

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
We talk about federalism all the time in this country in the context of abortion.

But let's get even more extreme. What if the majority voted in favor of being able to stone your wife to death:

as long as women can vote in the vote to initially move to Sharia, getting the 2/3 should be tough?

[SlaveNoMore]

Novak sets the record straight

When Richard Armitage finally acknowledged last week he was my source three years ago in revealing Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA employee, the former deputy secretary of state’s interviews obscured what he really did. I want to set the record straight based on firsthand knowledge.

First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he ‘‘thought’’ might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson.

Second, Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear he considered it especially suited for my column.

An accurate depiction of what Armitage actually said deepens the irony of him being my source. He was a foremost internal skeptic of the administration’s war policy, and I long had opposed military intervention in Iraq. Zealous foes of George W. Bush transformed me improbably into the president’s lapdog. But they cannot fit Armitage into the left-wing fantasy of a well-crafted White House conspiracy to destroy Joe and Valerie Wilson. The news that he and not Karl Rove was the leaker was devastating news for the left.

A peculiar convergence had joined Armitage and me on the same historical path. During his quarter of a century in Washington, I had no contact with Armitage before our fateful interview. I tried to see him in the first 2 years of the Bush administration, but he rebuffed me — summarily and with disdain, I thought.

Then, without explanation, in June 2003, Armitage’s office said the deputy secretary would see me. This was two weeks before Joe Wilson surfaced himself as author of a 2002 report for the CIA debunking Iraqi interest in buying uranium in Africa.

I sat down with Armitage in his State Department office the afternoon of July 8 with tacit rather than explicit ground rules: deep background with nothing said attributed to Armitage or even an anonymous State Department official. Consequently, I refused to identify Armitage as my leaker until his admission was forced by Hubris, a new book by reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn that absolutely identified him.

Late in my hourlong interview with Armitage. I asked why the CIA had sent Wilson — lacking intelligence experience, nuclear policy or recent contact with Niger — on the African mission. He told the Washington Post last week that his answer was: ‘‘I don’t know, but I think his wife worked out there.’’

Neither of us took notes, and nobody else was present. But I recalled our conversation that week in writing a column, while Armitage reconstructed it months later for federal prosecutors. He had told me unequivocally that Mrs. Wilson worked in the CIA’s Counter-Proliferation Division and that she had suggested her husband’s mission.

As for his current implications that he never expected this to be published, he noted that the story of Mrs. Wilson’s role fit the style of the old Evans-Novak column — implying to me it continued reporting Washington inside information.

Mrs. Wilson’s name appeared in my column July 14, 2003, but it was not until Oct. 1 that I heard about it from Armitage. Washington lobbyist Kenneth Duberstein, Armitage’s close friend and political adviser, called me to say the deputy secretary feared he had ‘‘inadvertently’’ (the word Armitage used in last week’s interviews) disclosed Mrs. Wilson’s identity to me in July and was considering resignation. (Duberstein’s phone call was disclosed in the Isikoff-Corn book, which used Duberstein as a source. They reported Duberstein was responsible for arranging my unexpected interview with Armitage.)

Duberstein told me Armitage wanted to know whether he was my source. I did not reply because I was sure that Armitage knew he was the source. I believed he contacted me Oct. 1 because of news the weekend of Sept. 27-28 that the Justice Department was investigating the leak. I cannot credit Armitage’s current claim that he realized he was the source only when my Oct. 1 column revealed that the official who gave me the information was ‘‘no partisan gunslinger.’’

Armitage’s silence the next 2œ years caused intense pain for his colleagues in government and enabled partisan Democrats in Congress to falsely accuse Rove of being my primary source. When Armitage now says he was mute because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s request, that does not explain his silence three months between his claimed first realization that he was the source and Fitzgerald’s appointment on Dec. 30. Armitage’s tardy self-disclosure is tainted because it is deceptive.

So when does Rove get an apology and Armitage go to jail??? When Ty, when????

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore

• This was two weeks before Joe Wilson surfaced himself as author of a 2002 report for the CIA debunking Iraqi interest in buying uranium in Africa.

So you admit that Wilson's report debunked the Administration's claims that Saddam Hussein tried to buy Nigerian yellowcake?

[Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
So when does Rove get an apology and Armitage go to jail??? When Ty, when????

Uh, it's not like Rove didn't confirm armitage's leak. He took a tidbit someone else created and ran with it. He deserves an apology for what? Being accused of being the primary leaker? I don't think that's the sole explanation for the outrage.

[SlaveNoMore]

Shape Shifter
So you admit that Wilson's report debunked the Administration's claims that Saddam Hussein tried to buy Nigerian yellowcake?

It's common knowledge Wilson lied to the CIA, then to the public, and claimed to "debunk" anything. It's common knowledge everything he said was wrong.

[Sidd Finch]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
It's common knowledge Wilson lied to the CIA, then to the public, and claimed to "debunk" anything. It's common knowledge everything he said was wrong.

Including the part about Iran not trying to buy weapons-grade uranium from Niger?

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
It's common knowledge Wilson lied to the CIA, then to the public, and claimed to "debunk" anything. It's common knowledge everything he said was wrong.

Novak seems to think Wilson's report debunked the Administration's Iraq/Niger claims. You disagree?

[SlaveNoMore]

Mmmm, Burger (C.J.)
Uh, it's not like Rove didn't confirm armitage's leak.

So what?

He took a tidbit someone else created and ran with it.

He didn't "run" with it. As you point out, some other reporter ran with it and askied him about it. He confirmed. Should he have pretended to be Webb Hubbell and claim "not to recall"?

He deserves an apology for what? Being accused of being the primary leaker?

For being viciously smeared on a daily basis as some traitor to his country perhaps?

I don't think that's the sole explanation for the outrage.

The sole reason for the outrage is that the Democrats can't win, Rove is brilliant politician, and the Left will stop at nothing to try to bring him down. Sad, truly.

[SlaveNoMore]

Shape Shifter
Novak seems to think Wilson's report debunked the Administration's Iraq/Niger claims. You disagree?

Yo're fucking kidding me, right?

• This was two weeks before Joe Wilson surfaced himself as author of a 2002 report for the CIA debunking Iraqi interest in buying uranium in Africa.

His report purported to "debunk" the Administration's claims. Where does Novak offer an opinion as to the accuracy of this report?

How's this one:

• This was 2 weeks before David Icke surfaced himself as the author of a 2002 report for the Tin Hat Society debunking claims that humans are not really lizard people

[SlaveNoMore]

Sidd Finch
Including the part about Iran not trying to buy weapons-grade uranium from Niger?

Why would Iran need to buy any? They're making their own.

[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore

• This was 2 weeks before David Icke surfaced himself as the author of a 2002 report for the Tin Hat Society debunking claims that humans are not really lizard people

Point of clarification:
no one ever claimed humans were Lizard people. To the contrary they eat us. Mr. Ickes did prove that Lizard people hide amongst us.

[Shape Shifter]

Originally posted by Hank Chinaski
Point of clarification:
no one ever claimed humans were Lizard people. To the contrary they eat us. Mr. Ickes did prove that Lizard people hide amongst us.

You've got my proxy on this.

[Tyrone Slothrop]

Originally posted by SlaveNoMore
So when does Rove get an apology and Armitage go to jail??? When Ty, when????

If Armitage committed a crime -- and at this point, I no longer remember the elements -- then he should go to jail. Maybe he's not out of those woods. I have no idea what his deal with Fitzpatrick is.

But how does all this change what Rove did?