Heh. Like I said. I've not done tons of investigation into the man myself. I basically did a google search on his name and political affiliation and that came up. Don't really know or care about the contents of the article itself...
What I do find amusing though is that I tend to flip back and forth between the "conservative" radio stations and the "progressive" radio station (Air America). I do it mostly for amusement factor because you'll get some nutjobs on both sides (and quite a bit of range in between. Jerry Springer is suprisingly moderate for example). It's also interesting (and educational) to make note of how differently the two viewpoints express any given political issue.
On this particular case, it's pretty black and white. The conservatives call Fitgerald a Democrat, and the liberals (progressives...) call him a Republican. I find that amusing as all hell actually. And when I hear that difference on the radio today (cause they were both talking about the latest news leaks about the investigation), it triggered in my mind that you've been calling him a Republican all along, and prompted me to see what if any affiliation he actually had.
That's part of why I tend to look at the situation more then the people. It's usually going to be more accurate in terms of what will happen. Especially with politically charged situations like this. They're lead often more by public opinion then by law. We'll just have to wait and see how that pans out.
Jophiel wrote:
How can you possibly say that if he makes "bogus" charges "they'll likely be politically motived" and then say you have no idea why they would be because you don't know him? When you accuse someone of a wrongdoing, it's customary to declare a motive beyond "How would I know?".
I already explained this. He wont do it because *he* has political motivations. Remember. I'm not looking at the person. I'm looking at the situatio. You've got a large number of liberals screaming about this issue. They've pinned a significant amount of political capital on it. It's very public, and the accusations have been very direct and "dirty" towards the Bush administration (not legal accusations necessarily, but political ones). Once you get something like this going, the public demands a satifactory result. Had the liberals allowed this to be handled like a normal investigation. Heck. Had the liberals not so thoroughly publicized their guesses about the Plame thing in the first place, complete with wild speculation about who said what, and announcements of just how bad it was (How many times did we hear that the outting put "lives in jeopardy"?), it could have been treated as a legitimate investigation, and possibly the obvious conclusion (she wasn't operating as a NOC and her identity really wasn't that secret after all) could have been arrived at and the whole issue put to bed without public outcry. Now, due to the rhetoric attacks of the left on this issue, the public demands some resolution. Before the liberal media spindoctors got involved, this was nothing more then a very minor event. Now, it's a matter of national security, and lives being put at risk, and potentially treasonous actions occuring. You can't just say "Nah. Now that we look at it, nothing really happened". That simply doesn't fly.
If that result occurs, the next allegation will be of cover up. After all, the spin given to the public has already convinced them that some kind of high crime has been commited, right? How is it possible that *no one* commmited a crime in the process? Not possible. As a result, it's even in the Bush administration's best interest for someone to get nailed for something so it doesn't look like it's a coverup (bizaare as that logic seems). And they'd almost rather lose a Libby or a Rove then deal with another year of another investigation.
That's how it's "politically motivated". You're assuming that is synonymous with "done for political advantage". I don't mean it that way at all. I mean that there's so much politics at issue here that there's no way anyone, no matter how unbiased and how fair they want to be, can thread their way through the issue without ending up taking some actions as a result of that politics. It's *possible*, but I doubt it highly. Someone will have to be charged with something.
Quote:
If he exonerates the administration, will you declare that the exoneration was politically motivated? You can't accept that if he does bring someone up on obstruction or perjury charges, it's potentially because he legitimately feels they lied during the course of a federal investigation and he finds that unacceptable? If someone did lie/obstruct/perjure/whatever during the investigation, should it be overlooked? Because now would be the time to call them on it.
It's certainly possible that there are legitimate charges of obstruction or perjury to be had. But I don't see it in this case. It's a matter of letter of the law versus spirit. The point should be to figure out if someone lied or blocked information that pertained to the case at hand. But if (as I believe) no one in the White House knew that Plame was a NOC, and therefore could not possibly have "outted" her, then any "obstruction" is superfluous. They literally had no reason to lie or obstruct the investigation in terms of figuring out who knew she was a NOC, and who of those people may have passed that information on. However, they most certainly would have a strong motivation to avoid making statements that could be construed in the public's eye to be an admission of guilt.
Remember. My approach to this whole thing is that the very "public" nature of the accusations has skewed the whole thing from the beginning. The purpose of this from the Liberals side has not so much been to get a conviction, but to get the public to distrust and dislike the White House staff. Rove, Libby, and others are well aware of this fact, and that certainly has affected their responses to questions on the issue (a point I also already made).
I'll make a prediction. Any charges of perjury or obstruction will end up being things related to attempting to avoid a public perception of wrongdoing, and not any attempt to hide whether or not someone knew Plame was a NOC and passed her employment on.
And that's much more a "letter of the law" issue. No actual wrongdoing was done in that case. It's actually *very* similar to the Clinton thing. He didn't lie about Whitewater. He lied to avoid making a statement that the public would percieve poorly. Same deal her. If lies are found, it'll be lies to avoid poor public perception, not lies to avoid prosecution on the Plame outting.
Wanna refute that prediction? I'd place about an 85% chance that I'm right on this...