That goes double for me.

"After six years, this is the only thing we have been led to expect. . . . A large number of conservatives have long since abandoned this President (and indeed, the GOP itself)."

Too bad for the country that the realization and abandonment didn't come somewhere before the 4 year mark.

Well said, Zach.

Clinton set the precedent for firing US attorneys without explanation, so I don't see what the scandal is.

One attorney didn't do his job when presented evidence of voter fraud, so that one deserved to be fired.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/017061.php

Clinton set the precedent for firing US attorneys without explanation, so I don't see what the scandal is.

Clinton fired all of the attorneys when he started his first term as president. Unprecidented, but not unreasonable to want to remove political holdovers from the previous 12 years.

One attorney didn't do his job when presented evidence of voter fraud, so that one deserved to be fired.

This may be the case, but why were all of the removed attourneys given wonderful performance reviews? Kindness perhaps, but it makes it difficult to use performance as a reason to terminnate when you dont have any record of poor performance. Doesnt the Bush DoJ have any experience in employment law?

"I am content to leave him to his enemies, undefended except by the dishonest and the duped."

I believe we just heard from one of the either dishonest or duped (see Alan K. Henderson, above)

Great post.

Let's see. Bill Clinton fired all the prosecutors including the one prosecuting White Water and that's just fine. Blush fires 8 and that's terrible. These facts somehow make Alan duped or dishonest. Gonzales made one big mistake. He should have gone to capitol hill himself and said what everyone knew, that federal prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the white house. That's why Clinton could fire the lot of them.

So...yes, Mr. Clinton replaced all of the U.S. attorneys at the beginning of his administration. Here's what Karl Rove had to say about the comparison of what they were doing with what the Clinton admin. did.

"In recent memory, during the Reagan and Clinton administrations, Presidents Reagan and Clinton did not seek to remove and replace U.S. Attorneys they had appointed whose four-year terms had expired, but instead permitted such U.S. Attorneys to serve indefinitely."

Blasted liberals.

Anyway, the removal of the attorneys, overall, is not the heart of this matter as far as I'm concerned. While the removal of attorneys who weren't investigating enough Democrats is obviously inappropriate, but inappropriate is not equal to illegal. It suggests need for reform, but if there's no law against it, there's nothing to charge.

There seem to have been 2 actions which violate either the law or Congressional rules here. First, AG Gonzalez seems to have lied to Congress under oath. His testimony from Feb. on many points of the prosecutor removal is directly contradicted by documents released in teh past week.

And secondly, several Congressmen/Senators appear to have contacted some of the fired attorneys to encourage them to move more rapidly on investigations of Democrats. This is a clear violation of House and Senate rules, and it's for this reason that Domenici has lawyered up already. One of the House Republicans involved is interestingly the Ranking Republican on the Ethics committee.

It seems pretty clear that if AG Gonzalez does not resign, he will wind up facing perjury charges at some point soon. But other than that, unless Mr. Rove lies to Congress when he testifies, it won't go any higher.

Overall, I think that the combination of the actions of the last several administrations strongly suggest need for more permanent reform of the U.S. attorney's system. The fact that the Attorneys serve "at the pleasure of the President" seems inappropriate if the President is willing to politicize those offices.

So, I suggest a couple changes to fix this system.

1. Extend the U.S. attorney's term to 10 years, instead of 4. Thus lasting beyond the term of any single President.
2. Require all U.S. attorneys, including those appointed to fill vacancies, to be approved by the Senate (as was the case before the Patriot Act revision changed that law).
3. Require Senate approval for the removal of a U.S. attorney (thus allowing guys like the U.S. Attorney during the Clinton years who bit a stripper to be removed if they don't resign, but limiting the ability of an administration to do it silently) and also opening up an important firing, like the Carol Lam firing which interrupted the Cunningham investigation, to a filibuster.

Mike O

Let's see. Bill Clinton fired all the prosecutors including the one prosecuting White Water and that's just fine. Blush fires 8 and that's terrible. These facts somehow make Alan duped or dishonest. Gonzales made one big mistake. He should have gone to capitol hill himself and said what everyone knew, that federal prosecutors serve at the pleasure of the white house. That's why Clinton could fire the lot of them.

As you should know by know, these US Attorneys are political appointments. When Clinton fired all 93 of Bush I's holdover appointees, that was his right. When Bush II fired his own appointees, even for what looks like purely political reasons, he would still have been perfectly within his rights.

However, one of the attorney's involved, New Mexico's David Iglesias claimed that Rep Heather Wilson (R-New Mexico) and Sen Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) contacted him to lean on him to aggressively pursue Democratic voter fraud cases before the 2006 elections. THAT is VERY illegal, and it caused a big stir. When Gonzales and his deputy appeared before Congress to testify about it, they claimed that the Iglesias firing (like the other firings) was "performance based" only. Subsequent to their testimony, evidence has come to light suggesting that this may have not been the case, that in fact many of these attorneys, Iglesias included, had very good performance evaluations, and that they were fired for political reasons.

It wasn't the firings per se that may force Gonzales to resign. It was the lying under oath to Congress (if it turns out that's what they did) about the reasons for the firings is a crime. Got it now?

Somehow I suspect you already knew all that. Yet people like you and Alan K. Henderson continue to defend this gang of incompetent hacks. It boggles the mind...

"Bill Clinton fired all the prosecutors including the one prosecuting White Water and that's just fine."

Are you talking about Robert Fiske? Clinton didn't fire him -- rather, after Congress brought back the office of the independent counsel, _the court_ released him (having been appointed by the Reno DoJ)... and replaced him with _Ken Starr_.

"However, one of the attorney's involved, New Mexico's David Iglesias claimed that Rep Heather Wilson (R-New Mexico) and Sen Pete Domenici (R-New Mexico) contacted him to lean on him to aggressively pursue Democratic voter fraud cases before the 2006 elections."

What was the crime committed? And did Iglesias do his job and pursue the voter fraud cases?

What was the crime committed? And did Iglesias do his job and pursue the voter fraud cases?

I dont know about the crime, but the Attourney doenst take his direction from the local Senators or Representatives, but rather the DoJ. So the question now is, did those representatives contact the lawers superiors or the proper chain of command?

What was the crime committed? And did Iglesias do his job and pursue the voter fraud cases?

It violates congressional ethics rules for a senator or representative to talk to a federal prosecutor about an ongoing criminal investigation unless the elected rep has evidence or information related to the investigation.

Domenici called up Iglesias to push him to speed up indictments in a federal corruption investigation that involved Democrats. When Iglesias said indictment couldn't be handed down until after the 2006 election, Domenici hung up on him.

The Justice Dept says that in that same time period, Domenici put in four calls to them demanding Iglesias' ouster.

As to the voting fraud, the Albuquerque Journal reports: "After investigating a “hatful” of allegations brought to him, Iglesias said he did not have enough evidence to bring charges.  “Most of the complaints were completely without basis,” Iglesias said.  “At the end of the day, we decided we did not have any cases we could prove beyond a reasonable doubt. ...We cannot prosecute on rumor and innuendo.”"

Iglesias wasn't on the US Attorneys-to-be-fired list until Domenici and Wilson put in complaint calls to Justice.

Domenici and Wilson wanted these cases to proceed because they knew the NM GOP faced tough challenges in the 2006 election (Wilson won by less than 1,000 votes). It appears that they tried to use Iglesias' office to smear the Democrats. Wilson is currently under investigation by the House Ethics Committee for her role in this scandal, and Domenici has hired a lawyer to represent him on this matter.

Scandal-mongering is the most tiresome aspect of politics, bar none.

I came of age (both politically and legally) during the Clinton administration, and after having watched both it and the current administration, I've concluded that both of the following are universally true:

A) Politicians (and their appointees, advisors, etc) will behave ruthlessly, including bending and sometimes breaking often arcane laws and regulations.

B) Politicians will seize upon any evidence of wrongdoing by their opponents and stoke a scandal disproportionate to the alleged wrongdoing, with the willing cooperation of the media, which love scandal because it sells newspapers and hikes TV ratings.

I don't see anything to suggest that "Purgegate" is anything other than typical D.C. B.S.

Of course you wouldn't.

I think a pretty good definition of "partisan hack" would be someone who never misses an opportunity to criticize a Republican, nor an opportunity to defend a Democrat.

I really enjoy when you take potshots at me for being a partisan hack, because truly Eric, I think that label fits you to a tee.

Would a Republican hack post a defense of John Kerry when many conservative bloggers were attacking him to try to score pre-election points?

I think the vast majority of ITA readers can see that all our contributors, though partisan to varying degrees, always strive for fairness above all.

Sorry, but your ringing defense of Kerry reads more to me like an attempt to get Allen off the hook: " just as I gave Allen the benefit of the doubt, I am also giving Kerry that same benefit..."

C'mon Eric, most of the contributors do strive for fairness, but your "partisan hackery" does keep things fun.

Thanks, sweetheart. For my part, I consider it flattery that amidst your general trollishness, you've picked me out for special attention. You love me! You really love me!

I don't love you Eric, but I do enjoy you. And I'm only pointing out the obvious.

Alan K. Henderson

What was the crime committed?

Just to add to what I wrote above, I just spotted this in the NY Times by their op-ed lawyer, Adam Cohen. The firings themselves may be punishable:

"...United States attorneys can be fired whenever a president wants, but not, as § 1512 (c) puts it, to corruptly obstruct, influence, or impede an official proceeding. Anyone involved in firing a United States attorney to obstruct or influence an official proceeding could have broken the law."

Some thoughts:
(i) Wow, what service! ;-) Seriously though: nice post, and indeed the last several recent posts have all been high-quality stuff.

(ii) However, this thread itself reveals where Zach goes astray at the end of the post, when he writes: "Joining the scrum over these recent scandals seems unnecessary, and I am content to leave him to his enemies, undefended except by the dishonest and the duped." As we have seen, there are a _lot_ of dishonest and duped out there, and I think you also have to add to that list the delusional (like Alan) and the intellectually lazy (like Eric; see below). When sensible voices on the right can't be bothered to call out the current GOP power establishment on its abuses, then it's just all too easy for the noise machine to make it all look like he-said/she-said, partisan politicking. And, in this case (and others, like Plamegate,) it's not. It's real, substantive wrongdoing by the administration, and needs to be treated as such.

(iii) Relatedly, there is important political work that needs to be done in dismantling the Rove/DeLay machinery & getting the GOP back on track to be a force for good, not evil, in the country. And it fundamentally can't be done by the Democrats. We can help by winning elections & holding hearings & such, but at the end of the day, only the right can clean up the right. And keep in mind that it's not just Bush or Cheney -- this corruption is actively aided & abetted by the entire GOP Congressional establishment. I mean, the Dems have had the power of the gavel for, what, two months, and they've already found wrongdoings worthy of impeaching a key cabinet secretary. You think that there weren't even worse things going on for the last six years, which the GOP Congress just happened to not want to bother looking into?

(iv) Eric reveals that once again that he doesn't have even the faintest understanding of the relevant intellectual standards for intellectual honesty vs. hackery. It's just not the sort of thing that can be demonstrated with a post here or a post there, unless the posts in question demonstrate egregious intellectual dishonesty, which I daresay none of the ones linked to even come close to doing. (As opposed to, say, Alan's posts on this thread, which are typically untethered from reality, like almost all of his posts.) Also, one isolated post that is fair to the other side isn't much evidence of non-hackery, either. Rather, it's something that can generally only really be seen in larger patterns of commentary -- most often by a systematic double-standard that excuses the largest flaws in one's own side, and vigorously prosecutes the most minor in the other. The bits that Eric linked to reveal some fairly mild partisanship, but nothing that even begins to look like hackery.

(v) Now, as just mentioned, double standards are the main form of hackery. But another version more relevant today is what we might call the 'convenient non-standard'. If one sets a low enough bar for scandal-mongering, or playing politics with national security, or being deceitful, etc. then everyone will count as bad, and one can shrug off the currently egregious dishonesty and corruption of the GOP power establishment as just 'DC being DC'. It is to practice, one might say, the soft moral relativism of low expectations. The Clinton administration did _nothing_ that even _comes close_ to this political abuse of the DoJ, just as they did nothing that comes close to the casual disregard for national security practiced by the office of the vice-president in outing Valerie Plame, just as (relatedly) they did nothing that even comes close to the fundamental dishonesty of the WMD-based case for the invasion of Iraq. To pretend otherwise is, simply, willful ignorance.

(vi) Yes, this kind of corruption is illegal. So is lying to Congress.

(vii) So, these 8 are the ones who _didn't_ do Rove's corrupt bidding. It does make you wonder about not just how high the corruption goes, but also how wide. I.e., how many of the non-fired US attorneys kept their job precisely because they _did_ do what the Mayberry Machiavellis wanted them to do? I don't know; and neither do you; but we'd sure better find out.

phil,

Once again, you're demonstrating your arrogance in that you think anyone who doesn't approach issues from the same perspective or in the same manner as you is beneath you.

Eric reveals that once again that he doesn't have even the faintest understanding of the relevant intellectual standards for intellectual honesty vs. hackery.

Wrong. I understand the relevant intellectual standards just fine. Just because I didn't have the time to research and present a comprehensive review of JohnS's history of comments on ITA doesn't mean I am basing my assessment of his hackery on just four comments! My assessment is indeed based on a long and consistent pattern, wherein he *always* has some mud to sling in the GOP's direction, whether or not it's directly relevant to the post he's commenting on.

As for having a "convenient non-standard," I'd say it's a matter of not wanting to get into silly spitting contests that start with "The Clinton administration did _nothing_ that even _comes close_ to..." or for that matter "The Clinton administration was far worse because they..." Whoever broke a law in this case should be duly punished. But the actual impact of 8 politically-appointed lawyers being fired is hardly a matter of huge national concern. Compare this to the Plame affair. If what the Bush-haters alleged had been true, *that* would be a grave offense, worthy of impeachment. Problem is, there's no evidence of that, and in fact there's a perfectly sensible explanation for how Plame's "covert" status got leaked.

Eric

Before you continue to sling more crap at me, I'd suggest you take a hard look at your own history of comments. How you see yourself is not necessarily how others see you.

But the actual impact of 8 politically-appointed lawyers being fired is hardly a matter of huge national concern.

I would beg to differ, if the firings were attempts to to obstruct ongoing investigations, and/or if the Attorney General or members of his staff lied to Congress about them.

Relatedly, there is important political work that needs to be done in dismantling the Rove/DeLay machinery & getting the GOP back on track to be a force for good, not evil, in the country.

This is certainly something that I would root for, but I can also sympathise with Zach. I know I'm gonna get zinged for this by a certain somebody, but I'll say it anyway: with a 30% approval rating, I believe that translates into what, a 75% or so approval rating for Bush among Republicans at this point? Despite all the lies, corruption, and incompetence? That's gotta be depressing and perhaps what accounts for his final paragraph. But it would be a shame for the good guys to leave the GOP in the hands of the "dishonest and the duped."

Before you continue to sling more crap at me, I'd suggest you take a hard look at your own history of comments.

That's awfully rich coming from you. How many people who write or comment on ITA do you interact with outside of this blog? I know of what I speak when I say that you are considered a pest.

Call me a pest, call me a "partisan hack" or whatever you'd like. But please don't try to pretend that you are what you are not, it looks ridiculous.

It's not arrogance for me to point out your intellectual lazyness when you are, in fact, intellectually lazy; especially when the evidence for the charge is so abundant. Why, your own comment provides excellent evidence of exactly the charge in question:

(i) You avoid doing the basic hard work of thinking about these issues under the stupid excuse of wanting to avoid "silly spitting contests" about comparing the Clinton administration to the Bush administration. That you think that the stark difference in facts about these administration is the sort of thing that just amounts to a "spitting contest" is, quite simply, ridiculous. And this slack unwillingness to _actually compare the facts about the two administrations_ is exactly sort of hands-over-ears-la-la-la-ism that I was accusing you of.

(ii) That you still stand by your earlier shallow "Case Closed" post is further evidence of your lazy tendency to find the first convenient way of explaining away a charge against the administration, and then firmly shutting both eyes and ears. Anyone who's paying attention to the entirety of the Plame case knows that the Armitage disclosure doesn't even come close to exonerating the rest of the administration. Since a minimal web search on these matters is obviously too much for you, here are a couple of links to get you started:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-corn/the-meaning-of-the-armita_b_28097.html

http://mediamatters.org/items/200609010001

Money quote: "Armitage's role aside, the public record is without question: senior White House aides wanted to use Valerie Wilson's CIA employment against her husband. Rove leaked the information to Cooper, and Libby confirmed Rove's leak to Cooper. Libby also disclosed information on Wilson's wife to New York Times reporter Judith Miller."

(iii) Your accusations against JohnS are laughable as well. All four comments of his that you linked to are all on-topic and cogently argued. They are posts of, at worst, partisan wonkery, not hackery. Again, that you cannot tell the difference between those sorts of posts, and having "some mud to sling in the GOP's direction, whether or not it's directly relevant to the post he's commenting on", only reveals how little you understand what the basic standards of non-hackery are.

Oh, and I forgot one: you wrote "you're demonstrating your arrogance in that you think anyone who doesn't approach issues from the same perspective or in the same manner as you is beneath you." But that hypothesis doesn't survive even a casual inspection of my comments on this blog. I am typically aggressive & snarky, sure, but when I comment on the thoughtful & well-considered (even if, in my view, often mistaken) posts of such co-bloggers as JC, Zach, and (back in the day) Paul and Ed, I treat their claims & arguments with the respect they deserve; i.e., a fair amount. And, by the same token, I typically treat your posts with all the respect that they deserve; i.e., not much. Disagreement, I have no problem with, especially interesting and thoughtful disagreement. Indeed, it's what I come here for. But shallow, unthinking, knee-jerk, hacklike disagreement -- that I can do without. And it's a very rare (though, I will admit, not _entirely_ nonexistent) day when you have anything else on offer here.

Now, we can entertain various hypotheses as to why I have singled you out to have such scorn heaped upon you. Maybe I harbor a secret vendetta (maybe you ran over my dog when I was a child, or stole the girl of my dreams, or something like that). Maybe it's a misbegotten way of sublimating a man-crush (I do like scientists, after all). Or maybe, just maybe, it's just that I've successfully identified you as, indeed, a lazy-ass hack. But whatever the explanation is, your own proferred hypothesis that I am simply intolerant of all who disagree with me is, well, lazy and hackish. Q, as they say, ED.

phil,

I see you've mostly left aside your accusation that I don't understand the difference between intellectual honesty and hackery, and launched a more broadside attack on my integrity. At this point, anyone who knows me personally is laughing at you, but that's beside the point...

My original comment about JohnS was a reply to his remark which was 100% snark, 0% intellectual content. For some reason, you chose to *assume* that the examples I gave were the complete basis for my assessment of his hackery, and on the basis of that *assumption*, you claimed I did not understand the meaning of intellectual honesty. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not going to waste my time coming up with a comprehensive analysis for an assessment which should be obvious to any unbiased observer, especially when the subject of that assessment posts far more snark here than actual, original thought.

It is very ironic that you accuse me of "intellectual laziness" for not wanting to "compare the facts" about the Bush and Clinton administrations, when you've offered nothing more than your bare assertions that the Bush administration is worse--based on references to two Bush administration scandals. So where's *your* comprehensive comparison of the various scandals of the Bush and Clinton eras?

As I said before, I'm just not going to waste my time engaging in Bush v. Clinton comparisons, because they're utterly fruitless. Virtually everyone who gives a whit about such a comparison has their mind made up already, and far too much ink (mostly of the virtual sort) has been spilled on that topic already. That doesn't mean I won't offer an opinion in a comment thread, but I'm not even pretending to offer a comprehensive analysis, so please don't expect one.

As for this:

the public record is without question: senior White House aides wanted to use Valerie Wilson's CIA employment against her husband.

I actually agree with that statement. Notice, however, that it doesn't support the left-winger notion that Bush or a close advisor 1) knew Plame was covert, and 2) intentionally leaked that fact to punish Wilson. Rather, my theory has always been that a) people were wondering why a noted Bush critic would be chosen to investigate the uranium thing in Niger, b) White House officials found out Wilson's wife works for the CIA, but c) didn't know she was covert, and d) mentioned that Wilson's wife recommended him for the mission to imply that Wilson was chosen through nepotism, not his qualifications. No evidence has come to light which proves the left-winger theory or disproves my theory.

Now, we can entertain various hypotheses as to why I have singled you out

Oh, I'm pretty sure I know. I've shown the most willingness to engage you in protracted discussions, which give you the opportunity to show off what you see as your intellectual superiority. That's a mistake I will not persist in. You really should get your own blog to show the world how smart you are. If it's good, we might even blogroll you.

"My original comment about JohnS was a reply to his remark which was 100% snark, 0% intellectual content."

My four word remark was about all your original five paragraph post deserved. Talk about 0% intellectual content, your 'everybody in Washington is guilty of it, so why single out "Purgegate" pathetic letting-off-the-hook-spin' had all that and less. Does that honestly qualify as the kind of "actual, original thought" you supposedly parade like a peacock around this blog?

However, I should give you an "A+" for originality with this gem of yours, Eric: lying to Congress under oath and (possibly) firing U.S. attorneys to obstruct ongoing investigations for political reasons becomes, in Seymourese, "bending or breaking arcane laws and regulations." Very, VERY fast spinning!

I should point out though, with regards to this:

"(B) Politicians will seize upon any evidence of wrongdoing by their opponents and stoke a scandal disproportionate to the alleged wrongdoing, with the willing cooperation of the media, which love scandal because it sells newspapers and hikes TV ratings.

Like "Plamegate," the attorney-purge was largely ignored by the press AND Dems-- neither story/scandal would ever have gained traction without the relentless flogging by left-wing blogs.

"For some reason, you chose to *assume* that the examples I gave were the complete basis for my assessment of his hackery, and on the basis of that *assumption*, you claimed I did not understand the meaning of intellectual honesty. Well, I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm not going to waste my time coming up with a comprehensive analysis for an assessment which should be obvious to any unbiased observer, especially when the subject of that assessment posts far more snark here than actual, original thought."

"Sorry to disappoint you," "comprehensive analysis." God, you can be a buffoon. How about some appropriate citations instead of "should be obvious to any unbiased observer" as if this were a teenaged girls' slumber party instead of the ITA comments board.

And thank you, philosopher, for your kind remarks on my behalf.

Eric, your new hypothesis is just as patently falsified as your previous intolerance-of-disagreement one; namely, it completely fails to make sense of my interactions with the various other members of this blog. A starkly better hypothesis is: I sincerely think, as I have argued at length, that you're a lazy hack.

It's not like I enjoy this, btw. What I enjoy is meaningful, well-informed exchanges of the sort that can be had here with the likes of Zach and JC, and which I used to enjoy with Paul (and Nick, back in the HR days). That's why I read this blog. Having to point out the silliness of so much of what you say isn't fun -- rather, it's like taking out the garbage: it's a chore, and it involves interacting with stuff that is worthless & nauseating, but it's an important part of housekeeping. I care about the intellectual health of this blog, and pointing out your foolishness is a necessary part of that. Here, we can even test your latest hypothesis: if you would quit ITA and go start your own solo blog, your hypothesis would predict that I would continue commenting on you like this over there; but, I promise you, if it wasn't for your slipshod posts cluttering up this blog, I wouldn't bother with you in the slightest.

Getting back down to points:
"I see you've mostly left aside your accusation that I don't understand the difference between intellectual honesty and hackery, and launched a more broadside attack on my integrity."
Huh?? I don't see where you're getting that at all. My point here is, and has been, that you're a lazy hack, unable to tell what counts as making a decent intellectual argument. I have no clue what your integrity is like in your personal life, and I don't see where I said anything that even remotely touches on that. If anything I said did sound like an attack on something other than your qualities as a blogger, I officially recant it & apologize for it. But for the life of me, I don't see where you got that interpretation.

"My original comment about JohnS was a reply to his remark which was 100% snark, 0% intellectual content." For starters, this is just confused, on your part -- you accused him of being a partisan hack. Snarkiness and hackiness are completely orthogonal properties. It is possible to be intellectually responsible and hackish, and it is also possible to maintain a purely civil tone and make vapid, ill-informed arguments. These just aren't the same thing. Moreover, the 4 items you linked to simply aren't any evidence of hackishness on JohnS's part at all. Maybe there's a background pattern of hackishness there (though I have not seen it myself; again, the snark that is very evident is just irrelevant to claims about hackishness), but those 4 posts don't even _begin_ to participate in any such pattern. If there really were such a pattern, and you couldn't even see clearly enough to cite actual instances of that pattern, well, that just underscores my claim that you don't understand what you're talking about. Does JohnS frequently make snarky little jabs? Yes. Are these jabs _also_ accompanied by appropriate kinds of argumentation? Also, yes. It's a shame that your basic failure to understand what makes for a good argument keeps your from seeing that, and from therefore seeing the epistemic disvalue of your own posts.

As for your line on Plamegate, it's inconsistent with numerous facts in the public domain, including (and this is just off the top of my head) that the State Department memo was marked as secret; that Rove and Libby knew full well that it was their responsibility to be careful with classified information (and hence 'I didn't know' is no excuse); that Fleischer testified that Libby fed him the information, but added that it was "hush hush". Again, all we have here is evidence that you just haven't been able to bring yourself to do the basic research that would be a prerequisite for having an intellectually responsible opinion on these matters.

Whoa, major typo -- that should be "It is possible to be intellectually responsible and _snarkish_..."