Libertarian Leanings

Galbraith Dies

John Kenneth Galbraith passed away last night at the age of 97 in Cambridge, Mass.

Known as a follower of Keynesian economic theories, he joined the Harvard faculty in 1934. Three years later, he became a U.S. citizen.

Galbraith was more than a mere Keynesian.  He was very nearly socialistic, holding the view, probably right up to the end, that price controls work if properly applied.  That alone made him a gasbag in my view.

Still on the hook

According to the Washington Times the grand jury investigation into the assault of a Capitol Police officer by Democratic Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney continues.

Miss McKinney, Georgia Democrat, apologized under pressure for striking the officer, who stopped her as she went around metal detectors at a House office building checkpoint.

However, the investigation is active, authorities said Friday. Capitol Police requested an arrest warrant be issued for Miss McKinney, but the decision is in the hands of the U.S. Attorney's Office.

The prospect of assault charges hangs over Miss McKinney, 51, as she faces a primary election challenge and after her attorney dropped her as a client.

She must have been a charming and thoughtful client.

Miss McKinney also drew attention earlier this month for calling one of her aides a "fool."

She made the comment after a television interview and didn't realize that her microphone was still on. She then insisted the disparaging remark was off the record. But the television station aired the footage, which was picked up by CNN.

How does one so charming get elected in the first place?  I suppose one could get favorable news coverage.  Mercifully, this one doesn't seem to be getting that kind of coverage anymore.

Typical Bush critic

Whizbang shares observations about author and former CIA man MIchael Scheuer.

...get a load of the following passage:

'For nearly a decade now, bin Laden has demonstrated patience, brilliant planning, managerial expertise, sound strategic and tactical sense, admirable character traits, eloquence, and focused, limited war aims. He has never, to my knowledge, behaved or spoken in a way that could be described as "irrational in the extreme."'

...The CIA previously gave Mr. Scheuer the important task of hunting down bin Laden; he was, in fact, the chief of the CIA's bin Laden unit. Instead of catching his man, it appears as if Mr. Scheuer got some sort of teenybopper crush on the king of al Qaeda, and thus offered the odious sentiment reproduced above.

A while ago I planned on reading Imperial Hubris but never got around to it.  As time goes by chances I ever will, fade.

An oil crisis bandwagon

Democrats and Republicans alike are scrambling to find what political hay they can make out of rising prices at the gas pump.  It's a made to order Washington crisis.  Anything they do in Washington to avert the crisis will only make it worse, resulting in more stringent efforts avert the crisis.  They're in political heaven.  Here's Harry Reid.

"Americans are struggling to pay the rising cost of gas," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader, "and they are not interested in handouts to help oil companies make more money by letting them drill in wildlife refuges."

The issue has turned tax and spend Democrats into tax cutting Democrats. 

Democrats pressed their own ideas, including a proposal by Senator Robert Menendez, Democrat of New Jersey, for a 60-day suspension on the 18.4-cent-per-gallon federal tax on gasoline and 24-cent diesel tax.

"It is direct relief at the pump," Mr. Menendez said.

Some Republicans, including Mr. Thune, have also endorsed a suspension of those taxes.

Free market Republicans are turning into social engineers.

Senate Republicans tried on Thursday to get the upper hand in the escalating political battle over high gasoline prices by proposing a $100 rebate for taxpayers and by suggesting that they might increase taxes on oil-industry profits.

[...]

"This gas price issue is huge," said Senator Susan Collins, Republican of Maine.

It's huge, alright.  It's a huge opportunity to make a mess, one that I'm sure they won't pass up.  While there are quite a few in Washington who have no clue when it comes to economics, there is the remote chance that some sound policy will come out of this.

The Republican proposal also called for opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil production, a provision sure to draw opposition from many Democrats and even some Republicans.

The technology is there and it's proven.  Oil exploration and drilling can be accomplished without harm to the environment.  It would be sound economic policy to go after that oil, but don't hold your breath.

Supply and what?

Charles Krauthammer speaks truth to power with his commentary on a little know phenomenon.  At least it's little known to the powers that be within The Beltway.

And don't get me started on the missing supply of might-have-been American crude. Arctic and outer continental shelf oil that the politicians kill year after year would have provided us by now with a critical and totally secure supply cushion in times of tight markets.

Yes, it's supply and demand of which he speaks.  And you can almost hear the puzzled voices in Washington saying, "What?"

Color me surprised!

In a surprising move the Washington Post has rewritten and republished their story on Karl Rove's fifth trip to the grand jury room.  Gone are the excerpts with which I brutally bludgeoned writers William Branigin and Jim VandeHei.  Oh my... gone is William Branigan from the byline, too.  Gee, I must have hit 'em where it really hurts.

The new and improved version takes a slightly different approach to Bush Administration bashing.  For instance, there is no longer the assertion that Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson "debunked" the Administration charge that Iraq sought uranium from Africa.  And, there is also no mention of our unidentified government official who came forward to claim responsibility for the disclosure under investigation, which the Post had reported earlier this way.

Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward testified under oath Monday in the CIA leak case that a senior administration official told him about CIA operative Valerie Plame and her position at the agency nearly a month before her identity was disclosed...

Fitzgerald interviewed Woodward about the previously undisclosed conversation after the official alerted the prosecutor to it on Nov. 3 -- one week after Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was indicted in the investigation.

While the earlier story mentioned the unidentified government official as "an area of interest", the enhanced edition repackages the story of Karl Rove's conversations with Robert Novak and Matt Cooper to imply that he, Karl Rove, may be the original leaker after all.

In grand jury appearances and other conversations with federal investigators, Rove has testified that he discussed Wilson's wife briefly with columnist Robert D. Novak and Cooper before she was publicly unmasked in July 2003, according to lawyers in the case.

But the New York Times version of Rove incriminating conversation with Novak went like this,

After hearing Mr. Novak's account, the person who has been briefed on the matter said, Mr. Rove told the columnist: "I heard that, too."

Sorry, but that doesn't sound like a leak to me.  Confirmation? Sure.  But leak? No.  But by omitting that bit of information from Release 1.1 of "Rove Testifies 5th Time On Leak" one can easily conclude that Rove could be the one who originally told Bob Novak, while clearly he was not.  Well, how about Matt Cooper.  Did Rove disclose CIA agent Plame's identity to Matt Cooper?  Here is Fox News reporting of that conversation.

Cooper started with a clipped statement: "I am writing about Wilson," to which Rove replied: "Don't get too far out on Wilson"...

After hearing insider chatter criticizing Wilson, Cooper said he called Rove, who apparently explained to Cooper that Wilson's mission had not been requested by then-CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney. Cooper then sought confirmation for that...

According to Cooper, Rove was the first to tell him that Wilson's wife worked at the "agency," conceivably the CIA; that her specialty was "WMD," or weapons of mass destruction; and that she was responsible for sending Wilson to Niger. Cooper said Rove never mentioned her by name and Cooper didn't learn it until it showed up the following week in a column by Robert Novak.

Well, no leak there either.  But like Libby, Rove is on the hook because Fitzgerald apparently believes the purpose of his investigation is to charge somebody from the White House with something.  Since Rove has said he forgot all about this non-incriminating conversation with Matt Cooper, he may be on the hook for lying about it.

And the ever helpful Post aids the investigation in the court of public opinion, by promoting the story that Joseph C. Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame were victims of a smear.  Rove Testifies - R1.1 points out this nefarious attack on our valiant whistle blowers.

A court filing by Fitzgerald earlier this month, for instance, provided the new and politically damaging revelation that Bush had authorized Libby to disclose previously classified information about Iraq's weapons programs.

Could there be anything more dastardly then to smear the Wilson's with facts! 

Are we in for surprises?

Update:  Surprise!  The Washington Post story addressed by this commentary has been revised, and the excerpts included below are no longer part of it.  Those cagey Post editors!  Undaunted, I've revised my commentary which you may find here.

The Washington Post reports that Karl Rove has testified for a fifth time, before Patrick Fitzgerald's grand jury.  I confess, the suspense is no longer killing me.  As Rove testifies once again, once again Washington Post reporting suggests that the purpose of Fitzgerald's investigation is to prosecute someone from the White House.

The case was initiated to discover who leaked Plame's CIA employment to the news media in July 2003 in an apparent effort to retaliate against her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had emerged as a prominent critic of Bush's rationale for invading Iraq.

Apparently, the disclosure of Plame's CIA employment is a crime only if the leak originated in the White House as part of an effort to retaliate against Plame's husband.  While it's not clear that anyone from the White House made any such disclosure, it's very clear that someone else did.  But, since that someone was not from the White House, retaliation is ruled out as a motive, which seems to rule it out as a crime in the eyes of Fitzgerald.

So what's a Special Prosecutor to do?  Well, a Special Prosecutor would keep the investigation open.  Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald has already indicted Scooter Libby, formerly of the White House, for obstructing the investigation of what he already knew.  So you just never know what else might turn up.  As I continue to wonder what that could be, the Post speculates that our anonymous government official might be a "possible area of interest."

In addition to the grand jury's unfinished business involving Rove, another possible area of interest for prosecutors is the source who gave information about Plame to Bob Woodward of The Washington Post. In sworn testimony before Fitzgerald in November, Woodward said he had been told in mid-June 2003 that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA as an analyst on weapons of mass destruction.

But I don't think Fitzgerald is interested in anybody not of the White House.  He seems to think he's investigating the punishment of a whistle blower, and while it makes almost no sense, Post reporters William Branigin and Jim VandeHei agree.  Or at least they say they do:

Woodward said, Libby discussed an October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq and told him that the Iraqi regime of former president Saddam Hussein had tried to obtain uranium "yellowcake" from Africa -- an allegation that Wilson's trip to Niger in February 2002 had already debunked.

Had already debunked?  William Branigin and Jim VandeHei may think so, but their editors at the Post editors don't.  They say,

The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.

Well, I'm all prepared to be surprised.  In fact, I'll be very surprised if this investigation ever comes to an end. 

McCarthy on the leak investigations

Andrew McCarthy, former federal prosecutor and senior fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, weighs in on the CIA leaks with his National Review column, Reporters and Investigations.

There are three possibilities when prosecutors deal with journalists: Category A is the usual situation in which reporters are merely the repositories of hearsay information from their sources; Category B is the unusual situation in which reporters are direct witnesses of crimes but have no culpability themselves; and Category C is the most rare situation of all, in which reporters are theoretically complicit in criminal activity.

The Plame/Fitzgerald investigation falls squarely into Category B. By contrast, the probe of intelligence community leaking (not only regarding black-site prisons, but also the NSA's terrorist surveillance program and other leaks that have damaged the war effort) falls into Category C.

McCarthy and the Iraq/al Qaeda connection

Thomas Joscelyn examines the evolving positions of Mary McCarthy and her cohorts over the Clinton Administration's decision to bomb that Sudanese pharmaceutical plant.  The factory was suspected of producing nerve gas, and was believed by the Clinton Administration to be a joint venture between Iraq and al Qaeda.

Richard Clarke defended the intelligence linking Iraqi scientists to al Qaeda in the months following the strike. The 9-11 Commission's report adds that Clarke "for years had read intelligence reports on Iraqi-Sudanese cooperation on chemical weapons." McCarthy's fellow NSC staffers Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon give an impassioned defense of the strike on al-Shifa in their book The Age of Sacred Terror. Not to mention that the CIA reported to Congress that Iraq was working on chemical and possibly biological weapons programs in Sudan every year from 1998 through 2002. The language used in 1999 was typical:

In the WMD arena, Sudan has been developing the capability to produce chemical weapons for many years. In this pursuit, it has obtained help from entities in other countries, principally Iraq. Given its history in developing CW and its close relationship with Iraq, Sudan may be interested in a BW program as well.

WHERE DOES ALL OF THAT LEAVE US? In a rather bizarre circle of logic. McCarthy's former colleagues Clarke, Benjamin, and Simon argue that: (a) the decision to strike al-Shifa was justified because (b) the intelligence connecting Iraqi chemical weapons experts to al Qaeda's chemical weapons efforts was sound, but (c) this doesn't mean that Iraq and al Qaeda had a significant relationship because (d) somehow this collaboration occurred without either party realizing that it was working with the other.

An accidental connection?  Right.

Good leaks and bad leaks

Today's lead editorial on Opinion Journal discusses CIA/press war on the administration and the curious treatment given to media leaks.

The press is also inventing a preposterous double standard that is supposed to help us all distinguish between bad leaks (the Plame name) and virtuous leaks (whatever Ms. McCarthy might have done). Washington Post executive editor Leonard Downie has put himself on record as saying Ms. McCarthy should not "come to harm" for helping citizens hold their government accountable. Of the Plame affair, by contrast, the Post's editorial page said her exposure may have been an "egregious abuse of the public trust."

It would appear that the only relevant difference here is whose political ox is being gored, and whether a liberal or conservative journalist was the beneficiary of the leak. That the press sought to hound Robert Novak out of polite society for the Plame disclosure and then rewards Ms. Priest and Mr. Risen with Pulitzers proves the worst that any critic has ever said about media bias.

It is my opinion that real damage has been done to our national security by the disclosure of the CIA's secret prisons and the NSA terrorist surveillance program.  I would even go so far as to say this means there's a better chance the lives of my loved ones and me will be directly affected by a terrorist attack -- and Pulitzers were handed out for this.  Opinion Journal stops short of saying that there should be prosecutions, but I don't.  Mary McCarthy should be prosecuted, and so should Dana Priest, James Risen, and their editors.  If they are acquitted, so be it, but let's have a jury decide it.

See also.