With regard to the CIA leak case, What do you guys think is happening and should happen?

I have my money on "indictments for supposed crimes after the investigation started, and none for the actual 'leak' crime" as tucker carlson put it on Realtime with bill maher. I hope i'm wrong.

This leak would and should have been a capital offense during a war. but it's been turned into a joke of 'criminalization of politics' (ty fox news). I hope i'm wrong again.

Hopefully, atleast Bush will fire whoever is indicted.

Interesting links would be good, i'm just being lazy.

I don't really think it was a big deal. Valerie Plame was a desk jockey. No need for her to be undercover IMO. I haven't really payed too much attention but it seems to be blown out of proportion in this case.

Why it is a big deal.

Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent. Regardless of whether she was doing paperwork or playing 007, she was still undercover. The only people that knew of this were her husband and those with high-level security clearance. Higher ups in the current administration didn’t like her husband and used their security clearance as for political leverage. They exposed her in order to help their own political motives. Her husband questioned some of the administrations claims about Iraq trying to acquiring nukes, he turned out to be correct, but the Bush administration didn’t like him opposing their push for war support. Instead of questioning the facts they attacked his character and exposed his wife in a political column written by Bob Novak. Bush claimed that he would fire anyone who was involved with the leaks, but then back off that statement after he realized that his close friends were involved.

You act as if no president before has had a "dirty tricks" department.

Ah, but no president SHOULD.

Do I recognize Nixon's actions? Johnson's actions? Clinton's actions? Yes. But I in no way condone them.

Still don't see what the big deal is.

What I want to know is: Who really had JFK killed?
I think LBJ had the mafia do it for him so he could be President. Oswald was framed.

I don't really understand why the administration needs to know individual names. I can see why they would need to know about operations, but why or how would anyone in the white house need to know specific names of people in the CIA. Another fishy thing is that Novak hasn't been touched. Sure, his servant journalist who took notes and did research for him was thrown in jail but he tells the whole world about it and nothing happens. Then the most puzzling thing about the story is that if Plame is in such danger by the revalation of her name why did every media outlet publicize it even more?

There is a law that shields the media, so they can't be prosecuted unless they have a patern of this type of behavior. I don't remember the exact wording, but they are in the clear. And, agentzak, it should be no surprise to you that journalists are spineless weasles and would hang there mother out to dry for any increase in ratings. Plus, they are probably hoping that she gets killed, that way they would have a lot more to report about. After all, if it bleeds it leads...

On the who killed JFK, the history channel ran a very interesting program a year or two ago (and will probably run it again or another just like it) that had a whole host of different motives, reasons, and ways that different people could have done it in for JFK. I rather like the interesting fact that JFK had already signed orders to remove the few "advisors" from Vietnam and to end any help in the developing situation there. Ergo, no Vietnam war...Very interesting how LBJ's friends happened to make a killing in war machinery profits after he immediately reverses the decision and starts escalating the conflict...

On the main topic though, its complete bull that the Bush admin has gotten away with so many lies and misleading of everyone at every step of everything - and then the Repulicans cry that its a witch hunt when someone is coming close to being indicted for a blatant mis-use of power that very likely could have led to the agent's incarceration. You don't need to have anything special brought against you, if you are spying for another government without the diplomatic immunity provided by being an "official" type agent you can be arrested and tried for the crime - even if there isn't much "useful" done by the person. Most countries carry a death penalty for spying, and had she been arrested, it seems unlikely that the Bush admin would do more then wash it's hands and try to deny it while giving her up. It's obvious that the political leverage was to try to force the husband into coming into line with the administration by threatening a very dangerous situation.

Seeing as how all of the of the testimony has remained between Rove, the lawyers and the grand jury, I'm not sure how anything is "clear". If I were still in Rolla to collect on the bet, I'd be willing to wager that no charges directly relating to the alleged crime are filed.

I agree, but I hope i'm wrong. Fitzgerald seems like he wouldn't waste time...

As with other things, it's only a sin until someone gets caught. If somebody gets caught, I expect them to rot in jail. This is not criminalization of politics. There was a high level agenda (which superseeds the stupid points of what plame actually did, and whether information needed to be classified or not) of smearing wilson, and while somethings would have been legal to do, somebody in the whitehouse went too far.

Personal assassination has been an eternal part of politics. I would agree that it's a little unfortunate but I'm not really sure how one goes about changing that. I enjoy discussing all sorts of issues, but how long can you have a converstaion on a message board before it degrades into personal barbs? How much more so when the stakes are higher?

Dont believe anything he says. He's an idiot.

No, I am an idiot...

just pretend you get the joke