Novak right on Dems and Iraq – 10 months ago

Boosted from an old blog post; last May, Robert Novak said that if Congressional Democrats couldn’t pass a real Iraq bill by summer 2007, they never would. Well, they haven’t. Read on

Forget about 2008, he said back then:

President Bush has won a rare showdown victory over Congress simply because Democrats felt they could not afford the risk of letting a war in progress run out of money. The Democrats’ problem is that this demonstrates conclusively that they are all talk on the Iraq War — a fact that their base will quickly realize. There is no way for Congress to end the war short of cutting off funds, and to cut off funds without the consent of the President is to invite a repeat of exactly the same showdown the Democrats have now already lost.

Novak went on to say that if Democrats wouldn’t do more then, they certainly wouldn’t this year:

The bottom line is that Democrats have passed on their best chance to end the Iraq War. If they are not willing to take a risk here in a non-election year in order to force Bush to end the war, then they certainly do not have what it takes to cut off war funds in the coming presidential election year.

And, he was right. Apply the same logic to the FISA bill, and we know what’s going to happen.

Here’s Bob Novak: Your mission? Count the lies about “pardon Libby”

Conservative columnist Bob Novak, the man who’s “outing” column about CIA covert operative Valerie Plame got Scooter Libby four counts of conviction for lying and obstructing justice, says President Bush should pardon the guy.

Here’s a few examples of deception, with my comment:

The Libby trial uncovered no plot hatched in the White House.

No, it was hatched by Vice President Dick Cheney, not Bush. BUT, as with Nixon, the question is, “What did Bush know and when did he know it?” Funny that Novak isn’t asking for that to be answered.

In fact, her being classified — that is, that her work was a government secret — did not in itself meet the standard required for prosecution of the leaker (former Deputy Secretary of State Armitage) under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. That statute limits prosecution to exposers of covert intelligence activities overseas, whose revelation would undermine U.S. intelligence. That is why Fitzgerald did not move against Armitage.

That’s not what the case was about; it WAS about perjury and obstruction of justice. (Obstruction of rational thinking, as being committed by Novak in this column, is not yet a crime.)

George W. Bush lost control of this issue when he permitted a special prosecutor to make decisions that, unlike going after a drug dealer or mafia kingpin, turned out to be inherently political.

Anybody who knows special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will attest that he, unlike Bob Novak, is NOT inherently political.

Wanna give us some more lies and deceptions, Bob?