I noticed an interesting paragraph in this morning's London Guardian report on developments in the Rove/Plame leak investigation:

Meanwhile, a parallel investigation is under way into who forged the Niger documents. They are known to have been passed to an Italian journalist by a former Italian defence intelligence officer, Rocco Martino, in October 2002, but their origins have remained a mystery. Mr Martino has insisted to the Italian press that he was "a tool used by someone for games much bigger than me", but has not specified who that might be.
A source familiar with the inquiry said investigators were examining whether former US intelligence agents may have been involved...

To my knowledge, no American publication has mentioned the Niger Embassy forgeries within the context of the Plame leak much less a US involvment in the creation of the forged documents.

Another image of a Niger forgery at Easy With Eyes Closed.

Image: Panorama
- posted by Sean @ 9:29 AM 0 comments

 
Those of you who have graced this blog with your kind attention have probably noticed that I haven’t posted for a while.
Initially, this was due to problems with a Blogger software upgrade.
However a few days into my upgrade shutdown, I developed a little problem that demanded the attention of a surgeon’s knife.
Thankfully, I have been out of the hospital for a little more than a week and things are healing rather well if a little slowly for my bored tastes.
I ask your indulgence for this prolonged downtime and know that I will begin my usually quirky posting schedule soon.


Being sick and loopy on medication hasn’t, however, prevented my keen interest in the Rove scandal, as the previously posted image of the White Animal House, posted several days ago, should have indicated.
Though much of the morning media is exclusively focused on the horrible London bombings, the missing Aruba white girl and various celebrity nudie hijinks, quite a bit damaging to the White House and RNC positions has happened in the blogs and the major media organs over the last few days.
The Top Secret nature of the State Department memo to Colin Powell, perused by top White House staffers, on Iraq WMD intelligence and the additional flagging of the paragraph containing Valarie Wilson’s name as even more sensitive along with this morning’s Waxman Hearing on the Plame leak have succeeded in obliterating the exculpatory White House talking points.
Additionally, yesterday’s Washington Post story on Rove and Libby’s “inconsistencies” before the Grand Jury and in statements to Federal investigators along with this morning’s New York Times story on the terrible twosome’s tandem work to counter Ambassador Wilson’s famous Op-Ed countering Administration WMD claims allows reasonable people to conclude that the President’s top aides are facing very grave legal consequences.
Clearly there seems to be a conspiracy including non-Rove and Libbian Presidential Associates like Bartlett, Rice, Hadley, Fleischer, Hughes and other members of the President’s normally separate political and national security staffs.
The 2nd Bush term is shaping up to be vastly more interesting than many of us ever suspected and the 2006 midterm elections are appearing to be more consequentially decisive than any in living memory.
My semi-bedridden mind, as of late, has been amused by the idea of a near future President George W. Bush, stripped of his closest advisors, hearing the axe man’s footsteps and relatively alone in the time-haunted White House repeating Nixon’s teary post midnight conversations with the portraits of former Presidents.
I see America’s least successful President kneeling in a darkened White House with arms upraised in charismatic prayer tearfully and ironically beseeching the portrait of William Jefferson Clinton.
Oh for a bushian chatterbox like Nixon’s Kissinger to detail such a deliciously apposite scene closer for our Dear Leader!

Image: Google, Reuters, AP
- posted by Sean @ 1:19 PM 0 comments

 

Cooper cleared up...his description in a memo of his talk with Rove as being on "double super secret background." He said this was "a play on a reference to the film 'Animal House'."

--Howard Kurtz, Washington Post

- posted by Sean @ 11:16 PM 0 comments