Prince Charles is coming over to lecture us about tolerance. Isn’t that rich? British nobility coming over to teach us former “colonials” a thing or two.

Who, exactly, is he to lecture anyone. This is a man in his late 50′s whose life is still run by his mother. And–when I say “man”, I am stretching a bit.

Remember this conversation he had with his mistress, Camilla. What kind of MAN says things like that?

I hate it when I hear about Americans going over to suck up to the the Royals in Great Britain. Like the Kennedy women during the 1930′s practicing their “curtsey” before being presented to the King. This kind of obsequiousness is what my ancestors came over here to get away from.

President Bush should greet Charles with a big old wad of Red Man in his cheek and a giant Dr. Pepper bottle spit cup. Charles would probably faint–or die and reincarnate into a feminine product.

In the indictment of Libby, the prosecutor describes Plame’s employment as “classified”, not covert. While he insinuated in his press conference yesterday that there was some violation of a law regarding National Security, I can’t figure out what specific section of the Code was violated.

The statute protecting the identity of covert agents defines one as this:

(4) The term “covert agent” means— (A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—

(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and

(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or (emphasis added)

It doesn’t seem completely honest to go on in an indictment and a press conference about Plame’s job being “classified” without addressing the question of whether her status meets all elements to be “covert”. Further, I agree with Mark Levin. All we have in the indictment is an assertion that her job was classified.

Now, as for Plame being classified, I have read the indictment several times, and other than Fitzgerald’s assertion, the fact is that we have nothing but an assertion. What exactly is her classification, and is it in fact classified? Of course the relevance of this will be explored by defense counsel, and this will be put to the test if necessary. Let me suggest that Fitzgerald didn’t bring a straightforward charge on this point because, as Andy in truth concedes, he couldn’t meet all the elements of the statute, and the statute itself is not typically used in this fashion.

I believe that one should always expect career prosecutors to push the envelope.

I confess that I don’t understand what the prosecutor is saying in this indictment. Is Libby being indicted for lying to reporters? Or for lying to investigators? Or for lying to the Grand Jury? I can’t figure out what the indictment is saying he did.

How do we know Tim Russert is telling the truth–or is remembering accurately.

Also, under the section about the matters material to the Grand Jury–why is not one of the matters the question regarding whether or not Valerie Plame was a covert agent?

Update:

Orin Kerr seems to understand it.

Update:

It looks like I’m not the only one confused by the indictment. I’m in good company here:

I think the indictment stinks. You have to parse it very carefully to figure out whether Libby is accused of lying to the grand jury or the FBI, or to journalists. Go look. I finally concluded that it says that Libby lied to the grand jury (and elsewhere the FBI) when he testified that he told (Cooper, Miller or Russert) things that in fact he did not tell (Cooper, Miller or Russert).

Also here is more on her “covert” status from the same link:

Then, I entirely agree with those who have said that Fitzgerald has introduced an entirely different rationale into this process. He was supposed to determine if anyone had outed a covert operative. In this indictment, and in his press conference, he just said that her identity was classified, and so he wants to prosecute people for improper use of classified information. I expect the defense will have fun with that one. Is it criminal to say that so and so works at CIA? If so, a lot of normal people and even some journalists should be prosecuted forthwith.

Update:

Here is a response to the above:

This entire claim is simply untrue. A central prong of the Indictment is that Libby lied to the Grand Jury and to the FBI not only about what he said to reporters, but also about when and how he first learned that Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA.
According to the Indictment, Libby told the Grand Jury that he first heard of Plame’s CIA employment during a July 10 telephone conversation with Tim Russert, and that he was “surprised” to learn of this during that conversation (see Paragraph 32(a)(ii)) (cited Indictment paragraphs are excerpted below).

That testimony is false, alleges the Indictment, because Libby had known about Plame CIA’s employment well before he ever spoke with Russert. Indeed, the Indictment lists four (4) separate occasions prior to his conversation with Russert when Libby was informed that Plame worked for the CIA ((see Paragraph 33(a)(ii)), including his early June conversation with Vice President Cheney, his June 11 conversation with a “senior CIA officer,” and his June 12 conversation with an Under Secretary of State.

(HT The Corner)

As I drove home tonight, I listened to Michael Savage. He was playing a floor speech by Congressman Curt Weldon that may have happened tonight, I couldn’t tell. I have looked all over the internet for a link to the speech, to no avail.

Basically, Weldon was lambasting the DIA for its retaliation against Col. Tony Shaeffer. He hi-lighted the ridiculousness of some of the charges brought agains Shaeffer. Curt Weldon is one brave guy.

Here is an article about an interview of Rep. Weldon that apparently took place prior to the floor speech:

Weldon told UPI he had written to the Department of Defense inspector general to ask for “an immediate formal inquiry, with people testifying under oath,” into what he called “a clear witch-hunt” against Shaffer, who has been on administrative leave while minor allegations about some expenses are investigated.

Weldon’s move comes after Shaffer said that boxes of his personal effects, returned to him by the DIA earlier this month, contained both government property and classified documents.

“Sending classified material through the mail is a felony, and much more serious than any of these minor, trumped up charges against (Shaffer),” he said, adding that “I want the appropriate persons held accountable.”

Weldon said that the DIA had now taken steps to fire Shaffer. “It’s outrageous and scandalous,” he said.

A DIA spokesman had no immediate comment.

The part of the speech that floored me was Rep. Weldon’s statement that he has another witness who was a leader of Able Danger–who corroborates Col. Shaeffer and who adds other information. It is Rep. Weldon’s contention that the evidence will show that Able Danger warned the DOD not to send the U.S.S. Cole into the port in Yemen two weeks before the attack.

I have to figure out how to find speeches given on the floor of Congress on the internet. Anyone have a clue?

Update: Michelle Malkin was listening on Cspan and caught Rep. Weldon lambasting the DOD for its witchunt.

She says nothing about the USS Cole. Until I read the speech, I guess it is possible that I am incorrect about what I thought I heard.

Beldar the Great performs a masterful fisking of the NRO’Â’s anti-Miers column, Start Over. He, very effectively, blows away the half-truths and ““straw-man” reasoning of the NRO’Â’ers. I love this part: (Beldar’Â’s fisking is in blue)

When President Bush nominated Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court, we called it a missed opportunity. The ensuing debate has confirmed that judgment. One would, of course, have to venture outside the confines of NRO to find both sides of such a debate, and neither can one find much inside NRO to suggest that its editors’ and most of its contributors’ minds were ever receptive to contrary evidence or argument. For all its fury, a consensus was reached early on that point. Indeed, inside NRO, a furious consensus was reached within approximately thirty minutes after the pick was announced, by which time NRO had already begun spreading vicious misinformation about Ms. Miers’ law school and career records and her law firm’s reputation (for which they’ve since properly apologized; but first impressions are what they are.) Leaving aside the president and his employees, even Miers’s fiercest defenders allow that she was not their top pick — or even their tenth. Leave aside too that the Constitution gives the privilege and duty of the pick to the President, and that not even Ms. Miers’ fiercest defenders have his decade-long first-hand experience as her client.

In the comments section to Beldar’Â’s post, I found a link to an interesting post at The Strata-Sphere. The post discusses an editorial by Matthew Cully who worked with David Frum at the White House. It appears to me that Frum is leading the NRO charge against Miers. It also appears that he may have left the White House for reasons other than a planned career move. Considering appearances, how can we not question Frum’Â’s motives in leading this charge against Harriet Miers? It certainly raises questions in my mind.

Further, looking at Frum’s bio raises my suspicions that he may not have given Harriet Miers a chance when he was working with her in the White House. His background is extremely different from the Texas background of Harriet Miers.

I am, in part, projecting. I have personally experienced condescension from those who believe that being raised in Texas makes one some sort of cultural barbarian.

Frum is a Canadian by birth and it doesn’t appear that he’s lived south of Washington D.C.. I’m guessing that Frum didn’Â’t know what to make of this woman who speaks with a distinct drawl; and who sported at the time, a good old Texas poodle cut and too much eyeliner. (Dallas women do like their makeup)

Was it distressing to Frum that this unfashionable woman, fifteen years his senior, had final say over whether his writing made it into the President’s speech? Was he appalled that a graduate of SMU was judging his work? The work of a graduate from Yale and Harvard Law School? After all, had she taken the slings and arrows aimed at the heart of Conservative Intellectual thought? How could she? Before 2001, she had not resided in the epicenter of the great battle. She was not part of the “in-crowd”.

As noted by AJ at the Strata-Sphere, Frum, according to his own book, didn’t think much of the White House staffers.

“One seldom heard an unexpected thought in the Bush White House or met someone who possessed unusual knowledge. Aside from the witty and ingenious Mitch Daniels at the Office of Management and Budget and, of course, Karl Rove, who played the unusual dual role of political guru and leading intellectual, conspicuous intelligence seemed actively unwelcome in the Bush White House,” he writes.

As a workplace, the Bush White House is formal–strictly blue and gray suits for men, few bright colors for women. Language is clean–even a mild “damn” is frowned on.

Frum, a self-described “not especially observant Jew,” found himself working in “the culture of modern Evangelicalism” that prevails.

Is that condescending enough for you? Sounds like the sort of person I’d like to have working for me. Hah!

I evaluate Frum’s protestations that Miers is a mediocrity as I would similar claims made by any employee who was apparently hustled out the door by his employer. That is, with a huge grain of salt and the realization that any competent non-Harvard-degree-holding lawyer, given the opportunity to cross-examine Frum, could tear his credibility on this issue into microscopic shreds.

Mychal Massie has, once again, invited me to guest host his weekly show, Straight Talk on Right Talk Radio. The show airs live on Tuesday, October 11, 2005 at 1 pm et. Tomorrow, I will have the honor of interviewing James H. Webb, Jr. the author of one of my favorite books, Born Fighting: How the Scots-Irish Shaped America.

Here and Here.

Gosh! My stomach hurts.

Be sure and read the comments section on the second post.

Will Ronnie Earle’s latest indictment against Tom Delay swirl down the toilet like his first? Tom Delay’s attorney has filed a motion to dismiss the indictment based on prosecutorial misconduct because of Earle’s Grand Jury shopping this week and his concealment of the no bill by the first Grand Jury that considered the money laundering charge.

DeLay’s attorney, Dick DeGuerin, alleged in a court motion that Travis County District Attorney Ronnie Earle unlawfully participated in grand jury deliberations when he went to a second grand jury last week to seek a second indictment against the congressman.

DeGuerin also alleged that Earle “attempted to browbeat and coerce” the second grand jury to change its decision not to indict DeLay so there would be no public record of a rejection.

For more on the browbeating and coercion charge, go here.

Update:

Also, about the foreman of the first Grand Jury that I wrote about here and here, look at his prior connections detailed in this article.

William Gibson, the foreman of the grand jury that returned the first indictment against DeLay, said in an interview with Austin radio station KLBJ on Wednesday that he was friends with a Democratic candidate who had been defeated by the corporately funded ad campaign run by the Texas Association of Business in 2002.

James Sylvester, one of the losing Democratic candidates who has sued the business group, worked at the Travis County sheriff’s office. Gibson is retired from that same office.

Aren’t Grand Juries supposed to be objective and without conflict of interest? From the jury oath:

You shall present noperson from envy, hatred or malice;