Is That Legal?

Surely you don't expect Assrocket to be consistent, do you?

I am waiting for the day the American people realize that what the right wing is saying is that adulterous oral sex is worse than outing a CIA operative. I probably should not hold my breath.

i'm surprised that faegre and benson (hinderaker's law firm) tolerates that asshole on staff... he uses his office email for his weblog correspondence and, i have no doubt, his billing hours suffer from the time he spends on it... maybe they think it's free p.r...

I find myself wishing Bush had been caught experimenting with cigars, and lied about it under oath. I've never seen heads spin as fast as these people's surely would under such circumstances.

I find the relative silence of the 'MSM' troubling on this issue - if it were reversed, you can bet there'd be a 24/7 CNN GRAND JURY SPECIAL reverberating with talking points, lies and propaganda - instead we get very little. Fair enough with Wilma and all, but c'mon... We got 3 years of Starr Reports, You Decide, and now this?

This is just not news any longer - rocketboy has always been a clueless fucktard. Once the Bush administration is getting to know their new "girlfriends", rocketman's head will explode from the dissonance.

p3wnd.

Brace yourself for a round of "9/11 changed all that."

Do you think it's stuff like this why Powerline doesn't have a comments section on their posts? I mean, even a nutcase jerkoff like Hindrocket would have a hard time not crawling back into his decrepit excuse for a ballsack after reading a dozen or so pastings of that 1998 quote in his own comments section.

Hell, that could conceivably be enough to convince a few of his braindead readers to awaken from their slumber and ask "Yeah, what about that, Hindrocket? Was this just partisan hypocrisy, or was it really just about the sex?"

crimes associated with namby pamby things like war are so trivial. pshaw. now where's me taxcut?

If you want to read the Assrocket post (which includes Bush's "speech", for which I apologize in advance) without giving them hits, I've posted it in its entirely here:

Trivial Treason

This is what happens when you gleefully wallow in self-righteousness over any issue. Eventually the shoe will be on the other foot, and you'll be forced to either eat crow, or wallow just as vigorously in hypocrisy. As we've seen time and again this week, the right opts for the latter, convinced no one will call them on it. Unfortunately, more often than not, they're correct. Hinderaker is a self-important clod with a humiliatingly short memory.

This puts it all in perspective.

DenverPost.com - OPINION -- Gary Hart
"To casually and willfully endanger the life of an undercover CIA agent is a felony. You either believe in taking the laws of the United States seriously or you do not. Citizens - even highly placed ones - do not get to pick and choose which laws they will obey and which they will not. Miller and her publisher may think she's a hero, but I don't. It is well established that there is no First Amendment protection for a journalist or anyone else to withhold evidence of a crime.

There is one final irony to this story. On Christmas Eve in 1975, I got a call at my home from the director of the CIA, William Colby. He asked if I would intervene with the White House to obtain presidential approval to have Welch buried at Arlington National Cemetery, a hero fallen in service to his country. I quickly called President Ford's chief of staff on Colby's behalf and made the request. Within two hours, the president had agreed to sign the order permitting Welch to be buried at Arlington.

The chief of staff's name was Richard Cheney."
http://denverpost.com/opinion/ci_3147655

Well done, Eric. There is a lot of rhetoric on this general theme from those who sang a different tune in the days of Starr - "criminalization of politics," etc. The right wing's secret weapon really is their lack of any sense of irony. These quotes from Kay Bailey Hutchison appeared in the Washington Post on Oct. 25.

"I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment . . . that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars. So they go to something that trips someone up because they said something in the first grand jury and then maybe they found new information or they forgot something and they tried to correct that in a second grand jury.

"I think we should be very careful here, especially as we are dealing with something very public and people's lives in the public arena."

-- Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Tex.) discussing the Fitzgerald leak investigation on NBC's "Meet the Press," Oct. 23, 2005.

"I do think . . . that something needs to be said that is a clear message that our rule of law is intact and the standards for perjury and obstruction of justice are not gray. And I think it is most important that we make that statement and that it be on the record for history.

"I very much worry that with the evidence that we have seen that grand juries across America are going to start asking questions about what is obstruction of justice, what is perjury. And I don't want there to be any lessening of the standard. Because our system of criminal justice depends on people telling the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth."

-- Hutchison discussing President Bill Clinton's impeachment at a news conference, Feb. 5, 1999.

motive for the murder was sex

lying about a BJ = necrophilia.

Man, those guys have to drag every issue right into the gutter.

He's right about one thing: it wasn't about sex. It was about CLINTON. The wingnuts tried everything they could to get him on something, anything. They threw Whitewater, Vince Foster's suicide, Rose law firm, ad nauseum against the wall, and his is what stuck.

I hope that there is at least one perjury charge if Fitzpatrick actually indicts. I think (probably more like hope) the people who jumped all over Clinton will be forced to face their statements in the national spotlight. As of right now, indictments are pnly speculation, so they can avoid it. But I really want some of the people who got their teeth on the Clinton sage to be forced to try intellectual honesty for a change.

Because I'd really like to know the answer, I emailed Hindrocket and asked what was the difference between perjury and obstruction of justice charges for Clinton and the exact same charges being trivial for Rove and Libby. I'll let you know the answer.

What a keen legal mind.

The Transition is complete:

Conservatism has become fully synonymous
with Dishonesty.

Conservative=Dishonest person

So it has finally come to this.

Shameful!!

Here's a couple of other interesting things about Hinderacker, Faegre & Benson, etc. Maybe others have more insight into why a large and prestigious law firm tolerates such childish political hackery on the part of one of its members.

Hinderacker's fellow Powerliners are officers of TCF (formerly Twin City Federal, a savings and loan before the S&L rakeoff scandals). The President emeritus of TCF is Bill Morris, the former chair of the Minnesota Republican Party and professional right winger.

Faegre & Benson represents mostly large corporate interests but not exclusively. Some of their trial lawyers have won some big cases for ordinary injured people against powerful corporations. I seem to recall they had a hand in a case against Exxon in the Exxon Valdez case on behalf of the Native Americans.

As a corporate law firm entity in its own right, Faegre & Benson owes no apparent political allegiance to any political party. The current Chair of the Minnesota DFL (Democrat Farm Labor), whose name I cannot remember, is also a shareholder in Faegre & Benson. I do know that the DFL leadership has often behaved in the past (in my personal estimate) more like the DLC with its ties and sympathies more with corporate America than with the grass roots. The connection of the DFL leadership with a law firm like Faegre does not do a lot for me to assure that this is not the case. I don't know how this new person has changed anything. But I might be wrong about this individual.

it's sad the hindrocket has proven to be so transparent on issues like this. are there any "conservative" blogs that at least recognize this hypocrisy?

Great, great catch -- even better than the squashing of Sen. Hutchinson

Oh my god, a republican who is an arrogant, delusional freak? SHOCKING!

The argument in response, if there will be one, is only partly "9/11 changed everything," although I do have his words about liberals "not caring about the islamofascists" ringing in my ears. Whatever the public argument is - I was wrong, you can split hairs here, whatever - the private argument is going to be that Democrats are so dangerous to the continued vitality of the country that the ends justify the means. Reread Schmitt on the friend-enemy distinction, or something like that.

Those guys really do live in a strange and wonderful alternate universe. It is a nice irony that the piece you link to is all about alternate principles, though. The relevant principle for Hinderaker is not the rule of law, it is down with Democrats.

Beautiful, simply beautiful!
I hope you sent a copy of that to Russert, Stephanopoulos and Schieffer for their Sunday chats.

Yes Assrocket...go ahead and link to Chimpy's speech to the wives group....and make sure you highlight the section where he talks about the 2000th soldier killed.

Oh, you mean he didn't mention that little item? I wonder why.

What a moron you are.

Thanks, Eric. It's been very easy for us to call hypocrisy on the Republicans, but few of us have actually done the research....

I started to be outraged but am just left gasping at the surreal nature of this.

Felony indictments are "trivial" even before we know what they alledge - but in any case watch Dear Leader's speech and don't think about such things.

I thought the depths of Republican perfidy been reached long ago and now I find that apparently theirs is a bottomless pit.

I'm no conservative, but I keep thinking there must be one out there somewhere with some intellectual integrity. From listening to the rightwing/libertarian types on the radio, though, I'm beginning to wonder if "conservative" and "intellectually honest" constitutes an oxymoron. How on earth do they continue to get away with it???

At the very least, before the investigation, no crime has been committed by the Bush White House.

Perjury charges will be a shame, as there is no reliable way to prove these trivial charges.

Fitzgerald is a desperate amateurish prosecutor who took 2 years to send people to check if Plame was covert.

Not to mention that Ms. KBH's flak said today that her comments about perjury in 1998 were totally well-founded because it was such a serious matter, vs. these terrible overzealous prosecutors of today (like Earle and Fitz).

IF, and god I hope so, IF Fitz does do Libby on the 1982 statute, I really hope KBH has to suck hind teat on TV.

Eric,
Powerline has responded to your post. It's kinda like - "What I meant to say was...."

My sister works at Faegre & Benson. She reports that most people there think Hindrocket is an asshole, too. "Classic little-man syndrome" was her diagnosis.

John Hinderaker is a true iconoclast and dissenting voice from within the Republican party.

You see, folks like Kay Bailey Hutchison think the underlying offense is serious, but that perjury is a mere technicality.

John Hinderaker, patriot, thinks that the underlying offense is a mere technicality but that perjury is serious.

So much for that famous wingnut message discipline.

Hind End is a good example of the "cult" controlled mindset we are dealing with today. They wouldn't care if Rove was charged with murder for he is a member in good standing with the cult. That is all that matters to them. Those who disagree with the cult are of the devil. That is how cults rationalize doing wrong, that is how they tell themselves it is OK to be deceptive.

Our nation has been taken over by a political cult. They believe God is not only on their side and ONLY their side, but they believe God takes a personal interest in their success. The Moonies call it "Heavenly deception" - lie for God and since ONLY you represent God it is OK. That is why the right lies and rationalizes so easily, they believe God would want them to do whatever it takes. The right today is NOT crazy, they are a mind controlled cult and they don't remotely see nor understand what they are doing.

This was bound to happen because their political savior, the one who outspent Scaife molding them, guiding them, and financing their rise to power is none other than Sun Myung Moon.

Read some of how the conservative's savior, Moon, did it HERE.

FOX, the leader in spewing the mind control bullshit, has been driving home the point all day that these will only be "indictments" and those are easier to get than a conviction. Protect the cult first, the nation's security and well being come way, way down the line. They are not "patriotic" people on the right for protecting the cult of conservatism always comes first.

It appears that AssReamer has parsed his legalese, and of course "explained" how he's not really contradicting himself:

UPDATE: A law professor with too much time on his hands (and with readers whose mouths should be washed out with soap, based on their comments on his site) claimed that my reference to the "trivial" charges against Rove and Libby somehow contradicted a statement I made, back in 1998, that the fact that Bill Clinton committed perjury was a serious matter. This professor evidently assumes that Rove and/or Libby is about to be indicted for perjury. I don't make that assumption. If it should happen, it would indeed be a serious charge, and if either man should be convicted of perjury, it would be, in my view, a very serious matter, just as it was when Clinton lied under oath. But, again, I know of no reason to expect that this will happen.

What I consider to be "trivial" is the claim that Rove and/or Libby discussed Valerie Plame's CIA desk job with a reporter, in the context of trying to respond to the web of lies that was spun by Joe Wilson, including his lies about how he came to be sent to Niger.

I didn't know that InstaCracker was the one who called AssReamer on his, um, libel...

I was also unaware that AssReamer has intimate knowledge of Valerie Plame's duties as an employee of the CIA, either. The buttplug sure does get around!

Well, I called and left a message on Hindie's phone. I asked for him to return my call and explain the hypocrisy.

I have to note his voice is very whiny and high-pitched, what a shock...one expects these testy men to be, well, more testy in person.

I wonder if the rabid right wing would ever accept that their leader is anything but ethical and moral? That is really a sad acknowledgement about them, and that what also makes them very, very dangerous.

Republican hypocricy is nothing new. But let's be honest. How many Democrats said.. "Oh he was lying about sex.. He's married, who wouldn't have lied?" I do know many Democrats who used this line, and yes, it was about sex, his lie. But it was still perjury, still obstruction of justice, it was a crime. So let's also be honest with ourselves. The republican response was not much different that the democratic response was during the impeachment.

Question: Should we now call the so-called Republican "pa"triots who still back Bush "id"iots? Their "heros" not only outed a CIA operative (treason), but also attempted to cut military salary just after sending our troops to war (treason) in order to pad the pockets of the wealthy. Interestingly (and horrifyingly), they did get around taking money out of our troops pockets via pay cuts by making the troops pay for their own armor and now refuse to reimburse them. Now, America sees that Bush lied us into war (treason.)

If conservatives still back this bunch of ninnies, then they certainly are hypocrites. ANd the fact that a recent survey shows 39% of Americans would still vote this a$$hole back in office only shows that we have a bunch of morons amongst us.

They've posted an update to the item, and it's truly hilarious...even though he clearly refers to the charges as being trivial in the opening paragraph of the original post, at the end of his sad little "update", he shows his true lack of respect for his readers intellect by saying:
"What I consider to be "trivial" is the claim that Rove and/or Libby discussed Valerie Plame's CIA desk job with a reporter, in the context of trying to respond to the web of lies that was spun by Joe Wilson, including his lies about how he came to be sent to Niger."
Um, no. We're actually not that stupid.

The Republican administrations are now batting 3 for 3! The last 3 Repug admins. have had (or more correctly will have had) 3 major scandals that have led to endictments of major party figures. When will the public figure out that this is the party of criminals, thieves, liars and cheats ?
Of course, after the anticipated current round of endictments and convictions in court will come the customary pardons.

Republicans = a pardon in every pocket !

Let's compare:

Casualties of Bill's crimes (several adulterous bj's): several hundred million potential li'l Clintons.

Casualties of lying to start a war, getting revenge on someone who caught you on it by revealing that his wife is a CIA agent thereby endangering her, her family, and anyone who's had contact with her, and lying to cover your part in it: 2000 Americans and 20,000-100,000 or more Iraqis of all ages dead, 15,000 (not counting psychological injuries) Americans and a large but unknown number of Iraqis of all ages injured, not to mention the effects on the families of these casualties PLUS the services of a valuable agent tasked with PREVENTING WMD's from getting in the wrong hands as well as any network that she used in her work.

Remember, not all conservatives are stupid, but all stupid people are conservative (the followers). The rest of 'em are just mean and unprincipled.

Reminds me of the old joke about how air and sex are alike: neither is a big deal unless you aren't getting any.

If you are in Minnesota, do what I and 16 members of my family and friends have done. When I learned about Buttscuds association with a TCF VP, we all closed our accounts and moved them to small community banks and savings and loans.

They used to identify what's his face as a TCF VP and everytime someone we knew closed their account at TCF, I would send him an email letting him know.

They stopped mentioning TCF at Powerline.

Bill Morris
Almost.

That would be Bill Cooper of TCF, host of many parties at his huge mansion on Lake Minnetonka where he invites Bush, Cheney, and other bigwigs to plot the corporatization of the USA.

Faegre & Benson
info@faegre.com

Jonerik, might that be the same Exxxon Valdez trial where the award has still not been paid by Exxon?

So, let me get this straight.

A sexual scandel revolving around a man's private life, but which has no impact on the governance of the country, is serious. But a financial and legal scandel, that brings into question the integrity and motivations of those close to power, is trivial.

Gary Ruppert wrote: Fitzgerald is a desperate amateurish prosecutor who took 2 years to send people to check if Plame was covert.

Uh oh. Somebody didn't get the talking points.

Gary, the CIA said she was covert a long time ago, and even Bush has said Fitzgerald is a good prosecutor.

The talking points now are "technicality" and "not a serious crime." C'mon dude, keep up.

At some point, the facts about what Brewster-Jennings actually did, and what the effect of the outing of Valerie Plame, and by extension, the collapse of the entire operation, will come out.
I have read that B-J was buying up loose Russian nukes and shipping them to the US for dismantling. Their competition was the Russian mafia, who bought up the loose nukes and re-sold them to the likes of Pakistan, and possibly Al Queada. B-J was driving up the price of these black-market WMDs, so the outing of Plame and the collapse of the network was very convenient for them. It may be that certain American or allied interests were very interested in destroying the B-J network and making things easier for the Russian mafia.
When the sucess of B-J at reducing the number of WMDs on the market, and the price we will pay for losing this asset is revealed, will Hindquarters and his ilk still say the affair is trivial?

I think Fitz was checking the neighbors because likely some of the grand jurists asked about Republican propaganda they had heard that everyone knew Plame was CIA. You know, lie number 1,976,834 from the cult, this year alone.

The GJ likely asked Fitz, his eyes probably rolled but he answered their question like a good prosecutor should.

That answer:

Sorry, the "everyone knew" LIE is just more bullshit - like so much that spews from the cult of conservatism.

Blowjobgate vs Treasongate.

Ruined Dress vs 2,000 US killed,30k wounded 100k iraqis dead.

$30 million investigation cost vs $723 grand

Perjury vs Official Secrets Act violations

Nope, I just don't see too many similarties between blowjobgate and Treasongate.

Holy moley,
53 posts on this topic alone. Did anyone see hindrocket's post a while back: this guy actually believes the chimp is a genius. What will his response be after the indictments?

"I find myself wishing Bush had been caught experimenting with cigars, and lied about it under oath. I've never seen heads spin as fast as these people's surely would under such circumstances."

And what of Mandrape Gannon (he's only a 'top', remember?), whose 47 magical extracurricular visits to the White House, a number of them overnight, have yet to be explained or even commented upon by MSM or pundits of the right and left?