USA Politics Thread - *No gun debate*

[ralphwiggum 6]

yup. he tried to portray current situation in Iraq as if it is extension of terrorists's act and that US was somehow in it. Funny because Iraq had no role in 9-11 and it was only after US went in that insurgents are going in.

Quote[/b] ]Some wonder whether Iraq is a central front in the war on terror. Among the terrorists, there is no debate. Hear the words of Osama Bin Laden: "This Third World War is raging" in Iraq.

another point I found funny.

Quote[/b] ]In the past year, we have made significant progress: One year ago today, we restored sovereignty to the Iraqi people.

wasn't this supposed to happen long time ago? why did it take one year for sovereignty to be restored? and right now, they are still an interim gov't not a full fledged one.

Quote[/b] ]And sending more Americans would suggest that we intend to stay forever, when we are in fact working for the day when Iraq can defend itself and we can leave.

this is a bit confusing. in any foreign soil US troops go, we tend to stay there quite long. Germany, Korea, Japan, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. So when Iraq wants US out, are we pulling out altogether or still leaving some troops on the ground?

Quote[/b] ]As we determine the right force level, our troops can know that I will continue to be guided by the advice that matters: the sober judgment of our military leaders.

is it me or does the word 'sober' somehow poetically humorous? we all know Bush used to have drinking problem, and somehow mentioning that he will be guided by the sober judgement seems like he is still not so sober.

[ralphwiggum 6]

just for a recap:

http://www.usatoday.com/educate/war28-article.htm

from 2003,

Quote[/b] ]Changing rhetoric of war

* Feb. 7, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, to U.S. troops in Aviano, Italy: "It is unknowable how long that conflict will last. It could last six days, six weeks. I doubt six months."

* March 4, Air Force Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, at a breakfast with reporters: "What you'd like to do is have it be a short, short conflict. . . . Iraq is much weaker than they were back in the '90s," when its forces were routed from Kuwait.

* March 11, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, in a speech to the Veterans of Foreign Wars: "The Iraqi people understand what this crisis is about. Like the people of France in the 1940s, they view us as their hoped-for liberator."

* March 16, Vice President Cheney, on NBC's Meet the Press: "I think things have gotten so bad inside Iraq, from the standpoint of the Iraqi people, my belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators. . . . I think it will go relatively quickly, . . . (in) weeks rather than months." He predicted that regular Iraqi soldiers would not "put up such a struggle" and that even "significant elements of the Republican Guard . . . are likely to step aside."

The war begins

* March 20, President Bush, in an Oval Office speech to the nation: "A campaign on the harsh terrain of a nation as large as California could be longer and more difficult than some predict."

* March 21, Rumsfeld, at a Pentagon news briefing: "The confusion of Iraqi officials is growing. Their ability to see what is happening on the battlefield, to communicate with their forces and to control their country is slipping away. . . . The regime is starting to lose control of their country."

* March 27, Bush, at a news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, when asked how long the war would take: "However long it takes. That's the answer to your question and that's what you've got to know. It isn't a matter of timetable, it's a matter of victory."

* March 30, Myers, on Meet the Press: "Nobody should have any illusions that this is going to be a quick and easy victory. This is going to be a tough war, a tough slog yet, and no responsible official I know has ever said anything different once this war has started."

* March 30, Rumsfeld, on Fox News Sunday, when asked whether Iraqis would "celebrate in the streets" when victory is won: "We'll see."

[Sophion-Black 0]

Quote[/b] ]Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war [on terror].

hmm... i think he's right   i don't know about you all but i think i heard this from somewhere  

[Akira 0]

Quote[/b] ]Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war [on terror].

hmm... i think he's right i don't know about you all but i think i heard this from somewhere

It's a battlefield for the war on terror because he made it one.

[SPQR 0]

To be more precise, it's now a War on USA for Terror

[SFWanabe 0]

Quote[/b] ]Iraq is the latest battlefield in this war [on terror].

hmm... i think he's right i don't know about you all but i think i heard this from somewhere

It's a battlefield for the war on terror because he made it one.

They should rename it from War on Terror to War for Oil.

[Akira 0]

Un-fuckin' believable...

Quote[/b] ]House Agrees to $3,100 Pay Raise for 2006

Adblock

House Agrees to a $3,100 Pay Raise for Congress Next Year, Defeating Effort to Roll It Back

By ANDREW TAYLOR Associated Press Writer

The Associated PressThe Associated Press

WASHINGTON Jun 28, 2005 — The House on Tuesday agreed to a $3,100 pay raise for Congress next year to $165,200 after defeating an effort to roll it back.

In a 263-152 vote, the House blocked a bid by Rep. Jim Matheson, D-Utah, to force an up-or-down vote on the pay raise. Instead, lawmakers will automatically receive the raise officially a cost of living adjustment as provided for in a 1989 law that barred them from pocketing big speaking fees in exchange for an annual COLA.

Matheson was the only one of 434 House members to speak out against the 1.9 percent COLA, which will raise members' salaries in January.

"Now is not the time for members of Congress to be voting themselves a pay raise. We need to be willing to make sacrifices," he said.

The vote came as the House debated a spending bill containing a provision to guarantee a 3.1 percent pay increase for federal civilian workers. The bill, which funds transportation and housing programs and Treasury Department agencies, was scheduled for a final vote later Wednesday.

A similar effort to block the raise could occur when the Senate considers its version of the bill. Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis., has tried in the past to block it but has had no more success than Matheson did.

In a House riven by partisanship, raising members' pay is one of the few things Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., agree on.

The annual debate on the members' COLA resembles kabuki theater: Both Democratic and Republican leaders guarantee sizable majorities of their members to block the effort, and they make sure there is not a clear-cut vote on the measure. None of the party campaign committees uses the pay-raise issue in campaigns.

"Each side put up their required quota" of votes, said Rep. Deborah Pryce of Ohio, the fourth-ranking Republican in the House.

Republican leaders who succumbed to pressure to block the COLA for three of the first four years their party controlled Congress now are strong advocates of it. The last time it was rejected was in 1998.

Link

[walker 0]

Hi all

The US trade gap continues to widen.

Quote[/b] ]U.S. trade deficit surprises economists

When the U.S. dollar began sliding on foreign exchange markets three years ago, Bank of America economists Mickey Levy and Peter Kretzmer figured an improvement in the burgeoning U.S. trade deficit couldn’t be far behind.

Their conclusion today: Yes, it could. "It’s certainly defied expectations," said Kretzmer, who thought the deficit would start to narrow within 18 months after the dollar started its slide. Instead, the monthly trade gap has mushroomed by two-thirds, to $55 billion in March from $33 billion in early 2002, even as the dollar declined 26 percent against a basket of currencies.

Levy and Kretzmer now forecast the 2005 trade deficit will rise to $667 billion instead of the $585 billion they expected in January. The New York-based economists say the gap, currently 6 percent of the gross domestic product, will keep widening through much of 2006.

Edward McKelvey, chief U.S. economist at Goldman Sachs & Co. in New York, says that a wider deficit slows growth and raises the risk that foreign investors and central banks may start to avoid U.S. securities.

That in turn may push the dollar down more sharply.

The persistence of the trade deficit has come as a surprise to many economists, said Gabriel de Kock, an international economist at Citigroup Global Markets in New York; a decline in the value of the dollar is supposed to make imports more expensive at home and exports more competitive abroad. "Standard rules of thumb would say the trade balance should have declined by 1 percent of GDP," de Kock said. "That has not happened." ...

http://www.nwanews.com/story.p....=118490

The growing trade gap as well as the massive US government debt and plumeting dollar are pushing the US economy closer to stagflation as US prices continue to rise. Gas at the pump is having a knock on effect on manufacturing prices. And rising unemployment levels are not reducing prices fast enough.

The failing US economy which has already slipped 8 places in world rankings is causing investors to disinvest The failing Dollar is causing yet others to switch their reserve currency from the Dollar to the Euro.

Switching Oil reserve currency from the Dollar to Euro is expected to be a large part of the backroom negotiation at this weeks G8.

The UK government has been quietly switching to the Euro as its reserve currency over the last year; this has been said to have saved 3% on UK tax bills over the period.

Regards Walker

[SPQR 0]

Happy Independance Day for the first modern Democracy in Human history.

Thank you for the good things you've done in the past, and all the kindness you can give when unthreatened.

Have a nice holiday

[The Frenchman 0]

Fox is being quite unpatriotic today. I was surprised that they didn't show Independence Day again like last year.

[miles teg 1]

Happy American Independence Day! Allah Bless America!

Chris G.

aka-Miles Teg<GD>

[billybob2002 0]

Fox is being quite unpatriotic today. I was surprised that they didn't show Independence Day again like last year.

Because AMC got the rights this year... Anyway, Happy 4th...

[ralphwiggum 6]

everything was ok until...

1. some idiots decided to use fireworks

2. saw Jessica Simpson (on her TV special) almost sweeping the range with a loaded M4, but thankfully the range officer stopped it.

off to fireworks <s>and to shoot off some. 45s in the air</s>.

[Sophion-Black 0]

notes to self:

1) Lit fireworks are not to be thrown as a substitude for cornhole bags

2) Never go up for seconds for anything that relates to/or is an "egg" after 5 hours of it sitting out in the sun

3) Don't smack lit sparklers on anything flamable

4) Never hit on a girl that you cant see (that happend to one of my friends, turns out she was 49 )

just a few things i learn yesterday, note #2 is the one i experianced first hand. But i did have fun, Happy... wait... i hope you had a Happy 4th of July!

[ralphwiggum 6]

http://www.nbc4.tv/irresistible/4688835/detail.html

Quote[/b] ]GLENEAGLES, Scotland -- President George W. Bush has named former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson to help shepherd his yet-to-be named Supreme Court nominee through the Senate, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday.

Thompson, an actor on the television series "Law &Order," agreed to accept the post in a telephone conversation with the president on Monday, McClellan said.

He said Thompson would serve as an informal adviser to shepherd the nomination through the Senate.

"Sen. Thompson will guide the nominee through the confirmation process," McClellan said.

someone's been watching Law & Order a bit too much.

[Akira 0]

http://www.nbc4.tv/irresistible/4688835/detail.html

Quote[/b] ]GLENEAGLES, Scotland -- President George W. Bush has named former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson to help shepherd his yet-to-be named Supreme Court nominee through the Senate, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said Wednesday.

Thompson, an actor on the television series "Law &Order," agreed to accept the post in a telephone conversation with the president on Monday, McClellan said.

He said Thompson would serve as an informal adviser to shepherd the nomination through the Senate.

"Sen. Thompson will guide the nominee through the confirmation process," McClellan said.

someone's been watching Law & Order a bit too much.

Maybe Bush believes he helped capture a super secret Russian sub?

[Sophion-Black 0]

who knows... with whats going on in the trees today i wouldn't be surprised if he nominated Judge Judy.

[ralphwiggum 6]

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/07/12/cia.leaks/index.html

Quote[/b] ]WASHINGTON (CNN) -- With a criminal probe heating up into who exposed an undercover CIA agent, the White House spokesman is fending off sharp questions about what role U.S. President George W. Bush's top political adviser may have played in the case.

News reports have implicated White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove -- the architect of Bush's two presidential campaigns -- in the leak, but spokesman Scott McClellan said on Monday the White House does not want to discuss a pending investigation.

"No one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States," he said.

"And I think the way to be most helpful is to not get into commenting on it while it is an ongoing investigation."

The White House spokesman faced sharp questions not only about Rove, but also about his own statements in the nearly two-year-old criminal probe.

In 2003, McClellan said it was "totally ridiculous" to suggest that Rove played any role in the leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity. He also said Bush has insisted that his staffers cooperate with the investigation by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, and that anyone responsible would be fired.

"You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved, and now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson's wife," one reporter said. "So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation?"

"There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it," McClellan replied.

Newsweek reported this week that a July 2003 e-mail from Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper states Rove told him about an agent who was the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had just leveled accusations that the Bush administration had overstated a key piece of intelligence in its arguments for war with Iraq.

Cooper's e-mail does not say that Rove explicitly named Plame. But it states that Rove told him Wilson was not authorized by the CIA to investigate whether Iraq had sought uranium from the African country of Niger, as Wilson had stated in a July 2003 piece in The New York Times.

Instead, the e-mail states: "It was Wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on WMD (weapons of mass destruction) issues, who authorized the trip."

Rove lawyer Robert Luskin did not dispute the authenticity of the e-mail, but said the account shows that Rove wanted to steer reporters away from Wilson's allegations -- "not to encourage them to publish anything about Wilson's wife."

Disclosing the identity of undercover intelligence operatives is a felony punishable up to 10 years in prison, but Luskin said Rove was not aware that Plame was an undercover agent.

Bush had cited the Niger uranium claim in his 2003 State of the Union address, delivered as a U.S.-led invasion of Iraq loomed. But nearly three months after the fall of Baghdad, Wilson said he had investigated that claim in 2002 and found it unlikely to have occurred.

Wilson wrote in The New York Times that his trip to Niger had been taken at the request of the CIA to answer a query from Vice President Dick Cheney's office.

Plame's identity was revealed in a July 14, 2003, column by syndicated columnist Robert Novak, a former CNN "Crossfire" host, who cited two "senior administration officials."

Wilson has said the leak ruined his wife's career, may have endangered her life and was meant to deter future administration critics.

Editors at Time surrendered the e-mail notes to Fitzgerald after a lengthy confrontation that ended last week with New York Times reporter Judith Miller going to jail rather than divulge her sources.

Faced with the same prospect, Cooper said that his source waived a confidentiality pledge and that he would testify to the grand jury investigating the leak.

nice going. leaking what she does for her job, without proper check is a very nice way of handling things. Bush repeatedly said those who were responsible for leak would be fired. Let's see how long before he changes his words, or Rove decide to minimize the damage by either resigning or wait for something to put people's attention away from him.

[walker 0]

Hi RalphWiggum

My guess is it is the usual Bush flip flop time.

Of course the real problem with all this is that Rove has probably caused the death and torture of any CIA assets that Plame was in contact with in places like Iran, Pakistan, the former soviet states, N. Korea, Siria and indeed alll over the middle east and Africa.

In all the places where Plame visited, her contacts will have been gone over, even the ones she met in third party countries. They will already be listed in her dosier, the one every countries Secret Service does about all foreign diplomats and especialy their spouses. They will list things like that she met X in country Y at an embassy ball, or she used to go to this shop a lot, or had a friendship with X each of these will have been arrested and brought in for interigation. Each of the embassy staffers she spent time with will now recieve special attention and their contacts too will come under suspicion. Any business men from the USA she spent time will be top of the watch list. The info that she was CIA would have been a gold mine to the USA's enemies.

Esentialy Karl Rove has blinded US inteligence in most of the places Bin Laden can get WMD from at the time the US most needs the information. Firing him is insufficient, does the US still have the death penalty for traitors?

Regards a very angry Walker

[Akira 0]

As to be expected, Bush and Co. won't comment now on the leak investigation because its "ongoing." Course that didn't stop them last year from having plenty to say about it while the investigation was actually taking place.

And of course the special prosecuter has assured Rove that he is not a target of the investigation, even though Bush said last year, that that person that leaked would be put in jail and "dealt with."

Looks like the GOP has managed to get their Architect out of federal charges. Course if it was a Democrat I can assure that person would be in jail right now.

Anyone who thinks anything will happen to Rove is naive. Nothing will happen, and he will go on his merry way despite unknown consequences from this leak...All just to discredit a man that didn't agree with going to war on Iraq. Nice.

[Sophion-Black 0]

Firing him is insufficient, does the US still have the death penalty for traitors?

To my knowlage they do, will just send 'em down to Texas

[Akira 0]

Hate bein' right...

Quote[/b] ]White House: Bush Has Confidence in Rove

By PETE YOST

The Associated Press

Tuesday, July 12, 2005; 6:22 PM

WASHINGTON -- President Bush supports Karl Rove, the White House said Tuesday, rebuffing Democratic calls for Bush to fire his top political adviser over his role in the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity.

Bush ignored a question about whether he would fire Rove, and White House spokesman Scott McClellan said later that "any individual who works here at the White House has the confidence of the president." McClellan said that includes Rove.

The White House's defense came after two days of intense questioning following the disclosure that Rove talked about the officer in a July 11, 2003, conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.

McClellan had said in September and October 2003 that Rove wasn't at all involved in the leak of information about the officer, Valerie Plame.

Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., said Rove ought to be fired, and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., said she agreed with Kerry's position.

Bush has said he would fire anyone found to have leaked Plame's name. An e-mail by Cooper that surfaced over the weekend in Newsweek magazine says Rove identified the woman as someone who apparently works at the CIA and that she authorized a trip to Africa for her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson. Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, says Rove did not disclose Plame's name to the Time magazine reporter.

"The fact that he didn't give her name, but identified the ambassador's wife _ doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who that is," Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., said on CNN's "Inside Politics." "If that occurred, at a minimum, that was incredibly bad judgment, warranting him being asked to leave."

Rove's conversation with Cooper took place five days after Plame's husband suggested in a New York Times op-ed piece that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. Plame's name first appeared eight days later in a newspaper column by Robert Novak. The column said two administration officials told him Wilson's wife had suggested sending him to investigate whether Iraq had tried to obtain uranium from Niger. Cooper's byline appeared on an article a few days later naming Plame.

Pressed to explain its statements of two years ago that Rove wasn't involved in the leak, the White House refused to do so for the second straight day.

"If I were to get into discussing this, I would be getting into discussing an investigation that continues and could be prejudging the outcome of the investigation," McClellan said.

While the White House refused to answer, its allies jumped into the fray. Among them were House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa.

Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman said Rove was the victim of partisan political attacks by Democrats.

Rove "was discouraging a reporter from writing a false story based on a false premise," said Mehlman. Cooper's e-mail says that Rove warned him away from the idea that Wilson's trip had been authorized by CIA Director George Tenet or Vice President Dick Cheney.

[walker 0]

Hi all

I guess it just proves George Bush Junior talks the talk but cannot walk the walk.

As my old Grandad would say the man is all mouth and no trousers.

As too McClellan he is a dead duck all anyone has to say about anything he says is: "Is this statement or claim like the ones you made about CIA leak from the White House staff?"

Sadly Walker

[Sandman214155 0]

Hi all

I guess it just proves George Bush Junior talks the talk but cannot walk the walk.

As my old Grandad would say the man is all mouth and no trousers.

As too McClellan he is a dead duck all anyone has to say about anything he says is: "Is this statement or claim like the ones you made about CIA leak from the White House staff?"

Sadly Walker

Now what would make you say that?

look at all the counties he has changed by his actions

Afghanistan

Iraq

Iran

Syria

Saudi Arabia

North Korea

Indonesea

Sri Lanka

Phillipines

Singapore

Pakistan

Lebenon

...and many more

sometimes it pays to pay attention

[theavonlady 2]

Hate bein' right...

Then again..............

(Follow the links in the article original location, linked to below)

Quote[/b] ]How About A Few Facts With That Coffee?

The Times promotes the story of Rove and the Plame leak with another long story lacking in new developments.

However, we find plenty to mock:

<ul>

Mr. Bush, who once said he would fire anyone on his staff who had knowingly leaked the name of a C.I.A. operative, Valerie Wilson, also known by her maiden name, Valerie Plame, ignored a question about Mr. Rove posed to him on Tuesday by a reporter on the edges of an Oval Office meeting with the prime minister of Singapore.

The President's words are here, and he said "if the person has violated law".  We have yet to see whether the actual pledge, rather than the Times restatement, is still operative.

<ul>

Mr. Rove can take heart in one fact: so far every other senior official caught up by the cascading series of questions that were touched off by 16 words in Mr. Bush's 2003 State of the Union address has survived, even prospered. Three of Mr. Bush's closest advisers were involved in the drafting or reviewing of the now-discredited language, which said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

The Times can take heart in one fact - although they wrote many articles about the "16 Words" when that controversy was hot, they only wrote one weak, concealed follow-up announcing that - oh, my - maybe Bush was right about those 16 Words after all.

<ul>

But Mr. Rove's case is a lot more complicated. By all accounts he had nothing to do with the wording in the speech. Instead, it appears he may have been part of the White House effort to push back after Mr. Wilson wrote a July 7, 2003, Op-Ed article in The New York Times declaring that Mr. Bush's description of Mr. Hussein's search for uranium was false, and that it ignored information that he passed on to the C.I.A. casting doubt on the story about an Iraqi search for uranium.

Oh, for heaven's sake - it was July 6!  And there was a bit more to be pushed back then the Times troubles us with here.  Maybe the Times could start with Wilson's leak to Nick Kristof for his May 6, 2003 column - since it launched Wilson's star, and eventually led to a question that caught Ms. Rice off-balance on a Sunday talk-show, maybe the Times could explain the errors in Kristof's reporting and the lack of follow-up.

<ul>

The entire contretemps at the White House this week centers on whether Mr. Rove tried to discredit Mr. Wilson by suggesting that his mission to Niger was the product of nepotism, and that Ms. Wilson had arranged for it. Why a mission to Niger would be such a plum assignment is still a mystery, but the Senate Intelligence Committee, in a report last year, quotes a State Department official as saying that Ms. Wilson had suggested sending her husband. She denies it.

"She" denies it?  I know Joe Wilson did, but I don't recall seeing her cited previously.  No matter - is the Times going to leave this as "she said, they said"?  Although the Senate Democrats would not vote on the specific conclusion, they did not dispute the evidence, which included a memo she wrote extolling his qualifications and a memo by an INR staffer describing a meeting at which she introduced her husband.  The INR staffer's memo told Colin Powell that Joe Wilson's wife was involved in selecting her, but did not give her last name or mention her covert status.

And why do we care if his wife was involved?  The Times pushes the nepotism line, which has us as puzzled as they.  But Walter Pincus, in an article which also includes Joe Wilson as an anonymous source, had written this in the WaPo on June 12, 2003:

<ul>

However, a senior CIA analyst said the case "is indicative of larger problems" involving the handling of intelligence about Iraq's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and its links to al Qaeda, which the administration cited as justification for war. "Information not consistent with the administration agenda was discarded and information that was [consistent] was not seriously scrutinized," the analyst said.

So, a CIA analyst is criticizing the President anonymously in June for mishandling intelligence.  In July, a former ambassador comes forward, also criticizing the Administration's handling of intelligence.  Is the Ambassador simply a professional, detached, objective careerist from the State Department offering his own point of view?  

Or is it at all relevant in assessing his credibility to know that he is in bed with a CIA professional?  Does knowing that give a hint as to what side he might be on in this discussion?

Not in Timesworld.

I CAN STOP ANYTIME:

Let's rip the Times editorial while we are at it:

<ul>

...it is something else entirely when officials peddle disinformation for propaganda purposes or to harm a political adversary. And Karl Rove seems to have been playing that unsavory game with the C.I.A. officer Valerie Plame Wilson and her husband, Joseph Wilson IV, a career diplomat who ran afoul of President Bush's efforts to justify the invasion of Iraq. An e-mail note provided by Time magazine to the federal prosecutor investigating the case shows that Mr. Rove's aim in talking about Ms. Wilson to Matthew Cooper, a Time reporter, was to discredit Mr. Wilson, perhaps to punish him.

Well, what "disinformation" was Rove putting out?  The Times editors lack the character to excerpt the e-mail in any detail, so here we go, excerpting Newsweek:

<ul>

Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger ... "

So, the "16 Words" might be correct - that panned out.  

Cheney did not initiate this trip - lots of newsies had this wrong (Wolf Blitzer had not gotten the memo as of July 13) - but that checked out.  In fact, Tenet made that announcement hours after Rove spoke with Cooper.

And Ms. Plame was involved in some way, although Rove was wrong that she "authorized" it.  Even the Times is catching up to the significance of this - in the paragraph above, they note that maybe this is meant to "discredit Wilson, perhaps to punish him".

"Perhaps" to punish?  Based on what, other than Joe Wilson's bloviatings?   The Times focuses on the "discredit" theory a bit later:

<ul>

Mr. Rove said the origins of Mr. Wilson's mission were "flawed and suspect" because, according to Mr. Rove, Mr. Wilson had been sent to Niger at the suggestion of his wife, who works for the Central Intelligence Agency. To understand why Mr. Rove thought that was a black mark, remember that the White House considers dissenters enemies and that the C.I.A. had cast doubt on the administration's apocalyptic vision of Iraq's weapons programs.

Well, yes - if the Times wants to admit that there were two sides in a factional dispute, and that a hint to Wilson's true allegiance might have been contained in the fact that he was married to someone in the CIA, then we are in agreement.  But how is that "disinformation"?

"Disinformation" is what Wilson gave Nick Kristof when he gave him (anonymously, and with his wife there at breakfast) the background for this column:

<ul>

I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.

The envoy reported, for example, that a Niger minister whose signature was on one of the documents had in fact been out of office for more than a decade.

Wrong, wrong, and wrong - Dick Cheney did not ask for an investigation; his office did not receive the result.  Per both Tenet's statement and the SSCI report, Wilson's report was inconclusive.  And the forgeries Wilson masterfully debunked by pointing out the phony signature?  Wilson later wrote that he never saw them, which we believe since they were not in Washington until the fall of 2002.

And how did Kristof get so many points wrong?  There is an easy explanation - although, as a diplomat one might think that he is a professional communicator, Wilson explained to Paula Zahn that "those are either misquotes or misattributions if they're attributed to me."  

Or disinformation.  Against which, Rove was pushing back.  Waiting for Wilson to auto-discredit took about a year.