John Gibson. No lie too small, no lie too big.

The dismally stupid John Gibson is my very favourite Focks the News boy. in the wake of Scooter Libby being convicted on four of five counts, somebody had to stand up and tell the really daft lies. Somebody had to get up on their wobbly hind legs and spin a story, a really Big Story. And when it comes to telling tall tales, nobody spouts senseless shite like John Gibson. Behold the steaming coils!

"Real Story Behind CIA Leak
Tuesday, March 06, 2007
By John Gibson
So let me get this straight: Scooter Libby is going to jail for not remembering who he told what. He didn't lie, evidently. He didn't remember right, and that is a federal crime, of course, if you happen to be speaking to a FBI agent when your memory fails."

No, no, no, John. Let me set you straight, Scooter is going to jail because he lied to the FBI and to the grand jury. While the larger crimes of his good pals have, so far, gone unpunished, he got caught telling fibs. And he did lie, evidently. If you accept that "evidently" refers to evidence. The evidence presented to a grand jury that saw fit to issue an indictment, and the evidence put before a jury in open court that led to a conviction. A convicted lying felon, a disgraced high official. He's not the first and certainly won't be the last.

"But at the same time, the same Justice Department has taken the case of a high government official who lied, who stole classified documents, who destroyed those documents, and he's walking around free as a bird. They won't even ask him to take a lie detector test to determine if he lied more than they already know."

We return to the Sandy Berger defense. Look at him, he's walking the streets and he did bad things too. Well, Berger did indeed do some very bad, not to mention weird, things. Of course, John isn't noting that Berger was nabbed, tried, convicted and sentenced for his crime. And while Berger's crimes were serious, they pale in comparison to outing a covert intelligence asset and then lying and scheming to cover it up. And sweet mother of fuck, they won't even harass the guy to take a lie detector test. Not that polygraphs are admissable, not that double jeopardy should apply, Gibbo wants to see the guy he doesn't liked punished and re-punished in perpetuity. Thing is, when Berger got caught, he cooperated and fessed up. Libby was engaged in a pattern of deception to cover up for larger and more serious crimes. His obstruction of justice may have poisoned further investigation of matters involving the outing of Valerie Plame and the smearing of Joe Wilson.

"People are saying the Libby trial is the key to the kingdom, that it stands for the trial of the entire administration and the war in Iraq."

People are saying that Jesus had a pet stegosaurus and was a fair skinned, western European looking guy. Which is obviously a load of crap. And while the Libby trial sure makes the executive branch look like a conniving pack of sneaks, liars and schemers, it sure doesn't stand for the trial of the administration. With luck, those trials will be held in the near future.

"Here's what it was about: Does the vice president have the right to say, see that guy named Joe Wilson who is going around saying I sent him to Africa to investigate Saddam's nuke bombs? I didn't send him. His wife did.
Seems pretty simple to me."

Let's face it. Things seem simple to John because he's a simpleton. Somehow the issue is reduced to poor Shooter defending himself from some stranger saying bad things about Dick's precious lies. The fact that Gibson has no clue how intelligence works can likely be related to his own lack of same. Did Dick call up the CIA and tell them to send Wilson to Niger? No. Did the Vile Pestilence office ask for further intel? Yup. The CIA did their job, they conferred and sent a capable and experienced figure, familiar with both Iraq and Niger to investigate. The CIA chose Ambassador Joseph Wilson. Wilson is the same guy who responded to threats from Saddam by wearing a rope around his own neck and facing the dictator down.

From the BBC:
"As acting ambassador to Iraq in the run-up to the first Gulf War, he was the last US diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein, in 1991.
He very publicly defied the Iraqi strongman by giving refuge to more than 100 US citizens at the embassy and in the homes of US diplomats - at a time when Saddam Hussein was threatening to execute anyone who harboured foreigners.
He then addressed journalists wearing a hangman's noose instead of a necktie.
He later told the Washington Post newspaper that the message to Saddam Hussein was: "If you want to execute me, I'll bring my own [expletive] rope."

That is, of course, the very portrait of a leftie, America hatin' coward.

"Joe Wilson wrote a piece for The New York Times implying the vice president sent him on a mission to Africa and then ignored his advice. In the vice president's office the question was: Who is this guy? Why is he saying we sent him, and as a matter of fact who did?"

The famous Wilson op-ed that inspired the outing of Wilson's wife appeared almost a year after he had filed his findings from the trip to Niger. Indeed, Saddam wasn't getting yellowcake from Niger and Iraq had nothing resembling a nuclear weapons program. It was a false allegation. Wilson only wrote his piece after the President of the United States of America repeated the disproven allegations as fact in the state of the union address. A statement that was subsequently retracted. How dare Wilson place truth and integrity ahead of agenda.

"Let me quote from an Associated Press report from the trial, dated January 24, 2007, when former CIA Iraq mission manager Robert L. Grenier appeared as a government witness in the trial of Libby. The report reads: Grenier testified he told Libby that the idea of sending ex-Ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger was the brainchild of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, who worked in the CIA office that sent him in 2002."

Dear me. The word quote does not mean what John seems to think. Indeed, Grenier's testimony went more like this:

"He talked to someone else and left a message for Kevin. He got a response “probably within a couple of hours.” It was from someone he did not know but was “fully knowledgeable about what had happened.” He got confirmation that CIA had sent Wilson to investigate Niger uranium and went into some detail about the mission. Conveyed that State, Office of VP, and Defense had all “expressed interest” in the issue.
That person “mentioned” that Wilson’s wife worked in the division and was the impetus behind the trip. “I am certain the individual did not tell me the name, only that it was Amb Wilson’s wife.” and this...

"He phoned Libby and told him that CIA had in fact sent Wilson and that OVP was not the main driver behind the trip but that State and Defense were also instigators. Libby asked whether “CIA would be willing to reveal that publicly.”
Did you tell him about the wife connection? “I believe I did.” He thinks he told him “something to the effect” that the wife was “why Wilson was sent” but mentioned it “only in passing.”

Gibson is the master of selective reading skills. From the above he is able to interpolate the following:

"Now, Libby was informed who sent Wilson to Africa. He certainly knew the vice president's office didn't because, well, because he would know. He was the V.P.'s chief of staff."

Yes. The CIA sent Wilson at the behest of the office of the vice president in concert with the state department and the department of defence. As for Libby's certainty, well, he is a convicted liar. As for Gibson's certainty, well, he's a professional liar.

"So the vice president and Libby wanted the press to know because they were getting pointed questions about why did you send this guy if you weren't going to pay attention to his report. And they found out that his wife had sent him. They wanted people to know. Problem was, she was a covert spook, at least technically."

So, here we have John Gibson implicating the Vice President of the United States with being involved in the effort to out Valerie Wilson to the press. That, kids, is why you should never use a water head as a water carrier. In Bush's America, those in power don't seek after truth when confronted with pointed questions about their own duplicity, they try to ruin people. They found out that Wilson's wife was a covert agent working in counter proliferation and they outed her anyway.

"So if you are the vice president or his assistant, can you out the spook if the spook is pulling strings behind your back to make you look bad? Evidently not."

Wow. Really. Just wow. How very unfair that the v.p. and his office can't just throw people's lives into the crapper to get vengeance. As for the motivation Gibson ascribes to the Wilsons, well, don't step in it. Scooter's attempted defence was built on an attempt to show how very busy he was, how something trivial like Cheney's personal vendetta might slip his mind. Nowhere in the official record is there any mention that Wilson and wife were motivated by any factor other than patriotism. The fact that everything Wilson wrote has been proven beyond doubt shouldn't matter according to Gibson.

"Personally, I'm glad they did. There was a cabal inside the CIA working against the president's policy and they wanted to hide behind their secret status while they did what was essentially an anti-war political hitjob.
This is bad. It is the bad thing at the bottom of this whole episode."

And after the cabalists finished eating white babies they danced around the fire chanting ooga booga. The CIA has some audacity gathering intelligence for the administration and expecting the intelligence to be used truthfully. Why send anyone anywhere, when they can sit around in Quantico and make shit up that supports whatever crazy scheme the executive cooks up. The bad thing at the bottom of this episode, is that the administration used lies to support an illegal war of aggression. The only hitjob here is the one against the Wilsons. In Gibboland intelligence is gathered to support pre-existing policy, the gathering of excuses, not facts.

"Valerie Plame knew what she was doing when she sent her husband. She knew he would never come back with an endorsement for the war. He says in his own book he didn't even believe in deposing Saddam back in the '91 war."

Proof by repeated assertion works well enough for a stunned oaf like Gibson not so good for the real world. Even the WaPo refutes the nonsense: "Over the past months, however, the CIA has maintained that Wilson was chosen for the trip by senior officials in the Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division (CPD) -- not by his wife -- largely because he had handled a similar agency inquiry in Niger in 1999. On that trip, Plame, who worked in that division, had suggested him because he was planning to go there, according to Wilson and the Senate committee report."

I don't suppose Gibson's research (hah) noted that Dick Cheney didn't support deposing Saddam in '91. Nor did President George H. W. Bush. But really, why let reality get in the way of propping up lies.

"So why would Cheney send an anti-war activist to investigate a key fact in the decision to go to war? Answer: He wouldn't. And the person who did was trying to sabotage the president."

Now call me crazy, but accusing members of the CIA and respected career members of the diplomatic corp of actively trying to sabotage the president sounds like libel. Whereas, calling John Gibson a fantasist and a liar is actually provable. Repeatedly.

"That is the real story behind this entire saga.
That's My Word."

If by "real" you mean thoroughly refuted bullshit stitched together to support old lies and malice. And once again, Gibson word isn't worth the methane that propels it.