Protest Story jacked up to cover Spy story?

[Must_B_Free]

the spy story seems to have died. Are they jacking up the protest story to hide the news of the Office of Special Traitors?

[phish420]

1. true

I think you are partly right, but also, with it being the weekend, there probably just arent a whole lot of new details about the spy story at this time...we'll see Mon/Tues if it gets coverage that even at least competes with the convention

[oldhat]

2. If it was the other way around

If it was the other way around, you'd be complaining that the spy story was being played up to bury the protest story.

[phish420]

4. Good point

I am glad to see the protestors hetting airtime...you are right though, there would be many that would make that argument.

[fearnobush]

3. Spy story was leaked to die - plane and simple. Why else leak it

on the usual hide the news Friday evening dirt story of the week. Every Friday there is a bad story for Bush. This one was special and the best way to kill a story is to hide it in all the expected positive press for the GOP.

[oldhat]

5. Bullshit

The WaPo and the NYT both have lead stories coming out in tomorrow's editions. FT and WSJ, too. Oh yeah, and Newsweek. And Washington Monthly. And every single blog I read.

This story seems pretty massive. I doubt it will die after one week of GOP-palooza.

It's pretty obvious that someone in the administration is dropping a dime on this Franklin guy. Let's see what else comes out.

Good thing Laura Rozen, Josh Marshall and the Knight-Ridder guys are covering it.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. Oh shit, you mean the story has legs

GOOD... I hate traitors.... and these boys ARE traitors...

Now wanna bet they are waling away with shiny presidential pardons?

[oldhat]

7. Dime has been dropped

Someone is trying to fuck someone else. Cloak and dagger.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/30/politics/30spy.html?hp=&pagewanted=print&position=

Officials Say Publicity Derailed Secrets Inquiry
By DAVID JOHNSTON and ERIC SCHMITT

ASHINGTON, Aug. 29 - The Pentagon official under suspicion of turning over classified information to Israel began cooperating with federal agents several weeks ago and was preparing to lead the authorities to contacts inside the Israeli government when the case became publicly known last week, government officials said Sunday.

The disclosure of the inquiry late on Friday by CBS News revealed what had been for nearly a year a covert national security investigation conducted by the F.B.I., according to the officials, who said that news reports about the inquiry compromised important investigative steps, like the effort to follow the trail back to the Israelis.

As a result, several areas of the case remain murky, the officials said. One main uncertainty is the legal status of Lawrence A. Franklin, the lower-level Pentagon policy analyst who the authorities believe passed the Israelis a draft presidential policy directive related to Iran.

[nadinbrzezinski]

8. Clear as day

He was willing to talk and lead them to contacts... my, my am I almost willing to bet that this was leaked by Michael Ledeen or the CIA...

Here is the motive

Ledeen has lost his clearances before, so he does again, sure no problem

Now this the Company... this also has to do with Plame Leak

Personally I would bet now on the PNACers protecting general goals of their policy...

[oldhat]

9. Please clarify?

Care to clarify that? What are the angles you see in regards to Ledeen and the CIA and the neocons? Who do you mean by "the Company"? There are so many actors and angles and twists and turns in this story I have trouble seeing what you're seeing. Care to clarify? I want to hear your theory.

[nadinbrzezinski]

10. The company is CIA

That said, the way this is starting to look is... one inside OSP, who have info to AIPAC decided to play wiht the Gov'ment. This investigation has been ongoing for almost two years and it is parallel to what is going on wiht the Plame Affair... or at least this is the way it looks on the surface

OSP cooked a lot of intel, maybe even the Niger story. Moreover, OSP (in particular Michael Ledeen) have been trying to bring down Iran for many years... but they also need help in pushing this dream of theirs on US Policy Makers. the way US Policy works, you sometimes need an outsider pushing for this... bring in some actors inside the Likud who were shown information that they should not have seen... (just as Prince Bandar did before the war)

Now OSP needs help in pushing this, but they were caught with their pants down when Wilson came out in that big editorial basically callign the Niger Story bogus... hmm big hole in the Gov'mennt case for war... mostly it did not happen.

So what do they do? They stall, and the FBI investigation probably started shortly after Plame was outed... now fast forward to... today... this boy, a mid level analyst who carried water for Feigh and was Scooter Libby's boy is talking... we have a parallel investigation into PNAC (Wolfowitz and Feith), Add to this the Challabi debacle, again a friend of Douglas Feith, who now has three strikes... it looks to me that Ledeen leaked this to the press to basically gum the process of getting a mid level manager to roll over the big fish.

Think of this as a mafia investigation. You'd rather let Giancanno let go (under the witnsess protection program) if you get John Gotti... well they threw Ledeen out there to leak this investigation to the press basically making the roll over a tad impossible to get.

Now the CIA may have not been aware of the games FBI was playing and quite accidentally gummed the process by leaking this to the press. They are PO'ed over the Plame Affair and how slowly it is going.

Now have I straighthened you like a Pretzel yet?

:-)

I guess I have seen things in my life that this is not that difficult to understand.

[shraby]

11. The Axis of Treason

The death agony of the neoconservatives is going to be a prolonged and quite ugly procedure, painful not only for them but for the entire country – which will learn, to its chagrin and growing anger, how and by whom they were lied into war. It started late Friday, when Lesley Stahl of CBS News reported that the FBI has "solid evidence" that a spy, embedded in the top echelons of the Pentagon's civilian leadership, handed over classified documents, including the draft of a presidential directive on U.S. policy toward Iran, to Israel. Such an investigation would have been politically explosive in any case, but add to this the news that Franklin had passed the documents to Tel Aviv via AIPAC, the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington, and the result is political dynamite.

Within hours the story had grown from focusing on a single individual, Lawrence Franklin, described as a "mid-level desk officer," to include an entire nest of spies ensconced in the top echelons of the Pentagon, centered around the office of Douglas Feith, the Director of Policy:

"An FBI probe into the handling of highly classified material by Pentagon civilians is broader than previously reported, and goes well beyond allegations that a single mid-level analyst gave a top-secret Iran policy document to Israel, three sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday.

"The probe, which has been going on for more than two years, also has focused on other civilians in the Secretary of Defense's office, said the sources, who spoke on condition they not be identified, but who have firsthand knowledge of the subject.

(more)

<http://antiwar.com/justin/>