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Is the best redirect your constituency can come up with? Regurgitating played-out rhetoric for inappropriate comments that have been apologized for? Cmon', Van. I didn't expect this blog to dip that low. Talk about mountains out of molehills.

Durbin the Turban never apologized for the comments. He used the liberal classic "if I have offended anyone (with my heartfelt comments)" non-apology.

"I'm sorry if anything that I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the Holocaust, the greatest moral tragedy of our time. Nothing, nothing should ever be said to demean or diminish that moral tragedy. I'm also sorry if anything I said in any way cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military."

Now he's going around whining and complaining that it wasn't his fault for making the comment on the floor of the Senate (during debate on an energy bill!) but the fault of the right-wing for daring to tell people he had made the comment.

I mean, maybe the shark has been jumped, Durbin-wise... but at least we didn't spend the whole week in a frenzy about getting Karl Rove for revealing the identity of a covert CIA operative... which would have been a major scandal except she wasn't a covert CIA operative, her identity wasn't a secret, and Rove didn't reveal it.

And anyway, so may we assume Rob B., that when a US Senator threatens a group with retaliation via the IRS for daring to criticize him, this does not trouble you at all?

VH,
Thanks for the post about Durbin. It certainly is a newsworhty item given Durbin past statements and "if I offended anyone" apology. The War on Terror goes on and Durbin just keeps going on. I think Durbin's statement is an appropriate spot in the ad. He is a United States Senator making derogatory comments about our Armed Forces. MAF is telling our Armed Forces there is a certain segment of the American public that supports them. Durbin should be ashamed of himself if is trying to put the IRS on this group. The legality of what he is trying to do should be looked into.

which would have been a major scandal except she wasn't a covert CIA operative, her identity wasn't a secret, and Rove didn't reveal it.

Unless you live with patches over both eyes, and earpugs in, we already know all three points to be lies.(unless one watches Fox News) Now THAT'S denial in action. Big difference between an audit threat, and lying about issues pertinent to national security.

The IRS "threat" is likely an empty one. There is no case to be made for inferring such a threat, though. It does seem like a bit of a reach to dangle the Nixon reference. Not only would the IRS likely have buried him, he could have been impeached on any number of offenses.

Actually, the New York Times on Friday revealed that Bob Novak gave Valerie Plame's name to Rove, and not vice versa.

And the statute in question defines a covert operative as someone who has been deployed overseas as an operative within the previous five years. According to CIA records, Valerie Plame's last overseas assignment was in 1997 (and there is some question as to whether she was covert even then.) The alleged leak occurred in 2003. Can you do the math yourself, or do you need help? As of 2003, she was a desk jockey in Langley, and had been for the previous six years.

And if you don't believe me, FoxNews, or the New York Times, how about Joe Wilson's own words to Wolf Blitzer. "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity."

And you have no way whatsever of knowing whether or not the IRS Audit was an empty threat or not.

If she was ever covert, do you think it's a good idea to make that public knowledge?

As for who said what to who---Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

I would leave that call to the CIA, as did Novak, who, according to some reports, checked with the CIA before publishing his column and was not told anything was inappropriate in it.

Meanwhile, the left's sudden interest in national security seems curious given their silence over John Kerry exposing the name of a CIA agent during the Bolton hearings or Democrat senators leaking the details of classified intelligence programs or
Sandy Berger stealing classified documents from the national archives.

VK:

"how about Joe Wilson's own words to Wolf Blitzer. "My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity." "

I got a question for you, my friend. If you use a fact (such as Wilson's own words) to shoot down a moonbat's lie, is that uncomfortable and inconvenient fact a lie, too? :)

You know, the whole "if a tree falls and no one's around, does it make a sound?" thingee. If a moonbat hears a fact that shoots his paranoid asshat inaccuracies down, is said fact a lie?

I mean, just because Joe Wilson conceded his wife wasn't undercover doesn't mean she was really not undercover, right? Like just because "See? B.S." ran a story based on forged documents, doesn't mean said story is not true!

I am always fascinated and amused when the left throws in the "Fox News" reference. They want us to believe that people like Ted Kennedy, Howard Dean, Hillary Clinton, and Dick Durbin(just to name a few) are moderates, claiming to be speaking and operating from the center. So, anyone to the right is an extremist. Any news network that does not constantly spew the left's ideology and ignore the statements and actions that gets the left in trouble is instantly discredited. They still don't get it, both the left and MSM are operating on the old sixties template. The public does not tolerate it, Rather had to leave in disgrace, MSM ratings are falling, Democrats are continuing to distance themselves from the American electorate, and losing elections. Hope they keep it up, makes winning against them easier.

The issue of Plame's status at outing is one of the legal points of light, but, more important, are the issues of the political motivations behind the whole thing, and Bush's decree that anyone involved would be fired; which has not happened.

The credibility of this administration has been under fire since day one. The more we stay stuck on semantics and legal loopholes, the more any semblance of actual accountability goes out the window. That said, it applies to the political machine as a whole, not just Republicans.

As for Fox News, when I hear one of anchors of the show say "let someone else worry about backpack bombs for awhile", and "whoever leaked info deserves a gold medal", it sorta makes you wonder: WTF? Is this Saturday Night Live, or the real news?

I'm sure Fox as a whole isn't that retarded, but it is a turn off.

The credibility of this administration has been under fire since day one.

Yes, "under fire" by left-wing moonbats seething with hatred, insanity, and rage trying to take down the administration with phony memos (Dan Rather's Texas ANG memo, the "re-typed" Downing Street memo), convening pretend impeachment hearings based on the phony memos, calling our troops "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags," comparing Bush to Hitler, gibbering about secret neo-con oil cabals, calling any temporary discomfort suffered by a terrorist "torture," claiming that Bush knew in advance about 9-11, claiming that 9-11 was a scam carried out by Mossad demolition experts, who think that Bush conspired with Diebolt to "steal the election," who believe that Bush and Blair collaborated on the 7/7 bombings to get Karl Rove out of the headlines, and who buy into any crackpot conspiracy that comes along so long as it is anti-Bush.

Yes, the credibility of this administration has been under fire... by the kind of people who think replacing the 's' in Bush with a swastika proves he's a Nazi.

And horrible photoshopped images like the picture of the face of a dead Iraqi child in the hand of Mrs. Bush with the caption:

"Look at this little Iraqi boy my husband murdered. All of us Republicans have reason to smile! I remember this look on my boyfriend who I killed in High school."

The Dick Durbin "apology" wasn't a retraction, it was another dig at "stupid republicans" because we "misinterpreted" what he said. Right. In the meantime a bipartisan committee found his allegations to be unfounded. But will he reverse himself? No, what he was trying to do, just like Wilson and Plame, were to cause damage. Nevermind the facts, facts are lost on leftists.

It's the SMEAR that counts. That's why back in the day it was called 'propaganda'. It still is: Lies, lies and more lies. Look at the recent re-release of the 1999 ABC news report connecting Al Qaeda, Bin Laden and Saddam. At that time, that information was out there. But as soon as Bush was elected, all of that went down the memory hole...and the democrats starting screaming about this being an "illegal war". Based on "16 words" the president said which were correct! Saddam sure as hell DID attempt buying uranium from Niger, which were the findings published in the SSIC report. What I'd like to know is why didn't Joe Wilson have to sign a confidentiality agreement like the rest of the people who do that work? That one thing left the door wide open for his op ed which was a complete reversal of the findings of his trip. But leftists aren't too happy with the SSIC, because it wasn't Rove or Bush that outed Wilson; it was the SSIC.

Plame and Wilson have had their pictures published in Vanity Fair Magazine, for crying out loud! She wasn't a secret agent, she was a desk jockey since 1997. On the Washington Cocktail party circuit, it's widely known that she works for the CIA.

Great comment, V the K. Amazing all the content you can squeeze into a little bit of space.

V the K, that was a great comment.

Facts never seem to bother leftists; it's the smear that counts. Too many people are going to remember "16 words" and not realize that those "16 words" were, in fact, correct.

Plame and Wilson have had their pictures taken and published in Vanity Fair, for crying out loud. It doesn't seem to me that they're particularly interested in protecting ANYBODY's covert status--Plame has been a desk jockey since 1997 and has certainly "come out". It's pretty widely known on the Washington cocktail party circuit that she works for the CIA.

To say it's the 'administration's fault' is a demonstration of supreme idiocy.

Read the SSIC report. Wilson's op ed is a collection of lies and distortions regarding that trip.

"If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." -- President Bush, Sept. 30, 2003.

Now the MSM makes it look like yesterday, Bush just now added the "break the law" condition. He didn't just now add it. He said it in 2003.

No law has been broken.