Via Terry Hastings comes this, from Opinion Journal:
“Former ambassador Joseph Wilson asked a federal judge Wednesday not to force him to testify in the CIA leak case and accused former White House aide I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby of trying to harass him on the witness stand,” the Associated Press reports from Washington:
“Mr. Libby should not be permitted to compel Mr. Wilson’s testimony at trial either for the purpose of harassing Mr. Wilson or to gain an advantage in the civil case,” Wilson’s attorneys wrote
.
Hmm, for a guy who burst onto the scene three years ago as the most garrulous figure since Ted Turner, and who then wrote a book called “The Politics of Truth,” Wilson is awfully averse to testifying under oath.
Dang. “The Politics of Truth”?? You just can’t make this stuff up. I wonder if the NYTimes covered this? Probably not.
Thanks, Terry: it’s a nice companion piece to Soxy Berger’s treble agency, in which he had a document drop spot for himself.
The Ballad of Yellowcake Joe
Oh, Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, went to Niger don’t you know?
Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe went there on a mission.
There once was a great ambassador by the name of Yellowcake Joe,
A kind of travelling minstrel in a one-man mistrel show.
His wife was a secret agent who was secretive and sly,
The vice-pres wants someone to go, my husband is the guy.
He knows the folks in Niger land who know the story well,
If Saddam’s sought uranium then surely Joe they’ll tell.
He knows the local customs and he drinks a lot of tea,
So tell Dick Cheney that he’ll go, I ask on bended knee.
Oh, Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, went to Niger, don’t you know?
Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, did a little fishin’.
The minstrel went to Niger land and sat in the cafe,
And interviewed the folks at hand and chatted all the day.
He came back to the USA and gave us his report,
That Saddam probably had conspired the substance to import.
But when the time came to confess the nature of his witness
He wrote an op-ed that was meant to scare the evil Bushies shitless,
That in their rush to justify invasion of Iraq
They’d lied and bent someone they’d sent’s words into poppycock.
Oh, Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, went to Niger, don’t you know?
Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, Saddam don’t have fission.
Belike it was this same op-ed that made the Bushie pricks
Decide to bring our minstrel down, with loads of dirty tricks;
Appears now on a TV show a pundit who did say,
That Wilson was the man who went and his wife had a say.
Now Yellowcake outraged he was to find his wife was outed,
The secret of her secret life the Bushies had undoubted
Ly shared with certain pundits whom they deemed would likely say,
That Valerie had sent her husband on his fateful way.
Oh, Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, went to Niger, don’t you know?
Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe’s version was a fiction.
Who leaked the fact that Valerie was secret agent seven?
They’ll frogmarch Karl from the Whitehouse, details at eleven.
Eventually the prosecutor came for Scooter Libby,
And then the lefty gibberish got gibberier than gibbery.
Meanwhile the hermit Wilson-Plames were in a photo spread
Posed in a smart convertible with headroom for their heads.
And Yellowcake put out a book denouncing lying pols
And Valerie was on TV fielding the viewers’ calls.
Oh, Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, went to Niger, don’t you know?
Yellowcake Joe Yellowcake Joe, who has been a-dishin’?
Now Scooter’s turned the tables on our Minstrel, Yellowcake Joe,
And wants to make him testify to what and when’d he know.
The anti-Bushies do not mind that Joe has been a-lyin’,
And think the great accuser should not be a-forced to testifyin’.
The story is so byzantine you’ll have to read Maguire,
And someday all consumed will be in Vanity Fair’s Bonfire.
The tale is told in doggerel rhyme in which it’s best presented,
Yet to his hero worshippers his rep is still undented.
Oh, Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, went to Niger, don’t you know?
Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, Mistrel Yellowcake Joe.
Oh, Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, Bush Derangement dough-see-dough,
Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, poor old Yellowcake Joe.
Oh, Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, now you’re under oath, oh no!
Yellowcake Joe, Yellowcake Joe, Merry Fucking Fitzmas!
Surely he cannot refuse to testify on the grounds that to do so might be disadvantageous to him or advantageous to Libby in a separate civil case?
As a side note if your name is Libby, Liddy, Liggy or or Lippy, do not accept an invitation to work in or around the White House.
tw british86
Ten years too late.
I understand the Wilson can now be spotted sipping spiced tea with the art crowd in Santa Fe, NM.
When is this crowd going to do some prison time?
Talking to my teenage cousins about this the other day, I was dismayed that the message they take home from the Wilson-story is: Lying in print pays big premiums.
I’m reminded of Baretta’s theme song: “Don’t do the Crime, if you can’t do the Time!” Rewritten for today’s medio-political climate it’d read: “If you don’t do the Crime, then you don’t get Simon and Schuster’s Dime.”
Which makes me wonder, where’s Elliot Spitzer, that crusader for truth in reporting for the business community in New York. This urban public servant should know that there’s something rank in Manhattan’s publishing/political interface.
It’s truly worrisome to this fly-over American: left-coast Congressmen and Senators are engaged in extra-committee, ex parte communications to actively coordinate a myriad of foreign-funded 527’s and paid domestic and international media patrons that generate a unified, fraudulent political narrative designed to undermine our nation’s war-fighting capabilities – at a time of war.
When Elliot picks up the phone, I’ll tell him to follow that Wahhabi/Soros money.
Furriskey,
Wilson’s argument is that can’tprovide any relevant info as to why Mr. Lewis allegedly lied to Mr. Fitzgerald. The obvious question from the judge is “then why is he calling you? Do you think he’s a meanie or soemthing?” Mr. Wilson’s attorneys are attempting to rebut that question (pre-emptively, if you like irony) by saying Mr. Lewis wants to get him on-record about these sorts of things, so his defense team can use that in the civil suit.
The answer to your question then is a) maybe, if Wilson can show he has nothing relevant to provide AND Libby’s team is fishing for other info, then he can avoid testimony. If he can’t convince the judge of both of those points, he’s going to have to be deposed.
“left-coast Congressmen and Senators are engaged in extra-committee, ex parte communications to actively coordinate a myriad of foreign-funded 527’s and paid domestic and international media patrons that generate a unified, fraudulent political narrative designed to undermine our nation’s war-fighting capabilities – at a time of war.
When Elliot picks up the phone, I’ll tell him to follow that Wahhabi/Soros money.”
This was even funnier than when I heard Hannity say it. I particularyl like the connection between Soros and the jew-hating ideology that is Wahabbi-ism. Then, again, Steve, politics makes strange bedfellows!
I bet Joe Wilson is a really an Al Queda memeber…..that rat bastard. He was able to foll so many, the 9/11 Commission, the President, the entire administration, the Senate Intelligence Committee, if it weren’t for Christopher Hitchens and the blogoshere, he’d probably be piloting a jet into the Sears Tower. Good work, Steve
I can’t wait to give him the middle finger when I see him in Santa Fe!
The other42 guy I gave the finger was Dennis Kuchini!
What did Kucinich do?
How long until Jane Hamster complains about the picture?
Timmy Boy,
When two oars are needed to row the boat forward, the oars-men care not a whit about the color of the left oar when pulling with the right.
Fact is Wilson lied in a book, and a grand network subsidized, hyped and spun his lies for a narrow partisan aim. His legal strategy will reflect this.
And, if you don’t agree with my list of Wilson’s abettors, then why sarcastically deny their involvement (which amounts to abetting them), when you could posit some constructive leads of your own?
Ya know. Common courtesy, right? Unless you think Wilson is an American Hero, or a modern-day “Che,” and we need to keep his myth alive, you know, for the Revolution.
And some “Reason 101” (because it appears you need a gentle refresher in it): just because a media personality says something, it neither confirms nor rebuts any fact. This is not a small point, and it is one that should be impressed on the very youngest, as soon as possible, as frequently as possible.
(Tee Hee!)
That is the question on everyone’s mind, Karl
Catchy! Never knew Joe Lieberman could play the banjo like that.
– If this whole pile of partisan, steamy, bullshit turns out the way most of us believed it would from the very beginning, gird yourselves for the usual Libturd response:
“….Well crap…..maybe it was false but it certainly was accurate….everyone in moonville knows what the Bushies were thinking, and WOULD have done if they COULD have, and why should we care if that evil Rove gets frogmarched down Penn. ave. on madeup charges…he certainly thought about doing it, thats for sure, and anyway I hate that f’king bastard with a passion, because of all those elections he stole….so good on him the prick… hope he dies soon…”