Welcome to Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, political revenge edition.
Scooter Libby named Vice President Dick Cheney and his boss, President Bush, (or is it vice versa?) in court papers as the people who gave him permission to disclose Valerie Plame's employment as an undercover CIA agent to reporters, court papers filed this week say.
And in California, Richard Nixon did a 360 in his grave.
Something sort of similar to the Plame Affair happened at the state level last week, only in reverse.
John L. Micek, the Allentown Morning Call's Harrisburg reporter, questioned a state Department of Revenue spokeswoman on March 27 whether gubernatorial candidate Lynn Swann should be collecting the 6 percent state sales tax on some of the memorabilia sold on the Hall of Famer's Web site, including autographed footballs.
Swann, a Republican, will face Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, in the fall.
That same day, the Revenue Department sent the former Steelers star a five-page questionnaire about the mission and activities of Swann Inc.
Four days later - even faster than the state's mail to him - Swann agreed to start paying sales taxes and Micek reported that the state would not be seeking back taxes nor face penalties.
Here's where it gets interesting folks.
Citing confidentiality restrictions, Revenue Department spokesman Steve Kniley said he could not say whether tax officials had received the questionnaire back from Swann. Nor could he say whether Swann Inc. had applied for a sales tax license.
Yet today, exactly one week later, the Revenue Department introduced a new weapon in its efforts to pressure delinquents to pay overdue sales taxes - public embarrassment - by posting their names on its Web site.
Oops. I guess somebody finally realized that what they did to Swann was unprecedented and tried to cover their tracks. I wonder if they would have been so accomodating if the reporter was seeking similar information about an incumbent Democrat?
Was Micek tipped to Swann's mistake in an effort to embarrass him? John's a pretty good reporter so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt that he just looked at Swann's Web site and saw no sales tax was being charged.
I'm a pretty good reporter too, or so I've been told.
That's why at least one Luzerne County official broke federal law by tapping a national crime computer to dig up dirt on me nearly a decade ago.
Read more about it in my Daily Rant.
This Is Wrong...
What Scooter Libby actually said was that President Bush and VP Cheney authorized him to "leak" pre-war intelligence about Iraq after the invasion. It was NEVER said that either authorized him to say anything about Plame. (source)
I am seeing this "mistake" all over the blogosphere and I am beginning to wonder if it's a mistake at all...
This is ALa, not "anonymous coward" --the site won't let me get to the log in page.
Good point
And you're right that it's being missed all over the blogosphere. (You'd have to get Dave's input on whether or not it's an honest mistake.)
Honest mistake
I didn't mention the timing of it. But I blame any factual errors in this on a Comcast outage over the last two days which has prevented me from doing much researching. I've managed to post in those rare minutes when I've actually had access to the Web.
As for Scooter, an AP article clearly says Bush gave Cheney approval and Cheney pressured Libby to do it and told him the president wanted it.
Libby testified to the grand jury "that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions," Fitzgerald said.
Bush is to blame ultimately, but clearly had no knowlege that Libby would be disclosing it. Cheney definitely did.
And none of that negates anything I've written.
leaks
What Scooter Libby "actually" said? Did he leak to you, too?
face it PA is a political swamp
"That's why at least one Luzerne County official broke federal law by tapping a national crime computer to dig up dirt on me nearly a decade ago."
that guy should be prosecuted for persecuting you...wonder if that official and all of their family members and friends and allies and lobbyist friends have sqeaky clean beyond reproach records?
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