Valerie Plame's Lawsuit Dismissed

[guyone]

Valerie Plame's Lawsuit Dismissed

Jul 19 02:53 PM US/Eastern


WASHINGTON (AP) - A federal judge on Thursday dismissed former CIA operative Valerie Plame's lawsuit against members of the Bush administration in the CIA leak scandal.

Plame, the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had accused Vice President Dick Cheney and others of conspiring to leak her identity in Plame said that violated her privacy rights and was illegal retribution for her husband's criticism of the administration.

[thombergeron]

Son, if you're going to cut-and-paste the first two paras of that story, why not the third?


U.S. District Judge John D. Bates dismissed the case on jurisdictional grounds and said he would not express an opinion on the constitutional arguments.

[Cuchulain]

Melanie Sloan, the Wilsons' lawyer, said the couple plans to appeal Thursday's ruling.

"While we are obviously very disappointed by today's decision, we have always expected that this case would ultimately be decided by a higher court. ... We disagree with the court's holding and intend to pursue this case vigorously to protect all Americans from vindictive government officials who abuse their power for their own political ends," she said in a statement.

Joseph Wilson said the decision was "just the first step in what we have always known would be a long legal battle."

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/07/19/cia.leak/index.html

[guyone]

That's all breibart had posted and it's all that matters anyway.

[North_of_60]

John D. Bates also dimissed the lawsuit over Dick Cheney's energy task force records in 2002.

Judge John D. Bates of Federal District Court found that Comptroller General David M. Walker, the head of the General Accounting Office, did not have sufficient standing to sue the vice president.
Mr. Walker had asked the judge to order the White House to reveal the identities of industry executives who helped the administration develop its energy policy last year.
In declining to do so, and in dismissing Mr. Walker’s suit, Judge Bates said that granting the G.A.O. chief’s request “would fly in the face of the restricted role of the federal courts under the Constitution.”

http://www.truthout.org/docs_02/12.11A.bates-cheney.htm

Also,

"In a December 30, 2002 decision, Judge John Bates of the U.S. District Court ruled that lead plaintiff Representative Dennis Kucinich and 31 other Members of the House of Representatives have no standing to challenge President Bush’s withdrawal from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty without congressional approval. He also ruled that the case presents a “political question” not suitable for resolution by the courts.

http://www.lcnp.org/disarmament/ABMlawsuit/ABMdecisonpr.pdf

The dismissing of Plame's civil suit is no suprise from a rightwing activist judge.

[guyone]

Kind of balances out for all the left wing activist judges.

[thombergeron]

That's all breibart had posted and it's all that matters anyway.

Actually, it's not, but I fully understand how you might think that. I know it's tough to read more than 50 words in a row.

Thanks for this response, though. Knowing that you get your news from Andrew Breitbart is very helpful in understanding your dysfunction.


Kind of balances out for all the left wing activist judges.

Who is that, specifically?

[guyone]

Souter, Breyer, Ginsberg, the entire 10th circuit...need I go on?

Is taking an anti-communist stance a form of dysfunction?

[thombergeron]

Souter, Breyer, Ginsberg, the entire 10th circuit...need I go on?

Is taking an anti-communist stance a form of dysfunction?

Do you think George H.W. Bush knew David Souter was a left-wing activist when he appointed him to the Court? Can you cite a decision that Breyer and Ginsburg have written that you would deem "activist?"

Are you aware that half of the 10th circuit bench was appointed by our current President? That Chief Judge Tacha was a Reagan appointee? Again, what decision by this court would you deem as supporting a "left wing activist agenda," whatever that is?

I'm so tired of this meaningless "activist judges" epithet. Your dysfunction is that you're a terrible rhetoritician. You just throw around baseless and frankly irrelevant accusations that you clearly picked up from someone else.

You've gotten a lot of support from posters in this forum since Michael was banned, but honestly, at least he presented an argument in between his nasty name-calling and silly pictures. I have never gotten the impression that you have any idea what you're talking about.

[guyone]

Boy some got out of the wrong side of the rock today.

Oh c'mon now. You're being very pedantic. I'm not going to list a long diatribe of cases and the resulting decisions just to try to prove a point that does not really matter anyway. At least I don't hide behind the pretense that Thomas and Scalia don't approach the judicial process with certain zeal of their own ideology. As far as I can tell there are no constitutional lawyers on this board so our opinions are just that, opinions. Trying to give these discussions any more credence than that is simply an exercise in mental masturbation.


Who's Michael?

[thombergeron]

Pedantic? It's called "debating." You take a position and then you state your case.

Interestingly, the second step is actually the more important of the two.

But then again, as you said, your point doesn't really matter anyway. It's just a meaningless toss-off line.

[guyone]

AND LET THAT BE A LESSON TO YOU!

[guyone]

Courtesy of the memorial WMC freedom of information unit:

http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/

Joe Wilson should have minded his wife's status from the beginning. If anyone should have been sued, Valerie should have named Joe at the top of the list. Instead, Joe had to grandstand after getting the assignment through the efforts of his wife that led to his star turn as Bush administration critic. There's nothing new about that; we've made that argument all along.

If the judge had allowed it to go to trial, though, it still wouldn't have succeeded, because the actual leak in this case came from Richard Armitage, not Libby or anyone at the White House. In a civil suit, the damage has to come from the defendants, and no one could argue with a straight face that Armitage would have done Cheney's or Libby's bidding. The discovery that Armitage gave the information to Robert Novak should have closed the criminal investigation, and it should have mooted this particular suit, unless the Wilsons amended it to replace Cheney and Libby with Armitage. He did the actual damage, to the extent damage occurred at all.

But the Plames didn't file this suit to recover from actual damages. They filed the suit to continue their status as darlings of the Left. It's hard to imagine that Joe Wilson could have acquitted himself on the stand well enough to keep the lawsuit from getting dismissed on the merits, even if it had survived on jurisdiction. Any cross-examination would have established his credibility as at near zero, and the case would have dissipated. The judge did them a favor; now they can claim judicial martyrdom, and their supporters have another cause to decry.

[Quinn]

Courtesy of the memorial WMC freedom of information unit:


Aka the Brownshirts. Then again, with the "unfortunate" departure of Ernst_Rohm_Canada and TFool, don't you think you're getting ahead of yourself by using the term "unit." Wouldn't it be more fair to borrow a phrase from this nation's military by calling yourself an "Army of One"?

-Quinn

[guyone]

As long as their is a drop of air in my lungs!