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[F6]

The Founding Fathers Wouldn't Have Liked George Bush

Bill Maher
Posted July 20, 2007 | 09:54 AM (EST)

I'm in Boston today, getting ready for my standup special tomorrow night live on HBO (last shameless plug, I promise) [F6 note -- see http://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.asp?message_id=21490468 ], and walking around the city has made me remember: oh yeah, America started here. That's right, America was invented by liberal men in Boston and Philadelphia. Not that I don't love all of America, but rednecks who think they're the real America should read a history book once in a while. George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Franklin, Madison -- the whole lot of them were well read, erudite, European thinking children of the enlightenment, and they would have had absolutely nothing in common and less to say to a cowboy simpleton like George Bush.

And speaking of who's a real American, was anyone as outraged as I was reading Robert Novak's little interview [ http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/magazine/15WWLN-Q4-t.html (F6 note -- below)] in the NY Times magazine on Sunday? Asked if in hindsight he would leave out the part of his 2003 column that identified Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, he said "I don't know. I thought journalistically it was justifiable. Nobody had told me -- and I still don't believe -- that it put anybody's life in danger. I don't think she was an important person in the CIA."

That really is quite an astounding quote, isn't it? How the hell would he know if it put anybody's life in danger? YOU'RE NOT IN THE CIA, BOB! They don't tell you any of their business! Considering the consequences of being wrong about such a hunch, is it really the patriotic thing to do? To sit in your office and just conjecture that this agent wasn't very important to the CIA? First, I think everyone who works at the CIA is important; and second, WHO THE HELL IS THIS MAN TO OUT PEOPLE IN THE DEADLY WORLD OF ESPIONAGE BECAUSE THAT'S WHAT HE "THINKS"?!

With patriots like that, I'm sure glad there are traitors like me and Michael Moore still living here in America.

Copyright © 2007 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-maher/the-founding-fathers-woul_b_57064.html [with (numerous) comments]


====================


The Plame Game

Questions for Robert Novak

Interview by DEBORAH SOLOMON
Published: July 15, 2007

It has been four years since you were catapulted into the headlines for outing the C.I.A. officer Valerie Plame in your syndicated column, yet the story lives on, most recently in the uproar over the commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence. Would you like to see him pardoned? Yes. I don’t see how you can have obstruction of justice when there is no underlying crime.

But as you well know, he lied under oath to the grand jury investigating the leak of Plame’s name to the press. I think he got mixed up. It was not a lie. I think he got confused. That’s why you need lawyers — to make sure you don’t get confused. I was very careful in my testimony to the grand jury and before that to Mr. Fitzgerald to make sure that I didn’t fabricate anything.

In your new memoir, “The Prince of Darkness,” you complain about the $160,000 you’ve spent on legal fees and claim that your income has taken a dive as a result of your role in this. Can you elaborate? I left CNN, which was my biggest payer, and my lecture fees were down. I was a little bit untouchable in the eyes of some people. I was off “Meet the Press” for two years. I have a much lower role with Fox News than I had at CNN.

If you could rewrite your newspaper column of July 14, 2003, would you leave out the part where you identify Plame as a C.I.A. operative and destroy her cover? I don’t know. I thought journalistically, it was justifiable. Nobody had told me — and I still don’t believe — that it put anybody’s life in danger. I don’t think she was an important person in the C.I.A.

Your betrayal of her identity appalled not only Democrats but also some of your former conservative friends, like Bill Kristol, the editor of The Weekly Standard, who called your conduct reprehensible. Did that sting on a personal level? I think it did. I really enjoyed Bill’s company, but Bill is an ideologue, much more than I am, and I think it was very hard for him to maintain a relationship with me when I took positions on the Iraq war and on the Middle East which were so far different from his.

Not long before the Plame affair, David Frum attacked you as unpatriotic in National Review, the conservative magazine for which you had written. Was that a turning point for you? I don’t know if it was a turning point or an ending point. It might have been a difficult time for me, but it was also a time when I had become a Catholic convert, which gave me a great deal of comfort.

By your own account, you converted from Judaism after meeting Msgr. Peter Vaghi, a former Republican lawyer and adviser to Senator Pete Domenici who made you feel comfortable with Catholic liturgy. That’s right. He was a source of mine before he was a priest. He knew me; he wasn’t just some strange priest that I didn’t know. It was one of the several serendipitous things that led me into the church.

That’s not a very spiritual reason for converting. What if you had met a Republican rabbi who had provided tips for your column? Would you have become a more observant Jew? The point is very difficult for a non-Catholic to appreciate. But I believe that Catholicism is the only true religion. The Holy Spirit has convinced me of that.

Much of this is recounted with admirable frankness in “The Prince of Darkness.” Did you intend the title ironically? Yes. It’s a little bit ironic. The nickname was given to me by my friend the reporter John Lindsay because he thought for a young man I took a very dim view of the prospects for our civilization.

Isn’t Prince of Darkness Richard Perle’s nickname? No. It’s my nickname. There was a British parliamentarian who came over and got me and Perle mixed up. At that time, we might have looked a little bit alike, dark-complexioned and sinister-looking.

Do you still have sources inside the White House? Yes.

Can you tell me a scoop? You have no idea how I work. I wouldn’t dream of telling you. If I have a real good scoop — and I do know a couple of things — I am going to write about it.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/magazine/15WWLN-Q4-t.html