Countdown Newsletter: 06/20/06 -- The Libby Problem

[Patsy Stone]

------------------------------------------------------
Tonight on Countdown
------------------------------------------------------
Your opinion matters to us. Join our new News VIPs forum and express your opinions on the news. You could win $1000 just by signing up. Click here to join: <http://www.newsvips.com/R.aspx?a=20>
-------------------------------------------

Now that top White House aide Karl Rove is off the hook in the CIA leak probe, President George W. Bush must weigh whether to pardon former vice presidential aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the only one indicted in the three-year investigation. Speculation about a pardon began in late October, soon after Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald unsealed the perjury indictment of Libby, and it continued last week after Fitzgerald chose not to charge Rove. A pardon before the trial could could cut off the disclosures and spare Vice President Dick Cheney from testifying as Fitzgerald's witness about Libby, his former chief of staff. But the timing of a pardon, the attorney suggested, likely would depend on the outcome of the midterm elections.If Republicans retain control of Congress, Bush could act swiftly. But if Democrats win control of the House or Senate, Bush might wait, and use Libby's trial as an excuse not to cooperate with any congressional investigations into the leak.
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uspard0618,0,467087.story?coll=ny-leadnationalnews-headlines

A U.S. jury on Tuesday convicted a former Bush administration official of four counts of lying and obstructing justice in the first trial to be held in connection with the influence peddling scandal of lobbyist Jack Abramoff. On the fifth day of deliberations, the jury found David Safavian -- a former chief of staff at the General Services Administration -- guilty of four of five counts of lying and obstructing justice. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13436161/

Countdown w/ Keith Olbermann broadcasts LIVE at 8 pm et, and the count is never complete without you. Join us.

The bodies of two U.S. soldiers reported captured last week have been found and the men appear to have been "killed in a barbaric way," a senior Iraqi general said Tuesday. A statement posted on a militant Islamic Web site said the two men were killed by the new leader of al-Qaida in Iraq. U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the remains, found late Monday by American troops, were believed to be those of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13432770/

Dan Rather, the hard-charging anchorman who dominated CBS News for more than two decades but whose final months were clouded by a discredited story on the president's military service, is leaving CBS after 44 years, the network announced Tuesday. The 74-year-old Rather has complained of being virtually forgotten at CBS Corp. since his exit as anchor last year, six months after the story on President Bush's military service aired. He has said he is considering an offer to do a weekly show at the HDNet high-definition network. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13436656/

THE race is on to keep humans one step ahead of robots: an international team of scientists and academics is to publish a "code of ethics" for machines as they become more and more sophisticated. Although the nightmare vision of a Terminator world controlled by machines may seem fanciful, scientists believe the boundaries for human-robot interaction must be set now - before super-intelligent robots develop beyond our control. "Security, safety and sex are the big concerns," said Henrik Christensen, a member of the Euron ethics group. How far should robots be allowed to influence people's lives? How can accidents be avoided? Can deliberate harm be prevented? And what happens if robots turn out to be sexy? http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2230715,00.html

That's some of what we're planning for tonight's show.

Finally,
WEST VANCOUVER, British Columbia -- It was a real-life version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears - only in reverse - when a woman came home to find a young bear eating oatmeal in her kitchen. The bear apparently entered through an open sliding glass door, broke a ceramic food container and started eating, West Vancouver police Sgt. Paul Skelton said. "The bear didn't appear to be aggressive and wasn't destroying the house, so they just let it do what it was doing and eventually the bear decided to make its way out of the residence and down toward a forested gully," Skelton said. "It ended the best it could."
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/O/OATMEAL_EATING_BEAR?SITE=NWCN&TEMPLATE=STRANGEHEADS.html
Exactly. He could have demanded scrambled eggs, blueberry pancakes, and bacon. Yum.

-- Carey Fox

Countdown Home: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3036677/

Other News:
Numerous federal and local law enforcement agencies have bypassed subpoenas and warrants designed to protect civil liberties and gathered Americans' personal telephone records from private-sector data brokers. These brokers, many of whom advertise aggressively on the Internet, have gotten into customer accounts online, tricked phone companies into revealing information and even acknowledged that their practices violate laws, according to documents gathered by congressional investigators and provided to The Associated Press. Congressional investigators estimated the U.S. government spent $30 million last year buying personal data from private brokers. But that number likely understates the breadth of transactions, since brokers said they rarely charge law enforcement agencies any price. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11100923/

A suicide bomber killed a woman and wounded five people when he attacked a crowd of elderly and disabled senior citizens in the southern Iraqi city of Basra on Tuesday, police said. The same day, a car bomb killed seven people and injured 18 in a crowded Baghdad market. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13431498/

Big waves generated by a storm thousands of miles away battered Central America's Pacific Coast on Tuesday, destroying at least 20 houses in Nicaragua and a small hotel in Guatemala, civil defense officials said. There were no reports of fatalities. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13438622/

A 14-year-old girl who says she was sexually assaulted by another user of MySpace.com sued the social networking Web site Monday, claiming it does not take sufficient steps to protect underage members. The girl says a 19-year-old man lied in his profile about being a senior on a football team to gain her trust and phone number. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13437619/

Equifax Inc., one of the nation's three major credit bureaus, said Tuesday a company laptop containing employee names and Social Security numbers was stolen from an employee who was traveling by train near London. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/13437723/

[gkhouston]

1. what would be a legitimate reason for pardoning Libby?

a real reason, not a political one? Any indication that he's been falsely convicted? Oops. Any redeeming contributions to society on his part? (Fellating the far right doesn't count.) So our deciderer who was going to get to the bottom of this Plame mess is perhaps thinking of pardoning the only person who has thus far been indicted. What a stalwart man of action. :sarcasm:

Libby can't plead the Fifth after he's been pardoned; what's to stop Fitz from indicting Cheney and subpoenaing Libby as a witness?

[RevCheesehead]

2. Somehow, I just knew they'd do the Goldilocks story.

I had suggested this morning that someone send the story to Stephen Colbert, so he could use it on his next "Threat-Down."

"And the #1 threat - Bears." :rofl: