ok, that Time graphic, a torn first page of the indictment, is SO obvious, I mean, it actually veers up to obscure the words in between "Assis...." and "...of the United States."
The crazy reality of the whole fucking thing is giving me SUCH A PARANOIA COMPLEX!!!!

This is a total non-story. It looks like lots of titles begin with something to the effect of "assistant to the president and..." and actually aren't assistants to the president. Check out http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/administration/whbriefing/...

For example, Sonya Medina is "Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and Director of Projects for the First Lady." My guess is if she got in trouble she would be described by the second independent clause in her title, not the first. And that seems to be honest reporting. Libby's title is "Assistant to the President and Chief of Staff to the Vice President" and I believe "Dick Cheney's chief of staff" has been used quite a bit to describe him, and this is fine. As is common in corporate culture, the de jure org chart is often a lot flatter than the de facto chart.

With this in mind it's not such a big deal that libby's official title on the indictment was obscured by the graphic - it's a legal document so his real title should be there (okay i don't know why not his full title) but he's not, in actuality, bush's man but cheney's, so there's no need to confuse a reader who wants the semantics of the story to be clear.

Sorry, the Washington Times "bush is cracking up" story has me in a POTUS-sympathetic mood today.

Maybe I'm just a recovering journalist, but I think the Woodward piece is very interesting. Even if we already knew that there was a non-Libby source on Plame.
1) "In past interviews, Woodward has repeatedly minimized the Fitzgerald probe, telling National Public Radio, for example, that when 'all of the facts come out in this case, it's going to be laughable because the consequences are not that great.'" Mmm HMM.
2) They included four or five paragraphs at the end essentially trying to justify Woodward's employment arrangement with the Post. Interesting that they feel like they have to, particularly since the average reader doesn't know or care about it.

You think Medina would be labelled as "Director of Projects for the First Lady" first? I disagree.

You might be right, but you haven't convinced me. And it's certainly not a non-story by your decree. Josh Marshall has indicated that Libby has worked for both but doesn't provide evidence:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006882.php

Perhaps I'll email him.

This might just be a West Wing thing, but isn't everybody in the White House above a certain level termed an "Assistant to the President"? If there were anything to this piece of information, I feel fairly certain that Fitzgerald would have mentioned it in his UNBEARABLY long press conference.

look, guys, regardless of the reality of the titleage, i think the story is the press' quite obvious obfuscation of the fact (see torn page, above). if it's NOT such a big deal, why is there a concerted effort in the PRESS (in the white house would be understandable) to NOT call him the pres. asst?? And yes, DoorFrame, I think they are - which is all the weirder that that's what no one is calling him.

My "decree?" I didn't mean (in fact I never mean) to imply that something I say is unambiguously true because I say it is. That's almost always true in my casual writing. I would think that would be true with you too, cm.

It is, however true that I don't have anything to back up my claim but occam's razor and circumstance. To wit: Another feasible reason for the title is they wanted to pay scooter 160k and since government salaries are strictly controlled to title, this was a way to do that. It's hard to say - there are no titles for reporting to the vice president in the staff list, but every title that reports to someone other than the president (usually the first lady, but a few to an assistant) makes sub-100k.

Sticking with my occam's razor theme, the appearance that there is a concerted effort to hide his title might be the press' effort to explain what he does and not a conspiracy. Or it could be laziness - if mcclellan refers to him as that long enough, say, who really wants to quibble about title?

fair enough, even McClellan is an asst to the prez (never referred to as such, and I don't think it's a conspiracy) - and he deserves 161K.

I'm just freaked out by the "accidental" page tear. Bit weird.

i think the issue here is who is directly accountable for a particular employee's behavior. i think that if a WH employee is willing to take on the asst. to the pres. title for a nice salary, then in return the president must be somewhat aware of that person's behavior. they are getting that extra dough with the knowledge that they carry greater responsibility. both bush and cheney should be under suspicion for knowing about libby's intentions when he allegedly lied to the fbi and the grand jury.

now that's a fair point. you wanna crank it up to 161K, gotta have some oversight. what else is a bureaucracy for?