LA Confidential, the gloriously seamy noir movie (from James Elroy’s novel), has the following tagline:

Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush…

Compare Ari Fleischer today. From Firedoglake’s live blog:

[FLEISCHER] What I recall Libby saying to me, reiterated that VP did not send Wilson. Ambassador Wilson got sent by his wife, she works at CIA, Works in CPD, I recall that he told me her name. This is hush hush this is on the QT….

(See also Newsweek—later, of course, and with inferior analysis.)

Apparently both Libby and Fleisher knew LA Confidential well; after all, they’re quoting it to each other, much like one old DFH quoting Firesign Theatre to another. Why, you’d almost think they were using movie quotations to, um, send signals to each other. (As Firedoglake points out, there is a protocol for dealing with classified information, and movie quotations definitely aren’t part of that protocol). We’ve already seen this handwriting of obviously coded messages sent en claire in Libby’s famous though not decoded “aspens turning” note to Judy “Kneepads” Miller.

So what signal was Libby sending to Fleischer? It would be irresponsible not to speculate!  Read more