When are people going to learn this? It's one of those things that I fear our societies will be doomed to endure forever and ever. In something as delicate as national security, which absolutely necessitates some amount of secrecy, it is especially important to approach matters in an honest, straightforward manner because it is already hard enough otherwise.




I hope that our collective experience of the past two catastrophically failed jaunts abroad (Vietnam and Iraq) will teach our people that honesty in determining the nature of our challenges is the surest path to reasonable policies. I fear that we simply won't understand that until we are faced with a truly existential threat.

The republican line seems to be, if this administration broke the law, or at least appeared to, and then lied about it to obstruct the investigation then they should be let off.  Because if you lie to prevent discovery then it's just a perjury trap when you're indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice because there is no evidence of the original crime.  Nice circular argument they have going there.

Asses of U and Me-

Why do you assume that the President wasn't involved?  What about this man's behavior gives him the benefit of the doubt?

How can someone go from "restoring integrity to the White House" to firing "anyone involved in leaking" to "anyone convicted" to "I can't comment because it's a serious investigation" without leaving all pretense of honesty behind? 

If this was really the type of country that conservatives seem to want- the "everybody for themselves" flavor of compassionate conservatism, they would be dooming this nation to a third world status where disaffection with the government is settled with bullets, not ballots.  Only when they were on the receiving end would the "rule of law" begin to matter.

You gotta stop listening to what they say, and watch their behavior.

Checkmate and balance...


Fiat justicia, ruat coelum

The above Latin quotation – usually attributed to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, a Roman statesman and Julius Caesar's father-in-law – succinctly summarizes both prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald's view of the law and the possible consequences of its application in the case of the CIA leak investigation.

In Washington, D.C., the heavens will surely fall on the heads of several prominent players, including not only the vice president's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, but also the president's top national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley; John Hannah, the vice president's chief national security adviser; and David Wurmser, the VP's chief of Middle Eastern affairs. The fate of the more high-profile Karl Rove is in some doubt: he's probably looking at obstruction of justice and/or perjury charges, but the others – including, perhaps, a number of unindicted co-conspirators – are looking at some real jail time.



Rorate coeli desuper et nubes pluant justum

While it will be months until we know the final results of Patrick Fitzgerald's PlameGate investigation, there is one thing we can conclude with certainty. Finally, President George W. Bush is being punished for his "Politics of Payback". After five years of savage and baseless attacks on the likes of Richard Clarke, General Eric Shinseki, Paul O'Neill, Jim Jeffords, and Richard Foster, the small, mean-spirited, venal and vengeful George W. Bush is paying the price...

For the full story, see:

"Bush, Plame and the Politics of Payback"

Chiaroscuro

You tell a story I don't recognize from my history studies.

To our disgrace, politicians today have discovered and utilized sophisticated methods of thwarting any checks on abuse of power. They have taken advantage of social and economic entities that weren't dreamed of in the 18th century.

Disinformation campaigns spread by the corporate media have almost nullified the spread of reliable information that citizens need if they are to hold officials to account....But I frankly doubt that half the voting population has the wit or wisdom to figure anything out anymore. They're exhausted from working harder while still slipping behind. They're whipped into emotional frenzies over nonsense by a media that serves the interests of the corporate elite....Each abuse-of-power scandal has gotten worse than the last.....

Ever see an 18th-century or 19th-century newspaper? And the way political cartoonists successfully used smear tactics back then?

That was only among the power elite, though. Know how many had access to those highly inflammatory non-fact-filled newspapers? Got any idea of how many people were illiterate back then?

Ever hear of the phrase 'a chicken in every pot?' Vote buying? Whipping people into frenzied riots with speeches and rumors so they go off killing others?

Andrew Jackson and nullification? Andrew Jackson and the Bank War and the panic of 1837? Andrew Jackson and Peggy Eaton?

The Civil War? Tammany Hall? Teapot Dome?

Remember the Maine? Packing the Court? Huey Long? Bay of Pigs? Mayor Daley?

I understand the gist of the effect you're trying for, but I think you could benefit from keeping a little perspective on it. Because I find the exaggeration extreme and then I don't take any argument you make seriously.

Really, to imply education levels and access to information have not improved in this country since its beginning strikes me as absurd. And to imply that the system is broken much worse than ever before also strikes me as absurd.

Not only that, this kind of argument takes one dangerously close to the idea of poll testing, but that's a whole nother topic. Suffice it to say before you say something like this:

I frankly doubt that half the voting population has the wit or wisdom to figure anything out anymore.

Think about whether you'd say it about the rural people of Afghanistan or the residents of Falluja or the blacks of Alabama of the 1950's. The framers started out with the idea of elite landowners voting, you know.

Pat Buchanan asks the uncomfortable question:



But what is to be said for those who transmitted to a trusting public what they had to know or at least suspect were propaganda fabrications to dupe the people into sending their sons and daughters to fight and die in an unnecessary war?


Alas, at a loss for words, I must go Scriptural


What if I had not believed
   that I should see the goodness of the Lord*
in the land of the living!
O tarry and await the Lord's pleasure;
   be strong and he shall comfort your heart;*
wait patiently for the Lord.
PS 27

I am fully aware of the scandals and lapses of the press in past eras, of yellow journalism, of Hearst's infamous quote, "I'll supply the war."

It was also a time of vigorous competition in the newspaper world. Larger cities had multiple dailies, morning and afternoon editions, and each was easily pegged for its slant on the news. Most communities had independently-owned dailies or weeklies. That variety of choice and opinion has been missing for a long time. Clear Channel has done the same for radio. The erosion of fairness standards and ownership limits in single markets has done the same for television. Please don't tell me about the internet or blogs. That's all great, but it is not mass communication at this point.

And yes, I do believe half the voting population lacks the wit and wisdom to figure anything out anymore. Nearly half simply don't vote. Of those that do, the results of the 2004 election speak volumes. George Bush corralled the fear and loathing vote. Fear of terrorist bogeymen, loathing of gays, Muslims, dark people, liberals, uppity women, foreigners, city folk, intellectuals.

I do think the Plame/CIA scandal is the worst scandal we've faced as a nation. "Remember the Maine?" We were still a relatively provincial power. We were on the rise. No longer. When we stumble now, the world is involved.

The Plame scandal is a single thread that leads to the labyrinth of lies that took this nation to war. It's a war that has done immense damage that we can not afford and at the worst possible time. The Iraq War has exposed the limits of our power at a time we need that power the most. It's bankrupting us at a time we are already weak from mortgaging our economy to the Chinese and pegging our way of life to cheap oil.

Few would dispute that the proliferation of WMD is the greatest threat to our nation after global climate change. And that's exactly what Valerie Plame and her CIA front company were involved with investigating. Contacts, sources, networks that were years in the making, of vital national security interest, were blown by careless treason to get a political enemy while protecting a tissue of administration lies.

This goes well beyond the venal scandals of the past. It rolls it all into one stinking ball--war for votes, electoral hijinks, war for profit, media complicity, executive power grabs, corrupt legislating and rubber-stamping, attempts to bypass established law, invention of dubious presidential prerogatives--and adds in the jeopardizing of national security and coverup.

So you may not approve, but I stand by what I wrote.