FACT: A 1982(ish) law makes it a crime to reveal the name of a CIA cover agent.
FACT: One half of Bush's brain, Karl Rove, has now been implicated in the leak involving the identity of Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife, who was a CIA cover agent.
Seems pretty undeniable that he broke the law, right? Or... did he? See, it seems ol' red Rover was a bit more careful than that. Seems he didn't actually identify her by name... only as "Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife." This is a crucial difference, apparently. Directly revealing her name would have blown her cover and put her at risk... but just identifying her as "Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife"... well, that could be anybody! Anybody who happens to be the wife of an ambassador named Joe Wilson.
Isn't that the same thing? Well, I suppose "it depends on what the meaning of 'is' is," doesn't it?
Really, this shows in a nutshell how completely morally bankrupt the conservative republican powerbase is. The linguistic games that the democratic leadership played in order to shield themselves from the fallout of private sexual indiscretions, the republicans play in order to shield themselves from the consequences of CALLOUSLY AND DELIBERATELY ENDANGERING THE LIFE OF A WOMAN SERVING HER COUNTRY.
Yeah. Let's emphasize that part some more: CALLOUSLY AND DELIBERATELY ENDANGERING THE LIFE OF A WOMAN SERVING HER COUNTRY.
I guess because the American people don't get the same fluffy feelings for CIA agents that they get over the men and women in uniform, the Bushies consider them expendable?
Well, it won't matter whether or not Rove is charged with a crime... his career is over. After all, Bush vowed that anybody in his administration who was found to have participated in this leak would be removed from their position... and we all know (we know this because the civilian Bushies take every opportunity to remind us) that Bush is a man of honesty and integrity, who will deliver exactly what he promises when he sets out to do a thing... right? Right?
ID:2042
 Jul 12 2005, 6:25 pm
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Jul 12 2005, 6:59 pm
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Ben G
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I think I'll buy you one of those ball and cup toys that are pretty much impossible to master. That'll keep you busy. :-)
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Keeping me busy is no trick. :P Find a way to get me to slow down is a feat worthy of a Nobel Prize for, uh, Relaxation.
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CALLOUSLY AND DELIBERATELY ENDANGERING THE LIFE OF A WOMAN SERVING HER COUNTRY The story about Rove releaseing the name to deliberatly get back at the husband of this CIA agent reminds me of a soap opera, I am not buying it. Hardly is the current excuse that Rove was trying to stop a false story from being released. Both sides wonèt buy in to the other story so this will be another intresting political battle over nothing. | |
Exactly. Except I predict it won't be much of a battle. The Dems will give lukewarm talk to it and the Repubs will line up in lock step behind their man. I bet it won't even see trial. And it won't stop the those Republicans who callously and hypocritically call for "Supporting the Troops" by feeding them to a meat grinder.
At least during Nixon's reign a Republican president had the courage to end a failed endeavor and both parties were willing to repudiate (exposed) criminals in their midst. Now the criminals apparently run the show.... | |
I don't think for one moment that Rove would do anything so pointless as doing it to get back at the ambassador for writing his editorial ("getting back" doesn't take the offending editorial away... it only draws attention to it)... and like you, I'm also not buying the excuse.
My point is that the reason, whether it was malignant or negligent, is secondary to the fact that it happened. Guy broke the law. The fact that guy happens to be the nation's slickest political operator only makes it more puzzling... it makes it less likely that he naively didn't realize what he was doing, but it makes it less... hee... Kim is watching the Daily Show in the other room and John Stewart is doing the exact same bit I did... anyways, I digress. It makes it less likely that he could have done something so hamhanded and clumsy as this in a way that he would get caught. So it's hard to say whether it was negligent or malignant... but again, that's far beside the point. | |
Oh, and in case it's not clear from my choice of words in the main post, I am leaning towards "malignant" in my suspicions. I don't think it's likely it was simple payback, though. It's hard to divine Rove's motives from an outside perspective... but it's slightly harder to imagine he didn't know what he was doing than it is to imagine that he overestimated his untouchability.
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Hmm, could be. This editorial frames the situation rather differently, but I don't know enough about the whole thing to say how accurate it is:
Media chants aside, there's no evidence that Mr. Rove broke any laws in telling reporters that Ms. Plame may have played a role in her husband's selection for a 2002 mission to investigate reports that Iraq was seeking uranium ore in Niger. To be prosecuted under the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, Mr. Rove would had to have deliberately and maliciously exposed Ms. Plame knowing that she was an undercover agent and using information he'd obtained in an official capacity. But it appears Mr. Rove didn't even know Ms. Plame's name and had only heard about her work at Langley from other journalists. Maybe that's a fair account, or maybe it's just the party line. Either way, I expect to see plenty of big media editorials about how reprehensible it is to divulge classified information that puts American lives at risk -- and that will suit me just fine! | |
This is the same big media that runs countless editorials about how biased big media is and how it's a tool of the liberal elite. :P If I didn't have a deep and abiding love of irony, life would make my brain and heart compete in a crying contest.
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For whatever it's worth, here's my Grand Unified Theory of Why the Other Guys Control the Media.
1) America is, by history and temperament and design, far more conservative/right-libertarian than any other major liberal democracy; thus our "center" is significantly further to the right than, say, the UK's. 2) Therefore, content that's balanced by American standards is unacceptably right-wing by leftist standards, and content that's balanced by UK standards is unacceptably left-wing by rightist standards. 3) Since most American media comes down somewhere between those two boundaries, both sides are unhappy with it. I'm pretty sure I didn't come up with this theory myself, but I don't know where I might have gotten it. Probably from a well-balanced website. :) | |
Yeah, I had that same basic conversation with a bunch of people during the presidential campaign. Except I distilled it even further: "To the extent that everybody in the audience is biased, anything that's unbiased will seem biased."
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It's not people's biases that bother me; it's their refusal to recognize them and discuss things in a rational manner.
That's why I love people like Gug. You see, I have disagreed with him on some things, and that is okay. He is willing to consider other points of view and rationally explain his own. He doesn't seem to feel an abiding need to cram emotionally charged opinions down the throats of others and seems content with amicable discussion. You know, what's often called "discussion". But too often people associate certain beliefs with their personal identity. So any questioning of a position is percieved as a personal attack and elicits a response in kind. It never occurs to them that it is possible to change beliefs based on new information, and that it may be beneficial to do so. Not surprisingly, I find the trend in politics to emphasize rigid positioning over flexibility (to avoid being labeelled a flip-flopper, wishy washy, etc) extremely sickening and indicative of the sick dogmatism that stands in the place of legitimate political discourse. Of course none of this is even remoely new; Washington saw the danger when he warned about political parties and the Romans and Germans stand as pristine examples of what happens when political systems both succeed and go awry. But, I suppose the die is cast, for good or ill, and that is simply the way it is :-/ | |
I agree wholeheartedly, Jmurph, and I think the tendency to avoid showing you can think and grow bin the form of changing your mind in the face of new information is a troubling trend both inside and outside the world of politics. :P People are more interested in showing that they "know" what they know than the are in thinking.
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