We also have 250 “plamegate” emails which counter pretty much everything cheney and rove have said about the revealing of the name of a CIA operative.
There are a lot of other examples, but these two should give a pretty good picture. When you beat the “national security” drum and blow the "fear" whistle on a nauseatingly regular basis, you had better not be caught with your pants down on those issues. Leaders who dropped the ball in defense of citizens in harms way on our soil and who reveal covert information are in charge of this country? Does that seem, I don’t know, hazardous at all? The way I see it, revealing the name of Ms. Plame not only destroyed her career, but it also affixed her identity to anyone who had dealings with her while operating covertly. Namely, team members. Whomever Valerie might have been seen with was put in danger with the revelation of her name. And her name was revealed….why? Because her husband came out and said the documentations being presented about the acquisition of yellowcake uranium by Iraq were being misrepresented? Does it really matter how long ago all this happened? Is it somehow less important because people were able to keep information clandestine for an extended period of time? Kind of like the whole “we’re there now, that’s what matters!” response to allegations that this administration lied us into war. It’s war. Does it matter how long it takes to find out the truth as to how it all came about? Doesn’t all that matter? It matters to me. I hate this era of immediacy, not because we get information so quickly because that is SO a good thing, but because something that happened as distantly in the past as a few years ago is dismissed and minimized as old news. The war will only be old news when it is over and it is contained in ancient history books. Until then, while I am collecting jock itch powder, toothpaste, gum, and combs for the troops in Iraq, while I read yet another one of our guys has been killed, until we have all our boys and girls home, this will be a current issue. A current issue that affects each of us everyday. Regardless of how much everything is done under a cloak of secrecy, I will not pretend that it is not happening. I think a rule should be passed that no one can send others into war unless they have been directly involved in one themselves. If you have had to kill someone, if you have had to nurse someone back to health who has lost appendages, if you have been a party to the devastation then you can determine if we enter into that again. Kind of like my feelings on abortion. If you are a guy, you can’t have one, therefore you can’t determine if others can have one.
But stop for a moment. There is the constant swirling of accusations of opponents to this administration as being weak on terror and national security. How weak is it to reveal confidential information because you’re seeking retribution against someone who points out that facts were misrepresented? This is who is making the decisions in our country? How can you stand on a platform of ethics and morality while every major action taken flies in the face of both?
How do you go about your vacation plans when you have been told repeatedly that people are in terrible danger?
How do you turn around after the fact and say you didn’t know when you are “caught on tape” being told?
At what point is this administration going to be held accountable for the repeated fabrications which have been the true foundational platform for the past five plus years?
What’s it gonna take?
People dying?
People suffering?
We’ve got that.
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