The White House, the CIA, and the Wilsons — Political wonks trying to stay ahead of the curve could do worse than reading this longish essay/timeline about the CIA leak and what may come of it. This is the article that Chris Matthews on Hardball has been raving about.
FOR TWO YEARS, THE political class in Washington has followed with intense interest the story of Joseph Wilson and the events that led to the compromising of his wife’s identity and undercover status as a CIA operative. The rest of the country seems to have responded with a collective yawn. That will soon change if special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald issues indictments of senior White House aides in his investigation of the alleged leaking of Mrs. Wilson’s name.
Gosh it is so comforting to have the conservative right wing chicken hawk press reassuring us that the Bush administration was simply dotting the ‘i’s and crossing the ‘t’s in their relentless drive to present unbiased information to the citizens who did not elect them. It’s useful during this frenzy of exposition to remember the general feeling of sleaze that was rampant in the country and the media as the administration railroaded us into a war of choice, on largely hysterically false pretenses. The fact that they engaged in character assassination from time to time and conveniently blurred the facts to move public opinion is just the price we have to pay for having a government run by people who are much smarter than the rest of us and for whom the laws of the land are optional.
Ok. Wilson is a big self-aggrandizing dummy, still it
remains a fact that his wife was outed as a CIA agent,
against the law, and it still remains a question: who
did it, and why? If Wilson suffers some sort of prosecution
for being a confused and confusing dope, so be it. So also,
though, should the mouth that leaked the CIA identity of the
wife. All the other stuff is nice to know, but that leak is what
the show is about. The article doesn’t demonstrate one mitigating
factor about that.
What is getting old is the use of the courts as an instument to undo contraversial legislation and elections – and for political revenge. It seems like no level of political dirty tricks will get the public’s attention now, because the practice is so pervasive and diverse. No wonder so few vote, so many do not trust governement and everywhere exists is a general hostility to authority.
Both the ass and the elephant are equally dirty and the press is complicit in sensationalism particularly regarding issues of the private life of incumants that do not effect their performance. Not to say that politician should be above the law, but the law should not be used as a political weapon either.