Treason is Not Old News
"I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors." George Herbert Walker Bush, CIA dedication ceremony, April 26, 1999.
When Bush administration officials I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Karl Rove, Richard Armitage and Ari Fleischer betrayed Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert CIA operations officer, they fell into the category of "the most insidious of traitors." Now we learn from the president's former press secretary, Scott McClellan, that the president himself "was involved" in sending him out to lie to the American public about the betrayal. If his direction to McClellan was deliberate and knowing, then the president was party to a conspiracy by senior administration officials to defraud the public. If that isn't a high crime and misdemeanor then we don't know what is. And if the president was merely an unwitting accomplice, then who lied to him? What is he doing to punish the person who misled the president to abuse his office? And why is that person still working in the executive branch? Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald made clear his suspicions about the culprit when he said "a cloud remains over the office of the vice president." But we may never know exactly what happened because President Bush thwarted justice and guaranteed the success of the cover-up when he commuted Scooter Libby's felony sentence on four counts of lying, perjury and obstruction of justice.
With the exception of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and the intrepid David Shuster, the mainstream media would have you believe that McClellan's revelation is old news. "Now back to Aruba and the two-year old disappearance of a blond teenager." But treason is not old news. The Washington press corps, whose pretension is to report and interpret events objectively, has been compromised in this matter as evidence presented in the courtroom demonstrated. Prominent journalists acted as witting agents of Rove, Libby and Armitage and covered up this serious breach of U.S. national security rather than doing their duty as journalists to report it to the public.
So far there is no apparent desire for redemption driving the press to report on the treachery of senior officials. Instead, the mainstream press has compounded its complicity by giving the Bush administration yet another free pass and shifting blame. The New York Times failed to publish an article on McClellan's revelation and The Washington Post buried it at the end of a column deep on page A-15 in the newspaper. Earlier in the week, Newsweek magazine, owned by the Washington Post Company, proudly announced the identity of its new star columnist -- Karl Rove, one of the key actors in this collective treason. Robert Novak, who willfully disclosed Valerie's identity, having been twice warned not to do so by the CIA, and who transmitted his column to Rove before it was published, remains a regularly featured columnist in The Washington Post.
With nearly 70 percent of the public now believing that our country is on the wrong track, it is no wonder that many feel let down by major institutions, including the Washington press establishment that increasingly resembles the corrupt Soviet propaganda mill. One reporter from a major news organization even asked whether McClellan's statement wasn't just "another Wilson publicity stunt." Try following this tortuous logic: Dick Cheney runs an operation involving senior White House officials designed to betray the identity of a covert CIA officer and the press responds by trying to prove that the Wilsons are publicity seekers. What ever happened to reporting the news? Welcome to Through the Looking Glass.
Fearful of its access to the powerful, and defensive about its status in the high school social culture that permeates the capital of the Free World, much of the press has forgotten its responsibility to the public and the Constitution.
Presidents and those who aspired to be president in the past once took strong positions in defense of U.S. national security. Today, Republican presidential candidate Fred Thompson has tried to build his support through fronting for the Scooter Libby Defense fundraising efforts. Meanwhile, other Republican candidates accuse Patrick Fitzgerald of being "a runaway prosecutor" and remain silent about the stain on Bush's presidency.
Where is the outrage? Where is the "contempt and anger?"
Click here to read more from Valerie Plame Wilson on The Huffington Post.
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A few days ago, I sent a message to the Newsweek circulation:
1) asking that they cancel my existing Newsweek subscription immediately
2) notifying them that I would never resubscribe so long as Rove is a columnist, and
3) indicating that I will complain to postal authorities (obscenity should do nicely, I think) should I receive further editions of Newsweek.
Why not?
Never forget: The Democratic Party lacks the spine to impeach the criminals Bush and Cheney.
This is a copy of the email I sent to Nancy Pelosi today, 11/25/07:
I am writing to implore you to reconsider your position on impeachment (now, of Bush & Cheney). There are many, many documented reasons, but Scott McClellan's most recent statement about the Bush administration's involvement in efforts to out Valerie Plame's identity as a CIA agent is treasonous. Thus, with all due respect, may I remind you that it is your obligation to follow the law, just as it was Messrs. Bush & Cheney's obligation, now failed. I'm a liberal L.A. Democrat; my sister is a an Idaho Christian evangelical. We agree on almost nothing politically except for ONE thing: Accountability. The lawbreakers must be held accountable. If YOU don't want the president's job, resign or impeach the VP first. Better yet, wait until we get there, and then we can jump off that bridge together. Bush makes you (meaning YOU and Harry Reid) look foolish everytime he defeats you by veto. Stop engaging in fights you won't win. Accountability; get specific; narrow the issues; act like the adults and get busy! There's plenty to prosecute (impeach) them for. The rest of us do our best to follow the law, and when we don't, there are consequences. Oversight is part of your job, and now that you can, you won't follow through. That's not okay. That makes you part of the problem. With all due respect, do your job, or resign. This tactic isn't helping. I know it's not just you. I'm sending this to Reps. Conyers and Hoyer and Sen. Reid. Stand up and WIN this. Thank you.
It's the Sunday after Thanksgiving, and I'm finally finding time to read some of Huffs Post last blogs. This one by the Wilson's is disturbing, in that no one seems to really care that our President and his highest officials have so wronged Valerie Wilson.
I agree with their statement, "...If that isn't a high crime and misdemeanor then we don't know what is..." What does George W. Bush and his administration need to do to tick off this country to point that his impeachment is a no-brainer?
As much as I hate to say this, and I do hate to say it, people who do care about wrongs committed by our government are becoming nonchallant. I assume other people are feeling as helpless and hopeless as I am.
And, if this is allowed to go on, what is it that we are supposed to be hoping for in the future? Doesn't our lack of concern about this government's antics sort of mean we can't really care too much what the next set of yahoos to take over the White House do?
I'm feeling pretty let down by the people who run this country, and by the people who want to replace them.
To Joe and Valerie Wilson I can only say, I wish you well. With the press not really giving a rat's patootie about what Goerge Bush and friends do, there's not much we can muster, in the way of protests.
Sorry, but I'm feeling pretty hopeless today. My login name, amazedandconfused, has never been quite so descriptive of me.
The deeply biased American mainstream media has failed the American public, the Iraqi people and the rest of the world in the last 7 years by not rightly and objectively questioning the significant actions undertaken by top officials of the so-called Bush "administration".
_
"Where is the outrage? Where is the "contempt and anger?""
Think of the Judith Miller (Novak, etc) part of that 'operation'. Pretty ingenious, really. Playing the value of the protected source or whistleblower AND the purpose of journalist privilege in serving an informed participatory democracy > AGAINST eachother. Main target: public perception of fourth-estate credibility and integrity. Talk about 'mission accomplished'.
I am very fond of the maxim that ... "the best that you can hope for" is equal to, and never greater than, "the worst that you will accept."
If the people of a nation observe their senior (and junior) "civil officers" committing very obvious high-crimes, and their other "civil officers" aiding and abetting those crimes by refusing to do anything to evict those officers ... if the people observe this but accept it ... then this is the best that the nation as a whole will become.
But when the people of a country hold their civil officers to the highest standard of integrity -- to the point that, at least initially, "they started yet another impeachment trial today" would become a ho-hum non-headline -- then presto! We would have an altogether different country, and an altogether different set of people who would be genuinely interested in helping to lead it.
I think that we owe ourselves a country like THAT.
You guys are truly Heroes of the Max. degree.
You can only keep fighting. Hopefully some of the good guys in the CIA have your back.
The R’s (and I don’t mean Republicans) are trying to destroy our (human) way of life.
The time to fight for freedom is the time when freedom is threatened, not the time freedom is destroyed, and for that later time is too late. Freedom is threatened now. The destruction of freedom is not far off. Now is the time to fight.
John Whiteside Parsons
MWiz of- truthseeke
Joseph and Valerie,many of us are quite aware of your plight. The scary part is most citizens are not. And with that, our Democrat leaders will be unwilling to make IT right for you and the CIA. Sad. Scalia's words, "Undue harm", best describe yours and America's present condition.
As stated in the article:
"With the exception of MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Chris Matthews, and the intrepid David Shuster, the mainstream media would have you believe that McClellan's revelation is old news. "
I love the "intrepid" David Schuster, when will he be getting his own show?
It is a sign of the times that we live in that probably the most singularly important miscarriage of justice, truth and honor is quietly being put to bed with almost no effective resistance. Then again, the truth isn't important to the American people any longer as evidenced by their insatiable appetite for 'fair and balanced' television news-entertainment which is neither fair, nor balanced (nor honorable I might add).
Yeah, did they find that blond girl?!?!?
The MSM is a joke.
"Where is the contempt and anger?" We'll know in November '08 as the voting public's demand for change continues to be ignored by the Washington establishment, (aka Democrats in office who are dancing around impeachment as though it were a turd in a brown paper bag on the porch of the White House) and, if the votes are tallied legally, we'll see a change in the office of the President and it will be a Democrat who will achieve this nation's desire to be out of Iraq, achieve stability on the domestic economic front by stopping the borrowing of money from foreign countries who we're now paying interest to to pay off a war we didn't want, and a host of other travesties too numerous to mention here already ID'd by KO and others and more that will definitely surface once Bush leaves office. Bush and Cheney belong in jail and the conundrum is how the law makers and the free press continue to give these two a free pass.
Bush and Cheney should be arrested this week. As for our 4th branch of government, the press, I think they should all be investigated for conspiracy. I am seriously disturbed at the direction our country has gone. Someone please help us!
In reflecting on the lyrics of Pink's song,
Dear Mr. President,
Come take a walk with me.
Let's pretend we're just two people and
You're not better than me.
I'd like to ask you some questions if we can speak honestly.
I would like to ask some questions of people in the year, say, 2015:
What did you do to stop the insanity during the Viet Nam war! Did you pull a catatonic lapse from all decency? Did you say one God damned thing against that son of a bitch from Texas?
And what did you do to stop the insanity during the Cheney-Bush rape of your country! Did you pull a catatonic lapse from all decency? Did you say one God damned thing against that son of a bitch from Texas?
Did you insist, in the face of all reason, on accepting the fact that the Cheney-Bush regime, with their every decision, acted AGAINST the interests of the great majority of the American people?
Did you accept their TREASONOUS betrayal of Valerie Plame and the enlistment of their lackies to lie about it?
Did you speak out in favor of the Dennis Kucinich resolution to impeach the hate-filled traitorous Cheney?
Which side were you on while all this was being done to, what is supposed to be, your own country!
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