Why is Judith Miller in jail?
Why is Judith Miller in jail? and, other Insights into a Case of Leaked Identity
Ken Mehlman appearing on the Sunday morning news circuit took up the mantle of defending the White House---and in particular Karl Rove, the President's senior advisor and confidante, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the Vice-President's former (?) chief of staff---against legal and political attacks because the administration's credibility on this matter is in tatters. Mehlman, an interesting political choice as chair of the RNC and decidedly outside the White House itself, skillfully evaded most of the questions pertaining to the outing of covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame, the wife of Ambassador Joe Wilson, while referring to the gathering tide of news reports currently threatening the administration.
Mehlman did his best to defend a sinking ethical problem while noting a lower legal standard was now the appropriate bar by which to measure what looks like an increasingly diminished standard of character, credibility, and leadership.
But what was most absurd, and remains truly bizarre, is Mehlman's casting of Rove as a somehow victimized, blameless tragic figure who is assuredly free of guilt of the now lower standard set by the President himself.
To plead sympathy for Rove while a CIA secret agent's personal identity has been compromised endangering not only intelligence work and national security, but more significantly the life of Ms. Plame, Ambassador Wilson, and their young children is maddening!
Moreover, while Matt Cooper has thankfully spoken out publicly regarding his involvement in this entire tangled web, what is Bob Novak's role for initially revealing Plame's identity in print, and, even worse, why is Judith Miller sitting in jail? A serious matter indeed.
And the White House owes the public an explanation of what is going on here and whether what went on was not an intentional cover-up of a dishonest, untruthful case for war. That would appear to make the war unjustified and possibly illegal.
Scott McClellan, WH spokesperson, finds himself in the embarrassing position of being lied to, or perhaps mislead, by Rove and Libby, having made definitive pronouncements of the pair's innocence in the whole tawdry affair. The President today retreated on his former pledge to remove from the West Wing any personnel involved with the disclosure of a CIA covert agent's identity. And Dick Cheney's most recent explanations of his knowledge to the run-up to war has consisted of hair-splitting legalisms, parsing words, and advancing very broad re-definitions of past statements.
Some Republicans are incredulously trying to pull off a bait-and-switch by frivolously impeaching the integrity of Ambassador Joe Wilson---who editorialized against the administration's case for war based on false and misleading premises. Many of us at the time remember the President's anti-historical reference to yellow cake from Niger, and, so far as is commonly known, the first untrue allegations ever cited in a State of the Union Address, against Saddam Hussein, as justification for invading a sovereign nation. The yellow cake reference in the President's speech was simply not true and Wilson said so in his article raising the ire of the administration. At the time many of us were further perplexed that the White House's credibility was not immediately called into question given the gravity of the consequences to go to war, and remembering how,just an administration ago, another President had been held to what many believe was an even lower standard of accountability as a president.
Nevertheless, off to war the nation went and the media scarcely questioned what can be said that at the time was a weak rationale for a peremptory, unprovoked military invasion of another country.
Now some many billion dollars and too many thousands of American and Iraqi lives later, some big questions call for some meaningful, plain, and truthful answers.
Ken Mehlman appearing on the Sunday morning news circuit took up the mantle of defending the White House---and in particular Karl Rove, the President's senior advisor and confidante, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the Vice-President's former (?) chief of staff---against legal and political attacks because the administration's credibility on this matter is in tatters. Mehlman, an interesting political choice as chair of the RNC and decidedly outside the White House itself, skillfully evaded most of the questions pertaining to the outing of covert CIA operative, Valerie Plame, the wife of Ambassador Joe Wilson, while referring to the gathering tide of news reports currently threatening the administration.
Mehlman did his best to defend a sinking ethical problem while noting a lower legal standard was now the appropriate bar by which to measure what looks like an increasingly diminished standard of character, credibility, and leadership.
But what was most absurd, and remains truly bizarre, is Mehlman's casting of Rove as a somehow victimized, blameless tragic figure who is assuredly free of guilt of the now lower standard set by the President himself.
To plead sympathy for Rove while a CIA secret agent's personal identity has been compromised endangering not only intelligence work and national security, but more significantly the life of Ms. Plame, Ambassador Wilson, and their young children is maddening!
Moreover, while Matt Cooper has thankfully spoken out publicly regarding his involvement in this entire tangled web, what is Bob Novak's role for initially revealing Plame's identity in print, and, even worse, why is Judith Miller sitting in jail? A serious matter indeed.
And the White House owes the public an explanation of what is going on here and whether what went on was not an intentional cover-up of a dishonest, untruthful case for war. That would appear to make the war unjustified and possibly illegal.
Scott McClellan, WH spokesperson, finds himself in the embarrassing position of being lied to, or perhaps mislead, by Rove and Libby, having made definitive pronouncements of the pair's innocence in the whole tawdry affair. The President today retreated on his former pledge to remove from the West Wing any personnel involved with the disclosure of a CIA covert agent's identity. And Dick Cheney's most recent explanations of his knowledge to the run-up to war has consisted of hair-splitting legalisms, parsing words, and advancing very broad re-definitions of past statements.
Some Republicans are incredulously trying to pull off a bait-and-switch by frivolously impeaching the integrity of Ambassador Joe Wilson---who editorialized against the administration's case for war based on false and misleading premises. Many of us at the time remember the President's anti-historical reference to yellow cake from Niger, and, so far as is commonly known, the first untrue allegations ever cited in a State of the Union Address, against Saddam Hussein, as justification for invading a sovereign nation. The yellow cake reference in the President's speech was simply not true and Wilson said so in his article raising the ire of the administration. At the time many of us were further perplexed that the White House's credibility was not immediately called into question given the gravity of the consequences to go to war, and remembering how,just an administration ago, another President had been held to what many believe was an even lower standard of accountability as a president.
Nevertheless, off to war the nation went and the media scarcely questioned what can be said that at the time was a weak rationale for a peremptory, unprovoked military invasion of another country.
Now some many billion dollars and too many thousands of American and Iraqi lives later, some big questions call for some meaningful, plain, and truthful answers.
posted by Constance Lavender at 10:20 PM
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