Aravosis knocks it out of the park. A must read.
If a senior White House staffer had intentionally outed an American spy during World War II, he'd have been shot.
We're at war, George Bush keeps reminding us. We cannot continue with business as usual. A pre-9/11 mentality is deadly. Putting the lives of our troops at risk is treason.
Then why is the White House and the Republican party engaged in a concerted campaign to make treason acceptable during a time of war? That's exactly what they're doing. On numerous news shows today, Republican surrogates, their talking points ready, issued variations of the following concerning White House chief of staff Karl Rove's outing of a covert CIA agent as part of a political vendetta:
- It's the criminalization of politics
- Is this 'minor' leak really worth all this?
- Political payback is common and should not be criminalized
- Mis-speaking or mis-remembering is not a crime
Yes, the Republicans are now making light of an intentional effort to expose an undercover CIA agent, working on weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East, no less, while we are at war in the Middle East on that very issue.
The GOP has become the party of treason.
It would be one thing for a senior adviser to the president to put the nation's security at risk during a time of war. That could be explained as an aberration - a quite serious one, no doubt - but a fluke nonetheless. But when the president himself refuses to keep his own word about firing that aberration, and when the entire Republican party rallies around that fluke and tries to minimize what is usually a capital offense during wartime, something is seriously wrong with that party and its leadership.
America is ignoring the Geneva Conventions because our president feels that winning this war is so paramount. Our Congress has watered down our civil rights laws. We have jailed American citizens with no access to legal counsel. And our President even believes it is worth lying to the American people in order to wage this so-important battle. All this because we are a nation at war and nothing will be permitted to stand in the way of this life-and-death struggle.
But when a senior aide to the President of the United States endangers the life of an undercover CIA agent, her colleagues and contacts around the world - when he chooses to put at risk our entire effort to undercover weapons of mass destruction before they are used to kill millions in an American city - what response do we get from the Bush White House and the Republican Party? A defensive (offensive) shrug.
The Republican party's gift to the American people, and the Bush administration's legacy, will be the normalization of treason. They are trying to convince Americans that betraying our country during wartime for personal gain is no more serious than running a stop sign or going 60 in a 55 zone.
This is followed up by Hunter at Daily Kos with a marvelous attack on the punditry class who are aiding and abetting and applauding these criminals every step of the way when they are not whining about their own vicitimization. Another must read. Some excerpts-
Party over country. You can hear it in Miller's accountings of her conversations with Libby; you can hear the "crimes aren't crimes if they're done for the sake of politics" meme from pundits like Chris Matthews and William Kristol; you can hear it everywhere in Washington, for that matter. Lying about sex had many of these same pundits foaming and frothing at the outrage of it all; compromising our intelligence assets against weapons of mass destruction, at the very same time the government is warning us to stock up on duct tape and watch out for swarthy bearded types holding glow-in-the-dark suitcases, is considered too shallow a crime to pursue -- if a Republican does it.
There's something beyond mere politics in all of this. Politics, one would hope, is not sufficient reason to damage the country. This is different. This is the cult of power, and of corruption, that is not just defended, but celebrated by pundits, by journalists, and by politicians alike.
These are the Movement Republicans of Fox News, whose talking points are set over their cups of coffee in accordance to whatever the Bush-focused needs of the day prove to be. Deficits are bad, then deficits are good. Espionage against America is bad, except when it's no big deal. States' rights, but never mind. Drugs are bad, except when Rush does it. The Katrina response was fantastic! Iraq is going well! The economy, booming! Cronyism is good!
Blah, blah, blah. Punditry with the predictable pattern and spray of automatic lawn sprinklers. If Iraq has turned into the much-predicted fiasco most observers expected it would, it's because liberals didn't believe hard enough. If the economy is going to hell, it's the fault of the damn American middle class, which needs to collectively get off its quivering, jobless ass and buy a few hundred thousand new cars. And if a Republican commits a crime, it's the Democrats fault for politicizing it.
Honestly, do these people have a bone of responsibility or self-accountability in their thick, Clinton-addled skulls? Is their brand of so-called "conservatism" nothing more than the economic and national security version of Intelligent Design, in which it'll all just work out fine if you draw a picture of Noah carrying everyone's 401K plans onto the Ark?
Whether it be election law, campaign finance law or lobbying restrictions, we see Republicans in legal jeopardy defended primarily by the arguments like Chris Matthews' faux-dismissive "everybody does it" or Bill Kristol's sniffling "how dare you bring these things up". Whether it be government report after government report found to be "cooked" by political cronies who need to sell by deception what actual fact can't support, or government payments to ostensible pundits, or the wholesale manufacture of fake reporters producing fake news segments, there is literally nothing -- nothing -- which a movement Bush loyalist apparently finds ethically questionable, and damn you for finding out about it in the first place.
No. No dice, pundit class. Don't give us vapid, amoral, blastfaxed crap about how horrible it is that everyone-on-the-planet-but-the-involved-Republicans are responsible for a certain collection of viciously partisan figures toeing the fine lines of numerous federal laws, and finally losing their balance on a half-dozen of them.
Is this the best face that the Republican Party can put on? Is this the best defense against scandal after scandal -- to ignore the sentenced, defend the indicted, blame the investigators, and howl at the injustice of it all?
Just go read the whole thing. There's more beauty and truth to be had. Here's the link again.
Copy, cut, paste, put it on your blog, tack it to a telephone pole, spread the word and -most of all- somebody wake up the goddamn Democratic Party, who, by their silence, are almost proving to be co-conspirators in this whole fiasco.
Amazing writing from the team this weekend. Why can't we get these guys on TV? Al, are you listening?