Congeries of cross connected concepts
Something that (unlike the Iraq looking for yellowcake in Africa issue) that might be a real problem for the Bush administration is the outing of a covert operative who is the wife of Joseph Wilson. Wilson is a former US ambassdor who went to Niger to investigate the Niger / Iraq connection. Although he’s touted as “disproving” the line in the State of the Union address, at best he confirmed that Iraq had not purchased any yellowcake (which no one had ever claimed to be true). Wilson also relied on just the word of various Niger officials, which doesn’t seem like the most thorough type of investigation that might have been done.
However, I think we can all agree that
While I hate to make suggestions to the Left, it seems that they’d be better off with this sequence rather than going directly to the “Bush is Evil™” tagline. Getting conservatives to argue against (1..3) would be quite a coup for the other side. On the other hand, once (1..3) are agreed on, then going for (4) looks far less partisan.
The problem for the Left here is two part.
One is that the guilty party might be a career bureaocrat, in which case it would be hard to tag Bush with the issue. I’d be more impressed with the Left if they went after a real issue like this in the hope that it would damage Bush rather than going for verdict first, investigation afterwards.
The second is just taking national security seriously. That’s going to be quite a hurdle.
| Tom Thursday, 24 July 2003 at 12:32 |  |
Maybe I’m missing something, but what is the big deal? Aside from her not being able to work undercover anymore, who cares? The story was very incomplete, it didn’t give details of what was revealed in regards to what matter, but by what’s given I don’t see the problem, except that it was a Libby whose ID was revealed and career options cut short and so traitors like Durbin have their hackles raised.
So, if you can and will, fill me in on the rest of the story. I’m obviously missing something important.
| Annoying Old Guy Thursday, 24 July 2003 at 12:48 | |
First off, revealing the name of a covert operative is a felony and a violation of various national security acts. So it’s not a minor transgression.
Secondly, such a revelation puts the operative at physical risk and also risks any of the operative’s contacts, which means deaths could result.
Thirdly, any information network that she had is now burned. None of the sources are going to talk to her anymore. We are already suffering because of the lack of human intelligence from the field, burning an asset like this is criminally stupid.
So, felony, violation of national security, possible deaths, destruction of intelligence assets. Seems like a big deal to me.
| Tom Thursday, 24 July 2003 at 14:16 | |
I won’t regurgiate my entire post here, but there are possibilities beyond “Bush was just being a crybaby.”
1. Tenet was being a cry baby. He was made to look a fool and a Clinton mole.
2. Someone else in the “administration” has an axe to grind and went out on their own.
3. Dems need another issue to smear Dubya with and set this up all on their own. Sen. Durbin, are you listening?
4. Plame was found to be using her position as a WMD operative not only to feed her Bush-hating husband classified info, but to undermine America’s War on Terror and possibly even support our enemies.
Personally, I’m joyous that this Lefty wench is out of her position of power, no matter the reason.
| Annoying Old Guy Thursday, 24 July 2003 at 18:34 | |
Those are all quite possible and I can think of additional plausible scenarios. One of my points is that because there are other possible perpetrators, we’re unlikely to see a real investigation but instead autonomic Bush bashing.
Even if your accusations against Ms. Plame (which not much more substantively based than those against Bush) are true, the ends do not justify the means. A president isn’t doing the Republic any favors by abusing his position, even if for an (alledgedly) good purpose.
