Friday, March 16, 2007

Plame points to Rove

You go Valerie! Valerie Plame testified today before a House Oversight and Government Reform Committee hearing into the leak of her CIA status by administration officials in 2003. When she was asked if there were still people in the administration who were involved in the leak, and she replied that Karl Rove was definitely involved:

"She said evidence during the trial of Mr Libby had confirmed that “Karl Rove [the president’s chief political adviser] was involved in leaking my name. He still has security clearance,” and suggested the president’s decision not to fire him had undermined the confidence of other CIA officers."

Well? Well?? Is that enough? Can we put that evil odious shit-stained prick in handcuffs yet???

But not everyone agrees that a covert CIA agent working on the non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction file deserves protection... because she might be a Democrat. Here's the Strong Conservative (via Canadian Cynic):

"I'm watching Valerie Plame, wife of Joe Wilson, testify before congress about her exposure as a covert CIA agent. Its already making me gag with her self righteous attitude and belief that she is non-partisan despite her blatantly partisan statements. UPDATE: Rep. Westmoreland gets Plame to admit she's a Democrat, as is her husband, Joseph Wilson. Bias exposed."

Well no fucking shit they're democrats NOW, after the bush administration destroying Plame's career and endangering her life. But Wilson is known as a centrist; he's worked for both democratic and republican administrations and was highly thought of by George HW Bush. This PBS interview, done shortly before the Iraq War started, doesn't reveal any bias. Although Wilson was opposed to the war, he seems to agree with the bush administration about the need to disarm Saddam, and the inevitability of war due to the failure of diplomacy. It wasn't until 5 months later, when it became apparent that the WMD story was a ruse, that he wrote his famous op-ed. A week later his wife was outed in retaliation.

Regardless of whether any political bias exists, that's not what this case is about; it's about the craven endangerment of national security. Why is it that when confronted with wrongdoings of their own, right-wingers automatically default to the "political bias" setting and ignore the real issue?