Letters to the Editor
Scientician
Published Letters: 533 Editor's Choice: 1
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Elephantman:
[Read the article: Joe Klein's stirring defense of Lewis Libby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Ha!
My advice to you, Scientician; Hold your breath, and stand on your head, until the Vice President is indicted for the crime of violating the Intelligence Identities Act.
How do you feel about the idea that the Vice President may have abused his powers to get revenge on someone who countered his version of events regarding Niger? Good? Just "hard ball politics as usual"?
Instead of gloating that he won't be prosecuted, perhaps you could try and be part of the solution instead of basking in our evident inability to get to the bottom of this.
Note: We're not thrilled that Scooter Libby is going to jail particularly, because it means this crime will remain unsolved for many years until someone reveals it on their death bed or in some posthumous memoir.
Remember: Plame was covert. Now she is not. A member of George Bush's Republican administration is responsible for this fact. That person is not Richard Armitage, no matter how many times this is repeated, since he was not cleared to know this fact from CIA.
Whatever facts are in dispute, the Bush administration failed to protect a vital national secret. And you gloat.
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Elephantman:
[Read the article: Joe Klein's stirring defense of Lewis Libby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]The outing of Plame wasn't "revenge"! It was "rebuttal"! Joe Wilson started all this with his b.s. Op-Ed in the NYT.
So if I were to claim here that your wife bought your computer for you, and thus, you only got to write this comment as a result of your wife's help, this fact would somehow refute your arguments?
Is this what you consider to be a fair point of debate? So the assertions that Wilson makes don't matter, because his wife "got him the job"?
If so, and I see no other explanation, this is a sad statement about Republican views on the very concept of "debate."
In any case, I will offer a rebuttal to that idea along these lines: If Wilson only got this job to do this "junket" to Niger as a result of his wife's pull at CIA, why would he rock the boat by criticizing the Administration? If he had remained silent, after all, they might ask him to do more "fact finding" trips right? He was biting the hand that fed him by publishing that op-ed.
So even in your discredited version of events, it doesn't hold together. A self-interested careerist looking only for free vacations on tax-payer expense wouldn't bother picking a fight with Cheney.
Can you not see that Wilson's decision to publish that op-ed was the least bit courageous? That pissing off Dick Cheney would be something anyone sane would think twice about? I would. He had a man arrested just for mouthing off at him. This is not a nice man, as his wife famously said of someone else.
I know you think this somehow negates Wilson's credibility, but it really doesn't. The facts have borne that out, Iraq, in fact could not get yellowcake from Niger, the scenario was implausible and whatever Joe Wilson's "credibility", what he reported is and was true. Some "rebuttal" but when you are defending a lie, attacking people's credibility really is your only option since you have no facts on your side.
And don't get all righteous with us about protecting national security and clandestine service secrets, unless you are also willing to criticize the same NYT for using a leak to blow the covering on the NSA's surveillance of telcom information.
The NYT has no responsibility to protect state secrets. They may choose not to publish such secrets as they encounter, but they have no such obligation. You are equating the NYT with a sworn-to-secrecy member of the Bush Administration. Do you not see the difference? NYT reporters do not swear oaths of secrecy and accept a paycheque from the federal government.
Also, I have never claimed that protecting national security secrets is the highest calling. There are more important things than protecting classified info. It depends on what the classified info is, and whether the public interest is served by its publication. So I am not even obligated, as you assert to criticize the NYT under the same grounds since they had higher reasons to publish what was leaked to them. Namely, that the program is illegal and unconstitutional. The public's need to know that their government is breaking the law is higher than the government's need to keep such a program secret.
It simply must be that way, or classification would be an easy out for any act of government law breaking. Heck, Clinton could have just "classified" his sessions with Monica and under the system you propose, the investigation would have ended there, and anyone who published info about the blowjobs would be committing a crime.
The ironic thing is once again you blame the media, and yet your example illustrates once again how poor the Bush administration has proven at keeping classified info secret. They leak like sieves. In the case of the NSA wiretapping, I agree with the higher motive of the leaks, but it still goes towards how untrustworthy Bush's team is, on the whole.
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e_five:
[Read the article: Joe Klein's stirring defense of Lewis Libby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I realized some time ago that when explaining things to the 28%-ers of the Bush faction, the only way to contextualize Bush's crimes is to Clintonize them, bring up the (very loosely or usually absurdly) comparable incidents in Clinton's administration that they were outraged about, and try and ask "What if Clinton had done what Bush did?"
It seems to be the only way they are capable of understanding criminality in a President, is to make him a Democrat.
The understanding was borne, as you would expect, from their constant use of the "Clinton did it too" line in defending anything Bush does.
Thanks for your kind words and to the others who spoke positively of my work this afternoon.