Letters to the Editor
Scientician
Published Letters: 523 Editor's Choice: 1
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Shooter:
[Read the article: Joe Klein's stirring defense of Lewis Libby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]He didn't do anything criminal but should be fired anyway.....
Well let's see, we have Rove saying "I heard that too" to Novak, and "Wilson's wife" to Cooper without mentioning either her name or employment. No crime, not even close. Yet we have Cold Cash Jefferson caught red handed with marked bills and videotape, who won't resign.
From:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek/page/2/
"it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip."
That was from an email from Cooper to his editor.
Unless you want to play some kind of parsing game, where because he didn't "name" her (as if no one could possibly figure out who Wilson's wife was!) then Rove was leaking info on Plame to reporters negligently without investigating her status at CIA.
So in answer to your question in your title: Yes, he did nothing illegal (here) and he should be fired. Many people are fired in many jobs who have not broken any laws, merely they performed poorly at those jobs. This is, a great example of really bad job performance: Not taking the nation's national defense secrets with the utmost seriousness.
You know Shooter, none of those 9 fired US Attorneys broke any laws either, yet I'm sure you have defended those firings as legitimate.
Nice to know that this is the Republican bar for good job performance: Not committing a felony. Too bad Bush himself has actually failed to meet that bar, in light of breaking the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a felony, multiple times.
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Jefferson
[Read the article: Joe Klein's stirring defense of Lewis Libby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]1. Jefferson has stepped down from his committee assignments.
2. I agree Jefferson should resign. However at least he is in no position to do any harm right now. Tom Delay remained as Majority Leader right up to his indictment, and even tried to modify republican rules to keep his post after it. Duke Cunningham and Bob Ney kept their seats right up until they went to prison, with fellow republicans proclaiming their innocence the whole way.
3. The Bush DoJ has been caught filing trumped up corruption charges against Democrats recently. A conviction was overturned by the appellate court for lack of evidence not so long ago.
See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steven_M._Biskupic
4. Even before Jefferson was indicted, prior to the 2006 election Pelosi had him removed from his seat on Ways and Means.
5. Equating a single corrupt democrat, stripped of significant influence, who operated his schemes alone, to the Bush Administration protecting people who leaked a vital national defence secret for partisan retribution reasons is contemptible.
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Paul Dirks:
[Read the article: Joe Klein's stirring defense of Lewis Libby]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]We know the actual only bar for Republicans is that one constantly support more wars, more executive powers, and fewer voters allowed to vote. Keep to those three, and you'll do just fine among the Republican base.
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Escalation of the situation is exactly the point
[Read the article: Various items]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]I have no qualm with Clark's repudiation of Lieberman, but unlike Wikipedia I don't have to assume good faith.
Lieberman and the other war mongers rattling their sabres know damn well their comments embolden Ahmadinejad and his radical faction in Iran. That's the point actually, the best way to get a war is to provoke your enemy into doing something rash that precipitates it.
They don't get want they want by speaking diplomatically or engaging in sober, rational analysis of the potential threat posed by Iran. They get it by creating an atmosphere of fear and escalation.
So I guess it's not there yet for Clark to say so, but at some point, someone prominent needs to call the attack Iran column out for the fact that they know exactly what effect their rhetoric has, and that's why they engage in it.
There is no eventuality, no cicumstance that can transpire that will convince them that peaceful engagement is a better choice than military action with regards to Iran. This is what we are fighting against. Trying to "convince" them is fruitless - we need to talk over them to the public at large to keep them as buzzing flies of insanity to be ignored.
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The irony of him being in Peoria of all places
[Read the article: The al-Marri decision]
[Read more letters about this article: Here]Should not be lost.
This type of review-free detention can quite actually happen to anyone, even in Peoria.
It is somewhat reassuring that when the courts actually rule on the Yoo/Gonzales theories of the Constitution, they have so far not failed to repudiate them as errant nonsense and unamerican.
It is telling that these bogus notions do not survive the incisive examination of even Republican judges, and as Hamndi showed, even a Majority republican Supreme Court.
Only 1 of 3 branches seems to be actively working against the malignant executive. Would the Legislative branch begin to exert its full power we might end this long international nightmare.