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I'm finding it hard not to rant about the hypocrisy with, I'm sure, a few thousand bloggers. As an Illinoisan, I've gone from marginal respect for Hastert's efficacy to outright disgust at his cronyism. When he suggested that anti-war protesters were no worse than terrorists, I have to admit that I wanted to reach through the TV screen and stuff a copy of the Bill of Rights down his throat.
The sad truth, though, is that this isn't just about Denny Hastert or Bill Frist. This is about a political culture run by strategists and tacticians, a culture personified by the likes of Karl Rove which values winning above everything else. The GOP took damage from the Plame scandal; they lost a battle and now they want revenge. They see the intelligence leak as nothing but a ploy used for political gain, and now they want to add that ploy to their own play book.
Unfortunately, that means that none of them see the truth behind the ploy. Uncovering clandestine CIA prisons isn't the same as outing Plame; the Post didn't name names for political gain or endanger operatives. We all know there are clandestine operations out there, just like we knew during the Cold War about weapons years before the government admitted they existed. The Post is asking the essential question: is what we're doing right and is it in line with our values as Americans? It's truly sad that our politicians no longer feel the need to ask that question.
