The Plame Game...

In the on-going saga of the White House leak of the identity of Valerie Plame, there is really no new information to present. But this week the Los Angeles Times printed an excellent summary of the events that have transpired to date. It goes through all the events in the order they transpired and give a bit of an assessment of them. I think the best point that this article makes time and time again is that answers are severely lacking in this incident.

The administration made a huge mistake, intentional or not, in leaking the identity of Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife to the press. The administration made even more colossal mistakes in assessing the evidence against Iraq when trying to justify the war. And yet, we aren’t having a debate about why we went to war. We are having a debate about the legality of divulging the name of a covert operative.

Where the hell are our priorities? I am quite fully aware that the leak of Valerie Plame’s identity was an incredible lapse of judgment by this administration, possibly a criminal one. But it is the type of hardball tactics that are to be expected when doing political battle with a Rottweiler like Karl Rove. But in the mix, we have allowed the administration to succeed in its mission. That mission, as undertaken by Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and a number of other buffoons in the Bush administration, was to distract the American people’s attention away from the reality that we found no Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

Let me repeat that for all you Republican numb skulls. We found NO Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq.

Oh Mr. Blogger, why is that so significant? We went into Iraq to deliver democracy and liberty to the Iraqi people. And clearly, they were a haven for terrorists. Hogwash! Do not forget the fact that our sole and entire rationale for invading the sovereign nation of Iraq was because we believed that Saddam Hussein was in violation of a gaggle of United Nations Security Council resolutions dealing with Weapons of Mass Destruction. We were particularly fearful that he might be a weak link in our efforts to prevent the proliferation of these weapons to some of the most undesirable hands.

Make no mistake about it, Saddam Hussein is a pig. In fact, that is an insult to pigs. He is a disgusting megalomaniac, but that in and of itself is simply not sufficient justification for violating the sovereignty of an independent nation. Unfortunately our entire legitimate rationale rested on the fact that this man and his Bathist buddies were in violation of rules set up as a result of the Gulf War. They were the terms of his surrender in 1991. We were convinced that this guy was pulling a fast on the weapons inspectors placed in Iraq by the UN. We were so convinced that we went around the UN and invaded anyways. In so doing we destroyed the goodwill of the international community that came about as a result of the terrorist attacks of September 11^th.

The Plame Game goes on, but don’t be distracted. There were no Weapons of Mass Destruction, there was no tie between Saddam Hussein’s Bathists and Al Qaeda, and if our intention was to build a stable democracy in Iraq, I think we should quit while we’re behind and sinking. Our administration lied to us, they distracted us and stalled to get their puppet re-elected, and now they have us bogged down in this Karl Rove leak investigation. Who cares! Karl Rove is a big fat (and I mean rotund) ZERO. The people we need to investigate are Vice President Dick Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz, Donald Rumsfeld, President Bush and then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. These are the people who perpetrated the alleged fraud against the American people and against the world as a whole.

Don’t be distracted.