Tuesday, September 30, 2003
AS PLAME AS THE NOSE ON YOUR FACE
The recent blogfury over the leak on Valerie Plame's role as a CIA employee is highly dispiriting for all supporters of the Bush administration and the War on Terror. It was moreover, no matter who did it, a wrong act compounded by morally obtuse stupidity in the bargain.
Take no comfort from the sepulchural silence of Congressional Democratic insiders on this issue, they've leaked too often on too many national security issues in the last twenty years to open their mouths. This issue will be driven by the press and will greatly damage the Bush administration unless one of two outcomes materialize. Either the leakers will be discovered to be relatively junior officials in one of the Cabinet bureaucracies who are unceremoniously shown the door or evidence will mount that Joseph Wilson, in addition to his worthy tenure in the foreign service will turn out to also be a longtime, very partisan activist with an agenda who has attempted to " sex-up " the story. If either come to pass Mr. Bush has few worries.
If neither of these possibilities come to the fore Mr. Bush will be in serious political trouble with moderate swing voters who side with him mainly because the Democrats as a party viscerally hate the war on terror and would like to return to the " law enforcement paradigm" ( i.e. - do nothing against terrorism except symbolic gestures and focus the nation on welfare-state trivialities) and international impotence masquerading as multilateralism. Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti and Bosnia were enough for me the last time around, and I would hope, for most Americans.
But at the moment it appears that the Republicans, for the third time in my life, have decided to rescue the floundering and nihilistic Democrats with an act of perverse political self-destruction. ¶ 8:57 PM
The recent blogfury over the leak on Valerie Plame's role as a CIA employee is highly dispiriting for all supporters of the Bush administration and the War on Terror. It was moreover, no matter who did it, a wrong act compounded by morally obtuse stupidity in the bargain.
Take no comfort from the sepulchural silence of Congressional Democratic insiders on this issue, they've leaked too often on too many national security issues in the last twenty years to open their mouths. This issue will be driven by the press and will greatly damage the Bush administration unless one of two outcomes materialize. Either the leakers will be discovered to be relatively junior officials in one of the Cabinet bureaucracies who are unceremoniously shown the door or evidence will mount that Joseph Wilson, in addition to his worthy tenure in the foreign service will turn out to also be a longtime, very partisan activist with an agenda who has attempted to " sex-up " the story. If either come to pass Mr. Bush has few worries.
If neither of these possibilities come to the fore Mr. Bush will be in serious political trouble with moderate swing voters who side with him mainly because the Democrats as a party viscerally hate the war on terror and would like to return to the " law enforcement paradigm" ( i.e. - do nothing against terrorism except symbolic gestures and focus the nation on welfare-state trivialities) and international impotence masquerading as multilateralism. Somalia, Rwanda, Haiti and Bosnia were enough for me the last time around, and I would hope, for most Americans.
But at the moment it appears that the Republicans, for the third time in my life, have decided to rescue the floundering and nihilistic Democrats with an act of perverse political self-destruction. ¶ 8:57 PM
