I'd have finished this essay sooner if it weren't for all the dang interruptions. Some weirdo calling himself "Anonymous Senior Administration Official" kept ringing my phone off the hook, peddling some CIA agent's name whose hubby (can't recall exactly) traveled to Africa looking for yellowcake sales receipts with Saddam's signature, or some such...anybody know anything about this? At first I thought it was some nutty new sales pitch by some nutty telemarketer trying to beat the Wednesday 'Do-Not-Call List' deadline. 'Keep it up , buddy,' I told the caller, 'and I'll have the Feds frog-march ya out of that house in handcuffs!' Then I thought maybe it's that South African businessman who keeps clogging my email with some incredible business proposition.
Okay, okay...I'll confess: There were no phone calls. I made it up. I think I was probably carried away by the spirit of the moment (to borrow a line).
So what's the media fuss all about this time?
First, chalk this whole thing up as more bad luck for Democrats. Just as Bush was beginning to 'slip' in polls, Bang! out of nowhere comes a "scandal" big enough to make Bush's ratings soar.
The "growing controversy" centers on who "leaked" the super-ultra-secret identity of a covert agent everyone but Robert Novak knew wasn't a covert agent but a pencil-pusher at CIA. Covert agents need low-profile, and, for whatever reason, CIA doesn't think marrying an Ambassador is a fabulous way to lower your profile. So Valerie Plame, wife of former Clinton NSC aid Joe Wilson, was good for pencil work but not cloak and dagger. So clandestine, so deeply-concealed was the mystery of Plame working at CIA that the Washington Post claims two "Senior administration officials" tried to get a bunch of reporters interested in a 'Wife-Gets-Job-For-Hubby-In-High-Profile-Iraq-Probe' angle, but only one reporter bit. Nepotism in Washington? Say it ain't so! (By the way, CIA neither confirms nor denies the identity of covert agents. CIA confirmed Plame's identity and employment when Novak called, which shows Plame was no covert agent.)
Democrats, who complained bitterly of Starr's $60-million-dollar independent probe, demand bitterly a Starr-like $60-million-dollar independent probe.
In a bid to show they're principled and consistent, Democrats, who blast the Patriot Act as horrid abomination, say the Patriot Act is indispensable here to probe who "leaked" to the media what the media and everyone already knew. Democrats also deny politics or the looming election season has anything to do with this, just undying devotion to high-minded principles so common in Washington.
Democrats say, Reuters reports, that "if such an incident had occurred during the presidency of Democrat Bill Clinton, Republicans who control Congress would be calling for hearings and issuing subpoenas." I might add that if such an incident had occurred during the presidency of Democrat Bill Clinton, Democrats, adhering scrupulously to high standards of ethics, would denounce calls for hearings and issuance of subpoenas as nothing but a right-wing witch hunt or fishing expedition to discredit Bill Clinton. Indeed, were it not for minor matters like Whitewatergate, Cattlegate, Travelgate, Zippergate, Paulagate, Juanitagate, donorgate, Chinagate, Pardongate, Filegate, etc., Clinton's would be The Most Ethical Administration In Human History.
MSNBC reports, quoting a profoundly knowledgeable college professor, that "the launch of a formal (Justice Dept.) investigation could be 'a turning point in terms of public perception'" of Bush, "a point of transition which eventually seeps down to public consciousness." I can vouch for that. Indeed, when I heard the Justice Dept. had opened a probe, I sensed a change of my public perception of Bush, a point of transition that immediately seeped down to my public consciousness; then a powerful desire overcame me, an urge to vote for Dean! Kucinich! Kerry! Lieberman! Anyone but George!
Bush's vow to cooperate fully with investigators was especially damaging to my public perception. Aren't moral presidents supposed to invoke Executive Privilege, suborn perjury, obstruct justice, cover-up, delay, deny, destroy a la Clinton? I'm confused.
Incidentally, CIA requests for probes of possible leaks are so rare, the Justice Dept. gets about one a week.
What's the fallout from all this, politically? How'll this shake out? Not to be pessimistic or anything, but this 'scandal,' phony though it is, has got the element of simplicity going for it -- it's easy to grasp -- and might resonate in ways that Enron and other previous pseudo-Bush "scandals" couldn't.
Indeed, I can, in one brief sentence, wrap up the gist of this whole 'scandal':
"Senior administration officials," in an act of 'revenge' against a prominent antiwar critic, brilliantly committed felonies by disclosing to reporters, who didn't seem interested because they knew felonies weren't being committed, the ultra-secret identity of a deep-undercover CIA agent that everyone and his sister knew worked at CIA because she wasn't deep-undercover at all, just an agency analyst who, to ensure a fair and impartial probe into White House claims that Saddam sought yellowcake Uranium from Niger, pulled agency strings so that former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson, an antiwar activist and her husband (but that's just a coincidence) got appointed to head up a probe so thorough and exhaustive it lasted 8 whole arduous Sweet-Mint-Tea-Sipping days "with dozens of people" in Niger, after which the good Ambassador, in a classified report submitted to appropriate authorities at the New York Times, brilliantly OUTS himself (and by extension his wife) as CIA-connected, but that's not the point because, he says, the point is that after a week of not searching for evidence to back up White House claims, he failed to find evidence to back up White House claims, which, he said, drove him to think what he fairly and impartially wanted to think all along, to wit, that Bush IS AN EVIL LIAR and SADDAM'S INNOCENT and NO BLOOD FOR OIL!
Now, try cramming that cogent one-liner on a bumper sticker ;-)
Sure, the Democrats are toasting champagne, clicking their heels over Bush's grave.
Truth is, Plame-"Gate", or whatever they're calling it, will go about as far politically as the BUSH-KNEW-ABOUT-9/11-BEFORE-9/11-BUT-DID-NOTHING-TO-STOP-IT! "scandal" which was supposed to force Bush from office. Democrats were toasting champagne, clicking their heels over Bush's grave. Or the BUSH-DIDN'T-KNOW-ABOUT-9/11-BEFORE-9/11-BUT-SHOULD'VE! "scandal" which was supposed to force Bush from office. Or, recall the No-Weapons-Of-Mass-Destruction-Found-In-Iraq -- BUSH LIED! "scandal" which was supposed to force Bush from office. Or, how about 16-Word-"Gate"? Or the Bush-Was-In-Bed-With-Ken-Lay-And-Enron! "scandal" that would march Bush frog-tied out of the White House in handcuffs.
By the way, under penalty of law, you must keep my secret identity -- "JohnHuang2" -- and my work here at Free Republic as spammer and 'analyst,' a secret. Got that?
Anyway, that's...
My two cents...
"JohnHuang2"