A Heart-Warming 4th of July Story: Karl Rove Involved in Outing Valerie Plame
...and All We Get Is His Denial and a Lousy T-shirt
"On the day that hell freezes over...."
- The Iraq war is a disaster. The Bush administration has tried to hide the fact for a long time. They would do anything to make themselves look as if they have conducted themselves properly. Paradoxically, they are being exposed as bitter hypocrites who will discriminately do "wrong" in order to appear "right".
- Valerie Plame was attacked because her husband, Joseph Wilson, blew the lid off the fact that the White House lied about the infamous Niger uranium. If you don't think Dick Cheney's top was ready to pop over what Joe Wilson was saying, you haven't been paying attention.
- I still think "fake journalist" Jeff Gannon (aka James Guckert) came along at too much of a coincidental time - and had his by-line on far too many damaging Joseph Wilson stories NOT to suspect that something shady was going on between the White House and Gannon.
- We learn that Karl Rove was directly involved in leaking Valerie Plame's identity to the American press.
- In October 2003, Karl Rove had told MSNBC's Chris Matthews that Plame, a CIA agent, was "fair game". So, who's ultimately responsible for the leak? If Karl Rove outed Valerie Plame to Robert Novak (the first schlump to report the identity), someone obviously told Rove that Plame was a covert CIA agent. That certain "someone" is likely more guilty than Rove himself. Prosecutions under the law are rare because they require a showing that the leak was intentionally disclosed and that the person leaking the information knew the government was trying to conceal it. You know darn well that Rove will claim it was unintentional. We know that's a lie, because we know Karl Rove's character all too well. Knowing that, however, does not a prosecution make. I don't think it would be a stretch to believe Dick Cheney may have told Rove. If so, then the Bush administration may have to burn the fatheaded Rove to save Cheney if push comes to shove. The only chance of saving one of them, if they can, is to let one hang. What about Bush himself? He hired an attorney to protect himself long ago, and there's been plenty of talk about the real reason George tenet and James Pavitt resigned. No matter how it works out, the White House leak of a CIA agent's identity showed that core standards and principles do not have a place within the Bush administration and that our national security can be easily compromised for cheap political retribution. George W. Bush and the closest people to him in his administration have been exposed as the filthiest scum in the history of American government.
- We can now be sure that everything is fair game in politics, even if national security is severely compromised and covert agents' lives are put at risk.
- We live in a time when the notions of justice and fairness are turned on their head. The lust and greed for power have elevated the Bush administration, and the class of citizens they divisively represent, to a level where there are absolutely no consequences to be paid for them to break even the highest law. Many bloggers on the left have lost faith that Karl Rove will pay any price for his treasonous actions.
- Dave Niewert is an important voice in the wilderness - a modern-day prophet who has warned Americans, time and time again, that fascism is working its way into our American government.
- Bora Zivcovic, a progressive blogger who I have had the opportunity to meet in person, has an important story and lesson for all of us. He and his family have been through a shameful time in human history - the Holocaust - a time when many of them didn't make it through to the other side with their lives. If you cannot trust the perspective of a person who has lost 42 members of his family to state-sanctioned murder, than I suggest that you may not be capable of trusting anyone. At the beginning of the crisis in the Balkans in 1991, Bora points to the fact that the Israeli press had recognized what the Westerners did not - the fascistic nature of Franjo Tudjman's new government in Croatia, and the reason is because the Jews have decided to never again become an invisible people whose persecution could escape the consciousness of humankind. Warning signs of fascism can come in the forms of underlying ideology "which can be coated in whatever symbols people are already used to - and proud of - including the American flag."
Bora says,
"Neither Nazism nor Stalinism sprung up suddenly out of nowhere. Both built up gradually, over the years, slowly acclimating the populations to the ever-increasing levels of totalitarianism, and utilizing the fears and emotional insecurity of the few to rein in the many....Bora sends all of us a warning, and our failure to heed the warning is going to cost every one of us our freedom.
....If you look at The 14 Defining Characteristics Of Fascism you will recognize that all 14 are at some stage of implementation by the current US government....
....I don't personally know Cheney and Rove (Bush is just a puppet, so he can be disregarded), but everything they have said and done so far suggests that, if they were living in 1930s and they were in position of power, they would have slaughtered millions. Nothing in ther behavior suggests the tiniest modicum of decency."
- You may say, "How can Jude Nagurney Camwell believe she can turn a story about Karl Rove's outing of a CIA agent (and getting away with it) into a story about fascism - and expect anyone to take her seriously? Isn't she carrying this a bit too far?" The signs are here - and they are real.
Think of the law which was recently passed to outlaw the burning of the American flag.
Think about the rampant sexism that is causing great anxiety about Women's Issues with the retirement of Sandra Day O'Connor.
Think about Karl Rove's recent public comments about "liberals."
Think about the Religious Far Right and how their Dominionist beliefs are being allowed to be pressed into American government.
Think about how Labor is being broken and Corporate power is being fed by the powers that be.
Think about the many ways the Executive has employed lies - to start a war or to mislead the public about that war's "success".
Think about fraudulent elections.
The White House sends carefully-crafted messages to divide Americans, and the dividing lines are based upon labels such as "liberals." Ironically, while the Bush administration and the special class they represent package their labels to make the public believe "liberal" means authoritarian and "anti-American," and while they stake a claim to ownership of the American flag, they become more authoritarian by the day, by their lies and their lustful usurpation of power. Fascism isn't obvious as it creeps in - it doesn't scream out to you - the heavy hand of nationalism doesn't leave you a billboard which you can put your finger on and say "Ah-Ha!" There are only clues. So, "How can Jude expect you to believe?" I don't have any great expectation, but I hope you will think about this carefully. It's the least that our Founding Fathers would have wanted you to do, and the best Fourth of July greeting I could possibly send to my fellow Americans.
If Karl Rove outed Valerie Plame and we're all asleep and nobody cares, this is a sure sign that fascism is alive in the United States today.
Sidenote:
Josh Marshall asks:
So just a question: Would Fitzgerald have pushed to get Cooper and Miller in the slammer if some other party in the White House weren't in a lot of trouble? And one last question: Cooper and Miller are very different kinds of journalists, swim in very different waters. Are they really in this jam for the same reasons?From Third Estate Sunday Review:
"Karl, you're finally historically famous. Bully's Brain just became a footnote to history. Guilty or innocent, you'll always be mentioned as someone who ran a presidential campaign and was called before a grand jury to testify on outing a CIA agent. Kind of hard to wrap the flag around that, isn't it?"