11.17.2005
The saga over the leaking of the identity of Valerie Plame's identity took a farcical turn last night. So far we have one confirmed indictment, Scooter Libby and many rumours over Karl Rove for leaking the identity in a unilateral fashion. The story so far is that those indicted were doing their bit for the GOP, cocked up and now face criminal federal charges. George W Bush and his administration while connected have plausible deniability of some concrete plan/conspiracy.
So that story was trundling along and people were wondering why exactly Fitzgerald wasnt taking a well earned holiday following his indictment of Libby. Cos he wasn't done unearthing mud to fling at the White House is the answer. Yippee exclaimed the Democrats with great relish.
To hurry up the pace, it turns out that this was no accidental outing by George's favourite cowboy and his aide, Bob Woodward was seemingly approached by a third party looking to plant the story in the Post. America Blog has been keeping an eye on the development here.
Now, this whole thing is starting to turn farcical. I know that the Bush administration is slightly tetchy with criticism. However hatching a plan which is blatantly illegal, although we all know Legal Adviser Miers is one of the good guys, seems more akin to the mind of Dick Dastardly than the President of the United States.
It seems that the more talk there is of impeachment, the more crap tumbles out of the ineptly constructed, flat-pack closet that now occupies a whole floor in the West Wing. The bumbling, it-wasnt-me shenanigans turn the very principle of governing a country into some George II esque farce.
Just to get back to something resembling a point;
"4. That means YET ANOTHER senior administration official - a THIRD official - was running around town leaking Valerie Plame's identity and CIA status."
"We're to believe it was simply "random chance", or an innocent slip of the tongue, as I believe Bob Woodward called it, that 3 senior officials all happened to "slip" in talking to the top media outlets in the nation.
"Now, mind you, the top officials apparently didn't slip when talking to the Topeka Times or the Billings Gazette (or any other small-bit newspaper), they only "slipped" when talking to the biggest news outlets that could broadcast this "gaffe" worldwide.
Imagine the coincidence of that."
This is absolutely nuts. On one hand its three accidents, the other its a serious attempt to break the law to further the plot for war. This is an insane way to carry out politics.
It also appears from the same post that Woodward could be implicated in obstruction of justice for admittedly trying to avoid subpoena in the investigation. More on that here.
For many this is a snore fest, petty personality politics at its worst, yet its not. For the Presidential office, more so than any other world leader, is a managerial post. Its about direction, leadership and execution. In this administration their is evidence of genuine ineptness at carrying out the duty of state. The office of president requires the balancing of interest, ideology, law, order and the interests of the citizens. Much deliberation etc is required. Any decent president wouldn't tolerate active law-breaking. At least not nationally. Look at Nixon.
A fish rots from the head down, and this white house is showing similar tendencies to collapse under the weight of its own ineptitude and rash cowboy regard for the rule of law. Many many examples exist of bad execution and leadership, bad policy is more subjective but I argue that has also been plentiful. The whole place is a mess and the world expects them to pick up the pieces in Iraq? Better hold out for that one.
This all comes on top of the emerging scandal of torture being used against suspects in CIA custody and the use of White Phosphorous in Iraq. One wonders whether we should begin to call it the Bush Mal-adminstration.
Momentum at home is always fuelled by personality and local politics, this is an exercise in chickens roosting. Im not sure where this will lead, but I can hear some Democrats rub their hands in glee.
RR
Categories: USA, Bush, Politics, Comment
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