Yes, I know some of you never cared about the whole Wilson Plame saga from the beginning, and some gave up caring long ago, but I've stopped. I know, Tom Maguire who is a better writer and investigator is still going full steam ahead, but this is I hope my last word on the subject. I'm going cold turkey.
Yes, I'm upset by the leaking of classified information, but then unlike a lot of people excited by the whole affair I'm upset by the leaking of any classified information. Frankly, it was a shock when Fitzgerald announced that revealing classified information wasn't a crime in and of itself. It ought to be, but then there might not be anyone left at the CIA (or Congress for that matter).
Part of the ennui is the excessive focus on the least important parts and the ignoring the of the most important. And by that I mean the focus should be on our ability to gather intellegence, analyze it, promulgate it, and protect it. In other words, the process. Instead, the focus has been on the personalities, the who instead of the what. The whole mess has been (or at least should have been) an embarrassment to everyone involved. The CIA comes off as bumbling at best or rogue at worst; the press comes off as bumbling at best and biased at worst; even the vaunted Patrick Fitzgerald comes off as a bumbler - he didn't deliver on what he was asked to do, namely get to the bottom of who leaked to Bob Novak -- instead he got Libby who appears to have leaked to everybody but Novak, his prosecution of Libby now looks weak since Bob Woodward nonchalantly announced that he got a leak from somebody else before Libby started and while I'm always up for perjury the idea that Libby diverted Fitzgeralds investigation is nonsense - it ultimately saved it from coming up empty - because Libby wasn't party to the leak to Novak. Apparently, prosecuting the mafia, terrorists, and Illinois politicians is a walk in the park compared to unraveling the relationships between the press and the government in D.C. - which is a reflection not on Mr. Fitzgerald but the Byzantine workings of Washington. The whole prosecution has this weird feel because even though we have a prosecutor investigating a crime, he can't come after the witnesses, and let's face it, partners in crime AKA reporters with the full majesty of the law like he could against mob bosses, terrorist masterminds, and crooked politicians.
And finally, the left seems to be deranged on the subject. Consider Marty Kaplan, otherwise brilliant renaissance man - bright light to my dim bulb, who wrote the most astonishing blog post A Piss Is Not A Leak:
When government officials or campaign operatives go off the record to a reporter in order to smear someone, spread disinformation, lie about an opponent, stab someone in the back while wearing the cloak of anonymity, kindle a propanganda brush fire, slander critics, psych out enemies, and throw red herrings in an investigator's path, they are engaging in the dark arts of psy ops.
And that's from the calmer part of the rant. Why do I consider it deranged? Becuase of the often heard claim, repeated not just by the many like Kaplan but Joe Wilson his own self, that he was smeared by the Bush Adminstration. What exactly was this smear? Was it that he as a cross dresser, like the left likes to smear the definately unsaintly J. Edgar Hoover? Did they call him a traitor or a liar like President Bush is routinely savaged? Nope, the big bad smear is that somebody in the administration pointed out that Joe Wilson got the job to go to Niger because of his wife. Holy Mackaloney, that's about the worstest thing you could say about anyone. Instead of "your mother wears army boots", tell somebody they got a two week paid assignment because their spouse wrote a glowing assessment, then watch the punches fly. And the really crazy thing is, the left hates to admit, and Joe Wilson pretty much can't admit it himself, but it's the truth. There, I said it, Joe Wilson got the job to go to Niger and nose around because his wife recommended him, and that's been backed up by every investigation into the matter.
On the other hand, this laudable devotion to the truth and fair politics somehow falls to the wayside when it comes to examining Joe Wilson's claims which again, have been revealed to be false by every investigation into the matter. Those claims which were, how shall we say, leaked under the cover of annonymity to the New York Times to kindle a propanganda brush fire - a propanganda brush fire that continues to burn (Bush Lied!) and divert attention and resources from important things. So you have Wilson pretty much doing everything the left is foaming at the mouth mad at the Bush administration for but not doing, which strikes me as deranged. It must be amazingly emotionally satisfying, to be so utterly convinced of one owns superlative righteousness that reality itself is distorted into a mirror image. Excuse me if I find it boring to hear such smug assertions of fairy tales.
Perhaps we can find a middle ground with it comes to kicking the tar out of Randy Cunningham, who I hope we can all agree behaved reprehensibly in accepting bribes and who's actions are, in a word, unpatriotic. Frankly, I don't know if it worse or mitigating that he was a war hero in Vietnam.
