Sunday, October 30, 2005

Scooter's Patooter in the Roto-Rooter

I'm trying very hard to maintain a balanced view on this indictment.
When Clinton lied and then lied about lying and then was outed as a
liar, I was furious, not only because of the lying, but because it
shifted my perspective of everything he had done before.

Suddenly I could see how the many women who had made accusations
against him were possibly, and in my mind, probably, telling the truth.
Suddenly I could see how Clinton had a history of destroying women who
dared to cross him. Suddenly I could see what I couldn't see before.
And I felt like a dupe. Although I had problems with about half of
his politics (probably true for most politicians) I voted for him
twice.

And I suddenly felt like I could finally understand the anger that
people felt over Nixon. My father had always defended Nixon with
something along the lines of "He wasn't involved in Watergate and all
he did was try to protect his friends." or whatever. Clinton taught me
how infuriating it is to have the President lie to you.

Do I think presidents always speak the truth? No, the nature of the
job, I assume, requires some bending of the truth periodically. But
the key here is "the job". If the president is doing his job in an
honorable manner, I'll accept a fib now and then. Otherwise, keep it
above the board.

And by the way, that also means if a lawyer asks
an inappropriate question about issues outside of the job, refuse to
answer. But don't lie. Under oath.

So with Scooter's situation I keep thinking that if I am intellectually
honest, I will be equally outraged. For now I just can't muster it.
Perhaps in the coming months there will be revelations that get me to
that point but I am so flabbergasted at the political maneuverings that
are being revealed between the CIA and the Administration that I'm too
dumbfounded to summon up very much anger.

What is, or was going on there? Are these people professionals or
children? Are they serious about their role in national security?

How is it that our national intelligence agency sends a guy on a secret
mission and he ends up using that trip for political ends? How is it
that somebody can blatantly leak supposedly classified information
without repercussions? And then write an op-ed about it?!?!?!?!? I
honestly don't understand.

But then am I changing the subject? This is about Scooter right? He
is the one that revealed Valerie Plame's name to the world right?
Well, no, all I can tell is that he said he heard it from one person
but they believe he heard it from somebody else. From everything I've
read, the secret, revealer of the Plame name is still a secret.

I'm as far away from Washington as you can get and frankly I still
don't know the meaning of the new (to me) hot word "meme" so I won't
even begin to address Fitzgerald's motivation except to say that it
seems that most people agree he is a straight shooter. I hope that is
true and that this is all resolved clearly and cleanly. And if Scooter
Libby broke the law, he should be punished.

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