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Another Avro rant

Too bad your taking the talking points from The Party of no Ideas, they are grasping at straws. Rove did nothing wrong.

   

And a link from Air America will get you a big FU! , Why not post something from Moveon.org,

Dean is making a big mistake driving this from the DNC, he's going to drive the wedge so far they will never win another election.

Good for the GOP, very bad for the DNC.

   

Three lousy arguments about Karl Rove and Valerie Plame

Tell me if I’ve missed something. Tell me if there’s a better argument out there somewhere that the right is floating on Karl’s-little-traitor-problem. Here’s the three arguments I’m hearing, on MSNBC from Tucker Carlson and the other conservatives, on the rightwing blogs, and in the GOP Talking Points helpfully circulated nationwide via Raw Story yesterday: (1) Valerie Plame didn’t deserve protecting, (2) Joseph Wilson is the real enemy of America, and (3) Democrats Suck.

LOUSY ARGUMENT NUMBER 1: VALERIE PLAME DIDN’T DESERVE PROTECTING

Valerie Plame was a desk jockey, a clerk, a party planner (all terms used by Newsweek's Charlie Gasparino on MSNBC). She worked for the CIA, but she was unimportant at the agency, not “covert” in any meaningful sense. She was no James Bond, and “outing” her didn’t hurt national security.

WHY ARGUMENT NUMBER 1 IS LOUSY

Argument number 1 is factually untrue:
It is a matter of factual record whether or not Valerie Plame was covert or not: she was. Anyone who is basing their “this is a tempest in a teapot!” jabberwocky on this factual assertion is roadkill. Disprove them, then ignore them.

Here’s the proof: the CIA issued a “referral” on the case to the Justice Department so the Justice Department would investigate whether a crime had been committed when Plame was described publicly as working for the agency. If we all agree that the CIA (and not Ken Mehlman or Karl Rove or Ted Kennedy or Mos Def or freaking Ghandi) determines whether or not CIA employees are covert, then bingo, it’s proven: she’s covert. The CIA wouldn’t ask Justice to open a criminal investigation into her outing, if outing her was not -- in the CIA’s eyes -- potentially criminal. And outing her would only be seen as potentially criminal by the CIA if she was in fact covert.

Once you isolate its factual inaccuracies, what remains of Lousy Argument Number 1 doesn’t even to be dignified with a response:
As for the “outing her didn’t hurt national security” argument, here’s the question that should defuse it: should it be illegal to out covert CIA operatives? Should it be illegal, on grounds of national security, to reveal the identity of someone working for US intelligence whom the government has chosen to keep covert? If your answer is no, then by all means take that argument into the ring with the American people, and I’ll wait in your corner with a can for you to spit your teeth into when you’re done. If you want to make a public case that our government has no right to keep people covert in the intelligence service, and they’re all “fair game”, in Karl’s alleged words to Chris Matthews, then PLEASE make that argument front and center, prime time, in the Rose Garden, and then hand Dean the keys to Congress and the White House on your way out.

The key to dealing with Lousy Argument 1 is to separate the issue of whether Plame was covert from whether national security is at issue in this case. They can disparage her and her CIA work til the cows come home, but if they admit she was covert (and any honest ones will surely have to, because it is a matter of factual record), then the “not hurting national security” argument is done, defunct, moot, laughable. Well, laughable only in a dark sick way. Read this account by Plame’s CIA classmate if you need more ammunition on the harm-to-national-security issue. But I don’t think you do.

LOUSY ARGUMENT 2: JOSEPH WILSON IS THE REAL ENEMY OF AMERICA

Joseph Wilson is the issue! Joseph Wilson said Cheney sent him to Niger and Cheney didn’t! Rove was just trying to set the record straight about Wilson’s lying about the Vice President. Joseph Wilson’s wife sent him to Niger in a scheme to smear Bush and Rove was trying to expose that -- to show that Wilson shouldn’t be believed. Rove was trying to warn admirable little Matt Cooper away from a dangerous anti-Bush nonsense story ginned up by Wilson and his wife.

WHY ARGUMENT NUMBER 2 IS LOUSY

Argument number 2 is factually untrue, but don't follow them down the garden path to even bother disproving it:
Wilson never said Cheney sent him to Niger. You can read the original column here if you want to see what he claimed about how he was sent there. But don’t bother. It doesn’t matter.

The effort to derail Karl’s comeuppance by casting blame again on Wilson is purely meant to buy them some time and muddy the waters. We know they want to stretch this thing out as long as possible so it starts to seem complicated, and the public gets bored, and starts paying attention to Supreme Court nominees again.

The Smear Wilson Sequel (revenge of the smear? son of smear? smear 2? stop me before I smear again?) buys them time but nothing else.

Following Argument 2 to its logical conclusion, shows that it’s purely for smokescreen purposes and not a considered, serious argument:
If you follow the Smear Wilson path and believe the lies they tell about his wife sending him and him being unqualified for the job and him doing a bad job while he was there (none of which seem to be true), you end up standing there with the rightwing guys in very uncomfortable spot.

If Wilson’s the one to blame here, that means Wilson was the villain who Rove had to stop, even at the risk of national security?

Because Wilson was lying?

He was duping the American people with that Op-Ed piece in The Times to take an unfair shot at Bush?

He was actually wrong about the whole Niger thing?

Cooper and other journalists shouldn’t get “too far out” on Wilson’s story? By, um, believing Wilson’s claim that Saddam didn’t seek yellowcake uranium in Niger?

So that means Saddam *was* seeking yellowcake uranium in Niger?

So Saddam had an nuclear weapons program?

So the whole weapons of mass destruction in Iraq thing is back on the table now?

So Rove should be exonerated because Saddam did have weapons of mass destruction?

Really? That’s the argument you want to use here?

LOUSY ARGUMENT 3: DEMOCRATS SUCK

Democrats suck! They’re all going after Karl Rove because they’re pissed about the election!

WHY ARGUMENT 3 IS LOUSY

If Republicans want to stake their national security credibility on the assertion that Karl Rove keeping his job is more important than the principle of not outing covert intelligence sources for political gain, I don’t want to get in their way. Have fun, boys. And don’t forget to watch the tapes of yourself making those arguments over and over and over and over and over again when you’re 90 and tempted to write your own hagiography.

   

Geez, that makes TWO things I'm in total agreement with you on!

   

But on Rove, the Democrats have wanted him fired for a long time because Rove kicks their asses all over the place. Rove makes "Snakehead" Carville look inept on a rather frequent basis and they don't like that.

Too bad.

The real problem the Dems have with Rove is that they wish he was one of theirs.

   

The GOP knows how to fall in line at the trough Cheney and Rove have laid out for them.

   

Rex Babin is an asshole. I live in Sacramento and stopped taking The Bee because of the vile filth this puke puts out. Babin puts out nauseating anti-Israel cartoons and his hatred for conservatives and Republicans has no limit.

   

Rex is dead on the money with that cartoon. Bush is a salseman, nothing more. He speaks on que and has to be told what to say. He is not the brains but the poster child.

   

He beat Gore and then beat Kerry by surrounding himself with talented, capable people and he wisely listens to them. Were he to not listen to the counsel of his aides then people like you would call him a loner and etc. just as people like you did with Nixon.

Did you know that Henry Ford was illiterate? Still, the man created a model of industry that persists to this day. His skill with words was irrelevant and only fools measured the man by his letters.

Bush is not a talented orator and people mistakenly judge his intellect based on his speaking skills.

His poor speaking skills put him in the company of Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln, Aristotle, Charles Darwin, Stephen Hawking, Isaac Newton, and Moses. All of them were poor speakers and most of them were considered dolts in their day by lesser minds who only heard how the men spoke and missed out on what they said.

I do not agree with the man on probably 50% of what he does anymore, but he is not stupid.

   

As someone who hopes the Democrats win the next election in the US, I fervently hope that Bush hangs on to Karl Rove.

   

Bush and Charles Darwin, Isaac Newton or Stephen Hawking? Gimme a break. Something is wrong with that sentence. It's kind of like saying: "Like Ghandi, PeeWee Herman was under six feet tall."

   

Why? I'm comparing their speaking skills. My point is that Bush should not be judged intellectually for not being a skilled orator. All of these men are retards by that standard.

   

Since Bush will not be running in the next election I'm unsure of what your point is.

   

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