Do not make the mistake of thinking that because my conclusion is the same as another person's that my reasoning is the same
10/1/2003
LATE MONDAY, as calls for action were growing louder, the Justice Department decided to conduct a full criminal investigation of the disgraceful and dangerous outing by the Bush administration of one of its own CIA agents. It is not enough. This is a case that clearly calls for the appointment of an independent counsel. Attorney General John Ashcroft, a former client of the White House political mastermind Karl Rove, should acknowledge the obvious and name a special prosecutor of unquestionable independence and integrity.
When a chorus of Democratic voices, including both minority leaders in Congress and most of the presidential candidates, urged that step yesterday, some Republicans responded that the move was political. The House Domocratic leader, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, called that response "pathetic."
The important point is that it is illegal to reveal the identity of undercover intelligence officers, as members of the administration seem to have done.…
No specific evidence links Rove to this incident, but the White House spokesman, Scott McClellan, convinced no one when he called the mention of Rove as a possible source "ridiculous." Rove has a long history of political dirty tricks.
There is a threshold that I want to see crossed before we start spending buckets of money on an independant counsel investigation -- was she an undercover agent or not? It is a well-defined term in the statute; either the CIA was actively concealing her employment or not. If there weren't, then there is no basis for the cost of an independant counsel.
As for the Justice Department making a "full investigation", my understanding is that around 50 investigations of this sort are undertaken every year, every time a news story prints with someone's name and the CIA in the same sentence. The CIA reports it, the DOJ investigates. That is the way it should be, but that doesn't mean that we should read too much into it.
First, the investigation shouldn't take a lot of money as long as its focused as the last one should have been. If wild tangents are indulged in it can get costly, true.
Second, I can't think of an area of American life and policy which hasn't been royally screwed by this administration. This is different than merely not doing well. I guess this makes me one of those partisans…so be it. I've never been one to deny my motives or reasoning.
I think neocon policy must be abandoned. And I think the only way that will be done is for this administration to be politically defenestrated. I think this should happen as soon as legally feasible. And I think this could do it. I'm willing to wait until 2004, but I don't want to if I don't have to.
Finally, I think it proper to use the tools and techniques Republican extremists made current.
As to the seriousness of it, see what Sax Chambliss said. And his isn't the most strongly worded position of those in a position to know. So I feel you're setting too high a standard for a special prosecutor…as well, a far higher standard than Republicans set when they are NOT the ones that would be investigated. But I guess a partisan would feel that way.
Looking at it as a Libertarian (Big L) partisain, keeping in mind that I see the Democrats as a greater evil than the Republicans, (but not by any difference as large as a magnitude), this is all way overblown and disgustingly partisan.
She wasn't even a covert agent by definition in the law. She had to have been posted to a foreign office within the past five years. If she has been in a stateside posting for the last five years, then she isn't under the umbrella of the law.
Even going beyond the letter of the law and into the spirit of the law, she still doesn't fall under the umbrella of the law. The law was intended to protect people that are handlers -- agents (not analysts) that have to deal with secret sources. It wasn't designed to protect a desk jockey in Langley.