What the Plame Affair is not

It is not a scandal. Crony capitalism married with war profiteering is a scandal. Running around on your wife and lying about it is a scandal. But blowing the cover of a CIA operative who was working to protect us all from the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction (remember those?) is not a scandal. It is a federal crime, and as Dan Drezner says, a terrible indictment of the Bush administration as a whole.

It is not a partisan political game. To his credit, Drezner realizes this. As does Tacitus, and many others on the right. But some don't. I have to ask, in the face of absolutely martian denials (Too complicated? Someone at the Whitehouse broke the law for political gain. Didn't happen? Thinly sourced? All the facts except the names of the perpetrators are public record!) -- if you're willing to accept this kind of behavior from an administration of which you are a supporter, what *won't* you accept? Is there a line? Is there any point at which your partisanship is trumped by principle? It is not an excuse for partisan attacks from the left, either. This isn't about the Republican party, it isn't an indictment of conservative philosophy, and it isn't a 'Democratic' issue. This is about powerful people who chose personal political gain and petty vengeance over the rule of law and the security of our nation. They were Republicans this time, but could just as easily have been Democrats or Greens or Natural Law-vians. No party has a monopoly on gangsterism. It is not certain to end justly. The administration has known about this crime for more than two months and done nothing. Bush obviously has more loyalty to his employees than to the law; he's not even going to ask them about it. What would make anyone think that they will stop stonewalling now, just because the story is getting more attention? If there's any way that they can keep the investigation inside the political arm of Justice, they will. And such an investigation will be cursory, find no wrongdoing, and name no names.

Lastly, it is not being covered any better by anyone than Josh Marshall and Kevin Drum, who have reminded me many times today why they are two of the best writers and commentators out there, in print or in pixels.

Filed under: politics