GOP Goes for Broke in Defending Treason: The Withering Republican Assault on Truth, Justice and the Rule of Law
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL
From the beginning of BuzzFlash, we have said this again and again: the core of Bushevism propaganda is that if you repeat a lie five times, it becomes the truth.
Remember this, it doesn't matter how bold and audacious the lie is, they stick to the repetition. In fact, the more brazen the lie -- the more it defies common sense -- the more likely many Americans who rely on television for news are likely to believe it. That is because a plainspoken person wouldn't believe that anyone "like them" would lie so contrary to the truth. It's just not something a person in their right mind would do, unless they are fundamentally amoral, ruthless, and love power more than their country.
But that is why Ken Mehlman, RNC Chair, went on Sunday television to defiantly warn Democrats to apologize for slandering Rove. No, we are not making this up. It is tempting to laugh, but people believe these lies in defense of treason; that's how we got in this mess.
Mehlman claims that the Time reporter confirmed that Rove did not give him Plame's name and so Rove is vindicated. But what Mehlman doesn't mention is that Cooper explicitly said that he told the Grand Jury that it was Rove who told him Wilson's wife worked for "the agency" and specialized in WMDs. Just last week, Rove was leaking that he found out about Plame working for the CIA from journalists. So Rove, Cooper testified under oath, is now confirmed as one of the leakers, contrary to one of Rove's numerous fusillade of prevarications last week. (Some of them were said on deep background; some Rove had his attorney say.)
The law against exposing a CIA operative applies to exposing the identity of the operative, which Rove did to Cooper -- and then he brazenly lied about it. Not only that, now we know that Cheney's senior aide, Scooter Libby, confirmed to Cooper that Plame worked for the CIA. That my friends is treason.
We have addressed the hair-splitting ridiculousness of trying to focus on whether or not Rove actually mentioned Valerie Plame's name in a recent BuzzFlash editorial: If a Mob Boss Says to a Hit Man, "Kill Jim Smith's Wife," Can He Claim He Didn't Order the Murder Because He Didn't Mention Her Name? Apparently, That's Karl Rove's Thinking.
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Now, here's some advice to the "opposition" party.
The Democrats should stop calling for Rove to resign and instead take a page from the GOP/Luntz playbook. Just keep saying Rove and treason together in as many possible media forums as possible. Everyone knows the Democrats want Rove to resign. That's not a message that gets embedded in the public mind. It's only a tactic that feeds into the Rove strategy of throwing up enough flak to confuse people and have the media report on this as a partisan fight, rather than an act of betraying the national security interests of the United States of America.
Rove's outing of Plame has made us all less safe, seriously less safe. Because she specialized in the tracking the illicit sales of Weapons of Mass Destruction. People's lives have been endangered as a result of the White House's betrayal.
And the Democrats shouldn't make this about Joe Wilson -- a man of boundless courage -- vs. Bush, which is what Rove wants. The Department of Justice investigation was initiated at the request of the CIA, by George Tenet, who Bush gave a Medal of Freedom to. The CIA believed and believes that the national security of the United States of America was compromised. This is Rove, Bush and Cheney vs. the CIA and the national security of the United States of America. Period.
As for Rove's claim that Novak revealed Plame's work with the CIA to him, here is what Novak had to say in a 2003 Newsweek article: "Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. 'I didn't dig it out [Plame's deep cover employment with the CIA], it was given to me,' he said. 'They [the White House] thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it.'
And a September 28, 2003 Washington Post article notes the following:
A senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. Wilson had just revealed that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account touched off a political fracas over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.
"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.
Sources familiar with the conversations said the leakers were seeking to undercut Wilson's credibility. They alleged that Wilson, who was not a CIA employee, was selected for the Niger mission partly because his wife had recommended him. Wilson said in an interview yesterday that a reporter had told him that the leaker said, "The real issue is Wilson and his wife."
A source said reporters quoted a leaker as describing Wilson's wife as "fair game."
So, the case against Rove is so clear that it's hard to believe that the RNC and the cabal of evil GOP Wingnuts are seriously out there trying to defend a traitor who changes his lies so quickly, you get dizzy. Which is just what Rove is trying to do, keep everyone confused. Because if people are confused, they forget the fact that the acting president for domestic affairs, Karl Rove, is a traitor. And that the Republican Party and the titular President of the United States are actively defending his betrayal of America's national security.
More than whether or not Rove and other White House officials may be charged with one or more of three basic violations of the law -- outing a CIA agent, obstruction of justice and perjury -- the larger battle here is over the rule of law, justice and truth. If Rove gets away from this and is still running the domestic side of things for Bush, we might as well be living under Franco.
The war that is going on is over whether or not anyone in the Bush Administration is subject to the laws of the United States of America, subject to the truth, and subject to being punished for making our nation less secure.
The transformation of the Republican Party from a group of people that wanted the government off our backs, the championing of states rights, the avoidance of a deficit, the desire to have limited foreign engagements, a belief in limited executive branch powers, to a secretive, nearly bankrupt instigator of wars, with police powers given to the White House and our bedrooms and morality under legal surveillance has been astonishing. Bush and Rove have more in common with Joe Stalin than Abraham Lincoln. They run the country as if they ARE the Politburo.
Indeed, the conversion of the Republican Party under Bush to a cabal of power mad leaders who will condone treason and severely damaging our national security is -- in and of itself -- treason.
If Rove is indicted on one or more counts, it is not only Rove who will be punished. The Stepford Republicans who have rationalized treason as a necessary means to consolidate power may find themselves pariahs for supporting treason. And the mainstream media -- including the Washington Post and New York Times -- who have carried water for the Busheviks in their news sections -- need we say anything more than Judith Miller -- may be held in as much contempt as Rove himself.
That is why the battle for holding Rove and Bush accountable is vital to the national security of our nation -- and to democracy. (Remember there may also be a conspiracy to obstruct justice charge here, including Alberto Gonzales, who, as Attorney General, is Fitzgerald's boss -- and likely oversaw the shredding of documents when John Ashcroft gave him "extra time" to turn over TreasonGate papers when Ashcroft was AG and Gonzales was White House Counsel.) Most Americans and so-called journalists have forgotten that Bush obtained his own outside legal counsel to potentially represent him in TreasonGate in the fall of 2003.
The cult of Bushevism is fighting for its life. The pressure of Fitzgerald to let Rove off the hook must be enormous. And Janice Brown and the rest of Bush's Washington, D.C, Federal Circuit Court of Appeals hack judges are just waiting for a wink and a nod to overturn any Bush Administration convictions if there are indictments and findings of guilt.
So the obstacles to holding Rove and other White House officials accountable for their treason are formidable, even though their guilt is hidden in plain sight.
Everyone knows that the Rove "counterattack" (even though the White House lies again when it claims it can't talk about the case but unleashes Rove to furiously impugn Joe Wilson and throw up enough flak to keep the press befuddled) is about three things: 1) Saving Bush's Brain, Karl Rove, from the slammer, which would leave Bush with a frontal lobotomy; 2) Keeping the dam of Bushevik lies that led us into the Iraq war from bursting forth and finally being understood as a treason and betrayal unto itself; and 3) protecting the one-party power base of the Bush dynasty, the rabid Republicans, and the Fundamentalist Christian Jihadists.
Just remember these two words: Rove and treason.
Repeat the truth five times and people might finally understand it's the truth.
A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL