BuzzFlash Reviews

BUZZFLASH REVIEWS

In writing a review of this extraordinary book about the PlameGate/TreasonGate crime -- written by a citizen journalist, blogger Marcy Wheeler -- we have to take a deep breath for several reasons.

First of all, what Wheeler accomplishes as an unpaid journalistic investigator (she works as a full-time business consultant, out of Ann Arbor, unrelated to politcs) so thoroughly shames the corporate media, it is breathtaking. You realize, in the end, that the corporate media, exists in large part, to protect the status quo. So, they minimized the colossal treason and national betrayal of outing a CIA operative specializing in the illicit sale of Weapons of Mass Destruction, even though we invaded Iraq in large part because the Bush Administration deceitfully claimed that Saddam Hussein had WMDs.

Wheeler connects the dots, using a computer in her Midwest home, even though billions of dollars are spent on so-called reporters, who really are sentinels paid to propagate the "official" perpsective and to cover up the truth, rather than expose it.

(We told you once we got going on this subject, it would be hard to stop.)

Secondly, BuzzFlash was right there at the beginning of PlameGate and bringing it to light, though we have long since left it to others to ferret out the details.

Like many, we read Robert Novak's original column outing Plame with curiosity the day it came out --and made a mental note of the seemingly treasonous revealing of a CIA undercover staffer. But we didn't have time to follow-up on it, until we read a David Corn column in The Nation, shortly thereafter, suggesting that the two senior administration officials who Novak claimed told him about Plame might have been guilting of violating a law making it illegal to reveal a CIA staffer working under cover (in essence).

BuzzFlash then immediately called Corn and did several pieces drawing attention to Corn's column and the importance of the betrayal that had occurred in the Novak commentary.

The mainstream press, as usual, shrugged off the outrageous misconduct, until enough Internet buzz crossed over into the corporate media, but really only when the CIA filed an official request that the Department of Justice open a criminal inquiry into the leak did the D.C. press corps take an interest.

It was at that point that Bush claimed he would fire anyone involved in such a leak -- even though we now know (from the Libby trial) that meant Bush would have to fire himself. Ashcroft, then Attorney General, was forced by the CIA's official request for a criminal investigation to "personally" oversee a cover-up of the White House crime.

Fortunately, it appears that a revolt among career Justice Department attorneys forced Ashcroft's hand and he finally recused himself from the "investigation" (aka damage control operation until then) due to a "conflict of interest."

And that is when Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed as an internal DOJ Special Counsel -- and the journey began to the current Libby trial.

What Wheeler does in this remarkable book is what the national press corps refused to do: she fleshes out the details (and this was released just before the Libby trial began)and gives the real crime of TreasonGate/ PlameGate the context it deserves.

This was a betrayal of our national security of the highest order. Bush, Cheney, Libby, Rove -- and others -- burned a CIA specialist in WMDs -- and her network -- in order to save themselves and send a message to whistleblowers that anyone who challenged them would be ruined, no matter the cost to America's national security. (It may also be the case that Valerie Plame, as implied in one of our BuzzFlash interviews with Joe Wilson, knew too much about Iran's WMD capabilities and might have been a potential thorn into the current WH propaganda campaign for nuking Iran.)

Osama bin Laden couldn't have done more harm to our national security than the White House did.

Marcy Wheeler understood that and set out to set the record straight -- which she does with remarkable skill, documentation and readability.

This is a book that could not be more timely or necessary to the future of the American republic. We highly, highly recommend it.

As Wheeler trenchantly notes in her epilogue: "For all its unique scope and striking characters, the CIA leak case is in many ways just the archetypal story of the failures of of insider D.C. culture, in which reporters have become so addicted to acess that they can no longer report responsibly on the workings of our nation's capital."

(As we noted, we can write endlessly about this subject, but if you are looking for interesting dots to connect, here's another one. When Judith Miller's "embed" unit was going to be transferred from Baghdad, she basically commandeered it to write pro-Administration WMD stories from the perspective of Ahmed Chalabi, the darling of the Busheviks.

If she left Baghdad, Chalabi wouldn't be able to feed her stories. So someone in the military came to her rescue to keep her doing her job for the administration. Who might that be? Well, as Wheeler documents, it was none other than General David Petraeus, who is now heading the propaganda-driven escalation of troops in Iraq. Petraeus prevailed: the specialized army unit stayed put in Baghdad. As Wheeler notes, "thus it happened that a civilian journalist overrode military orders so her team could remain in Baghdad with Chalabi.")

One final note, "Anatomy of Deceit" is published jointly by DailyKos and FireDogLake, who have formed Vaster Books to encourage citizen journalism. Hats off to them.


BUZZFLASH REVIEWS