REPUBLICANS MUST CHOOSE: BUSH OR AMERICA?

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http://news./s/ucru/20050719/cm_ucru/republicansmustchoosebushoramerica

 

REPUBLICANS MUST CHOOSE: BUSH OR AMERICA?

 

 

 

By Ted Rall Mon Jul 18, 8:05 PM ET

 

NEW YORK-- " Karl Rove is loyal to

President Bush, " a correspondent wrote as Treasongate broke. " Isn't

that a form of patriotism? " Not in a representative democracy, I

replied. Only in a dictatorship is fealty to the Leader equal to

loyalty to the nation. We're Bush's boss. He works for us. Unless that

changed on 9/11 (or 12/20/00). Rove had no right to give away state

secrets, even to protect Bush.

 

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Newly loquacious Time reporter Matt Cooper has deflated half a dozen

Rove-defending talking points since we last visited. Republicans, for

instance, have argued that Rove had merely confirmed what Cooper

already knew: that Valerie Plame was a

CIA agent. That claim evaporated in Cooper's piece in the magazine's

July 25 issue: " This was the first time I had heard anything about

Wilson's wife. "

 

" I've already said too much, " Cooper quotes Rove as he ended their

2003 conversation.

 

Rove may avoid prosecution under the Intelligence Identities and

Protection Act, says John Dean, counsel at the Nixon White House.

" There is, however, evidence suggesting that other laws were

violated, " he says, alluding to Title 18, Section 641 of the U.S.

Code. The " leak of sensitive [government] information " for personal

purposes--say, outting the CIA wife of your boss' enemy--is " a very

serious crime, " according to the judge presiding over a similar recent

case. If convicted under the anti-leak statute, Rove would face ten

years in a federal prison.

 

Even if Rove originally learned about Plame's status from jailed New

York Times journalist Judith Miller, Dean continues, " it could make

for some interesting pairing under the federal conspiracy statute

(which was the statute most commonly employed during Watergate). "

Conspiracy will get you five years at Hotel Graybar.

 

Rove's betrayal of a CIA WMD expert--while the U.S. was using WMDs as

a reason to invade

Iraq--is virtually indistinguishable from

Robert Hanssen's selling out of American spies. Both allowed America's

enemies to learn the identities of covert operatives. Both are

traitors. Both are eligible for the death penalty.

 

And he's not the only high-ranking Bush Administration traitor.

 

In last week's column I speculated that Treasongate would almost

certainly implicate

Dick Cheney. Now, according to Time, Cheney chief of staff Lewis

" Scooter " Libby is being probed as a second source of leaks to

reporters about Plame.

 

We already know that Rove is a traitor. So, probably, is Cheney. Since

George W. Bush has protected traitors for at least two years; he is

therefore an accomplice to the Rove-Libby cell. We are long past the

point where, during the summer of 1974, GOP senators led by Barry

Goldwater told

Richard Nixon that he had to resign. So why aren't Turd Blossom and

his compadres out of office and awaiting trial?

 

Democrats are out of power. And, sadly, Republicans have become so

obsessed with personal loyalty that they've forgotten that their first

duty is to country, not party or friend. Unless they wake up soon and

dump Bush, Republicans could be permanently discredited.

 

Bush sets the mafia-like tone: " I'm the kind of person, when a friend

gets attacked, I don't like it. " His lieutenants blur treason with

hardball politics-- " [Democrats] just aren't coming forward with any

policy positions that would change the country, so they want to pick

up whatever the target of the week is and make the most out of that, "

says GOP House Whip Roy Blunt--and blame the victim--Rove, absurdly

argues Congresswoman Deborah Pryce, was innocently trying to expose

Wilson's " lies. "

 

The NBC/Wall Street Journal poll finds Bush's credibility at 41

percent, down from 50 in January. Given events past and present,

that's still a lot higher than it ought to be.

 

We don't need a law to tell us that unmasking a CIA agent,

particularly during wartime, is treasonous. Every patriotic

American--liberal, conservative, or otherwise--knows that.