Those Americans who have been paying attention understand that Karl Rove is the very essence of a political bully - he and the Vice President orchestrated an entire cabal of White House officials to "shop" the name of CIA Covert Operations Officer Valerie Plame Wilson around to Washington press reporters, hoping that one or several of those reporters would write Plame's name into an article that would unmask her secret identity worldwide.
And the president is caught there on audio and video tape, saying "IF there is a leaker from within my White House, I will ask them to resign."
But as we heard from the Republican Representatives, and from former Republican official Victoria Toensig yesterday at the House Committee conducting the CIA 'outing' hearings, the new White House defense for the allegations of "outing" CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the press and world, is that NO ONE KNEW Ms. Plame was actually "covert."
IF this excuse is truly the reason Ms. Plame's identity was mentioned so frequently and casually by senior White House officials - what Ms. Plame calls "AN ABUSE" of her covert identity - then it was a GRAVE BREACH OF the DETAILED RULES for dealing with classified government information; and there should have been a COMMENSURATE INTERNAL INVESTIGATION into abuse of security clearances.
If, on the other hand, senior White House officials DID realize that Ms. Plame's very covert identity was in fact CLASSIFIED information - and those White House officials systematically "outed" her identity to the DC press corps anywayws, then THAT is a SERIOUS CRIME, one that former President George H.W. Bush (Sr.) declared was "most insidious treason" when he attended the 1999 ceremony at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, to mark the new law specifically making a felony of such an activity.
Either way, THERE WERE EITHER SERIOUS CLASSIFIED SECURITY BREACHES from WITHIN the Bush-Cheney White House, OR THERE WAS A CRIMINAL CONSPIRACY to DESTROY the covert identity of a CIA agent, and an ENTIRE CIA cover company (Brewster-Jennings Energy Consultants Co., what Ms. Plame explained was a large and meticulously crafted COVERT OPERATIONS NETWORK - a large and expensive network casually tossed into the trash-heap by the Bush White House, in all probability that "trashing" effort overseen by KARL ROVE if not by the Vice President himself.
Not only did President Bush feign IGNORANCE that a covert CIA operation had been destroyed..... not only did President Bush feign ignorance that that disclosure had come from within his own White House regarding that infamous July 14, 2003 article 'outing' Ms. Plame by Chicago Sun-Time writer BOB NOVAK.. BUT today, in March of 2007, the Bush White House HAS YET to run even a PRELIMINARY INVESTIGATION into the use of CLASSIFIED INFORMATION in a reckless, abusive, or even merely "casual" way.
And, as usual, our SENATE DEMOCRATS are SO CONCERNED WITH UPHOLDING the STATUS QUO - million dollar campaign donations from wealthy donors and corporations - that they see to not notice, or not care, about ABUSE OF CLASSIFIED INFORMATION from within that Bush White House.
