The Dark Lord

This is my last post before leaving for vacation. I'll be camping in Colorado, far from the drumbeat that is life in the blogosphere, but with a copy of Harry Potter and the Half-blood Prince I hope to pick up between midnight and 6am Saturday morning somewhere near El Paso. Escapism at its finest - hiking, fishing and fighting the Dark Lord with the boy who lived.

Speaking of the Dark Lord...

Karl Rove is in the gunsight of everyone left of center around the country. I'd post a link, but it would be pointless. Pick a blog on our roll to the right and you will doubtlessly be treated to endless chatter about what he did and why he should be fired. The MSM has joined in the fight, mostly because they are pissed that Scott McClellan lied to them two years ago and is freezing them out now. Democratic lawmakers are staying somewhat above the fray publicly, but rubbing their hands greedily and deal-making privately, while the omnipresent perusal of Rove is elsewhere engaged.

Republicans are handing out talking points as fast and furiously as possible, trying to spin the story into politics as usual. The way they see it the whole thing is Wilson/Plame's fault to begin with, forcing themselves on the CIA through the Niger trip, then lying or being incompetent in reporting their findings, forcing Karl Rove to report both this and Valerie Plame's identity to reporters so they wouldn't get the idea that there were no WMD in Iraq and Saddam had not tried to buy yellow-cake uranium from Niger as the president had stated. Disagree with this administration and you deserve what you get!

My favorite claim by the right is that Wilson was only given the Niger job as a favor to his wife and they should both be condemned for their nepotism. This from the people who think Bush has done ANYTHING in his life on his own merits, that Tom DeLay's wife & daughter deserves $500,000 for their work on his re-election campaign, and that the McClellan bros won their places in government without any help from mama. Who you know (or are related to) does help in this world. Not everyone who was helped along by a familial relationship is incompetent; it should never be an excuse for endangering lives.

There is a lot of information to sort through, much of it boring, most of it misleading, but distilled to its essence, there is this:

Valerie Plame was a CIA agent, undercover for ten years or more. Yes, when she married and had twins, it forced her to "retire" from the cover life the CIA had created for her, but the intelligence information trails she forged while a covert operative were still open for CIA use. Many people vouched for Valerie Plame, introduced her around, invited her to parties and allowed her to gain secret information on WMD around the world and share it with our government. These people are still there, in the countries where she worked, now exposed as traitors and spies themselves and no longer available as assets to our government at a time when the kind of information they provide is invaluable and necessary to our national security. Rove admits exposing Valerie Plame and her CIA cover. Whether he did so deliberately (therefore illegally) or inadvertently (and irresponsibly), his actions constitute a breach of his duty to this country and he should respectfully resign. Failing that the President has no alternative but to terminate his employment and sever his relationship with his long-standing advisor.

While we are all discussing this inevitable conclusion, soldiers and civilians die in Iraq and Afghanistan, the budget deficit grows, detainees in Gitmo are humiliated and tortured, civil liberties are taken by the Patriot Act, terrorists grow more brazen and embolden and the world wonders where is this great democracy the Bush administration likes to gloat about.

And the beat goes on...