PoliBlog: Another Ideological Test: The Plame Version

October 03, 2024

Another Ideological Test: The Plame Version

I already posted one ideological test today, so here's another, this time dealing with the Plame affair. which is also a test of intellectual honesty:

1) You are a hard-core Democrat/anti-Bushite if you come at this story from the fact that it almost certainly was Karl Rove who did the leaking. And that really, this defines your whole perception of the affair. Further, if it was Rove, Bush had to have known about it.

A slightly diluted version would be that the phrases "the White House" or "the Administraion" means that Buch is guilty, QED.

2) You are a diehard Bushite if your point of departure is that Novak said she was just an analyst, therefore there was no crime here.

I would define the reasonable position as acknowledging at least the following:

An acknowledgement that we don’t know who the leaker is, and the only people who know for sure are: the leaker him/herself and the journalists to whom the info was leaked. (Although much guessing has ensued, such as here and here).

That it has now been firmly established that Plame was undercover(CalPunidt has an interesting list of quotes on this topic), BUT that the degree of damage to Plame, the CIA and US intelligence in general has not yet been determined.

That it is possible that no one of great consequence will be implicated here, and indeed, it may be that no one of great consequence is culpable; and, conversely, that it is possible that someone of consequence is guilty. We really don't know.

That calls for a Special Counsel, at this stage, are motivated more by politics than a thirst for justice--as are calls not to have one. Democrats have to deal with the fact that they hated the way Clinton was dealt with by Starr, and Republicans have to admit that they liked it--and that many on both sides are being a tad hypocritical at this stage on the topic of independent investigations of the executive branch.

Posted by Steven Taylor at October 3, 2024 01:40 PM | TrackBack

Comments

The ideological test is to put the anti-christ of the other party in the same position as your guy is and then answer the question. For us, it's well, what if this was Bill Clinton (or Al Gore) and ask what we would do.

I have to say, I'd be acting the same if it was Bill or Al. Sorry.

So, on to your points:

1) Given. But just because the identities are not known to those of us in the cheap seats doesn't mean that they don't exist, and that the so called moral authority that the Right believes this administration has is the only reason the identities are not now known.

2)The CIA, itself, has said there was severe damage to national security. Just because we, in the cheap seats, don't know what the damage is doesn't mean that we have reason to suspect their isn't any. Saying that it's "unclear" what the damage is, is simply ignoring the fact that the CIA has already assessed it and said "It's very damaging". CIA could be wrong, but I wouldn't want to bet against it. If you are, then you're doing so out of ideology.

3) The identity of the agents isn't something that no one of consequence would know. Sure, I could be missing something here, but I know that the identity of undercover agents isn't given out to people without a need to know. To think otherwise is simply ideological nonsense.

4)If you don't know who the leakers are, and all signs point to someone high (because of three) then you have an obvious conflict of interest. Again, using Ashcroft's own words regarding Clinton's investigation, we should have a special counsel. If it's a good enough standard for a blow job, it's a good enough standard for national security. It's pure ideology to suggest otherwise.

Sorry, I just don't think the hand waving is going to have much effect when you're up against the CIA and the performance of the right so far shows a heck of a lot of hypocrisy.

Posted by: JohnC at October 4, 2024 02:19 PM