ibenez wrote:

Neoteric wrote:

Mike the Usurper wrote:

Bush said in June 2004 that he would fire anyone in his administration shown to have leaked information that exposed the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame. On Monday, however, he added the qualifier that it would have be shown that a crime was committed.

So now you need to have done something more than be unethical and harmful to the nation, you need to have done so criminally? I suppose that's fair, since holding by the earlier standard the changes in White House appointee payroll would have made a significant dent in the deficit...

This is the most clear example of this administration protecting it's own and not holding itself accountable to the American people. This administration is externalizing it's failures to the media. That's not right and not what we need in goverment leadership.

So then should BJ Clinton have quit after lying under oath which is a crime? BJ had to question the meaning of the word "is" for pete's sake.

I'd like to hear your thoughts on why BJ Clinton wasn't fired AFTER being found guilty of lying under oath before I entertain the notion of Satan (I mean Rove) being fired.

My response to this is that I don't have any sympathy for what Clinton in that regard either. I understand WHY he did it, and what he did there was not different than any other guy who gets caught with his hand in the cookie box, but doesn't want to end up in divorce court.

The question is, "what was he lying about?" Clinton was lying about not getting a little, in a civil proceeding funded by folks on the other side of the aisle (the Paula Jones case). The proceedings there were not because anyone had, or may have, broken the law, they were there because somebody thought that it would be a great way to score points on a sitting president by going after him as a philanderer.

I am going to say uncategorically, the people involved in that operation and this one are nothing short of treasonous. Their actions in both cases have acted to harm the security of this nation.

In the Jones case it prevented Clinton from taking actions that should have been taken because they would have caused aditional political problems. The Lewinski scandal manufactured by the disloyal opposition meant that operations against Al-Qaeda in the 90's did not happen. If they had, the disloyal opposition would have used that as further ammunition saying that this had been done to distract attention from the personal problems. Their actions stopped operations that could have stopped Bin Ladin in 1998 and 9/11 would have never happened.

In the current case of Karl Rove and Scooter Libby exposing a covert operative, they have done DIRECT harm to the intelligence gathering abilities of the United States. Prior to this exposure, she was in a perfect place to work from. The wife of an Ambassador without Portfolio? With the attention on him as special envoy, she's pretty much got free reign. That's over. Not only that, but every person she has been in contact with in every country is not under suspicion of compromise. Every intelligence source that she had been in contact with or recruited is lost.

Their agenda does nothing to move this country forward. We overthrew Afghanistan. Fine, the place was a disaster. It served as a place to foment problems worlwide. But then they didn't bother to finish the job. Heroin production is UP since we went in. The place is still a mess. We tried, and failed, to overthrow the government of Venezuala. We invaded and removed Saddam, a total bastard, a bastard WE created, and it's been replaced by a place that makes the Balkans look at stable as Gibraltar.

Their domestic agenda says get rid of abortion and don't let gays get married, but does nothing about the fact that a tens of millions of people can't afford health care while at the same time cutting back on the money that the richest of the rich were paying in to try to support that. It pushes forward the religious agenda of a fundamentalist minority. They have pushed out people of conscience and competence in favor of bullies and sycophants. They have sacrificed the high moral standards that America has strived for, civil rights, human rights, equality, and liberty on an altar of greed and "family values."

Clinton lied in a civil trial about getting a blow job from an aide. I'm not happy about his lying under oath, and I'm not happy about him boinking Monica. Neither of those had any effect on the safety, stability or capabilities of this country. The actions of Rove, Libby and the backers of Jones had direct consequences on the National Security. They shouldn't be fired, they should be sent to Guantanamo, the un-American prison they helped create.

RE: Bush: Any Criminals in Leak to Be Fired