Karl Rove commits treason

[argonaut]

It's been a tough summer to be an American. Seems like every day I open the newspaper to another story that makes me cringe or roll my eyes. A particular galling one was a few weeks ago, when the Supreme Court bowed to the Great God of Development and ruled that Eminent Domain could be extended (for the third time) to include seizure of property for private use. This means that literally any homeowner can be forced to give up his land to help fill the pockets of greedy developers promising tax dollars to the local government. But I digress.

Today's news brought the answer to the two year old question of who leaked Valierie Flame's identity to the press. Ms. Flame is a CIA operative, and the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson. Her identity was leaked to Time magazine after Wilson made some critical remarks about the Bush administration. At the time, Bush promised to find and dismiss whoever leaked the information. The exact quote is "If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."

Well it turns out 'the person' is none other than presidential advisor Karl Rove, who was suspected of being the leak in the first place. His lawyer admitted as much, after Time reporter Matthew Cooper gave up his source rather than go to jail.

This, to me, is the Bush Administration in microcosm: Acting out of spite, endangering the country's interests, and selling out good people trying to work on our behalf, all because of a complete intolerance of anyone who holds differing opinions and cares to voice them.

So, will Bush keep his word and fire the miscreant? Will Rove do the honorable thing and resign? Congressional democrats are predictably seizing the opportunity to throw a little mud around, but that's never had much effect in the past. My guess is that we'll see the usual response to when their ways and flaws are exposed. They'll close ranks and repeat some old lies, or make up new ones.

[t3]

A particular galling one was a few weeks ago, when the Supreme Court bowed to the Great God of Development and ruled that Eminent Domain could be extended (for the third time) to include seizure of property for private use. This means that literally any homeowner can be forced to give up his land to help fill the pockets of greedy developers promising tax dollars to the local government.

Yeah, but it seems there's such a thing as karma after all: http://www.freestarmedia.com/hotellostliberty2.html

Anyways, I don't really read/watch the news, but I've read enough of Mad magazine's annual top 20 dumbest events lists to know that the supreme court hasn't exactly been on the ball of late.

[~V+]

Send him to jail.

[implode]

i'll bet he resigns. bush will have no problem keeping him as close as he was to him (and probably still on the payroll, unofficially) without his title.

honestly, i don't know nearly enough about this, though - i keep getting MoveOn.org e-mails about it, because of some petition i signed to "save" some civil liberty i've forgotten about long, long ago. i usually just disregard the e-mails as propaganda and research the topic on my own time, but i just got the e-mail like less than an hour ago, so i haven't gotten the chance yet - did rove's lawyer implicitly say that <i>he leaked the source</i>, or simply that he was somehow involved in the whole affair? because if he only said that he was involved, he could certainly dodge behind the "oh, well, i meant i knew about wilson's trip to africa" defense or something equally as crafty, and we'll never actually know the truth.

FUCKING CHRIST. i'm so SICK of being kept in the dark by my own government. i understand that there are things that we're simply better off not knowing, but couldn't you just SAY that to us, then? do you really need to create this tapestry of fucking lies in order to effectively govern? because, you know, if that's the case, maybe you should just chalk yourself up as being ineffective and step down, already, instead of continuing to subvert the same democracy you're <i>killing</i> to spread to the farthest reaches of the world.

the hotel of lost liberty is brilliant. three cheers for that guy.

[SLUM WIZZARD]

the Supreme Court bowed to the Great God of Development and ruled that Eminent Domain could be extended (for the third time) to include seizure of property for private use. This means that literally any homeowner can be forced to give up his land to help fill the pockets of greedy developers promising tax dollars to the local government. But I digress.
Oh shit.
They're building a huge marketplace like, right down the street from my house, and from what I hear every single one of my friends in the neighborhood are going to have to move.

This does not make it better.

(I'd like to see someone get fired. Just because)

[argonaut]

...did rove's lawyer implicitly say that he leaked the source, or simply that he was somehow involved in the whole affair?
As I understand it, it went like this:

The CIA got all bunched up over the leak, and demanded that the reporters reveal their sources. The Justice department got behind them, and threatened to send the reporters to jail, something about a threat to national security overriding a reporter's right to protect their sources (another discussion to be had, there). One of the reporters - Judith Miller from the New York Times - was sent to jail rather than comply with the investigation. The other reporter - Cooper - ended up cooperating with the investigators. He gave up Rove's name, along with supporting notes and e-mails. In the face of the evidence, Rove's lawyer issued a statement acknowleding it.

It seems a pretty clear picture, good because Bush isn't fond of grey areas. It will be interesting to see the response.