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Tue. Sep 30, 2003

Defending Premeditated Felonious Stupidity

Defending Premeditated Felonious Stupidity – The rationalizations on this one that I’m reading in comments around the web are amazing (”To be blunt, it was another cheap attempt to harm President Bush [...] this alleged scandal would never have made it to the front pages if Bill Clinton were still in office [...] the law was not broken”). In essence, there are a lot of people saying the leaking by two members of the White House staff doesn’t matter, because [1] Wilson’s wife was not an undercover operative, merely an ”analyst” (since proven false), and/or, [2] since she suffered no harm from this leak, there was no harm done (the ”I shot the gun but didn’t hit you” defense), and/or, [3] Joe Wilson is a liberal Moonbat (the suggestion being he must be part of a conspiracy to attack Bush, and therefore is fair game … but Liberal Moonbats don’t donate $1000 to the Bush 2000 Election campaign).

OK. Let’s assume that all three of those things are true. Does that mean it is a morally and strategically sound move to attempt to weaken a foe by attacking their family, their wife? Even under the above circumstances, is that something the White House thinks is a viable tactic to use against opponents?

To read some of the things I have today, there are a lot of people who’d be just fine with that. But they seem to have painted themselves into that corner as a result of trying to wriggle around the apparent facts of this case.

Even if Joe Wilson is the Devil, and his wife wears a red dress, there was a wrong committed here. This was not a ”defense” drawn from the playbook of Compassionate Conservatism. Some are saying this was a use of national security information in an attempt to gain political advantage.

Maybe. But I’m not going to gum up the works with such complications. For me, it’s pretty simple. At least two people in the Bush administration wanted to damage an ”enemy’s” credibility so bad … they went after his wife.

Go ahead, defend that.

Later: When I said Joe Wilson is ”getting propagandized into something he isn’t,” this is what I mean: ”Clinton appointee Joseph Wilson [...] has a vested interest in this story having legs and seems to be enjoying the celebrity it has brought to him [...] Which brings us to a unique circumstance of history where an anti-Bush, pro-Bathist partisan, with no investigative experience, and prone to exaggeration went to Niger to verify the Italian ’yellocake’ report. Kinda makes you wonder, doesn’t it?”

Yes, it does make me wonder. Why would an Anti-Bush partisan donate $1,000 to the Bush 2000 campaign? Why would a pro-Ba’athist have been quoted in a December, 1990, interview about Iraq on all three networks as saying, ”This is the one country in which I’ve served where I didn’t have a friend or colleague in the President’s inner circle.” Why would he travel to Africa on his own time and money as a private citizen, to perform a favor for the administration of a man he supposedly opposed? Could it have been he did it at the explicit request of members of the CIA, or did he perhaps psychically manipulate them into asking him?

Joe Wilson has worked in the State Department under Carter, Reagan, Bush, and Clinton. He began serving his country in 1976, while others among his age peers were doing other things.

The way he is being painted with such a broad brush, nay, smeared, is indicative of the state of partisan politics in this country.

And it’s sickening.