(image stolen from Americablog)
It's hard to surf the "internets" lately without running into benedict rove. I've had probably a dozen petitions emailed to me in the past two days calling for rover's resignation and/or expulsion from Our White House. With hesitant glee I sign them all and wholeheartedly agree. The president should suspend/revoke karl's security clearance privileges and then send him back to Texas. He can hang out with karen hughes and our other favorite red criminal tom delay.
The question is how long can the little prince and his flunky keep their fingers in their already cracking dyke of credibility that is currently holding back a river of rove detractors, without retracting any of the "ridiculous" statements they made during the beginning of the federal grand jury investigation? We will have to see. The "I never said her name" defense should go about as far as "it depends on what the definition of is is" did, especially since he is quoted in a Matt Cooper email referring to Valerie Plame as "wilson's wife". Legal hairsplitting didn't work for President Clinton, but the "impeachment by any means necessary" attitude of reds at that time is very different from the until recently timid Democratic Party of today.
Legality aside, what rove has done is certainly unethical and is at odds with National Security policy. He, at the very least, took part in the outing of a CIA agent for purely political purposes. It is appalling that the reds see this as fine.
Discussing classified information, especially the identity of a CIA agent, with a person who has zero security clearance, whether the party already knows the information or not, warrants a suspension of security clearance privileges. It is yet another black mark on the weak and weakening credibility of this administration, in particular, how they dealt with those critical of their march to war in Iraq. I can still see the WMD flag twirlers now.
"Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation ..."
"it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd [weapons of mass destruction] issues who authorized the trip."
- Matt Cooper's email
Whoever, as a result of having authorized access to classified information, learns the identity of a covert agent and intentionally discloses any information identifying such covert agent to any individual not authorized to receive classified information, knowing that the information disclosed so identifies such covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent’s intelligence relationship to the United States, shall be fined not more than $25,000 or imprisoned not more than five years, or both.
- 50 USC 421(b)
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