Does the United States still care when its citizens commit acts of treason during wartime? If so, then Karl Rove may be in a bit of trouble.
For the past couple years, federal investigators have been pursuing a couple of journalists who have refused to reveal the names of the "high ranking" Bush administration officials who leaked the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame either directly to reporters, or to others in the White House (who lacked proper security clearance) who in turn leaked the name to reporters. According to Plame's husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, this was done in retaliation for his revealing that one of Bush's main pieces of evidence proving Saddam Hussein was building WMD was false.
George Bush Sr. described the outing of an undercover federal agent as an act of treason. Whether that's true as a matter of law is debatable, but it is at least a federal crime. Time Magazine decided to release reporter Matthew Cooper's notes to the federal prosecutors, and according to early reports, those notes name Bush political advisor Karl Rove as the source who leaked the CIA operative's name to the Media.
From Editor & Publisher:
In another development, senior MSNBC political analyst Lawrence O'Donnell said Friday night on the TV talk show The McLaughlin Group that he had learned that the Cooper documents reveal White House aide Karl Rove as the source.
In a functioning democracy with a responsible bipartisan government, Karl Rove would be prosecuted for committing a federal crime, and possibly for treason. He would surely lose his job, in any case, but would likely spend several years behind bars (or worse, considering the penalty for treason during wartime).
Ssomeone who commits treason against the United States should be punished, even if that person resides in the halls of power. But the history of the last five years has shown that the one-party government refuses to condemn - much less prosecute - its own operatives when their wrongdoings are discovered. I think it'll play out this way:
The White House will first say the documents are all wrong. They'll deny the accuracy, unless corroborating reports come out from some other reporter. They'll point to the fact that Time's Matthew Cooper never wrote a story about this, and say that the reason he didn't write a story was because he didn't have enough evidence (they'll ignore the fact that a source isn't evidence, and simply try to discredit the reporter's notes).
If that fails, three or four days later they'll start arguing that outing a CIA operative isn't really treason if that CIA operative isn't doing her job well (even though, by all credible accounts, she was). At the same time, they'll disparage Valerie Plame's character, imply she was doing something unworthy of a CIA operative (by implying she had her husband sent to Niger to purposely discredit Bush). They'll dig up any other dirt on Plame and Wilson, and if there isn't any they'll actually start referring to her as a woman who led a double life (making her undercover status into something sinister). Half the country will willfully swallow all this and start repeating these disingenuous arguments rather than believe their leaders have done something wrong. They'll believe Rove was simply doing the patriotic thing by protecting the Commander in Chief from a rogue CIA operative.
Rumsfeld and Cheney will make the talk show rounds, saying this is "old news," it's "been investigated over and over again" and that "the American people" don't care about it, and the Media will believe that.
Democrats will loudly call for Rove's firing and prosecution (and NO Republicans, not even the widely-respected John McCain, will join them), and the Republicans will point to that, claiming it's a partisan witch hunt. Porter Goss, the Bush operative the Administration installed in the CIA, will appear on the Sunday shows and say it's not a big deal, and then the White House will say "even the CIA says there was no wrongdoing here."
The Media will ignore the seriousness of the charge, and help the Republican government cast this as a partisan attack by talking only about the effectiveness (or lack thereof) of "Democratic attempts to paint this in a negative light".
If all else fails, something will come along to distract the news media eventually, whether that's by Administration design or simply the fact that today's Media has ADD, and within one to two months, it will all be forgotten. And if anyone tries to bring it back up, the Media and the Republican regime will accuse them of rehashing old news that doesn't really matter.
Just watch.
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