Joe Conason: It's finally time for Bush to answer questions about Libby

[babylonsister]

http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason/2007/07/13/plame_wilson/

It's finally time for Bush to answer questions about Libby

Why not start with releasing the transcripts of Bush and Cheney's interviews with special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald?

By Joe Conason

snip//

Now that the leak prosecution has ended with Bush's silencing of Libby -- the only potential stool pigeon who could implicate him and Vice President Cheney in the vicious and unpatriotic "outing" of Valerie Plame Wilson -- he says instead that it is time to move on. Yet all of the lingering questions still require real answers.

Those questions began to pile up as long ago as September 2003, even before the Bush administration named U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to investigate the Wilson leak as special counsel. That was when Bush reportedly told his aides, including Karl Rove, who was later proved to have leaked Valerie Plame Wilson's identity to Time magazine, "I want to get to the bottom of this." Publicly the president complained about the leak and vowed, "If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action."

That was also when Bush's press secretary declared that the president considered the Wilson leak to be "a very serious matter" and stated that the president would fire any official found to be responsible for the leak. "If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration," said Scott McClellan, then the president's spokesman. "There's been nothing, absolutely nothing, brought to our attention to suggest any White House involvement."

Whether McClellan and Bush were lying back then or not -- and they probably were -- much information later came to the incurious president's attention that demonstrated the dishonorable "involvement" of his staff beyond a reasonable doubt. Sworn testimony showed that the leakers included not only Libby, but former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, former press secretary Ari Fleischer, and of course Karl Rove.

All left public service under one circumstance or another, with their reputations dented or destroyed, except for Rove -- who has suffered no consequences whatsoever for his role in revealing the identity of a covert CIA agent who devoted 20 years of her life to this country. Now that the president can no longer hide behind the "current prosecution" excuse, he deserves to be asked why Rove is still collecting a paycheck from the U.S. Treasury and continues to hold a security clearance.

Then there is the problem of Vice President Cheney, who obviously orchestrated Libby's leak to New York Times reporter Judith Miller and the entire campaign against Valerie Plame Wilson. Plame Wilson was a casualty of Cheney's vendetta against her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who dared to expose the lies and forgeries at the center of the argument for war against Iraq.

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[emulatorloo]

1. Kick and nominated. Conason is top notch n/t

[Spazito]

2. I always wait in anticipation to read a Joe Conason article...

he NEVER disappoints!

Thanks for posting this.

Recommended.