I’d like to know who asked Scottie the following question today.
Q Yes, thank you. There has been a lot of speculation concerning the meaning of the underlying statute and the grand jury investigation concerning Mr. Rove. The question is, have the legal counsel to the White House or White House staff reviewed the statute in sufficient specificity to determine whether a violation of that statute would, in effect, constitute treason?
MR. McCLELLAN: I think that in terms of decisions regarding the investigation, those are matters for those overseeing the investigation to decide.
Q Thank you.
MR. McCLELLAN: Thank you.
Whoever it was, kudos to them for rattling the cage.
From BTC News via Atrios it’s the new Air America White House reporter.
Paul Sanford, a lawyer from Aptos, California, who has just been accredited as a White House reporter for Air America Radio. His first day on the job.
Thank you, and welcome to the site.
See Scotty sweat…sweet!
BWAHAHAHAHAHAHA
The prosecutor is not the commander-in-chief. The President is, and in that role he has shown a strange eagerness to bypass judicial review on the flimsiest of scares.
Under what restrictions does Mr. Rove still haunt the White House?
A suspicion of treason, contested only by thin lies and thick smears, perhaps does not qualify Mr. Rove for Guantanamo Bay. But while we quibble about whether it constitutes treason, isn’t his action heinous enough on the face of it to expel him from the White House?
For the record, I would not call Nigergate an act of treason. However, depending on facts unknown, I might call it (multiple counts of?) negligent homicide.
Rove, at a minimum, appears to have knowingly aided enemies of the United States, even if doing so was not his direct objective. The Niger aspect of the larger concatenation of subterfuge might not qualify as treason, if one is reluctant to find treason, or if one is reluctant to recognize an enemy.
But the entire operation channeled through Project for a New American Century and nurtured by a variety of foreign sponsors will be a historical marker warning about the dangers of intelligence units that practice regime change, resent the restraints of democracy, and with the sanction of one internal party, freelance among half-legitimate despots and commodity consortiums.
While we debate whether the Sons of Singlaub are heroes, Teheran, Moscow, Damascus, Beijing have long ago answered a different question: How to take advantage of these American agents, who but for their Republican rationalizers and pardoners, would already be known as the traitorous defectors that they are.
Instead they occupy offices at the highest levels of our government.
I love it.
Treason, historically, requires intent. I very much doubt if Rove acted in the belief that it would aid enemies of the United States. Much more likely, he believed that the work done by Valerie Plame and others like her was irrelevant. Remember, these people believe they create reality; they have no need for pesky intelligence findings.
We should be very leery of sliding down the slippery slope of declaring that any action which could conceivably aid an enemy of the United States is an act of treason. That’s a great way to make dissent treasonous.
Consider this: Oleg Kalugin, former Major General in the KGB, was once asked by Ted Koppel if the Soviet Union was behind the peace movement in the 60’s. Kalugin said no, but went on to add that the KGB very carefully avoided tampering with the peace movement because it was so effective at undermining the US in Southeast Asia and advancing the Soviet cause that they feared if a KGB spy were discovered in the peace movement, the movement would be discredited and the great value it provided to the USSR would be lost. Does that make every peace protestor a traitor? Arguably, if it causes the nation to withdraw from a war prior to achieving victory, it does.
Let’s not go that way, okay?
I still hold.
This administration carries the fruits of a long legacy of American intelligence operatives who, enjoying various dodges of accountability through shifty organization charts and private-sector hideouts, have been drawn into the employ of foreign powers. Because the Iran-Contra embarassment did not put them out of business, it demonstrated their immunity, it enlarged their menu of services, and it made them bankable worldwide.
They know how to subvert the press, how to stage phony movements, how to puppet opponents, how to install native kleptocrats into power. Those are their skills. They have gotten better and acquired greater resources.
They believed that the work of Valerie Plame was irrelevant because Plame reported to a chain of accountability anchored to an American democracy that allowed the likes of Bill Clinton to gain office. They believe the American enemy is equally internal, and so to say that they do not believe that they were aiding the enemy begs the question. Thus my obtuse snark: “if one is reluctant to find treason, or if one is reluctant to recognize an enemy.”
Rove’s aim was to damage American defenses. To what end? Political embarrassment is a stretch. It is because Cheney ordered up a lie but got back truth, and when his gang couldn’t suppress that truth, they took measures to quash an ungovernable asset. There is a war between the legitimate American intelligence services and this network of rogues, and now the rogues decide who gets clearances and who gets betrayed.
If they did not commit treason, it is because of a technicality; i.e., they are the enemy.
this new Congressional committee on national security and espionage issues should ask when it meets after the August recess.
Only sworn testimony taken, Mr. McClellan.