If you choose to stand on the moral high ground, prepare to be struck down by lightning especially if you are a shameless right-wing hypocrite.
Bill Bennett, one of the right-wing’s moral embarrassments and already fried by a couple of lightning bolts himself, has decided that we on the left aren’t outraged enough by the recent leak of the revelations of secret CIA prisons.
Yes – that Bill Bennett – author of The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories who was outed as a problem gambler in 2003 and who, in September, 2005, stated that you could reduce the crime rate if you aborted all black babies.
In the National Review, Bennett writes:
Item: Dana Priest of the Washington Post writes a front-page story on Wednesday headlined, CIA Holds Terror Suspects in Secret Prisons. Pay close attention to the second sentence of the story: “The secret facility is part of a covert prison system set up by the CIA nearly four years ago that at various times has included sites in eight countries, including Thailand, Afghanistan and several democracies in Eastern Europe, as well as a small center at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba, according to current and former intelligence officials and diplomats from three continents.”
“Secret”! “Covert”! So after the press and the Left make a meal of the allegation that people in the White House might have leaked the name of a covert operative, and after we find out that Plame was indeed not a covert operative under the law, the Washington Post — by its own admission — can print classified information that involves covert CIA activity?
This is an outrage.
Damn straight it’s an outrage, but Bennett aims his outrage at the left for opposing the leak of CIA covert agent (and she was a covert agent at the time, Bennett) Valerie Plame’s name in 2003 and not raising an equal stink about this leak about the secret prisons.
Pure, right-wing hypocrisy.
What Bennett and so many right-wing apologists fail to understand is that the Bush administration is breaking international laws by holding detainees in those secret prisons, but we all know how much regard Republicans have for the rule of law.
The real outrage is that people like Bennett, who stand on their holier-than-thou podiums and scream to their drooling crowds, don’t understand the concept of treating people like human beings. They placed Valerie Plame in serious jeopardy and they’re treating detainees like non-persons. Even animals have more rights.
Save your faux outrage, Bennett. If we on the left want lessons about morals, you’re one of the last people we would ever turn to. Why don’t you write an article defying Bush and Cheney’s torture policies and secret hellholes? Maybe then, we’ll listen. Until then, you’re just another shill trying to score political points off your dear leader’s absolute failure to be a human being with a conscience. That’s “conscience”, Bennett. Look it up in the dictionary. It’s somewhere between “compassionate” and “conservative”.
Ummmmm…Catnip, I think I read it a bit differently.
I think Bennett is expressing his outrage at the left for their hypocrisy–they are happy to make a meal out of outing CIA’s covert agents but are perfectly happy about outing CIA’s covert activities.
Allof which merely proves your larger point about Bennett’s lack of any moral radar whatsoever.
How do you read it differently since that’s exactly what I wrote?
Damn straight it’s an outrage, but Bennett aims his outrage at the left for opposing the leak of CIA covert agent (and she was a covert agent at the time, Bennett) Valerie Plame’s name in 2003 and not raising an equal stink about this leak about the secret prisons.
(I just woke up. Maybe I missed your point.)
oops! My bad. I misread your comment.
My new motto: Must Never Post Late at Night.
I think Bennett is expressing his outrage at the left for their hypocrisy–they are happy to make a meal out of outing CIA’s covert agents but are perfectly happy about outing CIA’s covert activities.
Yes, that’s exactly right. And notice the zinger that she wasn’t (by law) a covert operative after all. (Thus, in the wing-nut mind, its easy to dismiss her outing as a minor and irrelevant issue. Besides, she’s only a woman and the wife of a bad, bad man.)We don’t even know yet the full institutional consequences of the Plame leak and yet Bennett is willing to dismiss out of hand the results of that activity because she wasn’t (by law) a covert operative. (I’m assuming he’s quibbling about Poppy’s law which required her to have served overseas within a remarkably short time before there were legal consequences for leaking her identity)
I was shocked to read about the gulags. Not shocked that they existed but shocked that someone with knowledge of their existence had leaked to the WA Post and would love to know the understory of who is leaking and why they’re doing it.
My sense is that the Bush administration has a covert policy enthusiastically embracing torture and an overt policy of condemming it and, when they need some spin and PR, jailing underlings who were following orders. The administration has demonstrated that the buck never, ever stops with them and the folks being ordered to do things which are in violation of US and international law are fully aware that they’ve been placed in an impossible position.
So, what we need to ask ourselves is why, rather than beat up on ‘the left’ Mr Bennett isn’t demanding a full investigation into the leak he’s so anxious to condemn ‘the left’ for not being outraged about. Unless ‘the left’ means ‘critical of the Bush administration and the GOP’, ‘the left’, thanks to the DLC, has no power or voice in Congress whatsoever. Because there were a full and responsible investigation it’s a complete certainty that the CIA wasn’t acting without orders from the WH and Mr Bennett knows this.
Could it be this guy?
An ex-CIA analyst will be called to testify at the Arar inquiry next month in support of the former Canadian ambassador to Syria.
Flynt Leverett served on U.S. President George W. Bush’s national security council at the time of Maher Arar’s arrest and deportation, and will become the first American official to participate at the inquiry. The U.S. government has refused to send witnesses to the inquiry into how Arar ended up in a Syrian prison.
official to testify at Arar probe
Of course outing an operative and revealing the existence of a series of prisons are not the same thing. One could compromise lives and operations, the other only adds to previous knowledge regarding extraordinary rendition. But if it helps sell magazines by all means Bill should overlook some pertinent facts.
Bennett should choose one of the following options:
My guess is that #3 is where his true moral values are, and he’ll try to use faux indignation to distract us from that while hoping no one else notices that what he is really doing is #2. And of course, he’s okay with using #1 as an argument, but he’d deny he was doing so.
Well now Mr. Bennett, I guess I am outraged. I’m really outraged at the conduct of Lawrence Franklin and the divulging of classified information out of the DIA. And, I’m not very happy about Misters Scanlon and Abramhoff selling fear to all parties in Indian Gaming issues and soaking up the profits in the middle. Further, I am truly annoyed by the outing of a CIA agent by the top staffer in the Vice President’s office.
To further my irritation with Right Wing criminals, I am outraged that the Majority Leader of the House of Representatives is a good old fashioned money launderer with ties to people in the Marianas who use ‘enslaved’ labor.
Ah, Mr. Bennett, not enough outrage yet? How about state officials who cheat retirement funds, and play with funny money in Ohio? Or, who make it a practice to play voter suppression games in King County, Washington, or Phoenix Arizona? Is not a play like “DeLay to Blunt to Hastert” not a sign that something is wrong with the righteous Republicans?
Or, Mr. Bennett, how about outrage at those who while decrying the outing of a gulag system run by the CIA, and then lie about the fact that Valerie Plame Wilson was IN FACT a covert agent? And while we’re about it, what about all those tax dollars we spent covering her expenses, her operation, and the years it took to set up Brewster-Jennings? Dear Mr. Bennett, weren’t you the one who was worried, even outraged, about the waste of taxpayer dollars?
Poor Mr. Bennett, as the Plame Case wears on, the investigation of Abramoff continues, and the trial of Key Lay approaches–how will you keep excusing the criminals in politics?
Maybe Bennett was WAGERING that the rest of us were willing to GAMBLE on Bush reviving his presidency.
I think Mr. Bill [Royal Flush] Bennett just crapped out.
Lucky Bill Bennett is a perfect example of why I give ostentatiously moral people a wide berth: they’re all immoral to the hilt.
There are two kinds of people who spend a lot of time talking about morals: the ones who’ve been caught, and the ones who haven’t been caught yet.
Genuinely decent people demonstrate their decency incidentally through their actions. You have to pay attention to see them because they do not draw attention to themselves. The virtuous are humble.
what they think. The right NEVER reveals what it thinks.
Republicans only make sounds for one of two purposes:
That is beautiful. I may have to print it out and tape it to the wall.