Politics can make strange bedfellows. Growing up, reading anything I could find about spies and the CIA was just one of my many quirky habits. I never imagined that one day I’d have a blog (they didn’t even exist) where a former CIA officer contributed material. As a poltically progressive person, I didn’t think I’d agree with a Republican about so many issues related to our national security. Larry still self-identifies as a Republican. Maybe he needs to see something more from the Democrats, or maybe he thinks it gives him more credibility as a critic to stay with the elephant. I don’t know. I do know that there are a lot of former Republicans that are looking at the carnage in Iraq and switching their affiliations. Larry’s CIA classmate, Jim Marcinkowski, is one example. Both Larry and Jim graduated from The Farm with Valerie Plame Wilson, and they are mighty pissed off about what happened to her. Jim’s running for Congress in Michigan’s 8th district. It’s currently held by Mike Rogers, who is the Major Deputy Whip and he sits on the House Intelligence Committee. That’s the same committee whose former chairman, Porter Goss, said that would investigate the Plame leak if we brought him a blue dress. Jim’s looking for payback and his campaign just got a boost.

Though Jim Marcinkowski, a lawyer and former CIA case worker, still has much to prove — not the least in the area of fundraising — his active early campaign efforts have spurred CQPolitics.com to change its rating on the race to Republican Favored from Safe Republican.

Marcinkowski’s background as a CIA operations officer in Washington, D.C, and in Central America, as well as his employment in a clerical position at the FBI in his younger days, creates one of the most interesting dynamics in the contest: Incumbent Rogers is well-known to 8th District voters as a former FBI special agent who now owns a home construction company.

Marcinkowski says he is an acquaintance of Valerie Plame, the former CIA operative whose identity was leaked, allegedly by a source or sources in the White House, after the Bush administration’s use of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq war was publicly questioned by her husband, former Amb. Joseph C. Wilson IV. Marcinkowski has expressed outrage over the violation of Plame’s confidentiality.

If you told me in the 1980’s that I would be asking for the support of a CIA officer stationed in Central America during the contra war, I’d tell you that you were crazy. But, Bush’s own form of craziness has pushed Jim to become a Democrat and me to be more open to former Republicans. Mike Rogers is an odious rubber-stamping scandal enabling bootlicker. He represents everything that is wrong with the current crop in Congress. Jim Marcinkowski can see a traitor when he sees one. He can see what the lies and deceit of the neo-conservatives have done to our intelligence agencies, our military, and our nation’s standing in the world. Even though he isn’t as progressive as I would like him to be on a host of issues, I am fully supporting his run for Congress. If you would like to make a contibution to his campaign you can do it here. I know it will make Larry and Joe Wilson happy. There are 8 more hours in this quarter, and Jim is trying to raise $24,000 today. Chip in a few extra pennies so they know it came from the netroots.