Bravo to Scotty for coming clean, only years after he already knew that Rove, Libby, Cheney AND Bush all lied to him about national security matters – matters of war, life and death. To sell an ill-conceived invasion of a sovereign country that was by no means connected to 9/11 or an imminent threat to anything other than its own crumbling and inevitable decline.
Don’t you think that this little bit of information would have been more important to divulge when you first knew about it, instead of admitting it in a book that you are profiting off of? What would a patriot who is more interested in serving his or her country think of withholding this information? Don’t you think that Mr. Fitzgerald would have benefited from that information? Wouldn’t the grand jury be interested to know that Rove is involved in passing false information to the White House’s chief spokesperson with the intent to deceive the press corps, Americans and the rest of the world?
Just like Colin Powell was a day late and a dollar short with his role in not exposing the bogus claims that Team Cheney fed him at around the same time, Scotty’s “noble” announcement doesn’t remotely come close to exonerating himself for his role (knowingly or unknowingly) in this cover up. However, it does lead to another example of a former White House official pointing a finger at either Cheney, Bush or someone high level regarding bordering on illegal, if not outright illegal acts.
Regardless of whether the “false information” was about Plame or about yellowcake or about aluminum tubes or whatever else, wasn’t Fitzgerald given wide latitude in pursuing this case to begin with? He did indicate that he had “sand kicked in his face” and was unable to continue because of the perjury and obstruction of justice. At a minimum, Rove needs to explain himself and McClellan should immediately be called to testify about his statements.
If Kenny-boy Starr could waste as much time, effort and money as he did over the nonsense he ended up dredging up, then surely a reopening of the case in order to see just how a sitting President, his Vice President and their two top aides willingly passed along false information to its Press Secretary in order for the knowingly false information to be disseminated to and intentionally deceive the world.
I’ll put it simpler – The former White House press secretary was tricked into lying the country into an illegal invasion.
Period.
How, please tell me, how is that not worth investigating further? The Democratic controlled Congress and ESPECIALLY its leadership have a duty to call for and ensure investigations into these revelations and why they were not divulged for such a long period of time. What did the President know and when did he know it? What false information did he and Cheney pass along?
Lying for reasons of “national security secrets” should not protect those who are lying. Willfully deceiving the country into supporting a war that was based on half-truths (at best) is quite possibly the worst thing that anyone can do. When thousands of lives are lost and countless more are forever scarred physically, emotionally and mentally because of these lies, there cannot be anything short of accountability to those who are responsible.
If Democratic leadership (including Presidential candidates) don’t want to have Congress investigate this, then bring back Patrick Fitzgerald.
He has a job to finish.
