Backstage w/Supak: organic, progressive, environmentalist

Remarks by former President George HW Bush At the Dedication Ceremony for the George Bush Center for Intelligence

"We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country. (Applause)

"Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors."—26 April 1999

Well, then. Seems we have at least two "insidious" traitors inside the White House. While Mr. Novak, who started this shit, says it's just "Bush Bashing," it seems Pappy, who actually ran the CIA, thinks it's something else. After all, who's going to want to be a CIA agent if the people you're working for would so easily expose you, risking your life over political embarrassment?

Say you're out there in the field finding information about REAL WMD threats to the United States and your husband discovers that your bosses at the White House were lying about someone else's WMDs in order to start a war... You'd think, "I don't have to worry. These people are professionals. They'd never reveal my name as some sort of school-yard payback to my husband, would they?"

I'm sure Mr. Novak will continue to protect his sources at the White House, so that he can say it's just Bush bashing, and not treasonous as W's old man suggested. But my question for the White House is, "If you guys didn't do it, then where did Novak get the info on Wilson's wife?" Here is what Novak said in his column Mission to Niger on July 14, 2003:

"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report."

Two "senior administration officials? And then the White House says nobody? Are they calling their friend Bob Novak a liar? Hey, Novak may be the most pompous ass ever to back a Republican tax cut, but he's no oaf, and I doubt he'd make shit like that up. And I doubt if when he says "senior administration offical" he means somebody's intern.

What I find even more incredible is that Novak should have known that by publishing the info on Plame, he could be breaking the law? Doesn't his publisher have lawyers who would have known they were abetting a felony? Or was Novak in such a rush to try to discredit Wilson (as if saying his wife suggested him for the job would do that) that he didn't really care if Pappy Bush thought he was committing treason?

Meanwhile, W's biggest contributor in 2000, Ken Lay of Enron infamy, refused to turn over documents to the SEC. Well, of course he did. He shredded them all! And to think that the SEC, which refused to prosecute W himself over breaking the law in his Harken Energy deal while HW was President, would actually go after Kenny Boy Lay is a joke! That's like believing John "Big Brother" Ashcroft will actually investigate who at the White House called all those reporters saying that Ambassador Wilson's wife was "fair game." Or that's like believing that a Republican congress will investigate the no-bid contracts that earned Halliburton a billion dollars (and counting) in Iraq. Or, that's like thinking that all the lobbyists turned regulators will actually keep an eye on the industries they used to lobby. And if you do believe that crap, I have a bridge for you to shove up your ass.