The Denial came Monday and that’s really when the dance began.
A Washington scandal never gets its legs until there’s a good denial
out there. White House spokesman Scott McClellan issued The Denial,
which is too bad; it’s best if The Denial comes from the mouth of the
big guy himself.
Monday Mr. McClellan denied Karl Rove had anything to do with
exposing the identity of a covert CIA agent. Five years ago, Bill
Clinton, always ready to give the public want it wanted, delivered The
Denial himself. “I did not have sex with that young woman, Ms.
Lewinsky,” he said. Thirty years ago Watergate denials flew in several
directions, from “It’s just a second-rate burglary” to “I am not a
crook.”
The covert agent in this case is the wife of former Ambassador
Joseph Wilson. In early 2002, the Bush administration sent Ambassador
Wilson to Niger to check on rumors that Saddam Hussein was trying to
purchase material for a nuclear bomb. Ambassador Wilson found no such
evidence and reported the same back to Washington, but our nation’s
leaders, from President Bush to Vice President Cheney to National
Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice continued to insist, from many public
platforms, that Saddam Hussein was trying to build a nuke with
yellowcake from Niger.
This past summer, when it became obvious to all that Saddam had
no weapons of mass destruction and people wondered how we had been led
so badly astray, Mr. Wilson repeated in an op-ed what he told the Bush
administration in private a year earlier. That is the reason the White
House decided to punish Mr. Wilson by exposing his wife as a CIA
agent. Of course, that “punishment” was a federal crime and whoever
exposed the ambassador’s wife is looking at 10 years in the federal
penitentiary.
On Saturday, an unnamed White House source told the Washington
Post that it was an administration official who leaked the
information. That admission was an unusual act in a White House where
discipline and loyalty are prized. Now comes the official
investigation, by the Justice Department or an independent prosecutor,
probably both.
Now we will see just how disciplined and loyal the staff really
is. Will they stick to the official story in sworn depositions, under
threat of prosecution for perjury, not knowing what other staff might
have told or might yet tell investigators? Will one or two Bush
staffers – press reports cite two leakers – come forward, identify
themselves and take the fall, even if they’re not guilty? That would
be one way to nip the scandal in the bud, although there are six
Washington journalists who know the leakers’ true identities.
It’s interesting to note how similar this story is to the more
advanced scandal that is cutting the legs out from beneath Tony Blair’s
government in the UK. In both cases, political appointees close to the
national leader inserted false statements about Saddam’s weapons
capability into documents intended to persuade the public that an
invasion of Iraq was justified. In both cases, professionals within
the government supplied accurate information to their superiors, but
that information was ignored. In both cases the professionals-
Ambassador Wilson in the U.S., Dr. David Kelly in the UK – ultimately
gave their accurate information to the press and in both cases the
professionals were exposed in acts of retribution. Dr. Kelly wound up
dead at the edge of a wood; the life of Ambassador Wilson’s wife, or
perhaps those of her contacts, have been threatened by the White
House’s reckless action.
We are left to contemplate the larger cost of this Washington
scandal. The Wilson-Niger-nuclear debacle is but one stone in George
W. Bush’s foundation of falsehood on which the case for war was built.
Hundred of young American soldiers have died in support of their
president’s lies.
If the U.S. Congress really thought impeachment was a fitting
punishment for sex and lies in the Oval Office, how do we deal with
what is starting to look like pre-meditated murder?
The Ambassador’s Wife
The Denial came Monday and that’s really when the dance began.
A Washington scandal never gets its legs until there’s a good denial
out there. White House spokesman Scott McClellan issued The Denial,
which is too bad; it’s best if The Denial comes from the mouth of the
big guy himself.
Monday Mr. McClellan denied Karl Rove had anything to do with
exposing the identity of a covert CIA agent. Five years ago, Bill
Clinton, always ready to give the public want it wanted, delivered The
Denial himself. “I did not have sex with that young woman, Ms.
Lewinsky,” he said. Thirty years ago Watergate denials flew in several
directions, from “It’s just a second-rate burglary” to “I am not a
crook.”
The covert agent in this case is the wife of former Ambassador
Joseph Wilson. In early 2002, the Bush administration sent Ambassador
Wilson to Niger to check on rumors that Saddam Hussein was trying to
purchase material for a nuclear bomb. Ambassador Wilson found no such
evidence and reported the same back to Washington, but our nation’s
leaders, from President Bush to Vice President Cheney to National
Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice continued to insist, from many public
platforms, that Saddam Hussein was trying to build a nuke with
yellowcake from Niger.
This past summer, when it became obvious to all that Saddam had
no weapons of mass destruction and people wondered how we had been led
so badly astray, Mr. Wilson repeated in an op-ed what he told the Bush
administration in private a year earlier. That is the reason the White
House decided to punish Mr. Wilson by exposing his wife as a CIA
agent. Of course, that “punishment” was a federal crime and whoever
exposed the ambassador’s wife is looking at 10 years in the federal
penitentiary.
On Saturday, an unnamed White House source told the Washington
Post that it was an administration official who leaked the
information. That admission was an unusual act in a White House where
discipline and loyalty are prized. Now comes the official
investigation, by the Justice Department or an independent prosecutor,
probably both.
Now we will see just how disciplined and loyal the staff really
is. Will they stick to the official story in sworn depositions, under
threat of prosecution for perjury, not knowing what other staff might
have told or might yet tell investigators? Will one or two Bush
staffers – press reports cite two leakers – come forward, identify
themselves and take the fall, even if they’re not guilty? That would
be one way to nip the scandal in the bud, although there are six
Washington journalists who know the leakers’ true identities.
It’s interesting to note how similar this story is to the more
advanced scandal that is cutting the legs out from beneath Tony Blair’s
government in the UK. In both cases, political appointees close to the
national leader inserted false statements about Saddam’s weapons
capability into documents intended to persuade the public that an
invasion of Iraq was justified. In both cases, professionals within
the government supplied accurate information to their superiors, but
that information was ignored. In both cases the professionals-
Ambassador Wilson in the U.S., Dr. David Kelly in the UK – ultimately
gave their accurate information to the press and in both cases the
professionals were exposed in acts of retribution. Dr. Kelly wound up
dead at the edge of a wood; the life of Ambassador Wilson’s wife, or
perhaps those of her contacts, have been threatened by the White
House’s reckless action.
We are left to contemplate the larger cost of this Washington
scandal. The Wilson-Niger-nuclear debacle is but one stone in George
W. Bush’s foundation of falsehood on which the case for war was built.
Hundred of young American soldiers have died in support of their
president’s lies.
If the U.S. Congress really thought impeachment was a fitting
punishment for sex and lies in the Oval Office, how do we deal with
what is starting to look like pre-meditated murder?