This Should Make You Proud to be a Democrat!

[phuloi]

Political terrorism
Oliver North (archive)


November 9, 2003 | Print | Send


WASHINGTON -- Veterans Day -- the national holiday we celebrate this week -- used to be called Armistice Day. Until 1954, when President Dwight Eisenhower signed into law a bill proclaiming November 11 a day to honor veterans, Americans recognized the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month as the moment when the guns stopped firing in "The War to End All Wars."

The 1918 agreement to end the carnage of World War I was anything but an unconditional victory for the Allies over the Central Powers -- and it eventually led to a far less than perfect treaty and the creation of the fatally flawed League of Nations. But the November 11th Armistice to end the bloodletting is regarded by most historians as the only workable solution to conclude the killing that had already taken nine million lives. If events this week in Washington are any indication, it may be time for a less-than-perfect political Armistice Day.

Just days before this year's Armistice-Veterans Day holiday, it became crystal clear that Democrats in the U.S. Senate have declared war against the president of the United States. A memorandum, apparently written by a Democrat staff member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, was obtained by my Fox News colleague, Sean Hannity. The document details a political plan to use the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to run a war room operation against President George W. Bush and his administration. The apparent goal: to unseat the president by using the committee as a tool to divide the commander in chief from the troops he leads. "We have carefully reviewed our options," and "the best approach," the memo states, is to urge investigations of the "Office of the Secretary of Defense as well as Secretary Bolton's office at the State Department."

Back in June, the committee decided to evaluate documented intelligence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) programs. Its review was supposed to examine shortcomings in the U.S. intelligence community -- something both Democrats and Republicans agree are plentiful -- and to formulate, in a responsible and bipartisan way, recommendations for improvement. Assuming that this effort might lead to much-needed enhancements in our ability to collect human intelligence amid a war that has already claimed more than 3,000 American lives, such a review makes sense. Nearly all responsible politicians agree that our intelligence community desperately needs better ways of penetrating radical Islamist terror cells. Even those running for office acknowledge that we are in a war in which young Americans are dying -- a war in which the lack of good intelligence is our greatest liability.

Therefore, it seems that the primary responsibility of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence should be to discern what needs "fixing" within our intelligence community and determine with urgency what resources are needed for those improvements. After all, the lives of young Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq -- as well as the safety of U.S. citizens at home -- hang in the balance.

But this memorandum reveals that these goals are not even being considered by eight of the 17 members of the Senate's Intelligence Committee. The Democrats who sit on one of the most sensitive and important bodies in our government have apparently decided that gathering, assessing and analyzing intelligence is less important than booting this president from office. "Intelligence issues are clearly secondary to the public's concern regarding the insurgency in Iraq," the memo states. In short, they have abandoned their responsibilities to our soldiers, sailors, airmen, Marines and countrymen and decided instead to wage war against the president.

Those who care about winning the real war in which we are now engaged should be outraged at this crass politicization of a committee so closely tied to our national security. One might have expected that the discovery of this memorandum would generate an outcry from members of the so-called mainstream media. Yet, many glossed over the document, as though its existence is simply "more of the same" from Washington. Others apparently dismissed it because it was discovered by a "talk radio host." Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the ranking Democrat on the committee, denigrated the memo because it was "prepared by a staffer."

All this denies the reality of the words in the memorandum. The "we" used in the document proves that more than one person was involved in crafting the attack. It is also evident that the strategy for "pulling the trigger" on an investigation "early next year" aimed at bringing down the president was amply discussed for some time. It is also apparent that no matter what the ongoing review of Iraq War intelligence produces, those who crafted the document have already decided on the need to "assiduously prepare Democratic 'additional views' to . . . among other things, castigate the majority (Republicans) for seeking to limit the scope of the inquiry."

Curiously, no investigative reporter has taken note of the sentence referring to the "FBI Niger investigation (which) was done solely at the request of the vice chairman." Until now, we have been led to believe that the CIA asked the FBI to investigate who "leaked" the name of one of their clandestine service officers. The authors of the memo seem to know better. What else they know about political terrorism in the corridors of power should be the matter of a new FBI investigation. After all, as Democrat Sen. Zell Miller said of the contents of this memo, "If this is not treasonous, it's the first cousin of treason."

[SuperScout]

Wondering what the date on this internal memo from Rockefeller's staff, or his own pen, and the frantic hue-and-cry about the leaking of the CIA name. It's beginning to look a lot like a typical diversionary tactic, or perhaps a massive CYA drill. Looks like Sen. Miller is right, again!

[Gimpy]

National Security and Obstruction of Justice: Waiting for a Special Prosecutor for the Plame Leak Investigation, Treason??
A READER COMMENTARY
by Matt Hine

John Ashcroft is "concerned" about the CIA cover-gate scandal. He should be.

The best defense we have against terrorism is not laser guided bombs. Our most vital tool is the information we get from our agents in the field, allowing us to get to the terrorists before they can carry out their plans. The treacherous exposure of Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA agent has greatly weakened the "war on terrorism." Ms. Plame's assignment was to infiltrate the very terrorist networks that are most likely to develop weapons of mass destruction! Plame and all of her undercover contacts are now at risk. Her work is destroyed and other potential informants will think twice before putting their lives on the line.

According to the Washington Post, a senior administration official told the Post that before Robert Novak's column appeared, two top White House officials called at least six journalists and disclosed the identity of this CIA agent.
That's an incredibly serious matter, and the continued presence of such a person in the White House ought to worry the president immensely. That the exposure was apparently an act of revenge against a political opponent (former Ambassador Wilson, Ms. Plame's husband) ought to infuriate him. But Bush has shown no sign of anger at the leak and he has publicly stated that he doesn't think an investigation will succeed in finding the culprit.
Now, Bush Administration lawyers are reviewing phone logs and other records BEFORE turning them over to Justice Department officials! The documents must be reviewed "for national security and executive privilege concerns," according to White House aides.
Senator Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. commented on NBC's Today show, "To allow the White House counsel to review records before the prosecutors would see them is unheard of in the way cases are always prosecuted. The possibility of mischief is very, very large," he said.
The way the White House and Justice Department are handling this matter just doesn't seem right.
How can we expect Ashcroft's Justice Department to find the traitor who committed this breach of national security? Bush appointed Ashcroft and Ashcroft has long ties with Karl Rove, Bush's top political advisor. Rove was a paid consultant in three of Mr. Ashcroft's former election campaigns, and is widely considered at least complicit in this debacle. It took more than two months for the Justice Department to launch an investigation after the FBI learned that "senior administration officials" may have illegally leaked the identity of this covert CIA operative. Justice Department officials delayed obtaining critical evidence, giving the perpetrator(s) plenty of time to destroy it.
President Bush is resisting the appointment of an independent investigator, asserting that "career people" at the Justice Department should conduct the investigation. But Ashcroft's underlings are not protected by the provisions of the Special Counsel regulations, making them vulnerable to wrathful retribution.
Procedural safeguards were written into the Special Counsel regulations in order to encourage an arm's length impartial investigation. These regulations enable the Attorney General to appoint an outside Special Counsel if he has concerns that the Justice Department has an inherent conflict of interest.
The Special Counsel reports to the Attorney General, who pays the Special Counsel's salary and the salary of his or her staff. The key to the Special Counsel is this: At the end of the investigation, the Attorney General must report to Congress all instances where he blocked the Special Counsel from taking an action, such as subpoenaing documents or putting a witness before a Grand Jury. That's the kind of balance we need in this type of situation -- when the administration is obligated to investigate itself.
So far, Ashcroft has refused to recuse himself or his Department, but a Washington Post-ABC poll recently found that nearly 70% of Americans believe an independent investigator should be appointed. If the President truly cared about national security, he would direct Ashcroft to appoint a Special Counsel.
We're waiting.
Can there be any doubt that our National Defense is sacrificed when the Administration publicly "out" undercover agents whose family members bring evidence that disproves their main justification for a pre-emptive strike against another nation, even one as evil as Iraq? [LINK]

It's been three (4!) months since this scandal first broke, with no substantive reaction from the White House until the CIA officially asked for the Justice Department to "step in".

Either this constitutes Bush's tacit support for the leak, or is otherwise evidence of the most inept President this nation's ever seen.
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And you talk about TREASON????