Plamegate: Rove should be next

All the king’s horses and all the king’s men.

Following its most embarrassing week in office, the Bush Administration now suffers a case of the second term blues in the grand tradition of Watergate, Iran Contra and Lewinsky, only their brand of misery-Plamegate -has one characteristic that sets it within a class of its own: more than 2,000 flag-draped coffins. Where’s that political capital now, chief?

You’ve heard the story: CIA Operative Valerie Plame’s name is leaked to the media in a dirty revenge tactic after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, reports his findings that claims of Iraq’s purchase of uranium from Niger-the Bush Administration’s primary argument for war-was false. These events of 2003 led to the first indictment being handed last week to Lewis “Scooter” Libby, who resigned Friday as Dick Cheney’s chief of staff.

What was that promise five years ago? Something about “restoring honor and dignity to the White House?”

As the leak’s special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald reminds us, this isn’t about the war in Iraq. In fact, as of now, it’s merely focused on perjury. Tell this to a frustrated American public and an increasingly perspiring White House. No matter how you dance around the underlying facts, this investigation will not only put individual weasels on trial, but this war itself.

This investigation not only pinpoints the holes in the administration’s judgment, it reveals the lengths they took in ruining anyone brave enough to voice their American right of dissent. For those who saw through their manipulative masks from the beginning, this is vindication. For those politicians who suck cigars and slap each other on the back in “business as usual” tones as the death count rises, one only hopes judgment day has arrived.

And let’s not kid ourselves; though he has so far escaped indictment, everyone knew Chief Presidential Advisor Karl Rove, Bush’s brain (the man to whom he owes two presidential victories) was guilty from day one. Karl Rove is a soulless political sow disguised as a human being, and thinking wishfully, he will squeal all the way to prison, just what he and his like deserve for their instrumental roles in sending our generation’s finest to the slaughter.

While these disreputable men continue to give us reason to find tremendous fault in our current government, this investigation has represented something in which we can always find pride: No matter how long it takes and no matter how powerful you think you are, you can only abuse the American system for so long before it catches up with you. Perhaps that is why these neo-conservatives incessantly try to undermine our judicial system. It’s almost like watching the end of “Goodfellas,” only these guys aren’t as suave.

Then again, maybe they will prevail and this Humpty Dumpty administration will be put back together again, representing just another historical footnote.

But for now, it’s nice to see them sweat.

Brian Shreve
Columnist

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 4 2005. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry