Turd Blossom And The Jurinal

Turd Blossom is Dubya's nickname for Karl Rove. After reading an editorial in the Abq Jurinal concerning Karl Rove, I came to the conclusion, for like the nine-millionth time, that our morning daily must be the most insipid, underachieving newspaper in America. No offense, of course, to the hard-working underlings who do their best despite the undercurrent of mediocrity (whoever is in charge over there) that holds their ankles under water and dunks their heads like sniveling kids dog-paddling at a city pool whenever some real editorial or investigative ideas might arise. My favorite line in the editorial was the disclosure that Joseph Wilson was a “Kerry supporter.” The overreaching implication was that Wilson is a partisan operative involved in a political issue that may or may not even be scandalous. This of course parrots the White House's strategy—to attempt to discredit Wilson by painting him as a partisan. What the Jurinal doesn't say is that Wilson was a Bush supporter—both in mind and pocket—in 2000. That's a highly relevant point if you are going to call him a “Kerry supporter” in your editorial, don't you think Jurinal? With all that said, here's a timely missive from the desk of the inimitable Albuquerquean Scott Horton, who sends out a daily e-newsletter called No Comment.

With things looking serious for Karl Rove, the Republican propaganda machine is going into overdrive. Led by the GOP vanguard consisting of the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and Fox ‘News,’ the spin cycle is amazingly consistent and oblivious to the truth. Now here’s a thought: judging by prior crisis management practices, it may just be that they are busily reading off of a script that was authored by Karl Rove himself! For sheer nuttiness, nothing tops the WSJ editorial pagehttp://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110006955 —in which they say Rove should be praised for putting the life of a CIA agent at risk—and then a series of factchecks showing the misrepresentations in the editorial.http://www.americanprogressaction.org/site/pp.asp?c=klLWJcP7H&b=882425

Actually the false or misleading assertions of fact far exceed the actual facts—this is something of a record, even for WSJ.

For the record, though, I agree with the WSJ that Rove should get a medal—he should join Tenet and the others receiving the Presidential Medal of Freedom—an award doled out to those whose fuck-ups are cosmic in magnitude.

Here's an op-ed by ex-CIA Larry Johnson who discusses what this case means to the covert service. http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/13/04720/9340

It's a must-read for anybody at all interested in Plame's role at the agency—especially the part about here willingness to face grave risks overseas which could have resulted in execution if ever exposed.

More from Mr. Horton, from the sections of his newsletter Hypocrisy Watch and Quote of the Day.

Two statements to keep in mind as we watch the White House scramble feverishly to salvage the hide of that ultimate man behind the curtain, Karl Rove.

“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.”—President George H.W. Bush, April 26, 1999, talking about those who betray CIA operations through publication.

“They will offer more lectures, and legalisms, and carefully worded denials. We offer another way – a better way – and a stiff dose of truth.”—Vice President Dick Cheney, August 2, 2000, talking about President Clinton’s defense of charges surrounding Monica Lewinsky.

Quote for the Day: The Roman lawyer and orator Cicero (whose name, Italian speakers will know, means “chickpea”) spent much of his career dealing with treason. Serving as consul of Rome, he put down the Catalline conspiracy—a threat by a down-and-out group of Roman aristocrats to seize dictatorial power. But as a lawyer, he defended the most celebrated treason case of his age, brought against Milo, arguing against the notion of constructive treason (arguments later cited by George Mason as the basis for the severe limitation found on treason in the U.S. Constitution). Still, Cicero’s great and well warranted fear was that the Republic would fall with the ascendancy of increasingly powerful military leaders who manipulated external threats as a basis to wield ever greater powers. No doubt this fear dictated his defensive oration (which a contemporary says was delivered in the face of Julius Caesar) following a decision by the senate to overturn his actions against some of these aristocratic conspirators at the end of the Catalline episode:

“For this day’s work, senators, you have encouraged treason and opened the prison doors to free the traitors. A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and he carries his banners openly against the city. But the traitor moves among those within the gates freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears no traitor; he speaks in the accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their garments, and he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation; he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of a city; he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to be feared. The traitor is the carrier of the plague.”

Words appropriate to today’s debate.