Brent Budowsky: Valerie Plame Stands Tall

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/6153

Valerie Plame Stands Tall
by Brent Budowsky | Mar 17 2007

snip//

When The Washington Post ran thousands of words on its editorial page, its opinion page, its “Outlook” section and even its “Style” section in the hours before the case went before the jury, and I was offered a modest 170 words representing so many not taking the pro-Libby position, even then I avoided discussion of guilt or innocence to make the larger point.

The words in this note, which will ultimately be read by many covert officers of the United States, represent the views of the vast and overwhelming majority of covert officers who cannot speak for themselves.

The central point is this, setting aside the evidentiary issues surrounding the case before the courts:

I am proud of Valerie Plame; I am proud of every man and woman serving our country covertly. I am as proud of them as I am proud of everyone who serves in the United States Marine Corps, the United States Army, the United States Navy, the United States Air Force, the Coast Guard, our National Guard, our Reserves and our astronaut corps.

One Republican congressman said today at the hearing that well, this is the problem of the CIA, not the White House.

This is dead wrong. This is what has gone so wrong with George W. Bush, with the vice president, with distortions and attacks surrounding our intelligence, with mistreatment of wounded troops that should never occur in our country, and with the identity disclosures in this case which, whatever the legal niceties, are despicable and damaging to our security.

I ask the congressman, the president, the vice president and the apologists for this travesty: How would you feel if someone stood at the back of a United States Marine at the center of Baghdad, and pointed to him for an enemy sniper to kill?

more...

k & r -- hoping it gets read by lots of people.

sw

what did Ms Plame Wilson uncover that was so damning to the Bush administration. We haven't come to that yet?

"What the president and vice president have never understood, what the apologists and flacks and hacks and partisans and "oppo" players and smear artists have never understood, is this: To protect our men and women who serve covertly is a sacred trust, written in blood, sanctified by oath, etched in stone, that should be seared into our souls with honor.

We are not asked to demonstrate their courage, but we are expected to watch their backs, and not risk their lives, as though they are the petty cash of our partisan politics, or the disposable commodities of our blind ideologies or vainglorious ambitions."

It's a great pity the WaPo didn't have the decency to let him have op-ed space enough to say all he wanted to say. This is magnificent.

Hekate