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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: LindyBill who wrote (11000)	10/7/2003 11:45:28 AM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 793897

Brad DeLong, a very smart guy, answers Sullivan's question re: "what is going on here." I think DeLong just about has it right: Andrew Sullivan Needs Help Andrew Sullivan is confused about what is happening in Washington. So a precis of the Plame affair seems called for to tell him what it is "about": www.AndrewSullivan.com - Daily Dish: Well, I sat down yesterday afternoon and tried - no, really tried - to understand what this whole Wilson-Plame "scandal" is about... Let me help: The CIA has declared bureaucratic war on the White House staff. On the journalistic leak front, CIA Director George Tenet or those "familiar with his thinking" have told reporters that the two senior White House aides who called at least six Washington jouralists in an attempt to destroy Valerie Plame Wilson's cover as a CIA operative did so "purely and simply for revenge," that the leaks were "wrong" and "mistaken." On the legal front, the CIA has requested that the Justice Department begin an investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame Wilson's status. In late July, the CIA filed a report stating that a crime had been committed. Three weeks ago, the CIA reported to the Justice Department that the crime had in fact damaged national security. The FBI has begun a criminal investigation into the unauthorized disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's status as an intelligence operative. The White House staff doesn't care. Nobody on the White House staff thinks the disclosure of Valerie Plame Wilson's status is at all a big deal. The CIA clearly disagrees. The CIA clearly thinks this is a very big deal indeed. A Director of Central Intelligence who wants himself and his deputies to have long careers and to have influence on policy does not attempt to deprive a president of his trusted servants--not matter what. A CIA Director would take the steps that Tenet has taken only if one or more of the following (in decreasing order of probability) were true: The evidence and charges against the president's trusted servants is so strong that, when the affair is over, the president will admit that he was done a favor. This bureaucratic war is the first strike in a campaign to change the government--to replace the bad viziers Andrew Card and Karl Rove with good vizier Colin Powell, who will direct a government interested in what is good for the country rather than one interested in short-term political advantage and neoconservative theology. This bureaucratic war is the result of the fact that the CIA feels backed into a corner: they believe that arousing the president's intense wrath is worth it, for they believe the White House staff has crossed a key line in the politicization and abuse of intelligence that should not be crossed. That's what the Plame Affair is "about." j-bradford-delong.net