Don't know if I rise to the level of a moron screamer, but here's what should have been done: When the first fraudulent assault was launched against the president for his "16 words," the administration should have vigorously defended the facts as they knew them. They could and should have pointed out that the statement was NOT based solely on the phoney Niger letter which formed the basis for the attack against them. There was other evidence and the Brits still stand by their other evidence. We could have too. But the bungling White House PR apparatus failed to do so. Instead they were silent.
When the Plame game began they should have attacked the premise of the issue, that some egregious crime-to-be-named- later had been committed. The administration could have lectured the media on the fact that Plame was not undercover at that point, if she ever had been, therefore no damage was done, no crime committed.
The worst failure of the administration was in allowing the premise to circulate in the media that "a crime may have been committed" even though they knew or reasonably should have known that that was not the case. Having debunked that premise, no "special counsel" should have been empowered.
But they were like the proverbial deer in the headlights and let the likes of Pissy Chrissy and Mr. Potatohead disrupt the government for partisan advantage. The only guilty party is the Bush administration, for gross negligence.
I don't worry about Libby, he's a big boy and will come out all right. I am outraged about this because it materially weakens the ability of the administration to govern; gives traction to the panoply of leftwing lies that have become common currency in the public debate; and it further undermines the credibility of republicans to follow, who have to run for office amidst this crap all over the landscape.
It didn't have to happen, but it did and for that I hold the Bush White House responsible. Don't walk obliviously into a known minefield and then blame the badguys when your leg gets blown off.
Are you saying that you weren't impressed with that brilliant "You have to ask yourself, 'Given all this, does it really rise to a standard of a State of the Union speech?'" says the source. "No. But is that sentence, knowing what we know now, factually correct? Yes."?
It was worse than that. Tenet said it was a mistake in his July 11, 2003 press release. This was a major mistake, or more conspiratorially, a big assist to those who wanted to use this story to take down the WH. The big question is why and how this press release came about. Did the CIA clear this with the WH. I assume they did.