The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Wednesday, November 30, 2005
Outrage of the day--Harry Reid: King of the Runaway Leakers?
Wow. Jed Babbin, subbing for Hugh Hewitt, delivered a blockbuster interview of Wall Street Journal reporter John Fund. As always, Radio Blogger was there to transcribe. But you aren't going to believe the extent to which the Democratic leader of the Senate is up to his neck in slime. Some key excerpts (hint: you won't find this on CNN...):
JB: We're going right now to one of the best journalists in this goofy town, my good friend John Fund from the Wall Street Journal. John, thanks for taking the time to join us. Tell us about...well, let me just set the stage. You're talking about what seems to be a rather startling leak from the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid. Let me just set the stage for it. Porter Goss, director of the CIA, said today, "we know a great deal more about bin Laden, Zarqawi and Zawahiri, than we're able to say publicly." Well, it seems to me that maybe Mr. Reid doesn't think he's bound by the usual rules. What's going on with Senator Sieve?
JF: One of the saddest things that's happened in Washington lately is we've seen the degradation of ethics into a political weapon, where if you can't beat someone in the elections, you go after them with trumped up ethics charges. And you know, both sides have done that in the past, to some extent. Now, we're seeing the politicization of intelligence. We know now that the whole CIA leak thing was about somebody having a different recollection about phone conversations months later, and it's a perjury charge. There's no underlying crime. There was no CIA agent outed.
[...]
So intelligence has been politicized. This whole CIA leak thing was a trumped up, no underlying crime. Now, Harry Reid has decided...this is the same guy who was yelling about the CIA leak investigation, the same guy who called the Senate into closed session, who has called the president almost a liar for having supposedly misled the country on the weapons of mass destruction intelligence.
JB: Yeah.
JF: And what does Harry Reid go last week and do? He's on a Nevada TV talk show, and he says well, I just learned today that Osama bin Laden was killed in an earthquake in Pakistan.
JB: Wait a minute. Let me stop you right there. I mean, if he knows that, he could only know it through official government channels, the CIA, Defense Department, whatever. And it would be top secret, wouldn't it?
JF: He didn't read it in the Reno Gazette.
JB: Well, yeah. This is a guy who wants Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in chains, and he's making a leak...
JF: Actually, that's Ambassador Wilson, to be fair.
JB: Well, either way.
JF: Reid has gone almost that far.
JB: Well, I mean just doggone close. I mean, he'd love to see Karl Rove indicted. He'd love to see the whole White House taken down over this thing. And these Democrats, you pair this with Rockefeller, Durbin and Wyden leaking that black satellite program last December...
JF: Exactly.
JB: They're still under criminal investigation for that, which is laying fallow, because Bill Frist...
JF: And not to mention the secret prisons issue, where there's an FBI investigation in Congress, about which Senator might have leaked where interrogations might have been conducted in Europe.
JB: Well, yeah, and we won't even name who that might be...(Rockefeller). This whole issue of keeping America's secrets, the Senate is not going to be able to perform its Constitutional function of oversight, if the Executive Branch can't trust them with they tell them.
JF: We can't tell them anything. Look, if Harry Reid received that information, and apparently, he says he did, there are two things you need to do. First is complete radio silence. And the reason is, you...clearly, the United States government has to check that out. It has to use it in its own terms. That's explosive information, if it's true.
JB: Yes.
JF: And, in addition, if it's not true, and Harry Reid goes and claims it, what are the terrorists going to do? That undermines U.S. credibility. They laugh at us. We become the laughing stock of the Arab world, because our officials keep fatasizing about terrorists dying, when they're not.
JB: Well, and we've got a situation here where, as you just implied, the whole business of whether he is dead has tactical value. We know what is going on in a lot of different places. If people are waiting for signals from him, or sending signals to him, that's of great value in helping round up some of these other characters.
JF: Jed, it's like in a poker game, or a bridge game, where you have an ally in bridge?
JB: Yeah.
JF: And suddenly, you turn to your partner and you push his cards down, so the other team can see the cards. What is your partner going to think of you?
JB: Well, it's really just so very incredibly serious, though, John. Why isn't there anybody in the Democratic Party willing to stand up and say hey, look. We might want to start treating secrets a little more seriously.
JF: We used to, during the Cold War, have a tradition that politics stopped at the water's edge.
JB: Yes.
JF: Unfortunately, now, politics confuses everything in our foreign policy. I think one of the biggest problems we have in fighting the Iraq war is not the insurgency. It's the fact that we have a civil war in Washington, in which one side has decided to declare war on the conduct of our foreign policy. Legitimate criticism is fine, but a civil war, in which the CIA, in part, and the State Department, in part, and the Senate, in part, are actively trying to undermine the strategy for winning the war. I think that just goes too far.
JB: Well, I agree with you, and let's focus on that for just a minute, and let's get back to the Valerie Plame case. I mean, as you said, there's no underlying crime. We've got one guy from the White House, Scooter Libby, now resigned after having been indicted. The whole investigation marches on. It seems to me that at some point, we've got to step back and say what the heck is going on here? Why can't we get to the bottom of this? Why doesn't Mr. Fitzgerald pull in some of these reporters?
JF: Well, he did. He's pulled in the second Time reporter, Vivica Novak, who apparently is going to give exculpatory testimony about Karl Rove, testimony that she had a conversation with Karl Rove's lawyer, in which information was transferred, which takes the heat off of Rove. And look, I'll make you bet right now. Rove is not going to be indicted. And you know, there are no heroes in this, but an awful lot of journalists are going to look silly for having turned this case into the cause celebre. And let me tell you. To show you how selective the outrage is, this leak in the Congress about our interrogation tactics in secret facilities overseas...
JB: Right.
JF: I will bet you that there will be one tenth the news coverage of that leak, which really does affect our national security, than of the CIA leak. The only reason the CIA leak got coverage was it was used as a political weapon in the 2004 election, and the losers of that election decided to carry on the fight afterwards, to try to discredit the Bush administration's capability in fighting the War On Terror.
You get the idea: the United States of America, its citizens, and its military, are being sold down the river to murderous zealot Islamist fundamentalists--all in the name of Democrat partisan politics. Power (or the lack of it) has become more important to a majority of what was once the party of Thomas Jefferson than has the winning of this war or the safety of its citizens (or those of our allies). Once upon a time this kind of activity would have gotten people executed for High Treason.
JB: We're going right now to one of the best journalists in this goofy town, my good friend John Fund from the Wall Street Journal. John, thanks for taking the time to join us. Tell us about...well, let me just set the stage. You're talking about what seems to be a rather startling leak from the Senate minority leader, Harry Reid. Let me just set the stage for it. Porter Goss, director of the CIA, said today, "we know a great deal more about bin Laden, Zarqawi and Zawahiri, than we're able to say publicly." Well, it seems to me that maybe Mr. Reid doesn't think he's bound by the usual rules. What's going on with Senator Sieve?
JF: One of the saddest things that's happened in Washington lately is we've seen the degradation of ethics into a political weapon, where if you can't beat someone in the elections, you go after them with trumped up ethics charges. And you know, both sides have done that in the past, to some extent. Now, we're seeing the politicization of intelligence. We know now that the whole CIA leak thing was about somebody having a different recollection about phone conversations months later, and it's a perjury charge. There's no underlying crime. There was no CIA agent outed.
[...]
So intelligence has been politicized. This whole CIA leak thing was a trumped up, no underlying crime. Now, Harry Reid has decided...this is the same guy who was yelling about the CIA leak investigation, the same guy who called the Senate into closed session, who has called the president almost a liar for having supposedly misled the country on the weapons of mass destruction intelligence.
JB: Yeah.
JF: And what does Harry Reid go last week and do? He's on a Nevada TV talk show, and he says well, I just learned today that Osama bin Laden was killed in an earthquake in Pakistan.
JB: Wait a minute. Let me stop you right there. I mean, if he knows that, he could only know it through official government channels, the CIA, Defense Department, whatever. And it would be top secret, wouldn't it?
JF: He didn't read it in the Reno Gazette.
JB: Well, yeah. This is a guy who wants Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in chains, and he's making a leak...
JF: Actually, that's Ambassador Wilson, to be fair.
JB: Well, either way.
JF: Reid has gone almost that far.
JB: Well, I mean just doggone close. I mean, he'd love to see Karl Rove indicted. He'd love to see the whole White House taken down over this thing. And these Democrats, you pair this with Rockefeller, Durbin and Wyden leaking that black satellite program last December...
JF: Exactly.
JB: They're still under criminal investigation for that, which is laying fallow, because Bill Frist...
JF: And not to mention the secret prisons issue, where there's an FBI investigation in Congress, about which Senator might have leaked where interrogations might have been conducted in Europe.
JB: Well, yeah, and we won't even name who that might be...(Rockefeller). This whole issue of keeping America's secrets, the Senate is not going to be able to perform its Constitutional function of oversight, if the Executive Branch can't trust them with they tell them.
JF: We can't tell them anything. Look, if Harry Reid received that information, and apparently, he says he did, there are two things you need to do. First is complete radio silence. And the reason is, you...clearly, the United States government has to check that out. It has to use it in its own terms. That's explosive information, if it's true.
JB: Yes.
JF: And, in addition, if it's not true, and Harry Reid goes and claims it, what are the terrorists going to do? That undermines U.S. credibility. They laugh at us. We become the laughing stock of the Arab world, because our officials keep fatasizing about terrorists dying, when they're not.
JB: Well, and we've got a situation here where, as you just implied, the whole business of whether he is dead has tactical value. We know what is going on in a lot of different places. If people are waiting for signals from him, or sending signals to him, that's of great value in helping round up some of these other characters.
JF: Jed, it's like in a poker game, or a bridge game, where you have an ally in bridge?
JB: Yeah.
JF: And suddenly, you turn to your partner and you push his cards down, so the other team can see the cards. What is your partner going to think of you?
JB: Well, it's really just so very incredibly serious, though, John. Why isn't there anybody in the Democratic Party willing to stand up and say hey, look. We might want to start treating secrets a little more seriously.
JF: We used to, during the Cold War, have a tradition that politics stopped at the water's edge.
JB: Yes.
JF: Unfortunately, now, politics confuses everything in our foreign policy. I think one of the biggest problems we have in fighting the Iraq war is not the insurgency. It's the fact that we have a civil war in Washington, in which one side has decided to declare war on the conduct of our foreign policy. Legitimate criticism is fine, but a civil war, in which the CIA, in part, and the State Department, in part, and the Senate, in part, are actively trying to undermine the strategy for winning the war. I think that just goes too far.
JB: Well, I agree with you, and let's focus on that for just a minute, and let's get back to the Valerie Plame case. I mean, as you said, there's no underlying crime. We've got one guy from the White House, Scooter Libby, now resigned after having been indicted. The whole investigation marches on. It seems to me that at some point, we've got to step back and say what the heck is going on here? Why can't we get to the bottom of this? Why doesn't Mr. Fitzgerald pull in some of these reporters?
JF: Well, he did. He's pulled in the second Time reporter, Vivica Novak, who apparently is going to give exculpatory testimony about Karl Rove, testimony that she had a conversation with Karl Rove's lawyer, in which information was transferred, which takes the heat off of Rove. And look, I'll make you bet right now. Rove is not going to be indicted. And you know, there are no heroes in this, but an awful lot of journalists are going to look silly for having turned this case into the cause celebre. And let me tell you. To show you how selective the outrage is, this leak in the Congress about our interrogation tactics in secret facilities overseas...
JB: Right.
JF: I will bet you that there will be one tenth the news coverage of that leak, which really does affect our national security, than of the CIA leak. The only reason the CIA leak got coverage was it was used as a political weapon in the 2004 election, and the losers of that election decided to carry on the fight afterwards, to try to discredit the Bush administration's capability in fighting the War On Terror.
You get the idea: the United States of America, its citizens, and its military, are being sold down the river to murderous zealot Islamist fundamentalists--all in the name of Democrat partisan politics. Power (or the lack of it) has become more important to a majority of what was once the party of Thomas Jefferson than has the winning of this war or the safety of its citizens (or those of our allies). Once upon a time this kind of activity would have gotten people executed for High Treason.
