just a small note on the feminist angle

Have you noted the misogynist angle to Leakgate?

Valerie Plame didn't send her husband Joseph Wilson to Niger. The CIA did. Because they didn't want bogus information that the public would think came from them to start a war. But it is reported that Ms. Plame sent Mr. Wilson. This translates into overbearing wife of henpecked husband sending him out for a carton of milk and the dry cleaning.

Note please how Ms. Plame was used by the Bush administration to cast doubt on her husband's findings. They outted her to punish him. Calling him a liar wasn't enough. Why? Were they hoping, God forbid, something terrible would happen to her and her children? A sort of revenge usually employed by mobsters. Mr. Wilson wisely chose to protect his family in plain sight. If something terrible did happen, it would become very clear that it wasn't a coincidence.

This isn't politics as usual. This is a criminal enterprise. It is too bad that Mr. Fitzgerald hasn't gotten all RICO on their asses.

While I have no sympathy for Judith Miller, I do think she too was used by the Bush administration. Lead on, if you will, to be one of the boys, a camaraderie she didn't, evidently, have at the New York Times.

The schoolyard bully Bush administration insulted an "old school" man. The sort of man who not only can return an insult, but slap his challenger in the face with a glove and say, "Pistols or swords at dawn?" He readily admits "too many wives and too many drugs" to run for public office, but found he could serve his country as a diplomat and a whistleblower. He refused to be intimidated. He refused to let the Bushies hang his wife to twist in the wind. He wouldn't be pushed or shoved. He stood up for his wife and himself and should bring back some honor to the Medal of Freedom by receiving it from the next administration in 2009.

The gravity of the situation is this: Everyone who knew her and worked with her was in danger, especially those close to her at the CIA, her children and her husband. The gravity of this is the thugs in the White House didn't care that Mr. Wilson or Ms. Plame knew that the war was a lie. They would endanger the lives of Americans so their plan to kill more Americans in a bullshit war abroad to control elections at home would go forward into the abyss. They didn't have any goals in their administration; we got this war because they had no vision for the nation, no plan to keep their offices other than a trumped up war.

Mr. Wilson will be depicted in the worst light; perhaps the worst for him isn't behind him. The far right will really howl now that this is before the rest of America.

Mr. Fitzgerald, reminding me of Elliot Ness and the Untouchables (quick, someone Photoshop that old movie poster!), looks like he can hold his own against the howlers. He put down the notion that he indicted on a "technicality." For the uninitiated, all law is merely a technicality and it is what separates us from the punks in the White House.

This goes all the way to the top. That towel snapping frat boy Bush either okayed the operation which means he is a son of a bitch or he didn't know until after the fact which makes him a dumb son of a bitch. Even Nixon had the guts to go on television and accept Haldeman and Ehrlichman's resignation. I thought Bush should have fired Libby. Libby, which sounds so close to Liddy, also, it has been noted, was a special assistant to the president, not just the vice-president. What did we get? Blah, blah, terror, it is tough to fight the terrorist, I am going to do my job, blah, blah, blah.