The Obfuscation Report

George W. Bush could at any point in the last three years have used his position to demand that others come forward, either exonerating Libby or condemning him as the evidence warranted. We are asked to believe that he had no such power: that, in spite of testimony that at least two other administration officials had leaked the identity of the American covert agent to the press, merely because her husband had the audacity to anger the perpetually crabby and apparently uncontrollable Richard Cheney, Bush himself was completely incapable of putting two leakers plus one perjurer plus one Vice President together, or of demanding answers of his own staff, or even seeking them. For an administration so famous for discipline and order, it was a remarkable failure of will. If the President and Vice President consciously set out to intentionally obstruct the investigation into their own administration, they would have made each decision exactly as they did. Upon the hour when, like Nixon firing Cox, the President finally reaches into the wheels of American justice themselves to extract his loyal servant, it is no longer credible to assume all of it was merely three years of coincidence.

There are of course theoretical remedies that could be taken, if a President was constantly abusing his power in order to satisfy the daily demands of cronyism, or even to help support -- as seems unambiguous -- the continued obstruction of justice by convicted members of his own staff. The Constitution could in theory be amended to allow some oversight of clemency decisions, or a caveat added pertaining to the ability or inability of a President to use the pardon process to block investigation into members of his own administration. At the end, however, it seems a bridge too far to have to amend the very Constitution itself in order to protect against the depredations of a single corruption-riddled White House. If Bush cannot competently execute his abilities as President of all these United States, and instead chooses to continue to use the office as vehicle for cronyism, political sabotage, domestic espionage, unconstitutional acts and flagrant self-protection, he should be removed. The Constitution allows for such a contingency, when an administration engages in one cover up too many, one scandal too many, or one bout of self interested corruption too many.

Unfortunately, it does not allow for any such relief when one political party is determined, from the top down, that all such obstructions, crimes, or constitutional subversions merit a throaty defense if done in service of their own party, or when a small but bafflingly influential subset of the national gatekeepers to power continue to genuflect and seek a sniffling "unity" rather than have the country suffer the shabby fate of -- terror of terrors! -- politicians facing the consequences of their own created scandals. Nixon was finally sent to pasture, in primary part, by the offended conscience and basic ethics of members of his own party. Bush in his own era, however, has not been inconvenienced with any such bouts of unfortunate integrity on the part of others; his party remains firmly united around all administration crimes and incompetencies, whether large or small.

With every passing scandal, from Watergate to Iran-Contra to the Justice Department scandals to this, the demands for investigation get fainter, the calls for justice, more tepid, and the punishments, more nebulous. Requests for even the most basic kind of patriotism -- that of simple decency and integrity -- now seem quaint in the current climate, and almost morbid. Perhaps finally, after all these years, it can be reduced to a single moment, when Bill Kristol and other apologists for Republican crimes large and small lost the last public shreds of their honor, and patriotism, and even of notions of crime and consequence.

At present, when Republican presidential candidates such as Fred Thompson, Giuliani, Romney and others seemingly attempt to one-up each other in their declarations of praise for Republican-backed felonies and criminals -- Thompson has been especially keen on letting voters know, in this episode, that he finds the entire notion of prosecuting a member of power for crimes they committed to be a scandalous thing, and the other candidates have lavished their debate-podium endorsements on all matter of other unconstitutional acts in the "War on Terror", believing the rule of law to be an obsolete and pedantic luxury of a past era -- it is impossible to believe that any will step back from that brink and commit themselves to simple decency, or even simple legality. At present, when members of the punditry are more rattled by the terrible partisanship of denouncing abominable and illegal acts than they are by the acts themselves, it seems impossible to suppose that they could be roused from their impeccably groomed and nourished apathy. They are more vexed by an insulting barrage of criticism than they are by anything else; it seems wisest to leave them where they are, defending their own tiny ink-and-paper fiefdoms.

And so it goes. Yet another transparent corruption, yet another investigation sabotaged, yet another enabling felon praised as martyr to the cause. America may at this rate find both its laws and its honor dismantled from within. From the broadcasting tower to the Senate floor, and from the opinion pages to the Department of Justice, there seem to be too few left with an interest in defending either one.

But it should be noted, for the record, that the President of the United States has just used his power of clemency to sabotage an active criminal investigation into the office of his own Vice President. I have heard tell that such things used to be considered scandalous.

There are only two reasons why they haven't been charged with that offense. First, Scooter Libby impeded the investigation by lying about what they did - and that is why he is now being tried. If he had not impeded the investigation, there very well might have been charges on the underlying crime.

Second, it is hard to prove in a court of law that the Rove, Libby and the others knew for sure that Plame was undercover. They knew she worked at the CIA, they knew they were leaking her identity, and they knew they were doing it for a political purpose. But they might or might not have known for sure that she was a covert agent.

So, this uncertainty might protect them for criminal prosecution. But it does not protect them from moral, political and societal judgment for what they have done. They all admit that they leaked Valerie Plame's name in what was an obvious attempt to smear her and her husband for political purposes. Even more importantly, they betrayed our trust by "exposing the name of our sources."

Some conservatives even had the audacity to say Valerie Plame might not have been undercover anymore because the notorious traitor, Aldrich Ames might have given her name to the Russians earlier. Well, that certainly is an interesting question: Who betrayed Valerie Plame first, was it Aldrich Ames or Karl Rove?

Whether Rove and Libby are criminals who have violated the letter of the law is an open question. But what is indisputable is that they have violated our trust. They have exposed the government's most important sources - Valerie Plame worked on counter-proliferation aimed at finding weapons of mass destruction - and they did it for politics.

At least, Libby and Richard Armitage, who also admited leaking Plame's name, don't work for the government anymore. How can Karl Rove, who avoided prosection for perjury by admitting at the last minute that he leaked the CIA officer's name, still be employed by the United States government? And how is Dick Cheney, the man who apparently orchestrated this whole leak in the first place still our vice president?

Is there no one that will hold these men accountable for what they have done? Have we lost all sense of proper outrage? Is there nothing we can do to remove these men who have betrayed our sources and our country?

I have not lost my sense of outrage, no matter how much obfuscation there is by the other side on what really happened here. The facts are clear and the people who are involved have admitted them on the record. We have no choice but to agree with George H. W. Bush. We should have nothing but contempt and anger for these men who have been shown to be "the most insidious of traitors."

The Young Turks