What does George W. Bush have against Valerie Plame?
This morning the Senate Judiciary Committee held a hearing on a shield law for reporters to protect them from prosecution for withholding sensitive information from law enforcement agencies. Senator Kennedy made a statement, including a reference to Judith Miller who now sits in jail, which an aide then posted on the political web site, KOS.
The following is my take on the current state of affairs, and mine alone, based on nothing but raw speculation and no evidence. But there's a consistent pattern.
The Supreme Court, by the way has identified an "implied right to privacy" in the constitution, which suggests to me that an implied absolute right to remain silent should be there, as well.
First off, free speech and free press aren't worth much if they don't imply the freedom to remain silent on the one hand, and the freedom to print on the other.
All that's being "guaranteed" so far is the content--not the right to actually speak or print something up. Witness that in Iraq they don't censor, they just shut the press down. And the embedded media are subject to the same "classified information" restrictions as are the troops. Just the mention of some items of information, like the building of permanent bases with all the modern coveniences and utilities, could be cause for arrest and detention and courts martial, or worse.
Secondly, the press has been effectively strangled by making the truth secret while telling lies (officially known as "disinformation") is OK. Judith Miller was doing fine as long as she published the lies she was fed. It was when she discovered the truth and refused to divulge it that she went to jail. Given a choice of being charged with treason for revealing accurate information and going to jail for not speaking, the latter is definitely preferable.
What Wilson did was he risked a charge of treason for revealing classified information, which happened to be the truth and put the lie to the disinformation that Bush/Cheney had been spreading around (it must have been really frustrating for John Kerry not to be able to counter the Bush lies on the campaign trail with the truth he'd got from his high level briefings). Because the whole issue was a little farcical, althoug very effective in playing to the nation's subconscious fears (yellow peril, darkest Africa, Niger missing one 'g', uranium bombs, etc) it was unlikely that the bad publicity that would come from his arrest or disappearance would be considered worth while. But Wilson did take the risk and he did it in his own name, instead of leaking.
Bush/Cheney/Rove reacted in typical fashion. If you've got nothing you can use against an opponent, go after his wife. They did it with Muskie, Dukakis, McCain, Kerry, Dean. What they overlooked was that this one was protected by the US code.
Why? Habit. What probably happened was that they were discussing that thorn in the side Joe Wilson and GWB probably piped up, "oh, yeah, that's the guy with the wife in the CIA" and his minions took it from there. See, that's why nobody remembers where they first heard it. Her name wasn't important and it's likely that nobody leaked it. Indeed, Valerie Plame had no importance in her own right. What was wanted was to intimidate her husband and get him to shut his mouth before he revealed any more truths about Iraq, where he was stationed, if I remember correctly, about the time of Gulf I.
Whether or not this tale can be played as consistent with the usual disregard for women, for their ability to make decisions about their own health care, for their right to have careers of their own, I don't know, but it should be considered. Because the behavior is all of a pattern.
I know I for one am tired of wives being dumped on. It's a cowardly form of interaction.Where Wilson himself stood up and said, "here I am, come get me," they decided to go after his wife and now Judith Miller sits in jail, besides.
You'd think they'd at least have enough shame to nominate a female replacement for O'Connor.