Mr Bush, You Need a New Staff

What a pack of rat bastards! First we have Karl Rove--"Turd Blossom" is what the Occupant calls him. It now turns out he's the bastard who outed Valerie Plame because of the nasty things her husband had to say about the Niger yellowcake uranium fairy tale.

Both President George W. Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney have been interviewed by investigators trying to pinpoint who in the administration leaked the CIA operative's name.

The story began in July 2003 when newspaper columnist Robert Novak revealed the identity of undercover operative Valerie Plame.

Cooper wrote an article about Plame three days later but Miller, who investigated the matter, didn't publish a story.

Plame is married to former U.S. ambassador Joe Wilson. She was named just days after her husband sharply criticized Bush's reasons for invading Iraq.

Wilson had conducted a secret investigation into suggestions the African country Niger provided nuclear material to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and found no basis for them.

Outting an undercover intelligence officer can be a federal crime if prosecutors can show the leak was intentional and the person knew of the officer's secret status.

--From CBC

Rove has a history of being a slimy rat, but outing an undercover agent is a criminal offence, and surely under the "tough-on-terrorism-and-its-allies" policies of the Bush League that rates some crowbar hotel time.

Then there's the morally compromised Dick "Go ₤µ€λ Yourself" Cheny. A man who was collecting dual pay cheques from Halliburton and the White House, right about the time the decision was taken to invade an oil-rich country with a nasty little ruler.

Hell, if it had been 1999 instead of '03, Halliburton could simply have knocked over Texas! Oil-rich, and a Governor no-one'd miss.

Of course, the current Occupant has a lousy track record of dismissing the incompetent, nasty, or just plain corrupt. Consider the fate of Donald "It'll all be over by Christmas" Rumsfeld. He's presided over the deaths of 1700-plus American soldiers and around 100,000 Iraqi civillians. Deaths for which no-one in the White House seems to accept responsibility, so as Defense Secretary it should fall to him. Oh--and does anyone recall a little affair called Abu Ghraib? How about Guantanamo Bay?

This is the man who, in the face of all evidence, said that the Iraq insurgency he helped to precipitate was on its last legs.

Why the hell have none of these horrid human beings (provisional) been $#!£-canned?

Well it could have something to do with the general nastiness and criminal history of the Occupant.

The main disadvantage to democracy is that regime change takes longer. But no matter. Next election this garbage will all be swept from the White House.

You may feel that I'm being a bit strident here. After all, didn't I lately say I'd try to evaluate the Occupant in a more balanced manner?

Yet what other emotion than rage is possible in the sickly green light of the deeds of this gang of thugs? If examined with the utmost undersatanding is it likley to turn out that Karl Rove--who orchestrated a campaign in the South (where the locals still worry about that sort of thing) suggesting that the near-saintly genuine war hero John McCain had a black love-child during the runoff to the Republican Leadership race--just "made a mistake" in outing someone whose name he was only allowed to see by virtue of his lofty position?

And what may be said of a man who defies all common sense and decency (not that CS&D's ever been his strong suit) to keep such people on his payroll?