Resign, do not collect $200 and go to jail

What’s the chance of Bush’s svengali, Karl Rove, resigning over the Valerie Plame scandal? We now know, finally, that Rove did indeed reveal the CIA agent’s name to journalists. That’s a crime.

The revelation was political payback of the cruellest kind. Diplomat Joseph Wilson had dumped all over Bush’s false claims of yellowcake in Niger and we know how much the Bush administration loves dissent.

Rove must resign and face charges. In Bush’s America – or Australia, for that matter, as we witness the Immigration failure Bill Farmer off to romance the Indonesians – accountability matters little. The media is unlikely to pressure for Rove’s head. In a time of “war”, we are told, such questions are unpatriotic. Witness the right-wingers in the US after the London attacks. Their ignorance is touching in a twisted kind of way, especially in light of the fact that their bullying and messages are ignored by the vast majority of the world. Never criticise the rulers (as Australia’s resident ignoramus knows all too well) and the insider’s glow will continue.

Take these insights from the Washington Times’ Bill Sammon:

“I think the entire conversation changes now. You know, we were talking about Gitmo and whether the prisoners had sufficient comforts…That debate is obliterated. And now we’re back to, guess what? Good and evil. I mean, this is what Tony Blair, and Jack Straw, and all these people were talking about. They’re talking about using words like wicked and evil, the words that Bush was mocked for using by his detractors when 9/11 happened. But that’s where the conversation’s back to. We’re not talking about global warming. We’re not talking about Gitmo. We’re back to the basics. We are at war.”

I nominate Sammon as the best candidate for the 2008 US Presidential election; he understands as little as the current leader.

Text and images ©2024 Antony Loewenstein. All rights reserved.

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