The Valerie Plame Affair

Of course I have to comment on the new John Tierney Op-Ed.

Basically Tierney is certain that there has been no crime committed on the part of Karl Rove or Scooter Libby in the leaking of Valerie Plame's name. He subsequently refers to Pat Fitzgerald's investigation as "Nadagate". A lot of details surrounding the Valerie Plame affair are very unclear to me, probably because only Pat Fitzgerald has a good idea of what actually happened, but I'm surprised that Tierney states unequivocally that Rove and Libby did not commit a crime and clears them of any ethical wrongdoing. Tierney makes little of what Rove and Libby likely did by saying that a prosecutor could indite just about anyone inside the government on such charges, which is completely ridiculous and stretching the truth. Even if Rove and Libby did leak her name, it's okay, because according to him, Valerie Plame was in no real danger. He also makes it seem as though Pat Fitzgerald started this investigation on a witch hunt and the investigation is getting more and more desperate to find some sort of charges against people in the current administration. Actually though, this investigation was originally started by John Ashcroft, a small detail that Tierney fails to mention.

I also object to his comparison of the Rove-Libby scandal to the Clinton scandal. Tierney makes the Clinton scandal sound worse than the Rove-Libby scandal, because in his mind Clinton in fact committed a crime whereas Rove and Libby did not. Although what Clinton did was unethical, he certainly didn't play chicken with other people's lives. Whether or not Rove and/or Libby committed a crime, it certainly seems as though as someone was trying to send Joe Wilson and others a message about what happens to those who defy the current administration. We should hold our elected officials to a high standard of professional conduct and the Plame affair certainly seems to violate that standard. I really cannot think of Pat Fitzgerald as someone on a witch hunt -- really Rove and Libby brought this investigation upon themselves as Clinton brought the Lewinsky investigation by Starr upon himself.