Ask yourself this question:
What if the country finds out that yes, an undercover CIA agent was definitely killed overseas as a result of the outing of Valerie Plame and her network of contacts?
This is, I think, the one thing that, no matter what else happens, no matter who is indicted for what, no matter what freeperville and the wingnuts say, will lead to an immediate downfall of Bu$hCo, the neo-cons and unless they are very careful, much of the GOP.
Everything else, as Chimpy McVodka says, is background noise.
Indulge me, if you would.....
Lately, there have been some discussion over diaries or news that is old news to us, but is now being reported on Hardball, or some other MSM outlet. Regardless of any opinions, the fact is that most of the country is just waking up to the fact that something really fucked up has been going on here. This, in and of itself, is big news, as I
diaried yesterday.
And on another discussion today, Elwood Dowd made a comment that wasn't news to us, but it got me thinking of how important it is if this tidbit gets out.
From wikipedia:
A possibility has been raised by several sources that a death may have occurred as a result of this leak. Under the Espionage Act, this could lead to a death penalty case. The CIA Wall of Honor has stars representing agents killed on duty. Named stars are used where information is not classified, and anonymous stars are used when the agent's name cannot be released. Below the stars is a chronological Book of Honor. An anonymous star was added to the wall between named stars that can be dated to deaths on February 5, 2003 and October 25, 2003. The anonymous star thus fits the timing of the Plame leak. Wayne Madsen, a reporter and former NSA employee, has claimed, "CIA sources report that at least one anonymous star placed on the CIA's Wall of Honor at its Langley, Virginia headquarters is a clandestine agent who was executed in a hostile foreign nation as a direct result of the White House leak."
As Lawrence O'Donnell reported, and as we know, many judges read what Fitzgerald knew when they were ruling on whether Miller and Cooper had to testify or turn over their notes.
One very important item (also known to us) is that:
In February, Circuit Judge David Tatel joined his colleagues' order to Cooper and Miller despite his own, very lonely finding that indeed there is a federal privilege for reporters that can shield them from being compelled to testify to grand juries and give up sources. He based his finding on Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which authorizes federal courts to develop new privileges "in the light of reason and experience." Tatel actually found that reason and experience "support recognition of a privilege for reporters' confidential sources." But Tatel still ordered Cooper and Miller to testify because he found that the privilege had to give way to "the gravity of the suspected crime."
Judge Tatel's opinion has eight blank pages in the middle of it where he discusses the secret information the prosecutor has supplied only to the judges to convince them that the testimony he is demanding is worth sending reporters to jail to get. The gravity of the suspected crime is presumably very well developed in those redacted pages. Later, Tatel refers to "[h]aving carefully scrutinized [the prosecutor's] voluminous classified filings."
Some of us have theorized that the prosecutor may have given up the leak case in favor of a perjury case, but Tatel still refers to it simply as a case "which involves the alleged exposure of a covert agent." Tatel wrote a 41-page opinion in which he seemed eager to make new law -- a federal reporters' shield law -- but in the end, he couldn't bring himself to do it in this particular case. In his final paragraph, he says he "might have" let Cooper and Miller off the hook "[w]ere the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security." (emphasis mine)
Now, we have discussed this as part of the overall TreasonGate story, but I would venture to guess that an extremely small percentage of the population knows that the CIA has a Wall of Honor, let alone that someone may have died as a result of this leak.
A major part of the support for Bush was at least that there was a perception that he would "keep us safe". With Katrina and the ass-backwards response, the curtain was pulled back.
But if the general population finds out that Bu$hCo lied about WMD (check), started a war based on these lies (check), outed a CIA with NOC and all of her contacts as retribution for her husband telling the truth and calling bullshit on their lies (check), AND that national security was blown, and one of our own agents was killed as a direct result, then I would say Game Over.
So, with everything else being speculated, from perjury to conspiracy to espionage act, to un-indicted co-conspirator to Fitzmas to the ultimate smear campaign or pushback, one thing can trump them all--
If an undercover CIA operative was definitely killed as a result of the Plame/Brewster Jennings outing, nobody can explain away treason. Noone can support treason.
That is the ace in the hole that very few currently know about.