I live in small town Wisconsin in a fairly purple part of the state. The county went for Gore by 5 votes and Kerry by 1,200. Democratic Congressional Rep. Republican state rep and state senator. The paper, The Dunn County News, is a twice weekly deal with small circulation. I contribute regularly and normally land the primo letters spot next to the editorial cartoon. I also normally get a lot of right wing counter letters. But in July I wrote three letters and got zero Republican response and numerous supporting letters. The short version seems to be a lot of heartland anger at Bush, Rove, Frist, and company, especially about Plame.
Letters on the flip:
LTE #1 The Plame Truth
In 2003 someone leaked the identity of a covert CIA agent to a reporter who published it on July 14th. That agent was Valerie Plame and she worked on weapons of mass destruction in the Middle East. The leak was a grave breach of national security in a time of war. It destroyed Plame's career and a valuable front company the CIA had spent years establishing. The president promised the leaker would be found and dealt with, a promise he reiterated on June 10, 2004 when he promised to fire the leaker.
This week, after a two-year federal criminal investigation, a lawyer for Karl Rove, the president's number one political advisor, admitted that Rove told reporters of Plame's CIA ties on July 11th 2003. He wouldn't say whether Rove knew she was a covert agent at the time, which will likely determine whether Rove goes to prison. But for two years, Karl Rove and the White House have denied Rove had anything to do with the leak. Either Rove was lying to the President and the rest of the White House for that entire time, or the White House made those denials while knowing the truth.
Despite the President's promise, as of this writing, Karl Rove still works in the White House.
Here are questions every American should want answers to: Who told Karl Rove, a political operative with no "need to know" about covert operations, that Plame was a CIA agent? What did the president know about this serious breach of national security? When did he know it?
LTE #2 Misguided priorities.
Bill Frist, the Republican leader of the Senate has once again demonstrated that the agenda of the far right is deeply misguided. In recent days he has tabled the defense appropriations bill until after the summer recess. He has chosen to short-change our troops for two reasons.
His official reason is that a bill designed to protect gun companies against lawsuits is more important. For Frist, protecting corporations is apparently more important than seeing that our troops are properly funded in wartime.His unofficial reason is that Republican Senators, including McCain, Warner and Graham have added amendments to the bill that would prevent U.S. troops from engaging in the sorts of torture conducted at Abu Ghraib.
We've already seen some of what went on there, but the worst pictures have not yet been released and the Bush administration has gone to court to block them from ever being seen. Republican Sen. Graham has said that the undisclosed images from Abu Grhaib show evidence of "rape and murder." Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld has said these photos depict "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman."
Now Bill Frist wants to prevent the passage of a bill that would ban such conduct. All of the Democrats and a significant number of Republican moderates want us to ban torture and have moved to do so. The Republican leadership in the persons of Bill Frist and President Bush, who has threatened to veto this bill if it contains anti-torture provisions, apparently think torture is okay. Is this what we want from our leaders?
LTE #3 Restoring Integrity?
For two years Bush's closest advisor, Karl Rove, and the Vice-President's chief of Staff, I. Lewis Libby, have been claiming they had nothing to do with the outing of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent. In July we found out that wasn't true. Bush's response? Change his promise to fire anyone involved in the leak to a promise to fire anyone who'd committed a crime.
John Bolton, Bush's nominee for Ambassador to the U.N. claimed in his official nomination papers that he had not been questioned or provided information to jury or government investigations in the past five years. In July we found out that wasn't true. Despite initial claims by the State Department that Bolton's "answer was truthful" the State Department reversed itself on Thursday, acknowledging that Bolton gave Congress inaccurate information about an investigation he was involved in. He'd been interviewed by the State Department Inspector General as part of a joint investigation with the CIA related to the Plame case. Bush's response? Fox News is now reporting Bush will give Bolton a recess appointment to the U.N., bypassing the Senate.
John Roberts, Bush's nominee to the Supreme Court has claimed that he was never a member of the Federalist Society, an extremely conservative legal organization. In July we learned that wasn't true. John Roberts was listed on the organization's steering committee in 1997/1998. Bush's response? We don't know yet, but I'm not hopeful.
These are just the lies exposed in July of this year. In 2000 Bush campaigned on his reputation as a straight shooter and a promise to restore integrity to the White House. Is this what he meant?
End of LTEs
That's the lot. Any thoughts on what I should hit them with next?