by
Larry C Johnson (bio/blog)
David Brooks' appearance last night on the Jim Lehrer Newshour dashed all hope that the man would recover his integrity. As some may recall I sent Mr. Brooks a letter on Wednesday chiding him for intellectual dishonesty for insisting there was no harm and no issue with respect to the outing of CIA covert officer, Valerie Plame Wilson. Since Mr. Brooks lives just around the corner it was a snap to deliver the letter.
Well, here is what he said tonight on the Jim Lehrer Newshour:
But this -- that crime was surrounded by a vast circus of hypocrisy and partisan dishonesty, starting with the original case, which was allegedly about outing a CIA agent, when it was never really about that, because, once it turned out that was Richard Armitage, nobody cared anymore, and then the hypocrisy over whether somebody should go to jail for perjury, with Democrats saying one thing with Clinton, another thing with Libby.
So, there was just this vast mountain of partisanship and dishonesty and shamelessness, which I don't think you can separate away from what Libby did. So, I thought he deserved to be punished, but did not deserve the 30 months that was sentenced.
What a disingenuous bastard! If Joe Wilson had simply parroted a John Kerry line about Iraq while the intelligence community stood firmly behind the President then one could make the case that Joe's July 2003 op-ed was dishonest partisanship. But that did not happen. Just the opposite. Joe Wilson's July 2003 op-ed saying Iraq did not try to buy uranium from Niger was validated a few days later by the CIA and the President's own spokesman conceded the President should not have used the 16 words in the State of the Union address. Where is the goddamn partisanship? Joe Wilson, the CIA, and the President's spokesman agree on the main point and you cry partisanship? What a putz!
So Bobo, I am taking off the gloves. Do the rest of you want to know what was in the paragraph I left out of the original letter?
Here you go. I concluded the letter with the following:
By the way, your mailbox is an embarrassment and neighborhood eyesore. While I think you are a complete putz when it comes to understanding the damage done to our nation’s security by the thoughtless outing of Valerie Plame, you are still a neighbor. Therefore, in the spirit of neighborliness, I’ll be happy to help you put up a new mailbox.
You think I exaggerate? Check out his mailbox:
The man has lived in a very nice house for more than a year and still is too cheap or too lazy to put up a decent mailbox. Maybe this is where Homeland Security Chief Tom Ridge got the idea for using duct tape to keep one safe in the event of a terrorist attack. You tell me. Ordinary folk use screws or brackets to secure a mailbox to a post. Tape? Not so much.
My offer to help him put up a new one still stands. But he will not appreciate the things I have to say about his intellectually lazy and ethically challenged attack on the integrity of Joe and Valerie Wilson. There goes the neighborhood.