Is Larry Johnson being pwned? After what I’ve read here (and elsewhere) today, I have to ask that question.
Now I don’t know if Larry Johnson IS being pwned. Maybe he's just making up stuff. But I do know that while Larry Johnson is talking about a tape he’s never seen, he’s NOT talking about Scott McClellan. And while we’re talking about Larry Johnson, we’re also not talking about Scott McClellan. Neither are we talking about Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby and their role in the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson. We’re not remembering the air time that was given to those who argued that "no crime was committed" because she "wasn’t covert," "she was just a desk jockey," she was a paper-pusher who was "never in any kind of danger," and "no harm was done."
I don’t know if Larry Johnson is being pwned, but I do know that certain interests would be served by destroying the credibility of the man who stood up and said that Valerie Plame Wilson was covert, and that the revelation of her identity was a criminal act with consequences that were harmful to the interests of the United States. I know that certain interests also are served by dividing Democrats, by dividing Americans, by dividing humanity. I know certain interests are served by getting us to attack one another, and by drawing our attention away from other matters.
So I don’t know if Larry Johnson is being pwned, but if he is, I have to ask "cui bono?" I don’t think it’s Senator Hillary Clinton who will benefit, nor Senator Barack Obama, nor the Democratic Party. Neither do I think there will be a benefit to Larry Johnson, or to his former colleague Valerie Plame Wilson.
In all likelihood, most of the American public will never understand what the "Plame outing" was all about. There’s a part of me that still feels outrage that neither the courts of law nor the court of public opinion were able to serve justice. There’s a part of me that wants payback – and, whether she intends it or not, Senator Clinton sometimes speaks to that part of me. Senator Clinton’s a fighter, and she speaks to the fighter in me. But Barack Obama speaks to a different part of me, a part that knows I can fight best and gain most when I fight against my anger and my cynicism, and follow my hope and my joy. Barack Obama calls forward a deep wisdom that tells me, even when my anger feels righteous, that following my anger will most likely lead me to a place where I am going to end up being pwned.
So I hope Larry Johnson will ask what it is within himself that he's following. If he has been pwned, I hope he will find a road back.
We CAN follow our hope. We CAN follow our joy. We CAN fight the good fight TOGETHER. YES WE CAN!