What did Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald Know, and State Department Mendacity
In a recent Wall Street Journal Article, Victoria Toensing wrote a powerfully condemning, yes, incriminating article about Richard Armitage, the source of the Valerie Plame “leak,” more than three years ago. Armitage, Number Two at the State Department, has besmirched himself beyond recovery.
Ms. Toensing wrote;
“Put aside hundreds of thousands of dollars of taxpayer funds squandered on the investigation, New York Times reporter Judith Miller’s 85 days in jail, the angst and legal fees of scores of witnesses, the White House held siege to a criminal investigation while fighting the war on terror, [Emphasis mine] Karl Rove’s reputation maligned, and “Scooter” Libby’s resignation and indictment. By his silence, Mr. Armitage is responsible for one of the most factually distorted investigations in history.”
With all due respect, how can one lump the damage done to the President of the United States, his impugned integrity, throwing him to the liberal snakes in the Main Stream Media and Congress, who attack on any pretext— lacking any conscience, damn the consequences—with the others mentioned in that paragraph. The President is charged with defending our nation against a deadly enemy, yet those snakes care less about the safety of the country than about deadly attack, hoping to bring down our President. This is attack for personal gain.
This guy Armitage, US Deputy Secretary of State, the Number Two man at State knowingly and intentionally kept still when speaking up would have quelled this unnecessarily vicious storm he had unleashed.
Then Ms. Toensing drops Armitage stewing in his own juice, and asks “What did [Special Prosecutor] Patrick Fitzgerald know, and when did he know it?” She answers her own question with the fact that Fitzgerald knew before he started the investigation that there had been no crime committed. That he proceeded with the investigation anyway, looking for someone to scapegoat, makes him dirty indeed.
Ms. Toensing chose not to mention it but there was at the time a very grotesque situation at the State Department. Armitage knew all along that he was the source of the Plame leak, and so did his boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell. Numbers One and Two at State were both in the Bush Administration. But nary a word of Armitage’s recklessness was reported to the President. Can we imagine Colin Powell sitting in Cabinet meetings with the President, keeping this sure knowledge to himself?
Fred Barnes of the Weekly Standard, said it this way: “Colin Powell, Bush’s friend and secretary of state in the first Bush term, knew what Armitage had done and never let on. He met with Bush countless times as the White House was being pummeled in the media and by Democrats for outing a CIA agent to take revenge on her husband. Bush called publicly for the leaker to be identified. Powell knew the identity, but remained silent. Some friend.”
What an understatement. It puts the unmistakable taint of a scoundrel on the Colin Powell we had all loved and admired. There is no pretty way of putting it.
I believe that the State Department is rife with people whose attitude toward a president, any president, is “We were here before you got here, and we will be here after you leave. We will put up with you while you are here, but we have no reason to show you any loyalty.”
This is a not uncommon attitude of career bureaucrats in government —believing that their survival is paramount over the nation’s best interests—but very likely prevalent at State.
Historical evidence of this is alarming. The following is from an article previously posted on this website, entitled “Our Nation’s Peril”:
History does not forgive stupidity, incompetence or mendacity.
The Korean War was started by a witless speech by Secretary of State Dean Atcheson, resulting in millions lives lost, and the lives of at least 50,000 American fighting men. You remember Dean Atcheson, the man who said he would not turn his back on Alger Hiss. The [Hill] Bonin chapter [in “Our Nation’s Peril”] is another State Department dot added to the sorry Korean episode. Now look at the State Department’s role in more recent events. My guess is that Secretary Colin Powell was hamstrung by his own subversive department, as he has tried to represent our country’s best interests in the recent past. Still another dot. The dots all connect.
Government bungling at all levels is not surprising. But such State Department fraudulence is close to treason.
Hill Bonin, a giant of an American, was hamstrung by State Department pygmies, as was Colin Powell later.
I believe Powell could never be sure who in his State Department supported his initiatives.
It is encouraging to see possible evidence of spine in Condoleezza Rice’s State Department. Why? Perhaps because during her years as National Security Advisor she could see what was going on at State, and now realizes she must crack the whip.
We shall see.
Ed Note: Knowing what I know now, I am beset by the fervent (but futile) wish that I could retract my Colin Powell comments. Nor do I see any evidence of whip cracking in the Department by Secretary Rice.
. . . [A] top-to-bottom housecleaning of careerists at the State Department, root and branch, would be a giant leap forward.
Foggy Bottom indeed.
Which leads to the question: How much of State Department duplicity-at-the-top is President Bush aware of? All of it, no doubt, as he fought to defend his own integrity and the initiatives of his administration, knowing he was a victim of fraudulent and traitorous behavior from his own State Department. The president’s foremost job is to protect our country, yet State Department treachery has given ammunition to opportunists among not only the stand-for-nothing-but-opposition Democrats, but also reelection-minded-only Republicans, including the weak-kneed RINOs.
My serious suggestion:
That Bush appoint a Bipartisan Blue Ribbon Commission to investigate thoroughly the personnel, policies and organizational structure of the State Department — not as to loyalty to any president or party, but to the international diplomatic interests of the United States.
Even ignoring damage to the President, did the Plame red herring wound the United States? Without a doubt.
Such a commission should be fully funded by Congress if possible. And it should likely be possible if the Commission were given a timetable in which the reporting deadline would be set well into the first term of his successor, the president to be elected in 2008, to take office in 2009.
Even Bush’s critics cannot honestly assert that he has ever put personal gain ahead of national interest.
Rense Johnson
Rense@termlimits.com
For a Fresh Congress
Comments