It seems the Bush Administration finally went too far attacking Joe Wilson's family because he exposed the lies in Bush's State of the Union Address; lies under the Oath of Office to drive us into a costly war against harmless Iraq. Now we're anticipating the Fitzgerald investigation results, a law-enforcement response to the "outing" of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame.

The Bush Administration including its national security team is still ignoring their duty to keep us safe. They diverted attention and resources from shoring up emergency and terror response - imagine if Katrina were an attack rather than a hurricane - to retaliate against those who showed their previous failures and lies. They undermined our national security and intelligence operations by "outing" Valerie Plame Wilson to punish her husband Joe Wilson.

The criminal conspiracy to retaliate against the Wilsons for telling the truth about Bush Administration lies brought on the soon-to-conclude investigation by Patrick Fitzgerald - a Republican - who has refused to leak details of his efforts or heed the pro-Bush media mewling demanding he let Bush's operatives off the hook for risking our lives in their partisan political vendettas.

I read one the most shameful and pathetic excuses for Bush - and excuses for journalism - imaginable in the Washington Post. Richard Cohen stepped far away from his pretense of objectivity or liberalism to defend his friends at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue: "The best thing Patrick Fitzgerald could do for his country is get out of Washington, return to Chicago and prosecute some real criminals." Fitzgerald is doing the best thing for America by trying catch "real criminals" who undermined our national security.

Cohen admits: "The alleged crime involves the outing of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative whose husband, Joseph Wilson IV, had gone to Africa at the behest of the agency and therefore said he knew that the Bush administration -- no, actually, the president himself -- had later misstated (in the State of the Union address, yet) the case that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. Wilson made his case in a New York Times op-ed piece. This rocked the administration, which was already fighting to retain its credibility in the face of mounting and irrefutable evidence that the case it had made for war in Iraq -- weapons of mass destruction, above all -- was a fiction. So it set out to impeach Wilson's credibility...."

While he concedes, "In the Plame case, it might technically be [a crime]" Cohen protests, "but it was not the intent of anyone to out a CIA agent and have her assassinated ... but to assassinate the character of her husband." First of all, intent to have an agent or anyone who worked with that agent assassinated isn't required for violation of US law - or to undermine national security. Rove, Libby and / or whoever else engineered this smear campaign against Wilsons did more than enough to damage her career and compromise the assets and other agents known to work with Plame. Perhaps it's also enough to get agents and assets killed. Cohen cannot know otherwise. His defense of the indefensible renders him a joke.

Cohen admits the Administration he's trying to protect "set out to impeach Wilson's credibility" (motive) to punish Wilson for exposing that Bush "misstated [some might say lied] in the State of the Union address" about Iraq's nonexistent nuclear weapons in order to scare America into war. There are no more serious decisions or more serious lies than those which take a nation into war. Why should Fitzgerald give this corrupt, inept White House a free pass on its criminality? Especially when their crimes directly undermined our national security in time of war, and actually led is into war which caused the deaths of 2000 American troops and 10,000s of innocent Iraqis?

Cohen misleads readers claiming: "As it is, all [Fitzgerald] has done so far is send Judith Miller of the New York Times to jail and repeatedly haul this or that administration high official before a grand jury, investigating a crime that probably wasn't one in the first place...." Cohen concedes that this affair "might have metastasized into some sort of cover-up" then, again pretends he knows the cover-up is "of nothing much."

Cohen calls this "nothing much." Bush's own father said, "Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors." - George H.W. Bush, April 16, 1999, Dedication Speech, George Bush Center for Intelligence. I side with the former President and former Director of Central Intelligence over the ersatz journalist on this matter.

Absurdly, Cohen reverses reality claiming that Fitzgerald's investigation of those who jeopardize lives with lies - and then cover up their lies by retaliating against truth-tellers - threatens truth-telling: "If anything good comes out of the Iraq war, it has to be a realization that bad things can happen to good people when the administration -- any administration -- is in sole control of knowledge and those who know the truth are afraid to speak up."

Cohen ignores that "bad things" happened to 3000 Americans on 9/11 due to his friends' failure and "bad things" happened to 2000 Americans in Iraq because his friends took us into an illegal war based on lies. Administration retaliation against those who exposed their lies made and makes "those who know the truth ... afraid to speak up." That's why Rove, Libby and / or others went after the Wilsons, O'Neil, Clarke and anyone else who dared stand up to their lies.

Cohen even admits this was the motive behind outing Plame! We all suffer from this White House's thuggish "control of knowledge" and their willingness to deceive and manipulate us. Holding Cohen's White House friends accountable for their lies and "alleged crimes" against those who exposed their lies is the only way to prevent what Cohen claims he fears.

Adding insult to idiocy, Cohen warns the Republican Fitzgerald: "Do not bring trivial charges -- nothing about conspiracies, please -- and nothing about official secrets, most of which are known to hairdressers, mistresses and dog walkers all over town. Please, Mr. Fitzgerald, there's so much crime in Washington already. Don't commit another." Oh so now investigating crimes which strike at the heart of our national security is a crime? Is this a threat? If he doesn't shirk his duty to investigate serious crimes, will Cohen's buddies in power retaliate against Fitzgerald as well?

How does Cohen know whether or not a crime was committed? Where did he go to law school again? On what basis does he know "all" this investigation has accomplished?  If Cohen isn't just making things up, this hints he knows and is illegally divulging information material to a grand jury investigation. Cohen sneers: "Go home, Pat." Maybe "Pat" should call "Dick" to testify under oath about his sources for what he knows? If I were Fitzgerald, I'd call Cohen before the Grand Jury and demand a full and complete explanation of these comments.

See: "Let This Leak Go," By Richard Cohen, Washington Post, October 13, 2005; Page A23: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/12/AR2005101202002.html

Contrast Cohen's blithe defense of what George HW Bush calls "the most insidious of traitors"  against the concerns a top counter-terrorist Larry Johnson expressed. Johnson - a Republican - worked for the Central Intelligence Agency  from 1985 to 1989 and then joined George HW Bush's State Department where he served in the Counter Terrorism division until 1993. Johnson later trained U.S. military and State Department personnel in counter-terrorism.

Johnson writes: "The investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked the fact that Valerie Plame, wife of former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a CIA undercover operative, is nearing completion. Virtually lost in the recent spurt of press reporting is the fact that the compromise of Ms. Plame (and, as night follows the day her carefully cultivated network of spies) was unconscionable. Ms. Plame, a very gifted case officer, was a close colleague of mine at CIA. Her dedication and courage were clear in her willingness to assume the risks of an agent under non-official cover - meaning that if you get caught, too bad, you're on your own; the US government never heard of you."

This counter-terrorism expert notes, "The supreme irony is that Plame's network was reporting on the priority-one issue - weapons of mass destruction. Thus, it was made abundantly clear to all, including potential intelligence sources abroad, that even when priority-one intelligence targets are involved, Bush administration officials will not shrink from exposing such sources for petty political purpose. The harm to CIA and its efforts to recruit spies willing to take risks to provide intelligence information is immense." Cohen doesn't understand the importance of outing and compromising this network, but Johnson does.

Johnson explains how this all happened: "Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, Ambassador Wilson publicly exposed an important lie, and the president as liar, when he debunked the report that Iraq was seeking uranium in the African country of Niger. Still, as Wilson himself has suggested, the primary objective of leaking his wife's employment at CIA was not to retaliate against him personally, but rather to issue a stark warning to others privy to administration lies on the war not to speak out. Administration officials felt they needed to provide an object lesson of what truth tellers can expect in the way of swift retaliation."

See: "A Case Of Treason," Larry Johnson, October 06, 2005, TomPaine.com:
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051006/a_case_of_treason.php

Johnson puts all this into context in another article, something Cohen could have done if he had any integrity or initiative. As Johnson tells us, "It is now quite clear that the outing of Valerie Plame was part of a broader White House effort to mislead and manipulate U.S. public opinion as part of an orchestrated effort to take us to war. The unraveling of the Valerie Plame affair has exposed their scam - and it extends well beyond compromising the identity of a CIA officer. In short, the Bush administration organized and executed a classic "covert action" program against the citizens of the United States."

Johnson considers "Revelations during the past week about the Plame affair [which show] that the Bush administration used covert action against its own citizens." He focuses on "the charge that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger ... which led Vice President Cheney to ask the CIA for more information on the matter. That request led to the CIA asking Ambassador Joe Wilson to go check out the story in Niger."

The Downing Street Minutes exposed that "in the summer of 2002, the Bush administration told our British allies that they would 'fix the facts' around the intelligence. In other words, the United States sought to manufacture a case that Iraq was trying to build a nuclear capability." Johnson reminds us that "bogus intelligence reports and fabricated documents surface[d]" and "senior administration officials - Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney - went to great lengths to try to convince Americans that the United States would soon face the wrath of Iraqi attacks. Remember the smoking mushroom cloud?" This is how the Bush Administration lied us into war.

Johnson admits, "While CIA did make mistakes, and while some key members of the National Intelligence Council were willing to drink the neocon Kool-Aid and go along with the White House, when it came to questions of whether Iraq was buying uranium in Niger or if Saddam was working with bin Laden, CIA and INR analysts consistently got it right and told the administration what they did not want to hear. It was policymakers, such as Vice President Dick Cheney, NSC Chief Condoleezza Rice and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, who ignored what the analysts were saying and writing." They did so, because they were intent on attacking Iraq no matter what, and they were more than willing to lie to us to get our support.

As Johnson explains, "The evidence of the White House effort to manipulate and shape U.S. public opinion is now overwhelming. Just last week, President Bush appeared in a pathetic scripted 'dialogue' with hand-selected U.S. troops. We also know that male escort Jeff Gannon Guckert was granted special access to White House press briefings and that pundits like Armstrong Williams sold themselves to the White House. The Bush administration had an organized campaign to manipulate the U.S. media to get its message out. Unfortunately, the corporate media played along."

One of the many players is Richard Cohen who defends the attack on Valerie Plame Wilson which Johnson tells us "was not an isolated incident. It was part of a broader pattern of manipulation and deceit. But this was not done for the welfare of U.S. national security. Instead, we find ourselves confronted by an unprecedented level of terrorist attacks and a deteriorating military situation in Iraq. At the same time, we now know that the Bush administration gladly sacrificed an undercover intelligence officer in order to keep up the pretense that the war in Iraq was all about weapons of mass destruction."

Cohen calls all this "not much," but as Johnson - and anyone who is paying attention knows - "Americans have died because of the Bush deceit. The unmasking of Valerie Plame was not an odd occurrence. It was part of a pattern of deliberate manipulation and disinformation. At the end of the day, American men and women have died because of this lie. It is up to the American people to hold the Bush administration accountable for these actions." It's up to us to make sure the media report on the crimes and insist on punishment for the criminals.

See: "Dick Cheney's Covert Action," Larry C. Johnson, TomPaine.com, October 19, 2005: http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20051019/dick_cheneys_covert_action.php

But where is the mainstream media on this Watergate-level scandal? Covering their own asses and aiding in the corrupt Administration's cover-up! Contrast the honesty and actual understanding from Johnson a member of the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).against Columnist Cohen's clumsy efforts to defend his friends' reckless actions and - Cohen admits - even crimes. Cohen calls all this "nothing much," and something we should "let go." Larry Johnson, a Republican who worked as a CIA analyst and counter-terrorism expert calls this "A Case of Treason." I'll take the word of the expert over the simpering sycophant. You can decide for yourself.

Sadly Cohen's failure to discuss Bush Administration failures and eagerness to defend their crimes is all too common. The mainstream media looked away or even joined in as the Bush squad savaged people like Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, Scott Ritter, Bill Burkett and the Wilsons for telling the truth about Bush Administration lies. If terrorists attacked us while nearly all of Bush's national security team was going after truth-tellers - rather than al Qaeda - the Bush team and their media sycophants would blame those who warned us and told the truth.

The corporate press refuse to report on the astonishing unpopularity of Bush and his failed, fraudulent and felonious presidency. The media never fully reported the election fraud and manipulation in 2000, or that despite the chicanery with voting lists and the effort to frustrate Florida law Al Gore won the most legal votes in that state and therefore deserved to serve as the voters' choice. Absent specific surges in approval related to events like 9/11, the attack against Iraq, and capturing Saddam Hussein, Bush's poll ratings remained low.

Bush was less popular on 9/10/01 than on the day Al Gore beat him in the popular vote. After 9/11, Americans rallied to Bush - giving Bush another chance. Bush blew that chance by attacking Iraq before finishing the job in Afghanistan, and doing so based on a string of "bad intelligence" better known as distortions and misrepresentation. Even before most Americans understood the scope of Bush Administration failures and fabrications, Bush's popularity trended back down to about where it was when he lost the election in 2000. Cynically, Bush hitched his star to 9/11, depending on the corporate media not telling voters about his monumental failure to keep us safe before, on and after that tragedy. Suddenly this reliance is less secure.

Unfortunately for the White House, Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson, Paul O'Neil exposed Bush Administration lies and failures which enabled the 9/11 terror attacks. Clarke, as the former anti-terrorism czar in four White House administrations has the highest authority and credibility. When Clarke explains that the Bush White House failed America out of laziness and obsession on Iraq and "Star Wars", he joins a growing list of former Bush staffers -- Paul O'Neil, David Kay and others -- documenting Bush's failures. Bush admitted he felt NO urgency about terrorism before 9/11. Thanks to Bush's lack of leadership 3000 Americans died.

In desperation, Republican officials and their supporters in the media keep trying to blame the Clinton Administration for 9/11. The Clinton Administration was the best anti-terror Administration in US history. Clinton elevated anti-terror to cabinet level. Bush lowered it to staff level. The Verdict on Bush's decision? 3000 Americans dead.

Former National Security Adviser Samuel "Sandy" Berger's sworn testimony explodes the hypocritical Republican claims that President Clinton "did nothing" against bin Laden. The Clinton Administration might have caught or killed bin Laden if the GOP hadn't helped al Qaeda. Top GOP leaders such as Sen. Phil Gramm, then-Senate Leader Trent Lott and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay blocked all of Clinton's anti-terror efforts. When President Clinton ordered the attacks against al Qaeda, Republicans attacked Clinton. They screamed "wag the dog" and whined that terrorism wasn't a real issue. Clinton ordered CIA to kill or capture bin Laden. Clinton's people caught the WTC93 bombers and Khobar Towers bombers. They attacked Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda in Afghanistan after their attack on African embassies, but Republicans blocked further anti-terror actions when they accused President Clinton of "wagging the dog."

By contrast, Bush provided no leadership against al Qaeda. Even worse, he ordered the FBI and CIA to "back off" the bin Laden terrorists and withdrew the 2 attack subs Clinton deployed against al Qaeda. Because of that 3000 Americans died. Bush should have left the attack subs in place and kept pressure on the Taliban and al Qaeda. Instead Bush pulled back our forces and kissed up to the Taliban. Our enemies saw this weakness and attacked. Bush also helped terror suspects Abdullah and Omar bin Laden escape from the US after 9/11 and his orders helped Osama bin Laden escape in Tora Bora. Bush gave terrorists a free hand before 9/11.

Clarke designed a detailed battle plan to attack al Qaeda, but Bush went on vacation for months rather than implement it. Bush didn't send troops into Afghanistan to attack Osama Bin Laden even after he knew bin Laden was behind the attack against the USS Cole. Bush Administration apologists claim Richard Clarke admits that Bush radically changed anti-terror policy from "rolling back" al Qaeda to direct attack, however Bush never did anything against terrorism before 9/11, and by attacking Iraq he actually promoted al Qaeda's interests.

We're less safe thanks to Bush. Bush is helping our enemies the al Qaeda terrorists. Bush attacked their top rival, Saddam. Bush keeps doing exactly what Osama Bin Laden wants him to do. His rush to invade Iraq split the anti-terrorist coalition and fueled radical Islamicist propaganda efforts. It also opened Iraq to al Qaeda terrorists Saddam Hussein had suppressed. Bush keeps undermining national security and serving Saudi interests rather than American interests. The record shows Bush and almost his entire national security team ignored warnings about impending terrorist attacks. Then, they lied to us about Iraq. As a result 3000 Americans died on 9/11, and 2000 Americans died in Iraq.

Rather than face and fix their mistakes, Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice first tried to block then stone-walled all attempts to investigate what went wrong. Rather than catching or killing bin Laden, the Bush Administration focused on its political enemies rather than our national enemies. If the Bush Administration spent 1/10 of the effort attacking Osama and al Qaeda as they're devoting to attack Clarke, O'Neil, and Ambassador Wilson, Osama might be dead now.

Leading up to 9/11/01, Bush failed worse than any other President in US history at his most important job - keeping us safe from foreign attack. Condoleezza Rice failed to provide even mediocre national security advice. Rumsfeld's Department of Defense failed to defend their Department - the Pentagon - from attack. Then they blamed others and lied about all of this. They also failed after 9/11 when the American People gave them a second chance. Bush and his administration abused our trust by ignoring and increasing real terrorist threats, and by pushing a radical right wing agenda which undermined our preparedness. Katrina exposed cronyism and incompetence in the Bush Administration. Hopefully the Fitzgerald investigation will expose their criminality in rushing to attack Iraq based on lies and intimidation and retaliation to cover up lies and failures.

Bush and his administration are utter, miserable failures. They should be impeached for letting terrorists kill 3000 of us through criminal negligence and then getting another 2000 Americans killed in Iraq, a nation which never attacked or threatened us. Also for gutting our ability to protect Americans from natural disasters and terrorism. And for lying about all this and for committing crimes to punish those who exposed their failures and lies. The mainstream media should have protected us from these fatal failures and costly crimes, but refused to do their jobs.