The Security Issue

So, as a result of a discussion with my friend on his blog, I want to address the latest frontier of the security issue which the Democrats must seize for 2006 (and right now!). The revelation that Karl Rove had a part in leaking the name of CIA Agent Valerie Plame, an expert on weapons of mass destruction, to columnist Robert Novak and thus the public means, as Buzzflash says:

the Bush White House committed brazen treason by deliberately undercutting our national efforts to keep WMDs out of the hands of "bad guys."

To have a high-ranking administration official reveal the name of a CIA Agent is treason or "a crime that undermines the offender's government," by one definition, for the purpose of scaring away someone like Joseph Wilson whose logical conclusions are not in sync with the White House's, is unprofessional, reprehensible, and illegal.

The Democrats need to demand that Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. Attorney assigned to investigating the Plame leak, is conducting an honest and thorough investigation, for the sake of national security and the law. If someone in the White House is leaking names, especially a high-level official like Rove, that person endangers the future of CIA's work on diffusing weapons of mass destruction and endangers the possibility for independent assessments of intelligence, like those of Joseph Wilson.

So I don't even want to hear the old refrain that we heard about Nixon and Clinton that "it's not what he did, it's that he lied about it" which Rove will be guilty of if it turns out he was behind the leak. Just as important as perjury, if not more, is endangering our country's security for political gain.