Super-genius Howie Kurtz over at the WaPo poses himself a real tough question: why do people care so much about Novak-Plame-gate? He rattles off everything that makes it a pretty sexy story all by itself (outed CIA agent, grand jury looking into the highest levels of the White House, reporters in jail, etc.), but says that "all of that still doesn’t explain the intensity of emotion among those following every wrinkle of this unfolding investigation."
Then Howie announces his great revelation, which he seems to think no one else has yet thought of:
Then it hit me. It’s the war, of course.
Gosh, D’YA THINK? Howie, what fucking planet do you live on? Have you read ANY of Frank Rich’s long and compelling columns in the NY Times (the only worthwhile things the NY Times has published on this whole sordid business) saying exactly that, or did you listen when Daniel Schorr made exactly the same point on NPR months ago, to name only two of the most obvious examples?
What a moron.
And speaking of morons, let us consider the (sub. req’d, sorry) words of John Tierney, unquestionably the NY Times’s worst op-ed columnist, who writes today that he just can’t see what all the fuss is about. After all, people leak classified information every day, right? The Washington press just couldn’t function without it, right?
Well, John, people don’t leak the identities of undercover CIA agents every day. And when they do, it may endanger the agent’s life (it probably didn’t in this case), and it may also endanger the lives of overseas contacts with whom that agent has worked (that may well have happened here). In every case, it diminishes America’s ability to defeat its enemies. That is very, very bad for America. That’s why it’s a big deal when it happens. So tell us, John, why do you hate America?
