Semi-Daily Journal

It's long been obvious that the smear against Plame was orchestrated at the highest levels.

Every time I go over there to sneak a peek at how drezner thinks I am sucked into reading the comments section and I find people so crazy and illogical that I start to wonder whether I'm nuts instead (reminding me of that wonderful thing from some damn site: I can't forgive the republicans for turning me into a conspiracy theorist. apologies for getting that quote wrong). John Bruce over on Drezner is one of the most mixed up people I've ever been exposed to with his abosolute conviction that Valerie Plame's social status is dispositive as to whether treason has been committed.--Kate

" The most generous thing I can say about this statement is that it's factually correct."

Oh, the Limbaugh standard. Everyone knows you're telling the truth about the naked emperor parading down the street, but shhhhhhh! Do you want to be thought unworthy?

The quote is from Teresa Nielsen Hayden (her blog is 'Making Light'; http://www.nielsenhayden.com/makinglight/).

Oh, thank you! that was the cite! Boy, she hit the nail on the head.--Kate

I keep watching for signs that the "rational conservatives" and independents will give up on Bush, as they should have long ago, but I increasingly fear that anti-Democratic, anti-liberal conviction is their bottom line. Even though every likely Democratic candidate, except Daschle, is a moderate -- Lieberman, Clark, Dean, and I say Kerry).

In the case of hip independents of the Slate/Salon type, it seems to be a deadly fear of ever taking sides (rather than leaning back and commenting snarkily from the outside.)

Drezner seems to be one of the very few who's actually paying attention. I really have a feeling that the Plame thing will disappear like Enron. Certainly a lot of the media have already weighed in on the "What's the big deal?" side.

Bush is full of shit. You can't make your whole Presidency turn on the issue of national security and THEN turn around and be blase about one of your little mice leaking the name of a covert CIA operative. I think Wilson's kind of full of it, too, but that's not as important as Bush being full of it. I just don't see Bush getting my vote (not that any Democrat has earned my vote, either).

Zizka, do I get to be one of your rational conservatives? Please, please, pretty please?

Species thought extinct occiasionally resurface. (I'm rooting for the Carolina Parakeet, myself.)

Unfortunately, the last known Rational Conservative was last seen nodding thoughtfully, as an Irrational Conservative told him, "We must all hang together, or we shall assuredly all hang separately."

Put simply, we should ask why GWB doesn't just insist through mass emails that the leaker confess. He may have, but his statement that "We may never know" who the leaker is, really takes one aback, no? And, the hack rightdioheads like Hannity and Laura Ingraham keep saying that it really doesn't matter, it's just the other side getting revenge, maybe the press or CIA leaked it to hurt Bush. They want Tenet to resign, get it!

Novak's own later writings show a great disdain for giving a hoot. One complete logical fallacy: because *he* heard an "offhand" (alleged) remark revealing the Plame identity, he dismisses the claims that other journalists were contacted as false. What? One example of one type doesn't suggest the absence of anything else. I heard Andrea Mitchell on Imus say (last week?) she had been approached with such material.

As a libertarian/conservative, I am not happy with the Plame affair. I absolutely agree that Bush has no business being pessimistic about finding the leaker. It makes him look like he cannot control his own people. At best, it's pathetic. At worst, it's a cover-up.

My own feeling all along has been that the longer this drags on without anyone coming forward to take responsibility, the more suspicious I become. My suspicion meter is way up.

When will rational conservatives give up on Bush? Well, it would help if rational liberals would give up on regarding the United States as evil and our opponents at the UN as pillars of morality. I cannot give up on Bush as long as the alternative is somebody whose idea of world leadership is to pretend that other countries are a bunch of nice Quakers waiting for us to join them in silent devotion.

Well, Arnold, you flunk the rationality test (both in your depiction of liberals and your depiction of the alternative to Bush), but you do pass the paranoid test. How a conservative/libertarian can find anything to support in george bush regardless of your opinion of the alternatives is beyond me....

Elsewhere in the real world, i'm with zizka and frank, as the general reaction by conservatives to the treasonous acts of the backbone administration regarding plame makes only too clear: there just aren't that many honest conservatives left. It's a sad lose for america.

The rational conservative isn't something I invented. It's something I keep hearing about. I'm agnostic about its existence.

As far as a Democrat worthy of your vote: Kos has been saying is "It's not what you want, but what you get". Most of the possible Dem candidates are realists on international affairs and pretty moderate on economic and domestic affairs. Especially compared to Bush.

The left is whipped. Voting for Nader accomplished far less than nothing. So by now, most of us have submitted to the Kos principle. It shouldn't be hard for a lot of non-Democrats to decide that there are two immediate choices in these elections, and that the Perle-Rove-Robertson-Norquist Administration is the bad one.