Thank goodness for our fine congresswoman, Louise Slaughter.
Last week, on the same day that CIA Director Porter Goss issued a blistering statement calling for the heads of those responsible for leaking word of the Bush administration's illegal domestic wiretapping program, grand jury testimony given by Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, Scooter Libby, revealed that he had been authorized by Cheney to leak the name of undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame.
It was sweet irony, and one that Rep. Slaughter wasted no time in jumping on.
"It's truly fitting that Mr. Goss's comments were published on the same day that we learned of the Bush Administration's willingness to imperil the work of our intelligence agencies for partisan political gain," she said. "By Mr. Goss's own standards, the White House has engaged in the reprehensible act of damaging our national security in a misguided quest to preserve its own standing in the minds of the American people."
Porter Goss, for those with short memories, is a former congressman and right-wing hack who helped mastermind the impeachment of President Bill Clinton. Not only that, Goss charged on the floor of the House of Representatives that Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack on Iraq in 1999 for the sole purpose of turning the country's attention away from the Monica Lewinsky kerfuffle.
In fact, the attack was designed to degrade Saddam Hussein's ability to reconstitute his "weapons of mass destruction" program and was, by all accounts, highly successful.
Scooter Libby is looking at 30 years in the slammer for outing Valerie Plame, shortly after her husband -- former ambassador Joe Wilson -- exposed President Bush's lies concerning Iraq's pursuit of yellowcake uranium in Africa during his 2003 State of the Union address.
Libby testified before the grand jury that indicted him that he'd received "authorization" from his superiors at the White House to leak Plame's name and other classified information to the press.
At the time, he had only three superiors; Cheney, Bush and Presidential Chief of Staff Karl Rove.
When our good friend John LaFalce retired, effectively bequeathing his seat to Rep. Slaughter, we were unsure about how the Falls would fare. We needn't have worried. While she may not have the "personal touch" LaFalce displayed during his nearly 30 years in office, her important work exposing the crooks and liars who've taken over our government more than makes up for it.
| Niagara Falls Reporter | www.niagarafallsreporter.com | Feb. 14 2006 |