Thursday, December 4, 2008

My Least Favorite Conservative

OK, at least for today, that honor goes to writer Bob Novak, he of outing Valerie Plame Fame. Novak was recently asked if he had to do it all over, would he still out Plame.

NOVAK: I’d go full speed ahead because of the hateful and beastly way in which my left-wing critics in the press and Congress tried to make a political affair out of it and tried to ruin me. My response now is this: The hell with you. They didn’t ruin me. I have my faith, my family, and a good life. A lot of people love me — or like me. So they failed. I would do the same thing over again because I don’t think I hurt Valerie Plame whatsoever.

Novak justifies outing Plame on the basis of the criticism he took for... outing Plame. Sort of like saying you'd murder an innocent bystander again because of the indignity and injustice of being prosecuted for it the first time. Novak's lucky he's not in jail, but his only remorse for a, by definition, treasonous act, one that the CIA says had significant negative ramifications on their work preventing a nuclear Iran (what Plame was working on), is to say he'd do it again because he caught negative flack over it.

So I'd like to out Bob Novak as a traitorous political ideologue who places partisan support over national security and patriotism, a hypocrite who espouses moral conservatism out of one side of his mouth while justifying his own moral turpitude in grossly illogical and juvenile rants out of the other, as a major-league asshole with remorse only for the paltry penalties for his malfeasance, and, by the bye, as a hack of a writer.

If I had it to do over again, I'd say the same things about you Bob, but not because of the repercussions for saying it, but rather because unlike you, I actually have principles.

2 comments:

Sebastian E. Encina said...

What people I have had this argument with who justify the outing of Plame don't understand is that these intelligence people working for the CIA are not like James Bond going all rogue in a foreign country smashing through windows and driving fast and flashy cars. They work for dummy corporations set up by the CIA for the sole purpose of supporting the US. Those dummy corporations have real employees working for them along with those CIA operatives. If you disclose the identity of one of those operatives, you endanger not only them and their family, but all those other employees of that corporation, be they real or operatives as well.

Then the company itself is in danger, as what foreign government or company would ever do business with them again? What, Novak's outing of Plame only stayed within the US and no one ever read it? Fat chance.

That this story was just swept under the rug is sickening. People in the soon-to-be-out administration is guilty of many crimes, and they should be held accountable for the crimes they have committed.

Sadly, they won't be, and if they are, only scapegoats like Scooter Libby will face the wrath of the courts.

Won't January come soon enough?

T. Johnson (aka "24") said...

Sadly, even the scapegoat Libby had his sentence commuted by Bush, likely so he wouldn't testify against higher-ups.