BETRAYED….Dan Drezner says well something that I haven’t quite found the exact words to express. Exposing Valerie Plame was dumb, he says, a serious crime for what seems like a trivial benefit. But:
If it is nevertheless true, however — an important “if” — then a Pandora’s box gets opened by asking this question: if the White House was willing to commit an overtly illegal act in dealing with such a piddling matter, what lines have they crossed on not-so-piddling matters? In other words, if this turns out to be true, then suddenly do all of the crazy conspiracy theories acquire a thin veneer of surface plausibility?
Exactly. If they’re willing to do something like this, you have to figure that (a) it’s not the only time they’ve done it, (b) they’re willing to do it for big things as well as small things, and (c) it’s part of an institutional culture at the very top of the White House.
And this comes from a guy who was an unpaid advisor to the Bush/Cheney campaign in 2000. He’s still willing to wait for the final shoe to drop, but if it does, he feels appropriately betrayed, as should anyone who supported these guys.
