Criminalizing Politics? 3

One of the stupider claims coming from the current Federal Administration and its surrogates is that the investigation of the outing of Valerie Plame and the resulting indictment of Mr. I. Lewis Libby is somehow “criminalizing politics.” (Link courtesy of Emily Messner in the Washington Post.)

All the investigation is doing is criminalizing criminal behavior. And criminal behavior to further political ends is still criminal behavior.

The Bill of Rights nowhere says that those seeking or holding office may do anything they wish in the interests of accomplishing their political ends.

Daily Sally points out that the public seems to be disengaged from the story, and

And the American people have historically been loth to think ill of their elected officials.

I remember when push came to shove in an earlier time. I was much younger then, home with my family, watching television, watching the news report that Mr. Nixon had dismissed Archibald Cox. My father disappeared from the living room (this was before the time that there was a television in every room) for about 20 minutes.

Now, my father had voted for Mr. Nixon in 1968 and 1972, not because he was a rabid Nixon fan, but because Mr. Nixon seemed to him to be a better choice than Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern. (I voted for Shirley Chisholm in my first election.)

I realized what later what my father was doing. He was calling Western Union and sending telegrams to our elected representatives incongruously assembled: “Impeach Nixon.”

He had reached his breaking point with Mr. Nixon’s lies.

And, compared to the current Federal Administration, Mr. Nixon’s administration was upright and honest.

What they tried to do was steal an election they already had in the bag. And use the IRS and FBI to pursue their political enemies (without benefit of a Patriot Act to give their actions a gloss of legality), and then (and this is what did them in) cover up their actions when their minions got caught.

They did not sell out the treasure of this country to the rich, nor send our young to die for a lie (though one might argue that, in dragging out the Viet Namese War, they perpetuated a war for a lie, a war they inherited from their predecessor), nor did they cloak their treachery in the robes of religious belief.

Ahhh, the good old days. Give me honest political corruption over hypocritical moral corruption any day of the week.

(Discussion Question) When are you going to reach your breaking point with the greed, hypocrisy, and abuse of power of the current Federal Administration?