Give the President a Helping Hand

Posted on October 9, 2003

Boy, this whole Valerie Plame matter sure has gotten pretty serious, hasn’t it? Even President Bush says so:

“If there’s a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is,” Bush told reporters at an impromptu news conference during a fund-raising stop in Chicago, Illinois. “If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of.
“I want to know the truth,” the president continued. “Leaks of classified information are bad things.”

Whew! Glad that’s been said for the record!

But the thing is, the only people who could have committed the leak in question are all on Bush’s staff. So, if he really wants to get to the bottom of this — if he really wants to know the truth — all he has to do is call each of his senior people, the ones who are privy to national security secrets like this one, into his office and ask them to sign an affadavit that says something to the effect of “Under penalty of perjury, I affirm that I did not disclose the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to Robert Novak or any other members of the press.”

If anyone refuses to sign it, you’ve got your man (or woman). Right? Hell, even Encyclopedia Brown could have figured that out (without even having to turn to page 34 for the solution).

But Bush won’t do it. He won’t ask his staff the $64,000 question. Why? Who knows… maybe he’s still a little shaken up from when he fell off his Segway. Hey, these things happen.

So, the nice folks at MoveOn.org figure this means that we’re gonna have to do this the hard way — if Bush won’t call his people and have them affirm that they didn’t spill the beans, we’re just gonna have to have everybody else in America sign that affadavit. Sure, it’ll take a little longer, but since the President’s not gonna help us out, what else can you do? Sometimes you’ve just got to take the long way home. According to the Census Bureau, the estimated U.S. population is 292,293,131; that’s a lot of signatures to gather, but hey, we’ve gotta hit the one person who won’t sign eventually, right?

Now it’s time for you to go do your bit to help smoke out the bad guy — go to MoveOn.org’s Affidavit Campaign page and put in your name. It’s quick and easy, and once you’ve done it your name will be sent to the White House as one more American who definitely did not commit this crime. Until the President decides to step in and help resolve this the easy way, that means we’re one down, 292,293,130 to go! So get signing!