Plamegate in context: shooting messengers en masse
As we continue to hammer away at Plamegate, it is important to remember what the whole thing is really about: the Bush administration is so intent on crushing the truth that it will burn entire CIA covert operations in order to punish a whistleblower.
And if you are tempted to think that Joseph Wilson is the only victim of the adminstration's truth pogrom, let me remind you of this story from last February and linked to by us at the time. The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility reported that:
Joe Wilson is unique only in that he has the means and gravitas to make his story known despite the efforts of the administration to stifle him. But there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of others like him, with stories of other corruption, lies and malfesance who we will never hear from because of the administration's preference for omerta over truth.
If we lose on Plamegate, we lose not just that battle but the whole war Bush is fighting against truth. If Joe Wilson's battle is won, we have a chance at hearing the claims of the many other whistleblowers whose stories have not yet been heard.
And if you are tempted to think that Joseph Wilson is the only victim of the adminstration's truth pogrom, let me remind you of this story from last February and linked to by us at the time. The Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility reported that:
The U.S. Special Counsel has dismissed more than 1,000 whistleblower cases in the past year, according to a letter from the Bush-appointed Special Counsel released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The Special Counsel appears to have taken action in very few, if any, of these cases and has yet to represent a single whistleblower in an employment case.
In a letter dated February 14, 2005 and addressed to U.S. Representative Henry Waxman (D-CA), Special Counsel Scott Bloch defends his stormy 13 months in office by pointing to a sharp drop in backlogged whistleblower cases.
“Everyone agrees that backlogs and delays are bad but they are not as bad as simply dumping the cases altogether,” stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, noting that this letter is the first account that Bloch has released of his tenure and that his office’s report for FY 2004, which ended in October, is overdue. “If the Office of Special Counsel under Scott Bloch is not helping whistleblowers then there is no reason for the office to continue to exist.”
According to the figures released by Bloch, in the past year the Office of Special Counsel—
--Dismissed or otherwise disposed of 600 whistleblower disclosures where civil servants have reported waste, fraud, threats to public safety and violations of law. Bloch has yet to announce a single case where he has ordered an investigation into the employee’s charges. Bloch says that 100 disclosures are still pending; and
--Made 470 claims of retaliation disappear. In not one of these cases did Bloch’s office affirmatively represent a whistleblower to obtain relief before the civil service court system, called the Merit Systems Protection Board. Bloch says that another 30 retaliation cases remain in the backlog.
In order to speed dismissals, Bloch instituted a rule forbidding his staff from contacting a whistleblower if their disclosure was deemed incomplete or ambiguous. Instead, OSC would simply dismiss the matter. As a result, hundreds of whistleblowers never had a chance to justify why their cases had merit.
Joe Wilson is unique only in that he has the means and gravitas to make his story known despite the efforts of the administration to stifle him. But there are hundreds, maybe even thousands of others like him, with stories of other corruption, lies and malfesance who we will never hear from because of the administration's preference for omerta over truth.
If we lose on Plamegate, we lose not just that battle but the whole war Bush is fighting against truth. If Joe Wilson's battle is won, we have a chance at hearing the claims of the many other whistleblowers whose stories have not yet been heard.
posted by bluememe at 7/16/2005
6 Comments:
bring on the heat on those rightwingers, go go go
as a multi time fraud whistleblower,
my personal experience has been that they always "shoot the messenger" and
the louder you scream, the more bullets they use to shoot you. The Government has this organization called P.O.G.O. that is supposed to investigate this shit, but even they are about as bogus as the day is long, just more civil service weenies who get a paycheck whether they do a day's work or they don't. Why should they care??? And for that matter, why should the public care, they're too busy till something a whistleblower tried to warn them about causes someone in their family's 'death' or some sort of major fraud is uncovered that somehow impacted them, but the general public is part of the problem because they despise whistleblowers and think poorly of them. you're a SNITCH if you blow the whistle. And that's sad.
My greatest hope is that more and more of the TRUTH will become FAIR GAME by our MSM. We may even have the election FRAUD FACTS get some air time. thanks interesting blog.
they'll win. here's why: there is no such thing as 'whistleblower protection' in this country or anywhere else. The view of "how dare thou stand in the way of commerce" is more pervasive and embedded in the whole scheme of things than you would believe. And sorry to bust your bubble, but to EMIGRATE from here, most foreign governments will not take you if you're on a U.S. list of 'dissidents' and furthermore, if they don't outright reject your application for that reason, they'll demand you have an ungodly amount of capital to bring with you when you emigrate. To put it bluntly, you have to pick a country who doesn't have it's fingers in the U.S. 'foreign assistance' pie, or is interwoven with our own government to the extent that if we fart, they can tell what we had for breakfast.
it gets worse, even canada wants a quarter of a million US DOLLARS for most people to go there...unless you decide to become an illegal alien and just run across the border and assume a new identity.
remember: your best bet is to stay here and fight the corruption here, for there are no safe havens ANYWHERE for any citizen who's just had enough of this shit. I'm serious, I tried what you propose. You cannot leave. You're just like; "The Prisoner" where the big white bubble of U.S. foreign policy will find you and drown your innocent and
frightened ass if you try to get away from this fucking nightmare...
these words are true, and I wish they were not, I'd be gone already.
I agree. If Rove slips this one then there is nothing left for them to fear. They will have circumvented the principle of rule of law. America the beacon of freedom will be a memory from that moment on. The only option left will be the "angry mob" option and they have ensured your division as a nation and as a people so that will never happen either.
For those of us who remember well, Nixon's crimes were many and shocking when they finally hit the light of day. We had begun to think it would never happen. Then Nixon did something stupid and got caught. Was it the secret bombing of Cambodia that did him in.?
Hell No! It was the skulldugery against our own citizens, like Elsberg and Daniel Schorr, enemies lists and using the IRS to punish enemies.This is what finally shocked the American people into action, and they reacted by pulling their support.
That is what will do it this time too. Of course Rove is nothing compared to the crimes he, Libby and probably Cheney, were trying to cover-up until the truth of WMD finally dribbled out in a way that could be controlled by the Rovian spin machine.
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