There are many culprits for the steady destruction of civil political discourse in America. One often overlooked is the battle over facts. Progressives and conservatives have slid into a thorny situation where all too often they cannot even agree on the most basic bits of information about an issue.
We cannot begin to build homes of warm, fulfilling debate when we have such radically different ideas about what the factual foundation should be. It leaves us out in the snowy blizzard screaming at each other while our country freezes to death.
The more complex and complicated political stories are those most likely to have multiple fact sets. A chief example is the Valerie Plame CIA leak case and the recent indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
To aid in healthier debate, let's nail down some of these disputed facts.
First, Plame was not responsible for her husband, Joe Wilson, being sent to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein sought to purchase uranium.
CNN correspondent David Ensor said, "I have talked to very high intelligence officials who say that just isn't true. ... It was senior officers above her who had the idea of sending Ambassador Wilson."
Second, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan made numerous false statements. On Sept. 29, 2003, he said, "I've made it very clear: [Karl Rove] was not involved, that there's no truth to the suggestion that he was."
On Oct. 7, 2003, he said, "I spoke with [Rove, Libby and Elliot Abrams] so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved. I had no doubt of that in the beginning, but I like to check my information to make sure it's accurate before I report back to you, and that's exactly what I did."
Third, there seems to be some confusion as to whether Plame's CIA status was "covert" or widely-known, harmless information.
Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and colleague of Plame's set the record straight on PBS: "I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been undercover for three decades; she is not, as Bob Novak suggested, a CIA analyst."
Johnson also testified to a joint committee of congressional Democrats: "If she had been caught engaged in espionage activities while traveling overseas without the black passport, she could have been executed. We must put to bed the lie that she was not undercover. For starters, if she had not been undercover, then the CIA would not have referred the matter to the Justice Department."
Furthermore, a July 21 Washington Post article reveals a classified State Department memo that identifies a paragraph marked "secret" that included Plame's name.
There's one last matter that it would help for supporters of the administration to understand why we liberals are so angry and obsessed about this case.
Let's allow the president's father to answer that one in a speech he gave in 1999.
"I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources," George H.W. Bush said. "They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors."
Hopefully we can control that anger, agree on our facts and have some meaningful debate.
Write to David at
Swimminginbrokenglass@gmail.com
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