(no subject)

[stevenehrbar]

Well, Mr. Dascle has made a statement.  Let's see what substance is in it . . .

[T]here can be no doubt that he has risked enormous damage to his reputation and professional future to hold both himself and our government accountable.

To his reputation, sure, if he's discovered to be a liar.  To his professional future?  He's already said he has no intention of returning to service in a future administration.  Since leaving office, all he's done is a TV analysis gig and written a book.  Does anybody really think this massive media exposure has hurt his value to the TV market, or is likely to reduce sales of his book?  It can only hurt him if his claims are proven in the court of public opinion to be so fraudulent that no TV network would dare be associated with him.

Clarke's personal motives have been questioned and his honesty challenged.

Why, yes they have.  So have George W. Bush's, among others.  Why should Clarke be immune?  It's not like these questions and chellenges have been coming only from the Administration and its surrogates -- Democratic commentators Gregg Easterbrook of The New Republic and Mickey Kaus of Slate have done so, too.

He has even been accused, right here on the Senate floor, of perjury. Not one shred of proof was given

Right, because as the accuser noted, the testimony is classified.  Declassification is proceeding.

When Max Cleland ran for reelection to this Senate, his patriotism was attacked. He was accused of not caring about protecting our nation -- a man who lost both legs and an arm in Vietnam, accused of being indifferent to America's national security.  That was such an ugly lie, it's still hard to fathom almost two years later.

Well, let's explain.  Max Cleland opposed the creation of the Department of Homeland Security not because he thought it was useless or unwise, but solely because it would be organized under the same civil service rules as, for example, the Defense Department, instead of the civil service rules of, for example, the Department of Agriculture.  This was taken as an indication he was more concerned with the specific priviledges of unionized civil servants than in homeland security. 

Far be it from me to support such an inference, but inferring opposition to the Department of Homeland Security as indifference to homeland security is no more unfathomable than inferring opposition to the Department of Education as indifference to education.

When Ambassador Joe Wilson told the truth about the Administration's misleading claims about Iraq, Niger, and uranium

What Niger claims?  The Administration never claimed anything about uranium from Niger.  Niger is just one country in the vast continent of Africa, and there are lots of other countries with uranium in Africa.  I certainly believe all the claims about failing schools now; we can't even get Senate leaders educated in simple geography anymore.  Or is it merely that we can't get Senators to give up a good partisan attack even if it's baseless?

the people around the President didn't respond with facts. Instead, they publicly disclosed that Ambassador Wilson's wife was a deep-cover CIA agent.

"The people around the President" being Daschle's term for an anonymous source of unknown rank quoted by an opponent of the invasion of Iraq.

When former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill revealed that the White House was thinking about an Iraq War in its first weeks in office, his former colleagues in the Bush Administration ridiculed him from morning to night

O'Neil himself has said his ghost writer misrepresented the facts when writing the book.  I'd say that alone makes Mr. O'Neil pretty ridicule-worthy.

In nearly all of these cases, it's not Democrats who are being attacked

Nearly all?

Richard Clarke ... [and] Joe Wilson ... worked for Republican Administrations.

Well, yes, they worked in them.  They also worked for the Clinton Administration, and both say they voted for Gore in 2000.  And they aren't the only Democrats to work for Bush; the current Secretary of Transportation, for example, is a Democrat.

Nonetheless, our colleagues tell us these two should be investigated, at the same time there has been no Senate investigation into the leaking of Valerie Plame's identity as a deep cover CIA agent;

Right, because there's an ongoing criminal investigation.  Anybody remember the fiasco where criminal convistions in Iran-Contra were overturned because of how Congress handled its investigation?  We want the Plame leaker in jail for his felony, not used as a political football.