The heart of the matter

It's nice that the media is finally paying attention to the Plame Affair. But much of the coverage is still dealing with the surface issue of criminality.

William Rivers Pitt gets beneath the surface:

The third layer is where the darkness truly lurks, and where the deadly importance of this situation lies. Valerie Plame was not simply an analyst or a data cruncher. She was an operative running a network dedicated to tracking any person or nation that might try to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists. That sentence deserves to be written twice. She was an operative running a network dedicated to tracking any person or nation that might try to give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists.

The Bush administration pushed very hard the idea that America is in danger from WMDs being placed into the hands of terrorists. This was one of the central arguments behind the war in Iraq. Yet in order to protect Bush's political standing, a couple of "administration officials" blew Valerie Plame, and by proxy her network, completely out of the water in an attempt to shut her husband up. In short, in order to protect Bush from the ramifications of using fake evidence to support his war, this White House destroyed an intelligence network that was protecting us from the threat posed by chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons.

Beyond the sheer vindictiveness of this criminal act is the basic fact that the Bushies put politics and personal vendetta above considerations for the safety of the American people.

It - Is - Just - That - Simple.