I was reading a little more about the investigation of the Bush administration blowing the cover of CIA agent Valerie Plame in retaliation for her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson’s, assertion that the Bush administration was wrong (and probably lying) about Iraq’s nuclear program and attempts to get yellowcake from Niger. (The assertions about Niger yellowcake were withdrawn from a speech Bush gave in Cincinnati in October 2002 before being reinserted into the State of the Union Speech he gave in January 2003.)
This got me thinking about the nature of rhetoric and reality and political scandals. The political flashpoint never seems to be about the things that really have people angry. In this case, I think that most people are pissed because they realize they’ve been lied to by Bush and Co. and, as a result, we’re stuck in Iraq, hemorrhaging money, having just lost the life of our 2000th soldier, and dying a death of a million cuts. But, at least in the past, complaints about the wisdom of choosing a war in Iraq and the veracity of those who led us there have not gained much traction. Now, on the other hand, an investigation into a comparatively minor issue about a retaliatory move taken against one of Bush’s critics has the White House essentially paralyzed and seems poised to cripple the White House for the forseeable future. It gives the left the power to rally behind the relatively simple accusation, “They compromised national security by outing a CIA agent for temporary political gain.” True enough, and certainly a bad thing. But it pales in comparison to the damage the Iraq war has caused and will continue to cause this country.
I think a similar thing happened with Clinton and the Lewinski scandal. The impeachment proceedings went forward with the right holding forth about the dire crime of perjury and how unthinkable it was to have sex in the Oval Office. But, in reality, those screaming loudest about perjury as a high crime or misdemeanor requiring Clinton’s expulsion from office were mad about other things: Clinton’s tax increases, willingness to have gays in the military, being a Democrat. But, their opening was an allegation that Clinton perjured himself talking about whether he had sex with Monica Lewinsky. So, they focused their anger and their energy on that.
I’m too young to know, but I’ll bet Nixon and Watergate was a lot like that as well. Cover up of involvement in a third-rate burglary was the opening, but folks were mad at Nixon for Kent State and Vietnam and Cambodia and being Nixon.
It seems like, therefore, major scandals tend to erupt where simple, easily understood wrongs that are difficult to defend overlap to some degree with major policy problems that are more difficult to understand and much easier to defend. The anger and energy created by the latter are focused on the former and all hell breaks loose.
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