In considering how Barack Obama’s supporters and the media are so willing to defend him on Benghazi, I am struck by the memory of how quick they were to condemn George W. Bush and his administration during the outing of former CIA agent Valerie Plame in what the Democrats and their media allies dubbed “Plamegate.”
We all remember Valerie Plame, whose career as a CIA operative was probably the worst-kept secret within the elite D.C. establishment during the early years of the Bush presidency. Plame’s status as a “deep cover officer” was so widely known within the capital’s cocktail circles that Robert Novak only publicized her occupation in his infamous column because he was entirely unaware that some people still didn’t know about it. But none of that mattered when Democrats saw an opportunity to destroy George Bush by using a manufactured scandal which should have been entirely unrelated to him.
Plame and her husband Joseph Wilson were both longtime Democrat supporters with anti-Bush leanings, which was precisely why Plame arranged to send Wilson to Niger to disprove the administration’s claim that agents of Saddam Hussein had attempted to purchase nuclear material in that country. Wilson diligently took a vacation overseas to sip tea and invest about as much effort into the investigation as O.J. Simpson put into searching for “the real killer.” Probably entirely by accident, Wilson actually did manage to discover that Iraq had tried (unsuccessfully) to acquire uranium, and reported as much to the CIA.
Democrats claimed that the Bush administration outed Plame as retribution for the couple having disproven Bush’s assertion that Iraq had acquired nuclear material in Niger, when in fact Plame and Wilson had only succeeded in verifying what Bush actually said, which was that Iraq had tried to acquire the nuclear material. In other words, Bush never had an axe to grind with Plame and Wilson, but Plame and Wilson were certainly out to get Bush.
When Novak mentioned Plame’s CIA status in his column—again, assuming that it was probably as much common knowledge as Bill Clinton’s promiscuous sex life—Plame and the Democrats saw their opportunity to go after high-ranking Bush administration officials. A very public witch hunt followed and lasted for years, despite the early revelation that Richard Armitage was the ultimate source of the information leak. Armitage was a RINO, however, and not at all the fat target the Democrats had been hoping to nail. With dreams of using the investigation as an excuse to find something—anything—they could use to prosecute George Bush, Dick Cheney, or Karl Rove, the process dragged out for years, with the media happily devoting as much coverage to the non-issue as time would allow.
In the end, years of investigation would only result in the indictment of Lewis “Scooter” Libby on a technicality, while Bush, Cheney, Rove, and everyone else were cleared of any wrong-doings, both criminally and in secondary civil suits brought by Plame and Wilson. The highly-publicized event did, however, allow the Democrats to erroneously use the event as an example of corruption and dirty tricks within the Bush administration, and liberals still to this day equate the episode with Nixon and Watergate.
Proud communist and friend to dictators everywhere Sean Penn and Naomi Watts even starred as Wilson and Plame in a 2010 movie based on their fictitious accounts (plural) of events. Seriously, the couple thought it was necessary for each of them to write a separate book to cash in on their singular story. It’s a surprise they didn’t demand separate movies, as well, or even an equally-fictitious sequel.
What is striking about “Plamegate” is how fiercely the Democrats and their media allies were convinced that we needed to get to the bottom of it and someone had to be held responsible. Nobody died in Plamegate. Plame and Wilson were never even in any danger at any point along the way. The “cover-up” basically amounted to everyone having trouble remembering exactly how they first learned about what was, for all intents and purposes, fairly public knowledge.
Fast forward to 2012 and the Benghazi attack which resulted in the murders of four American citizens in Libya and the Obama administration lying for months about the circumstances involved. We have learned that the administration ignored requests for enhanced security prior to the attack, mysteriously refused to render military aid in the midst of the crisis, and then intentionally lied to Congress and the American public about everything in the aftermath. The corruption goes all the way to the top and implicates President Barack Obama and 2016 Democratic presidential frontrunner Hillary Clinton.
Suddenly, the same Democrats who accused the Bush administration of treason in the outing of Valerie Plame can find no indication of any wrong-doing on the part of the Obama administration in Benghazi. The same people who launched a multi-year investigation into an inconsequential publicizing of a not-so-secret agent are now telling us that four Americans butchered in a terrorist attack is not worth looking into. Furthermore, the same media which ran with the Plame story for years can hardly be bothered to mention Benghazi in any newspaper or newscast, and MSNBC refused to broadcast even one minute from last week’s hearing. When the media does mention the scandal, they usually do so in such a manner as to mock Republicans and accuse them of playing politics by going after the administration.
Remember when Hillary Clinton was asked about the administration’s attempts to mislead the public on the cause of the Benghazi attack, and answered with, “What difference, at this point, does it make?” Liberals talk about that contemptuous line as if it were a brilliant statement and some kind of badge of honor for defying a Republican inquiry. Imagine what the fallout would have been if George W. Bush or Dick Cheney or Karl Rove had tried to get by with that during “Plamegate,” and consider that who leaked Plame’s CIA status ultimately didn’t amount to any difference at all! Democrats never even bothered to prosecute Armitage, and even Plame only added his name to a failed lawsuit after someone reminded her that she probably should, as long as she was suing everyone else involved, anyway.
The more information that comes out about Benghazi, the more apparent it is that the Obama administration has blood on their hands through the deliberate betrayal of United States citizens, and subsequently lied to the world in order to make themselves look good and win the 2012 presidential election.
Democrats wanted us to believe the outing of Valerie Plame was a major scandal because they blamed it on George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, and now they want us to believe there is nothing to Benghazi because Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are at fault. And liberals have the nerve to tell us Benghazi is only an issue because Republicans are playing politics!
If the Democrats were intellectually honest, or consistent, or really anything other than just enormous hypocrites, they would have to admit that Benghazigate is worse than Plamegate in every conceivable way. If someone needed to be held responsible for the revelation of a Democrat activist’s status as a CIA employee, then certainly someone needs to be held accountable for the negligence and possible betrayal which led to the deaths of Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. If the possibility of a cover-up required a three-year investigation in the Plame case, then surely we can devote some time to finding out who in the Obama administration decided to blame their own negligence on an obscure video tape. Not only is the evidence more damning this time around, but the nature of the crime is far more severe.
Richard Armitage outed Valerie Plame, and now she has found wealth and cult praise she never would have achieved otherwise, all from smearing George W. Bush and cashing in on her ill-gotten fame. Meanwhile, Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton turned their backs on four Americans, and now those Americans are dead. “What difference, at this point, does it make?” Quite simply, it makes the difference between being where Valerie Plame is today and being where Chris Stevens is today.
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