to Dana Bash CNN-TV

Dear Ms. Bash,
In a (7.18.05) segment on FixedIntelGate (the Mr. Rove & Mrs. Wilson facet of that story), you who are a very smart reporter talked about the “Democrats piling on”; “As this flap plays out”; “pouncing on every detail”; “Why are the Democrats so aggressively going after this knowing so little?” Later you let Mr. Holt talk about “the wacky Left” with no challenge. He said “… if they were serious about this, they would maintain a modicum of decorum and of seriousness, but every passing day, it gets more ridiculous.”

Well, John Kennedy was shot on my 19th birthday and I am not “wacky.” I could not be more serious. I am not ‘piling on’ — nor are my representatives in the House and Senate.  The idea that a President of the United States would lie and “twist” intel to fit the policy is a treachery to the young men like my neighbor’s only child who had his head blown off the week after he was stop-loss held over in country. I do “pounce’ on details when the stakes are so high if you must use a trivializing word like that to describe my rapt and anguished attention.  I think it is unconscionable to allow a guest to describe earnest and devastated people like me and my representatives as the “wacky Left” with no challenge. You know it’s a “talking point phrase” and you should not let it pass.

I lived through the whole Vietnam mess – Vietnamization/Iraqiazation: “When the Vietnamese/Iraqis stand up, our boys can stand down.” Deja entendu. Someone should read the horrible history that I lived through. And take a walk at night by the Vietnam Wall and touch the carved names. Imagine 30 World Trade Centers on the horizon – that’s how many Iraqis we’ve collateralized. Not that Vietnamese or Iraqis count as much as Americans, of course. The words and the blindness are identical.

If we do not unmask people corrupted by power like Mr. Rove and others, more young people on both sides will die. Politics is not a game. This is not a flap. I resent being called ‘wacky’ and ‘ridiculous,’ and you should have stood up on my behalf. My fighting for peace and for a living minimum wage and universal health care rather than spending $14000 a minute on the fantasy Missile Defense system is neither wacky nor ridiculous. These are the things all the Democrats I know are focused on. And on truth in government. Mr. Bush and Mr. Rove are supposed to be citizen servants, not Emperor and minion. 

‘Aggressive’? ‘Know so little’? We know a lot. We know that when Mr. Wilson wrote the 'What I Didn’t Find in Africa' piece he touched a nerve in the palaces of power. We know that Mr. Rove gave Mrs. Wilson’s identity as Mr. Wilson’s wife working at the CIA to Matt Cooper who did not know it before. We know that without the ‘nuclear piece’ of the puzzle, Mr. Bush does not get this unilateral war.

It is suggested that Mr. Wilson is a Democrat. In fact Mr. Wilson voted for George Bush #One. It is made to seem as if Mr. Wilson worked for Mr. Clinton and has always been a partisan Democrat, but in fact he also worked for and voted for George Bush #One and they clearly had a respectful relationship.

Not that anything about Mr. Wilson is actually pertinent to the wrongs that Mr. Rove committed. Mr. Rove had no business going after a spouse to try to intimidate someone. But then he had gone after Mrs. McCain too in South Carolina (and Mr. Bush knows that!), so maybe we shouldn't be so surprised.

We know that an upshot of Mr. Rove’s “double super secret” leaking to reporters was to intimidate people from going against the Administration line. The subtext to whistleblowers in the CIA and elsewhere is *We'll even go past you to your family — When you choose to blow the whistle, you're not just risking yourself, but also your family.* This is maggotball indeed. Wouldn't it make you think thrice about blowing the whistle?

You’re such an incisive reporter, I’m surprised you would use the language to not so subtly undermine the integrity of the Democrats. I did listen very carefully and heard no ‘piling on’ the Republicans with similarly glib phrases. It may be OK to treat news like entertainment, but there ought to be equal opportunity bashing, perhaps.

This is not an inside-the-Beltway story to my friend whose kid is never returning from a war we went to on intel fixed to fit the policy.

I appreciate your thinking about these things.

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