Ten Second Sound Bytes

The Rove Security Leak controversy will most likely disappear from the news media today after President Bush’s announces his nominee for Supreme Court Justice. (Wonder if the selection process was speeded up for this purpose? Nah, nobody can be that devious).

Some of the arguments and counter arguments on this issue reinforce my belief that politics have become a battle of ‘ten second’ sound bytes. Here are a few examples:

“Karl Rove did not reveal the name of the CIA agent”. All he said was that apparently the wife of Joseph Wilson works for CIA. Is there a difference in referring one as ‘Mrs. Joseph Wilson’ or as ‘Ms. Valerie Plame’? (I guess he thought that the reporter was too stupid to figure out the connection).

“Joseph Wilson is a liar and a Democrat”. What has this got to do with the issue of someone compromising the national security for political purposes? (By the way, no one in the Bush Administration has said that Mr. Wilson was wrong in his findings. The goal here is to make the whole issue sound like another ‘food fight’ between Democrats and Republicans).

“No harm is done by the revelation of Valerie Plame, as she was only a local CIA agent”. Local Agents are crucial elements of CIA espionage network. They work in ‘fronts’ with no obvious connection to CIA. If the identity of any of them is compromised, it puts the lives of many who worked with them in grave danger. It starts a chain reaction of identity revelations (‘You worked for X, who worked for Y who is a CIA agent!’). CIA will not be able to function if their agents have to worry about them being outed for political purposes. It was exactly for this reason that the then CIA Director, George Tenet, wanted a full investigation of this matter.

I wonder:

Who is the source of Robert Novak who first identified Valerie Plame as a CIA agent? He obviously has revealed it to the investigators. Otherwise, he would have been in jail like the New York Times reporter Judith Miller. (How did this creepy guy get away? By being a Republican supporter?)

Why is it taking so long to complete this investigation? The Federal Prosecutor, Mr. Patrick Fitzgerald was been working on this since December 2003. With the threat of jail, he should have been able to get a few people to ‘squeal’ quickly. (I guess the Patriot Act does not cover national security breaches very well).