Last week on Meet the Press, Tim Russert asked RNC chairman
Ken Mehlman if he would stand by any findings that Pat Fitzgerald concludes in
the Valerie Plame leak. Mr. Mehlman danced around the question and would not
give a straight answer. Later this week we saw Republican Strategist Rich Galen
started calling Pat Fitzgerald “our†guy, implying he is conducting his
investigation on a partisan level.
This shows you that the “smear machine†of the right is
starting to shift its targets from Joe Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame, to
the prosecutor in the case. You may be asking yourself why they would do this.
In part it is because their smearing of Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson has been
failing. The RNC went through the trouble of putting out “talking points†that
attempted to do just that, and they have all been discredited repeatedly.
There seems to be another reason behind this though.
President Bush appointed Pat Fitzgerald to the Chicago district of the Attorney
Generals office in 2001. He was assigned the Valerie Plame case by former
Attorney General John Ashcroft in 2003. It would seem as though they picked a
Bush appointee to investigate the leak because he may have some loyalties to the
administration. After all, it was Bush who basically gave him his current job.
Now Pat Fitzgerald is out there working this case to its
fullest. He is determined to get to the bottom of the leak. Testimony has
already been talked about that is more than damning to the administration. I am
sure for George Bush, a person who prides himself on the loyalty of people, this
is upsetting. It is starting to appear that Bush figured Fitzgerald would go
into this investigation with a great deal of favorability towards the White
House that gave him his job. Instead, Pat Fitzgerald has proven he is a man
committed to the law and the American people. George Bush may have been the one
that appointed Pat Fitzgerald, but that does not put his White House above the
law.
Pat Fitzgerald is under the national spotlight right now.
He is investigation a crime that trumps the magnitude of Watergate. He is also
giving hope to the American people. He is not conducting his investigation based
on political allegiance, but rather he is conducting it based on the law and the
seriousness of the crime. The fact that this prosecutor has kept such a closed
lid on this case proves he knows the severity of the crime and wants to get to
the bottom of it.
This special prosecutor is in the middle of probably the
toughest job he will ever face. He could very well be the man who takes down the
President of the United States. The fact that he is conducting this
investigation in what appears to be the most unbiased manner means every
American should stand behind him. It doesn’t matter if you are a Republican or a
Democrat. The fact is we are all Americans and should give Pat Fitzgerald our
greatest support and prayers in unraveling this mystery that has crippled our
intelligence agencies.