Innocent until proven guilty...unless you're a Republican

For those of you who haven't been keeping up with the news (and I don't blame you), there's a little thing going on with President Bush's top political advisor, Karl Rove.

Again, for those of you who don't know, Karl Rove is one of the most demonized people in American politics. He's been referred to as the Puppet Master of George W. Bush (because, of course, President Bush is too stupid to do anything on his own), and pretty much blamed for anything that liberals don't like. But like him or hate him, he's good at what he does. Damn good.

And liberals can't stand this. Mostly because he keeps beating them.

But it seems that they've found a soft spot in his armor...maybe.

See, a couple of years ago, former Ambassador Joe Wilson was a major critic of the Iraq war. He wanted to go to Nigeria to 'investigate' the claim that Saddam Hussein tried to buy nuclear materials from the country. His wife, a 'covert' agent for the CIA, recommended him for the gig (something Wilson originally lied about, only to be proven wrong). On a side note, do you really think that such a huge critic of President Bush and the Iraq war would SERIOUSLY investigate such a claim that would justify everything he was against? Not likely. And that's exactly what happened.

He came back, and wrote a nice little piece for the New York Times using the typical 'Bush lied, Iraq wasn't a threat' rhetoric. He said 'it did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.' Oh, well that's good to know. What, did he get off the plane, look around and say 'Well, so sign of nuclear bomb-making materials here. And no receipt with Saddam's name on it. My work here is done.'? Please. Is anyone really all that shocked that a staunch opponent of the Iraq war concluded from his investigation that there was no wrong-doing on the part of Saddam Hussein?

But I'm getting off topic.

The main point is, sometime during all of this, it gets revealed to the public that Joe Wilson's wife is a covert agent for the CIA. Oops. That's not good.

And so begins the race to find out who's responsible for the leak. It gets really complicated, but long story short, of the 3 journalists that are known to be the recipients of the leak, 1 is in jail for contempt of court for not revealing the source of the leak, another had to make a plea deal to get out of jail, and the last one has just been sitting pretty.

Something's a little fishy here. It seems to me that if Karl Rove, the ultimate nemesis of the American liberal, was responsible for the leak, journalists for Newsweek would've been offering that information up left and right...journalistic integrity be damned. But instead, one of them is willing to go to jail without revealing the source.

The journalist that made the deal to stay out of jail is going to talk, so we could very well be finding out rather soon the identity of the leaker.

The point is, we don't know. And even after we know, it's not a warrant to throw the leaker in jail or execute them for treason.

For the sake of argument, let's say that Karl Rove is the leaker. Did he do it with the malicious intent to destroy a CIA agents career in return for her husband's opposition to the Iraq war? If so, then yes, Karl Rove deserves to go to jail. But I highly doubt that Karl Rove would do something so stupid.

However, what if Karl Rove didn't know the capacity in which the agent worked, only that she worked at the CIA? What if his comment was only something along the lines of 'Wilson only got that job because his CIA wife recommended him.' There's nothing untrue or illegal about that.

But don't try to explain that to the Democrats. Ever since the possibility arose that Rove might be somehow involved in this whole mess, there has been clamoring for Rove to resign, or for President Bush to fire him. My question is...for what? Rove has not even been subpoenaed, let alone indicted or convicted...of ANYTHING. But again...don't tell the Democrats. They want so badly to believe that Karl Rove is guilty of a felony, that they're smelling blood in the water...even if it's not really there.

For a party that supposedly prides themselves on social justice, they certainly don't seem to be too keen on the whole 'innocent until proven guilty' thing right now. Which I guess is nothing new. I suppose I shouldn't be surprised when they abandon their supposed principles for their political agenda. It happens all the time.