George:

The dust clouds kicked up by the Karl Rove storm over who leaked what about a CIA agent have obscured the real issue: why did Rove seek to discredit the truthful findings of diplomat Joseph C. Wilson that Iraq got no yellowcake from Nigeria and therefore did not pose a nuclear threat to America? It's a crime to "out" a CIA agent, sure; but Rove's much greater crime was to help plunge USA into an unjust war against a sovereign state that posed no threat to us. Rove contributed to that decision by discrediting Wilson's truthful findings.

Karl Rove and the inner circle of Republican zealots around President Bush have much more to be accountable for than a sneaky, dishonest leak to the press by one of their number about Wilson's wife. Dead polecats on the highways smell better than that trick.

The latest polls show 75% of the American people think Mr. Bush is stonewalling the probe by the Special Prosecutor into who leaked the CIA agent's name --- and with good reason. The President has just renounced his earlier pledge to fire any leaker on his staff and now states he will only fire any leaker who broke the law. Of course, by the time that legal determination is made it could be 2009.

But all that obscures the larger picture about an unjust war. What does it take to get the American public aroused when as many as 30,000 Iraqi civilians are dead, hundreds are dying weekly from terrorists President Bush invited with his egregious "bring 'em on" taunt, the country's infrastructure is a shambles, law and order have broken down, the U.S. has lost 1,700 killed and maybe 17,000 wounded, terrorism is spreading, the U.S. reputation has plunged to all-time lows around the world, and Bush has no exit plan for his "Mission Accomplished" war?

The larger issue is not going to go away: If outing a CIA agent is "treason", what's making an illegal, dishonest war on another country? Isn't that "treason", too--treason to the principles upon which the United States was founded?

Apparently, many Americans don't want to take issue with their government. If the President makes a war, they'll go along, even when they don't like it. These compliant folk might well recall the cries of outrage by the first standard-bearer of the Republican Party. When President Polk dishonestly claimed the Mexicans attacked America, Congressman Abraham Lincoln of Illinois rose to the floor of the House of Representatives and cried show me where the blood was shed, meaning he believed it was shed on the Mexican side of the border and the war was started by Americans. Where are our Abraham Lincolns today when we need them?

Sherwood Ross (electronic mail, July 18, 2005)