ROVEGATE: How does it compare?

With the discovery that Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby are traitors to the American cause, the intelligence community, and to the oath that they took to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, and as more and more information continues to leak out, despite the efforts of the Bush Administration and corporate media to cover-up the story as much as possible, I got to thinking about how ROVEGATE compares in seriousness to WATERGATE, IRAN-CONTRAGATE, and of course that most horrible of horrible events.......MONICAGATE.

If you aren't old enough to remember, WATERGATE was about a cover-up of an administration backed burglary of the Democratic National Headquarters, at the Watergate Hotel in Washington D.C., and also the illegal manipulation and complete misuse of the U.S. Intelligence Community by a paranoid, crooked President and his henchmen. Many went to jail. Most were left to deal with the shame of their actions for the rest of their lives (except maybe Charles Colson who "found God" and now believes that Watergate was his way to Salvation).

A President was forced to resign from office for the first, and so far, only time in American history. He was then, as you remember, pardoned by his successor, Gerald Ford, which was one reason the American people chose not to re-elect him for a full term in 1976.

IRAN-CONTRAGATE, or the Iran-Contra Affair, as some know it, was about a President who, through his overall ineptness or maybe complete unawareness of what was going on in his White House, allowed his minions to break American laws past by Congress to fund the Nicaraguan Contras (rebels) by using the funds from selling arms to IRAN, in return for which they would release, slowly American hostages that they had been kidnapping in the Middle East all through the early 1980's. This from a President who had said that he would "never negotiate with terrorists". .

Many in the administration were convicted for their part in this illicit affair, which saw Fox News SuperStar Oliver North convicted of felonies for masterminding this criminal activity and who was hands-on at shredding documents when the investigation started getting close. President Ronald Reagan was able to skirt past on this because he was able to plead plausible deniability and went on to endear himself to millions as the kind ole grandfather who just didn't know what was happening on his supposed watch.

Oliver North's conviction was overturned on a legal technicality, and most of the others were pardoned by Reagan's successor, George H.W. Bush.

MONICAGATE, as we all know, was the most horrible thing a President has done since George H.W. Bush vomited on the Japanese Emperor on a State trip to Japan.

But anyway, it actually started as an "investigation" into a ten year old land deal that President Bill Clinton was involved in when he was governor of Arkansas. After a thorough investigation by a Republican special prosecutor found no wrong doing by the President or Mrs. Clinton, some Republican Senators and Congressmen filed suit in a very conservative appeals court to have THAT prosecutor fired and replaced with a right-wing religious extremist named Kenneth Starr, who by the way, had SERVED on the same appeals court and was friends with these "judges". Starr, too, couldn't find anything on the Whitewater land deal, either, so at the behest of his right-wing facist friends, who had already coaxed some women whom Bill Clinton had been "immorally" involved with to start court proceedings (something allowed by the right-leaning Supreme Court, when Presidents had never been allowed to be sued while in office. And when the right-wing hypocrites like Newt Gingrich, many affairs of his own, and others in the same boat found out about another truest with intern Monica Lewinski, ordered Starr to turn his sights on the president's personal life, where they found what they believed was a lie under oath, and then impeached Clinton, who was later found not guilty by the Senate, over a lie about sex. Clinton, on his way out of office, admitted guilt as a way to get the entire thing overwith.

Now there is ROVEGATE. Here is a crisis....a real crisis. Why? Because Karl Rove, George W. Bush's top political strategist, and now his assistant chief-of-staff, and "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's top advisor, have "outted" a CIA operative, Valerie Plame. This time the career and life of an undercover NOC CIA operative has been put in jeopardy...and WHY? Because her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, who was made an ambassador by President George Bush, Sr., disclosed that information that he had uncovered, information that proved to be true, showed that President Bush and Karl Rove and Dick Chency and the entire Broadway cast of "Give My Regards to Halliburton", had included facts in the State of the Union Address, that would have been part of the reason for going to war with Iraq, and caused us to take our eyes off of Osama Bin Laden, who killed 3,000 more American's than Iraq ever did. (Of course, Bin Laden has only killed about 1,000 more American's, to date, that President George W. Bush has by sending American's into Iraq on lies and misdirection).

Plame was involved in a CIA "corporation" which was used as cover for the deep cover operatives in many parts of the world. When she was outed, the lives of probably hundreds of those who worked with her were put in jeopardy, not to mention her on life and career. She was actually an expert on WMD around the world.

Rove and his thuggery have tried to pass her off as a desk jockey and such. CIA employees who have worked and gone to CIA schooling with Ms. Plame have said that she was an undercover operative and that her connections are now all in danger. The flow of information to the U.S. government about WMD, at a time when this is so very important to national security, has started to be just a dribble. Our intelligence, according to the Bush White House, has been very bad for a while now, and of course, this caused the misreading of WMD they told us was there pre-Iraqi War.

ROVEGATE has done serious damage to the national security of the United States and its citizenry. It has brought into question everything that the Bush White House has told the American public since they took office. I haven't believed it before, but maybe they DID know about the 9/11 attacks before they happened. EVERYTHING that they have said, now comes into question.

It appears to me, that ROVEGATE has done more permanent damage to AMERICA than any single event since the Civil War (or as we know it in Texas, the War of Northern Aggression).

I believe it is about time that even President George W. Bush FINALLY answer some questions under oath himself, like President Clinton was forced to.

Firing Karl Rove and others would be a good start, but the IMPEACHMENT of GEORGE W. BUSH may be the only way to actually give this country back its credibility.