The American Spectator

p>What we have been a witness to since Florida 2000, is more than herd mentality, “gotcha” journalism and just plain bias. It is more than reliving the heyday of Watergate. This is a media, as recently revealed by one of their own, that has morphed into its own political party. It is more interested in an agenda than traditional journalism. Once this is acknowledged, their machinations become clear. br> — A. DiPentima /p>

I like this piece, and it’s all on target which means we conservatives need to move on and select our next beachhead to secure. Let the MSM and their Move-on.org wannabes the Democratic Party stand all a flutter over this issue. Let them burn their news cycles and energies, the issue will not be settled till the special prosecutor files an indictment if any. In the mean time we could be moving the Social Security issue forward or prepping for the next Supreme Court selection.

p>And for the great majority of Americans that are not “into” the political, they must be wondering, “huh?” In the scale of things at the moment they are probably right. br> — John McGinnis br> Arlington, Texas /p>

The entire odious mess of L’Affaire Pflame spotlights the corruption of our intelligence agencies. Some believe all they need is just a little “reform,” a slight tinkering with their org charts, and all will be fine. One doesn’t need a deep memory to recall some of the CIA’s recent failures: The collapse of the Soviet Union (only months prior the CIA predicted the Soviet Union’s economy would grow to compete even with America’s by 1995); the failure to detect WMDs in Saddam’s arsenal prior to Desert Storm; the failure to discover the atomic weapons programs of both India and Pakistan; the failure to discover the growth and depth of bin Laden’s terror networks on a global scale; and of course the CIA failed to monitor the movement and of Saddam’s WMDs before the 2003 invasion. Prior to 9/11 many people have speculated whether we had any agents in Iraq at all. And of course, there was 9/11 itself.

Yet, despite these failures the CIA has found the time and energy to insert itself vigorously into the 2004 election cycle. If what we are reading is true about Madame Pflame and her husband, the entire Niger episode was just an exercise in political manipulation. They both detested a sitting president, so they used the resources of her office to bring him down. If I am not mistaken, Madame Pflame was employed by the federal government at the time of her own “covert political mission” to Niger. If this isn’t a felony, I don’t know what is. Yes, there should be a Grand Jury, but its target shouldn’t be Rove.

p>To those who live outside of the Beltway it appears that the CIA’s only competence lies in the squandering of taxpayer money and political chicanery. I seriously doubt that even DCI Goss can clean up the mess. br> — JP