The American Spectator

On the salivation scale, this past week has been a veritable drool-fest for those who inhabit the newsrooms, editorial desks, and websites making up the liberal media world. The Sunday talk shows were awash in liberal glee; a level of happiness not seen since before a certain blue dress avoided a trip to the cleaners.

With perennial whipping boy Tom DeLay possibly on his way to the woodshed, Dr. Bill Frist’s finances under examination, and good soldier Harriet Miers taking friendly fire, liberal hopes are at a new high. But the real cause for jubilation is the anticipation that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s probe into the Valerie Plame affair will lead right up to the doorsteps of Bush puppet-masters Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.

This tantalizing sugarplum dancing in liberal heads naturally brings back memories of that ravishing glory known as Watergate. To liberals of all ages — particularly those in the media — the golden age of America was bookended by their twin triumphs: campaigning to end the Vietnam War and bringing down the man who ended it.

Not even the sainted FDR’s New Deal-brand of quasi-Socialism can light up the eyes of the left as can recollections of the days of Fonda and Hayden or Woodward and Bernstein. Their vanity is such that all subsequent events — chiefly those that involve Republicans — be viewed through the narrow lenses of Watergate and Vietnam.

And that is why, excepting the eight years of the Clinton administration, any U.S. military action is instantly dubbed “another Vietnam” and thus doomed from the start. After this pronouncement is made, the usual media suspects kick in with the prescribed propaganda campaign while the movement’s foot soldiers take to the streets.

Clinging to their decades-old playbook, they provide a steady stream of depressing stories and unfounded theories while constantly playing up our casualties. Hence, preparations by the “peace movement” are underway to conduct “events” across America to commemorate the death of the 2,000th American soldier killed in Iraq.

News of that milestone will be trumpeted loud enough to drown out the fact that the sacrifice of our troops has allowed the Iraqi people to approve a new constitution; an opportunity to live in freedom and peace. Thanks to an earlier intervention by the peace movement, millions in Southeast Asia never got that chance.

Meanwhile, the Fitzgerald investigation has conjured up what the left sees as its perfect storm: another Watergate and Vietnam, this time for the Bushies. At least that’s what veteran Watergate reporter Lesley Stahl thinks. Others have also hoped against hope for this since the Plame story broke two years ago.

While some may link what they believe is the Bush Administration’s use of executive power to silence or discredit its enemies to Richard Nixon’s, it is odd that this comparison was almost never applied to Bill Clinton during his constitutional unpleasantness. Indeed, it seemed the only mention of Watergate by the liberal media during the Clinton Impeachment was to suggest that the motive of congressional Republicans was payback for Nixon.

And so this week, with the imminent death of the 2,000th American soldier in Iraq and the hoped-for indictments from Fitzgerald, the left-wing glee club is singing from the rafters. Even though the Iraqi people have proved that the sacrifices of our troops have not been in vain and that there might be no action at all from Mr. Fitzgerald. But don’t take my word for it. Take it from Watergate poster-boy, John Dean, who said last week that, excluding perjurious acts,

Lisa Fabrizio is a columnist who hails from Connecticut. You may write her here.