Payback

So here's the deal: if you're in the CIA, and you (or your family) don't toe the Bush party line about WMD in Iraq, you have one of two options: have your name outed in the media, or turn in your bathroom key:

WASHINGTON (AFP) - A sacked CIA official has sued, alleging he was fired for refusing to fake reports supporting the White House position that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, local media said.

The suit claims the unidentified ex agent was urged to produce reports in line with President George W Bush's contention that Iraq had illegal chemical or biological weapons, which threatened US and international security.

"Their official dogma was contradicted by his reporting and they did not want to hear it," attorney Roy Krieger told The Washington Post of his client.

This dovetails nicely with my viewing the fine Harry Thomason film "The Hunting of the President" last night (based on the Gene Lyons/Joe Conason book), which alleges that Ken Starr's Office of Independent Counsel did the exact same thing. Innocents like Susan McDougal, who was guilty of nothing but being married to someone who bought real estate with Bill Clinton, were told that they must come up with some damaging information on the President, or they'd go to jail. In McDougal's case, she did, and her heroic truth-telling was totally admirable. We may have a contender in this ex-CIA agent.

This is a tactic on the right. Do what we say, or you'll pay for it. The naked use of power hasn't changed since the Starr years; in fact, if anything the right has improved upon it, mainly by virtue of the increased leverage that added power brings. And apparently, it's still rooted in sex:

It (the lawsuit) alleges that the CIA investigated alleged sexual and financial improprieties by the agent "for the sole purpose of discrediting him and retaliating against him for questioning the integrity of the WMD reporting ... and for refusing to falsify his intelligence reporting to support the politically mandated conclusion" of matters that were blacked out, according to the Washington daily.

It's amazing that you can so easily categorize the entire right-wing power grab by such a simple sentence as "They love power, and they're ashamed of sex." But you can.

Please, go to the Yahoo link (which was an Agence France Presse story, of course) and rate it up. The media in this country has to start taking notice of this kind of corruption.