[+/-] Republicans vote to okay National Security leaks
It is official: the GOP is now on record voting in support of preserving the security clearance of a "federal employee who discloses or has disclosed classified information, including the identity of a covert agent of the Central Intelligence Agency." The roll call vote is here.
posted by Nanovirus @ 09:33 permalink
your thoughts? 1
1 Comments:
I'm no fan of the kind of "with us or agaist us" thinking that has made our nation and the world an increasingly dangerous place. The way out of this mess depends on whether or not you believe the war against free thought has already been lost. Should we work toward benign fascism or encourage nuanced thinking among our citizenry?
It's probably in bad taste to temper the spirit of fun -- the enormous satisfaction of beating someone at their own game -- underlying this post. Nonetheless, the referenced Senate vote is not a vote in which Republicans supported national security leaks. The Republicans voted against a bill banning granting security clearance to leakers. Sure, it's a technicality, and no one would argue that the yeas have benign intentions (they are not, for example, voting against this legislation because they are proposing even harsher measures to battle leakers). But the behavior across the aisle is at least as politically motivated and unnecessary. The Plame incident is extremely unnerving and serious, but these are not times to feel good about our legislators, regardless of party affiliation.
At the very least, the bitterness of the 2004 election is still too fresh to resort to employing the same tactics used to distort Kerry's voting record. I won't be able to refrain, however, from smiling with enormous (and spiteful) satisfaction when it's the Republicans labeled as aiding terrorists by the next round of campaign ads.
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