Democratic Presidential candidate Sen. Chris Dodd argues in the Huffington Post that It Is Time to Investigate the White House's Betrayal of Trust 11/21/07.
It reminds me of the distinction, well-known in politics and in the ordinary use of English, between "betrayal of trust" and "treason" in the Constitutional sense of giving aid and comfort to an enemy of the United States. When MoveOn.org ran an ad accusing our Savior-General Petraeus of betraying the public trust by misrepresenting conditions in the Iraq War, the Republican Party went into howls of outrage, pretending not to know the difference. That would be the same Republican Party that now routinely accuses critics of the Iraq War of treason in the Constitutional sense, often saying specifically that war critics are giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
Dodd is reacting to Scott McClellan's recent revelation about the leak of Valerie Plame's role as an undercover CIA agent. Dodd writes, "If in fact the President of the United of States knowingly instructed his chief spokesman to mislead the American people, there can be no more fundamental betrayal of the public trust."
Ironically, Dodd is being restrained in restricting himself to criticizing the "betrayal of public trust" involved. Plame was an undercover CIA agent working on researching "weapons of mass destruction" in the Middle East. Blowing her cover certainly provided a benefit to countries whose interests may be opposed to those of the US. I'm not sure if anyone could be charged specifically with treason under the intentionally narrow definition of that term imposed by the Constitution. But was certainly an overt act involved, which those participating in it had every reason to know would be detrimental in a very specific way to the national security of the United States. So Dodd calling this a "betrayal" of the public trust and of Valerie Plame is being very generous.
Tags: christopher dodd, plame case, scott mcclellan, valerie plame
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