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Jewish World Review July 14, 2005 / 7 Taamuz, 5765 DC double standards By Joe Scarborough
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
No wonder Americans don't trust politicians.
Come to think of it, no wonder Americans don't trust the news media either.
The Karl Rove controversy highlights the hypocrisy infecting Washington's most powerful politicians and reporters.
Republicans are quickly lining up to support Mr. Rove, while Democrats are calling for his head. Massachusetts Senator John Kerry has called for Rove's resignation—a silly suggestion from a silly man.
But there is nothing funny about the Republican's treatment of the Rove affair.
Assuming Rove leaked a CIA agent's identity to Time Magazine, GOP leaders should be lining up to condemn the White House Wizard's actions.
Why? Because they would have shredded a Democratic administration for outing an undercover CIA agent during a time of war.
Imagine Bill Clinton's top political advisor leaking a CIA agent's identity because of the actions of the agent's spouse. Republicans, including yours truly, would have been demanding that official's resignation at once.
But with one of their own in the White House, Republicans are instead focusing their attacks on former ambassador Joe Wilson.
Though Wilson is an easy target for writing a book filled with lies with the ironic title "The Politics of Truth," do Republicans suggest that a CIA agent can be called out during a time of war because of their spouse's misdeeds?
If so, it is a frightening new world for undercover agents who are paid to protect our country.
Apply the same test to the media that I applied to the Rove dust-up. How would the media respond to a Republican ambassador who wrote a campaign check to George W. Bush, lied through his teeth about a CIA investigation, got caught in his lies, and then wrote a book called "The Politics of Truth"?
I suspect the media would have left little more than a grease spot where that lying GOP ambassador once stood. But not so in Joe Wilson's case. As an anti-war Democrat who supported John Kerry in 2004, he was protected by a media machine who shared his sentiments.
So why don't Americans trust politicians or press members anymore? Because in cases like Karl Rove, all sides are circling the wagons for their ideological soul mates instead of telling American people the truth.
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Former Congressman Joe Scarborough (R-Fla.) hosts “Scarborough Country,” 10 p.m. ET, weeknights on MSNBC. He is the author of the recently published "Rome Wasn't Burnt in a Day : The Real Deal on How Politicians, Bureaucrats, and Other Washington Barbarians are Bankrupting America". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)Comment by clicking here. © 2005, MSNBC |
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