THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume IX, Issue # 47, March 14, 2007
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
AMERICA'S OMINOUSLY DIVERGING CONVERSATIONS
By Christopher G. Adamo
THE CLINTON PRESIDENCY, THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY, & DEGENERATION OF AMERICAN POLITICS: LIBERAL
DEMOCRATS' ABUSE OF THE CRIMINAL JUSTICE PROCESS IN ORDER TO WEAKEN THEIR POLITICAL OPPONENTS & REGAIN
CONTROL OF ALL THREE BRANCHES OF THE U.S. NATIONAL GOVERNMENT -- LIBERAL DEMOCRATS SEEKING TO ENHANCE
THEIR POLITICAL POWER & REGAIN DOMINATION OVER DECISION-MAKING ON MATTERS OF NATIONAL PUBLIC POLICY --
THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC STRATEGY OF DISTORTION, CHARACTER ASSASSINATION, &, ULTIMATELY, CRIMINALIZATION
OF OPPOSING POINTS OF VIEW -- THE WEAKKNEED & INEPT REPUBLICAN RESPONSE TO THE LIBERAL DEMOCRATIC
ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTIONAL SYSTEM, DEMOCRATIC PROSECUTORS' ABUSE OF THE AUTHORITY OF
PUBLIC OFFICE, & THE RESULTANT TRAVESTIES OF JUSTICE
FULL STORY:
Several dangerous precedents were set in the recent kangaroo court conviction of Vice President Cheney's former Chief
of Staff Scooter Libby. To begin with, Libby was tried and convicted for the crime of obstructing justice, ostensibly by
providing false information during grand jury testimony.
The entirety of the investigation was billed under the heading of determining the identity of the individual who had
divulged the employment status of Valerie Plame, who had once been a covert CIA agent. So ambiguous was the nature
of the investigation and subsequent trial, that presiding Federal District Judge Reggie B. Walton would not even allow
the jury to know if Plame indeed had been covert.
Nevertheless, from the moment Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald began the investigation, he knew that Libby was
not the guilty party. At worst, Libby merely became entangled in a “he said/she said” controversy with reporter, political
commentator, and former Democratic Party staffer Tim Russert.
Perhaps the worst aspect of this thoroughly politicized judicial circus was that, against such a backdrop, two completely
disjointed assessments of thesituation have been presented to the public. And the public is free to believe whichever it
desires, often not as a result of analysis of the facts, but according to one’s political leanings.
In one version, Plame’s identity had been widely known, her name and livelihood appearing on her husband’s website
and common knowledge among socialite circles in Washington, D.C. Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage,
who even admitted that he had initially divulged Plame’s identity to reporters, was granted immunity by Fitzgerald.
So Libby’s crime could not possibly have amounted to anything more severe than stumbling over details of phone
conversations with Russert from a few years ago.
The other camp, while never disputing any of the aforementioned facts, characterizes the situation as a grave breach of
security, endangering Plame and thus the entire CIA intelligence apparatus. According to these people, Libby is merely
the tip of a sinister iceberg, including such fiends as Karl Rove and Dick Cheney, who must be sought out, tried, and
convicted of high crimes against the Republic.
What is most noteworthy, and indicative of the greatest danger posed here, is that no commonality whatsoever can be
found between these two completely disjointed accounts of the events. Clearly, somebody within this melee is
deliberately misrepresenting it in its entirety to the American people. Considering the stakes, such behavior bespeaks of
sedition.
Nor is it productive to revert to the banal schoolyard platitude of assuming that the “truth” lies somewhere in the middle.
When a political force attempts to dominate and govern, based on a strategy of distortion, character assassination, and
ultimately, the criminalization of opposing points of view, the worst possible response is to grant it credibility.
If one of the two camps is willing to destroy any person, tell any lie, and eradicate any evidence (remember Sandy Berger
and Jamie Gorelick) that gets in its way, the truth most certainly does not lie “somewhere in between” the two.
Yet, as abominable a miscarriage of justice as is the outcome the Libby prosecution and trial, it is only an indicator of the
current nature of American politics, and the point to which it has degenerated ever since the advent of the Clinton
administration. The Libby travesty is in fact only the most recent, albeit among the most glaring, incidents of its kind.
Ever since the Clintons and their political machine arrived in Washington, their sordid practices have been almost
universally adopted by Democrats. And the degree to which the Democrats are enjoying successes for their efforts is
truly alarming.
Sadly, the all-too-common Republican reaction is to either play a completely defensive game, or to attempt to ignore the
problem altogether. The first response will, at best, only stifle the advancement of the Liberal Democrat/"Moderate"
Republican power grab. The second will allow this malignancy to metastasize and eventually achieve complete dominion
by Democratic Party Liberal Leftists and RINOS (Republicans in Name Only) over the American political process.
A few other notable examples of this current trend highlight the seriousness of the problem and the degree to which the
entire political process has been hijacked.
From the Iraq war to Hurricane Katrina, to the socalled “global warming crisis,” little if any of the ongoing discussion is
being conducted between two political parties with honest concerns for the best avenue by which to address the
situation. Instead, the political Left invents outlandish accusations, which are then incessantly echoed by its media
lackeys.
Those on the political Right attempt to refute and debunk these accusations with facts, but often find their arguments
falling on deaf ears. Eventually, the issue at hand becomes entangled in vast concocted webs of conspiracy and
malfeasance, all of George Bush’s doing, of course.
As a result of this process, no public interest is served. Worse yet, those who have access to the truth, and who really
want the conversation to revert back to a discussion of the facts, find themselves increasingly frustrated and
marginalized as the contest is diverted from truth to the realm of political horse races.
Finally, it is necessary to ponder the end result of such callous indifference to the national plight. In the short term,
those in leadership are distracted and forced into inconsequential games while dangers mount, as they did during the
1990’s, with another day of reckoning coming, just as it did on 9-11, when Islamist terrorists breached U.S. security and
attacked the U.S.A., destroying the World Trade Center and killing thousands of Americans
Briefly mustering a remnant of its former greatness, America responded to that event with resolve and vigor. Only as
the Democrats succeeded in derailing the substance of virtually every issue related to the attacks did they undermine
the debate, and eventually overshadow the raw truth of the menace facing the country. Thus, the American nation,
once again, began to flounder in its efforts to confront the Islamist threat.
But if the political conversation remains as dysfunctional as it is today, our nation may forever lose its ability to
objectively confront the dangers of a hostile world. And that, the real legacy of the Clinton political machine, will be the
undoing of America.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
American Politics & Political Competition
The American Political System:
Politics & Government in the U.S.A.
The American Political & Cultural Left:
Liberals, Statists, Socialists, & Other Leftists
The News Media & Political Bias
Criminal Justice Policy Issues
American Constitutional System
Liberalism Versus Conservatism in American Politics
-------------------------
POLITICAL PHILOSOPHY & POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES:
COMPETING SYSTEMS OF POLITICAL THOUGHT
Conservatism
Traditional Conservatism: Questions & Answers
Conservatism: Attitudes, Types, & Present Status
Constitutional Conservatism: American & British
Liberalism
Classical Liberalism: Intellectual Foundations
Classical Liberalism: Conservative Liberalism
Manchester Liberalism & Social Darwinism
Modern Social "Liberalism": Statist "Liberalism"
Radical & Totalitarian Ideologies
Radicalism, Utopianism, & Totalitarianism
Christopher G. Adamo is a freelance writer who lives in southeastern Wyoming and works in the field of industrial instrumentation.
He is actively involved in Wyoming's political process, serving as a delegate to successive Wyoming State Republican Conventions
and as a member of the Wyoming State Republican Central Committee. He has assisted Republican candidates for local and state
legislatures and for the United States Congress. His articles, which appear regularly in The Progressive Conservative, U.S.A.,
and on a number of other websites, reflect a major concern with the damage being done to Conservatism and Conservative causes by
the Liberal Leftist faction in the Republican Party as well as by the much larger and more powerful Liberal Leftist faction in the
Democratic Party. During the early and middle 1990s, Adamo was Editor of the Wyoming Christian Coalition's official news organ,
The Wyoming Christian.
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THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
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Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
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