Karl Rove -- soft on terror

Olbermann makes the point that Rove must have seen it to be more important to discredit Joe Wilson than to actually protect the identity of a CIA operative who had a big part to play in actually fighting terrorism.

"To paraphrase Mr. Rove, liberals saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers; conservatives saw the savagery of 9/11 and the attacks and prepared to ruin the career of one of the country’s spies tracking terrorist efforts to gain weapons of mass destruction -- for political gain.

Politics first, counter-terrorism second -- it’s as simple as that.

In his ‘story guidance’ to Matthew Cooper of Time, Rove did more damage to your safety than the most thumb-sucking liberal or guard at Abu Ghraib. He destroyed an intelligence asset like Valerie Plame merely to deflect criticism of a politician. We have all the damned politicians, of every stripe, that we need. The best of them isn’t worth half a Valerie Plame. And if the particular politician for whom Rove was deflecting, President Bush, is more than just all hat and no cattle on terrorism, he needs to banish Rove -- and loudly."

Unfortunately the behavior is remarkably consistent in this administration in that the specter of terrorism is merely seen as a tool by which to retain and expand power. It says that behind all that talk about terrorism there is really no heartfelt or moral commitment to do anything effective about it. It's all a political charade.