Scandals great and small

Alexander Cockburn in CounterPunch:

At the level of substance the Bush administration should be reeling in the face of savage attack for the ghastly failure of its mission in Iraq. Yet in the American media [the] scale of that failure is muffled by prudent reporters and editors.

The fact that America faces as big a national humiliation as it endured in Vietnam is not one much discussed. The antiwar movement is limping along, and the Democratic Party is desperate to be seen as a "loyal" opposition. Many of its leaders call not for an end to the war, but a war fought with more troops, with greater efficiency.

So the Plame scandal becomes the focus of attack, because the real reasons are deemed too contentious to be raised in public. In the same way, thirty years ago, Nixon was never impeached for a secret, illegal war on Cambodia, but because it turned out he had not been truthful about a cover-up of political mischief at home.

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