Oh boy! This is a great dream. I get to ask all of the questions! Scotty cannot escape my best journalistic probing. (Well in the dream, of course, I am a respected journalist). But, dreams never end like they start. It went something like this…
ME: On the Subject of Valerie Plame (PlameGate), who Leaked her identity?
SCOTTY: Puh-leaze, I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.
ME: Is this not a breach of national security?
SCOTTY: She was no longer a field operative and was not going to be in the future so there was no harm to our national security.
ME: But she was still covered by the statute. Doesn’t revealing her identity put the people she dealt with at risk, as well as put at risk our ability to conduct national security and diplomatic business with people in similar sensitive posts? Isn’t that why this information remains classified even after the end of a posting or program?
SCOTTY: As I have said over and over, no comment on an ongoing investigation.
ME: Has there been an assessment of the actual or potential damage to National Security as a result of leaking Plame’s identity?
SCOTTY: What damage? if you mean the distraction it has caused for senior administration officials who would be better at protecting Americans from terrorists if they did not have to deal with this trumped issue, then it is grave, very grave indeed.
ME: Well, didn’t they bring this distraction onto themselves by breaking the law for a petty vendetta?
SCOTTY: No comment on an ongoing investigation.
ME: On the Subject the electronic surveillance conducted without the over sight of the FISA court (FISAGate) who leaked the existence of the program?
SCOTTY: We don’t know. The NY Times irresponsibly betrayed America and emboldened the terrorists by making it public. We will get to the bottom of this egregious breach and punish the leaker. Our very lives depend on it.
ME: Given that the NY Times knew about the program for over a year and sat on it at the Administration’s request, wouldn’t national Security have been better served by either bringing the program into alignment with FISA or getting a specific authorization from congress to conduct the surveillance?
SCOTTY: Look, the President is trying to protect you from the terrorists. The press and the leaker don’t care about your safety.
ME: So you are saying that we are safer with illegally conducted surveillance as opposed to the same surveillance done within the law? With all due respect, would there not have been a leak or story if FISA had been respected?
SCOTTY: We respect all laws, unlike the person who leaked this program and the NY times who irresponsibly published it. Congress authorized this program as part of the resolution to use all force necessary. It’s black letter law.
ME: Most members of congress (including many Republicans), and most legal scholars disagree that the resolution for war authorized such surveillance outside the FISA statue. Your attorney General’s stated legal position is tortuous if not absurd. Isn’t this about an imperial presidency rather than national security?
SCOTTY: Congress gave us all of the necessary authorization. If congress or the courts now say otherwise, then we did not even need their authority for this President to protect the American People from the terrorists.
ME: Could you answer, just once, a legitimate question with a thoughtful, meaningful response rather than a talking point or non sequitur?
SCOTTY: This administration is responsive. To the threat of terrorism and to the American people who want to be protected from the terrorists. Why do you love terrorists and hate freedom?
Then the dream took an odd turn, as dreams are wont to do. I found myself in a courtroom, telling it to the judge.
“ …and then, you honor, after Scotty’s, er, Press Secretary McClellan’s last response, I started to feel nauseous. My lunch from the Whitehouse cafeteria started to come back on me. The next thing I knew I regurgitated my lunch of a Freedom Dip hoagie with Freedom Fries (with Hunts, not Heinz ketchup), and Ice Cream with Red, White and Blue Freedom Sprinkles.
I couldn’t help it, I projectile vomited all over him. He looked so stunned, standing there wearing all that Freedom in Red, White and Blue. (And a few other not so glorious colors) I remember thinking that Freedom never looked so good, but it smelled awful.”
