Should we hang the leakers? Depends on if they're in your party. (SFChron

[highplainsdem]

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/10/30/INGJPFG2J31.DTL


Should we hang the leakers?
It really just depends on whether or not they're in your party
Paul Mulshine

Sunday, October 30, 2005

<snipping opening paragraphs in which Mulshine said he wasn't "shocked" by Al Franken's recent jokes about the possible executions of those who give away state secrets because he's heard those jokes before, in 1995, when Republicans were outraged that Bob Torricelli revealed the name of a CIA agent in Guatemala>

The affair involved an intermediary by the name of Richard Nuccio, who had innocently passed the key information to Torricelli. Some in Congress wanted to go after Nuccio, but a certain congressman came to his defense. Here was how this congressman described his role in a key session on the matter:

"When there was a hanging for violating that law, I was concerned that Mr. Nuccio would be the one on the end of the rope when, in fact, he was not the one who broke the law. Mr. Torricelli violated that law."

The name of that congressman? Porter Goss. Goss, a former CIA agent, is now head of the Central Intelligence Agency. He was only half kidding about the hanging. These spooks take secrecy seriously.

So did the right-wing media. Virtually every conservative who commented on the matter took the position that any public official leaking CIA secrets should be punished. "Torricelli -- Left-wing Traitor," screamed a headline from the always entertaining right-wing Web site Newsmax .com.

<snip>

Mulshine also brings up the fact that when the Senate passed a "whistleblower" exception to secrecy laws, Republicans in the House killed it -- yet now they're trying to justify the WH leakers as "whistleblowers."

[Catch22Dem]

1. Whistleblowers?

Don't you have to be exposing lies or corruption to be a whistleblower? I know the freeptards THINK Wilson's report was a lie, but facts are facts, and his report was accurate. So, what, exactly, did they blow the whistle on?

[LaurenG]

2. I think ALL republican congress people must be

corrupt, otherwise they's stand up and demand an accounting now. I wonder now what that says about our dems as well since they are mostly quiet too. Geez dems get yourself some balls and "hang" the lot of them. Demand answers!