It an old adage among lawyers that "If the law is on your side, argue the law. If the law is against you, argue the facts. If both the law and the facts are against you scream for justice." Well, so far in this story, the actual law and the true facts are on the side of the White House. All I've seen thus far is this Ambassador hack and the blood enemies of the President in the Socialist Media on every TV set in the country screaming for justice because both the law and the facts are against them.

Being the curious truth-investigator that I am, I looked up the law (something that seemingly very few people screaming about the criminality of this action have done).

The statute includes three other elements necessary to obtain a conviction: (1) that the disclosure was intentional (actually the facts that I have seen so far was that it was inadvertant) , (2) the accused knew the person being identified was a covert agent (the facts that I have seen are inconclusive thus far) and (3) the accused also knew that "the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States." (I have seen no proof of this whatsoever and Novak specifically denies it).

I have read countless blogs on this issue and virtually every article written on it from any source, including ultra-left wing rants and I have not seen ONE SINGLE article accurately or completely quote the statutory requirements for the crime. All I see is some quote from Bush the Elder about his (non legal) opinion of treason. His opinion, not a law and some rantings about this disclosure law (without setting out the requisites).

It is like people telling you that they want to go after somebody for fraud with them going on about how they had been defrauded and fraud this and fraud that and you'll ask them "Do you even know what the statutory requirements for fraud are?" A case of fraud requires a false statement of present fact (not future and not a promise) which is known to be false at the time made with the express purpose of causing a party to change a position and that party does in fact change its position in reasonable reliance on the false statement without the opportunity to have uncovered the falsehood on their own. Now how many of the statutory components do these people who are so sure that their fraud claim is a slam dunk? Not a single one when you bother to go and read what the law actually says.

So on matters of criminality, where the state has the burden of proof, before it can take anyone's life liberty or property away, the first thing is to accurately quote the statutory prerequisites, which I have not seen in this case.

So for the record. The initial outing came from the CIA not the White House as has been falsely alleged (although some White House operatives might have piled on after it came out (again no crime because it was already reported). The outing was not a malicious intent to ruin the spy's career but rather an attempt to explain why a political hack got sent to do an important job according to Bob Novak (a democrat). The "Spy" Lady's name was not a classified secret because it is readily available on her husband's many Web sites. Novak did not know she was covert and he specifically was assured that she was not.

Just do one thing for me. Think hard about from whom you "know" what the White House's purposes are? I've only heard such motives pronounced from the blood enemies of the President and from what you have deduced yourself from what the blood enemies of the President have told you, including the ambassador, who is trying to blame this on anybody but his going public with the details of this "secret" mission in the first place to save his arse from his furious wife.

Could it be possible, could it just be possible, that these folks might be "spinning" this story for a political advantage and there is an entirely benign explanation for what happened? The one thing we don't know (we surmise, we conjecture, we allege, but we don't know) is what the motive was and in that vaccuum comes the blood enemies of the President to supply a motive. But maybe they're just filtering the world through their own cynical eyes because it's something that they would do.

It might turn out that what Tom Daschle alleges is absolutely true (doubt it) but it might happen. But right now it is just as likely that he is wrong again with his allegations as he has been so many times before.

So. Let's have an investigation. Let's find out exactly what parts of the story are true before we make a conclusion from a series of statements that have already been proven to be incorrect. Let's just take a look at a few: Leak from Karl Rove. No Novak says the leak was not from the White House. Leak was made in a call from the White House. No, Novak says the leak was from his call to someone other than the White House. In fact, all of the sources mentioned in the article are not White House. Leaked her secret name that was not available anywhere else but overseas. No, it was on her husband's web site. It's a crime. No, it's only a crime if the statutory requirements of the crime are met and at least two of the three are specifically denied at this point.

Leaked the name of a covert spy? Haven't seen any proof of that yet. It's being investigated by Justice. Justice is required by law to do so. Agents under her control have been killed because of this. No proof of that yet. Her life was put in danger. Nobody is saying that other than her husband (hypothetically) who is desperately trying to get himself out of her doghouse (admittedly conjecture on my part based on personal experience). Unbiased Ambassador says Bush lied. No proof yet that Bush even saw his report. Unbiased Ambassador has no axe to grind. Other than he is a contributed the maximum to a Democrat presidential candidate.

I have rarely seen so many people so ready to lynch somebody on the basis of facts which thus far have been almost entirely knowingly false, inaccurate or misleading (except maybe the Leo Frank case).

Best regards

Sierra