Oh what a difference

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Oh what a difference having a dog in the fight makes …

A few days ago the Post’s Mike Allen got Victoria “typical Washington talk” Toensing to let us in on the Plame perps’ ‘we didn’t know she was covert’ legal strategy. Well, it seems Victoria was a little more hard core on the leak front before her friends (or clients?) got their hands caught in the cookie jar.

Back on September 9th 2001 she penned a piece in Post called “They Call It a Leak. I Call It a Crime.”

“The leak must be investigated fully,” Toensing bellowed, “if the law has any meaning. If that requires subpoenaing a reporter’s phone records, so be it.”

Phew! I’m pretty leery of busting up or subpoenaing the reporters in this case (an issue we’ll go into further in a later post). But daaayyyuumm! That Victoria, I mean, you go girl!

In truth, of course, calling this a ‘leak’ is simply the way that those who want to hide or ignore this incident use to diminish its significance. The leak was only the mechanism by which the crime took place. Sort of like the Rosenberg leak or Rick Ames’ leaks …

As consequential? No. With the same treasonous intent? Of course not. But reckless indifference to national security isn’t a defense, just another explanation for the crime. And as the Republicans got so fond of saying back in the 1990s: the law is the law.

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