Support and Defend

I must admit, I missed the White House Press meeting in which then Press Secretary Scott McClellan first denied any allegations that the Bush Administration was involved in the Valerie Plame cover-up. That was October 10, 2003. I was in Texas, it was my mother’s birthday, and I got married the next day, so I was rightly preoccupied. I must also admit I didn’t pay much attention to the issues at the time. Things are different now.

I have discussed this issue on earlier posts, but today, I can’t (due to my oath) fully express my dismay at the current degradation of the office and the administration of the President. It doesn’t have anything to do with the falsehoods of the foundations of this war, although I have expressed my opinions on this Intelligence failure before. My feelings today are based on a dillema concerning that oath I took. As an Officer, I serve “at the pleasure of the President,” but as a servicemember I serve to “support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic.” What do I do when those two priorities conflict?

Today, former White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan released the following statement, preluding his upcoming book:

“The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

“There was one problem. It was not true.

“I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the Vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself.”

Oh, what tangled webs we weave, when we venture to deceive.