ALL DUers Need to Write Letters About Plame's Cover Being Blown

[DemBones DemBones]

I started to write this as a plea to DUers in Texas to write letters to the editor of the "Austin American-Statesman," since editor Rich Oppel told Aaron Brown on CNN that they have received only two letters about this. He went on to say that people in Austin are concerned with the war in Iraq and there is strong anti-war sentiment in Austin, a progressive isle in a conservative state, but thus far little interest in this story.

Then Carol Lee Hutton, managing editor of the Detroit Free Press began to tell Aaron that she thinks people are less willing to "indulge in scandal" in a "post-911 world." She doesn't think people will "lock onto it" the way they did the "last White House scandal," by which I suppose she means Monicagate since Bush* has avoided blame for any of his screw-ups so far. In other words, she seems willing to play this down as a politics as usual sort of story and concentrate on "national security" issues. An editor who doesn't comprehend that blowing an undercover CIA agent's cover IS a national security Issue?

Obviously, the reality is that we ALL need to be writing letters to our newspapers, senators, and representatives about this case, calling for a special prosecutor, demanding that someone take the fall for this one. They skated on 911, they've skated so far on the "faulty" intelligence that told them that Iraq was an imminent threat. We've got to throw some sand in their skate wheels.

This administration keeps throwing more stuff at us in the hopes that we can't keep up. But we can.

How? Simple! We just DU it!

DUers, start your word processing programs, Send e-mails and make phone calls, too, but remember letters really make the biggest impression. They don't have to be lengthy and they don't have to be brilliant prose. You can write them by hand or print them out. Just DU it!

[WillyBrandt]

1. Kick and Write

This weekend take ten minutes and write a SHORT and PUNGENT letter to the editor of your local paper. (Especially short!) The local-er the better; people read local broadsheets, and locals are more eager to get and publish letters. (You'd be surprised at how non-partisan papers can be: all most want to do is fill space and sell ads.)

Anyway, write to your local paper about Plume. We must keep this in play. We have witnessed treason in the service of treachery. Keep this in the public mind.

If you have written a paper about Plume, please kick.

[DemBones DemBones]

3. Thanks for adding your thoughts -- I agree that

short letters are best and it is important to write to local papers. Sure it's great to be published in the NY Times but if we all focus on the NYT, local papers are being ignored. Appreciate your bringing that up.

It's also probably best to sound non-partisan in your letters. As satisfying as it is to point out that this is more serious in terms of national security than any president's sex life, it's better not to go there in letters because many people will think "Oh, a Clinton voter getting even." Bringing in other issues (like the 2000 selection or Bush* trying to end overtime pay) is not a good idea, either.

Focus on Valerie Plame, CIA agent, having her cover destroyed by a leak from the White House.

[papau]

2. Exposure blew cover of CIA front firm and contacts (some may have died)

Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm
By Walter Pincus and Mike Allen, Washington Post Staff Writers

The leak of a CIA operative's name has also exposed the identity of a CIA front company, potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure, Bush administration officials said yesterday.
The company's identity, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, became public because it appeared in Federal Election Commission (news - web sites) records on a form filled out in 1999 by Valerie Plame, the case officer at the center of the controversy, when she contributed $1,000 to Al Gore presidential primary campaign.
After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA.<snip>

[DemBones DemBones]

5. Do you have a link for this? Looks like it may be

a WP story posted at another site like Yahoo. We need news stories like this to refer to when writing letters so I thank you. I'll see about putting up more stories tomorrow -- unless some night owls beat me to it. (Hint!) :7 :7 :7

[salin]

8. It is in this lbn link:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=147987&mesg_id=147987

Good call - it is a WP story.

[alcuno]

4. Thanks for posting this.

Those comments disturbed me as well. I'm in Chicago and I'll write.

[DemBones DemBones]

7. Great! I'm glad I wasn't the only one wondering

"What are they thinking?" Apparently, they are thinking no letters = no interest. And we know the RW has been very organized about letter writing.

Chicago? I lived in Waukegan and Antioch as a kid. Miss the ice skating!

[salin]

6. Focus on WHAT was compromised

even more than the political smear. Intelligence on the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Members of this administration, who have vowed to protect us (by preemptive war "if necessary"), compromised national security by divulging sensitve information that make it harder to track and prevent WMDs from getting into the hands of terrorists.

Lots of angles for letters - but get the WMDs in there - as the admin pushed it so hard to push the war. Isn't it ironic that they compromised our security on that very issue - to play politics. (Not "interesting" to us - but perhaps to readers who are starting to grow uneasy... not yet skeptical, but uneasy)

The point is to underscore this aspect which now (finally!) often gets a mention buried within a story on the leak. Bring mental attention to that little 'mention' in future stories. That is what leads the 'uneasy' into 'being skeptical' territory.

[salin]

9. Kick! eom

[DemBones DemBones]

10. Here's another link for articles

This is from Josh Marshall:

"What were the two specific big questions that this fight was over? The state of the Iraqi WMD programs and the potential fall-out from toppling and occupying an Arab state. The particular issue of Valerie Plame grew out of a tussle over how advanced the Iraqi nuclear program was.

So where's the nuclear program?

It's really almost as simple as that.

You see, the White House's side of that argument has completely collapsed.

And as for the other part --- what it would be like to occupy and rebuild Iraq --- the White House's vision is in a similar state, a vast arctic glacier with great stands of ice sloughing off into the sea."

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/

Josh has been covering the story all along so search back into his archives, too.

[KharmaTrain]

11. Kick...And...

From one whose worked in the "media", I know the power a letter on the local level can mean. While I wouldn't write to your local "shopper", a short, "pithy" (to the point, no name calling) letter or note will make it into print, and you'll be amazed how many people read it (good and bad).

:kick:

[DemBones DemBones]

14. ". . . a short, "pithy" (to the point, no name calling) letter or note"

Good advice -- thanks!

[Catherine Vincent]

12. Done.

I sent the Houston Chronicle an email. Thanks.

[DemBones DemBones]

13. Sunday is a good day to write those letters!

And if your local paper accepts e-mail letters to the editor, go for it.

The GOP is really good about getting letters out. We can DU it, too!