"We all make jokes about jail and Fitzmas Day, but this isn't funny. We may not have voted for Bush, we may not like him, but our collective security depends on his effectiveness and the effectiveness of his staff. But from 9/11 to Katrina, we have been failed. Failed to the point that this nation's security may have been crippled in any number of ways. Brave, resourceful CIA officers we ask to do our dirty work in parts of the world we would never want to be in, may have died over this. The CIA may not be our friends, but it should be clear that they also don't join the GOP when they get hired. I think it's clear that Plame was a liberal democrat, by her political donations alone. Yet, she went to Central Asia and risked her life for this country, all of us, even though some of us do not trust or like the CIA. I tend to blame the CIA's bosses more than the agency, but I think, we on the left, better realize something: national security needs to work. If the CIA doesn't work, or abuses people, we need politicians who will do their jobs and reign them in. But I think we need an effective CIA, protected by law and custom. I've smelled when intelligence failed. Jen swept it out of her aparment. I saw the consequences in a newspaper for over a year. They buried the last firefighter a few months ago. So I know all I need to know about intelligence. When it doesn't work, people die. They die at thew WTC, they die in Iraq and they die in backrooms when they are carelessly betrayed. So while I joke and mock the Bushies, I am genuinely outraged by this, their carelessness, their pettines, their cowardice. They have endangered us all for petty political revenge and didn't even bother to resign. There shouldn't have to be a drawn out trial here, but that is what they want. Fitzgerald is no hero. He is doing his job, as he has done before. He can only remove the worst parts. No trial can repair the damage done. That is up to us and the political process. We have to fix what happened, all of us, Democrats and Republicans. If they refuse to do so, if they choose to remain blind, then we will do it on our own. But make no mistake, we are about to enter rough times here, brutal times and we must be ready to meet them." - - - Steve Gilliard