American Zeitgeist and White House Lies

I'm feeling emotionally shaken inside right now. No, not about a movie. But kind of.

I was watching the director's cut on Netflix of Fair Game about when the Bush white house outed a CIA officer, Valerie Plame and tried to destroy her husband Joe Wilson. Because Joe spoke the truth and they wanted to destroy him, through attack his wife. A CIA officer of distinction. They slandered them both. This is well-documented int heir books, both of which I recommend reading. Note that it was a Republican administration who did this.

Valerie Plame and husband, Joe Wilson

I've seen this film three times now. I've read both their books long ago. I have for decades had an understanding of the processes and history of covert ops related to American, British, Russian and world history as well as related to this particular and disgusting situation.

There is a scene where Joe and Valerie are arguing and she wants him to stop because he's considering going up against the White House. Because it is the right thing to do.

Played by actors Naomi Watts and Sean Penn

In the heat of their argument, he asks her if he shouts louder than her, does that make him right? If the White House shouts a million times louder than him, does that make them right?

Then he says the words that shook me...

"They lied, Valerie. They lied!"

The White House ... lied. Once. One lie. Many small lies really that led to one big one...the Iraq War. And 100,000s of dead. A region destabilized. And many more bad decisions in the aftermath all because... no one planned for what to do once Iraq was defeated.

It was a war where the George W. Bush White House forced our intelligence community into finding intel that would support exactly what they wanted to do. Intel, that simply didn't exist. Some of that intel that Joe Wilson tried to tell the administration and the country, simply did not exist.

Some in our intelligence community also refused and were replaced with those who wouldn't.

Until they found someone in the Middle East who would supply the lies needed to give the White House, exactly what they wanted. That, along with other disinformation and...

It was all a lie. A very big lie.

And yet, I compare that lie and those times to today with a Donald J Trump administration and a collusive GOP. A Republican party and theirs in Congress who have turned too often, a blind eye toward what a president has done, is doing and plans to continue doing.

And so I feel now that that lie, those lies, during the Bush administration were somehow... quaint.

Almost refreshing in their level of at least attempting to appear "honest".

And it was that, which shook me to my very core.