By now, many of you will have heard of the latest scandal to rumble through the Beltway -- the alleged White House leak of the covert occupation of Valerie Plame, wife of Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
For those of you unaware of the situation, he's the whistleblower who angered White House politicos by disproving Bush's now famous 16-word State of the Union claim about Iraqi attempts to obtain uranium from Niger. She's a CIA undercover operative, and the leak has ended her career.
The precise identity of the leaker is still unknown, but it is widely believed to be a top White House official, and the motive of revenge is fairly transparent. According to Wilson, the leak was shopped around to other D.C. journalists until Robert Novak, a conservative columnist who is literally known as the "Prince of Darkness" inside Washington circles, published the information.
Readers should know that such a leak is not only unethical and against the national interest, but also illegal, due to a law that ironically was pushed into existence by George H.W. Bush when he was director of the CIA and later vice president. Why? Because such leaks endanger the lives of operatives and their contacts, as well as our national security.
To his credit, this Bush has distanced himself from the treasonous acts of his minions. But even if Bush himself is not directly culpable for the leak, the culture of his administration is.
Bush and his administration have, from the beginning, been hostile toward public servants. The president's history of such disdain for national service harkens back to his days in the Air National Guard. Well, perhaps "in" is a little too strong, for not only did he avoid duty in Vietnam, but he spent his final year of duty in Texas AWOL.
While Bush may find using the men and women who actually do serve in our armed forces useful for political purposes (for example, for landing him in a fighter jet on an aircraft carrier), he demonstrates very little concern for their well-being. The decision of whether or not to go to war against Iraq entirely aside, he cut the hazardous duty pay and the extended service pay for the soldiers on the ground. While some on the right may find this justified (after all, Bush had to fund more tax cuts somehow), true American patriots should not.
Bush's war on public service does not stop at the Pentagon, however. Even after pledging support for the Teach for America program, he stood idly by while Congressional Republicans cut both the AmeriCorps and Teach for America programs to shreds so that he could reduce even further the taxes of his wealthy friends and political contributors. Not only did he deprive school children in underfunded districts the chance to improve their education, but he denied patriotic college grads a chance to serve their country by serving their country's children.
And then there is the desire to cut government jobs wherever possible. For example, the Bush administration is now studying how it can further privatize the National Park Service jobs at Mount Rainier, where many services, such as lodging and concessions, are already provided by outside firms.
While it is easy to slander the faceless bureaucrat, every day Americans across the country and at all levels of government get out of bed to serve another day in much maligned positions. That is true patriotism.
By its deeds and by its words, the Bush administration has shown a consistent disregard for men and women in uniform, regardless of whether that uniform is a soldier's BDUs, a teacher's tweed, a police officer's blues or a sanitation worker's overalls. In fact, it seems that the only public servants about whose welfare Bush and company care are politicians -- and only Republican politicians at that.
National service is the height of civic virtue, and the betrayal of those who do the public's work, like that of Valerie Plame, is the ugliest of civic sins. Yet the trespass of the public trust certainly falls in line with the Bush administration's policies; in fact, it seems to be one of their fundamental principles of governance.
Our government, as one president of note once observed, is not only by and for, but also of the people -- people like Valerie Plame, our soldiers in Iraq and AmeriCorps teachers. If the party of Lincoln wants to claim his heritage, then they need to once again live up to his example. As long as the Bush administration is in power, though, don't expect a change anytime soon.
Kevin Collins is a College sophomore from Milwaukee, Wis.
