Drip, drip, drip, excuse me Mr. President , but your party is leaking...

Last night, I ventured back to the Fantasy Land of Cable News where all the real news revolves Colbe Bryant, Laci Peterson, and people who like to scream at one another. I don't know, maybe I"m a glutton for punishment. One day though, I need to learn my lesson. Looking on the bright side, it's all fodder for the blog.

So I'm watching Anderson Cooper talk to Howard Dean about his comments on this past week's terror diversion, or alert, depending on your level of education and/or blind pride. "The administration is manipulating the release of information in order to affect the president's campaign," Dr. Dean said in an interview on Tuesday. I think this is a legitimate concern. Especially when during the news conferences make public these terror alerts, Homeland Security head Tom Ridge announces that the President's leadership is the reason we are winning the terror war. Winning the terror war? Did you not just say we should all be terrified of an upcoming attack? Sounds like politics to me. But Howard Dean is being attacked for suggesting what is obvious to every thinking person. The president is playing these alerts to gain political sercurity everytime his poll numbers go down. He can't win the media spotlight with positive policies, because he doesn't have any. He only has the ability to frighten.

So Howard Dean spoken with Mr. Cooper about this criticism and restated his concerns and his understanding of the terrorism problem. Directly after Dean was safely off the air and had no way of defending himself, Terry Holt, the Bush-CHENEY re-election campaign's Director of Communications and Lies, immediately started calling Dean's comments irresponsible and treasonous (though to Anderson's credit he did his best to keep the conversation in context, though failed).

It's amazing the gaul republicans express when throwing around terms like "treasonous" and "irresponsible." Firstly, I don't think criticizing the administration is irresponsible at all. Secondly, they should not pretend they care about national security unless it can be used to smear someone else. I believe the highly illegal and life-threatening leak of undercover CIA operative Valarie Plame's name to the press. And I use the term "press" loosely when referring to crazy, drunk-looking, Ebenezer Scrooge stand-in, Robert Novak.

Well today it seems there is another serious betrayal of the country's national security. Sen. Richard C. Shelby, a republican from Alabama, leaked classified intercepted messages to the media when he was on the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The disclosure involved two messages that were intercepted by the National Security Agency on the eve of the 9/11 attacks. The Arabic-language messages said "The match is about to begin" and "Tomorrow is zero hour." These were not translated until Sept. 12, though.

All accounts seem to put the leak this way. After getting this highly classified information at an Intelligence Committee meeting, Shelby, during an brief recess, left the chamber of the committee session, walked up to a Fox News correspondent and told him about these messages. After the correspondent seemed uncomfortable with the information (I guess even someone who works for Fox News can be rational), Shelby then told a CNN reporter. CNN soon decided to air the information.

Federal investigators concluded today that Shleby's actions were illegal and criminally punishable, but for some reason they aren't going to pursue any actions at this point. Martha needs to go to jail for not telling the truth to make an example, but a SENATOR! gets to walk away from revealing matters of national security without even a slap on the wrist.

The hypocrisy is simply numbing. No one is ever allowed to tell me that republicans are stronger on national defense. Ever.