Republicans in government - politically arrogant, fiscally irresponsible, corrupt and incompetent.

Why did the Bush administration expose Valerie Wilson as a CIA officer?

We know that they were attacking her husband, Joe Wilson, for his public statements exposing the fact that the Bush administration had used a series of lies, including the lie about Iraq attempting to purchase uranium yellow-cake in Niger, to stampede Americans and Congress into supporting an unnecessary War in Iraq. Even through the massive PR effort throwing up smoke to obscure the level of criminality of Rove's actions, this is an incontrovertible fact.

So why was Rove and the Bush White House so unwavering in his efforts to "get" Joe Wilson?

Here is how Josh Marshall explains it in the last paragraph of his excellent comment this morning:

As Frank Rich put it so aptly less than two weeks ago, "the administration knows how guilty it is. That's why it has so quickly trashed any insider who contradicts its story line about how we got to Iraq, starting with the former Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill and the former counterterrorism czar Richard Clarke."

It was part of a two-pronged campaign by the White House to cover their guilt for the crime of unnecessarily invading Iraq by (1) attacking anyone who effectively exposed their lies and (2) forcing the CIA to take responsibility for the 16 word statement Bush included in the State of the Union speech.

The whole "Smear and Defend" campaign is about covering the guilt the White House has about conning the American public into support for the ridiculous war in Iraq which has failed in every way to protect American security.

The administration (but not yet Bush) is now discussing pulling American troops out of Iraq in the Spring or Summer of 2006. I predicted this several months ago. This is driven, not by success in Iraq, but by (1) the lack of success, (2) the overall unpopularity of the war with the American public, and (3) the need to seem to do something before the elections of November 2006.

Everything this administration has done since taking office in 2001 has been political. They have focused the entire federal government towards winning the next election on the calendar. The Bush administration and the Republican Party as a whole has started a war that has killed over 1700 American service people, crippled thousands, destroyed our ground combat reserve capability, severely damaged our active military, killed and injured thousands of Iraqis, and isolated America internationally at a time when we should be working with other nations to control Terrorists.

All of this has been done supposedly because Osama bin Laden sent 19 men to America to attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11, but every action has been suspiciously timed to provide Republican advantage for the next election.

It has been nearly four years since September 11, 2001 and the Bush administration has not caught or killed Osama bin Laden. How many lives and $ billions will this administration waste to get Republicans reelected while blaming it all on protection of Americans against terrorists?

What have we gotten with George W. Bush and the Republicans in control of government? Political arrogance, fiscal disaster, together with corrupt and incompetent governance.

George-W.-Bush-is-the-Worst-American-President-ever!