Does Every Secret Need A Leak, And Is Ignorance Really Bliss?

Out on the morning run, you never know when inspiration will hit. Mid-stride bounding over a pile of dog shit. Jumping another homeless man rolling up his bed on the trail he decided to camp on last evening. Plowing down the usual sidewalks dodging early AM commuters on a rush to jobs they hate. Avoiding the SUV driver who insists that she has the right of way even though the walk signal is brightly luminescent with the walking figure; and she attempts to flip you off but fumbles her phone in the process as she had it clamped to her ear with her shoulder, one hand on the wheel, and the other reaching to the back seat trying to stuff a binky into the mouth of her wailing child stuffed into the five point safety seat.

But the truth of the matter is that I’ve been ruminating on the following questions for a good while. The W, Rove and Co, if nothing else, have presented us with a fair number of deeply philosophical conundrums. I’ve jumped into a few of these from time to time. For example, my discussion of the problematical surrogate for debate the propaganda masters created that effectively eliminated debate by presenting only two dualistically opposing sides where one is their position and the other is as palatable as those fresh red capped mushrooms pulled by your neighbor and cooked up as a delicacy.

It comes to this: A fundamental discussion about why the W, Rove and Co insists on having so many secrets and then relying on leaks to disseminate information. It appears to be a backdoor method for information dissemination where the subliminal message is that they just don’t trust the American people enough to fill them in on the details; like we can’t handle the truth. This is not unlike the evangelical minister not wanting to expose the reality of their indiscretions for fear that they may do harm to the flock.

Like many a deposed or defrocked minister, we may find that the reality is not going to be fun for the W, Rove and Co because, when we actually pull back the curtain, the truth is going to be ugly, but not for the right reasons. Indeed, if the W, Rove and Co. had been upfront and honest about numerous things, we might have a distaste them (Abu Ghraib) or may be morally offended and disgusted that such things would be perpetrated by the administration. But, had they actually opened the door and freely discussed the realities of what we were facing, perhaps they might have more support for their position.

I would like to pose a few questions – to amplify those in the title of this post – that have been percolating in my brain and see what the rest of the blogisphere has to say about them. I’ll present this as a quasi-logic proof for fans of high school geometry problems.

1. Given: The terrorists know what they are planning to do.
2. Given: The terrorist may even know, or have some idea about what the US and others will be doing to counter those plans.


3. Given: The W, Rove and Co. claim they have intelligence that suggest they know what the terrorists are planning.


4. Given: The W, Rove and co thinks it knows what it is doing will work to mitigate the threats


5. Given: The American people are left in the dark about all of the above.

This boils down to a hand full of questions:

• Why is it that a steady stream of leaks from the Whitehouse is used to alleviate this pressure created by the dissonance between what they know and what they want us to know about terrorist activities and mitigation strategies?


• Is the W, Rove and Co afraid that

1. we cannot handle the facts?


2. they don’t really know the facts (WMD) and want us to think otherwise?


3. Or are they ashamed of what would be discovered once the facts were revealed?

If the truth about how the W, Rove and Co has been operating over the last, almost 6 years, were to come out, will we be appalled or ally ourselves around them embracing them as global saviors?

Certainly, you could argue that it’s not the known unknowns, but the unknown unknowns that will come back and bite us in the ass. Even so, don’t you think the American people can handle the truth, work through it together, and come together to solve the situation when they are presented with the details rather than sheltered for what might be considered for our own good?

It's time to peel back the curtain and see what's behind the smoke and mirrors. I, for one, believe we as a people are strong and able to confront any evil that resides beneath shroud woven by the W, Rove and Co and rise through it even stronger than we are today.