State Department Offical Forced to Resign for Merely Speaking the Truth

The Obama administration (and its Jello-O spined leader who is working hard to become a version of Chimperator Bush) has pressured State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley (pictured at right), to resign yesterday. Crowley's offense? Calling the Pentagon out on its equivalent of torture treatment of Bradley Manning. Anyone following the Manning sag with any degree of attention cannot help but realize what's going on makes America's supposed rule of law a total farce. What's even more ironic is the fact that even as rank and file citizens in the Middle East yearn for American style democracy - or at least the form we once had - the USA is sliding towards something more akin to the pattern of a Middle Eastern oligarchy. It's a trend that is most disturbing and doesn't bode well for the future in this nation which is spiraling downward economically and politically. Here are highlights from the New York Times on the White House's effort to kill dissent:
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The State Department spokesman, Philip J. Crowley, resigned on Sunday, three days after publicly criticizing the Pentagon as “ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid” in its treatment of Pfc. Bradley E. Manning, the soldier imprisoned on charges of leaking classified government documents to the antisecrecy group WikiLeaks.
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Mr. Crowley’s comments, which were made to a small group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, stirred a political tempest in Washington and were rejected by President Obama at a news conference on Friday. . . . . White House officials were infuriated by the episode, administration officials said, which one described as “the last straw” in a series of incautious remarks by Mr. Crowley.
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Mr. Crowley, in his statement, did not retract his critical comments about the Pentagon, which he said “were intended to highlight the broader, even strategic impact of discrete actions undertaken by national security agencies every day and their impact on our global standing and leadership.”
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For the last few months, Mr. Crowley had devoted much of his time to dealing with the fallout from the release of State Department cables by WikiLeaks. Officials credited him with handling that difficult task well, and he has developed strong opinions about the role of the government and the news media through this episode, some of which he voiced in his M.I.T. talk.
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Just because the truth is inconvenient, it doesn't make it any less the truth. Obama needs to take a lesson from what has happened to some Middle East tyrants who found themselves no longer able to hold back the truth. Would that there was any real prospect for an alternative to Obama in 2012. Personally, I would like to see him shown the door. I'm long past believing much of anything the man has to say.