Mean, nasty, ugly people

I'm at home today, having taken the day off for some medical things for both myself and Maggie the Great Huntress of Already Dead Squirrels, who had a follow-up blood test to make sure her preventive vitamin K1 shot on Wednesday had worked properly. I watched about as much of the CIA leak hearings as I've had time for, and my immediate observation is what a mean, partisan bunch these Republicans are. These people will prostitute not just the safety of this country, but the safety of the entire world, if it means partisan advantage for them.

Victoria Toensing looked like she'd swallowed a lemon as she piously insisted that no crime had been committed, sticking to her story that everyone in the immediate universe knew who Valerie Plame was, despite Plame's powerful earlier testimony about her covert status. Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia seemed to be living on Republican time, trying to smear Plame by asking whether it had been wise to appear in a photograph in an article in Vanity Fair -- conveniently forgetting that her cover had already been blown by that time. But by far the worst was Rep. Lynn Westmoreland of Georgia, who asked Plame duruing the hearing to which political party she belonged.

Here is a woman who put her very life on the line to investigate the prevalence -- or lack of same -- of nuclear weapons in the Middle East -- and this fuckwad is asking her what political party she belongs to? Sorry, Rep. Gooberville, but that's YOUR party that bases policy solely on what serves its political advantage, and YOUR party that's steeped in political revenge. This little redneck chickenshit doesn't have an e-mail contact form on his web site, so if you want to tell him that one doesn't ask people in the intelligence service about their political affiliation, call his office: 202-225-5901.

Meanwhile, Brad Friedman has been liveblogging the whole thing here and here.

UPDATE: Jane reminds us that Lynn Westmoreland is the nimrod who co-sponsored the Ten Commandments bill and then showed on The Colbert Report that he doesn't even know what they are.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Here is the loathsome Ms. Toensing's testimony, with commentary by Randi Rhodes, followed by the even more loathsome Rep. Westmoreland. In case you didn't believe it:



AND YET MORE: Here is Valerie Plame's testimony, from PoliticsTV:

Meanwhile, here is what Fox News regards as the most important story of the day: