Dear World;

Us folks here in America can cut through the clutter of half-assed explanations and lame excuses as well as you can. This is not about who gets to declassify information. This is about a president being dishonest to the people in this country that he’s supposed to serve.

This is about covering up the truth to such a degree that he’s willing to let his underlings be subject to suspicion, investigation and prosecution when a full explanation by the president would have spared them from the questions and their own efforts to cover-up, that has led to their prosecution. We now fully understand that our president, who was touted for his loyalty to employees, is not loyal to them at all.

We understand this was his first priority: covering his own ass. To accomplish this, not only was he willing to sacrifice employees, but in exposing Valerie Plame’s position to the media, he was exposing the family of a diplomat who told the truth to harm and weakening our nation’s security. Did he do this to try and get re-elected? Or did he do this to send a message to all government employees that if they revealed unpleasant truths to the public, even their families would suffer?

We understand that either motive was wrong because our national security requires expert intelligence officers who monitor weapons of mass destruction should never have their lives exposed and their careers ruined because of the dishonorable motives of the president. Our nation’s security is a blanket of protection woven from the efforts of hundreds of thousands of people. If a president claims the right to tear out a section of that quilt, which exposes our flank to our enemies, the president is wrong and dangerous to us all.

We understand that Scott McClellan is correct to say “there’s a distinction between declassifying information that is in the public interest and the unauthorized disclosure of classified information that could compromise our nation’s security.” We understand the exposure of Valerie Plame was not in our interest because it did compromise our nation’s security.

We also understand that the president is not the final authority who determines our best interests. Our Constitution provides for congressional oversight and judicial review of the president’s choices, because he is not our king. And we understand that oversight and review cannot be done properly when the president releases some information and hides other information so the big picture is distorted and the full truth is hidden.

We realize that’s exactly how he made his case to launch a war on Iraq. He provided a quilt of intelligence reports with many sections ripped out. And our Congress was deceived. The President has a right to declassify information, but he has an obligation and a duty not to deceive the rest of the team. That’s how he got Congress to approve the war on Iraq: deception.

We understand that the president’s power has limits, that his rights are just one part of that, that his obligations and duties are also essential, and his honesty’s paramount. We know that the press secretary’s tip-toeing around those realities to maintain the president’s excuses for failing his obligations and duties.

We’re smart enough to cut through the fancy dance of rhetoric and we understand that the real issue here is whether we’ll permit the president to continue his coverup of the truth. That’s what selective leaking is when he leaves underlings to twist in the wind instead of owning up to what happened. That’s what a partial picture delivered to Congress is that sent us to war for false reasons.

It’s a coverup.

Dear world, we get it. And nearly two-thirds of us already have made it clear we disapprove of our president’s performance. After these latest revelations, we expect by early next week, fresh polls will demonstrate that 70% of us do not approve.

We now depend on our Congress to assert its Constitutional duties and begin the process to end this coverup and remedy the problem. Our national security is weakened when our national integrity is broken.

And we certainly understand that if our Congress shrinks from its duty now, then it’s our duty as citizens to restore the integrity of our nation. If our elected government refuses to represent us, our democracy is not working. And one by one, we’ll fire every public servant who has broken their contract to represent us.

We are the country. It’s our honor and integrity and security at stake. We understand this. We regret the failures and deceptions of those we hired to lead us. Now that we’ve granted them sufficient time to explain and the explanation maintains the deception and dishonor, it is not enough to hang our heads in shame.

We will demonstrate that we are a better people than that. Our president has no right to make us all look dishonorable. We have long stood for truth and the pursuits of liberty and justice. Bear with us a bit longer, dear world, because we’re going to stand up for that again, and compel the dishonest public servants to stand down.

We are not cowards. We our not shirkers. We are not sheep. We know there’s a difficult struggle ahead. But we know that everything that’s essential about America has to be defended and fought for and cannot be surrendered to immoral and deceitful men. The fight has been going on for quite some time, actually, though our corporate media has underreported it.

We love our country and our fight has begun to save it. There’s no longer a question about what our president is. The question is ‘what are we?’ From now on, you’ll see our answer: we are a nation of laws and a