Fitzgerald said this investigation could have been completed last October BEFORE THE ELECTION if not for Libby's obstruction. These indictments are a fairly small price for continuation of the war and multiple Supreme Court appointments.

Tim

Joe - you are right on the money on Plamegate. But, even though you get it, the so-called "mainstream" media are simply refusing to connect the dots; the outing of Valerie was more than just punishing Joe Wilson, it was about keeping the big lie going about the reaons for war. Joe - is there any of your media pals you can call - Tim Russert, Chris Matthews, Aaron Brown maybe - who you can goad into saying on the air what's really going on; that this administration is a gang of ideological thugs who'll stop at nothing? Or are they all too chicken/bought out by corporate interests? Thanks anyway for fighting the good fight.

Suddenly I could see them all in a room - Dick Cheney as Kasper Gutman, Judith Miller as Brigid O'Shaughnessy, Karl Rove as Joel Cairo , and "Scooter" Libby as Wilmer Cook. Dick, Judith, and Karl all looked at each other, and then at Scooter. They knew Sam Spade (as played by the first rate Patrick Fitzgerald) would be there soon, and they needed someone to go down. Why not the "gunsel"? Why not the one who had been sent to take those cheap shots at Joe Wilson?

Of course, in any such situation, there is always the possibilty that Scooter won't continue to play ball - that Fitzgerald and the other Feds (you know, those honest "civil servants" we used to see in movies that did the dirty work when the glamorous stars tried to hide their misdeeds) will continue to drill in and find more. I think that all depends on what type of "film" this is - if it is truly "political noir", then Libby will get the 10 year sentence, and the rest will just fade into the background.

But more importantly, there is the "McGuffin" here - the rational for the Iraq war. I suspect that just as a severely dissapointed Kasper Gutman is seen slashing/hacking at the falcon at the end of the movie, declaring it to be a fake, those as the center of this process - who thought they could remake the mideast to their own worldview - are going to find that it's all been a false lead. So before they go on to their next target in the grand vision - Syria - we should all remember how that last line of the movie applies here - how such ideas are: "The stuff that dreams are made of."

We're going to see more feigned concern from Bush while his cohorts distort the importance of this disgrace on Fox, Limbaugh, etc...the entire right-wing propaganda machine. Of course, Bush has known for some time about Libby and Rove's efforts to destroy Joseph Wilson's credibility...but I'm not convinced he understood or now understands that their actions were illegal and reprehensible. He simply lacks the character, insight, and depth to comprehend the ramifications of such dissipated behavior...after all, he has built his career on it...he is a hypocrite to the core.

For lots of reasons you can't impeach the sonofabitch

(Bush) but you can cover him and his cabal with so much dirt

that the public will curse them and many of the Repuglicans

in Congress.

Amazingly some "journalists" are still carrying water

for these criminals. They could have stopped all this

long ago if they really were journalists.

Boy, am I mad!

Vietnam Era Vet

Joe:

I've been watching pundits scratch their heads and wonder, "Why did Libby lie..it was so stupid," while his defense attorney is trying to claim it was simply a "memory lapse."

You need to point out that Fitzgerald is not charging him with "not remembering," but rather with fabricating a story (i.e., that he learned of Plame as the "end" of a chain of journalist's revelations to him).

Please go back and pull the contemporaneous GOP "talking points" at the time Libby was first contacted by the FBI. They claimed that the information about Plame came from reporters, not the administration.

With Ashcroft still in charge of the investigation when Libby was first interviewed, he simply regurgitated the "talking point" cover story as if it were true and was thereafter stuck with it.

Finally, it would be highly interesting if you could ferret out where these talking points originated. If Rove and Libby were involved in crafting them--and given what is already stated in Libby's indictment concerning their involvement in this matter--it would establish a conspiracy to obstruct justice.

What keeps getting missed in most of the opeds about Libby's crime not being what Fitzgerald was supposed to be investigating is that Libby's lying to the grand jury and the FBI created an obstruction to Fitzgerald's investigation of the original issue about the outing of CIA agent Plame. Libby lied to block Fitzgerald's investigation from getting to the truth about why she was outed. LYING TO A GRAND JURY and THE FBI regarding an ongoing investigation about a potential crime, is, in and of itself, a crime. Fitzgerald has not yet been able (partially because of Libby's lying) to determine whether the outing of Plame was done maliciously and purposefully by the Bush administration, and if so, why?. That part of the investigation is still ongoing, but for now at least, Libby is out of the way.

Bush, Cheney, Libby, and Rove, probably all agreed that Libby would take the fall. Fear not: Bush will pardon Libby if he is convicted, and Cheney will find him a multi-million dollar job with Haliburton.

Neither Bush nor Cheney will come clean. Nor will there be a major house-cleaning in the Administration. Look at who is now replacing Libby: Addington, a vicious partisan of secrecy and of absolute Presidential power.

This gang is not about to relinquish power. Like all dictators, Bush and Cheney will dig their heels in until they are thrown out by forces bigger than themselves.