... for the three out of 10 Americans who are completely impervious to reality. Thanks to redistricting, you can tell where their alcoves are. If people who spout this kind of nonsense keep winning every two years by about 30 points (assuming they even have a Democratic challenger, which often doesn't happen), you know that there's a fact-free and faith-based balkanization afoot.

Glenn,

You could write a whole column on the worry of the framers of the constitution about factions. That was long before political parties.

The "republican party" is a faction by the definitions in the federalist papers.

The republican faction is a constitutional crisis.

Pence, like Walkabout McCain, is contemptible, and should be ignored. Yet these charlatans aren't ignored -- the press continues to give them prominent perches from which to continue their deadly 3-card Monte.

Why can't the WaPo give us the context you did? Has their Lexis/Nexis subscription expired?

There is little the blogs can do to change Pence's personal calculus in spewing such nonsense. But we can make it a bit more uncomfortable for the WaPo and the Times to swallow it. That's where I think we should concentrate our fire -- on the gullibility of and collaboration by those who validate and publicize such insanity.

I posted this comment regarding your "Rudy" post, but I was rather late and fear it was missed.

GG: In my view, what demonstrated what a superior prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is was not that he obtained an indictment and conviction of Lewis Libby, but that he chose not to indict Karl Rove, even though he plainly could have secured an indictment.

This raises a couple of questions I have been wondering about, but have not been able to find the answer to:

How do we know that Fitzgerald 1) had enough evidence to indict Rove, but 2) decided not to? I'm genuinely asking, not challenging, here, because as much as I've read about the case, I've never been able to find the answer. Has Fitzgerald ever publicly stated that he decided not to present the charges to the grand jury and let them vote? Because (as I'm sure you know) there are three ways a grand jury case can result in no indictment: the prosecutor can decline to present the charges, or he can give the case to the jury, and they could return a "no true bill" (vote to dismiss) or a "no action" (not enough votes either way).

Personally, I always suspected that the first grand jury (which indicted Libby) "no actioned" the charges against Rove, giving Fitzgerald leave to re-present the case to a new grand jury - which is one explanation for the need to impanel a second grand jury.

Also: why you think it was a good thing that Fitzgerald chose not to indict Rove if in fact he had evidence that Rove committed crimes? To me, that sounds derelict, not restrained.

Thanks,

There's certainly no partisan posturing here, thank goodness. LOL.

Glenn - It all reads like some caricatured cartoon of a country ruled by compulsive liars and two-bit cons -- like some college freshman's attempt to write a science fiction account of a country run by leaders who continuously manipulate the citizenry with the most unabashed, simplistic and transparent lies on the gravest of matters.

With Lynn Westmoreland, Republican co-sponsor of a bill to place the ten commandments in public buildings.

When asked to name the ten commandments, Westmoreland could only name three, and he hemmed and hawed over those.

We are a nation of Christians who haven't read the Bible and have not a clue what Jesus was all about.

It's no surprise that we are ridiculously easy to fool.

BTW, reassure is one word.

"like a normal outdoor market in Indiana in the summertime."

He of course is referring to an outdoor market in downtown Gary in the mid '80s.

These same people have been saying for 3+ years that anything that makes the U.S. look bad in Iraq emboldens the terrorists.

Therefore, they have to lie so the terrorists won't be emboldened.

The question becomes, why would anyone believe their lies especially after they themselves have told you they have no problem lying just so the U.S. won't look bad?

Something in which you never indulge, right Mr Shooter242?

Did Fitzgerald choose not to indict Rove?

I obviously don't need to tell you that nobody can really know exactly what a prosecutor's case is without knowing what the prosecutor knows, and in this case - given the secrecy of the grand jury testimony at the time and the leak-proof operation Fitzergald ran - it was hard to know for sure.

But the consensus of Plame experts at the time certainly was that Rove's repeated appearances before the Grand Jury - some voluntary, some not - strongly suggested that there was much inaccurate testimony given (which of course does not make it perjurious, but the amount of it suggested as much). Moreover, Fitzgerald himself made clear in his press conference that his decision not to seek underlying indicments was discretionary -- he explained why he thought it was unnecessary -- and Rove definitely was one of the people who leaked Plame's identity to reporters (if you haven't read Fitzgerald's press conference on the day of the Libby indictment, I recommend it.

I think there are times when a prosecutor believes a crime has been commmitted and could even secure an indictment when it is right to refrain from doing so -- if he questions whether he can prove the case beyond a reasonable doubt, if the crime is sufficiently mitigated or unimportant not to warrant the resouces, if there are strategic benefits not to indict, etc. Fitzgerald clearly proved he has no fear of prosecuting the most powerful people (he proved that before the Plame case, and certainly in it). And indicting Rove would have made the case much more politically important and high-profile (which motivates many ambitious prosecutors). So part of it is trust, and I trust that Fitzgerald chose not to indict Rove even though doing so may have benefitted Fitzgerald. I think that's admirable.

As to whether they actually sought an indictment of Rove, you'd have to ask people who followed the case more closely than I did for (email Marcy Wheeler) proof, but I do think it's clear (from lawyer leaks and the like, though my recollection is fuzzy on that) that no indictment of Rove was sought.