Bush Feeds His Base Scalia Clone: Alito

[Scroll down for an update]

As expected, Bush has bowed to his extremist base by giving them exactly what they've been asking for. The new Supreme Court nominee, Samuel A. Alito Jr is so steeped in patriarchal values that "he voted to uphold a Pennsylvania law that required a woman to notify her husband before an abortion."

When the male dominated state considers ordering you to tell your husband anything, it's time to wonder what country, or what century, you are living in.

On Fox News, they call Alito a man who supports more regulation of abortion. Of course, what this means is that Alito supports more regulation of women.

Predictably, the Victorians at Concerned Women of America are swooning. "Alito .. [has] always been at the top of our list. We think [he] .. would be a supreme pick," said Janet M. LaRue, the group's chief counsel.

In a former life, LaRue led the movement to stop women from winning the right to vote.

Alito is nicknamed "Scalito," cuz he follows the Scalia philosophy which holds that the way those dead white constitutional 'Fathers' from the 18th century saw the world is the only way to see it. In other words, the world belongs to the white men who have money.

And, yes, the privilege of regulating the women of the world is one of the little perks in the original white male constitutional package.

Scalito is the one candidate on Bush's short list that Senator Harry Reid warned him not to pick:

"That is not one of the names that I've suggested to the president," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., told "Late Edition" on CNN. "In fact, I've done the opposite. I think it would create a lot of problems."

As always, the women of America must turn to men, or Democrats, for protection from other men, Republicans, in the 85% male Congress.

As always, it's a very scary proposition.

UPDATE: Think Progress has a statement from George Washington University law professor Jonathan Turley: "[Alito is] the top choice for particularly pro-life people. Sam Alito is viewed as someone who is likely to join the hard right in likely narrowing Roe and possibly voting to overturn Roe. . There will be no one to the right of Sam Alito on this Court. This is a pretty hardcore fellow on abortion issues. . No one on the conservative base can be unhappy with Sam Alito." [Video]

In yet another sign that rightwingers are secretly living the lives of characters in bawdy white trash sex novels, Alito is pro strip search: "ALITO SUPPORTS UNAUTHORIZED STRIP SEARCHES: In Doe v. Groody, Alito agued that police officers had not violated constitutional rights when they strip searched a mother and her ten-year-old daughter while carrying out a search warrant that authorized only the search of a man and his home. [Doe v. Groody, 2004]" No wonder Alito's family looks so uptight. And who chose that background, anyway? Heh.

See: Bush's Supreme Creep List

Supreme Court Alito Scalito Bush Feminism Reproductive Rights Patriarchy Politics Regulating Women Abortion Roe v. Wade Samuel Alito

Bush Presidency: A Catastrophic Failure

A USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup Poll taken over the weekend finds that "a solid majority of Americans, 55%, now judge Bush's presidency to be a failure."

I don't know what took them so long, or what kind of pills the remaining 45% are popping, but clearly a majority of Americans have finally opened their eyes.

In the USA TODAY poll taken this weekend, Bush's approval rating is 41%. That is lower than Reagan's standing at any time during the Iran-contra controversy or Clinton's rating during the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

When Gallup asked in 1993 whether the first President Bush's tenure was a success or failure, 53% called it a success even though he had been defeated for re-election a year before. During Clinton's presidency, a majority never called his tenure a failure. Only once, after the health care debacle in 1994, did a plurality say it was a failure, by 50%-44%.

In January 1999, after he had been impeached by the House and was awaiting a Senate trial, 71% called Clinton's tenure a success.

But in August, by 51%-47%, those surveyed by USA TODAY called the current Bush presidency a failure. That proportion grew to 55%-42% in the poll over the weekend.

The finding is consistent with a survey taken this month by the Pew Research Center. In that poll, for the first time since Bush took office in 2001, a plurality of Americans said that in the long run he will be viewed as an unsuccessful president. Just one in four said Bush would be seen as successful.

The USA TODAY poll found little optimism that Bush's turnaround strategy would succeed. By 55%-41%, those surveyed said the remaining three years of Bush's presidency would be a failure. . .

"With Clinton, people said, 'I may not want to be married to him, but I think he's doing a good job,' " Democratic pollster Celinda Lake says. "In Bush's case, they're saying, 'The job he's doing is what I'm having trouble with.' "

According to David Gergen, an adviser to four presidents, "a Category 4 storm for the Bush White House" is in full force. Knowing this pResident as we do, there's plenty of reason to believe, or hope, that a Category 5 lies just over the horizon.

[T]wo legal sources intimately familiar with Fitzgerald's tactics in this inquiry said they believe Rove remains in significant danger. . . Another warning sign for Rove was in the phrasing of Friday's indictment of Libby. Fitzgerald referred to Rove in those charging papers as a senior White House official and dubbed him "Official A." In prosecutorial parlance, this kind of awkward pseudonym is often used for individuals who have not been indicted in a case but still face a significant chance of being charged.

Pity South America. Our catastrophic failure is headed there on Thursday.

Bush Poll Valerie Plame Plamegate Indictment Culture of Corruption Rove Cheney Bill Clinton Republican corruption

Valerie Plame Exposed: 60 Minutes

If you missed the 60 Minutes report on the treasonous act that ended Valerie Plame's career and compromised national security, Crooks and Liars has the video.

Warning: You'll probably come away very angry at Robert Novak, and all those other traitors in the White House.

You can send your thoughts to Novak here.


Valerie Plame Plamegate Indictment Libby Cheney Rove Fitzgerald Bush 60 Minutes Video Joe Wilson Turdblossom CIA leak

Herbert: Smoke Gets in Our Eyes

Smoke Gets in Our Eyes
By BOB HERBERT

"There's a reason so many top officials of the Bush administration treat the truth as if it were kryptonite.

More than anything else, the simple truth has the potential to destroy the Bush gang.

Scooter Libby was one of the most powerful figures in the administration, Dick Cheney's most highly trusted aide and a champion of the wholesale flim-flammery that led us into the crucible of Iraq. I haven't heard anyone express surprise that he would lie in the service of the administration.

But if the federal indictment returned last week in Washington is to be believed, Mr. Libby lied with the kind of reckless disregard for his own interests that would suggest he had become unhinged. It was as if he'd waved red flags in front of the grand jury and cried, "Come get me!"

You will hardly ever hear of someone who is skilled in the art of government, and a lawyer to boot, telling the kind of transparent lies that Mr. Libby is accused of telling the F.B.I. and a federal grand jury.

The indictment says, for example, that he told the feds he'd had a discussion with N.B.C.'s Tim Russert in which Mr. Russert asserted that "all the reporters" knew that Valerie Wilson, the wife of the former diplomat Joseph Wilson, worked for the C.I.A. In fact, according to the indictment and Mr. Russert, no such discussion occurred.

Mr. Libby himself was spreading the word about Ms. Wilson and, as Patrick Fitzgerald, the special counsel investigating the case, asserted, "he lied about it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly."

Who knows why Mr. Libby did what he did. Misplaced loyalty? An irrepressible need to be punished for his sins? Maybe he's just a dope. Of greater consequence for the republic is the fact that Mr. Libby is no hapless functionary who somehow lost his way. He's a symptom, the hacking cough that should alert us to a dangerous national disease, and that's the Bush administration's culture of deceit.

Scooter Libby was the main man of the most powerful vice president in the history of the United States. The most important aspect of the prosecution of Mr. Libby for perjury and obstruction of justice is the tremendous spotlight it is likely to shine on the way this administration does its business - its relentless, almost pathological, undermining of the truth, and its ruthless treatment of individuals who cling to the old-fashioned notion that the truth matters.

Condoleezza Rice, for example, gave us nightmare fantasies of mushroom clouds and declared on television that aluminum tubes seized en route to Iraq "were only really suited for nuclear weapons programs." Perhaps she forgot that a year earlier her own staff had been advised that experts had serious doubts about that. In any event, she would be promoted to secretary of state.

Gen. Eric Shinseki met a different fate when, as chief of staff of the Army, he dared to speak an uncomfortable truth to a Senate committee: that it would take several hundred thousand soldiers to pacify postwar Iraq. There was no promotion for him. His long and honorable career evaporated.

That's the game plan of this administration, to fool the people as much as possible (not just on the war, but on taxes, Social Security, energy policy and so on) and punish, if not destroy, anyone who tries to counter the madness with the truth.

Most members of the administration are more artful than Scooter Libby when they send out the smoke that is designed to hide the truth on important matters. They dissemble and give themselves wiggle room, like Dick Cheney when he said, truthfully but deceptively on "Meet the Press," that he didn't know Joseph Wilson. The vice president didn't know him personally, but he sure knew what was going on.

The art of Bush-speak is to achieve the effect of a lie without actually getting caught in a lie. That's what administration officials did when they deliberately fostered the impression that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda and thus was involved in the Sept. 11 attacks. This is an insidious way of governing, and the opposite of what the United States should be about.

It should tell you something that the administration's resident sleazemeister, Karl Rove, who is up to his ears in this mess but has managed so far to escape indictment, continues to be viewed not as an embarrassment, but as President Bush's most important and absolutely indispensable asset."

Bob Herbert Valerie Plame Plamegate Indictment Libby Cheney Rove Fitzgerald Bush Republican corruption Joe Wilson Turdblossom CIA leak

Krugman: Ending the Fraudulence

Ending the Fraudulence
By PAUL KRUGMAN

"Let me be frank: it has been a long political nightmare. For some of us, daily life has remained safe and comfortable, so the nightmare has merely been intellectual: we realized early on that this administration was cynical, dishonest and incompetent, but spent a long time unable to get others to see the obvious. For others - above all, of course, those Americans risking their lives in a war whose real rationale has never been explained - the nightmare has been all too concrete.

So is the nightmare finally coming to an end? Yes, I think so. I have no idea whether Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, will bring more indictments in the Plame affair. In any case, I don't share fantasies that Dick Cheney will be forced to resign; even Karl Rove may keep his post. One way or another, the Bush administration will stagger on for three more years. But its essential fraudulence stands exposed, and it's hard to see how that exposure can be undone.

What do I mean by essential fraudulence? Basically, I mean the way an administration with an almost unbroken record of policy failure has nonetheless achieved political dominance through a carefully cultivated set of myths.

The record of policy failure is truly remarkable. It sometimes seems as if President Bush and Mr. Cheney are Midases in reverse: everything they touch - from Iraq reconstruction to hurricane relief, from prescription drug coverage to the pursuit of Osama - turns to crud. Even the few apparent successes turn out to contain failures at their core: for example, real G.D.P. may be up, but real wages are down.

The point is that this administration's political triumphs have never been based on its real-world achievements, which are few and far between. The administration has, instead, built its power on myths: the myth of presidential leadership, the ugly myth that the administration is patriotic while its critics are not. Take away those myths, and the administration has nothing left.

Well, Katrina ended the leadership myth, which was already fading as the war dragged on. There was a time when a photo of Mr. Bush looking out the window of Air Force One on 9/11 became an iconic image of leadership. Now, a similar image of Mr. Bush looking out at a flooded New Orleans has become an iconic image of his lack of connection. Pundits may try to resurrect Mr. Bush's reputation, but his cult of personality is dead - and the inscription on the tombstone reads, "Brownie, you're doing a heck of a job."

Meanwhile, the Plame inquiry, however it winds up, has ended the myth of the administration's monopoly on patriotism, which was also fading in the face of the war.

Apologists can shout all they like that no laws were broken, that hardball politics is nothing new, or whatever. The fact remains that officials close to both Mr. Cheney and Mr. Bush leaked the identity of an undercover operative for political reasons. Whether or not that act was illegal, it was clearly unpatriotic.

And the Plame affair has also solidified the public's growing doubts about the administration's morals. By a three-to-one margin, according to a Washington Post poll, the public now believes that the level of ethics and honesty in the government has declined rather than risen under Mr. Bush.

So the Bush administration has lost the myths that sustained its mojo, and with them much of its power to do harm. But the nightmare won't be fully over until two things happen.

First, politicians will have to admit that they were misled. Second, the news media will have to face up to their role in allowing incompetents to pose as leaders and political apparatchiks to pose as patriots.

It's a sad commentary on the timidity of most Democrats that even now, with Lawrence Wilkerson, Colin Powell's former chief of staff, telling us how policy was "hijacked" by the Cheney-Rumsfeld "cabal," it's hard to get leading figures to admit that they were misled into supporting the Iraq war. Kudos to John Kerry for finally saying just that last week.

And as for the media: these days, there is much harsh, justified criticism of the failure of major news organizations, this one included, to exert due diligence on rationales for the war. But the failures that made the long nightmare possible began much earlier, during the weeks after 9/11, when the media eagerly helped our political leaders build up a completely false picture of who they were.

So the long nightmare won't really be over until journalists ask themselves: what did we know, when did we know it, and why didn't we tell the public?"

Paul Krugman Plamegate Karl Rove Indictment Valerie Plame Libby Cheney Rove Fitzgerald Bush Krugman Joe Wilson Turdblossom CIA leak

Bush's Supreme Creep List

The Chicago Tribune reports that Bush has narrowed the list of potential Supreme Court nominees to two. Apparently, the White House cabal is so anxious for us to forget all about that inconvenient little indictment thingy, that they may actually announce Miers' replacement today.

I didn't think fundamentalists worked on Sundays, but what do I know?

With an announcement expected Sunday or Monday, administration officials have narrowed the focus to Judges Samuel Alito of New Jersey and Michael Luttig of Virginia, sources involved in the process said. Both have sterling legal qualifications and solid conservative credentials, and both would set off an explosive fight with Senate Democrats, who are demanding a more moderate nominee to replace Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

If we can believe the Tribune, Ann Coulter and the gang will be positively drooling over the new nominee. It's anybody's guess if the Dems can actually summon the will to behave like an opposition party and filibuster. I won't be holding my breath.

Oh, and according to the Tribune, of the two nominees, the one who will be the easiest to confirm is the one who thinks women should be forced by law to ask husbands for permission to terminate a pregnancy. [update: ok, ok, it's called 'notification,' rather than 'permission;' yet, clearly, for many women there is no distinction. The state has no business forcing women to 'notify' husbands, unless, of course, women are incapable of making decisions without the manly direction of both the state and the husband.]

And we thought last week was fun.

From an already-drooling rabid rightwinger:

Speaking of the Casey decision, before it got to the USSC, it was heard by a lower court. That court included Judge Samuel Alito. He upheld the husband-notification provision of the abortion law in contention, and his profoundly impactful reasoning was later referenced and agreed with by the late, great USSC Chief Justice William Rehnquist. Unfortunately, the interminably anti-fatherhood Sandra Day O’Connor shot down the husband-notification provision in the Supreme Court’s decision on Casey. Men in particular should be big supporters of Alito’s appointment to the United States Supreme Court.

Yeah, men who get their wives by mail order.

Supreme Court Bush Reproductive Rights Politics Miers abortion Roe v. Wade Feminism

Plamegate Quote of the Day

"I just got off the phone with Karl Rove, who said your wife was 'fair game.' "

--Chris Matthews, MSNBC

Matthews made this, off camera, statement about broadcasting Valerie Plame's CIA affiliation shortly after Bob Novak first broke the story - according to Joe Wilson.

Wilson will be on 60 Minutes tonight, Sunday, Oct. 30, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

Plamegate Turdblossom Karl Rove Indictment Valerie Plame Libby Cheney CIA leak Rove Fitzgerald Bush Joe Wilson

Icelandic Women Strike For Equality; U.S. Women Just Want to Survive the Backlash

Thanks to Diane at DED Space, for the reminder to follow up on a previous post about the Icelandic women's strike for equality.

So many women participated that Icelandic workplaces were paralyzed!

ICELAND: Women began the working week by abandoning their offices, classrooms and kitchens to join a remarkable strike for equal wages. Marching through Reykjavik and other Icelandic towns, they banged pots and pans and shouted, "Women, let's be loud!" and "Equality now!"

The 50,000 protesters included actresses, politicians, fish factory workers, teachers and diplomatic staff. Embassies ground to a halt, as did the banks, government departments, most shops and kindergartens.

The real story, from my standpoint, is that in so many ways, women in Iceland have it far better than do women in the U.S. But then, here in the U.S., we're just trying to survive the punitive backlash from that last big feminist wave. And with the delusional rightwing cowboy in charge, surviving is a real challenge.

When Icelandic women think of equality, they think of countries like Sweden and Norway. They certainly don't think of the U.S.

Like other Nordic states, Iceland prides itself on promoting sexual equality. A generous welfare state funds kindergarten places so that women, who often end up being the ones who stay at home with the children, can return to work.

Women hold 33 per cent of seats in parliament, versus five per cent in 1975, and 80 per cent of women are now in work, up from 50 per cent.

Iceland also had a woman president, Vigdis Finnbogadottir, between 1980 and 1996.

But while the situation of women has improved since the 1975 strike, which was to highlight World Women Day, the organisers say it is still not good enough. They cited low pay in female-dominated professions like nursing.

The Icelandic parliament was closed because of the protest meetings about gender inequality and Hotel Nordica, where Nordic and Baltic politicians were gathered for the annual Session of the Nordic Council, also felt the effects of the women’s strike.

Can you imagine the U.S. Congress closing because of meetings about gender inequality? Like Tom Delay and Bill Frist will ever have a clue or give a damn in their lifetimes.

In the U.S., women are 15% of Congress. At this excruciatingly slow rate of progress, I seriously doubt if we will ever catch up with the women of Iceland. I mean by the time we are 33% (assuming it ever happens), they will be well over 50%. A generous welfare state? As in family support policies, such as paid maternity leave, universal childcare and healthcare? Obviously, we are not even close to demanding it, let alone winning it.

Icelandic women earn 72 cents to the male dollar. That's four cents less than women in the U.S. earn. But once you factor in a generous welfare state, women in America come out way behind.

Here's a partial list of the reasons Icelandic women went on strike - and, yes, it looks familiar:

Women’s salary in Iceland is only 64,15% of men’s
Women get 72% of men’s salary for working the same number of hours
One out of three women becomes a victim of gender related violence in her lifetime
Jobs involving caretaking are among the lowest paying jobs in the job market
Women’s voice is still not loud enough in the media
Women’s bodies are treated as merchandise
A woman has never been prime minister, bank manager or bishop
Women have never occupied half the seats in parliament
Responsibility for children and domestic work is still largely on women’s shoulders
Children have a negative effect on women’s salary, but a positive effect on men’s

Read the whole thing..

Feminism women strike equality equal pay Iceland Equal Representation Welfare state

Rich: One Step Closer to the Big Enchilada

One Step Closer to the Big Enchilada
By FRANK RICH

TO believe that the Bush-Cheney scandals will be behind us anytime soon you'd have to believe that the Nixon-Agnew scandals peaked when G. Gordon Liddy and his bumbling band were nailed for the Watergate break-in. But Watergate played out for nearly two years after the gang that burglarized Democratic headquarters was indicted by a federal grand jury; it even dragged on for more than a year after Nixon took "responsibility" for the scandal, sacrificed his two top aides and weathered the indictments of two first-term cabinet members. In those ensuing months, America would come to see that the original petty crime was merely the leading edge of thematically related but wildly disparate abuses of power that Nixon's attorney general, John Mitchell, would name "the White House horrors."

In our current imperial presidency, as in its antecedent, what may look like a narrow case involving a second banana with a child's name contains the DNA of the White House, and that DNA offers a road map to the duplicitous culture of the whole. The coming prosecution of Lewis (Scooter) Libby in the Wilson affair is hardly the end of the story. That "Cheney's Cheney," as Mr. Libby is known, would allegedly go to such lengths to obscure his role in punishing a man who challenged the administration's W.M.D. propaganda is just one very big window into the genesis of the smoke screen (or, more accurately, mushroom cloud) that the White House used to sell the war in Iraq.

After the heat of last week's drama, we can forget just how effective the administration's cover-up of that con job had been until very recently. Before Patrick Fitzgerald's leak investigation, there were two separate official investigations into the failure of prewar intelligence. With great fanfare and to great acclaim, both found that our information about Saddam's W.M.D.'s was dead wrong. But wittingly or unwittingly, both of these supposedly thorough inquiries actually protected the White House by avoiding, in Watergate lingo, "the big enchilada."

Read the whole thing...

Frank Rich Plamegate Karl Rove Indictment Valerie Plame Libby Cheney CIA leak Rove Fitzgerald Bush Joe Wilson Turdblossom

Governor Bredesen's Woman Problem

Only 42 percent of women approve of Bredesen's job performance. That compares to a 54 percent approval rating among men, according to the latest Survey USA poll.

Since women are the people who take care of sick and elderly family members, Bredesen's devastating health care cuts would certainly make him unpopular with women.

It also didn't help when the Democratic Governor slammed Hillary Clinton as a potential candidate in 2008.

Bredesen is said to have presidential ambitions and seems to genuinely believe that he has a chance of winning the nomination for something more prestigious than dog catcher outside of this red state.

The Democratic Governor also has a race problem

Among African Americans, Bredesen scores a job approval rating of 40 percent. But compared to Hispanics, Blacks are wildly in love with the Democratic Governor. Hispanics give Bredesen a job approval score of 16 percent. That compares with 50 percent among whites.

Governor Bredesen also has a Democrat problem

The Democratic Governor scores a 44 percent approval rating among Democrats. That compares to a shameful 55 percent among Republicans. Independents give him 45 percent.

Rumors are flying about an upcoming visit to the area by Howard Dean. Somebody needs to ask Dean just who he thinks Dems in this state will be voting for in 2006.

Hat tip to South End Grounds

Bredesen Poll TennCare Health Care DINO Tennessee Politics 2006 2008 Democrats Hillary Clinton

Kristof: Time for the Vice President to Explain Himself

Time for the Vice President to Explain Himself
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF

I owe Patrick Fitzgerald an apology.

Over the last year, I've referred to him nastily a couple of times as "Inspector Javert," after the merciless and inflexible character in Victor Hugo's "Les Misérables." In my last column, I fretted aloud that he might pursue overzealous or technical indictments.

But Mr. Fitzgerald didn't do that. The indictments of Lewis Libby are
not for memory lapses or debatable offenses, but for repeatedly telling a fairy tale under oath.

Moreover, Mr. Fitzgerald was wise not to push onto mushier ground. It appears he was tempted to indict Karl Rove, but he's right to refrain unless the evidence against Mr. Rove is similarly strong. If it's a borderline call, as it seems, Mr. Rove should walk.

So where do we go from here?

First, Democrats should wipe the smiles off their faces. This is a humiliation for the entire country, and their glee is unseemly. Moreover, the situation is not that neocons are all crooks, but that one vice-presidential aide must be presumed innocent of trying to cover up conduct that may not have been illegal in the first place.

Second, President Bush needs to clean house. Just as special prosecutors should steer clear of questionable indictments, presidents should avoid questionable characters.

Mr. Rove escaped indictment, but he has been tarred. He apparently passed information about Valerie Wilson to reporters and then conveniently forgot about one of those conversations. He also may have misled the president, and the White House ended up giving false information to the public. It's fine for Mr. Rove to work as a Republican political adviser, but not as White House deputy chief of staff.

Even more important, Vice President Dick Cheney owes the nation an explanation. According to the indictment, he learned from the C.I.A. that Joseph Wilson's wife worked at the agency and told Mr. Libby that on about June 12, 2003. Why?

There may be innocent explanations. I gather from the indictment and other sources that Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby were upset in May and June 2003 by a column of mine from May 6, 2003, in which I linked Mr. Cheney to Mr. Wilson's trip to Niger. If Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby thought that my column was unfair, or that Mr. Wilson was exaggerating his role, they had every right to ask for a correction or set the record straight.

But they never raised the issue with me - nor, when Mr. Wilson went public, did they make their case publicly. Certainly the solution was not to leak classified information about Mr. Wilson's wife.

Mr. Libby is now accused in effect of lying to protect Mr. Cheney. According to the indictment, Mr. Libby insisted under oath that he had heard about Mrs. Wilson from reporters, when he had actually heard about her from his boss. You can't help wondering if this alleged perjury was purely his own idea and whether Mr. Cheney was aware of it.

Since Mr. Libby is joined at the hip to Mr. Cheney, it's reasonable to ask: What did Mr. Cheney know and when did he know it? Did the vice president have any grasp of the criminal behavior allegedly happening in his office? We shouldn't assume the worst, but Mr. Cheney needs to give us a full account.

Instead, Mr. Cheney said in a written statement: "Because this is a pending legal proceeding, in fairness to all those involved, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the charges or on any facts relating to the proceeding."

Balderdash. If Mr. Cheney can't address the questions about his conduct, if he can't be forthcoming about the activities in his office that gave rise to the investigation, then he should resign. And if he won't resign, Mr. Bush should demand his resignation.

It's not that there's a lick of evidence that Mr. Cheney is a criminal. There isn't. But the standard of the office should be higher than that: the White House should symbolize integrity, not legalistic refusals to discuss criminal cover-ups. I didn't want technical indictments of White House officials because they inflame partisanship and impede government; for just the same reason, it's unsavory when a vice president resorts to technical defenses and clams up.

At the Republican National Convention in Philadelphia in August 2000, Mr. Cheney won adoring applause when he suggested that Bill Clinton's deceit had besmirched the White House. Mr. Cheney then pledged that Mr. Bush would be different: "On the first hour of the first day, he will restore decency and integrity to the Oval Office."

Mr. Cheney added of the Democrats: "They will offer more lectures, and legalisms, and carefully worded denials. We offer another way, a better way, and a stiff dose of truth."

You were right, Mr. Cheney, in your insistence that the White House be beyond reproach. Now it's time for you to give the nation "a stiff dose of truth." Otherwise, you sully this country with your own legalisms.

Kristof Plamegate Karl Rove Indictment Valerie Plame Libby Cheney CIA leak Rove Fitzgerald Bush Joe Wilson Turdblossom

Anti Medicaid Quote of the Day

"Medicaid is a clear and present danger to the budgets and priorities of the [United] States." -- Governor Phil Bredesen (D-TN)

Hat tip to GeoTennCare

Medicaid Health Care TennCare Bredesen DINO Tennessee Politics 2006 2008 Democrats

The Twelve Days of Fitzmas

The AP has identified Official A as Rove.

Late Friday, three people close to the investigation, each asking to remain unidentified because of grand jury secrecy, identified Rove as Official A.

According to Libby's indictment, Official A is a "senior official in the White House who advised Libby on July 10 or 11 of 2003" about a conversation with Bob Novak regarding the forthcoming column which revealed the identity of Valerie Plame.

As the AP notes, Offical A, or Rove, might well be summoned to testify in court against Libby.

Just imagine, Bush's brain testifying against Cheney's brain. Whoa, the White House would implode!

The WaPo and Raw Story have also outed Rove. Raw Story elaborates on Official A's role:

'Bush's brain' is not Novak's 'secret source.' He is, however, the senior administration official who said, "Oh, you know about it," when asked by the columnist about Wilson's wife sending him to Niger. Novak wrote, "When I called another official for confirmation, he said: 'Oh, you know about it.'"

Rove's role in the case remains unclear. Those familiar with the investigation say that Rove remains in legal limbo and that Fitzgerald has not finished his inquiry into Bush's chief advisor's role.

“This investigation is not yet over,” one of the lawyers in the case said. “You must keep in mind that people like Mr. Rove are still under investigation.”

Okay, I admit it. As much as I want to see Karl Rove in leg shackles, I was kind of hoping Official A would turn out to be the Cheney monster.

But wait. Check out what former presidential advisor Dick Morris said on Fox News yesterday:

[I]t is very possible that the prosecutor looks up the food chain to Vice President Cheney. These investigations have a way of rising. And according to the terms of the indictment, Cheney told Libby about Valerie Plame and then Libby lied to the grand jury about how he found about it, saying that he got it from a reporter. Well, if that’s the case, the vice president knew that Libby was lying.

And it wasn’t like his grand jury was secret. It was all over the place, you could read it in any newspaper. So my question is, why didn’t the vice president say anything? Why didn’t he speak up? And when you’re out there committing perjury and your boss is silent, and your boss knows that you’re doing that, it’s [the silence is] a subtle signal from your boss to say, “I appreciate it.” [Video]

This brings to mind something one of the pundits on MSNBC said shortly after Fitzgerald's remarkable press conference: Fitzgerald has a reputation for 'squeezing' the #2 man in order to snare the #1 man.

I don't know which one of the Republican crooks might turn out to be the #1 man, but I'm willing to settle for indictments for either, both, or for the entire White House cabal of corruption.

Cuz one day of Fitzmas just isn't enough.

Plamegate Official A Indictment Valerie Plame Libby Cheney CIA leak Rove Fitzgerald Bush Joe Wilson Fitzmas Bush’s Brain

Republican Values

There's still hope for Libby.

Bill Maher offers his services to the indicted. Video here

Cartoon seen at All Hat No Cattle

Bill Maher Plamegate Official A Indictment Valerie Plame Libby Cheney CIA leak Rove Fitzgerald Bush Joe Wilson Fitzmas Turdblossom Humor

Dowd: Who's On First?

Who's On First?
By MAUREEN DOWD

It was bracing to see the son of a New York doorman open the door on the mendacious Washington lair of the Lord of the Underground.

But this Irish priest of the law, Patrick Fitzgerald, neither Democrat nor Republican, was very strict, very precise. He wasn't totally gratifying in clearing up the murkiness of the case, yet strangely comforting in his quaint black-and-white notions of truth and honor (except when his wacky baseball metaphor seemed to veer toward a "Who's on first?" tangle).

"This indictment's not about the propriety of the war," he told reporters yesterday in his big Eliot Ness moment at the Justice Department. The indictment was simply about whether the son of an investment banker perjured himself before a grand jury and the F.B.I.

Scooter does seem like a big fat liar in the indictment. And not a clever one, since his deception hinged on, of all people, the popular monsignor of the trusted Sunday Church of Russert. Does Scooter hope to persuade a jury to believe him instead of Little Russ?

Good luck.

There is something grotesque about Scooter's hiding behind the press with his little conspiracy, given that he's part of an administration that despises the press and tried to make its work almost impossible.

Mr. Fitzgerald claims that Mr. Libby hurt national security by revealing the classified name of a C.I.A. officer. "Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life," he said.

He was not buying the arguments on the right that Mrs. Wilson was not really undercover or was under "light" cover, or that blowing her cover did not hurt the C.I.A.

"I can say that for the people who work at the C.I.A. and work at other places, they have to expect that when they do their jobs that classified information will be protected," he said, adding: "They run a risk when they work for the C.I.A. that something bad could happen to them, but they have to make sure that they don't run the risk that something bad is going to happen to them from something done by their own fellow government employees."

To protect a war spun from fantasy, the Bush team played dirty. Unfortunately for them, this time they Swift-boated an American whose job gave her legal protection from the business-as-usual smear campaign.

The back story of this indictment is about the ongoing Tong wars of the C.I.A., the White House, the State Department and the Pentagon: the fight over who lied us into war. The C.I.A., after all, is the agency that asked for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate how one of its own was outed by the White House.

The question Mr. Fitzgerald repeatedly declined to answer yesterday - Dick Cheney's poker face has finally met its match - was whether this stops at Scooter.

No one expects him to "flip," unless he finally gets the sort of fancy white-collar criminal lawyer that The Washington Post said he is searching for - like the ones who succeeded in getting Karl Rove off the hook, at least for now - and the lawyer tells Scooter to nail his boss to save himself.

But what we really want to know, now that we have the bare bones of who said what to whom in the indictment, is what they were all thinking there in that bunker and how that hothouse bred the idea that the way out of their Iraq problems was to slime their critics instead of addressing the criticism. What we really want to know, if Scooter testifies in the trial, and especially if he doesn't, is what Vice did to create the spidery atmosphere that led Scooter, who seemed like an interesting and decent guy, to let his zeal get the better of him.

Mr. Cheney, eager to be rid of the meddlesome Joe Wilson, got Valerie Wilson's name from the C.I.A. and passed it on to Scooter. He forced the C.I.A. to compromise one of its own, a sacrifice on the altar of faith-based intelligence.

Vice spent so much time lurking over at the C.I.A., trying to intimidate the analysts at Langley into twisting the intelligence about weapons, that he should have had one of his undisclosed locations there.

This administration's grand schemes always end up as the opposite. Officials say they're promoting national security when they're hurting it; they say they're squelching terrorists when they're breeding them; they say they're bringing stability to Iraq when the country's imploding. (The U.S. announced five more military deaths yesterday.)

And the most dangerous opposite of all: W. was listening to a surrogate father he shouldn't have been listening to, and not listening to his real father, who deserved to be listened to.

Maureen Dowd Plamegate Indictment Valerie Plame Libby Cheney CIA leak Rove Fitzgerald Cheney Culture of Corruption Joe Wilson

Bush & Cheney Praise Libby

Bush gave a terse statement. He praised Scooter Libby for his service to the country, and then the pResident fled from questioning reporters.

Earlier today, Cheney also praised Libby:

He called his aide "one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known" and said he "has given many years of his life to public service and has served our nation tirelessly and with great distinction." Cheney added that Libby is presumed innocent until proven guilty and that "it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the charges or on any facts relating to the proceeding."

Plamegate Indictment Libby CIA leak Valerie Plame Karl Rove Rove Fitzgerald Cheney Bush Scooter Libby Wilson Addington

Cheney's New Brain is Pro Torture

[Scroll down for a very interesting update on Cheney's new brain.]

MYDD has more on Libby's replacement. Cheney's current chief counsel, David Addington is "a hardcore neocon," the only kind of neocon this White House likes - which is exactly why this White House is in so much trouble.

Pulled from a 2004 WaPo story:

Where there has been controversy over the past four years, there has often been Addington. He was a principal author of the White House memo justifying torture of terrorism suspects. He was a prime advocate of arguments supporting the holding of terrorism suspects without access to courts.

Addington also led the fight with Congress and environmentalists over access to information about corporations that advised the White House on energy policy. He was instrumental in the series of fights with the Sept. 11 commission and its requests for information. . . .

Colleagues say Addington stands out for his devotion to secrecy in an administration noted for its confidentiality. . . .

Even in a White House known for its dedication to conservative philosophy, Addington is known as an ideologue, an adherent of an obscure philosophy called the unitary executive theory that favors an extraordinarily powerful president.

MYDD has more...

UPDATE: Think Progress reports that the indictment document appears to indicate that Addington was also involved in the leak:

18. Also on or about July 8, 2003, LIBBY met with the Counsel to the Vice President in an anteroom outside the Vice President’s Office. During their brief conversation, LIBBY asked the Counsel to the Vice President, in sum and substance, what paperwork there would be at the CIA if an employee’s spouse undertook an overseas trip.

Plamegate Indictment Libby CIA leak Valerie Plame Karl Rove Rove Fitzgerald Cheney Bush Scooter Libby Wilson Addington

Fitzgerald Pursues More Serious Charges for Rove: RS

If true, this report from Raw Story means that Libby's indictment could well be merely the beginning of the total devastation of the White House.

Raw Story:

In one of the boldest moves yet in the 22-month investigation into the outing of a covert CIA agent to a handful of top reporters covering the White House, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is extending his probe and pursuing much more serious charges against senior White House officials, specifically President Bush’s Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, lawyers directly involved in the case told RAW STORY Friday.

While many people were left confused by news reports that said Rove wouldn't be indicted Friday, the lawyers said that Rove remains under intense scrutiny and added that Fitzgerald is betting on the fact that he can secure an indictment against Rove on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice, the misuse of classified information, and possibly other charges, as early as next week.

“This investigation is not yet over,” one of the lawyers in the case said. “You must keep in mind that people like Mr. Rove are still under investigation. Rather than securing an indictment on perjury charges against Mr. Rove Mr. Fitzgerald strongly believes he can convince the grand jury that he broke other laws.” . . .

The lawyers said that in the past month Fitzgerald has obtained explosive information in the case that has enabled him to pursue broader charges such as conspiracy, and civil rights violations against targets like Rove. Specifically, the lawyers said Fitzgerald is focusing on phony intelligence documents that led to the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity: the documents that claimed Iraq was attempting to purchase yellow-cake uranium from Niger.

Plamegate Indictment Libby CIA leak Valerie Plame Karl Rove Rove Fitzgerald Cheney Bush Scooter Libby

Cheney's Brain Indicted, Resigns

Vice President Dick Cheney's top man, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been indicted for obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements. Since many consider Cheney to be the real president, this White House is in big trouble. [The Indictment]

MSNBC is reporting that Libby could get up to ten years for the 5-count indictment. They reported wrong; it's up to 30 years and a $1.25 million fine.

Raw Story reports that Libby's expected replacement - David Addington - "was a principal author of the White House memo justifying the torture of terrorism suspects. He also strongly endorsed holding suspects without access to the legal system, a measure rebuked by the Supreme Court."

Raw Story: Libby Indicted - More Indictments May Follow

Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby has been indicted for five counts by the federal grand jury investigating the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame for perjury, obstruction of justice and making false statements to the grand jury. . . Libby resigned. According to the New York Daily News, his post will be filled by Cheney's chief counsel David Addington.

Others may yet be indicted, lawyers close to the investigation say. While the media spotlight has focused on key White House advisors, officials outside the senior staff have also been fingered in the probe.

Sources close to the investigation say the probe will continue, and could expand to include other elements, including forged documents that purported to show Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.

Fitzgerald will hold a press conference in a very few minutes.

UPDATE: Fitzgerald confirmed that the investigation is "not over." The prosecutor said he will keep the grand "jury open to consider other matters."

Plamegate Indictment Libby CIA leak Valerie Plame Karl Rove Rove Fitzgerald Cheney Bush Scooter Libby

Krugman: Bernanke And The Bubble

BERNANKE AND THE BUBBLE
By PAUL KRUGMAN

By Bush administration standards, the choice of Ben to succeed Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve was just weird.

For one thing, Mr. Bernanke is actually an expert in monetary policy, as opposed to, say, Arabian horses.

Beyond that, Mr. Bernanke's partisanship, if it exists, is so low-key that his co-author on a textbook didn't know he was a registered Republican. . . .

Last but not least, Mr. Bernanke has no personal ties to the Bush family. It's hard to imagine him doing something indictable to support his masters. It's even hard to imagine him doing what Mr. Greenspan did: throwing his prestige as Fed chairman behind irresponsible tax cuts.

All of this raises a frightening prospect. Has President Bush been so damaged by scandals and public disapproval that he has no choice but to appoint qualified, principled people to important positions?

Read the whole thing... (scroll down)

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More Dark Days for the White House

From the sound of the latest reports, the White House is not going to be emerging from these dark days for quite a while.

The Times reports that Libby will likely be indicted today.

The paper says Karl Rove will not be indicted today, but he will remain under investigation.

The AP reports: "Fitzgerald signaled Thursday he might keep Rove under continuing investigation, sparing him from immediate charges, the person said, speaking only on condition of anonymity because of the secrecy of the grand jury probe."

From the WSJ (sub only): "Karl Rove, President Bush's chief political adviser and deputy White House chief of staff, was informed yesterday evening that he may not be charged today but remains in legal jeopardy, according to a person briefed on the matter. . . Mr. Fitzgerald appeared still to be pondering whether to charge Mr. Rove and has notified the political strategist that he remains under investigation."

The WaPo: "At the White House, aides scrambled to put the finishing touches on a political strategy to respond to the fallout from any criminal charges, including the likelihood of staff changes. A Republican consultant with close White House ties said Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. had canceled at least two trips in the past week and had met with Bush over the weekend to focus on how to react to the grand jury's decisions. . . 'These will be very, very dark days for the White House,' the consultant quoted Card as saying."

If we have at least one indictment and a continuing investigation, we have a White House under seige.

Bush may well rue the day he wished for four more years.

Hat tip to Josh Marshall

Plamegate Politics CIA leak Valerie Plame Karl Rove Rove Fitzgerald Libby Cheney Bush Indictment

The People That You Meet On “Schwarzenegger Street”

Schwarzenegger Street (see it here) is hilarious. The funniest characters are 'Cheney the Monster' and 'O'Reilly the Grouch.'

The Democrat who is running against the Governator next year, Phil Angelides has a new animated anti-Arnold ad that spoofs Sesame Street. The scary Schwarzenegger Street features all the conservative creeps that you really don't want to meet on any street.

Schwarzenegger is suffering the same fate as many other Republicans - he's not doing so hot in the popularity polls.

According to a new poll, a mere 38 percent approve of Schwarzenegger's job performance, and 57 percent disapprove. Of the upcoming ballot initiatives pushed by Schwarzenegger, none have majority support, and "two are opposed by wide margins."

Schwarzenegger Street slams the Governor by portraying him as the friend of ultra conservatives such as Bush, Cheney, and Rove. Seemingly, the worst thing you can say about a politician these days is that s/he hangs (pun intended) with Republicans.

Phil Angelides makes that very point on his website:

Join the fight to defeat Schwarzenegger and the Radical Right!

Governor Schwarzenegger promised Californians he was a different kind of Republican. But from the start, Schwarzenegger has governed from the right-wing playbook of George Bush, Dick Cheney and Karl Rove.

Election year 2006 looks like it's going to be very interesting, as in we're taking our country back!

Hat tip to Huffington Post

Arnold Schwarzenegger Bush Cheney Rove 2006 Republican Corruption Culture of Corruption Humor

Roveplay On Eve of Destruction

From Taegan Goddard:

A staffer for a member on the Senate Judiciary Committee explains:

"This withdrawal and renomination is the ace in the whole for Republicans to combat the CIA leak scandal. President Bush met with Republican leaders last week to test the waters for withdrawal, and then laid the groundwork with the 'red line' for disclosing documents. The President is going back to his base, and next week (likely the beginning), most Senators on the Judiciary Committee, including Schumer, Graham, Specter, Kennedy, Durbin, and Brownback, expect him to nominate a proven conservative justice... Democrats are scrambling to come up with a strategy to keep the focus on the indictments, while also stopping a far-right nominee. Word is that Karl Rove is in fact behind this well-timed stunt to overcome the indictment story."

Photo found at Bartcop

Bush Cheney Rove Fitzgerald Plamegate Miers Harriet Miers Turdblossom Indictment Culture of Corruption Humor

Plamegate: Indictment Watch II

Steve Clemons reports that Fitzgerald has just signed a lease for more office space in D.C. [hat tip to Atrios]

Fitzgerald's office is at 1400 New York Avenue, NW, 9th Floor in Washington.

What I have learned is that the Office of the Special Counsel has signed a lease this week for expanded office space across the street at 1401 New York Avenue, NW. Another coincidence? More office space needed to shut down the operation?

I think not. Fitzgerald's operation is expanding.

It does sound like Fitzgerald is planning to take Plamegate to a new level - as Richard Sale has reported: "According to this reporter's sources, Fitzgerald approached the judge in charge of the case and asked that a new grand jury be empaneled."

From Taegan Goddard, we learn that one grand juror was overheard saying to another grand juror: "See you Friday." The grand jury expires on Friday, so it appears they will be working until the very end. Damn, I hope that doesn't mean we have to wait until Friday to hear the good news.

Finally, the WaPo has a nice wrap-up - which includes a report that Rove is making a "furious effort" to weasel out of an indictment for perjury. In other words, if Rove gets off without an indictment, it will be because of his great talent as a weasel.

The prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation presented a summary of his case to a federal grand jury yesterday and is expected to announce a final decision on charges in the two-year-long probe tomorrow, according to people familiar with the case.

Even as Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald wrapped up his case, the legal team of White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove has been engaged in a furious effort to convince the prosecutor that Rove did not commit perjury during the course of the investigation, according to people close to the aide. The sources, who indicated that the effort intensified in recent weeks, said Rove still did not know last night whether he would be indicted.

Fitzgerald is completing his probe of whether senior administration officials broke the law by disclosing the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame to the media in the summer of 2003 to discredit her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, an administration critic. The grand jury's term will expire Friday.

But after grand jurors left the federal courthouse before noon yesterday, it was unclear whether Fitzgerald had spelled out the criminal charges he might ask them to consider, or whether he had asked them to vote on any proposed indictments. Fitzgerald's legal team did not present the results of a grand jury vote to the court yesterday, which he is required to do within days of such a vote.

A new USA TODAY/CNN/Gallup poll reminded the White House of the damage the CIA leak case has already inflicted: Eight in ten people surveyed said that aides had either broken the law or acted unethically.

Visualize Karl Rove doing the weasel dance in leg shackles.

Cartoon seen at All Hat No Cattle
Previous Post: Plamegate: Indictment Watch

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Frist: Perjury is Totally a Crime

Republicans might want to rethink the strategy of minimalizing the crime of perjury as a mere legal technicality. The Senate Majority Leader has strong views on the crime of perjury.

To not remove President Clinton for grand jury perjury lowers uniquely the Constitution's removal standard, and thus requires less of the man who appoints all federal judges than we require of those judges themselves.

I will have no part in the creation of a constitutional double-standard to benefit the President. He is not above the law. If an ordinary citizen committed these crimes, he would go to jail. -- Bill Frist (R-TN)

Hat tip to The Fixer at Alternate Brain, and Jane at firedoglake who both have lots more snippets of Republican hypocrisy - all finding that perjury is a big time crime when Dems do it.

On a related note: After Frist was outed as a liar, he fessed up about the 20/20 vision of his "blind trusts."

Bill Frist Blind trusts Frist investigated Republican Corruption Frist Culture of corruption Republican Corruption Tennessee

Destroying the Village in Order to Save It

Anna Quindlen has a compelling and timely piece in Newsweek:

Does anyone doubt that the continued prosecution of this war has to do with the personality of the commander in chief, a man who is stubborn and calls it strength, who wears blinders and calls it vision? When he vowed to invade Iraq, the advisers he heeded were those who, like him, had never seen combat. The one who had was marginalized and is now gone. The investigation of who leaked what to whom, of what the reporter knew and how she knew it, may be about national security and journalistic ethics, but at its base it is about something more important: the Nixonian lengths to which these people will go to shore up a bankrupt policy and destroy those who cross them on it.

The most unattractive trait of the American empire is American arrogance, which the president embodies and which this war elevated. It is not simply that we have a good system. It is the system everyone else should have. It is the best system, and we are the best people. We can mend rivalries so ancient that they not only predate our nation but the birth of Christ. We will install the leaders we like in a country we scarcely understand, leaders who will either be seen as puppets by their people or who will eventually turn against us. We have been here before.

At least Johnson had the good sense to be heartbroken by the body bags. Bush appears merely peevish at being criticized. Someone with a trumpet should play taps outside the White House for the edification of a president who has not attended a single funeral for the Iraqi war dead. As I am writing this, the number of American soldiers killed is 1, 992. By the time you read it, it may have topped 2,000. Will I be writing these same things when the number is 3,000, 5,000, 10,000? If we are such a great nation, why are we utterly incapable of learning from our mistakes? America's sons and daughters are dying to protect the egos of those whose own children are safe at home. Again.

Read the whole thing...

Anna Quindlen Iraq War Empire Bush Plamegate Politics CIA leak Valerie Plame Fitzgerald Dubya

Herbert: Driving Blind As The Deaths Mount Up

DRIVING BLIND AS THE DEATHS MOUNT UP
By BOB HERBERT

Much of the nation is mourning the more than 2,000 American G.I.'s lost to the war in Iraq. But some of the mindless Washington weasels who sent those brave and healthy warriors to their unnecessary doom have other things on their minds.

They're scrambling about the capital, huddling frantically with lawyers, hoping that their habits of deception, which are a way of life with them, don't finally land them in a federal penitentiary.

See them sweat. The most powerful of the powerful, the men who gave the president his talking points and his marching orders, are suddenly sending out distress signals: Don't let them send me to prison on a technicality. . .

In addition to the more than 2,000 dead, an additional 15,000 Americans have been wounded. Some of these men and women have sacrificed one, two and even three limbs. Some have been permanently blinded and others permanently paralyzed - some both. Some have been horribly burned.

Read the whole thing...

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Plamegate: Indictment Watch

UPDATE: CBS NEWS has confirmed that Fitzgerald "has informed targets of the investigation of his intentions" - thus we know indictments are definitely coming.

The good news about the fact that there is still no public announcement of indictments is that the White House alpha males are jumping out of their wound-up-tight collective white skins.

Or, as the WaPo terms it:

The White House is "on edge."

"Everybody just wants this week over."

"[O]fficials are bracing for the kind of political tsunami that swamped Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan in their second terms and could change this presidency's course."

Reading these words gives me a warm and happy glow. No wonder we call it Fitzmas.

By "change this presidency's course," I think they mean that the alpha males in the White House are about to become seriously impotent. According to feminist witch folklore, if you want to drain some of the murderous testosterone out of alpha males, you feed them black licorice and red mints. Or, you could try the white man's way and indict them.

Raw Story reports that Fitzgerald has asked the grand jury to indict Libby and Rove "on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice." Others, such as Talkleft and the conservative Redstate.org speculate that Rove will not be indicted. The blogger at Redstate is obviously in denial.

Until all hope is dashed, I'm going with the Raw Story version. Raw Story has a good track record and has been out front with a number of Plamegate scoops. Also, the RS version permits me to continue to:

Visualize Rove in leg shackles.

Raw Story cites "lawyers close to the investigation" and adds that Libby may also be indicted for the actual leak. Since Fitzgerald sent FBI agents to ask Wilson's neighbors if they knew Valerie Plame was with the CIA before Novak outed her - and since the neighbors said they had no idea - the prosecutor may well be pursuing an indictment for the actual leak.

Raw Story also says that dirty deal meister Rove was offered a deal.

Fitzgerald has also asked the jury to indict Libby on a second charge: knowingly outing a covert operative, the lawyers said. They said the prosecutor believes that Libby violated a 1982 law that made it illegal to unmask an undercover CIA agent.

Two other officials, who are not employees in the White House, are also expected to face indictments, the lawyers said.

The grand jury had not yet decided on whether to make indictments at the time this article was published. It appears more likely that the jury would hand down indictments of perjury and obstruction than a charge that Plame was outed illegally.

Those close to the investigation said Rove was offered a deal Tuesday to plead guilty to perjury for a reduced charge. Rove’s lawyer was told that Fitzgerald would drop an obstruction of justice charge if his client agreed not to contest allegations of perjury, they said.

Rove declined to plead guilty to the reduced charge, the sources said, indicating through his attorney Robert Luskin that he intended to fight the charges. A call placed to Luskin was not returned.

Richard Sale, longtime Intelligence Correspondent for UPI, says Fitzgerald plans to take the investigation to a higher level and has thus asked the judge for a brand new grand jury.

If that happens, "political tsunami" could well be an understatement. It's Fitzmas season now, but come next year, we could very well be in impeachment season. I can think of at least 2,000 reasons to impeach the pResident.

Plamegate Politics CIA leak Valerie Plame Fitzgerald Karl Rove Rovegate Treasongate Libby Rove Bush Cheney Turdblossom Indictment Impeach Bush

Al Franken: The Truth (With Jokes)

Here are a couple of choice bits from Al Franken's brand new book. I hope Franken is as good at predicting the future as he is at taking stabs at Dubya and his band of wackos.

From a letter written by Al Franken in the year 2015 about how Dems took our country back:

The unnamed president is a Democrat. President Bush has been impeached, convicted and "began drinking again, all in the space of a single afternoon." And a Democratic senator from Minnesota is Al Franken.

Thoughts on gay marriage:

Gay marriage: George W. Bush wants to amend our Constitution to make it illegal for gays to marry. But evidently, he has no problem with terrorists getting married. America can't afford a president who is soft on terrorist marriage. Because unlike gays, terrorists can breed.

Al Franken dubya Bush Gay Marriage The Truth humor

Dowd: Dick at the Heart of Darkness

Dick at the Heart of Darkness
By MAUREEN DOWD

After W. was elected, he sometimes gave visitors a tour of the love alcove off the Oval Office where Bill trysted with Monica - the notorious spot where his predecessor had dishonored the White House.

At least it was only a little pantry - and a little panting.

If W. wants to show people now where the White House has been dishonored in far more astounding and deadly ways, he'll have to haul them around every nook and cranny of his vice president's office, then go across the river for a walk of shame through the Rummy empire at the Pentagon.

The shocking thing about the trellis of revelations showing Dick Cheney, the self-styled Mr. Strong America, as the central figure in dark conspiracies to juice up a case for war and demonize those who tried to tell the public the truth is how unshocking it all is.

It's exactly what we thought was going on, but we never thought we'd actually hear the lurid details: Cheney and Rummy, the two old compadres from the Nixon and Ford days, in a cabal running the country and the world into the ground, driven by their poisonous obsession with Iraq, while Junior is out of the loop, playing in the gym or on his mountain bike.

Mr. Cheney has been so well protected by his Praetorian guard all these years that it's been hard for the public to see his dastardly deeds and petty schemes. But now, because of Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation and candid talk from Brent Scowcroft and Lawrence Wilkerson, he's been flushed out as the heart of darkness: all sulfurous strands lead back to the man W. aptly nicknamed Vice.

According to a Times story yesterday, Scooter Libby first learned about Joseph Wilson's C.I.A. wife from his boss, Mr. Cheney, not from reporters, as he'd originally suggested. And Mr. Cheney learned it from George Tenet, according to Mr. Libby's notes.

The Bush hawks presented themselves as protectors and exporters of American values. But they were so feverish about projecting the alternate reality they had constructed to link Saddam and Al Qaeda - and fulfilling their idée fixe about invading Iraq - they perverted American values.

Whether or not it turns out to be illegal, outing a C.I.A. agent - undercover or not - simply to undermine her husband's story is Rove-ishly sleazy. This no-leak administration was perfectly willing to leak to hurt anyone who got in its way.

Vice also pressed for a loophole so the C.I.A. could do torture-light on prisoners in U.S. custody, but John McCain rebuffed His Tortureness. Senator McCain has sponsored a measure to bar the cruel treatment of prisoners because he knows that this is not who we are. (Remember the days when the only torture was listening to politicians reciting their best TV lines at dinner parties?)

Colonel Wilkerson, the former chief of staff for Colin Powell, broke the code and denounced Vice's vortex, calling his own involvement in Mr. Powell's U.N. speech, infected with bogus Cheney and Scooter malarkey, "the lowest point" in his life.

He followed that with a blast of blunt talk in a speech and an op-ed piece in The Los Angeles Times, saying that foreign policy had been hijacked by "a secretive, little-known cabal" that hated dissent. He said the cabal was headed by Mr. Cheney, "a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces," and Donald Rumsfeld, "a secretary of defense presiding over the death by a thousand cuts of our overstretched armed forces."

"I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less," Colonel Wilkerson wrote. "More often than not, then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal."

Brent Scowcroft, Bush Senior's close friend, let out a shriek this week to Jeffrey Goldberg in The New Yorker, revealing his estrangement from W. and his old protégé Condi. He disdained Paul Wolfowitz as a naïve utopian and said he didn't "know" his old friend Dick Cheney anymore. Vice's alliance with the neocons, who were determined to finish in Iraq what Mr. Scowcroft and Poppy had declared finished, led him to lead the nation into a morass. Troop deaths are now around 2,000, a gruesome milestone.

"The reason I part with the neocons is that I don't think in any reasonable time frame the objective of democratizing the Middle East can be successful," Mr. Scowcroft said. "If you can do it, fine, but I don't think you can, and in the process of trying to do it you can make the Middle East a lot worse."

W. should take the Medal of Freedom away from Mr. Tenet and give medals to Colonel Wilkerson and Mr. Scowcroft.

Maureen Dowd Cheney Valerie Plame CIA leak Plamegate Bush Iraq War Impeach Bush turdblossom dubya Politics Fitzgerald