Who did it?

[almostdiva]

We all now know that Richard Armitage of the State Department was the original source and that there was no administration conspiracy to out Valerie Plame.

I must somewhat disagree --

What we know is that a Republican-appointed Federal Prosecutor who is nearly universally thought of as cautious, meticulous and totally scrupulous and dogged in his pursuit of wrong-doing didn't feel that he had enough iron clad evidence to indict a sitting White House senior official (Rove). Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Patrick Fitzgerald, I think he's fabulous. But he obviously didn't feel that the evidence would bear up to an indictment.

What we also know is that two major participants in the "saga" (Novack and Armitage) are now giving very different (and contradictory in places) accounts of how their conversation about Mrs. Wilson went. That's probably going to continue as a "he said/he said" deal. Only the two of them know how it happened and they don't agree.

Just because Libby was the only one indicted, doesn't mean he's the only one who did anything wrong or unethical. It just means the prosecutor wasn't comfortable charging anyone else.

Rebecca

[Ninong]

How does that commercial go, the one that ends with "wish you were someplace else?"

From the Washington Post:


Friday, October 27, 2006; Page A21

With withering and methodical dispatch, White House nemesis and prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald yesterday sliced up the first person called to the stand on behalf of the vice president's former chief of staff.

If I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby was not afraid of the special counsel before, the former Cheney aide, who will face Fitzgerald in a trial beginning Jan. 11, had ample reason to start quaking after yesterday's Ginsu-like legal performance.

(...)

There were several moments when Loftus was completely caught off guard by Fitzgerald, creating some very awkward silences in the courtroom.

One of those moments came when Loftus insisted that she had never met Fitzgerald. He then reminded her that he had cross-examined her before, when she was an expert defense witness and he was a prosecutor in the U.S. attorney's office in New York.

Libby's defense team declined to comment.

You can read the entire article here.

[Ninong]

Denny Hastert needs to be asked if he will replace Rumsfeld after the Nov elections.

Denny Hastert? Don't you mean Nancy Pelosi? Double impeachment proceedings would take several months.

:eek3:


P.S. -- Impeachment is out of the question as long as the House and the Senate are in Republican hands. And even if the Democrats pull off a miracle and gain control of both in November, I don't see much hope for a successful impeachment. Maybe I should say I don't see much hope for a successful conviction in the Senate. It is far more likely that we could see a Reaganesque apology on national TV telling us how he was only doing what he thought was best for the country. That would give cover to the Republicans in the Senate in the event that the Democrats insisted on going forward with an impeachment.

For an impeachment to have any chance at all, the President must continue to assert unlimited unitary executive powers and refuse to back down even after he loses the support of many members of his own party in the Senate. Then it would have a chance.

P.P.S. -- The chances that the Democrats could gain control of the Senate are not all that good. They would need a net gain of 7 seats. That's because the one Independent (Jim Jeffords) is retiring. There are only 44 Democrats right now. Only one-third of the Senate seats are up at any one time and, of those, very few are realistically in play. I think it's much more likely that the Democrats will pick up two or three seats in the Senate in November and then enough additional seats in November 2008 to gain control assuming a strong Democratic ticket at the top.

If the polls continue the current trends, the Democrats will likely pick up 20 seats in the House this November. U.S. military intervention in Iran between now and then could change the dynamics in unpredictable ways.

Wow! Remember this post from April?

Obviously the Democrats did pick up the seven seats that they needed because Jim Jeffords (I-VT) was replaced by another Independent (actually an American Socialist) who pledged to caucus with the Democrats.

Not only that, but there is at least a 50/50 chance that the Democrats will pick up two more Senate seats before 2008 thanks to two elderly Republicans in poor health in states with Democratic governors. No, I'm not pulling a Pat Robertson and asking people to pray that they get too sick to continue like Pat did with Supreme Court Justices, I'm just pointing out that two of them are in poor health and may be forced to retire within the next two years.

[SPasse]

George,



I think that I had better start working on my dual citizenship.

Regards,

Scott