Rovian gonads aren’t nearly weighty enough to take on the DA directly, using the standard media hit men. But an entire Senate investigating committee on the take — one that can hide behind the facade of national security? That’s a sweet deal. Imagine what Nixon could have done with a tool like that.
Back to Main
July 26, 2005
WB: Roberts to the Rescue
Comments
You might want to consider the larger picture, an offer of immunity to the usual suspects will “muddy the waters” on legal grounds, and offer an escape route for the rats.
see Iran-contra in the recent history section.
Posted by: Jack Doolan | Jul 26 2005 9:09 utc | 1
I do believe we are in line for that wonderful moment in politics: when overreaching finds the snapping point.
Years of lies and obfuscation are coming back to haunt this administration, and this will either be the media’s finest or darkest hour. Will they, once more, go along with this rotten to the core crew, or will they finally make a stand?
And I thought summer would just be sailing and long drinks and fun and chasing girls, instead I’m right smack living through political drama that could bring down one administration and two majorities in Congress. Wonder whether wiser heads over at GOP-Central will prevail? The correct course of action, when you see an avalanche approaching, is not to erect a flimsy barricade of straw-men to hide behind. You have to cut your losses and run for it. But the GOP is simply to caught up in their own harebrained logic on how to run a nation that there’s no way they’ll do the sensible thing.
We are set for Titanic and the Iceberg II – pass the popcorn and roll in the kegs!
Posted by: SteinL | Jul 26 2005 9:15 utc | 2
I’m not au fait with some of the more arcane parts of the relationship between the legislature and the judiciary in the US.
Can a Senate sub-committe demand access to sealed grand jury records in the name of national security?
Perhaps bushCo really don’t know everything that’s been did, hid and said. This has got to be a last ditch chance to find out what s..t is hitting the fan when.
Any realistic self analysis must tell the repugs that they are only going to fool the faithful with any of Roberts’ tricks.
Posted by: Debs is dead | Jul 26 2005 11:18 utc | 3
I agree with SteinL that we’ve reached a “Have you no shame, at long last?” moment, but I do not relish the impending show. Cornered mongrels are dangerous.
If the polls start telling congressional Republicans that blind Bush loyalty is a liability, and if cable networks start discovering how milking the Bush scandals can boost ad rates, then mainstream momentum toward serious inquiries could build. Possibly even enough to allow a 2006 Democratic upset and the mainstreaming of the “i” word.
But in that environment, the Cheney administration will have one chance at survival: consolidating ugly, belligerent, xenophobic, nationalistic power in the wake of the next 911. They’d have been laying such plans even in the absence of scandal. But where they would have originally seized the forthcoming moment with gusto, they will now seize it in desperation.
Posted by: ralphbon | Jul 26 2005 11:28 utc | 4
Ah, the vaunted “law and order” Republicans. After the burglary, they loudly declare that nothing of value was stolen, no need to investigate, and finally launch into a spirited investigation of whether the fault is that the locks weren’t really good enough.
Posted by: Redshift | Jul 26 2005 13:12 utc | 5
Fitz will do what he’s gotta do regardless. If Justice quashes indictments things will get very interesting. The WH counts on apathy and distraction from the public for a pass on most of its shenanigans. Will there be hell to pay if Bush pulls a more subtle Saturday Night Massacre and dispenses with the entire investigation? I doubt it. The electorate can’t get worked up over 1800 dead citizens in an illegal war and 300 billion down the same rat hole. Ya think they’re gonna storm D.C. because Rove walks? Hardly.
Posted by: steve duncan | Jul 26 2005 13:54 utc | 6
Seems like we’re getting dangerously close to a situation in this country where an individual’s equal protection under the law depends solely on their politics.
The case of Joe Wilson shows that even being a Republican won’t save you, if you disagree with the President.
Posted by: bcf | Jul 26 2005 15:03 utc | 7
What worries me, is that in many ways this summer reminds me of a summer not so long ago- Bush polls heading south, his leglislative agenda stalled, problems mounting. Last time around, the summer ended rather dramatically on the 11th of September.
Note that this isn’t a tinfoil hat theory. It’s just that I’d be very surprised if people are commenting, quietly and not where the public will ever hear it, or possibly just thinking, “boy, where’s a major terrorist attack when you need it? Man, the days just after 9-11, those where the days, weren’t they?” The London bombings obviously weren’t enough. Americans need to die, not “ferigners”, even english-speaking WASP feriners.
Posted by: Brian Hurt | Jul 26 2005 15:32 utc | 8
We have come down to clapping hands and stamping our feet, waiting for this clown show to begin.
But behind the circus tents, the lions have been loosed, and the daggers unsheathed. Everyone has something on everyone. Fitzgerald will name some no-name sword-swallower who will take the fall,
Robert Novak and Karl Rove will keep their jobs,
a few conservatives will strike up a Greek chorus for their re-electioneering value, and the wave will pass quietly under the great Ship of State, which will rock gently, and then settle back on its inevitable course towards the iceberg ahead.
If you want drama, read Watergate. This is the 21st Century now, not black & white television.
Posted by: Enny Labegan | Jul 26 2005 15:42 utc | 9
Meanwhile, we can read about the antics of the chiave-pietra cops chasing down the extraordinary Club Med renditioners who covertly slept together in luxury hotels. Love, American style.
@ Enny: I coulda sworn we watched Watergate in color. So long ago….
Posted by: catlady | Jul 26 2005 16:36 utc | 10
My instinct is Roberts will not run for office again (he’s up in age), I think he has four more years in his senate term. So he has nothing to lose. But does it piss me off when he’s such a hack!
The lies are catching up to the Cheney admin and the jock strap holders are coming to the rescue. This is complete bullshit.
By the way, Tom Delay has dropped off the face of the earth. Did someone tell him to just shut the f— up and crawl in a hole?
Posted by: jdp | Jul 26 2005 16:42 utc | 11
Heeeeere’s Tommy:
“It’s not a pay raise,” claimed DeLay, who will now make $183,500 a year. “It’s an adjustment so that [we’re] not losing [our] purchasing power.”
Republicrats give themselves a raise.
Posted by: Anonymous | Jul 26 2005 18:47 utc | 12
That was me.
gee, I wonder how COLA affects the purchasing power of the average lobbyist?
Posted by: catlady | Jul 26 2005 21:25 utc | 13
Jack Doolan at the top makes THE critical point.
Sen. Roberts’ proposed hearing isn’t just a wanker sideshow — it’s a dangerous threat to any hope there may be to see justice done to the criminals in the White House.
“…this may indicate that the White House is looking to give Fitzgerald’s targets (Karl Rove, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and others) congressional general immunity from prosecution in return for their testimony before Roberts’ committee.
This was the method by which John Poindexter and Oliver North were able to avoid jail time for their roles in Iran-contra, their convictions being overturned by a federal appeals court because of their previously granted congressional immunity.”
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
Got that? previously granted congressional immunity
(Yeah, I know it’s Wayne Madsen, but his point is quite valid, imho.)
The bush junta is going to weasel out of this any way they can, and what with all the Iran-Contra alumni on board, they know EXACTLY how to do it.
Posted by: scarletwoman | Jul 27 2005 4:10 utc | 15
They aren’t asking for much: Just a few amendments to the Defense Authorization Act, which would only codify the policies the Pentagon has already adopted in the post-Abu Ghraib era. Plus a ban on the practice of hiding “ghost prisoners” from the Red Cross.
It’s already a crime under U.S. law, punishable by life in prison or the death penalty, to hide “ghost prisoners” from the Red Cross.
18 U.S.C. sec. 2441 defines a “war crime” as “any conduct…defined as a grave breach in any of the international conventions signed at Geneva 12 August 1949, or any protocol to such convention to which the United States is a party.”
Although I don’t have time to go looking for the exact language in the Conventions that covers the crime of hiding “ghost prisoners” from the Red Cross, there isn’t much doubt that doing this is a “grave breach” forbidden by section 2441.
Rumsfeld is on record as admitting that he has deliberately ordered prisoners to be hidden from the Red Cross when its investigators have visited the Gulag. He should have been indicted and arrested when he said he’d done so, but where is the brave U.S. Attorney who would see fit to send the U.S. Marshals after the man?
“A government of laws and not men” my ass.
Posted by: Basharov | Jul 27 2005 22:31 utc | 16