Only half a Fitzmas as Rove is not charged, BUT the Libby indictment is in itself a very strong indictment of Bush. Contrast all the talks in the White House that the indictment documents with Bush’s public comments of how the White House is clean on this and he would fire anyone who a hand in this and you have a serious argument against his truthfulness.
To take the Libby case to court will take some 6 month at least. A lot of time for further leaks, rumours and damage. Also the court case may come at the incoviniant time of the 2006 elections.
So we didn´t get all the presents we deserved, but it’s a start and a very promising start.

Posted by: b | Oct 28 2005 19:58 utc | 4

i am pleased. thinking fitz is real big on foreplay.
i heard something on cspan.. i may have been mistaken but i think when he was referring to the uk secrets act he said something to the effect of ‘some people opine because we don’t have that act we can’t go in this direction(espionage?)… those people are mistaken.’ wait to read the transcript. he obviously has not done all this work to be satified w/this many indictments. not the man who handed out 62 to city employees in one case alone in chicago. the longer this drags on , the more of a prolonged pile up prior and thru the duration of the election, can only be a good thing. i have every confidence he will be frying bigger fish than libby. even rove is going to taste like an appetizer.

Posted by: annie | Oct 28 2005 20:16 utc | 6

annie my angel
i think you are wrong, terribly wrong
the only way these crimnals will be dfeated is on the ground – they nees their faces acquainted with the pavement

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 28 2005 20:19 utc | 8

rememberinggiap —
Sorry to say, but you’re the wrong one here.
If you read the indictment carefully, you’ll see the entire case laid out. It’s all there. Fitzgerald pulled his punch because he’s after bigger game. And that ain’t Karl Rove, because Rove is nothing.

Posted by: King of Pants | Oct 28 2005 20:29 utc | 10

@Billmon
Even if Scooter were convicted on each count, 30 years and million-and-a-half dollar fine would be “getting off easy” when one considers what poor people might expect in a period of jingoistic fervor such as we are currently enjoying. And Scooter would never serve the full sentence anyway. As I have remarked before, falling one your sword for the Bush Dynasty can be a career enhancing decision. Wait 20 years and see if Scooter and George Tenent aren’t made co-directors of the Office of American Domination or somesuch.

Posted by: Monolycus | Oct 28 2005 20:39 utc | 12

Well, heck, why not render the whole gang to the CIA, and give the CIA permission to use extraordinary means to get answers….

Posted by: catlady | Oct 28 2005 20:41 utc | 14

i wish i was wrong
i am not
i will go on record & say there will be no further indictements, libb(s will be watered down & the cheney bush junta will weather it as they have every other tempest
their stalingrad has not yet come
(& yes anni – i would say that might be a strong utilisation of time – take one of the crew’s 4+4 & tie each & every administration official responsible for this criminal war & taking them the route that that young black man was forced to take not so long ago in freedom loving america)

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Oct 28 2005 20:56 utc | 16

If what b has excerpted fron FoxNEWS has a grain of truth to it. And that’s a big ask, then Fitzgerald succumbed to the white hot pressure. ie “Rove attorney Bob Luskin earlier this week offered information and an explanation that satisfied Fitzgerald enough to hold off on an indictment”
Fitzgerald has been neatly painted into a corner. Now that he has accepted that there isn’t enough at the moment to go after Rove he won’t be able to change his mind later and say that there is, so without new information Rove is away. So really the pressure is off Rove and onto Fitz.
A new grand jury rather than an extended one means that all of the relevant evidence will have to be laid out before the jury again. Now I assume that can be done off the existing sworn testimony but even so the situation will not have the drama it had when the grand jury was being carried along united by the notion that they were being bullshitted to.
The last jury appeared to go a long way with Fitz will the next one?
Now that the repugs know what the stakes are will this grand jury selection be absolutely free of political interference? One dyed in the wool red till I die repug is probably all that is needed to prevent any further embarassments.
Arguing about whether the glass is half empty or half full can be diverting but it’s not going to quench any thirst.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 28 2005 21:17 utc | 18

Would you want to spend 5 years fighting several million dollars worth of insiders insiders lawywers and then on the outside chance you win have the thing thrown out by the DC Circut or the Supremes?
Less and less able to do your job elsewhere. Career stalled if not dead in its tracks.
It isn’t worth it.
All this focus on the leagal aspect is damaging to liberal progressive causes. The simple facts are out there, The administration is, as Hendrix said, “alive but the war is here to stay”. There is more than a hint of truth to the criminalization of politics meme spouted by The Party. This case or any other you can possibley name will not win a single vote.
Put it in your rear view mirror.

Posted by: rapier | Oct 28 2005 21:36 utc | 20

remember..George Ryan was initially identified as Official A in an earlier indictment
http://www.nbc5.com/news/2710256/detail.html
Federal investigators have linked a politician known as ‘Official A’ to the case,” Kay said. “NBC5 has identified that unnamed official as George Ryan.”

Posted by: Chamed Ahlabi | Oct 28 2005 21:42 utc | 22

If you read the indictment carefully, and have enough background knowledge “Official A” = Rove…AND “Undersecretary of State” = Bolton…I tentatively guess.
Also, what was UP with Scooter’s crutches? Looking at that foot from this photo, it doesn’t look serious…Maybe it was faked to avoid photos in case he was actually HANDCUFFED AND FROGMARCHED out of the White House, becoming even more damaging politically to the admin? Sheer speculation of course, but images are everything in politics these days, they say…
Here’s a link to the Reuters
photo:
link
Caption: Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby walks out of the West Wing of the White House, October 28, 2005. REUTERS/Larry Downing

Posted by: Scooted | Oct 28 2005 21:54 utc | 24

Fitzgerald impressed me today. [What a chess player!] I’m with annie on this one. I think that he’s now letting Scooter sweat it out in the same way that he let Judy and the other press whores involved sweat it out for three months. [He also leaves things potentially uncomfortable for Rove’s associates despite their positive spinning.] The investigation is still open for a reason. More will be revealed.
And we haven’t even gotten to Scooter’s actual trial yet, which won’t occur for another six months: middle of ’06 campaign season. By then even more prominent Repubs will be eager to scapegoat Cheney’s office with all of their president’s sins.

Posted by: gylangirl | Oct 28 2005 21:58 utc | 26

Wow, quite varied opinions on today’s developments. I actually feel really good about what happened today, and think it’s only the beginning. Fitz is clearly a cagey and intelligent individual, so I don’t think we can read too much from his words or his demeanor. I think Scooter avoided the Espionage and/or IIPA because Fitzgerald is going after bigger fish, and perhaps using Libby to do that. Maybe Scooter flipped, and that’s why he didn’t get hit with the big one. Speculation of course, but this is what I’m hoping for.
I honestly believe we’re only at the beginning of this thing… and the Bushies are screwed. As for punishment? How about we just send them all to fight in Iraq? I think that would be just punishment. Or maybe directly to Abu Ghraib.

Posted by: jed | Oct 28 2005 22:08 utc | 28

All I can say is, thank god for a smart aggressive prosecutor who doesn’t care a whit about politics. If this is where it’s taken him, so be it. He made it clear in the press conference that he has no interest in unnecessarily prolonging this, so the fact that the investigation is ongoing gives me hope. It will also let Rove and others, perhaps, twist in the wind for awhile. Bush Administration can spin this however they want, but it’s a huge black eye. The bloom is off the rose!

Posted by: Stfish7 | Oct 28 2005 22:22 utc | 30

I think there is plenty more to come.
The more drawn out this is, the deeper it will go and the more these people will squirm. Rove is a pariah once again like he was earlier in his life. A complete demolition of their stranglehold would be the best scenario however long it takes. They built it slowly and methodically, and it looks like the unraveling might take the same course. It was inevitable that some magic wand of justice would not immediately send them away in one day’s revelations. Be wise, my friends. This is a perfect opportunity to to learn about delayed gratification, common sense, a little detachment, and most of all…confidence, and an end to a belief in our victimization.
This the end of this syndicate, but there are so many other problems to face, as Rapier suggests.
Rather than hooking joy or disappointment on the hoped for fall of criminals, I think we should look at this as part of a bigger process. A chance to gain knowledge and experience, and an opportunity to shape the political environment as this faction weakens and disappears. What is coming to fill the vacuum is more important. So Fitz, and others, will do their part. And we can do ours. As this torture for the administration drags on through the election year, a golden opportunity might be available. We haven’t been wasting our time sharing our feelings and ideas, staying motivated and involved. There will be a payoff.
I believe life is ultimately fair.

Posted by: jm | Oct 28 2005 22:47 utc | 32

This is very speculative at this point, but it strikes me that Fitzgerald might have held back on the identities act charges in part to protect the force of the perjury and obstruction charges.
Fitz may be nonpolitical, but it’s hard to imagine that anyone could entirely avoid knowing what kind of a political firestorm this is going to be. And the old saw that says if you’re going to shoot at a king, you’d better be sure not to miss, applies here: the perjury and obstruction charges look like a (dare we say it?) slam-dunk from what we know. Standing alone, they make for a powerful narrative: Cheney’s second-in-command deliberately and obviously lies, in ways that can’t possibly be spun as simple forgetfulness or confusion, and that clearly imply that he’s trying to cover up something worse. If he’s convicted on those charges, once again, it’s hard to spin that as a result of trivial partisan witchhunting.
Add the Identities Act charges, though, and unless the proof is as powerful there as it is for the obstruction and perjury cases, you run a risk of the narrative changing. If you get a conviction for perjury and obstruction, but an acquittal on the supposed substantive charge, it becomes possible for every right-wing talking head in the country to blast out the message that Libby did nothing wrong, and that the convictions on the obstruction/perjury charges are just the petty and cruel revenge of an overzealous prosecutor. Given Fitzgerald’s obvious strong feelings for the rule of law, and the importance of maintaining the integrity of the investigative process, that can’t be an outcome he’d be happy with, apolitical though he might otherwise be.
And really, there’s no harm done by not bringing the charges now. If the case develops in ways that make the identities act charges simple to prove in court, well: I’m guessing that that’s why God made superceding indictments.

Posted by: Fiorinda | Oct 28 2005 22:52 utc | 34

@jm
“They didn’t cover their tracks and I was always in awe of how they failed at this.”
When you are selling your stories to a public with no attention span, credibility and accountability become very relative terms. The big surprise in 2003 was how they didn’t conveniently “find” (read: plant) WMD in Iraq. So far, it has never become necessary for them to “cover their tracks” beyond sealing a few Presidential records or refusing to release a few legal briefs. To date, there has been no outrage, scandal or amount of damage done that a complicit MSM with a new sideshow and some greased palms can’t fix.

Posted by: Monolycus | Oct 28 2005 23:26 utc | 36

Right, Monolycus.
I think it’s just that ease of escaping discovery that will be to our advantage in the long run. The path of excrement has a long half life.
The same public loves a crime story, and I suspect that the titillation might become more than the coverup can handle. Reality shows are ebbing, and the public is bored and hungry.
This public likes to stone its heroes in the village square as much as it likes to build them into icons. It remains to be seen what drama the masses are desiring.

Posted by: jm | Oct 29 2005 0:19 utc | 38

Be wise, my friends. This is a perfect opportunity to to learn about delayed gratification, common sense, a little detachment, and most of all…confidence, and an end to a belief in our victimization.
i love this line of thinking.
and this It remains to be seen what drama the masses are desiring.. this story has all the makings of a blockbuster . mass intrigue, villains, a true american hero icon, spys, dupes and all w/the backdrop of the war and a very important election w/an increasingly hostile public going broke. i don’t think it’s gonna die anytime soon.

Posted by: annie | Oct 29 2005 1:06 utc | 40

I think it looks pretty good overall.
I’m not discouraged at all.
The comments to the indictment were damning.
Let’s hope for a trial.

Posted by: Groucho | Oct 29 2005 1:35 utc | 42

I’m happy to see slothrop back.
Not much wiser from the absence, I’m afraid.

Posted by: Groucho | Oct 29 2005 1:39 utc | 44

Considering the number of instances I’ve railed against organised religion I’m starting to feel that I’m as fork-tongued as the bible bashers, cause about two weeks ago I started to feel that we were being just too confident of a Fitzmas and I was starting to be reminded of similar confidence in here during November 2004.
I decided to talk the chances of mass indictments down a bit, not because I didn’t believe or hope that they would happen but in an attempt to stop a repetition of the 04 theft. See superstitious, as bad as a gambler thinking that black hasn’t come up for three spins so it MUST come up this time. The trouble is that little white ball has no memory.
The reason I say this is to explain that I was just as much of a dreamer as anyone else, in fact probably more so but if anything positive can come out of this lesson in absolute power it is important that Amerikans face facts.
There has been a lot of discussion at MoA about amerikan exceptionalism and I’m sad to say that could be what is happening here.
The people with the pragmatic view about just what has occurred in the main appear to live outside the US whereas those who live within appear to hold the notion that inevitably ‘truth will out’.
I need to own that I have had a very patronising attitude toward Amerikan rituals that claim to protect their democracy. Such as taking the Pledge of Allegiance or the politicians who continually make speeches about the need to vigilantly protect freedom and democracy.
Many societies don’t do that stuff and I always thought it was out of selfconsciousness about the triteness of a lot of it.
However if we look hard at this part of the US culture one could argue that all of these patriotic rituals have become just that; rituals that rather than alerting citizens to the danger of concentrated power have merely served to reassure them that it won’t happen here.
It is no different really from the Native Amerian resistance performing a series of rituals designed to prevent their clothing from allowing lead to pass thru it.
So people tend to believe that they have a functioning democracy because their rituals have kept them safe. Now I reckon there is an inherent danger in this which is that unless people honestly believe that any state can suffer the destruction and corruption of institutions, that unless all citizens actively work to prevent it, they can fall into a complacency that allows the destruction and corruption to occur.
Now as well as a ‘it can’t happen here attitude’, amerikan citizens have the same belief as most of the rest of humanity which is that politics is a science where 1+1 always =2
Its not physics or maths, it’s human behaviour where absolutes are replaced with perceptions. 1+1=1 if enough people can be convinced that is so. Therefore in the Karl Rove Vs The Truth situation what actually occured is only important insofar as it effects what people believe occurred.
BushCo have twisted and peverted reality to the point where up seems to be down, but if this investigation drags out until the end of W’s term then truth or no thousands will still be dying in Iraq. Families around the world will still have their doors kicked down and get to see their husband, son or father dragged off in the middle of the night to some corner of the world where ‘interrogators can act out their torture fetishes without fear of some ‘sticky beak’ disturbing them.
But equally it won’t just be Ohio and Florida set up for Jeb it will be whatever other states are deemed necessary to preserve ‘freedom’ and the corporate way of life. Altho Leopold Cheney would have a hard time winning a raffle for a meat tray; the Bushes have over two years to put lots of distance between themselves and Valerie Plame.
You know it occurred to me that Harriets nomination wasn’t about protecting Dubya nearly as much as it was about the Bushes having a faithful retainer on SCOTUS. Imagine the sort of dollars they could get for a bit of insight into the Supremes thinking on a particular case, much less the squillions to be made selling decisions.
But I’ve wandered off the track once more. What I wanted to say was if this Fitz cock-up alerts people to the salient issue which is democracy can only be protected if the citizenry accept that they have to put themselves on the line from time to time, then it will have been worth this drama.
However if everyone sits around either confident that justice will be done or that fascist dictatorship just couldn’t happen here, then the pooch is truly screwed.
Ironies abound of course. The mob that originally established the republic were well aware of the fragility of democracy which is why they built up the continual reinforcement of the need to protect it. Of course there was no way for them to predict that these reinforcements would eventually become empty rituals, self defeating rituals that do little more than create the false sense of security which corrupt, self serving entities like BushCo can exploit to further their mendacity.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 29 2005 1:43 utc | 46

I have to agree with billmons original title. They are getting off easy and it looks like Fitz is being the good political prosecutor so he can continue to move up the food chain.
How you cannot bring charges against Rove is beyond me. I agree with the post above, this is over. If not, I’ll buy a round of whiskey.

Posted by: jdp | Oct 29 2005 2:30 utc | 48

I need to own that I have had a very patronising attitude toward Amerikan rituals that claim to protect their democracy. Such as taking the Pledge of Allegiance or the politicians who continually make speeches about the need to vigilantly protect freedom and democracy.
I’m an American and I have a patronizing attitude towards empty, cheap, cowardly display (inserting ‘under god’ in the 1950s; the oceans of flags; the lapels; etc.). Of course it’s pathetic, in the primary sense of the word. I don’t know what that has to do with the US Justice system, imperfect though it certainly is. Fitzgerald today was a very good ‘ritual’, and certainly not empty.
Complete and Total Justice has probably hardly ever happened anywhere at any time. It’s dangerous to be too romantic about the US, either as a booster or a patronizer. The US is exceptional in some ways, and not terribly exceptional in others.
It there’s a trial, which the ‘administration’ would presumably go to lengths to avoid, a lot of pus will be allowed to ooze out. Not perfect justice, but not an empty ritual, by a long shot. If one house of congress changes hands next year, there will be very public hearings, with the power of subpoena, and you will see a lot of moral criminals disgraced and out of office. Not perfect, but…
The mob that originally established the republic were well aware of the fragility of democracy which is why they built up the continual reinforcement of the need to protect it.
It’s largely Madison’s constitution, and he was aware that there is no system, however elaborate and diffused, which can be utterly impervious to bad character and bad intent. You might as well have said ‘cabal’ instead of ‘mob’, although I don’t think that would be a fair comparison. The American founders were nabobs (largely), but I think comparing them to the current US ruling class and their hirlings (Bush et. al.) is unfair to them. They ‘built up the continual reinforcement of the need to protect’ freedom, not ‘democracy’; they didn’t trust men.
I don’t mean to be pedantic, and maybe I missed your point.

Posted by: jonnybutter | Oct 29 2005 2:38 utc | 50

The mob that originally established the republic were well aware of the fragility of democracy which is why they built up the continual reinforcement of the need to protect it. Of course there was no way for them to predict that these reinforcements would eventually become empty rituals, self defeating rituals that do little more than create the false sense of security which corrupt, self serving entities like BushCo can exploit to further their mendacity.

On the contrary, Debs, our forefathers did predict it. You’re forgetting the fact that they were products of the Enlightenment who cut their teeth to Shakespere, Aristotle, and most important of all, Plato. It is in the words of Plato’s The Republic where the philospher made the prediction that eventually corruption, error, and roguery would be the downfall of any government system molded after it. Our forefathers knew this, hence the reason why when he was asked what kind of government he likened for this experiment called America, Ben Franklin replied, “A republic … if you can keep it.”
They knew all along that the inverse cost of freedom was, is, and always will be responsibility and the “keeping” of our Republic was a responsibility of every Jane & Joe Schmoe and it served us well at least up until the end of War World II. After that, “feel-good consumerism” kicked in along with a American populace that blindly accepted religion being perverted with the grafting of mindless adherance to capitalism (e.g. “Blessed be the warmongerers for they shall inherit the U.S Treasury”), and with that came the end — the real end — of our Republic for it replaced our Democracy with what we’ve got now: a Corporatocracy. That point in history is when many of the safety mechanisms our forefathers put in place were conveniently forgotten because the people allowed themselved into being bullshitted that with the fall of Hitler, fascism equated to “Doh! It could never happen here!”
How ironic that we once had clear and cut safety mechanisms (and still do for the time being) in place for us to “keep our Republic” and yet we’ve allowed the Corportocracy to bullshit us into believing we won’t ever need them because they’re here for us. Their slogan ought to be “We Didn’t Make Democracy – We Made Democracy Better!” Hence the empty, self-defeating rituals of a mass American populace whose attention spans are shorter than Terri Schaivo’s cerebral cortex but by some miracle somehow manage to tolerate the LOADING screen on their X-Boxen/PS2/DVD Players. Sometimes, it’s enough to make one want to shave their legs and roll on the fuckin’ leaderhosen while Iron Maiden blares in the background …

The serpent is crawling inside of your ear
He says you must vote for what you wanna hear
Don’t matter what’s wrong as long you’re alright
So pull yourself stupid and rob yourself blind …
Iron Maiden
“Be Quick Or Be Dead”
1992

*re-reads post*
Ugh … Now, look what I went and did — completely ruined Fitzmas with my cynical yammerings and fatalistic delusions.

Posted by: Sizemore | Oct 29 2005 4:06 utc | 52

Am reconsidering. Things are looking better and better. Jane Hamsher at firedoglake analyzes Fitz’s poker hand and feels that it is a winning one. Fitz didn’t have to lay down a long meld. What he had to do was force a trial, which he did, and come across himself as unimpeachable so the right cannot credibly smear him and the president cannot credibly pardon Libby before the trial. This he did with flying colors. The administration is between a rock and a hard place. My guess is that Cheney would be forced to testify at a trial, and his testimony would either be proven false or contradict that which he gave to the GJ under oath. Squeeze that, Dick.
Also this from Charlie Rose:
Ed Rollins (from Reagan admin): “Cheney is not the same Cheney that I or Scowcroft or many others once knew….” (shaking his head)
Ed Dallek (presidential historian, democrat): “This situation has the stench of Vietnam and the odor of Watergate.” The administration has no way out, they can only dig deeper. Which we can be pretty sure they will.

Posted by: Malooga | Oct 29 2005 4:11 utc | 54

Fitz looks good. He has class and poise. He’s solo. He hasn’t fallen into the smear machine and won’t. And sincerity came through in his press conference today.
We’re off to a good start. I think his sobriety has thrown the whole society a curve after this free for all over-emotional bottom feeding hard drug mimicking hysterical frenzy. Give it a minute.

Posted by: jm | Oct 29 2005 4:32 utc | 56

I realise how contentious it is to criticise another’s society which is why I tried carefully to say that although the aims of the US republic were sound, the problem is that people have become complacent. An attitude has developed where everyone thinks that somehow things will be ok.
As I travel around the blogosphere I see heaps of posts saying this is a good start, Fitz will go on from here or even worse that the Dems will win power and they will sort it out but nowhere do I see anyone saying this, this, and that, have happened; OK here is what I/We need to do.
US society was founded by individuals expressing the rights of individuals to be free, yet nowadays within that society people appear to feel so powerless that they can no longer see their own role in bringing about change.
I don’t know whether the people who founded the republic were a mob or a cabal I was merely reaching for a collective to gather them in. The point I was trying to make was as freedom goes that it appears from Murdoch, Dubya and Pat Robertson down (well in the real world it is only up from them) everyone talks the talk but just about no one walks the walk.
It is possible that freedom has been talked out of existence. The words roll off the tongue so easily that they no longer have any resonance, contain any emotion, or, carry any meaning.
This isn’t about what place is better than any other or what people are freer than others because, the only thing I really KNOW is that where ever in the world I go I run into the same mixture of good and bad, smart and silly, real and deluded people.
People are rarely who they say or think they are because people are defined by what they do, not what they say and the only point I want to make is that freedom and the rights of man don’t exist because it says they do on an old piece of paper.
Justice isn’t a commodity measured out on the visually impaired woman’s scales.
Freedom exists where people are being free, no one can give it to you, you have to take it. Similarly justice isn’t what others do for you it’s what you do for yourself and others.
No one has any right or business to tell others what they need to do. Just as Iraqis won’t have their freedom until they own it for themselves, citizens of the US won’t get their freedom back until each person helps themselves and quits hanging back waiting for the nice men in suits to serve it up.
The only way that this can be construed as a good start is if it assists citizens to wake up and realise that they are the only people that can do the job.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Oct 29 2005 5:05 utc | 58

“Considering the number of instances I’ve railed against organised religion I’m starting to feel that I’m as fork-tongued as the bible bashers, cause about two weeks ago I started to feel that we were being just too confident of a Fitzmas”
Oh, I don’t think it was confidence, Debs, so much as “hopeless optimism in the service of bottomless longing.” Or rage.
William Lind:
“On October 19, 2005, the American Secretary of State, aka the Tea Lady, did something extraordinary for the Bush administration. She told the truth. According to the October 20 Washington Times, in testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Miss Rice said
“that it was always the Bush administration’s intent to redesign the Middle East after the September 11 attacks, which exposed a ‘deep malignancy growing’ in the region, and that the Iraq was part of that plan.
“Well. There we have it. It’s now official: Saddam’s eternally elusive Weapons of Mass Destruction were just eyewash. The decision to invade Iraq came first, and the various contrived justifications came after. Those Iraqi WMDs were as real as Polish attacks on Germany in 1939, and as cynical. The cynicism is, if anything, ever more brazen: Herr Ribbentrop never testified to the Reichstag that ‘Polish aggression’ was just a set-up, even if everyone knew.”
Now, I believe the administration believed the WMD hogwash, just as it believed in its ability to positively transform Iraq. Who says the powerful, cruel, cynical, and manipulative cannot also be shockingly naive? Or blind, dumb, deaf, and delusional?
The ‘redesigning’ of the Middle East continues, in any event. Any neocon will tell you: There’s a very long way to go yet. We’re at the end of the beginning, or something like that.

Posted by: Pat | Oct 29 2005 5:17 utc | 60

Malooga,
and it is important to educate people and sell them on this vision. But, we should also remain vigilant of the momentous consequences at stake if we fail.
It’s not really in our control. There are too many variables and that’s why it’s impossible to predict. I can’t be afraid of the future since I get through everything intact and assume that even if a totalitarian dictatorship developed, we would get through it like so many before us have. So I can’t spend my life quaking in fear of authority.
My feeling is that most things work out in some median place in the spectrum. Our country will continue to have hard times, but I doubt that there will be extreme political conditions yet.
I do sense a transition, and I can’t say what direction we will go, but I believe there will be more control in the government. This could be good however. It could mean responsibility and good administration. Or it could be exacting parental type control.
I do think that the question of state versus federal control will be an upcoming big issue. And I think that all of pur internal governmental structures will be tested in the next 20 years to see what works and what should be changed or discarded. I don’t see the logical reason for an extreme dictatorship at the present time. There has to be cause.
After this 20 or 30 year period, I think there will be a big redistribution of wealth.
My optimism is not based on external factors. It is my natural way of dealing with adversity by adjusting to circumstance and finding a way to maintain health and vitality within life’s vicissitudes.
I know our society can and probably will do this, too. Instead of waiting for the next blow from above, we can work on our agility and flexibility.
Right now, I think our country is really in a bind, and many of us would like to act, but we just simply don’t know what to do. It will be revealed. we have to recognize our inability to control events on a large scale. We’ve fought with swords, we’ve had non-violent revolutions, we’ve done nothing and let it all happen, and still we are basically in the same place. So nothing works so far. People are naturally reluctant to hit the streets after all that happened in the 60’s and 70’s, and here we are, stuck in the middle. So I think this pause is for good reason. We will gradually follow the cyclic wave pattern of time.

Posted by: jm | Oct 29 2005 5:55 utc | 62

Military Fatalities: By Time Period News
Period US UK Other* Total Avg Days
4 575 12 17 604 2.22 272
3 579 25 27 631 2.92 216
2 718 27 58 803 1.89 424
1 140 33 0 173 4.02 43
Total 2012 97 102 2211 2.32 955
It seems murder is the more appropriate charge to pursue.

Posted by: steve duncan | Oct 29 2005 6:02 utc | 64

@Pat
Sometimes you sound quite sensible – then you say things like .. 
Now, I believe the administration believed the WMD hogwash, just as it believed in its ability to positively transform Iraq. Who says the powerful, cruel, cynical, and manipulative cannot also be shockingly naive? Or blind, dumb, deaf, and delusional?
How about adding a few more adjectives like criminal, cunts …
I wonder what you think is meant by “bureaucratic reasons” ?
“For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on” – Wolfowitz 2003
Anyone still trying to hawk the “naive” meme must be blind and dumb and deaf and delusional – or part of the scam. The US Administration are a criminal pack of cunts and America and the world are yet to reap the whirlwind. This isn’t gonna go away. There is a very long way to go yet – maybe the end of the beginning – but unfortunately also the beginning of the end – not just for the neocons – but for America.

Posted by: DM | Oct 29 2005 7:21 utc | 66

Time for some numbers:
Ken Starr:
Results: Infinite Smearing, Zero Indictments.
Cost: $70M
Fitz:
Interim Results: NO smearing, One Indictment, Rove Agreed to being charged w/out indictment, future unknown.
Interim Cost: $1.2-1.4M
(Which adjusted for the declining dollar is what, MoA finance guys – ~$850K??)

Posted by: jj | Oct 29 2005 7:45 utc | 68

Football match. One goal. It happens.
Time to go home.
——-
Word.

Posted by: Noisette | Oct 29 2005 10:02 utc | 70

Fitz is always presented as a-political, intelligent, thorough, a brilliant prosecutor, a concise speaker, etc. Some say he is slow, that is proceeds slowly, and keeps his eye on the long-term.
True.
I’m surprised though at the stereotypicality of this image, and the strength and power of it. It is not questioned or contested; nor is it fleshed out, amplified, attested to, explained. (That he put some terrorists and gangsters in jail shows exactly nothing.) This strikes me as odd coming from Americans, who tend to drag personalia into everything, judge character on a personal level rather than see actors only in terms of their institutional roles. (E.g. Miers…)
Everyone agrees he is Mister Clean.
And in whose interest is that image? (Besides his.)
Those who would like to see Cheney behind bars?
Not really. It is in the interests of the PTB.
I ask myself as well, how was that image created?
Partly by keeping him well away – disconnected from – 9/11, despite the fact that he was the most qualified prosecutor to address that matter. (Oh – what prosecutions did that lead to?) So he goes to Chicago ten days before 9/11 to chase gangsters. Fine.
Knight on a white horse?
I think not.

Posted by: Noisette | Oct 29 2005 10:37 utc | 72

If you saw a baseball game and you saw a pitcher wind up and throw a fastball and hit a batter right smack in the head, and it really, really hurt them[!–ed.], you’d want to know why the pitcher did that. And you’d wonder whether or not the person just reared back and decided, “I’ve got bad blood with this batter. He hit two home runs off me. I’m just going to hit him in the head as hard as I can.”
You also might wonder whether or not the pitcher just let go of the ball or his foot slipped, and he had no idea to throw the ball anywhere near the batter’s head. And there’s lots of shades of gray in between.
You might learn that you wanted to hit the batter in the back and it hit him in the head because he moved. You might want to throw it under his chin, but it ended up hitting him on the head.
And what you’d want to do is have as much information as you could. You’d want to know: What happened in the dugout? Was this guy complaining about the person he threw at? Did he talk to anyone else? What was he thinking? How does he react? All those things you’d want to know.
For me, this is by far the richest, the most suggestive, and the most telling passage in Fitzgerald’s transcript. It comes at at the start of the questioning period, it’s a figure of speech, and it covers the entire enterprise. And since it has yet to be discussed anywhere that I’ve seen, I’ll just post it here for our consideration.
I’m struck by its passion–or its outrage–and its specificity. It’s the comment of a man who has witnessed, with his own eyes, a truly violent and obscene transgression, at a particularly delicate or dangerous moment, in a realm that many of us (Fitzgerald most certainly included) tend to regard as sacred, namely the game of baseball (even more sacred, say, than football, or basketball, or hockey, or rugby, which Fitzgerald’s own field of athletic endeavor). It’s a sport where physical violence is least welcom. It matters to Fitzgerald–the violence of this act he describes–and he hasn’t satisfied himself that he yet understands it. And to which act does his analogy refer? Ah, that’s the charm of figurative language! We have to wait and see… Plame’s outing, that’s for sure, but also the whole context–the “dugout” politics, if you will–that he’s so careful to invoke. And Fitzgerald makes it matter to us: when we hear his analogy, we also want to know what’s at the bottom of this act, and share his fury at having the sand thrown in our eyes. I’d be very surprised if Fitzgerald didn’t arrive at, and help us arrive at, a fuller grasp of his (possibly felonious!) pitcher’s motivation, and sooner rather than later. On the strength of his remark, I’d certainly expect to learn a lot more about the Cheney/Bush conspiracy, and in the context of a legal proceeding.

Posted by: alabama | Oct 29 2005 10:56 utc | 74

jj-
I don’t have a Derber audiolink yet. I will try to get it this week when I meet with him and post it on an open thread.

Posted by: Malooga | Oct 29 2005 15:00 utc | 76

@Noisette
Very few people indeed would have known Plame was a covert operative, a NOC, nor that the carefully created and historical cover extended to an agency front company and all that that entails.
Such information is highly classified but more importantly highly comparmented on an extremely strict, truly, ‘need to know’ basis … it is NOT information that would ever be passed accidentally or via briefings to the WH and would be specifically redacted from raw source material prior to any official dissemination …

Posted by: Outraged | Oct 29 2005 16:15 utc | 78

You also might wonder whether or not the pitcher just let go of the ball or his foot slipped, and he had no idea to throw the ball anywhere near the batter’s head. And there’s lots of shades of gray in between…..
I for one think the analogy is a little off base. What Fitz should have said was that when Joe Wilson stepped up to the plate, Libby wheeled and hurled a fastball into the stands, hitting Wilson’s wife because he didn’t want to face the hitter. That’s all he should have said. You can’t complicate these things with nuances like she was in charge of scouting. Beaning batters happens all the time but I’ve never in all my years of baseball see a pitcher throw one into the stands (folding chairs, yes)

Posted by: Anonymous | Oct 29 2005 16:42 utc | 80

Whoops, was on the phone and did not fill out the attribute field…

Posted by: sarge | Oct 29 2005 17:17 utc | 82

“Pat if they believed SH had nuclear weapons, they would not have planned to invade”
They didn’t believe Saddam had nuclear weapons. They believed Saddam had an illicit nuclear weapons program.
“much less gone to the trouble of having documents faked to ‘prove’ their bullshit.”
Well, now, jj. Who forged those documents, and who were they working for?

Posted by: Pat | Oct 29 2005 18:17 utc | 84

@ outraged. Right, that is what one expects. So what happened? Maybe we will never know.

Posted by: Noisette | Oct 29 2005 19:50 utc | 86

@ Sizemore:
perhaps this should be: “Blessed be the warmongerers for they shall inherit the U.S Debt”

No, Malooka, the U.S. Debt is inherited by the meek — generations of ’em.

Posted by: Sizemore | Oct 30 2005 3:16 utc | 88