* ew vblogging from the court
* cannon:
"Bottom line: Cheney's at the center of this thing. I feel certain that Cheney had Libby reveal Valerie's identity, and that the administration wants Libby to fall on his sword.
When Cheney testifies, he will lie under oath. We know this. He will lie despite the advice not to lie which his lawyers will surely give. He will lie despite all the prompting and preparation he will receive before his appearance. He will lie despite the widespread expectation that he will lie.
He will lie for the same reason that Jack Nicholson's character told the truth in A Few Good Men: He is what he is. Power has made him arrogant, and he will say and do what he damn well pleases. And Cheney has made it clear that he prefers to spew the same old horseshit, even if other Republicans scoff.
So the question becomes: What will Fitzgerald do when Cheney lies?"
* amy:
"South Dakota Lawmakers Re-introduce Abortion Ban
And finally, lawmakers in South Dakota have introduced a new attempt to ban abortion. The “Women’s Health and Human Life Protection Act” would permit abortion only to prevent the death of a woman. Victims of rape or incest would be allowed abortion under several restrictions. They would have to report the rape within fifty days, submit blood samples to law enforcement, obtain records for physicians, and provide the name and address of the alleged rapist. The new measure comes three months after South Dakota voters rejected an abortion ban on the mid-term ballot."
* nyt:
"The perjury trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, is surely a pitiful substitute for the legal fantasies of White House foes such as House Judiciary Chairman John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who ominously said at last week’s anti-war protest that Congress “can fire” the president.
But at a minimum, independent prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is doing what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid described this morning to radio host Don Imus as “putting the pieces together” to showcase “the tremendous power the vice president had” in outing a CIA agent.
Indeed, the Libby trial seems destined to serve as an unofficial impeachment of Cheney’s integrity. And count on Democrats like Reid and Conyers to keep a close watch on what the prosecutor proves.
After all, Democrats in the midterm election campaign promised not to impeach the president — but they did not close that door for the vice president."
wow.
* digby:
"That's the bind that Dems are in when dealing with AIPAC and I'm sympathetic. This is a strong constituency which has been very supportive in the past. But AIPAC's position is delusional and wrong and Democrats have got to extricate themselves from this thinking and repudiate the Bush doctrine if they are going to undo this horrible tangle in the middle east. It's going to be nearly impossible to do even if Bush doesn't attack Iran. If he does, it's probably impossible.
From a political standpoint, there is no margin in Democrats backing this in any way shape or form. It is not enough to leave a little out that says "we would have exhausted all possibilities." It's the failure to repudiate the Bush Doctrine that binds them to Bush's actions.
I think they are foolishly counting on Bush not following through which is a shameful miscalculation if not political malpractice --- you simply have to assume after observing him all these years that he will. He and Cheney are desperately unpopular and they have come to believe that their legacy will be redeemed by history, so parochial concerns about popular support or public will in their own time are irrelevant. Indeed, I think they probably believe they have to do this in order that history will clearly see how they bucked the tide of popular opinion and expert advice to remake the middle east. It's all they have.
Democrats cannot abet this, not even rhetorically, to satisfy a powerful lobbying group that may be as mad as the neocons and the Bush administration. This time, they will not be let off the hook. Bush is out in two years and if any of them are on record talking trash about Iran at this delicate moment, they will be held accountable for what follows."
3 comments:
I came to this post here directly after reading Glenn Greenwald writing about how all the Democratic candidates are falling over themselves to suck up to AIPAC -- and how Hillary's mere suggestion that it might be possible to try a little diplomacy with Iran before attacking them got the AIPACers all uffish. (No doubt she won't make that mistake a second time.)
I can't say how depressed I am by all this. If the potential Democratic candidates all feel they have to get into a bidding war over who can be most hawkish on Iran -- most uncompromising, most aggressive, most unwilling to consider any alternatives -- we are well and truly fucked, and I can't see any way out of it. Once insanity becomes the coin of the day, the potential outcomes can only range from horrible to catastrophic.
One solution is to refuse to go along with their assumption that we have no other alternatives.
There are the Socialists, for example.
Personally, I am voting for the Cuban. He has a good record for the people of his country. The possibility he's limited a few of their freedoms should not make him any different than the politicians here. And, he's done well in health care, education, and national security. Yes, by the time we get around to voting for our next POTUS, he might be dead. However, even a dead Cuban would be better than the possibilities I've seen so far from the dems and reps.
What will Fitz do when Cheney lies under oath? He'll nail his ass to a board, that's what.
Fitz has Darth Cheney's ass in a sling and all he needs is for Darth to get up there under oath, in front of the whole world, to lasso him.
Don't forget, Fitz got the unredacted report from the Italian government on the Niger forgery caper. Darth's fingerprints are all over that.
I'm still betting that letter Luskin wouldn't show anyone, allegedly clearing The Roverator, is really an immunity deal for his testimony on the Libby trial, no 5th under cross examination.
Busholini and Darth Cheney didn't just out Valerie Plame, they compeltely destroyed Brewster, Jennings, the US cover company for covert CIA WMD agents in Iraq and Iran, effectively eliminating any reliable sources of contradicition on WMD's "found".
You bet Cheney wants to distance himself from the decision to send someone(Joe Wilson) to Niger. If they had already cooked up the forgeries, they needed
Brewster Jennings out of commission.
Don't forget, John Bolton is the first person in State who physically received the Niger forgeries and Bolton is who told Cheney what Valerie Plame did.
Don't forget that 40 Congressmen have asked Fitz to increase the scope of his investigation to include the Niger forgeries.
Plus Congress is insisting on getting copies of the NSA Wiretap Intercepts.
Their fall back position, if caught, was that Dopey had declassified the info or that Darth himself had the authority to declassify, the info.
On the subject of cooking up the pre war intelligrnce, I see Cheney in a chef'sat and John Bolton as his sous-chef. a little bit of uranium from Niger goes a long way when you're cooking up a big red herring. Rove and Libby, being just hired hands, are "small fry" compared to Dopey and Darth and Rummy or Condi, all of whom took an oath of office to protect the Constitution.
I might get out my knitting needles for this one.
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