Making Conservatives Cringe Since 1977

The Blame America First Tm (R) crowd is up to their old tricks again . . . (wink)

He's Making a List, He's Checking it Twice...

It's beginning to look a lot like Fitzmas, Everywhere you go. Take a look at the West Wing— Everyone's panicking, "What the hell will we do without Rove?" I know it's not good Karma to gloat. I know that no one can predict what's going to happen with this whole thing. So I take heart that our dear leader has changed his tune, flip flopped you might say, from characterizing Fitzgerald's investigation as, ". . . some background noise," to "This is a very serious investigation," almost over night. Unfortunatly, however, with Herr Rove seems to have be distracted as of late, and the rest of the Republican brethern haven't recieve their regular installment of marching orders. The Washington Post quotes the executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Melanie Sloan, as saying Republicans were "starting to undermine the prosecutor by implying that he's only going to be able to indict on technicalities." How could this be! This is a very serious investigation. One of the storm troopers that hadn't checked their e-mail, was Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, who wished for substantive charges, " not some perjury technicality where they couldn't indict on the crime and so they go to something just to show that their two years of investigation was not a waste of time and taxpayer dollars," drawing parallels between the White House's leak about CIA agent Valerie Plame, whose husband questioned intelligence that served as one of the rationals for the War in Iraq, to Martha Stewart, which in it's self is quite the salient defense if I do say so myself. So what are these "technicalties" that Republican talking points refer to? have a read: Cheney aide passed Plame's name to Libby, Hadley, those close to leak investigation say

Jason Leopold and Larisa Alexandrovna

Those close to the investigation say that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been told that David Wurmser, then a Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney on loan from the office of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, met with Cheney and his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in June 2003 and told Libby that Plame set up the Wilson trip. He asserted that it was a boondoggle, the sources said.

Libby then shared the information with Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, the sources said. Wurmser also passed on the same information about Wilson to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, they added.

Within a week, Wurmser, on orders from "executives in the office of the vice president," was told to leak her name to a specific group of reporters in an effort to muzzle her husband, Wilson, who had become a thorn in the side of the administration, those close to the inquiry say. It is unclear who Wurmser had spoken with in the media, the sources said, but they confirmed he did speak with reporters at national media outlets about Plame.

If this is the truth, and Rove and Libby slip the noose . . . Picture curtsey of Agi T. Prop, from his secluded lair in the Pime Forest. Notes: In its first 15 months, the [Fitzgerald] investigation cost $723,000, according to the Government Accountability Office. Cost of the Starr inquiry after impeachment was over, $50 million.

tags: News and Politics Rove Plame Fitzgerald