I swear the schadenfreude is going to kill me.
And to answer Atrios, Norah O’Donnell is the same old Noron. Cheney doesn’t care if people like him and the president doesn’t care if anybody likes Cheney. Maybe the GOP Congressional delegation, who need another albatross like they need one more hole in the head, can convince Bush to do the right thing. That would work if, say, the president believed in party loyalty. He doesn’t. The president believes in fealty, which looks like loyalty as long as Bush doesn’t have to give anything in return.
Now, I could see Cheney resigning in exchange for an instant pardon, assuming some other things happen first. But that’s not what O’Donnell was talking about.
***Update***
I am a very lazy busy blogger so I can’t give this nearly the pixels it deserves. Steve Benen has (as always) an excellent rundown; look to FDL , Slate and MSNBC for liveblogging.
To add one cautionary note, like at least one commenter I consider the testimony of a guy who is on trial for perjury to be a bit short on credibility. If Scooter is smart he kept some substantiation for these allegations. Otherwise it’s his word against the vice president’s, and the veep isn’t the one on trial for lying.
Yep, I’m looking forward to the discovery phase…
***Update 2***
Um, yeah. Naturally I meant that I can’t wait to see what the defense turned over in discovery. Which already happened.
The many lawyers in my family are crying right now.
Ugh
So, the only question is whether the nightly newscasts will lead with this or if they give priority to what is sure to be a lame SOTU address (adjusting the tax deductibility of health care costs?!!?).
Ugh
Ok, maybe that’s not the “only” question but is the one I’m wondering about.
dreggas
Nope the Plame affair fizzled, there’ll be nothing to come out of it not a thing….Almost bet fitz is setting Libby up to dish the goods on Cheney and then the leak investigation will end in an indictment.
dreggas
Deducting healthcare costs….you mean making the money I have to spend on my health insurance taxable instead of exempt like it is…sounds oddly like a tax increase to me since it puts a tax on part of my income.
On the flip side it MIGHT work out in my favor but right now I am happy to NOT be paying taxes on money I have to sink into health insurance NOT provided by my government.
TenguPhule
Sing Libby, Sing like a canary!
Face
“Instant” doesn’t even do it justice. It’s already been written. Cheney probably penned it himself, and had Gee-Dub throw his Handcock on it.
Nobody sees two seconds of jail over this. I foresee a pardon-tape parade in DC in early January, 2009.
Jake
My name is Scooter,
I’ll drive right up your pooter,
The sweeter the tooter.
So, I suck at rapping.
And we all know the hand on the cock is Cheney’s.
Sherard
This could be the dumbest line of defense in history.
“Your Honor, they were out to get me, they were!!!”
Mmmm Hhhmmm. And how does that explain why you lied to the FBI ?
So let me get this straight. There was the truth, there was the Rove cover-up story, and yet, when interviewed by the FBI, Libby didn’t give either of them, he made up a third story altogether.
All this while sitting across the aisle from the prosecutor charged with finding a crime if one had happened, yet didn’t find one. Yeah. There’s a good bet – insult the prosecutor with your very line of defense from start to finish.
But, gosh, I have a note from Cheney…
dreggas
ok that image was not necessary but of course we know W likes Dick.
srv
Scooter has clearly shown a prediliction for acting independently and stepping over the line. This is what happens when you have real heroes. Scooter is just another guy doing the right thing, just like North, Poindexter and Ames.
Krista
Either way, it’ll be damned interesting to watch.
Pooh
Already happened – “discovery” occurs well before the actual trial.
I’m looking forward to the defense’s presentation of evidence, however…
Pb
Oh no, you’ve got it all wrong–Fitz is heroically and secretly going after the real criminals–Joe Wilson and his wife! Remember? If only the Wilsons hadn’t sabotaged Bush’s Iraq policy from the get-go, we might have had peace in the Middle East already–or at the least have bombed Tehran or nuked Mecca by now! Those traitors have set the Glass Parking Lot plan back decades, and now we’re stuck with this wimpy compromise Eighty Percent Solution!
srv
You still haven’t figured out who they really work for?
Pb
srv,
No doubt they’re hold-overs from the Soros-funded Clinton mafia branch of the Illuminati.
Rex
Second what Pooh said. Discovery usually precedes the trial by a pretty long lead time.
dreggas
It’s not even funny anymore, it’s just so freaking sad that even parody doesn’t make it funny. I mean how many more of these test balloon straw men need to be shot down or immolated before people realize just how much they’ve been had by this admin?
Thing is I’ve long thought this admin was playing with fire regarding the base. When the base does come out of their kool-aid induced stupor they’re going to go cannibal on these assholes and it’s not gonna be pretty.
Pb
dreggas,
Possibly, but I think it’s more likely that they’ll just latch on to a new set of assholes–“Brownback ’08”, etc., etc.
Andrei
I very much look forward to Darrell’s spin on this story.
And can we resurrect the party bleats of the gone but not forgotten Rick and Stormy? I really want to hear their spin on this after telling us for so long this entire Plame thing was a non-issue.
dreggas
Pb,
I think the Republican primaries for ’08 will be when they start eating each other and as it stands now there’s no chance in hell of any of the current “candidates” getting elected.
People talk of 9/11 changing everything, I’d almost posit that 11/07/06 changed everything and the next two years will be most interesting.
Grrr
Wow. Maybe we can finally open our Fitzmas presents around Easter.
Pb
dreggas,
Well, it should be interesting, anyhow. Obviously the far right has some real problems with McCain and Giuliani. We’ll see how far Romney gets with them, if Huckabee runs, or if someone like Tancredo or Brownback manages to lose it for them. Incidentally, there was a time when the polls showed that McCain could win even running as an Independent, but I don’t think he could pull that off anymore.
Faux News
:crickets chirping:
Zifnab
McCain/Lieberman in ’08.
Mark my words.
dreggas
great just what we need, the poster children for banning gay marriage /snark.
Marcus Wellby
Well, it should be interesting, anyhow. Obviously the far right has some real problems with McCain and Giuliani.
Rudy should run as an independent rather than McCain. I know a lot of registered Dems, myself included, who are more excited about Rudy than any other candidate of either party.
Rome Again
I’m interested to see Darrell’s spin on the photos that I will be linking to from now on, from Iraq War Grief Daily Witness (a series that started on Kos, was also featured on Booman Tribune and My Left Wing, and since then has been featured on it’s own blog continuing the series).
So, Darrell, tell me how funny these photos are (want more? check out the series on Kos, it’s was up to day #612 before the series discontinued due to image copyright issues). Tell me how much you care about innocent life caught in the crossfire of wars that you support.
Disclaimer: RubDMC (the creator of the series) has put a “steal what you want” copyright at the bottom of her series on My Left Wing, I’m stealing the right to use the weblink to the blog site, to remind Darrell everyday what war is really about. I am in no way affiliated with the website, and I want to make that clear.
Darrell, eat it asshole. War is HELL, I hate it, and you love it.
Pb
Marcus Wellby,
Out of curiosity, what’s to like?
jenniebee
Aw, guys, that’s such shades of Dole ’96 there. Get with the program: scandal doesn’t create or dilute popularity, it’s the other way around. Popularity intensifies or dissipates scandal.
Ugh
Gah! If people think Bush/Cheney were into the national security state, wait till Rudy gets his hands on it.
SeesThroughIt
Shouldn’t you be the one crying for having so many lawyers in your family?
[insert lawyer joke here]
Keith
Lawyers have tear ducts?
Marcus Wellby
Out of curiosity, what’s to like?
Bringing down the heads of the 5 families in the late 80’s — perfect experience for going after AQ.
Bringing down Milken
Tansforming Times Square — it did lose some charachter, but it really in bad shape
The fiscal management of NYC under his administration.
And he’s a pisan!
Might sound shallow, but I am damn sick of the WASP-ocracy.
Zifnab
That’s strange, because I don’t know any.
ThymeZone
Is that so?
That will change.
Giuliani is a fucking disaster, a walking talking finger in the eye of progressives and anybody concerned with justice.
srv
It doesn’t matter, b/c the President was able to smoke out the truth about Plame with this caper – and whatever he, the VP or their designees do is inherently legal in the first place.
And as far as missing or torn up notes, I’m sure it’ll show up on that coffee table where the Whitewater papers spontaneously appeared.
Zifnab
Then vote for Obama, or Richardson, or even Female Clinton. If Rudy is your idea of breaking out of the “White Angelo-Saxon Male Protestant” archtype, you couldn’t possibly reach less far.
ThymeZone
Steve
This is what’s classic about the whole turn of events. The same people who were like “Haha, stupid liberals, Fitzmas is cancelled, all you have is this bullshit charge against Scooter Libby” are suddenly like “I knew it all along, Libby is a perjuring scumbag!” It’s beautiful. God bless us, every one.
For the record, the defense theory seems to be “Libby was being set up as the fall guy and didn’t like it, therefore he had no reason to lie to protect the people who were setting him up, ergo when he misspoke it was just bad memory and nothing more.” Now, I wouldn’t lay my money on that one, but rest assured it’s far from the dumbest defense in history.
Jonathan
Marcus Wellby:
There’s some interesting stuff about Rudy here
Jake
Especially if said fall guy wants to drag a few people down with him. I wonder if Rove is working on a Libby/Obama/Pelosi love triangle smear campaign right now.
Grrr
Looks like Brownie is ready to sing. Admittedly he could be dismissed as a shit sniffing weasel on the Gotta-Eat lecture circuit, but I agree with Blanco – the Katrina fiasco is begging for long and detailed congressional scrutiny.
Especially the part where FEMA was podded with unqualified, neocon purity-tested retards. Just like our efforts to “rebuild” Iraq.
Bill Arnodl
I could see Cheney resigning in exchange for an instant pardon,
Cheney is GWB’s impeachment insurance. (Like Dan Quayle was GHWB’s assassination insurance.)
Steve
Libby’s lawyer is an A+ defense lawyer, but the thing is, he’s not really part of the Washington inner circle. So he doesn’t have any reservations about collateral damage to big-name Republicans if it helps keep his client out of jail, which of course is how a lawyer is supposed to act.
Considering that Libby’s defense has been largely financed by the Republican power brokers, though, it’s going to be mighty ironic if this ends up as a bloodbath for the GOP. However, we’re not there yet.
Pb
Bill Arnodl (sic?),
Of course, Cheney can be impeached as well–perhaps even simultaneously, along with Bush. All hail President Pelosi?
Rome Again
I sure hope the new Connecticut for Lieberman party can get him to open up hearings, like he promised when he campaigned. Somehow I doubt ol’ Joe cares about what Connecticut voters want. Six more years and Joe becomes a lobbiest.
TenguPhule
That’s Empress for Life Pelosi of the first Galactic Empire to you, Rebel Scum. :P
Tim F.
Rudy Guiliani? Bernie Kerik. Nuff said.
dreggas
And the Abortion troopers under command of Darth Gayder.
dreggas
A bit on good ol’ Rudy.
Even New Yorkers hate him. Look he may have been mayor on 9-11 but that was dumb luck and nothing else. Rudy was spoken of with as much derision as Mario Cuomo, just to give an idea of how much he was disliked. He might have been elected mayor and what not but most of those living outside the city had little love for “America’s Mayor”. He’s a total twit.
Pooh
Rudy wore a hat with both a Yankees and Mets logos, did he not? Yet he had no problem going full on Yankee love when it suited him. What a Jeter-fellating cobag…
Bruce Moomaw
At the risk of giving Tim a fatal Schadenfreude overdose, here’s Schuster’s latest MSNBC report:
“During opening arguments in the case against Scooter Libby, prosecutors outlined evidence about Vice President Cheney’s role in the leak of CIA operative Valerie Wilson that is new and will astound a number of people, even those who have been following this case. The prosecutors said the evidence will make it clear that the very first government official who told Scooter Libby about Valerie Wilson, the wife of a critic and the fact that she was working at the CIA, the very first person who told him that was Vice Ppresident Cheney. The prosecutor said the evidence will also show Vice President Cheney himself directed Scooter Libby to essentially go around protocol and deal with the press and handle press himself, that Scooter Libby should be the one talking to the press to try to beat back the criticism of administration critic Joe Wilson.
“Prosecutors also revealed today that Vice President Cheney himself wrote out for Scooter Libby what Scooter Libby should say in a conversation with Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper. It was during that conversation when Scooter Libby provided confirmation to Cooper that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA. In addition, there were some blockbuster revelations this morning about Scooter Libby’s actions before he testified to the FBI about the original leak. According to prosecutors, the evidence will show that Scooter Libby destroyed a note from Vice President Cheney about their conversations and about how Vice President Cheney wanted the Wilson matter handled.
“There was other information that came out about Vice President Cheney. The prosecutors talked about the State of the Union speech where the president made a false claim about reasons for war with Iraq — the idea that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. When that came out, and the white house was trying to figure out who should take responsibility, according to prosecutors, Vice President Cheney repeatedly urged the Director of the CIA George Tenet to take full responsibility and that no blame whatsoever should land on the president or Office of the Vice President.
“It was blockbuster developments about Vice President Cheney. This is the kind of information that supporters of the Vice President have feared would come out in this trial. The Vice President is not accused of any wrongdoing, but prosecutors are building their case, trying to give the jury a motive for why Scooter Libby did what he did as far as blaming reporters for passing along classified information when, the prosecutors allege, he learned that from the beginning from the Vice President.”
____________________
Add this to the stuff on Rove from Libby’s defense lawyers, and it all meshes perfectly with the explanation of the whole affair provided in June by Pete Yost of the Associated Press. After Richard Armitage did initially spill Valerie Plame’s identity to a reporter once — apparently entirely accidentally, since he’s always been a ferocious opponent of the Cheney clique — Rove and Libby then decided to spread it further to as many additional reporters as they could. What they did was, at that point, not necessarily illegal — but they did it during the 2004 campaign, during which the White House repeatedly publicly denied that it was doing anything of the sort, because of course that would have made them look bad in their close fight with Kerry. The plan was for Rove and Libby to both also lie to Fitzgerald and tell him that they weren’t doing it — but then Fitzgerald unexpectedly cracked the reporters involved, after Libby had already officially testified that he had done nothing of the sort, but just before Rove was planning to say the same thing about himself. Rove thus had just enough time to change his story — as the article points out, he testified privately to Fitzgerald that he had helped spill the beans to the reporters at exactly the same time that the White House, until Election Day, was continuing to publicly state that he had not done so — and so he managed to escape indictment by the skin of his teeth. The key to the whole case is that Libby perjured himself not for legal reasons, but for political ones.
Paddy O'Shea
Why Rudy G will never quite translate to Red State “values” voters.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8988625595700617579&q=Giuliani+%2B+Trump&hl=en
The Other Steve
But it isn’t wrong for the President or Vice President to out a CIA agent. Because they are the Law of the Land, and what they say is Law.
Rome Again
Cheney: the precedent of vice (as opposed to virtue).
PeterJ
Obviously since Scooter Libby has lawyers from a firm that also defends terrorists in Gitmo it’s no suprise that they use the Blame America(tm) tactic, by arguing that he’s a scapegoat for the “sins” of real Americans like Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.
Scooter Libby and the entire firm that defends him should have been put on a one way trip to Gitmo a long time ago.
SPIIDERWEB&trade:
One thing I’ll grant Libby, he ain’t stupid. If he knows where the bodies are buried, and I’m sure he does, He’ll reveal all
I think Cheney’s only chance is if he gets a pardon from Bush.
Or I could be completely wrong and OJ will take the fall. Ya never know.
dreggas
demkat620
Brownback/Santorum ’08 with George Allen for Secretary of State and Bill Frist as Surgeon General
Grrr
Gee, who could have anticipated Scooter would fail to dutifully fall on his sword like all the other previous team-players.
Keith Olbermann is leading with this, and having fun with it.
Rome Again
Dammit, hubby’s playing a video game, so I have to wait until the re-run. Got some hints?
Pb
Same here with the fiancée–I can wait, though. Maybe.
Jimmy Mack
I had to look this one up, but I still don’t see how it has to do with the Libby trial. Didn’t it turn out it was an aide to Colin Powell who leaked the whole thing?
Rome Again
Wha?
What aid to Colin Powell? Focus on Scooter Libby and then look UP! That Colin Powell thing sounds like a NewsMax rumor, that’s where you got it, right?
demimondian
I keep reading that Brokeback/Santorum ’08.
Jimmy Mack
Looked it up — Dick Armitage. Woodward says he’s the guy who first leaked it.
Rome Again
Yeah, Woodward knows, he was there, right?
Bruce Moomaw
Jimmy Mack — see my entry above (7:28 PM) on why Libby perjured himself DESPITE the fact that it was Armitage who (apparently perfectly innocently) initially leaked Plame’s identity. It’s a remarkable story (uncovered by the AP’s Pete Yost last June), but entirely in character for this administration.
Decided FenceSitter
Armitage has admittedly that he leaked it first to Novak, tried to tender his resignation and has deemed it his stupidest mistake.
Rove was the other one to leak it to Novak, and admitted to it, so is thus not under charges of perjury, etc.
Libby leaked it to others, lied about it, and thus IS under charges of perjury.
Bill Arnold
Of course, Cheney can be impeached as well—perhaps even simultaneously, along with Bush. All hail President Pelosi?
If it’s not simultaneous, then the remaining POTUS can appoint a vice-POTUS. I don’t even want to think about who Cheney might decide to appoint.
The point is that any vice-POTUS appointed by GWB is likely to be less malevolent than Cheney and therefore more acceptable as a potential POTUS if GWB is impeached.
Anyway, impeachment might happen but conviction in Senate sure won’t.