"clinically incapable of understanding that mistakes have consequences"

That's from John Edwards' response to the appalling commutation of Libby's sentence by President Bush yesterday -- see the rest as all the Democratic candidates weigh in here. I also think it's worth noting that this move could be seen as further butt-covering (giving Libby no incentive to make a deal to keep himself out of jail, while not actually pardoning him and setting him free to air his thoughts that way) -- the proper response to such flagrant obstruction seems obvious...

Rove going down?!

He apparently expects to be indicted by Fitzgerald, and will resign when such an indictment is announced. That would certainly be big news!

(via Follow Me Here)

Shit inching toward fan?

I sure missed this: Fitzgerald is on the verge of presenting evidence against Karl Rove to the grand jury. Libby might not get the option of being the fall guy for the entire corrupt administration! Whoot!

What a couple years won't do!

Looks like the press has discovered the Plame scandal, now that Bush appears to be directly implicated (skip down to the newspaper headline portion of the post). Bloggers have only been talking about this for some two and a half years, but I guess that just endangering national security isn't enough -- it has to be the latest in an avalanche of poor behavior by the inner sanctum of the Whitehouse. Sorry if I sound bitter, but it's sad if we can get appropriate coverage only once the subject's polling numbers are safely in the 30% range...

In related news, the BooMan looks at what it's like to live in crazy town. These are indeed strange and unsettling times!

(partly via Medley)

A cluster of tidbits found via dailyKos

• Tom DeLay intends to stay active in politics from behind the scenes, colleagues not entirely enthusiastic...
  
  
• Jeb Bush takes first stand against national Republicans in claiming that current anti-immigrant fervor is personally hurtful.
  
  
• Democrats come up with a new strategy to go on offense on the abortion issue, using an emphasis on prevention to reveal the splits within the Republican base.

  An overwhelming majority of Americans support access to contraceptives and sex education. This bill will force Republicans to go on record: do they really want to prevent abortions, or is all their anti-abortion talk the empty rhetoric of pandering politicos?

  Now we're talking!
  
  
• In breaking news today, the ongoing Fitzgerald investigation has for the first time uncovered direct evidence that President Bush was part of the decision to out undercover operative Valerie Plame. Yowza!
  
  
• Also, via Medley (not Kos), a painful story about the aftermath of Katrina and the systematic ethnic cleansing being wrought by those in charge of New Orleans' fate.

Every day in every way....

... we're getting safer and safer and safer.

Remember Valerie Plame? How she was "outed" to undermine her husband's credibility when he disagreed with the Administration's threat assessment for Iraq? But, you know, it didn't matter, since she worked openly at the CIA in a desk job, blah blah. Except that she was undercover at the time, and her outing probably led to a radical set-back of intelligence on nuclear proliferation in Iran. Luckily, we're not worried about Iran, right? oh shit!

Karmic come-uppance for the Bushies, perhaps, and yet the degree of national damage done by these guys is shared by all of us. And they hack and hack from every direction.

(via a dailyKos diary)

Formidable opponent?

Maybe it's time for Steven Colbert to have a segment in which the Bush administration debates itself. I guess that's so Been Done...

Surreal visuals

BagNewsNotes highlights a shot of onetime Administration-critic Joe Wilson and outed CIA-agent Valerie Plame that appears to be pure fim noir staging. Really wack, as is much of the media packaging of this story.

Another shoe still to drop?

Many have speculated that Fitzgerald's continuing investigations may lead to indictments farther up the political food-chain, but attention has focused on Karl Rove. Legal expert John Dean reads between the lines of the Libby indictment, and finds many clues pointing to further indictments to come, and particularly to Vice President Cheney, although there's lots of space for legal maneuvering before things get that far...

(via Follow Me Here)

Covering the polls

CBS did another poll this week, which resulted in a flurry of coverage about Bush's new low in approval ratings, but relatively less mention of the fact that people think that the story around the CIA/Plame leak is very important. Important insights into both our fellow citizens and the media that we rely on....

(latter note via Atrios)

Missing a little Fitzmas spirit

The Washington Post points out that Libby's soft-shoe dance in the Plame/Iraq investigation worked -- that is, he may have lost his job, but Bush kept his.

In his impressive presentation of the indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby last week, Patrick Fitzgerald expressed the wish that witnesses had testified when subpoenas were issued in August 2004, and "we would have been here in October 2004 instead of October 2005."

Note the significance of the two dates: October 2004, before President Bush was reelected, and October 2005, after the president was reelected. Those dates make clear why Libby threw sand in the eyes of prosecutors, in the special counsel's apt metaphor, and helped drag out the investigation.

Sigh. Now my eggnogg is all curdled....

(via Armando at dailyKos)

One down, more to come

Libby indicted on 5 counts, including the charge that he endangered national security (what? by gutting a secret anti-nuclear operation?); official press briefing scheduled for 2pm according to Fitzgerald's website... (They also note that Cheney is not to be indicted today, but still under investigation.)

**Update** Libby resigns!
Update 2: full text of the indictment, as well as a press release summarizing the highlights, are now available in the "news" section of the Fitzgerald website.

Update 3: (paraphrase from the Q&A at the press conference) "We will be keeping a Grand Jury open to look into additional matters." Veeery interesting. Should keep the speculators in business!

Needed: new puppeteer

Many vaunted heads may be on the block when special prosecutor Fitzgerald finally announces his Plame/Iraq-related indictments, and apparently the Bush folks are making sure that replacements will be lined up and ready to go. Like ants before the boot, and yet I find little pleasure at the prospect -- would that the nation had been spared them all instead.

I never had sex with that woman!

Bush said over and over that he didn't know how CIA agent Valerie Plame got outed, and that he'd chase out anybody in his administration shown to have something to do with it. But it turns out that he knew all along that Rove was involved and was even mad at him for it for quite a while.

Surely neither the press nor our legislators will stand for having been lied to like this!

Plame scandal about to go nuclear?

Apparently a Cheney aide is cooperating with the federal prosecutor looking into the outing of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA agent, as pay-back to her husband Joe Wilson. The critical paragraph is here:

Those close to the investigation said in June 2003, Hannah was given orders by higher-ups in Cheney’s office to leak Plame’s covert status and identity in an attempt to muzzle Wilson, who had been a thorn in the side of the administration since May 2003, when he started questioning the administration’s claims that Iraq was an imminent threat to the U.S. and its neighbors in the Middle East.

Look out! Here come the fireworks!!

(via pontificator at dailyKos)

Real people, real risks

Firedoglake appears to be running nonstop coverage of the news about Plamegate -- whether Rove and other higher-ups will be caught in the prosecutorial net for outing an undercover CIA agent for political payback (see background on story here and here). Lots of folks like to dismiss this issue as political maneouvering, or as way overblown ("heck, she worked in a boring office in public view"), but today RedHedd gives a good description of how her outing affects real people and damages the national interest. It takes years to set up effective information and action networks, and to blow that all away for a moment of self-gratifying retribution (or an extra chip in some beltway game) is unconscionable.

(via Atrios)

Friday serious (or "all in one place")

Think Progress continues their impressive tradition of public service by compiling a list of the 21 Administration officials involved in the leak of Valerie Plame's CIA status -- with notes and timelines on what they knew, when they've denied facts subsequently proved, and generally what part they played in the scandal. Connecting all the dots makes a rather grim picture...

(via kos)

That gaggle is a barrel of fun

It's just tough being the front man these days...

McClellan grilled on C-SPAN

Q. ..dancing around definitional issue. You're telling us there's nothing new in what the president said today, yet you said before that someone would be fired if they were even involved in the leak. The president appears to have set up a higher bar. They are not the same thing on their face.

A. I would not read anything into it more than what the president said.

Is it warm in here, or is that just me?

Update: more on the rhetoric wars here.

Update 2: Looks like the majority of Americans think they're being misled, and that Rove should go if he was involved at all. (But who needs a majority when you already have a mandate?!) (via dailyKos)

Arianna does the math

This post at the Huffington Post pretty much nails the current state of affairs with regard to Rove, Plame, and the Whitehouse. In essence, the Bushies are relying on the formal investigation to bear the burden, rather than admitting the political (and moral) reality of Rove's action themselves, thus sidestepping once again any need to assess blame or take responsibility.

By linking the potential political fallout to the legal issue at hand, the White House can then hem, haw, and stall -- claiming that we need to let the legal system run its course -- and then hope that if special prosecutor Fitzgerald can't clear the high legal bar and indict Rove, it'll be able to claim that he's somehow been exonerated for his political sins as well.

Clever writing (go read) along the way to a serious conclusion. Maybe the newly invigorated media will really hang onto this one (even after the next court nominee hits the water) and keep the administration honest. But I'm not holding my breath.

(via Atrios)

Update: meantime Rove keeps up the attack, working a smear campaign against his critics from behind the fence...

Update2: Top Dems in House Intelligence call for Rove's clearance to be revoked.

Satisfying snark

Tom Tomorrow delivers a fact-smack to Fox "pundits" about Rove, Wilson, Plame, and what is and isn't obvious in the world.

Update: Greg Saunders sidesteps the gotcha game to point out why this is a serious issue and why we should be upset about it -- it's not the politics, it's the interruption of entire operations aimed at getting rid of weapons of mass destruction.

I don't know what's more frightening. Being kept up at night with neurotic fears about mushroom-clouds and evil terrorists, or the suspicion that the people who are supposed to be taking this fight seriously aren't having the same nightmares.