October 24, 2005

Special council Patrick Fitzgerald is expected to announce indictments in the Valerie Plame case this week, and the Republicans are having a very jittery time, as they wait to see if Scooter Libby or Karl Rove will go down. To help you keep up with all the dirt flying around in Washington, Fitzgerald has just launched a new website: http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/osc/index.html. As the Washington Post points out, the website is not the sort of move one expects from a prosecutor who is about to fold his tent and go home. Keep an eye on new postings there relating to the bogus-WMD-story coverup/spy betrayal connection.

Meanwhile, as the Republicans continue to scratch each other's eyes out over Iraq, Presidential ineptitude, and the ridiculously unqualified Supreme Court appointment of Harriet Miers (now hard at work redoing her homework since it was sent back with a failing grade by the Judiciary Committee), some "talking points" on the possible indictments are circulating that would make Lee Atwater blush. My personal favorite: the Republicans' repeated claim that if Fitzgerald only manages to pin perjury charges on his targets, it means the investigation is unserious and there are no real crimes. Remember Monica Lewinsky anyone? Was the underlying sexual escapade a serious state matter? And the betrayal of an undercover CIA agent by her own government, in order to take revenge on her husband, is not?

The wheels are off the wagon in Washington. Rightwing think-tankers are distancing themselves from Bush. The fiscal conservatives are calling him a big spender. The social conservatives are calling Miers too liberal. The assistant to the former Secretary of State is denouncing the Cheney-Rumsfeld foreign policy "cabal" for its crazy plans to invade Iraq without just cause. It's all pretty amusing. If only this Administration hadn't driven us so far into a ditch, and if only the Democrats could figure out how to get us out of it.