Please stay on topic. Please don't be asses.
How did you infiltrate my dream?!?
"Madames, Monsieur, Bon Apetit!"
-Brazil-1985
YES YES!! I can bearly await the great glad tidings that Bush Bitch Boy Rove has been properly perp-walked from the White House and is ready to be skewered, roasted, and served on a platter to a federal jury. Sauce anyone! RSP
Well, I can see both points of view. Rove & Co. will likely go down. Just look at the instructive example of DeLay. I fail to see how political pressure at this point can change the facts -- there will be indictments.
I would say that Bush is safe -- no indictments there, or even naming of him or Cheney.
It's also true the Republicans will circle the wagons. Important to remember, however, that Congressional Republicans have no particular horse in this race -- they'll cut Rove & Co. loose if it appears that the damage could be extensive. They owe him nothing, and will view him as an executive branch creature.
There will, however, be no Congressional investigation into this mess. The goal of those on the Hill will be to push this thing to closure as rapidly as possible, with as little investigation as they can get away with.
Politicians are "every man for himself" creatures. Congressional Republicans will not interfere with the prosecuter because of the negative press that'll generate, particularly in light of the recent DeLay revelations. But, they'll do nothing to feed the fire.
What Tony said. Although many of the congressional repugs have benefited from Rove's tactics, when the poo hits the fan, he's George's boy.
...and this comment:
What I see is a Conspiracy Case -- a plan to smear Joe Wilson because he discredited the argument for the Iraq invasion, and because of the need to deter any further whistleblowing. Doing in Joe Wilson is not necessarily a crime -- but if you use classified information and special access only available to White House Staff -- then each and every act of that becomes an overt act in service to the conspiracy -- whether you were in on the initial planning (apparently 7 people) or whether you later adopted the plan. So there will be lots of counts of misuse of classified material, obstruction of Justice (the 4th chapter, the coverup) and probably perjury counts. I rather doubt if they use the Intelligence Identity Act -- too complex to actually prosecute when other counts are easily available.
Easily available for what end?
I think its like John Dean said early on in some of his Findlaw commentary.
What I found, in critically examining Bush's evidence, is not pretty. The African uranium matter is merely indicative of larger problems, and troubling questions of potential and widespread criminality when taking the nation to war. It appears that not only the Niger uranium hoax, but most everything else that Bush said about Saddam Hussein's weapons was false, fabricated, exaggerated, or phony.---
---So egregious and serious are Bush's misrepresentations that they appear to be a deliberate effort to mislead Congress and the public. So arrogant and secretive is the Bush White House that only a special prosecutor can effectively answer and address these troubling matters.
And what struck me as most interesting about Patrick Fitzgerald's and his case is the fact that it was a Republican congress member that picked Fitzgerald to do the job that he is now doing.
So I too, rather doubt Fitzgerald will use the Intelligence Identity Act for all the leg work that guy has been hashing over for last two years.
All this coincides with the chief nuclear inspector Mohamed ElBaradei winning the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize. And didn't that ElBaradei tell world that the US had used very obviously fraudulent evidence regarding WMD?
And taht AP source:
The U.S. attorney's manual requires prosecutors not to bring witnesses before a grand jury if there is a possibility of future criminal charges unless they are notified in advance that their grand jury testimony can be used against them in a later indictment.
And certainly Dick Cheney and George Bush haven't tesitfied before the grand jury or been asked to do so.
Fitzgerald isn't just sitting on an Intelligence Identity Act case here, it would never have taken two years to investigate only that little "mis-understanding" or bit of foolery?
Remember, folks, it is not easy to "cut and run" for Congressional Republicans. How many have given testimonials about what a "great guy" DeLay, Rove and the cabal are. I can see Libby Dole giving that speech in support of Rove right now. These are going to be on every Democratic attack ad we can throw at them and we deserve it. They are dirty goods right now.
I am the Sara of the posting above. Much of my "working through" the available evidence along with others who first met on Daily Kos is at The Next Hurrah, where we daily take apart rearrange and try to interpret the limited evidence in public domain. When the indictments come down we will have considerably more to work with -- and then even more at trial.
Yes, John Dean influenced me when he made the case last year for a Conspiracy Case -- and having once done a Constitutional Law Grad Seminar that was in both the Law School and History Department, I went back and refreshed myself on the paper I wrote on Conspiracy cases of the 1950's and their Appeals History -- and I started fitting the facts and the law together and my appreciation of Dean's suggestion was enhanced.
In a Conspiracy Case it is necessary to either indict, flip, offer a plea or immunize everyone who is party to the plan, and anyone who committed a conscious overt act in service to the conspiracy plan. If you don't, you can leave the Jury or the Appeals Court sitting there with a big hole into which all sorts of things can migrate. Fitzgerald, I would remind everyone was the Prosecutor who did the Grand Jury that indicted Bin Laden, and he was lead trial attorney in all the cases Mary Jo White did in New York during the Clinton Regime against al-Qaeda. Most of these were conspiracy cases -- and you can assess Fitzgerald's artistry by looking at the thousands of pages of trial transcript that are on line from those trials. Just last week Joe Conason reported Fitzgerald made another big catch -- he took a thread out of the George Ryan Case now at trial, moved to the case about the looting of Hollinger International by Conrad Black, and has in his sights both Richard Perle and Henry Kissinger who sit on the Hollinger Board. What he did was flip the publisher of the Chicago Sun Times who took a plea for a couple of years in the pokey and in exchange he will witness against Black, Kissinger and Perle.
Now that's art. And the guy is supposed to have once been a solid Republican. Woa Ho.
Sara, I for one would like to thank you for the 'heavy lifting' that you do for the benefit of the rest of us.
Sara, after reading all the posts over there at TPM, I must say I come down more on your side. I view Ed as overly pessimistic, and, coming from me, that's saying a lot. He seems very bitter.
I think he seriously underestimates the checks and balances inherent in the system, and overestimates the ability of those in power to get around them. They've stood the test of time -- they're 200+ years old. He also has, in my view, a tendency to view Republicans as monolithic, and, as an ex-Republican and RNC staffer, and ex-Hill rat, I think he's wrong. The Hill Republicans are not wholly owned subsidiaries of the Texas crowd.
It's true there's been a tight discipline, but that cannot and will not last under this kind of pressure. Those Republicans up on the Hill will move to save themselves once the shit really starts to hit the fan.
The Hill Republicans won power on their own in '94, and are under no sense of obligation to Bush and his crowd. Far from it. Bush's numbers are starting to tank, and while party discipline amongst Republicans will hold through much, it's not indestructable.
People up there aren't stupid. They understand that all this has an impact on elections. They also understand that they have time before the next Congressional elections. So, panic's not set in yet. But, if this din of corrupt keeps up through the winter, the pressure on Bush will grow to fix things like Reagan did.
What they will do, as I mentioned above, is not initiate anything that might make the situation worse.
SORRY FOR THE PREMATURE POST.
There is a tipping point to this thing. If Bush was smart, he would immediately begin to cut his losses NOW, as opposed to months from now. The Hill 'Rats will under no circumstance voluntarily put themselves at risk for Bush.
I agree with Ed that, ultimately, there's a certain amount of shit that you can get away with. But when everyone in leadership positions are involved in corruption one way or another, you've more than reached what that cup will hold.
I would contend it's too much. Ed says Fitzgerald won't indict because of politics -- I might be willing to accept that argument if the national Republicans had no other problems, and if we had a corrupt prosecutor. Accepting that also means accepting that Fitzgerald himself has no balls, and is willing to whitewash this thing, in addition to being personally corrupt. All of that, I think, is really reaching, given his history.
No. Ed's a little to cynical here.
Tony: I would contend it's too much. Ed says Fitzgerald won't indict because of politics
Actually, that's not what I said, but you might have gotten that impression because the links Digby provided skip my initial TPB Cafe comment in which I laid out my thoughts and provided a link to my weblog where I fleshed them out.
(My weblog post is here, and my initial post at TPM Cafe -- the one not included in the links above -- is here.)
To sum up my contention, it is that there will be indictments, they will almost certainly include Libby, but are unlikely to go any higher up the hierarchy than that, specifically, not to Rove. I say that not necessarily because Fitzgerald doesn't have (or won't have) enough evidence on Rove, but because I speculate that he will make an evaluation of what level of indictments is sustainable without calling down upon him the full wrath and power of the White House, and thereby potentially derailing his entire investigation and prosecution.
Sara's contention is that the legal case is so solid that Fitzgerald will pay no attention to the political realities and simply indict anyone he's got the goods on. I believe that's a pretty simplistic viewpoint, and that it's not possible in Washington DC to ignore political realities.
It's the specific nature of Rove's relationship with Bush that drives my speculaton -- if it were anybody else in the administration (barring Cheney), I'd say that Fitzgerald would probably feel clear to indict, because the White House wouldn't react with a nuclear response for anyone except those two (and Bush himself, of course).
So ... I expect indictments, I expect Libby, but I don't think Rove will be included, for the reasons I outlined.
Tom, I agree somewhat with you -- the Republicans on the Hill have a sufficiently large pile of problems, and they will not offend 1600 -- but they will also see resolving their own is a priority. I feel some sympathy with them -- but I am not a Republican.
No -- I am a DFL'er. The famed Democratic Farmer Labor Party of Minnesota -- and moreover, I am among the early supporters of Paul Wellstone in that famous campaign of 1990 when we spent about one million and beat a 2 term Republican Incumbant who spent eleven million. I was in on the project when the Wellstone Campaign was an answering machine and a phone in a community center broom closet -- which was all we could afford at the time. Oh yea, someone donated an early vintage Apple Computer so we could do our literature. There was no campaign kitty, and certainly no major donations -- but it worked.
I come from the land that remains solidly idealistic. I don't know how many of us during Katrina took down the old book of Wellstone memories, and re-read the words....."Politics is not about money or power games, winning for the sake of winning. Politics is about the improvement of people's lives, lessening human suffering, advancing the cause of peace and justice in our country and in the world." My Neighborhood drugstore still runs it on the zipper in the window.
In otherwords I come from the idealistic side -- but I am also a bit pragmatic. We all have to deal with a huge problem -- and we need to do it in a fashion that is Just -- and where that justice can be defended, but we also need to move forward a better debate.
Republicans need to remember it was largely Idealistic Democrats who did in Lyndon Johnson in New Hampshire and Wisconsin when he was a sitting President. We were not nuts -- we were not for Nixom -- we just had very profound problems with Johnson. There comes a time for that. Time for another power center. And then another and yet another. That is what the Bush Clan and the Rove's of the world don't understand, the object of temporal politics is not to guarentee power over generations, it is to do well while you have it.
Sara:
Do you think that the upcoming Plame indictments will be a fulcrum point in a major power shift away from Bush? Do you think they will bring down the Bush government, or render it ineffective in the way that the mid-term elections in 1994 did (temporarily) to Clinton (around the time he said "The President is still relevant")?
Ed: "the full wrath and power of the White House"?
What kind of wrath could they exert at this point? A Saturday Night Massacre? We are way beyond that point.
As a mere layperson with no insight into prosecutorial strategies or even political considerations, it seems to me that this is one of those cases that has taken on a life of its own ... at least in terms of indictments.
If it goes to trial, then I can see the full wrath and power of the White House coming to bear, but not at the grand jury phase. (I'm reliving Iran Contra right now.) We'll have indictments all right, and if I were a betting gal, I'd wager some on Rove myself. But I don't gamble, so I'll just have to play more wait and see.
I'd say Patrick Fitzgerald's past and current endeavors put him in good line for an AG pick some day down the line, perhaps by a Democratic president looking for a bipartisan gesture. His bona fides in bringing indictments against Al Qaeda and George Ryan (presumably a member of his own party) gives him way more creds even than an Elliot Spitzer, who has focused largely on corporate misdeeds. Coming next after the Plame indictments: Fitzgerald will bring charges against Mayor Daley's administration. The bodies are piling up daily (no pun).
Ed, I did understand your meaning. I went and read the whole thread. My writing wasn't tight enough to make that clear. I simply disagree with you. If Fitzgerald's got the goods, he'll do it.
As Sara has laid out, there's enough of a track record out there to show that this guy's no wimp, and not a shill.
Also, what kind of country do you think this is? If the Administration could do what you outline, there would've been no investigation at all. NONE. Just look at their activities regarding investigating the intelligence events prior to 9/11. These guys wouldn't leave this thing to chance unless they had to. Pure and simple.
Sorry, I just disagree with you.
Sara, I agree with you about the meaning of politics. I've lived in the DC area since '86. Wellstone was viewed as ineffective on the Hill. Idealism causes problems for politicians here.
I myself switched parties because of my realization of the reality of the Republican Party, and my recognition that the situation was not going to change for some time.
OK, I just wanted to make sure everyone understood my arguement.
I'm amazed that people who've lived through (or are aware of) Reagan, Bush, the Clinton persecution an impeachment and Bush II could be so unboundedly optimistic about the state of this country.
If the attitudes expressed here are endemic throughout the center-left, then I'm afraid we're setting ourselves up for a gigantic disappointment.
I certainly hope that I'm wrong, but there's really been nothing to convince me that I am.
Ed, it's not that I'm an optimist -- quite the contrary -- it's that I'm a realist. If he's got the goods, he'll do it. If he doesn't, he won't. Living here in the Washington, D.C. area, I personally know a lot of DOJ lawyers.
In all of the cases you mention, if the powers that be had their way, they would've shut down all of the investigations. They couldn't. I fail to see why you can't understand that. And the implications of that.
This country is very large and very diverse. It's very, very tough to see how anyone can control all the threads of power that're out there. The Bushies made a good run at it, and had some help with 9/11, but are now past their apogee.
In all of the cases you mention, if the powers that be had their way, they would've shut down all of the investigations. They couldn't.
They couldn't because they didn't, and they didn't because the stakes weren't high enough for them to justify the considerable costs to them of going nuclear. My contention is that a strike at Rove will be interpreted by the WH as a strike directly against Bush, so the stakes will be the highest possible.
Knowing as we do something of the nature of the relationship between Bush & Rove, I can't see where their close identification can be denied, so they only thing really at question is whether Bush really would use everything in his power to respond to such an attack. I think it's clear that he would, you apparently seem to think there would be some reticence on their part to do so, or some institutional check on their ability to do so. I think either of those possibilities is unlikely.
Certainly, this administraton has shown no particular shyness about using whatever methods it deems necessary to obtain the outcome it desires.
It's strange that you should deflect charges of being an optimist by calling yourself a realist, because elsewhere I've said almost precisely the same thing, only from the other direction: I'm not a pessimist, I'm a realist, and my interpretation of the situation seems to me (obivously) to be the most realistic.
As it happens, it's been shown that midly depressed people, who are often seen as being pessimistic, have a more accurate read on reality that do people who are happy and contented. I'm not sure which way the causation runs (if there is any), but the correlation is strong.
Ed, I would say most of Digby's readers are pessimistic about America's chances, not optimistic. The realization that the monied interests have won the game is fairly widespread around here. It is frequently noted that the Democratic Party has drifted right, and lost its ability to draw the line on important principles. Yet there are many, myself included, who are optimistic about Traitorgate, because Fitzgerald apparently has a track record of heroic deeds. Either that, or we've made him into a legend because we so badly want to see Bush fall. Still, I appreciate your point of view and recognize that we need to level-set our expectations, because almost everything at this stage is pure speculation. I would rather be pleasantly surprised by the outcome of Traitorgate, than bitterly disappointed.
Either that, or we've made him into a legend because we so badly want to see Bush fall.
I'm very much afraid that there's a strong element of that, yes.
Look, I'm human, I'm a liberal, I'd give my right arm if it would somehow help get Bush out of office. I'd like nothing more than a convenient deus ex machina to swoop in and make everything better, but I've lived through a lot of shit in my middle-aged life, and it doesn't happen that way, because it's not the world our world works right now.
For instance, no matter how many bad things that Bush does that eventually come to light, no matter how serious they are and how close to treason they become, there is precisely zero possibility of Bush being impeached as long as the Congress remains under the iron control of the Republican party.
Sure, those revelations help drop Bush's popularity and his approval ratings but we might as well get used to the proposition that absent a significant change in the power structure in Washington George Bush ain't gonna be impeached -- so putting a lot of energy into trying to make that happen is just a complete waste of time. (Not revealing what's he's done, that's very useful in many ways, but in trying to rev up some kind of impeachment movement. It's a total waste.)
Similarly, seeing Fitzgerald as our savior, whose indictments are going to in some way pull down the Bush administration, cause him to resign, or render it in some way ineffective cannot be anything more than wishful thinking run amuck.
The most that can conceivably happen is that some pretty bad people and sleazy operators will be forced out -- but they will invariably be replaced by others, probably just as sleazy, although perhaps not as adept. That's a good outcome -- doing anything which substantial hurts this administration or causes its ratings to fall is good for us, but it's not, and cannot be, the fatal blow against the empire.
I go a little farther than that, in that I give Fitzgerald credit for being a lot smarter than many others do. I see people praising Fitzgerald's art and craft as a lawyer, and his balls as well, but I think he's smart enough to know exactly how far he can go without provoking Bush to retaliate, and I believe that means drawing the line just below Karl Rove.
Maybe I'm wrong about these things, maybe Fitzgerald's a complete technocrat with no feel for the realities of power politics who just indicts any ham sandwich that comes along and breaks the law, or maybe I'm wrong about where he draws the line and Rove is in his sights, or perhaps we're all wrong and he just doesn't have the goods. But whatever happens, the results of Fitzgerald's investigation are almost certainly not going to solve our George Bush problem, and to crank ourselves up to a fever pitch believing they will is a mistake, because all it will lead to is severe disappointment.
Ed, I will agree there's no way to get rid of Bush. The only reason they got Nixon -- strange you never refer to that period, BTW -- is because he was stupid enough to tape himself doing the crime. It was so obvious that it was impossible to explain away.
Anyway, you first sentence of this paragraph doesn't make any sense to me:
They couldn't because they didn't, and they didn't because the stakes weren't high enough for them to justify the considerable costs to them of going nuclear.
I fail to see, for instance, how Clinton's potential removal from office ain't high enough stakes. Nixon is the best example of trying what you propose, and he couldn't pull it off. I fail to see why you don't understand that the checks and balances that exist are real, and are effective. There are real limits to the power that the President has.
My contention is that a strike at Rove will be interpreted by the WH as a strike directly against Bush, so the stakes will be the highest possible.
So? Bush & Co. will cut him loose if it comes down to it, in order to limit the damage.
I don't think you're being realistic at all. There are limits to the power that the Administration has. Yes, the Congressional leaders will try to help him. That's why Fitzgerald & Co. are independent of the DOJ and the Administration. That's the realist position here -- understanding that the powers that be have to work within the system as it is, and understanding how that impedes their freedom of action.
In essence, I see you as someone who's allow their disappointment in events to go to their head. They can't shut down the investigation because they can't. That's why they fought like hell to keep it from happening at all.
I suppose that you'll say you're right if Fitzgerald doesn't have the goods. He may not. He may. All the Lawyers I talk to -- and I know several DOJ grunts -- say it doesn't look good for them.
At any rate, political animal that I am, I don't really care whether or not Rove is indicted. What I care about is weakening the Administration, and putting another arrow in Bush.
That's should be the goal here, not whether or not a satrap is indicted.
Actually, I've made numerous references to Nixon and the Satuday Night Massacre, specifically, in these threads.
And why can't you see that Bush is not Clinton? It's not just a matter of what's at stake, it's a matter of how willing you are to tear the Republic apart in furtherance of your goals or in protecting your ass. Clinton wouldn't do that, Bush would.
Simple as that.
Ed, no you haven't. Do a word search on this thread. No mention. I'm the first guy that mentioned Nixon here. I word searched the TPM thread, and only one hit for you -- post number 24. And I would contend that bolsters my case, not yours.
Nixon is very clearly the model you describe -- and he lost. He would've lost anyway, even if Republicans controlled the House and Senate. Why? Because the DOJ has a level of independence -- a level of independence that has only grown as a result of the Saturday Night Massacre. Your discussion of the Saturday Night Massacre doesn't mention the political ramifications of that event. What happened there, Ed? Specifically, what happened politically?
I think if you examine the ramifications of that event, you'll see that Nixon became weaker as a result of his actions, not stronger. It also brought lots of attention to the issue at hand.
I certainly understand that Bush isn't Clinton. You don't think Clinton went nuclear?
I wish you'd describe exactly what it is that you think Bush will do if Rove is indicted. Exactly how far you think he'll go, and describe for us how you think he'll be able to escape political damage from a Saturday Night Massacre -- something, which, you'll note, is impossible for him to pull off. He can't fire Fitzgerald.
Bush & Co. aren't operating by themselves here -- Congressional Republicans will be opposed to ratcheting up the stakes for the reasons I've mentioned upthread -- they'd prefer this to quietly die.
I wish you'd address the separation of powers issue that I bring up -- it's very, very important, and the core of my argument. And something that I think you ignore completely.
At any rate, we'll soon know the outcome of this.
My friend, my orignal comment on TPM contained a specific reference to the Saturday Night Massacre -- so central that the next two comments referred to it. The post on my weblog which started the whole thing also specifically referred to that. Sara alluded to it. There have been multiple references to it since then. Don't do a word search, read the posts -- it's quite clear what I'm referring to throughout.
I don't share you faith in checks and balances, not right now. When Nixon was in office, the opposition party held Congress, and the Supreme Court was moderate to liberal in orientation -- and Nixon still went ahead and did what he did. Now, the entire apparatus of the Federal government is controlled by one party, a party that's been extremely successful at controlling its members and enforcing party loyalty. True, some cracks have begun to appear, but not nearly enough to break the wall.
"There is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in."
- Leonard Cohen
- Sorry, just couldn't resist that quote. Thanks for all the analysis you two.
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