Pat Fitzgerald's Snipe Hunt
When I was in high school we had a good-natured sophomore (high schools weren't four-year in those days) initiation ritual in which sophs were tricked, and in some cases required, to purchase elevator passes from upperclassmen. This may not sound like much in the way of hazing until you realize that our high school didn't have a second floor.
That's what has always struck me about this Valerie Plame investigation - it is the prosecutorial equivalent of those elevator passes. It is, and has always been, a probe in search of a crime.
It was established back in '03 that the statute Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Bush Deputy Chief of Staff and Cheney Chief of Staff respectively, were initially accused of having violated in the so-called "outting" of this "covert CIA operative" - the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 - did not and could not apply even if either man had "leaked" her name with malice aforethought, since she had not been covert or on overseas assignment since 1997. By the summer of 2003, when the alleged "outting" took place, Plame (aka poor ol' Mrs. Wilson) was outside the five year reach of the IIPA. This explains why special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald sought a broader investigatory scope from DOJ within sixty days of his being handed this assigment.
You might wonder why he did this given that his initial imprimatur was nothing but a dry well. I don't. Sharks eat, swim, and make baby sharks; prosecutors eat, sleep, make baby prosecutors, and, well, prosecute. And when an SP runs out of material less than sixty days into a grand jury probe, s/he doesn't fold up shop, but dons his/her lucky fishing hat and goes angling.
The Espionage Act of 1917 isn't even worth discussing in this context. It's lack of applicability to such matters was why the IIPA was enacted in the first place.
What happens when a probe is lengthened and lengthened and lengthened? Easy - more and more people testify under oath, and the possibility of an inadvertent omission or misstatement grows exponentially. That would seem to be the only thing on which Fitzgerald could indict anybody, since the Bush White House has been so obsequiously cooperative that any suggestion of conspiracy or obstruction of justice would be bad comedy.
So that brings us to this week, the week the Bushophobic Left has been waiting for for five years:
And it will, you know. At least in their minds. Because libs are so haplessly solipsistic, they are incapable of grasping that what they are sure, just positive, HAS to be true might not actually BE true after all. They inhabit a self-created ideological preserve that I like to call "The Land of Make-Believe," where all their wishes come true through sheer force of want. We saw it throughout the 2004 election cycle when every last lefty insisted that George Bush was going down; when Dan Rather produced his "fake but true" Texas Air National Guard memoes; when Eason Jordan spun his slander about U.S. soldiers "targeting" Western journalists; when Newsweek ran its story about phantom Koran flushings at Gitmo; all the urban legends that came pouring out of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, including the state/local bungling that was hung on the President; and now "George Bush's Watergate."
You would think that all the rakes the Extreme Media has stepped on in the past year alone would have taught them a modicum of professional discretion. Guess again. These people are acting as if the complete undressing of "Yellowcake Joe" Wilson and "the spy who loves him" never happened. As if the Senate Intelligence Committee report on this matter was never issued. As if Rove and Libby were Haldeman and Ehrlichmann. As if Cheney were Agnew, and you get my drift. As far as the press is concerned, the script is written.
Reality, as has been the case for some time now, is another rake:
Score one for Roll Call.
That isn't to say that ham sandwich indictments might not be announced tomorrow or Friday, I guess. But given that, "The same anonymous lawyers told the Times that Libby might be subject to a perjury charge as the hand-written notes conflict with what he initially told the grand jury," and mixing that construct with the quite high perjury threshold established by the investigations of the Clinton administration's various and sundry scandals, and then figuring in that there was no central crime committed vis-a-vie the Plame "outting," it's difficult to see what the substantive purpose of pursuing any such irrelevant tangents would be. Assuming, of course, that any actually exist.
There could certainly be a purpose to it - Fitzgerald making a name for himself alongside Lawrence Walsh in the Run Amok Persecutor Hall of Infamy and becoming an instant and lifelong hero of the Left. But that MO doesn't gibe with what his professional colleagues, including the right-wing ones, say about his character.
And there is one other possibility that has been conspicuously absent in a media orgy of anticipatory ecstasy that surpasses Pamela Anderson giving lap dances at an eighth-grade boy's birthday party:
That's from John Dean, folks, the then-White House insider who ratted on President Nixon and became at least a short-lived hero of the Left.
Yeah, it'd kill spirits in the newsrooms, editorial desks, and lib websites flatter than the bubbly in the Houston Astros' clubhouse and expose the whole rotten pack of baying jackals ***AGAIN***, but if Friday comes and goes with nary a whimper, don't feel sorry for them. (1) They're incapable of shame, and (2) they'll still have Iraq-nam to kick around the Land of Make-Believe.
And they'll have a new Public Enemy #1: Patrick Fitzgerald, new mastermind of the "Plamegate coverup."
If you never want to see posters or JPEGs of PF's head emerging from the President's ass, you have been warned.
That's what has always struck me about this Valerie Plame investigation - it is the prosecutorial equivalent of those elevator passes. It is, and has always been, a probe in search of a crime.
It was established back in '03 that the statute Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Bush Deputy Chief of Staff and Cheney Chief of Staff respectively, were initially accused of having violated in the so-called "outting" of this "covert CIA operative" - the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 - did not and could not apply even if either man had "leaked" her name with malice aforethought, since she had not been covert or on overseas assignment since 1997. By the summer of 2003, when the alleged "outting" took place, Plame (aka poor ol' Mrs. Wilson) was outside the five year reach of the IIPA. This explains why special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald sought a broader investigatory scope from DOJ within sixty days of his being handed this assigment.
You might wonder why he did this given that his initial imprimatur was nothing but a dry well. I don't. Sharks eat, swim, and make baby sharks; prosecutors eat, sleep, make baby prosecutors, and, well, prosecute. And when an SP runs out of material less than sixty days into a grand jury probe, s/he doesn't fold up shop, but dons his/her lucky fishing hat and goes angling.
The Espionage Act of 1917 isn't even worth discussing in this context. It's lack of applicability to such matters was why the IIPA was enacted in the first place.
What happens when a probe is lengthened and lengthened and lengthened? Easy - more and more people testify under oath, and the possibility of an inadvertent omission or misstatement grows exponentially. That would seem to be the only thing on which Fitzgerald could indict anybody, since the Bush White House has been so obsequiously cooperative that any suggestion of conspiracy or obstruction of justice would be bad comedy.
So that brings us to this week, the week the Bushophobic Left has been waiting for for five years:
On the salivation scale, this past week has been a veritable drool-fest for those who inhabit the newsrooms, editorial desks, and websites making up the liberal media world. The Sunday talk shows were awash in liberal glee; a level of happiness not seen since before a certain blue dress avoided a trip to the cleaners.
With perennial whipping boy Tom DeLay possibly on his way to the woodshed, Dr. Bill Frist's finances under examination, and good soldier Harriet Miers taking friendly fire, liberal hopes are at a new high. But the real cause for jubilation is the anticipation that special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's probe into the Valerie Plame affair will lead right up to the doorsteps of Bush puppet-masters Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.
And it will, you know. At least in their minds. Because libs are so haplessly solipsistic, they are incapable of grasping that what they are sure, just positive, HAS to be true might not actually BE true after all. They inhabit a self-created ideological preserve that I like to call "The Land of Make-Believe," where all their wishes come true through sheer force of want. We saw it throughout the 2004 election cycle when every last lefty insisted that George Bush was going down; when Dan Rather produced his "fake but true" Texas Air National Guard memoes; when Eason Jordan spun his slander about U.S. soldiers "targeting" Western journalists; when Newsweek ran its story about phantom Koran flushings at Gitmo; all the urban legends that came pouring out of New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, including the state/local bungling that was hung on the President; and now "George Bush's Watergate."
You would think that all the rakes the Extreme Media has stepped on in the past year alone would have taught them a modicum of professional discretion. Guess again. These people are acting as if the complete undressing of "Yellowcake Joe" Wilson and "the spy who loves him" never happened. As if the Senate Intelligence Committee report on this matter was never issued. As if Rove and Libby were Haldeman and Ehrlichmann. As if Cheney were Agnew, and you get my drift. As far as the press is concerned, the script is written.
Reality, as has been the case for some time now, is another rake:
The Financial Times is reporting that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is expected to announce indictments in his CIA leak investigation on Wednesday.And what actually happened? Nothing. Fitzgerald met with the grand jury for three hours this morning and they called it a day at lunchtime.
But rumors published in Roll Call today contemplate an extension of the investigation by Fitzgerald.
Score one for Roll Call.
That isn't to say that ham sandwich indictments might not be announced tomorrow or Friday, I guess. But given that, "The same anonymous lawyers told the Times that Libby might be subject to a perjury charge as the hand-written notes conflict with what he initially told the grand jury," and mixing that construct with the quite high perjury threshold established by the investigations of the Clinton administration's various and sundry scandals, and then figuring in that there was no central crime committed vis-a-vie the Plame "outting," it's difficult to see what the substantive purpose of pursuing any such irrelevant tangents would be. Assuming, of course, that any actually exist.
There could certainly be a purpose to it - Fitzgerald making a name for himself alongside Lawrence Walsh in the Run Amok Persecutor Hall of Infamy and becoming an instant and lifelong hero of the Left. But that MO doesn't gibe with what his professional colleagues, including the right-wing ones, say about his character.
And there is one other possibility that has been conspicuously absent in a media orgy of anticipatory ecstasy that surpasses Pamela Anderson giving lap dances at an eighth-grade boy's birthday party:
I cannot imagine any of them being indicted, unless they were acting for reasons other than national security. Because national security is such a gray area of the law, come [Friday], I can see this entire investigation coming to a remarkable anti-climax, as Fitzgerald closes down his Washington Office and returns to Chicago. In short, I think the frenzy is about to end - and it will not go any further.
That's from John Dean, folks, the then-White House insider who ratted on President Nixon and became at least a short-lived hero of the Left.
Yeah, it'd kill spirits in the newsrooms, editorial desks, and lib websites flatter than the bubbly in the Houston Astros' clubhouse and expose the whole rotten pack of baying jackals ***AGAIN***, but if Friday comes and goes with nary a whimper, don't feel sorry for them. (1) They're incapable of shame, and (2) they'll still have Iraq-nam to kick around the Land of Make-Believe.
And they'll have a new Public Enemy #1: Patrick Fitzgerald, new mastermind of the "Plamegate coverup."
If you never want to see posters or JPEGs of PF's head emerging from the President's ass, you have been warned.
posted by JASmius at 4:28 PM
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