The Next Chapter of Plamegate

As set forth by the Great One yesterday:

Get this. “Former CIA operative Valerie [Wilson] will testify next week before lawmakers probing how the White House dealt with the leak of her identity, the chairman of the panel said,” which would be Henry Waxman. “Also invited to testify March 16 before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee is Patrick Fitzgerald. Waxman said [Mrs. Wilson] has accepted the invitation and Fitzgerald has not responded. … In a letter to the prosecutor, Waxman proposed a meeting with ranking Republican Tom Davis of Virginia to discuss the terms of any testimony. The hearing will be the first public forum at which [Mrs. Wilson] has agreed to answer questions.” Two things. I don't know why Fitzgerald would testify. This hearing is taking place specifically, precisely because the Democrats didn't get what they wanted out of this, which was Cheney.

They want Valerie [Wilson] to come up there and continue the lie that she and her husband had been perpetuating, that it was Cheney who set out to get them and ruin their lives - when, if anybody ruined her life, it was her idiotic husband for coming back and talking about all this in the New York Times and getting all of this started. So two things. If there is a Republican on this committee with any brains and any spine and any onions, it is time to nail Valerie....and Joe Wilson and Waxman all at once with the contradictions and lies that are public from this couple already. I'm probably dreaming about this [indeed], because my guess is the Republicans are going to want this to go away as quickly as they can.

"Let Waxman have his time! Let Valerie [Wilson] continue to lie," but we know that Wilson's been totally discredited by a bipartisan Senate committee on intelligence. We know that a number of reporters, despite championing their cause, have facilitated the education that we've all had in the contradictions of Joe Wilson. So, the next thing is, put her under oath. What do you think the odds of that happening are? Zilch, zero, nada. The Democrats are not going to have her come up there and then be exposed for perjury herself. So just get ready for this one. The cameras will be there. This will be like the Iran-Contra hearings, folks. It's going to be an absolute zoo. [emphases added]

A few additional observations:

1) You didn't really think Plamegate was going to end with the Libby verdict, did you?

2) It might have if the Republicans hadn't pissed away control of Congress last November. Now the sky's the limit.

3) No Republican will hijack Waxman's hearings the way so many Dems did the supposed "oversight" hearings GOPers half-heartedly attempted to conduct against the Clinton administration back in the day for the same reason that the Republicans are back in the minority: fecklessness and cowardice.

4) It will never, EVER go away as long as the current Administration remains in office. Which is why this is the beginning of what will eventually become the impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

5) Never forget that, however much damage this Bushophobic jihad ends up doing, it was a self-inflicted wound.

Nothing speaks with more crystal clarity of the current dilapidation of the Republican Party, and why it is probably irreparable.