I always thought both Bush and Cheney were in on the plan, but I'm really shocked that they have records of the conversations. If Watergate taught Republicans anything--and I guess maybe it didn't--it should be "don't record any of your plans." It's Mafia 101, people!
Posted by dj moonbat at October 2, 2005 11:06 AM, but I'm really shocked that they have records of the conversations.
I'm not surprised. He got away with it once already, aa he has all three branches of the government in his pocket, then and now.
Bush did this in 1999, in Texas. He sandbagged an ongoing investigation of funeral giant Service Corporation International, was personally involved in shutting it down to save a big contributor, and paid no price.
He's laughing -- in his few sober moments -- at us.
Posted by Davis X. Machina at October 2, 2005 11:22 AMAt this point in time, with much of the public already sympathetic to the possibility that the President might be in impeachment territory over the run-up to Iraq, for the GOP to fail to impeach over something of this magnitude will be extremely damaging to them. This is presuming, of course, that an indictment implicates the President and Vice-President.
It's really time that the GOP did the right thing. But I somehow doubt it's in their makeup.
Posted by Jonathan at October 2, 2005 11:30 AMIt's really time that the GOP did the right thing.
Martial law?
Posted by dick cheney at October 2, 2005 11:37 AMBefore you all get the champagne on ice.....
Remember how many times previously that we have gotten our panties all damp thinking that "this time" they will finally get theirs? How many times has that worked out so far? Hmmm?
GOP congress only impeaches important stuff, like blow-jobs....
(Yawn) Wake me when the articles of impeachment are filed.
Posted by The Spoiler at October 2, 2005 11:38 AM(Yawn) Wake me when the articles of impeachment are filed.
Welcome to the One-Party State.
Even Marion-Barry quality evidence wouldn't move the House Judiciary Committee to act.
Posted by Davis X. Machina at October 2, 2005 11:57 AMThe GOP congress is NOT going to impeach Bush. Impeachment would then be the central issue in 2006 as in 1998, when the attention they generated against Clinton backfired and resulted in small Democratic gains. There is no way a GOP president being impeached by a GOP congress could be spun into a positive light. In short, they are stuck with him until 2009.
The point is to provide an alternitive starting next year, the whole machine needs to be exposed for what it is so that the voters will see the connections between all the scandals. The political process in this country has been warped off its democratic axis by the merging of disloyal transnational corporations through the K Street project and the selective using of morals to advance certan values but not others. This is not several little scandals, it's all tied together.
Delay, Bush, Cheney, Abramoff, Reed-It's time to clear the moneychangers out of the temple!
Posted by rlp at October 2, 2005 12:16 PMI agree with the Spoiler's assessment.
I don't think anything would cause the right wing base to turn on its own, and I don't think that any member of the Republican Party will turn on Bush/Cheney.
Sure, a few of them may make some critical remarks in public, but when it comes time to vote or to go on TV to smear a Democrat, they will rush to do the Great Leader's bidding. With eagerness. Without shame.
Posted by James E. Powell at October 2, 2005 12:24 PMmy last link which dealt with poverty did not take here it is.
The GOP congress is NOT going to impeach Bush. Impeachment would then be the central issue in 2006 as in 1998...
If the grand jury lists Cheney and Bush as unindicted conpsirators, the temptation in the House will be pretty strong to do something. After 2006, two years of hearing "unindicted co-conspirator George Bush" would start to scare me if I were a congressman, especially if some or all of the indicted conspirators ended up being convicted in, say, mid/late 2007. (Which would be a pretty realistic timeline for a complex conspiracy case winding through the federal courts.)
Yes, they've gotten where they are with unity and aggression. But you would be seeing GOP approval numbers in the teens at that point. The Dems would no longer have to deal with cries that they had no agenda of their own; their agenda could simply be a promise to investigate all the administration's other crimes. Washing their hands of Bush and Cheney might start seeming like a pretty good idea.
Posted by dj moonbat at October 2, 2005 12:28 PMI posted this identical message on Kos, and I'm going to repeat it here because I think folks really need to think this through.
Don't count your chickens before you hatch them.
Stephanopoulos doesn't know jackshit, which is where this talk specifcally about Bush and Cheney is coming from today. All this talk is way too premature. If Stephanopoulos knew anything, he'd have made a report instead of making a talking point around a Sunday talking heads show. This idiot Stephanopoulos blabs some rumor, and then we're talking about constitutional crisis like it's a done deal.
Yes, we can easily see who reports to who in the White House, where this chain of command leads. Yes, we know Bush hired himself an attorney, and Cheney, too.
But don't for a moment think anyone who is not Fitzgerald or who is not sitting on that Grand Jury actually knows jack about how this is going to end up.
I'd post this on the other threads, too, but everyone's so abuzz over this they're not really thinking out the source.
Jesus, journalism has sunk so low that a freaking rumor from a guy who isn't even actually a reporter qualifies as valid information. Unbelievable. This is what Fox News and worse has done to the networks and the news.
Posted by Brian Bell at October 2, 2005 12:41 PMI dunno. Stephanopolous claims he has a source.
Posted by dj moonbat at October 2, 2005 12:46 PMYeah, his source is Sidney Blumenthal.
Posted by Mr Damage at October 2, 2005 01:20 PMIt's really time that the GOP did the right thing.
And ruin their track record? Hell will freeze over before Georgie and co. are impeached, although the very thought stimulates my primeval sexual instincts.
dick cheney is on to something in his comment!
Could it be that we are headed for martial law? All the scandals spiral out of control and in an effort to retain both houses in 06, he declares this dastardly deed. In 08, bu$h will declare for the good of the country and to fight the global war on terrorism he needs to stay on as the pre$entnut.
I'm not conspiracy believer, I'm not a conspiracy believer...
bbtb, I think Bush is tired of being President. He's bored, he needs another business to destroy. Cheney's too old, sick and mean to run. I do agree that there has been a tireless march to the militarization of the country and martial law is not something I would rule out the Rep leadership trying. I don't see the GOP lead congress moving to impeach one of theirs, no matter how corrupt, in this lifetime.
Posted by ann at October 2, 2005 02:05 PMYeah, his source is Sidney Blumenthal.
Then at least we know the story was told with good style. Sid writes pretty well.
Posted by dj moonbat at October 2, 2005 02:16 PMFitzgerald& Co. are in grave peril if the have any evidence that Bush and Cheney were involved. Of course they were involved, along with Rove, buy I can't imagine indictments being handed down. Libby didn't go off half cocked without Cheney knowing exactly what was being done to further the neocon agenda. I can see however, the gangsters in the WH leaving wonder boy out of the loop. Then again,......
Posted by Judith at October 2, 2005 02:46 PMAlmost forgot, kudos for the column change, very nice reading!
Posted by bbtb at October 2, 2005 03:29 PMI wonder if I'm the only reader who finds the wider text column hard to read for your main posts. I found the narrower col7umn easier to read, and I wish you'd return to it.
Posted by theologicus at October 2, 2005 04:33 PMOh for Christ's sake people.
Everyone knows deep in their hearts that these fuckwads sat around deciding how best to ratfuck Wilson.
Bush and Cheney were the ringleaders.
Of course they were in on it!
If you believe anything else I've got a bridge......
Posted by Vinnie at October 2, 2005 05:15 PMwith regards to George Stephanopoulos' remark today, I am reminded of Jack Cafferty's recent Sept 21 off the cuff remark on CNN:
BLITZER: All right. Tom DeLay says there's no pork, everything is essential. I don't know if you heard him say that.
CAFFERTY: Has he been indicted yet?
And a week later Delay's indicted.
after reading numerous news articles and blogger posts on the Plame affair/Traitorgate/Plamegate, I am convinced that something big is going to happen this month when Fitzgerald issues indictments, and I don't see why what Stephanopoulos suggests couldn't be true. It's a good story whether it turns out to be true or not, and gets my hopes up that somewhere somehow these neo-con monsters are going down.
The Vice President can be indicated. The Grand Jury will indict if the evidence is there. These people are not invincible... they are not above the law. Ours is a government of LAW. If we don't have that, we have nothing.
The conspiracy to coverup, obstruction of justice theory has been around for some time... lil' Geo Step is not the first to think of it or mention it.
Of course we have to see where this all goes, but Fitz has to go with the GJ... if they believe the evidence is there...
If Cheney is indicted and removed, a new vice president can be named, must be approved by Congress... there are rumors online of a putsch, of McCain being named. Not that I'm thrilled with him, but considering what there is to pick from...
Any, it is not impossible, in fact there is a good chance the GJ will carry this to the top... I hope for that, not because of what a talking head says, but because this (mis)administration lied us into an illegal, immoral war and I want to see them punished for it.
Posted by Crone at October 2, 2005 05:56 PMVinnie, of course you're right. We all know it. In fact, I am sure Rove and Bush put their collective evil minds together and came up with the idea. We all know how revengeful Bush is.
Posted by Judith at October 2, 2005 07:44 PMHaloscan.com has an interesting article. I guess Richard Perle is out of the loop now, and Kissinger has a few problems also.
Judy is not the main course at all. What I suspect Fitzgerald had to do was eliminate the defense, namely that Miller and Cooper and other reporters were the source of the identity of "Wilson's Wife" as CIA NOC. Remember we have already been through this defense as PR over the past couple of years -- Wilson's wife scrubbed floors at CIA, she was a lowly secretary, an apprentise in the Directorate of Intelligence -- she ran the travel bureau -- defenses that would all exclude her identity as a NOC. I suspect that is what transpired today, so Fitzgerald's positive case can now emerge.
Following a link from Laura Rozen it looks like Fitzgerald has another target of interest (or maybe two). I gather this was a minor line out from his Ryan case (that just started trial), but he interveaned in the case against Conrad Black and Hollinger International, flipped the current Publixher of the Sun Times, and nailed two members of Hollinger's board -- Richard Perle and Henry Kissinger. Apparently the Sun Times Publisher has taken a plea agreement (two years in Jail) and will be a witness against Perle. Kissinger's consultancy firm has apparently paid a very large fine (more than a million) but he is still a potential target.
Brian Bell,
I agree with your comments. I think it is very premature to assign any major significance to GS's comments in this week. It might lead to something, but there is so much uncertainty, that it is difficult to make anything of it.
Posted by Bad Ass at October 2, 2005 10:32 PMAs pleasant as the thought is, no impeachment will occur until Democrats reclaim the House and Senate. The other problem is that this may cause wavering red stater’s to feel sorry for the brain damaged Georgie. They have a particular penchant for persons in a persistent vegetative state. I don't believe it is humanly possible to feel sorry for Cheney.
Posted by tempus at October 3, 2005 02:15 AMTwo of the most vindictive and revenge-minded men in America are Bush and Cheney. I have no doubt that one or both of them approved,if not instigated, the Plame outing to get Wilson, discredit his report. Rove is sharp enough to build a firewall, but he is also arrogant enough to think he didn't need to. Once again, I have to say it is impossible to believe that Fitz would name, much less indict, either of the top two.
Posted by T2 at October 3, 2005 06:53 AMFor those who are skeptical about sourcing, consider. Brian Bell is wrong when he claims no one but Fitz knows what Fitz is thinking. He forgets that there are almost certainly people who have flipped--there'd have to be if Fitz was even considering naming Bush and Cheney. And those people who flipped would obviously know the jist of what they were testifying to. Now further consider, of all the people we know to have been involved in WHIG, one has noticibly dropped from the White House payroll--Mary Matalin. In fact, it was announced that she would consult on the 2004 campaign in January 2004, right after she testified and right at the time when Fitz was looking for flippers. AFAIK, Matalin never did the consulting it was announced she would do. Instead, she went and wrote a children's book, got herself a gig in publishing.
Now, consider who Matalin could legally speak to of her testimony to the GJ. Her attorney, sure. But her conversations with her husband would also be protected speech. Her husband, I might add, who had a source that said Bolton had testified before the GJ. Now perhaps after her husband was tangentially connected to a known witness in this case, Novak, storming off a TV set swearing, perhaps he has decided to take a lower profile.
But that doesn't mean Matalin's husband wouldn't still have the best source available, and it doesn't mean he might not share insights from that source with former friends and associates.
Posted by emptywheel at October 3, 2005 06:53 AMCHUCK HAGEL in 2008!!
Posted by JV at October 5, 2005 08:40 AM