Stonewall

Hot off the AP @ 6:41 pm EDT. One of Gonzo's aide is Taking the Fifth. So when can we expect Gary Trudeau to resurrect his Watergate-era cartoons of a brick wall being built up around the White House. Hell, when can we expect Trudeau to get viciously political again? Considering that the White House Gang (2007 incarnation) are in real danger of being hauled off in leg irons, why the silence?

Anyways, the AP news release:

By LAURIE KELLMAN

WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General Alberto Gonzales' liaison with the White House will refuse to answer questions at upcoming Senate hearings about the firings of eight U.S. attorneys, citing her Fifth Amendment protection against self-incrimination, her lawyer says.

"I have decided to follow by lawyer's advice and respectfully invoke my constitutional right," Monica Goodling, Gonzales' counsel and White House liaison, said in a statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

The revelation complicated the outlook for Gonzales, who is traveling out of town this week even as he fights to keep his job and his agency's investigatory power.

The House was to vote late Monday on stripping him of his authority to appoint U.S. attorneys without Senate confirmation, similar to a measure the Senate passed this month. Bush has signaled he would not veto it.

John Dowd, the lawyer for Gonzales counsel Monica Goodling, who plans to take the Fifth, suggested in a letter to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., that the Democrat-led panel has laid what amounts to a perjury trap for his client.

Goodling, one of several aides involved in the firings of federal prosecutors, will refuse to answer senators' questions.

"The potential for legal jeopardy for Ms. Goodling from even her most truthful and accurate testimony under these circumstances is very real," Dowd said. Goodling was key to the Justice Department's political response to the growing controversy. She took a leave of absence last week.

"One need look no further than the recent circumstances and proceedings involving Lewis Libby," Dowd said, a reference to the recent conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff in the CIA leak case.

Gonzales had promised to let his top aides testify under oath before the House and Senate Judiciary Committees.

"The American people are left to wonder what conduct is at the base of Ms. Goodling's concern that she may incriminate herself in connection with criminal charges if she appears before the committee under oath," said Leahy.

Dowd shot back in a second letter that Leahy's comments were a good illustration of why testifying was "perilous" for Goodling.

"It is the politically charged environment created by the members of the committee ... that has created the ambiguous and perilous environment in which even innocent witnesses would be well advised not to testify," Dowd wrote.

Democrats allege the firings were a purge of those deemed by the Justice Department not to be "loyal Bushies" - and a political warning to other prosecutors to fall in line with the administration. Gonzales has denied that.

The news of Goodling's refusal to testify toughened an already daunting week for Gonzales, who retains President Bush's support, apparently on condition that he patch things up with Congress. There was little sign of that happening.

Republicans over the weekend lobbed new criticism at Gonzales and more Democrats called for his resignation. Gonzales, meanwhile, was in Denver on Monday, leading a round-table discussion on curbing child sex abuse. He was expected to remain out of town most of the week.

But Goodling's announcement appeared to be an unforeseen piece of bad news for Gonzales' agency, which had no immediate comment.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who is leading the Senate's investigation into the firings, said Deputy Attorney General Paul McNulty told him Goodling misled him before he testified to Schumer's panel on Feb. 6.

A day earlier, Goodling was among aides who helped McNulty prepare his testimony. Schumer has said McNulty may have given Congress incomplete or otherwise misleading information about the circumstances of the firings.

A little more than two weeks before that, she helped organize the response to senators asking whether the firings were politically motivated, the e-mails show. Specifically, she wanted to show that one of the fired prosecutors, Carol Lam of California, had been the subject of complaints by members of Congress.

On Jan. 18, 2007, Goodling sent an e-mail to three Justice staffers titled: "I hear there is a letter from (Sen. Dianne) Feinstein on Carol Lam a year or two ago."

"I need it ASAP," Goodling wrote.

She was later sent two letters, from Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., dated Oct. 13, 2005, and 19 House members, on Oct. 20, 2005, which both complained that Lam was too lax in prosecuting criminal illegal immigrants.

Additionally, Goodling was involved in an April 6, 2006, phone call between the Justice Department and Sen. Pete Domenici, R-N.M., who had complained to the Bush administration and the president about David Iglesias, then the U.S. attorney in Albuquerque. Domenici had wanted Iglesias to push more aggressively on a corruption probe against Democrats before the 2006 elections.

Iglesias told Congress earlier this month that he turned down what he believed to be pressure from Domenici to rush indictments that would have hurt Democrats in the November elections.

Gonzales' truthfulness about the firings of seven prosecutors on Dec. 7 and another one months earlier also have been questioned. At a March 13 news conference, Gonzales denied that he participated in discussions or saw any documents about the firings, despite documents that show he attended a Nov. 27 meeting with senior aides on the topic, where he approved a detailed plan to carry out the dismissals.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said Monday that Gonzales "might be accused of being imprecise in what he was saying," but maintained that the attorney general was not closely involved in the firings.

"I understand the concern. I understand that people might think that there are inconsistencies," Perino said. "But as I read it, I think that he has been consistent."

Gonzales is not scheduled to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee until April 17 - three weeks away.

"And the band played on...."

The HMS Dubya sustained even more damage over the weekend.

First,in AttorneyGate, Gonzalez got nailed by a single memo sniper shot. Despite claiming he was not involved in any discussions about the firings of the Gonzo 8, records show that on 11/27/06, Gonzalez was at an hour-long meeting to review the plan to fire the Gonzo 8.

Gonzalez probably has not earned any points by tossing his then-Chief of Staff, Kyle Sampson, under the bus, saying that all the details (of the firing) were left to Sampson. But Sampson is about to get his revenge, as he is scheduled to testify about the firings before the Senate Judiciary Community on Thursday.

The reaction to this latest revelation has been quite pointed, with several GOP senators ( saying Gonzalez should step down.

Second item- maverick GOP Senator Chuck Hegel has uttered the "I" word and taken Dubya out to the woodshed where he beat his ass like a red-headed stepchild.

I'm just going to gank from AP reports and bold the especially juicy bits:

GOP Sen. Chuck Hagel of Nebraska, a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and a frequent critic of the war, stopped short of calling for Bush's impeachment. But he made clear that some lawmakers viewed that as an option should Bush choose to push ahead despite public sentiment against the war.

"Any president who says, I don't care, or I will not respond to what the people of this country are saying about Iraq or anything else, or I don't care what the Congress does, I am going to proceed - if a president really believes that, then there are - what I was pointing out, there are ways to deal with that," said Hagel, who is considering a 2008 presidential run.

On Sunday, Hagel said he was bothered by Bush's apparent disregard of congressional sentiment on Iraq, such as his decision to send additional troops. He said lawmakers now stood ready to stand up to the president when necessary.

In the April edition of Esquire magazine, Hagel described Bush as someone who doesn't believe he's accountable to anyone. "He's not accountable anymore, which isn't totally true. You can impeach him, and before this is over, you might see calls for his impeachment. I don't know. It depends on how this goes," Hagel told the magazine.

"We have clearly a situation where the president has lost the confidence of the American people in his war effort," Hagel said. "It is now time, going into the fifth year of that effort, for the Congress to step forward and be part of setting some boundaries and some conditions as to our involvement."

"This is not a monarchy," he added, referring to the possibility that some lawmakers may seek impeachment. "There are ways to deal with it. And I would hope the president understands that."


This, Gentle Readers, is some seriously heavy stuff coming from a Senator from his own party.

And Hegel has cut through the bullshit and gone straight to the heart of the matter- that Dubya does not believe he is accountable to anyone, that he truly is the King. Congress hasn't done much to dissuade him, rubber-stamping Dubya's acts in a manner that would have made the Soviet-era Politburo green with envy. Dubya was given free reign and anyone who opposed him or countered him- Richard Clark, Joseph Wilson, etc etc- were destroyed by White House attack dog Karl Rove and his minions in a manner reminiscent of G Gordon Liddy's gang back during Watergate.

Dubya doesn't care about the Congressional elections where voters said they wanted us out of Iraq. No, instead, Dubya gives the electorate a collective "Fuck You" and instead sends more troops.

And we're supposed to get the warm and fuzzies because in Baghdad some market inside a barricade is secure enough for the US's top commander to walk around in during broad daylight. Hell, I guess that means those 3200+ dead servicepeople didn't give their lives in vain.

This is cutting a bit close to the bone, but let's be brutally honest here. This is the lie that we are continuing to be fed by this Administration. And if we're going to play that game, then let's play it out all the way. Do you want your son or your friend's daughter or the kid who used to deliver your paper being killed over this?

Of course Dubya's getting edgy and hostile. It's all on the record that he lied to launch this war and he's got a helluva lot of blood on his hands.

We keep hearing that if we pull out from Iraq, then the terrorists would be emboldened over our loss and if we don't "fight them over there, we'll have to fight them over here."

Again, I call bullshit.

Everyone was convinced that if we left Vietnam, the entire Southeast Asian peninsula would turn Red Commie and we would soon be taken over by the Red Chinese and made a slave state of China.

The sick irony? In order to fund this war, we've had to go up to our necks in foreign debt, held largely by.... drum roll, please..... China!

How's that for loving freedom, selling our future to China?

Then again, nobody in Dubya's administration is all that big on irony, so it's up to us here in BlogWorld to pick up the slack.

The Screws Turn Tighter....

The Senate Judiciary Committee followed the House in authorizing subpoenas for Rove et al.

Of course, the White House is still ripshit, and today Gonzales, in St Louis, repeated that he is no going to resign, that the President can hire or fire US attorneys, and that was nothing illegal about the dismissal of the Gonzo 8.

There was an interesting thing in Tony Snow's press briefing yesterday. There were a number of questions about the 3000 pages of documents released by the White House. In the emails that were included, there is a curious gap of 18 days during which there were no emails.

I think Snow explained it off as saying this was the Thanksgiving holiday, but.... C'mon, it's email, and this was a major political machination.

The other interesting question was whether Rove had an email address at the RNC.

So now we have both the Senate and the House standing by with subpoenas at the ready. Given the arrogance of the Administration and the belief they're above the law, it looks like there will be a showdown.

The Empire Strikes Back

White House Spokesmouth Tony Snow said essentially that if Congress issues subpoenas for LaughingBoy et al, it means they rejected the White House's offer and they are taking their ball and going home.

Finally, a couple of reporters have nailed Snow down about the question of whether or not there was a crime committed and the term "stonewalling" has been used. It's about friggin' time.

Oh, one other point- it's now come up that in the release of records by the White House, there's a mysterious 18 day gap where there were no emails.

Right. No emails were sent at all. Please, while you're down there yanking, could you maybe lick it a little too?

More on Specter & Santorum

I saw that JudiPhilly linked to my blog in her blog Truth, Justice, & Peace on my scenario where Santorum would end up as President. I admit- my scenario's a bit far-fetched, but still, possible.

What makes her blog entry interesting is the role Sen. Arlen Specter played in inserting a passage into the Patriot Act that allowed the White House to bypass the Senate confirmation process and permanently install US Attorneys without any oversight.

I haven't seen this reported anywhere. But yesterday the Senate did vote to rescind this provision, but it obviously is too late to do anything about the current situation.

Meanwhile, it is T+2 hours since the subcommittee voted to approve the issuance of subpoenas, and still no reaction from the White House. Rumors that Dubya went crack crazy and chased aides around with a Big Bertha golf club but was cornered in his office and shot with a Thorazine dart are at this point unconfirmed.....

The Die is Cast

The AP does a far better job of explaining what happened than I can, so here you go:

The panel approved, but has not issued, subpoenas for Rove, former White House Counsel Harriet Miers, their deputies and Kyle Sampson, Gonzales' chief of staff, who resigned over the uproar last week.

The panel also voted to compel the production of documents related to the firings from those officials and Gonzales, Fielding and White House chief of staff Joshua Bolton. Fielding a day earlier refused to provide Congress internal White House communications on the subject.

The full Judiciary Committee would authorize the subpoenas if Chairman John Conyers of Michigan chose to do so.


No White House reaction yet, although the AP article requoted Dubya from yesterday saying he would fight any subpoenas. El Presidente seemed genuinely confused and angry that Congress insists that all testimony be given under oath. I can understand Dubya's anger- it's not like anyone in this Administration has ever lied, right?

Right....

Stay tuned!

Smackdown Time at the OK Corral

Things have heated up with AttorneyGate. Dubya has accelerated the conflict over his aides testifying by saying he will not allow them- Rove, Harriet Miers, and their deputies- to testify under oath.

No, instead he wants them to testify "in private"- behind closed doors, not being sworn in, and no transcripts allowed of the hearing.

It is an odd battle for El Presidente to pick. "We will not go along with a partisan fishing expedition aimed at honorable public servants," Bush said.

But...but... he's allowing them to testify. Why does he not want it on the record? Especially if there's nothing to hide and what was done was within the bounds of the law.

It's just incredibly fishy, and the Dems are having none of it. Bush is further defending his actions, saying ""If the staff of a president operated in constant fear of being hauled before various committees to discuss internal deliberations, the president would not receive candid advice and the American people would be ill-served."

So in other words, he is planning to invoke Executive Privilege.

There's just 1 problem- "Executive Privilege". Going back to Watergate, Nixon claimed EP in seeking to withhold the Watergate Tapes from the special prosecutor. and the matter went before the Supreme Court. Hell, I'll let oyez.org explain the outcome:

The Court (in an 8-0 vote) held that neither the doctrine of separation of powers, nor the generalized need for confidentiality of high-level communications, without more, can sustain an absolute, unqualified, presidential privilege. The Court granted that there was a limited executive privilege in areas of military or diplomatic affairs, but gave preference to "the fundamental demands of due process of law in the fair administration of justice."

What Dubya fails to appreciate here is that this is fast turning into an investigation into a potentially impeachable offense- Obstruction of Justice- the same charge that ran Nixon out of the White House. If it is confirmed that the White House ordered these US Attorneys fired because they did not kowtow to the demand that they drop active criminal investigations for political reasons, Dubya's doomed.

What's hysterical about Bush's posturing is that after 6 years of lies from his Administration on everything from WMDs to the CIA Gulags and everything in between, he's still appealing to "the people" to trust him and and his lackeys to tell the truth.

I think this is an arcane legal manuever- if Rove sits before the Committee and lies like the egg-sucking dog we know him to be and there are no transcripts, can he still be brought up on perjury charges?

It's obvious the Democrats aren't willing to take this chance, and right now, they hold the power here. Dubya thinks he can pull Executive Privilege, and this belief is going to ultimately be his downfall. Just like Nixon, he arrogantly believes that the President is above the law, and for the past 6 years, Congress has been a bunch of dick-sucking syncophants who shamefully rubberstamped every last bit of Dubya's swill and refused to hold him accountable for anything.

Those days are over. The Sheriff is finally arriving in town.

Further Refinement of the Dubya Resignation Scenario

There's one small bit I didn't cover in my resignation scenario. Let's go over the whole thing again.

As the heat increases and it looks like impeachment proceedings are going to begin, Cheney is going to resign, citing "health reasons". But rather that heading to the hospital, a black unmarked helicopter belonging to Halliburton will whisk him away to an airfield with a private jet that will fly him to the new Halliburton complex over in Dubai. He will be protected by a private security force and by every possible layer of government that will be paid handsomely from a chunk of the $500 million that "disappeared" from the Iraq treasury. Cheney will spend the rest of his days never worried that an extradition request will be honored and he will die much like Hunter Thompson believed Nixon would die- in a bunker wearing jackboots.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch.....

Nixon...... whoops, Freudian slip...... Bush will appoint Santorum for the reasons I outlined in my previous post. McCain will also be brought into the fold and told the Secret Plan, with the warning that if he even breathes a word of it to anyone, he will be shipped back to Vietnam to spend the rest of his days in a "tiger cage" being poked with bamboo sticks.

On a viciously hot and sticky Sunday morning, while Congress is in recess, Dubya will down the rest of the bottle of a fine 18 year old Scotch that he started working on the night before and snort another line of Peruvian Marching Powder before calling an impromptu press conference to announce his resignation, effective immediately.

At a location across town, it would "just so happen" that Santorum would be having brunch with his old friends, John McCain and Chief Justice John Roberts. Santorum would get a call on his cellphone from Rove, just to chat him up a bit and to mention that he's having breakfast with Bob Woodward. The threat is clear.

They have the hostess turn on Fox News in time to see the president, his eyes wild and crazy and hair sticking up at weird angles, announcing his resignation. As soon as he utters the word "effective immediately", Roberts whips out a Bible and with the hostess as witness, swears in Santorum, who then appoints McCain to be the vice president. McCain is then also sworn in. Brutally aware of the deal and knowing if he fucks up, Rove would hand Woodward his file, Santorum pulls out the envelope sealed with wax and stamped "For Vice President Santorum's Eyes Only". He opens it up. It contains papers pardoning Bush, Rove, Cheney, and Libby already filled out and stamped with the Presidential Seal. Borrowing the hostess's pen, Santorum signs all the pardons and hands them to Roberts.

Roberts' cellphone rings. "Yeah, Karl. Good morning. How was your breakfast? Good. Yes, everything's been taken care off. Enjoy your retirement."

The deed will be done. Those folks who came to Washington claiming they wanted to "clean up" the town will flee like rats from their self-created shitstorm far uglier than the one that hit when Nixon left town.

The Democrats will howl like castrated minks, angry that once again a Republican president pulled a Houdini on them, but also knowing that they just won the 2008 election. This will be a Pyrrhic victory, as the Treasury will be bankrupt, we'll still be mired in Iraq, and the economy will be heading straight into the toilet. It will be impossible to fix any of it in one term and they know the voters in 2012 will cast them aside in favor of the other Bush scion, Jeb.

AttorneyGate, Here We Come!!

When your hero last left you and stopped posting on this blog back in Octoboer, we were mired down in a war in Iraq and we were being led by a cabal of raving idiots who were doing far more damage to our country than any terrorist could ever hope to inflict.

In 5+ months, these things haven't changed. But there's a ray of hope brought about by both the 2006 elections when finally, the public elected a Congress that wasn't merely a Politburo rubber stamp organ, as well as by the very venal criminality and arrogance of the Bush Administration.

AttorneyGate.

Now, a bit of background here. Ever since the ill-fated decision was made to invade Iraq, I've been croaking "Vietnam" just like that goddamn raven in Poe. Sadly, events over the past 4 years have borne this out.

But it's gone even further than getting bogged down in an impossible war where we've tried to fight a conventional war against an unconventional enemy without any fucking clue as to the culture and underlying hostilities that existed in the country. These hostilities were kept under control by the heavy hand of Saddam Hussein, who understood in a brutal realpolitik way that if a holy war erupted, his head would end up on a stake. Even the US agreed, and after the fall of Iran back in the late 70s, the US SUPPORTED Hussein as a bulwark against the crazed Islamic fundamentalist of Iran. But then Saddam went and screwed the pooch by invading Kuwait and we forgot all about Iran.

But I'm getting far afield. Back to Vietnam. Watergate directly sprung from Vietnam. Nixon was paranoid about his "enemies" in the anti-war movement and used whatever means he could to spy on them and punish them, including getting the IRS to go through their financial records and conduct punitive audits, having the FBI and CIA conduct warrantless wiretaps, and breaking into offices and homes to gain unauthorized access to other records.

Does any of this sound like anything that's happened, oh, in the last 6 years or so? Patriot Act, anybody? Especially now that the Justice Dept has said that the government has improperly investigated citizens without due cause or following even the lame procedures laid out in the Patriot Act.

Then there's the Plame Affair, where the Administration outed a CIA agent to punish her and her husband and for which the White House tossed loyal waterboy Scooter Libby under the bus. Just for the record, if Libby is going to end up in prison, there will be a mysterious release of incriminating evidence showing that Libby was merely playing Good Nazi in outing Plame and Following Orders sent by Rove and Cheney. This leak will eventually be traced to Libby's wife, who clearly cracked at his trial. I bet she has Woodward's cellie on speed dial and is just waiting to make that call.

And now we have the rancid frosting on the cake. In December of 2006, 8 US Attorneys were fired by Attorney General Gonzales.

The Administration at first claimed that these firings were for poor job performances, until it was revealed that all had very good recent performance reviews. Then they argued that all presidents replace the US attorneys and that this is SOP.

Except why only 8? Not only that, Clinton- who the GOP points to as the prime example- let go of ALL the attorneys at the START of his administration. Not 6 years in or after a midterm election.

The number is fishy and the timing positively sucks.

No, the reasons are far deeper and venal. 6 of the fired US Attorneys were conducting active investigations into corruption involving GOP lawmakers and there are very strong hints that the Administration leaned on them to stop their investigations during the 2006 election season and when they didn't play ball, they paid for it with their jobs.

Another of the attorneys said he was pressured to open a bogus investigation against a Democrat.

This, Dear Readers, is not only ugly, it is a crime. Obstruction of Justice. And it's a serious one.

How serious?

Here's the First Article of Impeachment that was filed against Nixon:

In his conduct of the office of President of the United States, Richard M. Nixon, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully to execute the office of President of the United States and, to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his consitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully executed, has prevented, obstructed, and impeded the administration of justice


Yes, we are talking impeachable offenses.

Now, the GOP will scream bloody fucking murder just because, well, getting a blowjob from a curvy little intern is certainly a crime, but breaking actual laws??? Perish the thought, unless one is breaking drug laws and isn't named Rush Limbaugh.

Even (I believe) Nancy Pelosi came out and uttered the phrase "Obstruction of Justice" today.

El Presidente is in serious fucking trouble. He can't duck this, because there are emails sent from Gonzalez to Rove discussing these dismissals. Odds are that a little digging will reveal emails to Dubya from Rove.

We know what's going to happen next.

A> Gonzalez has been given the equivalent of the Mafia "kiss of death" when Dubya publically came out and offered up what sounded a lot like "you're doing a heckuva job, Brownie" to Gonzalez. We know he's about to be tossed under the bus and he's going to be expected to keep his fucking mouth shut.

But there are those emails....

There will be an investigation opened up and the White House has already mumbled about "executive privilege", showing once again they have no fucking clue. The last time a President did that- Nixon- the Supreme Court ruled unanimously against him and ordered him to turn over the tapes.

See, the GOP has forgotten that this is not a monarchy or a dictatorship, but they are about to get reminded in a very harsh and rude manner.

Congress is feeling their oats. Bolstered by a public that has had it with these slimeball lying jodyfucks who've shamed our country, looted the treasury, killed 3300+ of our own troops thanks to their lies, and unleashed a hellish civil war that could very well turn into a world war, Congress is ready to move against them.

It's no coincidence that Dick Cheney is up to his nutsack in all this. He was there when Nixon came within a whisker of getting hauled off in leg irons, and he has spent the years since scheming to restore the Imperial Presidency. Well, he got his wish, but once again, he's about to get slapped again like a little prison pussy bitch.

I would say the odds are very heavy that we are going to see Cheney resign for "health reasons" and get his ass over to the special fortified bunker that has no doubt already been built for him in the Halliburton complex in Dubai. No doubt the suitable officials have been paid at least $10 million of the $500 million that "disappeared" from our aid package to Iraq, with another $10 million paid to them if they refuse to honor any extradition requests for Cheney and to just keep their mouths shut until Cheney finally dies. But until he finally passes away, he'll spend his days dictating his memoirs while naked teenage eunichs feed him peeled grapes.

With Cheney gone, Bush would appoint a new VP, somebody he could easily blackmail. My money's on Santorum. There's something creepy about him and I bet there's already a dossier with photos in Rove's desk. In exchange for making sure Santorum would pardon Dubya, Rove would make sure the file never ends up on Bob Woodward's desk.

I then think a lot of pressure would be brought to bear upon Dubya to resign and let Santorum finish out the term. Dubya's a dead man walking and a true lame duck- there's nothing he can do to salvage his presidency. Santorum's first act would be to pardon Dubya. This would bring the Right Wing Nutjobs of the GOP back on board in time for the '08 election.

Dubya would then probably end up being whisked to a compound run by the neo-Nazis up in Idaho in order to protect him against any possible commando raids by German Special Forces seeking to "extraordinarily render" Dubya's ass to The Hague to stand trial for War Crimes and Crimes Against Humanity.

I also think that Santorum would bring in McCain as VP, knowing that being associated with the pardon would completely destroy McCain's future chances at getting the GOP nomination because the GOPers would know he wouldn't stand the proverbial snowball's chance in hell at winning a general election. McCain scares the GOP- he's not always a team player, and this would be the only chance they'd have to cripple him once and for all.

This all sounds crazy and paranoid, but after Watergate, who can truly say? This scenario is the only chance they have for weaseling out of this mess with the minimal number of people getting slapped in jail.

If I had to lay odds, Libby, Rove, and one or two other minor Bushies will end up doing time, but that's it.

That's my prediction for now. Let's see what happens later this month when Leahy starts to conduct his hearings. Who will be the first to cave in and show their soft white underbelly? And will the White House make good on its threat to invoke 'executive privilege'? All signs point to yes, since they are entirely ignorant of the law.

Stay tuned!