Richard Warnick“Libby was the fall guy”
Don’t believe the Fox Noise Channel (thanks to KingOneEye on DailyKos). “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, has been convicted of obstruction of justice, making a false statement to the FBI, and two counts of perjury. Libby lied under oath to protect his boss, which could now cost him one and a half to three years in federal prison.
Via The Raw Story, from “Scooter” juror Denis Collins, a former Washington Post reporter:
“It seemed like Libby was the fall guy,” the jury believed according to Collins… “What are we doing with this guy? Where’s Rove? Where are these other bad guys,” he said.
Today federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald said that he did not expect to pursue any further investigations or charges. This announcement seems to preclude the possibility of a Karl Rove frog-march out of the White House.
One of the chief bad guys, Dick Cheney, may resign soon. There has been widespread speculation that if Vice President Cheney is unable to complete his term in office through ill health he will be replaced by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. This may not be the best choice, as Rice is deeply implicated in Bush administration malfeasance.
The vice-president is under enormous stress as his policies in Iraq continue to fail and casualty figures mount… The President relies on him heavily not just to formulate policy but also as an ‘attack dog’ to take on domestic critics.
Meanwhile, GOP Senator Chuck Hagel uses the “I” word in an an interview with Esquire.
“The president says, ‘I don’t care.’ He’s not accountable anymore,” Hagel says, measuring his words by the syllable and his syllables almost by the letter. “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 how this goes.”
Is this the beginning of the end for the Bush administration? Or will “fall guy” Scooter Libby and a resigning Dick Cheney relieve the pressure for a decisive confrontation?
UPDATE: Are the necons just a tad nervous? Norm Ornstein of the American Enterprise Institute thinks that Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi should not be in line of succession for the presidency. He prefers that Bush be able to designate a Republican instead.
CORRECTION: According to KingOneEye on DailyKos, the FNC screencap above may be somewhat misleading because they actually did run their “not guilty” headline in alternation with another one that read “guilty on 4 of 5 counts.”
March 6th, 2007 at 2:49 pm
We may not see the wingnut angst out on the street, but you can bet there’ll be a lot of soggy pillows in the red zone tonite.
March 6th, 2007 at 4:54 pm
Three things that might be overlooked in the relief that finally someone in the admin is being held to account for the seemingly unending string of offense to our democracy.
1. Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson still have a civil suit moving forward. Valerie Plame was networking the nuclear proliferation issues when she was outed, undoing god knows what kind of connections in this area, setting the effort back who knows how far and possibly causing the deaths of her uncovered associates. Her outing was treasonous.
2. What pissed the admin off so much was that Wilson revealed the truth, that there was no effort on the part of Saddam to stoke up the nuke sector in Iraq. A key Lie in the march to war. A march that led to the uncounted deaths of Iraqis and probably 4000 or more Americans. Administration lies.
3. Since Libby was not only the chief secretary to the VP, but also a top advisor to the president, it is highly unlikely that MANY MORE in the admin were not privy to just how the war rational would be proped up. Get Wilson! Just like how the rational of the weapons of mass destruction appeared to be the one reason that ‘EVERYONE’ could agree on it. Shared responsibility being the key princciple here.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:27 pm
Rather than having Cheney be the attack dog, why doesn’t the Bush administration just come clean? Otherwise, there is very little possibility that the surge will work, and they are just putting off the inevitable–that their history will be the most ignominious of any presidential administration in history.
March 6th, 2007 at 5:43 pm
This administration in beyond screwed. We are the laughing stock of the planet.
The right-wing noise machine has got this country wound so tightly all you have to do is wrap a piece of toilet paper around you head and whisper “BOO” and people start peeing their pants.
And perfectly normal sweet people like Ken Bingham have been “Brown-Shirted.”
Am I missing something, or does the Brit Hume video shot prove that Fox has become the State TV station and The White House is the new Red Square?
We should just start calling Pennsylvania Ave, “White Square”.
March 6th, 2007 at 6:03 pm
Lest we forget that ‘fight to the death’ our commander in deceit proclaimed. This is only one battle. The war rages on.
March 6th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
Let’s make him, in his downed form, be the cushion for the rest of the traitors. Time to push them ALL off.
March 6th, 2007 at 11:43 pm
Cliff asks, “Am I missing something?”
The answer is “yes.” A still shot from a moving picture doesn’t tell you what words came before or after the screen shot. Shouldn’t this be obvious to any rational observer? There were 5 counts. Libby was found Not Guilty on one of them. The screen shot above seems to be referring to this count. Any honest news story must include this detail, must it not? You don’t have a point unless you can show that Fox didn’t mention the four guilty counts immediately before or after the screenshot above.
March 7th, 2007 at 9:01 am
I wasn’t watching when Brit Hume was reporting this, however the normal practice is one headline per story. It’s the scrolling headlines below that change. This is not the first time for FNC– they used a caption that read “Mark Foley D-FL” during the Foley scandal. I think it’s a deliberate tactic to confuse casual viewers.
March 7th, 2007 at 9:39 am
[...] The President and Vice President have failed to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution… [...]
March 7th, 2007 at 1:55 pm
Bradley– I added a correction based on a discussion I read today on DailyKos. Apparently FNC ran the “not guilty” headline in alternation with another one that correctly said “guilty on 4 of 5 counts.”
March 7th, 2007 at 8:59 pm
Oh Bradley,
Lets get down to brass tacks. I say Fox News primary objective is to facilitate the propaganda, disinformation, and pure lies of the Bush administration. (In fact, Rupert Murdoch uttered an affirmation of that recently)
Do you agree or disagree?
March 9th, 2007 at 11:58 am
Cliff, I don’t regularly watch Fox News. I’ve heard some silly things said by commentators on that network. The ratio of unsupportable opinion offered on Fox News is similar to what I’ve seen from other networks, based on the clips I’ve seen floating around the internet. John Gibson (Fox) seems to regularly say dumb stuff. But then, so does Keith Olberman (MSNBC).
A second point: just because you disagree with someone doesn’t make them a liar.
Richard, Thanks for the correction. It is easy to let stuff go without correcting it. You showed class.
March 9th, 2007 at 3:28 pm
Bradly,
I’m pretty sure any quantifiable comparison of the misinformation and straight up lies between Fox News and virtually any other mainstream media outlet would reveal a stark difference. Thus your casual equivocation between Fox and Olbermann can only be taken as a simple dismissal of an inconvenient truth.
Are you familiar with the Pew Study that showed regular Fox News viewers were substantially less likely to be in possession of certain facts relating to the 9-11 and the war in Iraq?
If not, let me know, I’ll dig it up for you.
I’m not trying to be argumentative here and I regret being unable to live up to anyone’s standard of “classy”, but I do feel compelled as a matter of conscience to correct the record (or be corrected) whenever engaged on issues related to justice and what some might characterize as morality.
The misinformed belief of 80% of our soldiers serving in Iraq that they are fighting al-Quaida in Iraq because Saddam was involved in 9/11 is not only immoral and embarrassing, but I think requires good Americans to work to correct a system in which a major media company (Fox) is empowered to mislead the country on behalf of elected officials.
How ’bout you?