Walt Kelly:

'There is no need to sally forth, for it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.'

10.30.2005 FAREED ZAKARIA'S review of 'The Assassins' Gate': Occupational Hazards

10.30.2005 "Rich Senators Defeat Minimum-Wage Hike" Helen Thomas via Jinky The Cat

10.30.2005 James Wolcott:

In his latest flaming spear hurled from on high, Hanson says it's do or die time for Bush. Surrounded by evildoers and no-gooders, he must stand and fight. "He can choose either to be nicked and slowly bled to death in his second term, or to bare his fangs and like some cornered carnivore start slashing back."

Now I don't know about you, but I'm not comfortable with the idea of the Commander in Chief of the most powerful military in history baring his fangs and slashing like some demon possessed fresh from the Hellmouth. It's not really what the framers of democracy had in mind.

Citing 'eminent domain' Jersey City has decided to seize a few more feet of our rights and turn them over to others.
A man's business and backroom apartment is being taken so the city can give the land to a Catholic School that wants a few more yards for its football field.
It looks like the slippery slope we started down a few months ago has been fully claimed by the government and turned over to private interests.
This not only trespasses on a few amendments, but it also tiptoes into the yard of at least one "covet thy neighbor" commandment.
It is nice that in this country you can be rendered by Caesar and the Lord all at the same time, ain't it?

In other words, someone has tried very hard to keep Official A on ice, so to speak, while roasting Libby over an open Plame/Flame. Of course, that doesn't mean Fitzgerald will indict Rove, but it's the most tangible evidence that Rove remains in deep legal doo doo. If "consensus opinion" is arguing otherwise, then I suspect York is getting his consensus opinion from Robert Luskin.
...
Jane Hamsher argues that Fitzgerald's strategy -- including his decision not to hit Libby with an IIPA or an Espionage Act charge -- is all geared towards squeezing Scooter to rat out Big Time. She also quotes John Dean, who I thought was on my side, to that same effect.

Maybe -- although I'm still having trouble understanding how not charging somebody for espionage helps put the squeeze on them. Part of my skepticism, I guess, stems from the fact that we all want to believe Fitzgerald is trying to spear Moby Dick ("From hell's heart I stab at thee!") and if the neocons should have taught us anything, it's to be inordinately suspicious of your fondest dreams.

10.26.2005 Joshua Holland: "I hope I'm wrong, but I think the Democrats face a big challenge pushing their "culture of corruption" narrative: namely, they're knee-deep in it."

10.24.2005 Mark Kleiman:

A reader points me to this Josh Marshall post linking to a UPI story by Martin Walker reporting that "Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government" and inferring from that fact that "the CIA leak inquiry that threatens senior White House aides has now widened to include the forgery of documents on African uranium that started the investigation." Josh vouches for Walker's credibility, and I have no reason to doubt him.

But note that the inference doesn't follow from the fact, and is contradicted by Fitzgerald's terms of reference. Fitzgerald may well want to bring in the Yellowcake Road story to show motive for whatever crimes he charges, but the charges themselves will have to be limited to blowing Plame's cover and covering it up.

"I certainly hope that if there is going to be an indictment that says something happened, that it is an indictment on a crime and not some perjury technicality ..."

Meteor Blades: "The memory-challenged Senator perhaps forgot what she said in 1999 during impeachment of Bill Clinton, but the Internet does not forget."

See also: Trey Ellis And a collection of statements of republican senators regarding perjury, made in 1999 Kos

Charlie Cook: "All these little bitty scandals. Individually they don't amount to much. Collectively they sort of add up."

Josh Marshall wonders what it might mean for the special prosecutor's investigation now that U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty has been nominated for the number-two job at the Justice Department. I suspect the short answer is: nothing good.

WaPo

A critical early success for Fitzgerald was winning the cooperation of Robert D. Novak, the Chicago Sun-Times columnist who named Plame in a July 2003 story and attributed key information to "two senior administration officials." Legal sources said Novak avoided a fight and quietly helped the special counsel's inquiry, although neither the columnist nor his attorney have said so publicly.
...
(Judge Tatel) said the testimony of the two reporters "appears essential to remedying a serious breach of public trust."

James Wolcott: See, I'm imaging that if I'm Scooter Libby, I might be thinking that Karl and his crew overplayed their hand making me the leper, and maybe I've got some things of my own to divulge, and if I go down, maybe I won't be going down alone.

They're not going to pin this all on me.

10.22.2005 "We have met the enemy and they are us" Pogo

NYT: The federal government, vastly extending the reach of an 11-year-old law, is requiring hundreds of universities, online communications companies and cities to overhaul their Internet computer networks to make it easier for law enforcement authorities to monitor e-mail and other online communications.
...
The order, issued by the Federal Communications Commission in August and first published in the Federal Register last week, extends the provisions of a 1994 wiretap law not only to universities, but also to libraries, airports providing wireless service and commercial Internet access providers.
...
It also applies to municipalities that provide Internet access to residents, be they rural towns or cities like Philadelphia and San Francisco, which have plans to build their own Net access networks.
...
The universities do not question the government's right to use wiretaps to monitor terrorism or criminal suspects on college campuses, Mr. Hartle said, only the order's rapid timetable for compliance and extraordinary cost.

The real story of last weekend's Judy Miller revelations is not what Scooter Libby may have told her about Joe Wilson's wife. It is how Libby clearly, and unequivocally, misrepresented the contents of the classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) about Iraqi WMD

10.21.2005 John Dean throws some cold water in our faces:

In short, 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 next week, 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. Unless, of course, these folks were foolish enough to give false statements, perjure themselves or suborn perjury, or commit obstruction of justice. If they were so stupid, Patrick Fitzgerald must stay and clean house.

10.20.2005 Jane Hamsher:

As rumors swirl that key NeoCons are frantically speed-dialing their lawyers in PlameGate, it's important to remember that if and when Richard Perle gets handed an indictment from Patrick Fitzgerald he is the only one we know of who will have to ask -- in what case?

In his day job as US Attorney in Chicago, Fitzgerald is also looking into Perle's activities on the board of Hollinger International, one of the country's largest media empires.

10.20.2005 "The Most Important Criminal Case in American History"

10.20.2005 "The So-called "Lies" of Joe Wilson" by Larry C. Johnson

10.20.2005 "Leave the dopers alone" By Norm Stamper

10.20.2005 "There's something big coming in this city (Chris Matthews)"

10.19.2005 ‘Cheney cabal hijacked US foreign policy’ via Josh Marshall

In a scathing attack on the record of President George W. Bush, Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, chief of staff to Mr Powell until last January, said: “What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.

video here

10.19.2005 NY Daily News

An angry President Bush rebuked chief political guru Karl Rove two years ago for his role in the Valerie Plame affair, sources told the Daily News. "He made his displeasure known to Karl," a presidential counselor told The News. "He made his life miserable about this."

10.18.2005 AP:

Plame, Wilson's wife, never worked for WINPAC, which is on the overt side of the CIA. She worked on the CIA's secret side, the directorate of operations, according to three people familiar with her work for the spy agency.

Individuals familiar with Fitzgerald’s case tell RAW STORY that John Hannah, a senior national security aide on loan to Vice President Dick Cheney from the offices of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, John Bolton, was named as a target of Fitzgerald’s probe. They say he was told in recent weeks that he could face imminent indictment for his role in leaking Plame-Wilson’s name to reporters unless he cooperated with the investigation.

Others close to the probe say that if Hannah is cooperating with the special prosecutor then he was likely going to be charged as a co-conspirator and may have cut a deal.

10.18.2005 Cenk Uygur: "The Real Target of the Valerie Plame Leak: Valerie Plame"

We don’t know how much of Plame’s work was about the Iraqi weapons programs. And we don’t know what she thought of the intelligence on Iraq. But if I was the prosecutor in this case – or the jury – I’d want to know if the people who outed Plame did so to prevent her doing further work on this topic, voicing further dissent within the government or acquiring more information.

A federal appeals court in Washington had ruled that the government could not pursue the $280 billion, the most ever sought in a civil racketeering trial. Then-appeals court Judge John Roberts had recused himself from the case there, without giving a reason. Roberts, who is now the chief justice, participated in the case at the Supreme Court.