I'm Hungry For The Next Development in the Plame Investigation

[Stevendsmith]

Bring it on! I'm almost obsessed with this case!

Why I am optimistic:

Since the identity of the "leaker" (criminal) is known to several columnists, I would think the administration cannot offer up a false fall guy. Is there something I’m missing here?

Why I am pessimistic:

BushCo gets away with everything, so why should this be any different?

I doubt that Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, or any other high-profile member of the administration would be so foolish as to make these calls to journalists themselves and not have underlings do the dirty work. I would think they would cover their own asses.

Then again, hubris can make even the most intelligent individuals do incredibly stupid things. Republicans, invested with their own sense of righteousness, have made many stupid moves in the past.

What do you think?

Do you foresee this case resulting in major damage to the administration (e.g., criminal charges brought against a high-profile senior administration official, triggering a major scandal that will have a major, if not fatal, impact on Bush's election bid for '04)?

I just have no gut feeling for what the outcome will be.

[TacticalPeek]

1. Famished. Starving. Like a fast.

But after the fast, the feast.

:evilgrin:

[eleny]

2. I share your optimism

I have the feeling that this scheme for immigrant guest workers may be the rusty nail that Karl Rove finally stepped on. It hasn't had the overwhelming support that most other Bushisms have enjoyed. No rallying to the president's "wisdom" in all matters. People are leaping out from the right wing draperies and they're angry.

So, if Karl Rove is behind the Plamme affair, perhaps this latest knucklheaded scheme is evidence that he's off balance these days and grabbing at straws for support? Maybe it reflects how off notch they are these days. And to me, it all started with the Plamme outing. That was the start of the downhill on skates slide. Even the Iraq war lies don't get criticism from the right. Too much money to be made, I suppose. But outing Plamme suggests something too personal that could negatively affect the nation's security. And that ranks right down there with cutting the cheese at your daughter's wedding because you maybe don't like her guy.

These are just my noodlings. But I believe that Rove masterminded the Plamme scheme. And now, his machinations don't cut the mustard. I have hope that he'll become a liability soon enough. And perhaps expendable. Shrub has got to have an ego that big, IMO.

[interceptor]

3. I read the other day...

Let me see if I remember correctly. They offered waivers to press confidentiality to all of the White House staff members. If "someone" doesn't sign it, hooray that's him, but who's going to be that stupid? Next, they press the press for the identity, but the record of journalists giving out names under subpoena is zero so far as I know. This is apparently the boiler-place method of investigation for press leaks. But then we also never found who was leaking intelligence to the press from Congressional staffs at the beginning of 2001, either.

So I see it being stalled and not that big of a deal nationally. Non-Democrats have a short memory for these things, remember, and this thing will be well over two years old come November. If inflation balloons like some people are saying it will, that'll have more of an effect than this.

Supposing we do get to the bottom of it, I seriously doubt we'll find something explosive like "Karl Rove did it." But perhaps we'll find something else. Remember, most historians agree that Nixon didn't start or plan the Whitewater break-in and thought it was stupid when he heard it had happened, but he did try to cover it up and stop the FBI from investigating! If we find some dude in the White House who got bored and said "Psst, Valerie Plame is a CIA employee," that's not that big of a deal other than said dude is guilty. It doesn't really mean much more than that unless you can prove complicity above. But if there's scheming above in protecting said individual, then you have something.

[HFishbine]

7. "Karl Rove did it."

Stay tuned. I suspect that's exactly what they'll find.

[Malva Zebrina]

4. just a natural skeptic

so please do not take this personally. I do not think this will go anywhere. My logic is that if Bush can invade a defenseless country on pretext, and lies, and he can kill thousands of innocent people in the process, and he can seize this country's resources and it's livlihood for his buddies to make them rich while seemingly not to care about the almost five hundred of our young people who have been killed, actually criminally murdered if one considers the lies this coward of a man invented in order to be the "war president" and all of the other things that are simply evil and too egregious to consider and too shameful for this American citizen to consider at all

Well, if no one is challenging this idiot on this terrible, terrible act of, actually treason, since he lied to his own people--instead we hear that is is perfectly OK--Saddam was captured!!! and so, Bush was right!!! Saddam is the evil dictator who had WMD and he, frigging gassed his own people. Therefore it is pervectly fine that Bush acted like he did and murdered those thousands of people--five hundred of them his "own people"

for no other reason than that he wanted what they had and he knew he could do it and get away with it, and he has!!! It is the most incredible piece of history I have read.

The point is that if no one challenges him on that--on the deaths and the murder of all those thousands, what makes anyone think someone will challenge him on this relatively minor matter. HE will simply do away with those who do==-it will go the way of the memory hole, and Valerie Plame will be forgotten as will her husband, very soon.

No one is really interested right now, even though on DU it seems as if it should be the straw that broke the camel's back.

It isn't and it will not be.

[BeFree]

6. Some solace, Marianne

Nixon murdered alot more people than * has yet had a chance, and they sunk him with a relatively minor torpedo.

The idea is that we keep harping on it, and the hundred other things, thereby keeping the heat up... just waiting to see that first burst of steam coming from under the lid. The lid will blow if we keep the heat on.

[TacticalPeek]

9. Precismo.

Nixon sailed right along with the Christmas bombing of Hanoi, invading Cambodia, COINTEL-PRO, etc.

What brought him down in flames? A piece of tape left on a door lock.

[ma4t]

5. And when they catch the guilty party

they should dole out exactly the same punishment that they slapped on then Rep. Torricelli for doing the same thing. After all, what's good for the goose is good for the gander, right?

[cthrumatrix]

8. let's get some media updates like they with the Peterson/Kobie cases