So, it looks like Rove is off the hook (at least for now) and it’ll just by Libby.
Is this just an “inside the beltway” catfight, or is this going to resonate with the electorate? I just don’t see people getting up in arms about this. I did an informal poll of my fairly educated, fairly informed friends yesterday and no one even knew who Libby was. Is this going to blow the lid off Bush’s whole rationale for taking us to war? I just don’t see it. I think the anti-Bush crowd is suffering from the same myopia that the anti-Clinton crowd suffered from in during the impeachment broo-hah-hah-- that any charges flung at the administration will force the whole country to open its eyes and realize they don’t really want Bush/Clinton to sit in the Oval Office.
And no, I’m not trying to equate getting a blow job with taking the country to war. I’m just trying to equate the myopia exhibited by the folks on the more extreme wing of either party.
Comments? (I know this is a futile request, but can we keep this thread focused on the facts of the case, and dispense with the ad hominems against Rove et al?)
I was just thinking how much better the world would be if Clinton had caused just one person to be killed and Bush had gotten 2,000 people blown. I bet enlistment would be up as well.
The only people who cared that there were no WMD were Democrats.
The majority looked to Washington to identify a focal point for their malevolence. The President, who is no fool, duly obliged.
When it became undeniable that the ostensible cause for war was unfounded, the response was predictable. Support for Bush increased in the constituency. Such resentment as there was attached to the President having bent to giving reasons to the the liberal left and to the assembled UN.
The absence of any legitmate cause of war was a knockout sucker punch by the nation’s right wing. The values dear to the left and UN internationlists were squashed flat and atomised.
The less cause for war and the greater the deceit practiced on the left, the stronger the right will hew to its leader, who has served them well.
Seems to be resonating some. I can’t find the data for this poll, but the article states that:
That’s 78% that believe some administration officials acted badly. There’s a wide awareness of this across the country. I definitely do not believe it will stay inside the beltway.
I suspect your friends aren’t as informed as you think they are.
Maybe they explained the situation to them before asking the poll questions? I just don’t see this wide awareness. Like John Mace, I’ve been taking informal polls of friends, family, co-workers, and people I meet who are interested in politics, except I’ve been doing it pretty consistently since around June of this year. Outside of my brother, I’ve yet to talk to anybody who has ever heard of this case. The most common response is along the lines of, “Who is Karl Rove?”
Looks like it will now be held at 2PM, according to this.
In the true spirit of a Great Debate, I will withhold any opinions or speculations until hearing the proceedings of the Press Conference. Move this to the Pit, however, and all bets are off…
People don’t give a rat’s rear about Libby. A few more care about Rove but he wasn’t in elective office anyway. The real meat is Dick Cheney. If there is a new grand jury to investigate the knowing use of lies to justify a war, and they find cause to indict Cheney, then that will be newsworthy. Libby by himself means nothing.
My hope is that this is but Act I in the play Fall of the House of Bush.
I’m glad to see you recognize that. But where do you get the idea that a grand jury is going to investigate “lies to justify a war”? I hope you don’t think that was what the original grand jury was investigating…
We shall see. Rumors had been rampant about the investigation continuing into the matter of why they wanted retribution on Wilson in the first place- his exposing the African uranium story as false. I hope they continue along that vein.
I had little or no awareness of Libby before last week, but one wouldhave to have one’s head under a rock not to have at least heard his name on the news in the last week.
On, of all shows, The Colbert Report, Lesley Stahl (who was in journalism back in the 1970s) commented that the Watergate Scandal was, in terms of media coverage and public awareness, full of stops and starts and gaps at first. FTR, she didn’t say she thought this was another Watergate, she was merely implying that not having wide awareness and deep resonance at this stage could not, in and of itself, be construed as an indication that it wasn’t another Watergate.
Indictments mean a trial. That means members of the Bush administration being forced to publicly discuss the decision-making process for the Iraq War under oath.