Caligula – Benefactor and Family Counselor

Charles Ponzi – Venture Capitalist

Al Capone – Entrepreneur and Visionary

Count Dracula – Philanthropist

Bonnie and Clyde – Itinerate Bankers

Saddam Hussein – Social Critic and Novelist

Stalin, Hitler and Mao – Statesmen

Juanita Broaddrick – Bill Clinton’s date

The NYT – Authoritative News Source

Wish Lanny well by all means. But forwarding him as a mediating and authoritative figure in the context of this particular subject is risible.

The press and the Dem’s were all set for multiple indictments of Rove, Libby, and, they hoped, Cheney. They were all set for stiring op-ed’s on conspiracy, outing of C.I.A undercover agents, it’s the cover up.. They had their scripts written. They dusted off “a cloud hangs over the White House”, “a cancer at the heart of the Presidency” “a crisis of confidence”, Watergate, Iran Contra, Bay of Pigs.

There was only one problem. Fitzgerald didn’t deliver. No one was indicted for outing a C.I.A agent. It was perjury of one person, Libby. If, guilty( At first blush I think he is but I do want to hear his side) I will have no problem with the fact that the original charge didn’t stick. If you raise your hand to tell the truth, you can’t delibertly tell lies and work in the White House. If guilty he should be punished. But in the history of washington scandals this one will be a footnote, not even on the main text of any history book on this time.

But the MSM just went “it takes to long to write a new script, let’s just go with the one we had when we thought it would be multiple indictments for everyone involved for multiple crimes. Russert had old administration hacks comparing it to Iran Contra, Watergate, and yes, the Bay of Pig’s. All the buzzwords I jotted down in my first paragraph were trotted out in less then twenty minutes. It is absurd! It didn’t make any difference that Rove wasn’t indicted. They acted as if he had been. They were were pumped up for a massive scandal and when all they got was Libby on perjury they went with massive scandal anyway.

Fitzgerald says “This indictment is not about the War” Sorry Pete, Chris Matthews says it is all about WMD so you may have just perjured yourself. Matthews just told me you were going to expose how the Bush administration sold the lies that pushed the war so you should reread your indictment and what it is all about. Chris knows better, you better wise up.

There were 15 convictions in Whitewater. One of the most contemptible traits of the Clintonbots is presenting lies as facts.

I’m with Rick Ballard: Even lower life forms would be taking unfair shots if I were to compare them to the likes of Lanny Davis. He was a snivelling little liar every time I saw him on tv during the 90′s. I doubt that he’s changed and even if he has, he’s still trash.

And now in this Lanny Davis column, here it is again; a call for apologies:

[Bush] must send his press secretary, Scott McClellan, into the White House press room to apologize for his misleading the American people -probably based on incomplete or inaccurate information he was given – when he denied involvement by White House officials in the disclosure that Valerie Wilson was a C.I.A. officer.

It seems that now, apologies need to be tendered by heads of state and their spokespeople not just for wrongdoings, but for errors based on incomplete or inaccurate information. Maybe the President’s press secretary should just start each press conference with a blanket apology and skip the specifics.

It’s funny–until some time during the Clinton years I can’t recall that Presidents were routinely expected to apologize for anything. No one cared if Nixon apologized for Watergate–they just wanted him impeached or to resign. I, for one, am not nor have I ever been interested in Presidential apologies. If there is some wrongdoing that rises to the level of a crime, then there are legal remedies; if there are errors, they need to be corrected.

This clamoring for apologies has gotten way out of hand; the next logical step will be putting people in the stocks to humiliate them.

There seems to be way too much chumminess between political underlings and bureaucrats and reporters who prefer schmoozing to digging for real news, and scandal to anything else.

That said, it doesn’t seem just to conduct an investigation and, when you can’t prove the allegations it was based on, to prosecute the target for perjury. You can’t force him to give testimony against himself, but you can make life miserable for him if he offers to cooperate. How does that serve respect for the law? Why should anybody even try to cooperate in the future? When anything you testify to can turn into a perjury rap, why doesn’t everybody just invoke the Fifth Amendment?

Rove and Libby probably thought they were undermining Joe Wilson’s credibility. This is the way you play the game, right? With any luck other pols will learn to quick leaking to their reporter acquaintances. Meet people like Wilson head on or don’t respond at all.

Lanny Davis wrote:

Even before yesterday’s indictments, Howard Dean and the Democratic National Committee were accusing the Republicans of being responsible for a “culture of corruption.” But I remember the outrage within the Democratic Party when Republicans rushed to the microphones to accuse the Clintons of “corruption” over Whitewater, the F.B.I. files, the travel office, campaign finance and so on – all issues that turned out to be rabbit holes without any findings of guilt, much less indictments. In the end, using an isolated scandal to tie up an entire administration only hurts the nation (and tends to come back to haunt the scandal-mongering party). (emphasis added)

Nothing superb about this column. Just the same old Clintonian strategy of mistruths and misleading equivalancies based on the falsehoods.

There has never been a more corrupt administration in the history of our nation than the eight years of Bill Clinton’s presidency. Never.

With a hat tip to allthingsbeautiful.com: Not even close..

At this moment in political history the Democratic party is morally/intellectually bankrupt and has ONLY a few cards left to play. Primary among these are SLEAZE and DISTORTIONS. They can no longer play meaningfully on the important fields of morality and/or grand ideas as they are running on empty and have been for decades.

Republicans should avoid getting down to their level and playing the politics of personal destruction. Not really because it is both diststeful and inherently destructive of the social compact(which is is), but because it levels the playing field. Why play ‘away’ games when that only suits the opposition?

Mr.Davis is 100% correct in the FOCUS of his piece and should be supported. The more the battle is about issues and not about flaws the worse positioned the Democratic Party is. It is effectively DEAD from the neck up;let’s do everything possible to bury the rest of it before it lurches into something valuable.

Frankly, Libby’s transgressions go beyond stupid–all the white house had to do was call a press conference and lay out their case against Wilson in open forum–yet the idiots apparently chose a whisper campaign–Give me a f****in break–These people are supposed to be adults. Libby deserves hard time for stupidity; Reid deserves to remain as the ignoramous Senate Minority Leader of a gang of misfits–

As I read my local paper in Eastern Washington–the scandal d’jour in DC among the chattering classes came in way behind the annual pumpkin regatta. Guess what–only the chattering classes give a damn; the rest of the electorate is busy going about adding to the GDP.

What a sorry lot are our chattering and political classes–pathetic.

If you didn’t know, Lanny Davis went ballistic last night on MSNBC’s Hockenberry because David Schippers didn’t use the word “alleged” before rapist. Davis said he felt “unclean” watching the interview. For more than a year Lanny Davis called Monica Lewinsky, Kathleen Willey, Lucianne Goldberg, Linda Tripp, me, Michael Isikoff, and just about everybody else who told the truth about the president, liars. Sure, sometimes he did it by saying there is an affidavit which says this or that. Sometimes he was less subtle. But he has been an unpaid defender of lies and therefore a perpetrator of lies throughout the entire scandal. And now he’s going to lecture people about feeling unclean? Please.

I agree that Plame was inconsequential,her job has been boosted to make the offence more serious.

Is it legal for the CIA run operatins in the US, and was Plame resident when the alleged outing took place?

Surely employing Wilson,a man with no expert Knowledge or ability to speak the language would arouse suspicion?

“Welcome to our country Mr Wilson,some tea perhaps,you did not bring your lovely wife the spy with you?”

Every interested intelligence service on the planet will have wondered what he was doing there.

The Grand Jury system sounds more like the Star Chamber than a fair legal procedure,no representation,outnumbered,absolute guarantee somebody will make a mistake.

It is interesting that there had been no offence until Libby was questioned,so in essence the procedure creates the crime.