Like CROOKED COPS ON THE BEAT who make sure they are NOT AROUND when the heist of a ships cargo goes down on the waterfront, the Democratic "leadership" CONTINUES TO PLAY "hear no evil, SEE NO EVIL, and for lord's sake, SPEAK NO EVIL" of the George W. Bush and Dick Cheney administration - despite a dozen stories BESIDES lies-to-war, which DEMAND intense scrutiny criminal investigations.
Independent Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald must be CONTEMPTUOUS of the Democratic "leadership" by now. He took a relatively small investigation into one set of circumstances - the illegal "outing" of an undercover CIA agent by the Washington press/media - and against great odds, and with the potential that any of a million possible errors would derail his case - Fitzgerald then TOOK ON the CHIEF OF STAFF and CONCURRENT SENIOR ADVISOR to the Vice President AND PRESIDENT, respectively, and WON BOTH a PERJURY and an OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE conviction.
But the DAMN Democratic leadership is NOT IN THE LEAST BIT CONCERNED with why the President's Senior Advisor would NEED TO OBSTRUCT JUSTICE in the first place - what was the crisis or crime that warranted OBSTRUCTING an investigation?
That answer is simplicity itself: The Vice President, his Chief of Staff (Libby) and the president's Chief Political Advisor (Karl Rove) WERE ACTIVELY WORKING TO "out" UNDERCOVER CIA SPY Valerie Plame Wilson's identity, in a dual-pronged effort to SMEAR her Iraq war critic husband, and to INTIMIDATE OTHER CIA and government officials from making any similar "whistleblower" criticisms of the Bush-Cheney administration and their emergency rules / wartime power policies.
WORSE than merely playing Cops on the take, the Democrats are like STABLE HANDS - helping Dick Cheney SHOVEL THE MANURE of unethical and even criminal conduct out of sight and out of the news!
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Vice President Cheney hopes his former Chief of Staff will "GET OFF" felony conviction and prison sentence...
[So much for "accepting personal responsibility"!)
By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer
Wed Jun 6, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070606/ap_on_an/the_warm_embrace;_ylt=Ah8p7JHBAGPpI5OmL8OfrEjMWM0F
WASHINGTON - The latest twist in the CIA leak scandal has Vice President Dick Cheney saying he hopes his former chief of staff, now sentenced to 30 months in prison, will eventually get off.
And that, legal experts say, is an odd statement for a vice president to make.
While expressing support for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney and President Bush are also in the position of being officials sworn to uphold the law, running the branch of government that prosecuted Libby.
"It's a disappointment whenever a person who occupies a high office and takes an oath doesn't respond to a demonstrated serious criminal event in a serious governmental way," former Iran-Contra prosecutor John Barrett said Tuesday night.
"It's an adversary process and I understand the personal dimension, but the United States is the side of the case that President Bush and Vice President Cheney are on. Those are their jobs," said Barrett, now a law professor at St. John's University in New York City.
In the Valerie Plame case, Bush and particularly Cheney are more than mere friends of Libby, and more than mere disinterested public officials. Their actions are within the scope of the criminal investigation. Both were witnesses who underwent questioning by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald.
Within hours of Libby's sentencing, Cheney issued a statement saying that "the defense has indicated it plans to appeal the conviction in the case."
"Speaking as friends, we hope that our system will return a final result consistent with what we know of this fine man," said Cheney, saying that he was speaking on behalf of himself and his wife.
In a more measured response, Bush said through a spokesman that he "felt terrible for the family."
"Libby's lies derailed the investigation, and Cheney's role has never been fully explained; the comments of the president and especially the vice president are troubling in this context," said Penn State University law professor Lance Cole, a former attorney for Democrats on the Senate Whitewater Committee and a consultant to the 9/11 commission.
Cheney's statement is unusual historically, says presidential scholar Stanley Kutler, author of a well-known book on the Watergate scandal.
"I know of no time in Watergate where someone who was convicted got the warm embrace of those in power," said Stanley Kutler, author of "The Wars of Watergate."
For former prosecutors like Barrett, "crime is crime," whether it has a political backdrop to it or not.
For presidential scholars like Kutler, the Libby case is an instance of the Bush administration's supporters bemoaning what they call the criminalizing of political conduct, an assertion Kutler calls "spurious."
There is a parallel in the Iran-Contra scandal.
Supporters of the Reagan administration criticized independent counsel Lawrence Walsh for what they said was criminalizing a political battle between the executive branch and Congress.
EDITOR'S NOTE — Pete Yost has covered legal issues in Washington for The Associated Press for 21 years.
