Libby was indeed a "fall guy", but the fall was always understood to have the cushion of a pardon at the bottom. Fitzgerald agreed to confine investigation to Libby and only bring perjury charges against him, to throw a bone –so to speak- to an outraged public and Democratic minority for the same reason's Bill Clinton's impeachment was decided to be over Monica Lewinsky; a back room deal was cut to agree to impeachment to neuter enemies for the purposes of not exposing the INITIAL investigation which should have lead to Clinton's impeachment, that being unlawful campaign contributions from Chinese interests who received banned high technology infrastructure. In that case, a vulnerable Republican with Presidential aspirations would have been right in the cross hairs of any investigation which moved forward to impeach Clinton for treason over the China issues; Bob Dole.
Something smells very bad about the Libby Case to me, and although the jurors were presumably isolated from commentary and debate outside their narrowly defined mission, apparently even they could smell it through the walls of imposed isolation and the singularity of their considerations. Indeed, where is Rove and Cheney?
Unless the Democrats abandon their utterly corrupt politically motivated refusal to investigate this and begin impeachment proceedings, the whole sorted mess is likely to be swept under the rug to protect somebody. The question is who, and the answer might not be so obvious. That the Bush administration is being protected is obvious. That certain key Democrats are also being protected is less obvious but seems very probable to me. The first Democrat on that list Senator Rockefeller, who made a deal with Senator Pat Robertson in 2004 on a hand shake that the investigation into the possible abuse of intelligence by the administration, be postponed until after the 2004 elections. That
"deal" (by the way), was public and televised. It never happened. For ***some reason*** Senator Rockefeller went absolutely stone silent for two full years AFTER the 2004 elections; no demand was made by him that Senator Roberts abide in his agreement to convene hearings. No motion to convene was brought by Rockefeller. Rockefeller made no statements to the press pointing out the blatant violation of the public promise made by Roberts to protect Bush during the elections. And were one to logically assume that were Rockefeller actually intent on holding those investigations into the actual use and abuse of pre-war intelligence, it's safe to say that he'd have had all his ducks in a row and would have presented them and convened the long abandoned hearings as soon as the 2006 elections placed the Democrats into the majority in Congress with subpoena power. Still Mr. Rockefeller remains absolutely silent 2 years after the breach of the promise for hearings, and 2 months after actually gaining the power to convene them. WHY?
Why is impeachment "off the table"? One has to assume that there is something more to this than the commonly believed and oft touted claim that the Dem's political motivations are as simplistic as avoiding a political "back lash" were they to proceed with investigations and impeachment. The claim rings false in light of what would necessarily precede impeachment; hearings which uncovered the truth about the misuse, abuse, distortion, and out right cover-up regarding the real intelligence on Iraq. In truth, Senator Rockefeller has a lot to lose were these hearings to begin in earnest, as does Senator Clinton. "Impeachment" therefore is not "off the table" because the Democratic leadership is concerned about a back-lash and political consequences; it's off the table for the same reason Bill Clinton's investigation for treason was precluded; Key Democrats who voted for this war were not only NOT "mislead", but KNEW the intelligence was highly questionable, even to the point of having been falsified, and yet they went along with the war anyway:
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