Fitzgerald will now use what he's got to get more...

[NNN0LHI]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/huffpost/20051029/cm_huffpost/009733;_ylt=A86.I2x4CmNDFRYByxf9wxIF;_ylu=X3oDMTBjMHVqMTQ4BHNlYwN5bnN1YmNhdA--

Jane Hamsher: Patrick Fitzgerald Brings No Joy to Bushville Tonight

<snip>As it stands now, Fitzgerald has Libby on 30 years worth of counts and he's got him cold. No wiggle room. Libby may not do 30 years, but he ain't doing 6 months. Scooter's screwed. It was the Vice President's boon companion himself, David Gergen, who said on MSNBC today that this is squeeze time. John Dean reiterated it later on. It really matters little to a man of 55 whether he is looking at 30 years or 60 -- he'd rather have 60 thrown at him if some of them were shaky and he thought he could use the wobbly ones to get out of the rest.

There is no wobble in the indictments handed down today. It's pretty clear. Libby can cut a deal with Fitzgerald or swing.

Which brings us to David Radler. Who is David Radler? David Radler was the number two man at Hollinger International. The day after he was indicted by the US Attorney for Northern Illinois Patrick J. Fitzgerald for liberating large sums of cash from the stockholders of Hollinger, he announced he'd rather "cooperate with investigators" (read: rat out his boss, Conrad Black) than spend the rest of his life perfecting the ultimate starch job in the prison laundry. Radler decided he would take door number three and do twenty-nine unpleasant months and pay a fine when the prospect of life in prison became a reality. snip

That's just the way Patrick Fitzgerald works. If the Hollinger case, and the Ryan case, and the Daley Case, and the Al Quaeda case and the Gambino case are any indication, Fitzgerald will now use what he's got to get more.

Do not make this mistake of thinking a presidential pardon will be a panacea for those involved. Fitzgerald's honorable and straightforward presentation today made it nigh impossible for the Rovians to fall back on their old tricks and launch a smear campaign -- Chris Matthews pretty near crowned him Pope this afternoon, and any attempt at a pardon will just make Bush look like an impeachment-worthy crook out to thwart the efforts of an honest public servant.

All the solutions that have worked so well for Team Bush in the past only serve to complicate things now. The only successful strategy to use with an honest prosecutor is honesty. I wonder how long it will take them to think of it?

[DoYouEverWonder]

1. It is interesting to hear the M$M spin

this story in the exact opposite direction. Does that make them co-conspirators at this point?

[wookie294]

2. Libby will plead guilty, no trial, then be pardoned

I don't understand why people are underestimating Bush's pardon power. Bush would rather be stained with pardoning Libby than with a trial that exposes Bush and Cheney has criminals.

[NNN0LHI]

3. Even if the public outcry would lead to the Dem's winning back...

...both houses of Congress next year? Which could then easily lead to impeachment proceedings for Bush?

Don

[wookie294]

4. Bush would rather take his chances by pardoning the witnesses

I have no faith in the American people actually giving a shit about this crime. In the end, Americans will vote their pocket book. New Gallup poll today is depressing. It indicates Americans are total morons on the Libby issue. No surprise there. Bush is going to be fine, just like Libby and Rove.

[bpilgrim]

7. NIXON

on CRACK :evilgrin:

peace

[NNN0LHI]

8. Republican's who are up for re-election next year won't chance it though

If it gets bad they will start impeachment hearing themselves. Yes they will.

Don

[wookie294]

9. The pardons will take place after Nov. 2006

And by 2008, voters won't remember Plame, Libby or Bush's lies.

[bpilgrim]

11. you don't say...

voters have only just begun to learn the name VP (cept my friends who knew her NAME from jump (thanks to Novak and the neoCONs) bet

peace

[nradisic]

5. Just wait.....

It will be even worse when the MSM finally turn it around. There is only so far that the MSM can take this. They are supporting the argument of corrupt liars, scumbags and traitors. Public opinion has already turned and yet the MSM is still following the script....It si going ot get ugly. The vast majority of Americans now view the press at the same level as used car salesmen. They have no integrity....who the hell still believes the MSM? We wer lied to in going into Iraq. The press went along with the story....the majority of Americans now knows that Iraq was based on lies.....


So here's the deal: When Fitz anounces more indictments the MSM is going to go balistic. They will have no wiggle rrom left and will turn or the GOP and the Shrub overnight.It will be that much more of a shocker for those still left unconvinced of how corrupt the GOP is. The fact that Fitz is taking it so slow, will make tgis death by 100 cuts to the GOP. The other side of the story is that the CIA was the one who requested the investigation in the first place. You do not mess with the spooks. Never. Bush is finding that out the hard way. The CIA does not give up until the job is done,just like Fitzpatrick. To the detriment of the GOP, it seems to me that the Plame investigation is going to go on into 2006. If that happens, even if we get no more indictments any time soon, the GOP is up the creek without a paddle in the mid-term elections. I believe that GOP moderates are going to start standing up and calling a spade a spade, realizing that if they don't, they will have abdicated the true principles of the GOP to the neo-cons. It is going ot become, or already has become an internal struggle within the GOP, for the long term survival of the party, while Bush is still sticking to his "agenda". I don't think the Shrub has enough political capital left to get anything accomplished. He is beyond a lame duck, he's a wounded duck that no longer even has the support of the entire GOP. Watch and see what the few moderate Republicans do in the Senate. The Democrats are more united than the GOP. Historically, it has been much easier to achieve unity within an ascending party vs. the decline and ideological breakup of a party in decline (Like the GOP in its current situation). The Republicans' goose is cooked, they just don't know it yet.

[NNN0LHI]

6. I think they do know it. They just don't know how to deal with it

They can BS the media

They can BS the voters

They can even BS the Dem's

But they can't BS Fitzgerald.

Don

[bpilgrim]

10. "up the creek without a paddle in the mid-term elections"

there can be no denying they got serious issues to contend with.

lucky for them they got the SC distraction, eh... that won't last forever, like the IW :cry:

peace