Karl Rove

Ridicule can be deadly in politics. It's deadly accurate when the target is ridiculous. Karl Rove gets the treatment in this Emnem - styled music video by AndyCobbonUTube.

I found via comments at InTheDark, about this post about the WaPo story about the Libby conviction. I'd intended to talk about this anyway, so two birds, one great hook. Rove is, of course, one of very many "unindigted co-conspiritors" in this case. And as I understand, Libby was not convicted on the basis of a conspiracy to defraud the public into war, but rather lying about part of the effort to discredit Valerie Plame and her husband, who knew better.

Jury : Libby the "Fall Guy" for Cheney

The jury is in and (righties like Howie will never agree) they have found Vice President Dick Cheney and Special Assistant to the President Carl Rove guilty of leaking the name of a covert CIA agent -- Valerie Plame -- to the press.

The jurors who huddled around two pushed-together conference tables for 10 days, meticulously filling 34 pages of facts from the trial on a large flip chart, believed that Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff had been "pilloried" for a CIA leak that other top White House aides had committed along with him, according to one member of the panel.

"We're not saying that we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of," said the juror, Denis Collins. "But it seemed like he was . . . the fall guy."

You don't say? Wow. What a shock that piece of news is. The fall guy, though, for whom?

During the jury's days of methodical deliberations, "it was said a number of times, 'What are we doing with this guy here?' " Collins told reporters on the steps outside the federal courthouse. "Where's Rove, where's -- you know, where are these other guys?" Collins said, referring to Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser, and Richard L. Armitage, a former deputy chief of staff who testimony showed had been the first person to leak Plame's name.

Moreover, Collins said, jurors believed that Libby had been carrying out a directive by his immediate boss, Cheney, to "go out and talk to reporters" to tarnish Wilson's reputation. But Collins said jurors stopped short of discussing whether the vice president specifically urged Libby to tell journalists about Plame's CIA job.

In The Dark is the work of Peter K. Fallon, Ph.D. of Chicago, and Assistant Professor of Journalism at Roosevelt University. As 23 year veteran of the television industry, 18 years with NBC News' "Today" program, I think we can stipulate that he knows a news story when he sees one - even if it's one largely untold.

Of course, this "fall guy" should fall. But this must be the start, not the finish.

Let us not forget that in outing Plame, an entire intelligence network dealing directly with the proliferation of atomic weaponry and technology, reputedly with good contacts in Iran, Iraq and Pakistan was blown. The proper outcome for such a willful compromise of vital national security assets is a lifetime making little ones out of big ones at Levenworth. Not to put too fine a point on it, such an act is, quite literally, unambiguously treason; in furtherance of other acts which are in themselves frauds upon the American People, Contempt of Congress, conspiracy to defraud the American people by means of an illegal war and perhaps more. The illegal wire-tapping alone is more than sufficient grounds for George Bush to be removed from office. In defending it publicly, George Bush, in the words of former Watergate celeb, John Dean, became "the first President to publicly admit to an impeachable offense."

Indeed, there are so many reasons why impeachment should be Job One, it's difficult to comprehend why the process is not already underway.

I'm particularly baffled as to why Nancy Pelosi is saying "impeachment is off the table," especially in the light of a flood of individual petitions and now state resolutions. Perhaps it was part of her political calculation to not appear too eager to become interim President - but at this point, it's starting to look more like she is shirking her plain duty.

Impeach! Or be faced with the looming suspicion that powerful Democrats have as much to hide in these matters as powerful Republicans.

And, yes, I'm talking to you, Senator Reid.

tag: Nevada Politics, Nevada Blogs, Impeach the President, High Crimes and Misdemenors, Nevada Caucus, Sen. Harry Reid, Nancy Pelosi, Scooter Libby, Dick Cheney, Valerie Plame, Downing Street Memo, Karl Rove