Color me annoyed. Plenty of links if you’d like to chase down all the other legal opinions out there, but I get really down on the “justice” system if the best Fitz is going to be able to get for Libby is a couple of years. Let’s not forget all the poor, black and brown kids rotting away in our jails, locked up for life, thanks to racist ’three strikes and your out’ drug laws. Libby didn’t sell rock; he covered up the treasonous actions of the Vice President as they consipired to lead this country to an illegal war of choice. He deserves the full sentence of 25 years.

This is why the Republicans act in the ways they do. They know that the years of investigation into their activities will likely last longer than the time they’ll spend in jail, should they get convicted. And time served in a posh Federal pen with tennis courts and pool tables, that is hardly something to fear. Our system is deeply flawed.

Watch the skies… At FDL, of course (though, as Eschaton says, no direct links so their servers don’t crash).

UPDATE Man, I’m watching FDL and imagining what the server usage graphs are looking like. The admin is shutting down feature after feature just to bring us the one or two words of the verdict… The JPGs just went… Now it’s down… Now up… Atrios is live-blogging….

UPDATE (Cf. Amos 5:24).

 Read more 

I’m not closely following the Libby trial because it’s too easy to spend a great deal of time reading about all the many details of the process. Basically, I’m in the “call me when there is a verdict” group. That said, I’m very glad some people are paying close attention, because in this age of Kremlinology, one never knows what may come out in the various testimonies and senior moments and whatnot. So like Ms. Rozen, I wonder about this moment that ’floored’ Swopa, who happens to be in the courtroom.

It happened when special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald was arguing to submit as evidence an October 12, 2003 Washington Post article that Libby had saved in his files — and even underlined passages alluding to the alleged 1x2x6 leaks. Scooter’s lawyer stepped up to the podium and said, but we think those claims are entirely false, so why should Libby be accused of being worried about them? Fitz replied, no, we think there’s some basis to believe the claims might be true. “Tell us what,” said Team Libby, and I think the judge concurred.

At this, the unflappable, eternally prepared, ever-articulate Fitz basically lost all bladder and bowel control. He stood there, silent, for what seemed like ten seconds or more.  Read more 

Re the details about the Libby trial, and what’s being said over there about who is the scapegoat and who is the bacon to be saved, Digby notes:

And here I always thought the VP’s office was part of the White House.

I suspect that when the history is written we will find more and more proof that Vice President Cheney has been running a shadow government from the very beginning and that much of the malfeasance of this era is a result of incompetent and competing power centers vying for supremacy. It begins to explain the unprecedented level of faulty reasoning and epic mistakes coming from the one administration.

It’s kind of funny that Cheney is calling Rove incompetent in this matter. When it comes to lying and obstruction (the skills required for this cover Cheney’s ass operation), Karl Rove is a consummate professional and Scooter Libby is a joke.

This has been what I have thought for years now.  Read more 

According to Investor’s Business Daily, that is. Where do I sign up for a subscription? Because any publication that writes like this is one I need to have:

Justice: Like the Duke lacrosse players, Scooter Libby faces jail for alleged involvement in a crime that was never committed, pursued by a vindictive prosecutor. And also like the Duke case, it’s a national disgrace.  Read more 

Cheney to appear as defense witness in Scooter Libby’s trial for treas—oh, I’m sorry, perjury.

Meaning that Fitz will get to cross-examine Big Dick!  Read more 

Oh, I’m so sad. It looks like Libby Wibby dinnit tell the Whole Truth, and now Daddy Fitz is angry:

A former White House aide, I. Lewis Libby, may have disclosed conclusions from a highly classified government report on Iraq to journalists before the report was declassified by President Bush, federal prosecutors said in a new court filing.  Read more 

Or something:

By Murray Waas, National Journal
© National Journal Group Inc.
Monday, July 3, 2006

President Bush told the special prosecutor in the CIA leak case that he directed Vice President Dick Cheney to personally lead an effort to counter allegations made by former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV that his administration had misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to people familiar with the president’s statement.  Read more