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of pursuing his investigation into the Plame/Brewster-Jennings outings, whether the jury convicts Libby for perjury and obstruction, or not. If they do convict (and I think they will), Fitzgerald will have added cache with the public and the war profiteering corporate news monopolies to pursue the reasons that Libby lied (one of which is that he is covering for Cheney), but a Libby acquittal will not stop Fitzgerald. He is determined to solve the case. Who ordered the Plame/B-J outings, and why, who all participated, and was it a conspiracy? He described it as a serious matter of national security, at his only press conference on this matter, and I have no reason to believe that he has changed his mind. If anything, it has increased in seriousness as the investigation has proceeded. (There is now even some evidence pointing to Bush.) In the event of a Libby acquittal, however, he may be more vulnerable to being fired by Bush (the only one with the technical power to fire him--he is a Special Counsel with strong powers, above those of AG Gonzales). Or rather, Bush/Cheney may think he is more vulnerable, or can be made to look bad, since their propagandist news media will paint Fitzgerald as having failed on the one case he was able to bring, while causing all this trouble to the criminals and thieves in the White House and thus distracting them from the war on terra and helping Al Qaeda. (--although the latter might not fly since I believe that Patrick Fitzgerald is the only prosecutor on earth to have put a member of Al Qaeda behind bars).
Cheney right now is much like Henry II. "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome priest?" And Bush just might. They wanted to find out what sort of furor it would cause, who reacts, who can be bullied or blackmailed, etc. It's a flushing out operation--of Congress and the news media. And what better way to do it than to fire a bunch of lesser federal prosecutors who have exposed, tried and convicted filthy members of the Republican Party for their corruption? Kill two birds with one stone. Get rid of some real pests, and find out what's what for a repeat of the Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre," which they intend to win this time.
It's my psychological theory of Cheney that he is reenacting major events of the Vietnam War and Nixon's demise, and trying to make them come out more successfully for war profiteers and fascist pigs. The psychological aspect of the war on Iraq is that it was to be the "win" that Vietnam was not, and thus succeed in re-militarizing the country--with troops of Nazi youth marching around and sieg heiling to the Great Crusade. Big flop. But that was the inner drama being worked out. And on Nixon's demise, of course, he wanted to have an absolutely out-of-control executive that does not resign, and that no one can impeach. Part of this drama was setting up the electronic voting machines all over the country, run on 'trade secret,' proprietary programming code, owned and controlled by rightwing Bushite corporations, to make Bush, Cheney and other fascists immune to public opinion, and to make Democrats beholden to these rightwing voting machine corporations as well. Nixon was too "soft," in Cheney's view. No one should be able to tell the tyrant in the White House that he is in the wrong--a lawbreaker--and must resign. And so far, he has been much more successful at playing out this drama than the Vietnam War one. And, of course, a component of this drama is the "Saturday Night Massacre"--Nixon's arrogant firing of the Special Prosecutor and others in authority, who were investigating Watergate, which, in Nixon's case, led to his resignation, because there were still strong, ethical people in the government and in the news media who were shocked at such tyrannical behavior, and acted to force Nixon to resign. Are there any now? What would be the reaction now, to the tyrannical firing of the Special Prosecutor--Fitzgerald--who clearly has at least Cheney in his sites?
They are finding out, with this test run.
Just a theory, but an interesting one. It also accounts for how aggravating Cheney is to anyone who remembers those heady years in the '60s and '70s, when it seemed that our democracy was in working order, and that the will of the American people counted for something. We eventually helped to stop the slaughter in Southeast Asia, and very likely prevented Vietnam from being nuked. Watergate brought Nixon down--who had promised to end the Vietnam War, and escalated it instead. (Watergate was very much about Vietnam.) We stopped the dreadful Iran-Contra scandal war on Nicaragua, and exposed the other horrors that the US was supporting in Latin America, and profoundly changed State Dept and CIA policy on covert war, assassination of foreign leaders, torture and other issues. We dramatically changed the country on black civil rights issues--and on a number of other social issues, such as women's rights. To have a jerk like Cheney come along, and rig elections, and torture and kill masses of people, and stir up intolerance and hatred, and attempt to undo all of that progress is deeply disturbing. We old leftists are also re-living some things. But with Cheney I think it is pathological. He saw the weakness in Nixon, that he cared about public opinion, and had some respect for the Constitution and the rule of law. Nixon knew the difference between right and wrong. Cheney wanted a President who had no concept of right and wrong, and didn't care what was illegal or ethical. And he got one. No "weakness" there. Nothing but hatred and contempt for the law, for decency, and for American democracy itself. The perfect president for Dick Cheney.
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