Bush's Libby Problem, Continued

"[W]e've had leaks out of the administrative branch, had leaks out of the legislative branch, and out of the executive branch and the legislative branch, and I've spoken out consistently against them, and I want to know who the leakers are." —George W. Bush, Chicago, Sept. 30, 2003.

Of course, in some ways it would be helpful if Bush could adopt some simplified lingua franca, like Swahili or Esperanto, to express himself while a seasoned translator stood by to put the gobbledegook back into English. As it is, we have to deal with the raw feed, and it's not easy. It can give you a severe headache. For example, Exhibit A above, in which Bush reveals his apparent ignorance that the "administrative" and executive branch refer to his own Executive Branch or "the Bush Administration," and are one and the same, and that it's not necessary to mention the legislative branch twice to make the point about leaks. This quote is from the same Q&A in which Bush made the careful comments quoted yesterday about his determination to do the "appropriate" thing for anyone found to have leaked "classified information." The contrast between the prefab phrasing and Bush's usual hopeless confusion is telling. When he's coached to thread the needle (to avoid jail time, for example) he can nail his lines.

What is also striking is Bush's professed ignorance, on September 30, 2003, of "who the leakers are." If he hadn't learned the identities of the leakers long before September 30, 2003, how could Bush's ignorance have continued past October 1, 2003? Karl Rove, who certainly monitors every word his balky student utters, knew who the leakers were on September 30, 2003, because he was one of them. Ari Fleischer was also one of the leakers and he met with Bush at least daily. And Dick Cheney, who confers with Bush constantly, could have told him about Scooter Libby, because it was Dick Cheney's idea for Scooter to leak like a water bed after a porcupine pot party.

The grounds for impeachment are there, if diligently developed. It seems apparent that the Democratically controlled Congress, led by faint hearts like La Diva and Mr. Mumbles, are too timorous to impeach Bush on the really big high crimes and misdemeanors, like torturing prisoners of war, denying due process to American citizens, spying in violation of the Fourth Amendment and the FISA law, spending money authorized for Afghanistan on illegal preparations for war in Iraq --all of this overwhelms them. Too big and scary to debate in the open, except for a few valiant souls like Russ Feingold, Patrick Leahy and Bernie Sanders. But delving into this mystery, smacking as it does of a whodunnit, of a who knew what when -- this seems always to be the kind of simplistic coverup which undoes the incumbent. Nixon might have attempted to subvert the Constitution by playing off the CIA against the FBI, but it was something much simpler, the tape-recorded proof that he knew about the break-in at the Watergate almost immediately after it happened, that drove him from office.

Pull on one end of this skein of deceit and misdirection and it will unravel. Fitzgerald has "finished his investigation." Congress can take it from here. Maybe the able John Conyers will pick up the twine and begin yanking on it. For one thing is certain: Bush knew that members of his own office and Dick Cheney's office were in on the ground floor of these ruinous leaks. He knew it either before it happened (as part of the planning for retaliation against Joseph Wilson), or he knew almost immediately after. And he certainly knew well before September 30, 2003. Squeeze the right people, make some deals, and the story will come out, and the unfinished narrative, in which the active participants detail the ways in which Bush was informed of the leaks as they happened will emerge, and that story can be compared to all of Bush's clumsy obfuscations before the mantra of "ongoing investigation" shushed him up.

Scooter Libby was a sacrificial lamb, given to the mob in expiation for greater misprision behind the scenes. The thinking was that the liberal media could be placated by conviction on a few minor felony counts for which Libby will never spend a day in prison. Unfortunately, as almost always, the conniving Cheney read his critics right. Cheney is almost never right in the real world, but in the realm of Washington politics, where he only has to intimidate the amazingly fainthearted Democrats, his calculations usually carry the day. There is only a slight chance the co-opted wusses of the Democratic centrist wing will rise to the challenge, but if they do, a means for removing both Bush and Cheney will emerge.