Divine Chaos

I try as a rule, to 'trust the universe' as it were and as far as I can tell it working. Today after two weeks of being 'off the grid', I finally today, after my long days of toil, tune in to KO to find out the shitkicker-in-charge "commuted" Scooter Libby's prison sentence. Just perfect. I am grateful for the many days of work ahead of me necessary to set-up a new household. The many hidden repairs somehow seem less daunting when I look on the national scene and see nothing but chaos. I am trying desperately to give attention to the many tasks before me while getting back into my blogging. I wish it was more pleasant to pay attention to my country but its hard when the power that be destroy it more each day.

Libby:Guilty!!

On four out of five charges. Details as they come out.
Next story: The Presidential Pardon

Cheney Cracks Up

Frank Rich alone is worth the price of a New York Time subscription. Read his piece, "Why Dick Cheney Cracks Up"

IN the days since Dick Cheney lost it on CNN, our nation’s armchair shrinks have had a blast. The vice president who boasted of “enormous successes” in Iraq and barked “hogwash” at the congenitally mild Wolf Blitzer has been roundly judged delusional, pathologically dishonest or just plain nuts. But what else is new? We identified those diagnoses long ago. The more intriguing question is what ignited this particularly violent public flare-up.

The answer can be found in the timing of the CNN interview, which was conducted the day after the start of the perjury trial of Mr. Cheney’s former top aide, Scooter Libby. The vice president’s on-camera crackup reflected his understandable fear that a White House cover-up was crumbling. He knew that sworn testimony in a Washington courtroom would reveal still more sordid details about how the administration lied to take the country into war in Iraq. He knew that those revelations could cripple the White House’s current campaign to escalate that war and foment apocalyptic scenarios about Iran. Scariest of all, he knew that he might yet have to testify under oath himself.

Chess with Cheney

Sydney Blumenthal has the article "Libby Was Cheney's Pawn" up at Salon.com.
We can only hope Scooter ends up in checkmate.

Cheney knew that the intelligence for the war had been cooked. He was not obsessed with Wilson because he was angry that Wilson was allegedly falsifying information. Cheney was not seized with a feeling of injustice or a need to inform the public of the truth. Cheney is not a fool. "Cheney knows how to read intelligence reports. He knows how to read classified information," Richard Clarke, former director of counterterrorism on the National Security Council, told me. Of course, Clarke said, "Cheney had read the reports" that disproved the administration's line. "Cheney knew it was false," said Clarke. What worried Cheney was that he was keenly aware that the so-called intelligence the administration propagated was phony, shabby and shaky. What also peeved him was that Wilson had said that his mission had been triggered by a request from the Office of the Vice President.

When it says Libby, Libby, Libby...

...On the label label label. Remember that TV commercial from the 70's? Label the Scooter Libby trial file under Partisan Politics.







An observation, if you will (oh, I will...)
With the nation at a new and possibly unprecedented level of partisan polarization, will it be possible for Scooter Libby to get a fair trial? I don't think so and here's why.

A jury trial used to be about who made the best argument and presented the facts of the case in a way that convinced a jury. That criteria seems to have vanished. Now it would seem that stocking the jury with fellow ideologues and spinning a story you know panders to an ideological belief system is all that is required. One's ability to appeal to the public's 'common sense' for a fair and just outcome, to paraphrase Voltaire, is no longer so common. The ideological split has become so deep and the chasm so wide in this country that 'common sense' no longer has to do with the facts only with how they are spun. Keep in mind, this is without considering or opining on the partisanship of the bench.

It shocks me that 'facts' no longer seem relevant. In the world of Fox News the 'information' is clearly at the level of propaganda. The other mainstream media outlets fair only slightly better. If you listened to Bill Moyers yesterday or read any number of articles here, at Media Matters or a dozen other websites that report on media disinformation and misrepresentation (links on my site), you will find this to be true.

Then we come to the issue of dead-eye Dick slated to testify. Try and pick an impartial juror for that bit of testimony. Is the vice president credible? According to the latest polls his approval ratings are so low, the only people who find Cheney "credible" are already drunk on koolaid. One of the questions posed to potential jurors is, "During this trial, you will hear testimony about some of the evidence the Bush administration considered when deciding to go to war in Iraq" one question states. "Based on what you know at this time, do you believe that the administration misled the American people to justify going to war?" Are you fucking kidding me? This question literally precludes the facts that are known to be true. We know BushCo "cherry-picked" intel, we know they lied, what was the question again? Am I retarded? With questions like this, the fix is in from the get-go.

Will Scooter get a fair trial? If he does, he'll go to jail. If it isn't, there's always the presidential pardon.