Scandalous Thoughts

Is Turdblossom about to be flushed?

Each time a reporter testifies before the grand jury in the Plame investigation, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerarld puts Karl Rove’s plump rump back on the stand. It happened after Matt Cooper outed Karl as the source for his Plame info in July, and it’s happening again now that Judy “Stoolie” Miller has sung for her supper. To my mind that can only mean one thing, and it smells like perjury.

Fitzgerald must be hearing something from these reporters that contradicts information Rove has provided in the past, and he’s asking King Karl to come back and “clarify” his previous statements. For example, Rove may have claimed that he learned about Valerie Plame from Judy Miller, who did not tell him the information was classified (thus getting him off the hook). Miller may have testified that she never spoke to Rove because she was too busy giving a hand job to John Bolton. And so on. That’s perjury, obstruction of justice, and possibly conspiracy right there.

Meanwhile, Fitz wants to meet privately with Miller later this week. Somehow, I don’t think he wants to swap prison shower stories. My completely uninformed and wildly speculative guess? He wants Miller to agree to talk about sources other than Libby. Otherwise, why meet in private? Why not simply have her testify again?

The tension is killing me. This is way better than any episode of Desperate Housewives. I don’t think I can wait until October 28 for Fitz to make up his mind about the indictments. All I can do is distract myself by re-reading the Tom DeLay emails.

I always assumed Texas DA Ronnie Earle’s case against DeLay had to rest on the testimony of a co-conspirator who had flipped. I didn’t see any other way DeLay could get fingered. And then all his attorneys had to do was attack the credibility of that witness and turn it into a he said/he said thing. DeLay slithers out of the trap, damaged but not undone, loudly declaiming his innocence.

But now Blogging for President has posted a series of leaked documents that are producing so much smoke FEMA has sent in choppers to put out the fire.

Among other things, these emails and faxes indicate that

• Members of DeLay’s Texas PAC actively solicited contributions from corporations like Dow Chemical, Halliburton, and Reliant
  
  
• They personally handed these checks to DeLay, along with checks made out to DeLay’s national PAC
  
  
• DeLay’s fingers were in every dish, down to approving the list of invitees to a benefit banquet
  

My favorite bit of evidence: a fax with handwriting showing the amounts paid out to various Texas legislative candidates -- Eddie Schauberger, Holt Getterman, and Brian Hughes, to name three. It seems the price of a Texas legislator’s vote is $8,000 on the high end and just $1,083.34 on the low end. A bargain at twice the price.

It’s such a good document it might have to be fake. I’m sure the folks at Powerline blog are cooking up a conspiracy theory as I type this.

As one of the conspirators noted in an email, “I am confident we’ll be successful in this history making endeavor.” They’ll be making history, all right. Possibly from the cozy confines of a minimum security cell. I'm sure Judy Miller would be happy to offer some prison survival tips.

Even if Plamegate and DeLaygate fizzle, the Abramoff scandal may bring Tommy Boy and Turdblossom crashing down. No matter. Bush won’t fire anyone until they’ve been dragged away in chains. But they might end up resigning “for the good of the country,” a la Mike Brown and George Tenet.

Then the Bushies' biggest problem will be finding enough medals to pin on these clowns.