Yalies 0, Fitzgerald 5

Patrick J Fitzgerald, who today indicted Scooter Libby on 5 counts including obstruction of justic and perjury, has refused to make the "outing" of Valerie Plame the focus of his indictments. Instead, he has focused on the cover-up that went on to try to conceal the White House's despicable vengeance-seeking against Plame's husband Joe Wilson. As a number of commentators have said, this is very much parallel to Watergate, in which the initial knuckle-headed burglary was seen as representing the tip of an iceberg, and brought on a huge coverup that brought Nixon down and to Iran-Contra (same thing).

What I haven't seen is an commentary on Fitzgerald himself. The right-wing pundits and spin-meisters are doing everything they can to claim that F is a "rogue prosecutor" (and it's wonderful to see the same people who wanted to impeach Bill Clinton for lying about a blowjob now claiming concern about the "criminalization" of perjury), but what none of those punk-ass silver-spoon Yalies and Stanfordites have remembered is that Fitzgerald is the US States attorney from Chicago.

This is a tough Irish DA from the most politically corrupt city in the country, folks. This man has prosecuted for, closed loopholes on, and gotten convictions on blackmail, graft, and political tactics the neo-cons haven't even thought of yet.

He indicted Libby--but he didn't close the door on Rove et al. He delivered indictments at the end of the commission's first term--but he got permission from a federal judge to open a second term. He used FBI agents and investigators from Chicago--not those corrupt, sold-out leftovers from the Louis Freeh administration.

Fitzgerald knew that the WH was expecting indictments for Thursday 10.27.05, and he knew that they'd issue some bombshell to try to drive the indictments off the front page. So he let them withdraw Harriet "you are the greatest governor ever--I hope the girls know how 'cool' their parents are" Miers on Thursday--and then he issued no indicments. So the Bushies roasted HM for a whole day, to no purpose.

And you can bet that he indicted Libby first, w/out mentioning Rove, because he knows the lessons of Watergate are that if you indict one or two rats, one of them will roll over on their bosses. Wouldn't be surprised if Fitz has talked to John Dean.

He's going to nail more people. "Toby, come quick, Cheney's getting his ass kicked by an Irish cop!"

this will be fun.