I personally want to say that I would just love to see Cheney go to jail and Bush with him. I think that they are both worse than Sadaam and in fact are more urgently in need of being on trial than Sadaam.
But I am afraid that our prosecutor friend Patrick Fitzgerald is going to be beholden to his Republican Roots and probably will do as much as he can to mute the investigation for political and ideological reasons emanating from his own extremely conservative philosophy and thinking.
If he could not find serious wrong doing after 2 years that go beyond possible perjury and obstruction of justice (which he cannot hide from the Grand Jury, since they are the ones who would have witnessed it) then we can say this is certainly a partisan investigation. Any prosecutor can find wrong doing if they want to. No politician is so clean that there is not intentional or unintentional wrong doing by the politician or those around him, doing something wrong for which he can be held accountable.
Hopefully I am dead wrong. But I cannot for the life of me see why he would go all the way in these indictments. I don’t believe any of the hype that I have heard about his “independence” and his honesty and lack of partisanship. I believe we are being set up whether intentionally or not.
John Dean has just published an article that casts a possible negative light on the indictments from a sometimes different perspective than mine. But I believe if Fitzgerald were a democrat and a partisan one, he could indict a lot of people and the indictments would be based on factual evidence from which people could be convicted. The Iraq War isn’t just a war, it’s a crime. That information is, I believe, available, apparent and can be utilized to prosecute people who are guilty of the crime and it’s preparation.
Here’s an article by John Dean.
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20051021.html
I am summarizing some of the points Dean made in light of what I have written above.
All prosecutorial decisions are political. Not necessarily in the partisan sense, but rather, in the sense the prosecutor balances the seriousness of the conduct involved, with the purpose of the laws that might be violated, and his job is to act in the best interest of the United States government. It is difficult to envision Patrick Fitzgerald prosecuting anyone, particularly Vice President Dick Cheney, who believed they were acting for reasons of national security. While hindsight may find their judgment was wrong, and there is no question their tactics were very heavy-handed and dangerous, I am not certain that they were acting from other than what they believed to be reasons of national security. They were selling a war they felt needed to be undertaken.
In short, I cannot imagine any of them being indicted, unless they were acting for reasons other than national security. Because national security is such a gray area of the law, come next week, I can see this entire investigation coming to a remarkable anti-climax, as Fitzgerald closes down his Washington Office and returns to Chicago.
In short, I think the frenzy is about to end — and it will not go any further. Unless, of course, these folks were foolish enough to give false statements, perjure themselves or suborn perjury, or commit obstruction of justice. If they were so stupid, Patrick Fitzgerald must stay and clean house.
Here is another diary or blog I wrote on the subject.
http://bushplanet.blogspot.com/2005/09/more-fixgerald.html