The American people are waterboarding the Torturer-In-Chief and his Dick, both of whom once thought they and their henchmen walked on water.
While, as Catnip reports, Bush is still choking and sputtering at a 35% job approval, the Dick is beyond help at 19% job approval.
This morning, as “Horny Bear Scooter” gets arraigned (approximately 10:30am ET) — and we get to dissect the political and legal pundits who are sure to pop up on all the cable news channels (and I’m game for live-blogging if you are!) — CBS News releases more bad news:
Most Americans believe someone in the Bush Administration did leak Valerie Plame’s name to reporters – even though Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald indicted no one for doing that. Half of the public describes the matter as something of great importance to the country, and this poll finds low assessments of both the President and the Vice President – with the President’s overall approval rating dropping again to its lowest point ever.
Sixty-two percent of Americans, according to the usually red-leaning Gallup Poll, believe that someone in the Bush administration leaked Plame’s name, and 61% believe that Libby and Rove’s actions deserve prosecution. Fifty-one percent of Ameicans believe the CIA Leak case is of “great importance” while only 41% still believe that the Clinton/Lewinsky matter is of “great importance.”
Then there’s the A1 story at the WaPo:
Top White House aides are privately discussing the future of Karl Rove, with some expressing doubt that President Bush can move beyond the damaging CIA leak case as long as his closest political strategist remains in the administration. – Via AmericaBlog and Daou Report
And here’s your Oh-yeah-baby!-This-makes-my-day:
[T]here are new indications that he remains in legal jeopardy from Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald’s criminal investigation of the Plame leak. The prosecutor spoke this week with an attorney for Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper about his client’s conversations with Rove before and after Plame’s identity became publicly known because of anonymous disclosures by White House officials, according to two sources familiar with the conversation.
Fitzgerald is considering charging Rove with making false statements in the course of the 22-month probe, and sources close to Rove — who holds the titles of senior adviser and White House deputy chief of staff — said they expect to know within weeks whether the most powerful aide in the White House will be accused of a crime. .. Via AmericaBlog and Daou Report
And Raw Story is reporting that “Bolton’s chief of staff gave information on outed agent to Libby, lawyers involved in leak case say.”
Jeffrey Toobin was just on CNN, commenting that Libby has no way to get a plea ageement — thereby avoiding trial and The Dick being forced to take the stand — without forking over more information to Fitzgerald. But, notes Anonymous Liberal, quoting Mickey Kaus, “Who would take such an idiotic risk [of lying to a grand jury] before a much-feared special prosecutor? One answer: Someone who knows he’ll be protected in the end. Someone who knows, for example, that he’ll be pardoned.” Anonymous Liberal says that “Congressman John Conyers has a petition and form letter on his website demanding that President Bush promise not to pardon anyone convicted in the leak investigation.” Sweet idea. But, hardly real unless GOP Senators press Bush. As Gadfly asked yesterday, “Sam Ervin, where are you now that we need you?”