(Originally posted as a comment here on the esteemed gadfly’s diary Et tu, Scooter. Which dealt with, among other things, the possibility of Presidential pardons for the miscreants in this story and how that possibility will affect the tactics of the prosecution.)
Why pardons will not work so well this time. As opposed to Bush I and Iran/Contra.
Us.
The REAL independent press.
Read on…
The Bush I pardons “worked” because he got away with them.
Because there was not NEARLY enough attention drawn to them.
Because the mainstream media had already been fairly well co-opted by then AND THERE WAS NO CITIZEN PRESS TO RAISE HELL.
But there IS now.
Like I said…us.
Believe it.
This imperfect, messy, uncontrollable blog system is the most revolutionary thing to hit the US since the youth movements of the ’60s + ’70s.
And MUCH more likely to last and have some real effect on what goes down in the halls and back rooms of power than that easily co-opted and chemically fueled youth movement.
Unless they actually close down the free internet.,..and don’t you bet they wish that they could afford to do so…never again will people be able to run their games safe from THOUSANDS of prying eyes.
And minds.
Minds that communicate publicly.
Day in and day out.
And THAT COMMUNICATION…which is growing at a geometric rate and shows no signs whatsoever of slowing down…is progressively driving the media further and further up the wall of truth. The media CANNOT stonewall the way they did, because there is an alternative. A FREE alternative. And once that media stonewall is breached…even by small cracks like Air America and the Daily Show and MSNBC’s cautious little forays into the realities of the situation…then après ce, le déluge. The rest of the MSM then MUST tell the story or be scooped. And being scooped means lost ratings. And lost ratings mean fired bosses. Who have only been “loyal” to the PermaGov line because they were paid…in dollars, in power, in access (and in excess as well, of course)…and will (MUST…their creditors demand it) jump ship at just that point.
Like now with the Fitzgerald/Libby thing.
Nor can this form of info sharing be easily co-opted. When that attempt is made…as I believe it has been on dKos to some degree…the information, the ideas just pop up somewhere ELSE on the net, and THOSE URLs go into the the bookmark files of the aware and the adept. They CANNOT pin us down.
Buy a controlling interest in say 5 networks and 4 publications in the US and you control the media. That’s it. Game over. Starting even the SMALLEST competing media is a big bucks financial crapshoot. (See Air America for more on THAT idea.)
But here? On the net?
IT’S FREE!!!
So what happens if Bush II begins mass pardons? Or even HINTS that he might?
A HUGE outcry on the net. Which will threaten to spill over into the MSM very quickly. Which will absolutely RUIN the Ratpub Party and its corporate controllers. Who will step in. One way or another.
Because…
It’s bad for business.
They will dump the Delays, the Libbys, the Roves, the Cheneys and the Bushes and the Rumsfelds…who are THEMSELVES only hired overseers for the TRULY wealthy…in a Wall Street minute.
Any which way they have to.
Bet on it.
“It’s true, Addison. Good help is hard to come by these days. Going to Gstaad this season?”
And move on to a kinder, gentler larceny.
Which is all most of us want, anyway.
Now the lawyers among us…and there is no knee-jerk anti-lawyer thing in what I say here because I come from a whole FAMILY of lawyers, many of whom are VERY aware of what is happening, on certain levels…these lawyers are bound and limited to some degree by their profession and extensive education. They cannot see the woods for the subpoenas, sometimes.
“The law says that Bush can pardon whomever he wishes to pardon, so he will.”
Not so fast, Lawbook Breath. (Thank you, Johnny Carson.)
As I wrote here recently regarding Cheney’s real predicament,
Not rule of law…that is just an empty vehicle without popular approval. And “popular approval” has turned. The system that Rove put into place over the last 12 years or so…the dirty tricks/media control system…has finally broken down.
And it is us that did the breaking.
OUR light that has been shined into all the dirty, nasty little insect-infested nooks and crannies of this system and outed the Gannons and the DeLays and the Roves and the Cheneys and the others that thrive there. They are ALLERGIC to light, these people, and for the last 15 years or so…more like 45 or 60, when you really look at it…they have BOUGHT darkness by buying the media and then controlling what is covered.
That is now over.
Watch.
The pardon card is no longer an ace.
More like a 5 or a 6.
And there are new players at the table.
Demanding a fresh deck and a new deal.
Watch.
And BET on it.
I am.
AG
