Raw Story did a nice interview with Marcy Wheeler over the weekend. One part I really liked is this exchange.
BB: How disappointed were you when Cheney was excused.
MW: I wasn’t surprised. But you know Cheney can’t keep his cool. He may be very intelligent, but if you look at what happened with Leahy he can’t keep his cool when somebody challenges him and he’s never been challenged by journalists in the way he would have been challenged by Fitzgerald. But I just think there was no way they could have scoped the testimony narrowly enough to avoid Cheney opening himself up to charges. If you read Sid Blumenthal’s piece from last week where people were telling Libby not to take the fall for Cheney. It’s pretty clear that everyone agrees that’s what he’s in the process of doing. It would defy the point of him taking the fall if Dick Cheney took the stand and exposed himself to a perjury charge. Plus the fact that—I don’t even think that Cheney could have successfully reinforced Libby’s testimony. John Hannah was a huge bust for the defense. They had a great witness, John Hannah, saying if Libby took 2 hrs on July 8 to meet with Judith Miller there’d be no way he’d forget it.
I think she really nailed what is going on here. It defies any logic for Cheney to expose himself to perjury charges in a case that is only happening to shield him from prosecution.
Consider this from Fitzgerald’s rebuttal this afternoon:
Cathie Martin [Cheney’s ex-spokesperson], one call or two calls, she knows that when she came back. Do you think for a moment, that the conversation that defendant described, I don’t know if it’s true, if it happened in front of Martin. She’s very careful. When someone discussed NIE on July 8, she got nervous, she left the room, in part for that reason. When VP added NIE to talking point. She got nervous. When Wells asked her, you knew abotu Plame, It wasn’t a huge revelation to me, but I knew it was huge deal that he disclosed it. SHe said, that’s a big deal. You think she’s going to sit there and listen to Libby talking abotu Wilson’s wife? Everything corroborates taht it happened at end of call.
One more thing that corrborates. THe VP wrote week before that wife sent him on a junket. THe VP moves to number 1 talking point. You just think it’s coincidence that Cheney was writing this.
There is a cloud over the VP. He wrote those columns, he had those meetings, He sent Libby off to the meeting with Judy. Where Plame was discussed. That cloud remains because the denfendant obstructed justice. That cloud was there. That cloud is something that we just can’t pretend isn’t there.
It’s obvious that Fitzgerald thinks the Vice-President is the real leaker. And we know the Vice-President did not learn of Valerie Plame from reporters. Libby got indicted in an effort to flip him. He didn’t flip, so now Fitz is going for a conviction. And then it will be up to Bush to offer a pardon before Fitz can sell Libby on a deal.