It’s Oscar night. Are you aware of all the nominations? Jane Hamsher notes Vanity Fair has the Scooter Awards
Best Director: Dick Cheney
Best Actor: I. Lewis Libby
Best Supporting Actress: Judith Miller
Best Makeup: Judith Miller
Best Sound Editing: Karl Rove and Richard Armitage
Best Original Song: Joseph Wilson
Best Original Score: Robert Novak
Best Original Screenplay: “Notes on a Scandal,” by Patrick Fitzgerald
Best Adapted Screenplay: “Saddam’s Labyrinth” by Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, et.al., NeoCon Features, from an original script by Robert S. McNamara
Best Artifice Direction: Tony Snow
–David Friend
Those are interesting nominations. I’m sure we could add, Best Liar, Best One-Trick and other categories that this administration keeps on giving.
As we await tonight’s red carpet roll-out, arrival of stars and the opening of envelopes, Libby and Cheney will be on hold – waiting for that other jury. …Will they end the wait on Monday?
FDL, Jane Hamsher’s tip to Vanity Fair, also highlights The New Yorker Book of lawyer cartoons.
“Look at it this way Scooter, the longer they stay out the longer you’re a free man.”
Jeralyn at TalkLeft ponders in the event Libby is convicted, will Fitz go get Cheney? Where is the precedent to indict a sitting vice-president?
Jeralyn cites a nugget from Jason Leopold’s review. Yeah, yeah that Jason, but give a dog his day. It sure is a nugget.
“There’s a cloud over the VP” said Fitzgerald in closing arguments.
“Rebutting the defense’s assertion that Cheney was not behind the leak, Fitzgerald told jurors, “You know what? [Wells] said something here that we’re trying to put a cloud on the vice president. We’ll talk straight. There is a cloud over the vice president. He sent Libby off to [meet with former New York Times reporter] Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel. At that meeting, the two hour meeting, the defendant talked about the wife [Plame]. We didn’t put that cloud there. That cloud remains because the defendant obstructed justice and lied about what happened.”
Fitzgerald reminded the jury of Cheney’s actions in cutting out the Wilson op-ed and putting handwritten notes on it.
“The Vice President cuts out the article, the guy he works for. That’s important. The Vice President makes the note about the wife. That’s important. Government Exhibit 412, he makes the note, the Maureen Dowd column. That’s important.”
Jeralyn: Fitz puts Cheney and Libby’s actions together in this comment:
“Let’s assume the best-case scenario, the Vice President asked the question, not Mr. Libby, since he did most of the talking. This is a fingerprint that says on July 14th, the Vice President has read the Novak column. The other exhibit shows you, around July 14th, the defendant read the Novak column. And this is a fingerprint that says the brains of the Vice President and defendant Libby are wrapped around the Novak column on July 14th.
Jeralyn: So, what happens to Cheney now? I think the answer if Libby is acquitted is likely nothing. But, what if Libby is convicted? If Libby has been promised a pardon, it’s unlikely he’d take a deal with Fitz. But, maybe Fitz will feel emboldened by a conviction of Libby regardless of whether he can get Libby’s testimony. I wonder if Fitz has other immunized testimony — from those who didn’t testify at Libby’s trial that he could use against Cheney. If he immunized others who didn’t..[.]
So can a sitting Vice-President be indicted? Yes, says Jeralyn citing a brief filed by Solicitor General Robert Bork in the Spiro Agnew case back in 1973. This is delicious. Pass the popcorn and Go read the whole thing.
The good folks over at CQ got the jump on Fitz. They are not waiting for the jury to return a verdict or hoping that Fitz will take up the politics. Oh, how I wish the gods would give a glance this way and be kind.
Shall we?
Herewith, in the absence of action for the past six years by a timid Republican Congress and a refusal to act by the new Democratic leadership, we, the Fourth Estate, take the mantle of indictment unto ourselves and present these Articles of Impeachment, to be adopted by the United States House of Representatives and voted upon by the United States Senate, at their earliest possible leisure:
Resolved, that Richard B. Cheney, vice president of the United States, should be impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors and that these articles of impeachment be submitted to the American people
That in the buildup to war in Iraq, the vice president, lacking confidence in the true casus belli, conspired to invent additional ones, misrepresenting the available intelligence, crafting new “intelligence,” and then spreading these falsehoods to the public, perverting the democratic process that he is sworn to uphold.
That as the war devolved into occupation, the vice president again sabotaged the democratic system, developing back channels into the Coalition Provisional Authority, a body not under his purview, to remove some of the most effective staff and replace them with his own loyal supplicants–undercutting America’s best effort at war in order to expand his own power.
That in his domestic capacity, the vice president has been equally reckless with the trust of his office, converting the vice presidency into a de facto prime ministership, conducting secret meetings with secret policy boards to determine national policy and then refusing to share the details of those meetings with the other branches of government.
Finally, that the vice president has repeatedly promoted the interests of a corporation, Halliburton, over the interests of the nation, causing untold harm to American economic, military, and public health.
For these and other offenses against the nation, Vice President Cheney, clearly, is guilty of crimes against the state.
Now it’s our turn to add more charges. How about Treason?
Don’t know about you, but I’m waiting for the opening of the only envelope, Please.
(emphasis in quotes are mine)