The Leak Plot Sickens

"A certain contemporary ruler, whom it is better not to name, never preaches anything except peace and good faith; and he is an enemy of both one and the other, and if he had ever honoured either of them he would have lost either his standing or his state many times over." N. Machiavelli

Of course the over simplistic main stream media greeted the latest plot turn in the Plame leak case with the screaming headlines: "Bush approved leaks of classified information". Problem is, if you read on, you realize that there's probably no concrete proof of this. We're relying on the word not only of Libby, but "Dead Eye" Dick as well. I feel safe in saying that the veracity of anything these two say is worth questioning. It's what's legally known as 'hearsay' - actually twice removed in this case. No, this investigation is not going to mortally wound the "Crawford Cowboy" unless the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald has some serious aces up both sleeves. I have to admit though, how this investigation plays out over the summer leading into the midterm election in November has me quietly excited. Joe Conason has a nice opinion piece about the revelation on Salon.com and he seems to somehow know a little more than the MSM... (classified documents...?)

So, how can this play out? To me, it's looking more and more like Cheney and or Rove are going to be the ones left holding the bag. More likely Cheney on his own. The signal I'm looking for this to be the case, is if there's another big Halliburton contract that gets pushed through - way under the radar. Because if Dick's going to take one for the team, you have to know he's going to have a price. So: 1) Halliburton contract, and then 2) Dick resigns a month or two later.

Now this is where it really gets good. The administrations uber-strategy is to try to hold onto Congress in November and to position one of their own for a presidential run in '08. If Dick leaves, a certain someone will have to forego their "NFL Commissioner" fantasy for a little while. Yes, what better way than a turn as VPOTUS to launch Ms. Rice into the campaign foray. My guess: she'll wind up as the running mate of someone like McCain or Pataki. Either way, a formidable ticket. The added advantage of Rice as VP is that, assuming they can take Congress in November, it'll make the Democrats think twice about pulling the trigger on impeachment. Why ditch Bush only to deal with the much more cunning Rice and give her even more Oval Office cachet for '08?

OK, Sorry I wandered back into Machiavelli scheme-land there... Democrats, just do what's good for the country - PLEASE!!!