Merry Fitzmas Week

Well, Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation has to wrap up this week - the grand jury's term comes to an end. Oh, sure, he can extend it, like Ken "Super" Starr did, but unlike that twerp, Fitzgerald isn't out to make political hay with a spurious investigation. There is, I suppose, a chance that no one will get indicted, although we'd have to think that chances of that are remote - we know crimes have been committed, and Fitzgerald isn't the sort to let that slide.

I say that we know crimes have been committed, because we do. At the very least, we know that there was a coverup, that grand jury testimony wasn't truthful, and, last I checked, conspiracy and perjury were still crimes. Now, you'll hear some on the right suggest that, if there aren't charges related to the original act - the outing of an undercover CIA operative in a time of war as political retribution against the spouse of a man who publicly caught the administration in a lie that partially led to that war and to tens of thousands of subsequent deaths - then we really shouldn't charge anyone with perjury, or the like. They'll say that if no investigation occurred (because of the lack of original crime), then there would have been no need for Scooter and Turd Blossom, etc, to perjure themselves. Mind you, these are the same people that wanted to impeach Bill Clinton because he lied to a grand jury about having an affair, something that other men haven't done because they only lie to their wives about it, most wives not having the power of subpoena.

Here's a thought - if the wingnuts actually feel that what they did to Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame wasn't a crime, why not come out and admit it in the first place? Why cover it up? Why the two orders, Colonel? Holding a press conference where Rove said "Of course we attacked Mr. Wilson's wife. He attacked us, we attacked back. It's the American Way, and it's George Bush's way. Now, who wants to ask questions?" would have garnered even more praise from the right than damned near anything else they've done, and the Bushies could have, as usual, cut the press off at the knees, and the left would have been screaming into the wind, as usual.

They didn't do that for the same reason a child tries to hide a cookie behind his back when confronted by his mom - they knew they'd done something wrong, and they tried to hide it. That's what always leads to these coverup conspiracies - the knowledge, somewhere in their cold, dark, and dessicated hearts, that they've done wrong. They might not be able to articulate their crime, but they know it needs to be hidden. So they lie, and in this country, lying to a grand jury, regardless of the motivation, is a crime. We have to punish those who act as such, or what power do we have to force people to be truthful when they testify?

We hear from the right that this isn't a big deal - it's business as usual, that everyone does it, that it's just the way of things. Well, here's another thought folks - if business as usual is something that needs to be hidden, that those of us not in Washington just wouldn't understand, that, when exposed, it seems wrong to good people - is that a good business in which to be involved?